But, we can win if we summon our very own Saber! And, all that ends well.
Despite this being a completely obvious ploy to get people to buy this anime card game, it was still highly amusing. The plot or however much they could fit in 3 minutes was pretty much like a parody of actual card based animes. The card battles are nothing more than dressing up characters into whatever outfits or from whatever anime, but it was still great amusement from just watching it. Season 2 did have more plot or more crazy antics with the female cast, but it was still fun to watch.
Just a friendly note to anyone who watched Sengoku Collection 05: the jokes about the upswing in samurai-related violence in Japan are much funnier if you watch episode 04 too!
I fully realize just how evil what I'm trying to do is.
Significantly better than the previous episode, visually and otherwise. There's a high amount of quality scenery this week, and I particularly enjoyed the direction during the scenes where Ranko was wandering around the town. The visuals during that bit were top notch, and the music to go along with it was very good. It was a very relaxing sequence overall, yet was interesting to watch even though what was actually happening was a mundane activity. This episode is pretty upbeat, I genuinely enjoyed it unlike much of the antics from last week.
The ending is...amazing. Although I suspect not everyone will feel the same!
Just a friendly note to anyone who watched Sengoku Collection 05: the jokes about the upswing in samurai-related violence in Japan are much funnier if you watch episode 04 too!
I fully realize just how evil what I'm trying to do is.
While I might prefer this show to go a little slower, I'm enjoying it too much to complain. It does a really good job of non-verbally indicating how the characters feel about each other. Episode 4, with Sentarou's backstory and the bar scene, was especially top-notch.
Just a friendly note to anyone who watched Sengoku Collection 05: the jokes about the upswing in samurai-related violence in Japan are much funnier if you watch episode 04 too!
Not sure if creepy or moe. In any case, this show will suffice as my sports show to watch since Chihaya is no more. In between I might watch the prequel thingy for Saki Moejang.
But... I TOLD you guys that Upotte!! isn't like that... I said before it was a comedy involving lots of gun jokes. Alot of the innuendo and double entendre depend on knowledge of firearms. Hell, all of the fanservice in the first episode was all about how "guns like to be fired" and all that. The entire "My hammer's going to go off!" thing is a total gun joke. They could not make that joke if FNC were not a gun. You just went in thinking "Sexy middle schoolers? WOOO! I can get my self-loathing quota in for the week!" and that's your own damned fault.
If you REALLY want, you can try (and fail) to track down the two adult doujins the original author allegedly created, but it's your own damned fault you thought the show was going to be nothing but fanservice and depravity when all of us told you that it would not be!
Also, fair warning, I don't think SAKO and Galil will be there until episode 5.
I think it's pretty clear that the series is trying to be both. Every episode so far has had some of both the gun-jokes and creepy-humor elements. Sure, ep. 1 has the most creepy-humor stuff by FAR, but it's not entirely gone, and there's certainly still fanservice.
I mean, you're kind of right here, sure, but come on, whether you like it or not, the fanservice side is pretty obvious and significant. And many of those jokes you reference are certainly meant with double meanings, I think.
Something I've always found interesting about the series is that it's always just a little implied that the girls remember their war experience, like how 14 remembers ambushes in 'Nam and 16 remembers every time she falls short. There's that lingering unspoken implication that they suffer from some pretty deeply ingrained PTSD. I mean, consider why 16 wants to win,
and her past. Elle is THAT gun, she's unreliable and kind of clunky and clumsy, like 16 was back early in her life. Now she sees that same thing with Elle and can't stand it. She sees her past self, and she hates her past self.
I wasn't sure if I should even watch this but this episode was actually a huge step up from the previous two. The show has had a lot of issues with color in the past. With the way the art works the color in most scenes is almost overpowering, which can become an issue if they just stick to one color. Like the last episode for example was orange. Orange everywhere in a way that makes all the scenes kind of blend together into nothingness. There was a lot more diversity here that helped break each scene into something that felt new. http://i.imgur.com/5WWJK.jpg
I like this show's serious side much more than I like it's humorous side, so this episode was considerably more appealing to me. There was also less back and forth between the two. Everything is very low budget, and it shows at times, but the effort to do something more artsy with the shots is admirable, and they succeed enough here to make it a net gain. Even if the art can often fail the idea, there's still something cool about these shots. http://i.imgur.com/dL5I0.jpg
The plot developments in this episode were interesting, and tied in well enough to character emotions that I liked it. More importantly, they dealt with perception, so I'm glad that the series goes out of its way to constantly skew perception with the visual style. Before it never really made sense for them to play around so much visually but here there was more reason to it.
Miscellaneous and potentially spoilery shots of note: http://i.imgur.com/kHlvx.jpg http://i.imgur.com/3EYox.jpg http://i.imgur.com/XxZe5.jpg
Yeah, ep. 3 has great visuals, certainly, probably the most consistently good in the show so far for sure.
As for the humor v. serious sides, I think I like both, really... the serious side might be better, but some of the humor at least is amusing, and it's nice to have something to lighten the tone, once in a while.
What makes the case of Nichijou interesting is that, unlike most of their other works, it's a straight up old fashioned sketch comedy. It isn't even really concerned with otaku in-jokes like Lucky Star. It's nothing but a series of brief sketches created for the purpose of engendering an amused reaction in the audience.
This seems slightly more prone to failure than their other titles because if you really don't find the show funny (as many people in this thread didn't) than it's literally a waste of your time as a viewer. The girls in the series aren't the kind of creatures that otaku want to fawn over either, so it doesn't even appeal to them on that front, nor it based on a hugely popular work (as far as I know).
It's success or failure was entirely down to the ability of KyoAni to make a show that could appeal purely on the basis of doing one thing very well (e.g. comedy) without trying to appeal to a variety of inbuilt audiences, unlike there other works. It's complete failure is therefore very telling. Nobody cares about the amazing animation, effects work on cinematography in that title (besides the obvious people). That's clearly not the only reason people buy this stuff and neither is the KyoAni name (although I think you could have worked that out before watching this series bomb so hard).
You're right that the girls aren't going to bring in the otaku, but I don't agree about the rest of your conclusions here. You're wrong because you're assuming that it'd sell well if its humor was good. Is there any evidence to support this, among anime? I'm somewhat skeptical. Successful anime comedies are generally more otaku-friendly things than Nichijou is, after all.
As you suggest I think that otaku don't buy things just because they're funny, but also because they like the cute characters, and stuff like that... and Nichijou, certainly, in both characters and in humor, was NOT an otaku-centric show. That latter point is a pretty important one, and it's one you overlook, or pass over as "well the humor wasn't good enough". But that's just not the problem at all -- the humor was great, it just wasn't otaku-centric stuff, so it didn't do well enough with that audience. However, it sadly also failed to reach the more mass-market that might have appreciated it more (given that it is much more classic comedy, and not centered on anime otaku humor), so it somewhat understandably failed. I don't think the actual quality of the jokes has much to do with it, though -- I think you want to bash the series, but it's off base.
Not if the gif is all the episode has going for it, or it's enough to satisfy the person out of watching the whole thing.
I'm of the firm belief that there's just too much downtime and disposable jokes (another thing Nichijou has going against it) in each episode for most episodes, and I feel the show works better when edited down to something somewhat similar to what you'd find on youtube, which actually happened and that speaks for itself.
was uninteresting. Low moment. Otherwise the rest of the episode was pretty cool. These 17 episodes make me feel like weve really grown with Marika to see her develop into a great captain and I kind of wish it was a longer anime. I wonder when the crew will get back in action?
I don't feel really compelled yet mostly because Saki and Natsumi's quarrel wasn't too enthralling and it comprised a lot of the first and second episode. They haven't been established themselves well enough for me to care about them that much. If it weren't for Yuka and Rin's involvement I don't think I would care for Saki and Natsumi's deal alone. The revenge the latter two will get on the former two is something that will probably be fun to watch. I call it bland now but I can see it getting better potentially. I did end up liking A-Channel a bit after all.
Yuka's mostly just a comedy character for the most part, though... I guess you like that more than I do (I mean, I have nothing against Yuka and Rin, I just find the other two characters a bit more interesting than them.). And I do think Natsumi and Saki's argument's not so bad. As I said in my ep. 1 review, I can understand why Saki would act that way, but also why Natsumi would be mad at her for being like that...
Hmmm, this was certainly better than the last two episodes but I felt that it fell rather short of the quality you could expect from the first two. Hopefully ep6 lives up to it's potential given the plot summary!
Gave it a shot (no pun intended) because, well, why the hell not. It's alright and the reactions are pretty funny but I think I'll stay with the superior Asumin XEBEC comedy for this season.
I applaud your laudable efforts on tutoring me, good pals. I'll do my best!
Sorry, ignorant peasant here... what is "art" (not 'the Arts' or 'Bellas Artes' but the descriptive "art") anyway? How is contemporaneously used that word? Interestingly, I think that instead of accusations everyone should have stated first what considers "art" (we have to make a database of each member perception out of this) for the discussion to have an starting point so we all could have tackled it and participated on a better position.
I appreciate such a matter to discuss because, frankly, I don't quite understand that kind of abstract label used to lump together everything considered a self-conscious act of expression or communication... isn't everything called "art" just exploitable culture? What isn't economically exploitable nowadays? So... can't anything be monetized? And with this notion... what is left of yourself on something you are doing out of interest? How can anyone testify the authors intentions of pleasing the others interests or pleasing his own interests? Although inherently this are questions about the medium we discuss on here, should I have made a new thread about this or directly shut up? I would be grateful in seeing any of your opinions or responses to this questions, or any other related.
I don't know, but I think just about anything can be art... it's all in the eye of the beholder, or the creator. One or the other, only one needs to think something is art for it to be art, I think.
On a related note, that Calvin and Hobbes "low art, high art, low art" comic is probably related here... go read it. I believe in a broad definition of art, for sure, though, myself.
My view is that if the creator of something intended for it to be art, it's art. I've never seen a good reason to claim otherwise except pointless snobbery.
Dinosaur Island is a masterpiece!
I don't see any problem with considering them art. They're mostly just bad art.
Heck, as I suggested above, some things the creators don't think are art still can be art, I'd say... some people making videogames don't think games are art, but that doesn't mean they aren't.
Also, yeah, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid too. Great stuff... I owned some of the knockoffs as well, including several Mario ones from Nintendo. Those had little mazes and games in them too, not just questions. Made it more complex. Choose Your Own Adventure books were usually somewhat simpler, though no less challenging to get the good endings in.
Has that whole genre died off, or do I just not pay attention to it anymore? I kind of think it's the former, unfortunately. Too bad.
To be honest, the Geass show surprised me. I know other anime adaptations have previously cut the female characters out completely (this is what they do for the Prince of Tennis shows, for instance) but I can't think of anything that's cast men as female characters before.
I think there's a couple of reasons why all-female casts are popular, particularly with shows based on anime:
i) For something like Sailor Moon or Utena, where the target audience is pre-teen to early-teen girls, they don't care about boys in the same way.
ii) The Takarazuka (who do many of these adaptations - they did the Phoenix Wright show in 2009, and have previously done Black Jack and Rose of Versailles) are all about heightened fantasy and emotion - like shoujo manga, really. Reality is discarded entirely and the lush sets and over-the-top performances heighten the overall experience. The actresses are trained specifically for "male" and "female" roles and there's a big female fandom surrounding them as people and performers. I think all of this contributes to something which is much more popular with women than with men - and it just so happens that they are the ones doing stage adaptations of melodramatic anime/manga/games!
So I guess it's partly about what the audience is looking for and partly where the talent actually lies (and who's willing to stage these shows).
Of course there are anime adaptations with mixed gender casts - Bleach and Ao no Exorcist, for instance. But many of them go with all-female casts purely because they're done by the Takarazuka!
(this is OT, but the Takarazuka are owned by TOHO, who also have their own "normal" theatre production arm that stages shows with mixed gender casts. The companies have been known to stage the same shows as each other in radically different versions because the Takarazuka's audience are looking for a "hyper-real" experience - they cut plays and musicals to remove all political storylines etc. because they have no place in the "world" of the Takarazuka.)
Mahiro's pretty mean to her, but she doesn't really do anything to him in response, or leave, so either she likes that, or she keeps hoping he'll change (even though this is anime so he won't)... either that or she's just doing it all to see his reactions and doesn't actually care like she acts like she does. Who knows.
I haven't been this hyped from a sports anime since Ookiku Furikabutte. Loved the characters and their strength for dealing with all the crap that was sent their way due to playing a 'boys' game.
While they didn't win, they sure made a damn good impression that girls can do things just as good as the boys!
Yeah, you're quite right -- it's absolutely a good show. There should be more things like it. I mean, it's reasonably historically accurate, interesting, fun, about baseball, has a good cast, has a good message too... good stuff all around!
