So, Anime You Like Lately

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed May 22, 2013 10:31 am

it is a weak start, i will admit.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed May 22, 2013 11:15 am

I think there are two things that bug me the most about the characters:

1. All the girls go "YOU HAVE A CAMERA? TAKE PICTURES OF ME!"

Does Japan really believe all girls immediately want guys to take pictures of them, with or without asking first? Is this why they have so many problems relating to upskirt photography?

2. The clash of styles where many of the characters are drawn one way, then others in other ways. Most notably the really tall guy. He's drawn in an ugly, simplistic style. Were everyone drawn in that style, I wouldn't like it but I'd accept it. As it is, it really sticks out.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed May 22, 2013 12:44 pm

1.) remember, Photo Kano the anime comes from a dating sim game, which is, basically, soft core porn most of the time.

2.) i'm thinking that was done on purpose.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun May 26, 2013 6:47 pm

Been watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Pride is the creepiest fucking thing.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jun 02, 2013 10:49 pm

Gargantia is, excuse the pun, pretty deep O.o
Hentai Prince and Stoney Kitten is so cute and funny and full of Fanservice ^^
And Nyaruku-San W is similar.
Photokano has been less than promising, but is stilly beautyfull

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Jun 02, 2013 11:34 pm

Until this thread existed I thought I had never met anyone who actually likes fan service.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 12:40 am

Really? People might not admit "I like shows which are primarily about underwear/boobs" in polite company*, but it seems to be a fairly easy assumption to make.

*The Internet is never polite company

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 1:03 am

Koumei wrote:Really? People might not admit "I like shows which are primarily about underwear/boobs" in polite company*, but it seems to be a fairly easy assumption to make.

*The Internet is never polite company

No, I really think not liking shows about underwear is the norm.

I like shows about sex. They are called porn, and they are not 22 minutes long, and they do not spend most of the time trying to develop plot that I can about in the form of alien wars or character drama.

I also like alien wars and character drama, but I don't want sex and completely random panty shots getting in the way of my House episode or my alien wars.

If you want to watch porn, watch porn. If you want to watch character drama, watch that. But why people mix them like Spartacus/Game of Thrones/random panty shots in anime... I have no idea.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 1:16 am

That's a sentiment I can get behind. I mean, it's not even like you can show it to your family or whatever and go "no it's not porn, I mean, there's no actual sex and there's all this plot".

That said, marketing anime to boys seems to be where the money is, with more people doing that*, and the only "anime for boys" I like is fan service stuff. Aika, Rosario+Vampire and Ikkitousen actually made me interested in the fighting (compare with Ranma, Sailor Moon and Nadesico, where the fighting isn't really the point of it), which is more than I can say for FotNS, Gundam, Dragonball and so on.

*Admittedly, they did ask "What do girls want?" and the answer was "gay boys", so there's a lot of that anime as well, but that's also not my thing.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 1:21 am

1) They think they need to have panty shots to market to boys, but they are wrong. Just like they are wrong that men will never play female protagonist games and ect.

2) Ikkitousen is shit. Dragonballz is shit. That doesn't mean that the only choice for combat is stand around and power up or tear off women's clothes and sex move them to death. Try any other fucking fighting anime for gods sakes.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 1:29 am

1. True enough, though it's more than just that - it apparently needs senseless (excessive?) violence, women being relegated to the role of "Useless Sidekick" and guys being EXTRA MANLY.

2. Could you recommend one? Chances are, I won't like it by dint of it being about people kicking each other in the face. I work at a school, if I wanted to see people beat the crap out of each other I could just do that. So my actual favourite martial arts anime is still Ranma 1/2 after all these years, because fights tend to not be very long and it's "martial arts figure skating" and stuff. In other words, actually calling it a martial arts anime is stretching it. However, I'm willing to be proven wrong, if it turns out there's some amazing fighting one I haven't seen. Because then I'm proven wrong by enjoying something, and it's hard to complain about that.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:44 am

Sexual content isn't only valuable in the context of porn. Sure, porn's great and all, but I can still enjoy boobs without my naughty bits in my hand. Sex isn't an inferior or secondary interest that you take care of so you can go be a human being and do human being things - it's just another thing people like that can, depending on a work's other themes and overall direction, be shoved in there (oh man, the phrasing). An argument that sex gets in the way of ____ only makes sense if you're arguing that works should be monothematic (haha what?) or that sex is incompatible with ____ (which is not going to be universally true, but I'm totally willing to admit that the climactic finale of superserious works would generally be marred by gratuitous boobage). I am not willing to buy any argument that sex shouldn't be in things because "sex gets in the way" without a discussion about what it's getting in the way of and how.

I think it's also very clear that people can like sexual content in a work without that work being 100% sexual content. I was too lazy to do it, but it helps if you pretend that the words in that sentence are links to bestselling romance novels, maybe some Oglaf, maybe some fanfiction with smut in it, or whatever else. I suppose I could also just point out that sex scenes are not particularly uncommon in any genre.

Anyway, as a practical matter: boobs and pantyshots are safe. Entertainment industries in general can't actually find or identify 'good shows' with enough regularity that all they can put out is top-notch storytelling. They have slots they have to fill with something, and occasionally there will be a "good" idea they take a gamble on and the other 90% of the time there will be a mediocre idea that they feel safe with because it's less likely to flop. And it turns out that selling boobs to boys is a fairly reliable fallback when you can't think of anything else to do.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:03 pm

I'm all for sexual content when it adds to the story, but "fan service" is not that. Let's look at Game of Thrones real quick.

Some of the sex scenes and nudity serve the plot. For example, Queen Cersei having sex with her brother is important, because it means her son, Prince Joffrey, is not a legitimate son of the King, and that's what precipitates the succession crisis that the book is, you know, about. Another example is Jon Snow's relationship, and what breaking his oath of celibacy means, in terms of his honor and loyalty to the Night's Watch, his more personal feelings about love, and his feelings about his father and about having kids when he himself is illegitimate. In both of those cases, and several others, the sex adds an important element to the plot.

Conversely, there are scenes where the show's creators clearly just wanted moar breasts. The scene where littlefinger explains something while the women in his brothel just straight up have sex with each other is probably the worst offender, but there are a ton of sexposition scenes, especially in the first season, and for the most part, they detract from the show.

It's like having a bunch of obnoxious product placement in the show--yeah, you can tolerate it, and it makes things more profitable for the producers, but it drags down the work.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 5:47 pm

Well, I don't know about everyone else, but sometimes I'm like the Jon Lovitz character in Tales of Ribaldry. Titillation is a different kind of excitement than outright pornographic indulgence.

Not that Daddy Lago doesn't like his porn, because he does, but sometimes I like some PG-13/soft-R fanservice in a place where it's not (supposedly) expected more than actual sexual explicitness. But then there's a problem of an anime like, say, GitS in which it truly isn't supposed to be that explicit so the fanservice that we do get is kind of small and weak. So in my opinion there is a place for material in my opinion where they never really go further than bared breasts; oh, sure, they can tease at more than that, but actually doing so isn't really the point.

That said, it still doesn't excuse the famous not-quite-porn shows like SnQ/Ikki/SK/MH/QB etc. from being raw, unadulterated ass though.

Fenrisulfr · Post by **Fenrisulfr** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 8:06 pm

I'm generally ok with fanservice in comedy shows, but it's not a strong enough comedy vehicle to stand up on its own so if there's too much I get bored and stop watching. I really hate it when it's just shoehorned into anime willy-nilly, though. The belly dancing stuff in Gargantia was weird and it's not like the show was missing scantily-clad girls as it was.

For shows that I've liked this season, My Teenage Romantic Comedy SNAFU has really impressed me lately. The main character is a snarky, genre-savvy misanthrope who wants no part in the "stereotypical" high school experience but is, of course, dragged into things all the time. The writing is really solid and actually surprisingly deep.

Attack on Titan is probably my favorite show this season, though Gargantia and SNAFU come close sometimes. Based on a manga, it takes place in a crapsack world where all of humanity lives in a large, walled off area, and outside those walls are giant, naked, asexual people called Titans who seem to want nothing more than to eat people. Not much is really known about them except that they're really fucking hard to kill. The main character has a bone to pick and nothing, but nothing, is going to stop him from killing all those fucking Titans. Some weird, awesome shit is going down right now in the show, and I'm assured that it only gets weirder and more awesome.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 8:39 pm

Nudity in live action stuff is more likely to take me out of the moment given that sexism is a real thing that happens and so my mind wanders and I start wondering about what kind of bullshit Emilia Clarke might have to put up with because her boobs were out on GoT. It's distracting.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 9:31 pm

Fenrisulfr wrote:The belly dancing stuff in Gargantia was weird and it's not like the show was missing scantily-clad girls as it was.

Fuck yes. Bad enough that they wasted my time with a swim suit episode. I have no idea why they paced something:

15 seconds of people talking about salvage while you watch the people talking.
30 seconds of people talking while you watch a girls ass and nothing else.
15 second of people talking
30 seconds of boobs.
15 seconds of people.
30 seconds of the entire human female dancing.
15 seconds of talking
30 seconds of all three dancing.
15 seconds of talking.
30 seconds of ass again.
ect.

That was so fucking weird.

Fenrisulfr wrote:Some weird, awesome shit is going down right now in the show, and I'm assured that it only gets weirder and more awesome.

Yeap. Very much so.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:16 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Well, I don't know about everyone else, but sometimes I'm like the Jon Lovitz character in Tales of Ribaldry. Titillation is a different kind of excitement than outright pornographic indulgence.

Indeed, this is very true. And n anime it carries the additional benefits of not getting a mosaic and not having mandatory cocks.

That said, it still doesn't excuse the famous not-quite-porn shows like SnQ/Ikki/SK/MH/QB etc. from being raw, unadulterated ass though.

I'll admit that I liked the fight scenes of Ikkitousen and basically nothing else. The concept was great (reincarnating the Three Kingdom dudes into modern people), but the actual execution and the way the story played out was shitty. The fan service didn't cause that (though the amount of rape was linked to the fan service and linked to being an unenjoyable story). It was bad on its own lack of merits. I saw all of ten seconds of Seikon no Quasar and thought it was shit, and apparently my snap-judgement paid off. Queen's Blade, I haven't actually watched and have no intention of getting around to it.

If MH is Master (or was it Queen?) of Martial Hearts, then that one actually deserves a special place in hell for being extra shitty. The fan-service fighting wasn't very good (and was drawn out too much), the basic idea of the tournament wasn't interesting, and then it ends with the biggest "fuck you" in existence, as though the writers wanted to punish the viewers for watching through to the end.

I don't know what SK is.

But yeah, I'm not saying underwear alone can save an otherwise awful show. But for those who don't mind titillation that isn't straight-up pornography (and that isn't for everyone, sure), it can be used to enhance something else. Or to make "people punch each other" worth watching.

And heck, porn tends to last for what, maybe an hour? Who can actually get off that quickly? At least with a full season of something you could have the 3-4 hours needed, though in today's busy life I wonder how anyone with a job has time for sexual enjoyment.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:27 am

Whatever wrote:I'm all for sexual content when it adds to the story, but "fan service" is not that. Let's look at Game of Thrones real quick.

It is okay to like boobs because boobs - it doesn't have to be dual purpose, though I would agree with the statement "elements in your story which fulfill multiple roles are preferable to elements which fulfill only one" as a general rule.

Anyway, Game of Thrones - there are lots of things that can interfere with what is otherwise a bit of dramatic exposition. The scene with Littlefinger wouldn't be any better if he ran a circus or freakshow instead of a brothel and a bearded lady was tossing a dwarf through a flaming hoop. It's a distraction in a scene which is meant to have weight and importance. Anything else happening in that scene should either not be competing for the viewer's attention or be contributing in some way to the central element.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:16 pm

DSMatticus wrote:Anyway, Game of Thrones - there are lots of things that can interfere with what is otherwise a bit of dramatic exposition.

But the point is that no one would think to put a stupid circus show in the middle of dramatic exposition, where they do think it is okay for sex.

Like the Gargantia example. I wanted to see where the salvage conversation was going, but I had to watch (because subtitles) 30 seconds of ass shacking in between cuts of the discussion. Why is that okay? Answer: It isn't.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:24 pm

>>Yuyushiki 09
Wow, this show has been ramping up the lesbian subtext for a while but as of around ep 7 they've gone full yuri. The girls could just start scissoring in the next episode and I wouldn't even blink.

Also Aramdillo>Winter Hazel>Eunry>Pharlap>Rosebud>Deluge>Toast.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:30 pm

Yes, that was pretty obvious
thanks for reminding me of ep9, i forgot <.<

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:23 am

Finally got around to watching the first episode of Samurai Champloo after I've been on a Nujabes kick all year. I like it. Bought the whole collection.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Jul 03, 2013 7:48 pm

le sigh ~
this week is a dark one for me in terms of anime:
[HorribleSubs] Suisei no Gargantia [720p] ended
[HorribleSubs] Valvrave the Liberator [1080p] season one ended
[HorribleSubs] YUYUSHIKI [1080p] ended
[HorribleSubs] Photo Kano [1080p] ended
[HorribleSubs] Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko[1080p] ended
[HorribleSubs] Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W[1080p]

[UTW-Mazui]_Toaru_Kagaku_no_Railgun_S[720p] < = dropped but is still going on, so no good to me either . .

also watched this:
[gg]_Chuunibyou_Demo_Koi_ga_Shitai!_-_OVA_(BD,1080p)_[1909BB3D]
forgot how cute and adorable and silly the series was ^^

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Wed Jul 03, 2013 11:04 pm

I recently rewatched Princess Mononoke for the first time in like, 10 years. It was nice.