Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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jroa
Posts: 548 |
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Hey, disagreement is the spice of life. At least figuratively speaking.
Perhaps in theory, but the show does present that as a constant in practice.
1. I am reminded of the famous phrase "there's lies, damned lies, and statistics" here. 2. Even so, I believe that doesn't contradict me. Numbers are subject to interpretation. There are different types of charisma, just like there are different types of leadership. If you were to analyze Tohdoh's personality and skills, even just based on his own actions throughout the first season, it would become clear he's not a replacement for Zero. He's more of a samurai commander, not a daimyo or a magician. About the battle itself, the underlying problem was that Britannia still had tons of reinforcements on the way and the attackers were mostly untrained militia facing a fortified position. Taking out spoiler[Cornelia] would have sealed a more solid victory if Zero had stayed and used it to lower the morale of the enemy defenders. Even so, he'd need to come up with another trick to deal with the reinforcements too. But he didn't, so the attackers lost their greatest asset and couldn't take advantage of his last stunt. As for Tohdoh during second season, I'd say it really just confirmed what he was already doing at the end of the first. Rather than being involved in any planning, which we never saw him pull off, he got inside a robot and made that his role. |
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Spawn29
Posts: 556 |
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Wild 7 (OVA) - This anime was a very fun anime to watch. This anime is filled with great action from start to finish. It's very over the top and cheesy to watch. Hiba is a fun action hero and the other 7 wild gang have their own special personality. The story is far from being great but I did like that they try to have a social commentary with police brutality, the rise of militant student activists and political corruption. I feel like this anime can easily be relevant going on in today's world. The themes in the anime did remind me of Dominion Tank Police, but Wild 7 does lack a stronger story compare to Dominion Tank Police in my opinion.
The music in this anime is pretty awesome and kicks major ass. I admit the ending was a bit of a let down, but it made me want to see more. I would like to check out the Wild 7 TV series, but it was never release in the US. I also hope someone will put this anime on DVD or Blu-Ray because it was only release on VHS and I would love to watch it again with better quality. Not to mention the Wild 7 TV series on DVD or Blu-Ray would be awesome too. I recommended watching this anime if you want something that is plain dumb fun. Grade: B+ Last edited by Spawn29 on Sun Sep 04, 2016 12:37 am; edited 1 time in total |
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louis6578
 Posts: 1876 |
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Finished Sakamoto. Great ending to a great series. Easily one of the few comedy anime that I'd rate as "excellent" instead of just "Good" or "Very Good."
Patlabor is on the way too. I finished the first disc (roughly the first three episodes). It was alright so far, but... ugh. That dub is terrible. I thought it'd be one of the few good New York dubs since Dan Green was a lead character, but even he ranges forgettable to bad in this crap. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Are you watching the first OVA or the television series, louis6578? I have yet to see the latter, given its length and cumulative cost.
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louis6578
Posts: 1876 |
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The first OVA. I switched to the Japanese during the latter half of the third episode and it made SUCH a difference. Ugh... never trust a New York dub. Even the best of them are inferior to the original. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10023 Location: Virginia |
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@ louis6578
When you get to the TV series, if you are watching the Maiden Japan release, you will find that they are using the prior English dub. Unfortunately for the first volume the dubbed version was edited. In order to provide both versions the subtitled and dubbed versions of the affected episodes are treated as separate episodes. That is you get two copies of each with access depending on which language track was selected. The edits in question are sort of pointless, they are short and mostly omit some comedic violence. it is fun to watch both versions to see if you can spot the cuts. Apparently on later episodes no edits were attempted. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1876 |
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So... does the dub at least get better? I do miss hearing New York voice actors, even if my nostalgia is misplaced.
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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I just finished watching Planterian, which felt damned near tailor-made for me.
I also watched Psycho-Pass: The Movie and Psycho-Pass 2 a week or so ago, but didn't find those as fitting. Psycho-Pass has always gone in one ear and out the other for me; I see that it has some sort of point and the people who make it are sincerely trying even at its worst, but I don't much like it. That it's an open-ended franchise with no set finale is a liability, but I think that the real weakness is that it's explicitly designed as a creative commodity like that. Ghost in the Shell is pretty open too and has been reinvented a few times, but I suspect that it benefits from its ad hoc commercial extension. Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, which I also watched recently, was pretty dull, but the franchise doesn't feel like its initial specifications were for endless extensibility, so the works before it managed to have more vision and merit. Psycho-Pass feels bound and limited by its innate commercial limitations. Psycho-Pass: The Movie hinges upon a character whose status is set up to be momentous by the end of the original series, but pulls him out of the narrative steamer trunk and then puts him back in at end in a way that makes it all feel inconsequential. It also suffers from using its characters to recite its themes in preposterous circumstances rather than integrating them into the story in any remotely persuasive or engaging way. This might be a limitation of Gen Urobuchi as a writer. He seems admirably interested in certain subjects and even to some degree informed about them, but less adept at weaving them with his storytelling. I was disappointed that I didn't find Psycho-Pass 2 to be as much of a hyperloop catastrophic failure as I had been led to expect. This probably owes largely to the 'in one ear, out the other' quality that I alluded to. It was far more something 'got it over with' than watched. The blame probably falls again upon the writer. Having watched the Mardok Scramble OVAs and a few other things, I find that Tow Ubakata is unintersted in or unable to visit the places that I want a writer to go to. I liked Le Chevalier d'Eon, but that's the only things. What I find to be his gravest sin is something that I struggle to name, but shall dub 'artless cleverness'. In a way it is to creativity what 'animal cunning' is to intelligence. It seems to be endemic to some 'nerd writers'. They're very gifted at creating complicated, intricate concepts and playing games, but do less well at making these feel organic to narratives or emotionally effective. (My limited experience with Nisioisin suggests that he has a nearly terminal form of this disease) Mardok Scramble had some pretty neat or striking ideas, but rarely made you feel or appreciate their implications and sometimes felt more like a technical document detailing them. (Maybe Le Chevalier d'Eon was more succesful because a thriller is a natural place for such mechanical contrivances and the period setting obviated the need for laborious 'thinking through' and explanation; "it's magic," or whatever sufficing) The antagonist of Psycho-Pass 2 embodied this for me. It was a shame too, because while I can't imagine ever liking the particular contrivances that the character was built of, it was partly in service of an idea, viz. collective judgements, that I think could prove interesting to explore. In contrast to Psycho-Pass is Plantetarian, which wasn't very invested in cleverness, but that I found so engaging that it reminded me how little I value cleverness in fiction. Planetarian is an intimate series. It's only five episodes long and all but the last are only about a quarter-hour long. It really has only two characters, just a few days elapse and it doesn't exposit all that much. The series stays near to its characters, doesn't extend its themes very far and is all very spare. For me, this is a nearly ideal set of qualities. A thorough definition of the aesthetic exceeds my abilities, but 'bottle' stories with this sort of close, deep humanity are often my most favorite things. The story is set after some apocalypse, which the series prudently doesn't elaborate too much upon. A man, searching for remnants of civilization to salvage, chances upon a robot who presents shows a department store's planetarium, but hasn't really done so in decades. The man is at first incredulous, impatient and brusque, but becomes drawn to the robot and to fulfilling her desire to carry her purpose out. It's irrational, profoundly human behavior that can't be logically explained, but that I understood perfectly and became invested in as I watched. I think that a great asset of the story is that it doesn't feel bound to the current moment. Particular features of the designs and a few other things might signify that Planterian was produced in 2016, but the essence of the story and how it plays out make it feel as though it could have been published in a science-fiction magazine many decades ago or an OVA in the eighties or just about any other form at any other time. It perhaps leans too much of technological concepts nigh inconceivable even a century ago to be perfectly timeless, but it isn't badly lumbered with contemporary trends or archetypical tropes in such a way to make it a thing of its moment. What probably gave it victory over my heart was some of the innate familiarity and even predictability. I was almost certain of certain things about how it would all end up, but this worked to Planetarian's advantage because these expectations heightened my emotional investment in the series. The robot, Hoshino, is constrained by and devoted to her purpose presenting the planetarium's projections in way that is endearing, but frustrating and intrinsically tragic. She's so unrelentingly courteous and committed that she has a compelling sense of purposes, but in observing her, the inevitable question is whether it's all because she is simply programmed in a way too limited and unsophisticated to appreciate and understand anything else or that she is more humanly naïve. Flashes of introspection, desire and a little sadness cast doubt on whatever conclusion one might draw, but never decide it. The effect is heightened as the man, her, "Mr. Customer," buys into her devotion and every moment, even at its cheeriest, exists under a melancholy pall. This is all done with at least some restraints, so it never feels too cloying or overwrought. It ends more or less as it should have, keeping that bittersweet spirit and fulfilling dutifully what our minds might cynically expect and our hearts will honestly believe in. It could go on, of course, but I hope it doesn't. That wouldn't feel right. In the final analysis, analysis doesn't matter at all; whatever else I might pretend I thought or considered, Planetarian had me. I felt things because of it and relished the experience of seeing it. My appreciation is muted because it seems as though it could have used a master's hand to refine certain moments and a decisive moment in the finale was portrayed a manner that I found confusing, thus not wholly effective. Maybe little bits of pathos and a certain measure of subtlety aren't quite there. From the credits, it's hard to tell just whose hand was firmest on the tiller, so perhaps there was muddled creative guidance and vision. Even so, these are just imperfections, not fatal defects, so I accept them passingly. All-in-all, I'm very glad that I watched it. I wanted and needed something like this; perhaps some day I'll revisit it or watch what I surmise is a compilation film version if it adds anything. Planterian appears to be adapted from a Key visual novel. I'm quite surprised that I liked it so well. That Key stuff usually repels me. Maybe it's just the kind of mood I'm in... |
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louis6578
Posts: 1876 |
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Just finished Konosuba and it's ova. It was an very funny series. It didn't really push past "Very Good" status though. Even though the OVA was exceptionally fun, it just felt like Fairy Tail 2.0 in the end. That's not a bad thing though. I'm looking forward to season 2. Hopefully it'll have some more movement with the main story.
Also, watching Konosuba reminded me of one of my childhood favorites. I'm going to revisit MAR Heaven. AKA Marchant Awakens Romance (if you're feeling especially stupid). It's a standard "stuck in another world" series, but it was inoffensive and kept my attention throughout. Lets see if it holds up after a decade. I'll be watching it fansubbed for obvious reasons, so please don't hate me, ANN executives. I don't exactly have a lot of options. Besides, the American version ruined this series by airing out of order at first, then just discontinuing the show after they aired episodes in order. Tsk tsk. |
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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There are two faults I could find with the final episode. Firstly, the climax involving the tank, necessary though it was for the plot, lacked the requisite sense of danger or desperation that an combat sequence needs to contribute something memorable to a story. I can perhaps permit this though, given that it was a mere means to an end. Secondly, the inevitable scene thereafter (yes, that scene) certainly took its time. As I think I share your disposition, I can say it was amply tender and cathartic by the end, though the holographic flashbacks lent nothing of emotional significance to a scene that would have amply sustained itself through the exchanges between Yumemi and the Junker. A viewer risks becomes desensitised when a tender moments lingers too long, something that would have happened in my case were it not for the monologue's final, wrenching lines. I cannot help but wonder how Kyoto Animation would have handled this series, given the fact that Key adaptations are their forte. Despite Yumemi's limited body language throughout the story, I can think of numerous scenes (such as the pivotal presentation in episode three) in which the conflict between the near-religious optimism and the war-torn nihilism that the two characters embody could have been better conveyed through visual means. This is not to discredit David Production's commendable job however. KyoAni's sparkle may have simply spoiled me somewhat. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10023 Location: Virginia |
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No idea honestly. I mostly listen to shows subtitled. A dub would have to be really bad before I would notice. In the case of Patlabor the only dubs I listened to were the first few to see if I could catch the edits. What I did hear didn't bother me so it wasn't horrible. The main thing to keep in mind is that this is the dub from the initial US release. As such, it has all the warts and blemishes of an older dub. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1876 |
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Sigh. I guess you're right. It isn't much worse than Boogiepop Phantom's dub or anything. It's just that after swapping audios for a few minutes to test the sub, the dub's own faults became more and more clear. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5150 |
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Surrender Artist–
Your writing skill puts mine to shame. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10023 Location: Virginia |
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@louis6578
I used to be a dub enthusiast. However, shortly after I started getting DVDs I found myself switching audio tracks to see if I could figure what Japanese word translated to what I was hearing. (It is amazing how many insults we have that simply are covered by "baka" or "aho"). Eventually I found I preferred the subtitled version. Now I usually watch sub unless the original language would have been English such as Bacanno or Black Lagoon. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1876 |
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^
I go with whichever usually. Of course, if I'm watching on DVD, I'll typically stick with the dub out of laziness, unless it's a particularly bad dub or I have particular attachment to the Japanese version (such as Lupin the 3rd or Captain Harlock). |
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