anime

[Twig]

So pretty!

[N1njaSquirrel]

• Death Billiards: I mostly watched it because Madhouse, so I knew it'd at least look good. Little one-off 20-minute short (being expanded into a series this upcoming season, apparently), it definitely looks good, and is sorta interesting. An old dude and a young dude end up in a bar together and are told they're going to play some 8-ball and they're risking their lives
  they're both dead already and this is a sort of contest to see how they act and see who goes to heaven/hell, or something

  . Silly and over the top, but not bad?

 

This season has an anime series called Death Parade which is a continuation of this short. Looks awesome.

[Codicier]

So another season comes to it's end & i'm actually kinda happy with it overall. Generally the new season of old shows didn't disapoint & we had a few genuine out of nowhere gems.
 
In particular I'm not sure but I think maybe, just maybe, this current run of Mushishi may be its best ever. Some extremely well told & quietly brutal episodes especially towards the end of the season. 

 

 

• Rage of Bahamut: Genesis: Remained way better than it should've been, but dipped in quality a bit when it went into major exposition mode for a few of the later episodes. Still, fun. I don't know how. But... I'm not going to complain.

 

I'm pretty much with Twig here. Certainly the most fun ( if imperfect) new show for quite a while.

I think the simple reason it survived it's dive into exposition mode is that it's the pacing, humour, & timing made it very easy to forgive it's flaws. As long as it was sweeping me along I tended not to notice the moments of badly short-cutted animation or creaky CG, or occasionally hackneyed design and while I'm not quite sure if it quite matched the S2 Space Dandy finale for cramming in little moments of character building pay-off and absurd visual touches feew things are going to hit that particular high combo . 

The question is where will they go from here?

I have no idea if it was successful enough to stand on it's own two feet or if it ended up a expensive vanity project/marketing experiment for a digital CCG, but I hope it's the former because now they have a world and at least a couple of interesting characters to build from.

My major gripe is that they pretty much ended up basically full on damseling two out of three major female characters

 
Not technically a Anime (but since i'm considering purchasing it entirely based on a anime adaptation of a related work i figure it's ok to talk about) I noticed a game called WORLD END ECONOMiCA was in a steam micro sale this weekend. The part of it's description which got me interested was
 

From the author of Spice and Wolf, Isuna Hasekura

 
The basic scenario of "person X must get amount Y of money to fulfil his dream!" isn't particularly original but I very much enjoyed S&W so was hoping maybe someone amongst my fellow readers might have some experience with this & be able to tell me if its worth a shot or not.

[Twig]

This season has an anime series called Death Parade which is a continuation of this short. Looks awesome.

Yeah I mentioned it in that quote! (Although not by name.)

 

I still haven't watched any of the second half of season two of Mushishi, but I'm working my way there. I can feel the mood-to-watch approaching. There, just over the horizon.

 

I did start watching Gungrave, though. In IRC it was mentioned as another anime based on a video game that turned out surprisingly well. So far it's not bad, but it's not great, either. There's only two female characters in it. One disappears after the first episode and is the daughter of the other, who is one of those soft-speaking women that occur so frequently in anime, always seemingly on the verge of crying, or at least tearing up, serving no purpose but to motivate the main character. Fun. (I was also told to skip the first episode. I didn't, but I can totally see why someone would say that. Episodes two through five (where I am) are nothing like it in tone, and take place earlier in time.)

 

Anyway Spice & Wolf is amazing so just gonna reiterate that. It's amazing. When I saw that she wrote that game, I added it to my wishlist. Didn't buy it, yet, though.

[Twig]

The latest episode of Log Horizon was... superb. We left the usual cast to go and look at some other cool people.

 

Not only was there a gag character who created his persona to basically be Leonardo the fucking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and at one point made a joke about wanting to eat pizza!!, but also he wasn't a gag character and there was a bonding moment between him and another character because they both idolized the heroism Leonardo represented. WHAT. WHAT. This is probably the best anime for nerds I've ever watched.

 

It was so incredibly dumb, but also so incredibly sincere that I loved it without reservation. Didn't quite top William Massachusetts' speech, but... can anything ever do that, really?

 

The other cool thing they introduced was a character who had no personality and it turns out she was a farming bot being run from a computer in China. Only now she's not, obviously. She's an adventurer. Welp.

 

If anyone described this to me and I hadn't watched it, I'd probably hate it, but it's all so sincere and genuine that I can't help but love it. Fuck me, I guess.

[Codicier]

The latest episode of Log Horizon was... superb. We left the usual cast to go and look at some other cool people.

 

Not only was there a gag character who created his persona to basically be Leonardo the fucking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and at one point made a joke about wanting to eat pizza!!, but also he wasn't a gag character and there was a bonding moment between him and another character because they both idolized the heroism Leonardo represented. WHAT. WHAT. This is probably the best anime for nerds I've ever watched.

 

It was so incredibly dumb, but also so incredibly sincere that I loved it without reservation. Didn't quite top William Massachusetts' speech, but... can anything ever do that, really?

 

The other cool thing they introduced was a character who had no personality and it turns out she was a farming bot being run from a computer in China. Only now she's not, obviously. She's an adventurer. Welp.

 

If anyone described this to me and I hadn't watched it, I'd probably hate it, but it's all so sincere and genuine that I can't help but love it. Fuck me, I guess.

 

It looks like its just you & me discussing this one again mr Twig but yeah, ep14 was a (by log horizons low standards) fast paced & nicely animated episode.

 

I'm actually a little bothered by the way they seem to setting up the relationship of the Bot & Hero characters in that little group. She's incredibly passive and he's being painted as being interested in her in a way which makes me worried the whole thing will end up with him deciding she's gonna be his bot Waifu.......

Sadly romantic relationships seem to pretty much be kryptonite to Log Horizon i'm not sure we've seen a single credible one yet or one which doesn't just fit 100% into some cliché.

It's weird because they really seem to get the relationships people have with "things" like games and pop culture and how these can be important things in someone's self image spot on, but they fundamentally seem to (so far) fail to get interpersonal relationships. Worse as you've pointed out before the only relationship they do spend any real time on is cheapened by the fact they seem to feel the need to add extra "competition" for the man's affection rather than just actually giving those two some time to build up a proper rapport.

 

On a different note, oh boy does it look like we are getting one hell of a random set of shows for the new seasons. When i look at my list half of the shows feel like they come with a "may turn into a unmitigated car crash at any moment" health warning on them.

[Twig]

Haha there might be something to say there about how anti-social nerds who get sucked into a video game would obviously have trouble dealing with any real romantic feelings.

 

That said, the relationship between Naotsugu and Marielle seems pretty solid and healthy. But... that's the only one, and they also don't really talk about it. It just kind of obviously exists. Maybe to serve as contrast to the ridiculous melodrama of the rest of the cast?

 

(I'm almost certainly giving the anime too much credit here, since it's all super tropey and, at least so far, hasn't gone anywhere but tropey.)

[Codicier]

Haha there might be something to say there about how anti-social nerds who get sucked into a video game would obviously have trouble dealing with any real romantic feelings.

 

That said, the relationship between Naotsugu and Marielle seems pretty solid and healthy. But... that's the only one, and they also don't really talk about it. It just kind of obviously exists. Maybe to serve as contrast to the ridiculous melodrama of the rest of the cast?

 

(I'm almost certainly giving the anime too much credit here, since it's all super tropey and, at least so far, hasn't gone anywhere but tropey.)

 

In terms of their interactions I agree they are the most believable relationship, and the one treated with least melodrama, but it does feel like she was being shoehorned into a "fretting housewife" role while he was away raiding. Actually now that i think about it, this would all be kinda academic if they are all ken & barbie dolls anatomically. I'd actually laugh pretty hard if someone tried to take their pant off & found they couldn't because as far as the game was concerned their underwear was part of them.

 

LH's major defence at this point is that these are all "in game relationships" of people who did have a "other self" in the real world, i can't remember where i heard it but I'm sure I've heard it said that you can't be in love if you can't be hurt. So as long as these characters see themselves as 'avatars' of people, instead of their current forms being the absolute entirety of their being nothing significant can happen.

[Twig]

it does feel like she was being shoehorned into a "fretting housewife" role while he was away raiding.

Yeah sorta, but she was also like that from the beginning. Has she ever done any fighting? There are actually quite a few characters who don't participate in any combat, and it's totally believable within this context, because in a lot of MMOs these days you can devote all your time to crafting or whatever.

 

And I can't really fault the anime for having a character like that (i.e., the worrisome partner) when there's so much variety among the cast.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Yeah I mentioned it in that quote! (Although not by name.)

 

Shit sorry! I should really stop looking at this in work, as I can't read it properly :S

 

I also finished Amagi Brilliant Park! It was pretty good, however the 13th episode was rather pointless. My main gripe was that it all ended a bit too cleanly and perfectly. From what I gathered, the light novels are still ongoing, and the light novel, manga and anime are all popular, so why end it? I haven't read the manga/LN though, so I don't know if that is the actual events and I'm just a moron. If it is, I still think the point is valid though.

 

Anyways new season impressions!

 

Death Parade was cool, a great first episode, although I wonder where they're going to go from there. From the looks of the preview of the next one, it's just going to be about the bar tender and the assortment of 'crazy' sidekicks he has. To be honest I'm a bit dissapointed about this. I thought it'd be something like Shigofumi or Tatami Galaxy where they're unrelated cases, but you find out more about the reoccuring charachters as new cases gets resolved. It still has my interest though, and I'm judging it on something that I haven't watched yet, merely hypothesising.

 

Assassination Classroom was really dissapointing. The manga is so funny, yet the anime seems to miss all funny points. I knew from the OVA that it'd be bad, but I was holding out hope. Sadly they missed the comedy element completely, just making it a sub-par anime.  And what the fuck was with that opening? It was fucking terrible! and it felt really cheap. Ugh, Really dissapointed. They animated Koro-sensei well though.

 

JoJo: Stardust Crusaders part 2 had the worst opening song ever. It was so forgettable. The ending song also wasn't that great, but it was a marked improvement on the garbage that was the opening. All I remember is them forcing the 'ora ora ora ora' into the verse. what the fuck? And it was written by the same person who wrote the amazing first opening of the first season too. What happened?

 

Durarara x2 was superb, but I've forgotten half the characters since the first season. Can't wait to see what happens though!

 

I've still got Maria the Virgin Witch (the worst title ever) and Kuroko Season 3 on my watch list.

[Twig]

Hahaha the Jojo opening and ending songs were so weirdly uncharacteristic. I had meant to bring that up myself. They're extremely mellow and just... don't fit the show. I have no idea what happened there. I don't think I agree that they're bad songs, though. I sort of like the contrast between song and show? I admit I'm weird, though.

 

I was also thinking of watching Maria... But then I watched the PV and yeah it's just tits everywhere so I guess that's the show. If it ends up being good someone will tell me to watch it, but otherwise, I'm not going to go out of my way.

 

Really annoyed that Kuroko Season 3 isn't on Crunchyroll. THAT'S WEIRD. It's on DAISUKI for some reason. Which I guess is a new thing, as their selection is pretty small. But hey, it's free, so I guess I can watch it there. More my nitpicky desire to be able to watch it all in one place and have that one place track it all that annoys me. Oh well.

 

That's sad, re: Assassination Classroom. I love the manga, but if the anime sucks, well, that sucks, but at least I still have the manga!

[N1njaSquirrel]

Hahaha the Jojo opening and ending songs were so weirdly uncharacteristic. I had meant to bring that up myself. They're extremely mellow and just... don't fit the show. I have no idea what happened there. I don't think I agree that they're bad songs, though. I sort of like the contrast between song and show? I admit I'm weird, though.

 

 

Yeah, you put it much better than I ever did. I'll listen to it again in the next OP, but it did feel really out of place. And the visuals didn't match up to the song either, which is a shame. The theme is clearly time, because of Za World. I don't know what's going on with that.

 

I just watched Maria. It's certainly got a degree of nudity in it, but it didn't feel like fan service. There were no low-angle shots or panty flashes that you'd expect. There was a quite awkward comical conversation about blow jobs though. From what I could gather, every witch has a succubus, (the girl that is wearing white belts in the PV), and then I'm not really sure what else there is. To be honest, the first episode wasn't anything amazing. It was alright, and worth at least one more episode, but nothing exceptional.

 

The fuck Kuroko? Anime liscencing is messed up recently. As Crunchy has the first two seasons, I'm hoping that they'll somehow be able to get rights to the third.

[BobbyBesar]

So, through a weird series of events I became aware this weekend of World of Golden Eggs.

 

Aside from some seriously catchy music, it's fairly confusing. It feels like something that came out of adult swim style alternative audience channel. It's sort of a cross between...Beavis and Butthead, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and South Park? And about "America", as defined by stereotypes held by the Japanese. And also it has some sort of English education function, which appears to be part of the joke?

 

Part of the joke seems to be "look how shitty this is", which, while not unheard of in anime, seems followed through to an unusual degree here.

 

Does anybody have any experience with this?

 

It has an absurdist / variety show sketch comedy aesthetic, and some things feel like they're derived from the weird things Japan calls comedy. But...yeah. It's weird.

[Blambo]

Does anyone have an insight into what the anime business is like nowadays? It just seems like an incredible risk to create something that costs so much for essentially the same audience that reads manga (which seems way cheaper and more sustainable). I see that a lot of shortcuts and techniques used to cut costs, but creating animation at the industry nowadays still seems prohibitively expensive, with the preference for traditional animation not really scaling with new tech developments. Not only that but I see a lot of anime that's actually very risky and diverse in subject matter because it's based on manga. I guess there's the guarantee of an audience?

[Dewar]

Last night I was tired and just let my wife put on whatever she wanted and I ended up watching an anime with a bunch of personified battle ships skating around on water and shooting at monsters, some of which are also skimpily clad girls. It wasn't bad actually, just really really strange. They play with the sense of scale in a lot of really weird ways that sometimes makes the girls seem the size of the ships that the represent, and other times regular girl sized. I'm not sure if I'll watch anymore, but it did make me curious to try the game it's based on. Unfortunately, even though it's free to play, it's JP only and I can't be arsed to set up a VPN. (It's called Kancolle by the way.)

 

I also watched the first episode of season two of Durarara,  which was pretty weird having barely seen any of the first season.

 

Edit: Twig, did you see that the last chapters of the Mushishi manga are going to be adapted into a full length movie? My wife is crazy excited.

[Twig]

No I did not see that but that's excellent!

[N1njaSquirrel]

Does anyone have an insight into what the anime business is like nowadays? It just seems like an incredible risk to create something that costs so much for essentially the same audience that reads manga (which seems way cheaper and more sustainable). I see that a lot of shortcuts and techniques used to cut costs, but creating animation at the industry nowadays still seems prohibitively expensive, with the preference for traditional animation not really scaling with new tech developments. Not only that but I see a lot of anime that's actually very risky and diverse in subject matter because it's based on manga. I guess there's the guarantee of an audience?

So this is what I understand about the anime buisness:

 

Yes, it is a risk, assumedly the same risk that would come with producing any form of media at a professional level. With anime, I'd have thought that the risk would be higher, as the animation companies don't care for any international audience, and only focus on the internal audience, which you could argue is smaller than the international one. Also, pretty much every anime that isn't shonen (and even then, a large chunk of shonen anime) is shown after 1:00. This is because the general perception of anime in japan is that it's a 'creepy otaku thing', so it wouldn't do well in a 6-10 timeslot, as the audience wouldn't be there to watch a show on an expensive prime-time slot to make it worth it. Also the way anime fans generally watch anime is to record it on their ps3's and watch it the day after. Of course there will be some people who'll watch it when it airs, but they'll pretty much be uni students or NEET's. So from that standpoint, yes, it's risky, as the audience (that they care about) is relatively small.

 

But from my understanding, they don't make their money in the airing of the show. All airing it on TV does is drum up hype, created by the anime otaku and fans that watched it when it was aired. The true money comes from merchandise and DVD's. Anime DVD's sell at around $100 a volume, of which contains 2 episodes of the anime. There'll be extra stuff, of course, and usually the last volume of a series will come with a DVD only OVA. A 13 episode (+ presumably 1 OVA) season will produce 7 DVD/Blu-ray volumes, each at $100 a pop, so a cool $700 for the whole season, which die hard fans will buy. On top of that, there are usually incentives to get the DVD's, like re-mastering, and even more appealing to the fans, uncensoring. Which is why so much anime has ecchi content because it's a garuanteed seller to the small fanbase who want to see 2D tits. Of course, there are other things that get censored, like gore (and in Jojo's case, smoking), which again is probably not because of stringent airing rules, but because they know it's a safe buck when it comes to DVD sales. Even then DVD sales aren't huge compared to the US. Looking at this weeks Animation DVD Ranking, the top spot is unsuprisingly One Piece, and on it's opening week of sales only sold 1,087 copies. In the same chart, My Neighbour Totoro has been in the charts for 26 weeks, and has only sold 24,116 units (I assume that this is some sort of Blu-ray remaster than the actual sales of Totoro).

 

And then there's merchandise, which is something that Japan does very well. From bath salts to figurines to cosplay, the animation studio gets a cut of all of it that's officially licensed, and the licensed goods aren't cheap. Anime shops in Japan stock all kinds of wonderful crap that any fan would want, and it sells well. You can tell which anime isn't doing well by the amount of stock that is still on the shelves. When I last visited Japan, Free! was fucking huge, and there was next to nothing in animate, as it was all gone. Of course, they get more money if they produce an original anime instead of a manga adaptation, as they get a smaller cut. And how could I forget the anime openings and ending songs? The way that anime has songs from bands means that they probably get money from the sales of the single too, as well as a promotional tool for the band.

 

As for the comparison of manga vs anime, of course the anime is going to be the more popular of the two, just like how the TV series of Game of Thrones is more popular than the Books, there is a larger audience due to the medium being easier to digest. Also if watching anime is considered creepy, reading manga is an even bigger faux pas. People generally only read shonen Jump because they're invested in the stories that they started reading when they were a kid. As a result shonen manga sells notably better than any other genre, unless it is a revered series or a break-out success story like Yotsuba or Attack on Titan. Whilst the production costs are cheaper compared to anime, the exposure is less, because the advertising revenue is less, and as books are much cheaper than DVD's (about $10 for a manga volume), the profits from sales are generally less. Manga that becomes anime does cause a huge spike in manga sales, and original anime can also be turned into manga, as well as popular light novels.

 

Of course I'm not an expert and I don't think I'm right in everything, but that's my understanding. Sorry if it's long.

 

If you're interested in how the anime is made, Watch Shiro Bako, which is about exactly that, and is great. Likewise for an insight into manga, Bakuman is both a manga and an anime and is flippin' fantastic.

[Gormongous]

And then there's merchandise, which is something that Japan does very well. From bath salts to figurines to cosplay, the animation studio gets a cut of all of it that's officially licensed, and the licensed goods aren't cheap. Anime shops in Japan stock all kinds of wonderful crap that any fan would want, and it sells well. You can tell which anime isn't doing well by the amount of stock that is still on the shelves. When I last visited Japan, Free! was fucking huge, and there was next to nothing in animate, as it was all gone. Of course, they get more money if they produce an original anime instead of a manga adaptation, as they get a smaller cut. And how could I forget the anime openings and ending songs? The way that anime has songs from bands means that they probably get money from the sales of the single too, as well as a promotional tool for the band.

 

As for the comparison of manga vs anime, of course the anime is going to be the more popular of the two, just like how the TV series of Game of Thrones is more popular than the Books, there is a larger audience due to the medium being easier to digest. Also if watching anime is considered creepy, reading manga is an even bigger faux pas. People generally only read shonen Jump because they're invested in the stories that they started reading when they were a kid. As a result shonen manga sells notably better than any other genre, unless it is a revered series or a break-out success story like Yotsuba or Attack on Titan. Whilst the production costs are cheaper compared to anime, the exposure is less, because the advertising revenue is less, and as books are much cheaper than DVD's (about $10 for a manga volume), the profits from sales are generally less. Manga that becomes anime does cause a huge spike in manga sales, and original anime can also be turned into manga, as well as popular light novels.

 

To build on what you've said, cross-promotion is how companies make money with anime. There are no production companies that aren't part of the media wing of a larger corporation, so the interconnected web between anime, light novel, manga, and live-action film is crucial. Anime airings and to a lesser extent anime Blu-ray sales (although maybe DVDs are an end unto themselves, I'm not sure they have the same crazy price disparity) exist to draw people to the manga or light novel series, where long-term investment and cheaper production costs can turn them into profitable customers.

 

It's serious enough that, if there's no ongoing work on the manga or light novel, no matter its popularity, it probably won't be adapted (or at least further adapted) into an anime because there won't be enough of a "long tail" to make the payoff profitable. Hence there's no new Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya despite having six or seven more novels to adapt, because the writer's taken a hiatus, but there's a new Disappearance of Yuki Nagato-chan spinoff despite a marked lack of enthusiasm even among fans of the franchise, just because it's an ongoing manga with an unknown number of volumes left to go. The best they can hope from a new Haruhi is that every fan of the show goes out and buys the light novels, which are finite, but that's nothing compared to having someone hooked on the spinoff manga, however inferior, for years to come.

[Codicier]

Is anyone else watching the new Ikuhara show, Yuri kuma Arashi?

Utena never really clicked but for some reason his "comeback show" Penguindrum actually worked very for me.

As for this so far it too seems to be working, but I'm not entirely sure how.

Is it the plot? No it's bat shit crazy even by Ikuhara standards.

Is it the characters? Hmmm ok well maybe a bit, there's just enough divergence from their tropey beginnings to suggest that the cultural reference points they are built around are maybe not as immovable as you might imagine.

Is is the MYSTERY!?!! Well no, it is it's intriguing in the way that it interacts with what the characters motivations, but as was pointed out before currently there is just to much up in the air to see more than the faintest of patterns and so far they don't fell particularly compelling ones.

That said it's probably going to be a intresting ride.

Sidenote: I'm thinking of perhaps trying to rewatch Utena, anyone fancy joining me?

[Twig]

I don't know who Ikuhara is, but Yuri Kuma Arashi is on my to-watch list.

 

OH ALSO I forgot to mention I started watching Dennou Coil. I put it on hold for now because I wanna finish some other stuff first, but man it looks nice. It's basically the future of Google Glass, or whatever augmented reality glasses actually make it big first. The only thing I have a hard time getting over is the physical interaction between glasses-wearer and AR objects. How does she pick up this virtual dog like it's a real thing? Ahhh! It's weird. But besides that it's super nice.

[Gormongous]

Is anyone else watching the new Ikuhara show, Yuri kuma Arashi?

Utena never really clicked but for some reason his "comeback show" Penguindrum actually worked very for me.

As for this so far it too seems to be working, but I'm not entirely sure how.

Is it the plot? No it's bat shit crazy even by Ikuhara standards.

Is it the characters? Hmmm ok well maybe a bit, there's just enough divergence from their tropey beginnings to suggest that the cultural reference points they are built around are maybe not as immovable as you might imagine.

Is is the MYSTERY!?!! Well no, it is it's intriguing in the way that it interacts with what the characters motivations, but as was pointed out before currently there is just to much up in the air to see more than the faintest of patterns and so far they don't fell particularly compelling ones.

That said it's probably going to be a intresting ride.

Sidenote: I'm thinking of perhaps trying to rewatch Utena, anyone fancy joining me?

 

I loved Utena and think of it as one of the greatest animes of the nineties. I liked Penguindrum but found it uneven to the point of inchoate by the end. I don't like Yuri Kuma Arashi very much at all. The themes are equal parts obvious and obscure, plus I know nothing about the characters. The deconstructions present in Utena and Penguindrum didn't come at the cost of actual character development, but Ikuhara's growing dependence on highly stylized and frequently repeated sequences to build a sense of elevation and otherness are crowding out what might otherwise be a good anime. We're two episodes into a twelve-episode anime and I still know nothing about these girls except that some are sad and some are bears. How is that a commentary on yuri? It's enormously frustrating for me.

 

I feel like the quality of an original anime production by Ikuhara is inversely proportional to the time he spends working on it. He spent his whole life, thirty-six years, building up to Utena, and then fourteen years until Penguindrum, and now four years for Yuri Kuma Arashi. This is a theory I've pulled out of my ass.

 

I do like the environmental design a lot, though. I think that is one advantage over Utena, which has a rich Rose of Versailles look but can't match the intricacy and depth of the computer-rendered landscapes of Penguindrum and Yuri Kuma Arashi. I will always enjoy watching something by Ikuhara, it's just what the rest of my psyche tends to be doing that makes the experience imperfect.

[Codicier]

I'm assuming this what you say here

 

I loved Utena and think of it as one of the greatest animes of the nineties. I liked Penguindrum but found it uneven to the point of inchoate by the end. I don't like Yuri Kuma Arashi very much at all. 

 

means a small adjustment is needed here?

 

I feel like the quality of an original anime production by Ikuhara is inversely proportional to the time he spends working on it. He spent his whole life, thirty-six years, building up to Utena, and then fourteen years until Penguindrum, and now four years for Yuri Kuma Arashi. 

 

 

anyway onto what you say about the show itself most of which seems eminently true

 

The themes are equal parts obvious and obscure, plus I know nothing about the characters. The deconstructions present in Utena and Penguindrum didn't come at the cost of actual character development, but Ikuhara's growing dependence on highly stylized and frequently repeated sequences to build a sense of elevation and otherness are crowding out what might otherwise be a good anime. We're two episodes into a twelve-episode anime and I still know nothing about these girls except that some are sad and some are bears. How is that a commentary on yuri? It's enormously frustrating for me.

 

I do like the environmental design a lot, though. I think that is one advantage over Utena, which has a rich Rose of Versailles look but can't match the intricacy and depth of the computer-rendered landscapes of Penguindrum and Yuri Kuma Arashi. I will always enjoy watching something by Ikuhara, it's just what the rest of my psyche tends to be doing that makes the experience imperfect.

 

I think the whole obvious/obscure part pretty much sums up the big thing for me so far. So,  I mean ok, wanting to "devour" someone has obvious sexual connotations, licking honey from a lily that is coming out of another girl, Pretty obvious sexual metaphor, but why bears? seriously! why bears!? (because bears like honey? is my best guess atm ).

[Twig]

Yesterday I watched a bunch of shit while I was feeling exceptionally lazy.

 

Assassination Classroom: Definitely dumb, but definitely a good adaptation of the dumb manga, which is entertaining and dumb. Good. I like the voice they gave to Koro Sensei (the monster teacher who's going to destroy the world unless this classroom of kids can assassinate him first). Ahh good.

 

Death Parade: Pretty good first two episodes. I guess the series is gonna focus on the characters running the bar AKA purgatory while also telling stories of the people who come to the bar AKA dead people. Looks real nice. (It's Madhouse, so of course it does.) Was surprisingly dark and not in a shocking "HAHA ISN'T THIS SO DARK" kind of way. I think.

 

Kill la Kill OVA: Haha maaaan that was real fun. What a nice surprise to come back and get an episode like THIS. Yes, yes. Good job Trigger.

 

Tokyo Ghoul √A: First two episodes were um, I dunno. Better than the first two episodes of the first season, I guess, but I don't really understand the main character's motivation at all right now... Maybe I should just drop it, I don't know. coaxmetal keeps telling me the manga's super great in IRC though. I dunno.

 

Yatterman Night: I kept hearing how this is the surprise anime to watch out for this season, and the first episode definitely sold me. Basically, heroes (Yattermans!) who saved the world a long time ago have now, generations later, become evil overlords. Now, descendants of long-ago villains are going to fight the power. It sounds dumb when I write it out, because I'm bad at writing, but there's more nuance to it. Also the main character is a nine year old girl who's decided that enough is enough. It's time to free the world. Yeah okay!

 

For this season, I still need to watch Rolling Girls (I've heard it's really good??) and Yuri Kuma Arashi.

 

...

 

Okay all that aside, there's a new Lupin III coming out during the spring season?! He wears a blue jacket, now. Dang.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah it's being talked about in the Movies/TV thread so I forgot to mention it here, but I did finish Ghost in the Shell: Arise. I liked it a lot. I'm glad it's being further drawn out into a full season. Wonder if they'll be able to keep up the obviously high budget, though. It looks super nice.

[twmac]

So, I've been through the last few pages and I can see some talk about anime that sounds better than what I have been watching recently, my main injection of interest is because I have a few friends who talk about it all the time and recommend stuff to me so when most of it appeared on Netflix I thought I would give it a punt.

 

Gurren Lagan - This was actually pretty good once I managed to get past the utterly dreary female characters all running around in Bikinis. The 'previously on' sections were really entertaining due to the way that main characters would talk you through it and the interlude art was great. It won me over until about halfway through the first season where somethign happens that sucked the life out of the show and then they introduced an extremely annoying female character and I couldn't finish

 

Kill La Kill - Utterly dreadful. I was really enjoying the animation and humour of the first episode and then the character got her costume and I bounced off of it so hard that I didn't finish the third episode. It was a shame as it looked likeit could have been really cool but that costume and the explanation for why it had to be like that just made me gag. They openly acknowledge that it is fanservicey but stil go with it, gross.

 

Sword Art Online - Really strong start (online MMO where people are trapped in it until they finish the game) but imploded after 4 episodes and only got worse after that. Annoyingly perfect main character, predictable secondary characters (guy shows up looks a bit dodgy - surprise he is the bad guy for the episode), and it has scant regard for any of its female characters (Asuna is supposed to be this badass leader of a raiding team but needs guys to do everything for her, including making any decision). I made it to episode 17 and quit.

 

Attack on Titan - Probably the best of the bunch, mainly because it takes on a fairly scary premise and tries to do it justice (casually grinning giants that eat people) and has some great animation in it (the characters use these jet propelled suits to attack the titans and looks pretty rad). The problem is that every character is a cookie cut stereotype (angry protagonist with an inner power! Quiet female sidekick who is cool but holds an inner secret! Cowardly/brave sidekick who rises to the occasion!)  and there are at three filler episodes in the season that could have been summarised in about 30 seconds. I finished that season but will not bother the second.

 

In short, anime seems to be a bit shite.

[Bolegium]

So I just heard about Michiko to Hatchin, and it sounds great (bonus syntheticgerbil and Twig thumbs of approval) and I really want to watch it! I haven't watched any anime in ages, I think the last I saw was The Wind Rises and Kick-Heart.

 

Also all the talk about GiTS in the movie thread has convinced me to give Arise a shot. Even if it's not great, it's still cyberpunk, brain hacking, what is reality, bad ass female lead, cool sounding buzzword, post-human society, cyborg, cyberbrain, cyberpunk-noir, cyberblaaaaargh... wear shades at night Steve "Vape" Gaynor in a trench coat I asked for this.