Just when i thought arrow to the knee references were painfully painful, we get one in NGNL and i laugh my ass off (next ep preview bit).

This show actually has me literally lol-ing a hell of a lot.

 

It never comes up again after the first episode.

 

a good anime is Gundam wing or any of the other Gundams series

also Inuyasha is a good anime.

Dragon ball Z

that's all i can think of right now

 

I almost posted a veritable essay on how much I'm hating anime 'humour' lately, but scrapped it in favour of the tl;dr version.

Have you guys been turned off a lot of anime by the heavy handed, repetitive slap stick gags? Have they turned you off anime you actually enjoyed in the beginning?

Been watching Beelzebub lately, and I really liked it in the beginning.

Beel shocking a Oga Every. Fucking. Episode is about to get me to drop it though.

Is it just me? Maybe I've just outgrown it as a medium?

I dunno, it's super depressing though...

 

I haven't really noticed it much, but maybe that's just due to the types of shows I normally watch. The only one I can think of that did this was Log Horizon with the "Knee this pervert in the face" gag, but they only did it for the first 3-4 episodes to establish it, then used it sparingly for the rest of the series. That kept it from getting annoying.

 

Yes. Kawaii onii-chans and senseless comedic violence are basically an automatic back button for me nowadays, no matter the premise. It's a shame, because I enjoy the medium, but the number of anime I can actually bring myself to watch is nowhere near what it used to be.

 

Thumbs up for, what I feel, is a concise and accurate appraisal of why some people may be turned off by the Monogatari series. Bonus points for including the show order.

It would be great if it got a dub, but I'm just not sure there's any way to pull that off while maintaining the clever dialog of the original Japanese script.

Some people may also not dig the... 'set design,' but it really makes the show stand out.

I recommend it... and this -possibly SPOILER riddled- music video based on it (the original is at animemusicvideos.org).

Among the series's other problems, this is something that really stood out for me in the original Eureka Seven.

Mainly Holland kicking the shit out of Renton every other episode. Not sure if the scenes being played as Serious Business and not for laughs made it worse or not. It was old the first time it happened.
Another culture, indeed. :facepalm

 

Hmm, what might be a good anime to recommend to someone who enjoyed Monster, Texhnolyze, Planetes and Gankutsuou?

 

Goddamn, that pissed me off. It's probably the only time that kind of thing bothered me. Didn't help when it felt like most of the crew were dicks to him as well at one point or another.

 

Personally, I think the art style is great, so I didn't even consider that some people might not like it, but looking at it objectively, I guess I can understand that.

That was one of two videos that convinced me to give it a second chance after I dropped it the first time, the other being this one (it's just so goddamn catchy).

 

We need an AMV thread. Got my own collection of like, 200 with some absolutely amazing ones. Maybe I'll create one when I have some time...

Anyway, haven't posted here, so some stuff to add. One of my groups of friends have a tradition of going away for 3-4 days and just watching anime and playing games. Some of the ones that stood out were:

Stein's Gate Movie
I didn't even realize this existed until one of my mates brought it along. It's a direct sequel to the series and it's fantastic. You may wonder what is really left in the storyline since the anime did a good job of wrapping it up, but it works well due to being Kurisu centric. It has that amazing mix of comedy (ie, Hyouin Kyouma moments), angst and even romance - each aspect being at the peak level of the series.

It's like, every single word spoke, every single interaction and every single scene has been carefully crafted into something a fan squee's, laughs or looks in awe at. Not a single thing wasted. It's almost like fan service, but I don't want to use that word because it brings to mind bath scenes and panty shots.

If you saw the series, definitely watch the movie. Not a single thing I really feel like critiquing about it.

Madoka Movie 3: Rebellion
Surprised no one has mentioned this yet.

The first two movies are 1:1 version of the series. Literally. Not a single scene skipped. Two by two hours = 4 hours = ~12-13 episodes.

The third movie however is a direct sequel and all new content. It starts off making you go "What the fuck. Is this some retarded fan service thing?" - except it's not. Do not drop it.

Rebellion takes you on a rollercoaster ride with plot twists at every single turn. Just as you feel you're starting to grasp what might be going on, it gives you a complete plot twist. You can't predict anything in this movie. It's refreshing and very, very rare to find in an anime.

The art is ridiculously high quality, and has a ridiculously awesome fight scene (which is abnormal for the series, since they don't really have fight scenes that are meant to be epic. They're usually just bizarre and strange). For those who need some extra encouragement and don't mind some spoilers, here it is (even the title of the video is a spoiler, so yeah. Warning)

Like the Stein's Gate Movie, it's consistently at a standard of the peak of the series, with every single scene and interaction carefully planned out. Fan service is more in the way of character interaction - like some implied SayakaKyouko (hell yes) rather than stupid panty shots or bath scenes.

10/10 This absolutely blew my mind. Even moreso than the series did. Can't recommend this enough. And I wasn't someone who was nearly as hyped about the series as many other people were.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
Something a bit different. This 1-cour series follows a middle school girl and her kid brother as they navigate a Tokyo that has just been hit by a large earthquake.

It's aimed at a wide audience, so isn't too dark or in your face, but it still managed to reduce 4 grown men to tears. It manages to be acceptable for a younger audience, while still being a powerful, emotional story. Loved the choice of characters. They're both young, so they're both somewhat immature and struggling to truly comprehend what is going on. It gives the show a feel that alternates between being almost light to being more heavy.

It's not necessarily something I'd say is a "much watch", but it's definitely a quality anime.



Anyway, as for new season stuff, I'm currently watching:

No Game, No Life - really enjoying this. It doesn't try to have a really in depth world or amazing storyline - it just aims to be a really fun, uplifting and enjoyable anime. And it works. Character choice is great (albeit, I almost feel it'd have been better if Sora was alone - the existence of the sister kinda diminishes his ability and she annoys me).

Baby Steps - It's quite different as far as shounen sport goes. It's very focused on the main character's development and training. So far, very little time has been spent on the actual matches, or on other opponents in general. I'm hoping it does start to build to that point too - the best parts of shounen anime in general is often based on interesting opponents and rivals.

Another thing I like about this is that the girl is actually really good at the sport. In every other shounen sports, you have a girl who's apparently really passionate about the sport - and yet, only wants to be a manager for the team and fangirl. It is sexist as a fuck, and really writes them off as characters completely. Natsu actually is a character in this, and it makes her a hellova lot more interesting. It also seems like there could actually be romance involved too, which you rarely see in shounen sports.

Mahouka Kouko no Rettousei
Meh. Just this season's stereotypical magic-action-harem. Nothing special.

Only thing that has me continuing is that the main character seems like he may have an interesting back story. That's about it.

 

I completely second the Madoka recommendation.

I didn't know about the Stein's gate movie, I'll be checking that out.

 

Rebellion was pretty damn good, up until those last twenty minutes or so (and one particular scene before that which led to that). Seriously, fuck that ending. Madoka Magica's ending was perfect, why do these creators insist on these stupid ideas

Spoiler

hurr let's make Homura the devil guyz

that fuck everything up?

As far as I'm concerned Rebellion's more of a "what if" alternate future. The real ending was in episode 13 (or the second movie, whatever). The art and music were still great (I couldn't believe it when I heard it was passed for an Academy Award nomination over shit like The Croods), and like I said most of the movie before the ending was good.

 

Incidentally I watched Rebellion today. Wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation, it's up there with End of Eva as my favourite anime film.

Spoiler

Because Madoka's ending wasn't perfect. It was only a matter of time before the Incubators tried to find out what has been ruining all their plans. If Homura hadn't done what she did do they would've found out about the law of the cycle and tried to manipulate it.

Of course there is some personal issues there as well, considering the whole thing was kickstarted by Madoka telling Homura that she would never be happy if she left all her friends and family etc. which is exactly what her wish forced her to do.

Arguably I'd say the world Homura created is a lot better and happier, for now, than Madoka's one.

 

The last 20 minutes and the twist of an ending was actually what made me love it. Kinda like End of Eva - it's a completely fuck you of an ending, and it's fantastic.

Spoiler

And it works. The whole series Homura is the one who's sacrificing everything and experiencing the most amount of pain. She just wants one thing - to save Madoka and be her friend as in the first timeline (and probably get into her pants too). The good ending of the series really even robs her of that.

Nonetheless, as always she does what needs to be done. She doesn't lament it and tries to force herself to accept it. She even manages to stomach working with the alternate Kyubey despite her complete hatred of him. Even after she becomes a witch, she still manages to prioritize Madoka over everything else, and basically try to sacrifice herself. Really, she's the paragon of sacrifice in the series.

I find it very poetic that after all that, she finally gives into desire and temptation, and snaps. And when she does the results are world altering.

I don't agree with Meerkats that Homura's world is necessarily better. We know she kept the Incubators around to deal with the "curses" - I interpreted that as she's returned to a world of witches and magical girls. But I could be wrong. The scene with Madoka starting to remember and Homura ruthlessly shutting that down makes it hard to interpret this as a good end. She's turned Madoka into her pet, her bitch in her own world sized prison.

One of my friends actually had an interesting theory. If you go watch the final fight with the Walpurgisnacht after watching Rebellion, you pick up on some things. For instance, there's these little black silhouettes that run around laughing - they kind of remind of those fake little people created by Homura the Witch. It's also covered in gears, which seems to be Homura's thing throughout the series. There's also this giant birdcage that appears.

It's not definitive, but there's this possibility that Homura's world at the end is really the Walpurgisnacht. We're never given any other reason or explanation to its existence. It seems like a complete anomaly as far as witches go. And the irony is that it was what caused all of Homura's pain and suffering in the first place.

Oh and the scene of her observing her world from her throne at the end and then dancing over the tortured body of Kyubey, who looks like it's regretting its very existence is glorious.

 

Spoiler

I know that Homura robbed basically every one of their free will to get where we are but now Mami gets friends, Sayaka and Kyoko get each other and every one get their normal lives back. This series will (can't) have a Happy Ending but I'll take what I can.

I don't think Homura snapped or gave in to anything. In fact Shaft went pretty far to stress that she is still in control. They re recorded 15 minutes worth of dialogue where Homura sounded crazy and extremely emotional to make her monotone and a lot more controlled. I think she did it for Madoka to be happy, rather than a misguided yandere "You'll always be mine" shtick. She does admit at the end that they'll be enemies in the future.

I thought Homura expanded her witches labyrinth to take over the entire universe? How can it be Walpurgisnacht then?

I think she is forcing the incubators to deal with the curses. They are certainly VERY unhappy about something.

 

Oh man, Madoka Magica was one of my favourite Anime series ever.

Honestly it might be my favourite, just for the virtue that there was nothing I hated about about it. Death Note had some amazing parts, but some very average parts too. Lelouch of the Rebellion was similar, though less average parts imo.

Madoka Magica was short, sweet, and kept me engaged the whole way through. Now you tell me there is a sequel movie that's just as good, if not better?!

Off to try find it.

 

Yeah agree with that. So many anime have ridiculously amazing potential, and only really get 50% of the way there. Or have little bits here and there that just reduce it somewhat. Death Note and Code Geass are some of my favourite examples of that.

It's one of the reasons I love Fate Zero so much. It had potential, I loved the concept and it delivered without a single thing I could really critique.


@Meerkats:

Spoiler

I don't mean snapped in a "went completely insane" type thing. I mean she finally gave up on trying to do the right thing and gave into her own wants and desires.

She wanted to be Madoka's savior, and to keep Madoka from being involved with any of the magical girl stuff. Yet, she also recognized that that was not quite what Madoka wanted. Despite that, she decided to cage Madoka, knowing that really, it wasn't something Madoka would have wanted at all. She basically wants Madoka to be her pet, protected and sheltered.

I felt that she was portrayed as someone who basically decided to give up on being the hero who had to keep sacrificing everything she waned and gave into her desires at the expense of everyone else. The fact she openly describes herself as an akuma (devil), and the fact her soul gem went "darker than black" kinda implies it wasn't really done out of overwhelming compassion in her heart.

As for her being the Walpurgisnacht, it's just a theory. But you could argue that the "entire world" she took over, is still just part of her Labyrinth, her cursed world. I think I prefer her taking over the real world proper, but it still seems a bit bizarre that the Walpurgisnacht was never really explained while everything else in the anime was.

 

This is what I like about it as well (and what drew me to the manga). There is a significant amount of build-up, but it's all very realistic and the author really knows his tennis. The matches do start to become more significant though - many of the matches past this point take up 8-10 chapters in the manga. They'll probably be able to animate them more conservatively (anime is a much better medium to display action), but you can definitely expect some matches lasting 2-3 episodes. Not sure how they're going to get as far as they're hinting with the OP though - there's a character in it who doesn't show up until Ch. 139 of the manga, and today's episode got through Ch. 19.

Spoiler

There's definitely a little bit of romance in the manga, and the show seems to be animating the key lead-up scenes for it so far. It's pretty low-key though and basically just gets used for filler chapters in between matches. But honestly, that's ok. It feels like a romance between two fanatical tennis players.

 

I haven't watched anything since Kill la Kill ended. Someone, hit me with a good show to watch on Crunchyroll.