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Ladies and gentlemen do you have any good recommendations for football/soccer Anime (or even manga)?

Any and all recommendations are appreciated but what I'm really interested in seeing good examples of how the movements of people playing sports are portrayed in animation (or just as static visuals).

For soccer specifically there aren't any, I've looked.

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For soccer specifically there aren't any, I've looked.

 

I think they play it in one episode of School Rumble. That's about as interested as Japanese culture is in soccer.

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When I say there aren't any I mean there aren't any good ones Btw. There are quite a few that are either bad or not even really about soccer like Inazuma Eleven.

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When I say there aren't any I mean there aren't any good ones Btw. There are quite a few that are either bad or not even really about soccer like Inazuma Eleven.

 

... Looking at it, I actually think that the School Rumble episode might have been a parody of Inazuma Eleven? The more you know. I watched a couple episodes of Lucky Star the other day and found a pretty extensive Cromartie parody that I didn't even remember at all.

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I guess I meant more that it "plays it straight" in just going for blatant titillation, rather than it "plays it straight" in just copying magical girl imagery. I would really really really like to believe that they're trying to make me so titillated that I become uncomfortable and am prompted to reflect on what titillation even really means to me, but I'm not sure that's how titillation works. Surely they have to know that and/or worry about that?

 

And no worries, it's society that has the double standard, not you. No one's expected to be getting hot and bothered over the over-the-top male nakedness. It's played purely for laughs. Female nakedness is never played purely for laughs. It can't be. Any time you show any woman-flesh above the ankles and below the neck, there are always going to be at least several thousand dudes getting their rocks on. It can't be ignored the way the consequences of male nakedness can be. It's probably a power thing, too. I don't know.

 

Thinking more about KILL la KILL's gender tropes, the weird predatorial teacher is great, but only because we know Ryuuko's strong and independent enough to put him in his place, though him always being more interested in himself than in her doesn't hurt. Even so, they waited three or four episodes before revealing that side of him, both for comic effect and to make sure all the characters were established enough to prevent misinterpretation. There are some smart people in charge of the show, it just feels like they're out to lunch during Ryuuko's transformation, which only operates on the level of sexual titillation. I've mostly resigned myself to ignoring it, starting from the episode where it was revealed that you need to abandon all shame to tap the full power of the Godrobe.

Well that all makes me feel better about the show, thanks for the write up. I think I'll wait until the DVDs or Blu-rays or whatever before watching, but hopefully the show doesn't decide to fall in some creepy pit near the final episode.

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I think I'll wait until the DVDs or Blu-rays or whatever before watching, but hopefully the show doesn't decide to fall in some creepy pit near the final episode.

 

I don't think it will, to be honest. Almost all of the show's worst moments come from the first three or four episodes, before its impressive imagery had cohered into a tone and the dominant motif was Ryuuko-as-titillation. That's almost completely in the background now, replaced by other magical girl and shounen tropes out of which they're getting more mileage, so I think it'd have to be a colossal failure of imagination by the studio to revert back to the less interesting and less developed stuff from the beginning. I think they're too smart for that.

 

Well, if I were being really honest, I'd replace "think" with "hope" in the above paragraph. But Trigger is all ex-GAINAX guys, right? GAINAX was crass, but it was never dumb.

 

 

EDIT: Hoooly shit, never mind. I take it all back, I don't know what I'm talking about. Twenty-five episodes? By all appearances, it's on track to end with twelve (one episode for end of Nonon fight and beginning of Satsuki fight, one episode for end of Satsuki fight and epilogue), but no, we're not even halfway! Where is it going to go? A timeskip and Ryuuko as the new big bad?

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For soccer specifically there aren't any, I've looked.

  

I think they play it in one episode of School Rumble. That's about as interested as Japanese culture is in soccer.

I'm surprised to hear that it is so underrepresented in Anime. There's been a lot of talk recently over how japan is expected to be a big growth markets for soccer, and how the main demographic is people under the age of 30, exactly the sort of demographic I would have thought watched a lot of shows.

Twenty-five episodes? By all appearances, it's on track to end with twelve (one episode for end of Nonon fight and beginning of Satsuki fight, one episode for end of Satsuki fight and epilogue), but no, we're not even halfway! Where is it going to go? A timeskip and Ryuuko as the new big bad?

I'm kind of under the impression that they are going to introduce a previously teased big bad next episode. So if they give it/her any amount of screen time that's going to make it quite difficult to fit a full fight between Satsuku & Ryuuko into the time they have left.

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I finished Fist of the North Star DD and it was hilarious to the end...

 

I also started to watch Watamote and I'm in the "OH GOD! I was just like Tomoko! I'm probably a still a bit like her..." stage. Is it strange that this is the one series that has made me feel the most uncomfortable? I guess because it's hitting home, as they say... 

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I'm surprised I actually finished Watamote. It's the sort of series I'd normally get weary of very quickly, but there was something so endearing about it. God, what a depressing show, though.

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I'm surprised I actually finished Watamote. It's the sort of series I'd normally get weary of very quickly, but there was something so endearing about it. God, what a depressing show, though.

 

I kinda ended up liking it? I mean, it was pure schadenfreude, but the fact that there was this tiny-to-the-point-of-invisible character arc in it kinda saved it from being just mean-spirited slice-of-life for me.

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I started Samurai Flamenco (first two episodes) and it's kind of amusing. I came in knowing nothing about the series, other than someone recommended it to me. I like it so far.

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I have two episodes of KILL la KILL on my hard drive, but I can't watch them because my mom keeps walking in and some of this shit is more embarrassing than I realized.

 

Instead, I finished the Valkyria Chronicles anime, which was... not good. It started out alright, as some sort of alterna-WWII story, but the "mission-based" structure of episodes and the quick establishment of "bosses" ruined it for me. It's just the video game plot, but animated! And man, nothing makes it clearer to me the low bar for video game storytelling than seeing it in an anime and thinking, "Why'd the antagonist suddenly go from sympathetic to insane, shoot all his subordinates, and fuse himself with a laser cannon? Ah, video games."

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Yep, Kyosougiga is the best show this season (along with  the second half of Monogatari Second season): it reminds of FLCL in its excellent ratio of crazyness to strong thematic albeit with slightly less bold theme. I really hope they manage to find a satisfying ending to it all... it sorts of disappoint me that they decided to introduce so much lore in the last episodes; it might be needed for the ending they chose, but it feels like resolutions didn't need any of it; or at least not introduced so obviously.

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Dang I was also going to mention Kyousougiga.

 

I don't think it's the best show this season. It doesn't really have much going for it besides insane wacky insanity. Buuuuut I'm only three episodes in. (Two if you don't count the "Episode 0" on Crunchyroll, which I understand is one part of a series of OVAs or something.) EDIT: Just watched episode four. Maybe I'm changing my mind regarding how much the show has going for it. MAYBE. WHO KNOWS!!

 

I really like Samurai Flamenco. Although I'm still conflicted on the whole tone shift. I think I need to wait until it's over before I decide whether or not I actually like it.

 

Kill la Kill was great but this whole "fight the big guys one by one" series of episodes is not very exciting. (I have no watched the latest episode, yet.) Taken individually, each episode is still pretty good, but when you string them together like this... not as big a fan. Needs more Mako. The earlier episodes were so much better. And by that I mean the middle episodes. Starting at episode four and ending with the first of these fights, probably.

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I started watching the Eccentric Family and it's pretty awesome so far. I specially like how they deal with gender... tanukis are tricksters and "morphers" by natures, so why would they choose to turn into human as the same gender as their tanuki form? To them it's a challenge for their powers, can I trick them? Also, why should I live by human's gender roles?

 

Their mom's human form calls himself Prince and looks like a guy from a Utena-ish manga and I love it, the main character seems to take so many forms, that I think that the show is challenging me to spot him before he reveals himself, although so far he always seems to have the same hair.

 

What I don't get is the constant references of boiling tanukis in pots and eating them, I suppose it's a joke and a reference to tanuki udon since I've yet to hear a folktale about eating tanukis in stew.

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So just watched Episode 12 of Kill La Kill, overall it's been my favourite series of this particular season. Yes it is undoubtedly far far from perfect, however it's managed to do a lot with what could have easily just ended up as trope characters.

It has a huge amount of visual noise, every episode is full of sound and fury which in the end seems to signify precisely bugger all.

It's almost as if a visual choice is made and then never given a second thought. Which all in all gave us something profoundly unrefined but perhaps better for it.

I've also been watching

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Boundary

Which is perhaps the most polished but in the end underwhelming anime I've seen for a long time. I can only assume there must have been a fairly huge budget thrown as the animation is as smooth as in a many big budget film, and even more impressively it's all traditionally done.

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I feel the same way about Beyond the Boundary. I finished it up (I think it's done now?) and didn't even find it worth mentioning. It's definitely very pretty, but... that's it. U:

 

Latest episode of Kill la Kill restored my faith in Kill la Kill. Mostly because Mako.

 

MAKO.

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I feel the same way about Beyond the Boundary. I finished it up (I think it's done now?) and didn't even find it worth mentioning. It's definitely very pretty, but... that's it. U:

 

Latest episode of Kill la Kill restored my faith in Kill la Kill. Mostly because Mako.

 

MAKO.

Sometimes I feel the conversations between Mako & Ira Gamagoori are basically a meta commentary on the whole series :D

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I've also been watching

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Boundary

Which is perhaps the most polished but in the end underwhelming anime I've seen for a long time. I can only assume there must have been a fairly huge budget thrown as the animation is as smooth as in a many big budget film, and even more impressively it's all traditionally done.

I feel the same way about Beyond the Boundary. I finished it up (I think it's done now?) and didn't even find it worth mentioning. It's definitely very pretty, but... that's it. U:

 

Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!, which has all the same problems, was what convinced me that KyoAni just doesn't have it in them anymore. They've stopped giving their directors any free reign after Yamamoto Yutaka and they've stopped adapting licensed properties after the Haruhi Suzumiya novels dried up and the bottom fell out of Nichijou.

 

It's sad. It's a studio that used to be on top and wants to be on top, but can't and won't make any of the risk to do it. The best we'll get from them anymore is Tamako Market, which is just custom-brewed sugar-water.

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I'm not very familiar with the various anime production studios, so I don't know from KyoAni. But a quick Google confirms that they've produced two of my favorites. Hyouka and Nichijou. (I also like Haruhi, but wouldn't count it as one of my favorites. Also worth mentioning is Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, which is something I fully enjoyed without knowing a single damn thing about Full Metal Panic.)

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I'm not very familiar with the various anime production studios, so I don't know from KyoAni. But a quick Google confirms that they've produced two of my favorites. Hyouka and Nichijou. (I also like Haruhi, but wouldn't count it as one of my favorites. Also worth mentioning is Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, which is something I fully enjoyed without knowing a single damn thing about Full Metal Panic.)

 

Yeah, Kyoto Animation was the studio that got rich off of Haruhi and K-On!. But there aren't many more Haruhi novels coming and Nichijou was a huge commercial failure, so KyoAni seems to have become a lot more risk-adverse, mostly by focusing on in-house stuff like Tamako Market and novels/manga from unaffiliated authors and artists. Hyouka was good, but nothing else really has been since NichijouChuu2Koi especially was a paint-by-numbers affair.

 

They also drummed out their best director after four episodes of Lucky Star and haven't really had a taste for artistic types since. I don't know, right now I'm trying to avoid their stuff until someone else vets it for me. Bummer that's not happening with Kyoukai no Kanata.

 

Uh, good anime... Teekyuu is still really good, eh?

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I finished The Eccentric Family, they left a few potholes, but I really enjoyed it despite them.

 

It's kinda hilarious that the tanuki fear the Fellow Fridays when humans don't believe in magic and their brain eventually convince themselves that something non-magical happened.

 

It's kinda silly that the tanuki can't transform while in cages, they just claim they have to "inner calm" even though you see one of them practically asleep in one later.

 

And Benten... I just don't know what to think of her, she ate the main protagonist's father, she's a capricious and kinda evil, but in the end she just switches sides and act like nothing happened? Why she simply returns to her master is never explained... I guess she's so capricious that she simply left the Fellow Fridays because she finds them boring? The whole series seems to revolve on being interesting and having fun.

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Yo guys I been watchin' Log Horizon. I know it's one of those "oops we're all in an MMO for real now how craaaaay cray!" but.

 

It's like really good man. Takes a few episodes to really get going (WHAT ANIME DOESN'T, GODDAMN), but I'm gettin' some serious Spice and Wolf vibes from this shit. Not in that it's all about trading (although there is some of that!), but in the way it presents and emphasizes planning and negotiation (separately and together).

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Mako is the best part of Kill la Kill, but I wonder if the finale is near. Aren't anime shows 12-14 episodes long?

 

It feels like it should end soon, anyway.

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