The Anime Thread

[Agelastus]

Currently reading A Certain Scientific Railgun, about teenage psychers in the near future. I'm liking it so far.

Oh this has been sitting on my HDD forever.  2 seasons of A Certain Magical Index and another 2 seasons of A Certain Scientific Railgun (spinoff of the former) = 96 episodes and 1 movie.  I haven't watched a single episode, but I think Only My Railgun is a very cool song, despite its pretty extreme rockish arrangement. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGAA4IFEPb0

I'll watch it.  Sooner or later 

Do. It's good - very, very good (Railgun being better than Index despite having a bunch of anime original stuff; however, you need to watch Index Season I before seeing Railgun Season 2 to get the full perspective on the impressive "Sisters" arc.)

[jimmy olsen]

Index?

[Agelastus]

Index?

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun is a spin-off of To Aru Majutsu no Index.

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=To_Aru_Majutsu_no_Index

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

[Monoriu]

Do. It's good - very, very good (Railgun being better than Index despite having a bunch of anime original stuff; however, you need to watch Index Season I before seeing Railgun Season 2 to get the full perspective on the impressive "Sisters" arc.)

I always start from the beginning.  So, what is the best watching order?  I plan to do Index I, Index II, Railgun I, Railgun II.  Or is it Index I, Railgun I, Index II, Railgun II?  I have no idea, and don't want to read spoilers in wikis. 

[Monoriu]

The ultra popular Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series.  Pictured above are Nanoha (white) and Fate (black), two extremely popular characters in Japan.  The original series was aired in 2004.  These two are still regularly featured in magazine covers today. 

Nanoha is what a magical girl series should be (Madoka Magica is not).  The basic formula is a helpful, talking mascot connects with a young girl, and grants her magical powers.  She continues with her original life, but when called upon, will need to transform into a magical girl to battle magical abominations, fight dark magical girl and/or collect some artifact with magic, and the power of love and friendship. 

Nanoha basically stays true to this formula with one exception.  There is a particular emphasis on the fight scenes, and they do it the mecha way, with gundam-style beam spams and macross-style missle massacres.  They deliberately make it so Nanoha looks a bit like the original white gundam.  They in fact share the same nickname, white devil. 

This series is a huge ongoing multimedia project, and the anime is only part of it.  There are 3 seasons, original (13 episodes), A's (13) and Strikers (26).  So far there are two movies, summaries of the first and second seasons respectively. 

Original series: the only season directed by Shinbo.  Starts off extremely slowly.  The first 3 episodes are very boring run-of-the-mill sleep inducing episodes with little plot progression.  Everything changes as soon as Fate appears in episode 4 or so.  Decent series. 

A's: best season of the series.  Starts off with a spectacular confrontation and gets better from there.  The plot moves quickly and the story is heartwarming.  Highly recommended.

Strikers: in my opinion the weakest season.  Stretched things out too much.  Too many characters, both on the heroes side and the antagonist side.  Too many training episodes with nothing happening.  That's why the upcoming third movie will not be a summary of this season but instead will be new content. 

The most efficient way to watch this series is just to watch Movies 1 and 2.  They are good summaries of the first two seasons, with much improved graphics, pacing and story.  The movies were released in recent years with a good budget, and it showed.  The third season can be ignored. 

[Josquius]

I wish my Japanese was good enough to read grown up manga

[Agelastus]

Do. It's good - very, very good (Railgun being better than Index despite having a bunch of anime original stuff; however, you need to watch Index Season I before seeing Railgun Season 2 to get the full perspective on the impressive "Sisters" arc.)

I always start from the beginning.  So, what is the best watching order?  I plan to do Index I, Index II, Railgun I, Railgun II.  Or is it Index I, Railgun I, Index II, Railgun II?  I have no idea, and don't want to read spoilers in wikis.

Production order is Index I, Railgun I, Index II, "Endymion", Railgun II.

However, Chronological order would be Railgun I (which takes place either before or during the first two arcs of Index but apart from a few cameo appearances doesn't connect with Index at all), Index I, Railgun II (which mostly takes place during Index I - specifically, the majority of the season is Railgun's take on the "Sisters" Arc, which is the third of six arcs of Index I) and then Index II; "Endymion" fits after the second arc of Index II, apparently.

There is an excellent chart here on Baka Tsuki listing the dates of events -

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/images/7/7d/A_Certain_Unified_Calendar.png

Also have you got the OVA that fits between Railgun I and II?

As for viewing order I watched them soon after they were originally broadcast (in most cases as soon as the episode was subbed.

If I were you I'd either watch them in production order (as Index and Railgun really don't overlap too much and Railgun pretty much assumes that the viewers know who Misaka Mikoto, "BiriBiri", is from the get-go despite chronologically starting before Index) or use that chart and break them down into chronological order.

[Agelastus]

As for "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha", I'm a heretic; I like StrikerS the best. While the characters are fine as kids they're much less one-dimensional as grown-ups (even Nanoha.)

But then, when it comes to the Mangas I much prefer "Force" to "Vivid"; which makes me something of an ultimate heretic in Nanoha fandom without even getting into the Shipping Wars.

[Monoriu]

I wish my Japanese was good enough to read grown up manga

One thing I've learned is that it is very inefficient to learn Japanese by watching subtitled anime.  As long as I am relying on the subtitles, my Japanese won't improve at all. 

[Josquius]

I wish my Japanese was good enough to read grown up manga

One thing I've learned is that it is very inefficient to learn Japanese by watching subtitled anime.  As long as I am relying on the subtitles, my Japanese won't improve at all. 

Anime uses weird Japanese too. Drama is better for that purpose. Though yeah, neither is optimum, I either learn or I enjoy, its hard to do both at once.

[Monoriu]

Also have you got the OVA that fits between Railgun I and II?

Yup.  Got every episode and moive, just don't have the time to watch 96 episodes 

Yet 

[Monoriu]

The Ambition of Oda Nobuna, mentioned earlier in the thread.  Yoshiharu Sagara (or Saru for short) is an ordinary high school student who somehow time-travelled to the Sengoku era.  In this world, the majority of the historical Sengoku samurai generals have been replaced by pretty and fierce young girls, and Nobuna replaced the historical Nobunaga.  The first 1 minute of the anime consisted of the historical Hideyoshi dying in Saru's place, so Saru ended up replacing him (Saru means monkey, and most novels portray Nobunaga calling Hideyoshi "monkey").  He must use his knowledge of the video game "Ambition of Oda Nobunaga" to help Nobuna conquer Japan.  Historically, Nobunaga is known as a tyrant.  Saru wants to change that, and help mold a gentler Nobuna. 

(Nobuna's clothing and pose in the pic above is a deliberate attempt to look like Nobunaga's appearance [without the bra of course] in the cover of KOEI's video game).

I like this anime very much.  Although it sounds like a fanservice and harem series (and there is indeed a fair amount of these), it is a lot more than that.  It never strays too far from its historical roots, and contains a good balance of comedic and serious moments.  The animation is of above average quality.  Saru's knowledge of Japanese history is not an absolute advantage, because he has changed history too much, and is basically in unknown territory.  A particular focus of the story is Nobuna's internal struggle to be a ruthless warlord just like her historical counterpart, and a conflicting desire to be herself, which is a lot nicer than she appears to be.

12 episodes.  Too bad there is no news of a second season.  The news is that the merchandise and disc sales are decent, but not sufficient to justify the relatively high production costs.   

[Agelastus]

They really need to make at least a second season, given Yoshihara's next bit of interference really throws everything off what remaining rails the history he knew had.

[Once again, thank God for Baka-Tsuki and its dedicated translators.]

[MadImmortalMan]

I played a ridiculous amount of Nobunaga's Ambition. 

[Monoriu]

They really need to make at least a second season, given Yoshihara's next bit of interference really throws everything off what remaining rails the history he knew had.

[Once again, thank God for Baka-Tsuki and its dedicated translators.]

I am not going to read the novels.  Just in case they make a second season