The Gaming Den

the music is not much to my taste.
neither is kite actually, but it's a classic in the adult anime.

So, I always download my anime before I watch it.

I ran out of stuff already done when I still had Ah! My Godess around, so I watched the rest of it. It ended up being like fate/stay night. Utter shit for the first half, acceptable filler for the second half, and the last two episodes are really good.

And, after seeing all the arguements about Evangelion somehwere here, I've decided to actually watch it. Next up is Stellvia.

Then Macross Frontier
Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan nihao Nyan
Gojasu Derisashu dekaruchaa

Just marathoned No Game No Life yesterday because why not. It's basically Code Geass with games instead of war and Lelouch is a shut-in pervert challenging God for the right to rule.

it is nothing like Code Geass, it jsut does the hand to face thing with Sora the same as Lelouche did. CC is not Jibril. Shiro is not Nunnaly.

did you actually watch either show? do you realize [ ] were taken to another world like SOA, .//hack, D&D, Log Horizon, etc....?

[ ] =/= Lelouche.

if you think the little bit of fighting over land and kingdoms at war is all it take to make something CG, then WTF! you would have been better off saying it is SAO because Kirito there had powers like [ ] and they were both "another world" shows based on games.

you want something close to CG, then you need Keima and TWGOK or If Her Flag Breaks to get clsoer to resembling the "power" Lelouche has.

NGNL is closer to Phi Brain than CG.

Most series with a chessmaster in the lead role tend to have a pile of similarities. When you have melodramatic, Rube-Goldbergesque, world-shaking plans, there are tropes that you simply aren't going to able to avoid. No Game No Life does stand out a bit from recent similar series like Code Geass or Death Note in that it is considerably lighter material and the chessmaster (I'm treating Sora and Shiro as one unit) is not an anti-hero. It turned out to be pretty entertaining.

I have high hopes for next season. There are about a dozen series on the list that sparked my interest enough that I will pick up the first few episodes. With a bit of luck there will be some gems in there.

Hmm, not much for me next season it seems . .
sailor moon crystal i have to give a try
kantai collection i will try too
non non byori ova, gits arise 3, maybe the girls and panzer ova . .

I'd been thinking this season was looking pretty thin, but I'm liking Argevollen, Aldonah.Zero, and Train Wars, plus looking forward to Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma ✩ Ilya season 2. As an aside, I'm not sure whether to be more confused by how both that and Nanoha are Magical Girl shows derived from H-games, or by the fact that someone did that and the resulting shows are pretty great.

The Irregular At Magic Highschool is continuing into this season, and I like it quite a bit. Miyuki and Tatsuya being a bit too friendly for siblings will never not be funny. The other characters make fun of them for it, but that only seems to encourage them.

First episode of Sailor Moon Crystal is out. I have fallen in love again.

will have to wait untill it becomes available where i look for it to judge it myself.

ah hell, found a torrent . .
crystal both looks and sounds worse than the original x.x

I don't like the opening/ending themes as much as the originals, but other than that, I am very happy so far.

Started watching No Game No Life, and have determined it is approximately the best thing ever. Many chessmasters make excellent use of inspirational speeches in their strategies, but few of them do so in an actual game of chess.

I am a bit disappointed by the princess's performance, though. She mentally gridded out the outcome spread and picked scissors anyway.

Watched the first episode of Tokyo Ghoul yesterday. I feel like the 'protagonist' is going to be a Whiny Shinji, but we'll see where they lead us.

Giant robot anime Knights of Sidonia is a Netflix original series that they went to Japan to have made out of an existing Manga franchise. So it's "legit," so to speak, but if you watch you can see how it was chosen to appeal to the Western Netflix audience.

My primary sense of amusement has been calling out the unending parade of 101-level tactical fuckups that the military leadership of the Sidonia make at basically every opportunity. But if you wanna touch your penis to the harem of suitors that orbit the main character and see some giant robots fighting fleshthings in space, that's good too.

INVADERS of the ROKUJYOMA!? is fucking hilarious. There's a guy living in a 9-foot by 11-foot room for which he's paying 5000 yen a month, and the room is desired by a ghost, a magical girl, the princess of a subterranean race of wizards who wish to conquer the world, and the princess of a space empire that wishes to conquer the world. Apparently it's the site of some great mystic convergence, but the guy mostly just wants it because it's dirt cheap.

No Game No Life was solid, and I look forward to its return. The main characters never lose, but the way in which they win is at least interesting (most of the time, the chess match ending was disappointing). The build up and ending where they let in on the secret works nicely, and I thank the writers for not telegraphing it too much and making the characters not flawless.

The Irregular at Magic High though... the main characters never lose but it's less entertaining. There haven't been any points where they might actually not win so far. Just "here's a bad situation, and here's them solving it" stuff. There is no tension so far. The 'rival' shown in the intro was only show in the last few episodes and hasn't made a move yet. The only stakes in the show seem to be them against background characters - meh. If it's a slow build, it's a really fucking slow one that I might give up on. And their 'friendliness' is just blah, unless they're building up to an "altered memories" sort of reveal.

i find myself enjoying again the wierdness that is school girl airsoft gunplay O.o
Sabagebu

Just finished the first season of Space Dandy and thoroughly enjoyed it. Need to find a place to watch Season 2.

Hrm . .
neither Rail Wars nor Glasslip or Ao haru Ride managed to catch my fancy sadly . .

TarkisFlux wrote:No Game No Life was solid, and I look forward to its return. The main characters never lose, but the way in which they win is at least interesting (most of the time, the chess match ending was disappointing). The build up and ending where they let in on the secret works nicely, and I thank the writers for not telegraphing it too much and making the characters not flawless.

I was disappointed by the finale. Apparently the heroes built the whole plan knowing almost nothing about the game and the enemy.

TarkisFlux wrote:The Irregular at Magic High though... the main characters never lose but it's less entertaining. There haven't been any points where they might actually not win so far. Just "here's a bad situation, and here's them solving it" stuff. There is no tension so far. The 'rival' shown in the intro was only show in the last few episodes and hasn't made a move yet. The only stakes in the show seem to be them against background characters - meh. If it's a slow build, it's a really fucking slow one that I might give up on. And their 'friendliness' is just blah, unless they're building up to an "altered memories" sort of reveal.

SPOILERS:

Since this series is based on light novels, the future plot is already known.
They are not building to "altered memories" reveal. The guy is the bodyguard of the girl, and is the most powerful mage to ever exist. He singlehandedly destroyed the whole Chinese army, and resurrected Japanese army. The girl and lack of equipment act as a limiter of sorts, but he is, and will be, the strongest character in the show.

ah well, at least sabagebu is enjoyable ._.

Eikre wrote:Giant robot anime Knights of Sidonia is a Netflix original series that they went to Japan to have made out of an existing Manga franchise. So it's "legit," so to speak, but if you watch you can see how it was chosen to appeal to the Western Netflix audience.

My primary sense of amusement has been calling out the unending parade of 101-level tactical fuckups that the military leadership of the Sidonia make at basically every opportunity. But if you wanna touch your penis to the harem of suitors that orbit the main character and see some giant robots fighting fleshthings in space, that's good too.

I might have left off the harem comment until there's at least more of a resolution, but yeah. For having such an angsty main character, it's a lot like a less angsty NGE. Also, they (intermittently) account for scale and for momentum. That's a plus!

Less angsty than NGE . . well, that's not that hard to accomplish either is it?
Of the top of my head, i could actually not name any anime more angsty O.o

23 minutes of the characters weeping and cutting themselves.

So, second episode of Sailor Moon:
1. We're getting a lot less filler, similar to the manga. We already have mai waifu* Ami, and next episode we get Rei. They will probably cover the entire first season (~40 episodes) in just 12-24 episodes. Hopefully we still get all five seasons though.
2. The fights aren't 100% formulaic stock footage things. Yes, transformations are going to happen each time (possibly shortening it so there's group transformations), but there's a bit more action and non-stock stuff happening. Even Tuxedo Kamen plays a slightly more active role rather than just chucking a flower and giving a speech. And they didn't do the whole animation for Moon Tiara Boomerang this time, so attacks in general may take less time.
3. The transformations aren't great quality. The problem is the addition of CG effects, you can really tell it's different from the regular animation, so it's a bit jarring.
4. Luna has a stupid face. But then again, she's a cat, cats have stupid faces.

*Shut up, she was a year older than me when I first got into the series.