• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Spring Anime 2012 III | AITAKATTA YES!

Status
Not open for further replies.

madp

The Light of El Cantare
Cardboard is ironic

Pillow is sad

Pillow is also ergonomic and won't break, so pillow wins.

Yami to Boshi 1-2

vvUKi.png


Started this series since Envelope suggested it. I love how they didn't give a single explanation as to why Hatsumi vanished or where she was sent to, or how the dark elf girl on the train knew who Hazuki was, as well as Lilith. Where I was expecting a breakdown of what happened to Hatsumi from Ken I was instead given a random event of spies trying to blow up a train, for what purpose I have no clue.

Rkzbh.png


Speaking about the train, everyone on there with a penis was fixated on Youko's boobs. Not sure on what bothers me more, that, or the fact that we still don't have a clue as to why Hatsumi vanished in the first place.

You've made a good decision today.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Hyouka 6

Oh boy.


As expected, the first episode of a new arc brings us back to basics - which means those who only really enjoyed episodes 4 and 5 previously won't be satisfied by this one. The mystery was as uninteresting as they get (although it did make us learn a bit more about Chitanda's personality, I guess), and there weren't any animation highlights or interesting shots. Also, 95% of the episode's duration was spent inside the clubroom.

Chitanda is as cute as she's pushy. One of these days Oreki should start charging make out sessions per mystery solved.

I thought it was fun to follow Oreki's initial thoughts on the mystery, though. His line "But Chitanda won't believe that", that he thought after coming up with a simple resolution for the case, made it a hundred percent clear that he isn't interested in actually solving the mysteries, but in satisfying Chitanda. He may think it's because he wants to get things over with quickly to stop wasting energy, and he may even get the viewers to believe that, but I don't buy it. He's totally doing it because he cares about her. I just wonder if it'll take too long for him to figure that out.
 
Hyouka 6
I thought it was fun to follow Oreki's initial thoughts on the mystery, though. His line "But Chitanda won't believe that", that he thought after coming up with a simple resolution for the case, made it a hundred percent clear that he isn't interested in actually solving the mysteries, but in satisfying Chitanda. He may think it's because he wants to get things over with quickly to stop wasting energy, and he may even get the viewers to believe that, but I don't buy it. He's totally doing it because he cares about her. I just wonder if it'll take too long for him to figure that out.

How did you see that, that seems like wishful imagination to think he has caring feelings about her.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz

This is amazing.

too good for isml, korbo's tour of the world continues unabated

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18780843/anime/7233304700_486a8a7dfa_o.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

This is amazing too.

[quote="SDBurton, post: 38254614"][B]Yami to Boshi 1-2[/B]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/vvUKi.png[IMG]

Started this series since Envelope suggested it. I love how they didn't give a single explanation as to why Hatsumi vanished or where she was sent to, or how the dark elf girl on the train knew who Hazuki was, as well as Lilith. Where I was expecting a breakdown of what happened to Hatsumi from Ken I was instead given a random event of spies trying to blow up a train, for what purpose I have no clue.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Rkzbh.png[IMG]

Speaking about the train, everyone on there with a penis was fixated on Youko's boobs. Not sure on what bothers me more, that, or the fact that we still don't have a clue as to why Hatsumi vanished in the first place.[/QUOTE]

A tip from someone who just finished the series: don't expect answers.

And good luck.

[quote="Dedication Through Light, post: 38254885"]How did you see that, that seems like wishful imagination to think he has caring feelings about her.[/QUOTE]

You did watch the first episode and the introduction to the third, right?
 

SDBurton

World's #1 Cosmonaut Enthusiast
Yami to Boushi 03

ZZMEV.png


Wat? So Hatsumi
is Eve, who pretty much just up and left her job or duty to chill in different worlds where in each one she had a different persona (which all of them she was mute)?
I'll just hold onto that for at least some things to make sense.

Lilith wants Hazuki bad, hopefully some progress comes out of her efforts.

And creepy kid is creepy, sucking on that Maria statue. Yeesh.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Another - Episode 0: The Other

That was better than I was expecting.


This OVA was a nice addition to the main series. Through dialogues, some mild spoilers and a little bit of fan-service, we get to know a different side of Mei that we couldn't really see from Sakakibara's perspective during the calamity. The production values seemed to be on par with the regular TV episodes, so there weren't any spectacular animation moments. There was one scene in particular that I think most fans of the TV series will really enjoy, though,
because they'll be trolled hard, haha.

Nothing incredible, but still fun.
 

madp

The Light of El Cantare
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia 06:

2ZB5jl.jpg


These effects are so low-budget but I love them anyway.

Whoa.

That was.............genuinely disturbing.
Mass hysteria? Sacrificing someone to an evil spirit just because she shares the name of a ghost? What the fuck, Teiichi's fellow students. And on the night of the school festival, too. You morons should be ashamed.

Yuuko was an intriguing chracter, and I hope that this isn't her only appearance in the show. She's a sympathetic character whose rather painful relationship with the supernatural leaves a lot to be explored if she's not just a one-off deal.

The show is also really hitting its stride stylistically. The ratio of good to bad is tilted enough toward good now that I can stop derisively referring to the direction as Junior SHAFT and just appraise it on its own terms. I especially like the shots that convey feelings with a single color or opposing colors, like this:


Dusk Maiden of Amnesia 07:

26WFjl.jpg


I'm trying hard not to question how Yuuko is able to eat anything.

Yuuko goes yandere and regains her repressed resentment? fffffuuuuuuu-

Memory wipe? FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

I'm also surprised at how
(relatively) recently Yuuko's death was. The cursed stone seems to indicate that it was 27 years ago, however Yuuko's seifuku looks 1920s-40s era. It also doesn't seem like enough time considering that Yuuko is Kirie's great aunt, which at Kirie's age would date her great aunt at having been alive at least 60 years previous. I'll just have to ignore this inconsistency, I suppose.
 

survivor

Banned
Moyashimon 10

I had different expectations about the direction of the anime.
I thought with Yuuki changing, that would be the focus of the last 2 episodes and how Sawaki and the rest will deal with the change, but it looks like Sawaki's losing his ability is the focus now.

I'm looking at the characters list and are Mutou and Oikawa the only ones that don't know about his ability? I think Mutou might know from the professor or Hasegawa, but I don't get why Sawaki doesn't tell Oikawa. She is part of the gang and I thought she is a close friend by now.
 
Hyouka 6
tumblr_m4pho1Wsxq1qbxqfpo1_500.gif


I guess after all the intensity of the previous episode they needed a cool down period. This episode was alright, decent choice of visual genjutsu. Chitanda was pretty annoying though, why can she never stay out of Oreki's space? I just want to tell her to calm down.

I wouldn't mind seeing how Satoshi gets when he gets angry, meaning I guess I would agree with Oreki about that. Satoshi seems like he couldn't ever get angry. Houtarou I could see angry, he seemed a bit agitated way back during the scene when Chitanda called him out to the coffee shop. Seeing a range of emotions from the characters would be good.

I thought the mystery was alright,
I do tend to make the same mistake that Satoshi makes, the lowercase h and n

Did not like the
virtual soulmate
scene. :(
 

SDBurton

World's #1 Cosmonaut Enthusiast
Yami to Boushi 05

lfQay.png


"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Quile."

5 mins later

"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Quile."

3 mins later

"Allow me to introduce myself, my name i-"

I REMEMBER!
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Yami to Boushi 05

http://i.imgur.com/lfQay.png[IMG]

"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Quile."

5 mins later

"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Quile."

3 mins later

"Allow me to introduce myself, my name i-"

I REMEMBER![/QUOTE]

The best part is when she introduces herself to the friends of the forest.

I wonder what the hell was going on in this character's creator's head.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Kyou no Go no Ni

I had this but never watched it. Some wikipedia linking led me to rediscover it as the other show based on a work by the Minami-ke author... and the main series has Yu Kobayashi as a boy, so I figured I'd check it out.

I guess in terms of manga, this book actually came before Minami-ke, so a lot of the jokes and the style seems very familiar. Probably the one that reminded me of Minami-ke the most was the constant use of the older shounen manga style whenever the characters make a realization:

TDyvwl.jpg


Also, it's basically about the same kids being trolled over and over again because of their one gimmick (much like, say, the crossdressing boy in Minami-ke), so the jokes are familiar as well.

And of course, they'll just throw in the random heart-warming moments to ground the show.
9Alnil.jpg


One strange thing is that the first adaptation was an OVA that featured much more upskirts and whatnot, and so when the TV series adapted a lot of the same stories that the OVA adapted, it was funny to see all the self-censorship that Xebec (of all people) did in order to make the show less creepy. And what's weirder is that the Xebec versions of the stories usually ended up being better than the OVA counterparts... so I guess OVAs can be just as cheap as some TV animes at times.

Anyhoo, that's enough animu for a while.
 
Hyouka 6
I'm not sure it's even possible for them to have chosen a less interesting mystery to solve. Why did the teacher mix up his lesson plans? Really? Combine that with a boring discussion/lecture about how moderation is good and you have an underwhelming episode full of uninteresting material. I like the character interactions, but the show would be much better served if it was done in the context of something that didn't bore me to tears.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Hyouka 6
I'm not sure it's even possible for them to have chosen a less interesting mystery to solve. Why did the teacher mix up his lesson plans? Really? Combine that with a boring discussion/lecture about how moderation is good and you have an underwhelming episode full of uninteresting material. I like the character interactions, but the show would be much better served if it was done in the context of something that didn't bore me to tears.
I'm assuming that this all works better as a novel.

----

Also, no Saki this week, but someone uploaded the DVD feature of the original Saki VAs playing a game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0ftCbrJSZs&t=18m0s

Ueda Kana trying to call her own Rinshan Kaiho, Saki style.
 
Yeah, ANN is a good resource and a decent news site, but the editorial content on the site...leaves a lot to be desired. I do think it's a shame that there really isn't a good site for anime reviews or criticism, but I guess it's easier to get a bunch of idiots to write form reviews.

Anime doesn't have an established critical tradition, unlike the broader medium of film, and the community tends to be insular, so it's difficult to find people who have the capacity or interest to judge it knowledgeably. As far as ANN goes, I will say that I've found Bamboo Dong, who currently runs The Steam column, to have OK opinions, or at least ones that are generally more on-target than everyone else there, although there's still a lack of the thoughtful analysis I would like.

I wish they did the MGX Omake with genderswapped Tsubaki and Urabe.

I was excited when I learned of the existence of this, but disappointed to learn that it was just a couple 4-koma.

I'm assuming that this all works better as a novel.

Only in the sense that you can read it quickly instead of being forced to go at a pace set by someone else. I've read the translation of the first novel, and I wouldn't call it compelling.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Tasogare Otome x Amnesia 8

Wow. Why didn't I notice it before? Kirie =
Kanna
! And Yuuko is
Ichika
! The only difference is that
Mio/Okonogi also likes Kaito/Niiya
.


No one likes
memory resets.
Not even Niiya.

Great episode. This is truly a case of a show that started with the wrong foot but picked up the pace and became something much better.

The insert song that played during the decisive moments was great. And then came
the confession,
and finally Okonogi being awesome, bwahaha. Fun all around.
 

madp

The Light of El Cantare
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia 08:

36boCl.jpg


Horseshoes and hand grenades...

This was a pretty standard
make-up
episode and wasn't particularly satisfying in how it
resolved the issue of Yuuko compartmentalizing her emotions into entirely different personalities
. Apparently
evil Yuuko isn't out of the picture yet
, so I'd like to think that this wasn't the
"true" resolution
.

I feel pretty bad for Momoe. Teiichi is a dumbass if he doesn't think that Yuuko is going to disappear one day, and, well, there's the whole issue of choosing a ghost over an actual human. I'll take something that I can actually marry and have sex with and reasonably expect to spend the rest of my life with over something that I can't, even if I slightly prefer the latter.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
I feel pretty bad for Momoe. Teiichi is a dumbass if he doesn't think that Yuuko is going to disappear one day, and, well, there's the whole issue of choosing a ghost over an actual human. I'll take something that I can actually marry and have sex with and reasonably expect to spend the rest of my life with over something that I can't, even if I slightly prefer the latter.

He can
touch her, so I don't see why they can't have sex.

Not that it matters, really.
 

madp

The Light of El Cantare
He can
touch her, so I don't see why they can't have sex.

Not that it matters, really.

Ghost sex sounds like it has the potential to go horribly wrong in ways that I can't even imagine. I wouldn't try it even if I had the opportunity!
 
Anime doesn't have an established critical tradition, unlike the broader medium of film, and the community tends to be insular, so it's difficult to find people who have the capacity or interest to judge it knowledgeably. As far as ANN goes, I will say that I've found Bamboo Dong, who currently runs The Steam column, to have OK opinions, or at least ones that are generally more on-target than everyone else there, although there's still a lack of the thoughtful analysis I would like.

Agreed. There's a real lack of outsider perspective that's really rather necessary to offer interesting opinions and well-constructed (and, most importantly: well-written) analyses of productions old and new. The anime community reminds me of the game music community, which itself is inbred, focused primarily on the famous JRPG game musicians, and is full of enthusiasts who don't know how to analyze, criticize, and write interesting material that provides insightful commentary on whatever. Worse: I'm a writer in the game music community and I want to point out all of the flaws of reviews others write!
Anipages is the only site I really recommend at this point simply because of the work Ben puts and has put into it. It's helped bring me back into movie-watching in general by covering obscure material and providing great resources for learning about the more interesting aspects of anime and animation in general (though John K still has the best animation resource on the Internets). But even Anipages is flawed, mainly on a specific level—yet it's the Isao Takahata of anime community resources (and I say that sincerely).
 
Fortunately I haven't noticed this type of thing happening too much in Tsuritama, so it's easily forgivable. Among the Nakamura works that I've seen, I've found Tsuritama to be the easiest to follow by far.

Definitely. Their off-kilter directing style helped to make Mononoke and Trapeze so distinctive, but it also occasionally got in the way of the emotional impact the stories should have had. The Noppera-bo arc of Mononoke was especially bad in this respect.

Your prediction for the direction of the show is logical, and I wouldn't mind that set of events at all were it to occur. At this moment, I'm having slight difficulty understanding
just what is causing so much strain in the relationship between Natsuki and his father
, whereas if
the character drama was largely between the four friends
I would be less wary of its overall impact on the plot going forward.

As far as Natsuki's relationship with his family, I read that as
mostly generalized teenage angst. Most people that age feel the need to push away and disassociate from their parents, even if they can't put their finger on their motivation for doing so. In Natsuki's case, the specific cause of stress is his mother's death. First, sons often bond more closely to their mothers than their fathers, so her absence prevents him from connecting fully with the rest of his family. Second, Natsuki seems to feel that the rest of his family doesn't care about his mother as much as he does. Notice the scene with his family in episode 3, where he is the only one paying homage to his mother's shrine while his father and sister are laughing amongst themselves. This is why he calls his father cold and slaps his sister - it's his built-up resentment boiling over.
 

wonzo

Banned
What really impresses me is he looks quite attractive for a man taking a cardboard cutout version of his waifu around the world.

Like the opposite of that guy eating out with his hug pillow.

edit: also France is lovely I'm so jealous.
cardboard waifu > pillow waifu
 

SDBurton

World's #1 Cosmonaut Enthusiast
Yami to Boushi 07

oQQh6.png


Oh my.

Finally, an episode on the two people I give a damn about. Hazuki you idiot,
if you took the time to reply to those letters you would've found out that it was Hatsumi all along.

Really hoping Hazuki
finds her so they can get everything out on the table. What this yuri love to happen!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom