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[Narag]

Episode really reminds me of how screwy the Fraulen Eule stuff is in Fujikoike. Love this one.

It reminded me of the same especially Linda's tragic backstory.

 

[cajunator]

Seeing that picture of Elena gives me no desire to watch AO. :|

Interestingly, it makes me quite anticipatory!

 

[Femmeworth]

Interestingly, it makes me quite anticipatory!

You should go back to watching the original series. At least it had some integrity.

 

[Haly]

Kara no Kyoukai 5:
Probably the worst anime I have ever watched. It's so bad, and not even the "Ichika no ecchi" or "Nice Boat" kind of bad that can be entertaining under certain conditions, just pure badness.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Sankarea 10

Babu for best cat of the season. Enjoyed it. I have been waiting for the mom to get focused upon so that was worth, nice story. Furuya moment was great. Anime still needs to return to ep 1-3 levels of goodness though.

 

[cajunator]

Kara no Kyoukai 5:
Probably the worst anime I have ever watched. It's so bad, and not even the "Ichika no ecchi" or "Nice Boat" kind of bad that can be entertaining under certain conditions, just pure badness.

So, its not worth the $1000 that ebay commands then?

 

[Risette]

So, its not worth the $1000 that ebay commands then?

No

 

[firehawk12]

Eureka Seven AO 09:

The series can't afford to spin its wheels with stuff that's mostly self-contained like this. Sure, it all involved

Spoiler

_____Truth______

somehow, but

Spoiler

his appearances are so disjointed and the show is so insistent on everything about him being a complete mystery that it's pretty much impossible to gain any context for his actions or the scenes that he appears in.

I feel like everything that I enjoyed about the early episodes of the show has completely evaporated. Secret fights are dull, the interesting characters have taken a backseat to annoying animu characters and one-dimensional government conspiracy guys, and the ultimate objectives of most characters and factions remain cryptic. Feels BONES, man.

I really hope that

Spoiler

Truth is Anemone and Dominic's kid.

Either that, or

Spoiler

Renton is his father and Truth is Ao's half-brother.

It'd make him worth it.

 

[Chet Rippo]

So that's why you don't care for the show.

You may be on to something.

 

[survivor]

So, its not worth the $1000 that ebay commands then?

No anime is worth that much money

 

[Uchip]

I'm only following your example.

ill never admit it, despite having the most posts in that thread!

Eureka Seven AO 09:
OMG SHE'S AN OTAKU AND I'M AN OTAKU AND SHE'S WEARING NEKOMIMI AND A SCHOOL MIZUGI AND MAKES ALL SORTS OF REFERENCES TO THINGS I LIKE AND IF SHE WAS REAL I BET SHE WOULD HAVE SEX WITH ME BECAUSE WE'RE BOTH OTAKU FAPFAPFAPFAPFAPFAPFAPFAPFAP

shes a sales pitch, not a character

Babu for best cat of the season.

wonder if that name means anything, it wasnt long after this babu was shown

 

[Haly]

So, its not worth the $1000 that ebay commands then?

You would be better off buying 10 Godokas.

 

[Ultimadrago]

Yeah well, it was better than Persona 4 at least!

That's not too difficult.

Eureka Seven AO 09:

Oh yeah, this is a thing that I am watching, isn't it?

*mumblegrumble*

 

[cajunator]

No anime is worth that much money

Oh, there is one series that I would personally consider worth close to that.

 

[dakkumauji]

Midori Days 05

You gotta be amazed at Midori's strength at dragging a body around everywhere.
Pretty nice episode showing Midori's resolve! at being useful. Yeah, all it really shows is how amazing Midori is at I guess everything whether she's full size or as someone's right hand.

 

[wonzo]

Koikelupin 10

well that was a pile of incoherent shit.

 

[Dresden]

It's always surprised me that a manga/anime whose concept is 'what if the hand i fap with was a girl' was so successful.

 

[cajunator]

It's always surprised me that a manga/anime whose concept is 'what if the hand i fap with was a girl' was so successful.

Because the manga/show was actually made right.

 

[Uchip]

if only more shows would use such a bold/obscure idea
and for that Ben-to deserves at least some credit for trying

 

[cajunator]

Ben-to is a pretty fun idea and I am excited in seeing the rest of it.

 

[A Black Falcon]

AKB0048 05:

This episode was generally what you'd expect out of an AKB0048 episode that completely takes the emphasis off of the singing and mecha and drama. It was a mostly limp and pathetic attempt to give character to the show's stable of moeblobs, succeeding only in producing some really, really AKB0048 vignettes. I still don't know who most of these characters are, and, consequently, I still don't care whether any of them live or die, so protip to the show: acting cute is not a valid form of characterization. Other than the rather out-of-left-field Pheromone Girl, the events of the episode were largely a dozen+ palette swaps of the same character uguu~ing at each other.

All of the characters have had plenty of characterization in the first five episodes. If you don't know who they are, that's your own fault, not the show's. Seriously, they each have an individual character and I'm having no problems remembering them, for the main cast. And sure, the show is cute, but there is more to them than just blobs of moe. Some of that was shown in this episode, too.

Because Jexhius already elaborated on the specific problems with this episode better than I'm capable of, a select couple of observations:

Most of the Akibastar backgrounds are horrifyingly ugly. Not only do they look like they were lazily stolen wholesale from Bodacious Space Pirates, but the fact that most of the structures are simple polygons with flat images pasted onto them couldn't be more apparent:

They're just about on par with the infamous image of a copy-paste sidewalk in Angel Beats! that's been posted here a few times. AKB0048 has never been shy about cutting corners on animation, though this has largely been in the form of its overabundance of CG thus far. Its 2D art, in spite of its overall aesthetic repugnance, has generally been passable. Scenes like these are decidedly not passable.

Much like with Angel Beats, I see nothing wrong there. Sure, I'm sure they're using CG, and some of it is quite obvious (the dancing), but the show looks decent enough overall, and the CG dancing isn't so much bad as it is obviously different from the drawn art.

Out of the actual story content in the episode, the Tomochin scenes were almost certainly the most insane:

It's just what it looks like. It's commendable that they've achieved this through entirely non-incestuous breeding, however I shudder to think what happens to the kids that don't look like Tomochin.

Hah... yeah. And they'd need a new replacement girl every like ~10 years or so (or less), too... Japanese-style idols aren't like other singers, they don't have long shelf lives before they're done, I think.

There is a dark, dark underbelly to the AKB0048 universe waiting to be explored.

Yeah, there definitely is. Of course, I'd say that some of it WAS explored -- remember how depressing Lancastar was -- but there is even more they could do. I wonder if they'll go in that direction or not...

AKB0048 Cinco

So is it safe to assume that the heart brandings on the girls become diamonds after a certain point? How exactly do they work, like, biologically? Are they even aware of them?

As has already been mentioned, this episode was kinda fucked up. And not in the good way, either.

I'm willing to bet

Spoiler

I don't want to know what happens to the girls who don't resemble the original Tomomi enough. Probably don't want to take a look inside that household's basement either.

I'm also willing to bet

Spoiler

all those girls who disappeared mysteriously are actually off doing porn somewhere.

And yet the question remains,

Spoiler

if you know for a fact they have all disappeared never to be seen again

then why the fuck would you want to follow in their footsteps?

And the more I hear of Sensei-sensei the more I picture one of them creepy cultist leaders who take advantage of their brainwashed followers for his own sick desires. This guy's got a very efficient scheme going on.

This show, man. This show.

Yeah, it's got a crazy dark side. And on that note,

Spoiler

I also wonder how many of them die in battle during concerts, and how THAT gets covered over...

Also, as for Sensei-sama, that could well be. Wouldn't surprise me either way, at this point.

It bothered me, but then the character below came along and now I don't mind Yayoi anymore.

Disgusting.

Despite writing such a long review of eps 1-5 I managed to forget to mention this, but her hair looks to me like a giant amoeba's attacking the back of her head... seriously, that's not hair, that's a giant blob!

Ace o Nerae 13-17

Coachie knows the ultimate power of yuri teamwork...but has Hiromi practice for hours (and take multiple balls to the face and body) anyways even though it does nothing towards her progress as a competitive player.

The man's a boss!

Practice for the sake of practice really is central to the Japanese education and sports systems, though. Japanese baseball players are required to spend many hours doing drills over and over and over, for instance, much like how their schooling focuses so much on rote learning. It can have some good effects certainly, but overall isn't really the best way to teach things, but they think it works...

Coachie would never slap a player. He'd shout at them, attack them with tennis balls or he'd ignore.

These are all proven coaching techniques.

I thought he kind of did slap her once, though.

Bamboo Blade 23

This episode was a staunch reminder of the cultural differences between Japan and the West.

Spoiler

So, Toyama and Iwasa, two dudes who haven't stepped into the kendo club's dojo since single-digit episode whatever get into a fight and the principal is being pressured to hold the entire kendo team responsible and suspend them despite the fact that they're not on the kendo team? Not returning resignation letters is bullshit, they're NOT on the team. Misguided logic aside, what was more jaw-dropping was that Kirino and company actually had to mull over whether or not they "lie," about Toyama and Iwasa being on the team and avoid a team suspension or if they tell the "truth," and take the punishment... honorably? Like... wut... at this entire part of the episode.

So Toyama and Iwasa:
-

Spoiler

Have not participated in a tournament

-

Spoiler

Have not attended practice

-

Spoiler

But the only thing technically keeping them on the kendo team is a lack of resignation letters from them

-

Spoiler

Kirino actually has to debate whether or not to throw Toyama and Iwasa under the bus?

Spoiler

Bro, if this were an American team, not only would they have "thrown" Toyama and Iwasa "under the bus," they would have attached them to the tires and gone on a cross-country road trip from San Francisco to New York.

HOW IS THIS AN ISSUE?

Pretty good analysis here, and I agree -- this felt really off to me as well.

Spoiler

I mean, I don't like lying at all, but in that case, that's barely even a like, and anyway, the rest of the team had nothing to do with their offenses, so blaming the whole team for the actions of a few lapsed members is pretty ridiculous. And yeah, it took Kirino WAY too long to decide what to do, letting the whole team be destroyed just because of those two idiots would be absurd.

This felt like manufactured drama to me, to find something to make it dramatic before the (anime-original) ending.

Even so though, I actually like the anime's ending arc more than the last third of the Bamboo Blade manga... ugh, that arc from chapters 79 to 101.8 (chs. "101" and "102" are a full volume long each, for some reason; 101's broken into eight parts, but 102 only really has two divisions.) was so, so bad. I hated the change in focus, disliked most of the new characters,

Spoiler

hated how the new invincible girl who never loses, well, NEVER LOSES, not even at the end, not to anyone

, disliked the fact that the series either ended or was cancelled just when that arc ended,

Spoiler

and without Tama actually getting to Nationals herself

... and then there was that ending. MOst ocf ch. 102 was actually pretty solid, for the first time in way too long, but THAT AWFUL NONENDING, I hate that stuff so much!

Spoiler

The series literally finishes on a cliffhanger, in the middle of the key match of a tournament, and with the outcome in doubt. Yes, seriously. And it's supposed to end that way, the guy has a "making of" postscript thing after that. What was he THINKING?

I was actually liking that volume, up to that point, for one of the few times since before ch. 79 but that just ruined it. It is quite rushed -- it feels like it was supposed to keep going for a long time but he tossed together an "ending", either because it was cancelled or because the author didn't want to be doing it anymore -- but even so, there's no excuse for it being so awful.

... Sorry, I read ch. 102 recently, and it's hard to forgive that ending. In comparison, while the anime's ending is a bit over-dramatic with some forced drama, I think that final arc is actually the better one. It's much shorter -- I'd still love to see a second, all anime-original season continuing the story, that'd be fantastic! -- but it's still the better "ending". And yes, Bamboo Blade the anime is great. Very good series, I've watched the whole thing a couple of times.

Haha, I watched this last week after irc's recommendation. Those last few episodes were definitely something else, lol. I guess because they were anime original. I don't remember any of this particular nonsense in the manga.

Spoiler

In the manga Tama doesn't lose until she faces annoying invincible girl I mentioned above, in the above stuff about the last manga arc. Of course though, because as I said the story ends abruptly and without much resolution, and with that girl still undefeated as far as is mentioned, she never gets her revenge, as far as we know. It's just so weird, it spends so long setting up this rivalry, and then ends. I really hope it was cancelled, but that's still no excuse for that final volume/chapter.

But yes, I don't think it ever gets to the level of forced drama as the anime's ending does, that is true.

Spoiler

Instead the main cast become minor characters in their own story (Tama occasionally does something, but the others are just about irrelevant until 102), as the story focuses on a completely different, and less interesting, group most of the time through that 30 chapter arc.

CLAMP is full of lesbian hating jerks. >:|

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18780843/manga/tomoyo.png
;____;

seriously though fuck CLAMP


CCS, i have no intentions to watch/read Tsubasa Chronicle

Just cruel...

Fujiko Mine 7

So, Fujiko has morphed into April O'Neil for this episode?

Wow, she really does look like April. If that was intentional, I didn't know TMNT was that popular in Japan...

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Eureka Seven AO 9

Nice. Anyway on the episode itself pretty cool. Ao and the Pied Piper stuff was fun and suspenseful. Enjoy how he fits in with the team, though, why so on edge all the time, could have got in the pool too. Shocking moment was when

Spoiler

the dude morphed into Truth, somehow its always shocking when it happens...and when Ao was the savior and saved, nice

Truth was great. I love how he is the cool bad dude that really just ups the cool factor of the show and supplies the explosions with deep lines.

 

[dakkumauji]

It's always surprised me that a manga/anime whose concept is 'what if the hand i fap with was a girl' was so successful.

Well they really aren't spending any time on that angle which is probably what makes it so enjoyable to watch.

 

[A Black Falcon]

if only more shows would use such a bold/obscure idea
and for that Ben-to deserves at least some credit for trying

Ben-To was mostly good, but deserves two things, I think -- a much better final episode than the one it got, and a second season. Sadly, I don't think it'll get either.

 

[Uchip]

Eureka Seven AO 9

Truth was great. I love how he is the cool bad dude that really just ups the cool factor of the show and supplies the explosions with deep lines.

he lowers the "cool factor" of the show significantly

 

[Jintor]

 

[Femmeworth]

I like how his hair is mostly out of the frame, it's like the artist recognizes that it's terrible.

 

[Jintor]

I like how his hair is mostly out of the frame, it's like the artist recognizes that it's terrible.

What the fuck is wrong with side-dude's face

 

[Crash Station]

It's always surprised me that a manga/anime whose concept is 'what if the hand i fap with was a girl' was so successful.

Was it ever confirmed that's the hand Seiji uses to fap with?

 

[Femmeworth]

What the fuck is wrong with side-dude's face

Yaoi fanart, what do you expect? ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[survivor]

Future Boy Conan 3

The look of two idiots trying to outdo each other

And Jimsy is finally here. I liked the little competition he had with Conan to show who is the stronger person, so childish and hilarious.

 

[Uchip]

What the fuck is wrong with side-dude's face

your mouth isn't on the side of your face? what are you?

 

[dakkumauji]

Midori Days 06

Pretty much cheating at fighting games.
Decent ish? I'm not a too big fan of the loli that hangs around all the time and her whole parade of costumes to win Seiji over didn't do it for me. She also has stepmother issues but at least her stepmom slapped all the angst out of her.
Ayase is so tsundere it almost hurts to see it in action.

 

[wonzo]

 

[cajunator]

Midori Days 06

Pretty much cheating at fighting games.
Decent ish? I'm not a too big fan of the loli that hangs around all the time and her whole parade of costumes to win Seiji over didn't do it for me. She also has stepmother issues but at least her stepmom slapped all the angst out of her.
Ayase is so tsundere it almost hurts to see it in action.

I liked Ayase.
The loli was the worst part of the show but Seiji gets that straightened right out.

 

[Ultimadrago]

Midori Days 06
http://i.imgur.com/oMwyS.gif[IMG][/QUOTE]

[I]D'aaaaw[/I]

 

[dakkumauji]

Was it ever confirmed that's the hand Seiji uses to fap with?

Well, he makes a throwaway line at the beginning saying the only lover he'll ever have is his right hand. The show pretty much drops any further discussion of this matter from ever being brought up again.

 

[Andrew J.]

Koikelupin 10

Man, I kinda feel like a chump. The previous episode hinted that

Spoiler

molestation was a red herring and the real source of Fujiko's childhood trauma was medical experimentation

, which was confirmed this week. If I'd gone out on a limb last week and predicted this I'd look like a genius right now.

Elena Peoples hate

Some people just don't like fun, I guess.

(In before ihadfunonceitwasawful.jpg.)

 

[1stStrike]

Oh god, I'm on season 4 of Major. Are they going to torture me with the bad Engrish for the entire season? D:

I'm not really fond of where they're going with the series. Season 1 was amazing, season 2 was great, season 3 was OK and now season 4 is... not sure what to think so far.

 

[cajunator]

Elena peoples is panderbait but so what? Shes a fun character to watch. I think shes a positive addition to the series. She adds levity and a bit of comedy, not to mention shes cute as a button.

 

[Femmeworth]

Elena peoples is panderbait but so what? Shes a fun character to watch. I think shes a positive addition to the series. She adds levity and a bit of comedy, not to mention shes cute as a button.

You're getting played like a fiddle and you don't even know it.

 

[cajunator]

You're getting played like a fiddle and you don't even know it.

I'd like to think i'm well aware of animu's manipulatory tactics.
I just happen to go along with it.

 

[wonzo]

i... i can't bring myself to make any more ;_;

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

I'd like to think i'm well aware of animu's manipulatory tactics.
I just happen to go along with it.

Preach it. It's a symbiotic relationship.

 

[Mature]

i... i can't bring myself to make any more ;_;

This is why I come to this thread now.

 

[Ultimadrago]

i... i can't bring myself to make any more ;_;

You are doing the CG Lord's work.

 

[darkside31337]

Ginga e Kickoff 01-02:

Really enjoy this show, it's like the first season of Major (without the crazy dorama) only with much more interesting characters and a more interesting sport. There haven't been a ton of good football anime, really Giant Killing was the most enjoyable one I've watched, so this pretty mediocre series feels a lot stronger in comparison.

That said Ronaldo and Camp Nou? They should be talking about the legendary pitch that is Stamford Bridge and her favorite player and her soccer hero should be John Terry

Spoiler

.

Some things that stick out in the show are the voice acting, Erika's (whos moe as a button) accent and Yu Kobayashi playing the role of adorable shouta, and the some pretty spiffy music too.

I'll be sticking with this one.

 

[cajunator]

Nightmare fuel ;_;

 

[wonzo]

You are doing the CG Lord's work.

i think my computer was trying to tell me something when the gif software kept on crashing

 

[firehawk12]

i think my computer was trying to tell me something when the gif software kept on crashing

You know, I'm suddenly reminded of TO, which I rewatched a while ago when I bought the DVDs. I think I tolerated it the first time, but looking at the gifs, this style of animation still has a long way to go.