What anime are you watching right now? 2H15 to 1H16

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unz
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Postby unz » Sat Sep 12, 2015 7:53 am

The anime looks like the only way, I don't know about the novels, I want to pick the best version possible and at the same time I want to deal with stuff like "see Japanese can write romance too it's not all harems" hype stuff the less I can so yeah the anime looks like the shortcut to it all ( wikipedia tells me light novel series are still running after 10 years).

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Postby Ray » Sat Sep 12, 2015 2:28 pm

I watched the First Season Of Attack On Titan all the way through for the first time last night.

And. . . well I enjoyed it. It was enjoyably grim, without being 'grimdark' as i tend to complain about a lot of things being these day. It knows how to keep a tone, and every character in this story is at least somewhat sympathetic, even the assholes are just reasonable people trying to make sense out of a nutty and unreasonable world. I like the setting, obviously a low fantasy semi medieval fantasy world.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Erin Jaeger though. He goes back and forth between being likable and sympathetic to being a borderline unlikable sociopath. He's what would happen if Manga Shinji Ikari was the Incredible Hulk.

My favorite characters are Levi, the cool coldhearted strategic bastard he is, and the crazy mad scientist of Ambiguous Gender Hanji. Hanji is hands down my favorite. She (and yes, she has a female voice actor so I'm referring to her as such, sorry) does not give a flying crap about safety, and is willing to go to the outer limits in pursuit of science.

Really, I haven't seen a series keep the balance between richly developed characters, comedy, drama,, violence, and spectacle this good since maybe the original Avatar The Last Airbender. Speaking of spectacle, holy crap the 3d manuevering gear scenes are incredible. This is the best Spider Man fight Choreography I've ever seen.

Having said that, there was one thing in this series that really did annoy me. Fortunately, it's not the main focus of the series so I can ignore it for the most part. But, is there a single anime ever made where the Christianity/Catholic Church expy isn't condemned as a whole for being bigots/hypocrites?

I mean, giving Christianity some ribbing and criticism in the media is nothing new. But in AOT it comes off as really outright mean spirited.

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Postby gorgeousshutin » Sat Sep 12, 2015 2:43 pm

Hmm . . . as someone who knows a little bit about Christianity, I have to say that the Church in the medieval ages -- which AOT's world is loosely based on -- was not what it is today. There were real hypocrisy and real power tripping, because the Church had actual political power in Europe then. And ignorant and cruel things like witch hunts and violent crusades were also recorded in history. I seem to recall how they did not even allow non-clergies to read the Bible up to until the 20th century -- this is so that whatever spin Church officials spin becomes the only narrative allowed for all Christians. So, I'm not surprised that medieval Christianity would be represented in a negative light in any medieval stories, let alone in Japan-made animes.
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Postby robersora » Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:13 pm

View Original PostRay wrote:I mean, giving Christianity some ribbing and criticism in the media is nothing new. But in AOT it comes off as really outright mean spirited.


To be fair, AoT also doesn't spare other areas with its general nastiness. Its world-view seems to me like a particularly toxic combination of a 16-year old know it all and a 16 year old fame whore.
Last edited by robersora on Sat Sep 12, 2015 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby unz » Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:19 pm

I read AoT is partly based on norse mythology (with greek titans or something) but just like eva and a billion animes about giant anythings there's some origin myth to subvert to avoid -or even better deny- apocalypse.
I guess most myths fit into death cult stuff as they set worlds doomed from the end days and Japanese are like LOL NO and give us dark souls.
Or rokka no yuusha, pretty sure it will be about death and rebirth instead of killing all evil and such.
Weak Eva vibes.
Berserk is that too, end days are not carried out and the black swordsman story begins for real.
I started with the AoT manga but dropped it soon for knights of sidonia, nowadays that and the eva rebuilds are the mecha things I'm watching (I'm years late to the party and years soon for the last play:/).

Maybe playing Cosmology of Kyoto can be educational but I bounced off it many times.

Now Spice&Wolf, the church is still shit but it's not a death cult and there's no retelling of the origin to deconstruct like in every anime, guess that's a good choice for writing. It's romance stuff and the anime is a bit pants, the novels are witty and charming though. Never thought I'd say that of light novels

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Postby Mr. Tines » Sat Sep 12, 2015 4:05 pm

View Original Postunz wrote:I read AoT is partly based on norse mythology (with greek titans or something)
Those would be jötnar (or in Anglo-Saxon, eotena, as in Beowulf); the AoT giants have a role more like their Norse counterparts than the ancient times, long defeated, ancestor/foes of the Olympians.
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Postby unz » Sat Sep 12, 2015 5:06 pm

This whole anti apocalypse thing reminds me of the after credits of You Can (Not) Advance. *kaworu pops up*: "Nope;D".

Maybe Shinji had the chance to wish for a life with Ayanami too. Poor kid

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Postby gorgeousshutin » Sat Sep 12, 2015 5:16 pm

View Original Postrobersora wrote:Its world-view seems to me like a particularly toxic combination of a 16-year old know it all and a 16 year old fame whore.

It seems like most "deep" animes post 2010 have this world-view.
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Postby unz » Sat Sep 12, 2015 5:37 pm

Not sure if post 2010 but while the main character is a teen Humanity Has Declined was fine. Too cute to bear the opening and loads of self loathing, still a nice little thing about *surprise* coming of age and loneliness.



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Postby gorgeousshutin » Sat Sep 12, 2015 6:28 pm

The art style reminds me a little bit of Rumiko Takahashi's works ("pink-haired Lum" was the first thing that came to my mind).
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Postby Compiling_Autumn » Sat Sep 12, 2015 7:00 pm

View Original PostRay wrote:I don't know. . . I guess all the bad harem Anime that it inspired and came after it sort of retroactively ruined the genre as a whole for me.

I had fun with Tenchi in the moment, and I still pop back in on a few episodes every now and then to relive the magic. But I just find the whole Harem Genre manipulative and pandering.

What does Tenchi do right, that every Harem Anime that came after it does wrong?


I think Tenchi has a lot of fun with this idea. Even the name is the show ribbing itself. There are enough goofy flashback scenes, karaoke montages and dumb plots to remind the viewer that this is nothing to get too worked up about. On top of that, the enjoyment that these creators took in piecing together all this absurdity is palpable. You can feel the "newness" of the whole silly idea in Tenchi Muyo.

Other harem animes, by comparison, are rote and sentimental.
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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Sun Sep 13, 2015 12:12 am

One thing Tenchi did right - until the more recent stuff - is while it surely has sexist connotations with "wouldn't it be awesome if a guy had a harem of alien space babes" the show never felt overtly creepy or like it ever looked down on the women. Sure there were some fan pandering sexual escapades here & there but it never felt mean or demeaning to women in general. It was pervy at times but in a way like a 10 year old boy innocently finding a dirty magazine.

I can't comment on the recent stuff in general but I've seen the way the more contemporary harem anime is marketed (how could I not when I check anime sites once every few weeks for any news on Evangelion Final or whether Satoshi Kon's Dreaming Machine will ever be finished) & I'm aware of what that fucking Monster Girl Harem show is & most modern stuff is forwardly sexist & woman hating. The male lead is less dimensional then Tenchi ever was & the female characters are defined by the size of their breasts, how stupid their "shock face" can get & what fetish their archetype panders too.

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Sun Sep 13, 2015 12:28 am

Agreed! I remember over 15 years ago seeing the movie about his "daughter(?)" and though her being mind controlled or whatever was pretty creepy, the female cast themselves seemed to be treated with respect.
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Postby Enigmaoppai » Sun Sep 13, 2015 9:48 pm

Soooo anyone else watching Classroom Crisis this season? Big fan of Hiro Kazaki's character design and the show has been awesome so far.

It's like Corporate House of Cards... in Space.

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Postby Dr. Nick » Sun Sep 13, 2015 10:40 pm

View Original PostRay wrote:Friggin self insert characters are the freaking bane of good storytelling. I don't WANT to relate to a blank slate with little to no defining characteristics whatsoever. Which is why I tend to be hostile towards Harem anime and Moe.


The tragedy of this is that it doesn't require much to inject at least some personality into the male protagonist. I've actually seen the RAM-upgrading tech support boyfriend done quite decently in Code-E and Mission-E. Kotaro looks like the most bog-standard spiky-haired motherfucker around, but he's given a defined character trait in that he's passionate about science. When he meets Chinami and realizes she has metahuman abilities, he's faced with a mystery he immediately wants to solve. This makes Kotaro a driven character, and their interactions from that point onward serve as an organic basis for the budding romance.

As for Tenchi, I'm largely indifferent about the franchise as a whole. The original OVAs obviously have some clout simply by virtue of being important genre solidifiers, and clearly some actual effort was put into them, so that probably explains a lot of the magic. And while it's been a long time since I last watched them, wasn't the main romance angle mainly just a very volatile triangle between Tenchi, Ryoko and Ayaka? That probably gave the show a lot of needed dynamism as opposed to being a mere series of routes for 5+ individual cliche girls.

But there's no mistake that the unmodified Tenchi/harem formula is nowadays both a cliche and a limitation for any show that might want to push the genre boundaries a bit. Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari (A.K.A. Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar) is basically "Tenchi's half-brother out-Tenchis Tenchi" the anime. Behold! You won't believe how big his harem is! But if you push aside the hopelessly boring mid-series fantasy high school wank episodes, it's occasionally a pretty snazzy adventure series. The girls kick a lot of ass, and they all have their own motivations unrelated to the said half-brother who just suddenly appears in their world through a wormhole. Unfortunately, the last episode goes out of its way to remind the audience that this is just a Tenchi show, except Tenchier, and all of the girls get lumped together as one big package deal. The show could have been more, but it chose not to be. But whatevs, I agree with Bags that it's silly to suggest harems are strangling anime to death, and I can always revisit some antidote series like I can't believe it's not a battle harem.

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:By moe, what exactly do you mean? "Cute girls doing cute things" series tend to be covered by the moe umbrella, and where those have male characters at all, they are peripheral, and even the butt of all the jokes.


I guess Idolmaster counts, although it has actual built-in reasons for why the "central" male character is a bro salaryman with not much personality or personal life outside of that. But yeah, for what I understand that's more the exception than the norm, so I don't really get either why moe shows were mentioned in this context.

View Original PostEnigmaoppai wrote:Soooo anyone else watching Classroom Crisis this season?


Slowly. First time I've seen the inner workings of a labor union depicted in an anime.

******

A lot of the mid-oughties mecha series, especially ones with 3D-animated robots, have for the longest time remained a total black hole for me, so I've started rectifying that by doing some first episode sampling. Conceptually, IGPX rather feels like the sports series Rideback should have been. Let's hope it stays that way. Gigantic Formula looks like a trail mix nutty fusion of Rahxephon and Robot Jox with Kamichu's character designs. Seriously, what's wrong with your eyes? I question the logic of unrestricted restricted warfare. Zegapain's protagonist stumbles upon some sort of virtual reality conspiracy, but refreshingly he seems more like a classic super robot jock archetype character thrown into a twisty post-Evangelion mess, so this should be fun. First impressions are subject to change, will post updates.

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Postby Bagheera » Sun Sep 13, 2015 11:05 pm

I really wanted to like Rideback, but the whole thing was just a mess.

I couldn't make it through the first ep of Prison School; I feel like I'm missing something, because people are saying it's great, but to me it just seems dumb as hell.
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Postby esselfortium » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:21 am

View Original PostDr. Nick wrote:Zegapain's protagonist stumbles upon some sort of virtual reality conspiracy, but refreshingly he seems more like a classic super robot jock archetype character thrown into a twisty post-Evangelion mess, so this should be fun. First impressions are subject to change, will post updates.

I tried this show recently with Seele00TextOnly, and we dropped it after a few episodes because the main character was so intolerably dense and irritating.



On a better note, though, you all should watch Interlude. It's a wonderfully pretentious 3-episode OVA from the early 2000s with a gloriously bad English dub, plotholes the size of hedgehogs, and lots of unintentionally hilarious moments. Best enjoyed late at night with your friends, for those of you with friends.

Seele and Tarnsman ought to get on here to back me up on this.

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Postby Seele00TextOnly » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:22 am

Interlude is amazing go watch it dubbed now. An overlooked classic. Tama alone is worth your while.

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Postby unz » Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:22 am

View Original PostBagheera wrote:I really wanted to like Rideback, but the whole thing was just a mess.

I couldn't make it through the first ep of Prison School; I feel like I'm missing something, because people are saying it's great, but to me it just seems dumb as hell.


Prison school is very dumb.
It's a particular breed of characters, of boys and girls who even when innocent and deserving nothing of what happens to them you'll see they need to face all the shit simply because of how flawed they are.
But the shit is often silly fears and perversions.

Rideback, I don't remember it, was there a dancer girl who couldn't dance anymore and just went for one wheel bikes because that's actually a fun way to spend time? Sounded ok but everything else was crap imho.
Doesn't even have updated scans around:/

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Postby Mr. Tines » Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:58 am

View Original Postunz wrote:Rideback, I don't remember it, was there a dancer girl who couldn't dance anymore and just went for one wheel bikes because that's actually a fun way to spend time?
Two-wheel transforming motorbikes with arms. It was just shaping up to be a nice little sports anime, when suddenly retarded political plot out of nowhere. Sticking to the end was rewarded by the one panchira of the series (clearly put there as a loyalty bonus), and an obvious reprise of Asuka vs the harpies (with added good end).

Given how thin the Q1'09 season was, this was actually one of the better new series -- but when you're up against things like Akikan, that's no challenge.
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