After spending all this time on shows about butts I decided a change of scenery was in order. I suppose this was OK for a 3 minute show but I can't help but feel it being lacking for its scope and runtime. Especially after Yama no Susume. Never the lessitwasfun, bad comparisons to Yuyushiki aside.
So they pretty much just dumped the first episode at Anime Expo. Overall reaction was meh. It felt like watching a C rate studio try their hand at The Last of Us. Yes the similarities are mostly superficial mainly in the setting but I still got certain vibes. For anybody not following the history of this troubled production, apparently it was supposed to have aired awhile ago but nothing was heard and people thought it got canned(maybe it did). The story itself takes place in Tokyo after something happened and radiation levels spiked. The obvious reaction would be that a bombed dropped on the city but this doesn't actually seem to be the case. The first episode doesn't make clear what the cause was but it doesn't look to be war related. Three girls and a small squad of men are sent into the city. The squad of men seem to be primarily interested in the thing at Ground Zero while the girls' mission is to find survivors, I guess. The mission for the girls isn't really that clear as they're supposed to find survivors and just leave them alone. The girls themselves are immune to radiation. At the time I thought it was stupid as fuck but I did some googling and apparently it is possible. Anyway they also have some other superhuman abilities but it's kinda glossed over for the time being.
So the first episode is mainly the girls wandering around the outskirts of the city. It's quite boring for the most part and isn't really that interesting. There is minimal use of sound initially in order to increase that feel of loneliness but the shots don't linger in the right place for long enough. There is a good sense of overgrowth though and the background art definitely reminded me of TLoU.
I had a few issues with the episode. The first is that I'm not sure what the show wants to be. Is it supposed to be a character study of these girls as they wander an Industrial forest? The problem with this is that there seemingly is supposed to be this feeling of isolation but the girls have radios which they use to contact their commander who airs stuff on television. There isn't that sense of isolation so far. The personalities of the girls too are way too variable. They just jump all over the place and it doesn't feel natural. Kana Hanazawa is in this and plays the genki girl but the genki girl has wild mood swings.
The major problem though is the coloring. I'm not a fan of GoHands previous works and a big reason is the damn color filter. It adds this unnecessary element to the show where something naturalistic is needed to emphasis how normal everything is. Instead it creates this fake and gaudy look to many of the scenes.
The other issue is the camera. It feels like shakycam as it's all over the place at times and you can't see shit in the more dynamic/action sequences. It's really atrocious for the final end bit. The camera moves around way too much and really doesn't add anything to the scenes other than attracting attention to the camera-work. Less is more and the director/animators don't know this. A minimalistic feel should have been the goal for this show but it really doesn't come across.
My impression was meh as well. The coloring and camerawork really screw the show up at times. There is one scene at the end too that is on the level of Prometheus-writing bad. It's an interesting concept but I'm not sure the execution does it justice.
They call it Mars Flame Sniper for a reason. You are a moron if you thought that Rei would miss a shot at relatively close range with half of your body not hidden behind your human shield.
-me
What better to begin an episode with than a rare dose of Reimoe?
P.S. fuck you for
trapping the senshi in your mirrors even after they defeat your illusions
. Being evil is one thing, but that doesn't mean also having to be a sore loser.
YESSSSSSSS. Green characters don't give a fuck, they just get right up to the final boss and say CAN'T LET YOU DO THAT. Reminds me about how the only good thing about the Smile Precure endgame was March kicking Pierrot right in the face.
That's my Jupiter, only going down after getting zapped like twenty times by Nehelenia. Shitty that the only reason that Usagi broke out of her illusion was because Jupiter's rose earring reminded her of Tuxedo Mask and not because, y'know, Jupiter was getting fukken electrocuted right in front of her. I suppose dat primal lust for Mamoru was in a deeper part of her subconscious untouched by the hypnosis than her friendship with Makoto. id vs. superego I guess
I think those suit are very cool, but just don't have identity. I'm gonna hyped to see those in Ninja Gaiden game.. not so much in anime, especially Gatchaman.
English becomes German? Ok... Whatever floats your boat.
I'm falling way behind on the Summer Season already... I think I need to consider getting myself a Crunchyroll subscription for that beautiful HD streaming...
-Sword Art online (amazing first season, incredible really, watched the first episode of season 2 and it just undid everything that made the ending and story to the first compelling, so I pretend it doesnt exist and didnt watch it, actually one of my favorite animes Ive ever seen, but damn did that season 2 just undo everything if wikipedia summary is accurate)
I would say bad things about you for dismissing the ALO arc, but I'm too used to people doing that by now. So I will just shake my head in your general direction.
-Gurren Lagaan (No idea why I like this, but there are so many FUCK YEAH moments that resonated throughout that it kept my attention and I really liked it...story went to crap second season though)
...and now I'll stop brutally judging your taste (or lack thereof) and offer some actual suggestions =p
Since you liked the first half of Sword Art Online, I feel like I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't recommend Accel World, which is another series by the author of SAO which feels similar in some ways but is generally much better. You may have to get over your hatred of school settings somewhat, since there's a fair amount of that in here, but the in-game environments are pretty stylish, so that might make up for it. (Actually, since you specified "highschool" settings, this show obviously gets a free pass, since it's set in a middle school! =p)
Other random shows that may be up your alley listed below. It sounds kind of like you're more interested in serious stuff, but you didn't explicitly write off comedy/slice-of-life shows in your list of requirements, so I've included a few good ones in here that are totally worth your time.
BTOOOM! - I can't decide whether this violates the "nothing crazy violent" specification, but I think you'd probably be okay with the violence in this one, it's not really depraved-for-the-sake-of-depravity like Psycho-Pass. Tiger & Bunny - a superhero story starring mostly grown-up characters, no "power levels" here. Usagi Drop - a heartwarming story about raising a child. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure - this may or may not violate your dislike for shonen action shows, but I think it's worth checking out, since it doesn't really have "power levels" and is so much more manly and fuckyeah-tastic than any of those. Shirokuma Cafe - a really laid-back comedy show featuring realistic-looking talking animals who basically act like adult humans. Much better than it sounds. I guess with 50 episodes, it could violate your "nothing crazy long" stipulation, but since it's not like it has a story arc that needs to be seen through to the end or anything, you could just watch half of it if that really bothers you =p Hataraku Maou-sama! - a comedy show from last season about a "demon lord" from a fantasy realm who winds up in the real world and has to get a part-time job and struggle to get by. It's just really fun. Katanagatari - WATCH IT, WATCH IT NOW. (Okay, I guess there's some fanservice in here, but it's not tasteless like Highschool of the Dead, and it's not the focus. The focus is awesome battles with swords and shit. That and really sharp dialogue, since it's based on novels by Nisio Isin. It's a really stylish series.) Koi Kaze - ahahahahaha I'm not sure if I should feel bad recommending this to you or not. It's definitely a mature, thoughtful, well-executed story which isn't fanservicey and ticks all of your boxes...but the subject matter may put you off. It's about
incest, with a large age gap into the bargain
. If you think you can handle that, then check it out and you won't be disappointed. Aku no Hana - I know you said no high school series, but...this isn't like any other series in that setting you've ever seen. (Again, this one is actually a middle school, but that's just a technicality =p) It's hugely atmospheric, and really dark and creepy. I think you'd probably like it if you give it a chance. Just a heads-up: it uses a really unusual animation style that can be offputting at first. Also, if you want to check it out, I'd watch the first two episodes before making any judgements on whether you like it or not, because a) the first episode is really uneventful and probably the least-engaging episode of the series, and b) it would probably take you that long to get past the initial knee-jerk reaction about how weird the series looks. Shin Sekai Yori - an engaging sci-fi/fantasy tale about psychics in a sort of post-apocalyptic far future where humanity has regressed to a more rural lifestyle. It has its ups and downs in terms of quality, but overall it's worth it for the really unique setting and storyline, and some hugely atmospheric sequences dotted throughout.
Random thought #1: There was a scene right at the beginning of the episode that was clearly at Heathrow Airport. Hnnnnnghhhhh now I can't wait until I'll be there myself in three weeks. (I relish any opportunity to get out of Germany and back to my family in England.)
Also, why is almost everything on Thursday/Saturday? The latter I can understand (middle of the weekend in Japan) but why the hell is such a large proportion of other shows on Thursday night?
Out of the shows that have aired so far, I'd say there are plenty that could be called "legitimately good". Love Lab and Gen'ei wo Kakeru Taiyou seem to be getting the most high praise, but Stella C3bu, Servant x Service and Kin'iro Mosaic are all really nicely executed if you're into those kind of shows ("cute girls doing actiony things", "grown-up characters doing comedy things", and "cute cute cute adorable why is my heart meltiiiiing" respectively). And of course there's Monogatari Second Season which is presumably great like the previous Monogatari seasons, but not something to jump into without watching the previous stuff first.
It looks pretty damn accurate to me, actually; I suspect the text was copied directly from an actual photo of one of these boards. "Customs" in title case is definitely correct. The only actual errors I can see are:
a) it looks like there are some spaces missing in between sentences
b) it looks like "vary" has an "e" instead of an "a" (though with all the artifacting it's hard to tell)
c) "does" is misspelled "dose"
d) it looks like there may be a full stop instead of a comma after "without baggage" and a comma instead of a full stop after "now arrived" (but again, with the low quality and the artifacting, it's difficult to tell)
For bonus points, here are a couple of photos of actual arrivals boards in Heathrow for comparison (sadly I couldn't find any with the exact same "Your Questions Answered" text, but it's still pretty damn similar).
Not really sure what I should / shouldn't spoiler, so for the sake of safety just gonna spoiler everything as I'm doing a lot of wild speculation.
Aku No Hana 1
Kasuga struck me as someone who is lying to himself. Either he's completely removed from the world, or he just doesn't care about it. It also seems like his infatuation with Saeki is really hollow. When he referred to her as being "Muse" or his "Femme Fatale" I was immediately struck with the thought that she was just the person he chose for that role in his mind, it has nothing to do with any kind of real connection he has with her.
Also, something Risette pointed out to me was how perfectly the show transitions into the ED every time, and my god, I'm noticing that already. Chills!
Aku No Hana 2
Nakamura seems evil. Haha. She also seems more 'real' than Kasuga does. That's probably because like I mentioned for the previous ep, Kasuga seems like he's hiding from the world. I get the impression Nakamura is going to cultivate the evil inside him, or at the very least make him more 'real'.
Aku No Hana 3
Why the fuck doesn't this motherfucker put his bag inside of his bag? You don't need to be running around town clutching your gym bag to your chest like it's a dying child. Goddamn. With that out of the way, the more he talks about his books the more it seems like he has always related to the 'evilness', but maybe he's been hiding from it or wasn't willing to show it out of fear. A lot happened in this ep. When Kasuga and Nakamura screamed at each other in the library, I got chills. She wants him to be as fucked up as she thinks he is so badly, and he's starting to relate to her, and that frightens him. I'm also really curious to know if there is more to the town being covered in rust, beyond just the town being an ugly place to be trapped in.
I'm awaaaaaaaaake!
I would say bad things about you for dismissing the ALO arc, but I'm too used to people doing that by now. So I will just shake my head in your general direction.
To be fair, the ALO IS pretty terrible compared to the first half.
Anyway, I don't know why, but I think Servant x Service is my show of the season (which is odd, because I do love Free! and I'm watching plenty of others). Something about the show just speaks to me.
hahah, "well, I guess it's true that future me kind of fucked you up even worse than you already were by imprisoning you for hundreds of years. Here, live your life over again!"
So, did Usagi actually change the past? I guess that would mean that SuperS never happened, then. RIP Chibiusa x Pegasus
(it looks like Usagi just created a new life for her and de-aged her and wiped her memory...or something. Yeah, that's it.) Man, she essentially has reality-altering powers in Serenity mode now. Shame she almost certainly won't be able to use them episodically. And Mamoru transformed into Endymion instead of Tuxedo Mask?
Not bad for an endgame right after an endgame but I'm ready for some regular episodes now.
Yeah, the previous OP was much more fitting for this show. It's not exactly bad, but I felt the first one represented the show better.
Man how I have missed this. Can't wait for some more hilarious randomness. But there was a surprisingly heartwarming touch to this, albeit it was hilariously screwed up by the end, but that's Teekyuu for ya!
Yasaburou is a great lead, though the transformation chosen is a bit baffling. I also like his older and younger brothers there, who ought to get more screentime hopefully
well the younger one it seems based on the preview
.
There was something refreshing and enjoyable about this even if I think it felt a bit on the slower side of things. Beauty of the blossoms and tree scene was the most memorable.
Looking forward to more and the ED song/ost music is above average for anime this season.
I'm more worried about the plot. Is it going to be a remake of the old series in name only or is going to be more faithful? Because I'm interested in the former, not in the latter.
Is going to be another C or another Tsuritama? Great difference in between.
I'm more worried about the plot. Is it going to be a remake of the old series in name only or is going to be more faithful? Because I'm interested in the former, not in the latter.
If the images that duckroll posted are, then they don't look bad as a static image. I'm just imagining that crazy-ass scissor sword thing tethered to the fembot in motion and....eugh.