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Spring 2011 Anime Thread of ZAWA ZAWA, Money, emo Cyclops, and fun^10xint^40=Ir2

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firehawk12 said:
Action scenes do not contribute to the development of a show!
The only exception is physical comedy! *smacks head with a giant paper fan*

Men talk with their fists. Talk=dialogue. Dialogue=character development.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Jexhius said:
Your argument for this is?
Action scenes do for men what Brad Pitt taking off his shirt does for women. They look nice, stimulate one's eyeballs, but all the srs bsns stuff usually happens after all the action is done and people are left to reflect on whatever violence has just occurred.

Are there times when action might matter? Sure. But more often that not, we get Sucker Punch and Battle Los Angeles.
 

mAcOdIn

Member
Articalys said:
Wait, really? *goes to check*
...
Damn, why even bother buying box sets anymore? Everything I want to see in the near future is either streaming somewhere or on Netflix DVD!
So you can always watch it silly.

I think Netflix is a great value but companies and shows can always get lost to the ether, the right to stream something now doesn't mean it will always be able to be streamed, Funimation could always opt not to renew the FLCL license years down the line which would in turn mean Netflix could not license it from them making it unavailable to be shown further even if they have that file sitting on their server. But a DVD or Bluray doesn't give a damn who owns what rights once it's pressed.

I wouldn't mind digital distribution if it were at a point where everything were distributed even if the licensing were lost allowing something to be available without a proper license holder and robust enough to allow new license holders to buy the license and make money off of it(hopefully of course) when the opportunity presents itself. I honestly think things released are partly in the public domain and while I agree that there should be a way to monetize that and the license holders should get that money I dislike how they can take things out of the public domain when they themselves go down, so to speak, as of course the illegal option always exists.

I liken digital streaming to DIVX, not that DIVX but this one. With this DIVX people purchased the discs and once the company went under they lost access to all of their purchases. Of course Netflix is different in that you're not really buying single titles but the right to watch a catalog it's sort of similar. Netflix may not always be around, the companies that do business with Netflix may not always be around and of those that stick around they may not always hold the rights to certain works meaning that Netflix's catalog will change over time always gaining and losing stuff. So it's a very good immediate value but I still maintain that a person should buy the physical disc of the stuff they really, really like in the event that something they like to watch often becomes unlicensed, the company with the license demands more money and Netflix doesn't pay up or Netflix itself goes under and it takes years for another competitor to get some of the stuff you like. This may actually be the last generation of owning stuff I plan to take advantage of it.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
cosmicblizzard said:
Men talk with their fists. Talk=dialogue. Dialogue=character development.
Tautology confirmed. I acquiesce. :(

Reminds me of this, actually:
d8Uax.jpg
 
So well instead of starting a pointless thread, I'll ask here.

Whats GAF's opinion on Martian Successor Nadesico? Since I've been reinvigorated to watch some anime, I thought I would watch an old favorite. And it has aged pretty fantastically if you ask me. It has such a fantastic cast of characters that while anime archetypes are just awesome. The anime just uses these traditional anime plots and characters in fun and clever ways that I can't help be entertained. It's fun to just watch the cast interact. And the use of Gekiganger 3 as a backdrop to the plot and in the plot just was really clever to me. It really sets up a nice contrast with how cool anime is and how just stupid anime is.

I don't know, I really enjoyed the show and I hope people check it out. It's worth watching if you liked Gurren Lagann.

Now to watch the movie....
 
firehawk12 said:
Tautology confirmed. I acquiesce. :(

I don't know what 3 of those words mean.

But seriously, you can learn a lot about a character based on his or her actions in battle. Understanding their thought process and strategy furthers development. Obviously it's not all like that as there are many fights that are just "point at something to make it explode", but it's definitely more relevant than you think.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Rahxephon91 said:
So well instead of starting a pointless thread, I'll ask here.

Whats GAF's opinion on Martian Successor Nadesico? Since I've been reinvigorated to watch some anime, I thought I would watch an old favorite. And it has aged pretty fantastically if you ask me. It has such a fantastic cast of characters that while anime archetypes are just awesome. The anime just uses these traditional anime plots and characters in fun and clever ways that I can't help be entertained. It's fun to just watch the cast interact. And the use of Gekiganger 3 as a backdrop to the plot and in the plot just was really clever to me. It really sets up a nice contrast with how cool anime is and how just stupid anime is.

I don't know, I really enjoyed the show and I hope people check it out. It's worth watching if you liked Gurren Lagann.

Now to watch the movie....
As a deconstruction of space opera mecha whatever, I quite enjoyed it. It got silly at the end when they started taking themselves seriously, but I enjoyed the opening arc.

cosmicblizzard said:
I don't know what 3 of those words mean.

But seriously, you can learn a lot about a character based on his or her actions in battle. Understanding their thought process and strategy furthers development. Obviously it's not all like that as there are many fights that are just "point at something to make it explode", but it's definitely more relevant than you think.
I suppose I can see that, but it just seems that most of the "good stuff" happens after the action ends and the characters move on. For example, I was just watching Generation Kill again and there were, IIRC, only two action scenes in the entire show. Most of the male bonding came from people figuring out where to take a crap and explaining the intricacies of the wet dream rather than how many bullets were fired in a particular situation.

A good counter example is the heroic bloodshed stuff of the old John Woo films, where action scenes are meant to be manifestations of male honour... but taken too far, it becomes homoerotic like 300.

Then again, I went from watching the "Lobby Scene" in the first Matrix over 50 times back in 1999 to finding it the most boring and unnecessary scene in 2011. Maybe being closer to death makes me hate fun.

cosmicblizzard said:
It was a joke. I know what they all mean :/
Literal-net strikes again. :lol
 

Articalys

Member
mAcOdIn said:
So you can always watch it silly.

I think Netflix is a great value but companies and shows can always get lost to the ether, the right to stream something now doesn't mean it will always be able to be streamed, Funimation could always opt not to renew the FLCL license years down the line which would in turn mean Netflix could not license it from them making it unavailable to be shown further even if they have that file sitting on their server. But a DVD or Bluray doesn't give a damn who owns what rights once it's pressed.

I wouldn't mind digital distribution if it were at a point where everything were distributed even if the licensing were lost allowing something to be available without a proper license holder and robust enough to allow new license holders to buy the license and make money off of it(hopefully of course) when the opportunity presents itself. I honestly think things released are partly in the public domain and while I agree that there should be a way to monetize that and the license holders should get that money I dislike how they can take things out of the public domain when they themselves go down, so to speak, as of course the illegal option always exists.

I liken digital streaming to DIVX, not that DIVX but this one. With this DIVX people purchased the discs and once the company went under they lost access to all of their purchases. Of course Netflix is different in that you're not really buying single titles but the right to watch a catalog it's sort of similar. Netflix may not always be around, the companies that do business with Netflix may not always be around and of those that stick around they may not always hold the rights to certain works meaning that Netflix's catalog will change over time always gaining and losing stuff. So it's a very good immediate value but I still maintain that a person should buy the physical disc of the stuff they really, really like in the event that something they like to watch often becomes unlicensed, the company with the license demands more money and Netflix doesn't pay up or Netflix itself goes under and it takes years for another competitor to get some of the stuff you like. This may actually be the last generation of owning stuff I plan to take advantage of it.
Well, that's, uh, certainly more in-depth than I though about it. But I didn't mean I would never buy DVDs again, just that I've got a lineup of a handful of shows I can watch through those services in the immediate future, and that's really convenient. The shows I will want to rewatch I'll definitely purchase, but for some reason there's not a lot of stuff I feel like rewatching.

BTW, what's the best Blu-Ray player on the market if you don't need a bunch of extra features in it?
 

Dresden

Member
Articalys said:
BTW, what's the best Blu-Ray player on the market if you don't need a bunch of extra features in it?
Just get a blu ray drive for your pc or something.

My laptop plays blu rays before I realized it was really fucking useless, but whatevs.
 

Jex

Member
firehawk12 said:
Action scenes do for men what Brad Pitt taking off his shirt do for women. They look nice, stimulate one's eyeballs, but all the srs bsns stuff usually happens after all the action is done and people are left to reflect on whatever violence has just occurred.

Are there times when action might matter? Sure. But more often that not, we get Sucker Punch and Battle Los Angeles.
I’m going to attempt to reconstruct your argument into an easy to digest form, please correct me if I’m misrepresenting your position. It seems to go a little like this:

Premise 1: Action scenes are visually pleasing for a certain segment of the audience.
Premise 2: The important parts of the show usually occur after the action sequences are over.
Premise 3: Sometimes an action sequence will deal with the important parts of show.
Premise 4: However, most of the time that isn’t the case.
Conclusion: Therefore, action scenes do not contribute to the development of the show.

I’m going to stick on some implied assumption that, presumably, must be true for the argument to make any sense.

Premise 1: Action scenes are visually pleasing for a certain segment of the audience.
Assumption 1: This is what, for the most past, drives the creation of action scenes.
Assumption 2: This is a shallow reason to create a sequence in story.
Assumption 3: Therefore, it’s no surprise that they don’t contribute to the important parts of the show.
Premise 2: The important parts of the show usually occur after the action sequences are over.
Assumption 3: The most important parts of a show are those that deal with character, story and theme.
Premise 3: Sometimes an action sequence will deal with the important parts of show.
Premise 4: However, most of the time that isn’t the case.
Conclusion: Therefore, action scenes do not contribute to the development of the
show.

Setting aside the apparently useless P1 and it’s attached set of far-fetched assumptions, you’re no doubt aware this is a rather shaky argument overall. You know this as you said “usually” and you admit there are times when the action scenes do matter. If action scenes do matter sometimes, even if that isn’t the case in every single example, then they are important and can contribute to the development of the show. Therefore you can’t claim, as a sweeping universal statement that action scenes don’t contribute the development of a show.
 

trejo

Member
Nichijou 2

Much better than the previous eps. The chase scene really had me going and the bit with the rope jumping was funny as well. It's nice that this is finally shaping up.

Robot and girl are boring as hell, tho.
 

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Jexhius said:
Your argument for this is?
To bring up this comparison saying action cannot contribute to plot or character development is almost as silly as saying sex scenes don't contribute to either, even if you could possibly make the argument that both can be unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.
 

trejo

Member
icarus-daedelus said:
Fixed. It's okay, it was 1999, we all did the same thing back then. I remember being AMAZED because that was the first movie we watched on this newfangled thing called a...DVD player!
Fiirst movie I ever watched on DVD was Enemy at the Gates. It was pretty awesome.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Jexhius said:
I’m going to attempt to reconstruct your argument into an easy to digest form, please correct me if I’m misrepresenting your position. It seems to go a little like this:

As you’re no doubt aware, this is a rather shaky argument, as you seem to be aware when you said “usually” and you admit there are times when it does matter. If action scenes do matter sometimes, even if that isn’t the case in every single example, then they are important and can contribute to the development of the show. Therefore you can’t claim, as a sweeping universal statement that action scenes don’t contribute the development of a show.
Hyperbole aside, ultimately I still have control over the fast forward button or the progress bar, so if something does catch my eye or if something important has happened, then I can go back and watch it.

But, like science fiction, I've seen enough war films and action films that I really don't need to see the beats anymore. Most directors of action recycle the same tropes that we've seen thousands of times - Chuck is the most horrible example of this - boring action combined with an extremely low budget. I can skip those because they literally contribute nothing to the show except to show the blonde girl fighting dudes.

Sometimes, action scenes can be thematic. Branaugh's Henry V has action scenes that are meant to evoke the dreariness of war whereas Olivier's version of the film uses the action scenes as propaganda to show the greatness of Britain's military heritage.
But even then, I can probably watch those scenes in fast forward and still get the jist of it without having to sit there and analyze every shot.

And, I'm serious when I consider comedy action an exception. Nichijou, Looney Toons, Jacky Chan films and so on... those are times when action itself becomes a narrative. Dramatic action hardly does that, mostly because they are (typically, admittedly) meant to be connectors between scenes.

icarus-daedelus said:
Fixed. It's okay, it was 1999, we all did the same thing back then. I remember being AMAZED because that was the first movie we watched on this newfangled thing called a...DVD player!
Yup. And PowerDVD made it so easy to just loop the damn thing over and over again.

I know it does for me. I get closer and closer to *gulp* being a Mamoru Oshii fan the older I get, which you know means that I'm really dying inside.
Sky Crawlers is awesome?
 

mAcOdIn

Member
Articalys said:
Well, that's, uh, certainly more in-depth than I though about it. But I didn't mean I would never buy DVDs again, just that I've got a lineup of a handful of shows I can watch through those services in the immediate future, and that's really convenient. The shows I will want to rewatch I'll definitely purchase, but for some reason there's not a lot of stuff I feel like rewatching.

BTW, what's the best Blu-Ray player on the market if you don't need a bunch of extra features in it?
I had a longer version that also explained why you should only continue to buy physical media because it's creation, distribution, marketing and selling creates more jobs and is more beneficial to the economy counterbalanced with the impact on the environment but I decided that would have been too in depth.

As for best players, I dunno, I like the PS3 just because it's gotten so many updates and I'm a gamer but I assume that'd count as extra features.
Dresden said:
Just get a blu ray drive for your pc or something.

My laptop plays blu rays before I realized it was really fucking useless, but whatevs.
However Dresden's comment about just getting a Bluray drive for your PC is slightly misleading, I know he doesn't outright talk about specifics but if you buy a bare bluray drive you still have to go and buy commercial software to play Blurays. That's the route I took though, just bought MakeMKV and now I rip my Blurays to my HDD and watch them through XBMC. Fucking score.

But that's also what led me to re-experiment with linux as a test bed for my soon to be built or purchased dedicated HTPC which resulted in shaving off about 6 years of my life from frustration.

So, umm, buy a cheapo Panasonic, I like those as the last time I looked they booted faster than the Sony and Samsung's but that was awhile ago.
firehawk12 said:
Maybe that can be a lemma.
Now I'm lost.
 

mAcOdIn

Member
firehawk12 said:
A lemma is a short proof used in a larger proof.

Yep, useless math knowledge is useless.
I thought you were going to introduce Turquoise Jeep tropes into it, lol, I was way off.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
mAcOdIn said:
I thought you were going to introduce Turquoise Jeep tropes into it, lol, I was way off.
Now you've lost me. :lol

Lafiel said:
To bring up this comparison saying action cannot contribute to plot or character development is almost as silly as saying sex scenes don't contribute to either, even if you could possibly make the argument that both can be unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.
Sex scenes are typically more psychologically revealing though and because of the sense of shame associated with sex, it can be used to fuck the audience up as well.
Case in point, the "awkward" sex scenes in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Maybe it's because I've seen pretty much every Vietnam war movie ever made, but even the "war is hell" action scenes do nothing for me: "Oh great, here's another child with his/her head blown off and the soldiers are sad."

But, I can admit that perhaps I'm probably an outlier when it comes to action scenes. I'm also tired with bro'ed up First Person Shooters as well and chainsawing dudes in Gears of War doesn't really have the cache that it used to back in the first game.

trejo said:
Fiirst movie I ever watched on DVD was Enemy at the Gates. It was pretty awesome.
Hah, I suppose speaking of action, I liked the film because most of it was filled with inverse chase sequences. You still have two guys trying to chase each other down, but it's all psychological rather than kinetic.
 

Jex

Member
firehawk12 said:
But, like science fiction, I've seen enough war films and action films that I really don't need to see the beats anymore. Most directors of action recycle the same tropes that we've seen thousands of times...
In other words, a lot of action sequences aren't very well done. Which is a different claim altogether.
firehawk12 said:
And, I'm serious when I consider comedy action an exception. Nichijou, Looney Toons, Jacky Chan films and so on... those are times when action itself becomes a narrative. Dramatic action hardly does that, mostly because they are (typically, admittedly) meant to be connectors between scenes.
Like in G-Gundam. Or Evangelion, but wait, you said those scenes weren't important?

So are you still making your original claim, or are you backing down to the smaller claim, or holding both to be true simultaneously?
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Jexhius said:
Like in G-Gundam. Or Evangelion, but wait, you said those scenes weren't important?

So are you still making your original claim, or are you backing down to the smaller claim, or holding both to be true simultaneously?
I've never seen G-Gundam, but I'll stand by my stance that the most interesting parts of Evangelion do not involve the Eva fighting anything. I suppose you could argue that the action scenes are important because of "inaction" if you want to be pedantic about it.

I think this all started because I said I typically skip action scenes because I find them boring. But as with anything that's subjective, that's true for me and me alone.

mAcOdIn said:
Damn, it was lemme, I suck at lingo.
Is that from that thread that keeps popping up from time to time? :lol
 

mAcOdIn

Member
firehawk12 said:
Is this a joke or is this serious like the Rebecca Black "Friday" thing? Lemme smang it girl! Smash it and bang it!
Some of the songs really are funny but I have no idea if they made them as jokes or think they're actually great, but either way they're fun.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
mAcOdIn said:
Some of the songs really are funny but I have no idea if they made them as jokes or think they're actually great, but either way they're fun.
I guess I'm LTTP, but the video is hilarious.
 

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Virgin night - Only watched this because it was on a "sakuga" anime list and it was one of the few hentai's on it, and it definitely delivered in the "sakuga" aspect as they were some damn pretty backgrounds in the OVA, even if i didn't care particularly much for the character art.

As for the actual content - it's follows the very typical anime romantic pairing - there's this awkward normal everyday guy with the innocent virginal girl, and the situation is surprisingly cute in that sense, even if the whole sex scene is really awkward (i think that was the intention) the very last scene kind of cute though.

Now i need to experience the next OVA on that list - Urotsukidoji! i heard that has at least some substance and themes in comparison to other shows in the genre!
 

Jex

Member
Lafiel said:
...Now i need to experience the next OVA on that list - Urotsukidoji! i heard that has at least some substance and themes in comparison to other shows in the genre!
Like a Nazi rape machine? Or was that the third one?
 

Articalys

Member
Well, I guess I might as well give my opinions on what I've seen so far, thought it's not much:

Nichijou is great sketch comedy and just the right level of insanity. The variations on the janken and jump rope commercial bumpers are probably going to be fun.

Hanasaku Iroha is the only show with an actual plot on my roster for now and ep1 was okay, so I'll give it a few weeks to see if it can sustain itself.

Sket Dance I knew about, having read the manga, and ep1 was pretty good, especially the soundtrack, plus Sugita is probably having a grand time in his role. Looking forward to the longer arcs.

A-Channel... well, it's already gotten hate for taking over the Madoka timeslot, and I can only stand so many slice-of-life-four-girl-ensemble-with-one-ditz-and-subtle-yuri-overtones shows. It's like it borrowed the elements from K-On, Lucky Star, Hidamari, etc. but none of the substance.

It seems Tiger & Bunny is getting some praise; what are similar shows in the "if you liked X then you might like Y" vein?
 

Geneijin

Member
Lafiel said:
Now i need to experience the next OVA on that list - Urotsukidoji! i heard that has at least some substance and themes in comparison to other shows in the genre!
It's also known more for being the one with the legendary orchestra by a certain composer who did Giant Robo's.
 

Jex

Member
Geneijin said:
It's also known more for being the one with the legendary orchestra by a certain composer who did Giant Robo's.
They just don't make epic pornography these days.
 
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