The Anime Thread

[Monoriu]

Quite a few people here seem to be interested in the Kantai collection anime.  We finally have a firm date - January 2015.  The battle scenes will be done in 3D. 

There also seems to be some Girls und Panzer fans here.  The Anzio battle OVA is out.  That's the battle the protagonists talked about and won in the TV series, but the details were never shown onscreen. 

Attack on Titan - there should be 3 short OVAs, and 2 have been released so far.  One is a side story about a deceased recon corp member.  The second is, you hear this right, a cooking contest.  These are pretty nice, even the cooking stuff.  Also released are 9 self-parodies/comic shorts.  I have watched every minute of them.  As an Attack on Titan fan, my opinion is, don't bother.  Your time is better spent elsewhere. 

[Eddie Teach]

I you like tragic love stories watch Basilisk

Are one or both of the young lovers turned to stone? 

[Savonarola]

I you like tragic love stories watch Basilisk

Are one or both of the young lovers turned to stone? 

Is one of them Jeff Lynne?

Scene:  A cottage near Birmingham, England.  Enter Mrs. Lynne
Mrs. Lynne:  Hi honey, I'm home.  Sorry I stayed away so long.
(She stops, noticing that her husband has turned to stone.)
Mrs. Lynne:  Cobblers! I thought you had meant that metaphorically.

[Monoriu]

It does look interesting.  I've added it to my wish list, though it will take at least a year or two before I'll watch it as I have a pretty large backlog. 

[Syt]

The intro text for SF Debris' look at Full Moon:

We kick off our look at Full Moon by meeting a 12-year old girl with throat cancer who transforms into a blond singer thanks to a boy and girl that change into a magical cat and rabbit, or as it's called in Japan, Wednesday.

[Monoriu]

My favourite intoduction is Assassination Classroom (to be aired in January 2015, if I remember correctly)  -

The story of the original manga begins after 70% of the moon was suddenly vaporized in an explosion. The super lifeform responsible for this catastrophe is a strange tentacled creature that can slink around at supersonic Mach 20 speeds. It has a 10 billion yen (US$100 million) price on its head, but for some reason, this creature ends up teaching a middle school class at the beginning of the school year. The students have until graduation to assassinate the teacher, or it will destroy Earth as well.

[Siege]

Last anime I watched was..... dam, I forgot the name. Something pirate captain. A cgi anime movie. Very good.
On Netflix.
Let me open Netflix.
Starts with an H

Harlock: Space Pirate

[Monoriu]

Last anime I watched was..... dam, I forgot the name. Something pirate captain. A cgi anime movie. Very good.
On Netflix.
Let me open Netflix.
Starts with an H

Harlock: Space Pirate

Yeah, I'm a Leiji Matsumoto fan too, and I remember watching the show when I was a kid.  Don't have time to watch this movie yet. 

If you like space pirates, Bodacious Space Pirates is ok.  I'm waiting for the BD release of the film version. 

[Darth Wagtaros]

The Queen Emeraldis OAV sucked.

[Monoriu]

K-On.  K-On literally means "light music".  Hugely popular slice of life show about five moe high school girls who form a rock band.  Madoka Magica Movie 3 is the current record holder of the highest grossing late night anime movie.  The previous record holder is the K-On movie, and it only lost by a small margin. 

I have no idea why it needs to be broadcast in a late night slot.  It is one of the most heartwarming, peaceful, cuteness-overflowing, fanservice-free, diabetes-inducing, and funny anime shows I have ever watched.  Nothing really happens in the story.  It is a show about ordinary school life in Japan.  There is no central plot, no antagonists, no material male characters, and very little conflict among the girls.  There are no morally ambiguous or even neutral characters: every single character is kind to a fault.  Every episode is about the girls doing cute and nice things to each other, and eating desserts and having tea (the name of the band is Afterschool Tea Time).  Their songs cheer the greatness of rice, describe them having a "fluffy time", and talk about stationary and romance.  I don't think their band is really a rock band at all. 

I had a great time watching it.  The girls' antics actually made me laugh out loud on many instances.  I am not familiar with the Beatles band, but it is often said that four of the five main girls are gender flipped versions of the Beatles members.  There is an eccentric, goofy but talented lead singer, someone who writes sickeningly sweet lyrics, a quiet, reserved and sensitive girl, and a fun-loving tomboy.  The five girls are some of the most widely recognised anime characters today.  I also have to say, this show is very well animated.  Bravos to Kyoto Animation for yet another job well done. 

[Savonarola]

I have no idea why it needs to be broadcast in a late night slot.  It is one of the most heartwarming, peaceful, cuteness-overflowing, fanservice-free, diabetes-inducing, and funny anime shows I have ever watched.  Nothing really happens in the story.  It is a show about ordinary school life in Japan.  There is no central plot, no antagonists, no material male characters, and very little conflict among the girls.  There are no morally ambiguous or even neutral characters: every single character is kind to a fault.  Every episode is about the girls doing cute and nice things to each other, and eating desserts and having tea (the name of the band is Afterschool Tea Time).  Their songs cheer the greatness of rice, describe them having a "fluffy time", and talk about stationary and romance.  I don't think their band is really a rock band at all. 

Did men in white coats force your eyes open and play recordings of Beethoven while you watching this?

[Lettow77]

K-On! is quite good, and also influential. Kyoani spent years trying to recapture their success with it, and it has spawned any number of subpar copycats such as A-Channel or Love Lab.

I prefer Hidamari Sketch, which achieves a higher band of yukkuri comfiness, but is broadly similar. K-On! is absolutely a fine show I strongly recommended, and in many ways is responsible for sparking the slice-of-life boom that is only now starting to peter out.

Something worth noting is a lot of the best anime are very unambitious in their subject matter; I realize to a lot of people here on languish mere cuteness and people being pleasant to each other doesn't appeal, and is even strange, but K-On!'s enjoyment is on the basis of its warm atmosphere and rapport between characters than any intriguing setting, titillating action, sexuality, or exciting drama- there really is none of any at all, and the show is the better for it.

[Monoriu]

Did men in white coats force your eyes open and play recordings of Beethoven while you watching this?

No  I don't get the reference/joke though. 

K-On!'s enjoyment is on the basis of its warm atmosphere and rapport between characters than any intriguing setting, titillating action, sexuality, or exciting drama- there really is none of any at all, and the show is the better for it.

Agreed.

The next show that I started is When They Cry.  Immediately after watching such a heartwarming show that is K-On, the first 20 seconds of When They Cry consists of someone beating another (or two?) to death with a baseball bat, with blood all over the place.  That's without knowing the who, where, and what.  The contrast is gigantic.  After watching the first episode of When They Cry, I also gain a better perspective of just how well animated K-On is.  The two shows are just 3 years apart, but K-On is light years ahead in terms of animation quality. 

[Savonarola]

Something worth noting is a lot of the best anime are very unambitious in their subject matter; I realize to a lot of people here on languish mere cuteness and people being pleasant to each other doesn't appeal, and is even strange,

That would be completely alien to the Languideshian.   

It struck me that Mono's description of a cartoon world in which there are no antagonists, morally ambiguous or neutral characters; no significant male characters; little conflict among the characters; where every character is kind to a fault; where everyone does cute things; and everyone is nice to each other would be the bizarro world version of Languish.

[Monoriu]

Hana-monogatari.  Or Flower Story.  Part of the popular Monogatari series based on a best selling novel that frequently occupies the no. 1 spot in Japan.  It is a series of short stories about "anomolies" like ghosts and spirits.  Each story focuses on one girl and one anomoly.  Also known for its distinctive artsy Shaft style, named after the animation studio. 

This is a 5-episode TV special that was aired in Japan in one go a week ago.  It should have been the middle part of the Monogatari season 2 aired last year.  Having watched both, I can see why it was released as a special - Hana-monogatari takes place chronologically after all the season 2 stories, and it spoils the excellent "love story".  That, and the usual schedule slippage on Shaft's part. 

This story is named "Suruga [the girl] Devil [the anomoly]".  This is part 2 of Suruga's story.  Part 1 was explored in Bake-monogatari.  I like the gradual shift of the story formula.  At the beginning of the series, the format was "the girl has a problem.  The male lead finds out and asks for help."  It gradually becomes "the girl has a problem, and the male lead helps solve the problem".  Here, it becomes "the girl has a problem, and solves it pretty much on her own".  There is actually another shift - most of the earlier stories are about how the girls want to get rid of the spirits that have possessed them.  In this story, Suruga got rid of her problem early on.  She just felt that the way she got rid of her problem wasn't right, and decided to do something about it. 

This series is difficult to get into.  Part of the problem is that it is very dialogue heavy.  The novelist claimed that he deliberately wrote the stories in a way that would make them very difficult to be adapted in anime form.  Also, "monogatari" is a common Japanese word that literally means "stories", so searching for it is a problem.  To make the naming issue even more compicated, there are a whole bunch of different seasons and TV specials released over the years, all with funny names (I can read the kanji but they decided to use archaic Chinese characters for crying out loud).  So here is a quick summary.  I have used the [girl/anomoly] convention below -

Bakemonogatari (Monster Story)(15 episodes)(Hitagi Crab, Mayoi Snail, Suruga Monkey, Nadeko Snake, and Tsubasa Cat)
Nisemonogatari (Fake Story)(11 episodes)(Karen Bee and Tsukihi Phoenix)
Nekomonogatari (Kuro) (Black Cat Story)(4 episodes)(Tsubasa Family)

Monogatari Series Second Season (26 episodes in total, including 3 summary episodes).  Breakdown:
Nekomonogatari (Shiro) (White Cat Story) (5 episodes)(Tsubasa Tiger)
Kabukimonogatari (Slope Story) (4 episodes) (Mayoi Jiangshi)
Otorimonogatari (Decoy Story) (4 episodes)(Nadeko Medusa)
Onimonogatari (Ghost Story) (4 episodes)(Shinobu Time)
Koimonogatari (Love Story) (6 episodes)(Hitagi End)

Hanamonogatari (Flower Story)(5 episodes)(Suruga Devil)