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

[Midgeorge]

Ah cool. Looks like its time for me to marathon Watamote tonight!

Hooray for Crunchyroll! scratch that Crunchyroll is a stupid prick of a website

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Watamote:

Watched Episode 12, which apparently is the final episode for the season, so sayeth Kaisa and UTW. Coulda fooled me, minus the different-from-normal placement of the OP credits. ^^; It felt like just another episode in the story, for better or for worse. Kinda shocked, tbh, that we're not getting at least one final episode after this one before taking a break, but whatever.

Like I said, the series/season should've just ended last week.

[Doppleganger]

Apparently, a lot of the back story for Naruto's mythos has been revealed recently. I found it interesting - if apocryphal in how much foresight there was - since it also gives decent justification for why things are rolling like they are in the manga. Here's a sum sum:

Spoiler: show

At the start of the world, the only living being as a Tree of Life. The tree created life across the planet and lead to the emergence of humans. But the tree didn't meddle in the affairs of humans, and wars terrorized and tore apart civilizations. A princess named Kaguya approached the tree and ate its forbidden fruit, and so gained the power to end the wars - the power of chakra. She soon gave birth to a son, Hagoromo, who could use chakra too.

The tree, angered at its stolen fruit, assumed the form of a monster to reclaim its power. Its ten branches became ten tails of raw chakra, hence becoming the "Ten-Tails". Hagoromo trained and defeated the Ten-Tails using chakra, sealed its spirit in his body and the beast's body in a ball which he threw into the sky to become the moon. Hagoromo then became known as the Sage of the Six Paths. He then traveled the world, teaching people how to use chakra and spreading the "religion" of ninjutsu, the arts surrounding chakra use.

When he died, he decided to pass on his will for the world to one of his sons. The first son believed the will could be fulfilled with power. The second, through love. And the second was chosen as the successor, angering the elder, and the two fought and their descendants continued to fight. This became the origin of the Uchiha-Senju clan feud.

If the Ten-Tails were revived of its own free will, it would destroy all humans on Earth because they are all using its power, the power of chakra.

[Talon87]

Over the past few days, I've re-watched the first five episodes of Carnival Phantasm. Have loved it. Really, really hoping we get each of the following soon!

1. some more Carnival Phantasm, but only if it'll be as excellent as what we have now
2. the Tsukihime visual novel remake Type-Moon's hinted at for years
3. the FSN anime remake or Heaven's Feel anime fans speculate ufotable's been working on (I don't know if we 100% know yet which it is)
4. a full English translation of the first act in the Mahou Tsukai no Yoru series

Changing gears, I was discussing with Yuki last night what it would be like if Key and Urobuchi Gen were to team up. I imagine it would be stuff like this and this constantly. ^_^; (Spoilers in the YouTube comments.) (Take one of the bad ends for Yuu from Ever17 and switch her out for Ayu. Then play Negai ga Kanau Basho. Tears follow. ^^; T_T)

[Midgeorge]

So right, lets review Watamote.

Spoiler: show

Plot: 6/10
When it comes to plot, its fairly simple. Girl is super antisocial and wants people to notice her and gets into silly shenanigans whilst at the end of the day still failing to achieve her goal and going back to playing hentai games. Great, sounds err... fun! Yeah, fun! Well thats great, and it stayed true to the plot for most of the series. At the same time, this series is so so awkward to watch. Some of the stuff she gets up to for me is too... weird. I mean I know thats the point but some moments were so cringy that I just couldn't fully concentrate. And to be honest, Welcome to the NHK! does it better. (a statement that I'm going to be saying a lot)

Characters: 5/10
So the only real character I can look at is Tomoko, and whilst I like show that are very centric around 1 lone main character(Mushishi springs to mind), Tomoko just isn't interesting enough for me. Everything she does is designed for the viewer to feel sorry for her, and for some people that might be a good thing, but personally I don't think it is. Its nice to see her develop towards the end, as she starts to get a little more confident and meet some people and actually have conversation with people. But everything she does just stresses her out and its quite sad to see her keep trying even though she's just digging herself a bigger hole. Basically she's a worse Hikigaya Hachiman, and a highschool version of Satou (In other words, NHK does it better).

Art & Animation: 7/10
Honestly I was impressed by the artstyle. I like how they gave Tomoko a completely different artstyle to every other character to show how out of place in the school she is. Wasn't a fan of background characters being coloured grey for the majority of the viewing though, and it just sort of showed lack of effort. I'd say it was above average, and Tomoko's artstyle made it more enjoyable. But... NHK did it better.

Music: 6/10
OP was decent, but pretty out of place. Music throughout was average. It just fit nicely with the scenes, and I liked how they used the drop in pitch for semiotics. Again, NHK did it better.

Enjoyment: 6/10
The best thing for me about this show was the reference humour. I had a good laugh at the Another reference in the last episode, and the references to lots of other shows throughout. I liked how they had WcDonalds, and MyTube, and other renamed brand-names. It gave me a good laugh, but there wasn't a lot I overly enjoyed. It was going to be hit or miss, and it just sort of scraped the side of whatever you're supposed to hit. It was fun to watch, but nowhere near as fun as NHK was.

Overall: 6/10
As i've said about 6 or 7 times, this was essentially if Satou from NHK was a High School girl, and it just wasn't quite as good. There aren't too many dark comedies, but NHK is the one that sets the bar for what a good dark comedy should be like (I know Talon didn't like it that much but this is what I think of it anyway), and Watamote sort of met the standards. I definitely had fun watching it, but I wouldn't think to myself 'Hmm I want to watch a Dark Comedy... I know, I'll watch Watamote', because again, i'd just go and watch NHK.

TL;DR Review: 6/10, It was good, but NHK is a lot better.

Is it me or do I always sound more down about a series than I actually am?

[kaisap112]

Originally Posted by Midgeorge

Is it me or do I always sound more down about a series than I actually am?

You do...

...but Talon does it better.

[Midgeorge]

Originally Posted by kaisap112

You do...

...but Talon does it better.

Oh god its taken me a solid 10 hours to finally realise what you did there

I feel like such a blonde ;;

[big bad birtha]

I've finished some things.

Love Lab
With the end of a season brings both good and bad things. Good from the shows I don't care for ending. Sadly I'll miss this show. This was a cute and funny show for the most part. Some of the more serious scenes were a bit difficult to watch, especially the fucking bawling at the end. I laughed at most of the jokes in this show though. This show isn't spectacular, but it's the best show this season imo. This gets a 7.5.

Aura Maryuuinkouga Saigo no Tatakai
I've been chewing at the bit waiting for this to be subbed, and thankfully some kind soul finished subbing this. This is what happens when you take Chuunibyou and make it serious. Instead of moe SoL imaginary michief, we get how the kids like that are treated by society. It was a pretty nice movie overall. Surprisingly, I liked alot of the drama. Of course, it's similar to Chuunibyou, but not as rushed. It goes a bit more into the minds of people who behave that way. There were a few small things that bothered me, but most of it wasn't enough to really bother me. Probably my biggest beef is the fact that you don't know enough about the characters' backgrounds. I guess that's what happens when you take a full LN series and turn it into a one and a half hour movie. This gets a 8.5 from me. It'd be nice if more stuff from Romeo was translated/released.

[big bad birtha]

I decided to give Ashita no Nadja another shot. I remember getting bored of it 20 episodes in, but I keep hearing that as far as kid's shows goes, its writing is on par with Doremi. Nadja does have an interesting plot at the very least.

Speaking of Doremi, I have been catching up with the episodes I was putting off, and it almost saddens me when I compare them to what Precure has become. Doremi is a genuinely good show that doesn't treat its viewers like idiot kids, nor does it shamelessly advertise products in-show like Precure currently does. Haah...three bad Precure in a row. What the hell happened?

[Midgeorge]

Monogatari episode 13:

Spoiler: show

I love how this franchise knows its characters inside-out. Shinobu's lecture to Sengoku was glorious at the end. That final line "Good for you! That you just happened to be cute..." was powerful. More powerful than Senjougahara's speech to Hanekawa about her accepting everything. Now I just really want to know what turns Nadeko into 'Snake Hair Girl'. I imagine it would be something from the corpse of Mr. Kuchinawa, maybe like the opposite of how the Silver Cat apparition works. Very intrigued.

[big bad birtha]

I finally decided to make a little MAL list to get a good idea of how many shows I have under my belt. I figured it'd be a good idea to have a number for my experience with anime!

Ashita no Nadja
I'm on episode 5 so far. Like I mentioned before, the plot itself is pretty interesting, especially considering it's a kid's show that's in a magical girl's time slot. Admittedly the end of episode 5 itself was incredibly silly. Like two people are dancing outside, then they suddenly teleport inside (even sillier is how one is outside because he hates being inside during parties). For everything else, it will depend on how well the characters are developed. If they develop well, then this show could be really good. If not, then I guess I would have wasted my time going back to watch this!

Ike! Ina-chuu Takkyuubu
I'll be watching this alongside Nadja. I watched the first episode and oh my fucking god it's what I've been dreaming of watching! This show is so god damn stupid! However, it's the good kind of stupid. I spent almost the entire first episode laughing. I really hope this show will keep it up. The world needs more comedies in the league of Sexy Commando Gaiden.

*sigh* It seems I might end up trying out Yuru Yuri afterall. I originally had absolutely no intention of even touching it, but Mr Awesome Comedy Director did it, so I'm sort of convinced to watch it, even though this show seems annoying as piss.

[big bad birtha]

Progress!

Ashita no Nadja
I'm 14 episodes through this. Okay, I think I know why I was irritated with this show. I tried to marathon this, and this is not a show to marathon. It's too slow and easygoing to just dash through at full speed. I'm having to watch an episode of Ping Pong Club or Whose Line every few episodes to keep myself from going bored out of my mind. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad show. It has a bunch of interesting mini stories that somewhat tie in to Nadja's quest. It's interesting if anything. I'm almost at the point where I got irritated with this show and dropped it, so let's see where things go!

EDIT: I'm beyond the point where I dropped it. It seems the part I dropped it was a dry spot where there was no real progress in the story. Right now it's alot easier to watch, and actually pretty interesting. I guess I should have been a little patient, because right now I'm blowing through the episodes pretty easily.

Ike! Ina-chuu Takkyuubu
7 episodes through this! For the most part, I'm really enjoying this show. Though admittedly the jokes can be really hit-and-miss. A good portion of the show is very crude humor, so yeah, the jokes can either be too crude, or just right. Thankfully there's enough hits to keep me laughing. Also this scene kicks so much ass (WARNING: Totally NSFW).

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Midgeorge

Monogatari episode 13:

Spoiler: show

I love how this franchise knows its characters inside-out. Shinobu's lecture to Sengoku was glorious at the end. That final line "Good for you! That you just happened to be cute..." was powerful. More powerful than Senjougahara's speech to Hanekawa about her accepting everything. Now I just really want to know what turns Nadeko into 'Snake Hair Girl'. I imagine it would be something from the corpse of Mr. Kuchinawa, maybe like the opposite of how the Silver Cat apparition works. Very intrigued.

Spoiler: show

One thing I wonder based on how the snake went silent is whether he really is in some form a result of her imagination - she's unconsciously pretending to be a victim again in order to get attention from Araragi.

[Midgeorge]

Originally Posted by lilbluecorsola

Spoiler: show

One thing I wonder based on how the snake went silent is whether he really is in some form a result of her imagination - she's unconsciously pretending to be a victim again in order to get attention from Araragi.

Spoiler: show

Agreed. I think Mr. Kuchinawa works in the same way that Kako did, so its an apparition caused by her emotional state. I can imagine that her atonement would be to search forever for something that doesn't exist if thats the case, but that doesn't explain the beginning of the arc with the snake-hair.

Intriiiiiiigued

[kaisap112]

Kyoukai no Kanata

I'll get right to it: the first episode gives SO MUCH Harry Potter vibe it's incredible - and there aren't even any wands or anything!

Spoiler: show

This show feels really weird. Like they picked the wrong studio for this script; I truly hope KyoAni shows us that they can do much more than moe and we can start expecting more KyoAni dramas.

Although the main character's comment "a girl who looks that good with glasses should not die"-

okay. Just as I wrote that we got our expected dose of KyoAni cute humor. Somehow mixed in with talk about stabbing, killing and immortality. Having a bad feeling now...

If this was a 100% serious show I'd probably love it already. But the humor aspect is just making all of this kind of awkward and hard to take seriously - Mirai tripping on a wire and being blinded by a bucket on her head could be genuinely funny in some other show, but it feels terribly wrong here for some reason. >.< Very out of place.

I'm going to keep watching, but hopefully the show will use more drama and less comedy to fill its 24 minutes in the future.

Coppelion

Radiation-resistant school girls saving the world. Why not.

Spoiler: show

Well this is the most jerking animation I've ever seen! I know I'll get used to the rather thick outlines of the characters eventually, but the way these girls move is just...ghastly. I also don't see a single valid reason the girls are in school uniform when this could work just as well with girls/women in regular clothing working for an organization.

More rule-breaker characters! Why do writers like rule-breakers so damn much?

Oh wait. "To give or not to give people medicine that only exists in very limited quantities?" is the question of the plot apparently, so moral choices are abound in future episodes. There's also a very in-your-face anti-nuclear power message.

Will keep watching, just to see where the writers are taking this plot.

Miss Monochrome

I'm not even going to bother with a spoiler box. This is a 4-minute-show, and frankly, I'm sick and tired of 4-minute-animes - what the heck is up with these coming out from every crack possible nowadays?! As far as the show itself goes, I like idols, but not Vocaloids, so unless the next episode is really good I'll be dropping this thing.

Fall 2013 is not off to a very promising start, unfortunately.

[deoxys]

I liked Kyoukai no Kanata. I imagine we will have a thread for it before long.

[big bad birtha]

I'll get onto the new shows tomorrow or something. I have Coppelion and Kyoukai no Kanata downloaded, but Nadja has me by the balls, so I've been stuck watching that all day. It has been a while since I have done a 20+ episode a day marathon. That said....

Ashita no Nadja
Finished! This show took a slow start, but once things got started, it was hard to stop watching this show. The stories this show tell are really good. Also this show is quite a bit more mature than Precure, leaving you somewhat at the end of your seat, guessing at what will happen, especially when they like to throw fake flags at you (and other times things happen out of nowhere). Nadja was really well fleshed out as a character (everyone was actually). Like most main characters of kid's shows, she's this do-gooder who believes in people. However, this is often her downfall, since she's often lied to and taken advantage of. Despite all these positives, this show does suffer from a few things. This is from Toei, so of course the animation is lazy. Also there's alot of scenes that are very poorly executed, where the writers just throw decent logic out the window. The revelations are lazily executed as well, making characters do things completely unnatural as an excuse to reveal something. For a rating...this is difficult. If I were to go on general enjoyment, I would give this a 9, since I don't often watch things that keep me glued to the screen. However, this show has some clear and heavy flaws that knock points off. Overall, I guess I'll give Ashita no Nadja an 8. It probably deserves less, but Ashita no Nadja teaches you to follow your feelings beyond anything (not really)!

I might actually make a topic about it...if I have the time to waste.

For Ping Pong Club.....in the later episodes, the good joke/bad joke ratio is tilting more towards the bad joke side. They just act hyperactive for no reason, and try to make that funny. Hopefully I'm just at a slow spot.

[kaisap112]

Found a nifty little bit of info about Coppelion:

"The first thing that needs to be noted about this series is that it was originally scheduled to air in 2010, but was postponed due to the Fukushima disaster."

Is it really just a coincidence that Japan has a love affair with anti-nuclear power messages and is also the unfortunate victim of nuclear disasters more than other countries*?

*I know of the WW2 atomic bombs and Fukushima was a fairly recent disaster. What do I remember from any other nuclear disaster ever? Chernobyl. That about covers it. There probably are other places that have this stuff happen to them, too, but none that I can immediately think of, unlike Japan.

[Doppleganger]

The nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a tremendous influence on Japanese culture, so it's probably not a coincidence. Usually when countries have massive tragedies happen to them they get just a tad obsessive over them, although it's a lot more apparent with Japan particularly because it's a country that doesn't change much and has a long memory.

Still haven't started the new season...but I've got a lot on my plate to finish up.

[big bad birtha]

New shows!

Kyoukai no Kanata
Hmm....how good this show is will probably depend on the development and explanations for what is going on. Some people are saying it's like Bleach with moe. I'll keep at this show with an open mind.

Coppelion
First thing, the animation for this looks really odd/cheap. I can get over that quickly, but I still don't think I can keep with this show. It's too dull for me to get into.

Kill la Kill
I knew this would be brainless, but holy fuck this went beyond my expectations. This is as ridiculously over-the-top as it gets. It's pretty cool if you have your brain turned off. The thing that bothers me the most is (episode 1 spoiler)

Spoiler: show

how the main girl is only strong because of her uniform and weapon. It's a letdown how people in this show are seemingly only strong because of their equipment.

There's two more shows, but I haven't watched them yet. I might just edit them into this post when I watch them.

[Talon87]

Haven't watched anything new yet. Still haven't written posts for some Summer 2013 stuff. Still haven't seen the rest of some Summer 2013 stuff. (Rozen Maiden Ep13, Recorder to Randoseru ~Mi~ Eps 11 and 12, Fantasista Doll Eps 07 thru 12, ...)

Thinking that this season I'll take things very light.

• There doesn't seem to be too much good stuff this season. (At least not for me.)
• I've got a lot of non-anime things I want to do in the near future. Books I want to re-read. Pokémon games to play (maybe). Continue work on Meina's Owl.
• There's an alarming number of franchises I'm following which have second seasons that could ninja jump me at any moment:
  • Aku no Hana
  • Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Ilya
  • Gin no Saji (already confirmed for Jan 2014)
  • Hataraku Maou-sama
  • Hyouka (maybe *shrug* you never know ...)
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
  • Kaiji (Season 3 can't be too far off now ...)
  • Oda Nobuna no Yabou
  • Psycho-Pass
  • Puchimas
  • Rozen Maiden
  • Servant x Service
  • Suzumiya Haruhi (long overdue)
  • Watamote
  So like, yeah, I don't really want to start too many new things when I've got this huge-ass list of shows any one of which could be restarting momentarily.

The only real show I can remember of the Fall 2013 offerings that I am excited for -- and even then, it's mild excitement, nothing too strong -- is Golden Time. That's the one I really want to see. And I'm glad to hear that UTW will probably be doing it. I also plan to check out Kyoukai no Kanata at some point but only because so many fans of UTW were freaking out about how much they wanted UTW to sub it. Other than those two shows ... that's kind of it. Magi I'll probably only check out if CrunchyRoll's doing it again, and even then I dunno. (I'm certainly in no rush to check it out. I could easily delay it until January.) The one show we all made fun of I want to check out but only to see how bad it is. Other than that ... yeah, I can't even really remember what we talked about. That's how forgettable the offerings seemed.

[big bad birtha]

Today's shows have been watched! I also tasted Yuru Yuri.

Golden Time
This is a very interesting show. I wanted to run away when I saw that big ol'e "JC Staff" at the end of the opening credits, but I persisted! I'm kind of curious what direction this show will go with the romances. The "obvious" one isn't so obvious. Let's hope JC doesn't ruin a potentially good story with their usual nonsense. The ending was really nice as well.

Nagi no Asukara
I figured it wouldn't hurt to give the PA show a shot. The setting is very nice, though it seems it'll be more about romance drama than anything else. Like Golden Time, I liked the first episode.

Yuru Yuri
I watched episode 1. This umm...seems like it'll be very very boring, but the first episode was actually pretty funny. While watching a show pandering to those obnoxious yuri fans sickens me, I'll persist because of Mr. Awesome Comedy Director! Don't disappoint me!

[kaisap112]

Golden Time

The female that's been featured in every ad for this show? Do not want.

Spoiler: show

Koko is so obviously yandere and so annoying that it's not funny. I can see why Mitsuo decided to go to a different school - hell, I feel homicidal whenever Koko's on screen!

Aside from Koko I really like this show so far. Violent club recruiting is something I'm hopelessly unfamiliar with, though; my uni doesn't do that, just some aggressive recruiting to in-school political parties/stuff. ^^;

Nagi no Asukara

Okay can I move into an underground city, right now? Please? *o*

Spoiler: show

Not sure why, but the MC reminds me of Ash Ketchum.

ARGH RACISM AGAINST SEA PEOPLE! D8 DO NOT WANT!

Hey, it's one of the brothers from Uchouten Kazoku! ...as a perverted sea god. What the hell. x3

ARGH BULLYING! D8

A guy with a fish-obsession who likes Manaka. I can already see where this storyline is going...

I'm liking this show, despite the bullying and racism. This apparently will be a two-cour show, so hopefully it'll all get resolved before long.

Kill la Kill

I mistook one of the voice-actors for Hikaru no Go's Touya (younger). This anime isn't entirely bad, but not the godsend people on the Internet labeled it as. Not approving of pervert school uniforms, but otherwise I think I can live with this thing.

[Lanturn]

> Franchise that could use Round 2

Needs more Nichijou. And I personally believed Hyouka's story is as good as finished. It ended on a good note. While the two pairs could use more moments, we don't really need a second season, since the first season's ending is left open-ended for us to imagine. Is the light novel still running?

> Kill La Kill
I liked the first episode. It had a good start and great comedy. At least the girl wasn't portrayed to be very op, but her equipment/costume thing, dayum. And I'm just gonna lol about how they're trying to incorporate boobs into combat. Her friend is also quite an interesting character. Also, I think the startup was strong. I have no idea who's crazier, the girl's friend or the girl's friend's brother.

> Golden Time
So romance and comedy? It's pretty obvious since they introduced like... three female characters within an episode. Is this gonna turn any harem? It was okay, and lol at him getting swarmed by those weird dancer... girls. so subtle

> Nagi no Asakura
So the Hikari guy is a obvious tsundere/whatever you call guy tsundere. He's jelly of another guy hitting on his girl. Hmm... Seems like a pretty normal setup for anything romantic. I haven't watched that many romantic animes but I could tell. I learned from Hyouka that there's a high chance Chisaki and Kaname gets shipped off as the two supporting characters~

Btw, did I do it right on this thread?

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Lanturn

And I personally believed Hyouka's story is as good as finished. It ended on a good note. While the two pairs could use more moments, we don't really need a second season, since the first season's ending is left open-ended for us to imagine. Is the light novel still running?

I think it'd be perfectly fine to leave Hyouka put where it is too. We already ...

Spoiler: show

... got closure with Oreki x Chitanda and Satoshi x Mayaka ...

... so that's plenty good enough for me. But the fact remains that we only covered four of the five light novels, and that a sixth novel could be coming out any month now. (Starting with the gap between Volumes 2 and 3, the author's taken about three years between books. So since Volume 5 came out in 2010, Volume 6 is pretty much due.) If Volume 5 had conclusively wrapped up the novels, there's no reason why Kyoto Animation wouldn't have animated it. (Remember that Hyouka was only a 22-episode series. They easily had the broadcast space for a final story arc.) The fact that they wrapped things up with 4 seems to suggest that they were saving 5 for later.

So do I really want a second season of Hyouka? No, not particularly. I'm fine with it ending where it ended. But do I expect that we'll get one? Probably some day in the next couple of years, yes. Would not be surprised to get a 12- or 13-episode season should the author wrap things up with Volume 6.