anime

[Mangela Lansbury]

True story: I had a Lyft driver bring up Sword Art Online apropos of nothing and I was like "heh he hehhe he yeah it's greaaaaaaat"

Anyway, SAO is the lowest of the low. That'd be like hating shounen because of Bleach. Only reason I called out .hack is because it was the first of its kind, as far as I know. I did like it originally, I think I might even like it now? It's on my re-watch list.

My point is, they're not all the same show, just like not every sports anime is about one guy being the absolute best sportsball player of all time.

DISCLAIMER: I haven't actually seen SAO.................

I revisited .hack earlier this year. It is both better and worse than I remembered, probably because I hadn't seen it since high school and what I value in media has changed a lot since then!

I watched an episode of some subsequent .hack show afterwards tho and now I just hate all of it.

[Twig]

Sounds about how I expect to feel when I rewatch it.

 

Also: https://vine.co/v/ePY7XLqrrZZ

 

dang

[Gormongous]

Also, I'm watching Natsu no Arashi, the show that Shinbou made with Shaft right before Bakemonogatari kicked off and made the Monogatari series the only thing he'd ever direct again.

 

I kinda like it? More than any Shaft production, it lacks an identity (probably because its themes, about the present day being a light dust of mundanity atop the horrors of history, are not ones that Shinbou is particularly interested in or good at handling) but it's such a pastiche of Shinbou's past and future work that it feels good to have it wash over me. It's the characters and setting of Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, the dialogue and rhythms of Arakawa under the Bridge, the supernatural flair and overall direction of the Monogatari series, and the pop-culture references and schoolgirl outfits of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. I downloaded it over four years ago because I was on a Shaft kick, then left it on a shelf unwatched because the summary "ghost of a schoolgirl uses a thirteen-year-old boy to travel back in time to save people's lives during the Second World War, in between shifts at a sketchy cafe" sounded miserable, so I guess I'm here to say that it's not, really...?

 

It would actually make for a more helpful (or at least less misleading) list if he followed through 100% on his personal bias and just made it an association of things he likes about his favorite shows.

 

Yeah, I guess that's my point, too. If you have to make arbitrary rules in order to make the chart have any structure whatsoever, that's one thing, but if you don't have to make them and you're breaking them all the time anyway, maybe just let the flowchart be a visual model of your own free associations with anime?

[N1njaSquirrel]

True story: I had a Lyft driver bring up Sword Art Online apropos of nothing and I was like "heh he hehhe he yeah it's greaaaaaaat"

 

Anyway, SAO is the lowest of the low. That'd be like hating shounen because of Bleach. Only reason I called out .hack is because it was the first of its kind, as far as I know. I did like it originally, I think I might even like it now? It's on my re-watch list.

 

My point is, they're not all the same show, just like not every sports anime is about one guy being the absolute best sportsball player of all time.

 

DISCLAIMER: I haven't actually seen SAO.................

 

Yeah, good point. I've been meaning to try Log Horizon, to be fair. Now the summer anime is over, I'll give it a look. I think it's on Netflix.

 

Also, more irritation about the creator's arbitrary limitations. He says that he won't include movies because he hasn't seen enough and it's about series anyway... except Millennium Actress and End of Evangelion are on still there, the former because he felt Satoshi Kon was underrepresented and the latter because he felt it "completes" the series. Seriously, guys, don't bother with hard and fast rules if you're going to break them for all of your favorites. It makes me mistrust the entire mission of these flowcharts!

 

What makes this worse is that there is already a great Satoshi Kon TV anime, Paranoia Agent, that he failed to mention. What a silly billy!

[Tanukitsune]

.... 

All my animes ended the same week, since I'm it will be a while since we get something as good as Ore Monogatari, give me your best anime trash I can see.... Although I doubt anything will be as gloriously trashy as Monster Musume....

 

Umaru and School-Live also ended this week and... 

I'm kinda disappointed by the ending, not only do they all survive, the technically kill the dog TWICE!

[Twig]

But then it's alive after the credits. Worst fucking anime goddamnit fuck fuck shit.

 

School-Live! was terrible.

[Tanukitsune]

What, no... that's the dog he died trying to help out!

[Twig]

Maybe. The stupid hat is above ground, though, which implies to me he dug his way out.

[Twig]

this is a good op

 

[syntheticgerbil]

That's a beautiful sequence of animation.

[Twig]

Yeah it is damn fine.

In other news I started watching Your lie in April tonight cause a friend of mine emphatically told me that is his new favorite anime.

This same friend thinks Sucker Punch is a good movie so I'm always a bit wary of his recommendations, but here we are...

This is really fucking good. Somehow I watched five episodes in rapid succession. I only stopped because I have to sleep so I can actually function tomorrow.

Its one flaw is that it suffers from the "young kids (14 ffs) act way too mature for their age" problem that is so common in anime. But it's just really fucking good once you get past that. Damn.

Plot summary is kid who gave up piano for emotional reasons meets eccentric and wild violinist, and she tries to get him to play piano again. At least that's it so far. But man it's nice. A word that I might ascribe to this series is... Poetic. The theme is, as you might guess from the title, the lies we tell ourselves and others.

It's also amazingly beautiful at every turn dang such good animation daaaang I wanna watch more. ):

It's gonna get sad...

[Brett E]

Somehow (aka I'm a dufus) I ended up watching the last episode of Your Lie In April first and I didn't realise until I got to the end and it was (what I thought was) the first episode again. Although there were one or two things from the first episode referenced throughout which I had me wondering if I just wasn't paying attention at some point. Thinking about it though, I'm not sure I'd have actually watched it all if I'd see the actual first episode because the last one showed that there was a bit more emotional depth than the usual school romance stuff.

 

On a somewhat related note I think the Japanese (possibly all of Asia) do melancholy better than the west. I'm not sure why though, perhaps there's less of stigma there?

[Twig]

FWIW, I had the ending spoiled for me already because I'm an idiot. But I don't mind, really. At the point where I am now, I think I would've already seen it coming.

 

IT'S GOOD THO.

 

---

 

Unrelated: Soooo next season we get Owarimonogatari

 

and now this

 

http://www.kizumonogatari-movie.com/

 

is it really happening?!?! not vaporware after all?!?!?!?!

[Gormongous]

http://www.kizumonogatari-movie.com/

 

is it really happening?!?! not vaporware after all?!?!?!?!

 

I will believe it when I see it, just like Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0.

[Twig]

yeah but WHAT IF tho

[Mangela Lansbury]

What if they're released as a double feature, but they play them in alternating 5 minute segments so no one notices how neither one lives up to expectations?

[Twig]

well nobody has any expectations for anything eva related anyway am i right or am i right

[Gaizokubanou]

Also, I'm watching Natsu no Arashi

 

Nooooooo~~~

[Gormongous]

Nooooooo~~~

 

I know I'm a constant disappointment, Gaizo. I just needed a half-cour comedy really bad at the moment. It'll be over soon!

[BobbyBesar]

I watched a bunch of retro anime because a friend of mine provided me with a bunch of fansubs for stuff that I mostly haven't seen or thought much about since high school.

 

The only really notable thing is that I learned that I've only seen about half of the You're Under Arrest that exists, whereas at the time I watched it, I'd seen all of it (i.e. I watched the entire first series but wasn't aware there was a second or third series. I watched a couple random episodes from the newer series, and it's interesting to see the changes to that series over time, many of which probably track to general trends in anime. Aside from the obvious visual elements (which I assume are related to a transition to digital art), the extent to which the characters are sexualized has gradually increased the more recent series.

 

Also, the internet tells me that Aoi is now officially considered transgendered rather than simply a transvestite, which is kind of interesting, I guess. Aoi's first episode is pretty interesting from a modern perspective, because it's arguably handled awkwardly, but at the same time, the tone of the show is such that everybody is actually super supportive right from the beginning (modulo a little bit of juvenile sexuality).

 

Anyways, I watched a bunch of it because it's pure cotton candy viewing where everybody is super loving and supportive of everybody else and nothing ever changes. It's kind of like Archie, I guess, with occasional car chases. Also, all the music is still good. If I was being honest, I'd probably say it's my favorite anime, irrespective of any objective quality it might possess.

 

I also watched the last Ranma thing put to film (an OAV screened at a con in 2008 or so), because I was curious what a Ranma fanservice victory lap looks like, and yup, it sure was that. It was kind of interesting seeing that in a modern style as well.

 

Also, I realize that those retro-revivals are themselves almost 10 years old now.

[Tanukitsune]

I'm watching Soul Eater for "Octoberween" and I'm really enjoying it so far, I really love the aesthetic! 

[Valorian Endymion]

Ok, while I am still not 100% sure of what direction Aquarion Logos is going (and if you know, please don´t tell me) or if will have more relationship with Genesis or Evol, episode 7 was really impressive.

 

Ok, I will try to explain why keep it simple as possible.

 

To make a long story short, much of the anime is the heroes facing a villian which have the power to corrupt kanji (that can cause real effect on the world) and that desire to destroy the written languague, so humanity can be one with the mind. Yeah, it is a entire anime based in kanji puns.

 

The episode start with Akira and Maia facing against the corrupted kanji of "cut" which caused all internet communications to be "cut". They win, but the villian then corrupt the kanji of "fire", meaning that communications might be back, but they became out of control, stuff people didn´t want share begin overshared, flame wars and ect...

 

Domon, one of the good guys, which during breaks kind tries to be a "youtube comedy celebrity" find that his videos are begin shared everywhere without he wanted and people became angry with him,  but he is not the only one, everyone gets affected by that and thing get off control, I won´t try to tell everything, but just some highlights only.

 

- A politician which is a friend of the main characters get flak/hate when a video interview which Karan, very young girl (which is also among the good guys) that dream of begin a voice actor, was shared in his own email without he wanted and people  start to attack him and her and in one scene on of the main characters take her cellphone away and when he realizes that she is reading hate mails.

 

- Because Domon is running away from a dog in one of his videos, there is a scene where two generic dudes in a cafe, with obvious evil grims, make fake accusation that that dog is the same which disappear some months ago and suddenly Domon is begin acccused of stolen the dog, they cut the scene showing another character pointing how the dog which is one the video and the one wish vanished aren´t the same, but people keep sharing it. The main highlight is when this two dudes with their evil grim see themselves as "good guys and that was their duty".

 

- Things get so off control that people literally start to catch fire, either because of their own hatred or because they are reciving it. There is even a scene where a generic otaku guy is twetting to someone something like "please die" and he burst on flames. Domon and Karen too, because of all the stuff they are getting. The headquarter of that politician is in flames.

 

- Meanwhile, Sogon, the main villian keep saying how even with modern communications is all pointless because people don´t like or want truth, they want really is to lie and attack others.

 

- Funny scene: at one point because of all this fire eveywhere, two firemen try to extinguish the fire, but more corrupt a kanji get, the more people forgot their meaning and concept until they no longer remember. At this point the kanji was so corrupted that, one of the fireman forgot what they are trying to do and what is fire.

 

The letdown was the ending, when Akira managed to defeat the corrupted kanji, despite Sogon asking why he was trying to save all this people and the answer which Akira gives is because people want to be saved, but is not very clear to me how he did, and stuff kind solve by itself and episode ends. Still, for anime which I am not sure where is going this episode was worth it.

[Gormongous]

Regarding what Squirrel, Codi, and I were talking about with regards to the final season of Working!!:

 

Wow, I can't believe that they'd kneecap their wonderful ending to have some dumb fantasy spinoff. Even knowing that it was coming, I was shocked at the audacity of it.

[N1njaSquirrel]

lol yep, it's the worst.

 

So I was thinking about fanservice last night, after twig said that he complained about it after every show we talked about.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that nobody cares when boobs are shown on Game of Thrones, Sopranos or Orange is the New Black, but draw some tits and all of a sudden it's weird and wrong.

 

Certainly in the case of GoT, there is worse stuff shown on that than even the most fan-servicey of shows.

 

I mean, it could be that because they're drawn, they're so much more easier to sexualise, which, yeah, that's a good point, but then again all western super heroes wear skin tight lycra, and are similarly drawn in ridiculous poses to show off assets. 

 

I guess I'm just getting more and more frustrated trying to forgive my personal favourite form of media, when literally every other form of media does it, and no-one bats an eyelid when it does. Sex sells, it's as simple as that, and it applies to literally everything.

 

I'm by no means saying it's right, I'm just saying I refuse to knock a great anime down like shokugeki no souma just because it wants to make a few more DVD sales by showing some boobs.

 

idk, what do you guys think?

[Twig]

A lot of people complain about it in Game of Thrones, and I have, too! I haven't see the other two shows.

 

But yes something about drawing it does make it feel more... Hmm, it becomes a much more intentional thing, like an exaggerated effect. Like "you know what you're doing you ARTIST", so instead of seeing real tits, we're seeing the super idealized version of tits that bounce all over the place in the most unrealistic, but still titillating, manner.

 

I tolerate sexism in a lot of things I watch (remember Kill la Kill??), but that doesn't mean I'm not going to criticize it. The first episode of Food Wars is fucking gross as hell and there's basically nothing redeeming about it. The show very quickly gets better, though.