Hmm, for some reason I was under the assumption after reading the synopsis awhile ago that the girl lived on Earth with no knowledge of space travel or colonization and thus it was super surprising to be the captain of a pirate ship. Well she didn't know about pirates anyway.
Bodacious Space Pirates 2
Welp I finally finished this.
It got dull a few times but the rest made up for it.
On the whole, I'd say it's at least as fun as Haganai.
I didn't get attached to any of the characters to the degree I did with Haganai, though, so I don't think I'll be buying this one. (Although the character commentary tracks are tempting.)
I'd rate Kirino as "reasonably huggable" when she's not punching and kicking anyone.
Misc thoughts:
-The scenes when Kirino is enjoying her hobbies were hilarious and relatable, giving us the famous lip-licking .gif and the pillow scene.
This was me two days ago.
-Kuroneko's
dere scene in the last episode was more powerful than all Kirino dere across the entire series.
It's no surprise she's popular.
-I'm not sure if Kyousuke is just really nice or has some kind of psychological issue where he needs to feel like a martyr. I'm sure the intent is to generate audience snickering about him being infatuated with Kirino, but it comes off more like he thrives on being abused.
-On the topic of Kyousuke being infatuated with Kirino or vice-versa, there was surprisingly little in the way of scenes with the potential to be taken that way. I was expecting more audience-teasing in that regard, like the way the humor in Ro-Kyu-Bu! works.
-The voice Hanazawa Kana used for Kuroneko is basically the same aloof one she's using for Chiaki in Bodacious Space Pirates, but I think she's gotten better at it in the past year, because Kuroneko's acting sounded bad enough to bug me some of the time, but I haven't had an issue with Chiaki. (Her timid/gentle voice characters have always sounded fine to me, like Tomoka in Ro-Kyu-Bu! and Kobato in Haganai.)
-NicoNico comments on episode 14: "They made Hanazawa say 'masturbation' four times!! I'm going to rewind and listen again!"
-NicoNico comments on episode 15 were full of people questioning how Kyousuke got an eroge through American airport customs, but I can say from personal experience on my first trip back from Japan, when I opened a suitcase full of eroge at the airport in front of a customs official in order to add up their value, the only thing he cared about was whether they were pirated or not.
Speaking of eroge passing through customs, FedEx delivered 0verflow's final game to me yesterday:
The one on the left is Setsuna, from School Days. Other girl is a new character.
Kirino's stack of games in her room included School Days, Summer Days, and Cross Days, so I imagine she'll be getting this one as well. Gotta commend her taste.
It occurred to me that a lot of you guys weren't around when I watched Infinite Ryvius, so I'm going to recommend that now. It has all of the things that animeGAF loves:
Speaking of eroge passing through customs, FedEx delivered 0verflow's final game to me yesterday:
The one on the left is Setsuna, from School Days. Other girl is a new character.
Kirino's stack of games in her room included School Days, Summer Days, and Cross Days, so I imagine she'll be getting this one as well. Gotta commend her taste.
WTF. That's not really a sis-con game (Makoto is basically related to everybody though). Did she get multiple copies because of the retailer exclusives?
WTF. That's not really a sis-con game (Makoto is basically related to everybody though). Did she get multiple copies because of the retailer exclusives?
As a true awesome nerd, Kirino gets two copies of everything, one to play and one to keep. Though I think there were also some multiple copies for retailer bonuses, but I'm not sure.
Unlike in Lord of the Flies, though, the guys and gals in Infinity Ryvius already have ridiculous weapons. Ralph could only dream of growing up, joining the military, and realizing what monsters people could be!
Okay yeah, this has definitely earned its reputation as goriest anime of all time. I mean when this (WARNING, EXTREMELY GRAPHIC) is in the very first episode, you know some sick shit is going down.
As for the plot, I don't really know (or particularly care) what is going on. There seems to be very little context. I think it's about some robot psycho robot girl and an organization after her, but I'm not quite sure.
You know, I don't know exactly how a person would react if you did that to them, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't just stare it at with their mouth agape.
Actually I'm pretty sure there's no way you'd be alive/conscious.
Regarding Infinite Ry, I should get around to finishing that.
Ah, Genocyber. I remember when US Manga was just trying to find whatever violent anime they could and we got stuff like Genocyber and Guyver. They just kind of blend together.
You know, I don't know exactly how a person would react if you did that to them, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't just stare it at with their mouth agape.
Actually I'm pretty sure there's no way you'd be alive/conscious.
Unlike in Lord of the Flies, though, the guys and gals in Infinity Ryvius already have ridiculous weapons. Ralph could only dream of growing up, joining the military, and realizing what monsters people could be!
And with that, the swim competition arc is over. It looks like the genre shift will actually be episode 8 and not 7 if the preview is anything to go by.
Upotte 5 - This was a good episode for sure. It's got some sketchy elements of course, but it's good overall. So yeah, here, M16 takes on two opponents, and then Sako and Galil face FNC and AR18. 18's American, you can tell from her blonde hair of course. Meanwhile, Elle (L? Eru? I'm not sure what to call her) and Sig are still on the way to the training location.
Elle gets stuck in the mud and wants to give up, but just like how FNC is with M16, Sig cheers her up and tries to convince her to not give up, and that she actually doesn't hate M16.
M16 is really good though,
and wins her match with only moderate challenge despite facing off against two competent opponents. You can see why she'd be frustrated with Elle, with how failure-prone and incompetent she is... poor Elle. America does appreciate Britain's help, though, really! Um, I guess. Maybe. We can do it all ourselves though, really!
It was nice to see that in the end she gave in and accepted Elle's help, though... hopefully she can be of use in this fight.
On another note, why is Sako so evil? I mean, in this episode she's
getting off on watching FNC while thinking about shooting her, then shoots her over and over... yeah, she's completely psycho-evil.
Why pick on Finland like that? Last I checked they weren't so bad... oh well. On that note, yeah, poor FNC...
losing like that to that nutcase... and then being shot repeatedly. At least Sako only shot her in the body armor, though, and not elsewhere too.
As for the end, same cliffhanger that that chapter of the manga ended on.
I know she's okay, but gah, that's cruel, ending with Sig getting shot like that! Sako...
Seitokai Yakuindomo OVA 3 - Yeah, it's more SYD, and it's as good as ever! This OVA isn't really a stand-alone story or something; instead, it's just another episode, similar to any from the original anime. Indeed, the beginning calls it "episode 16", which it pretty much is. Don't expect plot development or anything, not that this show has much of that. It of course does not.
Instead, expect wall-to-wall sex jokes, of many different kinds, beginning to end. That's what this episode is, and it does a good job of it -- it's often pretty funny stuff. They don't all work (
I don't really like the "golden shower" one
), but almost every skit is funny.
It is kind of odd though how this episode has a "the guy walks into the girls' changing room" scene, and a bunch of minor characters are seen in their underwear, but that hasn't happened for any of the main characters... do they have major character powers against that, or is it something else? I don't know.
Though I do remember some jokes earlier in the series about Aria wearing chastity belts.
So, it was good stuff. Consistent SYD humor for sure. The new characters, two girls from another school, were moderately amusing too, though it was the main girls' jokes that really made those scenes funny. Overall, I hope this isn't the end for the franchise... they need to either do a full second season, or make more OVAs at least. It deserves it.
Seitokai Yakuindomo OVA 3: It's kind of delightful to get a show that's just skit after skit of crude sexual humor nonstop. Straight to the business. I really wouldn't mind another season or another set of OVA unlikely as it is. This one had pretty much everything from the series, every character popped up and even a new one who's a student council president of another show that's as perverted as Shino. Not a bad way to top off the series, it's was a pleasant enough show to watch if base humor is your thing. It also has Omigawa, Kobayashi and Satomi Arai. A variety of unique VA fetishes for the firehawks out there.
On the SYD pairings from earlier. Shino's cool but it's all about that Suzu. She even got a ponytail this episode! Felt like there should of been more Aria though.
Hopefully it gets at least another OVA, yeah. Another season would be even better of course. How have the OVAs sold?
It's not like I'm expecting Akagi levels of mahjong where its pretty much distilled tiles all episode long but the play in this episode wasn't much play at all really. The other two plays that weren't Toki and Kuro basically didn't have any input except for the very last round where they tried to win with speed. I just want more involved play : (
As I said though, aren't most episodes of the original show similar, in terms of how much mahjong they show? Or am I wrong?
Of course, it had twice as many episodes as this will, and of course that's pretty sad, but at least they've finally gotten to a decent level of mahjong. And yeah, they won't be skipping over the whole rest of this match, for sure.
I don't mind watching losing as long as its involved. Rather than straight sweeps for whoever has the most broke ability.
True, it is better when there's at least some mixing of the winners... but in Saki you usually see streaks, when someone's ability is going at full power. Then, if/when someone cracks it, you see more mixed winners. And the other two girls did see some success, as they pointed out one actually ended up up for the match... but not much of that was shown, in order to focus on Senriyama instead. Maybe more of the other two teams should have been shown, but eh, I don't really mind focusing on the most important characters.
Being at the half-way point at the moment, I'm kind of unsure how to feel about the show so far. There's quite a few things I like about it but so far I just haven't really felt engaged in the story or in any of the characters besides possibly Rio.
Maybe because it's because it's a different tone than what I was expecting or maybe it's the lack of an ongoing plot with the episodic nature but I've found it slightly... dull so far. There's a lot of heartfelt moments such as
Mishio asking Yumina to braid her hair
and
Rio taking care of Kanata while she was ill
but there were also a few silly moments like
at the end of Episode 4, Kanata magically doesn't suck at playing the bugle anymore after a couple words of advice?
. Uh huhhhhh. Overall, I find the tone very peaceful and relaxing. The setting gives me a bit of a Valkyria Chronicles vibe which I kinda like given the actual setting of this story.
The art direction is really nice. Very beautiful backgrounds and scenery and the classical music soundtrack fits the show like a glove.
So at the moment, I'm enjoying it for what it is, but I don't love it. The last episode was pretty fun and very different, directional-wise. They seem to touch on a few themes regarding war which I imagine will be examined a bit more closely later on. I guess I'll see where the next half of this show heads.
You are watching the full, 14/15-episode version, right? Because the two DVD/BD bonus episodes are must-watch episodes, for sure, and one goes in the middle of the series.
But yeah, expect the series to change over the second half, while also somewhat staying the same. You'll see what I mean once you watch it. SnW is just such an amazing, amazing series... great mono no aware, good characters, good humor too in the funny parts, it's really got everything.
There was one bad episode, but apart from that, it was just so, so fantastic... really one of the best.
As for your comment about Kanata suddenly getting good, though. No, that's not really what happened. What happened is that she practiced a lot, and got better thanks to her hard work. She's not Yui, she has actual character progression. That moment really hits that point home, for anyone who was still clinging to that stupid, stupid "SnW is K-On" stuff... though that gets even more clear later on of course.
But yeah, keep watching. I thought the first half was fantastic, but it does get even better.
Oh, and yes, I thought the art direction (backgrounds in particular) was really impressive. Beautiful looking show.
I think I felt the same way at that point in the show. I mean, I really enjoyed the charming characters and was curiously awaiting for the setting to gradually reveal its history, but there wasn't a sense of conflict or anything. I don't want to spoil anything or even really comment on the latter half of the show other than it definitely did things that, in retrospect, made all of the episodes sort of gel together and allow me appreciate it as a whole. I wish I could go back and experience the show for the first time again. My experience was sort of marred by Crunchyroll's early streaming build that kept cutting out on me.
Apparently the live-action segment that formed the second half of the first episode was so enormously hated it was canceled and the show is now 15 minutes long.
The lolsorandom humor is occasionally funny but I think I'll pass on the rest of this.
Apparently the live-action segment that formed the second half of the first episode was so enormously hated it was canceled and the show is now 15 minutes long.
The lolsorandom humor is occasionally funny but I think I'll pass on the rest of this.
It occurred to me that a lot of you guys weren't around when I watched Infinite Ryvius, so I'm going to recommend that now. It has all of the things that animeGAF loves:
...
And much, much more! A Sunrise anime from the '90s, when they used to be good. From the director of Code GeassPlanetes.
WTF. That's not really a sis-con game (Makoto is basically related to everybody though). Did she get multiple copies because of the retailer exclusives?
I thought Zetsuen no Tempest looked cool when I was reading the first chapter then I realized it's a battle manga. Not that it's bad but I totally had a different expectation going from the plot summary.
I thought Zetsuen no Tempest looked cool when I was reading the first chapter then I realized it's a battle manga. Not that it's bad but I totally had a different expectation going from the plot summary.
It's kind of 40% mystery and 60% battle shounen, so you could still like it based on the plot rather than the fights. It's pretty hit or miss though. I'd probably put it at the lower end of mid-tier battle series.
And with that, the swim competition arc is over. It looks like the genre shift will actually be episode 8 and not 7 if the preview is anything to go by.
Infinite ryvius looks kind of like Nadesico and thats probably a good thing.
Anyway...
Code geass R2 10
So the black knights
kidnapped the empress which begins a large scale battle. The empress' protector has a rather formidable mech of his own. In the firefight, the chinese federation captures Kallen.
Lelouch realizes that
his forces have essentially been backed into a corner.
I thought Zetsuen no Tempest looked cool when I was reading the first chapter then I realized it's a battle manga. Not that it's bad but I totally had a different expectation going from the plot summary.
I read the the first chapter it come off as trash to me, which is quite impressive to do in only 1 chapter, normally I read up to 20 chapter before I realize I've been wasting time reading trash.
