Support NeoGAF

[Midonin]

Earth Defense Club 01

Something like this is a bit outside my strike zone, so why am I watching it? Aside from the fact that it's the only thing on Tuesdays?

1. To see what male characters are like when presented to a female audience, potentially opening a discussion on gender relations in society.
2. I just like magical girls, and until GoPriPre debuts, this is the closest thing I've got.
3. So I can some day make Rule 63 fanfics of it.

For one, it's clear that male characters in a bath scene can show a lot more skin without the need of censoring. I also notice that the most of the guys - except for Yumoto, who's basically Yayoi Kise as a dude - are rather blase about this, but not in a Nyarko or Sabagebu or Twintails kind of way. It's just a general apathy. They have to be forced into doing a roll call. I'm sure some of it is for comedy, but is it also saying something about what's expected of men and emotions - making Yumoto my favorite simply because he most outwardly has them.

There's the general buffoonery about the standards of a magical girl show - though magical guys aren't uncommon. It was the central conceit of Is This a Zombie?, after all, and even Precure itself has flirted with the idea once or twice. The aesthetics of the suits and transformations make it so they really are like male Precures. Man Cures. Manicures.

That seems like a good note to end on, yes.

 

[BGBW]

Anime of the Year voting thread died fast.

Going to leave it to the last minute and then complain when the deadline passes.

 

[Narag]

Tantei Opera Mikly Holmes 1

Oh my god, I had no idea they were a bunch of fuckups. This changes everything.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Cute High Earth Defense Club Episode 1

I hope we find out what Chikuwabu is, but fantastic first episode. Nagisa clone was a bit annoying but warmed up to him by the end. Nary a bad transforming scene, liked Vestas alot, but then I liked Cerulean, Epinards and Sulfurs too too.

The love making was fantastic. Why couldnt we have more anime like these.

 

[KirbYuuYuu]

Excel Saga 8

It was the women only episode, where male characters were not at least shown completely (if they were established characters) to non-existent. And some pink haired girl with a mother complex.

Pedro got to fully appear though! Only to get robbed of an opportunity of a revival (again) and was hunted by other males for actually having screen time. Pedro's suffering ;-;

 

[e_i]

Tantei Opera Mikly Holmes 1



Oh my god, I had no idea they were a bunch of fuckups. This changes everything.

If you're expected Sherlock Holmes, you're going to get Excel Saga instead.

 

[Narag]

If you're expected Sherlock Holmes, you're going to get Excel Saga instead.

You don't know how much this pleases me.

 

[Jex]

You don't know how much this pleases me.

Excel Saga with more moe-moe.

 

[KirbYuuYuu]

Excel Saga 9

Ironically, Watanabe and friends had far less screentime in this episode than the last one.

Bowling is nothing without Stick and Balls puns though, so that delivered on that part.

Pedro may as well remind me of characters who is flat out unlucky in the work. Unfortunately, I forgot her name already.

 

[Midonin]

Absolute Duo 01

Oh, Tabane. I was wondering where you'd gone.

Both the OP and ED are pretty good - Konomi Suzuki's got some real musical talent. (And a nice team of songwriters, gotta give them credit too.) So we have a school that opens on a battle royale to ensure that students make their way in. Things seem pretty boilerplate, but the fact that the world's already acknowledging that Sakuya is doing this for her own amusement makes me curious as to what direction the story's going to go. If something that would normally be used for a mid-series plot twist is laid out from the get-go, there must be something else waiting to be revealed.

Julie's pretty cute. A Scandinavian beauty, and it's nice to see Nozomi Yamamoto (Tetora in Joshiraku, Yukimura in Haganai) get a shot at a major lead role again. I'm curious how this, Fafnir and World Break will differentiate themselves. Though they all appear broadly similar, I'm certain that each one must have something unique about itself.

Ja.

 

[Theonik]

Hartmann's a bitch in the OVA. Just shitting on everyone and everything!

Now now

 

[Jex]

I only hope that when you Red Shoulder's are done with your VOTOMS watch (which will take awhile especially if you get bogged down during that ship arc) that you remember to watch theArmour Hunter Mellowlink OVAs.

 

[Theonik]

I only hope that when you Red Shoulder's are done with your VOTOMS watch (which will take awhile) that you remember to watch theArmour Hunter Mellowlink OVAs.

Did you ever make time to watch The Last Red Shoulder?

 

[phaze]

Kemonozume 05-07

Loving backgrounds in this.

Three distinct episodes with one showing more of the daily functioning of Kifuuken and the stupidity of one of its members (Parasyte levels) another one being mostly comedic one, (that monkey is absolutely hilarious) and a return to the main narrative in the last one. Toshihiko has really made his own bed and now he will have to sleep in it. I'm surprised

Spoiler

Yuki's reaction to him cheating on her wasn't stronger but then again she did in all likelyhood kill his father so maybe it was an act from her all along.

 

[Yui]

Absolute Duo - Episode 01

Seems pretty solid for what it is. I always enjoy these kind of shows.
Although, I'm not too glad about Julie as the main girl (just not my taste). But I guess I can live with it.
Also, I'm really digging the opening.

 

[cajunator]

Yuri Kuma Arashi - 01

Well, what I can say. Too much in media res and Ikuhara-isms.
Maybe in two episodes more the series will show a more coherent world and a strong main-thread to follow on, right now it has been pretty scatter-shot between weird terms, mysterious bear-courtrooms, characters we didn't know, hidden meaning that are that, hidden, etc.

I would argue that this is the best thing about it! The more the merrier!

Excel Saga 8

It was the women only episode, where male characters were not at least shown completely (if they were established characters) to non-existent. And some pink haired girl with a mother complex.

Pedro got to fully appear though! Only to get robbed of an opportunity of a revival (again) and was hunted by other males for actually having screen time. Pedro's suffering ;-;

You mean Cosette?
Well She's no Ropponmatsu or anything.

 

[Jex]

Did you ever make time to watch The Last Red Shoulder?

I never read enough positive press to give it a whirl. One day.

 

[KirbYuuYuu]

Excel Saga 10

Oh hey, Menchi gets her own episode

Spoiler

where everyone she knew and love gets killed right in front of her. All this suffering. For once, Pedro doesn't feel like he's the only one to suffer from this.

I wonder if we'll see the mountain girl's face though....

One thing I would note about this episode is that everything was legible!

 

[Envelope]

VOTOMS ep1

Chirico has it rough

 

[Theonik]

I never read enough positive press to give it a whirl. One day.

One of the few non-series VOTOMS works! Worth suggesting with Mellowlink though they are different animals.

 

[cajunator]

Excel Saga 10

Oh hey, Menchi gets her own episode

Spoiler

where everyone she knew and love gets killed right in front of her. All this suffering. For once, Pedro doesn't feel like he's the only one to suffer from this.

I wonder if we'll see the mountain girl's face though....

One thing I would note about this episode is that everything was legible!

I love Menchi's lament in the ED. So cute.

 

[BluWacky]

I hope we find out what Chikuwabu is, but fantastic first episode.

Chikuwabu is exactly what they said it was - steamed wheat dough.

 

[Pooya]

yuri bear 1

Best anime for parents to watch with children, entertainment for entire family. It will raise a lot of interesting discussions then. I can't bear, dropped for now.


started watching Xam'd finally, meant to do this for forever...

Xam'd 1
Too much budget? damn, everything moves. All the characters have extraneous animations, their entire body and their surroundings. This will make new anime hard to watch if it keeps up like this. I've watched a lot of garbage last year, this was much needed, maybe I saved this show for that very reason.

Beautiful art direction, mix of technology and ww2 like machinery and guns. Nausicaa is in it too seemingly... Music sounded pretty good. Nothing can possibly go wrong here for me other than the script obviously, I hope it doesn't shit the bed, standard fare so far with a great looking world.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Chikuwabu is exactly what they said it was - steamed wheat dough.

Wow I thought they were joking, lol.

 

[cajunator]

yuri bear 1

Best anime for parents to watch with children, entertainment for entire family. It will raise a lot of interesting discussions then. I can't bear, dropped for now.


started watching Xam'd finally, meant to do this for forever...

Xam'd 1
Too much budget? damn, everything moves. All the characters have extraneous animations, their entire body and their surroundings. This will make new anime hard to watch if it keeps up like this. I've watched a lot of garbage last year, this was much needed, maybe I saved this show for that very reason.




Beautiful art direction, mix of technology and ww2 like machinery and guns. Nausicaa is in it too seemingly... Music sounded pretty good. Nothing can possibly go wrong here for me other than the script obviously, I hope it doesn't shit the bed, standard fare so far with a great looking world.

well...it kinda does.
But its still a fun watch.

 

[TheRancor]

Xam'd 1
Music sounded pretty good.

<3 Oshima

Nothing can possibly go wrong here for me other than the script obviously, I hope it doesn't shit the bed, standard fare so far with a great looking world.

Welp.

 

[Envelope]

VOTOMS ep2

 

[R_thanatos]

Yona of the Dawn Episode 13

Crying for Hak.

I love every time Yun calls himself the handsome binshounen.

Villagers continue to be annoying makes me wish this arc would hurry and advance to the next location though.

Yep . my least favorite arc of the whole manga even with the fact that i enjoyed the flashback. Next location is going to be so much fun for you DTL ...

Tantei Opera Mikly Holmes 1



Oh my god, I had no idea they were a bunch of fuckups. This changes everything.

Only in the anime... in all the other material , they are serious characters that actually get sh*t done. Some might argue that this change was for the better , i personnally disagree. ( but i'm alone thinking that )

Xam'd 1
Too much budget? damn, everything moves. All the characters have extraneous animations, their entire body and their surroundings. This will make new anime hard to watch if it keeps up like this. I've watched a lot of garbage last year, this was much needed, maybe I saved this show for that very reason.




Beautiful art direction, mix of technology and ww2 like machinery and guns. Nausicaa is in it too seemingly... Music sounded pretty good. Nothing can possibly go wrong here for me other than the script obviously, I hope it doesn't shit the bed, standard fare so far with a great looking world.

Yep too much budget .
It's not badly used , everything is smooth , and the background , locales, animation are superb ...but sometimes you wonder if they didn't have too much money for this project.

 

[hipsterpants]

Xam'd felt like a show that needed to be like 13 episodes or so longer. Some better explanations of some of the later events would have certainly helped.

 

[jgminto]

Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! 1

That was a lot of fun. It was much more of a parody than I was expecting though.

 

[Midonin]

The first episode of Bears goes up tomorrow at Funi's site, so I'll see what everyone's talking about then. Also, since both Earth Defense Club and World Break have their start dates listed as a week after their TV debut, it makes me think CR will also get World Break and stream it worldwide.

This Funi/CR teamup creates a fair bit of redundancy, but makes more shows watchable by more people. These opening weeks of simulcast season are always the toughest.

Breaking Edit

CR has Military!, the short anime and other cute military anime this season.

 

[TUSR]

The fact that witches quickly lose their power at 20 was retconned in the mangas, it is now more of a slow decline. Sakamoto lost her powers fast because of her eye and sword techniques.

This is good, Minna is absolute perfection. Her and Barkhorn are both 19, if they lost their powers id quit the series.

 

[Hastati]

yuri bear 1

Best anime for parents to watch with children, entertainment for entire family. It will raise a lot of interesting discussions then. I can't bear, dropped for now.


started watching Xam'd finally, meant to do this for forever...

Xam'd 1
Too much budget? damn, everything moves. All the characters have extraneous animations, their entire body and their surroundings. This will make new anime hard to watch if it keeps up like this. I've watched a lot of garbage last year, this was much needed, maybe I saved this show for that very reason.

Beautiful art direction, mix of technology and ww2 like machinery and guns. Nausicaa is in it too seemingly... Music sounded pretty good. Nothing can possibly go wrong here for me other than the script obviously, I hope it doesn't shit the bed, standard fare so far with a great looking world.

Xam'd gets really weird, but I still loved it. Really want some kind of sequel, even in manga form. I still have no idea what happened in the last third, but at least the animation remains impressive throughout.

I really liked Nakiami for some reason.

 

[KirbYuuYuu]

Excel Saga 11

It's amazing what they can do with Pedro's story line.

In any case, they can't even help delinquents become professional baseballers. I'm surprised they weren't fired yet for their incompetence.

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

Someone please tell me my precious Parasyte is running tomorrow!?!

 

[Sibersk Esto]

Now and Then, Here and There Full Series

*deep breath*

Well alright then. Let's get some of the objective stuff out of the way. NATHAT is about a young Japanese boy named Shuzo Matsutani (or "Shu" as he prefers.) He's an extraodinarily obtimistic boy who sucks at kendo and likes to climb smoke stacks. One day he meets a Rei clone young girl named LaLa-Ru, who is kidnapped by a mysterious woman and snake robots. After a struggle, he is transported to another world which is covered in desert, aboard a ship called "Hellywood" ruled by one King Hamdo. I've heard about this series for a long time, and have had it in my backlog. For one reason or another I never got to it, but I finally had the chance to watch it (dubbed).

The series is very well directed. The director is Akitaro Daichi, who aside from Fruits Basket I am not very familiar with his work. But on the directing side he did a bang up job with some stuff here. The way shots were all placed wonderfully, whether they were from a character's perspective,

Spoiler

inside a skull

, an aerial view or underneath, there was a real photo-like quality to many of the shots. Scenes like the

Spoiler

strangled cat motif

and

Spoiler

Hellywood's launch

are some of the best directing I've seen.

The sound design likewise is phenomenal. Not just simple things like the music (which I enjoyed), or the dub(which was great), but just the way things sound. Clanging against metal, steam hissing out, rocks crumbling, blows landing. I consider the best sound design I've heard in anime to be Jin-Roh, but honestly this came close. Not to mention the usage of music, which sprung up from time to time, but mostly the scenes and the acting were left on it's own, which I appreciated.

On to the meat of the show, the writing. NATHAT is known for being depressing. No, not "aw that character I liked died" depressing, I mean brutal soul crushing holy shit is this what this episode is about depressing. It will put you through the grinder from episode 2, and just goes higher and higher. This anime deals with child soldiers,

Spoiler

sexual abuse and abortion

completely straight. It got under my skin. But even with that, I think the show handled such sensitive topics very well, and I will acknowledge that.

But I do have a problem with the show, a rather large one in fact. That problem is Shu, or rather the show's treatment of him. Now, I have no problem with optimistic, headstrong, and resourceful characters, in fact I welcome that. I'm forgiving of situations in fiction that stretch the limit of my disbelief. Sometimes, good things happen to the protagonist that allows him to succeed where others would fail, that's just something that happens in fiction.

But the problem with this show is the ludicrous amount of times that things work out great for Shu. I'm talking contrivance after contrivance. The series spends some early episodes putting Shu through the ringer, but as soon as he gets his big stick you might as well have given spinach to popeye holy shit. Escapes from Hellywood and has a large search party after you? No worries!

Spoiler

Nabuca will be the first and only one to find you and let you go.

Giant sandworm in the desert? No problem!

Spoiler

Just find a backpack filled with grenades that the worm will grab with its tongue, pulling the pin out at the same fucking time.

The village you're staying at ransacked by Hellywood?

Spoiler

NABUCA AND BOO WILL BE THE ONLY FUCKING PEOPLE TO FIND YOU, AND THE MINUTE TABOOL IS ABOUT TO SHOOT YOU THE ORDER IS GIVEN NOT TO SHOOT YOU.

It's baffling, because aside from that I wouldn't call the series poorly written. Everything that's important is established early on. There's visible character development and characterization. It's a show that knows what it wants to do with the characters, and in many cases does it effectively, but sometimes it can come up with some really dumb ways of getting there.

ok, getting long. Did I like the show? Yes. Would I recommend the show? Yes. Is it perfect? Hell no. But at 13 episodes, You could do a hell of a lot worse.

Spoiler

Also, the world of Hellywood was totally the future, it says it at the beginning of like every episode.

 

[CheapJuice]

Someone please tell me my precious Parasyte is running tomorrow!?!

Anichart says 18h 48m left for Japan atleast.

 

[Jex]

VOTOMS ep2

That's why you need to watch those previews!

Xam'd 1
Too much budget? damn, everything moves. All the characters have extraneous animations, their entire body and their surroundings. This will make new anime hard to watch if it keeps up like this. I've watched a lot of garbage last year, this was much needed, maybe I saved this show for that very reason.

Only the first two episodes of Xam'd have that quality. That's it.

 

[KirbYuuYuu]

Excel Saga 12

Anemic's flavor of action really adds to things, and is probably fitting within this series. Watanabe has yet to see Anemic though, despite being so everly close by.

And a new tomboy character! Yaay

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

Anichart says 18h 48m left for Japan atleast.

Catharsis \o/
Thank you.

 

[Lafiel]

Shirobako #5

That was amazing.. Endou-san is so 7th it hurts. Love all the drama over 3D vs 2D animation, reminds me of some of the discussions that have been had at AnimeGAF in our history.

 

[Femmeworth]

Only the first two episodes of Xam'd have that quality. That's it.

All Sony paid for?

 

[Shard]

Absolute Duo Episode 1:

Right, this title doesn't feel like it was created but assembled in workman like fashion out of the cliches and tropes of a thousand anime titles that have come before it and being held together by a overwhelming helping of blandness that is the mortar of this series. It doesn't do anything particularly wrong but it lacks any sort of its own voice thus far. This is the kind of title that I can at least give a few episodes but it is also the kind of title I drop quickly once the season gets into full swing.

 

[Grexeno]

Parasyte -the maxim- Episode 9

I present to all present, the dumbest motherfucker to have ever lived.

 

[vinnygambini]

Just recently finished Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works

Sooooo goooooddddd

Best anime in years, especially in production values.

 

[jman2050]

Yuri Kuma Arashi 1

FABULOUS MAX

Ginko > that other girl

Beauty > Sexy > Cool

 

[SliceSabre]

Yuri Kuma Arashi 1

FABULOUS MAX

Ginko > that other girl

Beauty > Sexy > Cool

jman know's what's up.


~wan

 

[Shard]

Just recently finished Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works

Sooooo goooooddddd

Best anime in years, especially in production values.

I am curious how you quantify this exactly.

 

[Midonin]

KanColle's streaming time has been clarified. Tomorrow, at 1:30 PM ET.

I don't know a whole lot about this franchise beyond the massive amount of pixiv fanart it got, but this and Cinderella Girls are potentially the way of the future.

 

[MikeHattsu]

KanColle's streaming time has been clarified. Tomorrow, at 1:30 PM ET.

I don't know a whole lot about this franchise beyond the massive amount of pixiv fanart it got, but this and Cinderella Girls are potentially the way of the future.

Get ready for shipping puns.