Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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An1fr3ak
 Posts: 235 Location: Australia |
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Would you recommend it?? I have yet to find someone who spoke about Solty Rei until now  ... I have always wanted to watch it but I remain undecided for three years now )... I also just sorta forgot about it until you just mentioned it ^^"
P.S. - All Ef romance scenes evoke emotion whether you want it to or not i guess.... thats the beauty of the anime in the end 
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thegoanna
Posts: 35 Location: Roxby Downs, Australia |
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No Japan import from BestBuyAnime, American company I believe, never used them before, no dub just sub, still love the show.. 
PS as I am half deaf any way, I watch subtitles in pretty well anything I watch including TV if it has captions so sub never an issue to me.
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Well, it looks like we're about 2/3 of the way through the current season. Here's what I've been watching.
Phi Brain Dropped after three episodes. Now really, what is the point of making a show about puzzles and then not even showing us how they're solved? Without that it's basically just the usual Shounen stuff but instead of any kind of actual conflict or competition it's just somebody going "Oh a puzzle!" ... "Okay, I solved it!" The end. Boring. Un-go Dropped after five episodes. Extremely poor execution. It's mostly all totally episodic so generally the first half of every episode is just one big info dump to establish the players. Once the murder does finally happen there's next to no time to actually resolve it. Everything is extremely rushed. It's about 90% exposition. There's really very little actual investigating or anything. Rather, it's just everyone standing in a circle and taking turns giving their own expositional speech (forcibly via Inga where required) until we're told what happened and why (It usually relates to the war or the government or something). This is another major problem by the way: A serious lack of world building. So far, all the episodes have been directly tied to this unique world the show takes place in and yet, we really haven't gotten a coherent picture of what kind of world it is. There's a lot of really vague rambling about this aforementioned war and there seems to be some kind of vaguely totalitarian government or something. Oh and there are perfectly lifelike robots. Again, it's all wildly unclear and as a result the whole show is just incoherent. At no point is it even slightly intriguing. Same goes for the characters. Shinjuro is utterly devoid of a personality. Inga is just annoying. We never really learn what the hell he is exactly. (There's this really weird info dump in episode 5 where another character just kinda offhandedly mentions that spoiler[he's "haunting" Shinjuro in exchange for not killing people or something]). The girl seems like nothing but an empty "fujoshi self insert" shell character. I don't even know what that other detective's deal is or why he's around. Persona 4 Dropped after six episodes. Eh...I don't know. It's okay I guess. Pretty stylish. Pretty polished. Honestly though, just forget this and play the game. That's basically what they seem to be telling you. This is one of the most fanwanky adaptations I've seen in a while. It just seems like they're more concerned with speeding through every single thing so the fans can check it off their list rather than actually creating a solid adaptation that works on it's own. The show is frequently rushed. I mean, even the battles. There's basically no buildup. They just fly right in there and fight the boss and it only lasts like a couple minutes. Even the bloody monsters which they made a big deal over don't really matter. They're all basically interchangeable and just pop in for a second to launch an attack. In terms of the rest, it's not much better. It has this annoying habit of showing you like five different little ten second scenes one after another. (And the frustrating thing is that half of them could easily be combined if their almost compulsive obsession with having things happen exactly as in the game). The main character is rather problematic too. Sorry but you can't just take a silent, self insert video game main character and stick him in a TV adaptation. It just doesn't work. I mean, it's one thing for him to be bland. As it is though, he's almost freakishly quiet. I literally have no bloody idea what he's like. He has no personality. Sorry but that's something that needs to change. I also wish they'd just drop all this Velvet room and/or social link stuff too. I didn't mind it in the game as a sort of semi-fourth wall breaking framing device. Seems a bit silly when applied literally to the plot of a show though and it's not really necessary either. The execution is also pretty poor so far. I mean, social links work in the game because they're side plots. They don't just pull you away from the main game and push you through an entire social link. You work away at them bit by bit and jump from one to another. When they just lump one all into a single episode it just feels like filler. So overall, I don't know. It's still not a bad show. It's just a really pointless adaptation that there's no reason to watch. Guilty Crown Production values are very sleek. Everything else is kinda shit. It's not even a "good looking" show exactly because despite the high production values the art design is pretty bad. Inori's costume is absurd and out of place in an otherwise fairly realistic world. The rest of the show, from the main character to the robots, is tremendously bland and uninspired. The main character is just awful. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Why isn't Gai the main character? Gai apparently murders people with his bare hands at the drop of a hat and is suave as fudge. He's basically a young, Japanese James Bond. Of course, that's literally all we know about him right now. Anyway, there isn't much in the way of other characters right now. The others are all one note fetishes or cliches. His "mom" is just creepy. I don't know what the hell is going on there. The worst of the bunch would have to be Inori. This girl is not just distant. She's utterly blank. She's basically a glorified sex doll that Gai dangles in front of Shu to control him. Frankly it comes off like she isn't even aware of Shu which makes it really pathetic to watch as he desperately projects a relationship that simply doesn't exist. The plot is...well actually there is no plot. So far every episode has pretty much just been a bunch of running around chasing some random maguffin. In a larger sense, they never really establish the premise or give the slightest motivation to the characters. We get a brief monologue about how foreign powers are now running Japan. Apparently there was a virus or something and they provided aide and then somehow wound up running the country. I suppose it's at least potentially better that "evil gaijin forcibly take over Japan just because" although in the short term it's just mystifying and, as I said earlier, gives the viewer zero reason to assume, as the show seems to, that these guys are bad. As it happens, they do later randomly slaughter an entire district of people for no apparent reason. That at least gives us a clear reason to think they're the bad guys although also really just pushes them into "absurdly evil just because" territory. That in turn though totally undermines their later efforts when Shu is trying to decide who's actually the bad guy is. Also, the show pretty much manages to jump the shark every second episode. Oh, and perhaps the worst sin this show commits? It still manages to be a [expletive] highschool show half the time. Cause who wants to see giant robots and insane freedom fighters when you could have the usual boring high school bullshit. All that said I'm actually still watching this show. It's basically well paced enough that I can just go ahead and zone out through the first half of every episode and all the bullshit and then watch the last fifteen minutes of lovely big explosions. Future Diary Yeah, a pretty decent show overall and my favourite of the season so far. Very neat concept. Great music. Effective atmosphere. The core characters are pretty good. Yuki kind of falls into the bland and ineffectual lead rut, but he takes the whole crazy loner thing to such an extreme that I don't mind too much. Same goes for Yuno who works largely because she is, clearly, completely bonkers. The dynamic between the two is also great in the show's own horrific way. Keigo seems interesting too. I'd like to see more of him. He kinda pops in early on and then totally disappears from the show afterwards. The show has an unfortunate tendency to dip into awful high school/ecchi cliches occasionally but that's the exception more than the rule and it's often justified by the payoff of the inevitable horrible twists it often leads to. The biggest problem with this show though is that it does unfortunately trend toward the silly. Pretty much every one off character is gonna have some sort of crazy gimmick. To some degree that's okay although for a show this dark there's definitely a limit. As a result, mostly it definitely lapses into terrible on a couple occasions. Minene's episode is probably the worst. Utterly ridiculous and over the top. Episode 7 is also a problem. Just a silly character that makes no sense and is never really explained. More often than not though this show is quite enjoyable. Still haven't started on Fate/Zero but I probably will now that I'm watching less other stuff. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6525 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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@ thegoanna,
How long did it take? I ordered an anime from Amazon Japan and it was delivered to my door in two working days. The shipping was expensive, though. Usagi Drop is one of my top three from 2011. I'll wait for the Siren Visual release in Feb. Natsume's Book of Friends (season 1) I watched this because it's available in Australia on Crunchyroll and it's helmed by one of my favourite directors, Takahiro Omori. In case you're wondering who he is, amongst his credits are Koi Kaze, Baccano!, Durarara!!, Hell Girl and (though I've yet to see it) Princess Jellyfish. That's a pretty impressive CV for an anime director. The episodic nature of the series and the fantastical milieu reminded me strongly of both Mushi-Shi and Kino's Journey. It's lightearted tone and generous sentimentaliy prevent it from achieving the depth and grandeur of either of those two but it is warmer and more emotionally engaging than the latter. (One major difference: in the older series the protagonists had their encounters while travelling; here the spirits mostly come to Natsume.) I liked Natsume as a character. Although generally good-natured he wasn't above showing some very human irritability and, understandably on occasions, presented a cold shoulder to both humans and spirits. Poor class president, Jun Sasada, deserved better at times. It made for a well-rounded and believable character, especially in the way he treated the spirits more kindly through the course of the series as he came to understand that they were as troubled and as flawed as any human, and that he had he wherewithal to help them. I agree with the general tenet that the ability to help imposes a responsibility to help, something that has been lost in our modern world of self sufficiency and personal responsibility. The designs and personalities of the spirits - particularly Natsume's bodyguard, irritant and friend Nyanko-san - are cute and jolly and consequently rarely threatening. This is both good and bad. They enhance the indomitable and optimistic spirit of the series but there is a general lack of tension. It makes up for this lack with humour and sentimentality, although the humour can be too often trite or slapstick. I didn't mind the sentimentality - the dilemmas of the spirits were quite moving at times. Takahiro Omori has continued to work with many of the same people over the years. One under-acknowledged collaborator is composer Makoto Yoshimori. Here he abandons the more upbeat numbers of Baccano! and Durarara!!, returning to the more plaintively melodic style of Koi Kaze. The music always suits and enhances the feel of the series. Yoshimori is a composer who is particurlarly sensitive to the work he is embellishing and doesn't impose his sound on a series in the way, say, composers like Kenji Kawai or Yuki Kajiura are apt to do. A couple of episodes towards the end were weaker (11 and 13) so that the season kind of petered out for me. Perhaps I should see it as just part of a much longer series - a fourth season has been announced - rather than a stand alone series. However, I don't intend to watch any more of the franchise because I'm totally pissed off with Aniplex and their marketing policies. I am quite disinclined to line their pockets, however little my streaming on Crunchyroll adds to their bottom line. With so much anime available on-line via legal streaming, I'm not really sacrificing much. Rating: very good. Last edited by Errinundra on Wed Dec 07, 2011 10:46 am; edited 2 times in total |
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dirkusbirkus
 Posts: 699 Location: Manchester, UK |
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... Mostly. The art design isn't bad, if you've got an issue with a character's outfit, then that's down to character design. The art, including the backdrops, is pretty damned good, as you've pointed out. I can find a lot of faults within Guilty Crown but the art is not one of them. The actual characterisation most certainly is. I don't think Inori is quite as wooden as you're making out, during every battle scene she displays a veritable spectrum of emotion, and she even shouts Shu's name once or twice. I know, I was surprised too! All joking aside, I think Inori's got stuff going on and hopefully (Oh, how I live in hope where this anime is concerned) something will be revealed in the future. There's also the fact that some guys dig the passive, silent type (Heck, that cow tits angel in Sora no Otoshimono was a hit and she's much closer to the sex doll you described here.) so there's definitely merit in having her cater to that part of the audience. It's another one of those shows that tries to provide one of each fetish (Loli, hot mom, large-breasted classmate, glasses girl, wheelchair chick, high-class girl, token bishie for the ladies). It's all about selling BDs m'dear boy, and there's a good chance that a combination of mindless action, pretty looking designs and a girl for everyone will shift the units once it gets the inevitable bluray treatment. The plot is also slightly more evident than you give it credit for, but it's contradictory a lot of the time so I'll let that pass. Highschool guy gains power, joins freedom fighter group where everyone has a dark secret, uses power to fight foreign overlords, learns more about power (and himself/his family/his past in the process), falls in love. It's not rocket science but it's definitely there. You're still watching, which means at least one of the aforementioned has managed to make you curious enough to continue. Let's see how it ends up, maybe they have a massive trump card to play just yet! I live in ho- Oh, deja vu. I know it's flawed, you know it's flawed. Yet we both keep watching. Let's give it credit for that much, eh? 
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thegoanna
Posts: 35 Location: Roxby Downs, Australia |
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Took around 2 weeks... most the stuff I get from overseas, takes 2 - 3 weeks normally. I don't normally pay priority as it costs heaps $ so am patient and wet the thirst with a bit of a wait!! HA HA!! 
New stuff.. Presently watching Un Go on Ann, and just finished Spirit of Wonder - Scientific Boys Club, - Well its different I suppose.. still considering it.. so guess not the greatest, but watched it to the end, don't think I will order the second disk though from quickflix! Also re watched my Saki the Player series, this really needs the second season to finish it off... get all that way and don't get to see her play her sister! - Rattttttts! with a capital RRRR! |
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Imperialkat
 Posts: 227 |
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Having seen the whole thing, I'd recommend it. The plot from the first few episodes continues on for about half the series, then the plot gets more serious as it focuses on Roy's main goal then Solty's identity. There is a bit of hokeyness in the second half as the but if you care about the characters then it won't bother you too much. The relationships remain heartworming throughout, the action increases as it approaches the end, and the ending itself tied up the plot threads pretty well IMHO. If you liked the first few episodes, go ahead and watch the rest. I enjoyed it start-to-finish. |
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Altacia
Posts: 286 |
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Those prices are amazing.... Are they bootleg anime? o.o They certainly look it considering they have Sailor Moon on sale.. .. On topic; Netflix is my friend lately but the dubs are not. Watching Dance in the Vampire Bund and at two episodes in it's creepy and the voices are rather irritating. 
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DieHardBleachFan
Posts: 277 |
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Still haven't been able to watch much lately, hoping that will change once school is done.
About the only thing I've been able to watch with regularity since finishing FMA: Brotherhood is Durarara!. I'm on ep. 17 so far and am absolutely loving what I'm seeing. Can't wait to see what happens next! Other than that, not much else has been watched. My backlog is still unbelievably large though, so there'll be plenty of stuff to choose from when I get the time. |
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TheTheory
 Posts: 1029 Location: Central PA |
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Just completed all the Lupin the III episodes officially released on R1 DVD. Happy I own the 15 DVDs Pioneer/Geneon released...sad it didn't sell well enough for them to do more.
Breaking my normal mold, I'll go ahead and rate in the encyclopedia since I doubt I'll ever dig up the other episodes online. A solid 8/10 for being totally awesome, but with some bothersome gimmick repetition issues that made some episodes feel a bit stale. I would love to see more Lupin become legally available in the states, but it probably won't happen. At least FUNI released a lot of the movies, so I've got those to plow through at my leisure. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4609 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Definitely, some of it quite lazy too. searched for Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari (which I've considered buying a boot of, as it's still strangely unlicensed) and found a $20 boot titled Chrome Shelled Regios: Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari They didn't even think to use the Tenchi Muyo name- they went with an unrelated show.
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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ImperialKat already gave an opinion. I've only seen the first 5-ish. Still, if you were interested anyway, I'd say you should give it a shot. I didn't get sucked in, but it was nice enough. There was nothing that I thought was bad about it. |
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Well, personally, I'm inclined to include character design under the broader umbrella of art design. As for the rest of the art design (the non character stuff) I agree that the production values are certainly high. It's detailed and well drawn and so forth. I still find it pretty uninspired though which to me makes it pretty forgettable. |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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You are missing out on a great series. Natsume's Book of Friends has four seasons for a good reason.
Yep, the first season is not enough to judge the whole series, as there are some stories that are continued, which combined with character development gives a sense of continuity, in spite of the episodic nature of the series. And there will be some tension in some later episodes, especially once Matoba, who is an exorcist, comes into play. That's why, even if you are pissed off by Aniplex' marketing policies, I heartily recommend watching the remaining seasons.
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Jen526
 Posts: 124 |
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Currently rotating in my rental queues:
Angelic Layer - I'm enjoying the tournament combat element and the girly spin it gives to that. I'm finding the melodrama revolving around the mother to be really annoying. I don't find anything sympathetic in a woman's refusal to see her child for *years* over a disability. Babel II - Nothing to write home about. I have kind of a soft spot in my heart for this sort of middle-of-the-road, not really good but not actively bad anime, so I'm continuing to watch in that spirit. If it was longer, I'd probably drop it. Daphne in the Brilliant Blue - An absolute gem. I never in a million years expected this show to be so *funny* and weirdly heart-warming. If the quality holds, this will be going on my "to buy" list.
Hikaru no Go - I recently finished Yu Yu Hakusho (finally) so this will be my next classic shonen "combat" series to work on. I've loved what I read of the manga, so I'm sure this will be a winner. Kaze no Stigma - Another kind of middle-of-the-road sort of series, though a definite step up from Babel. Likable characters and some fun clashing between the male and female leads. I had some cognitive dissonance at first because the show was a little more fluffy and unserious than I was expecting, but once I got over that, I've been quite enjoying it. (Also really *pretty*. I love the vibrant color pallette to this show, and the main lead is quite the yummy bishie. )
RahXephon - Took me forever to get around to watching this. It's living up to the high expectations one always has for something as well-regarded as this one tends to be. |
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