×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
What are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)


Goto page Previous    Next

Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Anime
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Unicorn_Blade



Joined: 18 Jul 2010
Posts: 1151
Location: UK
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:48 pm Reply with quote
Animaniac007 wrote:
I was considering Requiem from the Darkness but I saw the trailer and I was like, "HELL NO, this looks way too scary."


It is not scary, but it has tendencies to be quite disturbing (the meat lover episode, bleh)- but it is an interesting series.

I am continuing with Blood-C, which is actually getting better with episode 4 and 5, so I am not gonna drop it as planned.

Monster is almost halfway through, I wish I could just sit and marathone it, although it would probably result in a depression of some sort. No matter howhard I try, 3 episodes is all I can do in one day...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Ishmoo



Joined: 11 Nov 2006
Posts: 413
Location: Fredericksburg, VA
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 10:11 am Reply with quote
No. 6

I've hit that slump, where you've watched so many shows that they all start to look the same. It takes a lot to get me interested in an anime these days. Durarara was the last one that really hooked me and now it's No. 6. I actually wait each week for it to come out. It's set in a Utopian/Dystopian world, not exactly a new concept, but then we rarely see anything truly new anymore. But they do a good job fleshing out the eerily perfect city of No. 6. I'm waiting for more of the character of the flip-side darker city to be revealed, but so far so good. The central mystery has actually got me stumped. And even though the main characters feel like twin versions of Allen Walker and a slightly more cheerful Kanda Yuu, they're really compelling. They've got me hooked on this one.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Generic #757858



Joined: 03 Nov 2008
Posts: 1354
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 6:39 pm Reply with quote
Immortal God Machine, Set The World Free! MAZINKAISER (SKL)!

Finally got around to watching this short OVA a while ago and I'm just going to quote Dave Cabrera here because he describes the series perfectly:
Quote:
"There's this badass robot called Mazinkaiser SKL-- that's for skulls, bro, cause he's f*ckin' covered in skulls-- that f*ckin' kills the shit out of like, everything. It's got these two dudes that like, one of them is the gun guy and he knows Equilibrium, and then the other guy is the sword guy, right, and they're both f*ckin' crazy, like they don't give a f*ck about whatever. So basically they fly around in this plane shaped like a skull and save all these girls with big tits from fuckin' robot gangs, shit yeah it's awesome."

Rating: Very Good (YMMV)



And for something completely different, I also watched Mononoke, which totally blew me away with it's, well, EVERYTHING. A crying shame that it never got licensed. Anime cry

Rating: Masterpiece
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Surrender Artist



Joined: 01 May 2011
Posts: 3264
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 3:31 pm Reply with quote
A while ago I watched Burst Angel, on Hulu, In English, which is the only language it's available in there. I had an inexplicably, inappropriately hard time thinking about it.

Gonzo intrigues me for some reason, besides, I'm a sucker for the 'girls-with-guns' motif, and a review from ANN that is strangely more promotional than critical gave me some hope. That hope was neither vindicated nor disappointed.

It reminded me in some ways of Dragonaut: The Resonance and I even though about resurrecting my 'listing prestigious films that I've seen' gimmick, but I wasn't sure that I had enough left and it doesn't really deserve that. I will note that I have been watching A&E's fantastic A Nero Wolfe Mystery series. It's was the network's flagship series until they cancelled it and ran Dog the Bounty Hunter up the mast.

I found it weirdly difficult to think or write about, so what follows will be more unlovely than usual.

I got a curious feeling while watching Burst Angel that it hadn’t been thought through before they started animating it. There are more than a few things that are introduced without amounting to as much as they should, erratically mashed together pieces of plot that aren’t assembled well into a whole and characterization that relies more upon the assertions of the creators than what it portrayed on screen. It’s similar to the similar ramshackle Dragonaut: The Resonance, but Burst Angel isn’t as inane or irritating as that infamous series was, although it has a less enticingly anfractuous plot. It’s not awful, but it is disappointing, although not enough to evoke any ill-considered passions. At least it looks pretty nice.

The leading problem I had was the strange choices that Burst Angel made with for its characters. The first episode is told largely from the perspective of a culinary student, Kyohei, who is roped into the dangerous life of four women, well three women and a girl, who are mercenaries, or secret agents for a syndicate, or something like that. One would thus expect Kyohei to be one of the principal characters and the one who serves as the audience’s point of access, but he’s not. He falls into a rather small supporting part very swiftly, has a prominent part in only two later episodes and is as often as not seemingly forgotten about. This isn’t a terrible thing being as he’s something a whiner and a wuss who would’ve irritated me if he were as important as the first episode suggested he would be, but his emphatic introduction followed by quick marginalization exemplifies how maybe the people who made this didn’t have everything sorted out before they got to work.

With Kyohei dismissed, one might then expect that the four women would be at the heart of the series. That would be half right, or maybe one quarter right… maybe two fifths right? I don’t know, because the creators once again made some odd choices. Two of the characters, the ostensible leader, Sei, whom Clarine Harp gives her typically coolly commanding tone, and the always-necessary computer specialist Amy don’t get very much attention. They don’t dissipate into the background as Kyohei does, but they are the main players only a few times and there’s never very much to them. Burst Angel is really about the team’s principal, if not only, fighter: Jo. There’s also Meg, who spends ample time on screen, but most of what she does is get captured so that Jo can rescue her. I think that she shot a giant robot with an anti-tank rifle to little effect once, but I can’t otherwise remember her being a very active character. She’s at least outspoken, if sometimes bratty, and has some of that quality that Lou Grant hates, so she can be entertaining to watch, which is helped by the typically lively sounding voice that Jamie Marchi supplies her with. She’s mostly a habitual damsel-in-distress, but there is the refreshing twist that she’s saved not by a dashing hero, but rather by the aggressive, single-minded Jo. That might suggest some sort of special relationship between the two and the series tries really hard to tell us so, but it never portrays it convincingly, so we largely must take its clumsy word for it. The two seldom do things not involving Meg being rescued together and the few times that they do, Jo ultimately seems bored. At least Meg is energetic and active, which makes her at least slightly engaging on her own, even she’s bratty and childish from time to time as well. She’s also portrayed by Jamie Marchi in English, which added some appeal to the character for me.

Jo, as I alluded to, is really the only full character of the show. She gets ample attention, the story is substantially about her and she’s the most active member of the cast. She’s portrayed in English by Monica Rial. Wait… what? A character with a deep, forceful, earthy voice is portrayed by same person who gave Kirika and Hyatt their distinct light, hushed tones and of whom it was once said she could not appear in live action because nobody would believe that anybody really had such a squeaky voice?!? Yes, apparently, and it works damned well. I think that she might even have outdone Clarine Harp, and her naturally low, rich voice for depth of tone. Jo is supremely, inhumanly tough and skilled in fights, which ties to the eventual story of the series, but has little to her besides an obsession with fighting. She is given a quirk or two, such as an occasionally seen penchant for watching gory horror films, and a troubled past, but it never quite amounts to a compelling character. She’s plenty cool and impressive, but not so interesting as she should be. She goes out of her way to save Meg whenever the poor dear is captured, which is often, and sometimes seems obsessed with doing so, but these dramatic moments feel hollow because the relationship never feels very real to the audience. These characters were conceived with good intentions, but not done successfully.

There’s also a woman from Osaka named Takane. She’s the daughter of a crime-lord and a former biker who has become a police officer leading a team of other bikers who have become police. She has a minor recurring role in the second half of the series. She’s loud, brash and proud, but not given time to be much else besides a big fan of a television show. Despite the limitations of her portrayal, she was more engaging and fun to watch than the regular cast usually were and she made a stronger impression upon me than Sei or Amy. She also fired a bazooka at a giant robot. It didn’t accomplish much, but it was cool.

These characters all amble through a story that never quite seemed to cohere. I might have overlooked the details, but I never felt that I had a firm hold on what the situation of the series’ dystopia was beyond select zones of anarchy, typically authoritarian government that used giant robots against civilians and hidden weapons programs. There was also something about glowing brains, which were never given a better name. These elements are not concealed, or even necessarily unexplained, but their presence is never persistent and palpable enough to make them seem relevant. There are scenes that portray how bad times are, but that seldom seems to intersect in a meaningful way with the lives of the characters. The setting and the stories feel almost uninterested in one another. Even the overall plot and episodes sometimes seem on poor terms; the machinations of shadowy organizations that ultimately, as no other entities could, direct the path of events are strangely out of focus for much of the show, leaving it difficult to feel that their actions are very significant or momentous when they do come to fore, even if they notionally deserve such.

The narrative is lumbered by various strange choices. There’s a two-part story about Meg being sent to a private school to uncover some plot involving a powerful club lead by upperclassmen. I’ve read that this story is essentially that of Bible Black, which I’ve never seen. If so, that just makes it more inexplicable. Gonzo seems fond of dithering with episodic structures early on. I don’t object to this in principle, some shows that I’ve liked have done that, but they never seem to do it very well. The story is some fun to watch, but I couldn’t figure out why they gave Meg the task and what the point of the story generally was. I might not have watched it as conscientiously as I should have, because I found little revelatory about Meg’s nature, which the premise could have lent itself to, about her competence as an operative, indeed it reinforced the sense that her greatest contribution was getting captured so as to motivate Jo, or about the world of the series. Even when the series jaunts into subjects more relevant to the story, such as an episode about the syndicate that Sei is part of, it doesn’t seem to go very deep and forgets about them for too long. It all culminates in a finale that wanted to be tense and spectacular and even a touch heartwrenching, but struck me more as hurried and unsatisfactory.

There's also a beach episode, featuring new designs for some characters that were presumably specially made to exploit the absurd swimsuits that they were poured-into like so much freshly boiled gelatin. I hate beach episodes.

Burst Angel was never really bad, it even managed to keep my at least a little curious sometimes, but that curiosity was mostly wasted on inadequate explanation and things expected that never came. It’s a reasonably good-looking series. Jo’s character design is distinctive and a little unconventional in a good way; Sei and Meg have readily distinguished, well-drawn designs, although their ‘proportions’ are slightly regrettable, and the animation seemed competent as well as fairly consistent. The computer-generated vehicles were even relatively well-integrated into the animation, better than they were in the later, presumably better-funded Dragonaut: The Resonance. There were good raw materials here and some flickers of worthy craftsmanship, but someone in quality control or management must have been asleep at the wheel, because the whole thing seems jerry-rigged and rickety.

So far the only series from Gonzo that I've genuinely liked is... Witchblade? I'm convinced that I must be under the influence of some malign power, or just too blinded by how unexpectedly sincere and heartfelt is often was to see it for what it is. I've also not seen Last Exile, which is deliberate as I'm trusting enough in its reputation to wait to buy that one, which puts it further out on the horizon.

I also watched Rintaro's Metropolis last Sunday, just before the last Mike Toole Show column, which was about Rintaro, was posted. I regret having written nothing there, especially as I'd also seen Galaxy Express 999 and its sequel recently, but truthfully, there's not too much that I can contrive to write.

I had watched Metropolis on Adult Swim some not quite inconsiderable number of years ago. I can't find much to say. The story is serviceable, but not remarkable and the characters are likeable, but not exceptional, aside from Rock, whom I found interesting, but strangely, persistently and severely unsympathetic. I liked him even less than the megalomaniacal Duke Red, who was the goddamned Villain of the piece! The relationship between the boy and Tima that aspired to be the beating heart of the story never seemed convincing or very touching to me. I can't think of much else to write about it, except that most of what I liked best about it and remember best about it were largely insubstantial aesthetic elements. The animation is beautiful and technically impressive. The dixieland jazz score is a phenomenally good example of a too-rarely used style, eve if the excellent "El Bombero" is weirdly used over scene about a deadly fire. The design of the setting, a sumptuously rendered blend of the nineteen twenties and the future, is wonderful to the eyes. The faintly apocalyptic finale, which evokes Doctor Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb in its method, is a terrific spectacle. I recommend the sensory experience of the film, which is superb, but admit that one must forgive or tolerate the inferior, but not bad, substance that it surrounds.

Oh, and I watched a few episodes of School Rumble too. It was charming and fun, but not something that I feel a need to urgently finish, more something that I might watch an episode of two of now and again just to cheer me up some.


Last edited by Surrender Artist on Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:26 pm; edited 3 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
EmbraceMe



Joined: 17 Dec 2010
Posts: 2013
Location: Growing old and jaded.
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 8:34 pm Reply with quote
Well, I just watched the OVA for Baby Princess 3D, and I have to say... This OVA is strange. So in it, you have 19 sisters and 1 brother. Yea, it's something of a harem, the girls are from different fathers but they all share the same mother as the brother. The oldest sister is a freshmen in college and each sister are approximately 1 year younger than the previous. The 19th sister being a young baby. It gets weirder, apparently several, if not all, of these sisters have an affection towards the brother who is probably around the age of 15-17. Talk about incestuous undertones. Nonetheless, I found the OVA funny for the fanservice and gags involving the brother but it's just damn weird. Almost as weird as the hentai I've been watching... The animation, just as the title mentions, has some 3D like features. No, you don't wear 3D goggles/glasses and touch the boobies appearing out of the screen. The 3D would be something similar to animations like Toy Story. The 3D objects actually looks like it's 3D, not 2D. I have no idea what I'm rambling about.

I've finally caught up on most simulcasts and the ones I enjoy the most are Blue Exorcist, Tiger & Bunny, and something else. I've been slacking on them because.... well, they don't seem to catch my attention. Blue Exorcist definitely improved since I've let episodes pile up. Tiger & Bunny has just been enjoyable from the start, but I take my time watching it. Steins;Gate, Dantalian, and Gintama' are still going strong for me in terms of entertainment. I just wish I could say the same for the other simulcasts. NO. 6's yaoi hinting is turning me away from the show, Beelzebub has its high and low points, R15, A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives are both alright. I don't want to rant too much but my tolerance is just dropping lately.

I also caught up on Saint Seya: The Lost Canvas. It was pretty damn good but the ending feels... unfulfilled. There better be a 3rd season or something along that line! It can't just end like that, and I doubt it will. There were plenty of characters yet to be introduced. Other than that, the show has awesome character designs. The animation is well done, the story is good although Temna's persistence to get Alone back was a bit annoying in the beginning. The spoiler[sacrifices made by several characters was moving] and the show is well executed.

Then there's Break Blade movie 6... GAH! HOW COULD IT END LIKE THAT. I know it was a series of six movies but... That ending was just... so.... Unsatisfying. I wanted a full adaption and there were so many changes. Pushing the adaption part aside, it was still great but... if you've read the manga, the movie's ending will probably disappoint you. Many spoilers up ahead, so beware. spoiler[Pfft, Girghe dying in that mecha explosion. He's just too damn beast for that. What happens after the events of movie 5 is that Girghe and the other pilots are captured. Girghe annouces that he's the pilot of Delphine when questioned by the enemy and is shot dead. This was to protect Rygartz and they later manage to escape. The female commander of Rygartz group wasn't captured though. She also kills that loli pilot.] All I can do is hope for a series adaption...

So many rants from me, damn, that was unexpected. On the bright side... I returned the two series I bought from Best Buy and ordered some other series from Rightstuf. GANTZ, Love Hina complete series, Ga-Rei-Zero DVD/BD complete series, Basilisk, and the Evangelion series. Hopefully I'll get them soon so I can watch them. I'm 15-16 years behind the human race in watching Evangelion and I wish to no longer be left out of the group who've watched it. I should really finish my backlog of anime while waiting for their arrival though.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
The King of Harts



Joined: 05 May 2009
Posts: 6712
Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 8:36 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
So in it, you have 19 sisters and 1 brother. Yea, it's something of a harem, the girls are from different fathers but they all share the same mother as the brother.

What a slut!

I shall now continue reading your post.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Errinundra
Moderator


Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 6516
Location: Melbourne, Oz
PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:50 am Reply with quote
Early in The Irresponsible Captain Tylor TV series, the eponymous hero, along with other members of his crew, are admiring a magnificent nebulosity from the viewing deck of their spaceship, the Soyokaze*. Within the beauty of the scene is a terrible irony: the brightest points in the luminous cloud aren’t stars but, rather, are the death convulsions of the ships from two opposing fleets – the United Planets Space Force and the Holy Raalgon Empire. The irony actually goes deeper: the battle should never have occurred. The enemy Raalgon fleet had been pursuing the Soyokaze and, due to a miscalculation (or maybe just bad luck) on the part of the United Planets Space Force leadership, is lured to the wrong location. What Tylor and his crew are admiring is what should have happened to themselves.

This scene beautifully illustrates much of the appeal of this anime. Typically for director Koichi Mashimo such ironies are not made obvious. It’s up to the viewers to make their own observations. This style of po-faced wit can be very hit and miss: in El Cazador de la Bruja, it is so genial as to be soporific and, in what I’ve seen so far, in Hyouge Mono I’m left wondering if I’m the victim of a giant leg pull. In this 1993 series, however, it all works a treat. With its untypical fast pace for a Mashimo anime, this is easily the most thoroughly entertaining thing I’ve seen from him yet.

Credit for its success must be due in part to the excellent script even though, paradoxically, Mashimo is joined by regular collaborators Kenichi Kanemaki and Hiroyuki Kawasaki, who also share credits in El Cazador de la Bruja and Hyouge Mono, many years down the track. Coincidentally, Kawasaki was also a scriptwriter for the subsequent Martian Successor Nadesico, which shares many thematic and stylistic qualities with The Irresponsible Captain Tylor.

Like Nadesico, this is a parody of the space opera genre. Although I’ve never seen any of the Space Battleship Yamato franchise, the relationship between all three is obvious. And, again like Nadesico, it is more than a simple parody. What it has, in spades, is emotional clout, thanks to its marvellous characters. You can add to that a heart of gold, thanks to its optimism and to its relentless ridiculing of all things military (something that has been lost in Western discourse over the last decade for reasons I need not go into here).

Everything revolves around Captain Justy Ueki Tylor. Even though he is a slacker in the finest anime tradition, I’ve never, ever encountered a character quite like him. Initially, he comes across as a complete dill. Everybody in the series has the same first impression except, notably, two important Raalgons – the empress Azalyn and her loyal military prodigy Ru Baraba Dom. Tylor's own United Planet Space Force admirals don’t know what to make of him so they give him command of an old rustbucket, crewed by incompetents and misfits. Admiral Mifune sends them to the most dangerous sector of the galaxy in the hope they will be killed. Things aren’t helped when his own crew, to a man and woman, share the common view that he is an idiot. Tylor proceeds to win improbable battles, gain the loyalty of his crew, and steal the heart of the young Raalgon Empress. It climaxes when he is given command of the UPSF fleet and faces off against Ru Baraba Dom in one last epic confrontation. The outcome of the battle is unexpected, gripping, and utterly in keeping with the spirit of the anime. Is Tylor really the idiot we have been led to believe?

Tylor is not the only entertaining character. His first officer is a by-the-book military scion who can’t make a decision for himself; his intelligence officer is a straightlaced woman who is quick to criticise; his navigator is an arrogant practitioner of Zen meditation; the communications officer is a party girl and one-time model, the ship’s surgeon can only work effectively when drunk; the ship’s nurse is an android Raalgon spy who cannot cope with her emotions; the senior fighter pilot hates women and is inflicted with twin kawaii girl trainees; the mecha marines just want to fight – it doesn’t matter with whom; and the chief cook is smarter than everyone else on board. As an ensemble, they are, at first blush, no more or less interesting than many another zany bunch of anime characters. What’s special here is that Tylor makes them all shine. He is such a goldmine of good natured comic potential that his interactions with the other characters enhance their appeal. He really is that good. A warning, though. As I said earlier, he initially comes across as a fool but, like the crew of the Soyokaze and the Empress Azalyn, he will slowly but surely win you over.

There are other Koichi Mashimo trademarks, including the colour palette and the city designs. The character designs are typical of the 90s but that shouldn't be held against them in this instance. It has also has another Mashimo trait in that the watercolour backgrounds are sometimes pedestrian in their palette and composition and other times breathtaking in their beauty. I get the feeling that the series had a relatively high budget. It scrubs up pretty well given its age – almost twenty years. It even has a segment in the three-episode epilogue that would do Mamoru Oshii proud: a disillusioned Tylor wanders the streets of a future, grimy city, with the camera providing a silent commentary on his emotional state in an uncaring world.

A minor quibble: there is no mention of the English voice actors in either the credits or on the packaging. Admittedly, I haven’t yet watched it with the dub but I have heard that more than one dub exists. Apparently the first one wasn’t too good.

On a related matter, in all the credits Kotono Mitsuishi gets second billing even though Kim Kyung Hwa (the party girl and one-time model) is really just a secondary character. Sailor Moon was first aired less than a year earlier. The impact of that show (she played the lead, Usagi Tsukino) must have been enormous. Amazingly, you can hear the wonderful mid-career voice of Misato Katsuragi and Mireille Bouquet rather than the irritating Sailor Moon squawk.

Sometimes with Mashimo I get the sense he is not fully engaged with his art, that he is merely going through the motions. Not so, in The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. It has a freshness and enthusiasm that is infectious – as if everyone involved enjoyed themselves immensely.

Rating: excellent.

* Soyokaze = gentle breeze, a piss-take on kamikaze, ie divine wind.


Last edited by Errinundra on Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
SethMosrite



Joined: 27 Nov 2010
Posts: 173
Location: Boston, MA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 11:34 am Reply with quote
Is anybody else watching Nekogami Yaoyorozu [Cat God]? I was skeptical at first but it's legitimately funny. I would watch it every week just to hear this which I've been humming for weeks.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
kilaria



Joined: 04 Mar 2009
Posts: 135
Location: Dallas, TX
PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:24 pm Reply with quote
I had a 3 day weekend and some spare time so was browsing through Netflix when I came across Canaan. This has been on my 'want to buy' list for a long time, but I just couldn't justify spending $50+ for the blu-ray when it's only 13 episodes long. I was very excited to see this title, so immediately started watching it.

Canaan was good. I found it entertaining and had a fast enough pace that was easy to marathon (i'd hope so with only 13 episodes). The animation was beautiful, and I loved the character styles. Canaan did remind me a lot of Jo from Burst Angel though with the silver hair and quiet demeanor despite the fact that she is a total bad ass.

The story was good, and I liked the variety of characters. I guess I'll rate this as "very good". And since it's so short, definitely rewatchable.

I would consider purchasing if the price dropped down around the $30 mark. If you have netflix and like a good 'girls with guns' action flick, I definitely recommend it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address My Anime
Errinundra
Moderator


Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 6516
Location: Melbourne, Oz
PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 3:15 pm Reply with quote
I previously wrote:
...* Soyokaze = gentle breeze, a piss-take on kamikaze, ie divine wind.


The reference is more direct than I originally thought. The Soyokaze is a destroyer in the United Planets Space Force. Destroyers from the Imperial Japanese Navy often had names ending in -kaze (breeze). The full list is:

Asakaze = morning breeze
Kamikaze = divine wind
Harukaze = spring breeze
Matsukaze = the sound of wind in pine trees
Umikaze = sea breeze
Yamakaze = mountain wind
Urakaze = sea breeze
Kawakaze = river breeze
Amatsukaze = August wind
Isokaze = beach breeze
Tokitsukaze = virtuous breeze
Hamakaze = sea breeze
Tanikaze = valley wind
Minekaze = mountain wind
Sawakaze = valley breeze
Okikaze = rising breeze
Hakaze = rustling breeze
Yakaze = wind from the plains; wind of an arrow
Nadakaze = wind from the open sea
Shimakaze = island wind
Akikaze = autumn breeze
Shiokaze = salt air
Yukaze = hot springs wind
Hokaze = breeze in a sail
Tachikaze = cutting breeze; breeze from a sword
Nokaze = plains breeze; wind from an arrow
Namikaze = wind and waves; discord
Numakaze = marshland breeze
Hatakaze = breeze in a flag
Suzukaze = cool or refreshing breeze
Hatsukaze = new breeze
Yukikaze = snow-bearing wind
Maikaze = dancing breeze

(I really should find more productive things to do with my life.)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
FaytLein



Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 1260
Location: Williamsburg, VA
PostPosted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 2:33 pm Reply with quote
Since I haven't watched anime in a long time, I decided to throw in something from my unwatched pile. So I tossed in Hell Girl Season 1. And its been very enjoyable so far, so much so that I've been yelling at the screen about how shows like this always seem to create the most psycopathic, unredeemable people screwing with kids....And I believe I have three episodes left, then I can start on season 2.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail My Anime
Roshi1030



Joined: 07 Jul 2011
Posts: 50
Location: Attleboro MA.
PostPosted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 11:03 pm Reply with quote
errinundra wrote:
I previously wrote:
...* Soyokaze = gentle breeze, a piss-take on kamikaze, ie divine wind.


The reference is more direct than I originally thought. The Soyokaze is a destroyer in the United Planets Space Force. Destroyers from the Imperial Japanese Navy often had names ending in -kaze (breeze). The full list is:

Asakaze = morning breeze
Kamikaze = divine wind
Harukaze = spring breeze
Matsukaze = the sound of wind in pine trees
Umikaze = sea breeze
Yamakaze = mountain wind
Urakaze = sea breeze
Kawakaze = river breeze
Amatsukaze = August wind
Isokaze = beach breeze
Tokitsukaze = virtuous breeze
Hamakaze = sea breeze
Tanikaze = valley wind
Minekaze = mountain wind
Sawakaze = valley breeze
Okikaze = rising breeze
Hakaze = rustling breeze
Yakaze = wind from the plains; wind of an arrow
Nadakaze = wind from the open sea
Shimakaze = island wind
Akikaze = autumn breeze
Shiokaze = salt air
Yukaze = hot springs wind
Hokaze = breeze in a sail
Tachikaze = cutting breeze; breeze from a sword
Nokaze = plains breeze; wind from an arrow
Namikaze = wind and waves; discord
Numakaze = marshland breeze
Hatakaze = breeze in a flag
Suzukaze = cool or refreshing breeze
Hatsukaze = new breeze
Yukikaze = snow-bearing wind
Maikaze = dancing breeze

(I really should find more productive things to do with my life.)


I want to thank you for this; I have been working on a story for the last three or four years. The setting is in Japan and i have limited time for research. Your list has provided me with exact translations; ex: Kawakaze, my main characters live near a waterway named Windy River, up to this point I hadn't found the translation ( I am striving for some accuracy, although most of my settings are ficticious)
Thanks again
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail My Anime My Manga
Errinundra
Moderator


Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 6516
Location: Melbourne, Oz
PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 12:26 am Reply with quote
Macross Plus Movie Edition

Watched this as part of my project to watch landmark 90s anime.

The thing that struck me immediately with Macross Plus is what delicious eye candy it is. It's quite a surprise how well integrated - for a 90s anime - the 2D and 3D elements are. But it goes further than that. The colour palette has a vibrancy and richness and the backgrounds have a level of detail that would be more typical of anime from the last five years. Looked at from this perspective it has aged very well.

The music isn't bad either. Checked out the credits and, wouldn't you know, it's by Yoko Kanno. The soundtrack isn't up to the standard of Cowboy Bebop or her Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex efforts nor does the main theme come close to her OP for Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight (my favourite Kanno piece ever) but second tier Kanno is still better than most.

I'm thankful that mecha or giant robots play a minimal role. It's a personal taste thing but I always find them ridiculous. (Now, if they could only take the giant robots out of Evangelion... but then I suppose it wouldn't be Evangelion anymore, would it?) Nevertheless, when the enormous Macross Fortress makes its belated appearance, I have to admit it's a pretty impressive sight. Good thing it just stands there and allows the conflict to take place between the characters of the story.

The animation is a delight. The fighter plane scenes are never less than thrilling while the camera movements in the Sharon Apple crowd scenes and the in overhead cityscapes are breathtaking.

This is an anime where I could re-watch some scenes over and over. And probably will.

That's what's good about Macross Plus. Now it's all downhill.

The story revolves almost entirely around just four characters: the competing pilots Isamu Dyson and Guld Bowman; their love interest Myung Fang Lone; and her virtual idol creation Sharon Apple. Other than the prescience of the concept of Sharon Apple (pre-dating Miku Hatsune by some thirteen years), all four characters spoil the spectacle that is otherwise taking place on the screen.

The two pilots are unpleasant characters. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, in itself, but their unappealing personae are not softened or countered by wit or compelling backstory and personal dilemmas nor are their roles in the plot particularly engaging. Even the origins of their deadly rivalry are obscure - it just seems to be innate and, therefore, never convincing. No matter how violent the rivalry can be, that intensity is no substitute for a lack of storytelling integrity. The rivalry is also poorly resolved: in their final battle, spoiler[thinking he has finally defeated Isamu, Guld remembers (how could he possibley forget?) he once raped Myung, Isamu's girlfriend at the time. He then realises that Isamu is still alive, apologises and now they're best mates. To atone for his sin he manfully sacrifices himself so that the other can rescue the poor damsel in distress, Myung Fang Lone.] Spare me, please.

Myung, herself, along with her music idol avatar, Sharon Apple, are both nothing characters. Her role in the plot is to provide a competitive spur for the two men, and to give a kick start to the development of the Sharon Apple phenomenon. She has no personality whatsoever... well, apart from being so traumatised from some ill-defined event in the past - spoiler[presumably being raped by Guld, but it isn't clear] - that she has given up singing. Sharon Apple is an interesting creation but her character is quite unconvincing. As an avatar of Myung, there isn't much personality for her to be based upon and, while Myung's repressed love for Isamu is understandably transferred, there is no basis for Sharon's psychopathic, cataclysmic actions. Where in Myung does this come from? I suppose it is necessary for the film's climax. Silly me, for not properly appreciating that.

But the film's most eggregious fault is the rape scene and what it says about the film-makers' and the intended audience's attitudes to women. The clear message is that the rape is an offence by Guld against Isamu, not against Myung. Not only is the issue resolved by one man's apology to the other, it doesn't seem all that big a deal for the woman. Her relationship with Guld seems in no way affected by it. How? Even her abandonment of singing seems to pre-date the rape. This is mediaeval thinking, where rape was a crime against another man's property. I find it repellant.

Rating: visuals and music - excellent; everything else: bad; overall: decent.

Roshi1030 wrote:
I want to thank you for this; I have been working on a story for the last three or four years. The setting is in Japan and i have limited time for research. Your list has provided me with exact translations; ex: Kawakaze, my main characters live near a waterway named Windy River, up to this point I hadn't found the translation ( I am striving for some accuracy, although most of my settings are ficticious)
Thanks again


So I did spend my time productively. It's a pleasure to have helped.

川風

河風

かわかぜ

I used this site for my translations.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 1:50 am Reply with quote
Wow. Just. Wow. I don't normally post about series until I'm finished with them unless I'm really pleased or really annoyed. Sadly, this is the former. I might honestly have to drop this.

I've seen two eps of Le Chevalier D'Eon and am far less than pleased. I don't think I can continue this. So, to explain my annoyance, I feel like I was dropped into the middle of the world with absolutely nothing to go on. Now sure, it can be fun to learn stuff for yourself, but then you're usually given interesting characters or something so sure, part of the series' unique dictionary might take you a while to get ahold of (Twelve Kingdoms was an especially bad offender but lookit me now, I have Yoko from 12K as an avvy), but as long as I'm still given someone good to follow plus maybe something incredibly basic plot-wise like "we're going to point A" or "we're trying to find person B", I can usually deal with that.
But I feel like D'Eon just dumped all the plots and action scenes on me and forgot to give me anything else to go on. Like I seriously had to double check that I put in disc 1. They even forgot to give me characters, it's like the writers went "we forgot to give you characters with personality, but here, look! We have these fancy cardboard cut outs that look awesome! Just use these instead! Oh, what's that? You wanted us to give them personalities? Well screw you for even asking! Action scene, now!" and the lack of anything even slightly interesting to me made this ungodly boring for me to watch despite the obviously awesome action scenes. I seriously think I need to drop this right now before I suffer any more torture and just sell the set (btw, it's the artbox+singles and they all have the slipcases). I'm like, never bored after just two eps, the last time this happened was...like GITS:SAC, I think I'm done giving Production I.G. chances. Either try to convince me to give it another shot or pm me if you wanna buy the set off me.

Yuck.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
TheBigSpeigs



Joined: 13 Aug 2011
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 2:10 am Reply with quote
Just caught episode 5 of Dantalian and...well....it was okay I guess. For a show with such an interesting idea (phantom books and the such) I'm starting to worry that this show will never have a story and its just going to be constant filler till the last episode. Awe well, its weird enough to keep me watching.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Anime All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous    Next
Page 608 of 1060

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group