-Minsc-
Member
damn, that's even better.Gintama
You are wise to follow the path of Gin. Worship and you shall be rewarded.
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Winter 2012 Anime Thread 2.22: You Can (Not) Outpost Cajunator
- Thread starter Haly
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You are wise to follow the path of Gin. Worship and you shall be rewarded.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
That's a shame. I was ready to dismiss Ano Natsu as marginal for its first half, but in the end it won me over. It may not be revolutionary, but I can appreciate refinement as well. There's a vitality to the execution that makes the character interaction enjoyable to watch. Everyone is refreshingly straightforward with each other. Barring any last-minute screwups, I'm prepared to say that this is the definitive execution of its concept and the best new show of the season.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I dunno. For me, it is without question the best written television show of the winter season. I don't have any illusions of its quality in terms of being anything more than a fluffy Japanese romcom, but when I watch it, I don't hate myself for watching it. And when it comes to anime, that is a victory in my mind.
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
I can get behind this. Unless the concept is legendarily god awful in every respect that no amount of amazing technical execution can save it (Guilty Crown), even a fairly normal and/or generic concept can turn out extremely well with proper execution and great direction. I've seen shows that probably had great concepts but I just couldn't follow through watching them because it was a chore to do so. With a show like Ano Natsu every week is a pleasure. It's just sad that's ending in a couple days. :/
chickdigger802
Banned
You are wise to follow the path of Gin. Worship and you shall be rewarded.
The ways of the gintoki.
I respect this.
-Minsc-
Member
The ways of the gintoki.
There are Ginpachi Sensei light novels if I'm not mistaken. Sunrise, get on it. A perfect replacement for Gintama during a hiatus.
Understandable. And I should say that it's actually in my gigantic pile of shows to finish. You saying that it does resonate better in the second half will probably have me finishing it sooner than the others in the pile.
Don't know if want...kinda do, but think that it'd feel like mining. Kind of like the Rock Lee spin-offs.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Is that like the Evangelion spinoff with Shinji et al in high school?
*Mutual Respect Brofist*, etc.
It's better than Mass Effect 3.
But then again, so is that Papa no whatever show.
The problem is that Ichika being an alien hasn't significantly played into the romance or the comedy. Her feelings and actions aren't terribly different from what they would be if she were just a normal teenage girl transferring in from somewhere else in Japan, and being a lighthearted romcom doesn't excuse a show from ensuring that characters act in accordance with the personal traits established for those characters.
Echoing what Makoto said, Ichika's identity as an alien suddenly surfaces when it's time for some drama, but it's virtually nonexistent otherwise. It's really inconsistent handling of her character and expects the audience to accept that she's somehow perfectly acclimated to her surroundings from the moment of her arrival.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
It's just a random romcom complication though.
Again, if you think of her as an American - suddenly her sister shows up and tells her she has to go back to America because the Japanese don't like illegal immigrants or something.
I mean, you're talking about a culture where the women think the most romantic thing that could happen to them is that a man tells them they love them before getting on a train and leaving them forever. This is just another variation of that trope.
You shut your whore mouth, bro.
lol, honestly though, it's not like ME handles romance with any kind of intricacy either. Expectations of the medium, I guess. Players seek it, and figure it due reward.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
It could be viewed as "unrealistic" that an alien would look human and be able to fit into Japanese society as well as Ichika does, but then an alien is unrealistic to begin with. Within the constraints of the setting of the show, I wouldn't say there's an inconsistency in how Ichika's personality is portrayed. It's a world where there are aliens who are basically humans with advanced technology - that's fine. It's within the boundaries of my suspension of disbelief.
Also, episode 11
hints that there could be a very good reason for why Ichika is so human, and specifically Japanese.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I'm not just talking about the romance.
If you've seen
Onegai Sensei
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
There is this as well, yes.
But yeah, while she's not winning any awards for originality or whatever, I don't find anything terribly inconsistent with her character. I plan to in the near future write up a longer piece about what I love about the show, what could have been improved, etc. But so far this is definitely my show of the season, possibly year depending on how things hold up. It's got one last chance to screw things up, but I have faith it won't. I'm not just talking about the romance.
Lol. I'm never joining that camp. ME's too interesting a case of concept & execution to me. I haven't exactly formulated anything to the idea yet, but I've been meaning to. (I'm also avoiding the end; haven't played it yet, lol. Sitting right at it, I think. All this hububaloo has me giving it some time, at least to the point where I can form an opinion that hasn't been influenced by a million 'lolololololollollolllllols Bioware'.)
firehawk12
Subete no aware
You waited too long. It's too late to form an opinion in a vacuum now unless you wait until the next big thing comes out... which I have no idea what that might be.
Mass Effect: Marauder Shields
firehawk12
Subete no aware
He died for our sins.
I take it that whatever this is supposed to be analogous to happens beyond the point that I've watched (I'm through episode nine and about to begin ten.) Whatever causes Ichika to have to
leave the planet
Don't worry, nothing as terrible as that completely un-ironic insert song happens again for the rest of the show.
That's not the case...look at her arms. One glove, one bare arm.
Crash Station
Member
If it's half as good as the Rock Lee spin-off, I'd be all for it.
So true. Still, a month or two should remove me from the midst of it all, or, at the least, allow me to play it with whatever inevitable ending DLC Bioware releases by then. All to protect the good-standing!
hosannainexcelsis
Member
We don't know much of anything about her origin; how can you say she's not acting realistically in accord with that? She could come from a planet that's basically modern Japan with spaceships. That's the beauty of aliens - you can make their background whatever you desire, even if that ends up being a slightly exotic coloring of humanity.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
You really have two contrivances.
1) She has to
stay with him because she kills him and needs to make sure he doesn't explode into little pieces
2) And the one you mention above.
I think both give enough motivation for what happens. I'm being serious when I say that this could have been about an exchange student instead of a literal "outer space" alien and you'd have the same story. The conceit of the story remains the same, along with many of the details. I presumed they just did this scifi thing because Onegai Sensei is something easy that they can crib from.
I suppose that's just my way of saying that the details don't really matter at this point. She's an alien because hey, it lets you do funny things like have her
teleport into a woman's room in order to spy on the dude while a hot sister hits on him
movie they make is ironic because she plays an alien
Or just man up and finish it, so you can get back to doing important things like watch Ano Natsu.
Guilty Crown 22
Well that's finally done. Thank god.
I'm gonna admit I was really disappointed at first more people didn't die but in the end it doesn't really matter because I honestly don't care anymore. This was pretty much a complete failure save for the amazing soundtrack and that's it. Episode 12 remains the absolute high point of the show for me since it had the perfect amount of insanity and asspulls to make for an enjoyable trainwreck out of the whole thing but everything fizzled out afterwards and we were just left with one of the most terrible cast of characters in existence and a really nothing ending that simply goes through its paces and seems as intent on gettting shit over with and moving on almost as much as the viewer does.
Also Shu is quite possibly one of the absolute worst main characters in the history of anything ever. That might sound like a bit of an exaggeration but it's really not. At all.
Mardock Scramble: The First Compression
It's been a few days since I watched this but I still can't quite figure out what the tone of the film was supposed to be. I mean, it deals with some rather grim subject matter and at times it almost seems like it wants to tell a serious story but then it ends up commiting the cardinal crime of trying waaay too hard to be super dark and "edgy" so it ends up landing squarely into the silly and off-putting territory. The fact that it also features a technobabbley quasi-magical luminescent mouse who talks and is able to transform into a number of things, including the main character's clothes, certainly doesn't help. Speaking of the main character's clothes, where the fuck are they during the vast majority of the runtime? I don't want to dwell too deep into this but it's worth noting that I recall only one single scene during the whole thing where she wasn't either in the nude or wearing something revealing and/or fetishistic and even then that scene was pretty disgusting in its own way anyway. The film also seems to go out of its way to remind us at seemingly every opportunity how young the main character actually is. It makes for a very uncomfortable watch throughout but I'm not entirely sure if that's what they were going for mostly because I don't want to give them that much credit.
As for Mr. the Pussyhand and company, while all very much aptly named, they completely and utterly failed at instilling any sort of sense of threat or danger to me mostly because I was too busy laughing at their over-the-topness to actually care. It's a real problem when your supposed villains are so painfully cartoony and one-dimensional that you simply cannot care for them in the slightest. And then some.
If there is at least one positive thing I can say about this piece of shit is that what sparse little action there is looks at the very least competently choreographed but that's not really saying very much at all. Oh and the soundtrack is not entirely terrible I guess so make that two things then.
Heartcatch Precure
Those last few episodes were so fucking epic. How can a magical girl show have so much awesome action and badass music? It's mind-boggling. I have no doubts that, shitty cloth designs aside, Saint Seiya Omega is at least gonna look fuckawesome in motion. Bring it.
Having said that, the vast majority of the show consisted of following the same basic pattern and relied on a very repetitive formula. Truth is there is a number of things this show does that don't completely jive with me but I'm willing to put up with simply because I am very obviously not in the target demographic for it and never was this as apparent as when an episode strongly urged me not to forget to finish all of my summer homework in addition to its usual peddling of cute pink toys for me to tell my parents to buy. That felt weird. Still, there is no denying that the show is fun in its own way and the characters are certainly enjoyable. Of course I'm including the villains here. Dark Precure is badass, Kumojacky is manly as fuck, Cobraja is fabulous and Sasorina is, well, she's kinda useless but at least she looks hot when she lets her hair down. Sabaaku and Dune serve their purpose well enough.
Another problem I have with the show that I learned to avoid very early on is that it doesn't really care about spoiling pretty much everything with its previews and episode titles so you pretty much just have to ignore them every single time. Not that it matters all that much because many of the shows plot twists are visibly apparent from like a million miles away but still. The one exception to this is the identity of the Hot Guy, which is something I didn't really see coming for some reason. That was a nice surprise.
Another thing I figured out early on is that the show becomes alot more manageable when using copious amounts of fast forwarding. Well that and loosely following 7th's Unoficially Sanctioned Sakugabro Episode Guide, that is. There really are so many times I can watch magical girl transformations before getting sick of them and I could never ever get used to watching the mascot characters shit out a Heart Seed every single time, among other things.
So, in summary, quite possibly the most manly and hot-blooded fuckawesome action magical girl show I've ever seen featuring a likeable cast of characters and some really amazing animation at times but somewhat marred by the usual formulaic format endemic to the genre but not to the point where I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for a fun show to watch.
Perhaps I should marathon BRS next.
Well that's finally done. Thank god.
I'm gonna admit I was really disappointed at first more people didn't die but in the end it doesn't really matter because I honestly don't care anymore. This was pretty much a complete failure save for the amazing soundtrack and that's it. Episode 12 remains the absolute high point of the show for me since it had the perfect amount of insanity and asspulls to make for an enjoyable trainwreck out of the whole thing but everything fizzled out afterwards and we were just left with one of the most terrible cast of characters in existence and a really nothing ending that simply goes through its paces and seems as intent on gettting shit over with and moving on almost as much as the viewer does.
Also Shu is quite possibly one of the absolute worst main characters in the history of anything ever. That might sound like a bit of an exaggeration but it's really not. At all.
Mardock Scramble: The First Compression
It's been a few days since I watched this but I still can't quite figure out what the tone of the film was supposed to be. I mean, it deals with some rather grim subject matter and at times it almost seems like it wants to tell a serious story but then it ends up commiting the cardinal crime of trying waaay too hard to be super dark and "edgy" so it ends up landing squarely into the silly and off-putting territory. The fact that it also features a technobabbley quasi-magical luminescent mouse who talks and is able to transform into a number of things, including the main character's clothes, certainly doesn't help. Speaking of the main character's clothes, where the fuck are they during the vast majority of the runtime? I don't want to dwell too deep into this but it's worth noting that I recall only one single scene during the whole thing where she wasn't either in the nude or wearing something revealing and/or fetishistic and even then that scene was pretty disgusting in its own way anyway. The film also seems to go out of its way to remind us at seemingly every opportunity how young the main character actually is. It makes for a very uncomfortable watch throughout but I'm not entirely sure if that's what they were going for mostly because I don't want to give them that much credit.
As for Mr. the Pussyhand and company, while all very much aptly named, they completely and utterly failed at instilling any sort of sense of threat or danger to me mostly because I was too busy laughing at their over-the-topness to actually care. It's a real problem when your supposed villains are so painfully cartoony and one-dimensional that you simply cannot care for them in the slightest. And then some.
If there is at least one positive thing I can say about this piece of shit is that what sparse little action there is looks at the very least competently choreographed but that's not really saying very much at all. Oh and the soundtrack is not entirely terrible I guess so make that two things then.
Heartcatch Precure
Those last few episodes were so fucking epic. How can a magical girl show have so much awesome action and badass music? It's mind-boggling. I have no doubts that, shitty cloth designs aside, Saint Seiya Omega is at least gonna look fuckawesome in motion. Bring it.
Having said that, the vast majority of the show consisted of following the same basic pattern and relied on a very repetitive formula. Truth is there is a number of things this show does that don't completely jive with me but I'm willing to put up with simply because I am very obviously not in the target demographic for it and never was this as apparent as when an episode strongly urged me not to forget to finish all of my summer homework in addition to its usual peddling of cute pink toys for me to tell my parents to buy. That felt weird. Still, there is no denying that the show is fun in its own way and the characters are certainly enjoyable. Of course I'm including the villains here. Dark Precure is badass, Kumojacky is manly as fuck, Cobraja is fabulous and Sasorina is, well, she's kinda useless but at least she looks hot when she lets her hair down. Sabaaku and Dune serve their purpose well enough.
Another problem I have with the show that I learned to avoid very early on is that it doesn't really care about spoiling pretty much everything with its previews and episode titles so you pretty much just have to ignore them every single time. Not that it matters all that much because many of the shows plot twists are visibly apparent from like a million miles away but still. The one exception to this is the identity of the Hot Guy, which is something I didn't really see coming for some reason. That was a nice surprise.
Another thing I figured out early on is that the show becomes alot more manageable when using copious amounts of fast forwarding. Well that and loosely following 7th's Unoficially Sanctioned Sakugabro Episode Guide, that is. There really are so many times I can watch magical girl transformations before getting sick of them and I could never ever get used to watching the mascot characters shit out a Heart Seed every single time, among other things.
So, in summary, quite possibly the most manly and hot-blooded fuckawesome action magical girl show I've ever seen featuring a likeable cast of characters and some really amazing animation at times but somewhat marred by the usual formulaic format endemic to the genre but not to the point where I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for a fun show to watch.
Perhaps I should marathon BRS next.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
Not sure if serious or just being facetious... I wasn't attacking the show or its fanbase. Hell, there's not even an "opinion" there to keep to myself. Kirino is underage and there's implied/stated romantic feelings between her and her brother, no? That'd make a lot of people understandably uncomfortable.
My only "opinion" on Oreimo is that it has a nice artstyle.
Y
Or just man up and finish it, so you can get back to doing important things like watch Ano Natsu.
Lol, gotta finish the jdramas first.
I thought Mardock's OST was fantastic. Not used as well as it could have been, but fantastic compositions, nonetheless.
Yes, that was odd. I guess they needed some filler.
Hows the OT and 3DS coming along??
Femmeworth
Banned
Jexhius is always serious. Always.
I don't have any problem with the fact that Ichika looks human. Perfectly-humanoid aliens are hardly a concept native to AnoNatsu, so it's wholly her cultural acclimation that bothers me. It's entirely possible that Earth-like aliens have an Earth-like society, but I would have thought that Ichika not fully comprehending the nuances of friendship and romance would have added amusement and a sense of originality to her budding romance with Kaito.
I can't say that Ichika's "humanity" is objectively inconsistent as there's no one standard for how aliens are expected to act in fictional works, but if we use the very general concept of alien as "a creature not of Earth", Ichika's total acclimation to a foreign culture is improbable and makes it difficult for me to accept how infrequently her alien nature factors into her behavior.
My opinion on this could very well change after watching episodes 10 and 11, so keep in mind that mine is an incomplete perspective on the show at present.
Of course; I freely admit that my expectations for Ichika's behavior are directly related to my expectations for how an alien disguised as a human on Earth would act. It might be better for me to argue that the concept of "alien" used in AnoNatsu isn't the concept that I would personally prefer to see. As I said above, part of my disappointment stems from the fact that Ichika being less acclimated to her surrounding culture would yield more entertaining results from her interactions with the rest of the show's characters. I'm generally not a fan of romcoms that are played entirely straight, so I was personally hoping that the "alien" concept would factor more heavily into the show than it did.
I think we're in agreement that Ichika being an alien is so loosely connected to most of the events of the show that she could be an exchange student instead and nothing would change. If the events of the show remain the same then Ichika's origin doesn't matter, but I think that my argument is that Ichika being an alien should be having more of an impact on the plot and on the interactions than it already is (which, I suppose, is also an argument that the events of the show shouldn't be as they are in the first place).
I'm all for alien antics and was fully expecting them when I began watching. Waiting until so late in the show for the reveal has kept the show from being able to employ all sorts of creative romcom hijinx that could only occur in the presence of alien technology. Maybe I just wanted Urusei Yatsura all along, lol.
Lupin, LIVE NOW: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ルパン三世40周年記念-ステージ
Your hype train is off to a good start on this one.
Not mine. This is is 7th and /XX/'s baby. I'm just helping derail it.
At least there's still Apollon.
checkeredknight
Member
Waited up for this. It's 4:15AM. Not fucking happy...
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I've gotten to the point where I'm okay with science fiction that removes all the stupid goobledegook associated with science fiction. The early episodes of Space Pirates for example.
I feel like the moment they get into all that junk, it gets a bit too much. We already had a lot of info dump in the last episode and I'm sure the finale will have a lot as well.
The world's most wanted gentleman thief just stole your time.
The OT's started and going slowly. I'm going to do some more tonight, and blitz tomorrow to finish most of it. I am still seeking help on the banner/and other graphics you'd be willing to do though, so if anyone can help there, shoot me a pm. It'd be much appreciated. Otherwise I'll just arrange a few glorious pics of Watanabe and call it a day, lol. (Serious, very)
As for the swag, that's stalled to hell for reasons I'd rather not say, but I've been pissed. Still getting it asap, but not at the KI launch like expected.
checkeredknight
Member
Well he must've forgotten to send me the calling card with this one then. Seriously, how hard can it be? Were they filming a good twenty minutes of stuff there and not even streaming it? All this waiting for a glimpse of Charlie Kosei's face and a pan in of the Lupin logo with super quiet music. Jesus Christ TMS.
Crash Station
Member
High School DxD end
A bit disappointed they wasted so much time on insignificant stuff, but great ending otherwise. The fake-out in the fight with
was great (though I did want to see the first one). The rest was just heartwarming even if the wrong girl won.
Not much more I can say about the series as a whole. It did what it set out to do and never went against its intentions. Fun characters, frequent badass action, cute situations; what's not to like? Though I still am a bit miffed that
Ah well, that's how the genre is I guess.
Anyway, I think this counts as more proof that the harem genre can be pretty damn good. Not quite at the level of SnO, but that's hard to get to in any genre. Favorite show of the season by far.
A bit disappointed they wasted so much time on insignificant stuff, but great ending otherwise. The fake-out in the fight with
Issei about to use some big attack but the armor deactivating just so he could do another big attack
Not much more I can say about the series as a whole. It did what it set out to do and never went against its intentions. Fun characters, frequent badass action, cute situations; what's not to like? Though I still am a bit miffed that
Rias won even though Asia's introduction episodes made it seem like she would be the front-runner (and rightfully so).
Anyway, I think this counts as more proof that the harem genre can be pretty damn good. Not quite at the level of SnO, but that's hard to get to in any genre. Favorite show of the season by far.
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