Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11513 |
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Kuroshitsuji Book of the Atlantic
That was actually much better than I was somehow expecting. Lots of nicely animated fight scenes, some pathos, a little comedy, lots of gore, the usual trademarks of the franchise. It was nice to see Knox's death scythe, a push mower that he rides around like a Segway, really get a workout this time. 
The biggest surprise was Lizzy, who I pretty much can't stand and nearly ruins the whole thing for me whenever she's around. Still can't stand her, but she finally got her chance to shine, and during that brief moment, I was actually cheering her on. So if you're a fan of this series, despite the amazingly high body count I can recommend this one. |
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louis6578
 Posts: 1872 |
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^
Totally agree. Even though Book of Circus was marginally better, Book of Atlantic is easily the second best thing that Black Butler has animated so far. Can't speak for the manga though. Hopefully there are better things to come. |
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2468 |
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At the tail end of the season I ended up dropping a bunch of shows and freeing up time so I got to watching Rascal and Zombieland. I expected to really like Rascal and for Zombieland to be the meme show of the season I end up not enjoying. Turns out it's the reverse!
Rascal feels like it's going for the "everyone's an ass all the time" type of dialogue that it believes is very funny. It works in a lot of shows either after you get to know a character, or if not literally everyone is just throwing insults at each other with nobody actually caring. The flatness of the delivery in almost every line (though on purpose here and there) is annoying, the visuals are good but ultimately boring. The first arc made me almost drop the show but fortunately the show gets better in later arcs, though still not very good. I've seen it compared so much to Monogatari and OreGairu, and it's so not that level. Zombieland had the best premier of the season, and even though it didn't get to be as good as that episode was ever again, it's still a really funny ensemble that can actually get pretty emotional here and there. I really like how the VAs just seem to be having so much fun with it. Gridman was going to be undisputed the best anime of the season for me, but it now has a contender, and that's great. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11513 |
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I thought BoC was good, but somehow it didn't sit quite right with me. I feel like I need to watch it again to settle on how I feel about it, but I'm not sure I want to. It kind of left a bad taste, with how the plot dealt with Joker. It all just seemed a bit more cold-bloodedly ruthless than I'm used to with this franchise, even though they've never made any bones about how harsh Ciel can be or how evil Sebastian truly is at heart. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15545 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I have had it for a little while, weirdly I have a habbit of getting anime movies and waiting for some time that I feel is right to watch it, and today was the right day to watch my Limited Edition copy of No Game, No Life Zero. To preface it, I was so looking forward to this that I bought the plain BD version, thinking they sold out of the Limited Edition, based on the Madman website, but ordered this when I realized they did have it, so I have a regular BD to give someone when I get around to meeting anyone interested. This prefaces by the fact I really liked the tv series, and was looking forward to this movie, although afraid I might not fully connect since apparently it was all a prequel without the familiar characters.
Honestly, I kind of rolled my eyes a bit when they introduced characters and clearly wanted a certain reaction out of the audience, but I think that was somewhat taken account of, because I think bits with characters were rocky, but by the end I totally loved it. I am pretty sure it made me cry, especially in regards to spoiler[Schwi. It was so heartening that she managed to give a heart to all of them. It just had to be Jibril who was the bastard that killed her. Just need that clip of Shiro telling Jibril off]. Izuna certainly had the right idea at the end. I do think that it touched me. In addition to all that, it did look very good, and all the sorts of praise for the work on the technical side, that feels a lot like going the extra mile. It all feels like a nice justification for those who just see this series in a shallow light. That despite the series can be boiled down to being about games, there is so much more to that, and an awesomeness that lies bellow what seems like a bleak look, but really so more positive. Because games could look so silly to those at the top, but also offer a heart to life, that doesn't need to be so devastating, and people can be kind of awesome to watch in them. I give a Masterpiece (10/10) rating, maybe just because I am a fan of the series, but it lived up to expectations, even after I had already heard it as really good. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11513 |
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Just finished up Jingai-san no Yome. What a sweet little bite of fluffy goodness! I loved every episode, except the first one, which spent too much of its 3 min run time on the OP, so it left you going, "Whuuuut?" After that it was How to Raise a Mummy levels of cute, condensed into droplets of happy. Don't get hung up on the whole waifu thing, and just roll with it and enjoy. I so hope there will be more.
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15545 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Oh thank anime gods that it is over, I am so happy that My Sister, My Writer only had 10 episodes. A top tier trash for the fall season of 2018. It is awful, just the worst. I already have done some earlier rants about how it was not just bad, but actually insulting, that it despite what it says, it really feels like it has no love for its mediums. The last episode, after finishing with the pretty much incest in love of little sisters, moved onto supposedly taking on an anime director who does not understand how little sisters should be done, but kind of feels self-referential in still allowing a terrible anime team to adapt a work, which is likely going to fail.
I don't really know what the original source material is like, if a lot of the blame lies in the original light novel writer, although I do feel that in general it feels incredibly amateur in its setting and characters. But even a good anime stuff should be able to make roses out of it, but there is so much failure in just that. Word had gotten around that artists were actually embarrassed to be working on this, you can really go out and find screencaps of terrible art in this show, which could be funny, like an example of a characters mouth not on their model. Something was wrong in the art department, but not really being an expert I can't tell if it might have been any of the artists fault. Blame will probably be put towards the director, Hiroyuki Furukawa, who for the record has also directed My First Girlfriend is a Gal and Hybrid x Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia, so at this point he has a pretty terrible reputation. I have seen enough things that it can be kind of unfair to put too much blame on people in general, there can be just bad circumstances. I don't want to put blame much onto the voice actors, I think that it was mostly fine, they were clearly working with what they had. Although I do think that the main character sounds incredibly boring, really the entire character was awful. I just prefaced how I don't want to blame anyone, and up till then just said it was bad with vague references to animation, but maybe not explained exactly what is so bad. It claims to have a real appreciation of the imouto genre, and an eye for a critical eye, but it totally fails. It does not at all feels like it has respect for its audience, or really its subject matter. I watch lot of loli anime (not pornographic) and in turn plenty of imouto stuff, I can like them and appreciate those sorts of things. But the assertion that those sorts of fans have to be siscons, is gross, I have a little sister, and my enjoyment of these sorts of anime has no bearing on my thoughts to her, because normal people are not like that. It tries to play coy and act like it is not the fact, but a single line of the last episode where the main character demands to know what reason the director likes imouto stuff, defeats its whole thing. I can hardly get started on how awful the character writing was. Characters feeling like they had been lifted right from another series, or nothing that feels remotely believable about them. How in the world could a siscon LN specifically reach like almost exclusively girls, and be seen as the best thing ever? There is like no reason that his sister have to hide her identity, she practically joins him on most of the escapades in the second half. The main character makes no sense that he acts like he has some authority on writing, and the audience is kind of meant to see him as a bit humble. What kind of a revelation of good character writing is to try and think like the character? Did the show really think it was being insightful? I give this show a rating of Bad (2/10), really not recommended. As a positive, I think that I might focus on the current writing project I have been working on, it can't be any worse than this. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15545 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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That was episode 12 and the finale of Between the Sky and Sea. Kind of looks bad that on the Crunchyroll that it's score is so low, somehow lower than the show I was just talking about while being next to it, but I don't think it was that bad. Although I will say that it's setting is a problem. Really does not feel like the show really thought it through what the total devastation to the planet it would be if there was suddenly no fish in the sea. Do dolphins, for one, not exist anymore? Do all the other animals that would get food from the oceans suddenly starve? Island locations where people rely on the sea for food, now devastated? Tourism for coastal locations that sell themselves on fresh seafood? Supposedly Japan had total Monopoly on the new way to get seafood, one character joked about being a spy, but I imagine huge political problems on the international level. The plot just stinks of things not thought through for an idea that they had to do on otherwise normal Earth.
Still, it might count as a positive if I said that I thought that the space fishing thing, was kind of the weakest part of this show, I was not really interested in that part itself, but I enjoyed other parts. The characters were more interesting when working off of each other, with the seeing them grow, and kind of fun. Probably does not look like much overall, but I can prefer this sort of thing so much more than the truly terrible things. Just group of young girls characters mucking around, like a K-ON, and other things. I give a rating of Decent (6/10), I don't think that I wasted my time. |
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Cam0
 Posts: 4916 |
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Yeah, the only pleasant surprise the show had... It's easily among the worst shows I've ever watched to completion.
Oh. Well that does explain a lot. I hated both of those shows. Now unfortunately there's still a couple episodes of Ulysses: Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knight that I've to suffer through. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15545 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Yep, as the other worst show, the fact it still has not ended, is also upsetting. No doubt that I will have some rants for that one. Kind of annoying in that at times it feels like it has some okay things, before ruining it and making me wish I just quit it early on. Among the most notable has to be the crossdresser character, that the show always has to remind us is really a guy. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4916 |
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I'm looking forward to your rants. I have to say that show has some weird camera zoom thing going on. There are a lot of odd, out of place slow zooms. Just looks weird. |
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Akane the Catgirl
Posts: 1091 Location: LA, Baby! |
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Progress Report:
Hello, my peeps. Yesterday, I finished watching my nth viewing of Madoka Magica. Yes, it's still a masterpiece. Yes, it's still my favorite anime of all time. Yes, I f*cking cried during the final episode like I always do. I love it. I think I'm going to watch My Hero Academia again before Season Four starts next fall. (Still super bummed it's been pushed back, but hey, that's life). I also want to watch all of Aggressive Retsuko and maybe restart my watch of Little Witch Academia. Thank goodness for Netflix. Sorry I haven't been visiting as much as I want. Life is just super stressful right now with the holidays and seasonal depression. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15545 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Alright, next one finished is Gurazeni: Money Pitch Season 2, finishing with its 12th episode, athough really on Crunchyroll you might just see it as a 24 episode run series. I previously talked about the first season here, back on page 1010, from back in June. if one wants to read what I write, for this season, I don't think reading that should be too much necesery, in fact I would say watching the series might not even be necessary, this really is not so much of a plot show.
I do want to continue off of my major complain from the first season, because season 2 was also problematic, and it is on how it handled a, or should I say the female character, or perhaps to characters. The first season did a big wrong by having art and the ED focused on a female character, with said female character not appearing to the last episode, and despite portrayal, she really did not have that much relevance, like any relationship with the main character, Bonda. She made several appearances in the second season, but again her main relevance seemed to be that she was a woman he had a crush on, really multiple characters seemed to have a crush on, but no one acted. I would go so far to say it became what I think of as a problem, that it kind of felt like this reflection guys who might never had a real conversation with, but somehow they create these gross delusions that I would go so far as to say ownership of said woman. Bonda in ways is practically a stalker, who went out of his way to be near this girl, never actually interacted with her, and if things like the ED and Bonda's internal dialogue is any indication, it is like considering her his girl or something. In ways I could connect it to some experience I had in High School, the crush on the one girl you wanted to be near, but never had the guts to approach. But Bonda is a grown ass man, I don't have the patience of watching this guy act like he has some teenager, who acts like he is one of the "good guys", that he deserves the girl for doing nothing, and that has internal monologue I think like using the 'chan' suffix, despite barely being an acquaintance. She does not even know him for most of this season either, and when it comes out his identity and he might actually learn to know her as a person, the characters around them talk as him being a celebrity, that he has money, and her relatives forcing her to serve on him personally, like that is what a good woman does. I would say it might actually reach misogyny. I don't know if maybe it is some weird Japanese thing in terms of women, or perhaps a more likelihood that the writer sucks at writing women. Actually took me much longer than it should have to realize that there is barely any women in this show. Granted, it is a show about male athletes and their careers, you have things like the female announcer at games as a pleasant voice for when players are being swapped out, but I think that you could put that for all women in this show. Some of the few other women are things like wives, and really just feel like trophies than actual characters. There was one arc in this season where we were introduced to the fiancé of a pretty common appearing character, where she is tangentially connected to the plot where her reactions and voice are about how she seems happy with some luxury, but also wants to help her man in how she wants to show she will be with him despite things. Maybe that sounds vague, there really want not much of a personality there, one thing being that he was not really happy with how she had a job where she acted as a somewhat risqué hostess, where I think it wanted to show him as good as he would not force her to stop. But at the same time there is this lingering thread like the writing does not care at all for the autonomy for this and other woman, another one being an expected mother who also wants to support her husband, who is totally going to take over her father's business while she becomes a stay at home mum. Nothing is really said out loud in this show, but there is kind of this thread that seems to say the best possible result for women in it, are that they become devoted to their husbands, who will become the bread winners to support their beautiful wives. That alone might not even sound so bad, past generations practically use it as a mantra of success at life, but it kind of feels like women are treated like actual objects. I am confused why it could not even try something making Bonda and his crush interact like normal people, before it becoming a problem of weighted balance of power. In the end it makes this series that felt like it was trying to be an interesting focus of things off the sport field, for specifically career and livelihood, for something much shallower. A lot was put onto what are proper manners in Japanese society but as an outsider it just makes me think that the unsaid stuff is just stupid. These character are acting polite like it some act of what they should do, while having little genuine reflection of truth. Maybe it is a more accurate reflection of Japanese society, where secretly everyone still wants sports cars, hot wives, and of course money, but I don't like it. As someone who has a finance career, I don't think it needed to be as such. I would give a final rating of So-so (5/10), it didn't really grab my attention. That maybe is a little high for how I just did all of those complaints, but I put that as a caveat, that the end I can't even be sure of all those things that could be little more than me reading far too much into it, and complaining about a culture I don't fully understand. My understanding of those things were only after watching so far into it, and taking note of what was not there, rather than what was. That at parts it has even tried to act like it is 'woke' (is that a correct term?) by being even handed with topics like a black man in Japan, at the end of the day it still comes across like it is ignorant, in a kind of blissful way. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15545 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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The next show finished today is Uzamaid!, also finishing off with its 12th episode. I know some people have had the worst opinion of it, after all it is a lolicon show, with an adult women that quite frankly states her love for a pre-pubescent girl, the worst probably being her mentions about starting periods being a hard line. But I kind of liked the show. It may have had common punchlines that were not always the healthiest, and had some limited punctuations for scenes such as the screeching Psycho strings for scary like scenes, but I think that it kind of worked often enough with comedic timing. Can't be sure, but I am pushing this at least partially on the director, Masahiko Ohta, he has directed a number of shows like Yuru Yuri, Love Lab, Survival Game Club, Gabriel Dropout, Mitsudomoe and Himouto Umaru-chan. Despite any troubling aspects of those series, the comedic timing of those shows are always great, and in general are fun to watch. Might look like I have just repeated a random assortment of shows that director happened to work on, but at the same time I seem to always end up a fan of them, and I can add Uzamaid to that list now, although there were older characters here in this one compared to the other shows.
There was a kind of surprising emotional core in the last episode too. The first was the reveal of Tsubame's tragedy, and why she is kind of an odd mix of being into cute things, despite kind of being what one might call masculine. It was a nice crescendo that she spoiler[took piloting because her mother told a white lie that her passed away father was in the sky, and struggled to find what she considered a meaningful end to it all]. Knocking away the comedy and getting psycho analytical, one would hope that she maybe get over her problematic infatuation, because kind of seems she has messed up maternal feelings with those for love. The other was the reason Misha got upset, and was that she was spoiler[angry at herself for not feeling anything that her mother's room was invaded]. She had to be told that rather than being upset, her mother would be proud for what she managed to do, because despite the lolicon aspect of the show, it did a descent growing up story. The show was cute and funny. I was especially fond of her adorable ferret, along with the hamsters, Kumagoro. As strange as it might sound, the friendship she had with masochistic maid, was also cute. Oh, and I mentioned in an earlier post that I had a fondness for the ED, and my opinion was among the better of this season. Although there were probably better OPs, I don't think this OP was bad either. There is a genuine cuteness there, that I can see might not overcome how people may get turned off by the lolicon stuff, but regardless was a good watch. I give it a rating of Good (7/10), worth seeing. This will probably be higher than others, but this is into my personal taste, and fits right into mine. Don't know if I will ever find anyone who quite matches a lot of the stuff that I think is great and underappreciated, but fellow fans of the director should also get into it. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15545 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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And the last series finished for the day is Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighbourhood, with its 12 episode run. It is days like this where I am looking back the past season of several shows that it can be a bit exhausting. Interestingly I tended to choose show to be the last one I would watch Saturdays, after the number of other shows, because it was the most relaxing, kind of like what some call healing anime. There was the addition that this show was also clearly a yuri bait anime, the sort of thing with exclusive female cast of young girls, who will clearly flirt with each other, but no actual romance will come out. I am a bit of a sucker for that sort of thing, although I will say that they can be hit and miss on what the individual gimmick is. This one being that some of the girls are vampires that are supposed to be much older than they look, so as a vampire nerd it gets my attention alone with that, and did facilitate some jokes that are separate to usual dealings in the genre.
Sophie maybe out of sorts of trends by a couple decades, with her otaku nature giving her an interest anime like school girls and stuff, which she is kind of out of touch in contrast to her age by appearance. Followed up later by the introduction of Ellie, who appears even younger, but older still, along with being much more out of touch with anything from the past century, along with being thirsty. That is thirsty in the sense of wanting blood, but also that she liked saying how pleasing she found young girls. Probably kind of good that they managed to not have the youngest appearing character feel creepy from being the more sexual character, they kind of set her up nice earlier on when she expressed that she hated people she treating her like she was a child. But even with concern to the vampires, the human Akari was no slouch in the strange department, not at all scared of the immortal life sucking vampires. She had her own thing that she is actually really into dolls, especially the creepier ones, which did set a nice identity for her. Especially that she herself could also be the creepier one, which is probably double standards in that male character could not get away with it, but what are going to do. With the last episode, there really was not anything really big, a small plot with food shortage which led to a friendship thing, but generally it worked well as an easy going thing that felt like a nice goodbye from the central Akari and Sophie relationship, and stuff. I do like the OP of this show, it is a nice snappy piece, that I could find myself humming along to, and just makes me happy, although I am sure the yuri imagery is probably manipulating me somewhat. If I did have a complaint of the show, it would probably be that two of the side characters feel like they have no point, they were there to make school not feel too lonely, and appeared in a few episode plots, but barely played any part. Might be mistaken, but at the least I think they were the most explicitly implied to be in a relationship of sorts, them kind of feeling that they were taken from a more mild version of Sakura Trick or something. Anyway, I give this vampire yuri slice of life anime, a rating of Good (7/10), it feels like worth seeing. It is nothing really deep, with big arcs, or an incredibly creative story, but it is enjoyable and relaxing. The sort of thing I could watch endlessly and just enjoy watching the screen. And when some things can feel like a bit difficult to sit through, or another might feel a bit cringe at times, this is definitely something that I think still has a value. |
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