Winter 2012 Anime Thread of Roundcats Up in This

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Fine, trollish posturing aside, the fact that K-On's art and animation were excellent-composed and made good usage of KyoAni's time and money didn't change the fact that I found it downright boring. Even ignoring the subjective nature of the character designs, the whole visual style in general just felt really safe, sterile, and unmemorable. Like they took Haruhi (which itself is pretty boring visually a lot of the time) and slapped a few more coats of sheen and gloss on it.

For as much trolling as I give Nichijou, it was both excellently-animated AND visually interesting, which is why I think it's KyoAni's best-looking show so far, and it isn't even close.

Mind you that Bakemonogatari certainly has its own well-documented failures in its visuals, but at least that visual style left some sort of impression on me.

bro
tea parties are hardcore
 
You guys are doing a horrible job enticing me. Imma go watch YamiHat.

I knew that would catch your attention!

Fine, trollish posturing aside, the fact that K-On's art and animation were excellent-composed and made good usage of KyoAni's time and money didn't change the fact that I found it downright boring. Even ignoring the subjective nature of the character designs, the whole visual style in general just felt really safe, sterile, and unmemorable. Like they took Haruhi (which itself is pretty boring visually a lot of the time) and slapped a few more coats of sheen and gloss on it.

K-ON definitely aims for a very traditional animated visual style; there's nothing particularly unique or creative about it. However, the craftsmanship on display is remarkable and refines the visuals into something highly polished and pleasant to look at. Refinement can be just as good and sometimes better than revolution.

For as much trolling as I give Nichijou, it was both excellently-animated AND visually interesting, which is why I think it's KyoAni's best-looking show so far, and it isn't even close.

Nichijou is KyoAni being experimental, and the visual style is a result of that, leaning more towards something "cartoony" than stereotypical anime. I really respect and appreciate that, though clearly the show didn't work for a lot of people.
 
Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I agree. Not a big fan of romantic tragedies.

No no, romantic tragedies are fine in and of themselves. That genre gives us fantastic stuff like Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora to appreciate.

The problem is is partially KEY themselves, and partially the narrative conventions common in VNs in general.
 
[Rinne no Lagrange ep. 01]

A minute into the show and Madoka already drops her pants? cotdamn.

How many clubs has she signed up for?

Oh look, another girl that drops her pants just.like.that.

"Panties. Off." I'm pretty sure this is a show about panties.

Pretty refreshing to have a protagonist that it's a wimp/angst-ridden teenager right off the bat.

Using wrestiling moves in a mech fight? Why not? LET'S DO IT!


The show seems interesting. Will follow.
 
No no, romantic tragedies are fine in and of themselves. That genre gives us fantastic stuff like Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora to appreciate.

The problem is is partially KEY themselves, and partially the narrative conventions common in VNs in general.

Yeah but Hanbun was a tragedy right from the start.

With KEY, stuff like Clannad seems decent, but then we have the after story which is just wtf.
 
Fine, trollish posturing aside, the fact that K-On's art and animation were excellent-composed and made good usage of KyoAni's time and money didn't change the fact that I found it downright boring. Even ignoring the subjective nature of the character designs, the whole visual style in general just felt really safe, sterile, and unmemorable. Like they took Haruhi (which itself is pretty boring visually a lot of the time) and slapped a few more coats of sheen and gloss on it.

For as much trolling as I give Nichijou, it was both excellently-animated AND visually interesting, which is why I think it's KyoAni's best-looking show so far, and it isn't even close.

KyoAni's animation and visual acting is actually pretty creative and interesting. It's not gimmicky like Bakemonogatari, but Horiguchi's style is very idiosyncratic. It definitely doesn't move like any random anime.
 
It sounds stupid?
"Ugh, "redo"! Such an ugly word. Sounds like one of those modern abominations..."

*checks online*

First use: 1597

"Well, fuck... It's still ugly though!"


[yup, more black bars of Steins;Gate]
Cause and effect was the whole point of episode nine, and Kurisu's explanation on the butterfly split.
I don't have a problem with Akihabara being altered by Faris' D-mail. The story explains the cause/effect link for that one.
What caused Mayuri to die, die, die, die no matter what, on the other hand...

Conveniently, it isn't always obvious.
The first dmail itself didn't actually have any effect on Mayuri's death, it was no direct catalyst, but that dmail did move them from one predetermined 'rope' (I call back to suzuha's explanation) to another; from a rope where Kurisu was going to die regardless of what he did, to one where Mayuri did.
And that's arbitrary. ^^;
Why an Attractor Field (/ "rope") where Mayuri dies no matter what? What's the connection? An Attractor Field where Kurisu doesn't die in that building on that day, sure, it'd make sense: the conference is cancelled -> Kurisu doesn't go there -> she can't get killed there. All right. But why would Mayuri die no matter what a couple of weeks later, in that Attractor Field? What's the logic behind that?
It's like the story went "okay, sure, it'd be nice if I had a sound justification for that one, but I just don't, okay? so kindly roll with it..." Disappointing.

And in that each subsequent dmail, not being enough to alter ropes, would only create butterfly splits, a million little immediately inconsequential, unknown, changes, Ruka, Akihabara, etc..
Hey, dude! You're "inconsequential"! ^^
But seriously, again, it's all subjective, really. Inconsequential to whom? Who gets to decide?
And why would the death of Faris's father be "inconsequential", whereas Mayuri's death... Well, you know the rest!

It plays on fate to a large degree, and is arbitrary in its event selection process, but the logic behind it was actually sound enough, aside from one blunder:
Kurusu's memory in the end
As you've seen by now, I have a few beefs with the plot, but that wouldn't be one of them: after all, it's been shown that characters could get "flashes" from previous world lines (*). Faris remembered, Ruka remembered, Mayuri remembered...

(*) Of course, the idea that there are "previous world lines" at all is extremely problematic on many levels, but that's another issue...

By the show's own logic
She should have no memory of Okabe aside from that particular day. If it were on the same line/rope, it be understandable, a bit, as she could pick up resonances from the other world lines, but there were no previous threads of them being together in the... beta line, I believe. They threw it out the window at the end for a happy ending, lol
Eh, I don't know that the characters remembering other world lines from the same Attractor Field really makes much more sense than them remembering other world lines from other Attractor Fields... ^__^;
But yeah, I can see where you're coming from... The other examples we've seen so far were all flashes from the same Attractor Field, from world lines that are relatively "close", according to the divergence meter. "If the characters only have faint memories from relatively close world lines, what of those world lines that are in other clusters altogether? One could think they wouldn't be able to remember anything at all!" That's a bit of a leap of logic considering one wouldn't know how these things work in the first place, but an understandable one. And I think the story played on that, too, actually...

In the visual novel, we only had examples of flashes from the same Attractor Field (Faris, Ruka and Mayuri, like on the TV show)... until the final scene, where Kurisu has this weird flash she can't explain regarding Okabe.
Okabe is initially surprised as well (either because he, too, assumed you could only get flashes from "close" world lines... or because he's a decidedly slow learner), but he then basically reaches the conclusion that "hey, okay, so that was possible! and I guess anybody can remember, too!" in his narration. You could make the argument that's treated as a bit of a final surprise before the curtain falls.

Now, having Okabe spell that out to the player might fly in the visual novel format (you've been subjected to dozens of hours of narration in suspended time, what's five more minutes of it toward the end?), but you probably don't want your animated adaptation to stop in its tracks for five minutes in front of a frozen frame of Okabe and Kurisu staring at each other. A bit awkward, especially for a final scene.
I think that may well be why the TV show went ahead and added that bit about Kurisu faintly remembering her own stabbing, a few episodes before the end. That wasn't in the original work, and set a convenient precedent of "cross-Attractor Field flashback" so the viewer wouldn't be too weirded out during the final scene. Of course, on the minus side, it's now easier to see the "surprise" coming, but hey...


I'm more confused as to why there aren't two Okabe's after Okabe travels to the Steins;Gate world line.
Yeah, there would be a bunch of weird stuff like that...

I know I was immediately annoyed by those test D-mails, for example:
"Hey, look at your phone! It worked! You got the message a week ago!"
Just because those D-mails were spam and weren't trying to get Okabe to change history, it doesn't change the fact they did change history just by existing. As meaningless as they were, they should have had some kind of influence on Okabe. Wouldn't the Okabe of the new world line read them upon reception? You'd expect him to connect the dots at some point before the test...

There would also be that idea that the different world lines aren't parallel universes: "there's only one universe, and all those other world lines are just possibilities until you "switch" to one of them by altering history in some way or another!" ... Wait, what?
I understand that they'd want to avoid the "infinite parallel universes" model so it wouldn't look like Okabe is merely abandoning a whole bunch of "bad" universes in his quest for a nice one where he could settle and enjoy the rest of his life ("See, Okabe is actually saving Mayuri and Kurisu's lives, not conveniently forgetting about those other versions of them who died!")... But it opens a metric fuckload of cans of worms.
Doesn't that make Okabe some kind of god? It all revolves around his perspective specifically? How does that even work? What about Okabe ver. 2025, for instance?
 
No one mentioned gratuitous symbolism, hair animation, or homosexuality, so you're probably right.
Symbolism
Hair Animation.
Lesbians.

So their eyes aren't a foot apart?
konachancom54608bakemon.png
 
No no, romantic tragedies are fine in and of themselves. That genre gives us fantastic stuff like Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora to appreciate.

The problem is is partially KEY themselves, and partially the narrative conventions common in VNs in general.

Are you saying there's something wrong with tragedy porn genre?
 
Oh let's not forget what the invisible snakes symbolize.
 
It's not like modern anime hair is realistic anymore. Hair doesn't clump into perfectly shaped pointy bits unless you haven't washed it for days and it's all matted together.

Like this:
ff7ac-cloud-render.jpg


If it bothers you that much pretend she has flat pressed dreads.
 
there's so much i want to ask in regards to what's going on in that pic

...but i'm just gonna keep my mouth shut :x
 
Well it's like, 3 frames.

I think they can afford a little derp.
 
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