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Winter Anime 2017 |OT| John Wick cleaning up KyoAni's mess

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Narag

Member
Myriad Colors Phantom World 11

Mai's done little to make me think she could carry an ep as the pov character and this one showed me she cannot.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
the MC's friend is the younger brother of one of the amagami cast
What a tangential relationship. lol

Also, there's another all girls bike anime this season. Did biking just become popular all of a sudden?

I don't think there is a game, but there's probably a manga and a bunch of transmedia stuff,
I wonder if no one cared about PhotoKano so they just decided to explicitly reproduce Amagami without bothering with the game part.
 
What a tangential relationship. lol

Also, there's another all girls bike anime this season. Did biking just become popular all of a sudden?

There does seem to have been a boom in biking/cycling anime adaptations.
I wonder if no one cared about PhotoKano so they just decided to explicitly reproduce Amagami without bothering with the game part.
Games are way more expensive to make than the rest of it.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Biking was probably popular about a year ago I guess if that's when they greenlit stuff
Given that biking seems so ubiquitous, at least in anime, it seems kind of funny that the idea of bike racing seems to have only been popular recently. Or maybe there's been tons of bike manga but non of them have been adapted until now.

There does seem to have been a boom in biking/cycling anime adaptations.
Heh. It's so formulaic now that I think anyone with any talent should be able to get a manga in a magazine if they really wanted to.
1) become obsessive of some niche hobby
2) develop a cast of girls ripped from tvtropes
3a) create mono no aware-esque story line about moving on from adolescence, personal growth, and self-empowerment to appeal to the nostalgic crowd
3b) create situations in which the girls do generically fanservicey things to the purely otaku crowd
3c) create situations which include both 3a and 3b.
4) mix 1, 2, and 3.
5) wait for anime adaptation and profit.

I guess it's just a matter of finding the right hobby to base your new property on. But if they could make an anime about yosakoi, you can make an anime about anything.

Games are way more expensive to make than the rest of it.
It's just interesting to see the evolution of the industry - going from adaptations to VNs to just skipping the VN stage entirely. I guess if you just want to tell simple romcom stories involving high school students, there's no reason to bother with making a game unless you think it'll sell gangbusters.
I wonder if dating sim games are even popular anymore after Love Plus flamed out and become irrelevant.
 

Narag

Member
Aikatsu 3
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Turns out aiming for the top of the idol world requires hard work and guts.
 

dimb

Bjergsen is the greatest midlane in the world
They didn't fix the sound design in Rakugo and Yakumo's put on old man voice is comically bad at times. Good episode but season two really has its work cut out for it. If Konatsu and Yotarou are taking bigger roles there needs to be more insight into who they are as people and what sort of backgrounds they have. Right now all of the characters, including Yotarou, are fairly guarded. I think it will be hard to crack them open in the right way. I don't think Yakumo can find an emotional peak comparable to what has already happened in his life, and Konatsu and Yotarou still don't seem like great main characters.
 

Jintor

Member
Heh. It's so formulaic now that I think anyone with any talent should be able to get a manga in a magazine if they really wanted to.
1) become obsessive of some niche hobby
2) develop a cast of girls ripped from tvtropes
3a) create mono no aware-esque story line about moving on from adolescence, personal growth, and self-empowerment to appeal to the nostalgic crowd
3b) create situations in which the girls do generically fanservicey things to the purely otaku crowd
3c) create situations which include both 3a and 3b.
4) mix 1, 2, and 3.
5) wait for anime adaptation and profit.

Okay, so our niche hobby = posting on an internet forum and criticising anime. Now who's our cast?

Let's finally make that cash money anime!!!
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Okay, so our niche hobby = posting on an internet forum and criticising anime. Now who's our cast?

Let's finally make that cash money anime!!!

1) posting about anime on the internet
2) shy lonely girl who has no friends, effervescent popular girl who loves anime but doesn't want to be outed as otaku, brash tsundere girl who likes to troll people
3) shy lonely girl is unable to make any connections in real life, so turns to 2ch to look for friends. eventually she hooks up with the other two, who happen to be in the same high school as her, and they laugh as they realize that they can have the same conversations in person as they do online

Done!
 

Just T

Member
Ajin: 23-25

Nice string of episodes, Kei finally motivated again and the reunion he had was short but straight. Took Satou group too long to fully realize he don't care about them but at least they finally did. Kei's plan was simple but effective. However, Satou of course ain't going down easy.
 
Seiren Episode 1:

Apparently it's the sequel to Amagami SS. Set in the same high school just a few years later. Supporting male character Ikuo Nanasaki is the little brother of Ai Nanasaki -- one of the heroines from Amagami SS. Pretty good first ep so far. If you like Amagami SS, this first episode pretty much follows the formula but with better pacing.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Seiren Episode 1:

Apparently it's the sequel to Amagami SS. Set in the same high school just a few years later. Supporting male character Ikuo Nanasaki is the little brother of Ai Nanasaki -- one of the heroines from Amagami SS. Pretty good first ep so far. If you like Amagami SS, this first episode pretty much follows the formula but with better pacing.
It's about a decade later. I guess I never noticed, but Amagami was sit in the mid-90s. Funny, if it was an American show, they'd keep making Tupaq, Space Jam and Tomogachi references like a certain show on TV right now. lol
 

dimb

Bjergsen is the greatest midlane in the world
Doubt that, I'm like 90% sure he's gonna try (or succeed) suicide
I mean...on its own that does not mean very much, and I haven't seen anything that would indicate things proceeding in this direction. The end of the first season was highly romanticized as sort of its own rakugo-esque story. Yakumo needs to have strong ties to new characters to hit another emotional peak but that will be difficult when Konatsu and Yotarou are only defined by the shoes they are trying to fill. I'm sure the show will comment on this at some point but getting around it is another matter.
 
It's about a decade later. I guess I never noticed, but Amagami was sit in the mid-90s. Funny, if it was an American show, they'd keep making Tupaq, Space Jam and Tomogachi references like a certain show on TV right now. lol

ware ware JOHNNY BRAVO

Watashiwa, MOON SHOES MOON SHOES JUMP UP AND DOWN LIKE A KANGAROO?
 

Jintor

Member
Toradora 14 -rewatch-

We're back to wacky hijinks for the first bit as we release the tension from the last arc's emotional rollercoaster ride. Not much to say other than Ami and Taiga's interactions continue to be basically the best.

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Seriously Ami feels comfortable enough with Taiga to just straight up feuding with her in front of the rest of the class at this point, even if it's to try and dismiss the dumb rumour. Adorable.

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Taiga casually cleaning her finger on Ami's skirt speaks to a hilariously close, if vaguely antagonistic, relationship.

Anyway hijinks ensue for a bit, rumours about touching Taiga bringing luck etc etc, Taiga is happy to be less nervous around Kitamura, more pointless sensei-baiting about being single and 30. Taiga rubs a lot of the rumours about her and Kitamura in Ryuuji's face before Ryuuji wanders outside, happy with the 'status quo' situation.

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This shot isn't technically important in the scheme of things, but I really like it; the voice acting makes it clear that it's real Ami here responding, quite naturally, to Ryuuji's greeting.

Despite their earlier play-fighting, Ami pouts when she hears that Ryuuji is bending to Taiga's childish wants, and passive-aggressively sabotages Ryuuji's vending machine choice before strolling off.

There's some back and forth as Taiga threatens some no-name student who wants a favour and Ryuuji reflects on the fact that Taiga is still always with him, before they go and choose photos from the culture festival they want prints of. Ryuuji, as usual, thinks he knows what's going through Taiga's head (despite the last arc, though perhaps excusably, since she's been gloating about the Kitamura rumours to him all morning)

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We're not entirely sure what's going through Taiga's head here, but she seems to come to a satisfied realisation. Notably we don't get to see the pictures she chooses.

Minorin challenges Ryuuji to show her his pictures using a convoluted Yugioh metaphor which I'm still not sure is because she doesn't want to be direct about it (given that she's direct about it immediately after) or because she is, at heart, a weirdo. The first she gets is 85 (which, rather inexplicably, is a still frame from the last episode - at least it's a camera shot that is possible to get)

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Ryuuji's still embarassed, but oddly enough, so is Minorin. She tries to cover, but the silence hangs in the air a little too long.

The side conversation about buying pictures of the girl you like is super on the nose, but when Ami walks up behind Minorin to offer a little advice, she covers 85 with her thumb and tries to deflect the advice by switching her facade straight to genki-mode. Ami seems a little taken aback. Recognising something of herself there? Ami even takes the time afterwards to offer Yuri-sensei a little reassurance, for which Yuri-sensei calls her a 'nice girl'.

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Does she want to be seen more as an adult? Or is she sick of it?

Ryuuji and Taiga talk outside the school while random side character again irritates her, leading to Kitamura and StuCoPres talking. Kitamura, again, looks uncharacteristically nervous.

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A cloud passes over the sun as soon as the President says this, and the shot doesn't even center on Kitamura.

Back to Ami for a bit as Ami's friends talk about how jealous they are of Ami's adult-ness, before Ami sees an opportunity to tease Ryuuji again.

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Most of the shots in this sequence have the two of them fairly close, but...

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When Ryuuji makes it clear he's still thinking of Taiga, Ami steps away.

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Yet when Ryuuji reveals he's still paying attention to Ami, she blushes and stutters (the blush is incredibly subtle). Mixed messages?

The soft, gentle piano melody that signifies relationship stuff is happening kicks in as Ami reflects on the differences between children and adults. Meanwhile, Taiga finds Kitamura looking - as before - uncharacteristically lost.

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A nice slow panning shot here. The afternoon lighting is as glorious as it is in real life Japan, by the way.

Kitamura reaches out and touches Taiga's hand in a brief moment of weakness, but surprisingly Taiga doesn't freak out. She realises it's about the StuCoPres by the way he reacts to an offhand mention, and offers her luck to him, but he smilingly rejects it.

When Taiga gets home, she finds that Ryuuji has cooked more than usual. Ryuuji carelessly mentions her dad, and apologises immediately, but Taiga pretends she doesn't give a shit - I feel like part of the theme of this episode is regression, back to where we were before. Taiga is attempting to deny that anything has changed over the past arc. Ya-chan's having none of it.

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Ya-chan isn't the stereotypical ideal of a Japanese mother, but she's most definitely a good parent, especially compared to Taiga's skeezeball father.

For the first time, everyone but Taiga share some narration about Taiga's rumoured luck, as Ami tells her parents that she's staying, looking at the hand that she rubbed Taiga's head with earlier. Minorin and Kitamura, looking unsure and unhappy, join in too.

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An admission to herself?

Sounds of a happy family and a lingering shot of one of the show's cherry-blossom petal motifs as we fade into credits.

This episode has no real conflict, but sets the ground for the next few episodes. A breather of sorts.
 
Aikatsu! 1:

Yeah, I think I'll like this. Fun opening episode. Ichigo is a good protagonist (and apparently I like hair bands?). Aoi winks. The performance at the end of the episode was just the right kind of ridiculous for my tastes. I can see myself having fun with this series and the characters.
 

MSMrRound

Member
Don't know if this was mentioned but Akiba's Trip reunites Nagaku Yuki, Kouno Marika and Takahashi Rie as the main heroines and they even perform the opening as Earphones, the unit they formed in Sore ga Seiyuu. :D

Well...given Akiba's Trip is being animated by the same team that did Sore Ga Seiyuu...there's also the figurines easter egg in the fight scene in case anyone missed it: https://twitter.com/An_ca_te/status/816687396389584896
 

JulianImp

Member
Myriad Colors Phantom World 11

Mai's done little to make me think she could carry an ep as the pov character and this one showed me she cannot.

She'll always be Mayonnaise-san to me.

And yeah, that show sucked pretty hard at anything but looking good, IMO.
 
So a big talking point this season will be about how atrocious the character designs for Youjo Senki are and I briefly want to talk about it, partially because I have a differing opinion on this to a slight extent. I think Tanya looks fine, actually sort of good, from a character design aspect. I do prefer the LN designs but there is no world where the designs could look like that and be animated well.

She doesn't look anywhere near as bad as those atrocious magazine scans and key visuals would indicate. I have no clue what the fuck was going on there nor why nobody stepped in. Tanya in the anime does stick out from the rest of the subcast from a design perspective as the generals and soldiers are depicted as regular WWI grunts while she's designed to look cute and like a little girl. There is a sort of dichotomy but it's obviously intentional and serves to make her striking compared to everybody else. This is probably the worst she looks due to whoever was the animator not drawing regular curved lines for her lips:

The problem isn't with Tanya. It's with Visha (I had to just look her name up now). Visha is the one who looks absolutely fucking terrible. It's like Yuji Hosogoe, the character designer, did Tanya's design first and tried to make Visha in a similar style but completely failed. While both characters have large eyes, the shape of Visha's make her look dopey and alien.

The eyelashes look stupid and upside down. Also due to the shape of VIsha's eyes, the whites in the scelera are more prominent. Not to mention she doesn't have clearly defined pupils like Tanya. It's not just the eyes too.

The lips don't work nearly as well as they do on Tanya, partially due to the eye design. Visha's design goes beyond distracting. It's worthy of being put into the pantheon of legendary shitty CDs Hall of Fame, alongside whoever did those damn Alderamin designs. It's a shame too as the rest of the designs are fine, even if they're a little boring.

According to 4chan because character designer worked too much Touken Ranbu and forget how to draw normal female lol.
He can draw simple "moe feeling"(first picture) characters...in 2 years ago.
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TUSR

Banned
Streaming times updated:

All Simulcast times are listed as UTC+00:00


Monday
16:00 Gabriel DropOut
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Tuesday
16:00 ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.
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16:30 Ai-Mai-Mi Surgical Friends
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18:00 Hand Shakers
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19:05 Kemono Friends
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Wednesday
14:00 Akiba's Trip The Animation
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16:30 Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid
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17:00 CHAOS;CHILD
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Thursday
16:00 Masamune-kun's Revenge
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16:40 Koro Sensei Quest!
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Friday
15:30 Saga of Tanya the Evil
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13:30 FOREST FAIRY FIVE
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16:30 Fuuka
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17:00 Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club
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17:30 Schoolgirl Strikers: Animation Channel
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18:30 Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Impure King Arc
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20:45 Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen
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Saturday
6:00 Seiren
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14:30 Spiritpact
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16:00 Rewrite: Moon and Terra
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17:30 Interviews With Monster Girls
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Sunday
16:30 Idol Incidents
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17:00 ēlDLIVE
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17:30 Nyanko Days
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19:35 Gintama.
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TBD Chain Chronicle: The Light of Haecceita
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- Crunchyroll
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- Funimation
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- Daisuki
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- Amazon Prime
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- The Anime Network
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- Netflix
 

JulianImp

Member
It has its moments when it strays into absurdity.

The earlier episodes, which apparently were anime-only, were some generic phantom of the week thing. That would've been okay in most cases, but here it meant something more along the lines of "fetish of the week", all while the character development was kept to a minimum, leading to me not giving a damn about the cast by the time the show began attempting to build some semblance of a plot in the later half of the cour.

It also didn't help that the antagonist kind of came from nowhere and presented us with a doppleganger phantom who would make out with girls and boys alike to steal their abilities, and only got defeated because of some deus ex machina nonsense where the MC was given an eleventh-hour superpower and was the only one who even stood a chance against her.

Dunno... while I can appreciate Cross Ange for the awful show it is or Gakuen HxH for its tasteless smut, MCPW never really clicked with me despite having KyoAni visuals.
 

Jintor

Member
Toradora 15 -Rewatch-

We begin this episode with some sexual innuendo. "Oh, it's so big!" says one of Ami's surface-level friends.

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Kitamura acting dour and out of character is both showing his current status and the setup for some good slapstick! Score!

We see that Kitamura is totally out of it, and it's linked to the Student Council President somehow. He then basically breaks down in class. Cue opening credits!

Kitamura shows up the next day with dyed yellow hair (in another context it'd be a dramatic haircut, but Kitamura doesn't really have any hair to cut, so...) and Ryuuji, Ami and Pres are called in to deal with it. Ryuuji is confused, Ami laughs it off and the President pretends not to give a shit.

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Loud enough for Kitamura to hear...

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Although they look visually similar, Ami and Kano are very different personalities. Ami's reaction confirms that she does give a crap, though.

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Probably not a coincidence we're looking up at the Pres here and that she's looking back.

Back in class, Minorin hauls in Haruka for telling Kitamura how to bleach his hair, while Ami... also pretends not to give a shit.

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Notably this is the first time she's been a straight out-and-out mean girl to anyone who isn't Taiga, at least in front of her lackies. They take it surprisingly well.

Kitamura runs off, prompting Ami to cut straight to the heart of the matter before turning to fill Kitamura's role in his absence.

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Ami, after all, prefers to hide her pain beneath a facade.

Taiga mentions firstly that she still thinks she's not close enough to Kitamura to help, and that she suspects (well, knows) that the President is at the heart of the matter. So Minorin and Ryuuji head to Kitamura's. Along the way, Minorin says she thinks that Ami is more mature than them and knows more about how people work then they do, which is why she was harsher to Kitamura than they'd think. She also refers, indirectly, to Ami's comments about photos just being photos.

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The lighting is almost romantic, but Minorin's eyes are empty and her face is in shadow.

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The facade goes back up; she's revealed too much of herself to Ryuuji. Note the zoom out, deleting her expression except in the most cartoonish of terms.

It's fascinating how similar she is to Ami, but unlike Ami, she can't take that last step of revealing herself. When Ryuuji calls her kind-

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Frustration that Ryuuji can't see her own self-loathing? The events of the Cultural Festival still weighing on her mind?

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Again with the eyes-hiding. Japan is lucky it has all those rivers to have these powerful emotional outbursts next to all the time.

Oh yeah also Kitamura ran away from home straight to Ryuuji's house. Taiga begins to revert back to nervous-mode, her sanctuary invaded, but Kitamura as usual is flippant about it.

The two of them feed him, Taiga nervous all the time, but we feel like Kitamura is happy to rely on the two of them. It's a testament to the friendship between Kitamura and Ryuuji that without any buildup, Ryuuji can straight up ask him what's up and Kitamura gives him a non-bullshit answer. He doesn't want to be President - the stress, the expectations. Taiga supports him, and then attempts to divert his attention back to just having fun.

We timeskip a little to find him asleep...

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I don't think I understood this shot the first time I saw it; he's cried himself to sleep.

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Taiga takes it badly.

Taiga's revelation here parallel's Ryuuji's earlier one; that sometimes you can't help people directly, and that sometimes, you can't even see that someone is suffering until the pain occurs. Ryuuji's reaction, to show his support of her revalation, is to enfold her.

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An understated way of showing support.

They have a brief conversation about stars and the distance between them. Hmm, more of a Shinkai motif, don't you think? Perhaps generically Japanese.

And then some slapstick to break up the serious stuff. Probably the first time we've seen Yu-chan mad. They head to a batting centre...

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A 1 or 2 second shot, but an important one; Kitamura encaged, tense, not just from the batting. Emotional therapy, like Taiga kicking the shit out of the lampost. Like then, too, Taiga steps up in an act of... camraderie? To show that she's by his side.

When they get home Yu-chan tries to dye Kitamura's hair and he flips the fuck out, knocking over Taiga and Ryuuji before running away again (there's a revisit to the adults/children theme which has been dominant this arc as Kitamura claims adults are all the same). Ryuuji and Taiga briefly discuss that nothing can change unless Kitamura decides to change, and decide to give him a push - by giving him competition for the election.

Even two-thirds of the way through the arc it's difficult to see what exactly it's there for, but it's clearer on a rewatch. It's playing on foreshadowing laid out earlier in the series, but because it doesn't explicitly refer to it, it's difficult to see it as anything other than Kitamura suddenly snapping. It's a setup for Taiga realising that though she thought she was close to Kitamura, like the stars, she's still very far away. That said, this episode is still difficult to watch, with an unclear logline.
 

KraytarJ

Member
She'll always be Mayonnaise-san to me.

And yeah, that show sucked pretty hard at anything but looking good, IMO.
I don't think I remember a single plot point of that entire series. The only thing I remember are the little world-building segments the MC (I have no idea what he? even looks like anymore) and that fairy thing did. It was a neat idea, it's just too bad the series was so dull.
 

Joe Molotov

Member
I don't think I remember a single plot point of that entire series. The only thing I remember are the little world-building segments the MC (I have no idea what he? even looks like anymore) and that fairy thing did. It was a neat idea, it's just too bad the series was so dull.

I remember there was limbo and questionable breast physics.
 

Narag

Member
I remember there was limbo and questionable breast physics.

Yeah ultimately it'll be remembered for the weird shit and little of the actual episode content.
Stuff like:
  • ruru's full name
  • titty limbo
  • rabbit family
  • cat girl ep

I like the show but it's still very disposable.
 

Izayoi

Banned
Why is some Funimation stuff proprietary and others not? Guess I'm gonna do the 14 day trial and marathon Space Dandy.

1) posting about anime on the internet
2) shy lonely girl who has no friends, effervescent popular girl who loves anime but doesn't want to be outed as otaku, brash tsundere girl who likes to troll people
3) shy lonely girl is unable to make any connections in real life, so turns to 2ch to look for friends. eventually she hooks up with the other two, who happen to be in the same high school as her, and they laugh as they realize that they can have the same conversations in person as they do online

Done!
No, no. I don't think he was asking for your own personal fantasy, firehawk.
 
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