Author Topic: Watching any anime? (Read 268825 times)

mia~ · « **Reply #600 on:** January 25, 2009, 10:53:33 PM »

SoraKake has some epic backstory to it too, like "Israel and the middle east kissed and made up and are living at Lagrange 4 in peace together."

Shale · « **Reply #601 on:** January 25, 2009, 11:57:51 PM »

The sadder part is that my first reaction to that is that it's cribbed that from the Left Behind books, which as far as I know really definitely aren't self-parody.

Fudozukushi · « **Reply #602 on:** January 26, 2009, 04:54:39 AM »

Gundam 00, invalidating your accomplishments every episode!

AndrewRogue · « **Reply #603 on:** January 26, 2009, 05:17:43 AM »

Updates for a month or three.

Manga
Bleach- Sucks.
Naruto- Kay.
One Piece- Great.
Monster- Finally bothered to finish after pausing for some reason. Very great.
Ruroni Kenshin- Finished. Good.
Double Arts- Enjoyable.

Hunter Sopko · « **Reply #604 on:** January 26, 2009, 10:32:56 AM »

I'll make a manga update too, I guess...

Air Gear- I never understood why Gaess' overwhelming mediocrity constituted trainwreck when there's true stupid like Air Gear out there. Plus, Air Gear was good at one point, so it had momentum to crash with. Ever since a certain point where one of the major characters died, there's been a steady decline in story quality, coherance, and overall sanity in the manga. To the point where I seriously wonder if Oh Great! had stroke some years back but didn't tell anyone, but still continued to write. Art quality is about the only thing that's stayed consistant. The latest chapter, where:

Barack Obama. Seriously. Barack Obama is switched into the body of one of the main females of the series. And it's left like this. It could be a major plot point.

kinda showcases this.

Naruto- Been holding steady at good now that the focus is on Naruto. The latest arc has been pretty interesting at least.

Bleach- Sucks. Though, the latest chapter where Yammy pulls a Kool Aid Man moment made up for a lot of sucking.

Kekkaishi- Stay the course, good Kekkaishi. You remain a bastion of good writing and solid character work in a sea of bad shounen.

Hunter X Hunter- WHY DID YOU SHOOT THE SHAGGY DOG ON THE KNUCKLE FIGHT!?!?! I mean, I see where you're going with it, but... you can still do it even if one of the bad guys gets killed! Otherwise, I like where it's going.

Negima- Another one I like where it's going. The latest chapters have been interesting. Rakan rocks.

Thoughts on the Winter lineup so far:

Sora Kake Girl- Even if it is self-parody, it's still an incredibly bad show with terrible writing. The only standout here is the mecha design. But hey, thats already a leg up over Gaess' mediocre VOTOMS/Gundam snoozefest designs.

Chrome Shelled Regios- Borderline interesting and generic. Could go either way at this point. If the beginning of the first episode happened BEFORE the events of the series, it could be good! If it happens after... eh.

Munto- So far it's literally been the OVA with a few extra scenes added. They don't even try to hide this, as in the added scenes Yumemi has a completely different hair color. Kinda sad, since I liked the OVA's art direction. Looks like the material from the two OVA will be split into the first 6 episodes. It's not bad though, since it at least adds some much needed explanations that the OVAs left out due to time.

Birdy the Mighty: Decode Season 2- Seems like it'll be good. Loved the first season.

Akikan- Watched the first episode, then my brain held a gun to my head and said that if I ever thought about watching more of this it'd pull the trigger. Another supposed self-parody show, and I can buy that sooner than Sora Kake Girl, but it's still shit.

S'about all I've watched.

NotMiki · « **Reply #605 on:** January 27, 2009, 02:03:11 AM »

Quote from: Hunter Sopko on January 26, 2009, 10:32:56 AM

Another supposed self-parody show.

Isn't self-parody just another word for bad? Is it even possible for something to be self-parody and be good?

hinode · « **Reply #606 on:** January 27, 2009, 02:27:17 AM »

In theory, self-parody means recognizing that you've done something mock-worthy in the past and essentially laughing at yourself along with everyone else. For this to work, the self-parody has to recognizably come from the same creative source or same franchise as previous well know works, or else the 'self-' part wouldn't apply. It's also something that ideally should be brief, since poking fun at yourself once can work to show that you have a sense of humor and aren't hopelessly self-absorbed, but doing so repeatedly just gets tiresome.

The fundamental problem SoraKake is exhibiting is it hasn't really been trying to establish a story of its own, but instead is coasting of residual memories of Mai Otome/Xenoglossia/Code Geass/etc., presumably because the Mai Hime/Otome team hasn't been able to write anything worth a damn since Hime, so they do stuff like introduce a Lelouch-bot and have blatant Arika/Nina-expys show up as incompetent antagonists. Akikan... honestly the whole premise is stupid beyond belief to such an extent that poking fun at itself isn't going to save it.

tl;dr: No in principle, yes in practice here.

NotMiki · « **Reply #607 on:** January 27, 2009, 02:35:13 AM »

Ah, so SoraKake isn't meant to be a self-parody. It's just...cast in the mold of Code Geass, and no one can imagine why they'd do that intentionally, so people assume they must be going for parody. But this is anime we're talking about, and if anime is bad, it's probably not intentionally so. In any case, something being a parody isn't an excuse for it being bad. Why am I explaining this? How many brain cells have I wasted going on like this?

Hunter Sopko · « **Reply #608 on:** January 27, 2009, 04:07:39 AM »

http://drakh.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/spring.jpg

Spring anime lineup. Man am I gonna be watching a lot.

Xeroma · « **Reply #609 on:** January 27, 2009, 04:13:00 AM »

Sengoku Basara? That can't end well, the over the top style the games have would just look generic in show format ._.

Ultradude · « **Reply #610 on:** January 27, 2009, 04:17:22 AM »

Basquash is where it's at this spring. Oh yeah.

Hunter Sopko · « **Reply #611 on:** January 27, 2009, 04:17:39 AM »

Guin Saga should be interesting. The novel series is a classic in Japan and were Miura's main inspiration behind Berserk.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #612 on:** January 27, 2009, 04:28:53 AM »

Quote from: NotMiki on January 27, 2009, 02:35:13 AM

But this is anime we're talking about, and if anime is bad, it's probably not intentionally so. In any case, something being a parody isn't an excuse for it being bad. Why am I explaining this? How many brain cells have I wasted going on like this?

I don't agree with this. Anime can do parody pretty decently at times. Even self-parody. The first episode of Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi is pretty amusing as a parody. Though it is notably only one episode of that series.

Ranma 1/2 and Slayers are both decently funny at times and they parody their own genres (Martial Arts and Swords/Sorcery) pretty heavily.

Meh, slightly off-topic I suppose, but it just seemed like you were painting a whole genre with really broad strokes.

-Djinn

mia~ · « **Reply #613 on:** January 27, 2009, 04:46:50 AM »

Quote from: Hunter Sopko on January 27, 2009, 04:17:39 AM

Guin Saga should be interesting. The novel series is a classic in Japan and were Miura's main inspiration behind Berserk.

I didn't know you were into yaoi.

Spring stuff I'm interested in = Valkyria Chronicles and FMA s2. Eden of the East and Shangri-La concepts sound interesting to me too.

hinode · « **Reply #614 on:** January 27, 2009, 05:11:43 AM »

Quote from: NotMiki on January 27, 2009, 02:35:13 AM

It's just...cast in the mold of Code Geass, and no one can imagine why they'd do that intentionally, so people assume they must be going for parody.

Not really. I said memories of Geass, not style/overtones/tropes. The emo AI who sounds exactly like Lulu and points to a picture of Lulu when it says that's what it would look like if it were human certainly isn't meant to be taken seriously, and Code Geass - no matter just how over the top ludicrous it got - meant for its dramatic moments to be taken seriously.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #615 on:** January 27, 2009, 05:43:54 AM »

Quote from: Hunter Sopko on January 27, 2009, 04:07:39 AM

http://drakh.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/spring.jpg

Spring anime lineup. Man am I gonna be watching a lot.

Wow... How many of those are based on games?

I'm seeing Valkyria Chronicles, Tears to Tiara, and BASARA just at a glance...

-Djinn

Niu · « **Reply #616 on:** January 27, 2009, 07:26:11 AM »

Chrome Shell Legios- ...Yeah, I'll stop watching this now. How wrong that I thought what author did to the acr2 was bad enough.

Pandora Hearts- ....Oz feels less and less like a main now, while Break and Jack more to be one. Though, the plot is heading toward a direction I dislike, the two minds in one body deal feels yuck. I'd like it better if Alice truly is a psychopath. Sigh, I should have expected this when the author made Oz sane.... Though culminating Vincent hate is nice, finally get to see Break hates him so much, and makes the reader hates too along with it.

Nabari no Ou- STOP DRAGGING!!!! Though, I'd like to see Shinrabanshou killing the hypocritical teacher.

Soul Eater- Back to fighting scenes again. Why do they have to do this after every cliff hanging revelations!!??

Grefter · « **Reply #617 on:** January 27, 2009, 12:14:06 PM »

Quote from: Schneizel on January 27, 2009, 04:46:50 AM

Quote from: Hunter Sopko on January 27, 2009, 04:17:39 AM
Guin Saga should be interesting. The novel series is a classic in Japan and were Miura's main inspiration behind Berserk.
I didn't know you were into yaoi.

He was talking about Berserk. Of course he is into Yaoi. You don't GET more Yaoi than Berserk.

Djinn of course Anime can do parody well. Eva exists, no matter what you think of it, it does what it does well (and what it does ain't pretty). The problem with your line of thought there is that The blah blah blah of Haruhi blah blah blah is actually a good show because it is a good parody. Not a bad show that is so bad that oh it must parody something, even if it is itself.

superaielman · « **Reply #618 on:** January 27, 2009, 02:02:33 PM »

VC Anime? that may actually be worth watching.

Mad Fnorder · « **Reply #619 on:** January 27, 2009, 05:03:56 PM »

*skims topic*

Wait, WHAT about Air Gear? What the crap? *brain twists in half*

Hunter Sopko · « **Reply #620 on:** January 28, 2009, 01:42:12 AM »

Whats the last Air Gear you read, Fnorder?

Mad Fnorder · « **Reply #621 on:** January 29, 2009, 01:23:26 AM »

Let's see... I think they were fighting THE PAST in the internet because Ikki fails at filing deadlines.

Twilkitri · « **Reply #622 on:** January 29, 2009, 08:33:48 AM »

Southern Cross:
Starts off so slow that I put it off after the first disc for the vastly more interesting pursuit of playing SRW2.
Fortunately it gets better as time goes on. Then it gets close to the end and the makers realise they still have to fit X episodes of content into half that and it goes downhill again. Decentish while it's got its stride, though.

I don't think that Jeanne ever approaches likableness throughout the whole series. Meanwhile they start to attempt to play Claude up sympathetically near the end? This was the guy that partially precipitated the whole mess by apparently taking a call from the Zor and refusing to allow negotiations and similar. Then again this was also back before they changed tack near the end and started writing Dess&Friends as some sort of actually evil people instead of just enemies.

They didn't really explain the deal with the Zor and the flowers, for that matter. Assuming that no-one here is especially planning on watching it, the flowers begin to get played off near the end as effectively the 'masterminds' in a manner of speaking behind Dess&Friends... and then they end up surviving anyway. Also Jeanne has a dream sequence near the end that ends up not pertaining to anything. Oh those crazy ending episodes.

Fudozukushi · « **Reply #623 on:** February 03, 2009, 06:09:10 AM »

Gundam 00: Manly tears are still shed.

mia~ · « **Reply #624 on:** February 03, 2009, 10:19:22 AM »

Fudo: ANDREIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!111

PS/Random: Have you guys seen Sunred?

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Author Topic: Watching any anime? (Read 268825 times)