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Post by stokerino on Mar 31, 2006 19:13:37 GMT
I thought that rather than lump all comments together into the Random Anime thread as usual, discussion of new shows can go in here while the other is used for talk of older or more random series.
Just some notes to start:
+ The date for the debut of the second Tsubasa Chronicles series has been delayed by a few weeks. It is currently set for Saturday 29th April, airing at 6:30am on the NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Corporation)'s Educational Channel.
+ In contrast, the TV series of xxxHolic is scheduled to debut on Thursday 6th April at 1:25am.
+ Mai-Otome OAVs have been announced. There will be four additional episodes which will premiere in Japan this July.
+ 'School Rumble Nigakki' (The Second Semester) will be debuting on Sunday 2nd April at 1:36am (yes, 1:36). There is a short promo available for download on Anime-Source and elsewhere, but it is literally only a 14 second blurb and not worth the bother.
In related news, Yuuka Nanri who played Ichijou has been replaced due to her having scheduling conflict. Yuuka's only other contemporary role has been that of Nao in Mai-Otome, so the upcoming OAVs may be responsible. Ichijou will instead be played by Mako Sakurai. This will be her second ever role after having made her debut as Yurie (the main girl) in Kamichu!.
+ On March 29th the 'Fullmetal Alchemist Premium Collection' was released in Japan, and included a short movie and 3 OAVs that had not previously been aired on television, so expect them to find their way onto the internet in due course. The movie was originally screened as part of a FMA-themed ride at Universal Studios Japan, and ought not to be confused with the real movie, 'The Conqueror of Shambala'.
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Post by Ally on Mar 31, 2006 19:22:40 GMT
I NEED ANIME!!!
I can't download at uni because the server there is shit - I can't download here because my brother is a shit (well, that's a little mean, but he is very very irritating and hypocritical - he raises hell when I slow the internet up by downloading, but doesn't seem to understand that playing war games very loudly is just as annoying - or that sleep deprivation is a form of torture and will eventually make me go crazy and take an axe to his computer)
But I digress. I really really want to watch some good anime. Does anyone have anything they can lend me? I'll give you a big heartwarming smile in return.
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Post by stokerino on Apr 2, 2006 5:07:56 GMT
Typically, April 1st is marked by the release of spoof anime fansubs...
A fake Mai-Otome #25 and a fabricated School Rumble #27 are the most obvious culprits (although it seems to be an annual tradition for WannabeFansubs to produce a SR-related spoof).
Neither are worth the download.
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Post by Ally on Apr 2, 2006 18:53:29 GMT
I managed to download Mai Otome 12! I used to like Shiziru, but she's annoying me a little now.
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Post by Ally on Apr 2, 2006 19:49:43 GMT
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Post by stokerino on Apr 2, 2006 20:14:03 GMT
Hahaha...it's funny because that's all they really are. >_>
Episode 12...ah, the Akira/Takumi one. Yeah, Shizuru doesn't have the ultra psychotic edge she did in Mai-HiME. In Otome they establish how badass she still is, but all she does thereafter is float around being soft-spoken and quietly insightful. Certainly not as cool.
Hurry up and get to episode 17. ¬_¬
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Post by stokerino on Apr 5, 2006 7:34:09 GMT
Here's my first review of the Spring season. This show has actually been running for a few weeks after debuting on the 25th of February, but it still has more than 20 episodes left to be released and so is close enough to qualify. ERGO PROXYRomdeau City.
There's no doubt that this is our last utopia. Within this cradle, built in the midst of a global ecological disaster, each day, life continues in the same manner as the day before it.
What a boring utopia. In this science-fictional world, the inhabitents of Romdeau City consist of two distinct types. There are Citizens, your humans who trade in their hard work and humble obedience in order to live in this protected metropolis. Then there are Autoraves, humanoid machines which coexist peacefully with their human counterparts. They are not sentient, although they have advanced AI, and at least some of them are constructed from a combination of machine and flesh. In addition to these there are also some Immigrants - humans from the outside that have not earned their citizenship, and are consequently treated as illegal outcasts or, for those who do manage to appropriate the necessary forms to remain legally, lower than dirt. Real Mayar is an agent for the Intelligence Bureau, and granddaughter of the city's Regent Donov Mayar. Together with her Autorave compatriot, Iggy, she has been tasked with investigating a series of murders committed by robots infected with the Cognito Virus - a program which causes the AI to become aware of its own existence, and results in it going beserk. However it seems that the one spreading the virus is not another infected Autorave as they previously thought, but rather a powerful and dangerous creature that escaped from a secret experimental labratory, currently known only as "Proxy". On a side note, what's the ending theme? 'Paranoid Android' by Radiohead. Classic. The background is the classic dystopian setup, with such phrases cropping up in the first episode alone: "Fellow Citizens, do your part and make waste; Life is easier when you lighten the load" "It is, of course, the duty of citizens to consume" "After all these years the Health and Welfare Bureau has just approved our application to adopt a child" And so on. The Autoraves themselves remind me somewhat of the kind of robots you saw in The Animatrix's "The Second Renaissance", in that they tend to be of a simplified human design with piercingly hollow eyes. They add to the dreary appearance of Romdeau City, whose human inhabitants are similarly unimpressive - to the extent that Real's striking blue eyeshadow shines out amid the gloom. Despite the colours being predominantly grey, the artwork is nonetheless really quite pretty in a manner akin to Samurai Champloo (not a coincidence, as Ergo Proxy is animated by Manglobe Inc., who were also responsible for Champloo), and remains pleasant to watch despite what is actually being portrayed. Having only watched the first episode as I write this to you, quite clearly not a lot makes sense. In fact, I understood almost nothing at all for the first 10 or so minutes. But the intregue is there, and I will in a moment be watching the next episode with interest. I can already tell that this is quite simply a top-notch Sci-Fi anime and a welcome change from the usual mecha varients that litter such entities. It's dark. It's clever. It's well made. You should be watching it.
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Post by Ally on Apr 5, 2006 10:31:44 GMT
Wow - it's like the director was reading Brave New World and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? before he went to bed...
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Post by stokerino on Apr 5, 2006 18:38:00 GMT
Question is, do you take that to be a good or bad thing? >_>
Just watched a 30 second xxxHolic trailer. I can't really gather much from it, other than the artwork is like the movie in being pretty accurate to the mangas. Due to the montage of images I wasn't quite able to tell whether they've put more effort into the character animation than they did in the movie, but we shall see.
And as a side note, the Mai-Otome finale was frikkin' awesome. The Black Cat finale was similarly good, but not quite as so.
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Post by Ally on Apr 5, 2006 18:44:21 GMT
Question is, do you take that to be a good or bad thing? >_> Good thing, as far as I'm concerned. Loved those two books.
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Post by stokerino on Apr 7, 2006 17:49:09 GMT
The following exclamation is obligatory and I apologise in advance. *ahem* LLLLLLET'S GET READY TO RRUUMMBBBLLLLEEE...!!! SCHOOL RUMBLE : THE 2ND SEMESTER
Episode 1: Scramble Reloaded! / Superstar Request! / Scandalous Restart!School Rumble has returned and it's like the madness never went away. We pick up in this episode soon after we left, with the problematic misunderstandings concerning the nature of Harima and Yakumo's relationship continuing to grow only more tangled and complex, not least because Tenma has now taken it upon herself to overcome 'Yakumo's shyness' and push the relationship forward through her own special brand of meddling. Nooooo! Feel Harima's pain at the bitter irony! Feel Hanai's pain with Yakumo apparently going out with his biggest rival! Oh, the drama! The silly, silly drama! There are new opening and ending themes, which of course cannot hope to live up to the originals in any way but whatcha gonna do? Other than that, the makeup of the series appears to remain identical with its structure of 'three parts' (plus often signficant pieces before AND after the OP/ED sequences). Hell, you all know what School Rumble's like. And the preview for the next episode - you know that 'joke' preview they had at the end of the first season, or the end of the OVAs? With all the fighting and guns and general badass shootingness? IT'S ACTUALLY GOING TO HAPPEN! Coming your way in episode 2, 'Strategy / Battlefield / Friends' - huzzah!
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Post by Ally on Apr 7, 2006 18:54:24 GMT
I HAVE to see these!
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Post by Emily on Apr 8, 2006 14:18:16 GMT
I'm gonna save my downloading till I get back to london, becausse my brain can't focus long enough to read your reviews...
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Post by stokerino on Apr 8, 2006 14:54:00 GMT
I can only imagine what School Rumble would do to a concussion. I'm sure it wouldn't be pretty.
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Post by Ally on Apr 8, 2006 15:25:22 GMT
She'd end up back in hospital, babbling about mammoths ;D
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Post by stokerino on Apr 10, 2006 19:15:58 GMT
XXXHOLIC
Episode 1 : Hitsuzen No, the budget hasn't improved. I have to say I felt decidedly uneasy when watching this because I could see it struggling to come off as well as it does in the mangas, whereas something like Tsubasa (which may still be superior in manga form) handles it relatively well. Part of this is inherent with the product as xxxHolic is, in itself, largely a combination of long speeches (usually by Yuuko) and Watanuki's flailing. Unfortunately Watanuki is considerably more annoying in audio format than in inked; a problem not helped by the continuing lack of decent character animation on his part. I have to point the Finger of Shame at Production I.G. for this one because you'd think that - even on a low budget - they'd have the expertise to hide their shortcomings in some vaguely creative manner. And it still does perplex me as to how ANY manner of CLAMP franchise would be given such a low budget due to its innate marketability on the back of CLAMP alone. One only needs to look at recent shows like Blood + to see what I.G. are doing when they have the budget to back it up. Maybe my opinion of Holic's production was marred slightly by the fact that I'd just been watching an episode of the infinitely more atmospheric Ergo Proxy just minutes before, but that can't remove the fact that it's still damn shoddy. The story in this episode of largely foundational and as such cannot be judged to its fullest potential. Whilst it does not go exactly according to the mangas, it at least fufills its purpose: Watanuki stumbles upon Yuuko's house, is 'drawn in' by hitsuzen, and effectively becomes her maid in return for his wish. There is a very small hint of the sort of xxxHolic story that we will typically be seeing in the future that (at least as far as I can remember) isn't in the mangas, featuring a school girl who wants the attention that having bad ailments incurs and consequently draws the problems to her for real. But Mokona (the black one) is being absolutely adorable at this point in time so she could be slitting her own wrists for all I care. When Doumeki eventually shows up, no doubt a combination of he and Mokona will keep me entertained with this anime in spite of Watanuki, but I nonetheless have to register a feeling of disappointment. It could have been better, it really could have. The preview for episode 2 takes us squarely into the material from the manga, with the woman who is a compulsive liar and is given a ring that continues to get cloudier each time she does so. I presume the series will progress along a "case per episode" structure, but we shall see.
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Post by stokerino on Apr 10, 2006 20:12:04 GMT
DISGAEA Argh, the physical pain. I want to slap someone. Or set fire to someone. Or douse them in lighter fluid and then slap them with a burning implement. I'm open to suggestions. We KNEW the quality of the anime was going to be shit, from a production standpoint. That was a given. I'm glad I watched xxxHolic before I watched this, else I might have looked upon Holic's animation too favourably in comparison! The soundtrack is exactly the same as that from the game, but then I already have the OST, so what the hell do I care? No, it's not just the production values. It's the fact that they also had to RAPE the storyline and completely eliminate any of the witty humour that it might otherwise have had. I mean God, it took about 10 minutes for Captain Gordon, his sidekick Jennifer, and trusty robot Thursday to make their first appearance, when they're not supposed to come in until at least 2/3 of the way through the story. And I can just SENSE that they've been turned into a Team Rocket-esque "turn up, act all silly, get blown far away, repeat ad nauseum" group. Nevermind that all this happens BEFORE Etna (who is one of the cooler characters) even turns up, when she's supposed to be the FIRST one you're introduced to! And Flonne's just reduced to her subsitute "Violence is bad! LOVE AND PEACE!" role without any of her amusing - distinctly Becky-like - foolishness ("I've always wanted to be a ninja! Nin-nin-nin!"). I thought that they were going to run the anime pretty much in line to the game's story - which would fitted rather well, given that they're slated for about a dozen episodes and the game has 13 'chapters'. But apparently not, and I wouldn't doubt that half of those will be mainly filler too. So yeah, even I'M not going to download any more of this. The sense of anyone else (who don't even own the game in the first place) doing so is just laughable.
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Post by Ally on Apr 11, 2006 6:49:42 GMT
Aw, I'm disappointed Xxxholic isn't as good as it should be...
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Post by stokerino on Apr 12, 2006 0:12:32 GMT
THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA
Episode 1 : Mikuru Asahina's Adventure Episode 00 and Episode 2 : The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I There is a reason for this manner of perculiar numbering, which will become very clear shortly. When I began watching the first episode of this anime, which I had downloaded from a combination of curiosity and boredom, I almost couldn't believe what I was watching. It appeared to be an appalling attempt at a Magical Girl anime. REALLY appalling. The film quality was poor. The image was small and sqaure rather than filling up the whole of the screen. The scenario was unimaginative and contrived. The characters were astoundingly bad at delivering their lines. My God, I thought, this might well be the worst anime I have ever had the misfortune to come across. And then it clicked. It took a few minutes, but I suddenly realised that I wasn't watching the actual anime. I was watching what I will, without a shadow of doubt, proclaim to be the Best Anime of an Amateur Filming of an Anime Ever. If that didn't make enough sense to you, the reason that this Magical Girl story was so very, very bad was because it was being performed by high school students and filmed on a handheld camera. Suddenly upon this epiphany, I was able to view this show as it was and discovered it to be an awesome and incredibly funny parody of the Magical Girl genre. Not least the narrator, who questions the plot holes throughout. An example from about halfway through: "Well, the story's pretty much disappeared at this point...but here's some unexpected development! Mikuru and Itsuki have begun living together ( characters are shown playing UNO). A development into a newlyweds story makes you wonder what the Sci-Fi battles before were about. With arousing situations at every corner, perhaps this is a quick way out of the rut in the plot." Yes...you get the picture. Anyway, this entire Magical Girl saga lasts for the majority of the first episode until about 21 minutes in, when we cut back to reality (and anime of a proper quality!) as the amateur film finishes being aired inside a high school clubroom. The actors are watching on with expressions ranging from uncomfortable to aghast. Only one person is excited - the brown haired girl with the dubious honour of being the "Ultra Director" of the monstrosity, Haruhi Suzumiya. She begins wondering aloud to herself whether they ought to charge viewers when they present this film at the school festival, while the main guy Kyon wonders whether he ought to go find somewhere to crawl into and die instead. What the hell is this group, and what the hell is going on? On to episode 2... ********* For here, the anime starts aproper, returning us to the very beginning. We follow a guy known simply as Kyon, who is amongst those students entering their first year of high school. He finds himself sat in front of a very strange girl named Haruhi Suzumiya, who proclaims that she doesn't want anything to do with any normal humans. Only aliens, time travellers, sliders, or ESPers will be of any interest to her. Finding herself disappointed with the state of existing school clubs (the Paranormal Activities Club are just a bunch of occult freaks who have never had any contact with a real case), she resolves to create her own club. Having forcefully taken over the Literary Club's room (and the single member that resides within it), dragged along a girl she randomly found sitting alone at break time, and bullied Kyon himself into joining, she now has her club. What is this club, and what does it do? These things, apparently, aren't too important - at least not to Haruhi. The club is however given a name - the " Save our world by Overloading it with fun Suzumiya Haruhi's Brigade", or "SOS Brigade" for short. Frankly, one can only imagine. Having watched the first two episodes of this anime (although the first ought really to be judged separately, as indicated in its title), I really found it very enjoyable. Whether in the Magical Girl parody or in the real world, it is FUNNY. Kyon's gruff cynicism/sarcasm is brilliant when provided with Haruhi's strangeness for foil, and the effect works back the other way as well. Do not let the picture above fool you, for I am aware that it looks like some ecchi harem anime (not least by Haruhi's ribbons - which are actually what she uses to tie her hair in different numbers of bunches each weekday as part of some anti-alien superstition). But believe me, it's NOT. I do urge you, at least watch the first two episodes so that you are able to witness the great Bad Magical Girl parody, and also the anime as it was meant to be. I think it has more than enough oddness and humour to be well worth it.
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Post by stokerino on Apr 12, 2006 5:45:02 GMT
Normally I wouldn't do another big picture for a second time, but I do like this one... SCHOOL RUMBLE : THE SECOND SEMESTER
Episode 2: Strategy / Battlefield / FriendsPretty damn cool episode this one. Not so big on the laughs, but it doesn't really matter. Last season they used a game of pool-hockey to settle their differences; this time - Survival Game! It's a battle of Capture the Flag between those who want to perform a play at the School Festival and those who want to run a cafe...and they're using what for-all-intents-and-purposes appear to be real guns (obviously people aren't actually dying...but they do fall down and stay there, so who knows what's going on). The battlefield is not so level though, as there are smaller rogue groups running wild! The rock band who want to use the Festival as an opportunity to perform, or the three guys who want the girls to wrestle in swimsuits...uh, yeah. ¬_¬ Speaking of the rock band, this new woman who's playing Ichijou this season has a very nice singing voice. In any case, all that needs to be said is that although this isn't perhaps the funniest episode, it has more than enough cool moments (and a combination of Harima, Hanai, and Eri being badass) to remain perfectly sweet. Asou also continues to be damn cool in a quiet kind of way, and I still think he's very much an underrated character in the series. Point of note: I downloaded this episode release from the dubiously-named [Your-Mom] fansub group. It's acceptable for watching, though in places the picture quality seems a little poorer than usual (which wouldn't be their fault, but rather what raw copy they were given to use), and there are some mistakes here and there, such as mistranslating Shigeo's name as Shikeiho. What, you don't remember who Shigeo is? No matter really; he only made a brief appearance in the last series anyway (he has a girlfriend called Madoka, and she came to see him when he was injured during the Sports Festival. Ring any bells...?). Actually, these two provide one of the better moments of the episode. Cardboard-cut-out stuff really, lovers on opposite sides of the battle and all that, but still nicely poignant. As long as you don't dwell too much on how it's all fake, of course. >_> Next episode: the battle continues...
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