Winter 2012 Anime Thread of Roundcats Up in This

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How many of you have watched Mahou Tsukai Tai :Alice (aka Tweeny Witches)??

Surely you mean Mahō Shōjotai Arusu, or rather Magical Girl Squad Arusu, then again maybe at least we can all stick with The Adventures of Tweeny Witches.

It's pretty good, actually. It may or may not contain miracles.
 
[Steins;Gate]

Uh, because
none of that really makes any sense, especially the concept of a fixed point. I mean, if someone crosses the road and gets killed by a speeding car that's unlucky, so going back in time to make sure they don't cross the road would save their life. It seems bizarre that the same person would then, say, get shot by a mugger instead of getting hit by that car. For that to happen some guiding hand would surely be having to push all these situations onto that person.

point taken, the way she died did bug me a little at first but I was too busy laughing by the train one to be bothered by it

[Steins;Gate]

The problem is that it's completely arbitrary.
"You can change this, you can change that, you can even change the circumstances of Mayuri's death (the day she died, too), but Mayuri's death itself? No, you can't change that. Why does Mayuri's death matter more than, say, Nae's trauma? Or even the consequences of Okabe's time jumps on the insect world of Tôkyô, really (no reason to be anthropocentric)? Because."

"Serious" time travel plots either pick a model where you can't change anything at all (the time traveler didn't change anything but merely played his part in the past), or a model where you can change anything you want because you end up in a new, separate timeline where time paradoxes aren't an issue.


Sadly, it's not uncommon on TV and in movies, indeed...
"The first model is tempting because, y'know... Fate! Irony! That's always nice. But then again, it's also very restrictive whereas the second model allows us to go wild and show amusing alternate histories... Hmm... I know! Let's pick a bit of both!" Dude, I see why that would be tempting, but that makes no sense: they're not compatible models!

jWait don't get me wrong I've never said "fix point in time" made sense in realistic logic, the same way as guys firing beams out of their hands in dbz, but I can let it slide as long as the show makes up its own explanation for the purpose of making the story more entertaining/interesting without battering my sense of disbelief or retacon itself later and not for infinite get out of jail free card for the writer.

just let know am terrible at explaining shit
 
[Steins;Gate]
point taken, the way she died did bug me a little at first but I was too busy laughing by the train one to be bothered by it

Yeah, that came off as unintentionally hilarious for me as well, which clearly wasn't their intention.
[Steins;Gate]

The problem is that it's completely arbitrary.
"You can change this, you can change that, you can even change the circumstances of Mayuri's death (the day she died, too), but Mayuri's death itself? No, you can't change that. Why does Mayuri's death matter more than, say, Nae's trauma? Or even the consequences of Okabe's time jumps on the insect world of Tôkyô, really (no reason to be anthropocentric)? Because."

"Serious" time travel plots either pick a model where you can't change anything at all (the time traveler didn't change anything but merely played his part in the past), or a model where you can change anything you want because you end up in a new, separate timeline where time paradoxes aren't an issue.

This is pretty much what I'm talking about, except that you've explained it more clearly than me.
Mardock Scramble Movie 1

Took a half year break from anime, I guess this is a good start to come back to anime watching. I liked the Mardock manga, the anime did change the story a bit, instead of learning the main character's back story from a long flash back, the anime tell her back story bit by bit from her conversation, small flash back, and a court hearing.

I guess the change is for the better, it gives a better impact, and the story is a lot faster pace compare the the manga.[...]
For all the crap I've given Mardock Scramble that really sounds like a change for the better. It sounds like they took an info-dump and then worked it into the story as a whole, which would help it to seem more organic than just using a traditional flashback.
 
Zettai Shounen 6-14

The summer arc was awesome (episodes 1-12) but the second arc isn't interesting enough so far, so i'm thinking of dropping it. Why did they have to change the main cast.. :/
 
Watch it. You'll learn new things about magic.

No I have it. Ive seen it half a dozen times. I was just asking if anybody else has seen it.

I just realized I listed the japanese name for Magic Users Club, which is even more hnnngh.
But yeah, Mahou Shojo Tai Alice.
 
I don't mind fanservice shows being produced at all, and i'm aware that there was a fair share of them even in the past, but I find a problem with it when it's dominating the industry itself.

Now we have artistic/animating talent being wasted, and not necessarily because they're working on pure fanservice shows. Even the shonen-action shows are affected because studios are pressurized into showing more fanservice (Guilty Crown comes to mind, such wasted production values)

As has been mentioned before, while in a sense you could argue that skilled animators are being 'wasted' animating, say, The Idolm@ster (which would require a separate discussion of what it means to 'wasted') but then again if you listen to the animators themselves what they enjoy drawing is cute girls. If that's their passion it's not like they'd necessarily be out there doing character animation in some more serious drama.
 
As has been mentioned before, while in a sense you could argue that skilled animators are being 'wasted' animating, say, The Idolm@ster (which would require a separate discussion of what it means to 'wasted') but then again if you listen to the animators themselves what they enjoy drawing is cute girls. If that's their passion it's not like they'd necessarily be out there doing character animation in some more serious drama.

Was not aware of that, I guess there's two sides to even an issue like this.
 
No I have it. Ive seen it half a dozen times. I was just asking if anybody else has seen it.

I just realized I listed the japanese name for Magic Users Club, which is even more hnnngh.
But yeah, Mahou Shojo Tai Alice.
Then how'd you miss the part where Arusu explicitly mentions her name being similar to but not the same as "Arisu" or Alice.
 
Agent Aika - 1

Holy shit! It this the legendary, the holy grail, the perfect anime? I'm flashed!

It has all the things I ever wanted:

Truly, a golden age for fanservice? I’d have assumed that Agent Aika is certainly notorious enough to have cropped up on your radar before now.
 
Uh, because
none of that really makes any sense, especially the concept of a fixed point. I mean, if someone crosses the road and gets killed by a speeding car that's unlucky, so going back in time to make sure they don't cross the road would save their life. It seems bizarre that the same person would then, say, get shot by a mugger instead of getting hit by that car. For that to happen some guiding hand would surely be having to push all these situations onto that person.
As a 'predestination paradox', that kind of situations can be theoretically consistent and approachable through some particular acceptances of the 'general relativity'.
 
A note on Gundam.

Over the past couple months I've been watching various Gundam series. Started with Zeta then followed it up with a ten year-ish anniversary rewatch of Wing. Currently I'm making my way through a rewatch of 00. I'm really tempted to buy Unicorn. This has been a lot of Gundam to absorb in such a short span of time.
Just an innocent query but, why would you start with Zeta (a sequel to another show in the UC continuity) and then jump to Wing (in it's own continuity) before moving on to more 'one off' works and then hitting up Unicorn (which set after the original show, Zeta, Double Zeta and Char's Counter Attack and so forth). It just seems a bit...sporadic.
Early 2000's anime, truly the golden years.

Nah man, the 70's! I mean, that's the era of sideburns of your giant robot pilot/boxer/whatever.
 
Will it still be a delay when no one expected it to come out on time anyway?

Also,
jdHft.jpg


I think that is my least favorite of the titles.

Let's be fair now, all the Rebuild films have bad titles.
Goddamnit, weren't they supposed to release together? I don't want to wait 2 years asfskdgl

As if that was ever going to happen!
 
You wouldn't be able to change anything though.

Right. You can't change anything in one timeline. Therefore the only solution is the completely change the timeline. Basically the way time works in Steins;Gate is that making minor alterations to a timeline may change the circumstances of how things happen, but everything is pretty much predetermined in that particular timeline. The only way to actually change the future is to create a change so earth-shattering it creates a completely different timeline. Most popular fiction depicts all changes to a timeline as a complete split (the Back to the Future model). Steins;Gate doesn't follow that model so much. It follows the idea that a timeline is predetermined in many respects, you can just change the circumstances (i.e. Akiba changes from being Otaku centric to just being Gadget centric, but the fact that Okarin and co. are working on a time-machine in Akiba does NOT change because that's predetermined). The predetermined aspects are the so-called "convergence points" I mentioned in my post above.
 
[Steins;Gate]
That's the whole point on how Okabe got out of it.
What? No.
Either you can change anything you want or you can't change anything. A mixture of both doesn't make sense. It's arbitrary.
Why was Mayuri's death specifically that much harder to change than... well, the billions of other things Okabe altered with his time jumps? Who decided that Mayuri's death couldn't be avoided (she was "killed by the world") unless you got that one computer and did that one thing whereas changing a whole bunch of stuff around that was perfectly fair game?
What's up with those rules? Sounds like the work of a trickster god who's very into human drama. You might as well call him "the writer".
 
Pretty much, "Redo" is a huge confirmation

Well, your certainty means that it must be a red herring!
That's up to Gainax, and hopefully it's sooner rather than later. I hope by 2013 Funimation can make a deal with Matt Greenfield to direct the dubs for the last two films.
GAINAX, or Khara? Who owns what?
Wait, when did these "remakes" become part of the same universe? How did this turn into some Zelda timeline shit?

The power of fanwank.
 
Right. You can't change anything in one timeline. Therefore the only solution is the completely change the timeline. Basically the way time works in Steins;Gate is that making minor alterations to a timeline may change the circumstances of how things happen, but everything is pretty much predetermined in that particular timeline. The only way to actually change the future is to create a change so earth-shattering it creates a completely different timeline. Most popular fiction depicts all changes to a timeline as a complete split (the Back to the Future model). Steins;Gate doesn't follow that model so much. It follows the idea that a timeline is predetermined in many respects, you can just change the circumstances (i.e. Akiba changes from being Otaku centric to just being Gadget centric, but the fact that Okarin and co. are working on a time-machine in Akiba does NOT change because that's predetermined). The predetermined aspects are the so-called "convergence points" I mentioned in my post above.

But who chooses the "convergence points"? It's such a subjective matter that there has to be a hand in choosing them, no? I think that's what some of the posters are getting at.
 
The second half was perfect as it was. >:( Fuck the haters

See to me Gurren Lagann was already mecha perfection. I don't need more. It's my favourite animu of all timez.

I don't particularly think that adding 'another fight' necessarily improves a story, much like the additional action in the Macross Plus Movie don't make it better than the OVA version.
 
Sailor Moon 12

yShBJ.jpg


Pretty boring episode but that was a given considering the setting of this episode. But there were some interesting quirks in the episode.

Thetis
this weeks Youma of the week, displays love and affection for Jadeite. Jadeite is super sexy so that wouldn't be unexpected but it was cool to see that youmas are capable of love rather than being completely emotionless.

Jadeite is so freaking screwed.
Queen Beryl-sama lost her dear yuri lover servant and will now punish poor Jadeite. Going to guess he's not long one for the world.

Ami x Rei
made an adorable couple. If this episode was made today some of their energy would have been drained as a symbol of some serious yuri undertones.
It's a shame it didn't happen like that :(
 
Of course, early anime films from that era, such as the works by Toei, would try and emulate the Disney style of animation rather than going for the 'limited animation' style that eventually became commonplace.

I think if you watch Panda and the Magic Serpent you can really see the Disney type feeling that they were going for.
Truly, a golden age for fanservice? I’d have assumed that Agent Aika is certainly notorious enough to have cropped up on your radar before now.

I tihnk Agent Aika was on every male anime aficionados radar at some point.


Let's be fair now, all the Rebuild films have bad titles.

They can (not) come up with better titles.
 
But who chooses the "convergence points"? It's such a subjective matter that there has to be a hand in choosing them, no? I think that's what some of the posters are getting at.

There doesn't have to be, no. That's just what each inevitability, or fate, is. Hold on, let me draw a graph.

EDIT: Here we go.

Steinsgate_time.jpg
 
Is it really You Can (Not) Redo? Haha. That's horrible.

I thought it was just a photoshop at first, I guess not though. How depressing.
I don't find the characters and tropes in them, entertaining in anyway quite the opposite.
The characters and tropes in mecha titles are pretty much the same characters and tropes present in anime as a whole, few of them are unique to the genre.
 
But who chooses the "convergence points"? It's such a subjective matter that there has to be a hand in choosing them, no? I think that's what some of the posters are getting at.

But the D-mail's didn't really change much outside of turning an apple into an orange, it's still a fruit or to mirror it better turned Rukaku from a guy to a girl, it's still the same Rukaku.
 
[Steins;Gate]
Right. You can't change anything in one timeline. Therefore the only solution is the completely change the timeline.
But as we've seen, you couldn't really change stuff around as you pleased, in those other world lines: Mayuri would still get "killed by the world", no matter what. Okabe needed to clear an RPG-like condition for that to change.

The only way to actually change the future is to create a change so earth-shattering it creates a completely different timeline.
The "importance" of an event is a subjective notion, all in the eye of the beholder. The universe has no more reason to care about Okabe preventing SERN's dystopia than it has to care about that one ant he stepped on six seconds into his first time jump (besides, the butterfly effect is nothing to sneeze at).

Most popular fiction depicts all changes to a timeline as a complete split (the Back to the Future model).
Not a complete split, actually, or Marty wouldn't be affected by his parents not getting together.
The Back to the Future are nice movies, but poor time travel stories.

The predetermined aspects are the so-called "convergence points" I mentioned in my post above.
And they're arbitrary.


But who chooses the "convergence points"? It's such a subjective matter that there has to be a hand in choosing them, no? I think that's what some of the posters are getting at.
Yup.
As it stands, we're pretty much told that "the universe" decided that Mayuri's death (no matter the circumstances, but we're working on a relatively loose schedule) and SERN's dystopia were tightly linked. Why though? Why that specifically? Er... Because!
Again, not a very scientific notion, far from it, and it's a bit jarring considering how Steins;Gate sells itself. To justify this seemingly arbitrary rule, you'd probably have to introduce some kind of sentient "god of fate" who cares very much about human beings and have him say "I just thought it'd be more fun and dramatic that way... plus it gives Okabe a nice character arc, don't you think?" Might as well call him "the Writer".
 
And, in the end that's what it boils down to?
For a story with such a huge emphasis on science, that looks like a nice deus ex machina

It's more sci-fi, which isn't all that far removed from fantasy tbh. Fantasy doesn't have to all follow the same rules. So long as the rules are (fairly) consistent within individual works, that's fine.
 
To be honest, that mother did endanger her child going through that so shes actually a bad mom, but it was still awesome.

She clearly knew that she was:

A) a female in a Hayo Miyazaki movie

B) a mother in a Hayo Miyazaki movie

C) a mother in a Hayo Miyazaki movie driving a delightfully small car

which should have been enough information to let her know that she'd be perfectly fine.
 
But the D-mail's didn't really change much outside of turning an apple into an orange, it's still a fruit or to mirror it better turned Rukaku from a guy to a girl, it's still the same Rukaku.

What about the original D-mail that changed the divergence so much that Okabe fell into the Alpha world-line? But yeah the D-mails after didn't change much, mostly because the content of the d-mail's themselves weren't all that important. However, the search for the IBN-5000 meant that the world divergence actually changed enough to keep Okabe away from it.


On another note, how come
There weren't two Okabe's when Okabe travelled into the Steins;gate world-line after faking kurisu's death?
 
But the D-mail's didn't really change much outside of turning an apple into an orange, it's still a fruit or to mirror it better turned Rukaku from a guy to a girl, it's still the same Rukaku.

Uh what about
the part where it revived the dead and fundamentally changed Tokyo?
That seems pretty major, I'd say.
 
It's more sci-fi, which isn't all that far removed from fantasy tbh. Fantasy doesn't have to all follow the same rules. So long as the rules are (fairly) consistent within individual works, that's fine.

Yeah, I agree with you. The scenario isn't exactly perfect, but it works well (enough) within its rules.
 
Dang, another Nisemonogatari trailer, huh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ls_iK4d26A

I see they're devoting as much energy to the background art as they did in the original series. Actually, what scares me more than lazy background art is that bloody mobile phone, I can but hope that we don't have half an episode of Araragi just staring it again as a way to save on animation.
Got done with Bakemonogatari. Wow. What an anime. Is there any second of it where the characters aren't talking? Bring on Nisemonogatari!
Finishing up Toradora, then to finish up Shana season one (yeah, I'm still in season one).

It's the Legend of the Galactic Heroes of supernatural detective harem fanservice shows.
 
You wouldn't be able to change anything though.
True but with reservations, because (and only potentially, of course) some acts could lead to a certain circumvention. Probably, as it is constituted the apparent outcome can't be changed but it can be affected intrinsically, remaining true within what an external observer could have attested.
 
Hmm, you liked the TV series ending better than EoE?

There's a few here who've stated that the TV ending is superior. As I don't hold that view I wouldn't want to misinsterpet their position but it's generally something along the lines of 'all the relevant themes were already fully discussed by the original ending therefore The End of Evangelion is superfluous.

I think.
 
[Steins;Gate]

But as we've seen, you couldn't change anything you liked in those other world lines: Mayuri would still get "killed by the world", no matter what. Okabe needed to clear an RPG-like condition for that to change.

No arguments, that's pretty much it. A certain "flag" was triggered that created a 1% divergence (Kurisu's death) and when he realized that he couldn't save Mayuri unless he reverted everything to the original timeline, she would remain dead. What he forgot was that the original split wasn't the lotto ticket, but rather Kurisu's stabbing.

The "importance" of an event is a subjective notion, all in the eye of the beholder. The universe has no more reason to care about Okabe preventing SERN's dystopia than it has to care about that one ant he stepped on six seconds into his first time jump.

I never implied the universe "cared" about certain events happening, it's just that in a certain timeline these things are going to be kind of inevitable unless the change is so big that the change is earth shattering (i.e. the Time Machine race)

Not a complete split, actually, or Marty wouldn't be affected by his parents not getting together.
The Back to the Future are nice movies, but poor time travel stories.

Er... being that he wouldn't be born, which would be pretty earth-shattering to Marty. ^^;

And they're arbitrary.

I don't see why this is a major issue. Mayuri's death is not earth-shattering to the world, just to Okarin.

Yup.
As it stands, we're pretty much told that "the universe" decided that Mayuri's death (no matter the circumstances, but we're working on a relatively loose schedule) and SERN's dystopia were tightly linked. Why though? Why that specifically? Er... Because!
Again, not a very scientific notion, far from it, and it's a bit jarring considering how Steins;Gate sells itself. To justify this seemingly arbitrary rule, you'd probably have to introduce some kind of sentient "god of fate" who cares very much about human beings and have him say "I just thought it'd be more fun and dramatic that way... plus it gives Okabe a nice character arc, don't you think?" Might as well call him "the Writer".

Again, you're applying a sort of malicious intent on "time" or whatever to kill her. It's not malicious, it's just inevitable because they altered time to prevent Kurisu's stabbing.
 
It must be quite an interesting experience to watch one of the most lavishly animated TV series back to back with Bakemonogatari, which was clearly made on a shoe-string budget for most of it’s run.

It is. The consistent fluidity of K-ON!'s animation is on a whole other level from any other TV show I've seen, whereas Bakemonogatari conceals its reliance on stills and very limited motion by quick cuts and unusual angles and framing. It shows the styles of the two studios behind them distilled to perhaps their purest form: KyoAni's high-budget mastery of traditional animation vs. Shaft's low-budget exploration of visual eccentricity. Both are enjoyable in their own way.

Is it really You Can (Not) Redo? Haha. That's horrible.

I don't see what's so horrible about that title. It's certainly not worse than any of the countless other Engrishy titles Japan has come up with.
 
Again, you're applying a sort of malicious intent on "time" or whatever to kill her. It's not malicious, it's just inevitable because they altered time to prevent Kurisu's stabbing.
But there's no logical connection between cause and effect here. That's what people are bothered by. Because A, unrelated event Z occurs.

E: To clarify my position,
the problem is that Mayuri's death is not directly tied to the consequences of Chris's survival, and the gang discovering the secrets of time travel (alerting SERN). If Mayuri were inevitably killed by SERN agents, that would be somewhat more "acceptable" than the universe apparently deciding that this girl just gotta die, don't matter how.
 
But there's no logical connection between cause and effect here. That's what people are bothered by. Because A, unrelated event Z occurs.

I dunno, I guess I just feel that certain things cause dramatic changes and others don't. Again, I view it like magnets.

But there's no logical connection between cause and effect here. That's what people are bothered by. Because A, unrelated event Z occurs.

E: To clarify my position,
the problem is that Mayuri's death is not directly tied to the consequences of Chris's survival, and the gang discovering the secrets of time travel (alerting SERN). If Mayuri were inevitably killed by SERN agents, that would be somewhat more "acceptable" than the universe apparently deciding that this girl just gotta die, don't matter how.

Yes it does. Dramatically.
Chris is the one who figured out how it all worked, AND how to control it. Without her help, they NEVER would have gotten as far as they did and developed a full time machine, and thus, never would have been pursued by SERN. In the final timeline, he saves her but doesn't start the time-machine development.
 
Yes it does. Dramatically.
Chris is the one who figured out how it all worked, AND how to control it. Without her help, they NEVER would have gotten as far as they did and developed a full time machine, and thus, never would have been pursued by SERN.
Correct. That's the problem.
Mayuri being killed by SERN agents is one thing. All the ways Mayuri died OTHER than getting shot by agents? I don't see how Mayuri falling into the path of an oncoming train has anything to do with SERN's discovery of the gang's time machine experiments.
 
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