General anime discussion thread

Camilla Delvalle said:

I've begun on Fate/Zero. It's a pretty cool fantasy. It makes me think of card games, but I've heard it is based on a book.

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I take it you haven't seen Fate/stay night, then? Fate/zero is the prequel to it.

They're based on visual novels (i.e., games). Though another story in the same universe that was turned into an awesome series of movies, Kara no Kyoukai was indeed based on a series of books.

LilliCray said:

Now I'm even more curious about this show. Definitely going to give it a shot when I'm finished with what I'm currently watching... and when NaNo is over and I actually have time.

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Yes yes yes. Go watch my guilty pleasure!

Camilla Delvalle said:

I've begun on Fate/Zero. It's a pretty cool fantasy. It makes me think of card games, but I've heard it is based on a book.

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I loooooove Fate/zero. And love Fate/stay night, which you should DEFINITELY watch.

Arianna Sterling said:

Bro-cest. And a bit of a sister complex, but MOSTLY bro-cest.

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Huhwhat?

The KanbaxHimari sexual tension is...



...though strong evidence suggests they may not actually be related...

Dawnstorm said:

I don't mind incest, if it's treated seriously (Yosuga no Sora was pretty good - though it contains very graphic sex scenes; they generally work, but sometimes come off as gratuitious or go on for too long), but I'm not a fan of those sexualised imouto jokes. Doesn't turn me away from a show, but I do roll my eyes.

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I have to admit... I have on more than one occasion tried to get a younger IRL friend-who-happens-to-be-a-girl to call me "onii-chan."

HNNNNNNNG.

I was actually somewhat disappointed to be treated with a mere "mmm no" rather than a "BAKA HENTAI" with a swift kick to the face.

One of these days...

Ahh, where is my real life Kuroneko...?

ETA: I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but sometimes I have to hold myself back from calling the older PhD students "sempai." I'm sure one of these days, I'll try to get one of my kouhais to do the same...

kuwisdelu said:

Huhwhat?

The KanbaxHimari sexual tension is...

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I am TRYING to pretend that never happened thank you very much.

kuwisdelu said:

ETA: I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but sometimes I have to hold myself back from calling the older PhD students "sempai." I'm sure one of these days, I'll try to get one of my kouhais to do the same...

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I address my underclassmen as -kun. Sadly have yet to be called sempai.

Arianna Sterling said:

I am TRYING to pretend that never happened thank you very much.

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....but...but why??

kuwisdelu said:

....but...but why??

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Because the sister annoys me more than I can possibly express.

Arianna Sterling said:

Because the sister annoys me more than I can possibly express.

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The Princess of the Crystal is fucking hot, though.

Just watched Kurenai. It's cute and funny and creepy and brutal and a masterpiece. Took me way too long to find it.

My favourite series this year is Chihaya furu. I expected a light comedy about playing cards, but this is an emotionally dense drama with a high tempo, and I cried during every episode.

I've also seen a few episodes of the detective mystery series Un-Go. It's a bit interesting and I may continue. Not as good as Gosick so far.

Chihayafuru is great. It reliably gives me that what?-it's-over-already? feeling. Great character dynamics, too. I also find the game itself very interesting.

UnGo gets better later on, but it doesn't pass from good into great. The characters are decent, but the mysteries...

I've quit Guilty Crown. Sadly, it's a two-cour, which means only one new noitaminA show, and - if I'm not mistaken - that's going to be Black Rock Shooter. Seen the OVA, which was... decent, but nothing special. noitaminA is heading in the wrong direction...

I'm still loving Mawaru Penguindrum and Fate/zero. Liking iDOLM@STER, too. Also picked up Ben-to and Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukanai, which I'm both really enjoying.

Haven't tried Chihayafuru yet. When you say "emotionally dense drama," is that, like, in a psychological, mindfucky way à la Utena, or more in a standard josei way? If it's the former, I'm definitely picking it up; if it's the latter I might wait.

kuwisdelu said:

Haven't tried Chihayafuru yet. When you say "emotionally dense drama," is that, like, in a psychological, mindfucky way à la Utena, or more in a standard josei way? If it's the former, I'm definitely picking it up; if it's the latter I might wait.

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There has been no mindfuck yet and I don't think there will be any. I don't know what you mean with standard josei, but I guess it can be called josei, or shoujo possibly. It reminds me most of Clannad and Ano Hana. It is realistic, has a high pacing, and plays a lot on emotions. Also the card games are cool intellectual battles, with the players having different strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and ugly tricks.

Re: Guilty Crown and UN-GO:

noitaminA seems to determined to air as much database anime as possible.

Dawnstorm's notiaminA balance of 2011:

Hourou Musuko, Usagi Drop: Masterpieces
Ano Hana: Very Good
No. 6, Un-Go: Good
Fractale, Guilty Crown: Meh
C: Argh!

Trend: Very good at Drama/Slice of Life; SF/F - you're lucky if it's even good (and I like the genre).

***

Chihayafuru is pretty conventional, but the writing is exceptionally good.

***

It's no secret that Ben-to is one of my favourites this season (although it stagnated a bit in the middle, it's made a comeback). Tomodachi is better than thought it would be after the first few episodes; I compared it Mayo Chiki in the beginning, but the show's much better, actually. It has a surprisingly subtle touch that I missed, behind the silly exterior. [A question: Does mecha porn actually exist? I would have thought that was a parody, but then again...]

Just marathoner the first six episodes of Chihayafuru.

I like it.

Josei stuff it pretty hit-and-miss with me. Not necessarily so far as what I consider quality, but whether it actually speaks to me. Being on the autism spectrum, some of the more subtle stuff just loses me. I'm very much liking Chihayafuru so far, though.

In particular, it reminds me of when I wrote an essay in middle school about my "accomplishment" of being the school champion of go. Of course, this wasn't some great accomplishment or anything, since no one in a Western junior high school plays go (besides the few people I tried to teach and convinced to play with me). So the real subject of the essay was an existentialist meditation on what it means to be good at something about which no one else cares, even if it was something very important to you, and how that feels — well, at least how it affected me.

Anyway, that's something to which I can relate. Probably something to which all writers can relate.

kuwisdelu said:

Anyway, that's something to which I can relate. Probably something to which all writers can relate.

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Well, a key difference between being good at go/karuta and being good at writing is that latter is far harder to measure, and thus writers often feel they're bad at it, despite the evidence. That's very unlikely with games that have clear victory conditions.

Glad you like Chihayafuru. Almost everyone who I talked to who watched this show was pleasantly surprised. Probably because the show works on many levels; character study, romance or tournament show.

Dawnstorm said:

Well, a key difference between being good at go/karuta and being good at writing is that latter is far harder to measure, and thus writers often feel they're bad at it, despite the evidence. That's very unlikely with games that have clear victory conditions.

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Well, I meant more along the lines of really caring about and working toward something that others either don't care about at all or take entirely for granted. Most people don't give a shit about writing, but we dedicate ourselves to it.

Glad you like Chihayafuru. Almost everyone who I talked to who watched this show was pleasantly surprised. Probably because the show works on many levels; character study, romance or tournament show.

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For me, it's just the nature of josei and being Asperger's.

For example, while I loved Usagi Drop, I had a lot of trouble catching all of the nuances of Honey & Clover so a lot of it was lost on me. For josei in particular, it's really just a question of whether it's told in a way that I'll manage to relate to it or not.

kuwisdelu said:

Well, I meant more along the lines of really caring about and working toward something that others either don't care about at all or take entirely for granted. Most people don't give a shit about writing, but we dedicate ourselves to it.

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Quite true, that.

For me, it's just the nature of josei and being Asperger's.

For example, while I loved Usagi Drop, I had a lot of trouble catching all of the nuances of Honey & Clover so a lot of it was lost on me. For josei in particular, it's really just a question of whether it's told in a way that I'll manage to relate to it or not.

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Hm, I tried Honey & Clover, but didn't get into it at episode one, so I "postponed" it. I do think I get the gist of your point (although it's a tad hard to "imagine" the particulars). What I meant by my comment was mostly that a show that works on many levels gets more "tries" at appeal than a show that's dedicated to a single goal. I noticed that Chihayafuru unites watchers with pretty different tastes (and then splits them up again between people who like or dislike Taichi).

(I need to give Honey & Clover another try, to see whether it was just mood, or whether it's just not my cup of tea.)

I forgot about this thread. Anyway, some updates on recent animes I've watched.

Soul Eater - I liked the beginning, it was funny, but in a dark, twisted way. Unfortunately, it's very apparent where the anime overtook the manga. The story line falls off a cliff and all the characters (even the "brilliant" ones) start acting like morons just so they can produce more episodes. Too bad as it started out so well. 6.5/10

Gosick - Yes, I am slow, but I finally got around to watching this anime. My expectations were probably too high going in and the anime did not meet them. Not even close. You know there's a problem when you're more interested in the secondary characters and their backstories instead of the two main leads and their current story. If they did a movie on Cordelia and Brian(s) I would watch it. 7/10

Kara no Kyoukai - Loved it. One of the best romances I've seen in a long time. It's not overly romantic, but you can feel the tension between the two main leads through out. The action parts didn't hurt either. 8.5/10

LilliCray said:

They're pervasive, yes, but rarely given much focus. At least, it seems that way to me. (It's not like I've seen a vast variety of anime...) I don't know. Like, there's often a sibling or two, and sometimes they're even a main character, but any focus on the relationship is overshadowed by the relationships between love interests...

Or I'm just not explaining what I mean very well, which happens quite a lot.

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Fullmetal Alchemist - the entire anime revolves around the brothers' relationship.

Naruto - Sasuke and Itachi. For a while this felt like the main plot of the entire anime. It doesn't end well....

Supernatural - an adaption of the American TV series. The anime, like the TV series, focuses a lot on the brothers' relationship. I recommend the TV series though.

Darker Than Black - Not the main focus, but this is the MC's main motivation for what he does.

This is just off the top of my head. I'll let you know if I think of anything else.

Also started Mirai Nikki. God I love psycho yanderes. So hot.

Hm... I've seen FMA (both series), and there definitely was a good amount of sibling relationship building there. Can't really say I've seen Naruto--I watched about a hundred episodes in, what, ninth grade? But any interest I had in the storyline was quickly squashed by the fillers. And the horrid, horrid, horrid voice acting (this was before I discovered the joys of subtitles. I watched the English dub. *twitch of horror*). Have not seen Supernatural or much of Darker than Black... I think I watched part of an episode of DtB, but it looked waaaaay too dark for my tastes at the time. Sometimes I enjoy dark. Sometimes when I see dark shows I immediately switch 'em off and turn to something adorable and lighthearted.

I watched Madoka this weekend.

...holy crap. That's all I can say. I think I was horrified. But I couldn't really tell. I think possibly Kyubey is the most terrifying thing I have ever seen in any anime. Ever. Ever.

Watching it has definitely caused a shift in my viewing tastes, though. I'm back to being solidly in the lighthearted-comedy mindset. So I'm watching DenYuuDen again, which granted is really freaking depressing near the end, but it makes me happy because it's so awesome. I think I might re-watch Blue Exorcist soon, too. I'm in a nostalgic phase, apparently. (I want to read the DenYuuDen light novels. And a second season. I want more of the story, dangit! TT.TT)

Maybe when I get into more of a dark show mood, I'll try Darker than Black again... hrm.

Little Ming said:

Gosick - Yes, I am slow, but I finally got around to watching this anime. My expectations were probably too high going in and the anime did not meet them. Not even close. You know there's a problem when you're more interested in the secondary characters and their backstories instead of the two main leads and their current story. If they did a movie on Cordelia and Brian(s) I would watch it. 7/10

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Cordelia Gallo FTW! I thought she was the coolest character. I did think Victoria was funny though, and I liked the atmosphere in the mysteries.

LilliCray said:

I watched Madoka this weekend.

...holy crap. That's all I can say. I think I was horrified. But I couldn't really tell. I think possibly Kyubey is the most terrifying thing I have ever seen in any anime. Ever. Ever.

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Kuybey is one of few characters that I really hate. Every time I see him I want to stick him with a pitchfork. If I say that there was one scene with Kyubey that made me burst with joy, I think you can guess which scene that was.