So, Anime You Like Lately

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:06 am

A friend and I have been making our way through Sailor Moon. I'd hardly seen anything but a few episodes on YTV, so the high level of competence shown by the Dark Kingdom was a genuine surprise to me. Other than the time Queen Beryl threw out valuable intelligence just to punish a subordinate, they've actually worked to achieve their strategic goals, and each episode clearly establishes where the current general is on a scale of "hot new thing" to "failed me for the last time." Much better than the simple monster of the week plot I expected. I'm also a little surprised by how long it's taken to meet the other Sailor Scouts. I just finished episode 24 (which would have had much more impact without spoilers in the title), and we still only have Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, and Sailor Mars. I just hope Usagi gets a little more character development. She's much better in combat than she was in the first episode, but sometimes her idiocy is just too much. It's always funny when she has to be the tiebreaker between Ami and Rei because her solutions come completely out of the left field, but you can only take that joke so far.

I've also been watching Senran Kagura. The characters are somewhat stereotypical, but the writers took the time to mix them up a bit. It's also nice that the rival team isn't just Light Ninja * (-1). While both teams as a whole have similar dynamics the distribution of traits is quite varied between teams. The only thing that's really bothered me so far outside the occasional logic fail (shirt explodes -> bra appears...) is Kiriyama-sensei's persistent incompetence. Intruder alarm went off? Better take the secret scroll out of its hiding place to make sure it's still there!

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:20 am

rampaging-poet wrote:I just finished episode 24 (which would have had much more impact without spoilers in the title), and we still only have Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, and Sailor Mars.

Originally, it was only actually going to be those three. Makoto and Minako come in about halfway, three quarters of the way through the first season. The Outer Senshi arrive in the third season (Sailor Moon S), and the second season (Sailor Moon R - no, that's not R-Rated) is actually two separate story arcs bolted together, so you could be forgiven for thinking the second half of season two is season three.

I just hope Usagi gets a little more character development.

She does, but... pretty slowly. There's something shocking that happens late in the series that really starts her "growing up" bit... and she then backtracks some amount in Season R. Hell, even in Stars (season 5) she still has plenty of "That's Usagi" traits.

I've also been watching Senran Kagura. The characters are somewhat stereotypical, but the writers took the time to mix them up a bit. It's also nice that the rival team isn't just Light Ninja * (-1).

Yeah, I was going to post about this. They've gone into the backgrounds of Team Good Guys (TM), so now they're going into Team Bad Guys (TM). Sure, the instructor might be lying her face off and making up those stories to make them sound sympathetic, but it's doubtful. You could see decent reasons for picking Dark School - and if their "we accept everyone, but you have to prove you're skilled" thing is true (contrasted with Light's "we'll take on five students, and they have to be from special families" - again if she's telling the truth) then that's one aspect in which they are better people.

And it looks like SUPER NINJA is leading the Light School in specifically to take out the boss of Dark School, whether for a double-double-cross-backstab "Now I'm the head honcho!" or because she doesn't like what he's doing or it was her secret mission all along.

But their light-reflection effects are weird. It does the thing with light spots on skin to show they're smooth and shiny, but it looks like giant pimples.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:40 am

Yeah, SUPER NINJA's motives are somewhat unclear at the moment. I guess we'll see. As for the two teams, I'm actually regretting assuming that Light and Dark were purely euphemisms for Good and Evil when describing the series to my friends. They aren't, it's just that the Light and Dark factions chose different parts of the ideal ninja to strive for. That seems to be the theme the series is building towards - the two sides really aren't that different.

I hadn't really noticed the reflection effects much (other than Hibari's + eyes that you pointed out). The only animation thing I've been at all concerned about was the logic fail in my post above, where the girl in the unbuttoned shirt clearly wasn't wearing anything underneath until the exact moment her shirt exploded. Their appropriation of English terms for ninja training was highly amusing though (Hiking! Theme Park!). Also, my current favourite quote is "You're just a bear, did you really think you could stop me?"

By the way, I'd never have known this series existed if you hadn't mentioned it a page or two back. Thanks!

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 10:19 am

@Sailor Moon:
Yeah, you only see ammounts of growing up in Usagi when people start getting killed off.
As for it being slow:
Don't forget, that is one monster of a series.
250 Episodes + 4 Movies.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 2:15 am

Also the creator is trying to release a new Sailor Moon series this year to update it for its old and new fandom. It really was always targeted at teen girls, though boys seemed to watch it more.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 5:59 am

There's a new series out that feels a lot like the discussions we have on less-terrible-cthulhutethesque-game's High School setting

http://www.mangahere.com/manga/biorg_trinity/c001/

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:37 am

Watched Episodes 17,18,19 of Robotics Notes:
Whaat aa tweest! o.O

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 3:29 pm

Stahlseele wrote:As for it being slow:
Don't forget, that is one monster of a series.
250 Episodes + 4 Movies.

That's pretty par for the course, as far as anime go: Japanese storytelling tends to often be on the slow side, and anime often take several episodes to convey one story (Dragonball Z was notorious for this: The fight with Freeza alone took up two whole seasons).

American and most other Western-style storytelling, meanwhile, is realitively fast-paced: Stories are told and resolved in one episode, two or three at the most. Very rarely does a single story go one for more than three episodes.

A good example of this is with Transformers: The original American cartoon was very episodic, and the longest stories only lasted three episodes. By contrast, the Japanese TF cartoons (Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, and Victory) would often take four to five, or even more, episodes to tell one story.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:06 pm

Lots of anime is based on manga.
Once the Anime catches up to the manga, you only have a few options. To give some examples:
Anime like DBZ had many scenes extended.
With Full Metal Alchemist the animators just wrote their own story.
Naruto has 90% (this is a guess since I haven't watched Naruto in a long time) filler episodes.

Can't say what is going on with transformers, since I never could stand watching even a single episode.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:22 pm

I was thinking about the differences between western comics and manga.

To get the closest comparison (superhero to shonen), it really seems like the manga end of things does a better character arc/progression, whereas comics stagnate and then loudly declare (once every three years or so) that WE'RE CHANGING EVERYTHING.

Naruto, for all its pains, does start off with a goofy-ass kid who's a bit of a loser, for all he has a lot of personal determination. Now he's pulled his shit together and seems to have gotten his head on right.

Yu Yu Hakusho (more obscure than the big anime, but an old favorite of mine), has Yusuke start off a ghost. Then he gets roped into tracking down rogue ghost/demons and his one trick is to shoot a blast of energy, about as strong as a single punch, once a day. By the end of the Dark Tournement...he's fought the strongest demon on Earth on even terms.

It's not always done well, but it's one of the things I like about the shonen genre--they, by and large, try to have heroes progress and grow as the story goes on.

If nothing else, it's why I read more manga than I do comics.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:43 pm

Basically: Western comics (usually) focus on action scenes, characters that look cool and interesting only on the surface, and boobs; meanwhile, Japenense manga (usually) focus on characters and character driven stories, dedication to story arcs, and boobs.

At least, this is from what I've seen.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 9:16 pm

Even the japanese Version of Little Rabbit in your Burrow is creepy as hell <.<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFX4Li4Zp-E

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:53 pm

ishy wrote: Once the Anime catches up to the manga, you only have a few options. To give some examples:
Anime like DBZ had many scenes extended.
With Full Metal Alchemist the animators just wrote their own story.
Naruto has 90% (this is a guess since I haven't watched Naruto in a long time) filler episodes.

My favourite option is what Freezing! is doing: they just ran one complete series, then stopped churning out more episodes, electing to wait until the manga completes another arc.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Mar 08, 2013 10:46 pm

Sukunai Next 09:
O.K.: THAT came out of left field O.o

Sakurasou no Pet 21:
That's a bit too much breaking the cutie . .

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 12:05 am

On Haganai Next: yeah, it did. This episode also pushed Kodaka's obliviousness into from humorous to hurtful. It's pretty rare for me to say things like this, but if he was real I would find him and give him a good punch. He really, really deserves it after that.

Explanation in spoiler.

Most of the drama in this season stems from Kodaka's complete inability to realize that Sena and Yozora are in love with him (and probably the entire rest of the club, but mostly those two). While it has been mostly harmless up to this point - not recognizing their attempts to catch his eye, inviting the whole club to events someone had planned as a date, etc. - this episode was different. After foreshadowing indicating that most of the school already thought that he and Sena were already dating, it was revealed that their parents arranged a marriage between them when they were toddlers.

While Sena was explaining this to him, he completely failed to read her mood and immediately shot the engagement down. The reasons he gave for doing so were valid, but somewhat cold. His rejection never considered her feelings because he never considered that she might have feelings for him.

Shortly thereafter, Yozora finds out. As far as Yozora was concerned, her only edge against Sena was that she had known Kodaka in the past. Suddenly that edge is gone and her biggest rival is engaged to the man she loves. That alone would be bad enough, but in Kodaka's attempts to downplay the engagement, he talks about dismissing the past and embracing the present, thereby downplaying his previous friendship with Yozora as well. She was completely crushed, and he didn't even notice.

And that is why he deserves a good punch.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 12:16 am

pretty much, yes, but he is in good/bad company there with about 90% of all male anime protagonists . .

edit:
Vvidred Operation:
so. Much. Fanservice.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 3:01 am

Today was super-sampler day.

First was one where the main character is apparently supposed to marry the princess of either the gods or the demons and gain their vast supernatural powers, his choice. Also the main character is named Rin, which led to massive quantities of laughter on account of being halfway through Blue Exorcist.

Then we watched some weird magical rabbit girl anime that I don't know what the fuck. Apparently Earth sports are the favorite entertainment of aliens so they sent magical girls to protect them from criminals or something.

Then there was this one about a guy who takes puzzles way the fuck too seriously, his not-at-all interested in puzzles girlfriend with a photographic memory, and some sort of labyrinth created by ancient Greek gods in Japan.

Next was JoJo's Bizarre adventure, about an evil mask, a guy who is nice but also kind of dumb and bad at fighting, and a complete asshole.

Then another magical girl anime, DokiDoki Precure. This one has some evil extra-dimensional people who can tear out people's hearts and turn the hearts into monsters if those people are being jerks, and then the magical girls are required to stab the jerkishness out of the heart monsters.

Then was pyscho-pass, which is set in a dystopian cyberpunk land where people get imprisoned apparently permanently if their thought patterns fall out of the acceptable range as determined by the control system Sybil. Also it authorizes lethal force with the rather ominous statement that "that person is no longer needed in this world".

Last was Starvengers, an old anime that we watched dubbed. It was a combining mecha thingy where aliens with metal horns were invading from space under the direction of robot devil Hitler. And the dubbed voice acting was unbelievably terrible.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 3:26 am

This is the main thing you need to know about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 12:45 pm

Vividred Operation has a pretty good backstory.

Haven't actually watched the show though.

Psycho-Pass is pretty decent and worth watching.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 2:29 pm

So I need to check out Vividred, gotcha!

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Mar 10, 2013 2:48 am

it is pretty close to the spiritual successor to strike witches.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:18 pm

Stahlseele wrote:it is pretty close to the spiritual successor to strike witches.

Obligatory

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Mar 10, 2013 7:32 pm

as i said, aside from WWII, it's pretty much it . .

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Mar 11, 2013 12:03 am

Mondaijitachi ga Isekai Kara Kuru Sou Desu yo - 06 [1080p]
Fanservice Lampshaded to an extreme i haven't seen as of yet O.o

A Miniskirt magically endowed with the ability to nevr let anybody really see what's below . .

*rolls over laughing* ^^

The Calico Cat is my favourite Character *snickers*

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:51 am

I downloaded all nine episodes of Vividred last night, and watched a couple. Not bad. But I see what you mean by the spiritual successor.

Pseudo-CG animation for the big baddies, massive alien monsters suddenly invade Earth and all of Earth must unite against them, THE SAVIOUR IS MAGICALLY/SCIENTIFICALLY EMPOWERED GIRLS, and also the focus on their arses.

Were it just all about the service, I'd probably watch no further, they're a bit young. Well, until docking, anyway. But the comedy and story to it is enough to stay, and the monster battles don't really drone on forever.