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Summer Anime 2015 |OT| SharingMana

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e_i

Member
School-Live episode 7

The key of IMPORTANCE.

Yes, I been reading the manga and it will become important very soon.
 

JulianImp

Member
To Love Ru ep. 22-END

Another checkbox done on my list today. I needed to clean up all of these series with just a couple episodes left. The last few episodes of ths series were pretty good as they linked together a coherant story rather than being completely episodic. As expected from a harem anime, the very ending was pretty lame and, of course, nothing was settled, but hey, I think they are still in the same spot with this anime 3 seasons later. I see there are a ton of special episodes and OVAs after this season, are any of them worth watching? Despite the lewdness of this series, it really wasn't that bad, I'm just not a big fan of the "episodic" approach they used, where there is noreal story at all and they just keep throwing different side stuff at you throughout the middle episodes of the season. Oh well, time to finish something else now...

I watched it up to EP15 just because, and it's been nothing to write home about so far. Rito's your typical clueless, spineless but caring harem protagonist, which is a trope I don't like at all, and the way most characters are portrayed as one-dimensional beings isn't something I liked either, with them having one or two personal traits that get used and abused whenever they make an appearance.

The episodic nature of the show is also a bit boring since it favors maintaining the status quo over allowing characters to change as the show goes on. Lots of episodes with one-shot characters that end up adding nothing to the story made watching through them a bit of a pain at times. However, I'd rate it higher than other harem series such as Nisekoi merely because of its crazy premise and it being an older series. The fanservice is kind of dumb and always played for laughs, so it gets stale rather quickly.

What I don't get is why the harem genre is still the same way now as it has been for quite a while. I was expecting a couple more neo-harem series after seeing how Monogatari kind of deconstructed the genre and turned it on its head, but I guess I was wrong and the audience still enjoys stuff such as Nisekoi.
 

Squalor

Junior Member
So recently I'm starting to learn that I don't tend to like floaty/speedy fighting sequences over those with weight to them. Animation where the people fighting are as light as a feather and can throw a million punches in a 1 second span doesn't do that as much for me as somebody who has to consider every move. Similarly characters who break through concrete and other hard surfaces like nothing and proceed to float in the air and swing a sword like a toothpick. No moar plz.
You mean you don't like when characters defy the laws of gravity in the most absurd manners?

What is wrong with you? Haha.
 

javac

Member
So recently I'm starting to learn that I don't tend to like floaty/speedy fighting sequences over those with weight to them. Animation where the people fighting are as light as a feather and can throw a million punches in a 1 second span doesn't do that as much for me as somebody who has to consider every move. Similarly characters who break through concrete and other hard surfaces like nothing and proceed to float in the air and swing a sword like a toothpick. No moar plz.
I wrote something similar a while back was was labeled a crazy person, probably not helped by the way I phrased it I guess. It's why I don't watch any of those fighting series and other shonen series and such.
Indeed :)
 
You mean you don't like when characters defy the laws of gravity in the most absurd manners?

What is wrong with you? Haha.

I guess it's that yes. But it's also like say swinging a sword and when it connects you see the body reacting how it normally would. Think like Berserk. He swings this big ass sword that realistically he shouldn't be able to do, and that's fine, but at least when he does it's this massive fucking block of steel that crunches the bones. I like that. Having to use all your might to swing a sword, or in a fist fight when the punch connects having the person realistically react to the fist. Say a military guy snaps a neck. It shouldn't be like "lol it's like twisting off a bottle cap" it should require him to fucking strain and then hear the noise and the body flop to the ground.

So yes it ends up being physics based at the end of the day. But I'm willing to suspend disbelief to a degree
 

lonely

Member
So recently I'm starting to learn that I don't tend to like floaty/speedy fighting sequences over those with weight to them. Animation where the people fighting are as light as a feather and can throw a million punches in a 1 second span doesn't do that as much for me as somebody who has to consider every move. Similarly characters who break through concrete and other hard surfaces like nothing and proceed to float in the air and swing a sword like a toothpick. No moar plz.

I remember there was an action scene near the beginning of Seraph of the end: http://sakuga.yshi.org/data/d75da641318435fa67bd09bbe7c34574.webmhttp://sakuga.yshi.org/data/509d2fd5b6841943c1ed60923d0e27ec.webm
That I was stunned to see people praising because there was no weight in the movements. It's like the animator doesn't understand the 12 principals of animation and when I was learning 3D animation I had it drilled ito me.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Sabagebu! ep.10-12
tumblr_nbwvm3n4wH1thjidko1_400.gif

tumblr_nc9fglxCTl1tbeq5co1_500.gif


Damn, The last few episodes were awesome stuff. That final gun battle was great, and Urara finally got hers at the end, lol. Platty was also a beast in those final couple episodes with crabby. When is there going to be a season 2 of this show anyway? It is so much fun to watch and hilarious to boot....

Another one down today, onto Punchline now...
 

Squalor

Junior Member
I guess it's that yes. But it's also like say swinging a sword and when it connects you see the body reacting how it normally would. Think like Berserk. He swings this big ass sword that realistically he shouldn't be able to do, and that's fine, but at least when he does it's this massive fucking block of steel that crunches the bones. I like that. Having to use all your might to swing a sword, or in a fist fight when the punch connects having the person realistically react to the fist. Say a military guy snaps a neck. It shouldn't be like "lol it's like twisting off a bottle cap" it should require him to fucking strain and then hear the noise and the body flop to the ground.

So yes it ends up being physics based at the end of the day. But I'm willing to suspend disbelief to a degree
Nah, man. Anime characters are made out of plot armor. It's stronger than Captain America's shield, then weaker than wet tissue paper when need be.
 
Cinderella Girls 19

CrlUSPw.png

How to sing, three frames at a time

Pretty average episode since I don't like Asteriks.


Watching how hard Rock-chan got exposed made it all worth it though.

The new boss woman had the right idea when she threw that rock lady in the trash, what a worthless performance.
 
Cinderella Girls 19

A7iM6UH.jpg

Mentors and pupils

I'm glad Miku is one of my favorite characters in this, otherwise I would probably be annoyed at how many episodes she and Asterisk gets compared to other ones. Aside from that, this episode is keeping with the trend of how these second cour episodes have been really good at developing existing and new characters. Also liked how it's setting up for the eventual Uzuki suffering arc with Rin's probable new unit.
 

Nafe

Member
What really?! I really didn't notice the voice, going back in the episode to check this.
But the highlight of this episode for me was Rinne's deadpan skipping.

Yeah,haha.
I went back and you can see her name at the top here during the third part of the credits sequence.


Someone updated her ANN encyclopedia profile page to include the role as well.

The only other seiyuu from a previous Takahashi work in the show that I'm aware of is Satsuki Yukino who did/does the voice of Kagome in Inuyasha. She's doing the voice for Tamako, Rinne's Grandmother.

That part was funny,yeah. During the initial side shot and his exaggerated movement I wondered if he was skipping,haha.

Honestly I'm not that familiar with Urusei Yatsura yet. I watched the first episode the one time to get introduced to the characters and story. I've also seen the second movie, Beautiful Dreamer, due to enough people talking about and recommending the show here.

Right now I'm just past halfway through Ojamajo Doremi Dokkaan! and once I finish Doremi I might watch Urusei Yatsura as my next longer running show. I'd like to see it along with some other Takahashi works I'm also not really familiar with such as Ranma 1/2.

---

Speaking of seiyuu trivia, maybe not really many care but I still think it's kind of crazy that both Chiaki Omigawa(Minko in Hanasaku Iroha) and Rika Fukami(Minako/Sailor Venus in Sailor Moon) are in God Eater TV.
It's true they only really voice minor characters with Omigawa voicing the mechanic girl and Fukami voicing the scientist girl from the flashback parts but still. At least they're still voicing new characters.


Neon Genesis Evangelion Blu-ray Box / Archives of Evangelion remastering process:

Behind the scenes making of stuff is often pretty interesting. I like it when people post stuff like this in the thread. Thanks for sharing.
 

Saudades

Member
Prison School 07


Dat grainy old cartoon animation at the Three Kingdom scene and Gakubro's finest hour. They pulled them off splendidly, so goddamn good.

Tho I feel that this episode was the first one since the first ep that is a bit rushed with the pacing. And Gakuto's scene is so good that it's all downhill the rest of the ep (the fact that Andre is the least developed character in this series doesn't help either).
 

Cornbread78

Member
Darkness has a stronger focus on a main story, but also much lewder fanservice and some stories entirely focused on that fanservice, without even attempting to disguise it under bad humor anymore.

I'm not sure if I will dig into Darkness anytime soon though. TLR was at it's best when it was purely comedy despite the harem escapades. Being purely lewd doesn't overly excite me to jump in on it, lol.


I watched it up to EP15 just because, and it's been nothing to write home about so far. Rito's your typical clueless, spineless but caring harem protagonist, which is a trope I don't like at all, and the way most characters are portrayed as one-dimensional beings isn't something I liked either, with them having one or two personal traits that get used and abused whenever they make an appearance.

The episodic nature of the show is also a bit boring since it favors maintaining the status quo over allowing characters to change as the show goes on. Lots of episodes with one-shot characters that end up adding nothing to the story made watching through them a bit of a pain at times. However, I'd rate it higher than other harem series such as Nisekoi merely because of its crazy premise and it being an older series. The fanservice is kind of dumb and always played for laughs, so it gets stale rather quickly.

What I don't get is why the harem genre is still the same way now as it has been for quite a while. I was expecting a couple more neo-harem series after seeing how Monogatari kind of deconstructed the genre and turned it on its head, but I guess I was wrong and the audience still enjoys stuff such as Nisekoi.


It's really a toss up between the two for me. Both MC's have their moments when they act like men, but still refuse to admit or commit to anyone in the harem. We just need more MC's like the dude from Campione!, lol. To be fair, how differnt is the Monogatari Harem, compared to SAO? Both have 1 fixed female that the MC is knowingly commited to within the harem and all the other females around them are ancillary and just there as plot pieces.
 
Humanity Has Declined 10

I really find Watashi interactions with the faries so entertaining. The faries themselves are cute especially the way they speak. So the faries worshipped Watashi as God and she passed it down to the other fairy which ended up destroying their city.

Am I just dreaming or is the story being told backwards? I mean this episode was about Watashi first meeting the faries.
 

Hellraider

Member
To Love Ru ep. 22-END

Another checkbox done on my list today. I needed to clean up all of these series with just a couple episodes left. The last few episodes of ths series were pretty good as they linked together a coherant story rather than being completely episodic. As expected from a harem anime, the very ending was pretty lame and, of course, nothing was settled, but hey, I think they are still in the same spot with this anime 3 seasons later. I see there are a ton of special episodes and OVAs after this season, are any of them worth watching? Despite the lewdness of this series, it really wasn't that bad, I'm just not a big fan of the "episodic" approach they used, where there is noreal story at all and they just keep throwing different side stuff at you throughout the middle episodes of the season. Oh well, time to finish something else now...

First season TLR is worst TLR. Darkness actually has a main story (lol) now but the majority is still made of episodic episodes. At the end of the day it's still a pretty standard harem series that turns into softcore porn at some point. If you are not into this thing there is no reason to continue tbh.
 

Mailbox

Member
I'm not sure if I will dig into Darkness anytime soon though. TLR was at it's best when it was purely comedy despite the harem escapades. Being purely lewd doesn't overly excite me to jump in on it, lol.





It's really a toss up between the two for me. Both MC's have their moments when they act like men, but still refuse to admit or commit to anyone in the harem. We just need more MC's like the dude from Campione!, lol. To be fair, how differnt is the Monogatari Harem, compared to SAO? Both have 1 fixed female that the MC is knowingly commited to within the harem and all the other females around them are ancillary and just there as plot pieces.

You mean other than the fact that most of the characters in the SAO harem are superfluous to the plot. Heck, with the exception of Asuna, no one even matters after their respective episode/ arc.

With monogatari, the harem aspect (while imperfect) is used mostly as an excuse to have character to character interaction (which is basically a Crux in monogatari) and maybe to add a few filler scenes (which was one of the big problems with something like nisemonogatari).

Basically, while the base of the harem might be similar, it's the fact that interactions between members matter (like with mayoi especially in bake and second season) and have longer lasting meaning to the plot (like with Nadako) that makes a huge difference.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Punchline ep. 8-10:
tumblr_nq5mtfKNiA1u21ng6o1_500.gif

from an earlier episode, but I love this gif.


Damn, this show got pretty intense really quick in ep. 10. I wasn't expecting such a change since I had dropped it during the spring. It starts to make a lot more sense in rep. 9/10 as the everything starts to unfold in front of you. I really want to know how the hell he is going to get outta this one, so I'll have to finish it up later tonight.
 

/XX/

Member
The show itself is 16mm while the OP and ED are 35mm. During the development of the 2003 DVD set, the original 16mm negatives for Episode 16 (including the preview segments) were lost, and so they had to remaster the episode using a 35 mm internegatives. This time around they utilized a new up-converting technique called 'Real Scaling for HD' for Episode 16.
As a frame of reference I will point out that other products, like for example the BD-BOX original set of Toradora!, also featured video conversion using the Real Scaling for HD technique to great effect (other proprietary ones like Super Bit Mapping for Video should complement it for this release pretty well too). Out of many alternatives that option should be one of the most decent ones given the odd circumstances, very nice.

Also, a report with images of the development process but no cute images of Mr. Anno supervising it like before? Disappointing!
Maybe he is too cool of a personality now to be seen in such unprofessional manner... ;-P
 
Prison School - 07

Meh-ish episode. The anime doesn't manage to portray the manga content in a more interesting/engaging fashion so far. Doesn't help that seeing the vice president sweating is rather dull to begin with.

Hopefully the first great sequences coming up will actually shine here, if not this may remain a relatively close but unimaginative adaptation.
 
Yeah,haha.
I went back and you can see her name at the top here during the third part of the credits sequence.



Someone updated her ANN encyclopedia profile page to include the role as well.

The only other seiyuu from a previous Takahashi work in the show that I'm aware of is Satsuki Yukino who did/does the voice of Kagome in Inuyasha. She's doing the voice for Tamako, Rinne's Grandmother.

That part was funny,yeah. During the initial side shot and his exaggerated movement I wondered if he was skipping,haha.

Honestly I'm not that familiar with Urusei Yatsura yet. I watched the first episode the one time to get introduced to the characters and story. I've also seen the second movie, Beautiful Dreamer, due to enough people talking about and recommending the show here.

Right now I'm just past halfway through Ojamajo Doremi Dokkaan! and once I finish Doremi I might watch Urusei Yatsura as my next longer running show. I'd like to see it along with some other Takahashi works I'm also not really familiar with such as Ranma 1/2.

I went back to hear it, the way she talks just need a 「~daccha」 or 「~ccha」, but the tone of her voice is totally diferent. I'm not familiar with Kagome seiyuu, since I only watched some parts of Inuyasha when it was running on the local network.
Urusei Yatsura is one of the good ones, Ranma 1/2 too, though it seems some people here can't stand one character ( I have no problem with him). I need to get back to Urusei Yatsura myself, watched some episodes some time ago and have the intention of finishing it this year, since Narag has me in some list.

You (
should have
)should (
posted
)post more about Doremi. щ(ಠ益ಠщ)

Speaking of seiyuu trivia, maybe not really many care but I still think it's kind of crazy that both Chiaki Omigawa(Minko in Hanasaku Iroha) and Rika Fukami(Minako/Sailor Venus in Sailor Moon) are in God Eater TV.
It's true they only really voice minor characters with Omigawa voicing the mechanic girl and Fukami voicing the scientist girl from the flashback parts but still. At least they're still voicing new characters.

Omigawa de goddess~
I'm watching Classrom Crisis for Yuu Kobayashi.
 

Cornbread78

Member
You mean other than the fact that most of the characters in the SAO harem are superfluous to the plot. Heck, with the exception of Asuna, no one even matters after their respective episode/ arc.

With monogatari, the harem aspect (while imperfect) is used mostly as an excuse to have character to character interaction (which is basically a Crux in monogatari) and maybe to add a few filler scenes (which was one of the big problems with something like nisemonogatari).

Basically, while the base of the harem might be similar, it's the fact that interactions between members matter (like with mayoi especially in bake and second season) and have longer lasting meaning to the plot (like with Nadako) that makes a huge difference.

I was saying that in general form. Both have the same type of non-typical harem. Most harems have one MC that all the ladies want to jump on, because he is sooo nice to everyone, but any time he gets close to any one of the girls he gets nose bleeds, freaks out and runs away, and never chooses just 1 girl for the most part. In SAO and Monogatari, there is one heroine chosen very early and all the other girls are just there but not for "romantic/ship" reasons. Mono's girls definately have a much greater role int eh story than anything SAO could put out.
 

javac

Member
As a frame of reference I will point out that other products, like for example the BD-BOX original set of Toradora!, also featured video conversion using the Real Scaling for HD technique to great effect (other proprietary ones like Super Bit Mapping for Video should complement it for this release pretty well too). Out of many alternatives that option should be one of the most decent ones given the odd circumstances, very nice.

Also, a report with images of the development process but no cute images of Mr. Anno supervising it like before? Disappointing!
Maybe he is too cool of a personality now to be seen in such unprofessional manner... ;-P

Haha I love those pictures of Mr.Anno, times sure have changed indeed. Around 12 years ago, I'm glad Anno is still doing well and that the excitement around yet another Eva release is met with excitement. I will say that they've been a lot more secretive in regards to this release which has resulted in people picking it up without even knowing how it'll look look like. With the Renewal of Evangelion set, King Records actually released 01 Test Type, a DVD containing the first episode a full 3 months before the final set even came out in order to build up hype. I guess the Evangelion name is enough these days. Regardless I enjoyed reading and looking into the whole process and thanks for the link in regards to their work on Toradora, the technique does seem to deliver great results. I do have faith in the release and the silence doesn't really scare me.

Thanks again, I always appreciate your posts.
 

JulianImp

Member
To be fair, how differnt is the Monogatari Harem, compared to SAO? Both have 1 fixed female that the MC is knowingly commited to within the harem and all the other females around them are ancillary and just there as plot pieces.

To start with, SAO girls are absolutely flat for the most part in that their caracters have next to nothing to offer to the show other than the fact that they're part of Kirito's harem. Asuna had character devolution as she became Kirito's waifu, Suguha and Sion had some character development but were still way too one-dimensional, with Sion being a bit more decent since her character development didn't include developing a brother complex, Silica and Riz are both non-entities and Yui is just a deus est machina.

The monogatari girls, let me see...
  • Senjougahara is Araragi's stable love interest, but that doesn't mean that she submits to him (if anything, she is the one in control in their relationship for the most part). Her character arc is focused on her accepting others even knowing that they might end up hurting her
  • Hachikuji inverts her purpose as a "lost cow" apparition by actually helping Araragi and others find their way whenever they happen to be lost (both figuratively and literally), and gets a really good character arc as a result of this deviation of hers
  • Suruga and Araragi kind of play an arms race to see who's the boldest, and constantly try to surprise each other. Her character arc is kind of about finding oneself as she has to sort out her feelings for Senjougahara, Araragi and her old classmate
  • Nadeko is the moest of moe, but her character arc eventually explores how much of a spoiled bitch she became due to how she could constantly get away with whatever she wanted simply because of her cute and frail looks
  • Hanekawa is the perfect class rep, only all that perfection comes at a price to her in the form of stress that she keeps bottling up. Her character arc is about finding a balance between doing what others expect of her and what she really wants to do
  • Karen and Tsukihi are always kept in the dark about oddities by Araragi as a way to protect them, and they go on about pretending to be heroes of justice but slowly become aware that what they're doing is just a farce
  • Shinobu's arc is about loneliness and how she's slowly bonds with Araragi after he goes out of his way to help her (like he does with the rest of the cast). Kizumonogatari will probably give us more insight on her character when/if it's released
  • Yotsugi's character arc basically explores the meaning of being a monster, and how it isn't a black-and-white issue as she ends up doing what she does to protect Araragi from going too far and becoming a monster himself
 
*sees topic about whether or not anime animation has gotten worse*

Oh-boy-here-we-go.jpg


Chaos Dragon episode 8

Guys, I'm starting to think that this character who we buried, and never speaks might be a zombie. Maybe we should actually question this character who came back to life a little, rather than not at all.

This is one of those shows that required everyone to be an idiot for the sake of plot.
 

Cornbread78

Member
LOL, you guys took that waaaay past the point I was making, lol.


The type of harem only, lol.


Eccentric Family ep. 4:
Awesome episode. Lots of air combat and back story with sensei as well. Benton is an evil woman and she is going to eat someone in that family eventually, I'd like one of them to kill her sooner..
 
Prison School 07


Finally, second best girl appeared! Her voice fits perfectly, I'm excited to see how the censoring is going to affect her "normal" design, but as of now it worked pretty well.

Gakotu is still Number 1 bro.

Overall good episode, I'd say that at this point we've reached the "the good part" of these 80 chapters that we're going to see.
 
Prison School 5-7

I've been lowering my internal score of this series, with the last three episodes. At first it was funny, but it has entered in patterns. Comedy wise, the characters and the comedy situations follow repeated schtick and patterns, the humor has resulted pretty flimsy, funny the first minutes but now it's more of the same.
I don't care for a lot of their little dramas. And the fanservice, even censored, is so bothersome, gross and ugly. I can handle some fanservice that is part of a joke scene, but when they just have Meiko got to place B and say sentence 3, nothing and that neutral scene is already flooded with almost porn, meh.
 
Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma ep 20

NEXT WEEK FEELS SO FAR AWAY GUYS!!!

This show is the absolute master of cliffhangers, but definitely in a good way.
Soma what are you doing you crazy bastard?!
 
*sees topic about whether or not anime animation has gotten worse*

I am so goddamn tired of people talking about the fourth Dragon Ball Super episode. Jesus Christ. Almost as tired of I am as people taking about the Budget God, which I'm almost as tired of as people posting random off model screenshots. It's the equivalent of someone posting a low polycount bush from The Order and going "WTF ISN'T THIS GAME SUPPOSED TO LOOK GOOD????"

Soma 20


Yeah, doubt we are getting into the 1v1's this season.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
TadokoroShokugeki no Soma

They've added a bit of characterization to the beginning of the Prelims, which isn't really a bad thing. There's kind of a lot of new characters and backstory with them, so making it seem less like there's completely random people getting backstory is a good thing.

This is gonna take a long-ass time though - the prelims were longer than the training camp in the source material.

I am so goddamn tired of people talking about the fourth Dragon Ball Super episode. Jesus Christ. Almost as tired of I am as people taking about the Budget God, which I'm almost as tired of as people posting random off model screenshots. It's the equivalent of someone posting a low polycount bush from The Order and going "WTF ISN'T THIS GAME SUPPOSED TO LOOK GOOD????"

Soma 20



Yeah, doubt we are getting into the 1v1's this season.

I'm just tired of "80s anime was so much better" threads because there's like 50 of them from the past couple years alone.

And yeah, I figured it was impossible once we got to Episode ~15 or so and the prelims weren't even on the horizon. Its not a bad stopping point though since a second season could cover the Election Finals from start to finish (plus the next arc, I bet) and/or if a sequel never gets made, the cliffhanger isn't quite as obnoxious.
 
Humanity Has Declined 11

So in this episode Watashi's time in school is shown. I finally understand why Watashi has a cynical personality, her school days did her no good. So I was wrong about Watashi meeting faries for the first time last episode because she saw a fairy in this episode. However it seems like the reason she can't remember is because that fairy made her forget.

It's nice to see Watashi made a friend and joined a Tea club.
 

JulianImp

Member
LOL, you guys took that waaaay past the point I was making, lol.

The type of harem only, lol.

Oversimplifying things yeah, both SAO and Monogatari have the same harem premise of a MC with a stable girl and other ones that they interact with on ocassion.

However, SAO is a show where nobody in the cast actually matters except for Kirito, because the show's hellbent on making the audience see how he's the only one that can get things done reliably (except for Mother's Rosario... but that's because he was holding back on his fight against Yuki).

Monogatari actually fleshes out each girl in his harem, and they all interact in meaningful ways with him. Also, Araragi's kind of a punching bag that gets saved (literally, figuratively or both) by the girls in his harem rather than hogging all the glory.

If you want to insist on focusing only on the harem aspect, SAO uses it to make Kirito look manly, while Monogatari uses it as an excuse to have Araragi interact with girls and, as a result, have both parties change in meaningful ways through theri interactions with each other
...and for fanservice.
 

duckroll

Member
It has gotten better, a whole hell of a lot better then the dark days of the Early 2000s. Early digital painting has not held up well in the world of HD everything.

It's not just painting. The low resolution composite is a huge problem for early digital TV anime in particular. If they're essentially mastered in SD at the source, it can be really hard to make it not look either blurry or over-sharpened when released in HD. Teething issues at the dawn of new technological eras always seems to hurt entertainment the worst. Watching Beauty and the Beast on blu-ray and seeing the super crappy CG ballroom background is a good reminder that even top-tier Hollywood productions aren't immune.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Oversimplifying things yeah, both SAO and Monogatari have the same harem premise of a MC with a stable girl and other ones that they interact with on ocassion.

However, SAO is a show where nobody in the cast actually matters except for Kirito, because the show's hellbent on making the audience see how he's the only one that can get things done reliably (except for Mother's Rosario... but that's because he was holding back on his fight against Yuki).

Monogatari actually fleshes out each girl in his harem, and they all interact in meaningful ways with him. Also, Araragi's kind of a punching bag that gets saved (literally, figuratively or both) by the girls in his harem rather than hogging all the glory.

If you want to insist on focusing only on the harem aspect, SAO uses it to make Kirito look manly, while Monogatari uses it as an excuse to have Araragi interact with girls and, as a result, have both parties change in meaningful ways through theri interactions with each other
...and for fanservice.

It makes me laugh how they made sure to add a throwaway line that Kirito could have done everything that occurred in Mother's Rosario, he just didn't want to.
 

JulianImp

Member
It makes me laugh how they made sure to add a throwaway line that Kirito could have done everything that occurred in Mother's Rosario, he just didn't want to.

It certainly didn't make me laugh. I mean, why did the one time Asuna got to show her worth have to happen only because Kirigod decided to humbly step down and let her do it? It's sad how her character started out strong but then got kicked down over and over by rapist fincées, got NTRd by Sinon's buttcrack and then got her own arc only because Kirito let her.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
It certainly didn't make me laugh. I mean, why did the one time Asuna got to show her worth have to happen only because Kirigod decided to humbly step down and let her do it? It's sad how her character started out strong but then got kicked down over and over by rapist fincées, got NTRd by Sinon's buttcrack and then got her own arc only because Kirito let her.

In fairness to SAO (snicker) they never presented anyone as being even vaguely on Kirito's level outside of Kayaba (the fucking designer of the game who can just give himself super stats), and Kayaba being a "badass" was apparently enough for him to pull a posthumous Karma Houdini where they act like he was this great guy for giving them a network of video games they can avoid real life in ignoring the fact that he murdered like 5000 people for no actual reason.

To Love Ru ep. 22-END

Another checkbox done on my list today. I needed to clean up all of these series with just a couple episodes left. The last few episodes of ths series were pretty good as they linked together a coherant story rather than being completely episodic. As expected from a harem anime, the very ending was pretty lame and, of course, nothing was settled, but hey, I think they are still in the same spot with this anime 3 seasons later. I see there are a ton of special episodes and OVAs after this season, are any of them worth watching? Despite the lewdness of this series, it really wasn't that bad, I'm just not a big fan of the "episodic" approach they used, where there is noreal story at all and they just keep throwing different side stuff at you throughout the middle episodes of the season. Oh well, time to finish something else now...

A lot of accounts would still be around if people just figured out that TLR is Not Safe for NeoGAF.
 

ibyea

Banned
Rokka-Brave of the Six Flowers: 1
Interesting Aztec based fantasy setting. Too bad the first episode wasn't very interesting, being mostly exposition. Also Adlet Meyer is a rather annoying protagonist.
 
Soma 20

Wow, this show really knows how to give all of their characters lots of exposition, this whole episode was just jam-packed with little interactions between the characters, everyone had their part, I can't even believe that I just watched a 25 minute episode, it felt like an hour or something, not that that's a bad thing.

Super excited to see who's going to make the cut, especially in group B, I feel like everyone in that group has a chance to advance.
 
Soma 20

Yup I totally agree with you ^ As I was watching, I was telling myself "This is gonna end soon, I've seen so much already" but nope, this episode felt long and it wasn't in a negative way at all. We got to see every single character that matters and what their preparations for the next episode. Soma fell asleep in the end LOL. Is it because he's confident in his dish? Is he tired from all the practice he put into the dishes throughout the Summer? GAAAH why do I have to wait another week to see more!
 

JulianImp

Member
In fairness to SAO (snicker) they never presented anyone as being even vaguely on Kirito's level outside of Kayaba (the fucking designer of the game who can just give himself super stats), and Kayaba being a "badass" was apparently enough for him to pull a posthumous Karma Houdini where they act like he was this great guy for giving them a network of video games they can avoid real life in ignoring the fact that he murdered like 5000 people for no actual reason.

A lot of accounts would still be around if people just figured out that TLR is Not Safe for NeoGAF.

Yeah, redeeming Kayaba was a truly ridiculous move after how he made thousands of people suffer and die in his virtual world as he tried to play god. He was also key to Kirito gaining access to admin mode to defeat Mr. Rapist in ALO, though (yay for deus ex machinas!)... but I guess he was too much of a good guy to actually use that again to solve GGO before Desu Gan was able to kill more people.

TLR is basically mindless fanservice harem: the show. I skipped though the final episodes of S1 and got straight to Darkness EP1, and it was crazy how they decided to add a little more "plot" (aka Momo's "I'll help Rito get laid with all the cute girls who flock around him!"... yeah) while simultaneously ramping the fanservice up to downright ludicrous levels.
 
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