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Summer 2012 Anime |OT3| Where All the Waifus Are Made Up and the Points Don't Matter

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Branduil

Member
So how did every other society bounce back from their respective turns on the wrong end of mankind's several-thousand history of warfare without any kind of permanent cultural baggage?

What other countries have been in Japan's situation in the last century? Germany isn't really the same because they've always been part of the western world.

I think the economic quagmire they've been in for two decades is probably more relevant to their current national mood.

Fair enough, any one sentence explanation for Japan's culture is going to be over-generalized on some level. But I do think it's fair to say that the way westernization was basically forced on Japan is a unique experiment and the culture clash has resulted in some oddities.
 
What other countries have been in Japan's situation in the last century? Germany isn't really the same because they've always been part of the western world.

Probably the fact that Germany got their asses beat not once, but twice in a relatively short time frame goes a long way.
 

Dresden

Member
What other countries have been in Japan's situation in the last century? Germany isn't really the same because they've always been part of the western world.
Well, not quite as different as you may think, simply because Japan went through modernization on their own terms as opposed to being subjected to a process of colonization. It'd be one thing if the country was a part of the Western empire-building malaise that afflicted the globe in the 19th century, but as they weren't, the situation after the war regarding those two countries was actually pretty similar, including the lack of a conquering process/aid to rebuild.

Main difference I suppose is that unlike Germany they've yet to confront and fully accept wartime atrocities. And the cultural scarring re: nuculurs.
 

madp

The Light of El Cantare
What other countries have been in Japan's situation in the last century? Germany isn't really the same because they've always been part of the western world.

Oops, I seem to have phrased my question too seriously. Of course Japan has several valid excuses for the current state of their culture.
 

Branduil

Member
Well, not quite as different as you may think, simply because Japan went through modernization on their own terms as opposed to being subjected to a process of colonization. It'd be one thing if the country was a part of the Western empire-building malaise that afflicted the globe in the 19th century, but as they weren't, the situation after the war regarding those two countries was actually pretty similar, including the lack of a conquering process/aid to rebuild.

Main difference I suppose is that unlike Germany they've yet to confront and fully accept wartime atrocities. And the cultural scarring re: nuculurs.

That's true, but my main point was that Germany had millennia of shared history, as well as a shared cultural and religious heritage, with the rest of the western world. Japan was on a literal and figurative island, and repeatedly resisted western influence. When you graft a cultural system from the other side of the world onto one that's developed fairly independently, after destroying their current culture, there's going to be some weirdness.
 

Nafe

Member
How do you know he isn't?

Well, I saw his reflection in one of his figure case pictures but you're right, that was probably just a disguise for his inner nekomimi self.

Well, that's not entirely true, I played Alcon/Slap Fight back when I was a kid in the arcades, but that and Otomedius aren't all that in common with each other.

Are you liking Otomedius? I haven't played it. I've been thinking about maybe trying out the Touhou games sometime.

I love that song.

Me too. Off the top of my head I don't think there's a K-On! song I don't really like. Maybe not the first opening of K-On!! as much, the vocals there are a bit high pitched. I actually find myself listening to the different openings and ending quite a bit though, even the newer ones like Singing! from the movie. I love Yoko Hikasa's singing voice.

Yeah, like, maybe if she somehow put skates made out of ice on the bottom of her boots, that would make more sense... but stepping on ice barefoot sucks, so I can't imagine making a shoe out of ice and wearing it.

We can just pretend Reika has a thin layer of ice covering her shoes and it makes it look like they're made entirely of ice.

Well, honestly they don't care about continuity because sometimes Candy is allowed to talk and walk around and other times she has to pretend to be a doll. Hell, sometimes the Precure are on the news in the movies or whatever. lol

I'll buy that there is a plausible in-universe explanation - perhaps they did get stronger - but I just remember when the show first began that they emphasized the characters could only use their powers once, mostly because it forced the "new girl" to power up and use her newly gained powers.

Yeah, I think that might be true for Candy, like in the summer festival episode a couple of weeks ago. I guess they figure kids won't care too much.

Hmm, I went back and skimmed episode one and Miyuki/Cure Happy just mentions about being tired and Candy says Happy Shower uses up a lot of power. In skimming through episode two Miyuki misses the Akanbe and Candy says to use her powers again. They don't work to which Candy is surprised and said something like "You can only use your powers once per transformation?!" and Miyuki responds something like "I didn't know about that!". There could have been something in the mean time I've forgotten about though as far as powering up though.

After all this time with the girls referring to each other by their first names it was kind of weird hearing Miyuki and Akane address each other as "Hoshizora-san" and "Hino-san".

As far as the movies and the franchise on the whole goes, I'll have to defer to your knowledge as I only watched some of the first Precure and then didn't watch it again until recently with Smile Precure!

Bur it does have a CGI keyboard!

Yeah, there was something else I noticed and made a mental note of as being CG, or at least looking like CG but I can't remember what it was now. I'm up to episode 9 now and it's been pretty good for having most things as hand drawn or animated.

But duckroll is our resident CG prophet.

Ah, I see what envelope was getting at now, haha. At first I initially thought he wasn't sure that I meant hand drawn by 2D.

..... ugh

Is it okay to ask where your avatar is from? I don't have any intentions to mock you or anything, I was just wondering is all.

But better.

Yeah, I like the K-On! style better too.
 
Are you liking Otomedius? I haven't played it. I've been thinking about maybe trying out the Touhou games sometime.

I liked it, but I suck at it. haha

Me too. Off the top of my head I don't think there's a K-On! song I don't really like. Maybe not the first opening of K-On!! as much, the vocals there are a bit high pitched. I actually find myself listening to the different openings and ending quite a bit though, even the newer ones like Singing! from the movie. I love Yoko Hikasa's singing voice.
Awesome, so do I. She has such a lovely voice.
Listening to Listen!! as we speak!
Yeah, I like the K-On! style better too.
Exactly.
 

Lain

Member
Phi Brain S2 episode 22

As the episode ended, one word formed in my brain: Shittacular. It's the only word I feel adequately describes what I think of it. The only way to win is not to play. It applies to both the viewer as well as the characters.
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
The newest member of my Nendoroid family! She's so cute!

3B84054A-8942-45DB-A83D-EAF855AF54BD-765-000000CFD157E9BE.jpg
 

DiGiKerot

Member
did sakura wars ever have an anime?

Several, most of them fairly bad. Infact, I think the Sumire retirement OAV was one of the worst things I've ever sat through the entirety of.

Most of them inexplicably got released in the US too, although I reckon that only the second OAV series and the movie (which sets up stuff that fed into Sakura Taisen 4, 5 episode 0 and 5 within the course of the same movie) are worth a look, though I know a few people who aren't familiar with the games who didn't really get the movie.
 

madp

The Light of El Cantare
Huh, I forgot about the existence of the various Sakura Taisen anime. I suppose that dulls the sting somewhat of the fact that I'll never be able to play past entries after loving 5 when it came over a couple of years ago.
 

sonicmj1

Member
Nice, so no crybaby like Kira?

Shiro Amada is a buffet of awesomeness and heroic bravado. Even in situations where other protagonists would sit in their beds under the covers munching on potato chips feeling sorry for themselves, he still goes out there and does awesome things.
 
Ouran High School Host Club 15

The background art got better than usual after moving to the Karuizawa vacation setting, with pleasant clouds in the sky and everything. Of course, that just makes more glaring the ugliness of the normal appearance of the sky, painted a stark and artificial shade of blue with no clouds or proper color variations at all. I've gotten used to that by now, but the bump in quality makes me wish all the episodes could have at least this level of backgrounds. The early digital age really was painful; I sure am glad the general standard of digital art has improved since then.
 
Shiro Amada is a buffet of awesomeness and heroic bravado. Even in situations where other protagonists would sit in their beds under the covers munching on potato chips feeling sorry for themselves, he still goes out there and does awesome things.

Sounds awesome. Hope this Shiro is better than the other Shiro I know.
 

DiGiKerot

Member
which one was the one in 'america' that came out on ps2 and wii?

Sakura Taisen 5. It's a decent enough game, though in some weird ways it was a bit of a step down for the franchise. The production values on it seemed curiously low compared to other entries in the series - the anime cutscenes in ST3 were way ahead of their time in terms of CG/2D integration (and most of them still look great by today's standards). The anime in ST5 actually looks worse than in the Episode 0 game they released earlier.

I do like the battle design a lot - best in the franchise - though that did inadvertently break one of the other things I liked about the series. Every "episode" of the story took almost exactly 90-105 minutes to play in prior games. It made it really easy to schedule play sessions. ST5 battles could drag on a loooong time on occasion.

Characters were a really mixed bag in ST5 though. Great supporting cast (Sunnyside and Ratchet are great), and I do like Gemini. Most of the rest of the characters leave me a little cold, though.

ST3 is totally the best game in the series, coincidentally. One of the best games on Dreamcast, too.
 
Sounds awesome. Hope this Shiro is better than the other Shiro I know.

Shiro is easily my favorite Gundam protagonist.
Dodging a fucking rifle beam at nearly point blank range, on foot? Bad. Ass.

Anyhow.

Aquarion EVOL final impressions:
Well that was an entertaining ride. There were huge jumps in logic all over the place, things happening without rhyme or reason every five minutes, but somehow it had me hooked through the entire series.

Despite its cast of super cliche characters, I found most of them to be inherently likable. Andy in particular stood out in my mind. I thought Kagura was the weakest and the way his plot thread resolves just kind of left me scratching my head.

I definitely got some Macross Frontier vibes through the whole shibang too, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It was definitely fun and I don't regret watching it.
 
Aquarion EVOL final impressions:
Well that was an entertaining ride. There were huge jumps in logic all over the place, things happening without rhyme or reason every five minutes, but somehow it had me hooked through the entire series.

Despite its cast of super cliche characters, I found most of them to be inherently likable. Andy in particular stood out in my mind. I thought Kagura was the weakest and the way his plot thread resolves just kind of left me scratching my head.

I definitely got some Macross Frontier vibes through the whole shibang too, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It was definitely fun and I don't regret watching it.

"Mikono-saaaaaaaaaaaaan" *in Amata's voice*, can never forget Amata. Kagura and Amata were my favorite, though I think just about everyone liked Andy w. Hol.
 
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