Please state all of the anime you want to watch for this new season and why.
Here is a list of the anime that will be appearing this upcoming season (stolen from SA, orz I know but it's the only site that had descriptions and dates):
03/07 St. Seiya The Hades Chapter - Elysion Episode 1 - superheroes
03/14 Bus Gamer - Not an anime about buses; it's supposed to be about business (a fit of Engrish, it would seem). Then again it's apparently not really about business either, it's more like a fighting tournament with corporate secrets as prizes. Based on a short manga that apparently has some sort of cult status.
03/17 Gyagu Manga Biyori 3 - nonstop gags
03/21 Kite Liberator - OVA, sequel to the (apparently very bloody) 1998 OVA "Kite" (it has been released in the US but only in a censored version). Apparently it's about a high school girl who goes around killing people with her alternate "angel of death" personality.
03/24 Ikuze! Gen-san - Seems kinda like a mix of Super Mario and Bob the Builder.
03/25 Kimi ga Nozomu Eien Next Season vol. 2
03/25 .hack//G.U. Trilogy - Even more of this? This one is a CG movie, it seems.
03/26 To Heart 2 Another Days - OVA. I don't think anyone except possibly Moogy actually watches this.
03/28 School Days: Magical Heart Kokoro-chan - Magical girl spinoff OVA of that Nice Boat show, starring Kokoro Katsura (Kotonoha's little sister) as the magical girl.
03/31 Chi's Sweet Home - About a cat
03/31 Hoshi no Umi no Amuri (Amuri in Star Ocean) vol.1 - OVA, airing on TV apparently. Has nothing to do with the Star Ocean series of games; apparently it's something about mermaids. Interestingly, the guy who writes and directs it also directed GaoGaiGar. I wonder what that means.
04/02 Yu-Gi-Ou 5D's - ...
04/02 Lupin III Green vs. Red - OVA about everyone's favorite thief.
04/03 Allison to Lilia (Allison and Lilia) - Madhouse makes an anime adaption of that guy's who wrote Kino's Journey other novel/manga. This one is about a female air force pilot in a fantasy world with 1930's technology and two cultures that have been at war for hundreds of years.
04/03 Kyou Kara Maou! Season 3 - MrVacBob says: "gay".
04/03 Macross Frontier - I think you should have heard of this. See the thread.
04/03 xxxHOLiC Tsugi - Another season of CLAMP characters doing CLAMP-related things.
04/03 To-Love-Ru - Some ecchi harem comedy thing complete with loser guy and girl from another planet. The name is supposed to be a really hilarious pun since the English word "trouble" written with kana would be "to-ra-bu-ru" which, if you drop the "ru", is the same as how you'd write "to love" ("to ra-bu").
04/03 Kure-nai - High school boy swears to protect 7-years old female heir to a powerful corporate syndicate. Allegedly it's kinda like a dark, violent and disturbing version of Hayate the Combat Butler, except the guy isn't a butler and doesn't have any superpowers. Actually scratch that, it's not like Hayate at all.
04/04 The Tower of Druaga ~the Aegis of URUK~ - Gonzo, spearheaded by the Last Exile/FMP S1 director and the author of the Full Metal Panic novels adapts a fantasy game series subtitled "The Recovery of Babylim" (sic).
04/04 Amatsuki - Shounen fantasy following the tried and trusted "guy gets thrown back to historic era, meets warrior girl who saves his life, makes new friends etc. etc." concept.
04/04 Itazura na Kiss - Shoujo drama/comedy thing that follows genius guy and airheaded girl (supported by the guy's slightly deranged mother) over the course of several years.
04/05 Kanokon - Romantic comedy fanservice harem show (read: smut). Guy transfers to new school, meets fox-girl and wolf-girl (voiced by Ayako Kawasumi and Mamiko Noto respectively, what a waste of talent. not because of the furries but because of the horribly generic lovecomedy format).
04/05 Da Capo II Second Season - Since I can't seem get the relationships between all the Da Capo things straight if my life depended on it, I had a fansubber friend who watches this kind of stuff sum it up for me: "Da Capo - Original. Da Capo SS - Da Capo lovely Season to capitalize on the first season. Da Capo II - Based on the second game. Da Capo II SS - Improved Da Capo II to make up for starring the wrong girl in the first season." They sure do like living up to the name of the franchise.
04/05 Kamen no Maid Guy (The Masked Maid Guy) - Comedy show that seems suspiciously like Hayate the Combat Butler, complete with crossdressing and everything. Was the Hayate manga created to poke fun at these things or is it the other way around?
04/05 Blassreiter - Nitro+ and guess who... drumroll ... GONZO cooperate to create another CG-animated mecha (?) show. It looks suspiciously like Dragonauts, except it's got motorcycles instead of dragons. This can't possibly end well. The trailer has some rather funky CG.
continued list:
04/06 Nabari no Ou (The King of Nabari) - High school student gets pulled into a fantasy world full of ninjas with hidden powers.
04/06 Internet Ghost PIPOPA - (apparently some gay Second Life thing)
04/06 Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 - Another season of chess, mechas, Pizza Hut, mind control and badass characters. If you haven't watched the first season yet, you really should. (R2 is not a typo for S2, by the way.)
04/06 Zettai Karen Children (Absolutely Adorable Children) - Light comedy about three 10-year old girls with various superpowers (teleportation, psychokinesis and "psychometry", whatever that means) whom the government tries to use for various military purposes (not very successfully, to the annoyance of their caretaker lieutenant).
04/06 S-A ~Special-A~ - Based on a popular shoujo manga with the same name. The concept reminds me of early Kare Kano; girl sees guy as rival and wants to beat him, guy loves girl but she doesn't realize it.
04/06 Neo Angelique Abyss - Fantasy harem show but in reverse, one girl and a harem of pretty guys instead of moéblobs. A spinoff of this OVA.
04/06 Wagaya no Oinari-sama - Based on a series of romance light novels that revolve around an ancient fox god dedicated to protecting a modern family. Said fox god can apparently switch genders for some reason. The character designs seem oddly familiar.
04/07 Soul Eater - Shounen-ish action show involving shinigami/death gods/death spirits (seems like a hugely popular ingredient lately) and (allegedly) a rather twisted sense of humour.
04/07 Monochrome Factor - Based on a manga (licensed by Tokyopop) about some guy who becomes a "shadow creature" and gains various powers in order to maintain the balance of, uh, something. Some of the staff, including the director, also worked on the (in)famous shounen-ai show Loveless. Given the manga's pretty boy character designs, I'm not sure what conclusions we should draw from that.
04/07 Vampire Knight - Shoujo high school vampire show with the female protagonist being a "guardian" dedicated to upholding the balance between the vampires and the normal humans. Prone to lots of angsty forbidden romance. Based on the manga with the same name (licensed by Viz).
04/07 Fire Ball - some Disney CG thing
04/08 Uchi no San Shimai
04/08 Real Drive Sennou Chousashitsu - From Production I.G.'s department of Serious Cyberpunk Science Fiction Productions (featuring Masamune Shirow), we get... something that seems like a cross between Ghost in the Shell and Serial Experiments Lain (hi MVB). The director has a pretty interesting track record (Zipang, Chevalier d'Eon, You're Under Arrest, Hunter x Hunter, Rurouni Kenshin, other stuff).
04/08 Himitsu Top Secret - Based on a philosophical sci-fi suspense manga that follows a forensics team in a future world where, contrary to the name, nothing is really secret since brain scanning technology allows reading up to five years worth of the scanned person's memories, even if the person in question is dead. Adaption by Madhouse.
04/08 Crystal Blaze (Glass Maiden) - Mandoric says: "The upshot is that it's an attempt at a hard-boiled, allegedly older-targeted detective show set in a near-future fictional East Asian city; the image items, so to speak, are a Smith and Wesson model 29 revolver and an '80s Trans Am. Possibly cool, but probably pure fangirl bait." For some reason the official English title is "Glass Maiden" despite the "Japanese" title being English (but written with kana) in the first place.
04/10 Kaiba - Artfags, this is for you! Madhouse and Masaki Yuasa (the guy responsible for directing things like Mind Game, Kemonozume and Cat Soup) does something that is said to be a "science fiction love story". Be on lookout for the mindfucks.
04/10 Toshokan Sensou (The Library War) - From Production I.G.'s department of productions we get "The Library War", a military science fiction anime about a group of people who fight to stop an organization dedicated to destroying offensive books deemed "harmful", directed by the guy responsible for Sisters of Wellber and airing in the Noitamina timeslot. (what)
04/10 Junjou Romantica - Harem (?) romance show... with only guys.
04/11 Golgo 13 - For those of you who missed it, this is based on a monstrously long (debuted 1968) and very popular adult manga about a badass (the word doesn't really cover it though) assassin. The manga has gratuitous sex, drugs and violence, but it remains to be seen to what extent this will carry over to the TV version.
04/12 Kyouran Kazoku Nikki (Frenzied Family Journal) - ANN says: "Half-human special-ops unit masquerades as a family to save Earth". Has at least one catgirl; apparently it's a comedy show and not action.
04/12 Nijuu-Mensou no Musume (The daughter of 20-faces) - Bones does an anime adaption of a manga about a female thief (voiced by Aya Hirano). Judging from the trailer, it seems to have lots of potential for gratuitous French. The name of the show (and the manga) literally means "daughter of 20-faces" where 20-faces is "The Fiend with 20 Faces", who apparently is a famous character from a series of (mostly unrelated but very popular) Japanese suspense novels. (update: I have bolded this on the insistence of RH.)
Golgo 13 - seems like it will be awesome, it's a classic manga so as long as it's done well it should be good
Himitsu Top Secret - good storyline/plot idea might end up just being poorly done though
Real Drive - SHIROW? yeaahh━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━!!!!! Lain + GITS this cannot be defeated. I can barely contain my excitement.
Druaga - for some reason this really interests me, RPG type stories have potential in anime and I really like Last Exile so hopefully this will turn out good
(｀･ω･´) This season is gonna be great guys let's all watch some shows together!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2MuSalDWI8A
Promo for REAL DRIVE
Kure-nai. And Macross F, I guess, but I'll probably just watch the first episodes for hot nyan action.
Ni hao wo nyan~
yall know your boy's watchin junjou romantica
I'm way behind on my previous two seasons already.
>>8
I am always at least one season late, just so I know that every episode has good subs.
I am sure everyone can relate to this frequent scenario: a slow and high-quality but easily trolled group is the only one taking a show → threatens to drop → is trolled to death → drops → drama → nobody dares to touch the series to avoid drama → 6 month later, some guy speed-subs the remaining episodes babelfish-style, thereby destroying all the remaining incentive for high quality subs → the show is never licensed.
>>9
It's interesting though, this season Druaga is going to be instantly released with great subs by Gonzo themselves. It's really cool actually.
I don't watch much anime :(
Based on the first episode, Kanokon is so formulaic that I wonder whether a central pre-emptive plot twist will save it. Making the main character an airhead type (c.f. Mutsumi from Love Hina) cannot be an idea that carries very far, and the shotacon overtones give me creeps.
I like the tsundere character though. So... Ayako's subs for episode two?
None, as usual
>>14
Kanokon is pretty sweet exactly for the reasons that annoy you or creep you out. It could have stopped right after the first episode and it would have been satisfying. None of the "let's just throw too many girls then maintain the status quo for a whole season" thing that makes the formula so bland.
But I wish there were more good stuff this season so I could flaunt how much of a refined anime connoisseur I am instead of talking about this.
>>16
Druaga isn't bad if you like RPGs and I have hopes for RD although I have yet to watch it.
All good stuff is cancelled until the second season of Haruhi. That's just the way it is.
I only read manga.
>>16
So you agree then: Kanokon would be improved by the addition of a few dickgirls.
Watching all of macross, rewatching shinobuden, and got roped into Zettai Karen Children for the psychic lolis.
>>24
I started watching Macross F today myself. It's actually really good.
Holy shit Guin Saga is awesome it's like I'm 10 years old again and these japanese cartoons really are amazing oh god that leopard dude is such a badass.
Necroposting in a thread that would have deserved better. Didn't you guys enjoy anything last year?
>>26
I think we can use this as a make shift thread for the new season. HOLY SHIT GUIN SAGA IS REALLY AWESOME. YEAHHHH
Also DRAGONBALL KAI. Very awesome to relive my childhood Dragonball Z experience. East of Eden seems good too. The characters are incredibly real which is unusual and the animation is nice.
I will be rewatching Kare Kano. Shit is timeless.
I'm watching Mazinger Z because it's fucking manly.
I don't watch anime very often, but this "Real Drive" looks pretty cool. I loved Lain. I will probably investigate!
>>30
Let me know how it is. I loved Lain too, but I didn't ever get past the first two or so episodes of Real Drive.
>>31
I just hope they have an alluring aesthetic. I feel like that's what makes a good show. Lane was so creepy!
>>32
Hey, I'm all for aesthetic too. I love that creepy/eerie/technological feel that was present throughout Lain. I also liked Texhnolyze even though it wasn't that good in terms of plot etc. It just had a good aesthetic.
2008 was quite shit. But that didn't prevent me from watching a lot of that shit. Some were kinda good too!
Kaiba was nice. An easy to follow mindfuck anime with a great premise - memories as items independant of their bodies. But I don't get how all the artsy types could honestly pretend it looks awesome, if it succeeds that's despite, not because of, looking like a 50's Soviet cartoon.
I liked Michiko e Hatchin too but the whole thing didn't go anywhere. It's one of those shows where you can skip all the middle eps and not miss any of the story.
Rideback could have been awesome if it had been slightly more stupid. You had good characters and absolutely awesome mechas. They had to completely waste its potential by making the story about 12-eps-anime-quality politics (Global government vs. terrorists, wheee!) instead of racing and/or fighting with the ridebacks - they don't even ride them in half the episodes!
And I have no idea how to explain why I really, really liked Kuroshitsuji. It's some obvious yaoi-bait with too much episodes and sub-par writing (but a really interesting pair of main characters).
Right now, Eden of the East is intriguing. Probably gonna be one of the best things this season. I hate the op though. Looks like an AMV directed by some random "graphic designer" who makes wallpapers on deviantart.
>>33
Extending that aesthetic to the technology ruined Lain for me. Anything that's displayed on a screen looked laughable. And the authors really knew their stuff, they totally had what it takes to make it look naturalistic instead of having that stereotypical 90's hi-tech aesthetic; they just chose not to.
In conclusion I just talked about naturalism in anime GUI, I am so full of shit.
>>36
Personally, I really like stereotypical 90's hi-tech aesthetic. I wish green wire frame holograms were a reality of the future. Unrealistic? Yes. Awesome? Of course.
Also, I think the writers were trying to go for something different. This is the Wired not the internet we are talking about.
At the possibly sarcastic request of >>35 I'll bump this thread every three months!
I still don't know how I felt about Eden of the East. They managed to do an ending that actually gives some sense of closure, yet makes no real sense and is just a setup for a sequel. At least they were nice enough to advertise it right from the ED.
Guess I'll watch the movie, understand the implications of the last minute of the last ep, not understand the last minute of the movie, and not know how I felt about that movie. That process will repeat with the second movie.
The only subber keeping up with Guin Saga is frong, a one-man-effort, yet that one man manages to recapture perfectly the experience of getting a team of unruly kids seated in front, back, left, and right of you, ruining your time at the movie theater; he achieves this feat through a masterful usage of TL notes and comments regarding "lulz" and the like.
Great show by the way. I'll remind you to start watching it in 6 months!
Haruhi 2009 annoys me to no end. It's a great story with great characters and all that, but the whole marketing phenomenon and the whole rereleasing the exact same thing in 720p with new episodes, that's kind of a dick move. And that "new" summer vacation episode? What was the point? Absolutely nothing happened. You know, the series was all over the place, successfully switching genres almost every episode, doing comedy, mystery, drama, romance, sports, school life, adventure, etc. But that new episode could only be described as "none of the above, it's a bunch of kids doing typical summer vacation stuff".
Maybe I should wait until 2012 for the rererelease. Now 1080p with 36 episodes (including 9,5 new ones)!!
Also, I enjoyed some dumb moe moe garbage this season (I strongly recommend Saki with strong alcohol), but somehow I managed to avoid K-on. Maybe it felt too much like Haruhi season 3.
And what was the deal with Queen's blade? When you do soft porn, the characters are supposed to look good.
This summer might actually be better that the last season! It's weird, I thought Japanese cartoons could only go downhill from there.
Canaan looks promising. There's some cool-looking ladies in there, so even if it makes no sense, at least it will be a pretty slideshow. (At worst it will be kind of how I remember Madlax, a show about city lights set to Kajiura's music, with some gunfights and death scenes happening sometimes for whatever reason.)
Spice and Wolf 2 might be good. I guess it's time to marathon the first season, which I've probably downloaded then never watched. I'll be totally excited about it if I find the first season to have been good, which I hear it wasn't really. Oh well.
Needless look like it could be some bullshit-free and story-free generic fighting anime. I hope I'm right, but unfortunately reading the summary makes me think it might be DEEP instead.
I have no idea what Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 will be about, since I don't think they can just show mayhem and chaos for however many episodes it's gonna run. Depending on what's it's eventually gonna be about, it might be really good.
Bakemonogatari is a story about SHAFT. It also has vampires, and for some reason I attempt to watch anything with vampires. I even watched Karin and two episodes of Rosario!
Princess lover is a story about girls. It also has princesses, and for some reason I attempt to watch anything with princesses. I... well, no, actually, fuck that. Even I have standards.
Finally, I hear I'm supposed to care about Umineko, but I'll probably end up caring about it as much as Higurashi, which is not at all, wondering what the fuss is all about while I stubbornly refused for no good reason to take the time to watch a few episodes.
So in conclusion, I guess it sucks to grow up.
I am watching all of Gintama before anything else.
I'll certainly watch SZS and Spice&Wolf because I liked the previous season(s).
I was really looking forward to Bakemonogatari, but the way all the promotional stuff so far has made it look really generic, shown no hint of the fact a big part of it is fast paced comedy, and turned a middle aged tramp into a cool looking young guy tells me I might not like the direction it's been taken in. I hope they're just trolling...
I also want to watch Taishou Baseball Girls, because although I don't have any interest in the baseball I have far more than enough interest in the other two words in the title to make up for that.
Well, the last season bored me as much as the previous ones.
First, fuck Haruhi. I loved the original series, but fuck it. If you somehow didn't hear about the whole "endless eight" fiasco, they decided to re-animate the exact same episode eight time, to do a sort of groundhog day that is supposed to have happened about 15000 times - without any change in storyline at all in 6 of those episodes, and a retarded conclusion. That's stupid, as evidenced by hardcore anime fans calling it avant-garde.
They had some very strong material, despite having forced it into the moé moé harem format, but the numerous douchebag marketing moves they pulled with the whole Haruhi phenomenon were way too much.
At the end, the Haruhi experience didn't feel like a show worth watching, but like a breaching experiment meant to determine whether the average otaku can take even more abuse than it was previously believed. I bet they found a satisfactory answer to this question.
I liked bakemonogatari, but it was more despite than because of the Shaft treatment. I'd probably have loved it if I was not already way much more familiar with Shinbou's output this decade than it is reasonable to be. Their "style" really worked well in this show - but obviously only by accident, because every damn show they make uses the exact same collection of party tricks in lieu of coherent artistic direction.
Last time I said I still had to watch Spice and Wolf 1. I did and liked. The second season, of which I only watched the first arc of about 6 episodes, was pretty nice too, especially since they didn't decide to magically reset the characters' relationship just so they could do more of the same.
There's something magical, and almost unnatural, in seeing that Japan can still manage to animate romance in the 21st century without feeling obligated to add four additional main female characters.
The three episodes of Canaan I endured were way dumber than I feared, but not dumb enough to keep me interested.
Needless, now, this one was dumb enough. My favorite of the last season actually, a comedy playing generic shonen clichés straight, that's almost what I hoped it'd be. I didn't hope half-naked girls would show up all the time, but it doesn't exactly gets in the way of storytelling as there was none.
I still have a few things to watch from summer. I'll definitely have the time to catch up, because I find the new season quiet bland. (I try to learn as little as possible about the shows before watching them, so I'll probably say stupid things, like I did in my previous harangues.)
I've watched the first episode of Darker than Black 2. Now I've misplaced it. I know I can punch.
I did not really love (or understand, or remember) the first season, but the new one certainly started in a less than exciting way. Official illustrations make me hope the new female character will eventually kick a sufficient amount of butts once she gets over whatever tragedy will finish to unfold in the next episode, so it's OK.
I also watched the first episode of Kiddy Gwhatever. Oh god. The first season, Kiddy Grade, was the incarnation of watchable. Éclair was cute enough to keep me watching the 10 or so episodes it takes before the real story starts, and after that it was a decent sci-fi cruise of appropriateness.
So to start the new season, they make the smart move of "killing" off the previous main characters, then introducing a new pair.
15 cheaply-animated minutes are spent showcasing how dumb, I mean moé, the new heroine is, with many jokes regarding skirt length, bloomers, panties, and not wearing panties. There's also a tranny. Then a few action scenes. I think they were pretty well animated but I no longer cared at this point.
Trapeze sure was pretentious. And also good. Looked more like a live-action movie than animation at times, but it didn't feel like it was done to save budget. I tend to like this sort of bizarre shows even if I end up understanding less than a half of all there is to understand and am too lazy to read the explanations and bullshit speculations from those who put in the ten repeated viewings required. But being a show about psychiatry, it's not like making sense would be a selling point.
I have no idea what Aoi Bungaku is gonna be all about but I have the feeling it will both be worth a watch and never subbed.
Looks like they are animating the Romance of the Three Kingdoms again, but this time they made the daring choice of making most of the cast male! I fear this choice will prove too edgy to convince subbers to do their subbing thing on a 52-eps epic.
Finally,
∧＿∧ ／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
（ ´∀｀） ＜ Kotatsu Neko.
／ | ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
/ .|
/ "⌒ヽ |.ｲ |
＿＿ | .ノ | || |＿＿
. ノく＿＿つ∪∪ ＼
＿（（＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿_＼
￣￣ヽつ￣￣￣￣￣￣ | |￣
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿__| |
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| |
So, VIPPERS, did you watch some of the Japanese cartoons that aired in the last few months? Do you loathe them as much as I do?
>I have no idea what Aoi Bungaku is gonna be all about
It's adaptations of literary classics (I guess you knew that much). The first part is No Longer Human over four episodes, and as of the first episode it has a fairly interesting and appropriate, if not always successful, style, but too many changes to the story for my taste. It was made simpler and had a little sex and action added in, I guess to attract people who wouldn't normally be interested. Maybe that is the point of the series, out of the six stories to be adapted five of them I know are often taught at high school. I'm going to keep watching simply because the main character's voice is absolutely perfect but I don't know if I'll bother once this part is over.
>Do you loathe them as much as I do?
I only finished two shows, Aoi Hana and Bakemonogatari, last seasons, and I nearly dropped Bakemonogatari part way through and probably would have if I didn't understand that anime gets better again at the end of the series. This season I've only bothered to start watching two shows and I doubt I'll finish one of them.
I'm not sure if I'm losing interest in anime or if most of it really is that much shittier recently, but I watched Macross Frontier a few weeks ago and loved it for the same reasons I loved anime when I first started watching it, so I'll go with the second option.
I watched Shin Mazinger Shougeki Z Hen. It is superior to whatever else was airing at the time. Although I did not watch those things I do not need to in order to know this. Because it is pretty much one of the best Japanese cartoons ever created. Except for that whole not having an animation budget thing. That causes problems occasionally.
I never bother with the current season; I generally wait until the next season starts and grab a batch torrent for last season's shows.
You should check out the Blu-Ray release. It looks much improved.
Time for a bump!
My favorite this season was without contest Aoi Bungaku. Or I should say my favorites, each classic book they adapted was handled so differently they all felt like different mini-series. I did not find that the latter ones were as good as the first, No Longer Human, but that's only because the first one set the bar really high.
Still, if I hadn't been told what they animated are considered Great Japanese Novels, I would never had guessed.
So that made me curious: did they handpick books that would make fine anime, or did they totally gut the books to make them work as anime?
Since I'll never read these books, I'll take the safe guess, and preventively condemn them immoral otaku for desecrating monuments of literature in the name of capitalism.
I'd also enjoy watching another season of that.
Trapeze was really pretentious, filled with gratuitous "so random XD" trippy visuals, and every episode followed the exact same formula.
Seriously, every episode was the same.
Local male exhibits symptoms of the crazies, go see plushie shrink, gratuitous 3d injection fetish scene, gratuitous animal head, character development and brutal therapy, signs or remission, see you next week, repeat 8 times before they start tweaking the formula for the last episodes, the end.
So yeah, I really loved Trapeze. If you wanna argue with that I will proceed to tell you why Utena is one of my favorite shows.
The 2nd season of Darker than Black made no sense to me and had a terrible cliché ending.
Like the first, actually, so in a sense it didn't tarnish its legacy!
It was entertaining, but I prefer shows that do not expect you to take notes or buy reference materials. I already find myself hitting gamefaqs too often, I'd rather not need a strategy guide to figure out the basic plot of my cartoons.
Regarding the usual sex-free pornos I really should know better than to watch: I don't understand what Sora no Otoshimono is trying to do - besides selling heaps of character songs.
You feel like the team behind it really believe in their project, they've got some pretty good cash to burn, but they just can't hide how weak their standard "harem of sex slaves the main character won't fuck" original manga material is. Their horrible way of blending the comedy bits and the serious parts really makes it a really painful watch, but a special kind of painful I had never experienced this acutely.
I mean in the first episode, the dumb robot girl kills all humans and the main character drives her to attempt suicide except lol j/k the robot girl also has the reset button power. Or how the main character is at the very real risk of being beheaded by yakuza or being shot with a gun by his childhood friend, and in both case it's entirely supposed to be a comedy situation. I can't even begin to understand that. Kinda neat that Glorious Nippon can still cause me new culture shocks.
So, for the winter.
I'll have to watch Dance in the Vampire Bund, because vampires, and Shaft. Yeah.
I eagerly await a bitter disappointment from Katanagatari, Ookamikakushi, and Durara!!.
Ok, VIPPERs, report on anime you've endured or plan to!
>>49
I got the impression that most of the stuff in Trapeze was done more because it's entertaining than to be clever or make a point and that the show generally didn't take itself overly seriously, is that what you mean?
I had this argument with the only person (both online and off) I talk to about anime; he thought it was trying to make a point and be deep about psychology and used "lol random" elements to try and make up for a lack of anything meaningful, and dismissed it as pretentious, whereas I thought it was trying to entertain its viewers for 25 minutes and maybe have an optimistic message at the end, and mostly enjoyed it and did not find it especially pretentious.
This season I'm planning to watch Ookamikakushi for Fuchigami Mai and will probably drop it, and something else I've forgotten, which is not a good sign. Also Katanagatari, because despite the books not being so great one long episode a month is kinda cool - although this is the same reason I bothered with the books, and I know how that turned out. I probably wouldn't watch anything but I feel like I have to to be legitimately interested in voice actresses.
Yeah, I also feel that their plan was to use a lot of gratuitous weird stuff to make a compelling artistic direction that people would love or hate and talk about. But in general, I feel that once a certain bizarreness threshold is reached in anime, trying to understand it just goes against enjoying the experience.
This was the first season I have watched since I swore that I was through in 06.
Bakemonogatari amazed me till I watched some of their other work and became a little disillusioned. Still an interesting series, but once you see through a magicians tricks you can never go back.
Spice and Wolf was good. Not great, not over the top, but definitely not shitty. Soon as I watched the second episode I refused to watch any further till I tracked down the first season.
Since very little airing this season interests me, I think I will try to watch all Cobra material, from the original series up to the new one. Does this sound like a plan?
K-On! was surprisingly good and typically I don't like moe anime. It was part ridiculous and part actually entertaining. I always imagine that as they made the series they were thinking
"Okay, so what kind of girls do otaku like?"
"Well you know, loli, rich young polite girls, sometimes silly ones, tsundere, and most of all cute"
"OKAY BLACK HAIRED TSUNDERE GIRL WHO IS SCARED OF THINGS BUT SORT OF ACTS COOL AND TOUGH, RICH GIRL WHO IS NICE AND SOMEWHAT QUIET, LOUD OBNOXIOUS GIRL JUST IN CASE AND A STUPID GIRL WHO IS CUTE IN A DUMB WAY. NOW JUST THROW IN THREE SCENES OF THE BLACK HAIRED GIRL HAVING SOMETHING EMBARRASSING HAPPENING TO HER AND WE'VE GOT OURSELVES A SHOW."
Then halfway through they were browsing 2channel:
"SIR IT APPEARS THAT WOTAKU LIKE SMALL REALLY TSUNDERE LOLI-TYPE GIRLS"
"SHIT, WE DON'T HAVE ANY OF THOSE, PEOPLE LIKE MIO SO LETS MAKE A TINY MIO THAT'S REALLY REALLY TSUNDERE AND LOLI."
All the while hundreds of NEETs are watching saying "Marvelous"
>>54
I must say, you have a peculiar way of communicating your enthusiasm.
>>54
I got a similar impression about how it was made. But for whatever reason I couldn't really connect with any of the characters. Not even a minor character. They just seemed too function-only and not really human...I guess I was expecting more than that.
>They just seemed too function-only and not really human
Yes, if I wanted to explain moe characters work that's pretty much how I'd do it. I guess you don't watch this kind of show normally, if you were expecting more?
>>57
Sure, but generally there's at least a few characters I find myself relating with, even if only a bit. Just not this time around.
I recently watched Nodame Cantabile and it was good. I guess Josei is pretty respectable!
I downloaded Speedgrapher a week ago but I haven't had a chance to watch any of it yet...
For anyone looking to try some stuff out this season, So Ra No Wo To is highly recommended. It might be moe stuff but it's actually not that stupid!
Reviving this thread for the new spring season.
List of shows:
http://img.secretareaofvipquality.net/src/1266394223607.jpg
This new season looks incredibly promising. I'll be watching:
Senko no Night Raid - seems interesting, animation looks good
Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei - Yuasa is usually a safe bet, Kaiba was wonderfully atmospheric and beautiful, Kemonozume was pretty good but not as great. And his movies are good. I'm curious what he'll do with a more realistic storyline
Gundam Unicorn - I cannot fucking wait for this shit. Amazing animation, awesome gundam designs, seemingly good storyline. Fuck yeah
K-on season 2 - Because I'm a faggot
>>62
A few years ago we would have called that average. I'll end up checking out a few eps of ten of them, but will probably be disappointed by most of them.
I'm curious about the international collaborations. At this point I'm way cool with homoerotic masked American freaks in my Japanese cartoons, anything that will make these shows seem fresh and creative again.
On the topic of masked freaks, Arakawa sure looks intriguing, too bad Shaft can't invent new directing gimmicks fast enough to keep up with all the shows they're powerpointing.
And on the topic of homoeroticism, Uragiri sure looks homoerotic, which, statistically speaking, improves its chances of being good (no homo (Hideyoshi doesn't count)).
>>61
Just how much Sora no Woto improves after the first episode? People said they got some Aria vibes from it, but all I preceived were moé soliders with scary faces. The most impressive part of it, actually, was their not screwing up the french parts, usually it takes way much more damage than english.
>>63
Really? There hasn't been a recent season (past four years) with more than four shows I'm mildly interested in.
>>64
That's what I meant. If we were 10 years ago, such a chart would not be "incredibly promising", just normal.
Can everyone share their favorite anime scenes (in general, not just this season)?
As for me, it's probably the dog fight in Macross Plus. Everything about it is fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLLcalrDaxE
>>66
As silly as Evangelion is, this scene has always had a spot in my heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiT0HlvLaoc
>>66
The you-know-which-one-if-you-have-seen-it scene from the Utena movie.
Before watching, know that it makes no sense without context.
But to be fair, it makes no sense with context either.
Here it is, but I encourage people not to watch it if they think there is even a remote chance they might watch the movie one day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTqHpuPX-bs
Mostly because the very fact some guy managed to bullshit his way into getting this scene into theaters commands respect. (He's quite proud of just how full of shit his wonderful movie is in the director's commentary, too.)
I know you asked for stuff not from this season, but something very recent that has sky rocketed itself into my top 10 is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiHdzT7vWyc
I never liked Fullmetal Alchemist, in truth I hated it and thought it was way over rated, but when I heard that they were redoing it I thought I'd give Brotherhood a chance. I'm glad I did because I've really come to like it, and this scene is just beautiful. He finally, finally gets to see Al's body and then he punchs open the gate to tell him he WILL come back for him and then the music starts early(Awesome music, btw) and I had tears in my eyes, VIPPERS.
>>69
What I like most about this scene is how angry you can make some people with various interpretations along the car=dick lines.
Also the fact that despite at least one interpretation it it being extremely obvious you still get people talking about it (and not just exaggerating for fun) like it's one of the most incomprehensible things in anime.
I'm not really sure what my all time favorite anime scene ever is, but it's probably Macross related. Maybe the final battle in Do You Remember Love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SknedFYCZZA
http://tokyotosho.info/details.php?id=291102
GUNDAM UNICORN IS OUT
>>72
Holy shit, this is possibly one of the best Gundam series ever. I cannot believe how good this is. I'm actually satisfied with a new Gundam series for once. Highly recommended for everyone.
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm327700
This video is the best of all worlds, rockets everywhere, that guy who does the awesome music for Satoshi Kon and Berserk. Shoot rockets everywhere Macross Plus style
