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Summer Anime 2017 |OT| More streaming services than shows to watch

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Yeah, I know, but I want to see a Blu-ray release from Funi. Aren't streaming rights and DVD/Blu-ray totally different?

Streaming rights and physical rights are different, though often times they are licensed out as a package. Funimation has held a number of physical rights that they haven't followed up on with actual releases, such as Tatami Galaxy, so it's hard to know what the actual legal situation for Symphogear is.
 

phaze

Member
Record of the Lodoss War 1-5
lodoss-tousenki-recor4lsmy.jpg

Detailed character designs with actual noses are all fine and dandy but when even a set of OVAs becomes more a collection of stills than animation, you've gotta ask yourself "Maybe we're actually better off with SAO ?" The action in this is tepid at best of times and rife with all manner of shortcuts; stills, close ups, panning away to audience, flashes of sword strokes, down to even reusing animation cuts or even funnier, reusing stills. The story doesn't impress, there's some okayish intrigue in the background but the way the Hero team comes together can only be spoken of as farfetched. Until much later most of these people didn't even have a reason to follow the MC, the elf lady still doesn't.

Aoyama-kun 01

What even is this show.
 
Welcome to the Ballroom 2

As much as people were justifiably bothered by that 2-second portion of a montage in Made in Abyss's second episode, I am more bothered by how this episode opened on an obnoxiously drawn out breast bouncing gag and then ended its first half on an "accidental pervert" gag featuring a pan over Shizuku in her underwear. I get that this sort of loving portrayal of adolescent male lust is par for the course in standard shounen manga, but it's still really annoying to see, especially when emphasized in animated form. I am long, long past finding these jokes funny. As I don't find the show particularly impressive overall, despite the amount of effort that's going into the character art and Mukouda's impressively stylized dancing animation, I am not sure that I can continue watching this.
 

SOLDIER

Member

I knew it: I knew the moment they ever decided to make an anime it would star a shit male squid (most likely an Ash-type protagonist) instead of the Squid Sisters, or even the vastly superior female designed squids.

Can't wait for this shit to have no idea how to play the game but constantly make speeches how he wants to be the very best.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Love and Lies ep.3
Plot twist!!!! OH my, that came out of left field!!!!
This show is pretty legit with all the different angles things need to be looked at by all the characters, but that kiss..... damn.
 
I knew it: I knew the moment they ever decided to make an anime it would star a shit male squid (most likely an Ash-type protagonist) instead of the Squid Sisters, or even the vastly superior female designed squids.

Can't wait for this shit to have no idea how to play the game but constantly make speeches how he wants to be the very best.

I am just waiting for a ARMS anime because the main character would be Mechanica.

C'mon Nintendo.
 
Probably? Isnt that the reason why Macross is a nightmare? I assume its the same with stuff like Idolm@ster and Love Live. Extremely popular but song/seiyuu licenses are not even worth attempting to deal with

macross is a whole nother clusterfuck compared to say licensing Symphogear, im@s or LoveLive!. if you get passed those asshats named harmony gold(this will happen when hell freezes over of bandai visual/studio nue etc decide its worth it to Challenge HG in court), then you have to deal with the music rights, in the case of say macross 7 there are several different record company's involved in that one show alone. Frontier and Delta are considerably easier in this regard but still not easy. then you have to consider will it actually sell in international markets?
 

SOLDIER

Member
I feel like any new Nintendo anime adaptions will borrow heavily from the Pokémon/Shonen formula of "main character who sucks really, really hard at their job".

Link keeps getting his sword stuck on trees. Mario keeps landing on Toad. Marth needs entire lectures on what a "war" is.

It's totally not relatable if the hero is cool and competent! /s
 

Kenstar

Member
I feel like any new Nintendo anime adaptions will borrow heavily from the Pokémon/Shonen formula of "main character who sucks really, really hard at their job".

Link keeps getting his sword stuck on trees. Mario keeps landing on Toad. Marth needs entire lectures on what a "war" is.

It's totally not relatable if the hero is cool and competent! /s

'only fuckups in life still watch anime so why wouldnt they relate to these useless anime protags'
 

trejo

Member
Welcome to the Ballroom 2

As much as people were justifiably bothered by that 2-second portion of a montage in Made in Abyss's second episode, I am more bothered by how this episode opened on an obnoxiously drawn out breast bouncing gag and then ended its first half on an "accidental pervert" gag featuring a pan over Shizuku in her underwear. I get that this sort of loving portrayal of adolescent male lust is par for the course in standard shounen manga, but it's still really annoying to see, especially when emphasized in animated form. I am long, long past finding these jokes funny. As I don't find the show particularly impressive overall, despite the amount of effort that's going into the character art and Mukouda's impressively stylized dancing animation, I am not sure that I can continue watching this.

I haven't watched Made in Abyss just yet so I can't comment on that but I did roll my eyes at the changing room scene in Welcome to the Ballroom. One observation I have though is I wonder why are these two shows in particular coming under so much scrutiny right now from long time thread members over what I think is, at most, a few seconds of questionable content. Is it because the source material is of such a high standard that you were expecting it to be better and rise above the usual level of pandering or is it that at some point after being exposed for so long some of you simply start thinking that enough is enough? Because I'll be honest, this type of shit is so ever-present in the medium of anime that if one slight instance of it in a show you were hyped about is enough to start putting you off from watching further then at that point, why keep watching anime at all?
 

Tuck

Member
I haven't watched Made in Abyss just yet so I can't comment on that but I did roll my eyes at the changing room scene in Welcome to the Ballroom. One observation I have though is I wonder why are these two shows in particular coming under so much scrutiny right now from long time thread members over what I think is, at most, a few seconds of questionable content. Is it because the source material is of such a high standard that you were expecting it to be better and rise above the usual level of pandering or is it that at some point after being exposed for so long some of you simply start thinking that enough is enough? Because I'll be honest, this type of shit is so ever-present in the medium of anime that if one slight instance of it in a show you were hyped about is enough to start putting you off from watching further then at that point, why keep watching anime at all?

I think the level of quality is very relevant. Both Made in Abyss and Welcome to the Ballroom seem to be a cut above typical anime drivel, and it shows. They have pretty decent production values. They have unique settings/stories to tell. So when they get bogged down by completely low-class, unnecessary scenes like that, its very noticeable, and disappointing.

And its a shame, because in both cases, those scenes could have been cut entirely and nothing would have changed plot wise, yet the episode would have been so much better for it.
 
I haven't watched Made in Abyss just yet so I can't comment on that but I did roll my eyes at the changing room scene in Welcome to the Ballroom. One observation I have though is I wonder why are these two shows in particular coming under so much scrutiny right now from long time thread members over what I think is, at most, a few seconds of questionable content. Is it because the source material is of such a high standard that you were expecting it to be better and rise above the usual level of pandering or is it that at some point after being exposed for so long some of you simply start thinking that enough is enough? Because I'll be honest, this type of shit is so ever-present in the medium of anime that if one slight instance of it in a show you were hyped about is enough to start putting you off from watching further then at that point, why keep watching anime at all?

I don't know that Welcome to the Ballroom is coming under special scrutiny; I'm the only one I've seen complain about this so far. As far as Made in Abyss goes, the reason that show is receiving so much scrutiny is because ever since the anime announcement there's been a lot of warnings over the manga's sexualized violence involving children, so any whiff of that in the anime is going to send up huge red flags for a lot of people.

Now as you say, there is a lot of sexually provocative material of varying degrees of intensity in anime. Sometimes I am willing to overlook that if the rest of the material is good enough to keep my interest. In Ballroom's case I'm not sure the rest of the material is that good. Still, as typical of the medium as it is, it's not as if indulgence of adolescent male lust is present in every anime; there's plenty of anime I can watch with none of that. So even I wanted to completely avoid it, I don't think I would be required to stop watching anime. I'm certainly not going to stop wrestling with these issues when I feel like they detract from a work, as someone who desires to be responsible with myself when I partake of entertainment.
 

Jex

Member
I haven't watched Made in Abyss just yet so I can't comment on that but I did roll my eyes at the changing room scene in Welcome to the Ballroom. One observation I have though is I wonder why are these two shows in particular coming under so much scrutiny right now from long time thread members over what I think is, at most, a few seconds of questionable content. Is it because the source material is of such a high standard that you were expecting it to be better and rise above the usual level of pandering or is it that at some point after being exposed for so long some of you simply start thinking that enough is enough? Because I'll be honest, this type of shit is so ever-present in the medium of anime that if one slight instance of it in a show you were hyped about is enough to start putting you off from watching further then at that point, why keep watching anime at all?

Here's the answer for me, at least: I believe this thread should always be useful as a tool for people who are just casually interested in anime/the current season of anime. There are always people new to the medium for whom this could be their first season that they're following shows as they air. I feel like it's my duty to give these people fair warning of the kind of content they could be experiencing in their shows. It's very easy to become desensitized to the problematic elements present in some (but not all) anime productions, but I think it's important to try and come at an anime with a fresh perspective to help better serve this audience.

The alternative is that someone hears the glowing praise around, say, Made in the Abyss, and as a result they decide to check out the show for themselves. They will then surely run into the objectionable material and wonder why no-one in the thread even thought it was worth mentioning? They'd have to assume we're just a bunch of very insular anime fans who aren't bothered by scenes which are clearly objectionable. I'd rather try and prevent such a thing from occurring.

Now, that's just my own take on the matter and I certainly don't see it as anyone else's responsibility to point out these issues when they comment on a show. But I feel the need to flag up these things, especially when it occurs in relation to a series that could have some mainstream appeal.
 

Narag

Member
Record of the Lodoss War 1-5


Detailed character designs with actual noses are all fine and dandy but when even a set of OVAs becomes more a collection of stills than animation, you've gotta ask yourself "Maybe we're actually better off with SAO ?" The action in this is tepid at best of times and rife with all manner of shortcuts; stills, close ups, panning away to audience, flashes of sword strokes, down to even reusing animation cuts or even funnier, reusing stills. The story doesn't impress, there's some okayish intrigue in the background but the way the Hero team comes together can only be spoken of as farfetched. Until much later most of these people didn't even have a reason to follow the MC, the elf lady still doesn't.
Lodoss is a product if it's time albeit an influential one but I always felt like western appeal was about the novelty of how well fantasy elements could be brought to life in anime despite the story quality. I love it to death but the bog standard description used in here is rather apt. It's really rpgish too since it was based off d&d sessions and the staff wantrd to keep that in tact according to the short docu on the first NA release. It does pick up as it goes along but not too much further really.

The book is finally getting an English translation this year so excited to see what sort of adaptation differences exist on my end.
 
Restaraunt to Another World - 03

This show continues to be heartwarming. Just the kind of thing I need each week, so I'll definitely stick around until the end. I almost hopes it stays this way and has no form of conflict just because that's literally all I want out of the show, is for people to eat food and enjoy life.
 
Lodoss is a product if it's time albeit an influential one but I always felt like western appeal was about the novelty of how well fantasy elements could be brought to life in anime despite the story quality. I love it to death but the bog standard description used in here is rather apt. It's really rpgish too since it was based off d&d sessions and the staff wantrd to keep that in tact according to the short docu on the first NA release. It does pick up as it goes along but not too much further really.

The book is finally getting an English translation this year so excited to see what sort of adaptation differences exist on my end.

And right now it's $8 off the normal price when preordering via Amazon. I have no experience with the Lodoss series directly, so should be an interesting first introduction to the series. If nothing else it seems like I'm getting an D&D type novel.
 

Jex

Member
I think "It gets good much later." is a terrible reasoning to give someone to watch something when we see the large amount of people here dropping shows 1.5 episodes into the series.
I don't think you can compare the two things.

When people actually say "it gets good much later" they're speaking from a position of having completed an entire series (or in the case of Fafner, a franchise). This knowledge allows them to make a definite statement about whether a show is worth suffering through a rough beginning.

On the flipside, when people chose to drop or continue to watch a show as it's airing, they're making that call with no foreknowledge of the future of that show. They're just making a gut decision based on the evidence they have to hand. There's no way to judge whether that call is 'wrong' or 'right' until the entire series has aired. Maybe the show will actually turn out to be 'great', everyone will praise it, and then the person who dropped the show will actually return to finish it.

They're two pretty different things.
 
I think the level of quality is very relevant. Both Made in Abyss and Welcome to the Ballroom seem to be a cut above typical anime drivel, and it shows. They have pretty decent production values. They have unique settings/stories to tell. So when they get bogged down by completely low-class, unnecessary scenes like that, its very noticeable, and disappointing.

And its a shame, because in both cases, those scenes could have been cut entirely and nothing would have changed plot wise, yet the episode would have been so much better for it.

I dont know and also think its too early to say MiA and Ballroom are somehow above typical dungeon based exploration manga or high school extracurricular boys manga series in a popular magazine.

I think the scene in Ballroom just feels out of place, the same as it does in other school competition series when you get a random scene out of the blue focusing on the club managers bewbies/walking in on them showering/bathing.
 

Tuck

Member
I dont know and also think its too early to say MiA and Ballroom are somehow above typical dungeon based exploration manga or high school extracurricular boys manga series in a popular magazine.

Absolutely - I was mainly referring to first impressions of each show (i.e reactions to each show's first episode), which were pretty positive overall, though I don't think that was at all clear in my post.
 
Personally, the scene in Made in Abyss didn't even register for me.

Fist, It was clearly a joke, not fanservice. The joke is how ridiculous extreme is the punishment. They are little kids in school, but it's even harsher than what we imagine they do in the Navy Seals! The joke even had setup (that's why they did the offhand comment in the previous episode, now we see it was for real).
The characters are not attractive, in fact, apart from being featureless little kids they actually are barely similar to humans, so it would be hard to classify the scene as titillating. Hell, I think she appeared more deformed than usual in that scene.
The contrast on the vague S&Mish nature of the punishment and the reality of being little almost asexual chibi characters makes it inappropriate in a way that actually makes the joke funnier.
And at the end of the day, it was a fast 1-second cut in a montage scene.





Ballroom is a bit different. From my perspective (manga reader), I consider Ballroom as 'sexy'. All the characters happen to be young and attractive, some of them are especially charged up sexually, and there is fanservice scenes for both sexes.
And that's not counting the sensual element of the dance. Part of their job is to be sexy.
Hell one of the accomplishments of the comic is how high is the sexual tension despite
having zero sexual stuff in reality, for now. Just using the eyes in the key moments.
So yeah, there will be more scenes like this, including an onsen scene.

There is subtle difference here. I actively dislike fanservice, but one thing is fanservice, and another a story with sensual characters. It can be hard to differentiate. It depends a lot of how to present things, if with attractiveness as a natural, positive quality in a cohesive setting and tone in the story, or in the other hand they just put a character with fantasy clothes that happen to be super revealing, or put a robot cat girl with lots of curves in a story that doesn't have anything to do with that because it's really a mystery scifi story, or make the typical gainax bounce, etc. Having a good, attractive, admirable but still realistic character design also helps.
 

trejo

Member
I think the level of quality is very relevant. Both Made in Abyss and Welcome to the Ballroom seem to be a cut above typical anime drivel, and it shows. They have pretty decent production values. They have unique settings/stories to tell. So when they get bogged down by completely low-class, unnecessary scenes like that, its very noticeable, and disappointing.

And its a shame, because in both cases, those scenes could have been cut entirely and nothing would have changed plot wise, yet the episode would have been so much better for it.

I understand this point of view if it's akin to how there is no such thing as a Bunny Drop manga since that is an original anime, after all.

I don't know that Welcome to the Ballroom is coming under special scrutiny; I'm the only one I've seen complain about this so far. As far as Made in Abyss goes, the reason that show is receiving so much scrutiny is because ever since the anime announcement there's been a lot of warnings over the manga's sexualized violence involving children, so any whiff of that in the anime is going to send up huge red flags for a lot of people.

Now as you say, there is a lot of sexually provocative material of varying degrees of intensity in anime. Sometimes I am willing to overlook that if the rest of the material is good enough to keep my interest. In Ballroom's case I'm not sure the rest of the material is that good. Still, as typical of the medium as it is, it's not as if indulgence of adolescent male lust is present in every anime; there's plenty of anime I can watch with none of that. So even I wanted to completely avoid it, I don't think I would be required to stop watching anime. I'm certainly not going to stop wrestling with these issues when I feel like they detract from a work, as someone who desires to be responsible with myself when I partake of entertainment.

But then again, if the content in contention regarding Made in Abyss was a known quantity by people familiar with the source material from the start then I feel like it becomes a case of idontknowwhatiexpected.gif, IMO.

I'd also like to point out that I hope you don't take umbrage with my offhand semi-rambling comment. Of course one is free to enjoy watching anime for whatever reason they so prefer and likewise find issues with it based on their own personal values so I apologize if I came across too standoffish or whatever.

Here's the answer for me, at least: I believe this thread should always be useful as a tool for people who are just casually interested in anime/the current season of anime. There are always people new to the medium for whom this could be their first season that they're following shows as they air. I feel like it's my duty to give these people fair warning of the kind of content they could be experiencing in their shows. It's very easy to become desensitized to the problematic elements present in some (but not all) anime productions, but I think it's important to try and come at an anime with a fresh perspective to help better serve this audience.

The alternative is that someone hears the glowing praise around, say, Made in the Abyss, and as a result they decide to check out the show for themselves. They will then surely run into the objectionable material and wonder why no-one in the thread even thought it was worth mentioning? They'd have to assume we're just a bunch of very insular anime fans who aren't bothered by scenes which are clearly objectionable. I'd rather try and prevent such a thing from occurring.

Now, that's just my own take on the matter and I certainly don't see it as anyone else's responsibility to point out these issues when they comment on a show. But I feel the need to flag up these things, especially when it occurs in relation to a series that could have some mainstream appeal.

I think it's fine that you've decided to take on that role upon yourself in the thread and I totally understand where you're coming from but then again I don't think it would make for good overall discourse if all of a sudden everyone decided to start appointing themselves as arbiters of good, wholesome taste.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that much to my chagrin over time I've grown to be somewhat fond of DTL's posts, or something?
 

zulux21

Member
Why do they still call them simuldubs then.

because they have always been called that even though they are 2-4 weeks behind.

a lot of the anime isn't done to much before it airs on tv, dubs aren't instant thus they need some time to be able to dub it.

it sucks, but it is still way better than waiting a year+ like we used to.
 
Honestly Ballroom isn't even that good.

I think Itazu does have a good sense of the appeal of dancing's artistry and physicality, and the moments where he and his animators really strive hard to express that can be rather effective. It's just that the characters and narrative framework being set up don't really stand out so far, and neither does the overall direction. The show feels too safe in general. But, you know, given that manga readers say there's a boost in quality later on I may be willing to give keeping Ballroom a shot until that time.

Ballroom is a bit different. From my perspective (manga reader), I consider Ballroom as 'sexy'. All the characters happen to be young and attractive, some of them are especially charged up sexually, and there is fanservice scenes for both sexes.

And that's not counting the sensual element of the dance. Part of their job is to be sexy.
Hell one of the accomplishments of the comic is how high is the sexual tension despite
having zero sexual stuff in reality, for now. Just using the eyes in the key moments.
So yeah, there will be more scenes like this, including an onsen scene.

There is subtle difference here. I actively dislike fanservice, but one thing is fanservice, and another a story with sensual characters. It can be hard to differentiate. It depends a lot of how to present things, if with attractiveness as a natural, positive quality in a cohesive setting and tone in the story, or in the other hand they just put a character with fantasy clothes that happen to be super revealing, or put a robot cat girl with lots of curves in a story that doesn't have anything to do with that because it's really a mystery scifi story, or make the typical gainax bounce, etc. Having a good, attractive, admirable but still realistic character design also helps.

Depicting attractive characters and the sensual element of dance is one thing. Jokes about a woman's breasts being so big they bounce on their own or about the male lead accidentally walking in on the female lead changing, then having a perverted nosebleed and being attacked by the girl - jokes which are copy-and-pasted from a thousand other shounen manga - are another.

But then again, if the content in contention regarding Made in Abyss was a known quantity by people familiar with the source material from the start then I feel like it becomes a case of idontknowwhatiexpected.gif, IMO.

I believe the hope was that the anime would tone down some of the more extreme content of the manga - which, to be fair, it has done somewhat already, but perhaps might not do enough, especially later on. We'll have to see.

I'd also like to point out that I hope you don't take umbrage with my offhand semi-rambling comment. Of course one is free to enjoy watching anime for whatever reason they so prefer and likewise find issues with it based on their own personal values so I apologize if I came across too standoffish or whatever.

No offense taken. By the way, since I haven't seen you comment on it, I did end up watching all of Planetes after you pestered me several times about not having seen it. It's mostly pretty good.
 
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