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Toonami |Aug15| You know, Luffy, we really are One Piece

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What the fuck kind of "anime superfan" is going to shit on somebody for liking Cowboy Bebop of all fucking things?

That is basically the equivalent of a self-proclaimed "film buff" chewing out someone for liking The Godfather. Like, really, that's the battle you're picking?
Crunchyroll has an ad featuring employees talking about their favorite anime. There's one guy wearing a "your favorite anime sucks" shirt who agrees with a coworker about Cowboy Bebop being one of the best. Makes me chuckle every time.
 
So I just started my watch of Steven Universe. Got myself through the first couple of episodes. I really like the music but I'm....not really feeling it otherwise. Does it get better?
 
So I just started my watch of Steven Universe. Got myself through the first couple of episodes. I really like the music but I'm....not really feeling it otherwise. Does it get better?

I haven't watched it, but I heard the first few episodes are rough.

Then it gets better, I think, around half way through the first season.
 
I think Steven Universe is awful. Not as bad as Gumball or Uncle Grandpa, but it's still terrible. The music is probably the only redeeming quality, everything else about the show annoys me to no end.
 

I haven't watched it, but I heard the first few episodes are rough.

Then it gets better, I think, around half way through the first season.
Alright, I'll stick with it for now. Gonna watch a few more episodes and see if it sticks.

I think Steven Universe is awful. Not as bad as Gumball or Uncle Grandpa, but it's still terrible. The music is probably the only redeeming quality, everything else about the show annoys me to no end.
Yeah, it's kinda annoying me right now.
Hopefully it gets better.
 
I've hear Steven Universe derisively described as Tumblr: The Show.

I like the show, and the show does a lot of good things with their portrayals of homosexual relationships, fat people as being beautiful, etc., but I do hear that the fans can get pretty crazy. For instance, there was one Korean fan artist that draws the characters with a range of skin tones in his art, and one piece of art depicting Garnet with light skin was cherrypicked and tumblr swarms stopped him from ever putting fanart online again. They also chased one of the show crew members off of Twitter because he was behind a scene where Pearl was cooking, when she had stated in an earlier episode that she doesn't like food (as a species that doesn't have to eat). Or the other way around, I don't remember.
 

Crocodile

Member
Real talk, the early episodes of SU are TRASH. It does get legit good though. I'd call it a great show right about now but it isn't "God's gift to animation" I feel some would make it out to be. Also Pearl is garbage.

I think Steven Universe is awful. Not as bad as Gumball or Uncle Grandpa, but it's still terrible. The music is probably the only redeeming quality, everything else about the show annoys me to no end.

How far did you get?

I've hear Steven Universe derisively described as Tumblr: The Show.

I'm not entirely sure what this means but I feel its kind of accurate anyway?

I like the show, and the show does a lot of good things with their portrayals of homosexual relationships, fat people as being beautiful, etc., but I do hear that the fans can get pretty crazy. For instance, there was one Korean fan artist that draws the characters with a range of skin tones in his art, and one piece of art depicting Garnet with light skin was cherrypicked and tumblr swarms stopped him from ever putting fanart online again. They also chased one of the show crew members off of Twitter because he was behind a scene where Pearl was cooking, when she had stated in an earlier episode that she doesn't like food (as a species that doesn't have to eat). Or the other way around, I don't remember.

Yeah the show's fanbase can get overprotective to the point of being obnoxious. A vocal minority of course but still a pain to deal with. You even get a bit of that in the NeoGaf SU thread though I imagine it way worse other parts online.
 

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
AgK
JoJo
World Trigger

the age of 90s dubs has returned

truly we are in a renaissance

Also add Digimon Fusion to that list. That shit had all the worst qualities of 90's kids dubs (names changes, bad puns, NOBODY SHUTS UP!)
 
The only people I see take it seriously are the Weekly Manga Recap podcast, and DTL.

Its okay, not the worst thing ever but nothing to write home about either.

Also I think the dub sounds worse then it may actually be partially due to how cheap the anime was made and partially due to zero effort to match the lip flaps.
 
...I feel like I would hate SAO less if its dub was bad.

At least then it would be consistent with the show's actual quality.

The fact that the dub actors didn't phone it in, and actually managed to make some of the story palatable is a credit to them.
 
Hate is a strong word. SAO as a whole isn't even as terrible as people make it out to be. Is it the "smartest anime in years" like that dumbass from Kotaku wrote? Hell no, the writing is atrocious at times and the MMO mechanics often don't make sense. But is it the worst thing to ever air in the history of 2D animation like some would try and tell you? Hell no, it's actually pretty mediocre most of the time. Generic art, decent animation, fanservice, overpowered main character, romance...it's obvious to me why the show is popular.
 
SAO gives me enjoyment from watching it, so as an entertainment product, mission accomplished.

Of course, there's always room to question the type of enjoyment I get from it versus author intent, but whatever.

I have fond memories of the reactions that ToonamiGAF and other social media gave during some of its most memorable moments, and I have a legit desire to see more of it, and more of it animated, to see if it can manage to top itself.

I'm curious to see how Asuna's family problems get wrapped nicely up with a bow and how video games end up being the cause of it.

If anything, SAO was at its worse during that Excalibur "arc" because it didn't evoke much reaction out of me or others due to the lack of hilariously melodramatic stakes or controversial content like incest, stalkers, PTSD, etc.

SAO provides more pure "entertainment" than anything else that's been on the block except TTGL.

End of part one, stay tuned for part two, where I talk about how you could make SAO unironically enjoyable.
 
There is an infinite number of things you could do to take trapped in a death MMO unironically good and specifically have made SAO a legit good anime instead of a funny bad/good anime. Heck you could have even kept in both the gary stu protagonist and harem antics if you had so desired. There are so many on paper good ideas that SAO has that it of course gets every single one of them wrong which leads to the show we watch weekly.
 
The only people I see take it seriously are the Weekly Manga Recap podcast, and DTL.

Honestly World Trigger is average. It doesn't have anything unique or daring that makes it good, but it doesn't have anything offensive or stupid that makes it shit.

It's just a average series.
 
There is an infinite number of things you could do to take trapped in a death MMO unironically good and specifically have made SAO a legit good anime instead of a funny bad/good anime. Heck you could have even kept in both the gary stu protagonist and harem antics if you had so desired. There are so many on paper good ideas that SAO has that it of course gets every single one of them wrong which leads to the show we watch weekly.

I don't think the 1st season dipped into bad territory until the Heathcliff "lol i forgot" rationale. The ALO stuff was actually good too except for the whole incest and rape stuff.
 

bigkrev

Member
I'd like the WT manga a lot more if the author could learn to draw faces, and if it felt like anything had happened in the 100+ chapters so far
 
There is an infinite number of things you could do to take trapped in a death MMO unironically good and specifically have made SAO a legit good anime instead of a funny bad/good anime. Heck you could have even kept in both the gary stu protagonist and harem antics if you had so desired. There are so many on paper good ideas that SAO has that it of course gets every single one of them wrong which leads to the show we watch weekly.

It's funny you say that, because my key points for making SAO something I would like for more than unintentional humor/people's reactions would be:

  • More fully animated fights, because those can be good in SAO, when it bothers to have them.
  • Remove Kirito and make the series about a group of female friends and their token male members, Klein who is so bad with girls he will never be a harem lead figure, and the married Agil.
  • Make it a played straight fantasy series where characters aren't taking video games so comically seriously/needing to tie dramatic life and death stakes to the games in new ways.
Just a show about a fantasy world of swords and spells, where a guild of friends, mostly cute girls, doing fantasy adventure stuff like searching for rare treasures and fighting bandits, with good action animation. Simple stuff. throw in some yuri overtones and you've got a stew

The problem with playing the fantasy straight in SAO as it is (Excalibur arc) is that they're roleplaying comically hard, being serious about their non real life game deaths to the point of being silly, and all the baggage from previous stuff including the lack of stakes because it's a step down from death games and murderers. You'd have to start over from the beginning to fix it.

But that's just my tastes.
 
I don't think the 1st season dipped into bad territory until the Heathcliff "lol i forgot" rationale. The ALO stuff was actually good too except for the whole incest and rape stuff.

There are still a lot of problems including very bad writing and completely innapropriate fan service. It dipped into bad territory with the "I'm going to join a lower level guiled for no reason, lie to them about my level and experience, meet a girl who both wants my dick and wants to kill herself, then let the guild wander into a dungeon above their level with traps I know of that could kill them, then months later go on a quest to get a revive character item despite knowing the explanation of how the nerve gear kills people and get a delayed christmas song hum from said girl" which was episode 3
 

Crocodile

Member
I see random episodes on CN

The show kind of builds upon itself so while there are stand out single episodes, the show works best with continuity. If you ask around I'm sure someone could compile you a list of episodes that are essential so that you could get caught up while avoiding most of the crap episodes. If you care of course :p

Hate is a strong word. SAO as a whole isn't even as terrible as people make it out to be. Is it the "smartest anime in years" like that dumbass from Kotaku wrote? Hell no, the writing is atrocious at times and the MMO mechanics often don't make sense. But is it the worst thing to ever air in the history of 2D animation like some would try and tell you? Hell no, it's actually pretty mediocre most of the time. Generic art, decent animation, fanservice, overpowered main character, romance...it's obvious to me why the show is popular.

I don't think anyone in here actually thinks SAO is literally the worst thing that has been animated ever/recently. However, just because worse shit may exist doesn't make the show in question not awful as well. Popular things tend to get more scrutiny so more will be written about them. Also we are all watching this show so of course we will all be talking about it.

At the end of the day, when SAO isn't being rapey/incestual/creepy it's squandering its potential by executing ok to good ideas poorly. When it isn't doing that it's failing to present and develop interesting characters at all. When it isn't doing that it's having a plot that makes no sense, betrays common sense video game mechanics and has characters that do things that make no sense. When it's not doing that, its committing perhaps the worst crime an entertainment product can commit: being boring as all fuck.
 
BTW, is there more to adapt of SAO?

Are we done?

*goes to wiki*

Fourth big arc is set "in a AI simulation, Renaissance world where players are encouraged to build the world on their own by discovering new sciences and technology."

That doesn't sound.....terrible?
 

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
BTW, is there more to adapt of SAO?

Are we done?

*goes to wiki*

Fourth big arc is set "in a AI simulation, Renaissance world where players are encouraged to build the world on their own by discovering new sciences and technology."

That doesn't sound.....terrible?

It's a loooong arc.
The first two anime seasons cover the first 8 novels. Alicization starts on Volume 9, and goes up to Volume 16 (no idea if this is the last one). That's like two season worth of shows there.
 
If you want SAO with a 90s dub just watch Dot Hack

It's kinda weird how SAO hate has rose-tinted the quality of Dot Hack, when it's in actuality just as bad
 

Zonic

Gives all the fucks
I'm honestly surprised we still haven't seen some kind of .hack/SAO crossover, especially considering Namco owns the gaming rights to SAO, so they could easily sneak in a weapon or piece of equipment and even just be like "it appears to be some item from another MMO which was .hacked into the game"
 
There are still a lot of problems including very bad writing and completely innapropriate fan service. It dipped into bad territory with the "I'm going to join a lower level guiled for no reason, lie to them about my level and experience, meet a girl who both wants my dick and wants to kill herself, then let the guild wander into a dungeon above their level with traps I know of that could kill them, then months later go on a quest to get a revive character item despite knowing the explanation of how the nerve gear kills people and get a delayed christmas song hum from said girl" which was episode 3

I'm curious, what do you consider inappropriate fan service? If you're talking about random creep shots that's not a big deal to me, just kinda cringe worthy. If it's the rape then yeah, I don't agree with it, but then why doesn't Kill La Kill get dragged through mud for shoe-horning in that crap for the sake of titillation? I'm not putting you on blast here, just noting how it feels like many in the thread are willing to forgive/overlook it in one show and not the other. I thought it was unnecessary and disgusting in both to be honest because neither handled the subject matter in a mature way. Not trying to turn this into a "b..b...but ______ did this too" argument to deflect blame either, just pointing out one example that leaves me scratching my head.

Episode 3 was one of my favorites but it was a "so bad its good" type of enjoyment which shouldn't count for much. You're right, that was absolutely dumb writing but that shitty guild getting murdered so hard still has me laughing. Everybody do yourselves a favor and re-watch this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOGvq0eU6V0
 

Zonic

Gives all the fucks
I remember even as a teen, questioning why the hell I was bothering with Twilight Bracelet. Probably because there was no other way for me to watch anime at the time & I took what I could get via Cartoon Network, plus I heard about .hack, so guess I figured this was one way to check the series out.

I recall half the female cast had annoyingly high-pitches voices & then the one episode that ends with....

"CONGRATS, YOU WIN A KISS FROM THIS GIRL!"
"HUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHH, BUT SHE'S MY SISTER"
"IT'S OKAY, IT'S A GAAAMMMEEE"
"WELL GEE, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAAATTT...."
[stupidly high tension moment of female MC sloowwlllyy approaching male MC...both of which look like kids]
["something interrupts a kissing scene" cliche]

Granted, it was gonna be on the cheek, but still....
 
I don't think anyone in here actually thinks SAO is literally the worst thing that has been animated ever/recently. However, just because worse shit may exist doesn't make the show in question not awful as well. Popular things tend to get more scrutiny so more will be written about them. Also we are all watching this show so of course we will all be talking about it.

At the end of the day, when SAO isn't being rapey/incestual/creepy it's squandering its potential by executing ok to good ideas poorly. When it isn't doing that it's failing to present and develop interesting characters at all. When it isn't doing that it's having a plot that makes no sense, betrays common sense video game mechanics and has characters that do things that make no sense. When it's not doing that, its committing perhaps the worst crime an entertainment product can commit: being boring as all fuck.

There is not one thing you have written that I can refute. Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for generic kinda boring shows. Except for Fairy Tail, that shit is AWFUL.
 

Rakkety Tam

Neo Member
BTW, is there more to adapt of SAO?
Fourth big arc is set "in a AI simulation, Renaissance world where players are encouraged to build the world on their own by discovering new sciences and technology."

That actually sounds incredibly cool. Especially if the author decided to have entirely different physics, chemistry, and mechanical properties governing the in-game universe.

Episode 3 was one of my favorites but it was a "so bad its good" type of enjoyment which shouldn't count for much. You're right, that was absolutely dumb writing but that shitty guild getting murdered so hard still has me laughing. Everybody do yourselves a favor and re-watch this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOGvq0eU6V0

Nothing but Slaughternauts and Murder-Golems as far as the eye can see. Looking back, this was a really bad action scene. Huge amounts of creatures standing in the background doing nothing.
 

Crocodile

Member
I'm curious, what do you consider inappropriate fan service? If you're talking about random creep shots that's not a big deal to me, just kinda cringe worthy. If it's the rape then yeah, I don't agree with it, but then why doesn't Kill La Kill get dragged through mud for shoe-horning in that crap for the sake of titillation? I'm not putting you on blast here, just noting how it feels like many in the thread are willing to forgive/overlook it in one show and not the other. I thought it was unnecessary and disgusting in both to be honest because neither handled the subject matter in a mature way. Not trying to turn this into a "b..b...but ______ did this too" argument to deflect blame either, just pointing out one example that leaves me scratching my head.

Episode 3 was one of my favorites but it was a "so bad its good" type of enjoyment which shouldn't count for much. You're right, that was absolutely dumb writing but that shitty guild getting murdered so hard still has me laughing. Everybody do yourselves a favor and re-watch this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOGvq0eU6V0

It does. People frequently, in here and elsewhere, call out those moments on KLK. If you're asking why KLK seems to get less overall ire (and make no mistake, it gets plenty of ire) I think it comes down to that it actually has characters that you can either grow to care about or are super entertaining to watch and its very rarely boring (an action show that actually has action? what a novel idea). As little sense as the plot makes as well, characters rarely do or don't do things in KLK that make no goddamn sense. All that put together I think go a long way to letting KLK have an overall better impression.
 
I'm curious, what do you consider inappropriate fan service? If you're talking about random creep shots that's not a big deal to me, just kinda cringe worthy. If it's the rape then yeah, I don't agree with it, but then why doesn't Kill La Kill get dragged through mud for shoe-horning in that crap for the sake of titillation? I'm not putting you on blast here, just noting how it feels like many in the thread are willing to forgive/overlook it in one show and not the other. I thought it was unnecessary and disgusting in both to be honest because neither handled the subject matter in a mature way. Not trying to turn this into a "b..b...but ______ did this too" argument to deflect blame either, just pointing out one example that leaves me scratching my head.

Episode 3 was one of my favorites but it was a "so bad its good" type of enjoyment which shouldn't count for much. You're right, that was absolutely dumb writing but that shitty guild getting murdered so hard still has me laughing. Everybody do yourselves a favor and re-watch this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOGvq0eU6V0

Someone posted the ass shot during the discussion of the murder scene which I would count as inappropriate fan service partially because it's a pointless ass shot and partially because it removes the tension that the scene is trying to build.

Though I'm going to go early and say episode 4 Sillica's introduction episode as the king of inappropriate fan service. Don't you just get excited when the 12-14 year old girl is shown in nothing but her bra and panties and nearly opens the door for the older boy she hardly knows? Then the same girl gets grabbed by a tentacle flower monster and wants to be saved but not let the boy see her panties cause she's wearing a skirt in game and the monster is conveniently holding her upside down, during which Kirito is doing the "I'm not looking peak" grin with his hand somewhat in front of his face.

It does. People frequently, in here and elsewhere, call out those moments on KLK. If you're asking why KLK seems to get less overall ire (and make no mistake, it gets plenty of ire) I think it comes down to that it actually has characters that you can either grow to care about or are super entertaining to watch and its very rarely boring (an action show that actually has action? what a novel idea). As little sense as the plot makes as well, characters rarely do or don't do things in KLK that make no goddamn sense. All that put together I think go a long way to letting KLK have an overall better impression.

All the girls in KLK are also 17-18 which at least in Japan where the age of consent is 17 none of them are technically illegal. The series also doesn't have a character who's only motivation is to mate with her "not really my brother" brother.
 

Soulflarz

Banned
Someone posted the ass shot during the discussion of the murder scene which I would count as inappropriate fan service partially because it's a pointless ass shot and partially because it removes the tension that the scene is trying to build.

Basically this for me. If it's pointless, why is it there?
 

Mizerman

Member
Hate is a strong word. SAO as a whole isn't even as terrible as people make it out to be. Is it the "smartest anime in years" like that dumbass from Kotaku wrote? Hell no, the writing is atrocious at times and the MMO mechanics often don't make sense. But is it the worst thing to ever air in the history of 2D animation like some would try and tell you? Hell no, it's actually pretty mediocre most of the time. Generic art, decent animation, fanservice, overpowered main character, romance...it's obvious to me why the show is popular.

SAO isn't the worse anime I've ever seen. Believe me, I've seen shit that makes SAO look like Cowboy Bebop in comparison. But just because there are worse anime out there doesn't excuse SAO from being disappointing. To me, animation and music alone matter little if the characters are simply unlikable and the story is just plain meh.The fact that it does have some decent ideas and fail to implement them well is a major reason why SAO fails to wow me.
 
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