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What are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)


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Mr. Oshawott



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
Posts: 6773
PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 7:13 am Reply with quote
I'm in the midst of watching Daphne in the Brilliant Blue. A girl named Maia Mizuki has made an attempt to pass the entry exam into the Ocean Agency, but was unsuccessful in the end. After experiencing several dead-ends trying to find a new occupation and a new home, Maia one day finds herself caught right in the midst of a shootout, in which she encounters a pair of mysterious women on hovering scooters. It is this encounter that has begun a new chapter into a thrilling adventure...
So far, I'm enjoying this show quite well. Although the fanservice is quite frequent, the abundance in action scenes was enough to balance it out.
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Errinundra
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Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 6516
Location: Melbourne, Oz
PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 8:41 am Reply with quote
I've been watching and re-watching Garden of Sinners this last week or so and during Shiki's climactic showdown with the big bad in film #5 she executes a textbook perfect cricketing hook shot. Sadly, you barbarian Americans don't normally have the opportunity to appreciate the bludgeoning poetry of one of cricket's most awesome shots but I can tell you that from her stance to her backlift to her footwork to her timing to her follow through Shiki gives a display that young, aspiring cricketers would do well to emulate. It's so good I wouldn't be the least surprised if the animation were copied from cricket footage. Here's the follow through with England's Kevin Pietersen as a comparison.



By the angle of his elbow Pietersen is clearly trying to play the ball along the ground. Shiki, on the other hand, has her sights set on a six.

It's a silly series but it sure has me under its spell.


Last edited by Errinundra on Sun Oct 25, 2020 7:44 am; edited 2 times in total
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:19 am Reply with quote
^
Silly girl, she got greedy and reckless and now she's going to get caught at deep square leg. She's a fine batsmen when playing calmly, she should have gone for something less flashy and protected her wicket.
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Errinundra
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Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 6516
Location: Melbourne, Oz
PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:44 pm Reply with quote
^
And Araya Souren doesn't deserve the wicket either. His line and length were wayward: too short and down the leg side.

Anyway, she got away with it because the ball hit the top edge (not surprising given the width of her blade), flew over slips and went down to third man for four. (Actually, that's not true. The position of her head indicates she's following the flight of the ball over square leg, as you say. It may even be forward of square leg, her timing is so good.)
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 2:07 am Reply with quote
Finished Showa Monogatari, rated it as Good.

Billed as the first Anime for senior citizens, Showa Monogatari relied heavily on the nostalgia factor to win audiences over. Which is ironic, since it tells a story decent-enough that it doesn't need nostalgia to work.

The show is set 1964, the year of the Tokyo Olympics. It is truly remarkable how much Japan had changed and improved in the scant nineteen years since the devastating war, and the Tokyo games proved that Japan had once again entered the world stage. The show strived to accurately capture the era, and it definitely succeeded. Showcased were period songs, dresses and other clothing, architecture and historical landmarks, the political turmoil and clashing social mores between young and old, Japan's new wealth and prosperity, and the shadow of the war which still loomed over the older characters. There was even a segment at the end of each episode which covered landmarks, shops and streets in the show and showing how they look today.

Even if the nostalgia doesn't do anything for you (and let's face it, it won't unless you are a Japanese senior citizen or a Japanophile), it is still a good watch. The episodes were generally Slice-of-Life stories with simple messages, though of course the Olympics was always looming, with bunting and the like serving as visual reminders. Characters were well-realised and most made good use of their time in the limelight. However, Kohei - the young boy of the family - got the most screentime, which was unfortunate since his voice actor (fifteen years old at the time and a complete newcomer) was simply atrocious. To enjoy the show you'll have to learn to tolerate - more like survive - his absolutely painful delivery. But it can be done and is worth it.

Showa Monogatari set out to capture the spirit of the times and deliver good programming suitable for family viewing, and it realised its ambition. It won't appeal to the vast majority of Western Anime fans, but I believe those who are into this sort of story will like what they see.
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 7:23 am Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
Finished Showa Monogatari, rated it as Good.


Nice to hear; as a fan of "Always: San-choume no Yuuhi" films (the first one, at least; diminishing returns afterward) and Ghibli's "From Up on Poppy Hill," I'd been curious about this.
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ShugoCharaChick



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 3:00 pm Reply with quote
I'm now Watching Shugo Chara. Because i really like the plot and such and i am a huge fan of TadAmu
And i also am watching Princess Tutu ,because i really like...the dress.xD Very Happy
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 3:48 pm Reply with quote
Glad I could be of service, vanfanel. Showa Monogatari is never going to be available to watch legally - the appeal is too niche for Western fans - but it has been fully fansubbed and can be found online easily enough.
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hipnox



Joined: 20 Jul 2008
Posts: 143
PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 12:53 pm Reply with quote
Just finished watching Shiki. Disturbing, depressing, and also very very good.

It has a good atmosphere for suspense and horror without resorting to gore and/or (much) gratuitous violence.

Nice throwback on vampire lore that sets itself apart from most modern vampire productions.

Ending could have been better and some plot arcs could have been more neatly tied up, but on the whole, a very enjoyable and disturbing series.

If you are a fan of stuff like Higurashi, i'd say give it a watch.

I'd rate it Very good or excelent.
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danilo07



Joined: 25 Dec 2011
Posts: 1580
PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 4:11 pm Reply with quote
I just saw Ghost in the Shell Arise episode 1 and it is pretty awesome.The story is engaging,not insulting to intelligence,there are a lot of political games and some very cool cyberpunk stuff thrown in.Like all the previous GitS entries,this one makes a very good use of its setting,with hacking applied to every aspect of solving crime and action scenes,government not wanting to sponsor treatment of cyber bodies because they are expensive etc... Since this is first episode and is only 50 minutes long every character in Section 9,besides Major,doesn't have much of personality.But the character of Major gets a very good treatment ,we get to see how death of her mentor affects her,the determination that she has,and how she is torn up between reality and illusion. Villains too are not just evil monsters who are only greedy and evil(there were actually some villains like this in SAC),they are just humans who lookout for themselves and people around them but they got their hands dirty due to circumstances surrounding them.There are some philosophical questions asked ,like in world in which you can hack somebody's eyes how do you know what is real and what is not, but they arent thoroughly discussed or answered for that matter.Bad thing is since again this is only 50 minutes long,they had introduce some characters and situations almost randomly.Like major is getting repaired,she then swiftly goes to her boss,there are some people waiting for her outside,she goes to track information,then she goes to there she talks to this dude and another one.....Just stop for a minute people and let me absorb the information you have given me.Animation really shines during pretty cool action scenes(there was reference during one action scene to first film,pretty cool),but otherwise it wasnt that good for an OVA actually.Also sometimes that red color palette can get hard to look at.Music by cornelius was amazing(as expected then again I am his fan),especially the ending song which is like hybrid of naturalistic and robotic,very suitable for this anime.
Overall I would rate this as Very Good and would say this is better than many standalone episodes in SAC.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15434
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 9:48 pm Reply with quote
Just finished three shorts series, so I decided to write about them here since they don't have their own threads.

Sparrow's Hotel - What this series was trying to do might be somewhat hard to get, for one the music sounded so dated it gave off the impression of some porno. But there was definitely some charm, Sato feels like an anime character left out of time, which was by the music and animation. I had myself enjoying the show anyway, or perhaps the style is what I liked. My favourite character would have been the manager, Tamaki, she had a small stature but it was not really used as a crux for jokes. She often either played the part of getting Sato to do something quite dubious, or playing the strait man about Sato or her brother, which had some pretty funny expressions involved. I gave this one a Decent.

Airura - And the award for most confusing OP goes to Aiura, Think Crabbing, the song has pictures of crabs and some sort of crab obsessed Steve Jobs, but it was so catchy that it instantly became something I would hum afterwards. Almost every episode I was wanting more, the jokes and charm were surprisingly good that I would say that it got right what Yuyushiki got wrong. The teachers were very underused, but there was not much time at all, there was a great mix apathy and being a bit random that was enjoyable. There is also mention of the voices, some might complain that they do not sound like the standard anime voices, maybe they were a bit sqeekier, I don't know, but they actually felt more like they were actually teenage girls. Every episode ended on that same nostalgic song that made it hard to dislike that each episode was so short. I gave it a Good.

Cyclops Shoujo Saipu - This one could be very sexy, but it was also wrong in a number of ways, mostly in that despite all the sexy poses she had, she was always stated to be the same age as her young friends. Not that they too were not pervy. But if you could look past the taboo, or perhaps it excited you, it could be enjoyable, some very nice shots for those interested in them. I gave this a Decent.
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CrowLia



Joined: 24 Feb 2012
Posts: 5500
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 2:51 am Reply with quote
Now that I've hit vacation I've finally gotten time to watch the pile of 60 anime DVDs glaring at me from the shell, so here's a quick rundown of what I've watched recently

Hyouka. Very cute and fun. Rated it Very Good. I really liked the looks and I loved all the characters. I don't really have that much to say, the visuals are beautiful and the story in itself is simple but adorable and entertaining. The smaller misteries were boring at times -I may have slept through one or two of them- but the School Festival mistery was very fun and engaging.

The one thing I didn't like was the underlying commentary about the student rebellions in the 60's and how the teacher says "we were all kind of stupid and didn't really know what we were doing" when they were fighting for their rights. The general idea that student activism was "manipulated and generally stupid" made me angry since I'm very close to my country's activism and this kind of subtle messages are basically a way of delegitimizing it. But since I reckon I may be reading too much into it, I'll leave it at that. Still a very fun and enjoyable show, and, contrary, to what I thought initially, easy to marathon, it doesn't really get boring.

This week I marathoned Jyu-Oh-Sei. Rated it Awful. I feel like I have a lot to say about this show because I hated it so much, but I'll try to keep it short.

There are many things that bother me about this show. For starters, how all the women are [expletive] doormats. The best a chick can hope for in this show is to breed until Kingdom come, and women throw themselves at strong, desirable men and beg them to make children together. Seriously, the main chick spends all the damn show waiting for MC to screw her and put a baby in her. Sadly, she gets friendzoned because MC falls for his buddy's chick, who is immensely troubled because she wants to have babies from both MC and MC's buddy.

The first thing that rubbed me the wrong way, though, was Thor's reaction after his tspoiler[win brother died, or rather, the lack of any. Thor wakes up and gets told his brother freaking died -and he watched it happening- and the most he does is show slight surprise. He never cries, gets angry or goes into any kind of extreme emotional state -what one would expect of a human that just heard of a sibling's death-.] He accepts it right away and moves on with his life, period. It was so unrealistic I couldn't even take the show seriously anymore

Pacing is also a serious issue in this anime. Half of the series goes away in MC getting a chick-subordinate and a friend-subordinate, and then the latter half tries desperately to solve the bigass conflict of the Earth population diminishing, Thor's life being a lie, his friend-subordinate lying to him, the evil Prime Minister murdering his family, and Thor's finally deciding to put a baby on his chick. spoiler[Too late, she dies.].

On a more particular level, the outfit Thor wears on the cover art never freaking appears in the whole show. This may sound meaningless, but the setting and the cover made me expect for a wilder show with commentary on humanity and its relationship with nature, but it was all too civilized and sci-fi-ish

Anyway, today I marathoned Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou. I'm withholding the rating until I watch the rest of the seasons, but it'll be somewhere between the up side of excellent and the low side of Masterpiece.

I'd watched the first season last year and really really liked it, but watching the new one after so much time gave me a fresh reencounter with the characters and the story that I really enjoyed.

I don't really have much to say, it's wonderful. I love Natsume's and Nyanko-sensei's gimmicks and most of the stories introduced in this season were very beautiful and bittersweet. The theme of loneliness and feeling misunderstood by others is very strong in this show, and I really like seeing Natsume connect with Ayakashi and humans through this feeling. The last story was particularly sweet and I'm really looking forward to the next seasons, which I hope to watch this week or the next. I'd forgotten how much I loved this show
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 4:56 am Reply with quote
^
Good to hear yet another person enjoying Natsume Yuujinchou. It's such a wonderful series which definitely has great emotional strength.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 4:52 am Reply with quote
Apologies for the double post, but it has been three days since the previous post in the thread.

Finished The Skull Man, rated it as Not Really Good.

What happened here? Why did a show that was solid and interesting for its first eight episodes suddenly go off the rails and self-destruct in the last five? It just doesn't make any sense why the writing staff would do that and waste their previous hard work. All that respectably large amount of potential wasn't just squandered, it was knifed in the back in spectacular fashion, and the final episode is absolutely atrocious. Seriously, this show makes the list of the worst endings in Anime history.

I didn't rate the show lower because for more than half its run it was pretty darn good. But that third act . . . boy oh boy. Dafuq did the show do to deserve that?
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lesterf1020
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Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Posts: 292
Location: Trinidad and Tobago
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 7:44 am Reply with quote
The problem with the last few episodes is that it is a bridge to another show. It is those episodes that confirm that The Skull Man is actually a prequel. It is, to put it mildly, clumsily handled. It would be like if the Star Wars prequels were released under another name and then in the final act they tried to rush and cram in all the connections to episode 4 or if the movie Prometheus tried to awkwardly connect itself as a prequel to the Aliens series at the last minute.
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