The theories from last week were confirmed by Yuzuki herself. A body swap takes place and the wish goes to the card's avatar. Which only raises more questions, namely, who set up the system like this, and why? And for any unbreakable cycle of despair like this one, can it be undone? I trust that Ruko has enough kindness beneath her growing love of battle that she may be able to cheat the system, but there's no obvious signs yet other than that freaky dream she had at the start.
And yes, this was a Yuzuki heavy episode - the aspect that has most people talking. I think this is one of the more tragic depictions I've seen of this kind of plotline. The last one I can recall that had this kind of tension and also condemnation in the story's universe was most likely Yosuga no Sora, and WIXOSS doesn't have the advantage of a branched timeline in its favor. That we know of.
Selector Infected WIXOSS
... How many battle has Ruko won again?
Because if I'm right and its 2, doesn't that mean that if Ruko doesn't throw this battle, she will become an LRIG? Or does her lack of wish keep her from becoming an Eternal Girl. Anyhow. Good episode and explained what everyone was mostly thinking.
The theories from last week were confirmed by Yuzuki herself. A body swap takes place and the wish goes to the card's avatar. Which only raises more questions, namely, who set up the system like this, and why? And for any unbreakable cycle of despair like this one, can it be undone? I trust that Ruko has enough kindness beneath her growing love of battle that she may be able to cheat the system, but there's no obvious signs yet other than that freaky dream she had at the start.
And yes, this was a Yuzuki heavy episode - the aspect that has most people talking. I think this is one of the more tragic depictions I've seen of this kind of plotline. The last one I can recall that had this kind of tension and also condemnation in the story's universe was most likely Yosuga no Sora, and WIXOSS doesn't have the advantage of a branched timeline in its favor. That we know of.
Can't believe this anime almost slipped by fingers. This anime right here is what defines Spring 2014. It's comedic, its thought provoking, it doesn't take itself too seriously leading into looking like a stuckup prick, and its premise is of interest to keep the viewer (or just me in particular) hooked without trying to wrap my mind around confounded rules or plot elements that don't make sense.
I enjoy how all the hilarious antics of the MC duo are premeditated and aren't just for shits and giggles. The chess scene in particular had me rolling when
Sora hops down on the gameboard and persuade the queen via romance-game skills
So much drama. What a good ep. This show remains consistently good and gets more interesting with each new episode. I'm really surprised by how much I like this show -- it's in my top 3 for the season behind Chaika and Brynhildr. Of the two Okada shows I though M3 was the one that would shine, but that show has been dull ever since episode 1.
Oh I'm pretty sure Ruko's wish would be "more players to play against". And then Kazuki could play cause apparently he's really good at the game. Now that is spec, but I do think her wish would be to be able to fight more.
How many more characters and factions are going to be added in this show, I have enough trouble remembering everyone's names as it is.
At least the red head girl showed up for like two minutes.
Selectors are the people who play the game to have their wish granted, "infected" likely refers to some sort of "factor" in their bodies that was mentioned in passing but hasn't been brought up again (yet), and Wixoss is the name of the card game it's selling. It mostly makes sense.
Steph actually does something! While not explicitly shown in the anime it is nice to hear about her actually doing stuff rather than just be there for the ecchi.
More hilarious antics, the main two is Sora
wishing to become a "fulfilled" person and his newfound drive to conquer the "dog-eared girl" kingdom.
Again the show reveals that Sora and Shiro aren't just playing games and doing their antics for shits and giggles.
Have you ever given a chance to Daryl Surat reviews? This is a good example. Colony Drop collaborators and their contributions to other 'podcasts' are some very interesting to search for too...
Ugh, this was just bad. The movie seemed like it was aimed at really little kids, like 5-7 y/o's. From the intros with the wand waving and stuff, it's obvious the movies are aimed at the same demo that they're trying to sell the plastic merchandise to, but still, you can make a kid's movie without making a bad movie. This was worse than the worst episodes of Fresh, and three times as long, not a good combo.
All of Earth's toys get teleported away to the Toy Kingdom because the ToyMajin is totally cheesed off at kids throwing their toys away when they get bored with them. Precures go to the Toy Kingdom to convince the toys to come back, but totally fail, until the children of Earth, using the power of their magic theater wands, channel the feelings of their hearts toward the toys. I didn't have a magic theater wand, so I'm surprised the Precure were still able to triumph, but thankfully the strength of my pure heart alone was enough.
There were a few things I liked about the movie though, like a reference to Setsuna's rarely mentioned fortune telling ability, and Setsuna actually using her teleportation ability during combat and teleporting a castle spire on top of the bad guy. I like Tarte and Kaoru-chan, so the intro with them just goofing around and eating donuts was probably the best scene in the movie. Love gets a new transformation, turning into Cure Angel which I guess is kinda cool, but it's promptly forgotten about after the movie.
Except I googled it, and apparently it's her final transformation during the last episode, so the movie basically spoils that for you, thanks guys!
Have you ever given a chance to Daryl Surat reviews? This is a good example. Colony Drop collaborators and their contributions to other 'podcasts' are some very interesting to search for too...
I listen to AWO. I don't think it's a very good podcast. Their range of taste is myopic and they're fairly dismissive to almost anything recent. They can be knowledgeable about very specific topics but even then I find their perspective to be so skewed that it's hard to take them very seriously. Also every time they bring up Redline I wanna barf.
This show never ceases to amaze me what it can pull, definitely had to be the craziest thing I've seen in anime in a long time, and all from a simple game of shiritori.
Hydrogen Bomb as the first move made me yell "WHAT THE FUCK" out loud. Everything after that, especially the ending, was just even more insane. Props to Sora essentially making every female nude, though I don't know exactly what word he used... "Every girl's clothes?" or something, maybe a translation issue.
I listen to AWO. I don't think it's a very good podcast. Their range of taste is myopic and they're fairly dismissive to almost anything recent. They can be knowledgeable about very specific topics but even then I find their perspective to be so skewed that it's hard to take them very seriously. Also every time they bring up Redline I wanna barf.
See, now that this has happened I'm going to have to try and expand upon my point but I really didn't want to.
- Their taste is not myopic and they don't dismiss recent works at all. They (namely Daryl) just tend to review them in OtakuUSA and so recent works are never covered in the shows almost my default. They expressly have stated they have no problem with modern anime.
- Their perspectives are varied. Daryl, Gerald and Clarissa often have different views on the same show (which is why its 10000x better than ANN). For example, while Daryl and Gerald went made for Redline, Clairssa specifically pointed out all the major flaws in the movie and brought their discussion to Earth.
Perhaps. I find it hard to describe him in other words though.
He spent 10 years tagging along with a murderer of his mother figure and run away screaming at the first sign of confrontation. You could say he spent all the time, until episode 26, outgrowing that pansy self and finally becoming a man capable of fulfilling Rem's request.
I think I will look at Trigun as a criticism of hanging on to naive and unrestrained pacifism in the face of harsh realities of life. And the human cost of such lofty ideals.*
*All interpretation is supposedly in the eye of beholder.
I don't think AWO is something that's terrible, but the podcast itself just doesn't really offer much to me, and it's not uncommon for only one person on to have watched what's being discussed. In that circumstance you're not really getting a varied perspective either, or much good back and forth. Even when someone does bring up the negative aspects of something, the complaints tend to feel misplaced. In most cases I would rather listen to AWO over most other things, but honestly they really don't cover a wide range of what's out there because they have such an intense focus on action and sci-fi type shows. Their super long podcast at the end of last year was just as smarmy and self indulgent as any ANNcast.
A simple story of 4 guys playing Ping Pong... bur through sheer directorial effort you are glued to the chair and it ends before you can notice. The last sequence was great in particular.
Poor Kong, he grew on me, I wanted him to at least win a few games more. Exiled forever
I mean it's true. So many of humans just live on a day to day basis doing jack shit to contribute to the world. But there are a few humans that come up with what advances society.
I hesitate to wade into this subject, but I find the display of these young girls in their underwear to be more creepy than when they're straight up naked in a bath. The latter has a certain amount of naturalness, particularly with the water hiding all the features, whereas the former feels more like gratuitous sexualization. It's especially jarring with the cute artstyle that this series utilizes in which all the girls appear extremely young.
Other than that unfortunate aspect, this is a mildly amusing example of the cute girls genre - I am fond of the not-really-a-rabbit mascot - but it lacks that spark of incisive characterization that sets apart a truly great show such as Love Lab. Not sure if I'll watch more.
I hesitate to wade into this subject, but I find the display of these young girls in their underwear to be more creepy than when they're straight up naked in a bath. The latter has a certain amount of naturalness, particularly with the water hiding all the features, whereas the former feels more like gratuitous sexualization. It's especially jarring with the cute artstyle that this series utilizes in which all the girls appear extremely young.
Other than that unfortunate aspect, this is a mildly amusing example of the cute girls genre - I am fond of the not-really-a-rabbit mascot - but it lacks that spark of incisive characterization that sets apart a truly great show such as Love Lab. Not sure if I'll watch more.
Finally caught up with this show, and things are getting intense.
Aside from awesome YuGiOh reference the Warbeasts having
video game technology makes me wonder if they're equivalent of human technology in the real world or close to it. As such things like ships and airplanes would have already existed wouldn't it?
Wonder if the show will tackle this problem.
Speaking of tackling problems, the one weakness that Sora and Shiro have is now exposed as they are
both separted. The flashing gray screen and Sora's disappearance leads me to believe that Sora exited into a realm where he is the player and Shiro+crew are video game characters.
a few friends of mine wanted to start an anime-related podcast/video thing, so we just hit the ground running and made a few discussion videos to get our feet wet.
a few friends of mine wanted to start an anime-related podcast/video thing, so we just hit the ground running and made a few discussion videos to get our feet wet.
I like your voices.
Could you put timestamps for the different anime in the Info? When you have a 3 hours podcast, you maybe don't want to watch it all and only keep it to selected titles. I hope that you do other kinds of podcasts, I am not very interested in first impressions, but I would like to hear some podcast that explains some history or interesting facts or interpreting some show, etc.
Japan doesn't even really have a live action equivalent to prestige TV series like those, though.
Of all the "prestige" shows that air at the moment I think anime could probably only successfully tackle those which are either high fantasy (Game of Thrones) or take place in heightened reality (Hannibal). Anything else - even high octane stuff like The Americans - requires a level of subtlety that limited animation budgets and the constraints of anime's majority audience can't accommodate. (note: I haven't seen Fargo yet, or True Detective, or most other stuff like that... I'm a bit slow on the uptake of TV in general!).
Even then, Game of Thrones would probably turn out even more tawdry than it already is, and given that the default setting for "insane serial killer" in Japanese voice acting is either crazy rabid giggling or hammy smoothness I don't think Hannibal would turn out that great either!
Psch, Setsuna actually using her teleportation abilities in battle (and Love's bizarre yet awesome martial arts moment, lol) made this movie worthwhile by themselves. The whole forgotten toys story definitely did feel like the most overtly "kiddy" Precure has ever been, though.
Japan doesn't even really have a live action equivalent to prestige TV series like those, though.
Of all the "prestige" shows that air at the moment I think anime could probably only successfully tackle those which are either high fantasy (Game of Thrones) or take place in heightened reality (Hannibal). Anything else - even high octane stuff like The Americans - requires a level of subtlety that limited animation budgets and the constraints of anime's majority audience can't accommodate. (note: I haven't seen Fargo yet, or True Detective, or most other stuff like that... I'm a bit slow on the uptake of TV in general!).
Even then, Game of Thrones would probably turn out even more tawdry than it already is, and given that the default setting for "insane serial killer" in Japanese voice acting is either crazy rabid giggling or hammy smoothness I don't think Hannibal would turn out that great either!
Japan doesn't even really have a live action equivalent to prestige TV series like those, though.
Of all the "prestige" shows that air at the moment I think anime could probably only successfully tackle those which are either high fantasy (Game of Thrones) or take place in heightened reality (Hannibal). Anything else - even high octane stuff like The Americans - requires a level of subtlety that limited animation budgets and the constraints of anime's majority audience can't accommodate. (note: I haven't seen Fargo yet, or True Detective, or most other stuff like that... I'm a bit slow on the uptake of TV in general!).
Even then, Game of Thrones would probably turn out even more tawdry than it already is, and given that the default setting for "insane serial killer" in Japanese voice acting is either crazy rabid giggling or hammy smoothness I don't think Hannibal would turn out that great either!
Episode 37 of Legends of the Galatic Heroes is fucking crazy with these redraws (which look cheap and lifeless). I just saw it change four plus times in ONE SCENE! Guy walks across room, turns around and now he has a new face, then he transforms back to his old self, and the again to the new style. It's hilarious and distracting.
I like your voices.
Could you put timestamps for the different anime in the Info? When you have a 3 hours podcast, you maybe don't want to watch it all and only keep it to selected titles. I hope that you do other kinds of podcasts, I am not very interested in first impressions, but I would like to hear some podcast that explains some history or interesting facts or interpreting some show, etc.
We have a ton of different show ideas specializing in specific topics like older shows, talking about one specific series in depth, AMV, figures, cosplay, etc. We know a lot of people who can guest on these shows depending on what their specialties are. But it's again, just a matter of figuring out planning, format, timing and the like.
A Hosoya Yoshimasa and a somewhat villainous Sugita? Truly this episode has blessed us on the male seiyuu front.
Nice to see more of Yun, as well. I think I might have to start keeping an eye out for Kuno Misaki, because she suddenly seems to be voicing all the lolis and her voice is pretty amazing. Aside from Yun in this, she's also Tama in Wixoss and Kurumiko in That One Show With The Flags this season, and last season she voiced the transcendentally wonderful Kate in Zvezda. Honestly I'm just surprised she doesn't have a role in Black Bullet.
