The car is fine. Better than most CG cars.
Beyond that, this has some...uhh....inteteresting revelations.
RINGO IS SO FUCKING CUTE OMG OMG
Last scene was legendary and I think we all saw this coming.
It is still fucking awesome though. Penguin Drum has saved anime.
That new ending theme is FABULOUS MAX.
Now this is the kind of show I can get behind. Nothing but a passing mention of the idol drama bullshit plot and a lot of entertaining segments that don't take themselves too seriously. More like this, please.
Too bad the 961 Pro crap is bound to rear its ugly head again soon.
It's not hard to draw cars. I draw some pretty great ones, myself.
If you want some anime with great accurate car depictions, check out adaptations of Kōsuke Fujishima's work, like Ex-Driver and You're Under Arrest.
I would've used at least one episode to show Shoma's character developing (degenerating depending on how you look at it) but it's pretty clear they're on the clock now. Even Fabulous Max is no longer just for fun and giggles.
Polyphonica is one of those shows that doesn't stand out at all, like Venus Vs Virus and I'm pretty sure hardly anybody here has watched that either. The only reason I know about either of them is because I found them at a small anime store by my house by chance.
I would've used at least one episode to show Shoma's character developing (degenerating depending on how you look at it) but it's pretty clear they're on the clock now. Even Fabulous Max is no longer just for fun and giggles.
Polyphonica is one of those shows that doesn't stand out at all, like Venus Vs Virus and I'm pretty sure hardly anybody here has watched that either. The only reason I know about either of them is because I found them at a small anime store by my house by chance.
Nothing hipster about it. I just don't think anybody here watches those, and they are mediocre to begin with. I'm not better for watching them. Probably the opposite lol.
Horizon 2 - Hmm, more history... I like how it's explained as being in a class though, decent way to do it.
This episode at least partially fits with what we have read, but it's still confusing for sure. I'm not sure if it does agree with the novel spoilers or not really... hard to figure out.
First, stealth mode? Why do they need to use a stealth system while traveling over borders, or something? I don't get it...
- The Divine States were the land on the ground, and the Harmonic Divine States a copy of that land that they had created that existed on a separate plane (or "on another world" perhaps?). Okay, this fits with what we had figured out.
-Divine States people were Japanese ("lived in their original world")
-Harmonic Divine States people were from other countries (heh, so half of the world's population is Japanese? Ah... :lol is not possibly enough... unless the Harmonic part was populated like 100 times more than the ground... )
Um, she's a pretty iffy teacher. She makes no attempt at all to get the class to pay attention, huh? Lazy...
-Then - the Nanboku-cho wars, between two Divine States countries. Somehow this is what the Harmonic Divine States people blame the disaster below on, I guess?
-In 1413, the sacred instruments used to support the tectonic plates vanished. No idea why though I guess? Most of the Harmonic Divine States were destroyed, but some parts came down to the Divine States and merged with that land, so the current land is a mix of both, apparently.
-The Harmonic Divine States people blamed the Divine States for the disaster and so began the wars that would lead to their conquering the merged nation.
Okay, all of that fits fine with what we knew.
-to paraphrase, "and then the people who fell to earth from the heavens decided that maybe they could get back to where they had been by following humanity's footsteps". This is in a different class, I assume they are learning about the ancient past long before the history reenactment they are living in began.
:lol, he actually stripped naked...
and all because Suzu was off by a year in the date she mentioned that that war had started in, too (she said 1412). Foolish Tori, though apparently he likes these punishments. Of course, he did choose them, so apparently he chose them with the intent of picking things he didn't mind doing. Anyway though, amusing scene.
And then the series returns to the other plotline, about P-01s, the robot ("automated doll") who was singing in ep. 1
and looks like Horizon, apparently
. Automated dolls are
"born from a soul"? Huh? What does that mean...
Then we learn about that girl with the partial sex change, Masazumi. I hate your sexism, Japan... (Yes, I know the excuse here is that it's a living historical reenactment of sorts. That doesn't make it right darnit.)
Then we return to Tori, being perverted yet again, this time talking to the other students after class about the things he apparently likes about Horizon's body. They're obviously used to him being like this... .... But yeah, a confession letter that includes lines like that (
"I can't decide how I like your chest until I grope it"
)? Yeah, I don't know how well that'd work so well with a real person. Heh.
Then... hmm, is his sister brocon, or are they just close? Can't tell yet. Anyway, her idea is that he should grope another girl with similar sized breasts to Horizon (P-01s)'s. Ah... :lol. No, not hers, they're much larger. She suggests Neit Mitotsudaira's, the girl with the gigantic, body-length drill hair. She's fine with it, apparently, and lets him. She immediately regrets it though, and naturally punishes him through a nearby wall afterwards. Maybe it was that his first words afterwards was a thumbs up and "she was braless" to push her embarrassment high enough to do that? Alternatively, the only "explanation" is the usual "it's anime and it's stupid" explanation for why female characters do things like that. Yes, I know she's a knight and claimed she was doing it as a favor from a knight to a commoner, or something like that, but it was an obvious setup for a repeat of what the teacher did in ep. 1, and indeed that's exactly how it turned out.
So yeah, it was mildly amusing in that common anime joke way, but think about it for two seconds and the scene was completely stupid. Oh well.
Then a bit more about the world:
-The age limit for Far East students is 18, as ep. 1 said.
-"All politics and military affairs are determined by student contention in the Academy"... what? Huh? That makes no sense... politicians are just bureaucrats, and the students somehow actually control the government? But we also know that these students are being controlled by the Harmonic Divine States people. Does this mean that the Divine States people's government is determined by these kids, or something? I don't quit it. At least that explains why ep. 1 made an issue of them changing the world though.
Also, those bodysuits are indeed their school uniforms, not just what they wear in gym class. Huh. Better than yet more standard Japanese school uniforms though...
Oh, and finally, I had to constantly rewatch parts during the history/backstory parts. It was hard to understand and often took multiple times through those parts to get.
Overall, decent episode. We see a bit more of the world, including some other flying ships, and learn a bit more about the world as well. This show is worth watching for sure. Yeah, the characters are pretty generic for the most part, but it mostly either works or is so stupid it's amusing anyway, most of the time. It could be better, but it could also be worse...
I like the writing in this episode for the most part, but the editing was awkward and the animation was lazy. This show is frustrating because it's so close to being a masterpiece but around every corner there's some nagging issue with the execution that drags it down. Ikuhara deserves better.
Mawaru Penguindrum 14:
Why do we hurt each other with superficial words?
This episode was great. Ikuhara gets right to the heart of what makes people tick, and we get an episode which packs one of the most emotional scenes in the series (at least in my opinion). There's also some very interesting revelations, and a lot of great character development. This show is really something special. The dialogue is fantastic, both in what characters say and left unsaid, and it does an amazing job at examining each of its characters. A true masterpiece.
Nobody ever doubted they would. Madoka Magica was a phenomenon. I really don't know why it was, but I do know that show was a fun ride and the characters are memorable.
Nobody ever doubted they would. Madoka Magica was a phenomenon. I really don't know why it was, but I do know that show was a fun ride and the characters are memorable.
Was digging into Steins;Gate so I kind of have been putting this season off for the most part. Even as someone who hates time travel, S;G is probably the best thing I watched this year. Really well done story, likable cast who are fleshed out, and appropriately moody. The time travel still brought up some logistical issues that made no sense
particularly near the ending, when he time traveled back twice but there was no version of Okabe from the first time traveling expedition.
Time travel also inherently carries a curse of losing track of what has and hasn't occurred on a particular timeline. It can be hard to understand Okabe's orientation to the rest of the world is sometimes because of that, and while I understand that the effect is supposed to be passed on to the viewer in some way it still makes me feel disconnected to what I'm watching and breaks immersion. These things were easy to overlook however given how well everything else was handled, so with an exceptional anime like this it is easy to overlook the occasional bump in the road here and there.
Persona 4 The Animation 01
This was really a clunker, and I didn't even expect much. While I have some familiarity with the game version of Persona 4 I've never actually played it. Most everything about this was just bad. The pacing was poor, information just seems to be bluntly shoved at the viewer, and the main character has to be some kind of a joke. The story revolves around him, but in most scenes he comes off as some kind of mannequin who just happens to be sitting in with a bunch of crazy people who have mistaken him for a person. With the way he doesn't really react to anything, and his personality literally not existing, it becomes incredibly hard for me to imagine investing myself in a story that he leads. It begins to defy logic that he has friends. Why do these people want to hang out with him? I don't even know. The illusion created for this world is just really poor. From the outset this feels like a very shoddy adaptation of scenes from a very different medium, and it isn't working. Besides for Chie. And maybe the music, if it actually fit any of the scenes it went along with.
Penguin drum 14 - One of the worst episodes in the series easily, the direction was completely off, there was a clear lack of energy and momentum in a number of the sequences and as a result felt like "stuff happening" with no sense of mood driving it, although i still found the episode to be fairly enjoyable with some good stuff like the first few minutes and dat stylized cg car at least, so it wasn't all bad.
Presumably, things aren't that peaceful. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a "look, we have stealth!" kind of thing :/ It seemed rather randomly thrown out, to be honest; I just assumed they needed it to not get shot down for ... some ... reason.
(Yes, I know the excuse here is that it's a living historical reenactment of sorts. That doesn't make it right darnit.)
some other people, based off of their names, that are from history ... yet don't match the gender so I don't know why exactly she HAD to do it. I'm not even sure if anyone necessarily forced her either or if it was just something her /her family chose to do.
She suggests Neit Mitotsudaira's, the girl with the gigantic, body-length drill hair. She's fine with it, apparently, and lets him. She immediately regrets it though, and naturally punishes him through a nearby wall afterwards. Maybe it was that his first words afterwards was a thumbs up and "she was braless" to push her embarrassment high enough to do that?
Neito agrees to help him, but she wasn't aware of what it was for; she enters after they've gotten past that discussion and is just told it's
to help Toori's confession.
-"All politics and military affairs are determined by student contention in the Academy"... what? Huh? That makes no sense... politicians are just bureaucrats, and the students somehow actually control the government? But we also know that these students are being controlled by the Harmonic Divine States people. Does this mean that the Divine States people's government is determined by these kids, or something? I don't quit it. At least that explains why ep. 1 made an issue of them changing the world though.
My understanding/assumptions of that explanation is that
the world powers (or just the "warriors" involved with the reenactment plans?) are left to the students; the Far East, however, is disadvantaged by the age limit that the rest of the world doesn't have. And then there's the Testament Union overseeing it all so it breaks down, so far, that the Testament Union reigns supreme and then next comes the Students (probably the Student Council) in terms of the hierarchy. The students are just basically the only agents of the system.
Hmm, Lupin. I've never watched the anime or any of the movies - and that one is pretty dated by the looks of it. Would I need to know anything about the series to be able to enjoy it? I'm kind of a animation whore so I tend to have a hard time watching a movie with really old animation. That's one of the reasons that movies like Karas, Origin, etc. appeal to me.
Ashita looks so dated and slow in comparison. I realize that it's, you know, like 30 years old - but I just find it very difficult to watch something that old when I've been spoiled by more modern movies that are absolutely stunning in their presentation and animation quality in comparison.
It's not a fair comparison, at all, but that's how it is.
It's not hard to draw cars. I draw some pretty great ones, myself.
If you want some anime with great accurate car depictions, check out adaptations of Kōsuke Fujishima's work, like Ex-Driver and You're Under Arrest.
To be fair you can check out a whole swathe of shows. Even comedies and romance shows had actual mechanical animation - there was a lot of skilled animators around! I just think that some of the directors/stoyboarders aren't that amazing.
I like the writing in this episode for the most part, but the editing was awkward and the animation was lazy. This show is frustrating because it's so close to being a masterpiece but around every corner there's some nagging issue with the execution that drags it down. Ikuhara deserves better.
I dunno, Utena had some clear budget issues as well (those recaps!, that re-used animation!) but it remained stylish most of the time. I think certain Penguin Drum episode directors aren't all that great.
I dunno, Utena had some clear budget issues as well (those recaps!, that re-used animation!) but it remained stylish most of the time. I think certain Penguin Drum episode directors aren't all that great.
Copihan 4 -5 - Huh... wow, it's an anime not about children? I mean, episodes 1 through 3 were about highschool students as usual in anime, but neither of these episodes are. How uncommon, for anime. Oh, and one of these episodes stars a guy, too. Well, sort of. Oh, for those who haven't watched it, each episode of Copihan, a 5-6 minute episodes show, stars new characters, or at least each episode so far has. It's a sketch comedy show with some strange but often amusing jokes. ALso, every episode ends the same way --
inconclusively. Copihan episodes always end in the middle of something, without resolution or a conclusion. That's its thing, though, and it does work, even if it's frustrating sometimes, because I want to see the rest of the scene, but it ends instead.
But yeah, with these two episodes Gonzo is doing the unexpected clearly... and it works, these are both pretty amusing little episodes. Copihan is one of the better 5-6 minute episode animes I've seen, I think. It's better than Nyanpire, their other 5-6 min per episode show this season. Nyanpire is okay, but this is better. It's often pretty amusing stuff, and it's always at least weird.
Oh, and even if the setting and humor is different, some things are clearly the same, tying it to the first part of the series. Most notably, some of the characters from the previous episodes These two episodes show that even more so than the previous three. Ep. 4 is about a male police officer and the female reporter or something filming a "follow a person for 24 hours" show. He may be the star, but she is at least as central a character to the episode as he is. The ending scene is completely weird, what an odd thing to put in their show... I guess it was kind of amusing, but weird. I imagine that is what they were going for though.
(On that note, apparently this show is set in 2034, I think, though it rarely shows anything that you wouldn't see in 2011.)
As for ep. 5, this one sort of follows up on the ending of that previous episode, just with a different character. The episode being filmed in ep. 4 is referenced here, but this episode is about a woman who has a normal job in the day, but at night is
a dominatrix of sorts in an online chatroom. Yup. She tells the men in the chatroom what things she wants them to do, and they obey her orders. It's amusing, really.
I was told this episode was weird, and again starred adults, and that is indeed true on both counts... Copihan's good stuff, I think. It's completely weird, and doesn't really have a point, but it does succeed at surprising, and often being entertaining.
scy said:
Presumably, things aren't that peaceful. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a "look, we have stealth!" kind of thing :/ It seemed rather randomly thrown out, to be honest; I just assumed they needed it to not get shot down for ... some ... reason.
Yeah, I guess there must be something along the border, but they can go into non-stealth on both sides of the border, they're not hiding or something. It's just odd that while crossing they needed it. There must be some reason, they just didn't tell us.
That's an odd thing, though. There's
some other people, based off of their names, that are from history ... yet don't match the gender so I don't know why exactly she HAD to do it. I'm not even sure if anyone necessarily forced her either or if it was just something her /her family chose to do.
There are? I haven't really been trying to figure out which people represent specific historical figures. Do the main cast (in their class), or are you only talking about sub-characters?
Either way on that, and that is an important issue I'm sure, you are absolutely correct if true -- if there are indeed other characters who are the other gender from who they're "playing", then yes, there was no real reason for her parents to do that. The only excuse I can think of is the one she sort of suggested, that they thought that it'd make her (would-be him) more likely to win, if she was a boy instead. But of course, if you are right, that shouldn't really be too much of a factor, and is sexism anyway, so yeah, that doesn't make it any less wrong, certainly.
Neito agrees to help him, but she wasn't aware of what it was for; she enters after they've gotten past that discussion and is just told it's
Oh, you don't think she knew what they were talking about? I guess she had just walked up, but I was thinking she did know... that would explain it a little better if she didn't, but still, isn't he notorious for such things? She should have known the kind of thing he'd be asking about.[/spoiler]
My understanding/assumptions of that explanation is that
the world powers (or just the "warriors" involved with the reenactment plans?) are left to the students; the Far East, however, is disadvantaged by the age limit that the rest of the world doesn't have. And then there's the Testament Union overseeing it all so it breaks down, so far, that the Testament Union reigns supreme and then next comes the Students (probably the Student Council) in terms of the hierarchy. The students are just basically the only agents of the system.
I mean, who else would write plots about how school children actually sort of
control the fate of countries
? That's such a stereotypically anime thing to do, and even though it's somewhat stupid in concept, it doesn't surprise me at all...
I guess the justification for it is that the idea that this restriction is placed on the Far East nation (this flying ship) by the Testament Union (the ex-Harmonic Divine States government) in order to control them, so that they won't be able to resist as well, not having adult leadership. And on that grounds it makes some sense, maybe. Kind of.
Really though, it sounds much more like an excuse for why this group of kids are the only ones who can save their people than anything else. The excuse is just that, the author just wanted a slightly better reason than usual for why the fate of nations is placed on teenagers and teenagers alone.
