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FireChick
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Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2494
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 2:18 pm Reply with quote
To quote a blogger I know who saw and hated Guilty Crown, Shu isn't so much a character as he is a plot device, and his personality changes because the plot demands it. Yeah, I remember this anime being shit on when it first aired, and IMHO, it's well deserved.
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Glordit



Joined: 11 Sep 2020
Posts: 685
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 3:13 pm Reply with quote
I'd say "And Yet the Town Moves" above everything else, Majestic Prince 2nd, Noein 3rd, BECK 4th. Have yet to see KEY

Guily Crown is more like a case study in how terrible a show can become.
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Andrew Cunningham



Joined: 01 Feb 2006
Posts: 527
Location: Seattle
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 5:26 pm Reply with quote
I finally watched the And Yet the Town Moves anime this year as well, having translated some of the later manga volumes for Crunchyroll (and grabbing all the author's work.)

I enjoyed it for what it is, but there's definitely a degree to which it fundamentally doesn't get the source material. Like Shaft seem to think Hotori is hot, but in the manga when she's drawn sitting around the house in her underwear it just makes her look like a [expletive] slob, and that's so much funnier.

The anime also didn't quite get to the point where Futaba entirely stole the position of second lead, so there wasn't nearly enough of her.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 2064
Location: australia
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 5:29 pm Reply with quote
Despite never finishing it I love Noein. It used to air on TV here and I enjoyed watching sporadic episodes. I have the full season now but I'm stuck debating whether to watch it in the dub I'm familiar with or in sub, which I usually prefer for anime.


Guilty Crown was one of those shows you really had to be there watching as it simulcast. I feel like the only way to capture the fun of watching it nowadays is in a group watch. Everyone coming together to observe it's painful slide into shitness was truly an experience.
The soundtrack still goes hard though. Not many songs out there can beat Bios.

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Well then, here's hoping somebody license rescues Earth Maiden Arjuna by next year so we can do this again.

I think it's available on Tubi? At least, I started watching it on Tubi last year or so.
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1586
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 6:23 pm Reply with quote
Oh hey, I've actually seen four of those!

Noein was in 2007, through our good ol' friend Sci-Fi Ani-Mondays. I remember liking it, but it was a little too high-concept and confusing to really stick in my mind beyond key moments. SyFy apparently agreed, as it never got rerun after the premieres finished.

BECK was in 2010, via FUNimation's Viridian Collection set. There are some rough patches, less in the sense of animation quality and more Koyuki's social connections in the first half, but taken as a whole, it's good stuff.

Guilty Crown was in 2011-2012, a seasonal viewing. I mostly only watched this because this was in my "watching (almost) every recent Production I.G anime" phase, and while it wasn't as bad as BLOOD-C a season earlier or Fena: Pirate Princess a decade later, it was key proof that I.G was, in fact, capable of missing. But still, I feel more sorry than I should for shows that are dunked on and ripped apart ruthlessly, so as much as it annoyed me from start to finish, I still like the show more than I don't. Tsugumi is best girl, and it amuses me that her seiyuu and Shu's are married now.

And Yet the Town Moves was 2021-2022, an "out-of-seasonal" viewing. Very fun show, well worth my time.


Last edited by Takkun4343 on Wed Dec 20, 2023 7:28 am; edited 1 time in total
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2375
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 7:14 pm Reply with quote
I just couldn't get into And Yet The Town Moves. Just never thought it was that funny. It's like a bunch of things that I'm supposed to be laughing at but I just can't. Just didn't do it for me.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18494
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 7:38 pm Reply with quote
The only thing worth remembering about Guilty Crown is its powerhouse OP. But it is also part of one sordid fun fact: it was not the only series in its debut year to feature a young man reaching into the chest of a young woman to obtain something mystical. (See also The Mystic Archives of Dantalian.)

As for Key the Metal Idol, I (obviously) join Steve in advocating for this one at every opportunity. Its first three episodes only scratch the surface of how brutal a condemnation it is of the idol industry, and those three episodes alone aren't enough to show how little its plot resembles anything else in anime. Its weakness is, indeed, that its movie-length next-to-last episode is a bit of a chore to get through (it's mostly one epic info dump), but the plot has some fascinating turns and I'd stack it against any modern idol show for song quality. I also agree that its OP is among the greats.
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pi8you



Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 196
Location: Minneapolis
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 10:20 pm Reply with quote
Some mighty fine gifting in there.

BECK's an all-timer for me as well, and contains one of my favorite scenes in all of anime towards the end (music rights be damned). The soundtracks are so good they don't leave the rotation for too long either, even all these years later.

Noein was a blast to watch week to week, blending some really engaging sci-fi ideas with great action. I really need to revisit it though, see how it holds up. Ditto for Birdy the Mighty: Decode, which I would love to see on blu-ray someday.

I watched And Yet The Town Moves at the start of this year, and finally got around to reading the manga earlier this month before Crunchyroll could pull the plug on its service (along with Kawai Complex, which had also been long overdue for a read). SHAFT definitely left their mark on it, but the parts the show doesn't cover go to some truly excellent and/or out there places.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4828
PostPosted: Wed Dec 20, 2023 12:25 am Reply with quote
Heh, I am here for any and all shitting on Hisashi Hirai's, um, "talents." I enjoyed both Infinite Ryvius and s-CRY-ed, but it was despite his derpy--ass character faces, not because of them.

Some really good choices in here. Beck is as much of an all-time banger as its soundtrack. I've seen multiple people refer to it as possibly the most indie-film-ish anime series ever made, and I think that tracks. It has such a genuine feel to it, perfectly capturing the screw-ups and successes and struggle and triumph of a bunch of kids getting together to form a great band. A special shout-out has to go to the job FUNi did dubbing the songs, because the English cast was absolutely up to the challenge.

I caught Noein when SyFy aired it right at the beginning of its Ani-Mondays block. As the column noted, it's a spectacularly creative show from a visual standpoint, playing fast-and-loose with its animation in a way few series successfully pull off. My fondest memories of it involved the weekly discussions I had with a group of friends who were all watching along together. I had to apply my undergrad physics degree to reading up on quantum mechanics concepts that were quite frankly well over my head, and then attempting to explain them in a way that the rest of the group could understand. I'm not sure I accomplished much besides giving everyone massive headaches. Laughing

I actually just picked up a copy of Key the Metal Idol, largely due to the praise heaped on it by Key and others. My backlog's pretty much a lost cause at this point, but maybe I can spur myself to dive into it.
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2337
PostPosted: Wed Dec 20, 2023 4:43 pm Reply with quote
I got 10 episodes into Noein back in 2017; maybe I should give it another shot. Though with my current treadmill-focused watch patterns, it's quite possible I could miss too much of the plot to follow. It's pretty dense.

Quote:
Considering the kind of people she meets on her journey to friendship, she's lucky it's not 300 Yamadas.


I'm pleased with myself for anticipating this joke on Twitter Saturday. Very Happy

harminia wrote:
I think it's available on Tubi? At least, I started watching it on Tubi last year or so.


Yup, Arjuna's still there, both sub and dub. At least here in the States.
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Joe Mello



Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 2316
Location: Online Terminal
PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2023 1:54 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
The only thing worth remembering about Guilty Crown is its powerhouse OP.

Two powerhouse OP's.
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 2267
PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2023 10:40 pm Reply with quote
Glordit wrote:
I'd say "And Yet the Town Moves" above everything else, Majestic Prince 2nd, Noein 3rd, BECK 4th. Have yet to see KEY

Guily Crown is more like a case study in how terrible a show can become.
Blasphemy. The correct order would be BECK, Noein, And Yet the Town Moves, Majestic Prince. I've never seen all of Key so can't comment on it. Guilty Crown was a show that got me angry for the hours of my life that it wasted.

Beck is a classic (I have the old amp LE box) though for a show about music it could have used 1-2 more songs. Noein doesn't quite reach its ambitions, but its creativity is easily seen. And Yet the Town Moves I haven't seen in over a decade and I remember it being ok, but it was not a keeper for me. Majestic Prince was a mixed bag with the mech action sometimes being good, but then there being times when it was obvious that the budget was tight and the story had its moments but it also sometimes dragged. Unless you don't like slice of life, I'd say Beck is a must watch and to a lesser extent Noein as well. The others are only if you have the free time (again can't say anything about Key).

pi8you wrote:
Some mighty fine gifting in there...Ditto for Birdy the Mighty: Decode, which I would love to see on blu-ray someday.
I love Birdy have the Funi DVDs would love it if it got released on blu-ray.
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aereus



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 576
PostPosted: Fri Dec 22, 2023 5:25 pm Reply with quote
Yeah MJP I felt was pretty mediocre throughout, as far as story and characters goes. One of the few shows where I got to ep20+ and finally had enough and dropped. I just realized, it shares a lot of parallels to why I disliked and didn't finish Macross Delta: Uninteresting characters, with a weak ongoing plot, where the MC seems to power up simply by getting more angry: Screams and flails around and turns into a DBZ fight sequence where they're trading blows 30 times a second.
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