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Autumn Anime 2017 |OT| Makes us all rotten

phaze

Member
Land of the Lustrous is the biggest surprise for me, as I absolutely love it. Hopefully it won't suffer from an incomplete ending, as if I recall correctly, the manga isn't over yet and it's quite long.

Why would you hope for a not incomplete ending if you're aware of all those things.
 
Is it just me or does Inuyashiki have really bad voice acting? The premise and everything is great but damn the VA is almost distracting sometimes.

I dont understand why people are so harsh to new anime voice actors. This seems to be the old mans second anime role and Hiro's first anime role. People similarly harsh to poor Astas va. People have to start somewhere :(
 

DiGiKerot

Member
I dont understand why people are so harsh to new anime voice actors. This seems to be the old mans second anime role and Hiro's first anime role. People similarly harsh to poor Astas va. People have to start somewhere :(

Because generally you wouldn't put a newbie straight into a leading role unless there was a very specific stunt-casting reason for it. Not seen Black Clover, so can't talk to the specifics there, but if they've cast someone with zero anime acting experience straight into a leading role, that's totally on the folks behind the show and totally a valid criticism of it's not working out.

In the case of Inuyashiki, I've not had a chance to see it yet (yay, film festivals), but I gather a lot of the VAs may be new to anime, but are established live action actors. What you think of the general quality of Japanese acting aside, it's a very different discipline, and one that some LA actors just can't adapt to.
 

duckroll

Member
Because generally you wouldn't put a newbie straight into a leading role unless there was a very specific stunt-casting reason for it.

That's total nonsense imo. Lots of great careers were started from lead debuts. The casting net in the industry needs to be wider, not narrower. No one benefits from doing mundane bit roles for "experience". Voice directors are just insular and lazy in general because there are so few of them with power and they do like a gazillion shows at a time.
 
Yoooo, what the fuck is up with this Inuyashiki thing. It's fucking balls to the wall BRUTAL. Never heard or seen anything of it before, but wow that's something so far. Love the old man protagonist too.
 

Daemul

Member
Completely agreed that the voice casting net needs to made wider, because honestly it feels like it's the same group of VA's getting all the bigger work. It's gotten to the point where I am easily able to recognise voices now because I've heard them so much.
 

BluWacky

Member
Shoji Kawamori and Kazuki Akane are good at identifying interesting new talent for their shows - assuming they're casting them and not their voice directors, I suppose.

Escaflowne - Maaya Sakamoto was almost totally unknown before landing the role of Hitomi and now has a number one best selling album and consistently lands high profile projects (and is an award-winning stage actress to boot).

Arjuna - mock the show all you like but the VA performances in it are excellent, particularly Mami Higashiyama in the lead; note how many of the veteran seiyuu in it give much more restrained, naturalistic performances too.

Noein - actually, I should credit Honey and Clover for Haruka Kudou's acting - a much harder role given her infantile dialogue for much of that show - but in both she's excellent.

Macross Zero - Megumi Nakajima was still at school when she auditioned for this, wasn't she? While Ranka may be a little irritating and cutesy at times, she still gives an excellent performance.

I'd be harder pressed to think of great performances from newbie male seiyuu; what actually sticks in my mind is how underwhelming I thought, for instance, Miyu Irino was in Tsubasa Chronicle (a pretty early project of his), although he seems to have improved massively since then. Was Tsubasa before or after Kingdom Hearts?
 
Monster Strike S3 Episode 3

Slow hospital episode though we already knew mana was not an american but a monster. Oh well. She should stay.

Cardfight Vanguard G Next Episode 48 (engdub)

Well I wanted Taiyou Asukawa to get two wins in a row, but perhaps they wanted Kazuma to get some battling in.
 
Yoooo, what the fuck is up with this Inuyashiki thing. It's fucking balls to the wall BRUTAL. Never heard or seen anything of it before, but wow that's something so far. Love the old man protagonist too.

It's Gantz' Author's follow up series that just recently ended in Manga form. According to my wife, who read all of the manga through Crunchyroll, he's matured a bit in his storytelling. It's still pretty edgy/brutal but contains far less blatant sexualization for its female characters.
 

DiGiKerot

Member
That's total nonsense imo. Lots of great careers were started from lead debuts. The casting net in the industry needs to be wider, not narrower. No one benefits from doing mundane bit roles for "experience". Voice directors are just insular and lazy in general because there are so few of them with power and they do like a gazillion shows at a time.

Fair enough. You're probably right that a lot of these poor performances comes from insufficient voice direction.

Macross Zero - Megumi Nakajima was still at school when she auditioned for this, wasn't she? While Ranka may be a little irritating and cutesy at times, she still gives an excellent performance.

Frontier :)

I do wonder about the auditioning process for, well, idol-related shows versus other genre stuff and how much more involved it ends up being given how insane the expectations around events and the like are these days.
 

Jex

Member
I think the subject of VA's is pretty interesting in general. I personally don't find a lot of the homogenized voice wok in anime to be very interesting and I imagine we'd here a more interesting range of voices if it was easier for new people to get bigger roles.
 
Generally speaking, I don't think the quality of voice acting in anime productions has much to do with individual actors, whether new or veteran, but with voice direction. When I particularly like the voice acting in an anime, such as in Bungo Stray Dogs, Made in Abyss, Rakugo Shinjuu, or ReLIFE, there isn't really one particular voice actor who stands out above the rest but there's a general sense of quality of investment from all the actors. Usually such shows have strong use of music and sound effects as well. Thus I have come to the conclusion that anime having good voice acting really depends on how much the director cares about it more than anything else.

As an exception to the above, I will say that the worst, most lifeless voice acting I hear in anime is almost always some idol from AKB48 or wherever randomly cast in a role. In those situations, it seems clear that the person has been cast solely for cross-promotion purposes rather than because they are able to act.
 

blurr

Member
No exaggeration if I said episode 5 of Owarimonogatari is one of my all time favorite episodes of the series solely becauase of Marina Inoue's performance.
 

Kyuur

Member
Just realized that we have been accidentally watching the Magus Bride OVA instead of the series. Hope we haven't spoiled ourselves on anything that would reduce the impact of the actual series...

Because generally you wouldn't put a newbie straight into a leading role unless there was a very specific stunt-casting reason for it. Not seen Black Clover, so can't talk to the specifics there, but if they've cast someone with zero anime acting experience straight into a leading role, that's totally on the folks behind the show and totally a valid criticism of it's not working out.

In the case of Inuyashiki, I've not had a chance to see it yet (yay, film festivals), but I gather a lot of the VAs may be new to anime, but are established live action actors. What you think of the general quality of Japanese acting aside, it's a very different discipline, and one that some LA actors just can't adapt to.

This would not surprise me at all. My initial reaction to it was "this sounds like English anime voice acting", many dub productions suffer from the same sort of transitional problem even when they've pulled A-grade acting talent (imo).
 

sasuke_91

Member
How much do you pay for Crunchyroll in the US? I just unlocked the US content (I hope they don't treat people who do this like Netflix does) and wow... I never realized how much shit was missing in Europe.
I don't understand how their videos still use Flash though...
 
SideM Episode 3

Dramatic Stars debut was nice and finally we get some singing and dancing in a music video, really good especially whenever the lights were a bit off and we just saw their shadows going.

Kashiwagi pilot plot was good though I kind of wish he did get back into the cockpit again.

Instrumental song over the montage > the actual song though.
 

Jex

Member
Generally speaking, I don't think the quality of voice acting in anime productions has much to do with individual actors, whether new or veteran, but with voice direction. When I particularly like the voice acting in an anime, such as in Bungo Stray Dogs, Made in Abyss, Rakugo Shinjuu, or ReLIFE, there isn't really one particular voice actor who stands out above the rest but there's a general sense of quality of investment from all the actors. Usually such shows have strong use of music and sound effects as well. Thus I have come to the conclusion that anime having good voice acting really depends on how much the director cares about it more than anything else.

As an exception to the above, I will say that the worst, most lifeless voice acting I hear in anime is almost always some idol from AKB48 or wherever randomly cast in a role. In those situations, it seems clear that the person has been cast solely for cross-promotion purposes rather than because they are able to act.

But what about Hideki Anno in The Wind Rises?
 

DiGiKerot

Member
Generally speaking, I don't think the quality of voice acting in anime productions has much to do with individual actors, whether new or veteran, but with voice direction. When I particularly like the voice acting in an anime, such as in Bungo Stray Dogs, Made in Abyss, Rakugo Shinjuu, or ReLIFE, there isn't really one particular voice actor who stands out above the rest but there's a general sense of quality of investment from all the actors. Usually such shows have strong use of music and sound effects as well. Thus I have come to the conclusion that anime having good voice acting really depends on how much the director cares about it more than anything else.

As an exception to the above, I will say that the worst, most lifeless voice acting I hear in anime is almost always some idol from AKB48 or wherever randomly cast in a role. In those situations, it seems clear that the person has been cast solely for cross-promotion purposes rather than because they are able to act.

Funny thing is, much as I'd maybe agree with you, questionable in quality as the film may be, whichever member of AKB it was in Narewareta Gakuen was actually pretty good.
 
Love Live! Sunshine!!

DMrTM_IVwAAoMMM.jpg:large

You know, it's the situations they put these girls through that makes you go why.

I mean why even dick around saying the event was cancelled, only to later say HEY WE'RE STILL DOING THE SCHOOL THING, BUT WE POSTPONED IT TO LOVE LIVE DAY BECAUSE FUCK YOU IT'S SUNDAY HERE IN AMERICA

Ruby and Hanamaru took turns to mock Yohane this week and Ruby made some costumes for once. They looked pretty nice, but what do you expect when she made them for Dia..... WHO HAS AN EPISODE NEXT WEEK! PARTY!
 

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
The Ancient Magus Bride Episode 3:

I had my suspicions beforehand but this seals it, this is Little Witch Academia, or at least the overarching plot, as magic and magicians are fading because technology is awesome. Maybe Chise should plan on eventually inventing technomancy or something.
 

Chase17

Member
The Ancient Magus' Bride 03
Chise hangs out with her animal friends who were pretty close to singing the circle of life.
The flying scene was pretty good. Though it felt like something was a little off with it.

Elias talking about how it was difficult to obtain Chise was uncomfortable.
 

Dali

Member
Not sure which one is worse eromanga sensei or a sister's all you need. They both star benchods but one doesn't actually have a sister so it's ok right?
 
But what about Hideki Anno in The Wind Rises?

That was something unique alright.

Funny thing is, much as I'd maybe agree with you, questionable in quality as the film may be, whichever member of AKB it was in Narewareta Gakuen was actually pretty good.

I don't mean to say that all idols are bad actors, just that when I hear a particularly poor actor in anime it's often an idol. The lead woman in Nerawareta Gakuen was a solid actor, I agree.
 

Qurupeke

Member
Land of the Lustrous 3

Every time Diamond runs. Holy shit, some insane dynamic camera scenes, I love them.

The episode was actually a lot funnier than I expected after last one's cliffhanger. Dia's erroneous conclusion about Phos' state actually managed to fool me until the end. lol Despite the more easy going nature of this episode, there were a lot of character insights, and it's a bit sad to see how lowly everyone thinks of Phos. Some of the remarks about her were... savage.
 

Kansoku

Member
Blend S - 3

That's not how expected the 4th girl was going to be revealed...
Still quite funny, tho I'm a little uncomfortable with how the manager is seriously trying to date Maika.

Mahoustukai no Yome - 3

Although slow story wise, this was quite beautiful.

3gatsu no Lion - 2

I don't know what to think of Gotou anymore. Or Kyouko for that matter. From what I remember she didn't ever seem enjoy the relationship with Gotou, but it seems she actually cares for him.

Houseki no Kuni - 3

Holy shit the animation in this episode. Both the fight at the beginning and Diamond running through the fields were amazing.
 

Chase17

Member
Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond Episode 03
Weird episode (even for this series). Not bad though. Steven parts were solid. Chain ignoring Leo was hilarious. Her and Steven seem to be a little more ruthless than Kalus lol.

Seems like end game of this season will have the sister in a bigger role.

Next episode titled Werewolf Mission: Chainpossible.
 
Ballroom Anime Episode 16
DMr6zq7W0AAhH2k.jpg:small


So glad Hyodo and Gaju have gotten closer and then the following discussion which put into words what Tatara was experiencing.


Also it always sounds weird the way the person doing the subs goes.
 

RedEther

Member
Welcome to the Ballroom 16


Tatara learns something new but ultimately costs them at the same time by zoning out forgetting they have another heat to dance to lol. The anime should have kept the reunion scene with Tatara & Shizuku because that was a pretty memorable scene from the manga.

The anime is definitely moving pretty fast compared to the manga so I hope that things will slow down a bit next episode.
 
Ballroom 16

I already recommended read the manga before, but now I have to say it again with this second part of the anime, as they are going a bit faster than before, skipping some lines here and there, some small scenes from their training and from the tourney, other scenes are here but they don't give them the same focus and importance... it's all material that while it isn't essential, it helped with the character development and to establish the narrative.

In any case, things start to get more serious in this episode, as they still don't gel well together.



Kugimiya, not the dance protagonist that we need, but the one we deserve. Spinoff Kugimiya comedy with depressing humor when.
 
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