Watching any anime?

[ThePredster]

^3x3 was awesome

[Niu]

Soul Eater- Up to 25. I knew that once this show got over it's slapstick-during-inappropriate-moments thing it'd be awesome, and the last few episodes have proven that theory right. Excellent fights, awesome developments, just oozes style and reeks of cool. Medusa is one awesome villain <3

They still censored bunch of things, unforgivable. Ughhh, I want the face stab!!!

[Fudozukushi]

Code Gaess- I cleared Episode 2! Leagues ahead of the first episode thanks to non-retarded storytelling, but jumps right into the whole "Main character is perfect" thing too happily. I'm also of the mind that the Knightmares are like Aestivalis, in that a newborn child could pilot them. Really, they take out a grunt with no training to pilot the Lancelot? Even Amuro at least read the manual and sucked a bit before improving. Suzaku is perfect off the bat. Should only improve from here, I'm guessing! Love how the resistance has totally retro character designs, aside from Kallen. Perms ftw.

The dub says he read the manual and was top of his class for Frame piloting.

[Hunter Sopko]

Soul Eater- Up to 25. I knew that once this show got over it's slapstick-during-inappropriate-moments thing it'd be awesome, and the last few episodes have proven that theory right. Excellent fights, awesome developments, just oozes style and reeks of cool. Medusa is one awesome villain <3

They still censored bunch of things, unforgivable. Ughhh, I want the face stab!!!

Unless it's on the level of Stein violently raping Medusa, it doesn't really matter if they censored things. It was still awesome.

[NotMiki]

Ughhh, I want the face stab!!!

* NotMiki stabs Niu in the face?

[Niu]

Nabari no Ou- Read Chapter 50 and 51, things are actually going the way I wanted it to be. Miharu finally breaking down is really sweet. Now, if Fuuma turns completly evil next, everything would be perfect.

Crown- Vol.5 finished..........
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UUUUURRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

This is it Nakanishi, you are officially worse then Shibamura. At very least Shibamura tries to resolve things, but you don't even try!!!!

[Hunter Sopko]

Nabari no Ou- Read Chapter 50 and 51, things are actually going the way I wanted it to be. Miharu finally breaking down is really sweet. Now, if Fuuma turns completly evil next, everything would be perfect.

Nabari was very good about good/bad being very nebulous between all the characters and villages, so I would believe it's possible.

[Ultradude]

First 2 episodes of the new season of Gundam 00. Still hard to judge, since for now it's largely about the characters getting back into things, but MOBILE SUIT PILOT LOUISE FTW and a new Lockon, among other things.

[Niu]

A drugged MS piloting Louise you mean. I can already see the come back of Stella plot back in Destiny.

[Fudozukushi]

A drugged MS piloting Louise you mean. I can already see the come back of Stella plot back in Destiny.

DO NOT WANT!

[Hunter Sopko]

::STABS THE RIE KUGIMIYA LOLITSUNDERE STEREOTYPE DEAD. WITH FIRE::

Ugh. Hate Louise, hate Nagi... for once she has a decent character in Taiga. I really hope she doesn't screw it up.

[Sierra]

Working through a couple shows, varying degrees of quality.

Red Garden: Very good. About four Normal High School Girls drawn into a vendetta between two ancient, magic-using families in New York City. Set on and around Roosevelt Island, which does wonders for the atmosphere. GONZO pulls some of Gankutsuou's visual craziness for the opening credits, but the show itself is presented realistically. This extends to the main characters' behavior--they react to being forced to kill total strangers every night about as well as one might expect. There's some understandable angst, some emotional withdrawal, maybe a teensy bit of insanity...responses vary, but they're consistently believable given the characters we're working with. Oh, and sometimes, when the pressure's just too much, the cast will up and break out in song. Subdued but tuneful stuff, like Aimee Mann in Magnolia. Quality show, and I am considerably annoyed that Netflix suddenly stopped having disc six in stock just after I watched disc five. Argh.

Simoun: Is about yuri-propelled aircraft. Can you be more Cid-bait than this? Music's nice too, and the setting is...different. Granted, I have to take issue with "There are more job opportunities when you're male, though," just because of the staggering oversight in world-building that this line represents. Did no one working on the anime stop to consider that, in a world where everyone is female until age seventeen, gender dynamics just might turn out to work much differently from our own? So yes, that annoys me. It's not like society outside of the...school...airship...thing...is the focus of the show, though, so this isn't crippling. Granted, I've only watched the first disc, so I suppose this could change.

You probably think I'm joking with that first line, but I'm really not.

Witchblade: Boobs. It's garbage, but I finish my trainwrecks.

[Niu]

Simoun:

UGH, NO, don't remind me of ... ughhhhh brain melting!!!!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Just think that the yuri can turn into yaoi with enough fanficcing and the pain will go away.

[Cotigo]

Captain Kirk as a rabbit raping Edward Elric as a squirrel boy through time, Captain Kirk as a rabbit raping Edward Elric as a squirrel boy through time...

Also Merlin is involved somehow.  QUICK SNOW WRITE NOW.

[Sierra]

Did I break Niu? Nice.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Started reading the Negima! manga at the insistence of a net friend.

It's... surprisingly addictive. Once I got past the beginning (aka 90% of the panty shots of the series... also, 90% of the beginning's content was panty shots), the characters began to be somewhat likeable. The plot is also serviceable shounen fodder.

Anyway, so Negima! is essentially Love Hina but with a non-horrible main and a somewhat believable female lead. Throw in some aspects of Naruto and Harry Potter and you've got a balanced shounen series. The series claim to fame is its use of an entire class of students (all girls) as its main cast. This is an interesting exercise is just how large-scale the harem genre can work on. To be blunt, I hate this. Some of the characters are likeable enough when they're by themselves, but most of the characters work horribly when together. Unusual, but that's the overall impression I get.

As far as quality, Negima! is pretty hit or miss depending on the chapter. Asuna is pretty decent (after a while), Negi is tolerable and thankfully NOT Keitaro. But the reason I continue to read it is because the series' style draws heavily from Tarot card themes and RPG 'class system' aspects. Ken Akamatsu, despite all his flaws, is a damn good artist and I just really want to see more kick-ass magic fight scenes and Pactio cards/artifacts.

Kamo (Negi's yakuza-speech-affected ermine buddy) is also occasionally genuinely funny. He's pretty much the only funny thing in this humor-oriented manga. This is NOT the place to be looking for genuine funny.

Negima! is good for pretty art, pandering to RPG players/Harry Potter fans, kick-ass magic fight scenes, the occasional character-centric one-shot, and the occasional joke from Kamo.

Look for anything else and be disappointed.

-Djinn

[hinode]

What volume/chapter are you on?  Negima shifts increasingly away from harem-esque hijinks and school stuff and into shounen action as the series goes on.  By the most recent arc it definately resembles DBZ or Bleach far more than Love Hina or Harry Potter... though the fanservice never really stops.

The character cast is really far too bloated for its own good, but Akamatsu does a surprisingly good job of developing characters when he actually manages to give them screentime.  He's even managed to develop characters like Yue and Chisame enough to make me like them.

Also, since you don't seem to have gotten there yet... *premptively waves KonokaxSetsuna flags*

[DjinnAndTonic]

Oh no, I've gotten to the shounen fluff already, don't worry. It's just so typical it didn't seem worth pointing out apart from how pretty it is.

SetsunaXKonoka IS awesome.

I actually like Kotarou and wish that Ken Akamatsu had tried making more male characters as he's not too bad at them (unlike 90% of his female cast... especially when around Negi/Keitaro).

I don't expect the fanservice to ever stop, but just because he throws in DBZ/Naruto-esque tournaments, don't expect to convince me that everything else that's happening doesn't qualify as 'harem hijinks'.

The actual plot surrounding the world of magic-users is actually somewhat interesting and it's enough to keep me interested in the pretty. It's too bad I have to wade through shounen nonsense and harem nonsense to get to it.

I still stand by the fact that his characters work best alone (or in very small groups) because Ken Akamatsu's idea of character interaction reminds me of a toga party - 'let's get naked and act stupid until somebody gets hurt'.

[Veryslightlymad]

How's the Autumn season looking? Is there anything I should be paying attention to, anime wise?

[Hunter Sopko]

I haven't finished checking out all that interested me in the fall lineup, but here's what I've seen so far.

Chaos;head- Easily my favorite so far. Take K1 out of Higurashi and plop in Satou from Welcome to the NHK, and put them in high school in Tokyo and you have Chaos;head. Twisted, sometimes funny, good creepy vibe and I CAN'T GET THE DAMN ED OUT OF MY HEAD.

Kemeko DX- Twisted humor, thoroughly slapstick. It out-GAINAXes the GAINAX show of the season. More Gainax references (and a SZS) references than you can shake a stick at, appliance inspired robot designs, and off the wall comedy. Basically, a girl from space comes down and declares herself a kid's bride. This girl happens to be about 3 feet tall, built like a trash can, vaguely resembles a pair of testicles, wears Asuka's plug suit and wields a mini-gun. The girl turns out to be a robot suit called Kemeko, and of course, out pops a 6 foot tall standard anime hottie. Hilarity ensues.

Aru Majitsu no Index- My second favorite show of the season so far. Standard shounen type show with some excellent worldbuilding and style. A great tit-for-tat fight scene in episode 2 rocked the house, and there's a girl called Railgun that shoots coins at Mach 3. Can't lose! Faltered a bit in Ep 3, but hopefully will recover.

Ga-Rei Zero- Only watched Episode 1, but liked what I saw. Have to say, DID NOT EXPECT THE ENDING OF THE EPISODE AT ALL. I have to watch the second. It featured motorcycle-fu, where a girl named Natsuki with long straight purple hair used a motorcycle instead of her legs to kick shit while she rode on the back of it. Great production values.

Toradora!- Holy shit, a Rie Kugimiya vehicle I like! Hell must hath frozen over. A love... square? Pentagon? RomCom to the core, but a lot more sedate than stuff like Zero no Tsukaima. Very well done, all around so far. Gets the confessing out of the way early. Taiga >>>>>>*Infinity Louise and Nagi. Ugh.

Shikabane-Hime: AKA- Total GAINAX action show. Feels like the team that made Ep 5 of FLCL went "Hey, what if we made a whole series like this?" Over-the-top action in a good way, but not quite as far as TTGL. Keeps within it's genre for now, but I only watched Episode 1.

Kannagi- Amusing little show. Should be watched for it's gorgeous animation quality alone. Nice and quirky and a good cool-down from shows like Ga-Rei 0.

Hyakko- Standard slice of life show 556. Mostly meh. Next.

Still haven't seen any of:

Mouryou no Hako- Creepy yuri show! Have been in a real comedy mood lately, so the shows like this, Ga-Rei and the next one I'll talk about have waited. Really need to watch. Supposedly one of the best of the season.

Kurozuka- Another creep-factor show. No yuri I'm aware of, but also supposed to be really good. Feels supernatural-detectivey.

Michiko to Hachin- Pyro liked it. I'll give it a shot.

Cassern Sins- Never was much of a Cassern fan, but I may check it out.

No interest in:
Tytania- I normally like space-opera, but haven't heard the best of reviews so I'm steering clear with this much on my plate.

Tales of the Abyss- Heard good things, but playing the game instead.

Yorazura Quartet- Yawn.

Nodame Cantible- Yawn!

Clannad- YAWN!

Linebarrels of Iron- I don't think I can say it better than Zac of ANN. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/fall-2008-preview/2008-10-04/zac

Vampire Knight Guilty, Rosario+Vampire S2- NO.

[Veryslightlymad]

Kemeko DX- Twisted humor, thoroughly slapstick. It out-GAINAXes the GAINAX show of the season. More Gainax references (and a SZS) references than you can shake a stick at, appliance inspired robot designs, and off the wall comedy. Basically, a girl from space comes down and declares herself a kid's bride. This girl happens to be about 3 feet tall, built like a trash can, vaguely resembles a pair of testicles, wears Asuka's plug suit and wields a mini-gun. The girl turns out to be a robot suit called Kemeko, and of course, out pops a 6 foot tall standard anime hottie. Hilarity ensues.

........
Yes. That will do.

Some of those others sound interesting. What do you mean by "good cool-down" on Kannagi? And is Aru Majitsu no Index bloody violent, or fantasy violent? Or both?

[Hunter Sopko]

Kannagi is a mostly a slice of life-ish instant girlfriend type show about a guy who carves a statue out of a piece of a sacred tree that was cut down. The statue then comes alive, inhabited by the god who used to reside in that tree, in cute girl form. Don't be fool by the opening, it's actually really sedate and a good watch. It's a good cool down from high-octane action shows like Ga-Rei.

Index is fantasy violent. If you've seen Naruto or Bleach, or know of them, about that level violent.

[Captain K.]

I take it you're reading Negima! in Japanese, Djinn?  There's 19 volumes in English so far.  And just to further demonstrate how unalike Djinn and I are, Chamo (Kamo) is my least favorite character.  Don't find him funny at all.

[Niu]

Chaos;head- Easily my favorite so far. Take K1 out of Higurashi and plop in Satou from Welcome to the NHK, and put them in high school in Tokyo and you have Chaos;head. Twisted, sometimes funny, good creepy vibe and I CAN'T GET THE DAMN ED OUT OF MY HEAD.

And only to dissapointed you in the ending. Serious, I never thought that Nitro would actually pull that stupid "he is just seeing things" excuse out.