The Anime Thread

[jimmy olsen]

Sounds right up Lettow's alley! 

The Comics Journal as "quite conceivably the best comics series ever created for elementary-school girls,"

[Josquius]

Rosario plus vampire - probably one of the top three worst anime adaptations of a manga of all time. Threw out the plot and most of the characterisation from the Manga and just retained the comedy - with particularly dire consequences. Read the Manga (which I heartily recommend) and ignore this dreck.

I quite enjoyed that one. Quite a nice piece of cheap and silly fan servicey junk.

[Agelastus]

Rosario plus vampire - probably one of the top three worst anime adaptations of a manga of all time. Threw out the plot and most of the characterisation from the Manga and just retained the comedy - with particularly dire consequences. Read the Manga (which I heartily recommend) and ignore this dreck.

I quite enjoyed that one. Quite a nice piece of cheap and silly fan servicey junk.

A good description of it; unfortunately I, like an awful lot of the viewers of the show, had read the Manga.

It works well enough if one thinks of it as an original production, I suppose.

[Monoriu]

Rosario plus vampire - probably one of the top three worst anime adaptations of a manga of all time. Threw out the plot and most of the characterisation from the Manga and just retained the comedy - with particularly dire consequences. Read the Manga (which I heartily recommend) and ignore this dreck.

I quite enjoyed that one. Quite a nice piece of cheap and silly fan servicey junk.

A good description of it; unfortunately I, like an awful lot of the viewers of the show, had read the Manga.

It works well enough if one thinks of it as an original production, I suppose.

I haven't read the manga. But I agree with you that it is an awful anime show.  Though I do love the voice performances.  Moka is voiced by Nana Misuki, arguably the most successful seiyuu singer.  Outer Moka is exactly the kind of role that suits her; Inner Moka is playing against type.  "Tsundere queen" Rie Kugimiya as Mizore is even more playing against type. Chiwa Saito as Koko Shuzen is perhaps the last of her roles as genki girls before her successful transition to cool big sister type roles.  I did laugh out loud when Koko (Chiwa Saito) said "Urusai Urusai Urusai" to Mizore (Rie Kugimiya).  Rie's most famous role is tsundere Shana, who loves saying those 3 words in her anime.   

[Monoriu]

Pictured above is Ayu, from the anime Kanon.  This completes the introductions of what I think are the 4 best anime shows adapted from a Key Visual Arts Work (the other 3 being Clannad, Angel Beats and Air). 

Once again, this follows the nice-guy male protagonist helping a bunch of females with tragic backstories formula used in Clannad and Air.  The overall tone of Kanon is a bit more optimistic and positive than Clannad or Air.  It is less of a tearjerker, in other words.  All of Key's work has a heavy dose of supernatural elements, and this is no exception.  The focus in Kanon is miracles. 

For some reason, Key likes to get both Toei and Kyoto Animation to do parallel adaptations of its work.  For both Clannad and Air, Kyoto Animation did the TV series (masterpieces), and Toei did the movies (forgettable).  For Kanon, both studios did a TV anime adaptation.  They both tell almost the exact same story, and the majority of the seiyuus (except the male lead) are identical. 

The 2006 Kyoto version should be easy to find.  I couldn't find the 2002 Toei version anywhere.  So I spent a lot of time looking for it, and in the end had to beg on an amine forum for the videos.  After watching both versions, I can safely say that all that effort is totally wasted, because once again the quality gap between the two versions is immense - the Kyoto version is much better, particularly in terms of animation quality.  Say, the same ballroom dancing scene.  In the Kyoto version, the characters actually danced.  In the Toei version, I only saw the backs of the characters, and they moved an inch to the left, then an inch to the right to represent their dances.   

[Monoriu]

So, the Spring 2014 anime season will begin next month.  They have pretty much announced the line-up, and I am picking the shows that I want to follow. 



The Irregular at Magic High School.  At a magic high school, the sister is a top student while her brother is a bummer.  That kind of setting usually won't interest me, but this seems to be the most hyped show in Spring 2014.  This comes consistently on top in most anticipated shows polls.  So yes, the only reason I am going to follow it is to see just what the hype is all about. 



Devil's Riddle.  The protagonist is a student.  Everybody else in her class are assassins targetting her.  One of the assassins has developed feelings for her and now wants to protect her.  Presumably, the picture depicts the pair.  What interests me are two additional pieces of information: (a) this is not a comedy and (2) this is an all-girls school.  Almost the exact opposite of Irregular at Magic High School, because the premise does interest me, but there is almost no hype surrounding this. 

[Monoriu]

Two more upcoming shows for the Spring 2014 season.




Gokukoku no Brynhildr.  Gokukoku means extreme black.  No idea what Brynhildr means.  I avoid reading too much in wikis to stay away from spoilers.  The only reason I am going to watch this is because the manga artist of the source material is the same man who wrote the Elfen Lied manga.  The name seems to imply that this is going to be a depressing show. 

This one is simply "follow the manga artist" 



Mekaku City Actors.  It is supposedly about a group of people with superpowers all related to the eye.  That's all I know.  The only reason I am watching it is because it is directed by Shinbo and animated by Shaft, my favourite anime makers because they are the people behind Madoka Magica.  Granted, these folks produce a ton of stuff and some of them are crap.  What's really interesting to me is the staff list.  Shinbo is, as usual, "chief director".  He has promoted one of his underlings as director.  This is nothing new and is his usual practice.  (He is too famous in Japan and so Shaft puts his name on everything.)  But this time, the director of this anime show was episode director for two particular episodes in Madoka Magica.  These two are widely considered the best episodes in the series that successfully redefined the story.  I even consider one of them the best anime episode of all time. 

This one is even worse, just "follow the director" 

[Agelastus]

Gokukoku no Brynhildr.  Gokukoku means extreme black.  No idea what Brynhildr means.  I avoid reading too much in wikis to stay away from spoilers.  The only reason I am going to watch this is because the manga artist of the source material is the same man who wrote the Elfen Lied manga.  The name seems to imply that this is going to be a depressing show. 

This one is simply "follow the manga artist" 

The Brynhildr part is a reference to -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brynhildr

and to Valkyries in general, presumably, given the nature of much of the cast (it's been too long since I read a bit of it for me to recall if the project name is related or not.)

And yes, it is "black"; my tolerance for it died in the first 20 chapters. Although it was good enough that I may go back to it one day when I'm in the right mood.

-----------

As for Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei ("The Irregular at Magic High School") I have high hopes for the series. The LNs are supposed to be quite dull (at least, not to English readers taste) but the multiple Manga series based off of it have been universally decent. It's on my list for the new season as well.

[Monoriu]

Black Bullet.  Set in a world where a certain virus/paraside has wiped out humanity.  Humans have to stay behind walls.  This sounds a bit similar to the Attack on Titan setting.  And it seems a bit dark.  I think.  So I am going to follow it. 



Fairy Tail.  As mentioned above, the anime went on a hiatus a year ago due to catching up with the manga.  It will be relaunched in April, and I am following it.  They practically stopped the show in the middle of an arc with tons of unresolved plot points. 

[Josquius]

So Attack on Titan. Spoilers lie ahead.

[spoiler]I'm up to episode 13. A few episodes ago the main character was eaten by a Titan. I was thinking "HOLY SHIT! AWESOME!". That kid did seem to be such a cliched main character, even right down to his cool name, Jaeger. How fitting would it be to have a bit of realism and after all the build up kill him off so early? Shifting the main character position onto the third character, Armin, would have been interesting.
But alas no. It looks like they are heading down a very cliched route after all with Erin, in very silly style, having this big power. I kind of saw that coming the moment the Titan killing Titan appeared but...oh well.
It's still good and I will still watch but I think that was a lost chance.[/spoiler]

[Monoriu]

[spoiler]Mikasa would lose all purpose in life if what you proposed actually happened.  You kill one character and end up losing two  [/spoiler]

[Monoriu]

You know what I am really worried about? 

Streaming.  It is just easier.  My wife watches a lot of TV drama (not anime, sadly), and she absolutely refuses to BT anything.  Too much hassle for her.  She just wants to click on a link, watch it, then move on. 

Right now BT still has a lot of advantages.  Better resolution, better reliability, whole screen, no lag, etc.  I also keep everything that I've ever watched.  Thing is, BT relies on other people willing to share.  If streaming takes over completely, there'll be no BT. 

The trend is that streaming seems to be winning.  Sigh. 

[Eddie Teach]

How often do you rewatch old series?

[MadImmortalMan]

Streaming will take over completely, but I doubt anyone will be able to get all content from one source.

[Monoriu]

How often do you rewatch old series?

Not very often    But every now and then, I read a comment about "X said Y in episode ZZZ, this foreshadowed what happened 35 episodes later".  I went "huh?" and rewatched the episode in question to see if this was true. 

I also decided to hypnotise myself that the cost of 4T external HDDs are close to zero, on a per anime show basis