One more show for this season. Eccentric Family was pretty much the most praised show on r/anime's 3 episode watch lists today, and it deserves it. It's a magical, fairly sweet (but not overly so) slice of life show about Tanuki and Tengu living among humans. There's really smart, down to earth writing on the characters, and lots of different themes being explored, most of them fairly personal and emotional. Definitely picking this one up. It's not going to blow your mind but it's well done all around.
I just finished Sword Art Online on a friend's recommendation. I liked the first half, but the second half was pretty bad. Especially near the end, I found myself watching the last few episodes just so I could be done with the show. Meh.
You were warned. I have clearly stated it was atrocious and terrible.
Rozen Maiden had some interesting psychedelic dreamworld scenes but I found it hard to care about the plot. Might still give it another episode.
Did you watch 1 episode of Rozen Maiden? I heard the first ep was a recap of the old series, so kind of terrible to start on if you haven't seen the previous stuff.
The lack of Monogatari Series 2 talk makes me sad people. It's as if you people don't like porn! Who doesn't like porn? Are you people broken?
Did you watch 1 episode of Rozen Maiden? I heard the first ep was a recap of the old series, so kind of terrible to start on if you haven't seen the previous stuff.
I'm caught up now. Some folks on another forum got me sorted on it. I didn't get into anime until maybe two years ago, so I had no idea about it other than that it was a name I had heard a few times and looked fairly interesting. Who is that first episode *for* if it sucks for newbies and just repeats stuff vets already know? Bleh.
Anyway, pretty good show so far, lots of interesting imagery and I'm liking all the parallel world stuff it's doing. Seems darker and slower than the previous seasons from the bits I've seen. Main character is really taking this all in stride though.
Free - I'm still thinking I'm going to drop this sooner or later, particularly as it repeats more and more character jokes, but I'm having fun because the people making this were clearly having fun. They keep finding new ways to ratchet up the gay.
Eccentric Family - This will go down as a classic if it keeps up this level. It's not blowing me away, it's not anything revolutionary, it's a bit slow, but it's just really really well done. Such smart writing on the characters, so many interesting themes being explored.
Attack on Titan - Also getting tired of it, although I don't regret watching the first 8 episodes at all. Might wait until there's buzz something cool happened and marathon to catch up.
The lack of Monogatari Series 2 talk makes me sad people. It's as if you people don't like porn! Who doesn't like porn?
Still have to get through Nisemonogatari first. Excuse me while I fan myself after thinking about the tooth brushing scene. It's just a bit too much for me, aye?
The lack of Monogatari Series 2 talk makes me sad people. It's as if you people don't like porn! Who doesn't like porn?
Still have to get through Nisemonogatari first. Excuse me while I fan myself after thinking about the tooth brushing scene. It's just a bit too much for me, aye?
Don't forget Mayoi, the little girl with the backpack. That show had some great highs and terrible lows. I still liked it a lot overall though.
@Not nine Is Rozen Maiden anything other than weird fetish stuff? Because it looks like just that, but I've been wrong before.
I keep seeing things that make me a little worried, but so far it's veered sharply away from all of them. It seems to basically be Highlander, except with 7 German dolls (and their bonded humans) and set in a mixture of real world Japan settings and bizarre psychedelic dreamscapes.
Who is that first episode *for* if it sucks for newbies and just repeats stuff vets already know? Bleh.
The entire show's for people who already watched the previous series. The first episode was a look at what the alternate timeline is/was/whatever. The show's supposed to be a different timeline of sorts from the previous series where certain events happened differently. It's kinda a weird thing to do I guess, but they probably decided they didn't want to instantly crash into the new timeline and just take it from there. I haven't seen it though, so I don't know how well they even did that.
Still have to get through Nisemonogatari first. Excuse me while I fan myself after thinking about the tooth brushing scene. It's just a bit too much for me, aye?
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, GET OVER YOURSELF AND ACCEPT YOUR NEW FUCKING FETISH ALREADY. YOU SHOULD HAVE NEVER STARTED THE SERIES IF YOU DIDN'T WANNA GET WEIRD BONERS WHEN DOING EVERYDAY STUFF.
Don't forget Mayoi, the little girl with the backpack. That show had some great highs and terrible lows. I still liked it a lot overall though.
What's wrong with Mayoi? She's fun. Bakemonogatari > Nisemonogatari overall if you ask me, even though it has the lowest low with the snake rape scene. Monogatari Series 2, 3 episodes in is fucking glorious. But that may be because there's no Alalalagi-san.
Is Rozen Maiden anything other than weird fetish stuff? Because it looks like just that, but I've been wrong before.
It's mostly animated dolls fighting each other with magic and in dreamworlds and stuff. I don't recall any fetish stuff really. The main character gets punched by the first doll he meets for looking at her bloomers. Which means the end of that stuff. Outside of that there might be a naked-floating-in-space scene? I don't remember, but wouldn't count it out. It's more slice-of-life than perverted overall I'd say.
Don't forget Mayoi, the little girl with the backpack. That show had some great highs and terrible lows. I still liked it a lot overall though.
What's wrong with Mayoi? She's fun. Bakemonogatari > Nisemonogatari overall if you ask me, even though it has the lowest low with the snake rape scene. Monogatari Series 2, 3 episodes in is fucking glorious. But that may be because there's no Alalalagi-san.
As a character she's fine, but 10 year olds should get their boobs grabbed at max 0 times per episodes IMO. I agree on Bakemonogatari being better. I liked it way more than I expected.
As a character she's fine, but 10 year olds should get their boobs grabbed at max 0 times per episodes IMO. I agree on Bakemonogatari being better. I liked it way more than I expected.
Isn't that what Nisemonogatari is for? I'm confused now.
Picked up Korra on blue ray so.... Yeah... You know what I'm doing.
I quite dig Silver Spoon, because I feel that the characters are really grounded. There's a lot of exposition about animal care, but it absolutely fits the bill and doesn't shy away from the harshness of livestock and running a farm. The main character could use some work, but I'm warming up to him a lot. The only thing that would make it better is if the fat girl in the show acted more like Pam Poovey.
Free didn't appeal to me. Not because of the gay or the subject of swimming, it's just...really dull. I feel like you make a slice of life, the dialogue has to be somewhat dynamic or interesting. It's really painfully generic at the core of the humor and characters which is not pulling me in.
Having watched like two episodes, "Free" is pretty much a pure KyoAni moeblob show only with plentiful manservice. The main characters are just genderswaps of the studio's standard character archetypes.
Huh, had been away from this thread but as it happens I also picked up Bakemonogatari and I'm blowing through it despite the occasional very problematic things you all mentioned. It would be a 1-day marathon if I didn't feel like I needed to digest after each of the multi-ep stories. Love the experimental directing and deliberately featureless and empty sets, which actually turn out to produce a lot of interesting visuals.
(Rozen Maiden is) for people who already watched the previous series.
For what it's worth, it's working fine for me as a standalone. The first episode was awkward but it got the job done.
And yeah, Free is probably about to get dropped. I got something out of seeing a blatant manservice show for the first time but ultimately the characters are one note and there's nothing particularly interesting about the plot.
Caught up with Silver Spoon, and its amazing. I personally love anime/manga about niche topics and Silver Spoon really gets into farming without glorifying or bashing it. It's this season's Chihayafuru for me, it leaves me with a wide grin at the end of every episode.
Attack on Titan is so mediocre; its not bad enough to drop but not good enough to watch every week. I'll probably just let it sit in the backlog.
Danganronpa is a generic mystery but at least it moves at a good pace so I don't mind watching it every week.
Free is not as bad as K-ON, but not as good as Tamako Market. Not that Tamako Market was great but it at least was a calming watch and not as self aware of its singular appeal. I'll probably put it on if I'm bored.
Attack on Titan is so mediocre; its not bad enough to drop but not good enough to watch every week. I'll probably just let it sit in the backlog.
Yeah, I was doing a good job of keeping up before because I didn't have anything else to watch weekly. Now that Genshiken and Free! are going, I haven't watched any AOT in a few weeks.
How the bloody fuck? It's yet another KyoAni slice of life anime. The only change from the formula is the gender of the characters, the rest is the exact fucking same shit they've been making since Suzumiya!
[THREE WEEKS LATER PICTURE FROM SPONGEBOB]
Having watched like two episodes, "Free" is pretty much a pure KyoAni moeblob show only with plentiful manservice. The main characters are just genderswaps of the studio's standard character archetypes.
gg no re
Love the experimental directing
BWAHAHAHAHAHA. You make funny. I laugh at funny. To be serious, it's anything but experimental directing for ShaftxShinbo. It'd be experimental if he directed something more average if you ask me. But I see what you mean when compared to your average animated piece. The combi's loco.
deliberately featureless and empty sets, which actually turn out to produce a lot of interesting visuals.
It's very well done, and the characters are bloody great. Do you 'suffer' from Senjougahara Fascination yet? Either way, enjoy the rest of your slideshow.
Free is not as bad as K-ON, but not as good as Tamako Market. Not that Tamako Market was great but it at least was a calming watch and not as self aware of its singular appeal. I'll probably put it on if I'm bored.
Man, most of Tamako Market's characters were terrible, especially its leads. So it's surprising to see someone prefer it over K-ON. Though I can guess why in some regards. Any specifics why you prefer those shows in that order?
Man, most of Tamako Market's characters were terrible, especially its leads. So it's surprising to see someone prefer it over K-ON. Though I can guess why in some regards. Any specifics why you prefer those shows in that order?
For me, Tamako Market was less directly exploitative then K-ON, which always had to shove into your face that the series was about girls and guitars. I dropped it at the beach episode when I saw it devolved to "look at this cute quirk." You rarely saw any adults besides the band teacher, almost never saw any boys, it seemed like the entire world revolved around those 4 girls dicking around.
Tamako Market, while certainly suffering from the same schtick, had the marketplace as a sense of community to draw focus away from the cute girls doing cute things. The best episode of Tamako Market was the father listening to his old love song to his dead wife. Its world was idealized like K-ON's, but it had a boy who had a crush on Tamako, a girl who had a crush on Tamako; touches that made it seem more down to earth then K-ON. These details were always minor, like the younger sister trying to remember her mother or saying goodbye to a friend, but that made it feel like the authors were trying to develop these characters instead of checking off a list of cute quirks. I wish they had done more though, like having the market deal with a recession.
Also, Tamako is nowhere near as annoying as Yui was.
Also, Tamako is nowhere near as annoying as Yui was.
I'll give you that, but Tamako and Della together are worse.
Della is literally Garfield. Funny the first time. Then annoying.
Well said.
Since I hadn't had time before. I personally prefer K-ON over Tamako Market, mostly because it has a tiny bit more than just cute girls doing cute things. Firstly the music. Sure it wasn't that prominent in the show(s), but the OP and ED (mostly the EDs) were miles and miles and miles ahead of anything Tamako Market offered, and unlike Tamako Market, digital music is still music, unlike digital drawings of mochi that can't be eaten. The characters themselves were properly done to fill in their roles in your average comedy slice of life, which wasn't done that well in Tamako Market. Okay, TM's characters didn't use the same roles, but the ones they had were just terribly underused. There were two freaking characters that had a crush on Tamako, and nothing ever came of it. Sure, the guy was uncomfortable and uneasy sometimes, but pinnacle of obliviousness Tamako noticed nothing. And the other character with a crush was her female classmate, and all that was done was flirting with notion that oh noes, this girl is gay/bi. Gasp. The carpenter girl also didn't bring much to the table, mostly due to having the calm and subdued personality like Rei. And Rei wasn't a fucking character, she was a plot device. Beep fucking boop. The community of the market was a nice backdrop, but flat and underused. Though I'll give it to them that the only joke I remember from the show was the joke where they all forgot the presents. None of the main characters were anywhere near that scene! All said and done though, it was a relaxing and nice enough anime for me to have finished it.
I'll stick with the assertion, made not only by me, that KyoAni's not as good at making original anime than they are at adapting existing material into anime. And a word of warning, if you're not comfortable with lack of other characters in a show/scene, don't watch the Monogatari series. It's a luxury to have 3 characters in a scene.
K-On I think is the worst out of the KyoAni stuff because it sets up one idea and goes in a different direction. It isn't "Girls get into music and start a band" but it's really more of "Girls have the perfect high school experience." No drama, no worries, with really nothing going on. Even Lucky Star had conversations that were interesting and acknowledged that men exist. I think halfway through, they completely drop the musician part of it which is such a shame because there's actual decent music and musical study put behind the series. Maybe it could work if I knew more of the context as Japanese High Schools are like colleges, but the girls do absolutely nothing to focus on their future. Something should actually happen within all this time frame. And none of their dialogue gives them more depth or an arc, it just reinforces the moe stereotypes each of the four are given.
The talk more about cake than their music. It's not really a tearful goodbye compared to Azumanga Daioh, because the girls never have any conflict or drama or issues in their relationships. It's just. "Oh, you are graduating now and ...that's it."
That's just an issue I have with Anime Comedies. The comedy is just super over the top or it has incredibly weak characters who are defined by quirks and/or flaws and that's the only characteristic they have.
Over the past few days, I've been watching Shingeki no Kyojin, Free!, and Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin. At first glance, the idea of Shingeki no Kyojin seemed comical, almost silly to me. But as I watched on, I learned that even the idea of giants can be made into a very serious show. It honestly took me all of the first four episodes to get into Free!. Yes, there is a ton of fanservice, and I personally laugh out loud whenever a shot of biceps or abs comes onto the screen. As for Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin, it's chock full of emotional turmoil. I'm on episode 12 now, and the plot is just starting to get a bit repetitive. I don't know, maybe it'll surprise me again and come through in the end.
Comments
The lack of Monogatari Series 2 talk makes me sad people. It's as if you people don't like porn! Who doesn't like porn? Are you people broken?
Sometimes you need to hit the ball off of the tee...
Anyway, pretty good show so far, lots of interesting imagery and I'm liking all the parallel world stuff it's doing. Seems darker and slower than the previous seasons from the bits I've seen. Main character is really taking this all in stride though.
Free - I'm still thinking I'm going to drop this sooner or later, particularly as it repeats more and more character jokes, but I'm having fun because the people making this were clearly having fun. They keep finding new ways to ratchet up the gay.
Eccentric Family - This will go down as a classic if it keeps up this level. It's not blowing me away, it's not anything revolutionary, it's a bit slow, but it's just really really well done. Such smart writing on the characters, so many interesting themes being explored.
Attack on Titan - Also getting tired of it, although I don't regret watching the first 8 episodes at all. Might wait until there's buzz something cool happened and marathon to catch up.
@Not nine
Is Rozen Maiden anything other than weird fetish stuff? Because it looks like just that, but I've been wrong before.
I quite dig Silver Spoon, because I feel that the characters are really grounded. There's a lot of exposition about animal care, but it absolutely fits the bill and doesn't shy away from the harshness of livestock and running a farm. The main character could use some work, but I'm warming up to him a lot. The only thing that would make it better is if the fat girl in the show acted more like Pam Poovey.
Free didn't appeal to me. Not because of the gay or the subject of swimming, it's just...really dull. I feel like you make a slice of life, the dialogue has to be somewhat dynamic or interesting. It's really painfully generic at the core of the humor and characters which is not pulling me in.
And yeah, Free is probably about to get dropped. I got something out of seeing a blatant manservice show for the first time but ultimately the characters are one note and there's nothing particularly interesting about the plot.
Attack on Titan is so mediocre; its not bad enough to drop but not good enough to watch every week. I'll probably just let it sit in the backlog.
Danganronpa is a generic mystery but at least it moves at a good pace so I don't mind watching it every week.
Free is not as bad as K-ON, but not as good as Tamako Market. Not that Tamako Market was great but it at least was a calming watch and not as self aware of its singular appeal. I'll probably put it on if I'm bored.
Tamako Market, while certainly suffering from the same schtick, had the marketplace as a sense of community to draw focus away from the cute girls doing cute things. The best episode of Tamako Market was the father listening to his old love song to his dead wife. Its world was idealized like K-ON's, but it had a boy who had a crush on Tamako, a girl who had a crush on Tamako; touches that made it seem more down to earth then K-ON. These details were always minor, like the younger sister trying to remember her mother or saying goodbye to a friend, but that made it feel like the authors were trying to develop these characters instead of checking off a list of cute quirks. I wish they had done more though, like having the market deal with a recession.
Also, Tamako is nowhere near as annoying as Yui was.
Since I hadn't had time before. I personally prefer K-ON over Tamako Market, mostly because it has a tiny bit more than just cute girls doing cute things. Firstly the music. Sure it wasn't that prominent in the show(s), but the OP and ED (mostly the EDs) were miles and miles and miles ahead of anything Tamako Market offered, and unlike Tamako Market, digital music is still music, unlike digital drawings of mochi that can't be eaten. The characters themselves were properly done to fill in their roles in your average comedy slice of life, which wasn't done that well in Tamako Market. Okay, TM's characters didn't use the same roles, but the ones they had were just terribly underused. There were two freaking characters that had a crush on Tamako, and nothing ever came of it. Sure, the guy was uncomfortable and uneasy sometimes, but pinnacle of obliviousness Tamako noticed nothing. And the other character with a crush was her female classmate, and all that was done was flirting with notion that oh noes, this girl is gay/bi. Gasp. The carpenter girl also didn't bring much to the table, mostly due to having the calm and subdued personality like Rei. And Rei wasn't a fucking character, she was a plot device. Beep fucking boop. The community of the market was a nice backdrop, but flat and underused. Though I'll give it to them that the only joke I remember from the show was the joke where they all forgot the presents. None of the main characters were anywhere near that scene! All said and done though, it was a relaxing and nice enough anime for me to have finished it.
I'll stick with the assertion, made not only by me, that KyoAni's not as good at making original anime than they are at adapting existing material into anime. And a word of warning, if you're not comfortable with lack of other characters in a show/scene, don't watch the Monogatari series. It's a luxury to have 3 characters in a scene.
The talk more about cake than their music. It's not really a tearful goodbye compared to Azumanga Daioh, because the girls never have any conflict or drama or issues in their relationships. It's just. "Oh, you are graduating now and ...that's it."
That's just an issue I have with Anime Comedies. The comedy is just super over the top or it has incredibly weak characters who are defined by quirks and/or flaws and that's the only characteristic they have.