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Summer 2014 Anime |OT| this thread has been outsourced to Toei Phils

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Aldnoah Zero 1

Well, not a lot to say. It wasn't good, it wasn't very bad. The episode has been 99% setup to start the plot and give a bit of info of the world, but the story with the main characters is really going to start in the next episode, it seems.

The only I can say is that several of the character seemed fairly basic and simplistic in their personalities and motivations. Maybe they are trying to mislead us, but for now we have a black and white situation with bad people who want war, and good people who want peace.
And the space princess/count/nobility is a tired cliché at this point.
 

Link Man

Banned
Who has Barakamon streaming rights in the US?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, and I finally got Crunchyroll to let me watch the rest of Aldnoah Zero Episode 1. This seems like it could be really good, but then, so did Captain Earth after the first episode. Will continue to watch.
 
Barakamon 1

Went into this completely blind knowing absolutely nothing about it. I know this. I love stories like this. Handa and Naru's interactions with which other are adorable as can be. The VA for Naru totally sells it too, she actually sound like a little kid. Glad I decided to give this a chance. OP and ED are amazing as well.
 
Future Diary 04

5nvoz5W.jpg

Not sure if that's a threat or not.

Sixth has an interesting diary, and twelfth seems a bit crazy. Uh... Not that any of the other characters are completely normal or anything...
 
You know guys after watching Tokyo Ghoul. I learned that when your date tries to take you to a dark alley at night where there's nobody, you should be cautious and try to decline. But you know in anime logic its considered safe or normal. Though the same thing happened in High School DXD which i said earlier in one of my posts. Then again I consider this type of scenario a bit hilarious in which your cute innocent date turns into something else.
 
Considering it's blu ray and dvd for 23 episodes I feel the price isn't that bad, it's on rightstuf for only $56 and that's the limited edition, I'm pretty sure there will be a economic release later on. Considering they normally have a $30 MSRP for the new Bleach and Shippuden DVDs that only have 12 episodes it's pretty close to what I'd consider to be standard pricing from Viz anyways. Way better then Aniplex, not as good as Funimation
 

Soma

Member
Barakamon Ep. 1

Ok wow really late to the party with this but I had no idea the Kenji Kawai worked on the soundtrack for this.

But yeah that was real nice. First thing this season that has really grabbed me. Lots of scenes with good animation and a very lively and entertaining cast introduced so far. The episode ended with me having a smile on my face so that's a good sign. Just a very warm and relaxing atmosphere. Definitely gonna be following this.
 
Aldnoah Zero - 01

My favorite part of this so far is that Kazuya Nakai playing a rather calm role

It was hilarious nonchalant." Heeey. A missile. We should get out. Like, maybe". /stays still.

[Aldnoah Zero] - 1

You know, a lot of people in here are commenting on a fairly important plot detail that I feel needs to be addressed. Er, you know what I'm talking about
the princess dying. I'm kind of in the camp who believes that somehow she's still alive because, well, that's how these stories are told but in fairness they actually go pretty far to make you think she's dead. Just consider these images
:


Yeah, it was a bit strange how they showed her from the back or from far away and she didn't get to say anything before dying. It may be a body double. Or maybe it's all a ruse done by the writer and she is really dead.
 
What's the anime about, might go ahead and watch it.

http://myanimelist.net/anime/22789/Barakamon

"As a punishment for punching a famous Calligrapher, young handsome Calligrapher Handa Seishu is exiled on a small island. As someone who has never lived outside of a city, Handa has to adapt to his new wacky neighbors, like people traveling on a tractor, unwanted visitors who never use the front door, annoying kids using his home as a playground, etc. Can this city guy handle all the crazy hardships? Find out in this wacky island comedy full of innocence and laughter!!!"
 

Jex

Member
[Turn A Gundam Aldnoah.Zero] - 1

azero4yokov.jpg


I kid, I kid, Turn A Gundam actually introduced a number of interesting, warm, human characters in it's first episode.

So, I'm going to sound a little negative, but that's only because there's been so many glowing reviews of this first episode that anything will sound harsh in comparison. Why am I so different from many of you? It's just that I can't bring my cold, dead heart to feel such unabashed hope because I've seen too many anime go bad. Too many fallen warriors on the road to being decent.

I am, by and large, happy with Ei Aoki's direction here. It's solid as always. with the strongest element perhaps being the pacing ensuring that this first episode hit all the important story beats to set us up for the rest of the show. It could have done with being a bit longer to give everything a chance to breathe but I can't think of a better way to cover the same material in such a short amount of time.

However, when you cover so much material at once you ultimately end up spreading yourself rather thin and the thinnest part of this episode was characterisation. All we had time for was the briefest of introductions from all our key players: the (impossibly) naive princess, her loyal subject and traitor to his own people, and out Japanese teenager who will be important because that's how these stories role. There were plenty of other side and important characters introduced as well but with so many names being dropped and so much exposition being spouted I can't really say I felt connected to anyone.

azero9lkjih.jpg


Our Japanese-Teenage protagonist is slightly odd. He spends nearly the entire episode looking completely unemotional and detached from everything that's happening, despite it's severity. I imagine this character trait will be explored later because it's used too heavily handedly hear to just be a temporary thing for him. He must always be a bit of a robot.

azero1xyjr4.jpg


As for our other teens, they seem a little bit generic at this early stage. It's interesting to note that the episode, and the series, opens with a POV shot from Slaine's perspective, perhaps suggesting that he's the most important character, but it's too early to claim that yet. He is the character we see most POV's through though.

For Space Princess herself, she seems horrible naive. Does she not read books? The great war was very recently. This isn't a Danna Soreil situation where it's been generations of peace, it's very recent stuff- so why is this girl so positive? I dun get it!

Everyone else, will to be fair, even including those characters some of the time, just likes to talk and discus exposition in a heavy handed manner. We'll just have to see how they develop later.

Now, as for the plot details, there are a handful of things I find a little odd:

If the Martian's have such a distinct technical advantage, why have they been at peace so long? Why did they even stop fighting when they should have clear victory.

Why would you anime send a hated alien queen down to earth practically without backup and have her travel by god damn car? That' s beginning to be killed. II know it's just there so they can star to the conflict but it's still off.
 
lol for some reason, mechas on mars reminded me of that kinda broken but kinda underrated zone of enders GBA game.


same composer

makes sense... but still, its like from the exact playbook lol. It definitely needs some vocals. It pretty much sounds like bootleg Smile Precure henshin
 
Our Japanese-Teenage protagonist is slightly odd. He spends nearly the entire episode looking completely unemotional and detached from everything that's happening, despite it's severity. I imagine this character trait will be explored later because it's used too heavily handedly hear to just be a temporary thing for him. He must always be a bit of a robot.

Heh, I was going to make the joke with the first sentence that maybe he is really a robot! There is even an Asimov reference right? But then you almost got it by yourself at the end of the paragraph!
 

/XX/

Member
For Japan, their 'Tanabata' festivities are approaching (July, 7) and the great Tadashi Hiramatsu reminds us of this 'tweeting' the ending fragment of his side episode about the 'Haruka story' he directed for the Sister Princess Re Pure series:

シスプリ~リピュア~春歌のエンディングテーマ「春の歓び」 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AKrA0f8Ybw

And he reminds us of what it could have been too; of him using that talent to direct big projects on his own, of him getting to work on Ghost Rhapsody and complete it... silly boy, you are now stuck at Studio Khara doing illustrations for advertisements! >:)

...

... why... just why did you have to remind me, man? :'-(
 

redhood56

Banned
The first episode of Aldnoah.Zero is what I feared what it would be, all set up. I guess it was fine, but the whole "Hey we should get out of here" scene was pretty funny. How could he be so calm!
 
Er… me? I thought that was pretty obvious from my post.

Oh. Carry on then.

The first episode of Aldnoah.Zero is what I feared what it would be, all set up. I guess it was fine, but the whole "Hey we should get out of here" scene was pretty funny. How could he be so calm!

Yeah that scene was kind of weird.

Alnoah Zero is going to be Code Geass 2.0, heard it here first folks :p

Wasn't that Valvrave?
 
Sailor Moon Crystal - 1
It's weird to me that this blazed through introducing Tuxedo Mask and the Dark Kingdom yet it lacks the energy of the original when it's adapting the exact same scenes. The new version of this episode's monster design is such a far cry from what I liked about the old one(s) too. At least the new eyecatches were a nice surprise.

It was okay, though I worry about the pacing. I'll probably end up continuing for reasons.
 
Sailor Mom Crystal 1

I remember virtually nothing about what little I watched of this series as a kid, so this is pretty much all new to me.

Was meh.
 

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
Aldnoah Zero 1

Well, not a lot to say. It wasn't good, it wasn't very bad. The episode has been 99% setup to start the plot and give a bit of info of the world, but the story with the main characters is really going to start in the next episode, it seems.

The only I can say is that several of the character seemed fairly basic and simplistic in their personalities and motivations. Maybe they are trying to mislead us, but for now we have a black and white situation with bad people who want war, and good people who want peace.
And the space princess/count/nobility is a tired cliché at this point.

Not that I mind cliches all the time, but this about sums up the episode for me. Predictable with a melodramatic ending. Not bad but nothing too special either.
 

Chariot

Member
Hey what are the good anime to watch this season? I need some new stuff to watch. :D
From the buzz here I'd say Alnoah.Zero and Barakamon (and SAO II in some way).

If you haven't seen Psycho-Pass yet, the New Edit Version would be a good way to get in and if they don't mess up the adaption I personally would recommend Tokyo ESP.
 
People complaining about the pricing for the SM boxset. SMH.
Its like people just forgot how expensive anime used to be.

But just because anime used to be hyper-expensive doesn't mean it's any less ridiculous now. I'd love to own Yamato 2199 on Blu-Ray, but lololololololol at $45 per disc for six discs.
 

cajunator

Banned
The princess in Aldnoah looks like a cutie. Maybe Ill watch it.

lol for some reason, mechas on mars reminded me of that kinda broken but kinda underrated zone of enders GBA game.




makes sense... but still, its like from the exact playbook lol. It definitely needs some vocals. It pretty much sounds like bootleg Smile Precure henshin

Yeah it does but I always like Precure henshin music.
 
Stardust Crusaders Dub 1

All the main characters nailed their part, dub is pretty excellent so far but still need to see how they'll handle some of the MUDA MUDA MUDA and ORA ORA ORA stuff
 

Hugstable

Banned
From the buzz here I'd say Alnoah.Zero and Barakamon (and SAO II in some way).

If you haven't seen Psycho-Pass yet, the New Edit Version would be a good way to get in and if they don't mess up the adaption I personally would recommend Tokyo ESP.

Thanks Chariot, I'll def check out Alnoah.Zero. Sadly Barakamon isn't available in my region due to licensing issues on Crunchyrool :(
 
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