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Winter of Anime 2013 |OT -6| How much lower can we go?!

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I doubt anyone cares other than maybe BluWacky, but since this topic came up the last time we discussed the writer, it's now confirmed that the new Fafner Exodus project is a 26 episode TV series: http://www.xebec-inc.co.jp/xebeczwei/sf_kairan20130322.html

My question is - who the fuck is paying for this shit?! :(

Was one of my favorite mechas. Hopefully funimation picks it up so I can add to my collection. Ready for more Souchi and Kazuki;.
 
Is Date A Live legitimately good or is it a guilty pleasure?
No idea. I came across it around the time of the anime announcement back in Nov 2011 and've been avoiding the LNs / manga because I'd rather wait for the anime. Really, the only reason I first began paying attention to it was Tsunako art and Kuru-- er, character designs.

What are they dating and why is there emphasis on it being alive?
this is actually the plot said:
Itsuka Shido is a high school boy. On the last day of the spring holidays, an explosion destroys the town and a girl in armor appears in front of him. Shido's sister-in-law, Kotori, tells him that the girl is called "Special Disasterous Designated Creature: Spirit", which causes a timespace quake. Kotori disclosed that she is the commander of the anti-spirit organization Ratatosk and orders him to go out on a date with the spirit girl. Kotori says, "I don't ask you to beat the spirit. Just let her fall in love with you and save the world."

Would you wear it?
Just once to rob it of its virginity.
 

Lain

Member
Oh, man... that back-to-back emission of Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon on weekdays just before school-time on Antena 3's TV morning block was legendary! Although I remember many boys admitted to just watch and talked only about Ranma, which was strange after the boom in overall popularity Sailor Moon had... prejudices, prejudices...

We had a psychologist in Italy that started a controversy about Sailor Moon being dangerous because it turned kids gay.
 

madp

The Light of El Cantare
I doubt anyone cares other than maybe BluWacky, but since this topic came up the last time we discussed the writer, it's now confirmed that the new Fafner Exodus project is a 26 episode TV series: http://www.xebec-inc.co.jp/xebeczwei/sf_kairan20130322.html

I care, because I hate myself.

We had a psychologist in Italy that started a controversy about Sailor Moon being dangerous because it turned kids gay.

That's the exact reason that my parents gave when they forbade me to watch it as a child :lol
 

Syrinx

Member
Princess Tutu 1

This show is weird as hell.

So we have our protagonist, Duck, who sounds like a duck. She seems to attend some special ballet academy, where the teacher is a catdude who will force you to marry him if you repeatedly lose focus, screw up technique, etc. She arrives early on her first day and encounters her dream upperclassman named Mytho. But there's this total dickbutt named Fakir or something like that who basically controls him, and makes sure to insult him and debase him whenever he can. Did I mention this guy is a total dickbutt?

So then Duck encounters this spiritual...thing who wants her to tell him a story. I assume this means that she's about to start a big chapter in her life where she will do magical things that will become like a story. Also there was a story about a prince and a raven mentioned in the intro. Maybe the dude has something to do with that. And there was lots of gears being set in motion, literally. So when she goes to apologize to Mytho, feeling responsible for an injury he sustained, only to see him jump out the window to save a baby canary (disobeying shitfuck Fakir, hell yeah.), she remembers who she is...PRINCESS TUTU! She's a magical girl superhero who uses powers by doing ballet techniques. She saves Mytho by producing a field of flowers for him to fall into by doing a waltz. She even does ballet techniques to move in place of walking.

So then it gets bizarre. Turns out that Duck...actually is a duck? So, Duck is now gonna spend her time both being a duck and Princess Tutu? That's...odd. Eh, I'm not sure I understand, but I probably will after another episode or two.

The OP and ED are pretty unusual in that neither is very dynamic at all. But they certainly fit with the ballet theme and are quite lovely in their own right.

Can't really say how I feel yet. That's probably gonna take another few episodes. Certainly seems interesting though I guess.
 

Articalys

Member
How many new shows does Gainax want to try to make?
Anime studio Gainax revealed at its booth at the Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) that it has plans to create a new CGI anime titled Tenshi Yohō ~Strange Weathers~ (Angel Forecast ~Strange Weathers~). Gainax producer Tomoko Saito informed ANN that the project has not been green-lit yet, and is still collecting funds.

[...]

The story takes place in a place far above the Earth called the "Light Factory." One day, the angels who are hard at work drawing at a windowsill receive an important mission from the archangel to search for the "Book of Zero." The characters are Snow, a male angel who has descended to Earth to search for the Book of Zero; Cloudy, a human girl who works as a chimney sweep who is actually a demon; and Rainy, a human girl who has fantastically-beautiful "eyes of a rabbit."
 

Ultimadrago

Member
Otona Joshi no Anime Time 2 - Life's Best Ten

10uwjfu.png
10-22ekh2.png

Left: :shinkai

Hey, I liked this. It was amusing, self-contained and a good stepping stone after recently watching a show about middle-age woman blues. Interesting how the ending revolves around
cooking
while the previous episode starts (and completely indulges itself) with it. As for my review for that one, Yuuge, it was mediocre and had a weaker angle of handling self-reflection in midst romance. It's visual style was also less than flattering. In any case, Life's Best Ten was an enjoyable 25 minutes for this evening. A middle-age woman eager to revive a younger flame from life.
 

duckroll

Member

Gainax has 6 projects at their booth. three of them are projects seeking funding, one is a stage musical, and two are movies. One of the purposes of TAF aside from showing upcoming stuff to the public, is to pitch interesting projects to various business partners who might be attending it - people from companies all over the world. That's why TAF has 2 business days and 2 public days, as opposed to just being a straight public expo.

It's pretty funny that Gainax has 6 projects lined up and 50% of them don't have funding yet though. I guess it further shows the state of the studio right now. No interesting upcoming TV series, and their biggest announcement is a vague relaunch of a project they canned 20 years ago. Lol.
 

/XX/

Member
I know I am not profilic here, but its my birthday!!!!
The catch is, I have a uni project to prepare for tomorrow! But whatever, celebrating birthdays is overrated/Cognetive Dissonance
Super-late felicitations incoming... Happy Birthday, faridmon!

Aren't the EVAs on the right still hand-drawn?
But aren't drawn by Mr. Yoshinari, that is the problem.

So should we be excited about Blue Uru if today's dead Gainax is doing it?
Don't worry! A few calls and Mr. Yamaga can bring anyone they need back again for a last ride...

Why the dream had to end? :-(
 

wonzo

Banned
Gainax has 6 projects at their booth. three of them are projects seeking funding, one is a stage musical, and two are movies. One of the purposes of TAF aside from showing upcoming stuff to the public, is to pitch interesting projects to various business partners who might be attending it - people from companies all over the world. That's why TAF has 2 business days and 2 public days, as opposed to just being a straight public expo.

It's pretty funny that Gainax has 6 projects lined up and 50% of them don't have funding yet though. I guess it further shows the state of the studio right now. No interesting upcoming TV series, and their biggest announcement is a vague relaunch of a project they canned 20 years ago. Lol.
Didn't they also announce a Wish Upon the Pleiades feature film?
 

OceanBlue

Member
Is Date A Live legitimately good or is it a guilty pleasure?
To me, it's a guilty pleasure. Maybe Date A Live is amazing and the amazingness is lost in translation, but to a reader of bad English translations like me, it's a series with cute supernatural waifus and magical powers. There's plot and an attempt at tension in each book, but they're framed in a "save the waifu" kind of way.

Also it turns out that the new To Love-Ru Darkness anime project that was teased is only another OVA. Still, good news for those who enjoy it.
More TLR is a good thing!
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
And that enviroments and the mood they created worked so well on this series, but the best thing was the background sounds and noises that accompanied the long shots of the city alleys and different other places, as those were realistic and gave a true sense of a real place ambient on many scenes. Mr. Kobayashi makes those type of scenes lively and "full" so well.
Yeah, and it's funny - because I watched them all in quick succession, the photo backgrounds sort of disappeared in my mind for the most part. I just accepted it as normal.

Of course, I've seen lots of #hipster comics do it, so it's not an entirely foreign concept to me... but to see it in animu form is something else entirely. lol

Otona Joshi no Anime Time 2 - Life's Best Ten


Hey, I liked this. It was amusing, self-contained and a good stepping stone after recently watching a show about middle-age woman blues. Interesting how the ending revolves around
cooking
while the previous episode starts (and completely indulges itself) with it. As for my review for that one, Yuuge, it was mediocre and had a weaker angle of handling self-reflection in midst romance. It's visual style was also less than flattering. In any case, Life's Best Ten was an enjoyable 25 minutes for this evening. A middle-age woman eager to revive a younger flame from life.

If you don't watch this, you should stop watching anime! #hype
 

Orlandu84

Member
I've not been watching too match anime lately, but I finally got around to watching Maoyuu 1. I have not laughed this much since Girls und Panzer! I loved almost everything about this first episode. My only question now is whether the series will continue to be this entertaining or if it will get bogged down in plot. Here's hoping for absurdity, craziness, and madness ;)
 

Defuser

Member
Chihayafuru 2 ep 11

Desktomu episode which is pretty great. It's damn amazing how observant and a genuis he is able to deduce his opponents. Truly a valuable comrade in the team.
 

/XX/

Member
Gainax has 6 projects at their booth. three of them are projects seeking funding, one is a stage musical, and two are movies. One of the purposes of TAF aside from showing upcoming stuff to the public, is to pitch interesting projects to various business partners who might be attending it - people from companies all over the world. That's why TAF has 2 business days and 2 public days, as opposed to just being a straight public expo.
And talking of TAF, did Shintarō Ishihara resignation had a visible impact on the fair? I think some publishers still boycotted last year's...
 

duckroll

Member
And talking of TAF, did Shintarō Ishihara resignation had a visible impact on the fair? I think some publishers still boycotted last year's...

There is no impact because the damage is already done. Anime Contents Expo continues to exist, and that's where all the publishers who aren't at TAF are going to be. Aniplex is still totally absent from TAF, which is the biggest deal. They're the anchor sponsor for ACE, so I doubt they'll be returning to TAF anytime soon. Especially not when they can make more money with the ticketing of stage events at ACE.
 

Syrinx

Member
Princess Tutu 2

Furries come hither.

So, Duck is a duck. But she is also Princess Tutu. So she will be a girl until she acts like a duck (i.e. say "quack" (or as Duck says it, "quock")). She has to go into water to change back to normal, but she comes out nekkid. I really hope they don't repeatedly play this for laughs, but...they probably will. Oh well, I can take it, just as long as it's genuinely funny every now and then.

An anteater girl decides to ask Mytho out to spite and hurt Rue, the beauty from the special class. Mytho says yes, because he is the prince from the story who has had his heart scattered around. So, he has no emotions and doesn't give a fuck. Oh, and that weird dude is named Drosselmeyer or something, and he was writing the story.

So Anteaterina challenges Rue to a dance-off in class to try and take her spot in the special class. She dances with Mytho. Rue dances with Duck. She likes Duck, because she tried to warn her about seeing Mytho with Anteaterina, and she thinks she's a good person.

Then Duck locates one of the parts of Mytho's heart. It is the feeling of bitterness and anger. I might be wrong on the latter, but I remember the former. The feeling sucks its way into Anteaterina, but Princess Tutu overcomes it, and does a beautiful dance with her. Or at least as beautiful as a dance can be when done with an anteater. Now, Mytho has a feeling back, and Fakir be not pleased, it appears. Is he the raven in the story? We'll see.

I like Princess Tutu's transformation sequence. It's a little short, but sometimes they go on too long, and it is very well done.

So as this goes on, it appears I'm going to have to expect the unexpected. Because the narrator says that when the prince and the raven broke off the pages of the story and came into the real world, they severed the boundary between fantasy and reality. Which is probably why we have a girl who's a duck, a girl who's an anteater, and a teacher who's a cat. There's probably gonna be some pretty far out stuff, and I'm excited to see it.
 
maoyuu maou yuusha - 11

YES !

We will see the finale between
overpowered hero & evil demon lord
animated.

I have little doubt they won't deliver on that part .

Now they better not skip on more things and keep the 2 fights + 1 battle we have left before we go toward the second act.
 
Darker than Black 4


Jesus, this was brutal. Origins and other backstory involving contracters (and those other types whose name escapes me right now) with more attention being focused on pretty much everyone who isn't Hei which seems odd for the beginning of a series. I'm enjoying myself, but I want some more focus on the main characters.
 

Nafe

Member
Heartcatch PreCure!

Episode 9


Poor Tsubomi. :(

I thought the scene was pretty effective in how it was done. At first it starts out with Tsubomi smiling and waving goodbye to her parents and you think she's a good girl. It then shows her sitting on the little porch outside by the window alone and off to the side with a big blank space on the screen and you feel a bit bad for her.

The way it continues as a sort of montage though with Tsubomi continually waving goodbye with a smile and sitting alone getting taller and growing up things start to set in. The way the shot goes back to the door slowly closing more and more before finally closing adds to it as well. Then you finally see Tsubomi sitting alone and watching the baby birds with their mother before finally breaking down and crying. I didn't cry but that whole scene I thought was pretty well done and worked for me anyway.

I checked who the episode director for this episode was and it's Munehisa Sakai. He also apparently directed episode 19 of Smile PreCure!, which is the one that deals with Yayoi and her father. He also directed episode 27, which deals with the girls visiting Miyuki's grandmother. Episode 41, which was the final Yayoi centric episode, was the third and final Smile PreCure! episode he directed. He seems to be pretty good at the more sentimental stories or those dealing with family. I wonder if he's just kind of a fan of those types of stories?

The fight was good again this episode with some interesting shots used here and there. The stock footage of the girls transforming and their attacks is so well done as well that I really don't mind watching them over and over again in this show.

Next episode has Umakoshi! Comments coming up.
 

OceanBlue

Member
Mock me if you will, but I've been looking into the possibility of doing a masters in Japanese Studies (my linguistic skills aren't strong enough to do one in straight literature, although my proposed primary focus would be on Japanese classical theatre such as noh, joruri, kabuki etc.)

The course I'm looking at offers a module on "Japanese Transnational Cinema: from Kurosawa to Asia Extreme and Studio Ghibli". I know nothing of media studies courses so I don't know if this is a particularly "standard" kind of thing - it seems like jolly good fun to watch a bunch of films and think about their international audiences, but not something I'd usually think of as particularly academic (yup, I'm a big snob).

Anyway, the particular statement it makes on the Ghibli part is as follows:

The internationalisation is clarified further:

Feel free to mock me for taking this seriously, but this seems like a severely limited view of Ghibli's output. While you might argue that the character art of Ghibli films, like virtually all anime, isn't specifically Japanese, I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that any of Takahata's output for the studio is "stateless", as so much of it deals specifically with Japanese experience or mythology (Grave of the Fireflies, Pon Poko, and the forthcoming Kaguya-hime spring to mind). I think you'd even be hard pushed to say that something like Spirited Away is "stateless", although its fantasy storytelling is perhaps more universal than something like Grave of the Fireflies. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what mukokuseki is.

Anyway, I thought this was interesting because it seems so narrowly focused on the one part of the anime movie industry that really has any kind of "internationalisation" (although the course does, of course, cover Akira, which Hiroki Azuma once claimed didn't count as anime!). I guess one could say that Hosoda's film work is similar in its broad appeal, but I don't detect any particular de-emphasis of the Japanese experience in his films (Summer Wars in particular).
I was going to reply to this earlier but I had class, and then I forgot. :V

I have a feeling that the class is concerned less with studying Japanese movies in general and more about using them to contextualize the idea of mukokuseki.

I'm reading through the sample of the book, and it seems that the argument around mukokuseki acknowledges that Japanese culture still finds its way into internationalized works. It's true that the argument for the stateless nature of mukokuseki animation is superficial, but I think an interesting aspect of the conversation is the idea that the popular mukokuseki animation reinterprets Western cultural influences in a Japanese way and presents it to an Asian and Western audience. This blog raises a good point in that the anime style is influenced by Disney works, and the book itself mentions this:

"Such mukokuseki Japanese popular culture, Honda argues, unlike traditional images of Japanese culture and society, have a cosmopolitan appeal that articulates 'a sharp break from the traditional, prewar image,' and they will lead to '[erasing] the old, oppressive image of the country, especially among the younger generation'."

In this context, I wouldn't say that Ghibli movies aren't Japanese. I would say, rather, that Japanese culture might be scaled back to provide a more international appeal, and that is what these people are looking at.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I do agree with you that, in general, Ghibli incorporates a lot of Japanese culture. That being said, I think the idea of mukokuseki is interesting, and the book seems to be analyzing it in a larger scope than, "Is popular culture losing its Japanese identity?" It seems to also look at the idea of an authentic Japan and how mukokuseki might be used to promote Japanese interests. Here's the link to the sample of the book. I'd definitely find the professor in charge of the class and see if I could have a discussion on it if I were you. At the very least, you can see if the class interests you.

Stuff being bannable has never stopped you before.

damn, lol
 

Nafe

Member
Heartcatch PreCure!

Episode 10

hwvynsL.jpg


I suppose as is to be expected of an episode that has Umakoshi working on it, the art and animation in this episode were really well done and I think pretty much never really had many off looking moments. This episode also focuses more on the main story of the show so it was interesting narrative speaking as well.

Sasorina seems to have gotten the type of Team Rocket from Pokemon treatment where she doesn't really feel like much of a threatening villain anymore and comes across as more of the comic relief type. I suppose one could say Kumojacky and Cobraja contain elements of that lightheartedness as well but they still come across like they are competent enough antagonists that could pose a danger, whereas Sasorina really just comes across as full on comedy to me.

I don't recall her name being mentioned in the first episode but I suppose because she has a darker outfit and she called out the word "Dark" before her attacks as well as seemingly being set up as the,or one of the, antagonists, I believe I just called her Dark PreCure and it turns out that actually is her name. Maybe a bit cliché but appropriate enough given how her character seems to be getting established in the narrative. She has that cool bad guy demeanor and is strong while promoting a bit of mystery about her so she makes for an intriguing character. Not really important but how does she fly with only one wing anyway?

To go along with what I mentioned about Sasorina earlier, for an episode that was darker and more serious in tone it still managed to deliver on the funny moments and amusing facial expressions as well. It's also interesting how the show seems to keep around or have small cameos from the side characters and their stories from previous episodes such as the soccer (football whatever) girl.

The battle in the latter part of the episode was well animated but I was hoping for more of a fight with Dark PreCure. I suppose maybe it was to show how she's on a much higher level than the girls and they wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight anyway. Erika's fighting style sure was interesting though, haha.

Oh yeah, just as a minor quick side note, I think the title screen for this episode was shown much later than usual as well.

A pretty good episode overall and I have to agree with Dark PreCure that that little bit at the ending was omoshiroi...
 
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