Alright, I'm up to Tsuritama EP#5, this one is kinfd of boring, I must say....
Are there any more grand adventures out there to be had on Crunchy? I need to move on in a few more episodes, so I'm looking for my next series, with action/adventure, love/lust and even some comedy... What are my Crunchy options GAF?
Alright, I'm up to Tsuritama EP#5, this one is kinfd of boring, I must say....
Are there any more grand adventures out there to be had on Crunchy? I need to move on in a few more episodes, so I'm looking for my next series, with action/adventure, love/lust and even some comedy... What are my Crunchy options GAF?
I watched the original Kanon and I never really cared too much for Clannad to finish it. I still think Angel Beats was more entertaining and hit me harder from the ones I watched. I know it was a bit of a rushed ending, but still sad as hell.
Kanon is okay, but Clannad/Clannad: After Story and Air are crazy depressing, though I like Clannad more because it feels a lot better structured and has some actual catharsis. If you want something not KEY that's weapons grade depression where literally no one wins, though, you should watch SaiKano
Oh yeah, this is the footage that made me want to watch the series in the first place (Like a year or two ago). I'll stop whining now and keep watching
And surprise, surprise... didn't know until now Atsushi Nishigoriis going to appear at TRIGGER's own autograph session without being directly related (yet) to any of their productions. Has GORIPON definitely reunited with the rest of the GEEKS circle he has been a member of since the GAiNAX era? Is that the reason he handed over latest THE IDOLM@STER project?
Oh yeah, this is the footage that made me want to watch the series in the first place (Like a year or two ago). I'll stop whining now and keep watching
I would just like to point to anyone viewing that link how hard this particular next episode preview is trolling the audience. It's nothing but filthy dirty lies.
I would just like to point to anyone viewing that link how hard this particular next episode preview is trolling the audience. It's nothing but filthy dirty lies.
But I take it, even if the rest of time was spend on talking, those cuts still made it into the episode or maybe future episodes ? I can't imagine them being created for the sole purpose of trolling the audience.
I would just like to point to anyone viewing that link how hard this particular next episode preview is trolling the audience. It's nothing but filthy dirty lies.
Is there somewhere to watch those missing episodes? Do the main characters continue through the story? i.e do we get to continue with Araragi & Shen? If it's not a happy ending with them, or they don;t start a Bonnie and Clyde thing, I might not want to continue, lol.
Yeah, Tsuritama is kind of slow. I might finish it off to complete the story, however, I need to take a break for now, lol.
But I take it, even if the rest of time was spend on talking, those cuts still made it into the episode or maybe future episodes ? I can't imagine them being created for the sole purpose of trolling the audience.
I would just like to point to anyone viewing that link how hard this particular next episode preview is trolling the audience. It's nothing but filthy dirty lies.
But I take it, even if the rest of time was spend on talking, those cuts still made it into the episode or maybe future episodes ? I can't imagine them being created for the sole purpose of trolling the audience.
HehahahahAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHH! Nope. Not a single moment of that preview is shown in episode 4. It was, indeed, created for the sole purpose of trolling the audience. They even continue the trolling at the end of the episode, with the characters commenting on how epic the fight was and how crazy shit got during it.
Is there somewhere to watch those missing episodes? Do the main characters continue through the story? i.e do we get to continue with Araragi & Shen? If it's not a happy ending with them, or they don;t start a Bonnie and Clyde thing, I might not want to continue, lol.
Yeah, Tsuritama is kind of slow. I might finish it off to complete the story, however, I need to take a break for now, lol.
I watched GL a couple weeks ago, it was really good!
Man you would probably love Chrno Crusade, Scrapped Princess, and even Elemental Gelade but they arent on CR. I wish some older shows were. Though I can understand limited space on their servers and whatnot.
Meanwhile I, skipping all episode previews, never got trolled! But I also missed out on that glorious preview I guess (though I watched it after the series ended).
HehahahahAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHH! Nope. Not a single moment of that preview is shown in episode 4. It was, indeed, created for the sole purpose of trolling the audience. They even continue the trolling at the end of the episode, with the characters commenting on how epic the fight was and how crazy shit got during it.
Just to clarify and to provide information for anyone not familiar with the series, here's how the -monogatari series is structured:
First Season: Bakemonogatari - 2 novels adapted into 12 episodes that aired in summer 2009 and 3 web-exclusive episodes that streamed at November 2009/February 2010/June 2010 Kizumonogatari - Novel prequel to Bake which was confirmed to be adapted into a movie in June 2010 and has yet to be released in anime form. Nisemonogatari - 2 novels adapted into 11 episodes that aired in winter 2012. Nekomonogatari Black - Novel prequel to Bake, but following Kizu. Adapted into a 4 episode mini-series that aired on December 31, 2012.
Second Season: Nekomonogatari White - Sequel to Neko White and Bake. Adapted into a 5 episode mini-series that aired in July/August 2013. Kabukimonogatari - Sequel to Bake/Kizu. Adapted into a 4 episode mini-series that aired in August/September 2013. Hanamonogatari - Sequel to Bake. Adapted into a 5 episode mini-series that aired in August 2014. Otorimonogatari - Sequel to Bake. Adapted into a 4 episode mini-series that aired in October 2013. Onimonogatari - Sequel to Bake/Kabuki. Adapted into a 4 episode mini-series that aired in November 2013. Koimonogatari - Sequel to Nise/Otori. Adapted into a 6 episode mini-series that aired in November/December 2013.
-These 6 stories were planned to be animated in a 2-cour "second season", but due to production issues, Hana was later scheduled to air in May 2014 before additional production issues delayed it to August 2014.
"Final Season": Tsukimonogatari - Sequel to Nise/Oni. Adapted into a 4 episode mini-series that aired on December 31, 2014. Koyomimonogatari - Short collection of tales spanning the year of the story. Not yet announced to air. Owarimonogatari - Three novels not yet announced to air. Zoku-Owarimonogatari - Novel not yet announced to air.
"Next Season": Tsugimonogatari - No details given. Not yet announced to air.
I finished this series a few days ago, so sorry if I forget some things.
I covered episodes 1-4 and 5 of the series before, but I just watched episodes 11 and 12, so now I'm done. Yes, this is the first series this season I've finished, and of course it's terrible harem. Ah well. At least a few non-harem shows will be next; I'm almost done with The Rolling Girls and Milky Holmes TD.
Anyway, Absolute Duo. As with the beginning, this series ends by-the-numbers generic. There is nothing in this show that hasn't been done better in other harem action shows. Seriously, I don't think there is even one thing. Absolute Duo has all the generic writing, action, psycho villain, sexism, girls who want the MC for no good reason, etc. that you expect and love/hate, or love to hate?
However, Absolute Duo has some actual promise. Sometimes it actually is almost interesting, and with some changes this could have been a decent anime... but every time it's almost good, the writing gets stupid again and the moment is ruined, usually almost immediately. It's quite annoying that way, but at least it does have those better moments, some shows don't even get that far.
Warning: spoilers, I tried to spoiler the important stuff, but maybe I missed something. If anyone actually cares, I'll spoiler more.
First I'll cover the background setting and characters again, then the events of the later parts of the series (from ep. 6 on, focusing on the last two episodes since that's what I just watched.)
Setting and Characters
So, this series starts with a somewhat morally questionable school, led by a young girl headmaster in goth-loli clothes (of course). At the opening ceremony the students fight each other. The winning half are accepted in, the losing half kicked out
but actually are sent to the school's island subsidiary school instead.
The first part of the series introduces us to the school and characters, then the later episodes go into an action arc with some borderline-overdone drama. This is a world with magical powers, of course. Everyone in this school has a power of some kind, with a weapon.
So, the characters. The main character is Generic Harem Protagonist Guy, Tor. He's not the complete-loser type, though, he's somewhat competent. The guy is obsessed with protecting others, girls particularly, so he's perfect for this genre.
We later learn that when he was a kid, some person (the series never makes it clear who it was) killed a bunch of people, including his sister, at a kendo school or something like that.
Anyway, he's traumatized by that incident and it makes him want to get stronger so that he can protect people successfully next time. His magical weapon is a shield. He also has an ability which gives him a powerful punch attack that's not based on his school-provided magic shield.
The main girl, Julie, is his Duo and also his roommate, of course. She's European, from some fictional northern European country, and says "Ja". I said this before, but it's really, really weird how animes like to have fictional European countries in worlds which also have real Japan (and even real England!). If she's supposed to be Swedish or something, just call her that! So, Duos are pairs of students who fight and live together, and all others are same-gender, except for him. I said this in my reviews of the early episodes, but the series never attempts to explain why no one else has a mixed-gender duo; most would be too embarrassed to try, I'm sure, but probably not all. This isn't one of those series which comes up with some excuse why the guy is the only one with a girl for a roommate, it just is. As for the girl, she's somewhat quiet and soft-spoken, and is kind of small. She uses two swords and is very strong in battle. She kind of likes him, but isn't going to push for a relationship because that would mean actual relationship progress in the plot, he might well say yes. She's the innocent-fanservice-girl type, so she spends a lot of time in their dorm room wearing nothing but a shirt and panties, and thinks nothing of it. She also sometimes wants to sleep next to him in his bunk in their bunkbed. He's the one who has trouble with this stuff.
The other major student characters include a transfer British student girl with a magic gun who is rich and claims that she's going to be the MC's wife (she isn't quite as annoying as this might sound), a girl who has big breasts and isn't as competent at fighting as the others, and is somewhat unhappy because of her lacking skills compared to the others (and likes the MC as well), that second girl's Duo, a strong girl with a chain weapon who at least as of the end of this anime is NOT in love with the MC, she has no love interest; the MC's male friend guy, your average male friend in a show like this; and that friends' roommate, a very one-note guy whose appearances ALL consist of him flexing his muscles and that's about it. There's also one other girl, who the MC defeated in that opening match. She may like him, but the series doesn't follow through much with it.
She reappears for a while in the island arc(eps 7-9).
For teachers, their teacher is a bunny-girl, I mentioned her before. She seems evil at first, but actually isn't that bad.
The scene in the ending with her running away from a bunch of adoring students thankful for her stopping villain boy's attack and saving all their lives was pretty amusing.
And there's also goth-loli school-owner girl, of course. Even after the end, we don't know all that much about her.
One thing about this show so far is, while it is harem, the harem element isn't emphasized as much as it is in some shows. Main girl gets a STRONG focus. There are three other girls who clearly do like him, and that does matter in the plot (and also the predictable humor), but this series doesn't try to keep you in suspense about who's got the closest relationship with him, it's main girl by a mile.
The villains are an old man mad scientist Equipment Smith, this guy who he gave a power suit and is kind of psycho, and their army of armored soldiers with guns. Naturally the soldiers look tough, but are near-useless when they face the students because magic swords, whips, and shields are better than guns. There's also one more villain I will mention later.
Early on, I thought that if the characters in this series died I'd almost not care, because none of them are actually likable characters. And honestly... it's probably true, though the main girl's not bad, some of the time. What's funny is though, the badguys in the later episodes shoot students with machine guns, the MC gets stabbed through the torso repeatedly and also shot, and more... but don't worry, nobody dies! The part where a bunch of students are GUNNED DOWN BY MACHINE GUN FIRE and all survive is ridiculous, but not really in a bad way. It's so silly that I kind of like it. I don't like depressing stuff most of the time, so I like that they don't die, and the absurdity of it is amusing. The badguys might be being killed though, that's never made clear -- are the characters killing the badguys, even though no students die in this series? Maybe?
So, with a repeat of the setting and characters out of the way, I'll move on to the events in the series from episodes 6 on (go to my 1-4 and 5 reviews for those)
Episode 6: The Real Enemy Appears
This series is harem action, so it keeps going back and forth between harem comedy and action drama. At first it's mostly the former, but the series gradually ramps up the threat level as the series progresses. It does a good job of upping the stakes as the series progresses. The first major fight, in the first few episodes is against the bunnygirl teacher; it seems serious, but it's not actually really that much so, if you look at it in retrospect. Then in this episode, the "I will be your wife" gun girl challenges the whole grade to a fight, and beats most of them. It's a fun fight in a mall. However, before either the MC and his friends (buddy guy, partner girl, the other two girls) finishes, real enemies attack! So, the episode quickly shifts into a battle against the psycho guy for the first time, as he attacks. They drive him off.
Episodes 7-9: The Island Arc
After this, it's off to the island school. Again things start off normal. The first few episodes of this arc re-introduce that girl from the beginning, and they do some training on the island. At the end of episode 8, big-breasted girl confessed to the MC and he rejected her. Yes, that actually happened. Then she runs off, unhappy about her rejection and her lacking skills compared to her friends (she's easily the least powerful of the main group), and the island is attacked by the villains again. It's psycho boy and a bunch of generic useless soldiers. Machine guns never seemed so powerless! He kidnaps the school head goth loli girl, and the main pair go off to save her.
This arc ends with the two main characters working together to drive off evil boy and save their overly young school head. Main girl shows a
superpowered mode which she has limited control over, but MC guy stops her from attacking the evil guy because... a mixture of sexism and him wanting to protect her, I think. Just because she has trouble controlling her powers right now
doesn't mean that she couldn't learn to do that if she tried, but no, he's all "don't use that, I will protect you". Ugh! She's more than capable of helping herself. when they get unleashed now doesn't mean that She rewards them by... giving the MC guy a level-up item, and the girl nothing. This even though she probably did more in that fight than he did. The reason, of course, is 100% sexism, I'm sure. He's the guy, she isn't, so she get left out.
She does also have a secret superpowered mode,
so maybe he needed the powerup more, but still. Come on. I hate this stuff in anime, there have been more than a few animes which do this kind of thing, unfairly only rewarding the male character for something that a female character also played a major role in! It's not right. It's HER attack that injured the villain, not anything the MC did.
Episodes 10-12: The Final Confrontation
Here, Equipment Smith and psycho boy go to the school, with troops of course. Equipment Smith, the school head girl, and four other adults who I'm not sure if the series ever really introduces have a meeting. He's trying to convince her to back his superpowered suits, but she refuses; she's dedicated to finding Absolute Duo. What exactly this is isn't really explained, but it presumably is some kind of duo who work together really well. I think we know who the Absolute Duo pair are going to be... So, he sends his troops to attack the school. It's a "game".
Here we learn that after she ran off, Big-breasted girl was
recruited by Equipment Smith (I remember his name because it's so ridiculous) and given one of the super-suits. She is also brainwashed to support him, and in episode 11 is sent at the main characters as a part also becomes a villain for a little while, but she is turned back to the side of good within about half an episode. Still, I did kind of like the character arc -- after she confesses to the MC and he turns him down, she falls to Equipment Smith's claim that he can make her strong with one of his super-suits. Of course she also turns brainwashed.
Power is evil, unless it's used to protect others, that's this series' message.
Interestingly, it's not the MC who turns her back to good, it's her Duo the chain girl.
That was a nice touch, though it also reinforced how doomed her chances of being with the MC are; he doesn't even stay to turn her back, he leaves and the other girl saves her Duo. Sorry, he won't go out with you next time either, he'll be with main girl for sure (not as an actual couple of course because this is harem anime, it's not like real relationships happen!). Her defeat-by-unbrainwashing makes Equipment Smith really angry, because it means he lost the "game" with the school chair.
The climax and ending of the series is typical Absolute Duo. The main pair face off against crazy boy as the climactic battle; he took out Equipment Smith before the battle for no good reason. He sure is unable to understand the concept of working with others' friendship, etc. The moment I mentioned earlier about
bunnygirl teacher saving the school
happens during this fight, while the other students are pretty much bystanders, just fighting the normal baddies. The battle starts with the two of them going at the villain while he shoots with his various weapons. The CG work in the battle is passable, but not great. The MC uses that powerup item the school head gave him during this battle in order to better compete with the villain.
After some fighting, the villain comes up with a good plan -- while the main two were not next to eachother the villain fakes an attack at the girl, the MC uses his shield power to shield her, and then stabs the MC through his torso from behind while he was distracted making that shield. The MC survives this, but he is hurt and goes down for a little while. Main girl gets really angry about this and lets out her super mode again --
she gets this purple aura, can now fly, and becomes a very strong fighter. Yeah, she can fly, because he takes off and she follows him.
This time there is no MC guy to stop her mid-fight, so she continues to fight strongly until she lands a strong hit on the villain and he goes down for a moment.
She's going to strike again, but at this moment MC guy wakes up, gets over his serious wound, and stops her. She loses control and attacks him, because her super mode is really aggressive (and remember aggressive = evil here) so he stops her, ends her super mode, and she comes to her senses. Then they use a team version of his shield move, which is nice, and this overwhelms the enemy's super-strong beam attack.
But the male lead must land the final hit, of course, so the girl stays down while the MC picks up her sword, attacks crazy boy with her sword and his shield, and defeats the guy. I wish it'd been another combo attack, that'd have been better. But it is true that she had done more of the fighting than him overall, because of that injury of his, the fight at a whole was a team effort. Still, this last-hit-always-for-the-MC thing is something you see often, it's quite cliche. I think this fight could have been done better, but it was alright.
So yeah, the goodguys win. There were some good moments in this fight, I liked main girl in super mode, it was cool.
In the end, the kind-of-good feelings from moments earlier vanish as yet again the plot goes stupid garbage sexist. The MC tells main girl that he's sorry that he failed to keep her from going super again, because he wanted to protect her from her aggressively violent powers and failed... because he was injured and down and she protected him by attacking the enemy and probably saved his life, but he makes no mention of THAT, of course. He also seems to be fine with him using HIS special punch attack that's not from the school's weapon, but her using HER special power. She says that she hadn't told him about it because she was afraid that he would reject her because her powers don't actually come from a weapon from the school, but of course he doesn't mind that, he just minds that he "failed" to be as condecendingly protective as he wanted to be. I know he has good reasons to want to protect people, and of course working together is good, but I think he under-rates her strength. He says his goal is to get stronger and be able to protect her more in the future so she will never have to use that super aura mode. Of course, she agrees to this. She does talk about wanting to protect him as well, but there is MUCH more emphasis on the reverse, and more importantly, she doesn't push back against what he says here as she probably should have. Got to support traditional gender roles even in a series with females with strong combat abilities, after all... I hate these stupid stereotypes, they're awful. Go away!
So yeah, in conclusion Absolute Duo is a garbage series loaded with stupid dumb stuff, but it was more amusing than I expected. I actually looked forward to some of the episode, and while every good moment was followed by a bad one, at least the fun moments exist. This is the bad kind of anime that's fun to watch if you like bad harem animes. At first I thought one of the other harem action animes last season would be, but it's actually this one that was the most entertaining, as bad as it was sometimes. And I really did hate that last scene.
Absolute Duo doesn't deserve a wall of text. All it deserves is Cleveland Browns-chan with Johnny Manziel face photoshopped and a 0/10 in that same image.
Motherfucker you ain't even at the part of the show where it gets literally laugh out loud hilarious. When you reach the episode of the shogun, call me
The linked intro to Bake is pretty much a trailer/ flashback of Kizumonogatari, the mentioned above prequel that has yet to be released in the cinemas. If you want to continue the story you need to go for Nisemonogatari which still has plenty of Senjougahara. But be aware that without the last 3 episodes of Bake you'll be missing on one pretty crucial plotpoint and in all likelihood pretty confused when a certain character makes an appearance. Be also warned that Nise goes into some hmmmm even more questionable territory with nudity and with Araragi's sisters.
The linked intro to Bake is pretty much a trailer/ flashback of Kizumonogatari, the mentioned above prequel that has yet to be released in the cinemas. If you want to continue the story you need to go for Nisemonogatari which still has plenty of Senjougahara. But be aware that without the last 3 episodes of Bake you'll be missing on one pretty crucial plotpoint and in all likelihood pretty confused when a certain character makes an appearance. Be also warned that Nise goes into some hmmmm even more questionable territory with nudity and with Araragi's sisters.
Where can you see those missing episodes? Are they on Netflix or Hulu? Ep 12 was a great episode, I mean, down to earth grounded, almost real life stuff and the presentation was really great through the whole episode. Out of everything I've seen in the past month, that was probably one of the most well produced episode.
Oh, gotcha, I was laughing when that was literally one of the first things I saw in EP1, but it was flashback stuff then... I'm glad, Senjou is the better girl. Too bad, some of the headlines in Google say all sorts of things about their relationship later on without having to click a link.