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Winter 2014 Anime |OT| I've got to find a dandy guy who killed my dad in the space

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D

Dedication Through Light

Member
Took the Sentai Filmworks end of year survey, suggested they do a premium release for Hakkenden and Diabolik Lovers. LINK
Bc4E6p-CcAABzZQ.png
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S

survivor

Banned
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU 1-3

I guess romcoms aren't dead after all. Then again it can completely go to shit later on if they ever decide to add serious plot drama.
 
Q

Quasar

Member
survivor said:
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU 1-3

I guess romcoms aren't dead after all. Then again it can completely go to shit later on if they ever decide to add serious plot drama.
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This doesnt go to shit imo. I would like more...though sadly they burnt through all the source material in one season from what I remember.
 
B

Branduil

Member
mAcOdIn said:
I recently watched some Star Trek too!

You know, I think it's space battles in general that are just pissing me off, like every Captain wants to pretend that there's this big strategy game going on between him/her and the enemy, so they futz around, make a command to fire or two, then ask for damage reports, take some time to mull things over, get hit a few more times, it's really all idiotic. Damage control crews should work regardless and in a way, it doesn't matter what's hit you have to keep fighting so why the fuck is the captain halting the offensive so he can not only get a current damage report but almost always take some more hits in the process before deciding to fire again? It's stupid.

I get the desire to make space battles interesting but take Yesterday's Enterprise's big battle at the end from Next Generation. The Enterprise D is trying to hold off 3 Klingon somethings from reaching the Enterprise C. This battle was stupid for a myriad of reasons. 1st, the Klingons wanted the Enterprise C and there was 3 of them, there's no way the Enterprise D could even sit between all 3 Klingon ships to protect the Enterprise C since they just have to spread out a tad, it's stupid. 2nd, the Klingons attack one at a time like they're in some line formation making a bombing run, stupid. 3rd, the Enterprise actually had the firepower to destroy the Klingons outright and destroyed one of them in a single attack but never thought to do the same to the other two, those two were lucky enough to just get one or two shots called out on them as opposed to a proper barrage.

And after watching this, and Star Trek Into Darkness recently as well as some Yamato 2199, Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 I realized it's kind of a problem all space scifi seems to have. They try and make the drama of the act of combat not be the combat itself but the drama unfolding on the bridge as the crew comes up with courses of action and reacts to the enemy but the way I see it that drama really shouldn't be present. There's really no reason ever submitted as to why a Captain should even need to command every shot and once the decision has been made to engage in combat there's absolutely no need to attack with say one phaser bank, turret, whatever instead of all of them. If you're in a do or die situation there's no reason to take a time out and assess your condition and count your dead when you need to be putting more rounds down range.

I've found that I compare a great many works to Voltron, or Go Lions, or whatever you called it as a kid but really that's what TV still seems to be. As a kid it might have been cool to see the lions struggle with some stupid genetically engineered beast for a few minutes, get that tension of them almost getting defeated just to snatch victory away from the enemy by first forming Voltron and finally using their sword but now as an adult I can't help but wonder why they ever bothered responding to an attack as separate lions in the first place! Voltron should have been some bad ass that casually walked up to each battle with his sword in hand and just cut everyone in two right from the start instead of wasting time with the feline fourplay.

And so it is with sci fi, I can't feel these people are in danger because they're passing on opportunities to fire on their enemy just so they can feel they're acting Captainey and call out each volley and shit like they're in some turn based board game. It makes me want them to lose and I can't feel any death is tragic because, hell, it wouldn't happen most of the time if they fought to win from the start anyways.
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I forget, did you ever watch Starship Operators?
 
D

Dresden

Member
yamato - 20

Haha, it's a
fucking naval battle in space! Not that it wasn't always the case, but the way the gas clouds are used as the ocean and the various strategies tried against the Yamato really does hammer it in.
As accepting as I've become of the show's quaintness, the
fighters sliding off the carrier into the 'ocean' did make me laugh.

It doesn't have the sheer balls to the wall badassery or the scale of episode 18, but seeing the encounter play out at last between these two great men was worth the wait. Think I prefer the build-up of episode nineteen to the actual engagement, but it's not due to any deficiencies of the latter.

Also:
Yuki upgraded.
 
G

Gazoinks

Member
Yozakura Quartet - Hana no Uta 13 END

And thus
the shounen tradition of punching people until they become your friend continues.

Very good ending episode, especially after the slightly off pacing of the last two. Some nice drama and action in the first half, and some nice light-hearted character interaction in the second. Both things this show does really well, and I'll be sad to see it go. Shame they're not adapting the whole story. I heard mention of OADs?
 
B

Basileus777

Member
Code Geass: Knightmares on Ice 2

The writing still isn't very good, and it's a shame that the fight choreography isn't any better than in the first one. Fights consist of robots rolling around and jumping a lot, it's hard to follow and not very interesting to watch. And the CG isn't the problem, I've seen much less technically impressive CG do mecha combat better. I guess it was better than the first one, but so far Code Geass without Lelouch isn't very compelling. I'm curious to see what kind of retconning they will need to
justify Lelouch's presence.
 
S

survivor

Banned
SNAFU 4

imouto is the worst character so far, please don't focus on her in future episodes

Quasar said:
This doesnt go to shit imo. I would like more...though sadly they burnt through all the source material in one season from what I remember.
Click to expand...

Well at least the pacing shouldn't be bad then.
 
Q

Quasar

Member
survivor said:
SNAFU 4

imouto is the worst character so far, please don't focus on her in future episodes

Well at least the pacing shouldn't be bad then.
Click to expand...

By all I meant all at the time, it was still being written but it went through all 5 or 6 light novels at the time. I think since then one or two more are out. So whilst it does fly pretty fast we don't get anything like a conclusion or anything.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
Quasar said:
By all I meant all at the time, it was still being written but it went through all 5 or 6 light novels at the time. I think since then one or two more are out. So whilst it does fly pretty fast we don't get anything like a conclusion or anything.
Click to expand...

It sold well and it's a continuing series that can be promoted, so there is some hope of a sequel.
 
D

dakkumauji

Member
Yozakura Quartet Hana no Uta 13

2NOPq8ll.jpg


Starting the New Year's right, by watching the ending for a good show.

Man, that piano version of All Quartets Lead To? was so good.

All those teases in the ED as well for future arcs. I definitely wouldn't mind getting another season of this.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
fertygo said:
Whoa, don't know you catching up to this.
What your impression so far?
Click to expand...

I started watching it on Christmas. Despite work, I just finished episode 72. So yeah, it's pretty great. I'm not sure why I never watched it before, it was probably my fear of long series.
 
F

fertygo

Member
Basileus777 said:
I started watching it on Christmas. Despite work, I just finished episode 72. So yeah, it's pretty great. I'm not sure why I never watched it before, it was probably my fear of long series.
Click to expand...

Good for you, too bad the later season relying too much to the source material power as the anime production quality itself such like directing and OST quality dropping down.

But don't worry I don't mean to scare you, if you enjoy it greatly so far you would enjoy the later season too.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
fertygo said:
Good for you, too bad the later season relying too much to the source material power as the anime production quality itself such like directing and OST quality dropping down.

But don't worry I don't mean to scare you, if you enjoy it greatly so far you would enjoy the later season too.
Click to expand...

Were the earlier episodes more liberal with the source material? Or were they just better directed?

I'm enjoying it too much now to be scared off, so don't worry about that.
 
D

DiscoShark

Banned
Space Dandy's definitely at the top of my 'to-watch' list for the start of the new year. Said it in the last thread but it is, without question, the best way to kick off 2014 anime. Combine that with Jojo Part 3 and Ufotable's F/SN later in the year and you've got me from day ... 5?

~Winter Watch List~

Dandy Tier -
Space Dandy

Cautiously Optimistic -
Wizard Barristers
Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha
That-Other-Bones-Show
Sekai Seifuku

Not-so-optimistic -
Hamatora
Nobunaga the Fool

Soon-to-be-guilty-pleasure -
Pupa
 
F

fertygo

Member
Basileus777 said:
Were the earlier episodes more liberal with the source material? Or were they just better directed?

I'm enjoying it too much now to be scared off, so don't worry about that.
Click to expand...

The first season is very faithful to the material, but had stronger directing and OST compared to later season.
 
M

mAcOdIn

Member
firehawk12 said:
Well, part of it is to make it dramatic of course. And besides, once the director cuts to external shots of the ships, you can't assume the captain is still shouting orders then! Maybe he starts worrying about other stuff while that's happening. lol
Click to expand...
It's all for the drama but I feel that it's actually what holds the genre's battles back from being exciting. I think it kinda boils down to the fact that in most shows you only follow the crew of the one ship and well, lets face it, you can't destroy that one ship you know? Where as say this was an infantry show you totally could kill an important soldier and keep the story going. So since the character in a space battle is essentially your only character and that character happens to be a ship that has tens or hundreds of crew most of which are the real cast(not really the ship, right) then you're kinda forced to do this this way. Not only would it take hellagood writing to make a fleet of ships all crewed by a wonderful cast but it'd take an act of God to somehow bounce around them story wise and make you care for each one. On the other hand I don't think any drama would really be lost if they sped up the slowed battle tempo that they keep to allow for these moments of decision and instead just showed the determination of the crew as they did go about their business while under fire. I think BSG did a much better job of this than Star Trek, so often you'd be zoomed out and see the Galactica just firing everything as fighters zip about and shit, Adama's not firing one volley and then stopping waiting to see what happens, he's not laying covering flack for his fighters and then stopping before starting back up again after counting how many fighters he lost and that to me makes them feel like more real battles. They fight with everything they have until they win or are forced to withdraw.

Of course Trek just sucks all around for battles really, I can't make heads or tails out of why they do and don't do things in Star Trek. They come up with one off deflector dish hijinks to save the day never to use them again, they decide how many shots to take during a volley seemingly by random, On DS9 they fought a protracted land battle with air superiority without actually utilizing any of it(nor did the Dominion), and just think of what you could do with transporters when shields are down, transporting their weapon systems into space, shit, just let the transporter chief go wild and start tearing the other ship apart piece by piece or transport a torpedo onto their bridge. So much shit they could do but just never do and other stuff they do but just once, makes little sense.
firehawk12 said:
It's also a cap-ship only thing, since in every franchise, the fighter pilots seem to act completely independently of any command structure. But that probably has to do with how everything is based on WW2 battles anyway.
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Well yeah but the pilots aren't exactly on their own they do have a task but it's not like during an engagement they're going to pick out specific targets for them. I mean, there should be a captain on a capital ship, there should be general tactics, someone does need to prioritize targets and in general be responsible for the daily running of the thing I just think they need to pull back from the idea that the Captain must have a say in everything and slow the battle down to compensate for it.
Branduil said:
I forget, did you ever watch Starship Operators?
Click to expand...
Yeah, watched it long ago, was a blind buy. It was alright. The premise was bonkers though.
 
J

Jintor

Member
That's why more space fights should be between fighter-class ships!

Red Leader, standing by!

/edit I miss Homeworld :(
 
H

Hitokage

Setec Astronomer
Apocalypse Zero

This was dumb, really really fucking dumb, but I think Eiken was still dumber. This is just bullshit Sentai hero on Go Nagai overdrive, and not really paced fast enough to cram as much awful into its two episodes.
 
Jex

Jex

Member
Oh, I haven't given my entirely misinformed opinion about upcoming Winters Shows that I haven't even read a synopsis for:

Space Dandy will be good and I will watch it.

Wizard Barristers will be bad and I will watch it.

Silver Spoon will be as competent as last year's series, and I will watch it.

Everything else looks like junk.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
mAcOdIn said:
It's all for the drama but I feel that it's actually what holds the genre's battles back from being exciting. I think it kinda boils down to the fact that in most shows you only follow the crew of the one ship and well, lets face it, you can't destroy that one ship you know? Where as say this was an infantry show you totally could kill an important soldier and keep the story going. So since the character in a space battle is essentially your only character and that character happens to be a ship that has tens or hundreds of crew most of which are the real cast(not really the ship, right) then you're kinda forced to do this this way. Not only would it take hellagood writing to make a fleet of ships all crewed by a wonderful cast but it'd take an act of God to somehow bounce around them story wise and make you care for each one. On the other hand I don't think any drama would really be lost if they sped up the slowed battle tempo that they keep to allow for these moments of decision and instead just showed the determination of the crew as they did go about their business while under fire. I think BSG did a much better job of this than Star Trek, so often you'd be zoomed out and see the Galactica just firing everything as fighters zip about and shit, Adama's not firing one volley and then stopping waiting to see what happens, he's not laying covering flack for his fighters and then stopping before starting back up again after counting how many fighters he lost and that to me makes them feel like more real battles. They fight with everything they have until they win or are forced to withdraw.

Of course Trek just sucks all around for battles really, I can't make heads or tails out of why they do and don't do things in Star Trek. They come up with one off deflector dish hijinks to save the day never to use them again, they decide how many shots to take during a volley seemingly by random, On DS9 they fought a protracted land battle with air superiority without actually utilizing any of it(nor did the Dominion), and just think of what you could do with transporters when shields are down, transporting their weapon systems into space, shit, just let the transporter chief go wild and start tearing the other ship apart piece by piece or transport a torpedo onto their bridge. So much shit they could do but just never do and other stuff they do but just once, makes little sense.
Click to expand...

Eh, part of it has to come down to the fact that everything was still practical effects in the TNG days. When you had to design camera tracks to simulate movement of the Enterprise, it gets expensive. It's why the saucer separation never really happened after S2 or so. For the same reason, the TNG battles were fairly static.

The only large scale fleet battles you get where in DS9, and at that time it was still a mix of practical and CG effects, so you just see giant blobs of ships traveling toward each other on a linear plane with some close up shots of ships zipping around and blowing up. They tried to make the Defiant a zippier ship by allowing her to seem much more maneuverable compared to the bigger cap ships, but those were really special events.

When they had a budget, like say in First Contact, you see the mass of ships attack the Borg cube in a manner that you would expect. Now, I guess it's a question of whether or not you think it's silly that they have to wait for Picard to tell them exactly where to fire and that he has to tell the entire fleet to FIRE AT THE EXACT SAME TIME because of reasons.

BSG and B5 did the same thing too, because the abstract idea of ships firing at each other isn't really exciting beyond the initial gimmick of seeing spaceships at battle. I mean, technically you could make Top Gun with all external shots and not hire any actors. Just have F14s fly around fighting F4s dressed up as MiGs. The thing is, for whatever reason, giving the audience a close up of Tom Cruise's face as he says "I've got a lock! Fox One!" is exciting... and the same principal applies. You have Adama shouting orders and telling people when to fire batteries. You have Sheridan telling people to initiate "ramming speed" (but not telling people to evacuate, because he's an asshole), among other things.

Probably the other thing is that, if they ACTUALLY copied WW2 battles, these things would be protracted battled that lasted hours, especially if you are depending on the old fashioned battleship vs battleship or carrier vs carrier model of fighting, but again, they overly simplify this stuff for time.

DS9 did get silly with ground battles. They basically did an episode based around the Alamo and had to contrive some reason why transporters wouldn't work or why their ships couldn't just nuke/torpedo the fucking planet. From what I remember, they even used that episode to amputate Nog's leg to make him grizzled war vet ala Lt. Dan in order to create drama.

Honestly, I think it's lame that most space battles still take place on 2D planes. I'd rather they find a way to address that problem before worrying about other stuff like the presentation. Although, since space based science fiction is pretty much dead, it's all academic anyway.

Jintor said:
That's why more space fights should be between fighter-class ships!

Red Leader, standing by!

/edit I miss Homeworld :(
Click to expand...
Ignoring the fanservice, this is my one disappointment with Yamato. It's a carrier ship, but the fighters really don't get any shit to do outside of the very first arc.

Top Gun in space. How hard could that be?! lol
 
L

Lee Chaolan

Member
The World God Only Knows OVA Special 4 Girls Plus an Idol

ewRBc7G.png
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It's great to see K-ON!'s influence. Pretty fun special, loved the song at the end! Loving all the extra Elsie, as I hear we don't see much of her in Goddesses...
 
C

Conan-san

Member
And with the drunken haze of Hogmanay slowly dispersing down the toilet, all that begins is the wait for Toei to admit they dun fucked up with Sailor Moon Kai or whatever it'll be called.
 
D

Deputy Dangle

Member
Angel's Egg

ibkbKVfjg4bGSz.PNG
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After stumbling upon Jexhius'/Icarus' thread about this film nearly two years ago, I became intrigued by the backstory behind the making of it. Until now, I had no experience with any of Mamoru Oshii's meticulously crafted animated work despite being familiar with many of them. So even after going into it expecting to see a heavily symbolic film, I was surprised by how dense it actually turned out to be on the first viewing.

Oshii clearly has an eye for framing, lighting and staging a scene to create the very oppressive atmosphere present here. The dense, unsettling imagery of the delapidated town and others makes it even moreso. It's a really beautiful film to look at. Yoshihiro Kanno's score does a great job of sustaining the strong mood and helps to create some really powerful scenes in the final 30 minutes.

Now from what I've gathered from memory and could piece together while watching it, the story seems to be about these two people representing different sides of innocence and faith; mainly focusing on the older man's impact on the young girl after the two meet. There were definitely some things that I wasn't quite sure what to make of like the fish/fishermen and the iconic floating eye, but the one I was most curious about was
the older man's motive for crushing the egg. Of course, one could see it as him crushing the girl's innocence, but in the context of its narrative, it seems a bit vague to me. All I was aware of was that he was curious of what was inside it. Maybe curiosity got the better of him?

Nonetheless, I thought it was a great film that I still seem to be endlessly fascinated by. Passion projects are pretty cool and stuff. I need to get a hold of that japanese Blu-ray.
 
P

Pooya

Member
I think I'm just going to watch Space Dandy and The Fool (I really don't like how this looks, but the story could be fun I guess?) from this season now. I won't bother with "one episode" test for the rest even anymore, Wake Up Girls! is still a bit of a curiosity though, maybe that (this is not CGI, right?!)

I'll wait for the helpful guinea pigs to return for everything else at the end of the season. I'll watch yamato, eccentric family and yozakura quartet for the time being.
 
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