A bit late, but for all your winter 2015 anime discussion needs...



AniChart

 

Nothin' but Jojo.

 

Aldnoah S2? Durara S2?

 

Hated Aldnoah, never really got into Durarara. I'll probably go back and watch Dura eventually though.

EDIT: I'll probably watch Assassination Classroom too. The rest all look meh. Except for Attack on Infinite Stratos but with dragons. That looks absolutely horrible.

 

Meh. =/

Aldnoah.

Can't watch Assassination, cause Funi.

Still haven't watched Durarara season one. Someday.

I guess I'm kinda watching World Break? Generic harem fantasy, but it might have something interesting at some point. Here's hoping.

 

'Tis the season of fluffy, pretty-looking shows. I'm watching Koufuku Graffiti, Rolling Girls, and Junketsu no Maria, which are all visually pretty awesome. Not all that much substance as of yet though.

Also watching Aldnoah. Despite the hate, it's really not that bad of a show. I think it suffers from having Urubochi's name on it and all the associated hype - people were expecting some kind of ground-breaking, genre redefining, deconstructionist-style show in the vein of Madoka, and instead they got a somewhat above-average Mecha. So does it live up to the hype? No. Is it bad? Hardly. The scenery is gorgeous, the cgi is actually pretty well-done, and the story is at least a little interesting.

 

What's wrong with Funi? Their site is still not great but the player works just fine.

I'll quote myself from the 2014 thread.

 

Well as a European the worst thing about Funi is that when they pick a show up, you can say goodbye to any chance of legal streaming outside the US!

 

I pay for Crunchyroll, and I can't quite bring myself to pay for two separate streaming services for anime. It's just kinda annoying.

I might cave in soon, though, I don't know.

 

Ah. Yeah, I was in the same boat. What tipped the scales for me was Funi picking up a lot of shows that I was interested in that I wanted to watch without commercials and at a high quality. What kept me there in the off-seasons was making my monthly fee worth it; their streaming library is huge.

 

I'll just quote myself from 2014 thread.

 

Ok, so pretty much everything is done for the season. I ended up dropping almost all the shows I was watching due to real life sneaking up on me, but I still managed to finish Aldnoah.Zero and Yowamushi Pedal.

AZ was pretty disappointing overall. Over the course of its two seasons, it went from "OMFG, this fantastic!" to "Eh, it's above average." and finally to "Well, that was...stupid..." Steady decline. The number of things that were brought up, then flat out ignored (Slaine's family, anyone?) or just played badly was really frustrating. The ending was a combination of lulz (because of Inaho's interpretation of Aseylum's request for Slaine - I mean, really? It's like the #FuckSlaine crowd took over writing duties) and letdown. It could have been so much more, but it didn't even try.

YowaPedal, on the other hand, is great. It's biggest problem is the pacing - the second season takes 24 episodes to cover two days, for god's sake - but that's less of an issue when you can watch all the episodes back to back. I know that sounds bad, but there's really not much filler - sure, there are tons of flashbacks, but they're all relevant to the plot and for setting up character backstories - and all the episodes are action-packed. If you like sports anime, or even just biking (seriously, the attention to detail is crazy), this is a must-watch IMO.

 

Eh, I felt it was pretty consistent quality from start to end. It certainly didn't fulfill my hopes of building up to a completely epic Gundam type series, but at the same time, as an average action anime, it avoided doing anything irritating or stupid, which in anime is a bit of an achievement in itself. It managed consistency, and that was enough to make it above average in my opinion.

The biggest thing I felt wasn't resolved was pretty much why Inaho was the way he is. From the start he is pretty strange, ridiculously smart and emotionally, a bit strange - especially in comparison to Yuki (his sister). I was imagining he might have some sort of past, but we never see anything like that.

Also finishing up Shigatsu and Durarara X2, but I'm a few episodes behind so can't really comment yet.

That reminds me of another biking anime, Over Drive. It was just a 2-cour anime, of which something like 15 episodes were one race. It was almost like, real time. But it was awesome and well done - never felt bored at all.

I loved the first few eps of YowaPedal, but then found myself dropping it just after their first training trip in season 1. Worth forcing myself to give another chance you think?

 

Hearing great things about Death Parade. Anyone watch it?

 

Saw the first episode, but didn't really watch past there. It was certainly well executed and all that, but I dunno, seems like one of those mean spirited anime that just try to show how terrible people are, in emotionally painful scenes without any sort of happy ending.

Is that about right or does it change?

 

Yup. And it's awesome - definitely one of the best this season. It has a really interesting concept, and a brilliant execution. Each episode kept me glued to the edge of my seat. Personally, I loved it. Definitely recommend checking it out.

It has its darker moments - which comes with the subject matter, really - however it has several feel-good moments near the end. The latter parts of the anime are more about questioning whether the judgement method is really correct - if humans can truly have their entire lives boiled down into "good vs. evil". It seemed to me to have a positive outlook on humanity overall, and really on life in general.

 

What show did you watch? Death Parade is about empathy.

 

Again, I only saw episode 1...

Spoiler

...in which we get to see a newly wed couple get to a play a game involving them causing each other excruciating pain. We get to see all of the groom's insecurities, misinformation and issues come out and turn violent, and at the end of it all, the poor girl is the one who gets sent to hell.

Maybe empathy is a theme in the anime, but if so that episode just tried to explore it by showing us a lack of it. Wasn't sure if it'd be like Jigoku Shoujo, where it just shows more and more stories with similar grim outcomes or not.

Might give it a proper go though.

 

I don't think it was bad exactly - the animation was gorgeous, and the fight scenes were really well-done - it's just that it had so much wasted potential. Overall, I'd call it average. The ending was pretty stupid though, IMO. Martians suiciding into the Deucalion to preserve their "honor," countless death flags being ignored, everyone but Slaine getting a happy ending. I was really disappointed in the last episode.

Definitely another thing that bothered me. We also never really learned much about Aldnoah itself or the circumstances of its discovery. Or how the Martians managed to amass so much power in (apparently) just a generation and a half with virtually no resources. I could go on, but you get the picture. Lots of plot holes.

Once the Inter-High arc starts (second half of S1 and all of S2), it gets pretty exciting. I'd at least recommend trying to finish S1 - if you still don't like the show by the end of the first season, it's not worth watching the second.