So, Anime You Like Lately

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 1:21 am

Stahlseele wrote: valvrave the liberator 13 . . on what episode did last season stop?
anybody remember? it feels off somehow, as if i am missing something . .

I just watched the first episode of season 2, and other than the bit with the Council of 101 it left off exactly where season 1 ended. They finished up that battle, then did a two-month time skip. I didn't much care for the pseudoscience with Runes, but using Haruto to power the Valvraves reinforces the themes of the series so I can't complain too much.

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 2:51 am

I've just started watching K-On! and it's perfect.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 9:17 am

it's a cute funime, but it's not perfect. not even close.

@rampaging-poet
ah, thank you.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Fri Oct 18, 2013 10:27 pm

I must admit that Hyouka is growing on me. I've watched up to episode 10 (two episodes farther than the anime club has), and the characterization has been getting better. "I'm just a database" is no longer a once-an-episode catch phrase, and they've started working on things that aren't completely trivial. Even when the answer was obvious in the episode with the hanged man's shadow, the sequence of events that justified the answer were fair and engaging. It's really addressed my initial complaints.

Valvrave II continues to be awesome. Episode 2 has another decent battle scene, more backstory for Akira, and new technology that actually makes sense. If this keeps up I will definitely pitch it for anime club next semester.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Oct 18, 2013 11:28 pm

ah, good to hear that you like them. means i'll give valvrave 2 another go.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 3:40 am

Stahlseele wrote:it's a cute funime, but it's not perfect. not even close.

I'm a cynical misanthrope who hates most things on general principles and I completely disagree.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 1:51 pm

Watching this new one called Coppelion.

The basic conceit is that there was some horrible accident that irradiated Tokyo, and the main characters are teenagers who were genetically engineered and trained to go into the city and help retrieve people who have been hunkering down in clean rooms with Hazmat suits. Of course, since it's been at least eighteen years since the accident, people who are still in the city generally have some reason they weren't keen on leaving. Presumably at some point in the future the girls are going to head into the central area, which is perpetually covered in radioactive fog so nasty that the unaltered humans in specially designed protective suits can only safely remain in it for a few minutes; they'd exceed the safe time period just flying a helicopter to the center.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 2:39 pm

Any relation between the anime and the story, Coppelia?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 4:03 pm

Allusion; the main characters are "living dolls".

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 5:34 pm

Voss wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:it's a cute funime, but it's not perfect. not even close.
I'm a cynical misanthrope who hates most things on general principles and I completely disagree.

I'm a hopeless moefan who's really in to Iyashikei, but I still have to agree with Stahl. K-on may be the most well known moe show but I wouldn't say it's perfect or even the best moe show (that would probably be Hidamari Sketch).

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 5:43 pm

name_here wrote:Allusion; the main characters are "living dolls".

Like Rosen Maiden?

-Username17

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 6:16 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
name_here wrote:Allusion; the main characters are "living dolls".
Like Rosen Maiden?

-Username17

No, they're referred to as living dolls since they were genetically engineered for a specific purpose, and as such are considered things instead of people. Think The Windup Girl, except the ordinary people are not huge assholes to them. Though that may be because being in an irradiated, crumbling city is not conducive to being jerks to the people who don't need hazmat suits and come bearing medicine for treating radiation poisoning and smoke canisters for calling in rescue helicopters.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 6:33 pm

Ahh. Thanks.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Sun Oct 20, 2013 10:45 pm

Geez, it's been forever since I sat down and really watched anime.

Blew through Attack on Titan pretty quick. Kinda sad we won't be having any for awhile.

Went back and watched Sword Art Online finally, enjoyed that.

Genshiken second season hasn't grabbed me as much as the first did. I blame the opening theme.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:00 am

I also just watched Sword Art Online. It was decent, but Asuna was not handled well in my opinion. The way she essentially dropped out of combat as soon as she showed any emotion really bugged me, and the entire second arc felt like an attempt to save exposition by dropping the same characters into a completely different story. Asuna was completely one-dimensional after a few episodes, to the point that even stereotypical tsundere little sister Suguha had more depth. Other than that, the series wasn't bad.

Also, Sword Art Online must be one of the least gear-dependant MMOs ever. That, or rare gear is so far above everything else that you will never find anything better. I cannot think of a single game where a rare drop from the very first boss is better than armour from three-quarters of the way through, but apparently in SAO that's possible.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:14 am

rampaging-poet wrote:I also just watched Sword Art Online. It was decent, but Asuna was not handled well in my opinion.

I think she was mostly handled well right up until the second season. Certainly not ideal, but very good for modern entertainment.

rampaging-poet wrote:The way she essentially dropped out of combat as soon as she showed any emotion really bugged me

Not sure what you mean here? Obviously this must be about the first season, because she never did any combat in the second, but I'm going back over the season in my head, and she dropped out of combat exactly never because she showed emotion that I recall. I could be missing something sure, but for example: didn't in first boss, didn't in final boss, didn't in 76th level boss. In Minotaur room, didn't stay in combat, but neither did like 800 other people.

rampaging-poet wrote:and the entire second arc felt like an attempt to save exposition by dropping the same characters into a completely different story. Asuna was completely one-dimensional after a few episodes,

Yeah, I have no idea how Asuna the flash was the same character as the bird in a cage who never did anything except once almost completely escape, only to not touch a button that was right there for like 10 whole seconds so that they could keep her as a completely meaningless prize instead.

rampaging-poet wrote:Also, Sword Art Online must be one of the least gear-dependant MMOs ever. That, or rare gear is so far above everything else that you will never find anything better. I cannot think of a single game where a rare drop from the very first boss is better than armour from three-quarters of the way through, but apparently in SAO that's possible.

Maybe they took the Book of Gears to heart, and all items scale with level, and rare items are Major items and other items are Lesser/Minor.

I did like that he basically game to be defined with a consistent look, it is much more important for a visual non interactive medium to have people defined that way.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Tue Oct 22, 2013 12:07 am

Kaelik wrote:Not sure what you mean here? Obviously this must be about the first season, because she never did any combat in the second, but I'm going back over the season in my head, and she dropped out of combat exactly never because she showed emotion that I recall. I could be missing something sure, but for example: didn't in first boss, didn't in final boss, didn't in 76th level boss. In Minotaur room, didn't stay in combat, but neither did like 800 other people.

Thinking back on that, I'm not sure what I meant either. However, she almost always played a supporting role to Kirito in combat. He's higher level than her so that makes sense, but it would have been nice to see how she functioned as Vice-Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath and one of the most powerful players on the server instead of always playing second fiddle to Kirito. The two times we see her fight without him she owns some low-level players (no real surprise) and drops her guard forcing him to rescue her within ten seconds of her rescuing him.

It wasn't so much that she dropped out of combat as the series progressed, but the more of her soft side we saw the larger the gap in effectiveness between Kirito and her grew. The most obvious explanation is that we see more of her emotions as the story progresses and Kirito gains levels faster than her, but her complete failure to accomplish anything without him onscreen rubbed me the wrong way.

That said, my biggest problem with her wasn't the failure to establish her effectiveness as a fighter. My least favourite line in the entire show was her saying "I can't smile without you!" when referring to a child she had met less than 48 hours before. If she forms lifelong attachments so powerful that total depression is her anticipated response to death after so little time interacting with someone, she should not have survived long enough to meet Yui. By that point about 4000 other players had died, and many of those deaths would be people she had known and worked with more closely for longer. I know people generally don't behave rationally when it comes to strong emotions like that, but I honestly don't see how Asuna the Mother of Yui could function on a battlefield, let alone lead dangerous raids in which people she's known for months might be killed.

Kaelik wrote:Maybe they took the Book of Gears to heart, and all items scale with level, and rare items are Major items and other items are Lesser/Minor.

I don't think that's it. The only item the anime gave stats on was the super-rare ring that added 20 to agility. There was also a time where Kirito gave someone equipment "worth five or six levels" to a lower-level player. The implies that gear makes a large difference and that there's an extreme difference in scaling factors between Lesser and Medium items if items scale at all. That, or the rare Cloak of Midnight was like a Borderlands 2 skin and he wears magic armour in a different equipment slot for actual stats boosts. That's probably consistent with when he gave another character more items and her appearance didn't change at all.

Note that I had forgotten about the gear worth several levels when I suggested the game wasn't gear-dependant. That was definitely a mistake on my part.

Kaelik wrote: I did like that he basically game to be defined with a consistent look, it is much more important for a visual non interactive medium to have people defined that way.

I agree. It helps with character recognition and makes things easier for the creators.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:21 am

In much better news than Sekai de Ichiban... Freezing! has started airing the second season (Freezing Vibration). They decided to skip the short arc from the manga that happened between the first and second "Chevalier Nova Clash" incidents (where Sateliser visits family and we discover what shits her family are), going straight to the artificial pandora thing in Alaska.

So we're right into seriousness and death, no fucking around. With some silly humour interspersed so that viewers don't get so depressed as to stop watching. Oh and boobs of course. Elizabeth Mably* still doesn't like wearing clothes when she swims.

It's looking good, but I already know I'm not going to be happy seeing as in the manga:

The artifical pandoras all die horribly, Elizabeth is tortured to the point of catatonia, and of course, Chifon dies for our sinsto save everyone else.

But the manga was still good then - it was afterwards where it started to feel like filler and dragged on, so this season should still be good.

*Her family produces Mably cosmetics. Yes, it's totally Maybelline.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:49 am

Watched the first ep of Unbreakable Machine Doll. Nothing special so far, but nothing super annoying either.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:44 pm

Coppelion is apparently going to introduce the love interest next episode; there is a male with rad immunity and a large number of guns who has been instructed to meet up with the girls. This is good because the peaceful rescue operation has gone tits up and one pistol with (admittedly pretty good) special rounds for the team is so not cutting it. Actually, last episode they picked up a laser-guided antiaircraft missile from a warehouse that the team lead used one-handed because she is awesome like that. They probably should have gone back there.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:50 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoubheYhMKc

I've been watching anime music videos lately.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 8:07 pm

Ancient History wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoubheYhMKc

I've been watching anime music videos lately.

Thanks for pointing to that link, it made me remember this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBZRUazstZs

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 9:00 pm

I bought the Highlander anime movie.

Good purchase.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 9:13 pm

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Fri Nov 01, 2013 5:39 am

Chainsaw sword good.

The rest of it wasn't that bad either.