I liked the animation when Kokuto was running in the forest at the end. That was nicely done.
80% of this was boring as hell though. It is nice as back story for Kokuto and Shiki, but man was I about to fall asleep. And there were no cool action sequences like the one in the first film
CGI overuse aside, this was an incredible episode. Great action, very imaginative use of bending, and just the right amount of comedy woven into the story. It's gonna follow the clichéd "traditional arts vs technology" trope, but I can't complain when it's been integrated this well into the narrative. My only nag with the show would be that Bolin and Mako have very little to do during these instances.
For Victorique and Kujo, though, in my opinion their lowlight is from ep. 18 (sorry I said 19 before, it's 18) when
after watching a girl (who was working for one organization) die painfully of poison and then saving the day, they have a nice chat with her killer (who was working for a rival one), and Victorique quite understandingly tells hims that she knows his real identity and that he's working for the people he does because they're holding his sister prisoner. As if that completely excuses the multiple murders that'd occurred in the episode (I only mentioned the cruelest one, but there were several others, and I'm pretty sure he was involved in some of them too)? Ah... I'm not so sure about that... but yeah, okay, here's that important thing the people you work for want, that all the other people had died fighting over, bye. Victorique does keep one piece of key information to herself, but still, it's pretty messed up stuff. No mention at all of what he'd just done moments before. Oh, you did it because they're holding your sister? Alright, murder's fine with me then! That's not how it works...
Oh yeah, and did I mention that the girl who dies was an orphan or something like that, and died saying how she was scared and wanted to live so she could figure out her birthday, because she believes that people who die without knowing their birthdays will have a bad after life? Kujo looks sad for a moment, but seems to have forgotten the whole thing a few minutes later when the scene in the above paragraph occurs.
And then the episode ends with the guy, smiling in happiness thanks to Victorique's actions.
Overall I found the episode pretty disturbing, and it's something I can't entirely forget, and for the worst reasons.
That's a lot of stereotypical images of Texas in one image. Bravo!
Anyway, this was another good episode. Some nice visual touches with the bubbles, the fast-forwarding, and the blackout goggles (which, though certainly not as striking or powerful, reminded me of that one transition in Chihayafuru 3 in its unexpected nature). There was good tension in the JAXA scenes, particularly in the first one, and Mutta's frustration was handled in a moving manner. The pug was adorable, as usual. If I were to make any criticism, it would be that the pacing felt loose, even more than usual, but it wasn't a big deal. Oh, and a tablet with screens on both sides doesn't seem the most practical design.
Even with the news continually harping on the fire extinguisher man, I wasn't expecting him to be a Chekhov's Gun.
We had two blu rays of shounen, seventy-five dvds of romcom, five box sets of high-budget nomiminA, a manga half-full of catgirls, a whole galaxy of multi-colored moe, slice of life, mecha, gag anime... Also, a quart of fantasy, a quart of shoujou, a case of Hentai, a pint of raw ecchi, and two dozen Yuri's. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious anime collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.
The only thing that really worried me was the lolis. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of a loli binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
Sounds similar to my own collection. its definitely true that the collector mentality is very strong once youve started. You might end up with Green green, hanaukyo maid team, polyphonica....not that I did or anything >_>
Sounds similar to my own collection. its definitely true that the collector mentality is very strong once youve started. You might end up with Green green, hanaukyo maid team, polyphonica....not that I did or anything >_>
This thread completes me.
Truth. Is there a single male in K-on? I don't recall seeing one.
Great episode, once again. Kaoru's great. Sentarou is great. I liked the way the tin-can-phone scene was done a lot.
Tsuritama 5
It's really nice watching Yuki grow as a person. That, and the pleasing visuals, make the show really relaxing to watch. But I still feel like I'm waiting for some sort of more meaningful conflict to happen. It's not really a problem, though.
I still don't really know what I expect from this show.
Sankarea 6
This episode was a little uneven, but it's still working in a way that I like, more often than not. A lot of the discussion in Furuya's backyard wasn't handled very well, but the art with the hydrangea garden and the late night scenes reminded me what I watch it for.
It's the only show of these four that I took screens of, after all.
But I'll be disappointed if the parallels aren't explicitly explored before the show ends. It's one aspect of the tragic situation here that make it so compelling to me.
I also wonder if these horror teases are going to lead to something amazing later.
So I guess everything I thought about Kiritsugu was more or less true.
There were some great montages here. I really like how these last two episodes have explored Kiritsugu's past. It's now easier to understand what a burden he's chosen to shoulder, and why he followed that road.
It's interesting that the show chose to take this detour now, at this moment in the plot. I'm really curious what will follow.
Despite stuff like the stuff in Dresden's post I liked Gosick overall all the way until ep. 17, so I can almost recommend watching it up to ep 15 or 16 or so, but yeah, don't go beyond that, it gets scarring across the board. Scarringly disturbing, insanely stupid, completely defiant of all remaining shreds of historical accuracy... ugh!
The girl was great, probably one of the better characters in the series.
And she'd have been even better if she'd lived, of course...
Of course, most of the characters in Gosick are either pretty terrible people or are kind of annoying, so I don't know how much strong competition there is... but it's probably true.
chose the wrong girl. It's just that Miu is so uninteresting. I don't want to say that I find the fragile moe characters boring because I liked Nagisa from Clannad, but Miu just sucks. Sana, Sena and Shingo's little sister were the only viable options and this show got it wrong.
It's like Shuffle! all over again. Well, it's nowhere near as disappointing as Shuffle! but man, it sure came really close during episode 10. This must have been how the fans of
Solid opener. The game was cool to watch and Kuroko's gimmick is unique enough to not make me rage at him.
I still don't understand how he hides his presence like a ninja and nobody can see him but whatever, I'm not gonna question the logic.
I had a laugh when Kagami just owned Kuroko. Really didn't expect that. Also seeing how the Miracles players are split to 5 teams, the tournament gonna be very interesting.
I felt like this was an even stronger episode overall than the last one. Every time you think you've learned how far Kiritsugi will go, they reveal another level.
Seeing his utter despair and grief is also something new. I think it's pretty telling that Shirley is the one he talks to.
The episode preview makes it kind of obvious what is going to happen next, it seems pretty spoilery.
It'll work even better, since passing the escape test wouldn't cause an internationally-reported incident. Not that thwarting some robber in Houston would be very likely to be reported on in Japan either, but whatever!
Reading all these Sankarea posts is really weird. None of them describe how I felt when I was reading the manga. Maybe I should get back to the anime. Only watched some part of the first episode and dropped it.
It'll work even better, since passing the escape test wouldn't cause an internationally-reported incident. Not that thwarting some robber in Houston would be very likely to be reported on in Japan either, but whatever!
I felt like this was an even stronger episode overall than the last one. Every time you think you've learned how far Kiritsugi will go, they reveal another level.
Seeing his utter despair and grief is also something new. I think it's pretty telling that Shirley is the one he talks to.
The episode preview makes it kind of obvious what is going to happen next, it seems pretty spoilery.
I did like the trauma theme going on once Kakeru was playing, two times was alright, and with that kick to the face, hopefully he gets over it next episode
.
We need Mako and Kaoru back in action though. Shonan match has been fun.
[Sankarea] - 6
[...]
Of course, the tone of the story has changed quite a bit over the course of the first few episodes. Moving from a largely sombre series mixed with brevity to a strange fanservice show. This episode seems to be leaning back towards serious, but unfortunately they are trying to achieve that whilst also including dumb fanservice shit and other waciness.
One thing that really bothered me about this episode, and what I think is indicative of how shitty the writing has become is the sequence when
he starts to videotape Rea for his 'zombie observation diary'. He really seems to enjoy videotaping certain aspects of her body, including her legs, in a fairly perverse manner. Rea is of course, embarrassed about being recorded but she's also fairly playful as well, shrugging it off to a certain extent. However, what she should be is incredibly creeped out and traumatised because Furuya, who she came to for protection and comfort, is now acting just like the father who has abused her. Of course, she doesn't respond that way at all.
I've been holding off on this one for a while because quite frankly it looked boring. Now that I've actually watched it, it was actually pretty fun. There's a bit of Shonen Haato power ups and "I SEE THROUGH YOUR PLAN" unfortunately (I mean, I'm nowhere near pro level and even I don't start all my feints in the same way when I play), but the characters are reasonably likeable even if I don't share Firehawk's obsession with Kobayashi, there's the nice progressive message about how girls can play too, a goal to strive for, etc. I think I'll stick with this one for a few more episodes at least.
I'm having somewhat of a problem with the tone changes in this show. It seem to go from a more lighthearted tone to a darker one without the middle ground between the two that I'd like.
The Mai/Tate thing is another thing I'm having a problem with. Why would she
act that way at the end of episode 13 when Tate interrupts her and Reito? And Tate, why the fuck would he cock-block Reito, when he had all the chances to tell him to not go after Mai from the start? Not like I like Reito, dude seems shady. My main problem is that it's some episodes now that the two have been made to look like they started having a thing for each other, without what I'd call a seriously good reason for it.
But I'll be disappointed if the parallels aren't explicitly explored before the show ends. It's one aspect of the tragic situation here that make it so compelling to me.
