Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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Was kind of wallowing Saturday night until I realized it was time for a weekly internet get-together type thing to watch some anime. The guy hosting had Ghost Talker's Daydream. You know, the one about the professional dominatrix who sees ghosts. Yeah, so I realized I was totally in the wrong state of mind for weird stuff, so I got some vodka to change my perspective a little. As such, I'm not really sure if it was a good show, but I enjoyed it. I liked the main character, who tries really hard to not care about other people. The nerdy guy turning out to be pretty tough was a surprise, but after the first episode there weren't other people to fight, so he became a whiny scaredy-cat about ghosts after that.
Finished up The SoulTaker, and even as a huge fan of Akiyuki Shinbo, it was ... bad. The plot twists waver between predictable cliche and ridiculously stupid. The final two episodes could probably have been cut down to one if they hadn't felt the need to repeat everything multiple times every couple of minutes and re-explain everything (although with all the ridiculous relationships it may have been necessary). The budget was nowhere near what it needed to be to try pulling off what Shinbo was going for. If you watched Prof's review of Petite Cossette, the animation and art is pretty much like that, but worse (and I rather liked the style in Cossette). I thought the Japanese seiyuu for Kyosuke and Komugi sounded a little too young. The English voice actors felt a little better matched. The acting overall wasn't too bad, except for Yui's flashback to her boyfriend's deptarture, which was both stiff and overly dramatic, but that was a pretty short scene. Komugi was my favorite character. I would totally buy a spin-off series made about her. |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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Thanks to streaming, the titles coming out of Japan are now being accessed faster than ever, letting us enjoy a series long before it goes through the rigors of product licensing.
This is actually very important for some of us who still buy DVDs, because this preview gives us a great appreciation of where to spend our money without worries of buying crap. One of the genres I'm very appreciative of is "slice-of-life", which has yet to disappoint me in delivering a good story. The latest is Soranowoto, or what I'll call the "future purchase" should it get released. The manipulation of setting up drama in the series is its one fault as it tries much too hard, and much too quickly, to arc a character's past story with the current story. If the goal was to invoke an emotion, the writers may be surprised to find anger is the emotion over the blatant, repeated delivery. Thankfully, I wasn't angry, but rather unresponsive. I wanted to see where the story went and considered this a speed bump. Of course, the conclusion is as predictable as they come, but this didn't matter. It did conclude, and rather nicely, making the 12 episode series worth every minute of viewing. I would recommend a stream of this one, especially to those who see this as a "cute girls doing cute things" series. It's definitely not going to be seen with the same eyes by those who view Death Note the greatest anime ever made, but if you enjoyed Aria, you'll enjoy this. My grade for this will be B-, mostly given in lieu of the dramatic unnecessary the series gives. The girls are easy to relate to and the story moves decently despite the bumps. *** I'm still watching El Hazard: The Wanderers and I should have this one finished up this evening, now that I'm on the last disk. I've not been impressed with this one, though I have managed to be entertained to the point of being reminded of reading Garfield comics. They suck, we know they suck, but we still read them because it's Garfield. This series decided to just fall apart with a story and, instead, decided to fill in the remaining episodes with filler. Without warning, the "Demon god" is introduced, but she's a bungling nit-wit, which is par for this series and its attempt at comedy. Shockingly, her bumbling actually makes her quite endearing to the series, especially when she's mocking sarcastically. It added a ray of hope to the series, which is why I can keep moving forward. This one's getting a C now, as I see no change forthcoming in the remaining 4/5 episodes. I do not recommend a purchase and it's not available for streaming as far as I know. *** That's all. Get back to work before the boss catches you. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6525 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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The standout Mashimo anime after Noir is the TV version of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor where his idiosyncratic wit is at its most accessible and rewarding. The main character is quite a piece of work, quite unlike anybody else in anime, although it takes a few episodes to warm to him. The other memorable work is his short film, The Weathering Continent which showcases his atmospheric tendencies at their best with great backgrounds, music and that slow pace that makes him so beguiling. I just wish Hyouge Mono would get more attention from fansubbers. 
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OldCharlieStoletheHandle
 Posts: 1288 Location: Mastic Beach, NY |
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Sora no Woto has been released. It was licensed by Nozomi under the title of Sound of the Sky and has been released as a premium box set with chipboard art box. Since it's Nozomi there is no English dub. It's currently on sale at TRSI for $29.99 and it appears they still have some postcards left. http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827/catalogmgr/WaQ=1vg2yeCzCt3pWP/browse/item/91631/4/0/0 |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11298 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Black Lagoon (4-12) - Had something of a mini-marathon the last couple of days with my girlfriend. We watched the first season on 1.5x speed and in English. She usually prefers subs, but absolutely loved the dub for this, as I tried to convince her this was one of the best I'd heard and that this is why Ocean-Vancouver is one of my favorite dubbing studios. Content-wise, it's actually been a few years since I've seen this. I own the DVDs for season 1, but stumbled upon some fansubs that used Japanese BD rips for the video and the English DVDs audio. I remember this series being completely badass and raucous to the core with all the criminal activity, violence, and cussing, and it was a blast to watch it all over again. I never saw season 2 in dubbed, but I found those as well. Here's hoping FUNimation decides to release both of them on BD at some point in the States.
Master Keaton (29-30) - We've been watching this off and on since the series is completely episodic, but I love how so many of the stories tend to be quirky, full of historical trivia, dramatically gripping, and mysteriously tense all at the same time. Too bad the budget was so low, and I wish someone would release the manga in America. |
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OldCharlieStoletheHandle
Posts: 1288 Location: Mastic Beach, NY |
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I haven't posted here in a while because I haven't been watching that much anime lately and I wonder why. Recently I have been having health issues which have kept me home from work yet I did not take advantage of this to reduce my backlog. I put this down partly to depression over my situation. the other reason was that a crappy anime was sitting on my head. It wasn't bad enough for me to drop it but I kept finding other things to watch rather than finish it (mostly Godzilla movies and MST3K but also some other anime).
The show in question was a train wreck called Black Cat. Apparently this was originally scheduled to run 52 episodes but was cut down to 24 (actually 23 plus an OVA in the middle somewhere). This explains why the primary story arc ends...at episode 20. WTF? Well, since it was cut at least there won't be any filler, right? Wait, what am I saying, this is a Shonen Jump show, and a Shonen Jump show without filler is like a Roger Corman film without padding. The title character is an "eraser" named Train Heartnett. What's an eraser? It's just a fancy way of saying "assassin". Anyway, Train is a member of a group called the Chonos Numbers who go around assassinating people to keep the peace, or something like that. Actually, they seem to spend most of their time spouting stupid SJ dialog and not doing much of anything. Train is number XIII. In episode 1 he meets a "sweeper" (bounty hunter) named Saya who wears a kimono, talks about being free, and steals Train's milk (black cat, milk, get it?). For some reason, Train suddenly decides to chuck it all and become a sweeper. Why? It's hard to say. For starters, he has the personality of a turnip. He also shows no feelings whatsoever toward Saya-at least not until she gets dead, which happens in episode 2, at which point he swears vengeance on her killer. Gee, Train, we didn't know you cared. The man responsible is one Creed Diskenth, who is or was somehow involved with the Chronos Numbers. He's supposed to bring Train back but he actually wants Train to join him in..doing something, we don't really know what yet. Actually, Creed Dilandau is pretty much Train's gay stalker. He decides killing Saya is the best way to get Train to join him. We also meet another sweeper named Sven Volfied, who may in fact be the actual main character since, unlike Train, he actually has a personality. He's supposed to be an ace sweeper but this is doubtful as he is always broke. He wears an eyepatch and we all know what that means-yep, his eye has a special power called "Vision Eye" which allows him to see 5 seconds into the future at the cost of totally exhausting him. There's also a female thief named Rinslet Walker who gets involved with Sven and Train in "stealing" a bioweapon in the shape of a loli named Eve, who ends up joining forces with Sven and Train. Anyhow, Train has a big fight with Creed Dickweed which ends with a big explosion and Train being rescued by Eve. We don't see what happened to Creed but most anime fans will know we'll be seeing him again. The Cronos Numbers pretty much leave Train alone though occasionally one of them who has nothing to do chases him a bit. They become distracted when a group calling itself the "Apostles of the Star" starts making trouble, led-of course-by Creed Diskdrive, who is still hot for Train to the consternation of his new pals. These folks are using Taoist magic and, of course, want to take over the world. Sounds interesting, right? Well, it might have been, but unfortunately it ends up being, IMO, a train wreck. We get useless filler episodes, big battles that resolve nothing, mountains of risible dialog (I was watching in Japanese with subtitles), a huge overpopulated cast and stupid plot inconsistencies. At the end of episode 12, spoiler[after the big 3-way battle between Chronos, the Apostles, and Our Heroes (which of course ends with no conclusion), Train states he is done with trying to get revenge for Saya's murder. Then in episode 13 he goes after Creed to avenge Saya's death-and says so. The show spends several episodes wandering around trying so hard to be Trigun, and failing. We even get a filler episode that rips off Alligator. Finally, we get the final big battle with Chronos, a bunch of sweepers they gathered (from the set of Bleach or Naruto i guess) who are supposed to serve as cannon fodder but who actually are less useless than the Chronos Numbers, and Our Heroes. During the fight Sven uses his "Vision Eye" for about 10 minutes straight without getting the least bit tired, even though the writers have beaten us over the head with the "fact" that if he uses it for even a few seconds he conks out. Eve battles a young boy on a skateboard by continually transforming as the writers pull all sorts of nonsense out of their asses. In the end, Train doesn't kill Creed, but instead takes away his powers to force him to live as an ordinary human. That'll learn him.] I stopped for a while at this point, not sure if I wanted to drop this or go ahead and finish the last 4 episodes. The other day I finally did finish it. What happens is, spoiler[we get a whole new story arc which posits that everything we just watched was solely for the purpose of "educating" Eve who is not a bioweapon after all (despite the fact that she can beat people up with her hair, transform multiple times, and even pull a clown hammer out of her ass) but is the key to a device called "Eden" which will put an end to war and strife by infecting all humans with nanomachines and then absorbing them. This is being perpetrated by Chronos Number XII (a character barely seen previously) who has united treasonous Chronos Numbers with some of the Apostles and a cackling mad scientist. Our heroes then must find Eve's creator and put a stop to Eden. Train makes a speech about trusting others which leads to him (and the writers) gathering the entire cast (including some kids who get dragged into the battle like the kids on the space train in the execrable Space Thunder Kids) and heading for-you guessed it-another Big Final Battle. As ridiculous as this nonsense is, it's an improvement over the first twenty episodes if only because there's really no time for filler now. In fact, this portion ends up being ridiculously rushed with images that make no sense flashing on the screen and an art style that looks like Gonzo grabbed a bunch of spastic kids and gave them big boxes of Crayola crayons (the ones with 164 colors) and told them to use them all.] I could go on further but this post is quite long enough now. Any more, and I'll be writing a recap ala "The Agony Booth" (a site which very amusingly recaps bad movies the way the Anime World Order reviews OVAs where the review is longer than the anime). I rated this show as "not really good" and only went that high because some of the comedy bits did work and a couple of the characters were interesting. |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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*KISS* *ahem* Sorry about that. Emotions of happiness just got the better of me. Ordered. Never bothered to even look at this by an English title. Hell, I didn't even know it had an English title. 
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Monster Rider
Posts: 1 |
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[EDIT: Anime. Not Hollywood stuff, please. -TK]
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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I watched Iria: Zeiram the Animation last night. It was unremarkably enjoyable. I can't really say that it was exceptional in any way, although its opening and closing are better than average, but it did the standards well without any real failures, so it was pleasant to watch. It even has kid characters who end up as only slightly annoying. As child characters go, that's a knockout.
I don't think that I ever saw this on The Sci-Fi Channel, but I might have since so many sources claim that it aired there. Considering that, I'll count this in my 'nostalgia series', which runs the quality gamut from Gall Force: Eternal Story to Galaxy Express 999 (why haven't you watched that yet, you sons of bitches?!). Iria: Zeiram the Animation is contentedly in the middle. The animation is better than average, being as it is an OVA, but very little stands out as remarkable. I enjoyed the worn, human feel of the old cel animation, but I usually do. The Zeiram creature itself is sometimes a success, sometimes not. Sometimes it has an interestingly weird, menacing visage, but others it's a confusing angry pile of brown with some odd appendages. The rest of the designs are mostly unremarkable, but serviceable. Iria herself looks suitably lively and distinguishable, if not too distinctive, although her wild red hair stands out at least a little. The titular character is an entirely adequate action heroine. She's skilled and confident and all that razzmatazz. That's enough for me to enjoy a character for the duration of a series, but not to remember her the next day. The series does add some substance to her in her relationship with her brother and his fate, but anybody reasonably well acquainted with this sort of thing will be able to fill almost all of the blanks in before the send of the second episode. There's a child whom Iria meets in the second episode who eventually falls into a relationship with Iria that mirrors her relationship with her brother. This is solid, simple touch, but it loses something by the third time that you're reminded very overtly of it by the characters. I give it credit for some light touches of science fiction and world-building. The implied elaborate rules surrounding bounty hunters are a nice touch, although I they were probably contrived as the story requested. The way that the transit gates, a sort of instantaneous point-to-point transportation, required scheduling was a little clever and more interesting than more convenient ways of breaking physics. I didn't expect anything exceptional out of Iria: Zeiram the Animation and it met my restrained hopes pretty well, so even as I can't much praise it, I was still satisfied with it.
The Irresponsible Captain Taylor is most assuredly on my list. I mean that literally. I have a list and that's on it. I actually have a copy of The Weathering Continent sitting on my shelves. I meant to watch it a few weeks ago, but somehow never did and half forgot about it. I don't know how, I'm actually pretty interested in seeing it since I have high hopes for its sense of mood and perhaps a touch of bleakness. Last edited by Surrender Artist on Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:18 am; edited 1 time in total |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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D-.
Anime has some bad reputations, justified or not, but it's "bad ending" seems to have carried itself for many decades now. The series El Hazard: The Wanderers will receive a special honor of having the worst ending I've seen in recent memory with a twist: it also delivered it so quickly, viewers didn't stand a chance. One episode. This is what it took to take a rather entertaining series and turn it into an offensive memory. A series, filled with nothing but filler, instantly throws out a story and tries to finish it in 22 minutes based on a few pieces of information thrown to us throughout the series. 22 minutes finalizing 25 episodes. This is about as best I can summarize this series I thought would get no better. Honestly, I didn't expect it to get much worse, either, but I suppose I could classify this as a "shock ending" since I didn't see it coming. If one does plan to watch this, and retain the average C- I gave it prior, for the love of all things anime, stop at episode 24 and just pretend the other two episodes are "lost". Either that, or watch Green Green instead. Now, for the thread title: currently nothing at the moment. I have to peruse two queues to determine what series grabs my attention first. |
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Shion_Sanada
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Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon
I`ve been waiting for this series since read the original novel series. Mobile Suit Gundam AGE I wanna check out, how far Sunrise plan for this new series, although the first episode is so-so but the spoiler about their Gundam make me curious about this series. |
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jmfsilenthill
 Posts: 1863 Location: Chinese cartoons are srs biz |
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Sorry, I'm just seeing your comment now! I just finished up to and including episode 7. I can't agree with you more on the appeal of the main character. I've always liked shows with a strong female lead (though I'm not female myself  ), like Ergo Proxy for instance. But it's also great to have a character who's so down to earth and passionate about what they do. It was really sad to see Rin spoiler[almost lose her will to live once she was apprehended by the GGP. But then to see her quickly turn around during her ride with Kiefer around the mansion was very satisfying. That scene in particular was incredibly well done and quite beautiful. And I was definitely not expecting her brother to be pinned for a crime he didn't do. It definitely adds a lot of suspense and I'm wondering what's to become of him. ]
As for the character designs, I actually really like Rin's and Kiefer's. But as for the rest of the Rideback club, especially Okakura, I can't say the same. At first glance, the character designs reminded me of Mohiro Kito's work. I'm not the greatest fan of his designs, so it didn't help. The political backdrop has opened up a bit more than I was expecting. I would like to hear more about spoiler[Okakura's and Romanov's days in the early GGP. The corruption within that system also makes for some interesting episodes, like the aforementioned framing of Rin's brother, and the continuous friction between the GGP and the local Police force.] One thing I've come to adore in this series is the background art. The colours and detail are incredibly vibrant, especially while watching it on Blu-ray. Some scenes even remind me of Shinkai's work, especially the cherry blossoms near the beginning of the series. It's an incredible compliment to the already stellar animation, and even to the Cg riding/battling scenes (which has really come to grow on me). That's about all I got for now, but I'll probably pop in and give my final thoughts when I finish the second disc. 
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deskiejhan
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Don’t have much time to watch anime right now but same as you are I’m a big fan of fushigi yuugi too, I actually have a dvd of it (Fushigi Yuugi: Mysterious Play) complete episode including the season 2. How about the Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kainden, have you watched it? 
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Haterater
 Posts: 1727 |
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Finished watching Baccano! and loved it so much! Wish it was longer! The jazz and soundtrack just fit so well with the show and characters continue to impress me to the end. Favorite VA is Ladd and Jacuzi, they just hit the ball park for me.
The only downside is trying to follow which year and the constant jumping around. Not really a fan of that type of storytelling mechanic(the biggest offender to me was LOST) so I'll rewatch the show again sometime in full run to get most out of it. Wish I can get all the segments in order though.
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BoundTogetherByString
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Kino's Journey. I loved Mushi-shi and ANN recommended it and so I watched it. And Black Lagoon because. . .because. Just because.
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