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Summer Anime 2017 |OT| More streaming services than shows to watch
- Thread starter TUSR
- Start date
- Status
Nope.
More like launch past the shark and fly straight through the atmosphere to crash into Jupiter.
Admiral Woofington
Member
The Reflection 1
As to our leads we learned very little here. We know
Then we have X-dude or w/e his name is, who
And then we have reporter-chan who didn't do much besides
None of the leads really spoke so it's hard to gauge their personalities. Maybe we're used to modern comics, but some banter or back and forth is almost expected to try and piece together personalities of heroes. Everybody here was stoic and quiet though. Also what the fuck is it with the flame dude who opts to
you have zero fucking clue what is
Though I gotta admit the line of
"Are you going to keep defending New York?"
made me giggle.
First impression as a whole remains very mellow. Not too hot, not too cold. Maybe it's following the western model where the first episode is usually the weakest, but it really opt to pick up dialogue or do something else cause it won't survive long like this.
I like the look of the show, will definitely make it stand out. But looks like animation itself won't be top notch if this episode is anything to go by, visuals might just be carried by its unique art direction.Then comes the plot and episode 1 isn't an info dump, it isn't much of an introduction either, it's almost like a 40 minute pilot that somebody cut out all of the dialogue sections that give more background and just gave us the battles in it. The opening in Japan seems to have little reason to it right now besides somebody from the higher ups saying "please make it start in Japan because we're a Japanese company first and foremost, even if all three leads and the enemies are in the USA".
As to our leads we learned very little here. We know
I-Guy is essentially a dumbed down quiet Iron Man as of right now, he can fly and has high defense plus can shoot lasers?
fights like Nightwing/Robin and whose superpower is he can copy the powers of those he comes in contact with. He seemingly used a power he hadn't just immediately touched, so apparently he can retain a couple from previous encounters
stalk X-dude and then show she has weird short teleportation powers as well so she won't just be a damsel in distress I assume. What's her obsession with X dude?
None of the leads really spoke so it's hard to gauge their personalities. Maybe we're used to modern comics, but some banter or back and forth is almost expected to try and piece together personalities of heroes. Everybody here was stoic and quiet though. Also what the fuck is it with the flame dude who opts to
burn a hole into the ground and sink
down there. Could just be never ending soil/dirt under that pavement, maybe a
gas line are you going to suffocate just to escape in a cool fashion?!
gas line are you going to suffocate just to escape in a cool fashion?!
"Are you going to keep defending New York?"
"Sorry, I actually live in LA"
First impression as a whole remains very mellow. Not too hot, not too cold. Maybe it's following the western model where the first episode is usually the weakest, but it really opt to pick up dialogue or do something else cause it won't survive long like this.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
Yeah, there's barely any dialogue, no hook in any conventional sense, and it doesn't even begin setting up a premise until the very end. It's just reveling in the look of superheros fighting in New York. It actually reminds me a lot more of Nagahama's directorial style on Mushishi and Flowers of Evil than I expected, which feels weird when juxtaposed against stereotypical American superhero comic elements. I feel like whether I end up enjoying the show or regard it as an interesting but unsuccessful experiment will depend on whether the next episode starts doing something with its characters.
Dedication Through Light
Member
The Reflection Episode 1
Should have just went with industry standard character design and visuals, as most of the scenes in the anime look bland and have no details., and everything is so dim even for the scenes in the middle of the daytime, surely New York City does not look this dim in the middle of the day.
I dont know if the Reflection should have even aired in 2017 or even made it to market as the animated superheros market is becoming crowded, Concrete Revolution has already done what this anime sets out to do and HeroAca provides the more fun make me feel good superhero experience, as does Tiger & Bunny, and two are also about the advent of superpowers into the world so nothing new there for the Reflection.
Should have just went with industry standard character design and visuals, as most of the scenes in the anime look bland and have no details., and everything is so dim even for the scenes in the middle of the daytime, surely New York City does not look this dim in the middle of the day.
I dont know if the Reflection should have even aired in 2017 or even made it to market as the animated superheros market is becoming crowded, Concrete Revolution has already done what this anime sets out to do and HeroAca provides the more fun make me feel good superhero experience, as does Tiger & Bunny, and two are also about the advent of superpowers into the world so nothing new there for the Reflection.
I... what... wow...
Turin Turambar
Member
Edgy.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
That Spanish flamenco guitar music.
I guess,that depends on how you define "jump".
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
Honestly the people who say that Geass jumped the shark after Suzaku outran a machine gun turret are hilarious to me. Geass was always high octane pure entertainment.
Made in Abyss Episode 3
Set up episode. Still gorgeous to look at. At least the next episode finally gets into some of the fun of the Abyss itself.
Actually that's not enough anime and I need the rest of the episode.
Set up episode. Still gorgeous to look at. At least the next episode finally gets into some of the fun of the Abyss itself.
Actually that's not enough anime and I need the rest of the episode.
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
BokuHero 29
Somewhere deep down inside my American heart, I love Stain. The same way I "love" Spawn. He's an antihero - won't side with the villains but definitely won't side with the heroes and would rather adhere to his own twisted and warped ideals.
Somewhere deep down inside my American heart, I love Stain. The same way I "love" Spawn. He's an antihero - won't side with the villains but definitely won't side with the heroes and would rather adhere to his own twisted and warped ideals.
Not much sense in suggesting there is a "crash" when the consensus was/is the ending remains the best part of S2.
Legit best, not "ironic" best.
All kidding aside, the show does engage in more crazy, larger-than-life events that you may or may not consider as such. But at the same time, if you've honestly enjoyed the series so far, like Lelouch as a protagonist and didn't really have such a negative reaction to episode 22, it's quite possible you will appreciate that there is some underlying logic to the madness in retrospect. Plus it's a lot of fun, which also helps.
Stain is top tier.
Heh, so many replies like this... I had a couple issues with some characters (like Euphy's psycho lesbian stalker), but the escalation in unexpected events screwing Lelouch's plans up made some sense to me. I'd say the second Geass user and his arcs were the point were I started to find some parts of the writing to be more questionable (forcing the girl to forget him made no sense, since she and Lelouch would continue to meet everyday at school), and I agree that it has been escalating in weird ways, such as the pureblood girl surviving getting shot and developing some really convenient amnesia, the other Geass user getting shot by a whole police squad in front of Lelouch only to show up again next episode, and now the other pureblood guy getting turned into some kind of cyborg that's hellbent on killing Zero...
Yeah, basically everybody's been driven mad by Zero by now, but while things are pretty crazy, the way Lelouch's cute little game of chess burned down to the ground over time made some sense. If anything, the final tipping point for this show going too far was the case with Euphy since, as Zero himself said an episode or two later. You could say the previous events were questionable at times, but I'd call ep22 the tipping point, because up to then Lelouch's failures had made him sit back to reflect about his goals and philosophy, but it was this one event that finally prompted him to go all-in as Zero, and in turn fueled the resolve of those opposing him almost to the point of madness.
My question was basically due to how I enjoyed the duality Lelouch had within himself, but now that things have escalated to such a crazy point, I expect such a trend to continue, which is kind of futile because he's now 100% Zero, making moral dilemmas meaningless as he now treats absolutely everyone except for his little sister as nothing but disposable pawns, and there's no nuance in such a character to keep carrying the series' momentum forward unless the show's formula changes considerably once again.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
I am laughing so hard lmao
AquaWateria
Member
Why do some characters love licking their weapons?
I see this shit everywhere lmao.
It's weird to answer this sort of speculation and/or extrapolation, because the answer is simultaneously "yes" and "no". Can't really go into specifics.
But I won't beat around the bush here. It's common knowledge that season 2 temporarily backtracks on some things, before later picking up again. You'll see what I mean.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
Easy indicator that this character is cuh-razzzy
also subtle penile association etc etc.
Turin Turambar
Member
She is also the type of character that seems to masturbate thinking of her weapons and the risk, so at least this time it makes sense!
ya i dont know
That's ep 6. Ep 4 is Red Death Mask.
Hoping he's not like that just for the sake of it but rather he's a symptom of a broken system we're just now being able to peek at.
Jex
Member
[Made in Abyss] - 3
I understand all the complaints people have levied against the plot moving too slowly. I don't think that's actually the biggest problem here. On the contrary, I feel like the series needs to do a good job setting up the world and characters that our protagonists will be leaving behind with essentially no hope of ever returning. It needs to feel like this is a big commitment the characters are making and so rushing into it wouldn't feel right.
The problem is that this episode didn't tell us anything new. Nat likes Riko, and doesn't want her to leave. Going into the Abyss is very dangerous. Reg and Riko both have their reasons for wanting to explore the Abyss. This is all known to the audience already, and so it feels superfluous. What would be a better use of our time?
One option, would be to really establish how much our characters are sacrificing to go on their adventure. This could be done by establishing how strong the ties are between Riko and people on the surface - and I certainly feel like they did that with Nat, but it would have been perhaps interesting to see her ties to adults as well. One especially strong aspect of the original Hunter x Hunter adaptation was how well it established Gon's relationship with Mito, which meant that when he ultimately decides to leave home we feel the weight of the decision more strongly. On the contrary, it really feels like Riko has only very loose ties to the surface and instead is far more wedded to exploring the Abyss and finding her mother.
Another option would be to learn new things about the side characters - and to be fair we do learn a little more about Nat right at the end, but it feels a little underdeveloped and we still don't get much insight into Glasses-Chan and Blondie. Alternatively we could be learning more about the world of the surface, the other countries and factions vying for treasure of the Abyss . None of this really happens to the extent that you'd want to support the whole episode. We're deliberately kept as ignorant about the wider state of the world as the children whose story we are following.
Instead a great deal of time this episode is dedicated to Nat not wanting Riko to go into the Abyss because A) her mother is probably dead and B) it's far too dangerous and C) they're completely unprepared for such a mission. The other characters explicitly state that Nat has gone too far - but I get the feeling that most people in the audience will agree with his assessment! Either way, we can't really get invested in this conflict because it seems obvious how it will resolve and we, as the audience, are actively rooting for the characters to explore the Abyss because that's where all the interesting things in the world are hidden. As a result, most of the time spent on this particular element feels superfluous, especially as it doesn't enrich our understanding of the world or characters.
On a purely plot related note, these small things certainly seem like they'll be important later on:
It feels like this is some dark foreshadowing for future events. Rip Blondie?
This almost certainly means that when Riko attempts to convey some important information to the surface later in the story we're going to find out no-one is going to believe her or act on her information.
Overall, I feel like there's not much momentum in this episode and the overall direction wasn't as snappy as previous week's episodes. Still, I didn't feel like this was 'bad', and I'm interested to see where this will go next week.
I understand all the complaints people have levied against the plot moving too slowly. I don't think that's actually the biggest problem here. On the contrary, I feel like the series needs to do a good job setting up the world and characters that our protagonists will be leaving behind with essentially no hope of ever returning. It needs to feel like this is a big commitment the characters are making and so rushing into it wouldn't feel right.
The problem is that this episode didn't tell us anything new. Nat likes Riko, and doesn't want her to leave. Going into the Abyss is very dangerous. Reg and Riko both have their reasons for wanting to explore the Abyss. This is all known to the audience already, and so it feels superfluous. What would be a better use of our time?
One option, would be to really establish how much our characters are sacrificing to go on their adventure. This could be done by establishing how strong the ties are between Riko and people on the surface - and I certainly feel like they did that with Nat, but it would have been perhaps interesting to see her ties to adults as well. One especially strong aspect of the original Hunter x Hunter adaptation was how well it established Gon's relationship with Mito, which meant that when he ultimately decides to leave home we feel the weight of the decision more strongly. On the contrary, it really feels like Riko has only very loose ties to the surface and instead is far more wedded to exploring the Abyss and finding her mother.
Another option would be to learn new things about the side characters - and to be fair we do learn a little more about Nat right at the end, but it feels a little underdeveloped and we still don't get much insight into Glasses-Chan and Blondie. Alternatively we could be learning more about the world of the surface, the other countries and factions vying for treasure of the Abyss . None of this really happens to the extent that you'd want to support the whole episode. We're deliberately kept as ignorant about the wider state of the world as the children whose story we are following.
Instead a great deal of time this episode is dedicated to Nat not wanting Riko to go into the Abyss because A) her mother is probably dead and B) it's far too dangerous and C) they're completely unprepared for such a mission. The other characters explicitly state that Nat has gone too far - but I get the feeling that most people in the audience will agree with his assessment! Either way, we can't really get invested in this conflict because it seems obvious how it will resolve and we, as the audience, are actively rooting for the characters to explore the Abyss because that's where all the interesting things in the world are hidden. As a result, most of the time spent on this particular element feels superfluous, especially as it doesn't enrich our understanding of the world or characters.
On a purely plot related note, these small things certainly seem like they'll be important later on:
It feels like this is some dark foreshadowing for future events. Rip Blondie?
This almost certainly means that when Riko attempts to convey some important information to the surface later in the story we're going to find out no-one is going to believe her or act on her information.
Overall, I feel like there's not much momentum in this episode and the overall direction wasn't as snappy as previous week's episodes. Still, I didn't feel like this was 'bad', and I'm interested to see where this will go next week.
I'd say that's the least of your worries anyway, and it sounds like a way lamer point to say the show jumped the shark than that one scene involving Nina, a desk and a magazine with pictures of Euphy (ugh...). My one big issue since the start was how Lelouch The Chessmaster would fail to notice that the prototype white robot showing up to screw his plans up had become a recurring trend after the 20th time it happened in a row, even though I did like the plot developments introduced by those mistakes, so it wasn't all bad in my book.
If anything, I really enjoyed the tragic aspect of Lelouch's normal life becoming more and more of a distant memory as time went on, but I only enjoyed it while he still had the chance to reflect upon his failures and the costs they incurred (such as losing someone who loved him). Now that his only way is forward, the tension of such dramatic moments has been reduced to nearly nothing, since Zero's sights are now set on the emperor, and he no longer gives a damn about whatever he's got to do to get there. You could say that the moment his Geass went out of control he had no choice but to fully let go off whatever little bit of humanity he still had and fully embrace his Zero persona, and that kind of burden on top of the Euphy incident really helped cement that he'd never get a chance to go back to his previous life... it's basically the Doomed Hometown trope being invoked in a figurative sense to remove all nuances and contradictions Lelouch had as a character, finally turning him into a cardboard cut-out of a card-carrying
I meant "good" as in the change being legit good for the show and its cast, and not the List-worthy kind of "good", though.
I feel like the meat of the series is going to be adventure, which is why I feel lingering on the town is a mistake especially since, as you allude to later, they don't really introduce anything new. Most relevant information about their life above the Abyss was established in 1 and 2, and 3 could've been fit into 1 and 2 as well. They made it clear they're not going to be returning to the town any time soon, if ever. So it's a bit like Harry Potter spending the first quarter of the book talking about how shitty his life is with the Dursleys, and then never mentioning them ever again because Hogwarts is a permanent board school and he has no reason to go back.
Contrast this with, say, KonoSuba or even DanMachi where the main characters have a "home base" outside of the quest area, which needs to be populated since they're going back over and over again.
"Episode didn't tell us anything new"
"Proceeds to show screenshots of some shady remarks that feel like foreshadowing"
Something doesn't quite add up, but I can't quite put my finger on it. 🤔🤔🤔
Not to mention that we got an introduction to all the layers of the abyss.
I feel like its disingenious to handwave away everything we learn about the world and reduce this episode to 'we learned nothing new [about the characters]', especially since the world in this show very much is a main character.
And in any case, it was necessary development that needed to happen, and at least I found their good-bye pretty sad.
I believe this has already been pointed out as part of the standard mecha formula the show was turning upside down, rather than entirely avoiding, but to be clear he did start to take some more concrete precautions against that during the later stages of season one, once he had enough resources for it.
In that sense, I will say Lelouch remains interesting (and entertaining) all the way through.
This is another "both of these things are true" answer. I think a fair number of incidents that are of questionable critical value happen in terms of strict narrative form, even if they're still fun, but also some developments that, in my opinion, are pretty good for the characters, thematically speaking, even if it doesn't initially seem that way.
NaDannMaGoGo
Member
C'mon, he clearly didn't mean "literally absolutely nothing new". And he's right, all in all we learned very little.
I'm also fairly certain we've heard quite a bit about the different layers before. Even if it wasn't quite as detailed prior it felt slightly repetitive.
nintendoman58
Member
Gundam SEED Destiny - 5
Sheesh, a Colony Drop attempt in the fifth episode?
For a show that apparently wants to be Zeta, it sure is rushing things.
Sheesh, a Colony Drop attempt in the fifth episode?
For a show that apparently wants to be Zeta, it sure is rushing things.
The Reflection Episode 1
My favorite part of living in America is all the flags everywhere, constantly, forever. What a weird show visually. The animation feels slow like they are trying to make every motion a still image. Also really odd use of music, liked it, but it was odd. Interested to see more.
My favorite part of living in America is all the flags everywhere, constantly, forever. What a weird show visually. The animation feels slow like they are trying to make every motion a still image. Also really odd use of music, liked it, but it was odd. Interested to see more.
I mean, yeah, basically. There are so many flags here.
I'm not saying it was wrong lmao. It's just funny, it was like "yeah that's basically America you got that right" and also how they showed those flags in screens. Like 7 flags all at once. Probably should have screencapped that.
Dedication Through Light
Member
I wish The Reflection made Baltimore look less bland than it did, they could have called it anytown usa if all they were going to show was a brick apartment 
TacticalHotdog
Member
I wish I was watching Free #3
This show sucks! I actually had more fun watching Trickster. It's unbelievable dull.
At the end of the episode a character from a completely different series appears.
No, I did not purposely re-arrange the screenshots. The scene actually went like this.
This show sucks! I actually had more fun watching Trickster. It's unbelievable dull.
At the end of the episode a character from a completely different series appears.
SliceSabre
Banned
Reminds me of the one chick from Upotte who fingered herself to completion at the thought of torturing the other girls.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
The Reflection 1:
Visually very impressive, but the story just isn't there yet. It definitely does feel like a Nagahama show right from the very start, and I really love pretty much every aspect of the show's look. The fight scenes are also pretty fun, and have a lot of nice tricks to them.
But there's not a whole lot of dialogue, and we don't really learn much of anything until the very end of the episode. It's a strange way to start a series. We aren't given any real reason to connect to these characters yet. Hopefully that will come in the next episode, because the story really needs to get the viewer involved quickly and to understand who these characters are and what the show is going to be about. I hope it can do that, because I really do love how the show looks, and it could turn out to be a good show if the writing can live up too that.
Visually very impressive, but the story just isn't there yet. It definitely does feel like a Nagahama show right from the very start, and I really love pretty much every aspect of the show's look. The fight scenes are also pretty fun, and have a lot of nice tricks to them.
But there's not a whole lot of dialogue, and we don't really learn much of anything until the very end of the episode. It's a strange way to start a series. We aren't given any real reason to connect to these characters yet. Hopefully that will come in the next episode, because the story really needs to get the viewer involved quickly and to understand who these characters are and what the show is going to be about. I hope it can do that, because I really do love how the show looks, and it could turn out to be a good show if the writing can live up too that.
Aaronrules380
Member
why are you doing this to yourself?
Fate Apocrypha 1-3
Fate Zero this is not. I also see it continues the tried and true Fate tradition of turning historical and literary figures into young cute waifus for the otaku to fawn over in order to keep the well-oiled money printing machine up and running in tip top shape.
Unfortunately for me this show has both Maaya Sakamoto and Miyuki Sawashiro in lead roles which, of course, renders me physically and objectively unable to drop it.
Fate Zero this is not. I also see it continues the tried and true Fate tradition of turning historical and literary figures into young cute waifus for the otaku to fawn over in order to keep the well-oiled money printing machine up and running in tip top shape.
Unfortunately for me this show has both Maaya Sakamoto and Miyuki Sawashiro in lead roles which, of course, renders me physically and objectively unable to drop it.
Compulsive gambling does things to people.
nintendoman58
Member
The Strike Freedom made me do it.
Well, it's the series that turned one of the worst Roman Emperors in history to a waifu.
Jex
Member
It seems we agree on some things and disagree on others. To summarise:
- We agree that episode 3 didn't really bring very little new to the table and a result it feels like the series has lost some momentum
- We disagree on the ideal story ratio between setup and adventure.
Focusing on the area where we disagree, I have a few additional thoughts which may better explain my position:
- When a hero goes out on an adventure into a fundamentally different world than their own I believe it's important to an establish a baseline for comparison between the normal and the abrnormal. This is true in basically every story where a character leaves their hometown to see the wider world, but that it's even more important in a fantasy series. The more concretely this baseline is established, the sharper the contrast between the familiar and the foreign, the greater the sense of adventure when our heroes transition into this new space.
If the story rushes through this initial introductory phase because it feels like it just wants to get the 'meat' of the adventure, you lose the sharpness of that contrast, and you also lose that weight of a character leaving their home to travel on a journey.
To return back to Made In Abyss I could, theoretically justify three episodes spent in the starting village - but I don't think the series has successfully made that argument.
I mentioned all the developments of note this episode and on their own they aren't enough to sustain 24 minutes of television. All the lore stuff was fairly short and could have even been compressed into a couple of minutes at the start of the episode.
As I've explained at length, I think there are potentially good arguments for devoting so much time simply to characters leaving home, but I don't think this episode ever made those arguments. We just don't get enough new this week to justify it.
MikeHattsu
Member
You a gambling man Line? ;p
Turin Turambar
Member
A solution to Episode 3 of Abyss could have been the opposite of going faster, but going slower and dedicate a pair more of episodes to adventures with the school friends in the first level, that way when they are separated it would feel more impactful.
But right now it didn't feel important for the viewer, nor it was brief enough to not feel wasteful.
But right now it didn't feel important for the viewer, nor it was brief enough to not feel wasteful.
Yes, I agree with this stance, but only with the luxury of time. Given the restraints of broadcast anime I feel it's a mismatch. I'd accept 6 episodes worth of "dicking around" in the home town before adventure time in a manga, for example, or in a book. Promised Neverland is doing just this. But Made in Abyss is, what, 12, 13? And this isn't the kind of show to get more than 2 seasons. I'd like to see as much of the Abyss as possible in that time.
MiA gives me strong Dennou Coil vibes. And if Dennou Coil lingered on the city Yasako lived in before moving to Daikoku where all the interesting stuff is happening I'd probably feel the same as I do now, but that's holding MiA up to an obscene standard I admit. It's just to illustrate what I wanted out of Made in Abyss.
I guess another way of looking at it is if they were going to explore life outside of the Abyss I would've liked to see much more than we did, and if they were going to spend most of their time dungeon crawling I'd like to see as much dungeon crawling as possible, but 3 episodes in I feel they picked the worst of either side.
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