Prison School eps. 2-3: Really appreciating the dynamic that Kiyoshi and Gakuto have in their bonding together talking strategy however misunderstood it amusingly is by Shingo. Hana's peeing fetish is not scoring cool points with me since it's a kink I am NOT into.

Aquarion ep. 3: It's a tough ride so far because the female love interest Silvia gets on my nerves with her arrogance and annoyance with her not accepting the obvious possibility that her and Apollo are meant to be.

Ray wrote:
Aside from the aforementioned scene, this animes concept of Christian belief is. . . Schizophrenic to say the least. there are parts of the anime where it specifically talks about Jesus message of loving thy neighbor contrasting with the hypocrisy of the medieval church And are more or less played straight. Then you've got things like Valkyrie and Pagan gods talking to the Archangel Michael.

yeah the Archangel Michael isn't portrayed in a flattering light here. less of a proud warrior of God's Kingdom and more as a creepy robotic marionette dishing out God's punishment with all the empathy of a serial killer.

I'm curios to see what a devout catholic would say about this series. . .

Never seen it, but I doubt it has anything that could top Blue Excorists Vatican Stealth Bomber nuking Hell. Or Hellsing's Airborne Crusade into London. Or VOTOMS space Pope defending his space Vatican with space Shermans.

A common thread I've noticed in anime portrayals of Christian spirituality (besides just the casual inclusion/invocation of Western pagan pantheons, as you've noted here), is to treat demons as misunderstood folk, and portray even Satan himself as having "redeeming" qualities. This portrayal I imagine better aligns with the Japanese's inhereited Chinese ideas about the celestial bureaucracy and the beings who manage it.

Alaska Slim wrote:anime portrayals of Christian spirituality (besides just the casual inclusion/invocation of Western pagan pantheons

You should try reading some Shakespeare some time. Casual invocation of the Olympians happens all the time.

Mr. Tines wrote:You should try reading some Shakespeare some time. Casual invocation of the Olympians happens all the time.

Considering a number of them take place in Roman times, I'm not surprised.

Still, by "casual" I don't mean simply peripheral or gratuitous. Take the "Catholic" forces invocation, and fist-shaking at Mars in Hellsing. Eliminating him is the stated objective of their Crusade. That's something that could only make sense to the people writing it. As does having people in Roman Catholic attire somehow turn out to be joint worshipers of Yahweh, and pagan gods, with no trace of irony.

El squib's "what to watch?" request relocated here

Alaska Slim wrote:Considering a number of them take place in Roman times, I'm not surprised.

But by no means all -- for example

Juliet, balcony scene wrote:...
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay',
And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear'st,
Thou mayst prove false. At lovers' perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,
...

Yes, she's paraphrasing Ovid here, and this may be Italy, but the Montagues and Capulets are well post the fall of the Western Empire, and there are plenty of friars around trying to aid the star-crossed couple.

Mr. Tines wrote:But by no means all -- for example
Yes, she's paraphrasing Ovid here, and this may be Italy, but the Montagues and Capulets are well post the fall of the Western Empire, and there are plenty of friars around trying to aid the star-crossed couple.

She's invoking him as a cultural idiom though; not as if she both believe in his existence and is his adherent follower, as well as God's.


Anyway; how's Thunderbolt Fantasy in your eyes? I just finished the first episode, and I'm loving it.

However, I'm a bit unsure if this is the right subforum to mention it; it has anime people making it, it has conventions commonly used in anime, and it has a TM Revolution OP I swear I've heard in an anime... but it's not *really* anime. It's a Chuuni fantasy meets Thunderbirds. Or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by way of Team America, sans comedic tone.

Alaska Slim wrote:Anyway; how's Thunderbolt Fantasy in your eyes? I just finished the first episode, and I'm loving it.

However, I'm a bit unsure if this is the right subforum to mention it; it has anime people making it, it has conventions commonly used in anime, and it has a TM Revolution OP I swear I've heard in an anime... but it's not *really* anime. It's a Chuuni fantasy meets Thunderbirds. Or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by way of Team America, sans comedic tone.

It's currently in "Plan to Watch" state.

And just because it's a literal, rather than a joking, "Taiwanese puppet show", I see no reason not to include it here.

Speaking of ridiculous depictions of Christianity in anime, Bakuon episode 4 was a thing to behold, what with the Big J himself taking over for Giorgio Tsoukalos and then ferrying Hane to see an Aomori landmark. I must say, I didn't have high expectations for this series because it had a terrible first episode that made it seem like just another really dumb schoolgirls doing fanservicey things kind of show, but it quickly morphed into something more akin to, believe it or not, Cromartie High School. It even has its own Freddie in Raimu.


Iketeru Futari: I know I'm on record of saying that I'd prefer my harem/ecchi/romcom male protagonists to possess at least some semblance of an actual sex drive, because proper sex comedy can be really, really funny (see: Golden Boy, B Gata H Kei). However, comedy is difficult, and there are some obvious pitfalls that come with ramping up the protagonist horniness factor. To put it bluntly, there is a difference between an endearing perv protagonist and a sex criminal. Iketeru Futari's male protagonist Keisuke actually gets stopped by cops for perving out on public, and it isn't even some wacky misunderstanding. He acts like a 4channer who hanged himself and against all odds did wake up in a high school anime, and it's exactly as cringy as it sounds. (He obviously molests the Rei clone the most.)

Dr. Nick wrote:I must say, I didn't have high expectations for this series because it had a terrible first episode that made it seem like just another really dumb schoolgirls doing fanservicey things kind of show, but it quickly morphed into something more akin to, believe it or not, Cromartie High School. It even has its own Freddie in Raimu.

Your initial assessment wasn't far off the mark though, this moment is one of a few instances of surreal humor in the show, the rest is pretty standard fare.

Re:Zero


Erased:

Sweetness & Lightning Ep 5: A good episode, but it did leave me one question. What do they mean when they say strong flour & weak flour? Do they mean something like bleached and unbleached or the difference between all-purpose and bread flour?

The latter -- strong flour means high gluten content, and thus best suited for bread dough.

Project ICE: this lesbian remake of Garzey's Wing is the place where the Final Fantasy aesthetic goes to die. And apparently it was made to promote the up-and-coming young idols of AKB48. I'm frankly astounded that the group ever greenlit another anime project having any ties to them. The entirety of ICE's running time is so laden with human-jellyfish hybrids, eyeball licking, tit-punching, surprise decapitations and general fuckiness that it'd probably take a 10 000 word Justin Sevakis column to even scratch the surface.

Otome Youkai Zakuro: You can tell it's a fantasy series when Republicans and Democrats are getting along this well.

Demonbane, episode 5: On one hand, Demonbane is a clumsy, low-budget visual novel adaptation. On the other had, it's a show that supercollides anime cliches with Lovecraftian cliches and has a beach episode titled THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH, which is conceptually one of the funniest things I've ever encountered in an anime.

Having been away last week at a place that had wet string instead of internets, it's taken me until now to watch the behind the scenes episode 0 of Thunderbolt Fantasy. Having grown up on Supermarionation™, this is both weirdly familiar and at the same time subtly awry (they don't have any strings!) -- but it looks worth going on with.

And also Amanchu second episode -- I've been ruined for this by Flying Witch. That was comfy, this is irritating, with the "aren't they quirky? Look!!" being played up too much, like Pikari being in face-fault mode so much that when she has a normal face it just looks like "who is this different character? There was a only whistle-blowing retard around just now" instead. Overall, Pikari is way too over-caffeinated genki, Cha is just as bad as President Aria, and Teko is just a doormat.

The figure hugging outfits and fetish boots don't go anywhere near far enough to rescue this from disappointment of the year status.

First episode of Attack on Titan was good not great. Eren has a temper on him that makes him come off as bratty which doesn't make one feel too much for his catalystic tragedy concerning his mother.

Cowboy Bebop episode 9 on the other hand provides amusing humor with Edward's antics. Also, the space combat harkens back to Watanabe's prior work on Macross Plus which evokes relaxing nostalgia.

Watched the first Kizumonogatari movie. Loved it, no regrets watching it before the other two come out.

I've been thinking about watching Re:Zero. Is it really a good show or have the internet masses just been hyping it up on account of the girls' hairstyles?

Compiling_Autumn wrote: I've been thinking about watching Re:Zero. Is it really a good show or have the internet masses just been hyping it up on account of the girls' hairstyles?

I too have been wondering about that series, but alas, I don't plan to watch it until it wraps up, so I can't help ya out. There seemed to be some pretty big deal episodes in it, so it may indeed be a fun watch for things other than slick haircuts. The sentence or two I read about it back in April did sound coool. I actually probably would have been watching it by now but I'm not much of a fantasy guy, and I've got enough damn anime on my to watch list.

Orange has been consistently touching and legit through the first six episodes, if anyone's looking for something to pick up. I hate, hate the shows OP, though. Thing drives me nuts.

Well, over the last few days I binge-watched EscaFlowne*. I enjoyed it as much as the first time around, and found more to admire in it too.

I've pre-ordered a copy of the HD remastering; I ordered from the USA, as Funimation have done a complete new dub because there are extra scenes in the HD version of the first five episodes, but curiously Manga in the UK are releasing it without that (and the Funimation packaging and extras look better). Mind you, this time around I watched it subbed anyway!

* Escaflowne or EscaFlowne? Well it's inconsistent, so who cares, right?

pwhodges wrote:but curiously Manga in the UK are releasing it without that (and the Funimation packaging and extras look better).

Manga? Are you sure you're following the right company?

The Amazon UK description doesn't name the company, so I don't know where I got Manga UK from; however, the description there explicitly says that the episodes that are different in the HD version do not have an English dub:

The Ultimate edition of Escaflowne is available for the first time in the UK in High Definition with both English language and Japanese with English subtitle. Contains all 26 episodes restored into beautiful HD, the director's cut versions of select episodes never released before in the UK (Japanese with English subs only),

I'd better check it out to find where the better value is now - thanks for the heads-up!

LATER:

The UK release is £14.40 cheaper than the US one (both early-bird special offers, at current exchange rates), has no shipping or duty to pay, and includes three soundtrack CDs (which the Funimation equivalent doesn't, according to their current description); oh, and a 144-page art book as opposed to a 40-page one. (Amazon UK simply hasn't caught up with either the pricing or the contents description)