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.
a popular theory is that the Okabe we see now is technically the second Okabe to have gone through the same series of events. Since the one from the future had never succeeded, and since he had to trick his past self, it's presumed that the present Okabe on the Alpha worldline would complete the loop his futureself had created in order to get to the Steins;gate line.
But yeah, this stuff does get real tricky, and I did enjoy reading your thoughts on the show.
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?
Well, I'm not 100% sure either now that I try to think of precise mismatched gender examples (barring one other:
Ii Naomasa, with Naomasa being one of the students, though I can't imagine one of the students being one of the big four Generals...
; I might have jumped to a conclusion there based off some of the dialogue and some of the names.
Anyway, there's a few names that match up with historical figures at least partially and, considering the scenario, it feels like they're supposed to be references. Off-hand, of the main cast:
Shirojiro, Kiyonari, Naomasa, and Naruse call to mind things from the period that they could be referencing, though not a single one is a full name match to make this rather obvious
.
The old man (Musashi's Principal) is a pretty big and obvious one so far though:
Sakai Tadatsugu
; it's pretty "obvious" since that's his actual name so it's not even guessing at who he's "supposed" to be.
Plus,
there's always the option that some "take on" a role based off their actions, regardless of gender; Masazumi felt more like a casting call thing
. Regardless, sad story.
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.
Well, Kimi asked her to give her help, not Toori. But, yeah, still should have been some suspicion. Probably more there for the slapstick of it.
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.
Yeah, it really feels more like "I want to use a high school student setting ... now how do I explain this..." thing. We'll see, though; maybe there's something behind it besides that.
Majikoi 2 - I think I actually liked this better than the first episode. Despite the constant action, the first episode disappointed me; this time, though, coming in with quite low expectations, it ended up being a little better than I expected. This is without doubt a bad show, though. It's yet another subpar H-game adaptation, no better than these usually are. Come in with low expectations and you might be a little bit entertained.
As for this episode, in this episode the cast is trying to accomplish a mission, that being catching a teacher's runaway dog. It's a ninja dog of sorts though, quite able at escape. The characters almost catch it several times, but things always get in their way, for instance the angry people (because the dog went into changing rooms in a womens' clothing store and they followed it), etc. At one point, after finding the dog in the bath room with them (peeking of course, as if dogs would care), they chase it around (naked) and catch it... only to realize that they had entered the room the MC is in. Of course they promptly let it go and beat it up, as if it's somehow his fault. If that was funny, it was only so because it's a joke anime has used a million times, or more.
Anyway, the climax of the episode comes when they corner the dog in a warehouse.
After immobilizing it, they realize that the warehouse is full of heavy weapons, such as machine guns, miniguns, etc. Then a horde of random thug guys in suits appears, and attack the characters with their guns. Of course, they're all fine, either able to dodge the bullets or, in one case, cut them in half in the air. The more threatening villains are three female enemies in black ninja suits. They're actually able to fight, unlike the guys, and escape
. The episode ends with setup for a continuing plot.
Oh, and this city isn't in the greatest of shape, it seems -- the episode points out grafitti all over the place, for instance. I did find that kind of interesting, you wouldn't see something like that often in this kind of anime. I don't expect this series actually to get dark, though, but I imagine it'll go somewhere with that ending (maybe in a comical direction? Who knows).
Oh, and at the beginning of the episode, the MC foils the blue haired girl's attempt at a sexual advance by using a dummy in his bed. It did make me wonder though, is this a show like the source material, or completely different? It doesn't really matter, the chances in these things (when making it into an anime) are improvements as often as not, I just don't know.
darkside31337 said:
MajiKoi 1
...
What the hell? This episode was CRAZY. It was Horizon levels of infodump (mainly just introducing seemingly all 300 characters this show has in less than 20 minutes) but it was ALL Action all the time. Like Dog Days without the creepy furry stuff going on. I'm not sure what the hell I watched, there was so much going on, and it wasn't particularly good either. But gratuitous amounts of fanservice and ACTION ACTION ACTION ACTION all over the place. Intrigued enough to check out the next episode.
Eh, yeah, bit was full of action, but I didn't think it was particularly good... Majikoi is definitely a bad show. It might be generic-harem-action-show entertaining, but it certainly isn't good. And as for that action, it's not up to Dog Days' level, in my opinion. That show's action episodes were pretty good, but this one was not at that level. I almost dropped the show after one episode. After ep. 2 I will be continuing, but it's definitely not a particularly interesting show.
chickdigger802 said:
Boku Ha Tomodachi Ga Sukunai 2
Still not sure what to think about this show...
But hey, Ass shot with no glimpse of panties? That's my type of 'censorship'.
It is kind of amusing when the effort to avoid showing a pantyshot results in an implication of nopan instead, yeah...
Joule said:
Ben-to 1: You might as well just learn to cook bro. Or get more bang for you buck than one off half price lunch boxes. So the wacky premising is some sort of fight manga with harem staged in a supermarket where people fight for lunch boxes. I hope there's some substantial in this. A good bad show to watch for sure.
Yeah, if it stays this good it'll be one of the more amusing shows of the season. We'll see though, it certainly could go either way.
Majikoi 2: Much less energetic than the first episode. A cliched romp where the cast finds a dog. They stumble upon some weapon dealers/smugglers at the end I guess. A pretty dull episode that didn't really involve much fighting that wasn't pans/speedlines or overtop ridiculous. I guess I did like the initial bit where one of the girls sneaks into the MC's bed and the dummy he propped there had phallic cucumber attached.
Horizon 2: A bunch of talking about things. I'm not quite sure I understand the whole retracing history thing but I don't know if I want to bother looking into it. Damn at Masazumi almost having to become transgendered though. Hopefully the next episode isn't as exposition heavy. I need some duck hat ninjas, roboarm girls and perverted mechas laying down something action.
She didn't have to be, her parents (or father) are just stupidly sexist. But yeah, the exposition was good, it gave a lot of needed information, once you watch those parts again to decipher what they were saying. It is stuff that's worth knowing if you want to understand the series.
I thought the episode had a decent balance between backstory exposition, continuing the main plot, and humor. There were issues with all three parts of it, sure, but that's because of the nature of the show. While it's okay, it certainly could be better I think.
hosannainexcelsis said:
I should be fair to Horizon, as I have not read the light novels and only made it about 10 minutes into the first episode of the anime before I threw up my hands and walked away. Most of my knowledge is based on skimming plot summaries both outside and inside this thread. It is quite possible that the original novels actually develop a compelling cast of multi-faceted characters I can sympathize with and root for, weave in a variety of themes on which they have worthwhile things to say, and have what seem like shocking plot twists that upon rereading make total sense, where you can see the multitude of hints that should have made you aware of what was really going on if only you weren't distracted by the author's deft slight of hand. If that is actually the case, I will have to take back everything bad I said about Horizon.
I will say that the way Umineko sets up the story in its first episode, as a fairly traditional closed-circle impossible crime with a supernatural atmosphere surrounding it, is much more approachable than Horizon's post-apocalyptic rewriting of history in multiple dimensions to save the law of causation or I don't even know what.
And let's just agree to ignore the Umineko anime, shall we?
The first ten minutes of the first episode says almost nothing about Horizon's plot, and only a little bit about its characters too... maybe it's representative of the nature of the show, but certainly not of much else, particularly if you didn't get through the episode.
I can certainly see disliking the show, though. It has plenty of significant issues.
BluWacky said:
I'm just amazed that people found Horizon interesting enough to devote time to working it out. The first episode couldn't even hold my interest to pay enough attention to realise there WAS anything to work out - I suppose it was an effective way to introduce an enormous cast of characters but it doesn't exactly lend itself to endearing a viewer to care about any of them beyond their surface quirks (maybe that's the point?). And the lead character doesn't seem interesting, just irritating - oh look, a hyper-competent pervert, how droll.
So far I've only found Chihayafuru interesting this season. My three most anticipated shows - Un-Go, Last Exile 2 and Guilty Crown - have yet to premiere, so I'm not worried. Pingdrum is more than enough goodness for any year.
At least through two episodes, the backstory and world are a lot more interesting than the main group of characters themselves, certainly. I think that's fine -- I find the backstory part interesting, and don't really mind of the characters have less depth -- but I imagine people who focus more on wanting deeper characters wouldn't like that.
But yeah, trying to figure out the story is a nice mystery, definitely made me want to figure it out.
I don't even know. But having the aftermath of Ringo moving past becoming Momoka involve someone else not allowing her to move past it is pretty good I guess. More Kanba unscrupulousness is always good too.
So disappointed in lack of a new OP with the awesome song though : (
Guilty Crown 1
Overall okay enough for a first episode, but Shu is the worst.
So he is a failure at social interactions and wants to cry himself away from situations he doesn't like. Okay, honestly just on its own I wouldn't be up in arms over that. I mean, I don't really mind Shinji.
But for it to work, it has to be executed or presented well, which it isn't, and not be in my Code Geass substitute, which it is.
I am really hoping that it is just first episode jitters and we aren't going to be spending the next ten episodes dealing with his cowardice issues. It better be stamped out by episode 2 or I will be cross : (
eroge skit was made even better by the added voice over,
I was laughing so hard when Semoponume demanded the
first 'slut' to beat it.
Really, I was dying.
This adaptation has the added fanservice, but it seems to be a competent one as far as content goes. The designs have even grown on me, aside from the randomly occurring snaggle tooth. I'll be sticking with this one. That ep was l.o.l funny.
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.
Anyway, for the most part, those who could make mechanical animation shine with these kind of resources (constrictions, better said) are either dead, too old now, or maybe have forgotten how to work on things like these efficiently after all this years of being dedicated to other tasks.
This is not a good show. I guess we can expect as much, considering the standard quality of Gonzo, but you would think they would at least try when reviving one of the more popular properties they used to have. Nope. It's shit. The direction is by-the-books, the characters aren't particularly interesting, the setting doesn't inspire much interest or hope for more interesting developments in the series, and the pacing for the first episode is so slow and pointless that it is mind boggling that anyone would think this would be a good showcase of Gonzo "returning" to the industry in a major way.
Oh and the CG work reminded me of early PS1 and Saturn RPG FMVs back in the day (many of which were done by Gonzo as well!) where the CG is so simplistic and obvious, with low framerate animation, while the 2D scenes are either imposed over it or used as a background frame. Looks really awful, and it was like a time warp of the most unpleasant kind.
That's disappointing. I really loved the original Last Exile series.
It really sucked me into that world and I was pretty hyped when a new volume would come out.
This is not a good show. I guess we can expect as much, considering the standard quality of Gonzo, but you would think they would at least try when reviving one of the more popular properties they used to have. Nope. It's shit. The direction is by-the-books, the characters aren't particularly interesting, the setting doesn't inspire much interest or hope for more interesting developments in the series, and the pacing for the first episode is so slow and pointless that it is mind boggling that anyone would think this would be a good showcase of Gonzo "returning" to the industry in a major way.
Rather than being all love, the attitude Ringo showed in this last episode is in part an extension of that remorse generated from that accident's situation, and the posterior second 'death' of Himari. She even acknowledges, in this same episode, that the way she tackled the situation (the way she approximated and tried to talk) with Shōma was excessively forced and condescending, out of pity, although she really shows true love, of course, but that doesn't reaches him.
I think it isn't a question of 'I love you, but now I don't want to show it to you, and now I want to', is more a question of 'this situation is confusing and I don't know how to express myself towards him without hurting him more'.
This is not a good show. I guess we can expect as much, considering the standard quality of Gonzo, but you would think they would at least try when reviving one of the more popular properties they used to have. Nope. It's shit. The direction is by-the-books, the characters aren't particularly interesting, the setting doesn't inspire much interest or hope for more interesting developments in the series, and the pacing for the first episode is so slow and pointless that it is mind boggling that anyone would think this would be a good showcase of Gonzo "returning" to the industry in a major way.
Oh and the CG work reminded me of early PS1 and Saturn RPG FMVs back in the day (many of which were done by Gonzo as well!) where the CG is so simplistic and obvious, with low framerate animation, while the 2D scenes are either imposed over it or used as a background frame. Looks really awful, and it was like a time warp of the most unpleasant kind.
Cat's Eye for example! I have here the complete show with 73 episodes, great anime and it's part of the same universe with City Hunter and Angel Heart.
Cat's Eye for example! I have here the complete show with 73 episodes, great anime and it's part of the same universe with City Hunter and Angel Heart.
I was browsing a brick & mortar media store earlier and I noticed they had The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and The Girl Who Leapt Through Space. I sure hope people don't get those confused!
I was browsing a brick & mortar media store earlier and I noticed they had The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and The Girl Who Leapt Through Space. I sure hope people don't get those confused!
