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Forum - View topicThe Stream - And I Feel Fine
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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So Kids on the Slope can join Chihayafuru with a perfect #1 The Stream ranking, huh. Well it wasn't my favourite show of the Spring 2012 season although it was pretty close. I'd rate both Space Brothers and Nazo no Kanojo X higher, and if Acchi Kocchi had been streamed it would have been my #1. Well, it still is, but of course it wasn't simulcasted/streamed so isn't eligible for this particular list. Anyway, if I count Acchi Kocchi then that means Kids on the Slope would have been my #4 pick, right ahead of Fate/Zero Season 2 at #5.
Yep, Spring 2012 was a fairly good season I am happy to say.
I very much agree that the action should have been spaced out more; the battle with Caster should have been the finale to Season 1, not the opening of Season 2. However, I do not agree that the first season is impotent, I think it is actually the clear superior of the two. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Moyashimon, Lagrange 2, MubRub, and Horizon II are the top picks for Summer. Spring was definitely good, I enjoyed and still am enjoying most of what came out. Apollon was good, but needed more jazz. I don't care if that's a swallow request when it's supposed to be a character drama, but it need more jazz, and more variation in tunes. I've said before that there's nothing that makes this special other than what music and what era it chose. Had it been rock and taken place today, I would have liked it better when they called Beck and Nana. I agree on tsuritama's first half being more interesting, I felt lost and confused during the alien invasion bit, and Yuki had already grown by then. It felt like a needless addition to a "coming of age" story, and Haru was the center of it.
Upotte's final episode missed it's mark, of course I'm a biased manga reader now. spoiler[MGX is still ongoing, but the conclusion was sweet and I hope to see more, bearing some drastic changes.] Acchi Kocchi one of my top picks, which is quite surprising, I went in expecting nothing of it and came out with diabetes and smile, covered in nosebleed residue. I think I'd pick that one first before any of the others if I meant getting more. Fate/Zero was alright, nothing's gonna top fighting a summoned Great Old One in a river, so the rest of the second season was just was an extended denouement for me. Space Brothers finally clicked and got on track once Mutta entered the JAXA program and we're following his exploits a linear storytelling fashion. Now I see that the excitement of the series is the training itself, all of the little things one must do to prove themselves to themselves, their rivals, and those in charge. And Space Nodame is cute. The other ongoing series Accel World and Sengoku Collection hold together enough for me to be interested every week. The one with Fat Shoe in video game land does it through the stunning visuals, the fights are top notch. The non-generic sengoku warlords as women show does it through good character episodes every now and then, it's very up or down depending on the week. The other shows I'm waiting on that I'm less enthused about are AKB0048, which is too slow when it's not in concert, Hyouka which is just too slow period, and Gundam Age which needs to end already but I can't drop anime once I'm this far in. Looking ahead, Summer is strong for an off-season, sequels series included. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13240 |
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You completely nailed it with Fate/Zero. Season 1 dragged on too long and season 2 was rushed because of it. They spent too much time dealing with Caster and Ryuunosuke (staff favourites, apparently) when they should have focused on more important characters.
In the end I'll take DEEN's adaptation of the original any day. |
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青白
Posts: 184 |
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I also had huge expectation from Accel World after watching its teaser, I thought it would be actually about character development and how the main character deals with his difficult life, but then it turns into a boring virtual world battle fest, and all the stuffs that go down there, all of which were uninteresting. I dropped the show actually at 9 episode, surprised that Bamboo even lasted the whole first season.
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jugemxjugem
Posts: 7 |
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Polar Bear Cafe remained high, i really need to check it out once i get more free time. as for the rest i agree on most parts, especially kids on the slope, just a wonderful beautiful anime, best of the season.
Dusk Maiden of Amensia was a big downer for me, i had higher expectations , it kinda improved in till the end but then again they went and screwed up the ending All in all a pretty good season imo as for the summer I was not really looking forward to any shows but Jinrui wa had a really great first episode so i'm excited for it Will give most shows a shot and filter the good stuff |
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crosswithyou
 Posts: 2899 Location: California |
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I'm glad to see continued high rankings for Uchuu Kyoudai and Shirokuma Cafe. I've heard that both will be running for 52 episodes.
Also, remember my friend who posted photos of the locations in tsuritama? He posted photos for Sakamichi no Apollon too! The page is here and the location is Sasebo City, Nagasaki. I didn't even realize that places in the series were based on real locations! My friend said that it was the first time he had to do research at the library in order to write an article. |
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5514 |
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I wonder if we can put Bodacious Space Pirates in the list of "strong female leads you would recommend to other females without feeling embarrassed"?
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24161 |
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That's just bizarre. I'm not even close to being one of those anti-Studio DEEN types. I liked F/SN even with its flaws. F/Z has its flaws too, but it was head and shoulders above F/SN in every conceivable category, but most especially in any technical measure. |
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jl07045
 Posts: 1527 Location: Riga, Latvia |
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Can you elaborate, what was it that you liked about the F/SN adaptation better? Was it the SoL? I personally think that F/SN is the better story, but speaking about the adaptations I have to agree with Bamboo. |
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RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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Yeah... I almost thought Vaisaga was sarcastic. I'm a huge Fate fan and even I'd admit that the Deen FSN adaption was terrible. If you really want to experience the FSN story, you gotta read the VN since the anime skips so much stuff, and thats not even to mention the infamous Dragon scene. Fate/Zero was my favorite show since Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood ended. It embodies basically everything I like about anime... Crazy fight scenes, amazing production values, really well developed characters, the best story I've seen in anime in a long time and of course, Saber. In all of the anime/manga/visual novel/light novel etc industry, Saber is my absolute favorite characters and seeing her animated again made me so happy. The day it ended was a sad one for me, and I'm not sure how long it'll take for another show of that caliber to air. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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I would, Marika can be silly at times but she's not stupid (plus, her clothes are decidedly not fanservice-y which I've found always makes it a bit more awkward to try and recommend a series to a female friend). And with Bamboo, while I'm still watching Accel World, mostly as a kind of good looking fluff, and I've seen some diehard fans for it online by and large it seems like most people have dropped the show so I wonder why it was greeted so enthusiastically at AX then, guess there are more fans for it after all. |
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RyanSaotome
Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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Its one of the most popular shows of Spring. Maybe not here, since ANN doesn't seem to be as much into the shonen battling stuff, but thats still a very popular genre in America. I see it being talked about all over the internet on anime forums. Last edited by RyanSaotome on Wed Jul 04, 2012 10:09 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Petrea Mitchell
Posts: 438 Location: Near Portland, OR |
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Thanks to reading this column, tsuritama and Polar Bear Cafe are both on my list to of stuff I need to check out sometime. But right now, I'm continuing with Space Brothers, Hunter x Hunter, and Eureka Seven AO, and I've got to see Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita, and that's a full plate for me.
I feel pretty pathetic that I can only spare two hours a week, compared to the monumental effort you're putting in. |
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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You REALLY sure about that Bamboo? Just be sure to never say no to pandas. 
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4630 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Here's my postmortem from this season's season thread and I think I'm retiring the project. I mainly started making them for two reasons, no one was updating the series index and I wanted to keep track of links to current shows and there wasn't a good outlet to talk about just what was currently playing. With Tony K being more active on the index and this thread taking care of the season in progress, not much reason to keep it going.
[ quote="Spastic Minnow" ] My usual rating presentation, an approximate rating from my favorite of the season down to a couple I kind of wish I hadn’t bothered with. Although I did separate out the continuing shows into a second section this time. In short it was a very strong season. I can be stingy with my ratings but this year produced a host of shows I enjoyed. The problem with the season is that I ended up watching so much, I’ve burned myself out a bit and plan to cut down drastically in the summer and maybe catch up on my backlog and enjoy watching shows that don’t have week-long breaks. Excellent Lupin III: A Girl called Fujiko Mine: I have to admit I started to get a little worried in the middle of the show, as I was getting a little tired of the episodic adventures, then they go ahead and finish it off with a very cool final arc that connected parts of the episodic parts, presented an alternately trippy and sinister story of psychological torture, break-downs and even had a psychotic villain that I thought was a well written character (very rare, I may be becoming known on this forum for my extreme dislike of psycho bad guys). And that art, I so love it when expressive art serves a story so well. Kids on the Slope: So nice to see Noitamina hitting on all cylinders again. Quality writing, a story worth telling, characters that feel real and defy current tropes, and a authentic feeling period piece that is very nicely augmented by the jazz music framing device. In order to fit a complete story into 12 episodes (but hey, at least Noitamina didn’t limit to 11) they did have to rush a couple bits, but I found it done well enough that I could easily reason out those motives in between the lines. Mysterious Girlfriend X: I feel a bit sorry for those that couldn’t see past the drool. Unique characters, a sweet coming of age story that takes its time exploring the strange little idiosyncracies of the awkward teen boy and his odd girlfriend with her unexpected abilities and talents. By presenting such a exaggerated couple and their unreal obstacles it seems to nicely represent the awkwardness we all experience in relationships, especially in these teen years. Very Good tsuritama: A group of talented young boys have to bond together, use their unique skills and maybe they can save the world from an alien attack, all the while dealing with their family problems! Sounds so very standard for anime, right? Well, throw in fly fishing, panic attacks, traditional dancing, mind controlling water pistols, much more and expressive art and you have something very unique. If there’s any problem with the approach it might try a little too hard too push the normalcy barrier. Sankarea: It finishes with out a resolution but leaves you wanting more. The lead male is a nice twist on a normally bland lead, the cute girl living in his house trope is cut with a seriously dark twist and the family secrets of both the girl and a the boys apparently zombie related family problems offer a lot of intrigue. The scumbag father is a bit icky to consider and it really doesn’t seem like he gets what he deserves, but one can hope there’s more story to come. Acchi Kocchi: this brand of light-hearted fun comedy seems simple but recent examples of the sort show it can be hard to do. These characters are a fun bunch and have cute little adventures but they don’t fall into the pander trap that so many shows fall into when dealing with cute girls doing cute things. The main pair’s chaste non-romance is sweet and funny, from the first episode it seems they like each other but between her lightly tsundere attitude and his apparently dense understanding of how much she likes him they play off the relations hip well for smiles and laughs. Good Bodacious Space Pirates: There’s some wasted potential in the show, it doesn’t seem to want to commit to being a dramatic action showcase or a cute school based comedy. It is also true that emotions never really go to any extremes. But I like the cute pirate girls and they have succeeded in some fun space action. I’d welcome a return of these characters and am glad to hear of the upcoming movie. Dusk Maiden of Amnesia: I liked the comedy, I liked the stylish mood and atmosphere, occasionally the two clashed a bit but there was also at the heart of it a tragic tale of a ghost greatly wronged and the boy who is able to help relieve her of some of the torment she’s been bottling up and denying. It’s an effective story. I do wish they had gone a bit deeper into the “why” of the story- It does a good job of the “how” but I think theres still much more substance to what happened. Some parts, the school festival in particular, felt rushed as well. Medaka Box: This show gave us a slow burn of character and world introduction and partially fools the viewer that its something that it’s not. A wider framework for what’s really going on in this school that apparently has no teachers doesn’t get introduced until the end. I still enjoyerd it becasue I was always getting the sense that there’s some melancholy hidden in Medaka’s cheery perfection. I’m glad that theory was partially rewarded and look forward to the promised continuation. Is This a Zombie? -Of The Dead!: After the first season I said I would have preferred it if they had ignored the dramatic bits more and focused on the comedy more and that I would have probably rated it higher than “good” if they had done that. I got my wish, but it turns out feeling like something’s missing after all. It’s still funny though, some of it outrageously so, so it still deserves a strong if not unqualified recommendation. Natsuiro Kiseki: Cute fun girls doing what they do best, a fine example of this type of show, if not mindblowing. Haiyore! Nyaruko-san: it’s funny, it’s weird, but sometimes this group irritated me. It is a rather quotable show though, the characters interactions and unexpected motives for the "villains'" heinous acts provide some really fun situations and though you’ve quickly gotten used to the fact that these monster attacks are never for the generic “taking over the world” reasons, the punch line for their reasons for their actions still usually surprises you with its absurdity all the way until the final episode- whose "monster" has some of the most hilariously wrong reasoning for his scheme of any antagonist of the series. Decent Jormungand: I haven’t quite finished this show, I have 4-5 episodes still to watch, but I feel this is an appropriate location for it. My pacifist beliefs got in the way of enjoying the show. I can watch shows with violent characters of dubious moral fiber if they can give a good story for whay I should root for the “heroes” over the other side and give me a glimpse into a unique world. This show doesn’t do that so well, it’s a hard sell and I’m a bit surprised I didn’t drop it. I guess I keep hoping for better reasons to care whether they live or die. I feel the way the way they live their lives is tragic, why should I think it tragic if they died? Saki: Achiga-hen episode of side-A The original Saki series is no masterpiece, but it was fun to root for and get to know the series heroes, this side story just doesn’t deliver near the levels of fun and excitement, you barely understand the talents/powers of the main cast and don’t really get the impression that they’re really tremendous players... they do well to present their opponents though, for some reason. So-So Kimi to Boku. 2: This one I really don’t know how I survived until the end of the series. One kid who needed some Ritalin and the others apparently all dosed with prozac. Chizuru was usually plain irritating and theres just so much detached emotions I can take from the rest of them. I think the only way I’d be convinced to watch a third season if it was shown would be if it is announced that Shun will be coming out of the closet. And that’s not homophobic, it’s freaking supportive of a character that seems to have no interest in the least in girls- it is seriously a development I’d support in the show. Not Really Good Recorder and Randsell: Three minutes a pop, when Atushi wasn’t being arrested as a sexual predetor by the worst police department in the least aware neighborhood in the world, it produced some chuckles. But that one joke was more than half of the show and if it took a minute more though- it’d be too much to take. Ozma: I wanted to like it, I wanted to believe in Matsumoto again, and the show did have some neat things going for it and a retro style I dug, but the hope that I’d come to care for the characters more was never really realized and the ending really fell off a cliff of reason and logic and ultimately resolved in a really crappy “message” ending. Ugh. Sengoku Collection: The only show I did drop. IT was the Masamune episode that did me in, if that was an example of the shows “serious” story-telling, it deserves the trash bin. I actually kind of liked the moe girl presentation, and the Michael Moore spoof was weirdly entertaining. But there isn’t a chance I’m watching more of the show. And some quick words about the shows that haven’t finished: Space Brothers: As it is so far this may be another “Excellent” ranked series for the year. Mutta is one of the characters of the year so far. Polar Bear Café wonderfully dry humor, a likable group of café dwellers and associated friends. Cheers for cute animal anime lovers Sket Dance: Still going strong ever since its jump in quality last season. Folktales From Japan: in it’s final estimation I may bump up the rating of this show to “excellent” to make a point. It does what it does very well and through accumulated watching you really start to see how the character of Japan is reflected in its folktales. The vast majority focus not on adventures and figures performing great feats for personal glory, but instead reflect the importance of humility and downfall brought by carelessness and pride. Hyouka: It’s not a bad show. Looks good, has nice characters. Lacks immediacy though, hard to get excited about. I may postpone watching the rest after this next episode, which seems to be ending a “case.” Maybe I’ll enjoy it more marathoned. Hunter x Hunter: ultimately I’ll continue with this becasue its an easy watch and doesn’t require too much dedication to remember precise details of what went on before. If I stopped watching it I doubt I’d ever want to catch up with what promises to be such a long series. Accel World: I like it, but I’m postponing it for now, I think it’ll play better in marathon mode. Kuroko’s Basketball Like HxH it’s an easy watch, and can be fun, but I fear a burn out on its structure. I think I’ll postpone it and watch it in game arcs or something. Eureka Seven AO: Actually I only watched two episodes of this before deciding to wait until its end to watch. [ /quote ] |
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