This is not really a spring anime 2017 question, but..
I've been watching Ore Monogatari these couple days and it's amazing!
There's one thing that I noticed though. I feel like this is the first time ever I watch/read a shoujo anime/manga with a male lead. I mean, it's shoujo so normally the lead is going to be a girl. Is there anything else out there which is similar to this one?
I'm at the crossroads where I'm not sure if the show rushed through conflicts or not. At the same time, none of the rest of the episodes felt particularly padded, but this felt like it could have used one more episode maybe? I mean within the first 10 minutes of the episode we
get rid of the bad guys in a few minutes, know about the Nidaime's backstory where Benten reminds him of a lady he fell in love with, and have a DBZ styled battle where the Nidaime once again beats Benten but this time his father acknowledges him.
Then the rest of the episode is used to tie up loose ends for the season, which I appreciated but something felt like too much of the episode was spent on this aspect when I'm so used to other shows maybe giving the end credits (2-3 minutes) to this aspect.
Also
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS MY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP
Over-all it's definitely weaker than S1, but it still stands above the rest of the shows for the season for me. This did what I wanted though where so many plot elements and relationships were further explored in this season to the point after this I don't necessarily need another season of the show as I'm satisfied.
After all the buildup, we see Benten and Nidaime trying to kill each other for real. And... why?
We the audience can barely care about it. Nidaime was pouty because she reminds him of an old love, and Benten just does it because she doesn't like his stiffness/doesn't like competition? Looking back, there was no reason?...
We still don't know how they knew each other, Nidaime's flashback has been so short it didn't deepen him as character, and the scene of Yasaburo 'pitying' Benten is wasted as it was a heart to heart moment that could be used to really bare the character (like her lack of real family and her loneliness).
And Yasaburo + Kaisei looks creepy because he looks like 18 and she looks like 14, apart that Kaisei personality consists of being tsundere, and not a lot else. Of course, it seems the author likes the young girl angle, look at the frog and the loli...
Benten got Nisioisin'd. FUCK. I hope Benten haters are satisfied now.
Kind of a weak ending, though it had its moments. I liked the show, but there was too much stalling and stuff that seems to just build up the end of the trilogy. The Nidaime-Benten conflict is still there, Tenmaya and Soun are still there, the old evil man is still a mystery.
Did anyone here keep up with ATOM: The Beginning? Did it ever get better, or did they keep with the episodic approach where episodes had almost little to do with AI itself , and where at some point they squeeze their noses and laugh?
Have hard time remembering last time a character was BTFO as much as Benten.
But yes, I'm glad I'm not the only one not getting the whole Nidaime situation. The explanations are sparse to non-existent and, I don't even quite get why he was so sulky and depressed all of a sudden. Can't be just because Yasaburo destroyed half his house ! Then there comes Akadame peptalk with bunch of platitudes but we don't even see how their relationship looks after that.
It's funny but Jyouriojin literally vanished at some point.
Did anyone here keep up with ATOM: The Beginning? Did it ever get better, or did they keep with the episodic approach where episodes had almost little to do with AI itself , and where at some point they squeeze their noses and laugh?
I realize that ATOM might be a bit of a letdown for those hoping for a show focusing squarely on the hard science-fiction aspect of creating an AI, but the show does a decent job of trying to recapture that spirit of positivity regarding technological progress that defined classic Astro Boy. The interesting thing here is that we're seeing the early aspects of the AI that would develop into Astro Boy come to terms with how to present itself and its values to the world, all while Six's "fathers" conflicting views regarding that problem cause the divide that will ultimately cause them to part ways grow wider.
I'm not going to lie and say it's not a slow show that focuses on college-style slice-of-life over incredibly heady philosophical questions about the role of AI and the progress of technology, but it's plodding, old-fashioned approach is heartwarming and enjoyable if you enjoy that style of storytelling.
I'm not pleased with S2. I t could be because S1 is one of my favourite anime ever, but S2 just feels like a big disappointment. Can anyone tell me what the point of this season was? In the end it seems like the whole thing exists purely to introduce Hell and to destroy my ship. But I really don't think it produced stuff that is worth it's runtime. The show failed to create any real compelling reason for it's existence, and whilst it is always nice to see our lovely cast of characters - without any major incident to centre the show around it isn't that interesting to see them walk around like headless chickens until the show suddenly decides it needs to resolve itself.
I was writing a somewhat long post about how I thought this episode was the most creative and best directed episode of the season and it turns out that almost all the jokes, both in structure and visually were done in the manga. Even some of the camera angles were taken straight from the manga too so I can't credit the storyboarder for that either. Well at least the anime captured how differently Iida was drawn in those manga chapters, which is obviously important.
It's a bit of a shame it's taken over halfway through the show to get to this point, because the setup for the rest of it is legitimately interesting. The idea of
creating a publisher-approved crossover with all the main players so they can create a world where they have a fighting against Altair is quite clever, and might lead to some fun at the industry's expense, which I wouldn't mind.
f the rest of the show turns into a meta take on Shirobako cross with Project X Zone, i'll be absolutely fine with it.
Maybe I should finish watching Shirabako, only watched up to episode 6 for the Ideon reference...
That said, one thing they introduced here doesn't make much sense to me.
Why is Altair able to get powers from fan creations that are shared on the Internet? If it's because her creator's dead, wouldn't it stand to reason that any creation who's creator died could receive the same advantage, even though Megane doesn't appear to have gained anything by killing her creator as of yet?
It may be a bit of an stretch to make that her power and no one else's, but I won't complain since there's sign of actual progress and interesting ideas going forward.
Fan/indie work without much of a fictional setting to achor itself to gets its relevance expanded by similar content - contrast something like Star Wars, where most people have no idea what's in the expanded universe books and comics, let alone fanfics, where the additional content is at a very different level of availability and mindshare from the original works.
BTW, the spin-off manga's available now: https://www.sunday-webry.com/comics/re_creators_onemore/ep001/
I wonder if anyone will bother to translate that, but a very different kind of protagonist, certainly a more enthusiastic one, might do interesting things to the tone and pacing of the story...
Guess Ill start this off by saying it didnt finish as strong as the first season nor do I think the overall season was as smooth, though it was very entertaining. Yaichiro and Gyokuran got their sweet ending which was nice. Seems like Yajiro will be moving on too, that boy has a type huh. Anyway, Tenmaya kinda just came and went.
Soun coming back felt very unnecessary since the episode of his passing was such a strong moment for the other characters that the return kinda cheapened it, even more so that they really dont do much with him. And Nidaime boils down to that huh, wow. Lastly, the two sides of Yasaburos ending. The meeting with Benten could have been a lot more as she was very vulnerable in this moment and they could have had a real conversation, maybe delve into her past or bit or just whats she really feeling. Instead its just him retreating back . As for the Kaisei bit, I guess they tried to kind of sell this paring off but idk it just didnt work for me, she kind of annoyed me this season tbh. She won though but it still seems like Yasaburo doesnt really care, like its just a second choice he rolling with, he is pretty chill but thats just a bit sad.
Overall, it was very surprising this show came back for a second season and I enjoyed watching it. I know its apparently one more part to it but not as eager about the next part as I was when I finished the first season.
Attack on Titan: 36-37
There were some pretty good moments in these episodes and of course a lot of those Mikasa in Eren-centric mode lol which is always something. Great that they already announced the next season. This season was better than expected, for some reason I had the impression that it was going to be more talkative I suppose. Ah, didnt like the Krista and Ymir moments at all though, whether they were together or by themselves, dont like those characters at all.
My Hero Academia: 24-26
Tournament is finished! Honestly after the Deku and Todoroki fight didnt care how the rest would be adapted. Though it still sucks Bakugo got that win the fact that he takes it as a L makes up for it. The boy personality is some garbage. Stain hype though. Also, the flashback scene with Deku and his Mom was adorable lol.
And on a side note, finally watched the Moana movie and wow it was as great as I hoped it would be. Looked fantastic, the characters were pretty good, and the first time in a while that I actually liked the Disney songs in a movie. Well done, put that in KH3
For a series that wants to celebrate the unpredictability of life so much, it certainly wrapped up the season in the most bland, foreseeable way it possibly could. I don't really know what I expected though, to be honest. Something interesting from a Japanese product? Definitively failed to live up to the potential of the first. Trading meaning for spectacle feels like a bad deal.
Shokugeki, Kekkai Sensen 2, The Ancient Magus' Bride, and Inuyashiki are all on my list. I only ended up sticking through six anime this season so 4 as a start seems good. Children of the Whales will probably be okay.
This is a vastly better series than OreImo for a multitude of reasons. For starters, there isn't any serious parental drama so far that drags down the series both in pacing and quality. While that is used to give context in OreImo, the whole premise is so stupid to begin with that it comes across as uninteresting and not particularly necessary. Here it's largely hijinks and characters screwing around which simply makes for a better watch.
From a production standpoint this smokes OreImo and actually a lot of shows in general. The character animation was through the roof and just from that standpoint is one of the better shows in recent years. You could tell there was a lot of attention paid to minor actions such as laughing or just swaying. There was a dedicated animator just for a number of Sagiri's scenes and it showed as she's almost always moving or posing. It was a relatively inspired decision and it makes her a lot more likable as a character. The star of the show, if you will, from a direction standpoint though is the comedic timing. For example the last episode was full of excellent use of editing for jokes.
The character dynamics as a whole were a lot of fun. Elf was great and Muramasa was surprisingly decent as the straight man in a number of situations. The one character that felt out of place was the other male author who just felt forced in so Fushimi could balance the number of female authors. However I liked the cast as a whole even if I felt Masamune wasn't a particularly strong or interesting lead. One of the goals of the relatively new director, Ryohei Takeshita, was to surpass OreImo and he accomplished it. Takeshita did an exceptional job with understanding the type of source material this is and maximizing the output. I'm interested in what he'll do after S2.
So is Ichika just going to stalk Ciel until she gives in? Would kind of like it if someone other than Ichika talked with Ciel at all. Now for some Mofurun pancakes. Ciel fangirling over the Cures is cute at least. Not really caring for this stuff right, now, but at least it looks like things will happen next episode.
This is not really a spring anime 2017 question, but..
I've been watching Ore Monogatari these couple days and it's amazing!
There's one thing that I noticed though. I feel like this is the first time ever I watch/read a shoujo anime/manga with a male lead. I mean, it's shoujo so normally the lead is going to be a girl. Is there anything else out there which is similar to this one?
Yaoi is basically the shoujo formula applied to two guys, but I don't think there's really anything like Ore Monogatari. So stuff like Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi is VERY shoujo if you look at the tropes and style being deployed.
Although I do have a gap in the last year of anime, so I have no idea if there are more hetero options.
I would say technically Scum's Wish is like that, since every character gets the shoujo-esque monologue sequence, but I would also agree that it's not really shoujo in the traditional sense. lol
Oh, I guess reverse-harems have elements of that, since they're usually told from the guy's point of view (since the idea is to make fans of every character happy with one episode). The reverse-harem trash had turned to mush in my brain, but I remember one where a girl's father marries into a family with 13 brothers and each of the brothers falls in love with her and gets his own episode. Also, UtaPri. lol
A pretty decent show. I like the premise and the use of a grumpy old man instead of a middle aged one gives the show a unique dynamic to other single father shows. Only problem is that compared to the excitement that the other character's special powers bring to the show, a grumpy moralising old man is rather mundane and I found that his interactions with Alice acted more of a killjoy break to exiting actions rather than something that carried the show. So my main problem is that the show is "Alice and Zouroku" which is the weakest part of a very interesting world. Many people write worlds where characters randomly gain superpowers, but I think the focus on the characters and their eccentricities/childishness made the show an extremely interesting take on it. The final arc depicts a pretty good example, instead of it being a grand tale of good vs evil, it was more about a child's approach to trying to fix a dysfunctional family. Fish out of water is one of my favourite tropes, and it was decent but not great here, I like Alice's "erasou" character herself, but her "family" interactions were a bit too sugary-sweet for my liking. But the idea of a super powered being trying to eke out an ordinary life as a human is hard to fail, as the very premise leans itself to a thoughtful analysis of society and what it means to be a human.
A thoroughly above average show that should've been a great one.
So, it just kinda falls apart at the end, like the first season. Well, maybe even worse, with how exceedingly pointless everything felt. Since the novel's author also wrote The Tatami Galaxy, whose plot left me dissatisfied, too, I'll probably keep my expectations low if there'll be further adaptations.
Honestly, Nidaime's entirely subplot felt largely irrelevant in the grand scale of things. There was a lot more focus on the elections and the scheming, so the last minute backstory for him felt really tacked on and not really built up towards. Not really any payoff.
Everything else was settled rather quaintly, at least.
This is not really a spring anime 2017 question, but..
I've been watching Ore Monogatari these couple days and it's amazing!
There's one thing that I noticed though. I feel like this is the first time ever I watch/read a shoujo anime/manga with a male lead. I mean, it's shoujo so normally the lead is going to be a girl. Is there anything else out there which is similar to this one?
Yeah, this. The show looked great, but that can only take it so far when it's at its core a story about love between siblings who both happen to be underage, with a side order of harem hijinks involving several other underage girls.
