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Kagemusha
Joined: 20 Feb 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Boston
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:35 am
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This is a series that I'm thinking about getting, but it seems there are some conflicting opinions out there on it. While it has recieved tons of possitive reviews, most of them that I read just go on about how sad and touching the show is without really presenting any substance. The negative reviews, while sometimes are helpful and do bring up good points, often bash it for being overly angsty. Can someone write the pros and cons of this series without talking about how much it made them cry (I really don't care about that)?
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king_micah
Joined: 09 Jun 2003
Posts: 994
Location: OSU
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 9:56 am
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My opinion, heavily disagreed by some, is that Saikano is crap. My entire anime club agreed that it is horrible mostly for one thing- The Character designs. They are for Lolicons. The male lead and female lead are suppose to be the same age. He looks like forty. She looks like ten. I've heard some opinions that the designs are valid because they show the relative innocence of the leads. That does not help, and it even makes it worse as the dirty old man takes advantage of the innocent little girl.
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TF
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 357
Location: Belgium
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:44 am
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Saikano isn't ordinary.
Like king previously said, the character design are a bit simple but that never really bothered me.
It is true that saikano is about feelings and such and every important side-character gets killed and in not always painless ways. Not to mention that a lot of the chara's have sex with each other but without becoming explicit or so. The just say it or the idea is given out. It isn't becoming a hentai or something like that. but if you are someone who likes to watch psycho-anime, I guess you couldn't have found anything better.
My PERSONNAL opinion about it was that after i watched it, that it was nothing special, it was nice to follow but not something to fall from my chair.
But that is just my personnal opinion about it. It aint worth much.
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 3904
Location: CO
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:50 am
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Don't listen to King_Micah. Character designs aside, Saikano is a must see.
Basically, Saikano's strength comes in its portrayal of human emotions. Even though it's set during a war, and uses the war as a heavy focal point, it's really not a war story. The whole series is about Chise and Shuuji, two teenagers who are struggling to do something as simple as be in love when everything in the world is tearing them apart.
Throughout the series, they find themselves dealing with things that most people never have to. When Chise is turned into the Ultimate Weapon, suddenly the issue of what it means to be human comes to the forefront. How she deals with the guilt of wiping entire cities out and slowly losing her friends and boyfriend out of fear... all of these present a backdrop to the story of this couple. How their friends interact with them, how their families treat them-- all of this goes to show this normal couple and their normal lives get ripped apart by this world.
It's hard to pinpoint what's good and bad about this show. A lot of people just say that you should watch it because it's so depressing and heartwrenching. And really, if a show can pull those deep emotions from you, then it's doing something right. All Saikano is is a sweet high school romance set in the most desperate of settings, showing that no matter what happens in life, some of the most important, and hardest, things to hold on to are the tiny things like love thatmost people take for granted.
Check out the first volume.
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Innotech
Joined: 21 Mar 2004
Posts: 234
Location: Louisiana
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:46 pm
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I do bleieve you hit the nail on the head, but also, by making Chise and Akemi really small fragile looking characters, it highlights their vulnerability in the world and gives you a better understanding that these are ordinary (ok Chise is no longer ordinary) girls going through extraordinary life threatening events. Maybe if someone has a overly perverted mind it looks lolicon to them, but to me, it just showed how truly fragile humans are and it got me more into the overall story and message that it had to tell. If the characters were older it wouldnt seem so frightening and powerful. You need to see that these people are young, because that adds to the whole tragic aura of Saikano. I htink this show is a masterpiece and I want to see morel ike it in the future.
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Iron Chef
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 487
Location: Seattle, WA
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:16 pm
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I suppose you could also compare Saikano to The Blair Witch Project (wait, wait....hear me out), another piece of cinema that was either loudly jeered or heartily applauded. The reason is that if you're willing to put yourself into story, so to speak, you wind up empathizing a whole lot more with what's going on.
I mean, cripes, your country is being blown to crap by some kind of army, people are getting picked off left and right, catastrophic earthquakes are going on...it's just a hard time to be alive, y'know? And for the most part, how the characters react to what's going on is totally believable. They're not overly weepy or supremely stoic in the face of adversity; they're just kids.
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Kagemusha
Joined: 20 Feb 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Boston
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 9:06 pm
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Sounds like Now and Then, Here and There a little.
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