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Spring 2011 Anime Thread PART TWO return of sex hair, ghosts, and ZAWA

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Jex

Jex

Member
Halycon said:
Not surprising when you consider some of the media for this show.
Click to expand...
Do trailers make it look like an action show when it's more concerned with dialogue? I suppose you wouldn't want to sell it any other way, if you were sane.
 
D

Dali

Member
Jexhius said:
It wasn't sarcasm, I was asking a question. I'm not sure what caused the confusion.
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Oh sorry then. I don't know what it is. You've got this guy with like this totally invincible barehanded fighting style like toki no shura. He's lived in seclusion training his whole life so his naivety borders on retrdation. He has agreed to be this girl's "sword" (slave) so he can help her advance. In order to do this they have to travel the world defeating those that possess these all-powerful demon swords (that aren't all swords).

Sounds like the setup for some shounen level-up anime, right? Well, you've already read my cursory description of how it actually plays out. It's like kenshin only without the payoff kenshin episodes had. If you approach it as action it sucks. You approach it as slice of life it doesn'e fare much better.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Jexhius said:
Do trailers make it look like an action show when it's more concerned with dialogue? I suppose you wouldn't want to sell it any other way, if you were sane.
Click to expand...
In the same way most games don't try to sell themselves on their gripping narrative and instead go for gore, action and explosions.

Unless it's stuff like Alan Wake and you can moneyhat reviewers into going "OMG THIS STORY IS GREAT".
 
I

iavi

Member
Valkyria Chronicles 23-26

That dragged on for a bit. Selveria's death was absolutely pointless, and
Faldio's even more so...they didn't even acknowledge that he was dead after the whole ordeal was over. lol
His hotness/lelouch ended up being as annoying as I thought he would be. Then all was good.

I actually went and watched the game ed to see just how different it was...it was different alright.

The anime's closure was alright too, nothing like the montage I saw given in the game though.

What exactly do the OVA's cover?
 
S

Sage00

Once And Future Member
I'll completely defend Katangatari's style and choice of direction. Each opponent Shichika faces has a sympathetic, honourable or at least great conviction in their reason for fighting. The show isn't about fighting, it's about why people fight, where different reasoning is glimmered from the twelve adversaries and the vital flaw in their thinking exposed which eventually leads to their downfall. Shichika never had a reason to fight except that his father taught him to, so it's through his discussions with these characters that he develops from the naive, isolated character of the beginning into a truly experienced 'swordsman'.

The format is the show is the anti-shounen. It's built around the concept that the character starts out with the 'ultimate technique', the strongest fighting style ever devised, but gradually learns there is more to it than fighting prowess from each of his foes. His growth is in character, not power level.

But I guess it could've been about people hitting people with swords and that might've been fun, or something.
 
X

/XX/

Member
7Th said:
New The Idolm@ster PV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz53h6_Iq_4
Click to expand...
So, more speculation, is Mr. Nishigori going to be the next one said to be leaving GAiNAX (or better said as not working regularly with them anymore) based only on disappearing staff profiles from the GAINAX.NET website?
And he didn't even have one to begin with, so as pointless as the assumptions by some people.
 
D

Dali

Member
Sage00 said:
I'll completely defend Katangatari's style and choice of direction. Each opponent Shichika faces has a sympathetic, honourable or at least great conviction in their reason for fighting. The show isn't about fighting, it's about why people fight, where different reasoning is glimmered from the twelve adversaries and the vital flaw in their thinking exposed which eventually leads to their downfall. Shichika never had a reason to fight except that has father taught him to, so it's through his discussions with these characters that Shichika develops from the naive, isolated character of the beginning into a truly experienced 'swordsman'.

The format is the show is the anti-shounen. It's built around the concept that the character starts out with the 'ultimate technique', the strongest fighting style ever devised, but gradually learns there is more to it than fighting prowess from each of his foes. His growth is in character, not power level.

But I guess it could've been about people hitting people with swords and that might've been fun, or something.
Click to expand...
Or maybe it could have just been... better? It's not terrible I just didn't think it was that good. The tone of superiority that exudes from some of these posts is amazing. I had no expectations, had seen no pv, had read nothing about it before watching. It's easy to think it's a shounen journey anime, but after a few episodes it becomes clear this isn't the case. So I continued watching with different expectations and still found the characters annoying and mostly one dimensional and the lessons shallow or poorly delivered. The character designs and animation are nice, but as a package it's lacking. The episodes involving the sibs
duel
were among the best because they finally made the main character someone interesting. But those episodes were in the mid-teens iirc.
 
Jex

Jex

Member
Dali said:
Oh sorry then. I don't know what it is. You've got this guy with like this totally invincible barehanded fighting style like toki no shura. He's lived in seclusion training his whole life so his naivety borders on retrdation. He has agreed to be this girl's "sword" (slave) so he can help her advance. In order to do this they have to travel the world defeating those that possess these all-powerful demon swords (that aren't all swords).
Click to expand...
I'm personally already familiar with the show, but I'm always interested in finding out how works come across to people who aren't me, hence my earlier inquiry.
Dali said:
The episodes involving the sibs
duel
were among the best because they finally made the main character someone interesting. But those episodes were in the mid-teens iirc.
Click to expand...
Actually, the show didn't even make it to the mid-teens as it's a twelve episode work. But as all the episodes are twice as long as a normal show it feels like it's twenty-four episodes.

I think that the shows main problem is pacing and direction, which isn't surprising considering that White Fox made it, and they've produced little else because they're such a new studio.

In terms of character and story I don't have any complaints. The way it's delivered is what's problematic.
 
S

Sage00

Once And Future Member
Jexhius said:
I'm personally already familiar with the show, but I'm always interested in finding out how works come across to people who aren't me, hence my earlier inquiry.

Actually, the show didn't even make it to the mid-teens as it's a twelve episode work. But as all the episodes are twice as long as a normal show it feels like it's twenty-four episodes.

I think that the shows main problem is pacing and direction, which isn't surprising considering that White Fox made it, and they've produced little else because they're such a new studio.

In terms of character and story I don't have any complaints. The way it's delivered is what's problematic.
Click to expand...
It was certainly a tricky one to adapt. 12 light novel volumes, 12 episodes. That is one hell of a lot of content to be compressed into even an episode of Katangatari's length. The anime was constrained by the format of the books, but I think there's simply no other way they could've handled it other than 1 story 1 episode. By being able to cram that amount of Nisioisinisms into a 12 episode script while actually still retaining the spirit of the story and in my opinion a decent quality, the writer has pulled off a miracle (look how long and talkative Bakemonogatari is, and that's only 2 volumes!).

I didn't really have any issues with how the show was directed, though, and while White Fox are fairly new he had plenty of experience episode directing in shows like LoGH and Crest/Banner of the Stars.
 
D

Dresden

Member
Sage00 said:
I didn't really have any issues with how the show was directed, though, and while White Fox are fairly new he had plenty of experience episode directing in shows like LoGH and Crest/Banner of the Stars.
Click to expand...
The experience of directing School Days helped, I'm sure.
 
Jex

Jex

Member
Sage00 said:
I didn't really have any issues with how the show was directed, though, and while White Fox are fairly new he had plenty of experience episode directing in shows like LoGH and Crest/Banner of the Stars.
Click to expand...
The overall director is certainly someone who's been in the industry a while but he really hasn't directed anything noteworthy. It's solid and serviceable, which is more than I can say for Steins;Gate at times, but it's not inspiring or interesting. His other episode directors aren't particularly noteworthy either and none of them really bring anything to the story.

They whole show is very safe in the way it's put together, but taking some more risks and perhaps making some more radical changes with the original work might have produced a show with better flow.

However, I don't think I'd want this production team doing anything crazy or radical, so in a way I'm glad they worked in an extremely safe manner.
 
M

mAcOdIn

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
Like all horror genres, zombie movies generally appeal only to fans, with the possible exception of George A. Romero's original Dead Trilogy (Night of the Living, Dawn of the, Day of the) which were also bitter social commentaries. The average joe isn't interested in slasher flicks, or the latest torture porn horror films either. The ONLY time horror ever appeals to a general audience is when they actually take all the horror out of it entirely and water it down, for example Twilight which has vampires which don't have any actual properties exhibited by classic vampires. Even the vampire genre, a staple genre of horror films, is largely restricted to fans only when the vampire actually drink blood and get burned to death by the sun. So to hold Resident Evil up to some nonexistent bar of appealing to joe average is setting a goalpost up where no 99% of horror movies can ever score. Horror has always been a self-selecting genre of films, simply because of the subject matter.

Zombie movies are largely zombie movies. They always feature dead people eating the living. The big difference is that the first Resident Evil tried to appeal to people who liked zombie movies in general, after that the sequels seemed to aim directly only for fans of the games and everybody else could go take a hike.
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Fair argument but I don't think it goes against anything I said.
Unknown Soldier said:
Again, it seems to me that you are intentionally overlooking things which should be glaringly unrealistic, such as women with gigantic boobs doing flips and fighting with swords. I don't know how you can claim to overlook the hilariously unrealistic torpedo tits and then whine about a single scene where a guy uses the said tits to brace a gun. It's as if you completely ignored that in Armageddon the Earth 65 million years ago had it's continents in it's present positions and whined that meteors don't make the whole world catch on fire.
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Well here I do think I'm being unfairly bashed, I don't recall ever defending big breasted women doing flips and shit while fighting with swords. I just didn't bring it up, maybe HSotD also had that and that's why you're bringing that up but I couldn't get far enough in to it to se that part. I bash tons of shit about the movie Armageddon.
Unknown Soldier said:
It's a pretty blatant example of selective criticism and it invalidates entire arguments because you're just LOOKING for things to criticize and ignoring everything else. I realize that opinions are subjective but you are sabotaging your entire argument by finding one tiny thing to whine about while ignoring the overall point that the WHOLE SHOW is entirely unrealistic and never makes any pretenses about presenting it's material as anything other than a hilariously exaggerated parody/homage to the American zombie film genre. There isn't even an argument of what you call common every-day things because unless you live in Somalia, Libya, Afganistan, Iraq, Sudan, or some other war zone, real actual firearms aren't common every-day things. Yes, even in America, most people have only seen guns in movies or strapped to a police officer's belt. In that context, WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT RESTING A GUN ON A GIRL'S HUGE TITS TO BRACE IT WHILE YOU FIRE IT?!
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This part is partly fair, I of course know what I know and don't know about things I don't know, I can't help but be angered when things I know are not presented correctly and I can't help not being dismayed about things portrayed incorrectly when I don't know about them. But what I mean about every day things is not just things that everyone owns but just things that we have. If you are going to put real world things in your story I do expect you to have done a minimum amount of research and attempt to portray them accurately, if you're not going to do that you might as well just make something fictional up.
Unknown Soldier said:
Your claim is entirely wrong since the director actually said that he was the one who decided to make something that he would have made when he was in middle school and obsessed with girls and manga. His quote was curiously similar to something that Luc Besson said when he was making The Fifth Element, that it was something he would have made when he was in high school and obsessed with French comic books.
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Well if the directer made the call then I'm clearly wrong there.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
It's not like the art is distinctive enough.
 
A

Articalys

Member
Hellsing321 said:
Tiger and Bunny 13
Pretty awesome way to end the halfway mark for the series. Tiger is a boss and has the HEALING FACTOR.
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I dunno, I thought it was a little weak how
after all the buildup Jake goes down to a flashbang grenade and an uppercut, then accidentally crashed his own helicopter into himself. Also, how did the other heroes go from running from the powered suits to having cleaned house with them so easily? Kotetsu's plan was pretty clever though
.

I also loved the
guy/girl conversation between Blue Rose, Dragon Kid, and Fire Emblem
.
 
L

lazybones18

Banned
Baccano! 1-6

This series is very intriguing and I feel that the plot (well at least the immortality stuff anyway) takes a backseat to showcase all of the different characters, which I love. So far, I really get a kick out of Isaac and Miria and I'm truly disturbed by Ladd Russo's antics. I'm really interested to find out how the Dallas storyline will play out.

And as for the occasional time jumps, I gotta say that I'm not all that bothered by them. Doesn't really hurt the pacing and it helps keep me on my toes so to speak
 
K

Knux-Future

Banned
For those who care or don't have lives (like me)

Durarara Dub comes on Adult Swim tonight at 12:30 am est.


Was going to wait for the DVD/BluRay release but that shit is too expensive.
 
L

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Anohana 10-11 - So much cheap melodrama, anaru still sucks (worst anime character of 2011), blah blah, the ending montage is somewhat decent when taken on it's own, it's a shame you haft to watch a bunch of terrible unconvincing melodrama to get to it mmm.

I can't believe they ruined poppo, he was the only sane character.
 
A

Articalys

Member
Knux-Future said:
For those who care or don't have lives (like me)

Durarara Dub comes on Adult Swim tonight at 12:30 am est.


Was going to wait for the DVD/BluRay release but that shit is too expensive.
Click to expand...
Here is an official sample of the dub cast, for anyone who has time to check it out in the next hour. Scenes through episode 9.
It's Bang Zoom! casted, so expect most of the usual names.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2XG6N73FbY
 
K

Knux-Future

Banned
It has Bosch and Freeman.

It can't be bad.

edit:

and it's not. Main dude's voice is a bit too high pitched but hey I sat through Spike Spencer's Shinji. Nothing can bother me.
 
Jex

Jex

Member
icarus-daedelus said:
Bang Zoom is usually middling-to-poor with dubs. They get hired a lot (relatively speaking) being one of the few studios outside of Funi's in-house set.
Click to expand...
That's the Bang Zoom promise!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marco 4

Unsurprisingly, another episode where we see a fair amount of Marco traversing from place to place with an emphasis on small, narrow streets that seem to tower far above Marco's head. He's enclosed in this constraining environment but camera work does not suggest he is caged or trapped in anyway, this is his home after all.

Once again, in terms of the story 'not much happened'. This show is building things up slowly in terms of Marco's friends, his relationships to others, his attempts to find work and so forth. I'm sure lots of seeds are being planted here for further development. Luckily each individual scene is usually charming and interesting, even if it doesn't get the overall plot moving in some big, dramatic fashion. It seems more of a granular, natural process then I was expecting.

One particular event seems to stick out, the arrival of a travelling puppet show. They arrive with pomp and excitement, but they can't seem to extract much pay from Genoa's cash strapped citizenry. Is this because they're a bunch of cheapskates? I don't think so, it seems more likely that the hard economic times have left most of them without any money to spare.

Anyway, as you can see the content of the puppet show, like all good puppet shows before it, contains grisly murder. Y'know. For the kids!

marcopuppet.jpg
 
N

NotebookJ2

Member
So, watched the first episode of Durarara.

Interesting, will definitely keep watching.

I'm so behind on my anime you don't even know
 
Z

zerokoolpsx

Member
Amagami SS Episode 1-3 I'm having serious doubts about continuing on. This is all about fan service. I've been face palming myself for the last hour or so. Does it get better?? I'm about to drop it.
 
I

Instro

Member
zerokoolpsx said:
Amagami SS Episode 1-3 I'm having serious doubts about continuing on. This is all about fan service. I've been face palming myself for the last hour or so. Does it get better?? I'm about to drop it.
Click to expand...
Its not that fanservice heavy, but if you are not into harem type stuff then its not for you.
 
G

Geneijin

Member
zerokoolpsx said:
Amagami SS Episode 1-3 I'm having serious doubts about continuing on. This is all about fan service. I've been face palming myself for the last hour or so. Does it get better?? I'm about to drop it.
Click to expand...
It's harem anime in an omnibus format. Standard romantic comedy because of it with bits of fanservice and tons of ongoing cameos by all heroines in someway in each respective heroine's arc. If it's boring now, drop it. Although if you want to persist in watching it for a particular girl's story, they are 4 episode arcs and there's no continuity between any arcs besides reoccurring characters.
 
B

Blader

Member
icarus-daedelus said:
Bang Zoom is usually middling-to-poor with dubs. They get hired a lot (relatively speaking) being one of the few studios outside of Funi's in-house set.
Click to expand...

Isn't Bang Zoom also responsible for the FLCL, Bebop, Champloo, and Ghost in the Shell dubs too?
In other words, the greatest dubs ever.
 
Jex

Jex

Member
Blader5489 said:
Isn't Bang Zoom also responsible for the FLCL, Bebop, Champloo, and Ghost in the Shell dubs too?
In other words, the greatest dubs ever.
Click to expand...
Nope.
Miri said:
They did do Champloo though, which was arguably better than the original cast. Redemption!
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Double nope.
 
Jex

Jex

Member
Fireball Charming 11-12

So gooooooood.
Miri said:
Only to be twice as wrong with your post.
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Well they only did one of those dubs, so the earlier post was factually wrong!

Everything else is subjective.
 
T

trejo

Member
The Borrower Arrietty

The movie is beautiful to look at and the soundtrack is an absolute joy but I found it rather underwhelming, to be honest. It's not really a bad movie and I did enjoy parts of it but I feel like it could have been so much more.

And, really, those backgrounds are just so jaw-droppingly pretty and almost make the whole thing worth it by themselves. I cannot praise them enough.
 
A

Articalys

Member
Did Arrietty initially fly under the radar of most people when it was in theaters? I mean, I know everyone's buzzing about it now because of the home release, but if it's that good of a film you'd think there would have been more talk about it.
 
J

Jerk

Banned
Ergo Proxy

Finally managed to finish this.

It was awful. Like watching Eva with even worse writing, and non-direction.

And pretentious as fuck to boot.
 
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