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[iavi]

Working 3We need more episodes without Sota. It's very nice to see that Yamada is the new main character.

Wha? No way. As long as Inami is nowhere to be seen, Souta's pretty fun.

But....

Also more Nazuna replaces Souta episodes.

...That would be pretty cool. She is the best.

 

[trejo]

Working'!! 3

So much better than the first season. And Nazuna is indeed the best with Yamada a close second so when an episode focuses on them, well, greatness ensues.

 

[Crash Station]

Horizon 3

The lack of Smugdouche is really starting to get to me. Is he really the main character? Seems like politics are more important than him

Also, there was a track in this episode that was nearly identical to a Flogging Molly song.

 

[NewFresh]

I need to catch up on the new episodes. Professor Layton has eaten up the last two days of mine. D:

I wish that was what is eating up my time

I still need to watch Guilty Crown...it's staring at me with it's exposed breasts, telling me that I need to watch immediately.

 

[Articalys]

Mirai Nikki 2

It's great to finally see all this becoming animated. Looking forward to some of the moments coming up in the story.

 

[RurouniZel]

I wish that was what is eating up my time

Game not arrive yet? Or just too busy with life?

 

[NewFresh]

Game not arrive yet? Or just too busy with life?

School/life/work and since I have no time to play it, I am holding off till the holidays.

 

[NewFresh]

Since we were on the topic of see-through hair. My new pet peeve are the floating glasses in Bakuman, which only DTL and myself are watching

Spoiler

Upsetting for a variety of reasons

Same basic principle of see-through hair except that they eliminate part of the glasses so you can see the eyes. They also use this angle/scene composition repeatedly which is annoying and lazy.

 

[Risette]

Apparently, the English version of Redline has downmixed, lossy Japanese audio:
http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showpost.php?p=1962891&postcount=66

Anchor Bay's Blu-ray presents the film in 1080p widescreen with both a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD English dubbed track and a 2.0 Dolby Digital Japanese (w/English subtitles) track.

Garbage.

 

[RurouniZel]

School/life/work and since I have no time to play it, I am holding off till the holidays.

That's rough! Good luck! Man, it's so weird. Now that I've been out of school for years I wish I could afford to go back. :/

 

[scy]

Horizon 3

The lack of Smugdouche is really starting to get to me. Is he really the main character? Seems like politics are more important than him

Also, there was a track in this episode that was nearly identical to a Flogging Molly song.

There's something that I'm wondering from this episode. How exactly does Smug-kun convince

Spoiler

Masazumi's dad and the other guy with him to be the ghosts for his party? I mean, I assume that's who they were as they had the pillow covers or whatever in the coach during that scene in the middle of Remorse Way.

 

[Articalys]

And away we go: Live-Action Akira Film Green-Lit by Warner

The Variety entertainment trade magazine is reporting on Wednesday that Warner Bros. has green-lit the live-action film adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga. Production on what Variety describes as a "potential tentpole project" is set to begin in late February or early March. (A "tentpole" franchise is a property which will, in theory, support a studio financially for much of a particular movie season.)

According to Variety, the film's current story goes as follows: "Set in New Manhattan, the cyberpunk sci-fi epic follows the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experiments."

Additional details from said Variety article:

With a greenlight in place, studio can begin shopping for the two main male leads; sources tell Variety that the studio is high on "Tron: Legacy" star Garrett Hedlund, who's considered a front-runner. Both Warners and Collett-Sera have been keen on the thesp, but had to wait for a budget and a greenlight to make their move.

Though no offer's been made, insiders say it's only a matter of time.

...

Katsuhiro Otomo, who wrote and directed the 1988 Japanese anime pic of the same name, will exec produce "Akira."

e: Whoops, didn't notice there was already a thread on this. Continue discussion over there, I guess.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=437293

 

[dimb]

Apparently, the English version of Redline has downmixed, lossy Japanese audio:
http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showpost.php?p=1962891&postcount=66

Garbage.

Maybe the dub is going to be really good.

Maybe. : /

 

[Unknown Soldier]

How the hell did you guys let this thread fall all the way to page 3? For shame!

Mirai Nikki 02:

This is hands-down the show of the season. It's everything I could have hoped for from a show about a whiny teenager and his yandere girlfriend! And it has explosions! Huge, loud explosions which gave my sound system a nice workout! I LOVE EXPLOSIONS! AND I LOVE YUNO!

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Voices of a Distant Star

I just watched a poem.

Like much poetry, this is more concerned with moods and themes than story or characters. Instead of real people, the couple end up being symbols for the idea of star-crossed lovers (literally star-crossed in this case). Sitting back and letting the beautiful visuals and meandering writing wash over you makes for a pleasant half-hour, even if it ends up feeling slight.

For a solo effort, it's very impressive.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon 3 - As some other people have said, this was another somewhat disappointing episode where not much seems to happen. Oh, some of the plotlines move forward slightly, but really, it's only slightly. Some things are happening (

Spoiler

for instance, what was that with an assassin maid or something breaking through a border?

), and there were some interesting things in this episode (most notably, the discussion about what had happened to Horizon, and about the MC and his part in it and trauma about it since), but overall... yeah, it does feel like this could be moving forward a lot faster than it is. This show isn't exactly that good.

Oh well, even if it isn't good, at least I am being entertained enough to keep watching, certainly. For instance, though they are stereotypical, the cast isn't unlikable. Even the MC Tori's somewhat likable in this episode, as he tries to deal with the tragedy in his past... so yeah, it was an okay episode, but they could be doing a lot better with this show. I mean, they should either be making it understandable or fast paced, but they're managing neither, so it both goes somewhat slowly (I thought by now they'd have gotten to that confession) and is so confusing that I feel like I have to watch every episode several times just to understand the details. It works, sure... but is that really the best design?

Anyway though, I expect things to happen soon. There was LOT of foreshadowing in this episode that

Spoiler

the confession would lead to greater events that at this moment they had not forseen

, so I'm expecting that soon... perhaps the idea here is to show how things were for them before everything changed? If so, perhaps then you can justify these three episodes. We'll see.

Ben-To 2 - Why do they take this so seriously. And I actually enjoyed this probably more than I expected I would. Damn you people. Damn you.

Why do they take it so seriously? Who knows, but it's definitely better that way. I mean, that seriousness about something so stupid is what makes the show what it is, after all.

Senjou no Horizon 3 - I'm too tired to words explosion all over the place. More Asama is never a bad thing to me, though ... uh ... her outfit. Also, I didn't know that Suzu

Spoiler

was blind; I thought it was just typical anime bangs

.

Name wise, we're shown

Spoiler

Honda Tadakatsu, Sakakibara Yasumasa

and there's a reference to the missing member of the Four Heavenly Kings,

Spoiler

Ii Naomasa, who isn't a student I guess based off the wording. I figured Nao Masa, the girl with the giant wrench, would've been the fourth based off the name, but explaining how a student had that position was a bit hard...

.

I don't remember Sengoku generals' names by heart, so I'll have to look those names up...

Anyway, this episode gives us

Spoiler

a new student? I'm not really sure the relevancy with that, Tori being utterly ridiculous, and some more blanks filled in on Horizon and Tori (namely, her being the daughter of Motonobu Matsudaira/Tokugawa Ieyasu it seems and that Tori is "responsible" for her death). Some mysterious shenanigans that are hopefully the start of a real plot.

I imagine we'll learn something about the new student in the future, but yeah, for now we don't know. The joke in that part -- about him being shy about the fact that the people in charge

Spoiler

decided to have him room with a girl and weren't willing to change that after he complained (oh, and he's shyer about it than she is; we don't know their reasoning though, it isn't mentioned)

was amusing. But as for the character, we'll have to see.

Spoiler

Oh, also, I wouldn't say that he's responsible for her death. I mean, because he was there he clearly had a role, but main responsibility? Didn't seem that way to me...

Something really needs to happen. Barring info dumps for our benefit, it doesn't feel like three episodes of content actually went by. Though, on the bright side, I think I know the name of everyone in the class that I'll probably give a damn about (which is basically everyone but a few of the guys :/)

As I said in my review though, there was a lot of foreshadowing of future events... the question is, how quickly will they happen? We'll see.

Or it's the kind of show that you need to stop watching, which the show is actually trying to communicate to you through all that confusion.

Or alternately watch multiple times, in order to fully appreciate its plot and characters.

I didn't want to write too much about it but I agree that the darker tone, one that the series also took near the end, was pretty interesting. But I went into it hoping for a little more crazy since it was the OVA and left feeling disappointed.

Well, it was made before the TV series, not after it, remember, so it's not surprising that the tone is somewhat different... but yes, I also was expecting more comedy and silly stuff, while instead more than half of the two episodes were entirely focused on depression and having the girls fail, lose, and be hurt, before finally they came back in the end. It wasn't really what I was expecting, but it was well done and interesting, so I'd say it was good.

Is it more Disney? Yes, it is.

Does it look better? I don't think so.

I think that for marketing to a broader American audinece it will work better than the original. They did a similar thing to the Ponyo poster, where it looked less classically hand drawn.

But from an artistic point of view I think the original, while not perfect, was better.

I like that US Ponyo poster too, I don't think the somewhat different art style makes it worse... I don't know that it's better than the original one, but it's not really worse either.

The majority of voters agree with Branduil's opinion of Angel Beats.

B Final
1st 377 Erica Hartmann @ Strike Witches
2nd 323 Kanade Tachibana @ Angel Beats!

http://i.imgur.com/VZ5go.png

All kinds of crazy shit going on in the group finals. At this rate I'd say there's even a good chance of one or two of the Puella Magi getting taken out.

Also I just realized that the very existence of this contest probably just adds fuel to the fire of that CyberConnect 2 guy's argument, but whatever.

You know better than that, it just means that Strike Witches is even more popular than Angel Beats, not anything like that. Both had good scores.

Also, while eventually some of the Madoka characters will have to lose, I don't think it'll be this time...

Wait, I was wrong. Apparently the first Saimoe, way back in 2002, didn't have recency restrictions.

Misato and Yui both lost instantly, Maya barely made it one round, Ristuko won twice, Asuka made it three victories before losing to Tomoyo of CCS, and Hikari lasted the same length but was defeated by someone from Pita-Ten. Rei went the farthest, winning four times, but was knocked out by the same Pita-Ten character, by one vote.

For completion's sake, that Pita-Ten character would lose to Doremi, who would herself lose to Sakura Kinomoto, the eventual first champion.

Huh, it's interesting to see that the Eva characters have never won.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Voices of a Distant Star

I just watched a poem.

Like much poetry, this is more concerned with moods and themes than story or characters. Instead of real people, the couple end up being symbols for the idea of star-crossed lovers (literally star-crossed in this case). Sitting back and letting the beautiful visuals and meandering writing wash over you makes for a pleasant half-hour, even if it ends up feeling slight.

For a solo effort, it's very impressive.

There are still people out there who haven't seen this?

 

[Branduil]

Voices of a Distant Star

I just watched a poem.

Like much poetry, this is more concerned with moods and themes than story or characters. Instead of real people, the couple end up being symbols for the idea of star-crossed lovers (literally star-crossed in this case). Sitting back and letting the beautiful visuals and meandering writing wash over you makes for a pleasant half-hour, even if it ends up feeling slight.

For a solo effort, it's very impressive.

Your first cloud porn experience?

 

[Jex]

And away we go: Live-Action Akira Film Green-Lit by Warner

Still not going to happen, probably.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

There are still people out there who haven't seen this?

There are a lot of shows about which you could say to me, "Why haven't you seen this yet!" It'd probably take me a year to get through them all. Or longer.

Your first cloud porn experience?

And what clouds they were!

 

[Unknown Soldier]

THE IDORUM@STER 15:

Yeah, yeah, I know. LTTP, catching up on everything tonight. -_-

The Hibiki Ganaha Challenge!
Takane Shijou's Ramen Expedition!
Mami and Ami...uh. Right.
Haruka getting a box top right in the face!
Miki ending every sentence she says with -nano!
Iori getting called Forehead-chan by Miki!
Chihaya....being Chihaya. Nevermind. >_>
Makoto's bishounen rating increasing to 9,005!

AND THAT FUCKING AWESOME "TRAILER" FOR A GIANT ROBOT ANIME MOVIE STARRING THE CAST! They've managed to work in refenences to Haruka's face (in a previous episode) AND Dark Haruka (in this episode) into this show! And yes, I'm pretty sure this trailer is supposed be both itself a parody of giant robot anime movies and also a shout out to Xenoglossia.

THIS EPISODE WAS 24 MINUTES OF HIGH QUALITY GLORIOUS DISTILLED INTO HIGHLY PURIFIED GLORIOUSNESS USING A PATENTED TECHNIQUE FOR DISTILLING GLORIOUS INTO A 99.99% PURE FORM!

 

[darkside31337]

Voices of a Distant Star

I just watched a poem.

Like much poetry, this is more concerned with moods and themes than story or characters. Instead of real people, the couple end up being symbols for the idea of star-crossed lovers (literally star-crossed in this case). Sitting back and letting the beautiful visuals and meandering writing wash over you makes for a pleasant half-hour, even if it ends up feeling slight.

For a solo effort, it's very impressive.

Shinkai's works, if for nothing else, are absolutely worth watching because they truly are stunning on a visual level. It's a very satisfying feeling that is invoked from the beauty of his stuff. So yeah it's cloud porn.

Still not going to happen, probably.

And thankfully.

 

[Jex]

Since we were on the topic of see-through hair. My new pet peeve are the floating glasses in Bakuman, which only DTL and myself are watching

Spoiler

Upsetting for a variety of reasons

http://i.imgur.com/w4XV4.png

Same basic principle of see-through hair except that they eliminate part of the glasses so you can see the eyes. They also use this angle/scene composition repeatedly which is annoying and lazy.

Imagine if movies did this so that you could 'see the emotions' of the characters. Yeah, it's just as dumb as that would be.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Apparently, the English version of Redline has downmixed, lossy Japanese audio:
http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showpost.php?p=1962891&postcount=66

Garbage.

This is done to prevent reverse importation. It's why the Disney Blu-ray releases of the Ghibli films outside of Japan also only have lossy audio. Yeah, it's bullshit of the highest order, but they need to support the ridiculous pricing of anime in Japan somehow in the face of Japan and North America both being in Blu-ray Region A.

 

[Branduil]

And what clouds they were!

I like TPPIOED the best of his works, though I think most people prefer Voices. All of his movies are worth watching, well, I can't say that for sure about his new one that I haven't seen, but the others are all good experiences. Even if he does lay it on heavy and thick with the monologuing and mono no aware.

 

[Jex]

I'm guessing you mean

Spoiler

when Arata and Taichi were arguing and Chihaya's hand literally rips apart the scene as she was tearing down the poems off her wall

, because that was pretty damn cool.

Well, it's a transition that you can actually remember, it's clearly pretty sweet.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I like TPPIOED the best of his works, though I think most people prefer Voices. All of his movies are worth watching, well, I can't say that for sure about his new one that I haven't seen, but the others are all good experiences. Even if he does lay it on heavy and thick with the monologuing and mono no aware.

I actually like The Place Promised the most of his films too. It was by far the most ambitious in scope and even though the sci-fi and romance elements meshed really unevenly, especially compared to Voices, it had a great deal of ambition that 5 Centimeters really lacked by comparison. And it had a fantastic violin piece which underlies the entire film's soundtrack.

 

[Branduil]

Imagine if movies did this so that you could 'see the emotions' of the characters. Yeah, it's just as dumb as that would be.

Technically, they do do this kind of thing. I mean, obviously not see-through hair exactly, but then you're not going to see a character in a live-action movie who has hair in their face all the time. And of course things like lighting, editing, close-ups, etc., are all tools that can be used to show emotion in ways that are not realistic, but they still work.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the argument that it's a poorly-executed art style is better than arguing it's bad because it's not realistic or present in live-action movies.

 

[Articalys]

On the topic of Makoto Shinkai, might as well point out that all three of his films are free streaming on Crunchyroll through Saturday, though apparently there are some regional restrictions in place that seem to vary between the films. Give it a shot and see what works for you.

http://www.crunchyroll.com/voices-of-a-distant-star
http://www.crunchyroll.com/place-promised-in-our-early
http://www.crunchyroll.com/5-centimeters-per-second

Guess this is as good a time as any for me to watch Voices and finish up the trio for myself.

 

[Risette]

This is done to prevent reverse importation. It's why the Disney Blu-ray releases of the Ghibli films outside of Japan also only have lossy audio. Yeah, it's bullshit of the highest order, but they need to support the ridiculous pricing of anime in Japan somehow in the face of Japan and North America both being in Blu-ray Region A.

What? Nausicaa US BD has lossless 24-bit audio for all three audio tracks.

Please do not post misinformation!

 

[Jex]

Technically, they do do this kind of thing. I mean, obviously not see-through hair exactly, but then you're not going to see a character in a live-action movie who has hair in their face all the time. And of course things like lighting, editing, close-ups, etc., are all tools that can be used to show emotion in ways that are not realistic, but they still work.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the argument that it's a poorly-executed art style is better than arguing it's bad because it's not realistic or present in live-action movies.

I think both can be true. I mean, those also all techniques avilable to an anime director.

Anyway, 'close up camera work' etc might not be very naturalistic, but it is at least physically possible, where as eye's just appearing through solid hair is not.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

On the topic of Makoto Shinkai, might as well point out that all three of his films are free streaming on Crunchyroll through Saturday, though apparently there are some regional restrictions in place that seem to vary between the films. Give it a shot and see what works for you.

http://www.crunchyroll.com/voices-of-a-distant-star
http://www.crunchyroll.com/place-promised-in-our-early
http://www.crunchyroll.com/5-centimeters-per-second

Guess this is as good a time as any for me to watch Voices and finish up the trio for myself.

Yeah, that's why I watched Voices.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

What? Nausicaa US BD has lossless 24-bit audio for all three audio tracks.

Please do not post misinformation!

OH SHIT

Nausicaa has DTS-HD Master Audio for all available tracks?! Fuck me, I'm in. I skipped Ponyo because of the bullshit with the audio on that release.

 

[trejo]

Voices is still my favorite Shinkai. Place and 5 cms I can swap around for second place.

 

[Branduil]

I think both can be true. I mean, those also all techniques avilable to an anime director.

Anyway, 'close up camera work' etc might not be very naturalistic, but it is at least physically possible, where as eye's just appearing through solid hair is not.

Yeah, but physical impossibility isn't a good reason by itself not to do something in an animated medium.

 

[Articalys]

Yeah, that's why I watched Voices.

That's what I figured, I just didn't know if anyone had mentioned it before and wanted to bring it up before it was too late, in case others also want to watch it.

 

[Crash Station]

Azazel-San 12

Oh shit!

Spoiler

Beelzebub

 

[Instro]

And away we go: Live-Action Akira Film Green-Lit by Warner

Additional details from said Variety article:


e: Whoops, didn't notice there was already a thread on this. Continue discussion over there, I guess.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=437293

Well seems like they have fixed the story at least. Jaume Collet-Serra is an interesting choice to direct, iirc WB has been trying to get him to helm a comic book/major film for some time now, since the big success of his previous two film. Certainly could have done worse, and it looks like it will be getting a pretty decent budget as well.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Working'!! 3

That's some family Sota has.

 

[trejo]

Working'!! 3

That's some family Sota has.

I like that his sister doesn't like the idea of him having a girlfriend not because of her own feelings for him but rather because she's worried that he'll stop cleaning up after her if he gets a life of his own.

 

[jman2050]

Mirai Nikki 02:

This is hands-down the show of the season. It's everything I could have hoped for from a show about a whiny teenager and his yandere girlfriend! And it has explosions! Huge, loud explosions which gave my sound system a nice workout! I LOVE EXPLOSIONS! AND I LOVE YUNO!

Should have just read the manga like all the cool kids did!

 

[firehawk12]

Since we were on the topic of see-through hair. My new pet peeve are the floating glasses in Bakuman, which only DTL and myself are watching

Spoiler

Upsetting for a variety of reasons

It's called Boringman for a reason.

 

[A Huge Battleship]

Mirai Nikki 2

Dat OP. Dat Yuno. Dat Minene.

 

[zeroshiki]

It's called Boringman for a reason.

While I admit to a curiosity towards the anime, its so far behind the manga that I can't muster up the motivation to watch it.

 

[Crash Station]

Mirai Nikki 2

Minene <3. The scene was handled very well. Dat escape.

Looks like this is going to be a good adaptation. Will do the OT tomorrow.

 

[Branduil]

While I admit to a curiosity towards the anime, its so far behind the manga that I can't muster up the motivation to watch it.

The premise was so incredibly dumb and irritating that I dropped it immediately.

 

[zeroshiki]

The premise was so incredibly dumb and irritating that I dropped it immediately.

I actually found the concept of creating manga kinda interesting. At the very least it was educational to find out how borked the manga system is.

 

[mAcOdIn]

Or alternately watch multiple times, in order to fully appreciate its plot and characters.

So, there's no bad shows only viewers that just didn't try hard enough? Ok....

 

[Branduil]

I actually found the concept of creating manga kinda interesting. At the very least it was educational to find out how borked the manga system is.

No, that's not the premise I'm talking about.

 

[Crash Station]

No, that's not the premise I'm talking about.

The premise you're talking about is secondary, but I guess unimportant stuff can ruin a whole series like Penguin Drum episode 10. Oh wait...