aaronjer
*****'n Admin


2005 Mar 21 • 5102
1,227 ₧

I guess if you don't like it, you don't like it. I still think it's pure magic, though. Especially when Weda beats up those bank robbers... still makes my heart skip a beat.

SRAW
Rocket Man

2007 Nov 6 • 2525
601 ₧

Since it wasn't obvious enough... I honestly think that most culture is complete bullshit, and that living in Bellevue with millionaire neighbors who work at microsoft has made me realize that
1. I love the US more
2. Atleast the rich parts of the US
3. malaysia + other asian countries completely suck
4. I would want to live in sweden though \o/

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

No, I like it, enough to keep watching, I just think that the straight man trope is starting to bore me. It was the same thing when I was watching Cromartie High School and there was all that background commentary on whether or not anyone was going to point out that Mechazawa is a robot.

buq25

2008 Jul 5 • 583
295 ₧

I'm not really interested in comedy. I mostly watch it because there's not much else. Two of my favourite anime are Phantom Requiem for the Phantom and Kuroshitsuji(Black Butler). Phantom didn't have barely any jokes at all, until later when a new character was introduced. That character is fucking amazing.

Kuroshitsuji's "comedy" comes from having terrible characters interract. There's some actually funny stuff in there, but when a serious anime goes "Lets put our main male character in a dress and try to make him seduce a guy" it's not really a positive thing.

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

Kuroshitsuji is definitely one where the comedy aspect has no traditional straight man; it's really all about the interactions amongst the characters, which makes the eventual payoff that much better, realizing that the characters themselves aren't totally incompetent, they're just bad at their present occupations.

When I'm complaining about straight men in comedy anime, I don't mean to convey that they're universally a bad thing. In FLCL, Naoto is absolutely a straight man, but that has bearing in his character; he's in that awkward part of the teenage years where he's overly concerned about what people think of him, and he thinks that he knows everything about how the worlds works and how people should behave. It's an aspect of his personality, but it isn't the only aspect. I actually think Naoto is one of the most complex characters I've seen in a show given that a) the show is serious and not really serious and b) they rendered him better in six episodes than most shows develop characters in thirteen or twenty-six episodes. It's baffling really. Even his contradictions make sense given what context you have of him.

It's similar in Bakemonogatari. Araragi is the straight man, definitely, but in his case it also makes sense, given that he's the responsible, self-sacrificing, partially immortal one, AND it's tempered by him constantly doing whatever shady perverted thing he can get away with. He enforces some rules and stretches others because he can. He's also dealing with a wide and varied cast of characters, most of which also have moments where they have to be the serious one in their conversations with him (Shinobu, Senjougahara, Hachikuji, and Hanekawa all play that role at various points).

Watching Jungle Guu, at least through the first couple of episodes, Hare's defining characteristic is that he doesn't get Guu and what she's doing usually upsets him while the rest of the cast remains mostly oblivious. There's neither explanation nor variation, so Hare is just there to spell out everything that the audience is already seeing and knows. The reason the show still seems worth watching to me is that everything else that's happening around them, the things inside Guu, the weird shit in the jungle that's maybe a plant and maybe and animal but who knows, that's all still interesting even if the core interactions are predictable.

aaronjer
*****'n Admin


2005 Mar 21 • 5102
1,227 ₧

I prefer to think of Guu as a capricious trickster god. There's never even the slightest explanation as to what she is, but it all makes a lot more sense that way. Anyway, things get really serious sometimes in Jungle Guu, which I think helps balance out the extreme absurdity of every single thing that happens while Guu is around. There's a lot more going on in the show than "People dicking around in the Jungle", it just takes a while for it to start happening.

Stuff like how Weda seems like a totally shiftless, drunken fool of a mother for the comedic aspect of it causing problems for Hare. And then you find out WHY she's an alcoholic, and you're like... this isn't funny anmyore...

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

I LOOK FORWARD TO THINGS WITH ANTICIPATION

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

I'm now in the midst of the episode where Guu is laughing and, despite a weak main character, this show seems to be getting better and better.

buq25

2008 Jul 5 • 583
295 ₧

I watched FLCL. I liked the serious parts. The rest...

Watching Berserk right now. It's really good.

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

I hadn't watched that many anime movies, outside of the stuff Studio Ghibli has put out, so I've decided to rectify that.

I just watched Summer Wars, which broadly deals with an out of control AI that gains too many permissions and tries to blow up the world. Some of the plot points and why things go the way they go are rather irritating and simplistic (Shota is terrrrrrrrible! children are annoying! everyone has these weird connections!), as are certain assumptions that go into the very premise. Others of the plot points are pretty obvious, in that it's very deliberately structured and there are hella Chekhov's guns laying about. But it's pretty as hell, as one might expect from MADHOUSE, I was entertained throughout, and it was paced quite well.

I'd give it about a 7.5/10, worth looking into. the main character shares a voice actor with Dean Venture from The Venture Bros in case you have trouble placing it.

aaronjer
*****'n Admin


2005 Mar 21 • 5102
1,227 ₧

I tend to dislike movies in general, I never feel like it's possible to tell an entire story in ~2 hours. The only movies I usually like are ones that exist in conjunction with an existing on going series, so the movie doesn't have to waste half its time setting up the universe and characters.

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

SOME SHOWS CAN'T TELL A STORY IN 13, 26, OR ANY NUMBER OF OTHER EPISODES

aaronjer
*****'n Admin


2005 Mar 21 • 5102
1,227 ₧

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

aaronjer
*****'n Admin


2005 Mar 21 • 5102
1,227 ₧

If it's not at least 90% as long as Harry Potter's wand I am not interested.

the_cloud_system
polly pushy pants

2008 Aug 1 • 3081
-6 ₧

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

No, I mean this is mostly accurate. Bakemonogatari escapes this somehow despite having something like twelve intro sequences and counting. Outros, while artful, still cliched as fuck. Let's all run around under bright skies and sing about friendship.

Nezumi
Asshole Admin


2005 Mar 27 • 819
175 ₧

Not to necro an old-ass post, but:
http://gunshowcomic.com/170

Anyone watched Attack On Titan? I keep hearing about it.

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

I've been watching it weekly and the corroborating with the manga (which is worse and doesn't develop as naturally somehow!). The show... the characters are a liiiittle flat at the moment, but the plotting and intensity are high-end and characters die constantly. There also have been a few occasions so far where I've thought the show was about to do some standard anime development thing only to throw everyone into the thick of it again. So I approve thus far, some six episodes in.

buq25

2008 Jul 5 • 583
295 ₧

I've watched the first season of Attack on Titan. It starts off great but slowly just becomes more absurd. It's still worth watching though.

And, yeah, they do kill off characters at a rediculous pace. I can't rememeber how many times the show goes "Oh, here's a whole new bunch of people, because we killed off the last batch".

Also, since there's an ongoing season of anime being released, I guess I could do a short explanation and a "review" of the ones I found worth watching. In order of which weekday they are released.

Black Bullet
The world's been fucked by giant monsters. Only solution? Get a bunch of little girls, inject them with poison and operate on them. This makes them able to fight the monsters. The main character is a guy who works with killing these monsters. With him he has his figher loli. These figher lolis have problems in life though, as people are scared of them because they have red eyes. You actually get to see a police execute one of these girls.
The show has really enjoyable characters all around, with few exceptions. Good animations, good story. In my opinion, the best release this season.

Hitsugi no Chaika
A fantasy world, where there currently is global peace. This peace is bad for the main character because he has been trained in nothing but combat. The main character meets a girl who dresses in all white and carries a big coffin. They are then attacked by a unicorn. A pretty terrifying unicorn. They solve the battle by cutting the unicorn in half and cover the entire battlefield with blood. Not for kids.
The coffin girl wants the main character to break into a house and steal a very important item for her. She needs a lot of stuff stolen though, so they continue traveling after.
Amazing characters, the world is brilliant. The story is a bit shit though, but it's still great to watch.

Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san
5 minutes per episode. Girl with "dog" in her name likes cats. Girl with "cat" in her name likes dogs. They act as their respective animal name. Lesbians. Hilarious stuff happens. Amazing characters, barely any story just small stories from their lives.

Blade and Soul
Weapons and tits. Based in a fantasy setting from some video game. A main character that you wouldn't care if she lived or died because she is so boring. The show survives on mostly great animations and decent dialogue between all characters who are not the main character.

Mushishi Zoku Shou
Second season of Mushishi. Mushishi is amazing and the second season is just more of the same.
The main character works as a Mushishi because he works with fixing problems that occur when Mushi are around. Mushi are little living things that most people can't see. They cause very many unexplainable effects to happen, like a boy who got ill with a certain kind of Mushi had snow that never stopped falling around him. He never got warm, and heat hurt him. It's slow, and it's great.

Akuma no Riddle
A bunch of school girls in a school. Except, every single one of them is an assassin except for one girl. The last girl is the target of all the other girls. The main character girl (probably) falls in love with the target girl and instead starts protecting her.
Great story, only one episode so far has left me going "why? what? wat...". Except for the stone cold and boring main character (who sometimes actually react to things) all characters are interesting. I don't like the teacher but that's life.

Mekakucity Actors
Shaft makes an anime. It's good. Bunch of teenage kids have found out they have super powers. The first main character needs to go out of his house for the first time in months to buy a new keyboard, because it would take 2 days for it to get shipped to him if he purchased it online. He gets put in a hostage situation. Stuff happens.
It's great. It's Shaft who animates it, so of course it's brilliant. The story is a bit of a cluster fuck sometimes but they usually untwist the parts that are the hardest to follow.

Brynhildr in the Darkness
A boy meets a strange new girl who starts in his class. He learns that she's a witch and that she has escaped from horrible experiments by the army. He finds out that she needs medication every 24(?) hours or she'll die by having all her blood bleed out of every single pore on her body. More and more witches start stacking up.
The show has great parts, like that the witches just want to save people, or just want to live, while being chased by the army. Then it has the bad parts, which is the humour. There are barely no funny jokes, mostly just the kind of cringe-because-it's-embarrasing kind of humor. For an example, main character used to have a female friend when he was a kid and she had 3 dots on her skin under her arm. So, when the first witch enters his classroom and looks just like his old friend but aged, he starts screaming at her that he knows her. She denies it and he shouts "Show me your armpits". Hilarious.

There's also No Game No Life and Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin which supposedly are great, but I just never got into.

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

THERE'S A SECOND SEASON OF MUSHISHI?

ASHFJDFDSGLHSDRFGHLADSFweoigutry%g owre fdhvnrawlhwdfilhrwyh?G

aaronjer
*****'n Admin


2005 Mar 21 • 5102
1,227 ₧

NNNNGGGGHHH NGGGGGHHHH!!! NNNNNNNGGGGGGHHHHH!!! NNGGH!

NatureJay
SJA: Commander of Ruthless Abuse


2005 Mar 23 • 1871
574 ₧

HLUAGUAALUHUALUGAULUUGHHULAHUAHUOGUOGL




phew


I can see it happening. The show is really walking a tightrope because it needs to have enough deaths to make the violence and circumstances convincing, but if it has too much violence and keeps introducing new characters, then the "this is all that remains of humanity" conceit starts to fall apart a little. That's already a danger by focusing on the military over the commoners. I think that a show could be made alone on them pushing back and trying to figure out what caused this without the entrance of the special titans, which I think are probably going to push the show in a more conspiratorial, "this is all happening because of this" direction.

But yeah, it's got good things going for it. Like the anime adaptation specifically vs. the manga... In the manga they escape from Shiganshina after Wall Maria gets wrecked and then two panels later it's "HERE IS THE TOP TEN OF YOUR GRADUATING CLASS." It's bad. You have a whole lot of characters thrown at you all at once that you know jack all about. The way that the anime handled it by having two episodes devoted to boot camp and easing you into all the personalities under a more natural setup just felt better. I don't know yet though if that was purely an invention of the anime or if the mangaka realized he fucked up and stuff all that in as flashback in a later chapter.

Visually, the world sort of reminds me of Fullmetal Alchemist in some ways, the level of technology and the fact that war is one of the subject matters of the show. But Attack on Titan really seems to succeed in that visceral horror of violence and people faced with the prospect of being eaten alive. Watching the various characters come to terms with that is what seems to make the show work. You see that cute couple in Trost and think "I know the way these shows work and one or both of you will be dead by sundown." And it happens. But then you look at the angles of the shot and what you're able to see and what the animators are deliberately not showing you and it's "Ohhh. You're trying to do CPR... on a torso.... please stop..."


Anyway, I'll probably keep at the slowpace for Attack on Titan (hard, since I have a bad habit of spoiling things for myself on Wikipedia) go through the newer season of Mushishi soon to tide me over until Hanamonogatari comes out mid-August. I may look into some of the other entries but I'm sometimes a bit leery of the really acclaimed shows as they can easily disappoint. Along with aaronjer and I think Nez, I was one of maybe five people that didn't think Madoka was amazing. I appreciated it visually and what it was trying to do, I just don't think that it succeeded.

buq25

2008 Jul 5 • 583
295 ₧

I actually think that they succeded with introducing many characters. I only noticed it because I was watching it with my brother and we're the type of people who keep commenting on everything going on (sorry).


Yeah, it gets strange because of the special titans. Like "Obviously since all of the special titans showed up at the same time, it was planned" and such. It's not a survival show because of this, it's a fighting show. Unfortunately, in my opinion.


I haven't read the manga, but the boot camp episodes are so far my favourite episodes. The first episodes when the world is introduced is slow but interesting, after the boot camp and a bit further on it just turns into a completely different show.


I want to find some "old" anime that I have missed. Other than that, I just go with the current releases, download the first episode of everything and continue watching whatever I find worth watching.
Also, if you want to be infuriated, watch the first 3-4 episodes of Coppelion. The first episode is one of the most intriguing episodes of anything ever and ends with an amazing cliffhanger. Then the rest of the show just kept shitting itself until it died. The End.