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Spring Anime 2013 |OT-8| What could be beyond OT-8? Possibility.

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CorvoSol

Member
Are you talking about Emma Sheen?
My gundam loving friend once requested a drawing of her as a catgirl in exchange for a taped recording of Hyper Police.
it was a great trade.
actually, I still have that picture if you wanna see it..

Oh catgirls, that reminds me. I have a gif, but its from tinypic, and when I try and post it it all gets starred out. I feel I owe it to post it, the content is not inappropriate, so how can I rectify my situation and share my gif?
 

Narag

Member
Gun X Sword 3

Boy do I love this episode. Mention of the show typically has me watching the second half of it but hey, went through the whole thing and liked it more than ever. It's strange as it's this early standalone ep with apparently little plot progression, serving just slighty to introduce some side characters that won't show up for awhile again (iirc) and mostly being this giant love letter to old school combining giant robot piloted by a team.

Presentation of the episode often has me wondering if it's sort of a statement on the general state of the genre as the heroes of the episode are sort of written off as blowhard old men without a place or childhood heroes that have disappointed the children who have since become adults. Even the series protagonist, Van, takes a cynical stance on that that's typical of the inhabitants of the planet if I'm remembering right. The selfless heroism of the Eldorado Five is just entirely anachronistic as their entire motivation is protecting people because that's enough for them. They even come out and say it's all they've ever wanted. Consequently, there's this sense of harkening back to the good old days, where heroes protected people because that's what they did, and there wasn't an overbearing air of cynicism where protagonists begrudged their role rather than embracing it. Banter between the El Dorado Five pilots and the antagonist seems to support this.

Of course the ep wouldn't be thematically complete without giving them a chance to shine.
It's just a feel good moment when they finally get out the El Dorado V, become this symbol of the town, and win the concern of the townsfolk despite their slow loss to the Armor that appeared to fight them. Even moreso when it wins Van over and he assists them with the delivery of the fifth part of the El Dorado V. I won't lie, I get a little misty eyed out of emotion when the El Dorado V takes its final form and that empty seat arrives in the main cockpit yet the old pilots see Chizuru as she once was. Insert song its set to is just beautiful too and completes the whole little scenario.

The GaoGaiGar references are delicious too given the design of the El Dorado V channels GaoGaiGar's, the G-Stone sound effect is present, the same pose is used as when GaoGaiGar ripped out the Zonder cores, and they're even able to "purify" and save the episode's villain.

Without a doubt, this was the best episode of the series. Rest of the show is up and down but this was a total outlier.

Edit: also props to whoever was responsible for the dub. One of the few shows I prefer to watch that way.
 

CorvoSol

Member
Bellows is probably the only side character I like, the mecha designs are still terrible, Ledo and Chambers are great, but are ruined by how annoying Amy is. There, that sums up my current, 2 episodes behind, feelings on Gargantia. Maybe that stuff will change. I like Ledo and Chambers, the pretty animation, and cool world enough to keep watching. I'm just not as in love as the rest of AnimeGaf appears to be.

I sort of agree. Bellows is one of the better side characters, but it IS only a few episodes in. Putting the cockpit in the head and leaving Chamber with a big ol' bulbous head was unwise on their part. That said, Chamber, reminiscent of FMP's Al, is a good character. And I think Amy is okay, too. Bellows > Amy, though.
 

sonicmj1

Member
Mouryou no Hako - 10-13 END
Eh. I think it squandered its promising setup and first few episodes. It devoted too much time to characters that were neither interesting or that important. At times, it even comes off as somewhat messy with how many characters and terms they throw into the mix. There is something here that could have been quite good. Perhaps with a different director or writer and maybe a bit of refining, it could have gotten a better result.

It ultimately just left me feeling rather empty in a bad way. Anyways, on to the next show on my list which will probably end up being Kemonozume!

I'm sorry you feel that way, though I understand. Mouryou no Hako is probably too dense for its own good. It expects the viewer to do a lot more work than it has any right to demand. But I got a lot out of it when I tried to follow its symbolism of physical and metaphorical boundaries, and its evil spirits pulling the characters downward. It gives the ending a lot more emotional resonance.

A different adaptation probably could have made the show a lot more accessible, but I don't know how true that would be to the spirit of the book.
 

CorvoSol

Member
Vision of Escaflowne 20
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CorvoSol

Member
YES IT WORKED FINALLY JEEZ THANK YOU AAAAAAUGH.

I can't even watch anything else now, I just have to bask in my successfully posted .gif for a bit.
 

CorvoSol

Member
Oh Corvo...

It's a public service.

Betterman 22

Whenever someone says "It's actually quite simple" on this show, you can expect the next thing out of their mouth to be an unintelligible sort of technobabble.

OH MY GOD SHE'S ONE OF THE TOMATOES POTATOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I'm sorry you feel that way, though I understand. Mouryou no Hako is probably too dense for its own good. It expects the viewer to do a lot more work than it has any right to demand. But I got a lot out of it when I tried to follow its symbolism of physical and metaphorical boundaries, and its evil spirits pulling the characters downward. It gives the ending a lot more emotional resonance.

A different adaptation probably could have made the show a lot more accessible, but I don't know how true that would be to the spirit of the book.

The first time I had even heard about the show was in a post that Jexhius made listing a few shows that might be hard to follow or something to that extent. That got me to look into it and lead me to where I am now. So going into it, I was expecting something dense like you are saying and I could see signs of it early on.

My main gripe is that I didn't find many of the characters to be rather compelling. That kept me from really diving into the show and its themes. I liked Detective Kiba, and I was at the very least interested in how his hinted at
remembrance of a past war he was in
would come into play. That didn't seem to be touched upon at all aside from the uniform he wore near the end which may have been what it was leading to. The focus was clearly in other people and areas which lead to other problems.

Ambiguous endings can be great when executed well, and dissecting shows, movies, games, etc can be really satisfying for me. I just personally couldn't find much to latch on to here, but I can see where others could. This seems like it would fit better in the novel that it's based on rather than a thirteen episode anime.
 

CorvoSol

Member
The Vision of Escaflowne 21

And then the God of Mecha reminded me that He is cruel, and that He does not welcome attachment to favorite characters. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH BUT THEY WERE SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dammit,
Isaac Newton!
You're gonna pay for all your evil stuff! And I cannot BELIEVE how fast Milurna and Dreiden forgave Hitomi for messing around with their futures. Also, I REALLY hope Alan winds up completely alone when this is over.

The next episode is entitled "The Black Winged Angel" which I expect won't actually be about Beautiful Sephiroth.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
(I consider Hataraku Maou-sama! a great support anime. Analog would be either Windrunner or Ezalor. Really strong early on, maintains presences all through the season, won’t end in a blaze of galaxy-ending glory, but it’ll make some great early plays that you’ll remember fondly. Attack on Titan is the hardest of carries, like Spectre or Faceless Void. It’s either going to be the best show of the season or the most disappointing, and, most likely, disappointing. But feel free to prove me wrong! Gargantia is a softer carry like Naix or Gyrocopter. There’s a lot of promise, and it doesn’t need to do much to fulfill it. Basically, keep the fucking Hideous out of the show as the trope and jargon-tastic space apocalypse is the absolute worst part of the show. Photokano, of course, would be Bloodseeker. I wonder how badly this paragraph would age in a year…)
Jason's back~
 

CorvoSol

Member
Code Geass 18

Is that man's name really D-Tard?

Is the King of Britannia on a floating palace in a weird space area? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Is this all gonna get hella weird soon?

OH WHAT THE HELL. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN. THEN WHY DID THEY EVEN. UGHHHHH.
 

Seraphis Cain

bad gameplay lol
I finally found the DTL Cowboy Bebop post I was referring to (it wasn't the one that Jarmel was talking about):

Dedication Through Light said:
I guess it was a compelling set of episode, though the anime continues to want to sadden me and just ruin my mood and stuff. So few happy moments in this anime and Im having to continually reestablish the baseline for the mood. I mean really, Lin had to die and Vicious just acts like he doesn't even care, the dude sacrificed his life right in front of you, the least he could have done was give him a proper burial after everything was said and done, and then to cause Gren all that struggle and give him a transmiter back in the day, and now to receive back and have to exit the cool fire fight? Really. Worst yet, even doing this Gren still dies too, Gren could have had a happy end and found joy in this world, or better yet Vicious could have let Gren join up with him since now Lin is gone. Lastly, Spike loses, what even? What type of character loses twice against the same foe, and at this rate it was basically twice in these episodes, so third time in the entire series against Vicious. Either Vicious is just plain epic or Spike is starting to become an ungood main character. I hope Spike somehow improves, he does epic action on his own but continues to fail against other humans, why? .

So much I would change if I penned this series that would make it really stand out as one of the better vintage anime. Ignoring everything there, still a memorable set and I like the song that played during the credits stuff, really made these parts feel like a special event or ova or something and it was entertaining story.

So much I would change if I penned this series that would make it really stand out as one of the better vintage anime.

So much I would change if I penned this series that would make it really stand out as one of the better vintage anime.

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