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

[AR-99]

Here’s hoping Leilei’s facial expressions are as hilariously blank as they were in the first season.

Just realized that she is very close to the TV Tropes' Rei Ayanami Expy.

[esselfortium]

Boku Dake has absolutely blown me away so far. I'm eagerly anticipating the next episode tomorrow.

Update: Boku Dake ga Inai Machi ("Erased") continues to be incredible. Four episodes in, it's doing absolutely everything right so far -- the writing, direction, artwork, music, and voice acting are all phenomenal. The pacing has been super solid, too -- though it's slowed down a bit from the packed first episode, a lot has happened so far even though it's never felt like it was rushing anything. Most importantly, it's gotten me emotionally invested in its characters, feeling giddy for every little success and feeling heartbroken when something bad happens. The cliffhangers every week are torture, but it's totally worth it.

[StarShaper7]

^

BokuMachi has certainly been a pleasant surprise. It's sincere without being sappy, which is probably the best way to get me invested in the characters. Overdoing the pathos usually has the opposite effect on me and luckily BokuMachi doesn't fall into that trap. It's been a while since an anime had me anticipating it week after week.

[Bagheera]

BokuMachi has certainly been a pleasant surprise. It's sincere without being sappy, which is probably the best way to get me invested in the characters. Overdoing the pathos usually has the opposite effect on me and luckily BokuMachi doesn't fall into that trap. It's been a while since an anime had me anticipating it week after week.

It really is amazing. Not a single misstep so far, which is astounding in today's anime market. AOTY without question.

[StarShaper7]

The year is still young, but if it keeps up at this level it will certainly be a contender.

[Gus Hanson]

While I get ready to tackle some more Sailor Moon episodes, the most I saw these past days was episode 6 of Love Stage!! My God, Izumi is SO cute for a guy and looks so exquisite when he cross dresses in the wedding commercial. I totally got a man crush for Izumi.

[Bagheera]

Zegapain: So, I marathoned this show over the weekend. I mostly agree with Dr. Nick's assessment of it, albeit with some caveats. For one, to me this was twenty episodes of great anime, two episodes of "well, that was unexpected", and four episodes of "what the bloody hell is going on?" It's not that the ending is incomprehensible per se -- I'm the guy who unraveled EoE and made sense of pretty much all of it, after all, so I'm hardly daunted by such things -- but there were several things that just didn't sit right with me. For example:

SPOILER: Show

Sidelining the female lead during the endgame really bugged me. This is less because I couldn't see why it happened (which was understandable enough) than that it IMO broke the narrative flow up to that point. Up to this point the lead we began with was phased out while Kyo's childhood friend came to take over the role of female lead, but for the endgame it's like this development was just swept aside, taking us back to square one.

I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with Abyss and Sin. We get a scene where Chris destroys their backup bodies, check. Then we get a scene where their current bodies are destroyed. And then, they somehow come back. What the hell? I kept saying "just hurry up and die already, because you're boring the hell out of me!"

Taking the fight inside the server felt really strange.

Shima's illness and eventual death are never adequately explained to me.

The storytelling and flow of those final four episodes is a chaotic mess. The best way I can describe it is like thus: I know what happened and all, but it's very much a Sunrise ending. People who have seen the rank and file of Sunrise's shows -- not gems like Gundam at its height, but the sorts they've been producing in the past couple of decades -- will know what I mean by that.

Even with those (relatively minor) criticisms, I still think this is very much a worthwhile show that's well worth a watch. The premise is an interesting blend of existing tropes and, as Dr. Nick mentioned, the blend of subthemes is likewhise interesting. But most important is the fact that the cast is very strong -- the main cast is appealing and distinctive, and the supporting cast isn't bad either. They carry the show well and make turning a blind eye to the tedious CGI worth the trouble.

Overall, highly recommended.

[esselfortium]

I couldn't get more than a couple episodes into Zegapain because I found the lead character intolerable and his "this is just like one of my video games!!" shtick to be maddening.

[robersora]

Ghost in the Shell The New Movie


If it wouldn't have the Ghost in The Shell monicker, I'd give it a 5/10, it's not a bad movie after all. But for Ghost in the Shell this is a disappointment. To get Meta, this pic and quote from the movie pretty much sums it up.

SPOILER: Show

"Are you sure we should revive a series with no ideas in mind?" "just put some flowers over this corpse, nobody will notice"

There's some impressive fight scenes, and a serviceable plot. It also ties in exposition of how the world works quite well and the characters seem a bit more human than in all of the other animated iterations. But there is nowhere near the depth of philosophical musings - and what's there is kinda embarrassing for animated GITS standards. It would have been better to cut that out entirely. Not only does it add nothing to the movie, it even drags down the otherwise kinda ok plot and procedural drama.
The music is by Cornelius, and this guys knows how to mix music - but it doesn't distract from the fact that the actual compositions are quite sub par. Not only has it no impact whatsoever, but the tepid, never changing beats even manages to get tiresome and annoying. This sounds like the epitome of a quick paycheck.
The movie looks competent, but way to conventional and arguably worse than the original GITS movie. Except for the beginning there's also no ethereal atmosphere at all which made Oshii's iterations so arresting in the first place.

I think the biggest offenses of this movie are, how safe it is and how it adds nothing new to the franchise. It also has no element that hasn't been done better in other iterations already. It has no vision, it has no soul, it's just ticking off a checklist of things GITS should offer.

The fight suits for the guys were quite hot though.

[Rosenakahara]

It has no vision, it has no soul

This is super ironic considering the type of series GITS is.

[Bagheera]

Gate S02E05: Everyone who has the slightest interest in military conflicts, dragon slaying, or effective storytelling should watch this episode as soon as possible. This is an excellent demonstration of the chaos one finds in battle (particularly with soldiers who are using unfamiliar equipment, even if they're veterans in their own right), of plausible improvisation, of ludicrous luck both lampshaded and explained, of a team effort to destroy a superior foe, of an explanation behind that foe's existence and (somehow) an escalation of the previous dire situation, and a deft resolution of that problem that's plausible both in terms of storytelling and established setting. Also, there's lot of military porn, so if that's your thing go nuts. I don't think there was a single misstep throughout. Really, really good episode. Now excuse me while I go watch it again . . .

[pwhodges]

I just watched the first five episodes of Erased. I reckon I'll keep going. On the whole, I find time-travel stories easily become unconvincing, and this one is an example - to have so little change in 2006 when Satoru has been stirring things back in 1988 just isn't how it would be, it seems to me. Higurachi (When they cry) was more convincing in that aspect. But the characters in Erased are reasonably varied and appealing so far, and show promise for considerable development. I'm not fond of the style the faces are drawn in, but I have to admit they are done very well - it's a good-looking show.

[lastcody]

to have so little change in 2006 when Satoru has been stirring things back in 1988 just isn't how it would be, .

{ERASED episode 4-5 spoilers}  SPOILER: Show

No this is actually one of the more realistic depictions of a butterfly effect scenario, most shows would just go "yeah he made her walk away from the park that must mean shes not dead hooray". All Satoru did was lead her away from harms way by a day that doesn't stop the wheels of motion turning with the other parties involved and they let you know that in episode 4 they cut to shots of some of the adults off doing god knows what but one thing is for sure, little kid Satoru did nothing to stop them from getting what they wanted to get done.

[pwhodges]

I get that, which is why I can tolerate it. But the point is that small effects continue to spread cause more and more change through time, so that over such a period the changes would be vast. There's a reason it's called chaos theory.

[Bagheera]

I get that, which is why I can tolerate it. But the point is that small effects continue to spread cause more and more change through time, so that over such a period the changes would be vast. There's a reason it's called chaos theory.

The problem is that he hasn't really made any big changes. Note the number of times he says "oh right, I remember doing the exact same thing before." The big change is the fact that

SPOILER: Show

Hinazuki died in a different way the second time around. Originally she was the first victim of the serial abductor, but this time it looks like she was killed by her mother. That might be a big change -- does the serial abductor go after another kid? -- but it might not, as Yuuki might be framed for two kidnappings instead of three with very little overall impact on history.

The real question is whether or not Satoru's actions changed his own destiny, but given how distraught he appears to have been the first time around (to the point where his mother actively encouraged him to forget everything he could about the incident) I'd say that's debatable. And here we are.

The thing I really like about the show is the fact that the butterfly effect is not automatic: if you change chance events then yes, the ripple effects can be huge. But if someone's determined to accomplish something they might miss one opportunity only to wait for another go later on, with the end result being largely the same in both cases. IOW it is chaos theory, in that a random change might send history careening down an entirely different path, but might also do absolutely nothing. It's hard to tell which is going to be the case at any given moment in time.

[pwhodges]

a random change might send history careening down an entirely different path, but might also do absolutely nothing.

It's a matter of what level you're looking, as well. Average behaviours might not change, but every single detail absolutely will (I first saw this when programming simulations of particle movements in a plasma in 1968 - changing the initial conditions of just one particle led to a totally different result immediately, but sometimes the same large-scale patterns were discernible).

But since time travel is a no-no anyway, all one can do is sit back and try to enjoy the story - which I am in this case.

[Bagheera]

IBO 18: Okay, as speeches go Kudelia's was pretty damn awesome. That's one of the most powerful, moving, and effective I've seen in recent memory in fact. Excellent use of the media and of political will to turn the tide of an otherwise hopeless situation.

And Mikazuki! Apart from spotting McGillis right off, he also shows signs of finally thinking for himself rather than just doing whatever Orga tells him.

I really liked this ep, and am looking forward to what comes next!

[Dr. Nick]

@ Bags: I thought the goofiest thing about Zegapain's ending was

SPOILER: Show

how super convenient the resurrection microwave oven was. It pooped Kyo out fully formed and fully clothed seemingly faster than it takes to heat up a hot pocket. They really should have ripped off The Fifth Element there to make the thing a little more believable. Luckily the device not being portable saved it from being absolutely game-breaking hax and enabled the ending to have some proper emotional weight to it.

Ryoko gets sidelined during the last phase of the final battle, true, but I didn't really mind it because the romance plot got rock-solidly resolved. Kyo and Shizuno had a long and complicated history together, so from a writing standpoint they needed to have the big heartfelt moment with just the two of them somewhere near the end of the show. The other clusterfucky things are a fair criticism, but I'd counter that the issues you listed arise from the plot tripping over its own mechanical complexity* and not from any lack of vision. I think that another factor that might have overshadowed Zegapain back in the day was that it came out just before Code Geass, but this was probably also a blessing. Had it come out a few years later as a CG clone, which it would've almost inevitably been, it probably would've been characterized by the same tryhard hodgepodginess you're talking about.

*See also Imagawa's Tetsujin 28, another amazing late oughties mecha show. It's perhaps a teensy bit too ambitious and complex for its own good, leading to some confounding huh-moments.

******

Classroom Crisis: All things considered, the standard cour of 12 or so episodes isn't all that much time, and it doesn't really allow for any sort of meatier story if the episodes are burdened with superfluous fluff. Which is a wordy way of saying that even though I don't quite share Mr. Tines's deep antipathy towards the omnipresent high school setting, they really should've axed it here. CC doesn't even have the lazy adaptation excuse because it's an original property, but because of mishandled priorities it really seems like a bumbling light novel adaptation. It's a shame because the central conflict is solid: starry-eyed young spaceship engineers (who are all high school age prodigies) fighting to save their Skunk Works lab from their soulless bottom line staring superiors.

Their main opponent is Kiryuu, who initially comes off as a young Gordon Gecko (he's also a high school age prodigy), but who actually is a stealth protagonist with the actual big character arc. It's one of those always so enjoyable arcs where an asshole character learns to mellow out through exposure to plebs (and a little bit of suffering), and in CC's case the other characters are mainly there to serve as catalysts to his transformation. While he's still in villain mode, the engineers try to fight back by massaging their department's budgets and even siccing the local labor union on him, and the resulting skullduggery is definitely something I haven't seen in an anime before. The heart of the story is in its corporate melodrama, so it's too bad it's so heavily undercut by the discordant school bullshit. Early on I though there had been some sort of mix-up with the series blurbs on Crunchy since CC was being referred to as a romantic comedy despite there being no romance and very little comedy. As it happens, there techically is a romance subplot that ties in with Kiryuu's long-brewing hostile takeover plot, but because the show wastes time with, you know, classroom stuff and other assorted high school cliches like cultural festivals, it is nothing more than a shriveled tail-end atavism. And it doesn't help that for most of its running time the show paints Kiryuu as a creature with almost negative sex drive.

Brave 10: A garbage battle harem, except this one's for girls. Firearms bishie is the best boy since his schtick is actually kind of funny and unique (he's a conservative prude who uses absurdly anachronistic future guns), and he gets to fire a rifle grenade at a swarm of human-sized praying mantises. That alone makes the show sound far better than what it actually is, but unfortunately moments like that are very few and far between. There's some innuendo-laden goofery to be had, though, but I'm not surprised the fancy NIS America BD sets of this aren't selling so well.

******

Here's a random thought that occurred to me while watching the second season of Snow White with the Red Hair. It's not a dark show at all, as in the sense that even though it's set in a generic western-inspired low fantasy world with obviously no electricity, each and all spaces seem to be amazingly well-lit at all times. Perhaps I'm somewhat sensitive to this since I grew up in a rural area that still had some unelectrified holdout households, but I know first-hand that not even fancy gas lighting can compare to the illumination provided by electric lights. Those houses were always dusky and super moody. Then again, it's not like I'm expecting a TV budget anime to be Barry Lyndon, and this is not something that bothers me in the slightest (the show is wonderful). It was just especially noticeable in episode 15 when Shirayuki, Obi and Raji get lost in an underground maze. A security trap fires an arrow that smashes their one and only lantern, and this seems to have no effect on the amount of light inside the dungeon. Seriously, no light sources whatsoever.

[Mr. Tines]

I'm not down on school stories as such, even with the obligatory cultural festival or even ones where the cultural festival is a significant plot point (Manabi Straight, for example). I do roll my eyes, though, when the anime is set in some fantastical world, and the stock Japanese high-school setting is an entirely gratuitous bolt-on; and it's "he was a normal high-school student until..." which is the real kiss of death.

By that summary, Classroom Crisis is one of those titles that falls into the heavy eye-rolling tier, alongside such illustrious names as Sunday without God, Code Geass or Valvrave.

---

What I have been watching -- much as last time, steady progress with Nadia and Symphogear G, two apparently very different series but with a bizarre overlap in motifs (Finé clearly had something to do with Gargoyle's use of heretical technology). On the pure Gainax side, if Electra is a proto-Ritsuko, then Sanson is clearly a proto-Kamina; and so far, Nadia is just an annoying little madam.

[Dr. Nick]

Snow White with the Red Hair ep. 17: Shoujo Inception.