• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Autumn Anime 2017 |OT| Makes us all rotten

blurr

Member
No, after watching the last episode the events of episode 9 actually make better sense. If anything the delivery was a bit over the top.
 
Shokugeki no Soma S3, Episode 2 - Another nice setup episode. I really love the humor of this series.

tumblr_oxmr8ilPkR1r2r59eo2_1280.jpg

I can totally relate with Soma here. I never knew the lyrics to my school anthem either.

*checks food wars wiki to make sure he is the right guy*

oh, uh surprising info there.

Bruh, you set yourself up for spoilers there.
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
yeah this guy, he came out of no where. He looks like the type of person who is created just to lose.

*checks food wars wiki to make sure he is the right guy*

oh, uh surprising info there.

Oh, I misread your post and thought you were talking about S3.

He actually should've appeared in Season 1, but the way they ended it they didn't really have an opportunity.
 

DNAbro

Member
Oh, I misread your post and thought you were talking about S3.

He actually should've appeared in Season 1, but the way they ended it they didn't really have an opportunity.

Still catching up on it. It's currently my "I should be doing something but I don't want to so I guess I'll watch this" show.
 

brawly

Member
Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul | Ep 1

No idea what hell is going on but it looks pretty good. Digging the OP, though nowhere near the legendary first one.
 
Bubblegum Crisis-

I have no clue how I ended up watching this, but I did. This is a super old OVA series that started in the late 1980s and it chronicles a group of girls in exosuits called Knight Sabers, who combat Boomers. The show never really explains what Boomers are but they generally appear to be cyborgs provided by a corporation called Genom, although at times the Boomers seem closer to androids. The four girls are Priss, Linna, Sylia, and Nene.

The main girl is Priss who runs a band called Priss and the Replicants. Her VA is Kinuko Oomori who pretty much only did a couple of roles and stopped altogether to focus on her singing career. It's somewhat interesting, not that she gave up on the VA side but her voice itself is very atypical for anime. Her voice has a tone to it that's not quite husky but still a bit rough. She did the singing for a lot of the theme and insert songs as well. The anime at times reminded me of Streets of Fire due to the focus on music and singers, especially the first episode with the concert. Priss is the sassiest so of course she was my favorite of the four. Linna is kind of bland as she's the kind-hearted one of the group but she does get two of the strongest episodes that focus largely on her. Irene didn't deserve that. SHE DIDN'T DESERVE IT. Nene is the rookie and mostly incompetent however the final episode's attention centers on her which ends up making her into a pretty decent character. Her reaction face game is on point. Sylia is the leader and bankrolls the entire operation. She's just sort of in the background and is more the emotional rock than anything else. The main villain and her have a history, in that he murdered her father, but it's never explored beyond just being an event that happens and the two hate each other. There's also Mack who is Sylia's brother and he's the support of the group as he fixes their cycles and mechs but his main characteristic is that he pervs on his sister. I'm about 80 percent sure it's just his sister he's interested in too.

There are 8 episodes in Crisis and after the first three I wasn't particularly feeling the show. Each of the episodes are largely episodic but you could detect a pattern and the minor character deaths were getting old and extremely forced. One woman runs into a building that is in the active process of demolition to get cash she saved up and gets killed, leaving her son without parents. The moment anybody told their backstory, down came the axe. Episode 4 and beyond does a much better job of cutting back on that trope or making the deaths feel more integrated into the episode.

The Boomer story arc, which takes up about four episodes, is definitely the weakest part of the series. Boomers are a fairly boring enemy as they're the generic biomechanical enemy you see in most OVAs from the 1980s. Their designs are bad, they generally don't show much intellect, and most of the fights are straight forward. Episode 5 and 6 are a bit better as they have Boomers that act and look like humans but I was already sick of them by episode 2. The above image is an example of a Boomer that looks human, Sylvie, as she's a sexbot Boomer and her struggle to free herself and her friend was fairly good. It reminded me a bit of Blade Runner with the whole Replicant aspect, which I'm sure was intentional. There was also a morally grey component to their fight as Sylvie and Anri, her friend, just wanted to be free but they were also killing people in the process.

My favorite episodes were the ones that told smaller stories and focused less on some larger picture. Episode 4 was a highlight as it had a mechanic who was victimized by a motorcycle gang and he decides to take matters into his own hands. It's a minor story that happens in this cyberpunk city but because it doesn't involve some grand conspiracy, it's more personal as a result. The audience can see him slowly become more unhinged as the episode progresses and you're not sure whether it's his own psychosis or the machine driving him mad. Episode 7 was another surprising treat as it focuses on Irene's sister who has come for revenge. Funnily enough the plot of this episode happened because Priss's VA, Kinuko Oomori, threatened to back out of the entire anime and they found a replacement. There was such a huge fan backlash though that the producers scrambled and came to terms with Kinuko's agents. I liked though that there were emotional consequences to episode 2. Also, Vision was pretty cool and worked as a good contrast to Priss.

The best episode though is the final one as it follows Nene as she has to deal with Lisa, who is the police chief's niece and a novice reporter. This was a great episode that not only fleshed out Nene's daily life and personality but also why the Knight Sabers fight and how the public views them. Sylia and Lisa have a minor conversation on a couch at night and it gives a good insight into both their views. Not to mention I liked the Nene bullying. The finale was fantastic too with the attack on AD Police Headquarters. Not so much due to the Boomers but because it puts Nene initially into an unusual situation and later with Lisa trying to escape. The character animation in Lisa's segments are phenomenal and the above webm was animated by Takeshi Honda, of Gainax fame.

Can you tell this was made in the 80s? The animation was surprisingly good most of the time as I expected it to be more stiff considering how detailed the mechanical models were. The sakuga general were in spurts but they were enough. I was impressed with the background art which nailed the cyberpunk tone they were going for and some of the later episodes reminded me of Ogura's city work in GITS. You don't see this art style much anymore and Kenichi Sonoda's character designs are a crucial part of that. Why doesn't he still do character design work nowadays? His stuff is so good.

I'm sort of mixed on the series as I didn't enjoy the Boomer content, I didn't completely hate all of it either, but I loved the rest of the episodes. The second half of the series is definitely stronger than the first half. The characters are the strong point of the show which is good but it too often gets bogged down with Boomer fights that I don't particularly care about. It oozes style though from the theatrical musical openings to the cyberpunk design work. The female focus should also be mentioned as we don't see many action anime like this. I can easily see why this was popular in its era. The guy who peddled anime on me, back when I was an innocent child, gave me the VHS tapes but I don't think I ever watched them. I regret that as I would have probably liked this a lot more when I was younger but I still had a ton of fun.

good review, but i really wish you would have went into more how the music is integrated into the oavs and does a large part in setting the tone of each episode. some parts of BGC almost feel like an 80s music video lol (the hurricane live videos, do this along with some live action footage of the seiyuu doing there thing). For a modern viewer the disjointedness and largely standalone nature of the majority of BGC might be a turn off to many(ep 1-3 are largely connected and are basically one arc, 4 is standalone 5-6 are connected 7 and 8 are standalone), but as a child of the 80s i find it to this day to be one of my favorite anime of all times, and would have loved to see the world expanded. BG crash and 2040 really doesn't count.
 

dimb

Bjergsen is the greatest midlane in the world
wake up girls shin shou 01
lots of focus on static shots but the layouts are a little underwhelming, and you can tell there really is a lack of confidence or experience on the production end just by how the camera keeps needlessly panning around in its desperation to create motion. it gets obnoxious pretty fast when you regularly have a pan in one direction cutting to a pan in a completely unrelated direction. this is taken to an extreme during the cg dance sequence where the camera just takes some wild tilts that only create confusion.

the story is pretty directionless and there aren't really specific characters that pop in most scenes. it isn't boring but it also just feels....incomplete. i'll also say that wug has the best music of any of these dumb idol shows i've watched recently.

idolmaster side m 00+01
there's a better character focus here that makes the storytelling a little more grabbing initially, but the characters feel so absurdly hollow that i lost interest pretty quickly. fujoshi stuff is just the worst about this i guess. stoic red hair leader, standoffish cool blue hair guy with glasses, guy who wears green with a soft and calm personality that tries to bring people together........resident sleeper. jupiter was slightly better during 00 but still sort of just boring, as the interactions between the characters always just feel so dull. the whole starting from square one with idols is always going to be super boring to me i think, and you don't even get a song or dance sequence in the first episode. it's not like this is poorly made or anything but i really don't see a reason to watch it when it has such little personality.

love live sunshine 01
it's still love live sunshine so it's still unbearable. the cast is untalented and the show never stops trying to force its crummy fourth wall breaking memes on you. even when this episode took on a largely serious tone it just didn't stop with these lame jokes from grating characters who don't amount to anything more than dumb quips. this show tries so desperately hard to catch your attention but everything about it rubs me the wrong way.
 

DiGiKerot

Member
wake up girls shin shou 01

lots of focus on static shots but the layouts are a little underwhelming, and you can tell there really is a lack of confidence or experience on the production end just by how the camera keeps needlessly panning around in its desperation to create motion. it gets obnoxious pretty fast when you regularly have a pan in one direction cutting to a pan in a completely unrelated direction. this is taken to an extreme during the cg dance sequence where the camera just takes some wild tilts that only create confusion.

the story is pretty directionless and there aren't really specific characters that pop in most scenes. it isn't boring but it also just feels....incomplete. i'll also say that wug has the best music of any of these dumb idol shows i've watched recently.

WUG has always kind of had an issue with character, to the point where they devoted most of an episode of WUGZoo to two characters arguing about the fact that the audience kept mixing them up. That the staff owned up to that is probably somewhat telling, as is the fact that they ended up splashing the characters names up during the opening credits now.

That said, I don't thin the story is that directionless right now, but having seen those interim movies that lead into this probably helps, even though half this episode felt like it was trying to reestablish things for the majority of the audience who probably hasn't seen any WUG since the end of the TV show.

As for the music, whilst most of the rest of the shows production staff has changes, Kousaki Satoru is still in charge of the music production, and his record with vocal tracks for anime is only really surpassed by the likes of Kanno.

(Although the actual interesting thing about the new WUG is all the hilarious Yamakan drama surrounding the show...)
 

Clov

Member
I'm trying to figure out whether or not it breaks Sega Collabo Cafe's terms of service to make a reservation for two people but only have one show up. There's a sentence in there that says "記載内容を守られなかったお客さまは今後のセガコラボカフェへの入場をお断りする場合がございます。", which Google translates as "Customers who have not kept the contents of the description may be refused entry into the future Sega collaboration cafe".

Of course, this is super vague, and I have no idea what exactly it means. Could someone who knows Japanese help me?
 

Quasar

Member
Ancient Magus' Bride 1 - I liked this, much more than the two OVA parts. So it looks like I have 4-5 new anime to watch this season. So far it seems to be:

Ancient Magus' Bride
Anime Gataris
Just Because
Zodiac - though I wonder how long I will last, even with Nisio
+ sequels and carry overs

Though I still need to give Recovery of a MMO Addict (as its about an adult apparently) and Konohana a proper go yet.

Plus Inuyashiki needs to start.
 

Daemul

Member
Yuri Kuma Arashi - END

Fucking hell, another cute girl anime which caught me completely off guard with it's misleading cutesy cover art, this anime actually made me tear up. I was able to figure out pretty quick what subject matter this anime was a treatise of, and I am glad it was tackled because it's something that's bothered me in anime and manga for a long time.


This week has been nothing but suffering for me. First it was Madoka, then YuYuYu and it's counterpart WaSuYu, then Magical Girl Raising Project and now Yuri Kuma Arashi.

Madoka was the only one where I actually knew what I was getting myself into, the other three I did not see going in the direction they did at all, my heart has been torn to pieces. This is what happens when you don't read synopsis' because of fear of getting spoiled.

All I wanted to see was cute girls man, why did it need to come with a price?

Brb going to rewatch the entirety of GochiUsa in order to heal my broken heart.
 
idolmaster side m 00+01
the whole starting from square one with idols is always going to be super boring to me i think, and you don't even get a song or dance sequence in the first episode. it's not like this is poorly made or anything but i really don't see a reason to watch it when it has such little personality.

That would have been nice, at least most other of these shows did give us a dance sequence so if something didnt prefer the group of the week they could still at least enjoy the music and dance :( Hopefully next week.
 
DreamFes R Episode 8
DL5ZkXTVoAE8VkO.jpg:small


So glad DreamFes continues the tradition of having male fans in the audience for the idols just like s1. And one of them is also a Kanade Amamiya fan, BEST.
DL5Z4PYUQAAQo1l.jpg:small
DL5Z4UjUEAAFS-0.jpg:small

Anyway, awesome episode, awesome bringing it back to the basics with TrafficSignal. Could have spent a bit more time on Kanade's fear of thunder bit.
 
13 and 26 are the only recap eps, so go ahead and skip 26 when you get to it

My wife died inside when she learned there were 2 recap episodes eating up space on the BluRays. We missed the dubs broadcast before she learned about HxH so she's been having to wait for Vol 3. till it comes out next week. Learning she only had 24 episodes to enjoy instead of 26 was hard stuff for her.
 

e_i

Member
My Girlfriend is a Shobitch episode 1

I can't believe my stoic girlfriend is this pervy. Also, those scene transitions are something else.
 
TsukiPro Episode 2
DL5jsm5VoAE9v-b.jpg:small
DL5jswuUIAAD0F2.jpg:small

A day with SOARA and music prodigy Sora. Actually really good that they started with the best group. I think one small thing I really like about it is they do tell us the song they are singing as they are doing it, usually you have to wait until the end credits to figure it out.

I love these idol anime best when they are doing random variety show things.
 

Jex

Member
It's that people are intrinsically bad, rules or no rules, and that peace can only be maintained if everyone agrees to it.

It does have an NRA bent though, no lie. I heard the author is kind of authoritarian and loves guns.

If everyone had guns, there'd be no crime.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
You guys are only going on and on about Megumi because Rindou hasn't done anything yet.
 
I'm catching up on Voltron: Legendary Defender.

It's okay. It has this problem tho, where episodes are more interesting the less Voltron is involved.

The big Voltron fights honestly aren't even that good.
 
Top Bottom