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Old 04-25-2013, 04:25 AM   #5026
Doppleganger
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kaisap just mentioned them. They're what we refer to as "beta males"...Japanese guys who live around their parents house, watch anime/play video games, and shun interaction with the female sex.

The soon-to-be anime Talon brought to our attention is something that appeals immensely to such individuals. The premise is as gaudy as rainbow coloured vomit!
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Old 04-25-2013, 06:55 AM   #5027
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
kaisap just mentioned them. They're what we refer to as "beta males"...Japanese guys who live around their parents house, watch anime/play video games, and shun interaction with the female sex.

The soon-to-be anime Talon brought to our attention is something that appeals immensely to such individuals. The premise is as gaudy as rainbow coloured vomit!
Is the anime and video games part in the official definition? As I've understood, it's not necessary that you're a video game or anime nerd. Anime/manga herbivores that I'm aware of (at the top of my head):

-Shinji Ikari (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
-Kasuga (Aku no Hana)

More in the sense that they're quiet, have no initiative, no leadership skills, whine about everything and get abused by women frequently without even trying to fight back.

The example used online frequently is the dude who married his girlfriend...in the NDS-game Love Touch. A film an extreme herbivore man Air Doll, where his sex doll comes to life and he dumps her, because now she's "like a real woman" and hence more much trouble than he wants (he can't deal with real women who *gasp* think for themselves). It's a great movie, by the way, and not nearly as erotic as the setting might make it sound.
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Old 04-25-2013, 01:09 PM   #5028
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Wow Suigin! That anime looks like a sure-fire winner! Actually I might try it out just to see how god damn awful it is. It sounds worse than Accel World.

Kodomo no Jikan (manga)
This was finished. I was questioning whether or not I should bother talking about it, but meh, whatever. This had potential, and everyone had some pretty good emotional problems/background stories. I was also sort of interested in the forbidden love part of the story. Sadly that potential wasn't really met. After the third quarter, things just got filler-ey, and the ending was rushed out the ass. Also the author spent too much time trying to make things ecchi. It got pretty annoying. All-in-all, I guess this gets a 6. If the author spent less time making this ecchi and more time on the character's emotional issues, then this could have been alot better. Oh well. Each chapter released at a slow, but consistent rate, so it was easy to follow.
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Old 04-25-2013, 03:05 PM   #5029
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Is 'beta' really a correct term, considering the pack structure terminology it seems to be drawing from? I'd think that Epsilon or some such would be a better moniker.[/nitpicking]
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People should watch what they enjoy regardless of what others think, even if it's a terribad guilty pleasure.
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Though, I also dislike the concept of lamenting the current day while wishing to re-experience the past. At least, my modern attitude is to try and make each new day magical even if it's not, since exclusively reminiscing about the past is too pathetic.
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Old 04-25-2013, 09:38 PM   #5030
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Quote:
Originally Posted by big bad birtha View Post
Wow Suigin! That anime looks like a sure-fire winner! Actually I might try it out just to see how god damn awful it is. It sounds worse than Accel World.

Kodomo no Jikan (manga)
This was finished. I was questioning whether or not I should bother talking about it, but meh, whatever. This had potential, and everyone had some pretty good emotional problems/background stories. I was also sort of interested in the forbidden love part of the story. Sadly that potential wasn't really met. After the third quarter, things just got filler-ey, and the ending was rushed out the ass. Also the author spent too much time trying to make things ecchi. It got pretty annoying. All-in-all, I guess this gets a 6. If the author spent less time making this ecchi and more time on the character's emotional issues, then this could have been alot better. Oh well. Each chapter released at a slow, but consistent rate, so it was easy to follow.
I read the last chapter cause someone posted a picture from it. You could probably imagine what. I'm...pretty darn shocked it went that far!
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Old 04-26-2013, 12:01 AM   #5031
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Shingeki no Kyojin: Watched Episode 01. The premise strikes me as a bit silly, and I really don't care for the designs of the giants, but man if the ending scene wasn't intense.

Despite knowing the word kyojin "giant", I thought this story was set on Jupiter's moon, Titan, since everyone a) kept capitalizing the T, b) not pluralizing it as "the Titans", and c) bringing the series up alongside the other space series, Suisei no Gargantia. For some reason, I didn't put two and two together that the kyojin in the title was referring to Titans! Also, I think I'd seen people use the official subtitle, "Attack on Titan". So again, I assumed that they meant the Jovian moon.

Apparently I chose to watch with CommieFail subs. Despite wanting nothing to do with Haidaraaaa since everything he touches turns to shit on my computer, and despite making absolutely certain that he wasn't listed in the site credits for this project, it turns out that the same problems I had with Commie's JJBA starting with Episode 20 are present here too. And wouldn't you know, Haidaraaaa reveals in the blog post that he did encode this! How kind of him! (Fuck. ) But it's not Haidaraaaa's CPU-melting encodes that have people talking. It's the translator Margaan's subs! Apparently he/she is a huge English language dork and decided to a) call the giants "Eoten" (an Old English word for giant) and b) use declensional forms of the word (e.g. Eotenas, Eotene) wherever perceptibly appropriate. This has a lot of people quite angry -- over 300 replies to their blog post for Episode 1! -- but it doesn't really bother me. I think it's cute that the translator knows this, cares so much, and is applying it in a setting where, frankly, it kinda works. The only problem I do have is, kyojin isn't Japan's "eoten". It's Japan's "giant". So he/she is kiiiiiiiiiiinda wrong to use the OE term. But hell, whatever, I don't mind. What I do mind is THIS FUCKING ENCODE. >_< If I stick with the series, I may have to switch over from Commie to somebody else.
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Old 04-26-2013, 08:11 AM   #5032
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Shingeki no Kyojin: Watched Episode 01. The premise strikes me as a bit silly, and I really don't care for the designs of the giants, but man if the ending scene wasn't intense.

Despite knowing the word kyojin "giant", I thought this story was set on Jupiter's moon, Titan, since everyone a) kept capitalizing the T, b) not pluralizing it as "the Titans", and c) bringing the series up alongside the other space series, Suisei no Gargantia. For some reason, I didn't put two and two together that the kyojin in the title was referring to Titans! Also, I think I'd seen people use the official subtitle, "Attack on Titan". So again, I assumed that they meant the Jovian moon.

Apparently I chose to watch with CommieFail subs. Despite wanting nothing to do with Haidaraaaa since everything he touches turns to shit on my computer, and despite making absolutely certain that he wasn't listed in the site credits for this project, it turns out that the same problems I had with Commie's JJBA starting with Episode 20 are present here too. And wouldn't you know, Haidaraaaa reveals in the blog post that he did encode this! How kind of him! (Fuck. ) But it's not Haidaraaaa's CPU-melting encodes that have people talking. It's the translator Margaan's subs! Apparently he/she is a huge English language dork and decided to a) call the giants "Eoten" (an Old English word for giant) and b) use declensional forms of the word (e.g. Eotenas, Eotene) wherever perceptibly appropriate. This has a lot of people quite angry -- over 300 replies to their blog post for Episode 1! -- but it doesn't really bother me. I think it's cute that the translator knows this, cares so much, and is applying it in a setting where, frankly, it kinda works. The only problem I do have is, kyojin isn't Japan's "eoten". It's Japan's "giant". So he/she is kiiiiiiiiiiinda wrong to use the OE term. But hell, whatever, I don't mind. What I do mind is THIS FUCKING ENCODE. >_< If I stick with the series, I may have to switch over from Commie to somebody else.
I thought of the mythology Titans (giants that caused chaos until Zeus stepped in), not a moon of Jupiter. ^^;; The planet reference didn't even cross my mind.

As to fansubs, I tried to watch Episode 3 with Commie subs. The video instantly crashed my media player, over and over again, just by showing the first screen of the video. >.< I watch SnK with gg-subs, it doesn't crash my player, I can read the subtitles and...well, Commie seems to love using translation solutions no one else would even think of, not to mention use. The grapple hook thing the characters use to move around and fight the giants? Everyone calls it the 3D Maneuver Gear.

Commie? They went with Multiaxial Gear. It's not technically wrong, but I find just reading the term "multiaxial gear" difficult as hell. And 3D Maneuver Gear has a nicer ring to it.
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Old 04-26-2013, 10:29 AM   #5033
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So, the trailer for Kyoto Animation's newest project just came out ...

Is it Haruhi S3? No.
Is it another moeblob show like K-On!? No. :o
It's ...

Spoiler: show
BORKED
link

... a moe reverse harem. Of a high school men's swimming team or club.

As the YouTube uploader wryly said, "And then all the fujoshi rejoiced." But as for the rest of us ... WHERE IS MY HARUHI? AND WHAT IS THIS SHIT!? T_T Ladies, you enjoy. ^^; Good for KyoAni being an equal-opportunity moe producer, I guess, but a reverse harem is ... gyugh. -_-;
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Old 04-26-2013, 02:24 PM   #5034
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
So, the trailer for Kyoto Animation's newest project just came out ...

Is it Haruhi S3? No.
Is it another moeblob show like K-On!? No. :o
It's ...

Spoiler: show
BORKED
link

... a moe reverse harem. Of a high school men's swimming team or club.

As the YouTube uploader wryly said, "And then all the fujoshi rejoiced." But as for the rest of us ... WHERE IS MY HARUHI? AND WHAT IS THIS SHIT!? T_T Ladies, you enjoy. ^^; Good for KyoAni being an equal-opportunity moe producer, I guess, but a reverse harem is ... gyugh. -_-;
I recall there being this ad about KyoAni that had handsome guys swimming a lot; it was a general "look how pretty stuff we can do!" ad. It spawned a meme that the next KyoAni anime is going to be about guys swimming, that it needs to become a thing. And that was like, last year.

Meme made reality?
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Old 04-26-2013, 02:41 PM   #5035
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From the article you linked:
Quote:
The “Swimming Anime” appears to break the mold with its fresh style and focus on the sport and that is probably why this untitled project is getting so much attention from both sexes.
>with its fresh style and focus on the sport
>focus on the sport
>focus on the sport

Umm, did we even watch the same thirty-second PV, Mr. Blog Guy? That preview he linked (the thirty-second one) shows a lot of bishie bishie bishounen padding and then all of two "focus on the sport" things -- a waterproof stopwatch (OH GEE, WHAT AMAZING EVIDENCE! ) and a guy getting ready to dive down a lane in a packed stadium. But like ... how the fuck can you tell from that one little bit that this is going to be an anime with such a "focus on the sport"? You can't.

From the trailer I saw (the one linked earlier, the 1m33s one), this looks like a typical high school harem -- five friends of various cliché molds, same gender, all in the same club -- but the only difference this time is that they're boys instead of girls. I would never in a million years guess from the trailer that I linked that this anime is going to be a serious sports anime with a bishounen cast (ŕ la The Prince of Tennis, Slam Dunk, and various other sports animes). It just looks like K-On! except with pOnOses instead of vagOOOs. And, I guess, with college-age faces instead of baby girl faces.
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Old 04-26-2013, 03:16 PM   #5036
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I find it amusing. BBB linked me the video before anyone knew that the animation clip was actually a preview for the new show. The rancor from this "troll" production might drive people to watch it, in a similar vein to how the horrible rotoscoping of Aku no Hana hooked a larger audience than would have been expected. Remember back in the day when Haruhi introduced itself with a slapdash video presentation? I don't think the creativity involved is all that dissimilar.

That said, it looks to me like the anime, while ostensibly for fujoshi, definitely has a male audience bent. I don't know how Japan's homophobia will play a role but Westerners are gonna watch these sausages sizzle.

My evidence? The conspicuously chosen, typically female but technically gender-neutral names of the swimmers...

Rin
Rei
Nagisa
Haruka
Makoto

Plaster a line-up like that in the face of anyone who knows anime, and they'd think it was an all-female cast. Definitely suspicious.
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Old 04-26-2013, 03:36 PM   #5037
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I wouldn't call those five names all gender neutral.

Female only typically: Rin, Nagisa, Haruka
Gender neutral, truly: Rei (short for either Reiji (m) or Reiko (f) or even just stand-alone Rei)
Male only typically: Makoto

Nobody names their son Haruka. It's like naming your son Lindsay. You could, but ...

Likewise, Makoto is such a, such a, such a well-known boys' name. The only Makoto I can even think of who's a girl is the iM@S character whose schtick is that she's confused for a boy by people. The name's also used by Sakuraba Coharu to drive home the funniness of a crossdressing character. But like ... that is a man's name. Granted, it simply means a combination of virtuous ideas centered around truth / honesty, so like, you could theoretically name a girl it ... but it'd be like naming a girl Peter and asking "Well why not? Why can't my daughter be someone's rock?"
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Old 04-26-2013, 04:47 PM   #5038
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Shingeki no Kyojin: I watched Episodes 02 and 03.

Episode 02:

Spoiler: show
I forgot to mention this last night, but I suspect (probably like many others, I have no idea) that the 50-foot tall Titan/giant/Eoten is a robot. In Episode 01, when he was climbing over the wall, he appeared to mechanically breathe steam out of the corners of his mouth, like an engine letting off pressure, but I chalked it up to animation style when no further signs of him being a robot really presented themselves. Episode 02 changed that, though, by giving us a load of hints that he may not be like the other giants.
  1. He's much taller than they are. The second tallest giant we've seen has been around 30 feet tall. The suspected robo-giant is almost twice that height.
  2. He breathes steam. And he does it in a way that seems mechanical, like he's venting pressure. (We see it again this episode.) None of the other giants do this.
  3. He's much faster than the other giants. They tend to lazily lumber forth like sleepy zombies, but the tall one is like a track star during the climax of this episode.
  4. He's much tougher than they are. The other giants appear to be susceptible to cannon fire, but the suspected robot had cannon balls bounce right off of him. (And maybe I'm crazy, but I could've sworn I heard a metal-on-metal noise too as the balls bounced off.)
  5. He's much stronger than they are. None of them have proven able to lunge themselves at a wall and demolish it. He has.
  6. He hasn't once been shown eating any of the small people. That's pretty much the only thing on the other giants' minds.
So yeah, a ton of hints which seem to suggest that the Titans'/giants'/Eotenas' secret weapon is an artificial life form.

I'm not really sure why we're supposed to buy that the 50-foot tall giant wouldn't have made a beeline for the next wall and created a hole in that. And then made a beeline for the final wall and made a hole in that. And then made straight for the castle and demolished it. If he already broke through two of the walls (the village's thin one and the kingdom's first of the three thick ones), why stop there?

How the hell did Eren get his father's key? I mean, yeah, we saw that dream sequence, but when the hell did Eren ever have a chance to go to the woods (without Mikasa noticing!), rendezvous with his dad, get assaulted, and head back to the refugee camp? Kerrazy. But there's no denying that he has the key now. Given the obvious importance placed on his dad's basement in Episode 01, and given the fact that Eren has the key now in Episode 02, it's pretty clear that Eren will be heading back to his village at some point to sift through the wreckage of his home and to try and find what his father was hiding there.

Speaking of Eren's father, I wonder what he injected Eren with. We know that his dad's a physician and that he's credited with saving countless lives in the village, but we also know that he seems to go on mysterious business trips into other parts of the kingdom, so ... yeah. Guess we'll find out in due time.

Episode 03:

Spoiler: show
I've got two words for you: steampunk Spider-Man? 'Cause that's what humanity's answer seems to be: steampunk webslinging, where we replace spiderweb with steel cords and Spidey's aerial superstrength with jetpacks. It's almost like this author wrote a fanfic once in which Spider-Man saves humanity from an army of giants and decided, "WHOA! That's a GREAT idea! I should turn this into a comic!" And then he did.

Mikasa is really pretty. It's a shame that she had to cut her hair though. I know, I know, "it could get caught in the wires" *sigh* ... but yeah, she went from being a cute kid to being a really attractive adult just how old are these kids now anyway? I swear, Mikasa looks like she's in her late 20s but surely she can't be meant to be a day over 18.

I wonder if Eren's harness belt was sabotaged by one of the other people in camp. Maybe they were jealous of him and did that to get back at him for (in their view) being such a showoff.

I quite like the huntress (the one who was forced to run for 5 hours because she was eating a potato during drill). I am looking forward to seeing more of her, but I am worried that she's been created by the author with the express purpose of being tearjerker Titan/giant/Eoten chow. Someone we're meant to come to love having around, such that when she does die, it's that much more emotional for us. (Speaking of which ... I'mma be pissed if he kills off Mikasa. But I doubt he'll do that.)

Something I forgot to mention last time is just how gorgeous the background animations are. The character animation isn't bad either (8/10 "Very Good", I'd say), but the background animation is often times like a fricking painting and is truly 10/10 stuff.

Not a fan of the giants though. They're definitely nightmare fuel. >_< Especially the one that finished off Episode 01. Good God, what a hideous, hideous sight.

It remains to be seen to what extent (if any) the giants are a neutral or even a positive force on the planet. They're clearly painted as villains in this early portion of the story, but we don't really know the full scope of their motivations, their history, or their intellect. That last one's a clincher: while they've been depicted thus far as being these lumbering dullards, one can't help but to wonder if their race is capable of intelligence that matches or even exceeds that of humanity. After all, they did build ... well, read my Episode 02 spoiler boxed comment.

PhotoKano: I watched the first episode of this series as well.

Up until the part where he's led to the Photography Club, I was thinking a) this series is pointlessly pervy / voyeuristic, b) this series is kinda dull, quite frankly , and c) this is just like Amagami SS. -_-; I dropped Amagami SS two episodes in, and I was pretty much prepared to drop PhotoKano one episode in after watching the first half.

But then our protagonist is led to the Photography Club ... and that's when things improved, improved enough for me that I'm willing to tune in to a second episode. What happened? Well, two things:
  1. We met a ragtag team of silly characters for our protagonist to interact with in between crushes. None of them (save the girl. OF COURSE! ) looks that deep or interesting, but they remind me sort of like ... Tetra's pirate crew in The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker. They're minor characters who you interact with in between dungeons. If the dungeon bosses of Zelda are akin to the main girls of PhotoKano that this boy is going to be crushing on, then the members of the Photography Club are like Tetra's pirate crew.
  2. Things started to finally feel much more like "a visual novel transformed into an anime" and much less like "an anime that is loosely, loosely adapted from a visual novel." You could actually feel how very much the entire Photography Club scene felt like a visual novel scene. Every last bit of it. And when the president of the Photo Club then shows up and asks the protagonist to choose between the Photography Club and the Photo Club? Totally a visual novel choice, no doubt about it. I really liked this, and I really hope to see more stuff like this in future episodes should I stick with the series.
So yeah. Was ready to drop it after just half an episode but am now ready to tune in to Episode 02 thanks to a strong(er) second half. That stated, I'm not holding my breath too long: Yuki warns that the show gets retarded next episode, iirc, and even UTW seemed to start ridiculing their own project by Episode 03, referring to the program as "PornoKano". If the series really is as pervy-voyeuristic as their sample screencaps make it seem like it will be, then yeah, I'm not going to want to watch anymore. I've never understood photography perverts, and frankly I don't want to either.

P.S. Based on looks alone, this is totally my waifu pick of the litter.
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Old 04-27-2013, 01:44 PM   #5039
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Should write up that Fate/Zero Episode 25 post some time soon. (Should also watch Minami-ke Tadaima Ep13 and write that post up as well.) But anyway, I just so happened to have the song that plays during this scene going through my head, so I felt like rewatching the scene, and ... now I feel like watching F/Z again. -.-; Not too much, thankfully, considering I just friggin' watched it like two months ago. But yeah. Still. ^^; Best prequel ever. If only George Lucas could've discovered and hired the Star Wars equivalent of Urobuchi Gen to handle the Star Wars prequels. Man, imagine that.

PhotoKano: Watched Episode 02. The show is sending some really mixed signals, and I suspect it's because the writing staff (whether for the game too or just the anime) was torn between portraying the character respectably (i.e. not as a voyeuristic pervert) and delivering an experience which would titillate their target audience of ... voyeuristic perverts. 'Cause that's the impression I'm getting. Let me give you some specific examples to illustrate what I mean.

In one scene, the protagonist is talking to one of his potential romantic interests near the student shoe lockers. He detects that two of his fellow club members (the short boy and the tall boy) are nearby, waiting to take pervy snapshots of this cutie. So he shields her from their lenses, much to their dismay. Later he gives them a tonguelashing for being such pervs.

In another scene, the protagonist goes to take some snapshots of the girls gymnastics team but is sent away by his romantic interest there. She tells him that he's not allowed in because he's a member of the Photography Club and the Photography Club is guilty of having taken pervy shots of the gymnasts in the past. He spits on their names in front of his romantic interest, swears he'd never do such a thing, and she excitedly goes to ask her coach if it's okay for the protagonist to have special permission to shoot.

So far so good, right?

But in another scene, the protagonist is approached by Niimi, the osananajimi character and the school idol. She's wearing nothing but her school swimsuit. And what does she tell the protagonist? "Take photos of me. If you're fine with it, I'd like you to take photos of me. I want you to look at me! " Not only is this not something I would expect to ever see happen in real life but Niimi's forwardness results in this:


Seriously? I'm supposed to believe that in-universe she would friggin' pose like a fashion model for him? This goes beyond forward, beyond asking a boy to be your boyfriend. This is the sort of (kinda pervy) thing that I'd expect a couple to do. Naturally taken photos are one thing, but posing? Posing in a bathing suit? This is almost like a gravure idol photosess--

"Gravure idols usually wear swimsuits, right?" (14m23s)

... so you're trying to imitate a gravure idol? Just ... woooooooooooooow.

The other problem with this sort of scene is, it's totally pandering to the voyeur crowd. For all the show's ostentatious "BOO TO VOYEURISM! PERVERTS! ECCHI SKETCHIES! " scenes elsewhere, it's clear with scenes like this one that all of that is just lipservice and that the reality is that *wink wink, nudge nudge* this show is made by photography pervs for photography pervs. Which like ... wth. Not only is that uncomfortable for me (since I hate voyeurism of this sort) and makes me want to not watch anymore, but it also makes me not want to watch because what confusing mixed messages you're sending! @_@ Is or is your protagonist not a champion of women's privacy? (And lest you say "Well, she volunteered! ", there's a scene later on where he totally snaps an upskirt shot of a girl climbing over a stone wall and tells her, when she asks him to delete it, that he's not going to because it'd be "such a waste". )

I dunno. The show's been cute enough in places that I do still want to watch, but it's also starting to look like it's going to be a 26'er and not a 13'er. And that kinda puts me off / makes me more inclined to drop it now rather than sticking with it. But for now? I think I'd like to watch Episode 03, just to see where the show might take things.
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Old 04-27-2013, 02:23 PM   #5040
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I'm not convinced there's a dissonance, Talon. Clearly the writers want to titillate the audience but they don't want to guilt trip them while doing it! The guy is struggling between trying to be a pure hearted saint and giving in to his petty dark carnal desires, it's a crisis that only first world boys who do not know the terrors of war would be bothered with!

Wow, those girls are cute though. I can sure see the appeal.
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Old 04-27-2013, 02:44 PM   #5041
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My problem with PhotoKano is that if it was one girl, I could be okay with him taking gravure pictures by the poolside. Being told you're beautiful and seeing good pictures of yourself can boost a girl's self-confidence by a whole lot.

But since the anime's based on a game with multiple routes, he's doing this shit with every single girl he runs into, taking it away from "shy girl gains confidence from photoshoot and they begin a relationship, how sweet" and throwing it to "guy takes perv pics of all the girls while telling other guys not to do so, and boy is it hypocritical". That's my problem with the show.

I actually kinda liked Clannad for this very reason; there's one main girl all the romance happens with, and the other girls are just friends and do friend-stuff with the MC in the anime. PhotoKano is either not being the least bit subtle about heading for a harem ending, or it'll go through the routes of each of the girls to the point of gravure shots and then tossing one girl for the next Girl of the Week - with the girls either forgetting about the whole thing or no one simply giving a damn.

I know that I'd personally get pretty emotional and upset if I did a photoshoot like that with a guy, and then he'd go on to ignore me and do the same thing with some other girl. It's also pretty crappy in a romance-way as well: one girl gets less than 20 minutes of screentime, and most of it is the MC looking at her through the camera lens, so I don't get to know the girl or grow fond of her. The girls remain distant all the way, becoming not much more than objects for the male's perversities.
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Old 04-27-2013, 03:05 PM   #5042
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Kaisa, your concerns pretty much describe Amagami SS, which is what I keep comparing this series to in my own concerns. That's exactly what that series did (and many similar harem eroge adaptations have done). They had the protagonist meet everybody ... and then he would date one girl at a time over 2-3 episodes. It went something like this:
  • Episode 1: meet the gang! hints of who he'll be dating first end this episode
  • Episodes 2 thru 4: dating the first girl! (it's the student council president)
  • Episodes 5 thru ?: dating the second girl
  • Episodes ? thru ?: dating the third girl
  • and so on
  • final batch of episodes: dating the main girl / the "canon ending" girl
  • bonus episode: dating this one girl who got cut from the anime; also hinting at the incest coupling with his younger sister that was present throughout
PhotoKano seems to be following this pattern pretty darn closely, even down to the whole "let's have the Student Council president be the first girl he dates" angle. (Or at least, that was the impression I was left with at the end of Episode 02. Nothing's official still and the last thing I saw, at the start of Episode 03, seems to suggest that he may even start things off with his other of his two childhood friends, the athlete who is always brimming with energy.) So yeah, if the whole idea of "let's sample a delectable bite of each of these scrumptious girls :3" turns you off, Kaisa, I think you may as well quit watching now. I very much doubt that PhotoKano is going to turn out to be the next Clannad.

Doppel, you're probably right that for their target audience the signals aren't mixed, but for me who is outside of their target audience, it's totally mixed messaging. I wish they'd just pick an angle and go with it instead of constantly flickering between both.
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Old 04-28-2013, 09:10 AM   #5043
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New shows and all that.

Ore no Imouto S2
With this week's episode, I have dropped this show. I can't take this shit anymore. Kirino is just too god damn annoying, and outside of this, the show is just typical harem nonsense.

Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko
This week's episode was surprisingly good. The blonde had a fairly decent problem and the emotional moments in this episode were nice. Also thankfully they stopped shoving the whole "YOU'RE A PERVERT!" thing down your throat. Will this be the first good show from JC since Toradora? Probably not, but I'm still enjoying the show.

Shingeki no Kyoujin
Good fucking god! How many god damn times does Sorata have to remind everyone of his goal until it sticks with them? I was relieved at the end of the episode, since there shouldn't be cliche'd out the ass drama in killing shit, but watch this show do so anyway. Will I drop this show? I don't know yet!

Neato! It seems one of the Shuffle sequels, Tick Tack! has been translated. While I don't remember the Shuffle VN being extraordinary, it's still something to do, and it's about Nerine, so that's a plus.
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Old 04-28-2013, 11:21 AM   #5044
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Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo

*NOTE: As the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion is almost 20 years old, I won't bother with spoiler-boxing stuff that is basically repeating plot elements from the original series.*

So after waiting for ages, ages and a couple of centuries on top of that to see how the new, shiny Evangelion saga looks, I can tell you one thing:

You can not redo Shinji Ikari into a decent character even if it killed you, can you, Anno-sensei?

Even Mari, the new character (who got so much hype and looks so awesome and speaks English and wear glasses and *fangasm*) let me down. Somehow, the action girl from the previous movie (2.0) has been demoted into a...catgirl. I kid you not. She uses "nyan" with everything she says, for Christ's sake! Her motives and actions are now confusing as hell, constantly bipolaring between "I'll do anything you say, [Asuka]!" and "I'll just sit back and see how this shit plays out, screw saving the world".

But the worst offender of all...is still Shinji Ikari.

For a main character, he sure knows how to fuck things up. I'm not using the term lightly. We are presented one and a half hours of Shinji Ikari and the following pattern: Shinji destroys the world, Shinji ends up not liking it, he whines and asks "Is this my fault?" (even though it clearly is!), someone else manages to keep things borderline-bearable, Shinji proceeds to destroy the world again, rinse and repeat.

"Stop being such a cry baby, Shinji Ikari!" should've been the subtitle of this film.

About 99% of all the problems in the Evangelion universe could be averted if Shinji were killed off - and this idea is actually visited in the film! But he is rescued from early death for...no reason I can think of. Kaworu (now openly gay with Shinji, it's very rape-tastic) manages to yet again enforce Shinji's happiness-destroying behavior for no good reason, and then gets blown up by the explosives that were supposed to kill Shinji. The one Angel who has all the tools in the world to dispose of Shinji seems to never learn to actually do it, instead spending a good half an hour trying to whine at Shinji to stop touching things and destroying the world.

Every single moment of the film with Shinji in it was painful to watch, if for nothing else than the fact that Shinji seems incapable of growing some balls and stopping his never-ending whining, even when every single other person around him has done so years and years ago. Shinji's at the mental level of a small child who just doesn't learn not to stick his finger into the electric socket, even after the fourth time. It's sad that if Shinji wasn't there, the movie would actually be fairly decent.

Asuka's developed marvelously, her plot new instead of the one in the original series. "Baka Shinji" is still there though, so prepare to spend the entire film listening to the following phrases: "Is it my fault?" and "Baka Shinji! [Insert insult here.]".
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Old 04-28-2013, 11:33 AM   #5045
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Age has nothing to do with it. You wouldn't want to spoil Charlie Chaplin's films for somebody who's never seen them before, and they're nearly a century old! That stated, your disclaimer paragraph does a good enough job anyway of alerting people who haven't seen Eva yet to GTFO and not press on with your post. I'd say you're good. :p

I have no desire to revisit the Eva universe. Reading your post only reinforces that attitude. It sounds like the reboot is little better than the original, every bit as aggravating and pseudo-intellectual as NGE was. That stated, there was a surprising little thing I saw via doujin recently. It has to do with Ayanami Rei.

Spoiler: show
Apparently there's a "Black Rei" now? One who dresses all in black?

Like I said, it's little. ^^;

Did you like the original series, Kaisa?
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Old 04-28-2013, 11:46 AM   #5046
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Age has nothing to do with it. You wouldn't want to spoil Charlie Chaplin's films for somebody who's never seen them before, and they're nearly a century old! That stated, your disclaimer paragraph does a good enough job anyway of alerting people who haven't seen Eva yet to GTFO and not press on with your post. I'd say you're good. :p

I have no desire to revisit the Eva universe. Reading your post only reinforces that attitude. It sounds like the reboot is little better than the original, every bit as aggravating and pseudo-intellectual as NGE was. That stated, there was a surprising little thing I saw via doujin recently. It has to do with Ayanami Rei.

Spoiler: show
Apparently there's a "Black Rei" now? One who dresses all in black?

Like I said, it's little. ^^;

Did you like the original series, Kaisa?
Doujin-thing:
Spoiler: show
The latest functioning clone of Rei indeed wears a black plug-suit in the films, as the pilot of Unit 09. She somehow manages to also be even dumber than the Rei 2.0 in the original series. Closest point of comparison I can think of is Samus Aran in Metroid: Other M ("Sorry, I can't breathe, Adam hasn't authorized me to do so.")


I've learned my feelings are mixed about the original series. It was the first "real anime" I watched (for adults, and not Pokémon or Sailor Moon), I was 12-13 years old and back then it was the biggest best thing ever on TV for me. Thinking back on it, it was to me what Baudelaire is to Kasuga in Aku no Hana. But even so, when I did a presentation on Eva in class I summarized Shinji Ikari as "the most hated anime character of all time" - with full confidence, even though I had no evidence to actually prove this.

So I did enjoy Evangelion loads years ago, but now I've matured and watched better stuff. It's mostly a fond memory of my initiation to the world of anime now.


Shingeki no Kyojin

Someone wrote about the episode as follows (minor spoiler pointing out something VA-related):
Spoiler: show
So in this episode, a Kaji Yuuki character lectures others about standing up to the challenge despite being weak and feeble, and courageously steps into the fray when an unbeatable enemy shows itself.

I’m…not sure I was ready for this.


I laughed at that.

I actually laughed watching the episode, too, and
Spoiler: show
didn't get it at first when the bigass Titan showed up; I thought it was an image in Eren's imagination or stuck there for artistic reasons, but holy fluff when it turned out to be real. No doubt there will be slaughtering of various kinds, so I doubt we'll see that much humor again anytime soon.


Just so people know: I've read the general summaries and some character profiles about Shingeki no Kyojin, so I'm vaguely aware of what happens to the main characters and so on. I don't talk about any of that in my spoiler boxes, but some things will not be a big surprise for me and I might write little to nothing about them. Watching the show every week though, with great interest.
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Old 04-28-2013, 06:04 PM   #5047
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Shingeki no Kyojin: watched Episode 04.

Spoiler: show
The episode was slow but fine for the first 90%. And then ... the final scene.

Wondering what the deal with the Royal Guard is. Like Eren realized, it's strange that the top ten graduates of a giant-slaying program would be given invitations to cushy jobs that make absolutely no use of their giant-slaying training. So ... what's the twist? I haven't been able to figure it out yet but here's hoping I will before it's revealed.

Mikasa's still beautiful, still looks ten years older than Eren. He looks 14-16, she looks 26-30. In the scene where the three childhood friends are all looking up at the night sky together, she even looks a head taller than them and looks a bit bigger.

Pissed off at the cliffhanger nature of this program, or at least of Episodes 1, 4, and 5. How do I know 5 will be one? Because the sneak peek specifies that it's "Part I" of a multi-episode battle. So blargh, there'll be no closure for at least another two weeks.
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Old 04-29-2013, 03:02 AM   #5048
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I don't think Evangelion would have been nearly as interesting if Shinji wasn't so extreme. Granted, I don't think the justification was completely warranted - Shinji's past, while not rosy, certainly isn't depraved enough for him to act like he does. He's never undergone any form of military training so his inability to man up to the crises he faces are quite understandable.

The sequel movies not developing him further isn't surprising, since Anno is directing them and his vision has changed a lot since Eva. Heck, it changed during Eva! I've long passed off Anno as completely insane, as Talon could attest when it came to Kare Kano. Anno said something like, "it's been 20 years but no anime is as new as Evangelion!" implying animation stood still after Eva came out. Pretty arrogant!
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Old 04-29-2013, 08:57 PM   #5049
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I watched an anime today. Surprised I didn't watch it sooner. People posted about it before so I'm assuming others have seen it. Kokoro Connect.

Spoiler: show
It started off really good and then went downhill fast. The body swapping thing was pretty interesting. At episode 5 we had a sudden plot twist one of the girls was controlled to jump into a river and got into a coma. The 4 remaining people had to pick who will die in that body because in 30 minutes they will pass away.

I was sitting there going, holy shit. This is awesome. I was hoping that the self sacrifice guy was going to do it. That would have been pretty deep and complicated and shit would have gotten real, real fast. Instead they decided to let her die in her own body. But then she didn't end up dying at all. What bullshit. It would have been amazing to see this girl having to be someone else because they scarified them self so she could live. Like some madoka level shit.

After that the body swapping thing went away the show started to go downhill. Partially because I was disappointed in the whole fake death thing. The show started to get less funny/quirky and more super serious drama. As the show dragged on eventually the change of the week was age changes. Cool. But they didn't actually show any transformations and when they changed ages they acted like they were always that's age. That's not even interesting. If they showed the cast trying to act normal as kids it would have been funny at least. But it wasn't.

In the end, I didn't even watch the last 2 episodes. It just dragged on and on and became a super serious drama instead of a slightly serious drama with funny/quirky stuff.
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Old 04-29-2013, 11:12 PM   #5050
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Out of nowhere, this popped into my head just now:

Spoiler: show
BORKED

And now I want to finish off Katawa Shoujo. Vhether I vill or not, ve shall see!

Quote:
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Kokoro Connect.
Not ignoring you. I'm just not one of the people here who watched it. Was told it was pretty bad.
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