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

[Talon87]

My computer won't turn on anymore and I don't visit unsafe sites on my iPhone. So that pretty much means that I can't join in the JoJo and KanColle festivities nor continue to watch Pokémon. Hopefully the computer will magically turn on later tonight when I swap power supplies but I'm increasingly worried that it's a motherboard issue.

[Doppleganger]

If what BBB says is true, KanColle is like a run down block party rather than a festival. But I'll keep the Jojo fire lit for when you return to camp!

[lilboocorsola]

The first ep of Death Parade is out too, so you guys know.

[Doppleganger]

Beep Beep! Hiroshi Kamiya Alert! Beep beep!

Kamiya is one of the main guys in Binan!

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Beep Beep! Hiroshi Kamiya Alert! Beep beep!

Kamiya is one of the main guys in Binan!

He's actually one of the villains. All the big name VAs are supporting characters, while the main cast are voiced by newbies.

[Talon87]

I may make a thread for it tomorrow, but for now ...

Death Parade: The episode was a pretty good "first episode that isn't a first episode." It was like 80% "What if this were the first episode?" and 20% "lol, of course it isn't. Death Billiards is!" This allowed newcomers to start off with Death Parade Episode 01 while still offering some novelty to returning viewers.

I'll go into more details tomorrow, but suffice to say that ...

Spoiler: show

some of your guys' complaints with Death Billiards were addressed. For example ...

Spoiler: show

They reveal at the end of the episode who went where.

For me, this was a downgrade. But for you guys, it'll probably be seen as an upgrade.

One thing that is interesting about the series:

Spoiler: show

It's a prequel. Or at least Episode 01 was.

While I will probably watch more, I feel like this series is already diluting the charm of the original. I don't like that.

[big bad birtha]

Two more new shows.

Assassination Classroom
Holy fucking stupid this is stupid. I don't mean funny stupid either. Just plain god damn stupid. Even stupider is the fact that I haven't dropped this. Next week will likely alleviate that problem though.

DURRR S2
Eh, it was so-so. Honestly, I've forgotten almost everything about the first season, so this is almost like watching the second season of something without watching the first season. Maybe my memory will be refreshed without having to watch season 1 again.

Not much else to really talk about. Show ranking so far:

Cinderella girls > Binan Kokou > DURRR > Kantai Collection > Assassination Classroom

There has been a bunch more shows airing, but they haven't been very appealing. I'm still behind on Shigatsu and Bahamut, but every time I go to watch them, I decide I don't want to!

[Doppleganger]

I've been super lay zee but I've downloaded KanColle and am halfway through Death Parade. Will also finish Cindre Girls tonight.

[Talon87]

For my own reference:

North American Wednesdays:
Kantai Collection

North American Fridays:
Death Parade
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
The Idolmaster - Cinderella Girls

North American Saturdays:
Sailor Moon Crystal

And Pocket Monsters' releases of Pokémon tend towards the weekend end of the week as well, so even with Pokémon XY tossed onto the pile I'm still looking at a Wednesday-to-Saturday concentration for the shows I'll likely be watching (or at the very least wanting to watch) this season.

[Doppleganger]

Death Parade

Talon, make that topic!

Spoiler: show

I thought this episode was a lot weaker than the pilot. I heard that the ending told people where one goes, but the solution of "reincarnation" and "void" feels like a cop-out. The appeal to the pilot was that these guys with ambiguous moral faults would be sentenced to either Heaven or Heck. No in-between. This is interesting, because the characters are morally ambiguous, so it comes down to Decim the Bartender evaluating the characters during the duel. Fairly similar to the movie Defending Your Life, where while one's life is a fixed record, what happens in limbo is still part of the epilogue.

Now, I am a person who dislikes infidelity a lot. In my younger years, I considered it a capital sin along the lines of murder, but I've mellowed out somewhat on that hard-nosed view. Still, sustained, intentional betrayal is a great evil for me but is that really enough to sentence a person to oblivion? Let's say that betrayal took place over a courtship of 3 months. 3 months out of 30 years of life is enough to determine where one goes in the afterlife? There are certainly some real-life analogues to affecting the entire course of one's life - a teen getting life imprisonment, for example - but it's dissonant to weigh a sin that heavily, yet give the person "void" as the punishment.

I guess the staff for Decim's bar are probably people who declined to be judged. Since they're suspended by wires and Decim controls the wires, I'd wager everyone there is a form of puppet of his. Exploring their histories might be the end game of the anime.

[big bad birtha]

Dragon Ball
I read everything until where Dragon Ball Z starts in anime town. This was fun and entertaining, but I was a little disappointed. I was hoping it would be more than the "Goku destroys everything while the other fighters are useless!" thing that was going on in Z. Sadly it was kind of the same thing. He was a more entertaining guy atleast. It's fun watching him fight. It's very simple and riddled with silly plotholes and power level inconsistencies, but I still enjoyed it.

Nothing else on my radar. I decided to drop Shigatsu, because I don't think I can endure 10 more episodes of that.

[Doppleganger]

Toriyama repeatedly tried to embrace the Japanese tradition of "inherited will", i.e. have a successor replace Goku, but the fans simply wouldn't let him do it. That happened in DBZ's Cell Games where Gohan killed Cell, but Japan was completely intolerant of Gohan succeeding Goku to defeat Buu. So instead we had Goku brought back from the dead in a crazy convoluted way.

In DB, it was a bit easier to justify. Goku wasn't tremendously stronger than the other characters, but as a result of his adventures got opportunities they didn't get. Before the Super Saiyan stuff that put Goku in another league from the humans and even Piccolo, every other human did Goku's version of the training and ended up stronger than he was after that point.

-during DB itself, Goku climbs Korin Tower but struggles, and becomes stronger as a result of the climb and training with Korin. Tao climbs up the tower effortlessly, but doesn't train with Korin, and does actually improve. Korin takes care to not train Tao and gives him the Black Nimbus to go down the tower so he doesn't get any stronger.
-in early DBZ, everyone trains with Kami, which Goku did at the end of DB, and they're strong enough to do something against the Saibamen, who were as strong as Raditz who was far stronger than Piccolo was at the end of DB. That means, everyone was almost six times as strong as Goku doing the same training Goku did.
-during the quest on Namek, Tien/Yamcha/Chiaotzu/Piccolo all complete King Kai's training, although Piccolo improves less since he was stronger than the group to begin with. They then defeat the Ginyu Force, who not long before were crushing Gohan, Krillin, and Vegeta.

Goku got those opportunities because of his character. The message of his talent taking precedence over that character didn't happen until the Super Saiyan, at which the manga was originally supposed to end anyway.

[Doppleganger]

Anyone watching Akatsuki no Yona?

[Doppleganger]

I remember when I visited Harry Potter World at Universal Orlando, I was charged $5 to buy one pint of butterbeer. The butterbeer was great, but that doesn't change that the price was two or three times what the drink should have cost.

At least in that case, the edible was actually good. I can't believe paying the scaled equivalent for Scouting Legion "expeditionary rations".

[big bad birtha]

God, what a shitty season. Here's a general overview so far:

Assassination Classroom
Dropped. Too damn stupid without being funny.

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love!
Meh. This is okay, but more often than not, we get the same tired, repetitive lines from all of the characters. It's almost like a Lucky Star with a Mahou Shounen feature. I like the ED though.

DURRR
Is this interesting? I just can't pick up the motivation to watch it. I'm still downloading the episodes though.

Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls
Standard idol show. Unlike the first one, the personality of the characters doesn't shine through. It's still okay though.

Kantai Collection
I'm probably going to drop this. I just don't get it. Every episode, I'm bored out of my mind. I keep wanting one of the characters I know to do something, but instead, I'm just getting treated to some nameless fairies.

So.....yeah. Probably the weakest lineup in a long time.

Also the new Precure, Cheap Shameless Commercialism Precure, has aired. I mean, Princess Precure. Toei often makes the first episode appealing, but they often show their true colors after a few episodes. Let's see how long it'll take before it's blindingly obvious that it sucks!

Eden has also been translated, to the 0 people who give a damn. It is something I used to have on my radar, so I'll probably check it out. It's by the same guys who did Ef. I guess someone managed to bypass Minori's jingoistic bullshit and translate it!

[big bad birtha]

Eden* They Were Only Two, On The Planet
I read up until the OP. This is a very pretty VN, which is weird for a "the world is about to end" kind of story. Though I guess Shimashita is similar in that regard. Being all upbeat and happy when humanity is dwindling down. ANYWAY! So far, it has just been boring introduction. Things are getting a bit more interesting, so I look forward to when shit hits the fan. The main guy is alot like UG from Grisaia. UG is much more interesting, but they both have the same general story. I just hope that irritating "Short 2 - 8 hours" on VNDB doesn't mean "rushed and unsatisfying". Only time will tell!

[Sparkbeat]

Rolling☆Girls
At the moment, it's kind of a mess, but a really fun to watch mess that can still be cleaned up. The art direction is pretty stylish, varying between lots of vibrant colors and even some water colors making for a nice variation. I don't really have much to say other than while it is somewhat silly, it's just been a joy to watch once I got a grasp on the setting and how the world works to this point (Though a good number of things are left in the dark, which some people seem to have a problem with, but I think it's a good thing since ya know...it's only on Episode 4.) I'd say definitely give it a look if it looks like the kind of thing you'd be interested in.

[Doppleganger]

Rewatched The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL, longer than I expected it would be.

Ultimately, my feelings toward FINAL haven't changed from when I first saw it (2009?) but I think I have better buzzwords to throw at it. FINAL fundamentally is poorly conceived entertainment, and strove to be "extreme" in how it perverted the TV series proper. It's far more risque and edgedark, and in an attempt to be so over-the-top it's also ham-fisted in how it characterizes emotion.

It's pretty close to the Duke Nukem Forever of OVAs, wholly unnecessary and worse in quality, except it didn't take forever to come out. There's less creativity in FINAL than the series proper, but where there is creativity it's weird and poorly fitting.

One thing I did feel a bit more appreciation for, is GaoFighGar. I've long hated GaoFighGar because of how he was abruptly he was introduced and how impotent he looked against BioNet, then he proceeded to slay the iconic hero GaoGaiGar in a horrific battle sequence, finally being ripped apart like tissue paper by Palparepa and Pia Decim.

He was intended to be Buzz Lightyear versus Woody, superior and better. But GaoFighGar never got a chance to shine, as it was always destroyed (even in replica form) and served as little more than a stepping stone to Genesic. The scene of Genesic shaking GaoFighGar's hand in the opening to FINAL 7 made me feel like that was Sunrise's way of apologizing to GaoFighGar for having no greater role than to be jobbed.

So yeah. I feels sorry for GaoFighGar, but FINAL still sucks.

[Talon87]

Given the thread I posted tonight in the Debate forum, I feel I should clarify a few things so that no one is being anxious over nothing.

Doppel: This thread definitely does not reflect on our recent interactions in the OreGairu thread. What we've had there is pretty much exactly what I have only ever asked of people: if I make a post you find worth replying to, you reply to it and we have a conversation. You have engaged me in that thread, replying enthusiastically to just about every single one of my episode posts so far. Your posts have even had a positive impact on my viewing experience (as noted in the Episode 06 post).

Two people will not see every single piece of artwork the same way, but one of the things I love about art is learning how a particular piece was perceived by and affected someone else when I don't perceive it the same way. AK2 and I have this experience quite a lot with Pokémon: even though it's a pretty shallow kids show, there are those episodes that I feel were 8/10 that he feels were 5/10 and then vice versa there are those times where I thought it was a 5/10 and he thought it was an 8/10. Every single time, the one of us who thought it was a 5/10 is bashful about it and earnestly encourages the 8/10 party to enthusiastically tell us all about what he liked and why. And having had this experience quite a bit, on both sides of the fence, over the last five years of watching the show together with him, I can honestly say that it's been one of the coolest experiences in my consumption of art.

While I would prefer it if I felt OreGairu were a 10/10 just as you do, and while it brings me no joy to rate one of your gems as low as a 5/10, what I do love is the insight you bring to the series. Whether I've missed the forest for the trees or whether I'm seeing what I'm seeing and I just don't care for it as much as you did, it doesn't really matter: what matters is hearing about what you see/saw in the episodes I'm watching and why they so excited you.

Really, thank you very much for your replies to me as I have been watching OreGairu.

As for JoJo and Death Parade, I hope that we can both find it in us to get those conversations going again. JoJo, I can well imagine you're scared to spoil me on things. But Death Parade should really be a super-safe zone for us to speculate and discuss things to our hearts' contents.

bbb: You're easily the #1 victim of the complaints I have voiced in the Debate thread. So many threads you've created that no one replies to. So many shows you watch either all alone or with only Doppel for company. Plus the fact that we're not watching much of the same things this season afaik. There's no way in heck I'm upset with you.

Yuki: Not upset with you either, though you're obviously the posterchild for Anime vet-turned-Skype vet. Won't lie: I've been upset off and on. But every time I've been upset it's only taken minutes for me to realize, with great frustration, how I can't stay mad at you over it and for so many solid reasons. (Reasons I haven't wanted to fully flesh out in the Debate thread just yet lest I give everything anyway.) I think it's quite possible, for better or for worse, that the future of this community lies in P2P communication and that the forum may be nearing the end of a long-course evolution towards being nothing more than a platform for the forum games that simply don't work well on Skype.

I'd get envious, jealous, or bitter -- I guess a mix of all three emotions -- every time you'd mention discussing shows with the Skype crowd that I knew you could've been discussing here with us instead. But I'd always come back to the parallels between Skype and my phone calls with AK2. If I mentioned hypocrisy above, well, I'd be an enormous hypocrite to argue against discussing anime on Skype when I discuss so much of it via telephone and exclude all of you from it. I do still think the situation is fucked up in a sense and I do still wonder what the best course of action for me to take is, but I want you to know that I'm definitely not angry at you or anything. Nor am I going to argue "DEATH TO SKYPE!" I think the rhetoric in the Debate thread posts may make this not so apparent, so I'm writing here to set that record straight for you and for your Skype contacts before people freak out too much.

Misc: Psycho-Pass S2 is a good example of a diary entry series. I didn't write those posts with any expectation of any of you replying, and I'm not angry that no one did. They're pretty much there for deoxys or for anyone else, past or future, who liked/likes Psycho-Pass and may show up some day to read them and discuss the show.

The only recent example of the frustration I voiced in the Debate thread was the XY059 post. I haven't really made any other "Talon-style" posts in the past month besides that one, and that was the show I got the most feedback regarding, both publicly and privately. So I decided to give that the full red carpet treatment. Aaaaaaaaaand ... pretty much the same as always. Largely off-topic shipping stuff from precita, which in turn resulted in off-topic and/or insubstantial remarks from Mercutio and Doppel. No reply from AK2 (obviously; we discussed it at length via telephone). No reply from Adamant or anyone else from PM. No reply from PASBLers who'd told me they missed my posts. And the thing is, even when people do reply on-topic (like the top portion of precita's post), it's usually not very long. The posts can take upwards of forty-five minutes to put together between text, images, and proofreading, and frankly they're just not worth it if all I'm going to get is a one-to-two sentence reply from everyone who reads it. I'm not asking everyone for the AK2 treatment of a 30-to-60-minute discussion, but the Doppel treatment as seen in the OreGairu thread. That's what I'd like to see. Others offering their own unique (and ON-TOPIC) thoughts about what I've discussed. Others offering replies to my thoughts, proving they read what I had to say and that they cared about it too, even if they didn't agree with it. Conversation. I want conversation.

Mcsweeney, Kamen, Kaisa, and other members: You're all fine too but I really need to take a break from writing. ^^;

[Sparkbeat]

Welp, now seems like a good enough time to finally do this. I guess I'm not really new to UPN by now, but I'd say I'm still fairly fresh in terms on anime since I only got into it towards the end of the summer. Heck, I didn't start watching as much as I am now until over this winter break. So anyways, hi, I'm Spark, and I've been without alcohol for almost 2 months now I came to UPN for PASBL and stayed for the awesome community. I did the standard watch Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh on WBKids growing up, but I only really started getting interested in anime at all about a year ago. I was just browsing Youtube or something, don't remember too well, and I came across Fairy Tail. I ended up watching the whole first season in maybe about two months or so, and then around April, a lot of my friends starting stocking Mekakucity Actors images into their avi's and sigs. I ended up checking it out, along with Barakamon, and for the most part enjoyed them both. Then come Labor Day, completely uninformed me remembered hearing about Lucky Star from somewhere, so I decided to watch it, blissfully unaware that I was going to understand mostly nothing. Luckily, I somehow loved it anyways and finished it all over the Sunday and Monday of Labor Day weekend. And my life's been downhill from there xd Since then I've watched some more stuff, though probably not too much, so I dunno, I guess I'll just throw up what I can remember my thoughts being about them so you guys can know me, my tastes, etc. better.

Little Witch Academia
I really hope we get to see this become a series after the second movie. It's technically the first anime I saw excluding Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, but sadly, I only watched it because I heard it had FiM references in it (Nowadays I've kinda stopped caring about FiM as much. It's just fallen out of my interest recently *shrug*.) Anyways, I loved it, and can't wait for more. I think I've watched it 3+ times since then actually, and each time I've noticed new little details, which is always a fun thing.

Fairy Tail
My thoughts on this one are kinda hazy since I just remember watching it and loving it for a while before my interest just...petered out. It was probably due to realizing how long it was actually going to take to watch all of it that lead me to drop it a few episodes into the next arc. From what I watched though, it was a fun ride. Most of the twists were predictable, but still enjoyable. The comedy was mostly on point, which is good since I remember the fillers as being still good to watch. It had it's share of heart warming scenes, action packed scenes, great character moments, but towards the end of my watch, I just started getting bored. I just kinda stopped caring because I realized, "Hey, this is going on forever. Nothing of substance is going to happen to any of the main characters, and it's just going to be the same recycled 'X does X to save the day' over and over. Fairy Tail isn't bad, watching the first season was pretty worth it, but I'm fairly sure shows like it won't be my thing.

Mekakucity Actors
I had no idea what was going on the whole time. Soon afterwards I actually looked into it, and by now I have a solid grasp, but now I also know the anime is pretty inferior to the songs in terms of quality and enjoyment for me. It's good seeing the great characters animated and speaking, but the anime failed to capture their potential. It had sloppy pacing, and it completely left new viewers behind. Kagepro as a whole is still awesome though.

Barakamon
This show. Thiiiiiiiiis shooooooooow. Barakamon is basically what told me, "Slice of life is amazing." Sitting back and watching the events unfold as Handa learns from everyone around him to develop himself is just great. The show has an amazing charm to it in its art style, and I, at least, became attached to nearly every character. It handled Handa's growth near perfectly, with none of his progression seeming forced or rushed. It could flip the switch between hysterical and heart warming with ease, and this show, along with the next, are pretty much what have solidified my interest in anime.

Lucky Star
I didn't understand 50% of this show. The 50% I did understand was absolutely fantastic. I just connected with the characters, minus Miyuki because she never really clicked with me for some reason other than the "hah, moe!" jokes, right off the bat. I actually can't describe my love for Lucky Star outside of it having me laughing most of the way through and enjoying it completely, leading to my hand just moving to the next episode for the entire weekend. It basically solidified what Barakamon started, and it'll probably be something that I'm really bias towards due to having a special place in my heart for it.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
After watching Lucky Star, I obviously backtracked and watch Haruhi so I could at least get a vast majority of the references. Haruhi kept me entertained. Kyon is amazing, Haruhi's great once you get used to her, and everyone else is entertaining enough. I'll admit, it didn't live up to my expectations of it from hearing about how good it was from "around the internet", but I thought it was still good. Sadly, I'm a major whore for completely watching things, so I made myself sit through the entire Endless Eight just as exams were coming up. I ended up taking a pretty long break from watching anything between late November and early December. I finished up the last few episodes of Haruhi just after Christmas.

Kids on the Slope
I watched this because when I finished Haruhi, I for some reason remembered an AMV I'd seen earlier that was based on this anime. So, I looked it up and checked it out. All I really knew coming into it was that it was included Jazz and was, I assumed, slicey of lifey. It ended up just being...fantastic. The drama and romance aspects ended up reeling me in, and the show managed to get me to tear up quite a bit.

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
I don't remember whether it was Connor or Yuki that demanded I watch this immediately when I said I was just going to "watch it later," but thank god they did. I was kinda burned out on Haruhi, so I wasn't the most enthusiastic coming into this...but wow. It's honestly the best movie I've seen to date, and it alone makes watching all of Haruhi so worth it. It just does everything right for me, and just talking about it briefly makes me really want to watch it again.

No Game No Life
I felt like checking out something more recent, and I remembered Crys having told me about this one a while back. I wasn't really in the mood to watch anything, but for some reason I still gave this a shot the day after watching Disappearance despite still being in awe from it. But anyways, NGNL is something I definitely want a second season out of. At first, I was rather meh too it, since the fan service until about halfway through got pretty annoying, and while certain parts were intriguing, something just wasn't getting me. I'd say things started to turn around during the little Jibril arc, since the game in it and the strategies, especially towards the end, were just really captivating. It then just took that momentum and ran towards the end. I'm not entirely sure whether the fan service was toned down a bit or if I just got used to it, but whatever happened, it didn't bother me as much once I got to that point. In addition, the games and mental aspects of the show really pick up after the halfway mark. I guess they just tried to ease you into it with the first few episodes before hitting the really good stuff, but whatever the cause, I thought NGNL was great. Not Disappearance great, but just something that's a joy to watch.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica
And then Blaze began his tirade to destroy my soul. Spoilers.

Spoiler: show

I came into Madoka knowing it wasn't all happy magical girl rainbows. I knew it took a turn at Episode 3. I don't remember where I heard it, but I had heard it from somewhere. Mami's death didn't shock or rattle me. I just...didn't feel any connection with Mami at that point. Now after watching the entire anime and listening to the subbed drama CD's, I like her a lot more, but Blaze can vouch that literally minutes before Mami's death, I had been joking about how, "Mami looks so stoned in like, every single close-up." Everything after that completely fucked me up though. I hadn't put much thought into it at the time, so the Soul Gems literally containing their souls got me, despite being kinda obvious looking back. Sayaka had become, and still is, my favorite character at that point, so her decent and collapse got me hard and crying boatloads. After that, Homura's back story was tragic and compelling, but nothing really topped the down in the dumps feeling from Sayaka's death. I already liked Kyoko a lot, and she ended up rivaling Sayaka for favorite character after listening to the drama CD's. But yeah, I loved/hated everything about Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and the only thing I could say I'd change is maybe give us slightly more time to connect with Mami, though that's probably a me thing.

K-On!
K-On! is perfect because it was exactly what I needed after watching Madoka. Cute girls do cute things sorta kinda revolving around music. It was laid back, and great to watch after school. Loved the characters, loved the situations, and I'm gonna be watching K-On!! soon.

Death Billiards
I read some posts about it and Death Parade here, so I decided to check it out and thoroughly enjoyed it. The questions it presented about what defines the goodness of a human were interesting, the vibe of the show was captivating, and I've been keeping up with Death Parade because of it. I'll probably make a post in that thread sometime.

FLCL
I downloaded this on a whim because it was short and I wanted something to watch while traveling for track. It was absolutely fucking insane, but once I got used to that insanity, it just became downright hilarious with all the shit it pulls and scenarios it throw's Ta into. It's pacing is insane, and while hard to follow at first, I somehow managed to near fully understand the plot by the end of it.

Then just gonna drop a list of shows I'm watching right now: Rolling☆Girls, Death Parade, KanColle, Space Dandy (With a friend), Fate/Stay Night.

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Sparkbeat

Little Witch Academia
I really hope we get to see this become a series after the second movie. It's technically the first anime I saw excluding Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, but sadly, I only watched it because I heard it had FiM references in it (Nowadays I've kinda stopped caring about FiM as much. It's just fallen out of my interest recently *shrug*.) Anyways, I loved it, and can't wait for more. I think I've watched it 3+ times since then actually, and each time I've noticed new little details, which is always a fun thing.

Yo, Spark, welcome to the forum and Imma let you finish, but I gotta mention something about this!

I'm starting to get skeptical of LWA actually getting a full-length series. While it's true it was immensely popular online, one has to ask why it hasn't been made already. Didn't the money get allocated last summer? And yet, Death Billiards, made two years ago, already has a full-length anime series in Death Parade.

Perhaps the most dark news related is the similarly crowd-funded Under the Dog project collapsed today, with the studio and the financial backer breaking up. News is that those who invested in the Kickstarter won't see their money back, it's just been pocketed by the studio.

This is a huge blow to confidence in Kickstarter, of course. I dunno about Trigger, but I seriously doubt in the future people will be more confident toward a Curt Schilling-style investment project unless it's largely finished and needs extra cash to top stuff off.

[Emi]

Haiyore! Nyaruko-San:

So this anime came up between Kin and I when we were discussing Outer God Nyarla a few months back and it was always sitting in the back of my head and having discovered the motivation to watch some anime but not really feeling Log Horizon right now I decided to watch this because I figured it was going to give me quite a few chuckles.

So the basic premise of the show so far is that Nyarlathotep (which is a name I remember off-hand for some reason) is an alien tasked with defending Earth from a criminal organization that wants to traffic humans as slave labor as well as other illegal things. I can't say I'm not entertained. This show just can't seem to take itself seriously which is pretty fine for me, because I was giggling quite a ways through. The MC is a bit boring but I've never liked MCs to begin with so. :p The Pokemon parody came out of nowhere (its even looks like a Pokeball :V) and was the point where I was pretty committed to watching this. I'll keep people more posted as I keep watching!

(Talon I cannae do this I forgot like half the things I wanted to say)

[Sparkbeat]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

\I'm starting to get skeptical of LWA actually getting a full-length series. While it's true it was immensely popular online, one has to ask why it hasn't been made already. Didn't the money get allocated last summer? And yet, Death Billiards, made two years ago, already has a full-length anime series in Death Parade.

Yeah it definitely gets less and less likely the more time passes. To my knowledge, which could be completely off since it was heard second hand from just "around" I guess, LWA ended up being more of a hit outside of Japan than inside, which could have something to do with it. The Kickstarter thing is a definite bummer for Kickstarter as a whole. As for why is hasn't been made already, the money from the Kickstarter was intended for a second movie rather (That is supposed to be about 2-3x as long as the first due to reaching the necessary goal) than a series. I believe there was a statement saying that a series would be considered depending on how successful the upcoming movie is. It's not something I'd be disappointed in if it didn't happen since it's still definitely a stretch, but if it does, I'd be all over it.

[Emi]

So I can't help but point out that the first three alien species you learn about are Nyarlathotepians, Nodens, and Cthugha.

Something about this seems oddly familiar.

[Doppleganger]

Cthuga in Nyarlko is, if I recall, the best girl and one of the better ones in recent years.

Although I find Nyarlko herself pretty cute. Her attraction to what's his face - even offering herself to him in the most depraved way, was quite endearing.