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Spring Anime 2013 |OT -7| My Giant CG Pony Can't Possibly Read This Much Baudelaire

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Jintor

Member
Wow... you're right. Guess we know what he's been up to.

AnR3gtt.jpg
 

BluWacky

Member

Obviously I am biased when it comes to Arjuna, and the stupid DVD-only preachy bits like the one you've linked are ridiculous, but I've always thought episode 7 itself (the one that deals with words) was one of the stronger episodes of the show. I like the focus on the Juna/Tokio/Sayuri triangle and the gulf between Juna and Tokio specifically, and while the Rajah stuff is as pretentious as ever it does illustrate the themes of the more human aspects of the epiosde effectively.
 

Jex

Member
Death Billiards

Nice table.

Madhouse maybe proves they're not quite dead, there was certainly no shortage of pretty background art or animation in this. I liked the premise well enough, this is more or less an anime episode of The Twilight Zone. Still, I have to agree with those who say the ending is unsatisfying. There's a fine line between thought-provoking ambiguity and an ending that makes you say "well what was the point then?" and I'm afraid the ending was closer to the latter than the former.

But it's certainly worth watching.

It pretty much is, because this is a remarkably similar set-up to an episode of The Twilight Zone.
 

trejo

Member
Death Billiards

There's no denying that the artistry on display in this segment is wonderfully executed. Everything looks vibrant and inviting, so to speak, and the animation is quite dynamic. It does a good enough job of working with the time alloted to it to introduce the setting, characters and story in a way that feels natural instead of rushed and is overall a solid effort on part of Madhouse.

However, I do take issue with the fact that some of the elements seem to have been inserted into it without a lot of thought, probably in an effort to make the events seem flashier or perhaps even to pad out the runtime somehow. More specifically, I'm referring to stuff like
the body parts represented by the balls, which at first seems like a neat way to introduce some sort of "death game" element into the pool game but then turns into a psychological thing where it becomes a kind of mind game that affects the players only to become a pretty useless element that has no real bearing on the proceedings after all. Same goes for the game having to be pool at all which also didn't really have any specific reason to be other than it being something both characters were good at and could have ultimately been a game of extreme rock paper scissors for all it mattered. That, and the quite frankly bizarre fight scene that took place. There's nothing wrong with seeing the whole thing devolve into blows given what the character thought was at stake but the whole time I was thinking that there is no fucking way this young and healthy looking man was having this much trouble holding his own against a shriveled old man, let alone being unable to take him down. Sure you see in part of the old guy's flashback that he used to practice kendo or whatever but still, the age difference is still very much there and the old guy being able to pull off some straight up Bruce Lee shit made the whole confrontation look rather unbelievable to me
.

So while I find myself agreeing with duckroll's interpretation of the events, I still consider myself siding with the camp that says the ending felt unfulfilling. Not so much because I felt I needed to know who ended up where but more because I found the ultimate message to be pretty weak and, honestly, rather too preachy for my tastes.

Also, I don't know about you guys but if
cheating on a significant other or being a bully when you were young and stupid are reasons enough to be judged and potentially punished eternally then we are all pretty much fucked
. Sure, perhaps
there were other, more vile things they did during their lifetimes that we didn't see
but I'm going only by what we were shown here.

Ultimately, though, it was a fairly well put together short and I don't really regret spending half an hour on it. LWA remains by far the one to beat, however.
 
Anyone know anything about Funimation's Android App? Don't want to miss Hataraku :/

Whats there too know about it? Better stability than their site and on a tablet its fantastic, main way I view their streams


Phi Brain - Kami no Puzzle 01



Protag can probably solve all them puzzles, but can he explain how a reflection works?

Ok, I hate myself already since I'm jumping from an ugly show about a children's card game to a slightly off looking show about puzzles. At least there will be some variety since it's about puzzles and there are so many of them, but it just looks off. Not just one character, but like everyone looks 'off'.

First time someones watched and offered nary a comment in the fantastic soundtrack. Enjoy it season one is incredible, just started the dub watch rewatch. Lots of good fun puzzles.
 

Jarmel

Banned
Death Billiards
That, and the quite frankly bizarre fight scene that took place. There's nothing wrong with seeing the whole thing devolve into blows given what the character thought was at stake but the whole time I was thinking that there is no fucking way this young and healthy looking man was having this much trouble holding his own against a shriveled old man, let alone being unable to take him down. Sure you see in part of the old guy's flashback that he used to practice kendo or whatever but still, the age difference is still very much there and the old guy being able to pull off some straight up Bruce Lee shit made the whole confrontation look rather unbelievable to me
.

Martial arts has much less to do with strength and much more to do with skill. They also doesn't necessarily seem bound by their limits when they were alive otherwise the old man would be a vegetable and the young guy would be crawling on the floor and hallucinating due to blood loss
.
 
Martial arts has much less to do with strength and much more to do with skill.
.
You're greatly underestimating the vast physical gap between an old man (who was a vegetable even) and a 30 year old with that build. Skill isn't even a relevant factor there.
 

jgminto

Member
How much is that shitty burger anyway? I'd probably buy it for a buck but I can get a proper cheese or chicken burger from Maccas for two.
 

Jarmel

Banned
You're greatly underestimating the vast physical gap between an old man (who was a vegetable even) and a 30 year old with that build. Skill isn't even a relevant factor there.

The young guy was using a stick to attack him. This would have been right up the old guy's alley. I could possibly see the argument when wrestling. But dueling with weapons? He would have gotten destroyed and he did. The vegetable argument also doesn't apply because it doesn't apply to the young guy's wounds either.
 

sonicmj1

Member
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure 26

An amazing ending for an amazing show. Every dramatic point is executed to perfection.

More animated Jojo can't come soon enough.
 

Metrotab

Banned
Legend of the Galactic Heroes - 43: The Gjallerhorn Blew

~ You mean you failed to change history? ~


Goddamn, Admiral von Reuental is a badass. Schenkopp comes in swinging with a battle-axe and he avoids it twice, then shoots the blade off.
The Rosen Ritter are probably the most competent fighting unit in the whole Alliance, storming a flagship like that.
Unfortunate we didn't really get to see a fleet battle between Yang Wenli and von Reuental.
 
GTO 29-33

Money talks, GTO walks. Shit got serious, Miyabis ultimate plan to get Onizuka fired is to have him spend the school trip money. Framed as an embezzler, the students are not okay with just the return of the money that has been spent so Onizuka promises to take them to Okinawa for which he must come up with 8m yen in a week. He wins a Mercedes from the lottery that he can sell to finance the Okinawa trip. He gives the Mercedes away after he hears the story of a suicidal salaryman who jumped in front of his car, this was set up by Miyabi, but the Mercedes gets returned eventually. Urumi organizes the kidnapping of Miyabi and her friends to hold them for ransom in a hotel, Onizuka working as a window cleaner on a different building sees the event and jumps on a zeppelin to save them. Kinda ridicilous but it gets Miyabi to apologize for what she did lol.
 

Steroyd

Member
Aku no Hana - 01

i2zNCrPBJ7YGw.gif


Geez, I've seen better draw distance in GTA San Andreas... the PS2 version.

Unfortunately, the still background character derp face, the seemingly low framerate, and terrible lip synching, all distracted me far too much to pay attention to what's going on in the show to jog my memory of what I've read in the manga.

I'll applaud it for being different, even though i feel like throwing up now.

Majestic Prince - 01

I generally don't like this type of show, so I was surprised that I found this okay to watch all the way through, the interaction between the ragtag bunch was enough for me.

Devil Survivor 2 - 01

So that's what it's like to watch an anime adaptation of a game you haven't played...

Fuck this show, it's making me want to play the game, I know it's the intention, but I'm falling for it, hook line and sinker goddamnit!

Jojo - End

Damn straight.
 
Legend of the Galactic Heroes - 43: The Gjallerhorn Blew

~ You mean you failed to change history? ~



Goddamn, Admiral von Reuental is a badass. Schenkopp comes in swinging with a battle-axe and he avoids it twice, then shoots the blade off.
The Rosen Ritter are probably the most competent fighting unit in the whole Alliance, storming a flagship like that.
Unfortunate we didn't really get to see a fleet battle between Yang Wenli and von Reuental.

Yang>Reuenthal, Yang is a better strategist, but I like Reuenthal more.
 

Jarmel

Banned
JoJo-fin

Not exactly happy with how they handled some stuff at the very end, in a quick montage fashion. That said, it was a pretty good finale. All in all, I enjoyed Battle Tendency much more than Phantom Blood and I think the animators did too. Joseph was a much better lead compared to Jonathan as Joseph is much more dynamic. That said, none of the villains in Battle Tendency lived up to Dio. The personal element in Phantom Blood really carried it through compared to Battle Tendency which felt more generic, in regards to saving the world type plot. The animation wasn't really notable barring ep.20 but David Pro did the best they could with the limited budget they almost certainly had. I still have issues with the amount of talking that happens in battle sequences but I'm getting used to it.
 

sonicmj1

Member
Aku no Hana 1

Hmm.

I'm glad that I got to read some other impressions before I watched it. If I walked into the show without being aware of what the rotoscoping would look like, it would have been really distracting. As it was, I was able to kind of get used to it by the end of that opening montage.

The production process can't help but define the whole production. It doesn't feel like they have the budget to do it justice, so they cut corners wherever they can. And some of their cost-cutting tricks are only more noticeable because of the rotoscoping. The rotoscoped animation looks jerky because of the limited framerate. The show makes the most of each of its (beautiful!) backgrounds with long, static takes, and those backgrounds occasionally get used multiple times. Faces get omitted, and background characters often aren't animated at all.

Despite all that, Aku no Hana still grabbed my attention. The naturalistic direction and realistically decrepit backgrounds convincingly portray the protagonist's boring life. It's not a world full of possibility and adventure. It's a place slowly sliding into decay, and he tries to use literature to imagine himself overcoming his mundane surroundings.

His obsession with foreign Western poetry and his insistence that it's too deep for his friends makes him far more realistically chuunibyou than anyone in Kyoani's show. I haven't read the manga, but between the protagonist's neurosis and Nakamura (who says "make a contract with me" in the episode preview), this is sort of like the anti-Chuu2.

No guarantees that the direction will hold up. I can remember a certain spring show from a year ago made by a relatively unremarkable studio that had fantastic direction and a convincing sense of decay and melancholy, which rapidly went to shit a few episodes in. But I'll keep watching until it starts letting me down.
 

Jex

Member
Aku no Hana 1

Hmm.

I'm glad that I got to read some other impressions before I watched it. If I walked into the show without being aware of what the rotoscoping would look like, it would have been really distracting. As it was, I was able to kind of get used to it by the end of that opening montage.

The production process can't help but define the whole production. It doesn't feel like they have the budget to do it justice, so they cut corners wherever they can. And some of their cost-cutting tricks are only more noticeable because of the rotoscoping. The rotoscoped animation looks jerky because of the limited framerate. The show makes the most of each of its (beautiful!) backgrounds with long, static takes, and those backgrounds occasionally get used multiple times. Faces get omitted, and background characters often aren't animated at all.

Despite all that, Aku no Hana still grabbed my attention. The naturalistic direction and realistically decrepit backgrounds convincingly portray the protagonist's boring life. It's not a world full of possibility and adventure. It's a place slowly sliding into decay, and he tries to use literature to imagine himself overcoming his mundane surroundings.

His obsession with foreign Western poetry and his insistence that it's too deep for his friends makes him far more realistically chuunibyou than anyone in Kyoani's show. I haven't read the manga, but between the protagonist's neurosis and Nakamura (who says "make a contract with me" in the episode preview), this is sort of like the anti-Chuu2.

No guarantees that the direction will hold up. I can remember a certain spring show from a year ago made by a relatively unremarkable studio that had fantastic direction and a convincing sense of decay and melancholy, which rapidly and suddenly went to shit a few episodes in. But I'll keep watching until it starts letting me down.

God dammit sonic, just because I'm still writing my post you have to go and say everything I was going to say.
 

OceanBlue

Member
I'm back, just in time for the new season.

2 hours and 30 minutes until Oreimo airs in Japan. 5 hours until it's available on Crunchyroll for subscribers.

Instead of posting episode impressions, I think I'll just go with rankings for now. Hataraku Maou-sama > Majestic Prince > Devil Survivor 2 > Oregairu. I wasn't really interested in Aku no Hana even before the screencaps starting showing up (I blame the shiteaters meme!). Hopefully Oregairu picks up as the season goes on and Hataraku Maou-sama is consistent. I didn't mind the Hiraifaces in MJP. Honestly, I think he should look into doing comedy designs, lol. I wasn't really bothered by the five-person tsukkomi routine until the very last one, but I figure that's not going to happen as much after this episode because I think it's just being done to create a feeling of group...iness.
 
Minami-ke Tadaima

Well, this was quite good, the funniest the show has been since season 1. It's probably going to have a place in my AOTY list. Winter season has been redeemed.

Instead of posting episode impressions, I think I'll just go with rankings for now. Hataraku Maou-sama > Majestic Prince > Devil Survivor 2 > Oregairu. I wasn't really interested in Aku no Hana even before the screencaps starting showing up (I blame the shiteaters meme!). Hopefully Oregairu picks up as the season goes on and Hataraku Maou-sama is consistent. I didn't mind the Hiraifaces in MJP. Honestly, I think he should look into doing comedy designs, lol. I wasn't really bothered by the five-person tsukkomi routine until the very last one, but I figure that's not going to happen as much after this episode because I think it's just being done to create a feeling of group...iness.
Rankings?

Hataraku Maou-sama > Oregairu > Devil Survivor > Majestic Prince > Date A Live > Crime Edge > Aku no Hana > Photokano > Samurai Bride
I sampled too many bad shows.
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Oh wow. I missed some serious business last night it seems.

I hope Mad Pierrot. We never agree on anything but I like his presence in the thread. :/
 
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