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Summer Anime 2015 |OT| SharingMana

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K

kewlmyc

Member
nintendoman58 said:
It's quite unfortunate that the dub ended up screwing up the most important line.
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"Me" and "I" are pretty much interchangeable, so I don't mind.

Durarara S2 17

Lol at Shinra about to shank a motherfucker. Don't mess with anyone in this show, ever. Also lol at the random Vorona ass shots and funny sound effects. Mikato seems over his head, I hope all of this Blue Squares business doesn't come back to seriously bite him in the ass. The chatroom just added like 4 more people, and we only know the identity of 1 of them (using her own name). I wonder who they are.
 
M

MikeHattsu

Member
/XX/ said:
Most recent update on Isao Takahata's next project status:

Tomatolise on Twitter: "My friend and I had a chance to talk a bit with Takahata last month. We asked him about his next film ...
https://twitter.com/tomatolise/status/627866328959811584

Tomatolise on Twitter: "He said, "Perhaps I won't be able to make it, but yes, I'm currently preparing for it." Let's keep our ...
https://twitter.com/tomatolise/status/627866740496601096

Still at it, apparently. On a related note, feels good to see that after the exodus Yoshiaki Nishimura has been a busy man; helping Mr. Anno fund 'ateliers' salvaged from the remnants of Studio Ghibli (he sure is putting the NGE money to good use lately), with the creation of his own studio too, most probably preparing for production tasks on Hiromasa Yonebayashi next film (at STUDIO PONOC?), and remember how he was also going to be the producer of this next Mr. Takahata project too... one has to wonder when all the lined works will really come to fruition.
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Hm... Sounds good.
 
Jex

Jex

Member
Mandelbo said:
Can you elaborate on this? Monster is something else I haven't seen yet, but I've only ever heard positive things about it.
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phaze said:
Liars every single one of them.

There is like, a 30-40 episode long stretch of Monster where important developments could be counted on the counted on one hand. The show spends an eternity on 1000 thousand different, superfluous side characters most of whom serve little or no purpose to the larger narrative.

I mean, there were quite a few critically and popularly acclaimed shows that fell flat for me but with most of them, I can tell what people see in them. Monster, with its combination of: hefty length, slow pacing, leaps of logic, stringing you along for the answers to the mysteries for 60 episodes only for those answers to be laughable, cop out ending is pretty much the only one I actively despise.

Edit: To not sound sound so overly negative, it's pretty well executed, it manages to really nail the mood and atmosphere in some scenes and while not being anything spectacular, the character arcs for most of the main cast are competent.
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Lady Siara said:
The thing that annoyed me about Monster was the repetition of flashbacks. Flashbacks can be a powerful narrative tool but the frequency of which they were used in Monster is mind numbing. Mind you, they do this to slowly unravel huge revelations that happened in the past and they are extremely important to the plot. After the umpteenth time of watching a flashback in which a character says 'Welcome home.', I was ready to blow my brains out.

It's a great anime but it could have trimmed a bit of fat off in the flashback department. That's my only complaint with it.
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Oh boy. Let me get my Monster credentials out of the way first. I've seen the entire anime four times. It's still one of my favourite shows of all time. I've also read the first volume of the manga, but when I saw how faithful the adaptation was I didn't bother reading any more. So, let's address some of those complaints.

With regards to the use of flashbacks that were introduced into the anime adaptation - I'll agree that they are fairly tiresome. Monster is a very long, non-shounen, series and so it's extremely unusual that it got a complete anime adaptation. However, they clearly had to fill a certain number of episodes with content to fit into a TV airing schedule. To accomplish this,it feels like certain episodes used flashbacks to pad out their runtime. This is my personal biggest beef with the adaptation but it doesn't actually annoy me that much. I can, however, see why it would be a sticking point with some people.

Now, phaze brings up one of the common critiques of Monster which is that the story meanders far too frequently. I can understand that criticism to the extent that, if you view Monster purely through the lens of mystery/thriller, then you'd see much of the content as being superfluous. Personally, however, that's not how I view the work.

Instead, I see Monster as being, very broadly, a road-trip narrative which contains numerous other genres - there's gangster stories, murder-mysteries, romance, horror etc etc. It's a varied collection of stories told through many difference perspectives. Tenma, the supposed protagonist, is often sidelined while a wide array of other, well developed characters go about their own journeys. The reason I feel that Monster works as a complete work is because this rich myriad of stories is tied together in two important ways.

Firstly, as has been pointed out, many (but not all) of these side-narratives and characters tie back into the overarching mystery in a number of different ways. Now, I think you can (and many have) made convincing arguments which state that the writer, Urasawa, really let the story get too complicated and murky for it's own good. This is certainly a running theme for Urasawa as you can see in his other works like 20th Century Boys and Billy Bat. However, I'd argue that not only does the story stay more 'on track' than those works but that even where things get a shaky it's not a major issue because there's something else tying all those stories together. Namely, the theme of Monster.

Just about every story in Monster is, more or less, about the importance of life. What it means to take a life. What it means to save a life. What are the consequences of these decisions? This is something that Tenma wrestles with throughout the series and it's a major theme for just about every other major character too. This solid, considered and continually examined concept is the bedrock that holds together the rest of the story. That's why I think it's perfectly fine for the series to spend so much time on the 'road trip' aspect of Tenma and Co meeting a bunch of different people and doing lots of things that have nothing to do with the 'big narrative'.

Now, I can certainly see the possibility of making an adaptation that strips all that away and just focuses on the core 'mystery' but I honestly think that's one of the weaker points of the story and if you expose it directly to the light of the day the work, as a whole, suffers. Still, you could make that choice and go down that route but it really wouldn't be Monster anymore.
 
K

KenjiGlove

Banned
Everyone in the JoJo dub should be speaking in the most stereotypical accent of the country they come from. Bonus points if Jotaro and Polnareff sometimes start talking in bad Japanese

R_thanatos said:
Who's ?
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As a huge fan, Shard is really excited for the long-awaited birthday of Love Live! star Honoka.
 
B

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Happy Birthday Honoka!

68JZhwu.jpg
 
T

Turin Turambar

Member
I never watched the anime of Monster, as I read before the manga (a bit the opposite of Jexhius case). It's good, preeety good, but I always had the opinion that it would be even better with a little less meandering, a little less "padding", a little more straightforward.
The manga is 18 volumes, reducing it to maybe 16 would have been enough.

So it isn't like I wish it wouldn't have its episodic format, in that case you could reduce much more the amount, the main story could be just 6-7 volumes.
 
M

Mandelbo

Member
phaze said:
Liars every single one of them.

There is like, a 30-40 episode long stretch of Monster where important developments could be counted on the counted on one hand. The show spends an eternity on 1000 thousand different, superfluous side characters most of whom serve little or no purpose to the larger narrative.

I mean, there were quite a few critically and popularly acclaimed shows that fell flat for me but with most of them, I can tell what people see in them. Monster, with its combination of: hefty length, slow pacing, leaps of logic, stringing you along for the answers to the mysteries for 60 episodes only for those answers to be laughable, cop out ending is pretty much the only one I actively despise.

Edit: To not sound sound so overly negative, it's pretty well executed, it manages to really nail the mood and atmosphere in some scenes and while not being anything spectacular, the character arcs for most of the main cast are competent.
Click to expand...

Lady Siara said:
The thing that annoyed me about Monster was the repetition of flashbacks. Flashbacks can be a powerful narrative tool but the frequency of which they were used in Monster is mind numbing. Mind you, they do this to slowly unravel huge revelations that happened in the past and they are extremely important to the plot. After the umpteenth time of watching a flashback in which a character says 'Welcome home.', I was ready to blow my brains out.

It's a great anime but it could have trimmed a bit of fat off in the flashback department. That's my only complaint with it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification. Frankly, my knowledge of what Monster is actually about is lacking - I had no idea it had so many episodes, so you must really start feeling the repetition later on if it's as egregious as it's being made out.

Jexhius said:
~snip~
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This was really informative, Jexhius, thanks for the writeup. I didn't know that Monster and 20th Century Boys were written by the same author!

e:
Shard said:
Mine.
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Happy birthday!
 
R

Raxus

Member
Really enjoying Utena so far. I just got to the Order of the Black Rose.

Man I feel the series is really subtle about its themes. It is a strange adjustment from most anime that shouts it at you non stop.
 
A

AquaWateria

Member
Yeah the news isn't actually official or anything but at the slightest chance of that happening it would be really hilarious.

Just imagine the possibilities. But yeah don't take this as anything real.
 
R

Risette

A Good Citizen
AquaWateria said:
Yeah the news isn't actually official or anything but at the slightest chance of that happening it would be really hilarious.

Just imagine the possibilities. But yeah don't take this as anything real.
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the possibilities of a really bad anime aren't really fun to imagine
 
J

Jarmel

Banned
If Urobuchi is writing the new Trigger TV series, I can't see Imaishi directing. This would be so completely out of his ball park.
 
J

Jarmel

Banned
A lot of the real high level animators and directors from Gainax are at Khara so if Trigger/Khara are starting to do joint projects going forward, this is really fantastic news.
 
A

Ascheroth

Member
Nohar said:
Regarding Soma:
What the actual *squid* just happened?
You weren't kidding about the lewd o_o
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Yeah, the first few episodes are the worst at that. It get's better in pretty much every way very soon.
Oh, and while I'm at it: make sure you watch the bits after the ending. Every Soma episode has those.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Shouta said:
It's tvtropes, I think. It doesn't really show up directly in the series too much, at least the manga). There's a few inklings of it specifically in how he setup the reasons for lack of US involvement and maybe on the depiction of US politicians though. It's a bit more amusing than anything unless the viewer has an axe to grind. There's actually a bit of lampshading of how stupid Japan has been in the manga too though I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, lol I guess it could be seen the other way too, lol
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I will say that the show seems to be privileging the military at the detriment of civilian commanders. Stargate SG-1, which was officially supported by the USAF, had the same tact. It also seems to privilege the man on the ground by just showing how soldiers can work despite the nature of both civilian and military commanders, which is fine because the Japanese soldiers are literally in no peril whatsoever. Like you know they'll never lose, so of course Itami always makes the right decision even if it's acting against orders or at least independently.

I mean, I don't expect an episode where his squad encounters a child who walks up to them with a bag of fruit and it turns out that the kid was carrying an IED (or a "magic bomb") that kills half his men.

But, as traditional and conservative as the show is already, I can only imagine what kind of vitriol the guy might have had in the novels. On wikipedia, the entry says that the books were considered "poisonous" by the publisher. lol
 
T

ThatChairMan

Member
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn 1-7 (End)

Thought it would be worth a rewatch after going through the rest of the UC Gundams. A lot more enjoyable with the weight of the previous series behind it, even though the Newtype magic reached bullshit levels of ridiculousness towards the end.

And clearly, since it ended the way it did, with possibility and hope and all that, I should expect nothing but peaceful slice-of-life in F91 and Victory.
 
P

phoenix296

Member
Aikatsu 01-05

I've joined idol hell.

From the get go it's made clear that this is based on a game. The game mechanics aren't disguised to fit the narrative and feel out of place. I've been spoiled by Show by Rocks' CG sequences as Aikatsu's are very ugly by comparison, possibly even worse than Love Live's. Other than those small complaints I'm having fun with it.
 
A

Admiral Woofington

Member
Man Texhnolyze is nothing like what I expected. I expected a show that was up in its own ass over how deep it is, but instead I got a fairly interesting show about the machine vs the gangs with a bigger story and meaning behind it. Left it for last in my watch bet and it ended up being the best of the three.

And yes I didn't like Serial Experiment Lain all that much. Wasn't bad, just dated and a bit too weird.
 
X

/XX/

Member
Jarmel said:
If Urobuchi is writing the new Trigger TV series, I can't see Imaishi directing. This would be so completely out of his ball park.
Click to expand...
Jarmel said:
A lot of the real high level animators and directors from Gainax are at Khara so if Trigger/Khara are starting to do joint projects going forward, this is really fantastic news.
Click to expand...
With so little evidence speculation runs rampant and all, but now that we are at it and knowing that Mr. Urobuchi followed both studios at the same time... could this just be a collaboration for another Japan Anima(tor)'s Exhibition short instead? I mean, TRIGGER Inc., has already been pretty involved with Studio Khara on the project as a whole...
 
P

phaze

Member
NaDannMaGoGo said:
And Yet The Town Moves - Completed

So yeh, after my initial impressions on the first 2 episodes the show certainly did get better. Thankfully this wasn't really that episodic in nature and there was thought put into most of the characters (the granny though...that voice smh). Comedy wise however it never reached greatness for me. There was quite some fun stuff but most of the jokes were neither very clever nor original. Thanks to strong direction I still had a bunch good laughs, but yeh, it was merely good, not great for me.

The second half of the last episode hit fairly hard and I loved the juxtaposition of comedy with serious content there. Can be tough to make this work well but they succeeded. I haven't seen Gintama yet but it sounds like that show excels at this stuff, too.

In the end I really would've liked to see more of this show especially since it just got better along the way. 11 episode adaptation be damned, even if that probably helped with the high production values :/

Anyways, all in all I'd give it a 7/10.

OP and ED are stuck in my ear btw.
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That damn title took some rather
morbid connotation during last episode.


Shard said:
Mine.
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Best Wishes !

Admiral Woofington said:
Man Texhnolyze is nothing like what I expected. I expected a show that was up in its own ass over how deep it is, but instead I got a fairly interesting show about the machine vs the gangs with a bigger story and meaning behind it. Left it for last in my watch bet and it ended up being the best of the three.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't hmmmm praise the day before the sun is down ?
And yes I didn't like Serial Experiment Lain all that much. Wasn't bad, just dated and a bit too weird.
Click to expand...
lainscscq.png
 
Joe Molotov

Joe Molotov

Member
phoenix296 said:
Aikatsu 01-05

I've joined idol hell.

From the get go it's made clear that this is based on a game. The game mechanics aren't disguised to fit the narrative and feel out of place. I've been spoiled by Show by Rocks' CG sequences as Aikatsu's are very ugly by comparison, possibly even worse than Love Live's. Other than those small complaints I'm having fun with it.
Click to expand...

Aikatsu is like mahou shoujo with dancing instead of fighting.
 
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