Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Say what? Death Note did end when L died. It's a downer end for sure, but the story is completely over. I have no idea what you're talking about.

So what happened to Light?

[PhoneLobster]

Fruits Basket

That was fun to watch as a dubbed anime.

But I think I enjoyed it most because I watched it with my sister.

And we did somewhat make fun of it.

Especially the main character we were always like...

"... and this is the moment she has gone completely insane". In response to her being shocked by yet another mad event, or...

"... no wait THIS is the moment she has gone completely insane". In response to another one of her hilariously optimistic and out of touch with reality rants.

I mean there is a point with "optimistic font of kindness" type characters where you can only see their behavior as a sign of total pathological psychosis. And Fruits Basket got there FAST and stayed there pushing the limit forever.

It was hilarious.

PS, in other news Kasumi Tendo from Ranma 1/2 was also clearly and utterly insane.

[Koumei]

Agreed on all points, PL, and you know I hate agreeing with you.

To be fair though, most characters in Ranma were either insane or terminally stupid. It's just that Kasumi has a unique condition, as opposed to tsundere psychosis and the like.

[Heath Robinson]

Say what? Death Note did end when L died. It's a downer end for sure, but the story is completely over. I have no idea what you're talking about.

So what happened to Light?

The epilogue states that he continues to work in the Anti-Kira taskforce, pretending to be L whilst killing suspected criminals using his mystic powarz. The end.

No trading a Death Note for Light's sister in a frankly comical sequence of events that end with the book being put into a freaking rocket. Just to get it to the head of a criminal organisation that could have used merely copious amounts of cheap manpower and dead drops to anonymise the transfer. That couldn't possibly happen in Death Note.

It starts up again afterwards, Heath.

Two kids from the orphanage L was raised in take over his job as the world's super detective.

You lie. I've read all the manga there is for Death Note, and it all ends when L dies.

Next you'll tell me that someone made a Tsukihime anime, or animated a second season of Gunslinger Girl.

[Koumei]

Fuck you, the Tsukihime anime was awesome.

And I realise I must have hallucinated all episodes of Death Note after L died. That improved the series greatly!

[TOZ]

Fuck you Koumei, the Tsukihime anime missed half of the plot, screwed up the characters, and was so slow paced I was the only one in my anime club interested in it.

[erik]

Fuck you TOZ, uh, damn. I got nuthin.

Heath...

http://www.onemanga.com/Death_Note/59

Know that typing that out on my iPod cost me some sanity. If I change what 'tab' I am viewing then it erases my post that I typed.

[edit: wait! Shit! Sarcasm, my nemesis. It does not show ip easily through the iPod's translator. Dammit. I scrolled past a critical paragraph unwittingly.]

[K]

Mmmm. I wish I was in this thread when you guys were talking about Heroes.

Oh well, I'll just pretend I was....

The problem with the show is that the only character with any depth to him to Sylar, which is weird because he started out as a one-dimensional killer BBEG. Honestly, the rest of the cast are just foils for the Continuing Adventures of Sylar.

Heck, when you consider the lives of quiet desperation that most supers in this series live, you don't even care a whole lot that Sylar kills them and takes their powers because at least he'll use them for something.... anything. All of these supers are losers trying to pretend they don't have powers, and Sylar is seriously the guy who was killing off anti-super shock troops and getting into the middle of all these plots.

In a sense, Sylar is the plot. The world gets saved on multiple occasions because supers get together and team up to fight him and happen to stumble on the world-destroying plots while getting caught up in his wake.

Like Wheel of Time books, I only pay attention when the one real character shows up....

------

As for Whedon, all his stuff makes sense if you realize that it is an allegory for growing up with abuse. Groups of peers bond tightly together Stockholm Syndrome-style despite terrible things happening to them, and sometimes these peers turn on you because of the abuse but you forgive them because you are tightly bonded and you know its because of the abuse. Abused women are either slutty or frigid and men are either full of rage or impotent (or both).

That being said, he does like to see young women being hurt and abused. Sometimes I can barely watch Dollhouse because of it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Sometimes I can barely watch Dollhouse because of it.

Gee, K, I thought the reason you felt bad about watching Dollhouse because by watching this fictional show you are complicit in the real-world tragedy of human trafficking.

Why don't you accept some real-world responsibility for this crime, you bastard?

[Username17]

The problem with Dollhouse is that it in no way ever makes a compelling case that the organization is viable for doing the stuff that it apparently does. Any time they have an episode dedicated to a job the entire thing just seems pointless. The fact that they have the main character fuck up literally every single job they make an episode about stretches disbelief to the breaking point. I simply can't accept that anyone would throw that kind of tech, that kind of funding to have a temporary nanny raise a baby or indulge in backroom hanky-panky. That is too many resources for too little return. Then when she fucks up both tasks in consecutive episodes, it really makes the entire enterprise come off as useless clowns flushing money down the toilet for no damn reason.

On the other hand, when they have episodes that push their poorly conceived business plans to the background and just focus on super spy shit - the show is pretty awesome. I can legitimately accept that people would dabble in rewritable memories for purposes of espionage, people practically do that already. The last episode to air was called Belonging (and it was directed by Number 1 from ST:TNG), and it was a non-stop awesome fest. They never bothered to try to paint any of this stuff as being about money, it was just a paranoia thrill ride with layers of deception and people who have their memories stolen and replaced.

Dollhouse is sort of the opposite of the shows we're talking about here. The entire show lost me at the front door with the first fucking episode. But it still has some amazing episodes that are great in a stand alone format.

-Username17

[K]

Sometimes I can barely watch Dollhouse because of it.

Gee, K, I thought the reason you felt bad about watching Dollhouse because by watching this fictional show you are complicit in the real-world tragedy of human trafficking.

Why don't you accept some real-world responsibility for this crime, you bastard?

Errrr, no. I also watch slasher and action movies and that doesn't make me complicit in cannibalism or murder, and my recent viewing of Schindler's List doesn't make complicit in the Holocaust.

Grow up. It's just television.

[Judging__Eagle]

So I discovered that several animu are on youtube in their entireties. I proceeded to watch all of Death Note, except for the movies.

I am so sick of those two characters that appear in every anime. You know the ones I'm talking about: the white/grey haired aloof guy and the angry red-head guy who always argue and fight yet will help/fuck each other at the end of the day.

Hmm.

What if they're actually friends, agree on many things, actively rage about the same kinds of things, obviously disagree on some things (even being on opposite sides of the fence for certain things, like say if X piece of media (movie/book/TV series/musician) is good/bad), are huggy/cuddly with each other, and go around killing fools for fun?

Is that more reasonable?

Do the white-haired and red-haired characters commonly have history or something, so they help each other out "for old time's sake", or some such bullshit?

I could see that being an explanation.

[Koumei]

Of course they have a shared history. They're still bad and annoying characters, though. Fortunately I only hallucinated the episodes of Death Note where they showed up.

[Judging__Eagle]

Geez, you need to write down your trips.

Mine always consist of stuff like "hmm... what is the basic steps involved in memory storage, and retrieval, and can we apply how humans do it to computers/robots?" or "I want to write up something for my game on TGD". Which is probably pretty sad.

[Koumei]

So what happened to Light?

The epilogue states that he continues to work in the Anti-Kira taskforce, pretending to be L whilst killing suspected criminals using his mystic powarz. The end.

Also he satisfies Misa Misa in a variety of ways and she lives happily ever after, because all she really wants is his pen in her death note, ifyouknowwhatimean.

The end.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Errrr, no. I also watch slasher and action movies and that doesn't make me complicit in cannibalism or murder, and my recent viewing of Schindler's List doesn't make complicit in the Holocaust.

Grow up. It's just television.

Why do you hate (fictional) rape victims, K?

[Crissa]

L was the best character and the only character with depth by the time the manga ended.

They shouldn't have continued the series at that point with the replacement Near and shit. The movie was awesome, though.

-Crissa

[Lago PARANOIA]

I didn't remember this until I saw the Nostalgia Critic video, but I would like the nominate the scene that comes directly after Bambi's mother gets shot.

How the fuck could they do that? It took a sad, touching scene and completely killed the mood. At least when KQ6 did it it was unintentional rather than deliberate.

[Prak]

Every other line in a Jeffree Star song.

[PhoneLobster]

I read in a review the movie "2012" had a "big twist".

So I went searching on the internet to try and find out what the "twist" was.

AFTER I just watched that whole fucking movie and as far as I could tell there was no fucking twist.

Also it was a crap movie. But I expected that. Still, TWIST DAMNIT.

I'm going to assume it was one of those "For American Audiences" twists.

You know, a "twist" where they telegraph it, pretty much openly state it, hell, scratch the "pretty much", so many times in advance that when they reveal it there is an audible groan in the audience.

Except for that one guy with the American accent down front going. "GASP, d'Artagnanis the man in the iron mask's father! But, the only way I could have known that would have been... if I had been paying any fucking attention at all to the movie before now! Genius twist sir, genius!"

Man I shouldn't watch lowest common denominator shit like 2012.

[TOZ]

So yeah. Naruto. I've been just following the manga the way you follow a drunk friend to see what amusing antics he pulls.

This week? We find out Danzo plays too much Resident Evil and cosplays as William Burkin.

If it hadn't already lost me...hell I dunno.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Naruto isn't amusing enough to be So Bad It's Good. Like Bleach, it's a trainwreck, but Bleach's trainwreck is like an unoccupied locomotive crashing into a glow-in-the-dark superball/rubber chicken factory. Naruto's is like watching said train derail and flatten a petting zoo while it's carrying war refugees.

[Maxus]

Naruto isn't amusing enough to be So Bad It's Good. Like Bleach, it's a trainwreck, but Bleach's trainwreck is like an unoccupied locomotive crashing into a glow-in-the-dark superball/rubber chicken factory. Naruto's is like watching said train derail and flatten a petting zoo while it's carrying war refugees.

Naruto has flashes of cool stuff happening...but then they go away.

Every now and then Madara, does something cool. He's not your standard Evil Overlord, and I like how the character manages to be casual, even when he's being scary.

But there's so many missed opportunities in the rest of the series lately, it's not as fun as it used to be.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, like right now, the Naruto manga took a potentially very interesting plot and ruined it.

At the climax of the Konoha Invasion Arc 2: Electric Boogaloo, the villain calls out the leader of Naruto's hometown and then Naruto himself for propping up a system where people will die needlessly. Rather than just going 'Rar! I'm RIGHT!!' like most protagonists, Naruto is actually deeply disturbed at the realization of his hypocrisy and vows to change the ninja way.

Okay, so first act of reformed Enlightened Warrior Naruto? Just... read Chapter 449. It's amazingly awful, but it gets eclipsed shortly. It just continues to get worse from there, especially at the point where he decides that his new biggest goal is to Rescue Sasuke From the Darkness which leads to several bits of stupidity from him. Culminating in this chapter where after being called out on his own friends for his double-standard towards wanting to save a murderous criminal while also wanting to protect the world... Naruto has a panic attack and faints. He fucking faints. Not because his father figure died, not because his mother figure is in a coma, not because his village got flattened, not because his first female admirer got viciously murdered to prove a point, but because Naruto can't man up to the idea that he needs to stop his friend.

It's gone from retarded to offensive. Naruto is completely discrediting the idea of the Enlightened Warrior he professes to walk because he's in deep denial. It'd be like reading a story where the hero struggles against all odds to fight for freedom and equality after vowing to make himself a better person and then revealing that he molested children because the stress of fighting for the cause of racial equality got too much for him. Not only does that make the character look like shit but it also makes the genuinely good message the story was espousing look like shit.

I sometimes wonder if, rather than being the closet homosexual his dumbass fans accuse him of, if Kishimoto is actually a virulent homophobe. Naruto the manga has done more to spit on the idea of male/male friendship than almost anything I've read.

[Sir Neil]

Do the white-haired and red-haired characters commonly have history or something, so they help each other out "for old time's sake", or some such bullshit?

Maybe they represent the Big and Little Dippers, like in that odd scene in Three Kingdoms.