Hisako
消えないひさ&#
- AKA
- Satsu, BRIAN BLESSED, MIGHTY AND WISE Junpei Iori: Ace Detective, Maccaffrickstonson von Lichtenstafford Frabenschnaben, Polite Krogan, Robert Baratheon
I've had this sitting in my head for quite a while, but I debated doing a giant fuckton post full of research and then that fell to the wayside as I ended up having too much shit to do this week.
Just a thread for anime (or at least, anime that doesn't have its own specific thread already) and fans in TLS. What (else) have you been watching? What do you think have been the highlights of this year? What's been great, and what's been bad in your eyes? Make recommendations, and/or warn people away!
For the muricans, non-anime stuff that shows up on the Toonami blocks eg. The Clone Wars or whatever is also cool I guess
Onwards! What I've seen!
The series itself does well in terms of writing by focusing on the personalities of the gods (mythologies have always been more interesting when the gods in question are smarmy shitheads/have personality flaws), though it occasionally falls flat when trying to generate sympathy for characters. Apparently obnoxious teenage boys with angst issues are just as irritating in death as they are in life.
Studio Bones does a bang-up job of adapting the manga, though by all accounts it's diverged a little by episode 12. They've made what should be a contrived, silly, clichéd shonen into a mildly enjoyable television series. I rate this four strobe lights out of a possible five recycled power-up sequences.
Speaking of recycled power-up sequences, someone needs to give Trigger an actual fucking budget so they can stop pulling shit this obvious. Fortunately it's mostly all in context and appropriate (where in this childish, hokey mess the word 'appropriate' is applied very loosely). The show itself is all entirely to be expected when one takes into account that the makers were generally the same Motherfuckers who made Gurren Lagann.
The obligatory 'dark-main-character' arc is weak and towards the end the fanservice is downright obnoxious and as un-sexy as it could ever get, but despite all that and the predictable (but not inherently awful or asspulled) plot twists, it's got good energy (the insert songs definitely help in that regard) and a fair sense of humour from start to finish. As an aside, it's been interesting seeing Hiroyuki Sawano mature over the years as a music composer - he's always had flashes of brilliance but still can't shake that style of composition better suited to 'those guys who make music for film trailers for a living'. Luckily, he fits right in this time. Not the savior of anime people claimed it would be, but a great watch, in spite of its autism (not because of it). I rate this show three child sexual abuse lawsuits out of a possible two hair-concealed nipples.
Of the Studio Bones productions of this season, Space☆Dandy took the lion's share of the budget. Directed by genre-god Shinchiro Watanabe and staffed by names behind Bebop, Champloo, Eureka 7, Stand Alone Complex, Wolf's Rain, and Code Geass (and scored by some swag Prince and/or Michael Jackson wannabe), this show generated about the same level of hype that Kill La Kill did. Like Kill La Kill, it hasn't quite hit the 'savior of anime' mark for a lot of viewers, but for different reasons entirely.
The lack of continuity is very distinct, even more so than a lot of shows that are completely nonsensical. Part of it I think is to do with the huge disparity in writing styles between episodes, which in turn might be partly due to the fact that almost all of the episodes are followed up with an episode written/directed by someone completely different. Watanabe seems to have let his creative team run wild with the show, resulting in wildly differing episodes from one week to the next. One episode covering a (wildly hilarious) zombie apocalypse spanning the entire universe was followed by a strangely personal, focused plot involving an orphaned child on a single planet. Some episodes have been straightforward, tropey-with-a-tweest seinen plots, while others have been (maybe literally) drug-induced fever dreams.
Personally for me, it's never been boring. A lot of people expected something consistently like Bebop or Champloo, but in hindsight what we got was something different completely. Each episode has surprised me to at least some degree, on some level, and more often than not has ended in a way that I did not expect. The lack of consistent tone threw a lot of people (and likely turned a lot of them off the show), and for a show that was marketed quite singularly as a comedy show, I'm not sure that what we got as a product was the right thing to do in that context. Again, not the savior of anime, but again, never boring. Hell of a ride. I rate this show fifteen unacknowledged character deaths out of a possible three moé library books. Also, it's fucking great. My favourite of 2014 so far.
Just a thread for anime (or at least, anime that doesn't have its own specific thread already) and fans in TLS. What (else) have you been watching? What do you think have been the highlights of this year? What's been great, and what's been bad in your eyes? Make recommendations, and/or warn people away!
For the muricans, non-anime stuff that shows up on the Toonami blocks eg. The Clone Wars or whatever is also cool I guess
Onwards! What I've seen!
Noragami
The premise: a shitty, washed-up two-bit Japanese god attempting to make his way up in the superstar world of Japanese gods is 'saved' by a high-school girl (aren't they always) who pushes him out of the way of a speeding bus. Being a god and all, it means diddly-squat either way but, appreciating the gesture, not-quite brings her back to life.
He also spends some time attempting to replace his shinki (the spirits of dead people who died against their will, used as weapons by the gods) and then deal with his new one. He's such a shitty god his last one plain quit on him, but exactly what kind of Japanese god he is plays a key point in the plot.
He also spends some time attempting to replace his shinki (the spirits of dead people who died against their will, used as weapons by the gods) and then deal with his new one. He's such a shitty god his last one plain quit on him, but exactly what kind of Japanese god he is plays a key point in the plot.
The series itself does well in terms of writing by focusing on the personalities of the gods (mythologies have always been more interesting when the gods in question are smarmy shitheads/have personality flaws), though it occasionally falls flat when trying to generate sympathy for characters. Apparently obnoxious teenage boys with angst issues are just as irritating in death as they are in life.
Studio Bones does a bang-up job of adapting the manga, though by all accounts it's diverged a little by episode 12. They've made what should be a contrived, silly, clichéd shonen into a mildly enjoyable television series. I rate this four strobe lights out of a possible five recycled power-up sequences.
Kill La Kill
There's some shit about some schoolgirl who has a sword that looks like one half of a pair of scissors. She transfers to an ultra-fascist city-state owned and run with an iron fist by the student council president (aren't they always?), in the search of the one WHO KILLED MY DAD. There's a lot of explosions and shockwaves generated by sheer willpower, and everyone calls out each other's names in the hammiest way possible.
The source of power in this Power Half-hour anime series comes from fibres called "Life Fibers" used as clothing, produced on approval by the council president. The clothing granted to students consist of anything up to 30% of these fibers. After the main character gets her ass handed to her in an obligatory hero's adventure plot progression, she stumbles across a stripperiffic schoolgirl's uniform made entirely of Life Fibers, which is, of course, fully sentient.
The source of power in this Power Half-hour anime series comes from fibres called "Life Fibers" used as clothing, produced on approval by the council president. The clothing granted to students consist of anything up to 30% of these fibers. After the main character gets her ass handed to her in an obligatory hero's adventure plot progression, she stumbles across a stripperiffic schoolgirl's uniform made entirely of Life Fibers, which is, of course, fully sentient.
Speaking of recycled power-up sequences, someone needs to give Trigger an actual fucking budget so they can stop pulling shit this obvious. Fortunately it's mostly all in context and appropriate (where in this childish, hokey mess the word 'appropriate' is applied very loosely). The show itself is all entirely to be expected when one takes into account that the makers were generally the same Motherfuckers who made Gurren Lagann.
The obligatory 'dark-main-character' arc is weak and towards the end the fanservice is downright obnoxious and as un-sexy as it could ever get, but despite all that and the predictable (but not inherently awful or asspulled) plot twists, it's got good energy (the insert songs definitely help in that regard) and a fair sense of humour from start to finish. As an aside, it's been interesting seeing Hiroyuki Sawano mature over the years as a music composer - he's always had flashes of brilliance but still can't shake that style of composition better suited to 'those guys who make music for film trailers for a living'. Luckily, he fits right in this time. Not the savior of anime people claimed it would be, but a great watch, in spite of its autism (not because of it). I rate this show three child sexual abuse lawsuits out of a possible two hair-concealed nipples.
Space☆Dandy
JP OP
Toonami OP
It's about a fucking dandy guy in space. It's not hard.
There isn't actually a lot of continuity between episodes, besides the fact that the show revolves around a dandy guy in space, his companion robot and a creeper pervert cat-alien who just hangs around. Each episode has completely different hijinks from the episode before it, such like an episodic comedy show. The pilot episode, written by Shinchiro Watanabe, went over the basic premise of the characters and the show has randomly gone from subject material to subject material ever since.
Other consistent things in the show include its vibrant retro-80s-sci-fi aesthetic, a set of villains (including a uniformed gorilla, a cucumber in a lab coat, a skeleton king of cosmos) riding a spaceship that looks like the fucking Statue of Liberty wearing a ball gag, and a chain of breastaurant space stations called BooBies.
There isn't actually a lot of continuity between episodes, besides the fact that the show revolves around a dandy guy in space, his companion robot and a creeper pervert cat-alien who just hangs around. Each episode has completely different hijinks from the episode before it, such like an episodic comedy show. The pilot episode, written by Shinchiro Watanabe, went over the basic premise of the characters and the show has randomly gone from subject material to subject material ever since.
Other consistent things in the show include its vibrant retro-80s-sci-fi aesthetic, a set of villains (including a uniformed gorilla, a cucumber in a lab coat, a skeleton king of cosmos) riding a spaceship that looks like the fucking Statue of Liberty wearing a ball gag, and a chain of breastaurant space stations called BooBies.
Of the Studio Bones productions of this season, Space☆Dandy took the lion's share of the budget. Directed by genre-god Shinchiro Watanabe and staffed by names behind Bebop, Champloo, Eureka 7, Stand Alone Complex, Wolf's Rain, and Code Geass (and scored by some swag Prince and/or Michael Jackson wannabe), this show generated about the same level of hype that Kill La Kill did. Like Kill La Kill, it hasn't quite hit the 'savior of anime' mark for a lot of viewers, but for different reasons entirely.
The lack of continuity is very distinct, even more so than a lot of shows that are completely nonsensical. Part of it I think is to do with the huge disparity in writing styles between episodes, which in turn might be partly due to the fact that almost all of the episodes are followed up with an episode written/directed by someone completely different. Watanabe seems to have let his creative team run wild with the show, resulting in wildly differing episodes from one week to the next. One episode covering a (wildly hilarious) zombie apocalypse spanning the entire universe was followed by a strangely personal, focused plot involving an orphaned child on a single planet. Some episodes have been straightforward, tropey-with-a-tweest seinen plots, while others have been (maybe literally) drug-induced fever dreams.
Personally for me, it's never been boring. A lot of people expected something consistently like Bebop or Champloo, but in hindsight what we got was something different completely. Each episode has surprised me to at least some degree, on some level, and more often than not has ended in a way that I did not expect. The lack of consistent tone threw a lot of people (and likely turned a lot of them off the show), and for a show that was marketed quite singularly as a comedy show, I'm not sure that what we got as a product was the right thing to do in that context. Again, not the savior of anime, but again, never boring. Hell of a ride. I rate this show fifteen unacknowledged character deaths out of a possible three moé library books. Also, it's fucking great. My favourite of 2014 so far.
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but the last anime I really enjoyed was Sword Art Online. Definitely in my top 5.
I trawled AnimeGAF for a bit and their base was divided between fandom and utter hatred and loathing lawl
