Adult Swim's been doing this since time immemorial. It sucks, even if they do apparently need the extra time for ad revenue.
At least with the original FMA, they left Ready Steady Go/Rewrite fully intact and hacked the EDs down to 30 seconds, which were generally still good songs but not as good.
I understand that the melodrama could be the reason for the popularity, hence the comparison with the scene from Toradora below, but in Ano Hana, it's hard to take it serious because it's extremely stupid most of the time. The characters just act stupidly and ruin certain moments.
If you really wanted to illustrate that with the Toradora comparison, you would have been better off identifying Ano Hana as a work that appeals to the emotions or melodramatic. Stating the emotional scenes had zero impact for you only told me how little you cared for the melodrama and you had no investment for it, disregarding how stupid it was to you. But you did not make any mention the melodrama was where the appeal was with such a comparison. You only said the melodrama was better in Toradora, and depending on another person's interpretation, you could have incidentally implied Toradora was equally as shallow as the melodrama in Ano Hana if one wasn't already familiar with Toradora. You were just saying Toradora did it better.
Also, the characters weren't stupid. You're conflating two things together wrongly. There's little to no reason given why they act and do certain things, hence, the stupidity of their actions, but they weren't all stupid characters. The only blatantly stupid thing was the beginning of Episode 9, and we all know who those two idiots are.
A good example would be
Yukiatsu's dressing up as Menma.
There wasn't really a reason a character would act that way, not that they couldn't explain why he did it, but they really didn't, it was just there, I was supposed to accept him acting that way because he's extremely sad because of Menma and everything that happened, but it's really unconvincing. It just made me laugh at the stupidity of it all.
Point taken, but the emotional appeal was that it manifested in such a form. Not saying you have to be gullible and accept his "plight," but the manipulation was there. Good for you thinking before your emotions. But it wasn't unconvincing depending on your approach with Ano Hana. It's why I doubt you were making any one point about where its appeal could be with the Toradora comparison because I think you couldn't see any of it with your impressions.
Maybe, but it was very shallow. I don't dislike melodrama if it's done right, here it was filled with too much stupid stuff for me to care.
See. Then the writing failed for you, but it wasn't the direction, and the direction was popular enough for many to enjoy. It wasn't that there was nothing in Ano Hana: there was nothing for you. You weren't invested, hence, my point if you wanted to understand why it was so popular. You were overlooking them.
Yeah, that's why I was comparing that scene with it, I see that it could be misinterpreted from my post, my bad.
My point was both scenes in question were melodramatic, and I was trying to point out the melodrama wouldn't interest you in Ano Hana if you had no investment in the characters like in Toradora and was referring to a previous point.
Mahou Poni Twilight-Chan 7 I can't think of any stupid puns about Dragonshy other than Dragonfly, so I'll just skip this part for now
Fluttershy sucks. It's a sad, but inevitable truth of the universe. Passive agressive wilting wallflower with a voice so soft you don't even feel it. And she's the main pony for this episode.
A mysterious dragon moves into town, and for some reason he's going to sleep a hundred years there, puffing out black smoke, basically turning PonyVille into London. Of course, our trusty troupe of ponies are sent out by the princess to save the day! Just how incompetent are the Princess's own staff? We'll never know, because they haven't shown up since the first episode.
Anyway, each of the ponies tries their own thing, in the end the holy wrath of Fluttershy is ignited because the dragon was being mean, happy ending for everyone. Except me, because Fluttershy sucks.
A mysterious dragon moves into town, and for some reason he's going to sleep a hundred years there, puffing out black smoke, basically turning PonyVille into London.
Awful. Truly awful. The shows ending song is a true reflection of the quality of the show overall.
This is my first Precure experience. I don't get it. This was shit. The main characters were completely uninteresting, the premise of the story is weak, the transformation scene was lackluster, the supporting characters are just as awful (dear god the mascots are ugly), the show looks pretty cheap at times, there was really nothing redeeming about this episode outside of Shizuka Itou showing up for about 15 seconds.
They made it out of school and are now fighting in its surroundings!
and I know the church is supposed to "cover up" the fights,
but it seems like nobody is ever around unless there is a giant sea monster
Awful. Truly awful. The shows ending song is a true reflection of the quality of the show overall.
This is my first Precure experience. I don't get it. This was shit. The main characters were completely uninteresting, the premise of the story is weak, the transformation scene was lackluster, the supporting characters are just as awful (dear god the mascots are ugly), the show looks pretty cheap at times, there was really nothing redeeming about this episode outside of Shizuka Itou showing up for about 15 seconds.
It's interesting that pretty much all of your complaints (uninteresting main characters, weak premise, boring transformation, and cheap looking), which although I disagree with, I can easily see you having at this point, are addressed/fixed.
As for the fairies, well, *mid series spoiler*
there's Cologne and Coppe-sama,
but apart from that you aren't going to see much change there.
It'll be interesting seeing such differing opinions from Darkside and Theonik, I really hope you'll come around to like the show, even Cosmic liked the final arc, and I have hopes you'll appreciate it before then.
Also people like it because it looks very good and tragic love stories between familiar character archetypes is cheap easy dramabait. I mean, you can put forth the effort to actually make your cheap romance story good (see: Toradora, even Ano Natsu) but sometimes you don't have to. Also see: Anything KEY has ever been involved with.
Ep. 9 of the anime starts at somewhere around pg. 49 of the 62 page ch. 7 of the manga, goes through the whole 70 page chapter 8, and ends about three pages into ch. 9 (that "sleeping Nodoka" scene from the post-credits bit). If you're wondering why the anime's one number ahead, it's because the anime split up one of the manga chapters into two episodes, to go into a bit more detail in the quarterfinal round.
Now, the most recent chapter of the manga was ch. 10, though 11 should be coming any day now. Chapters 9 and 10 are shorter than 7 or 8, though -- they're both only about 35 pages each. Because of that, and the detail going into this match, the Toki/Kuro/Teru/other girl match still isn't over yet in the manga. Some spoiler pages for ch. 11 are out, but the full chapter isn't yet, so I don't know if it ends yet in this chapter or how long the chapter is. Oh, there is a chapter 10.5 though, a 15-page bonus chapter included with chapter 10. It's a backstory bit with another story about the Achiga Childrens' Mahjong Club from back before Nodoka moved. I don't know if that'll end up in the anime. Probably, I assume, they're putting everything else in.
That is to say, I don't know that this round will actually end in the next episode. We'll see, but if it does, the anime will be in new territory, because it'll have caught up to the manga. I kind of expect them to cover maybe chs. 9 and 10 in the next episode, so the match will last into episode 11... we'll have to see, though.
The wait for ch. 11 has been agonizing, everything's gotten so tense!
But man, I think I understand how Marvel fanboys feel about the Avengers movie now.
Teru is so swag and they're pretty much gearing for a Teru/Saki showdown (even though, as ABF pointed out, they play in different positions). I so want to see this match... but it's not going to happen any time soon (if ever).
As a service show/sidequel, this thing is really doing a fine job hyping up the main franchise anyway.
Yeah, I really, really want to see Teru vs. Saki, but it'll probably be far too far off...
Whenever it happens though, it'll be quite the match for sure. They're both crazy-amazing.
Teru will be a really, really hard challenge, even for Saki, though, of course... not only is Teru the two time defending champion, she never even allows her opponents to end up anything above zero, as the scorecard shown in ep. 9 reveals! Not one of her opponents in the individuals got an overall round score above zero. I'm sure Saki can break that, but it'll be really hard...
And then of course, there's also the family mystery element we've been waiting since early on to get a resolution to.
I'm glad this episode turned it around a bit after the last two downtime episodes (though it was nice to see Mihoko and co). This is what Saki needs to about. Half an episode of mahjong swagu and half yuri/friendship flashbacks. This is the formula. It's a shame the end is so near already when it finally gets into gear. At this point, the main Achiga cast hasn't done that much for me. Out of all these new characters, I like Toki (dat ricchi pose) and Yuu the best (I'm still pulling for you Shizu but you need to swag out soon).
I agree, this is what Saki should be, and what the anime should have been from the beginning had they had the time to tell the story more completely. It is too bad that it takes this long to get good, but at least it is now!
On a side note, even the probably throw away 4th player was interesting this time being voiced by Satomi Arai.
At this point no team's a complete throwaway... that fourth team isn't as important as the other three, sure, but they do have a few things yet to be revealed.
This girl does have a (weak-ish) power, for instance.
I'd probably agree to one if there weren't 49 freakin episodes of Precure. Not too familiar with the magic girl genre but I'm guessing 49 episodes is super tame.
Awful. Truly awful. The shows ending song is a true reflection of the quality of the show overall.
This is my first Precure experience. I don't get it. This was shit. The main characters were completely uninteresting, the premise of the story is weak, the transformation scene was lackluster, the supporting characters are just as awful (dear god the mascots are ugly), the show looks pretty cheap at times, there was really nothing redeeming about this episode outside of Shizuka Itou showing up for about 15 seconds.
Really liking this so far. Very quirky and lighthearted, I definitely see myself enjoying the hijinks of the main cast for the remainder of the series. It's funny what a great original setting can do for a show.
The flashbacks were pretty funny, in a "trying to take themselves way to serious" kind of way.
Looking forward to the rest, will probably go through a couple of episodes tomorrow, mixed with some Wandering Son, keeping up with both my series trades.
Envelope, I hope you're not forgetting about Luffy, I'm sure he misses you.
Understandable. I will say though that I'm not a fan of the magical girl genre (I had dropped Madoka once before I picked it back up again and completed it). So, it's not that I judged it but I felt it wasn't my thing.
Though I probably shouldn't have used such selective quoting of darkside's post, that much I will admit.
So whats the consensus on Eureka seven:AO ? what does the AO even stand for, I am a big fan of Eureka Seven, never really understood what happened to renton and eureka in the end but is this "sequel" a good continuation? I really hope we find out what happened to renton
Now this episode had just about what I wanted from this anime spare one thing. Naruto nii-chan and Konohamaru really keep things fresh in their episodes. I couldn't help actually laughing during both skits when they were present. Konohamaru was especially funny in the second one. I just wish the staff wasn't so obsessed with the geese outfits :/
The soundtrack has started to grow on me and fits in well except for the key goofy sounding track that usually feels out of place, and the ending theme and animation is still fun.
So whats the consensus on Eureka seven:AO ? what does the AO even stand for, I am a big fan of Eureka Seven, never really understood what happened to renton and eureka in the end but is this "sequel" a good continuation? I really hope we find out what happened to renton
Understandable. I will say though that I'm not a fan of the magical girl genre (I had dropped Madoka once before I picked it back up again and completed it). So, it's not that I judged it but I felt it wasn't my thing.
Though I probably shouldn't have used such selective quoting of darkside's post, that much I will admit.
That's an exception, but for something like Precure that's pretty static and only has incredibly niche appeal, it's not impossible to make a determination of whether or not you're going to hate it after a brief period of time. Full-on evangelizing something generally regarded as bad just ends up reflecting even more poorly on the show.
That's an exception, but for something like Precure that's pretty static and only has incredibly niche appeal, it's not impossible to make a determination of whether or not you're going to hate it after a brief period of time. Full-on evangelizing something generally regarded as bad just ends up reflecting even more poorly on the show.
So whats the consensus on Eureka seven:AO ? what does the AO even stand for, I am a big fan of Eureka Seven, never really understood what happened to renton and eureka in the end but is this "sequel" a good continuation? I really hope we find out what happened to renton
Understandable. I will say though that I'm not a fan of the magical girl genre (I had dropped Madoka once before I picked it back up again and completed it). So, it's not that I judged it but I felt it wasn't my thing.
Though I probably shouldn't have used such selective quoting of darkside's post, that much I will admit.
Not sure how good Symphogear would be to people coming into it because of a recommendation.
I expected crap and was surprised by how much fun I had with the show, but if I expected something good I'm not sure if I'd have liked it that much.
I have to say, though I'm only one episode 6, I am impressed that they've kept each event contained to a single episode. However some training did seep into the episode, but they still managed to have the whole match in it as well.
It's a sad, but inevitable truth of the universe. Passive agressive wilting wallflower with a voice so soft you don't even feel it. And she's the main pony for this episode. 
