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Old 07-06-2014, 05:18 PM   #6476
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
LOW BLOW, DUDE! ............ *sigh* At least the anime version cut that part out ... ._.
Huh? I actually didn't know it really happened. Though I guess it was unavoidable. Now that I know, it won't fist me in the ass with an uncomfortable twinge!
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Old 07-06-2014, 05:22 PM   #6477
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Just to be clear, I'm not talking about Barakamon. I'm talking about another series which does what you described. (And is what I thought you were poking fun at.)
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Old 07-08-2014, 06:23 PM   #6478
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Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

I watched this for the cute girl. The artwork is solid in spite of this with some nice animation sequences. It's like Penguindrum artwork at perpetual high quality throughout, with no budget saving techniques like the balloon people.

Oh, I laughed some too. I can relate to the main guy somewhat, both in interest and personality.
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Old 07-08-2014, 11:25 PM   #6479
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New shows and whatnot. Himegoto has a bunch of groups subbing it. I don't like the thought of following a 3 minute anime, but maybe it's worth a damn if every sub group and their mothers wants to sub it.

Sabagebu!
Oh joy. It's a show about girls and guns. Not sure why that's a big thing nowadays, and I'll have my fill of it in Kantai Collection. This show is meh for the most part. The only thing I liked was how sadistic the main girl could be. I will probably drop it in a few weeks.

Hanayamata
What's a season without an obligatory show about cute girls doing cute things? Actually I think this might end up being a yuri story rather than SoL. Not crazy about the idea, but the show is very pretty. I also don't like how sniveling the main girl is. Maybe that will make her development better? Let's hope so!

I have Hamatora downloaded, but not watched. I'll get on that shit sometime!
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Old 07-09-2014, 02:46 PM   #6480
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Glasslip [Good]:

Spoiler: show
Always love a good P.A. Works show. Not as much of a fan of the main guy as I was hoping I was gonna be but I love Touko. Didn't really get much in this episode but that only means the next episode will have more development. Looking forward to seeing the nature of the other characters.


Akame ga Kill! [Average]:

Spoiler: show
Holy shit this is rushed and stupid so far. He breaks for a cutscene of the three people he was with beforehand, but when he mentions being attacked by bandits we obviously don't get that cutscene. Just a shitty bit of comic relief...

This show might be a little bit better if a. it wasn't so rushed, and b. it wasn't filled with comic relief in the sinister parts. Couldn't bring myself to feel any emotional connection to any of the dead characters simply because it goes too fast. Probably won't watch another one unless I hear particularly good things.


Ao Haru Ride [Good]:

Spoiler: show
This was nice. Artstyle is a little different and I'm generally a fan of the 'fitting in with a group in order to keep friends and be normal' kind of theme. As much as Tanaka (oops, I mean Mabuchi) is a dick to her, I like the past and present relationship between them. It seems like Mabuchi is desperately trying to run away from his past whilst Futaba is desperately trying to get it back, and I like that prospect. Will continue watching.

Just hoping this isn't gonna be another 'Say I love You' kind of romantic mishmash of shit.


SAO 2 [Bad]:

Spoiler: show
Unnecessarily long briefing of the entire plot with ice cream is unnecessarily long... with ice cream.

Yeah, SAO 2 isn't even shaping up to be as good as the second half of SAO. And what kind of name is 'Deah Gun'? Seriously? Will maybe watch the next episode to see whats up with the sniper girl and how she fits in.


Tokyo Ghoul [Very Good]:

Spoiler: show
Thank the gods the summer season wasn't entirely mediocre. Enjoyed the shit out of this. I seriously like the fact that this isn't shot from the good side's perspective and doesn't have a story of fighting ghouls, but a story of a ghoul. I did like the buildup to the event. This show reminds me of both Shiki and Deadman Wonderland, which is great. Yeah, this was just a really good first episode.


Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun [Average]:

Spoiler: show
And the catchiest opening of the year award goes to...

But seriously that opening was actually really good.

I kind of enjoyed the show, but now I've got through the episode I've realised that this show is stupid as fuck. Its kinda cute at times and its not that its got glaring flaws. Nozaki is so boring and oblivious to everything going on around him that I struggle to realise why anyone would like him in the first place. Sakura is overdramatic about everything and has awful spotted bows in her hair. This show just crys awkwardness from every orifice, and I struggle to see how it'll develop out of that.

On the other hand, when I started watching it I didn't find myself wanting to stop. So at least I enjoyed it. Will probably watch the next episode.
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Old 07-09-2014, 04:34 PM   #6481
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Quote:
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Akame ga Kill! [Average]:

Holy shit this is rushed and stupid so far. He breaks for a cutscene of the three people he was with beforehand, but when he mentions being attacked by bandits we obviously don't get that cutscene. Just a shitty bit of comic relief...

This show might be a little bit better if a. it wasn't so rushed, and b. it wasn't filled with comic relief in the sinister parts. Couldn't bring myself to feel any emotional connection to any of the dead characters simply because it goes too fast. Probably won't watch another one unless I hear particularly good things.
I assure you, this will be the best show of the season. It's not dissimilar from Dangan Ronpa, except in Akame ga Kill!'s case the story is written by Monokuma, he isn't one of the characters. Once you get accustomed to the author's style, which is grisly violence interrupted by jarring (but amusing) comic relief, you'll like it.

There's a ton of throw away characters in the story, not everyone is well developed, only the characters the author wants you to care about. The rich girl here for example was kind of innocent until she exploded with a very villain-esque "so how I did it" rant that got her dead. Takahiro draws his characters in monochrome, "black, white, and grey" = there are white characters, like Tatsumi's village friends, black characters like the rich girl, and a lot of grey that gets a fudge load of development. Some characters like Esdeath trend toward a lighter (or darker) colour than just pure grey. That's the meat of the tale, not what you saw in the first episode.

It wasn't rushed, if anything the episode was longer than the corresponding manga chapter which was of ordinary length. Give it time, about 5 episodes in the series should start to roll out the bloodstained red carpet.
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Old 07-09-2014, 05:47 PM   #6482
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I assure you, this will be the best show of the season. It's not dissimilar from Dangan Ronpa, except in Akame ga Kill!'s case the story is written by Monokuma, he isn't one of the characters. Once you get accustomed to the author's style, which is grisly violence interrupted by jarring (but amusing) comic relief, you'll like it.

There's a ton of throw away characters in the story, not everyone is well developed, only the characters the author wants you to care about. The rich girl here for example was kind of innocent until she exploded with a very villain-esque "so how I did it" rant that got her dead. Takahiro draws his characters in monochrome, "black, white, and grey" = there are white characters, like Tatsumi's village friends, black characters like the rich girl, and a lot of grey that gets a fudge load of development. Some characters like Esdeath trend toward a lighter (or darker) colour than just pure grey. That's the meat of the tale, not what you saw in the first episode.

It wasn't rushed, if anything the episode was longer than the corresponding manga chapter which was of ordinary length. Give it time, about 5 episodes in the series should start to roll out the bloodstained red carpet.
*spoilers*

The main problem I had is that the show tries to suprise you with the whole good girl actually a sadist kind of approach, but it doesn't work because the episode moved so quickly that it lacked any tension or suspense or build up for me to feel suprised, emotional, or whatever in any kind of situation. It was just a bundle of events happening one after the other with some dialogue. Sure we get a lot out of the first episode but it gives you no time to catch up with your own feelings about the characters. It was also fairly predictable. The night raid are obviously not bad guys because they're on the cover art, you know that when you hear that they are targetting high ranking nobles they have a good reason, and we know that the protaganist is going to be involved.

Grisly violence interrupted by moments of comedy isn't something that swings well with me. In the same way that having ecchi moments in the middle of zombie fights in HSOTD made the show so much less enjoyable for me, the same applies here. Its like, you get so involved in the dark atmosphere and you can feel the intensity... and then you're snapped out of it by a cheap joke that, because you're in the mindset of the dark atmosphere, you can't find it funny even if it is.

I think if you want a good dark show with lots of blood and a nice concept Tokyo Ghoul just smashes this show straight out of the park. Such a better concept, much better animation, cinematography, atmosphere, colour scheme, emotional impact, etc. Even if you might have a clue to what happens, it still suprises you when you get to it. I'm hyping Tokyo Ghoul to be the best show of the season if it continues like the first episode.

Let me know how the second episode goes though and I might give it another shot.
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Old 07-09-2014, 08:04 PM   #6483
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*spoilers*

The main problem I had is that the show tries to suprise you with the whole good girl actually a sadist kind of approach, but it doesn't work because the episode moved so quickly that it lacked any tension or suspense or build up for me to feel suprised, emotional, or whatever in any kind of situation. It was just a bundle of events happening one after the other with some dialogue. Sure we get a lot out of the first episode but it gives you no time to catch up with your own feelings about the characters. It was also fairly predictable. The night raid are obviously not bad guys because they're on the cover art, you know that when you hear that they are targetting high ranking nobles they have a good reason, and we know that the protaganist is going to be involved.
Well, like I'm saying that's not exactly the case. You see Tatsumi chop rich girl without hesitation, even though he's clearly established (throughout the whole episode) as an overly moral country bumpkin ahead of time. That, and not the shock of rich girl being shrill was the development I'm talking about, and what I felt was glossed over - Tatsumi is naive, but he doesn't deny the reality of the horror he's confronted with. Takahiro (the author) is very delineated about "characters" and "fodder", although given the art-style you might not recognize someone as fodder until they've dropped the ghetti all over the place. There was absolutely no way to sympathize with rich girl in this ep., if anything you should feel bad for the guards because one of them tipped Tatsumi off to the corruption, which he recognized properly as corruption, and died because "he didn't lift his hand to oppose them". That's also how Night Raid isn't really a white knight organization, they murder people and aren't afraid to murder those in the way.

The tendency I feel is, like with Higurashi, Elfen Lied or Brynhildr, to focus on the "cute girls getting sawed in half" element which doesn't hold true as the main message. That is often an attempt at cheap shock factor which doesn't extend much beyond "anime art style + violence uncommon graphic violence". Although it does serve to reinforce the idea that Akame ga Kill! is not a nice story where everyone lives happily ever after. It's like animating a scene from Doom.

Quote:
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Grisly violence interrupted by moments of comedy isn't something that swings well with me. In the same way that having ecchi moments in the middle of zombie fights in HSOTD made the show so much less enjoyable for me, the same applies here. Its like, you get so involved in the dark atmosphere and you can feel the intensity... and then you're snapped out of it by a cheap joke that, because you're in the mindset of the dark atmosphere, you can't find it funny even if it is.
It's an acquired taste. I haven't read enough of the manga (I put it down when the anime was announced) to really say with confidence how much of this there is in the story, but it doesn't ruin the really important scenes. It's most often used when fodder are around to keep your heart from breaking over the senseless, pointless brutality. The most shocking events in AgK, however, are not glossed over with humour, they are unadulterated and unpunished in the ugliest repose you could imagine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Midgeorge View Post

I think if you want a good dark show with lots of blood and a nice concept Tokyo Ghoul just smashes this show straight out of the park. Such a better concept, much better animation, cinematography, atmosphere, colour scheme, emotional impact, etc. Even if you might have a clue to what happens, it still suprises you when you get to it. I'm hyping Tokyo Ghoul to be the best show of the season if it continues like the first episode.

Let me know how the second episode goes though and I might give it another shot.
BBB recommended it too, I'll have to try it. I do think that, short of Spirit Circle or The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer getting animated AgK is probably one of the better manga left out there that hadn't received the anime treatment. I mean, its writing (and character development) completely blow out Shingeki no Kyojin but so many people overrated SnK based on the premise alone, it's a much tougher sell to convince someone a story with a more generic premise is actually better written.
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Old 07-10-2014, 12:55 PM   #6484
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I guess I've started all of the new shows I intend on watching until Kantai Collection airs. On to update on what I've seen so far and a short season summary!

Fate Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILYA 2wei!
What a stupid STUPID development. I swear (episode 1 spoilers)
Spoiler: show
I get that Archer Illya is popular, but giving her a separate body? I thought the whole thing about Prisma Illya was about Illya and Miya as a duo? Adding a third that will probably eclipse Miya just kills everything season 1 tried to do. Outside of that development, the first episode was boring as sin.


Glasslip
Episode 2 was watched. This show is getting sillier. (episode 2 spoilers)
Spoiler: show
"We can only see the future if we're together." Pfffahahahahahahaha! Oh god how cheesy. Way to force a couple. Then the entire episode was the usual dribble of who likes who. They even forgot the freaking chickens. I probably won't stick with this show for very long.


So all-in-all:

Akame ga Kill: Decent action show.

Barakamon: Potentially a very sweet show about an artist.

Fate Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILYA 2wei!: Meh....

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun: Shoujo about a manga artist and his assistant. Let's hope it doesn't pile in the cliches (atleast outside of writing).

Glasslip: I LIKE HIM, BUT HE LIKES SOMEONE ELSE, BUT THAT SOMEONE ELSE IS A DEAD CHICKEN!

Hanayamata: Pretty, and I like the blonde girl, but it'll probably get boring really quickly.

Re:_Hamatora: Looks like it has started out quality-wise where season 1 left off!

Sabagebu: Boring, but Oota Masahiko directed it, so I'm going to try to give it more of a chance than I intended.

Sailor Moon Crystal: Not a bad remake, but still has all the flaws the original had.

So far, Barakamon is my favorite of the season. I'm hoping Sabagebu will prove to be better with the discovery I made about it. Everything else is okay/meh.
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Old 07-10-2014, 01:03 PM   #6485
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I feel like I'm spamming with this post, but I also feel like I should say something ... so ...

1. I have yet to watch Glasslip but plan to watch Otaku's (EveTaku's) release later today.

2. I also have yet to watch Ilya S2. Waiting to watch with UTW since they say they'll work on it.

3. If neither Glasslip *nor* Ilya S2 prove worth watching, then I still probably won't preference a Summer 2014 series before preferencing a highly recommended series from a previous season. (Leading contender right now would be NGNL since it's still somewhat fresh on people's minds.)

Crossing my fingers that I'll like Ilya S2 despite bbb's warning that something stupid happens. Crossing my fingers even tighter that if Ilya S2 falls through that Glasslip won't be boring.
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Old 07-10-2014, 07:54 PM   #6486
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Knights of Sidonia

Once again another boredom fueled night with Netflix, although this one is a bit interesting in that Netflix themselves had the series licenses, translated and dubbed in both English and Spanish. This review will include both a review of the series itself as well as Netflix's English dubbing of the series.

The series itself is very similar to Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan but with overall better content. So if you somewhat liked AoT, you should like KoS. If you didn't like AoT, you can still like KoS because of it's much stronger science fiction aspect, better writing, and overall better everything.

Setting:

Humanity has been driven off the Earth. A giant alien blob monster called the gauna destroyed the planet, forcing the human race to live in enormous colony ships that look like a rectangle sticking out of a rock.. Sidonia, the colony ship- is built on Japan's heritage and is considered humanity's last hope for survival.

Characters & Plot:

Spoilers.
Spoiler: show
Nagate Tanikaze - Series main hero. He lived in the 'underground' portion of the ship raised by his grandfather until his teenage years. His grandfather raised him on training simulators and instilled into him the knowledge on how to pilot mecha and fight the gauna. Unfortunately his grandfather passed away and Nagate was caught trying to steal food. He is quickly adopted by the ship's Captain and asked to become a mecha pilot.

Izana Shinatose - A hermaphrodite character created from human cloning. After a mate has been chosen, the body morphs to the proper gender for reproduction. Izana is Nagate's close friend and develops a crush on him, but he never really sees 'her' in that way due to her strange gender and becomes a point of interest (for me at least) about the psychology of humans and how gender and sexuality plays a role in the character interactions.


There are a lot more characters of some import, but since I saw spoilers on Wikipedia just because I wanted to check name spellings, I'm not going to post more about this topic.

Animation:

The show is done in cel-shaded computer animation. This is somewhat troubling early on because of how weird it looks, especially shading. Another issue was how little color is used. Almost everyone is pale white, they wear wear and grey uniforms, their city is made out of white structures. WHITE WHITE WHITE. Most likely it's to show how sterile and clean this future world is, but it makes things look very weird and alien, which I guess could be the whole point. The character's faces also look awkward at times due to the 3d modeling of what is essentially a 2d show. Shading on the lips looks like weird make up, but they don't wear make up so it's just weird looking.

All of the stuff outside of Sidonia (in space) looks fine.

English Dub:

I can't say how good Japanese voice acting or translations are since I myself don't speak Japanese. I can say that the dub is done pretty well. Netflix didn't really hold back, hiring several anime voice acting veterans like Johnny Yong Bosch who was the Black Power Ranger as well as Vash the Stampede in Trigun and Lelouch in Code Geass. There were others but I'm not looking at the Wikipedia page to check more. Nothing ever felt out of place in terms of the characters tones. There were a few moments (literally only one I can think of) where some voices sounded a bit dull for the scene, but overall it was good.

THE SCORES:
Plot: 8.5/10 - The setting is extremely interesting to me as a big science fiction nerd. The characters are all fairly well done and although a harem thing pops up, it feels natural and realistic rather than forced. The show also isn't shy about killing people off, although some were cheap tricks to 'move' the audience, it isn't used often and is done well.
Animation: 8/10 - Starts off weird, get's much better over time, although there's still a bit of awkwardness with celshading. Some episodes I have to remind myself it's not traditional animation. Sometimes the show will remind me. Looks great for the fight scenes.
Music: 8/10 - Music quickly disappears from my mind, but the important scenes of the series had the right music for the moment to enhance the moods of the scenes.
English Dub: 9/10 - I thought it was fine. No weird Brooklyn accents. Very few moments of poor tone of character.

This show doesn't really end on a proper end point, I guess similar to Attack on Titan in this sense too, but there is a second season coming so hopefully it won't be a giant ad for the manga.

OVERALL: 8.5

If you have Netflix, check it out.

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Old 07-10-2014, 09:42 PM   #6487
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Glasslip: I watched Episode 01 just now. The show seems to be, as I told Yuki, cute-okay with intrigue. I can see why some people might choose to watch this one all the way to the end. And I can see why others might choose to drop it immediately. Me? I don't think I'll know either way for certain until seeing at least one more episode.

I'll offer this much outside of the spoiler box: if you liked what you saw here, you should probably check out Nagi no Asukara and Tari Tari. They are by the same animation studio and their stories bear quite a bit in common with what's been shown in Glasslip thus far, Nagi for one set of elements and Tari Tari for another.

Alright then. On into the spoiler box.

Spoiler: show
The story is hard to figure out, only one episode in. It seems like we may be dealing with some kind of ghost story or something else supernatural. The way the visuals got all wonky during the fireworks show in the opening scene was not natural. Kakeru, the mysterious transfer student, acts very familiar with Touko ... almost like he feels like he has known her for quite some time. And Kakeru disappears or suddenly reappears in strange ways. Is he a ghost? Is he just an ordinary high school boy? Only time will tell. Also, the way that Sachi stands up at the very end is rather suspicious. Can she sense the supernatural and can tell that something is up with Kakeru? Are she and Kakeru both ordinary children but she recognizes him from somewhere? Does Sachi have a crush on Yukinari and so she turns against Kakeru the moment she senses that Yukinari doesn't like him? Who knows.

The anime looks like it will be another one of those anime which has a love chain, i.e. Guy C likes Girl B who likes Guy B who likes Girl A who likes Guy A. Or, putting specific names to them, Hiro likes Yanagi who likes Yukinari who likes Touko who likes (or will soon probably like) Kakeru. So if you can't stand these sorts of shows, you'll probably want to give Glasslip a pass. If you love 'em, then what I would say is that you should really check out Nagi no Asukara. It just finished airing three months ago and is by the same exact studio. It features better animation and, if I had to guess from what little we've seen so far, even a better story. Maybe save it for after Glasslip finishes airing if you want? But if you can't wait and are looking for something to watch, definitely go and check Nagi no Asukara out.

As far as the characters go, they're all mildly likeable except (of course) the two serious boys, Yukinari and Kakeru, who are a bit too serious for now to be all that likeable. But they're not terrible either. Anyway, my favorite character so far is probably Touko but that's not saying too much since she's the main character and we're only one episode in.

The animation is above most studios' average, given that this is P.A.Works we're talking here ... but man if it isn't clearly beneath P.A.Works' own average. :\ The studio has cut corners to save costs in many obvious ways, including and not limited to:
  • static shots and static panning shots
  • use of chibi-head speech bubbles for conversation-rich scenes instead of actually animating the characters talking
  • recycling footage
And what they do draw is often not as nice looking as what we saw in Nagi no Asukara. That stated, it looks a hell of a lot better than the disaster turned out by Shaft last season, Mekakucity Actors, and generally speaking it does not damage P.A.Works' reputation for quality animation.

That's about it for now. Let's see what you all had to say.

Okay, reading through guys' thoughts on Episode 01 ...

Spoiler: show
Lanturn's right with the Manaka/Touko, Hikari/Yukinari, and Kakeru/Tsumugu vibes. I got those too. Though I don't think this one will wind up the same way as Nagi no Asukara did. I would also add on that Yanagi mirrors Chisaki and, distantly, Hiro would fill the same slot as Kaname. Not that surprising: the shows are of the same genre and are made by the same studio less than a year apart. ^^;

Fallen sensed the Nagi vibes too. Yeah, it wasn't just me then. ^^; Everyone's picked up on it, it seems. Fallen also comments on the OP. Yeah, I loved it too! I told Yuki that but she didn't seem to share my enthusiasm. Ż3Ż I dunno. Objectively I would say that neither the song nor its visuals were anything better than an 8/10 and quite possibly less than that ... yet for some reason they made me feel super satisfied and happy at like a 9/10 level. I dunno. Magical OP is magical?

bbb echoes similar sentiments to what others have said. Not much to add here except to say that, despite my optimistic enthusiasm, I too have my worries. Episode 02 may seal the deal for me that I'll be tabling Glasslip. We'll see.
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Old 07-11-2014, 05:29 AM   #6488
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Glasslip
Episode Two


Spoiler: show
WOOO CONFESSION! TWO EPISODES INTO THE ANIME? WTF ISN'T THIS MOVING A BIT TOO FAST.

So this episode was pretty alright/good. It seems like they incorporated some glass-supernatural things into the plot - how Touko can see the future through glass... or whatever. The dude Kakeru can apparently hear stuff or whatever with Touko... while Touko can see the future through glass. That's rather interesting, but like what bbb has said it seems forced for a ship.

RELATIONSHIP DRAMA! Before that I think Sachi and the yellow hair dude are in their own world right now, if those two don't get together by the end I'll be a little bit annoyed. Yanagi talks to Touko about confessing to runner dude, who happens to be naked in the shower! Then the runner dude confesses his love to Touko and Touko is like wut wut wut wut wut.

I'm drawing so many parallels right now with Nagi no Asukara

Running scene - Hikari and Tsumugu at the school swimming/running race anyone?

Touko & Runner dude - I mean excluding the Yanagi eavesdropping part, it gave me so much of Nagi vibes when Hikari surged forward to hug Manaka and Manaka is like kyaaaaaaaah (obviously this version is worlds less brutal but Manaka/Touko's reaction are so much alike)

Touko/Yanagi call - I vaguely recalled there was a locker scene where there was Manaka and Chisaki talking about stuff

... Now we all need the yellow hair dude to break shit with a 'everyone is in the classroom and suddenly ROMANCE STUFF HAPPENS' scene!

I'm not exactly sure what I feel about the glass-future plot revelation. I guess I'll have to wait to see more. Also why's Sachi so defensive in her first meeting with Okikura again? Also defensive Sachi is cute. I think she's a pretty cute character - I might place her as favourite girl for now. ToukoxSachi obvious


Spoiler: show
@Talon: Hiro doesn't really give me a huge Kaname vibe. I mean there is an extra character compared to Nagi's cast of five, so the Touko/Yukinari/Okikura are a lot more easy to draw parallels with Manaka/Hikari/Tsumugu. Also there are so many Yukinari faces that scream "HIKARI!!!!" that it's not funny xd

Hiro seems most unclear as to who he likes right now. The OP seems to suggest Sachi though, and that would make three pairs by the end: Gonna predict Okikura/Touko, Yukinari/Yanagi and Sachi/Hiro. At least no one had to suffer the need to get endgamed with one of the non-original characters but alright Kaname x Sayu is sweet so

Also convincing Yuki to watch Glasslip is haaaard xd


Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Episode One


Spoiler: show
So I decided to pick this up and man is this cute. The comedy is light and silly and fun in general. Not much to comment here other than that it has a rather cute setting. I'll probably continue this as one of the lighter and less dramatic animes this season.
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Old 07-11-2014, 09:36 AM   #6489
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Kantai Collection: In latest KanColle news, it appears that the Summer 2014 anime poster people may have been misled and that the English-language Wikipedia article has been edited at some point in the past few weeks. Both had previously indicated that the KanColle anime would be debuting this season. When no KanColle episode showed up, I went looking on the official site for answers. Nothing. Not a peep about a date. So I went looking on the Japanese blogosphere and eventually the Japanese-language Wikipedia article. And I found this: the anime will be airing "2014年夏以降". The hangup is the word 以降, which translates into English as "on and after." So the phrase 2014年夏以降 likely translates to "Summer 2014 or later" in this case. But it seems like most news reporters decided to go with the more optimistic interpretation of "Summer 2014 onward" and slated KanColle for a Summer 2014 showing. A close look at the official site shows that they have made no promises yet about an air date; and Japanese Wikipedia reflects this at the top of their KanColle article with アニメ(公開日未定) in their list of other adaptations of the popular computer game: "Anime (release date not yet decided)".

So yeah. I think it's safe to say that Kantai Collection is a no show for Summer 2014 and that the soonest we can expect it is in October. Which is fine by me since it means that's one less potentially awesome show I have to give a pass to because too many shows, too little time. ^^;
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Old 07-13-2014, 06:00 PM   #6490
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Golden Boy

Rating: Good (7/10)

I was gonna give this a 5, then a 6, but the final episode was just so fun and (frankly) godly the series ends up in solid territory for me. BPK is a famous fan of this and finally got me to watch it all the way, although he had to use a cheat code to make that happen.

Golden Boy has a lot of cringe-worthy scenes in it, especially when Kintaro drops his spaghetti, but it was also funny in some places (just not a raucous, continuous laughter emporium) and the show was actually pretty smart all in all. I accidentally skipped the first episode (or the important part of it) so I didn't get this until Episode 3, but it didn't ruin the series for me.

I also watched it dubbed. The sub isn't very good surprisingly, I thought the sub would be less explicitly lewd but it's the same stuff. I guess the original was just that perverted.

Recommended? Maybe. For people with an open mind. I think the show as aged a bit since the golden days (pun!) of animation but it's still very relevant.
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Old 07-13-2014, 08:53 PM   #6491
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Gonna make a thread for Tokyo Ghoul tomorrow. Easily the best show so far this year based on the first 2 episodes.

Watch it.
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Old 07-13-2014, 10:57 PM   #6492
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Second episode on three new shows!

Barakamon
Episode 2 was a heartwarming episode. This would have been better with a bit more development before this episode, but it was nice nonetheless. This show remains my favorite of the season, but the two other shows I'm going over have been pretty good too.

Sabagebu
What I wished for last episode has happened, and it was great. I can't say much more because I don't want to bother with a spoiler tag on something else no-one is watching, but I also don't want to spoil anything. I will say this: The main girl is awesome. Here's to hoping the brutality multiplies!

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Episode 2 was awesome. All of the characters so far have been really funny, and seeing how the main guy puts them into his story is equally amusing. I hope the shoujo cliches in this story stay outside of the "real life" events. If so, I'll continue enjoying this show.

Looks like I know what my three favorite shows of the season are!
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Old 07-14-2014, 10:53 AM   #6493
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Black Bullet - Episode 4

Holy jimmy johns, this episode was bad. On a technical and voice standpoint it was pretty good, but the plot was really predictable (and dumb) by the time Hiruko was defeated. I figured Rentaro would put himself in the cannon chamber, but it was just the arm (hence the title 'Black Bullet') and the whole plan to kill the scorpion just turned into firing one bullet? That shouldn't work under any circumstances. The tension over the shot was also un-explained and needless.

Haven't seen the hilarity yet but I am hopeful.
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Old 07-14-2014, 08:07 PM   #6494
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Black Bullet - Episode 6

I'm going to stop here until after my board, I think. This show isn't "so bad it's good" really, it's just dumb. Pretty, but dumb. I'm sure some guys love dating girls like that but I, a person of considerable expectations, would not lower my standards for a low-born anime!

However, this anime is very clearly heckle material. It's the kind of show I should be watching with concurrently with Morg because it's certainly more fun to make fun of. There's some cool aspects, especially the main character who is probably "GAR" reincarnated into a modern body, and an interesting reversal of surprise especially in this episode because of that personality. Namely, when two people discover they're on opposite sides of a conflict, one person hardens resolve and the other panics. Usually, it's the moraltastic main guy whose knees wobble. This time it's the loli he's fighting against, which is unusual and refreshing.

Kisara is a really weak character. I dislike her a lot because she's not only useless, but stupid. It's no exaggeration, in the words of LittleKuriboh, to call her "a walking pair of breasts" because that's her greatest contribution to the plot.

Supposedly, before the first episode "the shock of seeing her parents die caused her kidneys to fail". That sounds almost funny in a less literal sense, but it's actually possible when it comes brain-kidney communication. But the kidney is so distal to the brain, the interaction is entirely hormone driven, so there's no reason that a "non-physical trauma shock" couldn't be corrected with hormone therapy or at least time.

Even assuming her kidneys are "physically damaged", she gives this justification:

"Finding a donor is really hard".

Nuh-uh. People are dying in the streets by getting ripped apart by giant insects. I'm pretty sure it would be easy to salvage organs from flayed human body bits. And, given her age and health I seriously doubt she has any type of type incompatibility.

Next,

"If I were to forget this pain, I would probably forget to exact revenge."

Her grasp on logic is as unerringly straight as a river bend. Since she's a cripple, she can't exact revenge. If she weren't a cripple, she could take it. But she would rather remain a cripple so she can think about how she wants to exact revenge. Let's substitute some words and play around with her thinking:

"If I were to forget this hunger, I would probably forget to eat lunch."

Given she's a lazy git who loves to force her man to cook, but is too chicken liver to seduce him despite his scent causing her passion to "blaze out of all control", I'm confident this is what she really wanted to say with that revenge comment.

Although it's interesting. Adult chat?

Spoiler: show
In this scene, Rentaro was criticized by the scientist for not being bold enough despite being cool yet gentlemanly. So here we get a case where the prez offers Rentaro to hold her hand, and Enju gropes her. The prez' reaction is interesting because she goes "I didn't intend it to go that far!", blushes immensely and (weakly) tries to squirm away. My eye says she didn't expect it, but wasn't opposed to it.

Is this male wish-fulfillment at work? Being a male, and currently writing a romance I want to be conscious of this if it's a real bias. Because as I personally would conduct myself, I'd never grope someone except my wife out of the fear of being called out for sexual harassment, rape, losing a job, etc. I know I'm on one extreme, being Lawful yet Evil, but Japan is also on another (probably having little respect or sense of enforcement for laws protecting women dignity if they exist). It's interesting in that in some parts of the world, what could be interpreted as being "confident" or "forthright" can be easily misconstrued as rape or harassment in the West.
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Old 07-15-2014, 03:26 AM   #6495
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Adult chat?

Spoiler: show
In this scene, Rentaro was criticized by the scientist for not being bold enough despite being cool yet gentlemanly. So here we get a case where the prez offers Rentaro to hold her hand, and Enju gropes her. The prez' reaction is interesting because she goes "I didn't intend it to go that far!", blushes immensely and (weakly) tries to squirm away. My eye says she didn't expect it, but wasn't opposed to it.

Is this male wish-fulfillment at work? Being a male, and currently writing a romance I want to be conscious of this if it's a real bias. Because as I personally would conduct myself, I'd never grope someone except my wife out of the fear of being called out for sexual harassment, rape, losing a job, etc. I know I'm on one extreme, being Lawful yet Evil, but Japan is also on another (probably having little respect or sense of enforcement for laws protecting women dignity if they exist). It's interesting in that in some parts of the world, what could be interpreted as being "confident" or "forthright" can be easily misconstrued as rape or harassment in the West.
I can confirm that, holy crap, yes that is male wish fufillment + the worse parts of anime.
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Old 07-15-2014, 04:31 AM   #6496
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>Black Bullet discussion

I finished the anime. Somehow. Very much in a "well, only X episodes to go, might as well" manner.

I'll warn you right now: the plot goes into a direction so dumb and predictable, it's not even funny. The development staff also confused screaming and crying and watching people die a lot as character development. Anyone who's not Rintaro/redhead loli/Kisara and gets more than 5 seconds of screen time is either totally evil or going to die within 10 minutes.

I liked the soundtrack. The show looked good, too. But otherwise it was A Bad Time.
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Old 07-15-2014, 07:00 PM   #6497
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kaisap112 View Post
>Black Bullet discussion

I finished the anime. Somehow. Very much in a "well, only X episodes to go, might as well" manner.

I'll warn you right now: the plot goes into a direction so dumb and predictable, it's not even funny. The development staff also confused screaming and crying and watching people die a lot as character development. Anyone who's not Rintaro/redhead loli/Kisara and gets more than 5 seconds of screen time is either totally evil or going to die within 10 minutes.

I liked the soundtrack. The show looked good, too. But otherwise it was A Bad Time.
The cock-blocking was especially infuriating.

Rentaro is an excellent main guy. He's a bit stone-faced, but as far as determination goes, he's everything I value in a quality lead character. Competent, rational, considerate, but not all-powerful...nor does is he enamoured with spitting condescending speeches.

Adding icing to the cake is he's voiced by Yuuki Kaji. Kaji was asked somewhere, I forget where, about why he was always playing whiny beta otaku characters, and he said "I'd like to play someone manlier". He did, and he's done a great job!

Eren doesn't count.
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Old 07-15-2014, 11:45 PM   #6498
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Black Bullet - Episode 10

This has got to be one of my favourite episodes of the series. The highlight for me was definitely Rentaro's class going on a field trip

Spoiler: show
to heaven.
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Old 07-16-2014, 01:49 PM   #6499
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Lil' Bluey

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Lanturn's been bugging me to watch this, so I finally did. Caught up to episode 02.

Spoiler: show
So this show is kinda cute, but at the same time a little awkward/annoying. My sentiments are basically similar to Midge's. I'm not really one for romance and I can't see why the girl would fall in love with the main guy, so by the end of episode 01 I was sorta bored by all the lovey-dovey stuff. I prefer when the show is simply trying to be meta/poke fun at Shoujo tropes, even if it falls flat sometimes.

That said, I like the relationship between Mikorin and the main girl. He reminds me of Tamaki from Ouran, only a lot more self-conscious. Heck, he even insists on her calling him "senpai" and follows her when she goes to get drinks. XP I loved the part where he's hovering over her waiting for her to ask a question too. "Kouhai pls notice me. ;;" Somewhat hoping this goes somewhere rather than Nozaki x Sakura.

Also lol at him being the basis for the manga heroine. It's fun watching him get embarrassed and flustered whenever he tries to act cool. So adorks. <3 Plus wow, he's pretty good at drawing flowers. (Kinda convenient how all these good-looking young men are involved with Shoujo manga though, if the OP is anything to go by...)

As for the other new girl, eh not sure how to feel about her. She sure can sing nice though.

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Old 07-16-2014, 04:59 PM   #6500
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It's really obvious to me why Nozaki is attractive! Such a strange thing to say...

Also, I don't think the romance is legit here. It seems like it just exists to be exploited for laughs.
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