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Summer Anime 2015 |OT| SharingMana

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JulianImp

Member
School-Live! - EP4
Miki's origin story sounds a bit generic, but things have finally gotten interesting. Shovel girl driving Megu-nee's car was expected, but it was funny that she managed fine... I guess I could chalk it up to most cars in Japan being automatic. Were this set in my country, where manual cars are still the vast majority, I bet she would've spent an eternity trying to get the car to not stop due to improperly managing shifts.

Now things are set up for the club's reunion next episode, and Megu-nee's
all but confirmed dead long before this episode, meaning Miki never actually met her
. It'll be interesting to see her interact with Yuki, to say the least.
 
Just a small note: the intro of this show foreshadow quite a few things which will happened during this season. One of the big one is Tina founding out the big news between Aoi and Kaoru. Kinda ruin a bit for me and make you wonder why try the audience of what will happened in the show as that kinda ruin the fun of founding it out. Oh well.....

For this episode, it's a good starting point of the show. Kinda disappointed that nothing have happened with Aoi and Kaoru in their relationship for 2 years. You think it have developed even more during those 2 years but nope....feel like it's they didn't go anywhere during those 2 years. Also, their friends didn't know they're engaged and still hide them about their relationship. Sigh....

Still, need to start from somewhere. At least we did have one scene where Aoi and Kaoru have special time together again.

What you're goin to experience from now on is the turning point of why ai yori aoshi disapoint me as a franchise.
It's sad because i liked the premise but ....
 

javac

Member
This is, for better or for worse, a very "Yuasa" thing to do. His work as an adaptor (i.e. Tatami Galaxy and Ping Pong) tends to be more widely accepted because it removes the opportunity for him to display his somewhat bizarre and juvenile sense of humour, which he also juxtaposes with stuff that's supposed to be fairly serious.

There's one bit in an early episode of Kaiba where (you'll have seen this) someone explodes in slightly odd circumstances. I remember thinking I had no idea how to really process that; was it a joke, was it horrifying? Wasn't sure.

Which episodes in particular have you enjoyed? The sadder ones or the slightly more frivolous?

It's worth noting that the show becomes much more heavily serialised in its second half and cuts back on the wackiness. I'll be interested to see what you think of it then.

Thanks for the reply. I'm glad that it's not just me and that the show itself is constructed in a way that leads to such experiences, ones where you don't really know how to feel at times because it almost felt blasphemous talking about Kaiba in such a way because its so dearly loved. I'd say that my favorite episode so far was 3 and I also have no bad things to say about episode 1, but I do want to make it clear that I haven't hated any episode so far, just that some moments appear in circumstances that are hard to process and I sometimes find it difficult to know just how its supposed to affect me. I don't hate this, I actually find it interesting but it can definitely remove the core emotional sting. Some moments are supposed to be sad but like you said they're pulled off in the most matter of fact in your face way that it almost comes across as humorous at times.

I hope that I'm making senses, I'm still really enjoying Kaiba and really appreciate its existence and can't wait for the second half.

I enjoyed the second, more continuous half much more but as you don't seem to share my disdain for most of episodic stuff. I can't promise you'll feel the same.

Thanks, I appreciate your opinion :) To be honest, I don't mind episodic series or more focused ones so I wouldn't be disappointed if it went either way however I do think deep down that a more focused second half will be for the better because hopefully it goes on to answer a few of the questions it's left me with thus far. I like episodic series a lot, they allow for you as a creator to take your characters in all sorts of situations,but at the same time a focused arc is also something that I appreciate when done right. I'm looking forward to how it concludes :)
 

Walpurgis

Banned
As for Nagato. Assuming you mean his raised from the grave form. For your own sanity it's better to just accept that Edo Tensei don't give a flying f about the state their original bodies were in.
I just tell myself that Edo Tensei recreated their bodies from the DNA in their corpses and placed their souls in there. I can't explain the clothes though (and how the clothes heal too). :p

I meant that, if the Rinnegan is the
final form of the Sharingan
, then how did a
non-Uchiha like
Nagato get it? I figured that
implantation
would be the only explanation but Nagato had the Rinnegan as a child.
 

Mandelbo

Member
Gakkou Gurashi 03

2HK1FlL.png

because she's deeeeead! and her body/spirit/ghost will be in the school foreeevvveeerrr!

More evidence to file for the
Megu-nee is dead
theory. I really liked the flashback that took up the bulk of this episode, showing us how the
outbreak began and giving us a good idea of how quickly it happened, as well as potentially showing us the moment that Yuki broke. We don't, however, know how much time has passed between that flashback and the present day - it could have been weeks, or it could have been months. Once again no one but Yuki directly speaks to Megu-nee, with the other characters parroting what Yuki says whenever they address her. Have we seen Megu-nee in a scene by herself that wasn't a flashback or that doesn't have the film reel overlay?
 
Gakkou Gurashi 04

It's cool that from shovel-chan's
point of view the zombies look more like shades instead of real humans, I thought it was to make them more scary but seeing Miki's sidestory made me realize that it's probably because Shovel-chan doesn't want to associate the zombies to actual persons anymore. You know, since that didn't go so well last time.

The ending of this episode was pretty good, I always dig it when things like that happen.
 

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
Gakkou Gurashi Episode 4:

Yes, I sense a pattern here it looks like we are getting backstory here and this time we partially learn the origins Miki and Taromaru and of course given the type of tale on display here there would be a shopping mall. I would say that was even more dated then the portable CD Player but I don't know if Japanese people still go to malls or not.
Kei didn't make it, did she? You never split the party up and don't run from cover, these are classic mistakes and I am willing to bet she is one of the shambling masses. Also, who the fuck boarded up everything at the school? That kind of effort suggests that a fair amount of people survived the initial zombie shock wave.
 

John Blade

Member
Not much to say about this episode. I guess it's a filler as this episode is mostly target to Chika. She is the least develop character in the show which isn't weird as we don't see her till 3/4 of the show in the 1st season. Still, don't really care too much about her.

This episode just talk about Chika and her friends from High School and they went to Chika place to have some fun (but mostly to find out if Kaoru is Chika boyfriend). Her friends is meh and to tell the truth, isn't important for the main story. They is few incident during this entire episode but nothing crazy to talk about here.

Overall, meh episode and if you don't like Chika for whatever reason, you can skip it. You're not loosing much of the story here.
 

phaze

Member
I just tell myself that Edo Tensei recreated their bodies from the DNA in their corpses and placed their souls in there. I can't explain the clothes though (and how the clothes heal too). :p

I meant that, if the Rinnegan is the
final form of the Sharingan
, then how did a
non-Uchiha like
Nagato get it? I figured that
implantation
would be the only explanation but Nagato had the Rinnegan as a child.

The Rinnegan stuff gets explained a bit later from where you're IIRC.

Mushishi 23

This had all the ingredients for the most Depreshishi story in a while: a girl who inadvertently causes sickness to a whole village, vengeful inhabitants of said village and the one kind soul among them that inevitably gets hurt because of his kindness. Fortunately the wheel of fortune spared me from another dose of sadness and everything ended well.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Kaichou wa Maid Sama:
tumblr_njgzj9oigX1rcufwuo1_500.gif


Watched the first 6 episodes of this one so far and it's been enjoyable. It's focused mostly on her backstory and her development, mostly in a comedic way) but the MC isn't bad I guess. She is more of the over-acheiving insufforable type that hates men, lol.
 

Sterok

Member
School-Live 4

More backstory. This time we see where Miki came from, and the origin of Taroumaru. Kei was probably foolish, but they probably would've gone mad sooner or later being cooped up in there. I'm impressed Yuki can rationalize Kurumi driving the car when Megu-nee is right there. We more or less know the basics of what happened then. Two questions remain though. Is Kei definitely dead/undead, or will she be simply missing? And what happens to the car? I doubt it's going to be functional once their back, and even if it is it'll run out of gas eventually.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Gakkou Gurashi Episode 4
My heart can't take much more of this. That shovel of doom.. That song in English at the end...


Working S2 ep. 6-END:
You guys were right, it was definately more of the same, however, it never get's old and I keep laughing constantly. The show is excellant.


Okusama ga Seito Kaichou! 5
Now that is a friggen' make-up kiss. Way to go prez!
 
Working S2 ep. 6-END:
You guys were right, it was definately more of the same, however, it never get's old and I keep laughing constantly. The show is excellant.
Yup that was why I told you to maybe watch it alongside another show. There is little to no progression. We are starting to only see it now in this season.

School Live 4

We are getting our Mall episode, I was curious to watch it a few weeks ago when the girls mentioned it. So I guess it'll be 2 episodes long. About the teacher,
she seemed to already be dead by this point. Also reinforces how the girl with the short hair doesn't know her, even though we are seeing her go to the mall as well.
 

Mandelbo

Member
Haven't actually watched all of Gakkou Gurashi 04 just yet, but what I really like about the show as a whole so far is how it never directly shows any violence. We either only see blood from the aftermath of an attack, or we have cuts as soon as any violence actually starts. For instance, in episode two we don't see much of the
corpse of the zombie Kurumi kills in the hallway, because it is either seen from far away or obscured by the classroom door,
and in episode three we don't see Kurumi
land a hit on the roof zombie because it cuts just as the shovel is about to impact. We also only really see the corpse from far away, and the imagery of the split tomato on the floor is used in place of showing the zombie's head getting caved in.
Even in this episode,
we only see the blood from the corpses in the elevator, not the corpses themselves.
I think this really helps emphasise how traumatic these events are as well as the performance that the characters are essentially putting on for Yuki - by not seeing any explicit violence or physical wounds we're having the wool pulled over our eyes, much like with Yuki, but no amount of obfuscation can hide what's really going on and it's inevitable that at some point the act will have to stop.
 

Jex

Member
[Third Girl's Aerial Squad]: 1 - Falling Angel

This Shirobako OVA, or should I say 'fake anime pilot' is far, far more ambitious than it's predecessor Exodus! About half of the runtime is devoted to (ugly CG) dogfighting action, and the rest is focused on Aria making reaction faces.

For a joke, it's surprisingly well made:


Sure, I've hand-picked those shots a little bit (notice the lack of atrocious CG aircraft) but for the most part everything looks pretty good. I can see why it took so long to put together.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Yup that was why I told you to maybe watch it alongside another show. There is little to no progression. We are starting to only see it now in this season.


No worries, as a straight SoL, it's just a fun watch. I'll move onto S3 next wqeek and get completely caught up. Same with Ore Monogatari, which I'm almost up to date on as well.
 

cajunator

Banned
AiYoriAoshi_feature.jpg


Man....am I disappointed by this ending. The amount of work they set it up for the audience from the last two episode to get here was great and get you pump to see how it will end. Unfortunately, when you get there and see the climax, it wasn't as you hope of how it will end. Yea, both Aoi and Kaoru are now official couple from they parent point of view and both can live happy without any fear. Still, very disappointed and kinda a small let down. I still have season 2 to watch so....might put it on hold a bit to let it all out and then start season 2.


So, now I finish the 1st season, I guess I will put my final though of the later half of this show. Also, cajunator, we can discuss a bit more about season 1 with spoiler as I am now done. Might be interesting of your input of this old show now.

I will say this. The 2nd half of this show is actually a bit better than the 1st half as they're more decent written episode about Aoi and Kaoru and also their friend. They're still filler here but you do have more special time with Aoi and Kaoru by themselves. Also, they few episode that is almost on par of the beginning episode quality.

Also, the build up at the ending of the show was done quite well and make you wish both will be together at last even with the issue they have to face with Aoi's father. Unfortunately, the ending isn't much to say really.

Still, I don't know if I would recommend this anime to tell the truth. Like what cajunator say about this show, it doesn't know if it want to be a comedy or a romance show and he/she was right. Most of this show is pushing the comedy part a bit too much. Like you got 5 support female characters in this show minus Aoi and Kaoru. Almost of them are literally one dimensional personality. Yes, they push each character it's own arch episode which explain their past history but even with those, you wonder if you really need those female characters in the show at all. I guess the the only female character that is worth to be in the show is maybe Tina, Miyabi, and maybe Taeko?

The strength of this show is mostly going to be when it direct toward Aoi and Kaoru. It's kinda funny as this is where the show shine well when we see their relationship grow. It's also sad as you realize if the show follow the romance drama route and don't push into comedy, it might get more interesting. Unfortunately, we never get there and we can only dream if it did.

Overall, I will say the show is okay. I guess if I see this show when it 1st air in Japan (2002), and I was a high school teen, I might like the show a bit more. You can say the same thing for me for Love Hina as I have a rose tint glasses for this show. Now, as I am older, I start to realize the show isn't as great as I believe it to be. It might be I have a much mature taste in story now than I was 13 years ago. I guess I could say the same with Ai Yori Aoshi. When it was release, the show might be very good and people might love it at that time but it didn't age as well now. I do hope the manga is much better than the anime as you can see the potential of this show but never have the chance to shrine because of this.

Well.....I am off to finish the special for this season and maybe go watch Season 2 of You're Under Arrest TV show.

Yeah basically you summed up pretty well whats wrong with it. I love this show and have a great nostalgia for it, but its a 7/10 at best. The romantic glances and moments of solitude that Aoi and Kaoru deserve are just endlessly disrupted by a very mediocre harem romantic comedy show desperately vying for shared attention. It j8ust never knew what it really wanted to focus on trying to be everything to everybody and ultimately failed on both. But theres enough charm in it that I just cant dislike AYA. Its a unique creature. Aoi is also one of the cutest waifus in existence.

It's a harem show, for some stupid reason, so the other girls have to have moments and the main couple can't make much progress in their relationship or else it'd end or something! Or something like that. Yeah, the other characters were mostly not great. It's a show about the main couple, but... it's also a harem series about the various girls that like the MC. That's far from the worst thing about Aoi Yori Aoshi, but it is one bad thing about this bad show.


I watched the show when I was in college in the mid '00s and hated it, so just watching it back then doesn't necessarily help... :p (Yes, I watched the whole first season despite thinking it was pretty bad. At least I never watched Enishi too!)

Probably the thing I hated most about it is that it seemed so sexist. I mean, to mention one of the things I most disliked about it, the main female character, Aoi... her idea of "being her own person" is to be suuper rebellious against her parents... by refusing to not give up on marrying the boy who they set her up with as a child for a future arranged marriage. What, you don't want me to marry the boy I've dedicated my entire life towards (even though he forgot about me), the person I shaped my personality to match the tastes of, etc? Crazy talk! I'm leaving to live with him, because arranged marriages are AWESOME!

UGHHHH....

It is a really awkward setup but I dont see it the way you did obviously. Aoi really did fall for him and it felt pretty genuine, despite the initial setup. a LOT more genuine than Love Hina.

Popping in to just say Yamda is the worst character in Working.

I cant. I just cant.

They told me to watch out for people that talk like you!


I still check the site every day in hopes of an update.

Then I cry myself to sleep.
Yep!


Holy shit, nice. My SNAFU has not shipped yet, but I also bundled that shipment with K-ON, and since that releases on the same day, it should be soon-ish.

Nice!

Yayyy Snafu! Took long enough lol. I just got the final Yuuki Yuuna volume. Also ordered If her flag breaks, which I have been interested in watching (along with a million other things)
 

John Blade

Member
The introduction of this episode might be as close as we will get for an official Ai Yori Aoshi hentai scene. Man....do we wish we can eat Aoi like Kaoru is doing in his dream.

As for the episode, it's an average filler again. More establishing shot reinforcing every characters relationship with each other. This time it's to play tennis for the 1st time for Chika. I guess, the ending scene of this episode is okay as you have a chance to see Aoi and Kaoru been alone again but even that isn't enough to save this episode. I guess, those little stuff of Aoi and Kaoru been alone and you see their small romance love is starting to loose power a bit here for me. Maybe too many time seeing them from the 1st season.

Just go in to watch the beginning scene of this episode (and maybe the end if you love those romance scene) and skip to the next episode.
 
Ace of Diamond Second Season Episode 13
CLMJDKFWcAACCA_.jpg

In the world of good writing that would be true, but since we have a flawed writer, we get the less favorable outcome. Kawakami deserves development. We havent seen his growth, bad decision.
 

phaze

Member
Naruto Shippuden 421

The last moment of Guy vs Madara was fairly decently done, which coupled with the right OST and strength material, combined to deliver one of the very rare these days, hype moments. If only they didn't put that damn flashback right before that ...

Too bad literal Jesus Naruto denied Guy glorious death on the field of battle.

The carnival of asspulls that is this entire War Arc finally reaches crescendo
with a dead for thousands of years guy showing out of nowhere and giving out bullshit power up like candy. As If the Kakashi/Obito, Jiraiya/Orochimaru, Madara/Hashirama parallels were not enough, this time Sasuke and Naruto turn out to be literal reincarnations of Indra/Ashura.
 
Naruto Shippuden 421


The last moment of Guy vs Madara was fairly decently done, which coupled with the right OST and strength material, combined to deliver one of the very rare these days, hype moments. If only they didn't put that damn flashback right before that ...

Too bad literal Jesus Naruto denied Guy glorious death on the field of battle.

The carnaval of asspulls that is this entire War Arc finally reaches crescendo
with a dead for thousands of years guy showing out of nowhere and giving out bullshit power up like candy. As If the Kakashi/Obito, Jiraiya/Orochimaru, Madara/Hashirama parallels were not enough, this time Sasuke and Naruto turn out to be literal reincarnations of Indra/Ashura.
Oh so you think the asspulls have reached their peak. How cute.
 

Mandelbo

Member
Gakkou Gurashi 04 (finished it now)

Right, so there are a few things I want to mention about this episode, and again they're mostly to do with Megu-nee. I think that it's very important to consider what we do and don't see here. For instance, this episode has characters that aren't Yuki directly replying to
something Megu-nee has said, which means that here at least she must be real - Yuki said nothing about Megu-nee not being a confident driver, so Kurumi must've heard her to make her response. However, I'm a little confused as to why the preceding scene is presented the way it is.

Namely, we don't see Yuki actually ask
Megu-nee for permission to use the car. We only see her on the way to the staff room and her return to the club room with Megu-nee. The way it's cut suggests there's quite a bit of unaccounted time inbetween the two scenes, so what happened in that time? In addition, the shot above uses shadow in such a way that it seems Yuki is hiding something from the others, rather than the other way around.

I'm not sure of the significance of this, but notice that here
a place at the table has not been made for Megu-nee. Later on Megu-nee eats breakfast with the rest of them, so I wonder what changed?

The bit that puzzles me the most is the scene with the car later on.
Given that Kurumi replied directly to Megu-nee in an earlier scene we can be sure that here she is not a figment of Yuki's imagination. However, we see in this shot that Megu-nee is not with Yuki and Yuuri, and she cannot be with Kurumi because she's fighting her way to the car.

Yet when they get to the car, Megu-nee is already inside!

She didn't come out the main entrance with Yuki and Yuuri, and she didn't follow Kurumi, so where did she come from?
There are a lot of questions being raised by the show, and I'm very eager to see how they get answered!
 

UberTag

Member
School-Live 4

Two questions remain though. Is Kei definitely dead/undead, or will she be simply missing?
Slight manga spoilers. This is actually kept ambiguous and unstated in the manga itself. Kei appears in another flashback storyline in Chapter 12 that I suspect will be left out of the anime as it's largely filler.

In Chapter 30,
Miki sees what she believes to be a zombified/undead Kei shambling through the front courtyard while they're leaving the school grounds for the final time but we never know for certain and she may have easily been seeing things.

And what happens to the car? I doubt it's going to be functional once their back, and even if it is it'll run out of gas eventually.
This question is of special interest to me because it's the one conclusive instance of a possible anime/manga story divergence.

We see Megu-nee's Austin Mini seemingly totaled in the closing credits of the show but it actually holds up without so much as a scratch until the girls swap it out for an RV in Chapter 32. Not sure what this signifies but I don't believe it's a coincidence.
 
Snow White with the Red Hair Episode 4
CLMMvM_WEAAQo8q.jpg

Ryu was the only thing keeping me awake this episode. How dull at times. We didnt even return to the herbalist part at the start of the major Ryu part. I wonder what happened afterwards.
 

John Blade

Member
Even though this episode is a filler which target toward Taeko, it might be one of the nicer filler. This entire episode have a ghost theme feel which is fun to watch. I guess seeing Tina freaking out of ghost give me a small chuckle. Okay episode but have a slight feel toward it. Guess, I like Taeko a bit here.
 
Symphogear GX - 04

Claws, hair drills, red/black combo, cloth frills, ribbons, plethora of expressions - 9/10 would fight with, only missing ohoho laugh
The fact that her hair drills have boosters in them makes it even better. No claw action in this episode though, so I am a bit disappointed. Water reflection illusions? c'mon son.

The 'choir chanting' soundtrack in this made me think of Kratos theme. Hibike go berserk or bust, those improved gears better be awesome
 

Puruzi

Banned
I can do it. At least H.S. of the Dead had a ton of needless fanservice to mask the depressing plotline. School-Live wants you to feel the despair desperate the those cutesy moments and the cheery OP.
The fanservice was the whole point of High School of the Dead. It was wonderful.
 

Szadek

Member
I dropped High School of the Dead after 1 episode.
The fanservice during the most inappropriate moments imaginable made me feel sick.
 
I can do it. At least H.S. of the Dead had a ton of needless fanservice to mask the depressing plotline. School-Live wants you to feel the despair desperate the those cutesy moments and the cheery OP.

Yeah, these two are totally different shows. I havent seen HSoTD but I assume its full of fan service based on the pics I saw. I like how Gakkou Gurashi doesn't focus much on the action part and more on the characters and how they deal with this new world of theirs.
 
The ridiculous over the top fanservice of High School of the Dead is the only thing it has going for it so if you dropped it because of that I don't know what you were looking for.
 

cajunator

Banned
Wait a minute, John Titor is an actual person or claimed to be time traveler? And he really talked about an IBM 1500? I thought this was all animu made up bullshit. Life is a lie.
 
I have no idea what you're talking about [nsfw]!

LMAO. I just quickly skipped through episode 1 on Hulu. LOL.

Random panty shots, jiggly boobs everywhere, girls getting slapped for no reason as well. The funniest shit was the "BFF" scene. "Well be BFFs forever!" *2 seconds later, girl kicks the other girl in the face and zombies eat her while viewers get an awesome shot of her underwear*
 
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