Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Is Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Worth Watching?
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Heishi
 Posts: 1346 |
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From some of the pics that I saw, I like what I'm seeing so yes.
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 5163 |
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I liked the concept of focusing on the PTSD effects of magical girl battles which isn't something I've seen explored much in anime. But it doesn't explore it with enough depth, the characters weren't interesting enough, and the animation was of too low of quality, so I dropped it. I might decide to binge watch it at some point later on but it's not a high priority for me.
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Luke's Yu-Gi-Oh! Channel
 Posts: 159 Location: Australia |
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It's pretty disappointing but I continue to watch it.
After seeing the preview for it before it begin I was actually pretty hyped but it has been a let down so far. |
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Beansprout Midget
Posts: 145 |
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I definitely prefer the manga over the anime. However, the show does a good enough job, in my opinion, to get one interested and check out the source material.
Also, is anyone else distracted by the animation? Some about the colors doesn't really sit well with me. I'm not sure, but I get more distracted by wonky shots than the actual story sometimes. |
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TanyaTheEvil
 Posts: 332 |
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I am so loving this anime, one of the best this season
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Terrible90sDub
 Posts: 168 |
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I've found the approach this anime takes a bit fascinating, since it seems to want to be so many things at once, but doesn't commit to any of them that sincerely. Even if someone wants to watch it for something like the fanservice, they're likely going to be turned off the - at times - fairly lengthy discussions about military and terrorism matters.
Oddly, the first few episodes were the ones I found the strongest, since I agree that once Asuka rejoins the military it decides to just go "okay, more violence!" It does have short moments to try to remind you of some of the earlier themes, but as mentioned above, it doesn't commit. I did find it a shame since, at first, it seemed like it did research beyond how most media portray trauma, which tends to be by making characters act like childish dolls (especially female characters) or just make them have one "face your fear!" scene where everything is magically fixed. Oh, and if the credits on the manga are any indication, they had a military advisor for some scenes, but I imagine the problem there is again that they don't linger on those scenes long enough for them to fully explore it. Still, I ended up enjoying it overall? It's, uh, somewhat different if nothing else. |
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Sailor Sedna
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I'm not the only one who thought of 24 when I saw this. Based on this though, looks like you guys thought it was a vomit-inducing mess. I've fallen behind, and now am not sure if this anime is worth finishing or not, nor is the manga, it's now suffering from tonal whiplash, the manga and episode 8 had that problem with a bad balance between fanservice and violent torture/controversial scenes (and that scene with Nazani that POW makes me feel like I could end up on a watchlist considering she only looks like she's 13). I only got up to where episode 9 would be in place in the manga, and while the bridge thing was cool, Tabira is ultimately superfluous and comes off like nothing more than a bad hentai OC. And if I hear Sacchu say "MAGICAL GIRL TRIVIA" ONE more time...
The animation isn't as good as I hoped it would be, it's low quality and just barely above the worst of Sailor Moon Crystal's, relying on animation shortcuts too much like still frames on speed lines, not to mention the godawful CGI vehicles and the character designs for some are ridiculous, I swear that Kurumi (who seems to have been possessed by the spirit of Norma Bates or something, that shower scene really brings HER to mind, or would be the female anime equivalent of a certain guy who's all "zappin' to the extreme") would suffer from constant wardrobe malfunctions in real life. They should have had a good company like Madhouse, Sunrise or AIC work on it. War Nurse Kurumi probably is my favorite character too, but that's not saying too much sadly, maybe she should have just had an anime herself or be the protagonist instead. And at least make her 18 if you're gonna give her a big rack!! 
And yeah, where the shit is Pei Pei, the fifth magical girl? Are we gonna get a sense of "false advertising?" I have a feeling she won't show up and then this anime will end on its final episode without adapting the rest of the manga, it seems, and we'll see the release of Half-Life 3 before we get a second season. I ain't gonna lie though, for a while, with some exceptions, I'm actually losing my faith in the magical girl anime genre nowadays, with it either being too pervy with stuff like this over characters, or it's adding to the swelling udder of the Precure cash cow, animation/frame rate is low in quality, or it's just grimdark for the sake of being stupidly grimdark (that's what I heard Magical Girl Site is like and it sucks), little or no characterization, to where I'm thinking, was there any quality control here, did anyone look through these anime/manga before they dumped them onto every Crunchyroll platform or Barnes and Noble? Sadly it's coming off like another anime that started off strong, had what was a good manga to adapt, but over time, it just went downhill. I'd still watch this though, over seeing an anime adaptation made out of that horrible visual novel "Idol Magical Girl: Chiru Chiru Michiru" where there the magical girl protagonist is a selfish, unlikable moronic jerk who fails to do anything to help stop the enemies and does not grow... Interesting how they had Potpourri voice Sacchu, but a bit of a trivia I'm sure nobody noticed: one of the original Sailor Soldiers actually voiced Francine (I'll let you guess which one), unfortunately her talent seems to be greatly wasted there. 
Last edited by Sailor Sedna on Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:06 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Ouran High School Dropout
 Posts: 440 Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA |
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This sounds like just enough of a train wreck to give it a chance. I'm a sucker for MST3K fodder.
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TanyaTheEvil
Posts: 332 |
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what does 24 mean
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jenthehen
 Posts: 835 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio |
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As a fan of edgy dumpsterfires, I've really been enjoying this show! It's definitely piqued my interest enough to check out the manga ...
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Sailor Sedna
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24 was a popular action/drama series starring Keifer Sutherland playing Jack Bauer, a counter-terrorist agent who kills a ton of terrorists. It's really good, I disagree with what they said about it in the article, as the characters there were actually developed well and three dimensional.
I'd say it's the "Garzey's Wing" of magical girl anime (besides Idol Magical Girl Chiru Chiru Michiru) but it's not coming off as ironic to watch unlike that so-bad-it's-good disasterpiece, it's coming off like a magical girl manga made by a dirty middle-aged man for impressionable young seinen men who will likely grow up to be Master Roshis. Glad you enjoy it, but for me, it would be the equivalent of renting an anime/buying it for like $40 hoping it would be as good as Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura or Cowboy Bebop, only to find out it's a piece of shit.
I think my manga copies may end up hitting the waste bin eventually, and there's at least $52 I sacrificed... Last edited by Sailor Sedna on Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Ouran High School Dropout
Posts: 440 Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA |
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The advantage is that I know it's trash going in. 
BTW, I'm the only person I know that actually owns a DVD of Garzey's Wing...
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Sailor Sedna
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Glad to hear that for you, I didn't realize it was trash until later. Maybe my expectations were too high...
I'd get a copy of that DVD myself, to laugh at. 
Last edited by Sailor Sedna on Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2295 |
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Are you at all familiar with the webcomic Sleepless Domain? |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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I guess now is the part where I can feel vindicated for having plugged that comic as a (much) better alternative in the preview-guide thread. We've come full circle, apparently. At that stage I still felt there was an outside chance Spec-Ops could turn out to be decent, but instead it seems to have transformed into the magical-girl equivalent of a slasher movie. The one thing I'm not clear on is what they're actually saying when dropping F-bombs, because as far as I know there's no Japanese equivalent to [word which is apparently banned from the forum, but not from articles]. Creative license by the subtitlers, maybe. |
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