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Summer 2014 Anime |OT2| Or, where Jexhius finally watches more Doremi for Hito.

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S

Syrinx

Member
Earth Maiden Arjuna 2

That became an anti-nuclear power PSA rather suddenly.

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here; all I know is that dat CG was ugly.
 
A

Admiral Woofington

Member
Quasar said:
After Clannad and Anohana, what are the other big tearjerker animes (lets leave out the other key based anime)?
Click to expand...

Grave of the Fireflies
Wolf's Rain (in fact this one specifically I cried a lot and made me realize how emotional I am)


And even though it's not emotional, the ending to Cowboy Bebop and Blue (the song) still bring tears to my eyes.
 
A

Admiral Woofington

Member
Quasar said:
Not seen Wolfs Rain. Or heard of it really.
Click to expand...

It's a relative oldie but a goodie, need to rewatch it to see if I like it as much as I used to, but it used to be in Adult Swim back in the days when they played anime regularly (before they brought toonami back and returned to form).

I have a feeling it won't be too terribly liked in here though as I largely have nostalgia from it so never rated it properly as an anime. But it definitely does have tear jerking scenes. Basically a futuristic world where wolves are like these mythical fantasy-like figures that are basically gone, and they can disguise themselves as humans.

edit: huh apparently it was made by Bones. Definitely need to give it a rewatch
 
Q

Quasar

Member
Admiral Woofington said:
It's a relative oldie but a goodie, need to rewatch it to see if I like it as much as I used to, but it used to be in Adult Swim back in the days when they played anime regularly (before they brought toonami back and returned to form).

I have a feeling it won't be too terribly liked in here though as I largely have nostalgia from it so never rated it properly as an anime. But it definitely does have tear jerking scenes. Basically a futuristic world where wolves are like these mythical fantasy-like figures that are basically gone, and they can disguise themselves as humans.

edit: huh apparently it was made by Bones. Definitely need to give it a rewatch
Click to expand...

An anime about wolves already sounds relevant to my interests.
 
N

nintendoman58

Member
Ojamajo Doremi - 17

There was literally no need for the girls to use magic in this episode. Like, there wasn't even any reason for the girls to even be part of the situation in this episode!

This entire episode could have just been focused on the kid and the teacher (best character in this show so far btw) and it all would have been okay in the end.
 
V

victreeb3l

Member
Hanayamata 9

Damn that was sweet. Sally-chan-san-sensei was pretty rad as a high schooler. Machi is finally on board and its nice to see her reconcile with her sister.

I'm shipping Sally-sensei and bald yosakoi store guy really hard. Wait till he sees her dance too.
 
B

Branduil

Member
Chaika the Coffin Princess 1

igdCT9LgPhSjm.jpg
Click to expand...

Good animation. Cool fight. Chaika. Talk like this. Moe uguu. Yandere sister. Dumb trope. Bread scene. ED nudity. :madp rant. Character names. Car references. LOL. Rating okay.
 
M

m_shortpants

Member
I was sort of mad everyone was being an asshole to Simon in Gurren Lagann after
Kamina's death
, but it's nice to see him come into his own. Nia seems a bit Mary Sue-ish, but hopefully she gets better. I'm interested to see what they do with Yoko.
 
A

Admiral Woofington

Member
m_shortpants said:
I was sort of mad everyone was being an asshole to Simon in Gurren Lagann after
Kamina's death
, but it's nice to see him come into his own. Nia seems a bit Mary Sue-ish, but hopefully she gets better. I'm interested to see what they do with Yoko.
Click to expand...

Some of them were being assholes in hopes
he would snap out of it
. You've only begun to explore the amazing Simon arc. It lasts all the way through the show.
 
C

cajunator

Banned
Branduil said:
Chaika the Coffin Princess 1



Good animation. Cool fight. Chaika. Talk like this. Moe uguu. Yandere sister. Dumb trope. Bread scene. ED nudity. :madp rant. Character names. Car references. LOL. Rating okay.
Click to expand...

Both Magic Knight Rayearth and Chaika (which is a car name itself) both have a ton of car references.
Aside from her being super adorable, the show is a solid bit of fantasy adventure. I feel that it will be better served after the second season once the story progresses a bit more. Season one had a relatively simple story and ending but a few things have been unresolved.
 
L

Lee Chaolan

Member
Anyone here draw anime/manga characters? Was hoping someone could make a Natsu signature for me for an Outbreak site I'm on. Appreciate any help :D
 
B

Branduil

Member
Clannad 13

iYX94m0uGTSE8.jpg


He seemed kind of main character-ish.
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LOL, they really went there.
It's not sad enough for Kotomi's parents to die, they were actually SUPERHERO SCIENTISTS who were about to CHANGE THE WORLD, and Kotomi in childish sadness burned the copy of their paper so now she has to atone for her sin by becoming another super scientist.
Someone please tell Jun Maeda that you don't need to pile ludicrous storylines on top of already sad ones to make them sadder.

Also, no one goes to check on Kotomi after
her parents, who are so famous they're on the news, die?
What the heck?
They didn't leave anything in their will about who would be her guardian, and no on thought to check on her or take care of her in any way?
C- please see me after class.
 
P

phoenix296

Member
Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito 05

This is so boring. With no coherent plot driving the story forward I am having a hard time finding a reason to continue watching this. The random events in these storybook worlds aren't interesting, the costume design continues to be stupid and girls continue to fall for Hazuki.

At least I finally can remember a character's name without looking it up.
My name is Quill!
 
S

Syrinx

Member
Aria: The Origination 10


The structure of this episode was a bit messy, kinda abruptly bringing Al into it and having it go from a moon-gazing party between the main three to Aika and Al stuck in the well.

But damn if I didn't love the episode anyway. Alice was on the top of her game during the party, getting into that dumpling-eating contest with Aika and then teasing her about her obvious crush on Al that she's too embarrassed to admit.

Scene in the well was good too. The bit with Aika trying to toss President Maa back out of the well was hilarious. There were also some good facial expressions here too, most notably Aika on the brink of bursting out into laughter after she found out that Al was a bit scared of the dark. And then following that long awkward pause where Al just starts psuddenly rambling to take the tension away. And it was also good to finally see them acknowledge the attraction. Even if Aika is still too embarrassed to admit it.
 
Q

Quasar

Member
On the tearjerkers front, someone brought Saikano up to me and its warning label. Just how bad is it? Surely this is on the animegaf list.
 
F

Femmeworth

Banned
Karas Ep. 2

A step down from the first episode, especially in the action department. I like how the narrative is vague with some details and then it spells out the one detective's backstory with some clunky dialogue.
 
C

CorvoSol

Member
Crocodile said:
Your reviews of shows you actually enjoy have been much more fun and enjoyable than your reviews of shows that nearly gave you cancer. Keep up the good work :)
Click to expand...

Missed this in all the rush, but I confess I do enjoy writing about what I enjoy most. Though every once in awhile it's nice to indulge in a good rip on a show I dislike.


Now, I believe I owed a few thoughts to the following post:

Jexhius said:
Reading all this makes me think that the Gundam franchise is in a really strange place right now, caught between tradition and reinvention.

At the time of it's release, G Gundam represented a breath of fresh air in more ways than one. It was the first series that broke away from the main overall Universal Century story arc that ran from 1979-1994. On top of that, the show is in a completely different genre than previous Gundams. As opposed to being a war/drama G Gundam is a martial arts/superhero series where all the major characters pilot robots. I'm surprised they even called it Gundam but I imagine they wanted, and needed, to broaden the brands appeal. Up until this point Gundam was getting buried in it's own lore, burdened by it's universe. Sunrise clearly needed to make works that would and could appeal to anyone, not just UC nerds. In that light, G Gundam represents a kind of a freedom, both creatively and for audiences unfamiliar with the rest of the UC.

Now here's where my opinion gets a little controversial. While G Gundam was the first show to strive out on it's own in search of new ground I'd also argue that it was the last one to do so. Sunrise stopped striving to make something new and different. They'd gone too far. Future so called 'Alternate Universe' shows basically returned to the same tired Colony/Earth war stories that Gundam shows had been telling for decades. Many of these shows were just recycled material from these older shows but painted it up as something fresh for a new generation of fans. Even Turn A is basically the same old show, except that the writing openly questions the ideas held in by those shows.

After mining old ideas so many times it's hardly surprising that Sunrise have finally dropped the pretense and returned to the UC in the hopes of reaching into the wallets of older fans. In this, as with many of their business ventures, they have been wildly successful. I, personally, don't care about the UC and all of it's tiresome lore (newtypes more like zzzztypes) but I understand that it holds a certain sway. Still, I feel that by retreating to these tried and true ideas Sunrise are avoiding making something that's actually fresh and interesting. Nothing they've made in years has been as radical as G Gundam. Perhaps the good ideas have simply gone to other shows e.g. Code Geass.

But what about GBF? Gundam Build Fighters is a glorified commercial filled with nostalgia and great action. It's better than just about every other show in the last few years because it knew exactly what the audience wanted from it and it delivered on that. it wasn't filled with dumb politics, moralising and stupid war stuff that no-one cares about It was striped down and simple and good. The characters were likeable and it was actually fun. Can you remember the last Gundam that was fun?

It represents a step in right direction but as Sunrise have already moved to 'sequalise' I don't know if they learned their lesson, GBF didn't just succeed because it pandered to old school fans, it succeeded because it was a genuinely well made and effective show. Whether Sunrise realise this or not is another question. Can Sunrise keep it up? I hope so because if they don't I will safely ignore their output.
Click to expand...

As I said in my other post, I absolutely agree that the franchise is entirely too stuck in rehashing the run from MSG to CCA bit by bit. If anything, this was an enormous problem with AGE. It was simply too much distilled product of the UC conventions. What made both the original Gundam and G Gundam great was that they were such breaks from the establishment.

I think that speaks to a problem with the entire genre nowadays, though. Far, far too many Mecha shows are trying to be "the next EVA" or "a Gundam-Killer" or one up this or that thing, when in reality what makes the truly great mecha anime their own thing is their willingness to be themselves.

The Big O is a great example of this. Who would ever think to combine Asimovian Futurism, Batman/Film Noir narratives and aesthetics, Super Robots and heavy doses of Metropolis? It's an unusual combination executed boldly, and without fear or shame of not pushing products. But so much of Mecha anime nowadays feels rather soulless to me because it's all become a prisoner of past successes.

Tomino's been talking some game about G-Reco being a huge break from Gundam standard, and I would love for him to be right. Off the tail of Build Fighters' success I think that now is the time to take that kind of a risk and see what happens. Now is the time to make something that will be referenced, not something that references.
 
B

Branduil

Member
Clannad 14

ibmwxHNiFtGQ1t.jpg


Just another hilarious moment in the wacked-out comedy that is Clannad.
Click to expand...

Wow, so many illogical twists, narm moments, and instances of infuriatingly forced sentimental tripe, I'm not sure how to express it. Maybe something like this?

igEPgHOZjW9Ft.gif


Where to begin? Well, you had the references to The Dandelion Girl which ended up only having very tangential ties to the story. Tomoya not going to the birthday party because he couldn't convince friends that Kotomine didn't know to come, which is strange logic even for a kid, and then deciding to go there in the middle of the night. Trying to put out a fire with a cup of water. He repeatedly tries this while just leaving her in the room that is on fire, LOL. Also, the emotional climax feels weird when the story is adapted like this; it's obviously supposed to end with Tomoya waifuing Kotomine, but they can't do that when adapting the entire story to anime, so it's just an emotional connection that's arbitrarily cut short. Also, the romance feels pretty artificially connected to the substance of her arc, but I guess that's what happens when you make choose-your-own-sad-waifu stories.

Then we get to the ridiculous BS with the suitcase. It would actually be infuriating if they had replaced a paper that would change the world with a stuffed bear and a letter saying "LOL the world is beautiful YOLO" but I'm pretty sure their paper was just made up timecube nonsense since they apparently didn't have any research notes or experimental data at all. Then you have the silly, over-the-top imagery with a dude on horseback riding over a field of flowers, camels in the sahara, and some people in the freaking South Pole or something, all passing along this suitcase with a bear in it. Like, what the heck, there's a letter with their names on it, why would you not just send it to Japan? How would it ever end up in Antarctica? Hilarious.
 
M

Mothman91

Member
Branduil said:
Clannad 14



Wow, so many illogical twists, narm moments, and instances of infuriatingly forced sentimental tripe, I'm not sure how to express it. Maybe something like this?

igEPgHOZjW9Ft.gif


Where to begin? Well, you had the references to The Dandelion Girl which ended up only having very tangential ties to the story. Tomoya not going to the birthday party because he couldn't convince friends that Kotomine didn't know to come, which is strange logic even for a kid, and then deciding to go there in the middle of the night. Trying to put out a fire with a cup of water. He repeatedly tries this while just leaving her in the room that is on fire, LOL. Also, the emotional climax feels weird when the story is adapted like this; it's obviously supposed to end with Tomoya waifuing Kotomine, but they can't do that when adapting the entire story to anime, so it's just an emotional connection that's arbitrarily cut short. Also, the romance feels pretty artificially connected to the substance of her arc, but I guess that's what happens when you make choose-your-own-sad-waifu stories.

Then we get to the ridiculous BS with the suitcase. It would actually be infuriating if they had replaced a paper that would change the world with a stuffed bear and a letter saying "LOL the world is beautiful YOLO" but I'm pretty sure their paper was just made up timecube nonsense since they apparently didn't have any research notes or experimental data at all. Then you have the silly, over-the-top imagery with a dude on horseback riding over a field of flowers, camels in the sahara, and some people in the freaking South Pole or something, all passing along this suitcase with a bear in it. Like, what the heck, there's a letter with their names on it, why would you not just send it to Japan? How would it ever end up in Antarctica? Hilarious.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, seeing you watch this,

should I watch this?
 
J

jman2050

Member
Branduil said:
Clannad 14



Wow, so many illogical twists, narm moments, and instances of infuriatingly forced sentimental tripe, I'm not sure how to express it. Maybe something like this?

igEPgHOZjW9Ft.gif
Click to expand...

The ending to Kotomi's arc is everything wrong with Jun Maeda's writing in one neat distilled set of scenes. Although I actually didn't much mind the rest of it but again, I read the VN.

It still confuses me that KyoAni spent 14 episodes on two arcs that literally do not matter at all. Especially when
you get a measly 30 minutes each for Tomoyo's and 'Best Girl that doesn't actually feature Best Girl all that much's routes.
 
C

CorvoSol

Member
Branduil said:
Clannad 14



Wow, so many illogical twists, narm moments, and instances of infuriatingly forced sentimental tripe, I'm not sure how to express it. Maybe something like this?

igEPgHOZjW9Ft.gif


Where to begin? Well, you had the references to The Dandelion Girl which ended up only having very tangential ties to the story. Tomoya not going to the birthday party because he couldn't convince friends that Kotomine didn't know to come, which is strange logic even for a kid, and then deciding to go there in the middle of the night. Trying to put out a fire with a cup of water. He repeatedly tries this while just leaving her in the room that is on fire, LOL. Also, the emotional climax feels weird when the story is adapted like this; it's obviously supposed to end with Tomoya waifuing Kotomine, but they can't do that when adapting the entire story to anime, so it's just an emotional connection that's arbitrarily cut short. Also, the romance feels pretty artificially connected to the substance of her arc, but I guess that's what happens when you make choose-your-own-sad-waifu stories.

Then we get to the ridiculous BS with the suitcase. It would actually be infuriating if they had replaced a paper that would change the world with a stuffed bear and a letter saying "LOL the world is beautiful YOLO" but I'm pretty sure their paper was just made up timecube nonsense since they apparently didn't have any research notes or experimental data at all. Then you have the silly, over-the-top imagery with a dude on horseback riding over a field of flowers, camels in the sahara, and some people in the freaking South Pole or something, all passing along this suitcase with a bear in it. Like, what the heck, there's a letter with their names on it, why would you not just send it to Japan? How would it ever end up in Antarctica? Hilarious.
Click to expand...

As I said before:

The perfect example of what I am discussing is Clannad’s second (third?) arc, focused on Kotomi Ichinose, or as I came to know her, “Purple Dumb” based upon her hair color and personality type, which is all characters in Clannad really are: hair color and personality archetypes. In any case, the general lay of the Kotomi arc is that resident Idiot-Savant Kotomi’s folks shuffled prematurely off this mortal coil, and she is suffering from some recently trudged up memories of the event. These memories are triggered by witnessing a bus crash, even though her parents died in a plane crash which she herself did not witness. All the same, Kotomi is reduced to screaming incoherently and holding her head in agony. She then skips out on school, which doesn’t matter since she doesn’t attend classes anyway, but is treated as a big deal, even though the arc makes no huge deal out of Okazaki skipping. None of this is important other than that attendance is treated as a matter of life and death at one point in After Story, but I digress. Because this is a dating sim, Okazaki takes it upon himself to help Kotomi any way he can through her emotional troubles by cleaning her yard. Which I grant is not really an offensively illogical method and is fairly in keeping with his role as the protagonist who will fix all these broken girls. The arc disables itself, though, by having Okazaki and Kotomi know one another from childhood. What purpose does this serve? Would he not have aided her if they hadn’t? Why does she withhold this information when they meet? It is a useless twist that only serves to further complicate the arc. Afterward we find out that not only did Okazaki know Kotomi before hand, it was shortly before her birthday, which was the exact day her parents died, and also he failed to bring anyone to her birthday party, and also her birthday is coming up again! A series of contrivances piling one upon another which just detract from the previously built up image of Okazaki as a genuinely nice guy willing to help other people for the sake of “intensifying the stakes.” It is telling that none of this serves any real purpose beyond getting you to think that it does when you realize that for all that Okazaki has done for Kotomi, and for all that they allegedly are to one another, neither of them will ever really interact again. Ask yourself: when is the next time Okazaki and Kotomi are alone together, ever talking about anything? The answer? As far as I got, never. Kotomi is shunted almost immediately into the pile of backup girlfriends as soon as the arc concludes, and does not so much as correspond with Okazaki after graduation.

This isn’t all that the arc does, though. It is most obvious and blatant infraction is when Kotomi receives the bear her folks had promised her before they died. This would be perfectly fine on its own until someone says “that bear must have traveled the world to reach you!” After this announcement, the audience is then left to watch as the bear literally travels the entire world to reach them. This is exactly the kind of beating the viewer over the head with obvious stuff that I found the show to be thoroughly rife with. It is not, however, the only part of the arc that demonstrates the show’s commitment to cheating emotional response from the viewers.

Color Psychology is the study, in part, of how color effects one’s mood and behavior. It holds that color can carry a specific meaning, and it holds that the range of red to yellow is for negative issues, as well as romantic, excited and comforting ones. It is no surprise, then, that so much of this arc makes frequent use of orange, yellow, red and purple. Or rather, it’s not really puzzling to figure out why so many moments in this arc, and throughout Clannad in general, take place at sunset. Sunsets set the mood, and the dazzling array of colors distracts the mind in such a way that it may perceive issues as more dramatic, important, or meaningful than they would be, quite literally, in another light. The frequent use of certain songs in the show are meant to tell the audience the exact way they ought to be feeling by using the low, wordless singing of female voices in tandem with this. As a third and important part, female voices are constantly quavering upon the edge of tears in this show. It’s difficult to name an episode of Clannad in which at least one girl, usually Nagisa, did not sound like she was on the edge of tears. All of this is meant to lure the audience into the appropriate emotional state where, rather than see the comically exaggerated melodrama for what it is, they find themselves wiping a tear from their eye, licking its salty goodness from their finger and excitedly whispering in the shadows: “the feels!”
Click to expand...

Kotomi's arc was egregiously terrible, and yet the show keeps going. Please, Branduil, PLEASE tell me you're not doing After Story, as well!
 
L

Link Man

Banned
Hanayamata 9

This is possibly the cutest PTSD ever.

A little light on the humor this episode, but incredibly well-done drama. Though the resolution might have been a bit too abrupt.
 
D

Dead

well not really...yet
m_shortpants said:
I was sort of mad everyone was being an asshole to Simon in Gurren Lagann after
Kamina's death
, but it's nice to see him come into his own. Nia seems a bit Mary Sue-ish, but hopefully she gets better. I'm interested to see what they do with Yoko.
Click to expand...
lol, she is probably the biggest mary sue in the entire history of visual fiction.
 
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