What anime are you watching right now? Apr-Sep 11

[Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion]

Very well. TDSA takes on Nanoha (with preferences)!............ Tomorrow! Seriously, I only have two episodes of Orguss left so I might as well finish them first.

[Defectron]

Hahaha, something tells me twin drive won't last through all of this. Lets see if he can make it through all the series. But seriously I don't think I'de ever be able to bring myself to watch three seasons of something I didn't enjoy. Are you a magical girl masochist twin drive?

Damn now I'm imagining Twin Drive tied up somewhere with a little shinbo style magical girl whipping him with a wet noodle or something... and now that I've been made to imagine something that questionable, all of you need to imagine it too! Now go imagine it or I will destroy you!

[InstrumentalityOne]

I thought that Nanoha was extremely okay.
Nothing special like Madoka, but at least it wasn´t as unbearable as some PreCure episodes.

Saw Patlabor The Movie 2.
What

[Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion]

Are you a magical girl masochist twin drive?

No, people simply try to convince me this genre is good and I laugh at them since I don't think as such. I can't say for certain until I do see it though.

[Defectron]

No, people simply try to convince me this genre is good and I laugh at them since I don't think as such. I can't say for certain until I do see it though.

I think this is more of a case of different strokes for different folks, its not that its not good, its that its just not something that fits your taste.

For example, from what I have heard of the movie "human centipede" its a well executed movie, but I know from what I have seen of it I wouldn't be able to enjoy it (I have a dooky eating phobia). Now before you tell me I won't know that for sure until I watch it, I'm telling you now its not happening, just seeing the trailer was enough to make me think about eating dooky for two weeks and even now whenever I do #2 in the bathroom I think to myself "If that got forced down someones throat theyed probably suffocate" I would prefer to go through life keeping those sorts of thoughts to a minimum. If I actually watched the movie I know that all of my thoughts would be filled with dooky related topics for the next few weeks at least and that simply won't do at all. But I will aknowledge from what I have heard, human centipede is probably a well executed movie, just not a movie that I will ever willingly watch.

[Mr. Tines]

Patlabor The Movie 2.
What

I think you need Brik's review.

[InstrumentalityOne]

I think you need Brik's review.

Well, shit.
How´s the source material?

[Defectron]

Finished tiger & Bunny, looks like there might be another series of this coming in the future?

[Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion]

Well, I finally finished Super Dimension Century Orguss. Despite slowing down in the middle this series managed to pick up the pace again and managed to end on one extremely explosive and action packed finale. Although the series was good overall

SPOILER: Show

Kei and Olson die by killing their past selves. :( Mhoohm died a sad death and Tai was taken out in combat by his brethren.

Despite the bittersweet ending it was definitely worth seeing this series and it was sure as hell better than anything from the Macross franchise. Why wasn't this in Robotech aga- Oh yeah, sex scenes. Maybe one day in the future I'll see Southern Cross and see how the hell it managed to get a decent US release instead of Orguss.

As for me seeing Nanoha tomorrow I've decided to put it off for a while, not mostly due to lack of interest but rather the fact that I have been wanting to see Devilman Lady, the Ryu Knight OVAs, and (what I'll be starting with tonight) the original Dancouga.

[gatotsu911]

Feel no shame 'bout shape,
Weatha change they phwase,
Even motha will show you anotha way,
So put your grasses on,
Nuffin' wirr be wong,
Feel no brame, feel no shame
It's up to you!
The fawst waads should be findin'
Whateva holds you back,
I
Can
I can get it on!


Oh, Berserk. You have thebest Engrish theme song ever.

[child of Lilith]

Wait, are we talking about the same thing? I'm just noticing the way Alice articulates herself is confusing as hell, and that I'm always left wondering how much she actually knows, or if what she knows has any real relevance.

It would seem we are talking about different things. As for Alice, I think what she says is suppose to come off a deep and profound, but thanks to the inadequacies of this show it just sounds like she's talking out of her ass.

I had the feeling this may have been done to demonstrate she's a NEET, and thus, kind of lacking on the social skills. But now, I'm thinking that's a little too subtle for this show, and at best, it might have been the intent in the manga and they're just awkwardly translating it here.

That's a bingo.

SPOILER: Show

Is it Ayaka's lack of dying you're talking about? That didn't surprise me, as I read the short summery of her character on Wikipedia, which mentions details from the manga. It stated she lives, but... well, I won't say the rest, suffice to say though, there's still a price to pay.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to.

SPOILER: Show

Death would have been a more honest price to pay.

Regardless, I think that's how the show will end, with the immediate crisis resolved, but with important strings left untied to leave it open for a second season.

Leaving us anime only viewers dissatisfied.

Watched Hanasaku Iroha. Very uneven this week. The first half was so phony and melodramatic my eyes nearly burst from their sockets from all the extreme eye rolling. The second half on the other hand worked pretty well. The end credit music was also pretty good. With a little luck hopefully the ending will actually be worth watching.

[Azathoth]

Just finished Legend of the Galactic Heroes, finally. I can understand why it's so acclaimed, and in many ways it's an immensely remarkable show which could never be made now (and in fact I'm surprised it could have been made at the time), but I can't say it's the best anime I've ever watched, often pretty uneven in quality of writing (the fourth season is the guiltiest of this), animation typical of its era in inconsistency (never quite to Max/Milia knife fight levels of silliness, but sometimes it gets close, especially with the Rosenritter - anime and melee combat, man), and irritating Reinhard-worship by everyone in the show including the narrator long past the point where it becomes obvious he's a childish despot riding popular sentiment.

But the size of the series mostly saves it from any individual flaw: it's hard to complain about any specific facet of it (save the Reinhard-worship) since there are so many facets to contemplate. Although I trash the fourth season's writing, I thought Endless Requiem was brilliant, etc. For every character you think is a waste of time, there's likely to be one you think is awesome (Koichi Yamadera's out-of-nowhere cameo, for example).

Aside from what I mentioned above, the only across-the-board annoyance I can think of is the cavalier attitude towards religion, which is perhaps a consequence of typical sci-fi "no one will believe in god in the future" bullshit or perhaps just typically Japanese - but somehow I can't imagine an empire of Odin-worshiping space fascists being quite as civil and...well...Prussian as the Galactic Reich is. And aside from the Earth Cult, that's about the only mention of religion we get. I can accept the Alliance being mostly areligious but the absence of any meaningful religious activity in the Reich seemed rather a huge oversight to me; apart from occasionally invoking "the great god Odin" and Valhalla the biggest reference to what could be a fascinating belief system is the fact that one guy's ship is named (I assume from said guy's personal gimmick; with the dodgy romanization it's hard to tell) after Víðar. Huge waste of an opportunity if you ask me. There are other missed opportunities imo, but most are purely matters of opinion so I won't bother to mention them.

SPOILER: Show

although surely I'm not the only one who hoped Reinhard's get would wind up dead so Annerose would wind up ruling the universe

Regardless, it's pretty clearly the kind of series that should be watched just because it exists, and because its infamously screenshottable humor is easily worth it even if you can't stand anything else.

[BrikHaus]

Oh, Berserk. You have the best Engrish theme song ever.

fixed

[Tarnsman]

Caught up on Kaiji.

[Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion]

The first six episodes of the original Dancouga and it is off to a great start.

[child of Lilith]

Watched Ikoku Meiro no Croisée. What a disappointing and contrived final episode. The convenience of the glove outburst and the cats bell were really annoying. Made all the worse by the fact I had just been assuming the ending of this show would be good no matter what. The show over all was still really good, it's just this episode leaves a black mark that shouldn't be there.

I think I would have preferred no final episode at all to this.

[Ornette]

The Macron 1 compilation movie, English dubbed, because I happened to see ARR put it up on tosho. Without having seen the TV series, the compilation movie was pretty hilarious, but mostly because it sounds like all scenes were done in 1 take, without the VAs having any knowledge of the script.

[symbv]

Re: Usagi Drop: Thank the gods they didn't go the route of the manga. I'd hoped they'd do something, though; as is I don't feel much different than I did after the first ep. I'm like "yeah, that was cute, but we haven't really gotten anywhere so . . . okay I guess?" Same problem with YuruYuri, actually; it's cute, but it'd be a lot more enjoyable if I felt like it was going somewhere rather than just doing random bits that don't really amount to anything.

Actually the main appeal of YuruYuri is that it is NOT going somewhere. For me slice-of-life is slice-of-life. Ep.11 is the closest to a final episode for a series but Ep.12 reminds everyone that it is a slice-of-life anime after all (and a Yuru-i/laid-back one at that). I would not want it to go anywhere at all (and I am glad the manga definitely knows what fans like us want).

I don't mind Usagi Drop goes the route of the manga. In fact I think the author had quite a bit of guts to tell the story of a girl growing up from a small kid to adolescents to a young adult. But I can see why many feel repelled by how it develops (though students of Japanese literature would know such development is nothing new -- the greatest classic of Japanese literature from >1000 years ago, Genji Monogatari, told a story that bore certain similarity). Opinions are also divided in Japan and reading reviews by manga fans one interesting thing is it seems females actually are more receptive to the development of the manga. I don't know why though...

Re: Penguindrum: NGE aside I'm not a fan of mindscrews. It's fine when you know it's gonna be like that from the outset, but I feel like ep 9 wound up being a bit of a bait and switch. I want plot, damn it! I know that's a silly thing to say when talking about a show full of penguin familiars and memory-stealing slingshots and magic hats that induce multiple personalities in dead people and such, but still.

> not a fan of mindscrews
Me neither! And many in Japan also hold similar view to you and there are quite a number dropping the show after ep.9 or ep.10.

My most favorite show of the season is still unquestionably YuruYuri. MayoChiki still holds up pretty well. I admire Usagi Drop though do not feel too emotionally attached to the characters.

For 2 cour anime, as said before Steins;Gate and Tiger & Bunny are really really good -- I am fine with the endings as I did not hold overly high expectations of what they could do. In particular, rumor has it that the ending of T&B was changed when the anime got unexpectedly very popular soon after it started almost 6 months ago. Hana Iroha is a bit uneven comparatively but it did the most important thing -- boost the local economy of a tourism backwater in Ishikawa prefecture in northern Japan. Inns in the hot spring town where the anime is based on are reporting >30% increase of paying visitors compared to one year ago.

I had the feeling this may have been done to demonstrate she's a NEET, and thus, kind of lacking on the social skills. But now, I'm thinking that's a little too subtle for this show, and at best, it might have been the intent in the manga and they're just awkwardly translating it here.

I think Kamisama no Memocho is a light novel, not a manga. There is indeed a manga, but it is an adaptation of the light novel just like the anime and only one volume has so far come out. Anyway, the anime is definitely not doing well as many fans in Japan find it just lacking in memorable story or characters or art/animation.

[Bagheera]

Actually the main appeal of YuruYuri is that it is NOT going somewhere. For me slice-of-life is slice-of-life. Ep.11 is the closest to a final episode for a series but Ep.12 reminds everyone that it is a slice-of-life anime after all (and a Yuru-i/laid-back one at that). I would not want it to go anywhere at all (and I am glad the manga definitely knows what fans like us want).

Still, it'd be nice if the relationships developed somehow. I really liked getting backstory on Yui and Kyoko, and I wish the show had been set up to explore that from the start. Most of the rest (apart from the bits with Ayano, who's a great complication for their relationship) seems extraneous and not even all that entertaining.

I don't mind Usagi Drop goes the route of the manga. In fact I think the author had quite a bit of guts to tell the story of a girl growing up from a small kid to adolescents to a young adult. But I can see why many feel repelled by how it develops (though students of Japanese literature would know such development is nothing new -- the greatest classic of Japanese literature from >1000 years ago, Genji Monogatari, told a story that bore certain similarity). Opinions are also divided in Japan and reading reviews by manga fans one interesting thing is it seems females actually are more receptive to the development of the manga. I don't know why though...

Couldn't say. I wouldn't mind that so much if not for the fact Nitani is really cool. Also, I have a lot of trouble seeing how Daikichi would go for that.

> not a fan of mindscrews
Me neither! And many in Japan also hold similar view to you and there are quite a number dropping the show after ep.9 or ep.10.

I probably won't go that far. I mean, Az has a point about our having to expect that given the source. But I'm more a fan of plot with surrealist elements than a surrealist landscape that only makes sense once you pick apart various layers of symbolism. IOW, SKU = awesome, AoU = lame. Penguindrum started out looking like the former but now seems to be morphing into the latter. This makes me sad. But we'll see.

For 2 cour anime, as said before Steins;Gate and Tiger & Bunny are really really good -- I am fine with the endings as I did not hold overly high expectations of what they could do.

Steins;Gate was fantastic. I honestly don't know what people expected from the final episode, as it and its predecessor were just denouement for the climax that was 22. What's left after that but tying up loose ends?

[symbv]

Still, it'd be nice if the relationships developed somehow. I really liked getting backstory on Yui and Kyoko, and I wish the show had been set up to explore that from the start. Most of the rest (apart from the bits with Ayano, who's a great complication for their relationship) seems extraneous and not even all that entertaining.

Relationship development in slice-of-life genre is usually gradual and slow. The main charm is how various situations and the chemistry between the characters act out. YY provided a lot of various permutations of the characters involved and situations and many of them give rise to antics that are very memorable to the watchers. The consistency of such delivery with high quality character art and animation is what made this anime getting more and more popular over the season. In fact I have never seen such unanimous acclaim for each and every episode in 2ch and blogs starting from ep.3 for a moe anime (and many feel obliged to apologize publicly for declaring at season's start that it would be a trash follower of A-Channel) I was also worried about how the anime would turn out because I love the manga so much, but it turned out to be everything the manga has to offer, only make it better by adding animation, color, voice and music.

But I'm more a fan of plot with surrealist elements than a surrealist landscape that only makes sense once you pick apart various layers of symbolism. IOW, SKU = awesome, AoU = lame. Penguindrum started out looking like the former but now seems to be morphing into the latter. This makes me sad. But we'll see.

Mind enlightening me on what SKU and AoU are?