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This week was SHAFT week for me, apparently.

 

Monogatari Season 2 really took me by surprise. Watching baka, nise and neko was almost perfunctory for me; I was just kind of enjoying the aesthetic and goofy dialogue. I went into the 2nd season kind of expecting the same thing, but then I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by 5 incredibly strong first episodes. I'm halfway through the season now and I can guess that the light novels that this particular season was adapted from were intended to get into the really really good stuff, while the beginning light novel stuff was boring "establishing characters" and all that. Really happy I stuck with it til the good parts.

 

Also, if anyone is in the unlikely position of wanting some really funny and heartwarming harem anime, Nisekoi is my top recommendation. You expect it to be generic and cliche, and it is kind of generic and cliche, but you still laugh anyway. Also looks nice in a way that you come to expect from these shows, but still nice nonetheless.

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This whole "furry" thing is kinda stupid if you ask me, since everybody loves to pick and choose what is and what isn't furry, in other words, "TMNT isn't furry, because I don't like furries and I'm not a furry, but liking Polar Bear Cafe makes you a furry... because I said so."

 

But seriously, it's just an "anthro" mouse and a girl turning into a snake, it's like they've never read any of his work before, remember Amazing 3?

 

230px-Amazing_Three-3.jpg

 

 

I started watching Robot Girls Z and... wait a second, this theme is familiar what is... OH GOD! IT'S MOE MAZINGER Z?!?! I've only seen one episode, but it's so hilarious that I think it's funnier than the show it's based on. And it's barely fanservice-y, which is odd consider what a perv Go Nagai is...

 

Then again, I've only seen one episode, maybe "Aphrodite A" will make an appearance and have gross anime boos and panty flash every three seconds, but it sure doesn't feel like that kind of show. 

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Which one? I'm assuming the second JoJo, Joseph? He does grow, especially in the 3rd arc onwards. He's the longest-living JoJo, and seeing him in arc 4 was heart-breaking.

 

But I totally understand what you mean. Naruto and Bleach are the worst for that. I would arge in One Piece's favour, but I'm pretty sure nobody here cares, and Luffy's growth happens about about 550-odd episodes in. :/

One Piece is like my favorite thing.

Also JoJo is insanely long lasting not just in terms of quantity but also in terms of time passed. I'm not sure is entirely fair to judge character growth in that series based on one arc. Which is awkward because it's also entirely fair to dismiss Jojo precisely because it's so long winded.

Also also the last bit of rurouni kenshin really is just completely fucking godawful. I would've recommended against ever touching that series, personally. I had fond memories of it but ugh no never again.

 

Yeah, I brought it upon myself. Rurouni Kenshin was the death knell for my decision to watch all the shows I'd heard were good back when I started anime. Parts of Rurouni Kenshin are good, but you can get most of them out of the OVAs without the shounen flavor, so why would you ever put thirty-five hours of your life on the line?

 

It's just made me super sensitive to a shounen show wasting my time. Even Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, which keeps taking the piss enough to keep my attention, has long stretches where it begins to buy into its own mythos more than it'd probably like to admit. While it ended fantastically, KILL la KILL also did the same thing a bit too often to be considered a perfect show by me. Why do we have to spend so much time on fights dictated by twist after twist when we know who will win? Surely only one " surprise upset" per fight is necessary, didn't anyone learn anything from Dragonball Z? The writers could use that spare time to explain to me why exactly Ragyou is obsessed with the genocide of her own race or why the Pillar Men really even need to be stopped. Both confuse me still, especially the latter. The Pillar Men are haughty and callous, but I'm not under the impression that they are evil or have any ill intent towards humanity.

 

Sometimes I think I think too much for shounen shows, but it's really just that I don't enjoy the fights anymore and am always looking for why they're even happening, which is not usually the writers' concern.

 

 

EDIT: I was talking about the first Jojo, from the nineteenth century. He was goofy and naive, but it paid off throughout the first arc and enabled him to win in the end. The only thing that really changed was how he felt towards Dio, which should have been the way it ended up from the very beginning. The second arc is a lot better so far, but it still felt like they spent years in that bunker trying to stop Santana.

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This requires a separate post became I'm mad as hell. I just finished Chu2Koi 2 and it is easily the worst show I have watched since I started watching anime seriously in 2009. It's a show where nothing happens, but not in the Seinfeld way that's interesting or entertaining. No, it's just about a bunch of people doing nothing because doing something risks something else being different and different is bad. And in the anime! I'm sure you think I'm exaggerating, but the twelve-episode season takes place over an entire year and is entirely about whether or not a couple that's dating at the start of the season is going to kiss at the end. Spoilers, after all their effort not to decide if they want to kiss but just to get in the same place to kiss, they decide not to kiss, because that would change their relationship and change is bad.

 

It's this sort of infantilizing garbage that's ruining anime. I'm totally serious. The first season was all about Yuuta having a crush on Rikka, who thinks she is a wizard. He spent the entire season trying to help her come to terms with her delusions, which involved deep childhood trauma that she still hasn't faced, but then he decided in the very last minutes of the very last episode that he actually loves her all crazy(?) and so made a promise always to play along with her delusions(!). Now we have a season about them trying to be intimate, but Rikka is still effectively a six-year-old high schooler who thinks she's a wizard and is scared of the opposite sex because somehow that's how Yuuta likes her, so we have another show that's actually about enabling your partner's mental illness because being able to say that you're dating them is more important than actually achieving any kind of connection or intimacy with them. It's disgusting, although I'm kinda glad they didn't hook up, because Rikka is the ugliest moeblob you've ever seen. Promotional art might have led you to believe she's a Rei expy, for which I admit I have a thing, but she never actually looks like Rei when animated, because she's always making the face of a baby about to cry:

 

tumblr_mdms5lWcWE1r877bvo1_500.gif

 

Also, and in sum, it's really telling that the only two characters I could stand for more than a few seconds, Kumin the senior girl who just doesn't give a shit and Satome the Joe Pesci who has a crush on Yuuta that she actually does something to overcome, are the only two who think that kissing and even sex are no big deal if the couple loves each other, which the show tells us over and over that Rikka and Yuuta do, even if we never see what that love looks like beyond just saying each other's name while sad/romantic/joyous music plays. I have a couple other high school romance shows cued up, but I think I'm going to watch Golden Time before them, because it takes place between two college kids who hopefully won't be gyno- and androphobic imbeciles that should just grow the fuck up and hold their date's hand if that's what they want.

 

Ugh, but I don't want to stop there. I seriously can't rant enough about this show! I keep going back and adding more nitpicks to my post. It's like Chu2Koi 2 was made in some secret government laboratory to be the ultimate in content- and friction-free entertainment that can just go on forever. I find it abhorrent to think about. It's even the kind of show that presents itself like it's a comedy, but it's got no jokes, just the occasional situation that feels faintly absurd, I guess those are supposed to be the jokes. It's so bad!

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Has anyone seen Sakura Trick? It sounds good, but I dunno.

 

I just saw one "half-episode" so far (each episode is split in two stories) and so far it's adorable, with mild fanservice, but I think I might get a little higher on the fanservie scale later, the question is how high.

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Gonormongous - I don't understand why you kept on watching chu2koi2 when you stated previously that it was terrible. I quite liked the first season, and I watched the first episode of the second season and then stopped, as for me the writing was on the wall that this was a bad thing. I guess the important thing is the sales chart. If it flops, hopefully they'll drop it. Which I doubt as people eat this shit up like it's going out of fashion.

 

However, I wouldn't say it's the worst show ever. It certainly isn't anything incredible, sure, and for all it's worth it is just moe-blobs being moe-blobs. I think we discussed earlier the adaptation of the light novel? Which I believe you read? I'd always assumed that it'll play it safe so that it doesn't step on the potential toes of the next light novel. I'm not defending the atrocity that you sat through, I'm just saying there's worse out there. I'd prefer people to associate anime to this vacuous shit instead of whatever hentai clips people have found on their garden variety porn sites. (As a person who's been on an anime committee for 3 years running, you have no idea how many people say 'oh anime? Is that like Bible Black?')

 

Certainly fan service on the level of Manken-ki and Queen's Blade is a much worse thing that is ruining anime's image. Especially given that these shows have guaranteed good DVD sales because they can remove the censors, so these kinda shows will always be present. This image of anime worsens when you factor in shows like Kiss x Sis. *shudder*

 

But the future looks bright. At least the next season does. I'm so excited about Ping Pong, mainly because Masaki Yuusa is directing it, and boy does it look incredible. I'm so into sports anime right now. And JoJo's 2nd season too? This is going to be awesome. 

 

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I think (obviously in some ways) there are more anime adaptations of books by Japanese Authors than of western ones, I mean I didn't realise until this got me looking into it that both Paprika and The Girl Who Leapt Though Time were both adaptations of books written by the same author, or that Grave of the Fireflies was based on a novel and I'd say all of those are stronger than Gankutsuou,.

Additionally as soon as we turn our attention to the Japan's own book market it hard to ignore the strength and depth of adaptations of Light Novels that can be found in anime. However a lot depends on where we classify the "Light Novel", because whether or not they pass your test of "not having a preferred visual mode" can vary hugely.

But if I force myself to purely consider western adaptations that fit your criteria its admittedly a lot harder to think of anything, and while Howl's Moving Castle springs to mind immediately for me I know not everyone is fond of that one (not to mention its a film and not a series).

The below would probably sum up where I stand on it in the end

which is a far less dramatic statement I'll admit, but still impressive.

On the series itself.

After re-watching Gankutsuou I'm pretty convinced it owe's at least part of its visual design to the Stars My Destination, although I'm doing a bit of a double check to make sure by listening to a audio book of the original Monte Christo. But so far it seems the markings on the counts face, and the design of the space docks are clear lifts from it.

Also did they ever give any explanation to why when they thought someone was about to be lethally poisoned they didn't just phone them or call the police/ambulance? or for that matter any explanation at all of why society had devolved to this once again aristocratic situation?

One of the things I love about The Stars My Destination is that it's own world of super rich dynasties and high society was all a believable reaction to a few very specific and carefully explained technological leaps forward, there's no such sense in Gankutsuou. Society seems to be the way it is because that's what's required for them to transpose the plot.

 

I am embarrassed to say that I forgot movies when formulating my statement. They almost hold a different category in my mind. Your point is taken and your revision is probably more accurate.

 

I will say, a lot of the more contrived moments in Gankutsuou seem to me to be a deliberate thematic choice to construct an atmosphere of unreality and inevitability within the anime, but that might just be me. It's certainly a show where things happen because they happen, but that's the case with the source material, too. It would be fair to say that Gankutsuou should improve on that, like it improves on a lot of other things.

 

Side note, I don't know if I'd count light novels wholly as literary. It'd probably be on a case-by-case basis. They occupy such a weird liminal space.

 

Gonormongous - I don't understand why you kept on watching chu2koi2 when you stated previously that it was terrible. I quite liked the first season, and I watched the first episode of the second season and then stopped, as for me the writing was on the wall that this was a bad thing. I guess the important thing is the sales chart. If it flops, hopefully they'll drop it. Which I doubt as people eat this shit up like it's going out of fashion.

 

However, I wouldn't say it's the worst show ever. It certainly isn't anything incredible, sure, and for all it's worth it is just moe-blobs being moe-blobs. I think we discussed earlier the adaptation of the light novel? Which I believe you read? I'd always assumed that it'll play it safe so that it doesn't step on the potential toes of the next light novel. I'm not defending the atrocity that you sat through, I'm just saying there's worse out there. I'd prefer people to associate anime to this vacuous shit instead of whatever hentai clips people have found on their garden variety porn sites. (As a person who's been on an anime committee for 3 years running, you have no idea how many people say 'oh anime? Is that like Bible Black?')

 

Certainly fan service on the level of Manken-ki and Queen's Blade is a much worse thing that is ruining anime's image. Especially given that these shows have guaranteed good DVD sales because they can remove the censors, so these kinda shows will always be present. This image of anime worsens when you factor in shows like Kiss x Sis. *shudder*

 

Honestly, I don't like to stop watching things once I've finished them, plus I was secretly hoping that Chu2Koi 2 would turn it around in the last couple episodes, like the first season. I also think, with the amount of truly great anime that I watch, that occasionally it's healthy to scrape the bottom of the barrel just to know it's there.

 

I'd say that fan service is just as bad as moeblob, because they're both the same problem. At least, they both cater to the same thing, contentless satisfaction/pleasure for the viewer. Anime is at its best when it surprises and challenges its audience through fantastic settings, dramatic conflict, or outlandish premises. As much as I love K-On!, it feels like soma that's meant to entertain the viewer without any artistic effort actually being invested. I get just as uncomfortable when people talk about anime as watching underage girls doing nothing as being Bible Black, because both are more or less inferior to the vision I have for anime as a growing and promising medium.

 

The funny thing is, there's only maybe a couple of pages from the light novel animated into the second season, but they're good! Satone shows up, discovers that the boy she's loved all her life is dating an eerily similar version of herself, and tries several different ways to get over him and herself. It's actually a good arc, with this interesting Zhen Bao-yu feel from Dream of the Red Chamber, but it just makes the rest of the show so depressing, because apparently now you can "adapt" a light novel in a way that doesn't actually resemble it at all and yet still be a smashing success, because most people tune in just to watch a girl go "uguu".

 

Also, if anyone is in the unlikely position of wanting some really funny and heartwarming harem anime, Nisekoi is my top recommendation. You expect it to be generic and cliche, and it is kind of generic and cliche, but you still laugh anyway. Also looks nice in a way that you come to expect from these shows, but still nice nonetheless.

 

That's really great to hear! I'd looked at Nisekoi a little because I liked the art, but backed off when I saw the "harem" premise, which can sink to such depths. If it's one of the better examples, I might bump it back onto my "maybe" list.

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I'm going show my ignorance by asking this N1njaSquirrel, but what the hell is a anime committee?

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I'm going show my ignorance by asking this N1njaSquirrel, but what the hell is a anime committee?

 

You're not ignorant! I should have explained this better instead of just assuming everyone knows exactly what I'm thinking all the time. Which I do a lot. I was on the committee for an anime society at University. Leeds University to be specific. It was fun. I was the Web Monkey for 2 years and then went on to be the Secretary for my last one. I'd strongly recommend to search for any anime societies in your area/university. But maybe Leeds' Anime Society was particularly excellent. Which I hear it is compared to Cambridge's.

 

 

Anime is at its best when it surprises and challenges its audience through fantastic settings, dramatic conflict, or outlandish premises.

 

I feel this statement is true for any medium, not just anime specific. I feel that when you get into anime, you certainly feel all these things on pretty much any anime show you start watching. I think this is because for a western person watching anime for the first time, the whole vocabulary and memes and styles that are used in anime are so different from western cartoons, that it feels like all these things, but so much more exaggerated than normal. As you start internalizing this stuff though, you see that it's no different from the next anime that's based in an MMO world.

 

 I'd say that fan service is just as bad as moeblob, because they're both the same problem. At least, they both cater to the same thing, contentless satisfaction/pleasure for the viewer. Anime is at its best when it surprises and challenges its audience through fantastic settings, dramatic conflict, or outlandish premises. As much as I love K-On!, it feels like soma that's meant to entertain the viewer without any artistic effort actually being invested. I get just as uncomfortable when people talk about anime as watching underage girls doing nothing as being Bible Black, because both are more or less inferior to the vision I have for anime as a growing and promising medium.

 

Yeah. I see your point. Although I do think K-On! Is quite funny though. That's why I liked the show. I don't mind a show being pointless if it at least makes me laugh. I feel anime is still a growing medium, and the moe blob/ero stuff is a necessary evil.

 

Also, 2 other good harem animes are Boku wa Tomadatchi ga Sukunai and The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat. I know the second one sounds awful, but it's actually really superb and sweet.

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The problem is the Shitty Parts of anime are, at least in my opinion, worse than the Shitty Parts of everything else. At least from the perspective of the outsider. I'm not convinced that anime is any worse off overall from the point of view of a... conniseur, but the public perception definitely suffers.

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The problem is the Shitty Parts of anime are, at least in my opinion, worse than the Shitty Parts of everything else. At least from the perspective of the outsider. I'm not convinced that anime is any worse off overall from the point of view of a... conniseur, but the public perception definitely suffers.

I'd say perhaps they are no worse than the problems suffered by just about every western mass communication medium, and agree with N1njaSquirrel that we see anime (at least initially) from a outsiders cultural viewpoint. Japan one of the countries most insulated from the smoothing effects of globalisation so there are far more jagged edges to its culture than we are used to.

That leads to a certain amount of fetishisation of the parts of anime that deviate most from our own cultural norms because people will often be attracted to them just by their contrast from what they are used to.

This in turn leads to exaggeration of those trends within the wider community because of the loud often fanatical voices of their devotees.

You're not ignorant! I should have explained this better instead of just assuming everyone knows exactly what I'm thinking all the time. Which I do a lot. I was on the committee for an anime society at University. Leeds University to be specific. It was fun. I was the Web Monkey for 2 years and then went on to be the Secretary for my last one. I'd strongly recommend to search for any anime societies in your area/university. But maybe Leeds' Anime Society was particularly excellent.

I'm old enough that when I went to Uni there was very few anime available legally in the UK, so a anime society at Uni would probably just been a few people watching Akira & Ghost in the Shell on repeat :D

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I'm old enough that when I went to Uni there was very few anime available legally in the UK, so a anime society at Uni would probably just been a few people watching Akira & Ghost in the Shell on repeat :D

 

Gah! Sorry! I didn't know whether you had been to uni or not! I sounded like an ass ._.

tbh, not much has changed. Just replace Akira & Ghost in the Shell with Attack on Titan and Black Butler. XD

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Gah! Sorry! I didn't know whether you had been to uni or not! I sounded like an ass ._.

tbh, not much has changed. Just replace Akira & Ghost in the Shell with Attack on Titan and Black Butler. XD

Tbh the big thing which therew me was the word "committee" it just sounds weirdly bureaucratic phrase to be associated with a club about something you love!

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I like the unnecessary formality.

 

 

Call yourselves The Embassy For Trans-Pacific Cultural Enrichment.

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In that case we'd better see some Round the Twist being shown.

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Regardless of what you call yourselves, my less-anime savvy brother probably thinks you are these guys:

 

20090120.png

 

classic.

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But the future looks bright. At least the next season does. I'm so excited about Ping Pong, mainly because Masaki Yuusa is directing it, and boy does it look incredible. I'm so into sports anime right now. And JoJo's 2nd season too? This is going to be awesome. 

 

He's doing more things! Hooray! He said in the Kick Heart documentary he was thinking of quitting and that was his last ditch effort to make another cartoon. I guess I should read the scanlation I have had of Ping Pong now, kind of neat that it also involves Taiyo Matsumoto. They also already have made a live action movie of Ping Pong years ago. I own it but I was waiting to see it after I got around to reading the comic.

 

Hopefully this doesn't take the three year average of an English language version.

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In that case we'd better see some Round the Twist being shown.

 

I know it's not anime related, and I'm in entirely the wrong thread for me, but I happened to see this and holy shit do I miss running home from school when I was like 9 to watch Round The Twist on TV Ontario. I don't think I've ever known anyone else who watched it, but then I was a super dorky kid with an Australian family, so it was required. Was it actually a big deal over there?

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I know it's not anime related, and I'm in entirely the wrong thread for me, but I happened to see this and holy shit do I miss running home from school when I was like 9 to watch Round The Twist on TV Ontario. I don't think I've ever known anyone else who watched it, but then I was a super dorky kid with an Australian family, so it was required. Was it actually a big deal over there?

 

I'd say it was a medium deal; there were bigger cultural touchstones, certainly, but Round the Twist was an adaptation of Paul Jennings' short story collections which were popular amongst the tween set in the 90s, back before they were called tweens. The big change was that all the stories now happen to one family instead of to unrelated protagonists; they had to write themselves out of corners where the short stories could just end, and the setting and some characters in the TV show change to make the story work. (In particular, Mr. Gribble bounces around to play whatever adult antagonist the stories required.)

 

Thankfully, they captured the most important thing, in that the stories are fucking weird while still being fairly bloodless.

 

Anyway, someone reminded me of Round the Twist the other day and I thought I'd pay it forward. So you're welcome!

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For whatever reason, the most vivid memory I have in that show is the family trapped in a lighthouse because if they went outside seagulls would shit on them until they died. Therefore, classic show.

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You know in a weird way round the twist reminds me of some of Ghibli's children stuff, perhaps it's something to do with the fact they all tend to be entered around one major location complete with its own strange logic, plus ghosts, magic, body swapping, etc (with the addition of Australian humour), my childhood memories of it are quite vague but I'm fairly sure I remember being more than a little disturbed by a few episodes.

It's a bit of weird series all in all, as a child there were parts which I didn't feel I was 100% getting (perhaps that's just because I'm a Brit ) but as a adult I have very little desire to go back and watch it.

I mean people are always taking about thing like Ghibili's work, Adventure Time, or Toy Story etc working for both kids and adult, but here's a series that kinda felt it didn't quite fit in either. Which I guess kinda makes it a teenager?

Or perhaps more accurately a Tweenager as Merus says.

Which would make it a weirdly age specific program.

Which got me thinking about what anime I watched when I was at a specific age and now just don't hold up for me.

Weirdly for me it's Probably Ghost in the a Shell, I loved that when I first watched it as a late teenager but now even though I still admire a lot of the visual design I have huge problems with the dialog. I guess I used to find it 'deep & meaningful', but now I just find it long winded.

On a different note, watched the last episode of this series of Log Horizon, and it feels like at a point where it could quite easily jump the shark because it appears to attempting a tonal switch to something a bit more abstract and away from the interpersonal stuff it was actually doing pretty well.

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Weirdly for me it's Probably Ghost in the a Shell, I loved that when I first watched it as a late teenager but now even though I still admire a lot of the visual design I have huge problems with the dialog. I guess I used to find it 'deep & meaningful', but now I just find it long winded.

 

Great post, but I assume you mean the movie? The series is immaculate and has held up to almost yearly viewings.

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