big bad birtha's suggestion box 2: secret passions unveiled

[Midgeorge]

So who's picking up what from the new season?

UBW is a must watch and the second season of Mushishi Zoku Shou is too. I'll probably watch Psycho-Pass 2.

As for new shows, my top watch is Kiseijuu. I've read a bit of the manga and its really good, looking forward to it. Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso looks like its right up my street and I'll definitely have a look at it. SHIROBAKO I'll have a look at in hopes that PA Works will redeem itself after their boring as shit attempt with Glasslip. May pick up Amagi Brilliant Park if I hear good things about it, and if i have time to keep up with it on top of other things.

[big bad birtha]

It's already that time, eh? Guess I'll mention what I'm interested in:

Danna ga Nani wo Itteru ka Wakaranai Ken: Ahahahahahahahaha I don't fucking think so. Just the title almost literally translates into "Garbage".

UBW: Sure, why not? If anyone can do it right, Ufotable can! Even if I believe they are wasting their time and talents.

Grisaia no Kajitsu: Let's watch and see how one of my favorite VNs turns into a crappy anime! It'll be Little Busters all over again!

Hitsugi no Chaika 2nd Battle: Can't go wrong with more Chaika! Let's fucking hope this will conclude the story instead of leaving me hanging with no answer like all shows that grab my interest.

Magic Kaito 1412: This seems pretty cool. I'm crossing my fingers in hope that this will be as good as Tsuritama.

Orenchi no Furo Jijou: We finally get a mermaid show and it's something like this? God fucking damnit! Sure, I'll give it a look, atleast until it irritates the hell out of me. I don't mind these gay shows, but usually that's all they have going for them.

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso: Wow, two shows from A-1 that aren't harem? This one could go either way, so let's give it a shot.

Trinity Seven: 7-nin no Mahoutsukai: Wait, is this some Mahoutsukai no Yoru ripoff or some shit? I probably won't watch it, but it caught my attention...in a negative way.

[Talon87]

I don't intend to pick anything up until I've gotten an opportunity to finish Ilya 2wei, Barakamon, and possibly even start a couple of other earlier series. I'm sure there's a lot of good stuff this season, but even UBW is going to have to wait, I think. :\

[Char]

Log Horizon 2 yes

[Doppleganger]

Probably will pick up Grisaia.

[big bad birtha]

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun
I haven't been talking about this much, but I have been enjoying it. While there have been some hiccups here and there, this show has overall been very funny and entertaining. My biggest issue with the show is that they use the exact same formula for the Nozaki/Sakura schtick. Besides that though, I enjoy the romantic pairings, I love the characters (especially Mikorin), and the I love the weird shit Nozaki ends up pulling. This show and Barakamon are tied for my favorite show of the season. I usually look forward to watching this more, but Barakamon ends up slapping me for my doubts every time I start up an episode. Gekkan Shoujo gets a 9 from me.

Not much else to update on animewise. I just haven't been feeling it lately. Every show I watch, I watch reluctantly. Even the good shows. Maybe something will relight the passion inside my belly? Well there's Kantai Collection and Cinderella girls for winter, so let's hope they do something.

The Sora no Otoshimono manga is finished, so I might end up reading that sometime.

[Doppleganger]

Seitokai Yakuindomo

Based on the airplane video I posted in the Going to Heck Thread, I decided to torrent this and see how it ran. The basic premise: ordinary tsukkomi guy transfers to a newly co-ed school that is still overwhelmingly female. To his shock, he discovers that all the girls who attend there are massive perverts, which manifests subconsciously as innuendo.

The anime is based off a 4koma. I've seen the first episode and it got off to a really good start, lagged in the centre (as the format started to bleed through) and got funnier toward the end.

I haven't watched many 4koma so I dunno, but this reminded me more of Azumanga Daioh rather than Lucky Star. I'll continue!

[KamenAeons]

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun

Spoiler: show

NOZAKI. I AM SO CONFLICTED BETWEEN HAVING HIM NEVER CHANGE AND HAVING HIM ANSWER SAKURA'S 'CONFESSION' (for lack of better words) *was squeeing like a loon before facepalming immediately afterward when Nozaki said what he said at the end*

It's been a hell of a ride, and it's been a hilarious one. I'd rate it pretty highly (8-9) and would love to watch it again. Who knows, maybe there are tanuki hiding in each episode~! Thanks for the chaos, and thanks Lanturn for dragging me into it. XD

[lilboocorsola]

I've been in an animé slump myself (seems like a lot of people are lately), so haven't had much to say either. I finished Gekkan Shoujo though.

Spoiler: show

I'm more conflicted about Mikorin. When he was complimenting Sakura I was like "omg" but then he just wanted to be praised in return and I'm like "XP never change but please do 8'3". Poor bby all by himself collecting figurines at the end...

Overall, it was a fun show that reminded me somewhat of Ouran at times. Would be interested in more.

As for new shows... Ufotable Blade Works is a given (even if I agree they could be doing better things with their time and resources). Others I'm considering:

Amagi Brillaint Park: Kyo-Ani + Bonta-kun.

Grisaia no Kajitsu: I'm curious about this.

Orenchi no Furo Jijou: Looks potentially amusing.

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso: Just because Goose House are my baes.

Sora no Method: Premise sounds interesting but meh lolis. Also it's written by Kanon's creator?

World Trigger: Cibbir's probably going to drag me into this. Seems like it could be similar to Muv-Luv?

Think I might "pass" on Psycho-Pass S2... *shot*

[Doppleganger]

My sister actually bashed Gekkan Shoujo because there's no romantic development. A LOT of people expressed disappointment at the last episode, but I can only hold up my hands and go "what were you expecting? Ouran? :/".

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

My sister actually bashed Gekkan Shoujo because there's no romantic development. A LOT of people expressed disappointment at the last episode, but I can only hold up my hands and go "what were you expecting? Ouran? :/".

Spoiler: show

I knew Nozaki wouldn't reciprocate and frankly I hope he never does. It was kinda nice how he was concerned enough to think Sakura was mad at him though. At least he has some sense of emotion, even if it's wrong.

Btw, based on your 4koma comment earlier, were you aware Gekkan Shoujo was one? That might explain the lack of real romantic development.

[Doppleganger]

I asked BBB about that earlier because I felt like Seitokai Yakuindomo had a similar format to the humour, or at least the length of the jokes felt similar. I'd say Gekkan Shoujo is actually has fewer abrupt transitions in that regard, and feels more like a continuous narrative instead of a stitch of several joke scenarios.

That said,

Seitokai Yakuindomo - Episode 8

This series has been quite fascinating to me. Despite the sexual subject mater, I've been able to watch it at a pretty strong pace and not pause due to anxiety. It's mildly amusing in the way Sunday comics are intended to be (but aren't), although not knee-slappingly hilarious.

[Doppleganger]

Seitokai Yakuindomo

Rating: Excellent

Wow. I actually finished an anime. The end of the world is nigh! I even had it marked on my calendar:



But anyway.

This anime took me by surprise a bit. There was actually character development in it, which was not expected out of a gag-first anime. An equivalent would be Konata and Kagami dating at the end of Lucky Star or something...although it wasn't quite that dramatic here.

I liked the characters. Though everyone and everything conformed to the sexual innuendo joke obsession - explained away by the series taking place in a male-depopulated Japan, so all the girls are hyper crazy about intercourse - beneath that the characters had some personality that wasn't just a stereotype or caricature.

A good comparison I think is Dangan Ronpa for characters. DR had stereotypes + cookie, or stereotypes that also took a step beyond being such. Thus, people felt a lot of empathy for them when they died. I felt as such in this show too.

Main guy Tsuba is pretty cool. He raises himself up to the level of the girls who are around him, and like Jinto from Banner of the Stars is smooth enough in talking to actually avoid the friendzone and keep himself in the romance race. Me gusta nadar!

I'm going to pick up season two for sure. Finishing an anime was good mojo for me, since I drop/lag so many. I need to force myself on some VN soon. D:

[Lanturn]

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Spoiler: show

Despite exam busyness, I managed to complete the last three episodes. Man, Gekkan Shoujo was a great anime, and I love it. The characters are extremely well-liked, and I find the comedy, despite using the concept of misunderstandings extremely, fresh and great. Nozaki is such a great and unpredictable character. Idk how I should describe it, but I'll just be sad to know that I won't be tuning in every Monday even when exams end to see Gekkan Shoujo. Overall a 9/10 for me. Definitely want a second season, but I love the way things ended in the anime. I might pick up the manga.

I'm still greatly behind Barakamon and Glasslip, though I saw some of the reviews for the latter and it wasn't exactly positive. Hamatora... It got to a point where I lost motivation to continue. I might continue it, but honestly I'm not even sure if it's worth around two hours of my time.

As for the Fall releases, I'm probably just gonna wait for a week or two for my exams to end and see which animes stand out from the Fall batch and probably will pick them up. Right now I have absolutely nothing on my to-watch Fall list, but hopefully that record won't stay~

[Char]

Reviews of what I watched & finished this season...

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun
I enjoyed watching this, but never got too invested into any of the characters (I like them though!). Some of the scenes were hilarious, but most of the time it was more on the mildly entertaining side. Gets a 7/10 for me.

Baby Steps
I keep up with the manga, so I had to watch the anime for this. It sticks to the manga well, can't complain. A more realistic sports genre type anime. Would rate the anime 6.5/10. Good watch, but wouldn't highly recommend it to people.

The other stuff I watched has separate threads, so will post in those threads when finished.

[Talon87]

Nichijou: I put this show on hold years ago after Episode 07. Procrastinating on my Ilya 2wei post and (at the time) not being able to continue with Underwater's Barakamon, one night on a whim I loaded up the next episode of Nichijou and now here I am, a few weeks later, through Episode 14.

It is an atypical production from Kyoto Animation. Both the art style and the direction are 1) manga-faithful and 2) not at all recognizeable as KyoAni. Maybe you could put two and two together if you adored Lucky Star, but having not watched that I could not. It looks and feels like nothing else I've seen out of Kyoto Animation these past five years.

I would recommend the series to fans of:

• absurdist humor
• 4koma comedy
• slice of life

I only really fit that last one, which is probably one reason this series didn't much appeal to me in 2011 and still isn't superb to me now. However, if you adore Azumanga Daioh and are looking for something similar, this is probably the show for you.

[big bad birtha]

Shows have ended, and the season is done for! Despite that, the only shows I have to post here are Mahouka and Gekkan Shoujo.

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei
My thoughts about this show have stayed the same from start to finish. It's a decent action show that kept my attention, but it doesn't do much to really excite me or make me look forward to each week. The show is riddled in flaws, and the writing quality is on the same level as SAO. Though it didn't do as many stupid things to irritate me, it's still of the same quality. Also like SAO is the fact that the main guy is freaking Jesus. From beginning to end, the main guy's sister creeped me out. I was interested in her powers, but the show focuses more on her creepy brother crush than anything else. Overall, Mahouka gets a 6.

Hanayamata
I dropped this a while ago, but never really bothered to post. I got fed up with the constant "Let's do our best!" speeches. I also got fed up with the "confirming breath" characters kept doing. Like someone gives a "I can't fly, but let's do our best and keep jumping off the roof! OUR EFFORT WILL SOMEDAY REWARD US!" and someone does an agreeing grunt or breath or however you describe it. Whatever the fuck it is, the show does it alot. Also the drama is stupid.

[Lanturn]

Glasslip

Having a bit of time today, I decided to finish the rest of the episodes and gonna write a review. Hint: Whoever dropped it made the right choice.

Spoiler: show

So let's start, Glasslip. Obviously I should talk about its strong areas first - which I find Music and Art (sometimes).

Music - Glasslip utilise classical music throughout the course of the episode and of the shows, and I think that may be its strongest points. The music actually really helps in bringing out some kind of drama in the anime, and the background tracks are pretty nice. Its background music is definitely what I find the best part of Glasslip. The opening is pretty alright, but definitely not my favourite. And let's just say I haven't sat through much and never really bothered to find it on YT. It's decent, but honestly at the end of most episodes I usually want to do something else after spending about half an hour slowed down in time.

Animation - many have pointed out in the early stages that Glasslip's use of "still frames" really got on their mind. I personally didn't mind it, but there were some really bad uses of those still frames that really need to burn. I find the snow episode in Episode 11 pretty with the whole world with snow. Well, it didn't help that I did a Chinese composition which had snow in it. One of the most cliched shit I've ever written lol. Animation quality for Glasslip really fluctuates though, but I reckon on average better than MCA. Sorry yuki! =p

So with the good points out of the way, let's start the bashing. Honestly, if you look at any reviews of Glasslip and its last episode, you hardly can find any positive thing. Look at MAL, because the Glasslip forum is one hole of darkness and even moar darkness.

Story - What story? The plot frankly makes absolutely no sense and is seriously a waste of time with the entire plot going nowhere. Remember Touko's "fragment of the future"? It was left unexplained. Touko's mother said "Oh do you see those things in the light? When I was young I saw those stuff and thought it was the future! Can you move on from it now? :3"

... NO

Episode 11 involves Touko looking into the glass and pretty much descending into another world. Don't do this shit to me, writers. It isn't even fragments of the future, it's called being delusional. The plot is a great mess. I watched about 13 episodes and to be honest I can't really tell you what the plot is about, because wow, it really just went nowhere. Story is really weak and falls apart, plot is non-existent. Touko's romance plot was really bleh, so is YukixYanagi. I honestly can't remember what happened during the stretch between 7~10, and that's definitely the making of a poor anime. I'd call Glasslip a poor man's Nagi, except I think the poor man should still at least has a coin or something.

Romance - Weak, and not exciting at all. It attempts to be love-polygonalish like Nagi, except I think most of the show just degrades into really boring dude x Touko romance. There's HiroxSachi and that's literally the saving grace of the romance aspect of this anime, and not even one decent ship can pull a sunken Titanic.

Characters - Again, pretty weak. Touko and boring dude was really... the incarnation of Manaka and Tsumugu except about ten times more boring. Even after about 13 episodes, I can't even get what Yuki's personality is like. Yanagi is pretty decent, though she didn't really change much. Hiro and Sachi are a bit more interesting than the rest. Actually Hiro is a happy-go-lucky shonen in love with megane-girl. I don't recall him having huge developments, but I like Hiro the way he is. Sachi is actually more interesting than bookworm and she's surprisingly more manipulative than she lets on.

The character goals was a pointless thing they added into this anime. Touko didn't do much with glass, Yanagi had a grand total of one scene about wanting to be an idol and that seemed unnecessarily forced since she spent more time doing Yuki's goal than her own. Hiro had minimal time as a part-time in the cafe, so he didn't actually do much. Yuki actually did something but then it was pretty filler-ish. What did he do? Run around for 13 episodes to show he's an athlete, woo! Meanwhile Sachi be like "lol at home reading books".

Pacing - I think I don't really need to elaborate this one, though I think the pacing is pretty horrendous. I've been watching it on a weekly basis and even then I can't tell you what happened. Once things BEGAN TO HAPPEN sometime in the middle of the plot, lol next episode was a truly sleep fest. Any type of suspense managed to be built up is switched into a sleepfest episode. Yeah... :/

Overall, a frankly poor series which had nothing and went nowhere and only somehow saved by Music, Art and a bit of P.A Bias also Sachi/Hiro. 3/10, definitely will not recommend, definitely will not rewatch. If you have time to watch this you probably have time to watch Nagi, even if the latter is criticised as being "boring at times", this one is a sleepfest. It started out pretty decent, had great potential, but woo for throwing it away! I think I can make a fanfic out of Glasslip and have it better than the current plot. Because wow what plot.

Also it's totally not because there's this really cute kitten staring at me typing this up at WRitten!Kitten so I didn't want to rant as much. Blah.

Whew, that was one mostly negative rant! Like I highly doubt anyone will read through it but hey if you're feeling ragey about an anime, just remember that Glasslip is there!

Oh yeah the other good thing that came out from Glasslip!

Spoiler: show

[IMG][/URL][/IMG]

*fanboy squeal*

[KamenAeons]

Originally Posted by Lanturn

Spoiler: show

*fanboy squeal*

Reactions to that:

Spoiler: show

EMBRACE TEH SQUISHY? 83

[Doppleganger]

I can't understand what my husband is saying

Long name! The Japanese ain't a soothing say either ('Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken'). I wonder about this show's popularity. On face value, with a OreImo-style title and a premise out of the pits of depravity, it sounds like an incoming disaster. The pitch? "An office lady id married to an obsessive otaku". It was a short episode (3 minutes) but here's what I got:

1. The husband is obsessive but is fairly understanding of the wife
2. The wife isn't that attractive, and is 'old' - I'd say the both of them are in their 30's, him 33 and her 35
3. They were willing to overlook the faults of each other when getting married. It sounds like a desperation thing

vis a vis, this was mildly touching in a way the premise wouldn't have you think. The jokes once the 4koma really got going were okay, not bad or hilarious. Hit or miss.

[McSweeney]

Gunbuster

NOOOOOO, not another mech show! I don't know why I insist on doing this to myself, but I felt guilty about watching Diebuster (Gunbuster 2) before the original and needed to right this wrong. It's only six episodes after all!

The first five episodes were okay, not great. It's a pretty standard story about a cowardly protagonist manning up to overcome insurmountable odds. It felt like large chunks of time were devoted to action sequences and people yelling out status reports, which is the reason why I dislike mech shows in the first place. However, there were a few very redeeming features about this show:

The time dilation aspect. According to the theory of relativity, when one travels at a high speed, time passes more slowly for them than people at rest. This means that he or she can potentially embark on a mission where they're traveling at light speed, and they can return to earth having aged a couple of days while everyone else on Earth has aged several years. This was a VERY interesting aspect of the show and I'm surprised that this isn't used more often in science fiction stories! Not only for realism, but the implications of pilots returning to Earth after a mission, with loved ones having aged much more than themselves.

The time dilation factor leads into the AMAZING ending, one of the most emotional moments ever.

Spoiler: show

After 12,000 years had passed on Earth during Noriko and Kazumi's final mission to defeat the insect threat, they approached a darkened Earth. Surely humanity must have forgotten about them by now, or even worse, civilization may have died out completely. As they got closer, the lights began to appear on the planet, spelling out a giant "WELCOME HOME" to show that they never forgot their bravery and the sacrifice that they made.

Why was the last episode in black and white though? Did Gainax run out of money again like with Evangelion?

The ending alone made the show worth watching. Oh yeah plus Noriko is sexy and the instances of nudity were always nice :O

[Doppleganger]

There's been debates for 30 years over why the final episode was black and white. Some argue Gainax ran out of money, other argue it was more expensive to animate it black and white like that.

Spoiler: show

I will say this, though: to me, black and white signifies a bygone era, a time of long ago, since films aren't done in black and white anymore. The final episode in Gunbuster takes place, what, fifty years after the first, or something? Or, for people in the future, it would be a window into the past. For example, Star Wars is technically a historical trilogy, since it took place "a long time ago", but because it features futuristic technology by our standards it's often interpreted as a futuristic type series. I guess Gainax did it deliberately to evoke something, perhaps as the events of that Episode 6 being a seemingly forgotten story from a bygone era.

[big bad birtha]

I've watched a couple of new shows. Thoughts and whatnot.

Gugure! Kokkuri-san
This seemed okay for the first five minutes. A weird spirit haunting this girl who gave a fuck about nothing. Sadly that interest died very quickly when I realized that this show is nothing but a bunch of very very dry humor. I dropped it halfway through the first episode.

Shingeki no Bahamut - Genesis
This actually seems kinda cool. An action show where the main character is the snake-in-the grass character? That in itself is interesting. The plot doesn't really seem like much, but maybe something unique will surface? I doubt it, but it's cool in the action department at the very least! This is my second favorite this season to UBW.

Sora no Method
Meh. Boring. Dropped.

Tribe Cool Crew
A dance anime without idols, huh? The relationship between the two main characters could be sweet, but anything else about this show is probably very meh. Also dance scenes are done in ugly CGI, so there's that to not look forward to. It's not Aikatsu ugly, but ugly nonetheless.

So out of 6 shows I've watched this season so far, I only like 2, and immediately dropped 2. Not a good sign.

[lilboocorsola]

Started some new shows.

Ufotable Blade Works

Not much to say about this so far, since it's only the Prologue and I know what happens. Ufotable's working their animation magic of course. They sure made Rin moemoe though.

*waits for GAR Lancer*

World Trigger

The production values for this are sadly really low (lots of obvious still shots, though the action's decent at least), but aside from the lazy animation I actually rather enjoyed the first ep. Seemed pretty cute for a story about alien invasions. Will probably be like my new HxH.

Sora no Method

I was curious about this from the premise and the fact it's written by Kanon's author. Kaisa made it seem like something up my alley, and the "circle of friends lying on the grass" scenes in the OP hooked me. That said, it is kinda slow/not really different from AnoHana so far, but I'll keep watching to see where it goes.

Lolis tho.

Orenchi no Furo Jijou

Huh, the OP was... Not what I was expecting. Also only four minutes.

Why is the merman not voiced by Hamoru Miyano.

Grisaia no Kajitsu

So this was pretty shameless pandering fanservice, but I was actually pretty intrigued by the end. Wasn't anticipating those kinds of secrets. Will probably post in the thread when the plot picks up.

Amagi Brilliant Park

Okay so this is the real reason I wanted to make a post. This was actually really awesome. Silly, but awesome. Way better than I expected at least from moemoe Kyo-Ani a story about theme parks. Maybe since I went in with such low expectations, I ended up enjoying this a lot. Out of all the series I've checked out, this one kept me most entertained and interested throughout. Might possibly be best/favorite of the season for me.

Best way to open/ask someone on a date. BANG BANG BANGITY BANG.

I like how the protag is basically a narcissistic Kyon. Haruhi x Fumoffu with a dash of Chuuni yes please.

Spoiler: show

The premise of helping fairy-tale beings save their home (i.e. a theme park), while weird, actually sounds really sweet. I didn't think there'd be supernatural/magic involved so that was a nice bonus. And the MC gaining mind-reading powers sounds like it could have potential for a lot of hilarious situations. He seems to have his own interesting background/baggage as well, being a child actor who's somehow involved with the manager?

The OP makes me really happy for some reason. Didn't think much of it from the PV, but seeing it paired with bustling theme park visuals gives it energy and life (the clapping is a nice touch too). Feels so fun and welcoming, I want to go there~ And not get shot by a snake afterwards. *shot* Looking forward to seeing the park come together like this, making children's dreams come true. \o/

P.S. Dem fairy sisters are cute. Also dat ass.

Spoiler: show

MOFU!

[Doppleganger]

So Amagi is a show from this season? Or are you just picking it up now?