Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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M. D. Geist - The most manly animation ever made. Pure unadulterated aggression without any hint of weakness. Including political correctness, this is masculinity defined as it has bigger balls than most death metal acts. And the plot is stellar as well, not wasting a single second on things like exposition and dialogue: stuff for the weak.
M. D. Geist 2 - Not as good as the first although this one has some more spiritual atmosphere. Overall a memorable enough experience but not the work of art that the original M. D Geist was. |
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Akane the Catgirl
Posts: 1091 Location: LA, Baby! |
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I WATCHED A FILM CALLED REDLINE, Y'ALL.
*ahem* You know, I'm not a fan of action. I'm not very interested in manly men or giant robots beating the crap out of each other. Just give me a good story and I'm happy. That's not to say that action isn't a bad thing, as I am willing to give credit to those that do it well. It's just me. *splat* Keep your tomatoes in your hands, folks. With all that said, DAAAAYUM. Congratulations, REDLINE, you entertained the catgirl and earned your spot on her favorite movies alongside AKIRA and Summer Wars. You can't deny that this film has style, as well as seven years of production behind it's stellar animation. 
[EVERY. SINGLE. FRAME.] Sure, it's not exactly mind-blowing in terms of plot, but does it need to be? REDLINE wants to be a fun action flick, and it is. It's just pure popcorn entertainment, and this looks like the sort of movie you watch with friends on a Saturday night. I can't believe I didn't watch this movie earlier. No, I still haven't made significant process on my other anime series. Can you guess what I'm going to watch after Spice and Wolf II? Stay tuned for more details. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Redline is very much a motion picture for the moment. Through its growing contrivances and near-endless dazzle, it defies our humanly constitutions for our pulses not to be raised by it. Like a palpitation though, it leaves as soon as it comes, and is forgettable but for the things you mention. It is clearly a film that is more than comfortable with its own limits. |
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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Today I finally finished watching Season 1 of Full Metal Panic. It was quite the fun adventure, from school hi-jinxes to deadly gunfire and hand-to-hand combat with mecha. But the fickle relations between somber Sousuke and quick-tempered Kaname was what I found to be the most exciting.
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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^
IF you should ever watch Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, then I will be quite curious about your reaction. I personally didn't care for it because it focused on the humorous aspects between Sousoke and Kaname to the exclusion of everything else.* You might call it an alternative universe of Full Metal Panic!. *I loved the OP, though!   
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Mr. Oshawott
Posts: 6773 |
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^
I've got the next week set up for Fumoffu, so I'll be having at look of it. Thanks!
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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For the sake of completeness I have watched the most recent works by Makoto Shinkai.
I firstly treated myself, and I use the term loosely, to Children Who Chase Lost Voices. Within it we are introduced to a young girl who is suddenly smitten by an otherworldly traveller, and with the aid of a mournful soldier-cum-schoolteacher, she ventures to the fantasy land from whence he came in the hope of reuniting with him. The standard array of fantasy fare is present: magical charms, superstitious villagers and monodimensional ghouls litter the screen when called for, though bizarrely there are also several guns and even an attack helicopter. (I kid you not.) You see, we learn that earthly visitors have long pillaged this hidden realm, including, most ridiculously, spoiler[Napoleon and Hitler]. But never fear, our protagonists intrude in this land with only the humble intentions of finding their lost loves. Do they eventually meet them? I wish not to disappoint, but it is likely that those who watch the film will soon cease to care. By deviating wildly from his genre of specialisation, Shinkai constructs a tale that uniformly fails to captivate. A few monsters are smited, our heroine is rescued from assorted perils with convenient reliability, and several baked potatoes get eaten. We are certainly made aware of the protagonists’ wishes through morose conversations and flashbacks, though at no point in their gun-toting, beast-slaying quest do their plights ever become our own. It is as if the graphical relish that has become Shinkai’s signature was evocative only of tedium, as if his exaggeratedly colourful skies and backdrops were set to lull and not to mesmerise. Here we have a director who has amassed his talents in directing love stories, wholly dispensed of them through a presumed desire to emulate Miyazaki, and produced a fantasy that is fantastic only for its propensity to bore. Never before have I opted to check my Twitter feed in lieu of concentrating on a film, but here I found myself doing so. I begged, almost in a muffled chant, for it to end, wishing in the oddest of ways that I could spend more time on my domestic chores instead. Were it not for my deep respect for this director, and indeed the fact I had imported the DVD, I would have stopped the film prematurely. Prior to viewing, I admittedly did not expect a masterwork of the calibre of Voices Of A Distant Star, though I was nevertheless quite surprised by the sheer disconnect between myself and anything on the screen. The last time I grew so unpleasantly bewildered by an anime was when I saw Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, which at least had a broader significance to its credit. Children Who Chase Lost Voices is, quite frankly, the biggest disappointment I have recently suffered. Next up was The Garden of Words. Can Shinkai rebound from his expensive blunder? Yes, thankfully. Perhaps cognisant of his miscue, he returns to very familiar territory. Once again, there is a relatively young couple, an immaculate Tokyo sprawl and, of course, trains. The boy is a failing schoolchild fascinated with shoe-making, the girl a lackadaisical businesswoman with an eating disorder and a gait abnormality. It is unfortunate that the female lead is the one conveniently lumbered with dramatic flaws, but her circumstances at least differ from the incumbencies more common to anime romances. The characters make a habit of meeting anonymously beneath a park bench, and inevitably the seeds of love are sowed. Their contrived relationship develops in the midst of Shinkai’s usual festoonments of aural and visual delicacy. Swirling orange and pink skies, twinkling landscapes and impassioned piano accompaniments work their expected magic, and the tried-and-tested themes of distance and separation are applied with adequacy. All of such tools were, of course, deployed to floundering effect in the previous film, but here they lend ample cinematic sustenance to the story. All is not perfect with the present work though. A clichéd ending, in which the older character proves to have less reserve than is fair for her to possess, blemishes the film's emotional integrity to an extent, but fortunately a more thoughtful scene after the ending credits soothes any lingering disappointment. Save for a plot twist or two, nothing in this tender tale will be unfamiliar to ardent Shinkai fans, yet such people will be the first to admit how much they like it this way. Makoto’s back, chaps! Lastly I watched She And Her Cat—Everything Flows on Crunchyroll. Though not a work in which Shinkai was directly involved, it both borrows the title and revisits the setting of his earliest short film. As a four-episode series filmed from a cat’s perspective, there is little of substance to discuss about it. Indeed, felines care for nought beyond their limited domain, and this show’s moggy is no exception. Through a monologue he speaks frankly, but not thoughtlessly, of the curious love all cats show to their owners, attending in his details only to the present and the ever more hazy past. (As a cat, his future is simply unworthy of consideration.) Given the stunted scope of his narration, it is fitting, then, that his entire life is depicted in this short series, but the inevitable finale this entails is as positive and warming as one could hope for. This is an inoffensive iyashikei anime that turns no heads, yet still reflects something that is dear to all those with feline companions. |
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Bluebeard
 Posts: 267 Location: Massachusetts |
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Ok- I've been away form the forums for a long time. I've been attending anime conventions and trying to stay in the loop, but honestly haven't been watching much anime. About 3 days ago, I finally figured out that Crunchyroll is free and that's how people are able to watch so many different shows! I always assumed it was a monthly pay service. Anyway, going to conventions every year gives me a general idea of what's popular. Recently what's stuck in my mind is the number of Kill la Kill cosplayers that attend.
Some background- I'm a "sad girls in the snow" fan. I love shows that get me to cry, despite being a tough guy in real life. Anime is a nice little place to get away from all that. I don't generally care for shows that are heavy on action. Sure there are exceptions, I liked Black Lagoon and Basilisk... But it was pretty clear to me Kill la Kill was just the kind of run of the mill, over the top action anime packed with fanservice which I can't stand. Still I was curious what the hell so many people saw in it, so now that I had a free service to check it out on, I gave it a quick look to try and understand. I... don't think I've ever enjoyed watching an anime as much as I enjoy watching Kill la Kill. I've been doing 4 episodes a day and all I can think of right now is how disappointed I'm going to be when I run out of episodes to watch. It's everything I said I would hate about it- It's over the top, there's a lot of fanservice... but it's all done in a very smart way that makes it clear the show recognizes what it's doing. And it's fun. It's pure unadulterated fun. I never expected a show I knew I would hate to find a spot among my favorite shows. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9841 Location: Virginia |
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@Bluebeard
If you get tired of the advertisements Crunchyroll can also be an ad free subscription service. In the same way that Crunchyroll is free, so is Funimation and there is very little overlap in the series offered. Hulu is also free if you watch the ads and has some content that is not offered by the other two. Just checking out the back catalog of those three services should keep you occupied for the foreseeable future.
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TRNielson
Posts: 182 |
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So, today has been a busy day for me and anime, so I'm gonna start with the most recent (and probably most important) anime event of my day.
After probably a year or so after I first heard about it, I finally got to watch The Anthem Of The Heart. After hearing about the concept for the story, as well as the rave reviews it was getting when it first came out, my hype levels were through the roof for this movie. After watching it...it might be too early to call, but it might have just bumped Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya down to my #3 anime movie of all time. This movie absolutely delivered for me. The moral of the story boils down to: "Words can hurt people. And even if you regret them, you can't take them back." And this story sticks to that principle and delivers both a heartbreaking and amazing uplifting story. Jun Naruse is one of the best social anxiety characters I've ever seen in anime, giving Moeka of Steins;Gate fame a run for her money. The entire time I was watching this movie, I just wanted to give her a hug and tell her everything would be alright. Shockingly, tough guy Tasaki winds up easily taking the second best character spot in this movie. I normally hate the tough guy jock character who isn't actually as big a douchebag as he looks, but his character development throughout the movie was spot on. spoiler[As the story also revolves around a musical, I'd be remiss to not give a very positive note on the movie's soundtrack. The final thirty or so minutes of everything coming together was a treat for the ears.] Animated by A-1 Pictures, the animation was probably the one very teeny, tiny problem I had with this movie. Maybe because I've been spoiled with the movies I've watched lately (curse you, ufotable!) or expectations I had when going into an A-1 Pictures product, but there were moments when the characters looked very "Mamoru Hosoda" like. Not that was a bad thing as a particular Hosoda movie is still my #1 anime movie of all time but I just didn't expect it at the moments it happened in this film. I know this was more a jumble of thoughts rather than a coherent attempt at a review, but this movie has left me with a million different thoughts running through my head and organizing them into something somewhat coherent would take longer than I have. All I can say is if you haven't seen The Anthem Of The Heart yet, put it on your list of must see anime. Unless you can't stand anything that doesn't involve fists flying every few seconds, I can almost guarantee you'll enjoy this movie. So, other anime related things my day consisted of: After several months, I also finally got around to starting Princess Tutu. Being a huge Madoka Magica fan, this has been one that I know I had to get around to watching it. While it's certainly much more lighthearted in some regards to Madoka, it also has a very strong shadow hanging over it. As if disaster is literally right around the corner. I'm only on episode 6, so the shadow hasn't struck yet, but it's there. Duck is an amazing protagonist for this show. An absolute scatterbrain with a million different faces, she never fails to keep me entertained. Now if only we could solve actual real world fights with dance offs, who knows what the world would be like? Then, prior to starting Princess Tutu, I finally finished Sound Of The Sky. I got about four episodes in, then dropped it for a time as I got preoccupied with other things. After coming back around to it, I have to say: While episodic series can be a plus if you aren't trying to binge watch, binge watching an episodic series is tough. I almost gave up on it, to be honest. Nothing against the show itself as it was actually a very good and well thought out series that approached K-On! with a much better background concept, even if Kanata and Yui are basically twins. Just that without the over-arcing story to it, this was a series that was meant to be watched more in 1-2 episode doses than trying to binge the entire show. Luckily, come Episode 7, the darker background setting of the story started to take a more center stage, with the final episodes culminating in a very addictive experience. It's hard to describe a show like Sound Of The Sky except for think K-On! meets the real world Korean War. If you need a good episodic series for those days when you just wanna sit down after a long day of work and you've already finished Mushishi, give Sound Of The Sky a shot. Phew. Long winded. Tl;dr: The Anthem Of The Heart is amazing, Princess Tutu is a dark, cute magical girl show and Sound Of The Sky is a great episodic show for fans who enjoy moe girls playing soldiers. |
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Concerning its ending, did you consider spoiler[the reappearance of Rio as a deus ex machina to be appropriate? It is one thing for a trumpet to bring about an impromptu ceasefire, quite another for a royal to wander onto a battlefield and nullify all grounds for hostility. I can grant that Kanata playing Amazing Grace once again was satisfying for all its tactical implausibility, as in doing so she finally achieves something of significance. The climax, I believe, needed nothing more than this to give the show's simple story some semblance of a point. And yet it was still considered necessary for Rio to saunter up as a princess and save the day. As a central character she should, of course, have still made some appearance in the last episode for closure's sake, but intervening as she did only made a heartfelt but silly moment somewhat sillier and a degree less heartfelt.] |
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Mr. Oshawott
Posts: 6773 |
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Tonight I finished watching Mai-HiME. The stars in this show are high schoolgirls who wield formidable superpowers who are free to use them at their own will, but there's a drawback: to keep them, they have to risk one thing they love most.
I really enjoyed Mai-HiME. The characters had some very interesting personality traits that made them so interesting. I found Mai and Mikoto's backgrounds to be the most fun! 
Are there any fans of Mai-HiME around here, by any chance?
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TRNielson
Posts: 182 |
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spoiler[I like to think that, by the time Kanata finished playing, everyone's will to fight was already gone. Rio showing up and officially ending the hostilities was probably just a way to keep fans and critics from asking "What's gonna stop them fighting tomorrow?" Also, considering who she was and why she left in the prior episodes, it wasn't gonna surprise me if she showed up at some point to put an end to the fighting. As far as being a dues ex machina ending, there are far more dues-y ex machina endings in anime with this one ranking as a fairly low one for me. I do agree that it should have just ended with Kanata's playing making everyone stop, but I can understand why they went the extra step with Rio. Just my thoughts on it.] |
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DuelGundam2099
 Posts: 533 |
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Ah yes, Mai-Hime, the my very first experience with ecchi and magic girl junk, it has the honor of being the first anime I ever disliked and set the basis for everything I don't want in a TV series. But glad you found it entertaining and enjoyed it, Mr. Oshawott.
For the meat of this post, yesterday I finished Katanagatari. Spoilers, it was horrible. Why? I am partially convinced this series was made for people that find dialogue arousing. I'm not even trying to throw insults, it throws talking into virtually every nook and cranny of runtime it can shove in. I probably wouldn't mind this AS much except EVERY EPISODE IS FIFTY FREAKING MINUTES LONG! WHO WAS THIS TARGETTING!? Other issues with this? Not counting art and music because those were actually good and fitting, respectively. -As you can guess, dreadful pacing -Most episodes, starting with episode 4, have a subplot about these guys called the Maniwa Corps who do absolutely nothing but eat up time until their leader fights Shichika in episode 11. He also cuts his left arm off for absolutely no reason and I'm not spoiling that because it amounts to nothing. -Shichika is kind of an idiot -Togame actively abuses said idiot even when he does nothing wrong (because domestic abuse toward men is SO funny) and is okay with killing people in vile brutish methods like roasting them from the inside like in episode 5. I'd probably place her on my top 100 worst anime characters list except the series did something smart in the last episode spoiler[aka killing her off]. I've added so many characters and casts to that list over the years that I needed to add that as a rule to keep them off. -Episode 4 is entirely about these Maniwa Corp guys fighting the sword wielder of that episode who is then defeated off screen. NICE CONSISTENCY! -Suddenly, the supernatural! Even though they hinted the twelve deviant blades were not made by such, speaking of which.... -An armored suit, a robot, a sheath, and a pair of guns qualify something as a sword. So how does one top this off? Having the last quarter (and to a lesser degree episode 6) actually decent with a surprisingly well done final battle and we find out what this all lead up to. Basically some spoiled princess hates some shogun for wasting her life (how? you're not poor) and MUH HISTORY (I don't get it either) that also happened to command the Maniwa Corps. Most over complicated assassination plot ever. Does it come out of nowhere? Probably, with all the words you are forced against your will to read at once it is very easy to get lost. So everything ends with more than likely a good chunk of feudal Japan is mass anarchy due to a high ranking official and a small military no longer being around to keep the peace. Maybe if they were oppressive or we saw them being corrupt this would mean something, but we don't know what evil deeds he actually did. In fact aside from looking for these swords he didn't really do anything. So the moral of this story? Mouths like to talk with their dialogue because they are made of cherry ice cream: They appear beneficial, but end up just being mush. So now for Bokurano, aka that mech series Madoka Magica is compared to despite them having nothing in common. I finished the first quarter yesterday, here are thoughts on that: -Unfitting and bad music -Low animation quality of the humans (would it kill them to make their faces look consistent from different ranges?) -The inability to keep sand consistent colors in the first episode -Every kid so far is either too bland to distinguish or are massive sociopaths; they are also all idiots that have no concept of stranger danger -The mascot is the one amusing character here -The city destruction scenes are only decent, nothing much for what is supposed to be super dark and sad, hell even early Godzilla movies did better than this -Making Zearth and the like as big as they did does give off the idea of too much power and I admit it is executed well with the action scenes -Enemy designs are unique with an arthropod feel to them which is fine -Pacing is mediocre -"tens of thousands of people died from only three battles (the first didn't even have casualties) even though the damage was clearly was not the entire cities in question and we are extending this to the world because...." You'd think the news reports would mention this and we'd see devastation, but no. Plus, how would the military call it a global threat when it was only in Japan? Sure, the audience knows better, but in-universe they don't. I harp on this, but a mech based kaiju series with idiots being rightfully punished for being stupid (and evil) and their age doesn't make it lenient? Hey, this has potential to be good afterall! Also >"this series is dark" If it is I'm not seeing it, you can't just throw death in and call it dark, it is called putting effort into it.... Which I am not seeing much of beyond the writing. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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The show already has several discussion threads here if you want to talk about it, but I need to watch it again before I can discuss it seriously. Yes, I am a fan. The last time that I made a top ten list My-HiME was number 9 and My Otome was number 8. That was a while ago and they might have since been pushed out by newer shows, but I am sure that they would still be in the top 15 to 20. What I like most about the show, about any show really, is the characters. Mai Tokiha is my favorite and I mentioned her in the thread for strong female characters, but I also like Natsuki, Mikoto, Shizuru, Akane amd many others. And I love the ending. |
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