Forum - View topicShelf Life - Stratos Update
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jenthehen
 Posts: 835 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio |
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Although I really enjoyed Princess Jellyfish, I think it does have too many "anime-isms" to be accessible to non-anime-fans. Anime visual gags of any sort come off as really weird to those not used to them.
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dragon695
 Posts: 1377 Location: Clemson, SC |
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I don't get why IS is not perishable. Oh well. I'm sure a certain someone would have more to say on the subject, though.
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24158 |
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Jesus, could you pine for him a little more please?
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dragon695
Posts: 1377 Location: Clemson, SC |
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Soundmonkey44
 Posts: 1243 |
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Princess Jellyfish is indeed a Shelf Worthy show. But so are a decent amount of the shows from the Noitamina block. (Still PO'd that Tatami Galaxy has yet to get a stateside release, that one was my fav.
 )
Speaking of Noitamina, I need to get off my Lazy flank and finish watching my Shiki Blu-Rays, lol. But yeah interesting Shelf-Life this week. Never seen Infinite Stratos, heard mixed stuff about it. As for Tales of the Abyss, still trying to hunt that one down. |
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tasogarenootome
 Posts: 593 |
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I'm so glad you reviewed Tales of the Abyss and stuck with it! While it is one of my top three RPGs of all time, the anime is not a good adaptation. It is pretty much a 24-episode plot recap of the game that stays waaaay too close to the source material. Where some anime adaptations of games try to add or alter aspects of the game's original plot to improve it (or fail trying), Abyss really is a game replay. A lot of what was entertaining in the game (the characters' interactions and constant riffing on one another) is trimmed away so that only the plot remains. And considering the game isn't necessarily wide in appeal, I'm happy about the rating Rental Shelf!
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24158 |
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How do you figure your creepy obsession balances out the manifest happiness of dozens and dozens of ANN posters? |
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Lynx Amali
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We have these things called Opinions. You've probably heard of them.
I didn't mind IS. Sure, it wasn't the greatest show but it was enjoyable if you took it at face value. The cast (with the exception of Ichika) was enjoyable, the fights were decent, the animation was awesome and the soundtrack was decent. I have never wanted to strangle any fictional character as much as I did anime-Ichika. Light novel-Ichika isn't that bad though. He's still dense though but not as dense as his anime counter part. I really wish they didn't end it where they did though. Tales of the Abyss, however. It's a color-by-the-numbers adaption. It stays too close to the game. Had it been something like Symphonia's adaption, it might've been better. Haven't checked out Jellyfish so I can't comment. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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About being treated differently, clothing and how you wear them do make an impact on how others treat you. A man wearing a nice pair of slacks and a sport coat is going to exude a different air than one in cargo pants and a wife beater.
About Infinite Stratos, bleh. Either do harem or do mecha musume, mixing the two together in an unsatisfying lump with no real momentum or purpose makes even me tired of it, and I have near limitless patience for dumb anime. And especially after Ah! My Goddess' recent reveal on the origin of impotent male leads, there's even more reason to dislike that sort of male character in harem shows. AMG has now given a reason for why Keiichi has no usable testicles, the rest of these shows are just copying that formula but with no explanation than "nice guy syndrome". My patience for them is has dried up; Mahiro from Nyaruko gets a pass due to Nyaruko's offputting pushy persistence, and that she's an abomination from beyond the stars.
I guess you'll be going over each of them briefly in one of three segments, but they all need their own separate assessments for the normal review column as they're separate stories that all came out years apart. |
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daveriley
 Posts: 117 Location: Philadelphia |
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Wow! I had no idea there was a Tales of the Abyss anime!
My girlfriend (Graz) and I play all the Tales games together, sometimes more out of the desire for a co-op RPG, which are rare, more than the quality of the games. The story in Abyss is so bad! I suppose they probably make anime out of every Tales game, so it's not as if Abyss was hand picked, but it just shocks me that they would make one out of a game that's so middling. It's not the worst story ever, I guess, it's just got the standard Tales "repeat every plot point five hundred times" which is this game is "what defines personhood?" Which is a great question for art to ask! Too bad it ask it stupidly, and over, and over, and over. Abyss kind of felt like it got stuck on the QUESTION of "what is a person?" and thought it could make some really strong strides towards answering it by having Luke ask everyone that self-same question ten thousand times. Meanwhile, Luke is also puppydogging around Van for the whole game going "hey, hey, we're still friends, right? we're still cool? I mean, I think you're cool. we're cool, right?" Also it does the same dumb-ass frustrating thing that all Tales games do where there's a fake last boss 30 hours into the game and then they're like "Whoops, no! This game is like another 30 hours long!" In Vesperia, that was a fun treat, in Abyss it was like "Ugh, really?" I always thought Tier was kind of neat, that's most of what I took from Abyss. But I tend to play the healers in Tales games, because Graz doesn't have patience for it. I liked how she could summon Fields of Fonons on command. We also watched Princess Jellyfish together! Which I was positive on, and Graz rather liked. She also had this "ugly duckling" moment where she really came into her own around high school and all of a sudden everyone who was being shitty to her suddenly wanted to GET WIT HER and it was like "what the hell, you guys are jerks," but then again, so did I. I remember being kind of a nebbishy nerd and then getting into high school and suddenly being cool, or mostly cool, and just that hint of confidence taught my how to capitalize on it, and that in-turn really improved my self-image. What's probably more unique is the external treatment girls will get under the guise of chivalry, like being offered a subway seat, which operates on this weird opposite side of the coin from the douchebags that cat-call women. It's the same basic concept of "oh, this girl is pretty! NOW I want to pay attention to her, and now I really really want her to pay attention to me!" The statement of "guys can't get this show" seems, I don't know... it's not the right way of putting it. People put a heavier emphasis on gendered stuff, especially with regards to anime and shoujo and shonen and seinen, than is necessarily true or practical. For example, Erin, you are down with stuff like Golgo 13 and Naruto. Should we say that a woman in her thirties cannot 'get' a show made for men in their thirties? Or cannot 'get' a show made for eight year old boys? I don't think there's anything at its core that makes Princess Jellyfish more explicitly female than anything else. Feeling ostracized or awkward is pretty universal, even if the specific scenes of "beauty make-over party!" are less so. Saying "this is not for [YOUR GENDER]" is more dismissive than it is explanatory, even if it you don't mean it that way. Isn't one of the great parts about art that it crosses those sorts of boundaries? Or will I not feel sad, or not "get it", when I watch Tracy Jordan in Hard to Watch because I have never been an inner-city black youth who carries around a football with a hole in it? |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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From what was said in the article, it's rental shelf due to a matter of packaging since it comes with a soundtrack (slightly ironic since a person renting IS wouldn't benefit from that) and because it looks pretty darn good. Curious to see how Erin will rate Shiki when ya get to it. I remember she said that the first 11 episodes wouldn't be above Rental Shelf earlier, but I think the second half is a lot stronger for Shiki. |
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Sheleigha
 Posts: 1674 |
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I think it's kind of funny with everyone saying that Tales of the Abyss is "TOO close" an adaptation. I'm so used to people complaining about adaptations because of how much different/slightly different they are...
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Shippoyasha
Posts: 459 |
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Infinite Stratos is good old harem fun. I don't agree the spooning gag is really creepy in any major sense. Mainly because those girls are pretty much in an all girls school and their outreach to the opposite gender is more confusion and naivete than anything truly overt.
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opn
 Posts: 904 |
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i actually enjoyed the TOTA anime having played the games. i liked that spoiler[they gave a little more backstory on ash and luke] my only complaint is how rushed the battles were. they really should of been longer and the mystic artes also should of been used more but thats a real minor nitpick. regarding lukes hair spoiler[it was said his family all had red hair and it was a defining trait amoung his family.] amoung the tales of adaptions its probably my second favorite right behind the vesperia movie and ahead of the symphonia OVA's.
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Raikuro
Posts: 347 |
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I wonder why that shelf has so many doubles. I'd understand getting re-releases, but those are the exact same collections.
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