Anime discussion thread.

I don't have a specific number, but I go back and watch a few of my favorites on a fairly regular basis. I can safely say I've watched GITS, Horizon, Kara no Kyoukai, and Star Driver an embarrassing number of times so I don't think it's weird at all to go back and watch your own favorites as much as you want.

Just blazed through all 13 episodes of "Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet" and it was pretty awesome (despite some slow episodes in the middle). Goodbye Chamber Ledo was just transferred through space right?, not time also? A little loopy since the marathon and is the only thing im not clear on, but i guess space/time is related so fuck it....i dont care.

Also that Attack on Titan game is pretty rad....those special titans suck though

Woah, the Latest PPV and weekly show discussion thread is closing down.

I can see the reasons behind this decision. Most of the problems they had with their thread start to appear here as well. But we are far from the state which that thread is in, so I think we can go on like this for a while. At least we should beat the Bombcast Watitng Room.

It was tengen toppa gurren lagann, then I bought and played Solatorobo: Red the Hunter.

@believer258: Rarely more than once these days. My time is too tight to spend watching 20+ hour shows very often.

Watamote is the first currently airing show I've watched in a while now, and while it's no Level-E, I'm enjoying it a lot. It got me interested in checking out the manga as well.

Outside of that though, a friend of mine has been trying to get into anime, so I've been vicariously re-experiencing old standbys like Dead Leaves and Ghost in the Shell with him. I was kind of surprised how good the dub on Ghost in the Shell was, looking back. Re-watching it really made Appleseed fall a little flat in the close succession I re-watched them in though.

@thesoutherndandy: You've become one of us now. Report to your local Weeaboo Supervisor for your mandatory indoctrination, nekomimi headband and moe character wallscroll.

I've watched FMAB, Rurouni Kenshin and Yu Yu Hakusho and the first 3 seasons of Ranma a few times each. I have an easier time rewatching OVAs or movies numerous times, like the Ranma OVAs, Gunsmith Cats, or Summer Wars. Recently started Hunter x Hunter 2011 over from the beginning despite it still airing. I've watched each episode of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 2012 numerous times but not in an actual "marathon". Those two will probably end up on my "most rewatched" list.

I need to go back to Level E. Considering how much I love Togashi's other work, I don't know why I haven't finished any more than a few episodes. The Prince even had a "cameo" in the new Hunter x Hunter which was pretty good.

@extomar: Well, I don't watch them all in one long marathon. I watch a few a day.

I was actually re-watching Yu Yu Hakusho as well. Probably the best fighting anime shows ever. I haven't seen Hunter X Hunter or Rurouni Kenshin yet, though.

I don't understand what half of that means but I will comply anyway. Especially if it means a sweet headband!

The Southern Dandy probably wouldn't want any of that, especially the headband.

Also, welcome! If you want recommendations from us just ask away. Though some of them might be garbage.

Fix that. HxH is probably the most consistently well written shonen manga and Madhouse started off kinda wonky but by episode 30 or so they have been doing an increasingly better job. And the current arc, which the old anime never animated, is truly one of the best arcs in anything I've read, and MH has been doing a great job adapting it.

RK is great but don't bother watching past like episode 60, just read the manga after that.

I know it's written by the same guy but is it a fighting anime? In the vein of Dragonball Z and Fist of the North Star. Y'know, there's a threatening bad guy and power levels and enough accidental homoeroticism to make Arnold Schwarzenegger jealous?

YYH falls apart after The Dark Tournament but man, up until that point (and mostly afterwards, too) it's a brilliant combination of cheesy stupid fun and dramatic character development. It really shouldn't work as well as it does.

HxH has fights, yes, but they're not always the focus. It has a really well planned out and in-depth power system that doesn't really allow for "power levels", since every character who knows it can use the basics, but their special abilities will be widely different and it will usually come down to who is smarter. And for bad guys, it's a bit more complicated than that. There's no overarching antagonist, some arcs don't even have one. Plus, the main characters are all interesting, even the main-main, who at first glance just looks like your typical shonen protag, but is always entertaining. Naive, but not stupid.

It really is a great show to go back to. Most of those older shows you have to start liking ironically because they're so bad in hindsight, but there's nothing ironic about liking Yu Yu Hakusho. It's just a really great show to watch. The dark tournament dragged in some spots, but man what a great show.

@thesoutherndandy: On a less trollish note I have an old list here if you want to see more stuff.

I started watching Sword Art Online and I saw the first 10 episodes. I think it's really good. What I don't understand is that I remember people saying that it was kinda bad. Is it simply a difference of opinion?

Well for most people they say it amazing when other people are saying it not. Sword art online is a pretty good show but it not ground breaking. It makes some major mistakes in places from plotting, world building, some side stories that have no meaningful impact and characters that come and go way to fast to be meaningful. The only characters that matter is Asuna, Kazuto, and Suguha since their the only ones with depth and have some really good interaction.

@golguin: I always thought that the first half of SAO was a good watch. It's the second half that I had a problem with.

@stubbleman: That show is so awkward. Some people on Crucnyroll say it's hard to get through the episodes. The last one though. Dad of the year.

@golguin: I have some serious issue with the writing and characterization in SAO. But it doesn't really turn into a glaring problem until the second half. First half actually has some cool ideas, I enjoyed it to an extent at least.

A lot of people like it, so you know... Maybe don't look at it with a microscope and you might be fine.

So it's an issue of Sword Art Online being an ongoing light novel so the anime had to come up with its own stopping point/ending like with the first anime for Full Metal Alchemist?

@golguin: Just keep watching and you'll see.

JC Staff have really impressed me with Railgun S. They've nailed it so far.

Anyone have any suggestions for anime in the same vein as Serial Experiments Lain?

Madoka Magica comes to mind.

If by "vein" you mean the cyberspace vs realspace themes and such, go for Dennou Coil. It's somewhat lighthearted but is really interesting and is just fantastically animated throughout.

I just got to the big change and now the new world started. It felt like an abrupt change so I'm guessing this is where it deviated from the story in the light novel. Is that correct? Is the rest of the show essentially filler as the anime makes its own story.

I just finished the episode where the sister finally realized the truth and it's full of drama. I looked into the light novel enough to know the series doesn't just take place in SAO. I checked summaries up to the change and it seems to all be canon.

@golguin: It is all canon, I actually only skimmed the show, but read the novels. The bad writing got rotten at the source. :/

EDIT: Adding on to that I do actually think the show seems to have done the series justice, and made a proper faithful adaptation. So props for that at least.

I think it the fact that it isn't done well, in both SAO and Persona 4 anime. And I really didn't like the sister (cousin) that loves her brother (also cousin) for the fact that it took so long to the reveal. It was just unnecessary drama set up.

does anyone here watch Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal

So I watched another episode of that RWBY thing and yeah, it's getting pretty painful to watch. I really just want to watch Monty Oum make crazy fight scenes. I mean, I knew there was no way that it could live up to those trailers, but the dialogue is just horrendous. The voice actors are all right for rookies, but damn, those lines are really bad.

Actually, the animation itself is bad. Those trailers were anything but "subtle", and were awesome for it. If you're going to have three episodes of people talking and interacting, then you've got to have a grasp on subtle movements and contact. It doesn't look right. This could definitely be made up for by good writing and/or more fight scenes, but again, both are lacking. Maybe I'll watch another on the off chance that something will go flying through the air, but for now I have to watch something decent.

Definitely not weird, but I find that nowadays I generally rewatch anime much less. When I was getting into this anime nonsense, access was more limited than it is now -- stuff on TV, DVDs I could afford only every so often and scattered stuff in my county's public library system. (Thankfully, I was not part of the generation that had to trade tapes and shit to see new anime!) So I rewatched a ton of stuff just because there was nothing else I could do; you got by with what you got on TV and what you could afford. Now, it's incredibly easy to get anime from whatever point in history, so I stick to stuff I haven't seen before unless it's a special occasion and/or I'm watching with other people.

Also, I definitely have to back up the Hunter x Hunter recs, for both the old series and the new one airing on Crunchyroll right now. Both take some interesting approaches with similar material and are worth watching if you're interested in how direction and whatnot can affect adaptation. The new series has surpassed the old one both in terms of length and overall greatness, though.

I think it's a matter of where the author's talent was at the time. The first couple novels are what the anime's based on and they're fun reads and as someone who's played MMOs having a story based in MMOs is really interesting to me. The first half of the anime contained a lot of the sidestories from volume 2 while the second half didn't have sidestories, so that's why the story felt so damn different in the second half. The pacing was way different. It works better in the novels, where each arc feels connected to the whole but each arc are quite different from each other.

That said, there's not really anything that amazing about the first few novels, but I feel that by the most recent volumes the author really did take it to the next level. The Alicization arc (which is freakin' long damn it and still not finished), kinda gets past the original issue with the series in that Kirito's this ridiculously strong guy who basically can't be stopped who all the women fall in love with but it doesn't matter because he's already with Asuna. In the Alicization arc the story becomes not just about Kirito, but also about a friend of his, Eugeo, and they basically have to work for years to get decently strong, as opposed to being OP right off the bat. There isn't the romantic comedy element going on either that was in the earlier novels.

So TL;DR I think that over the course of the many years since the author first wrote his first SAO novel, his writing's improved by a LONG SHOT, and it really shows in the most recent novels (although you can see the progression in quality from okay to great through reading the whole series). The anime's based on his earliest work on the series so that's part of why it falls short.

SAO aside, I've been going back and watching a bunch of the series from the past year I missed at the time. RDG - Red Data Girl is really interesting to me; it's been a while since I've enjoyed a series with a female protagonist. It's from P.A. Works, which made Angel Beats, and Another (the one being one of the most meaningful stories I've ever read, and the other having the most horrifyingly gruesome scenes I've ever seen in anime O.o). Really interesting.

So after coming off the Metal Gear Solid series, I'm in the mood to watch some anime, but I was wondering if anyone knows of some anime that is comparable to the typical beats of a Metal Gear Solid game? Like the war/espionage premise, grandiose narrative, long-winded (often cryptic) speeches and a host of cool (if also melodramatic) characters. I read somewhere that said Darker than BLACK was somewhat like that, but I never really saw the connection. I've never seen Ghost in the Shell, and that looks like it could be somewhat similar. But that's only from my impression from glances at the imagery.

Watamote is pretty funny, yo.

I don't know how to compare it to Metal Gear really, but Ghost in the shell: stand alone complex was full of good convoluted plots ,melodrama, and over the top scifi action. Really good series IMO. The english dub was even good from what i saw of it.

Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou - 5: Got some good development with one of the characters

Monogatari Second Season - 5: Man, we got a huge fight, a revelation, and a special guest.

Symphogear G - 5: OMG, Hibiki!

Attack On Titan - 17: Female Titan!

This weeks episode of Attack on Titan was pretty awesome, hopefully it keeps picking up some speed again. But quick question about the episode that is kind of spoilery: When Armin Shouts "Avenge the bastard who ran to their death..." to Jean what did Armin hope that would do? and why did the lady titan stop its attack when Armin yelled that. Was it just a latch ditch effort to psych Jean up or something?

Also Watamote continues to be surprisingly good

hmm meant to put the spoilery part in the spoiler tags....was pretty sure i did.

@sunbrozak: Yeah, Darker than Black and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex sound like good places to start for you. I'll also throw in Gundam 08th MS Team, a shorter series with some similar "war is hell" themes and giant mechs.

He was acting like Eren got killed to see if the titan would react. It worked, since he was thinking that Eren was the FemTitan's goal.

I also recommend Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I never played a Metal Gear game, but from everything I've heard about the game I think Ghost in the Shell is perfect.
This opening is for Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd Gig, but I think it's a really good for getting that Metal Gear vibe.

Definitely the Patlabor movies. They are as Metal Gear Solid-esque as it gets. Whoever told you Darker than Black is on crack. It has nothing in common with Metal Gear Solid. Though it is worth a watch, the first season anyway.

@oursin_360@dochaus@golguin@sinusoidal

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll definitely look into seeing Ghost in the Shell, then. Patlabor and Gundam 08th MS Team too, at a later date.

I can not believe that they gave a way such a huge hint about future stuff like they did. When I saw that I said damn did they really just did that? Otherwise it was a great episode.

I watched the first half of Macross Frontier yesterday and should finish it up today. Really magnificent. I'm having such a good time with it. It's the final series in the Macross saga that I had yet to see and it pays homage to the previous shows on several occasions. I've always liked Macross a bit more than Gundam because while both are silly in their story-logic, Macross seems to take itself less seriously. It feels less pretentious. I am excluding Gundam Fighter G from the comparison because (a) it's not part of the canon and (b) ...Mexican Gundam. Before I started Macross F yesterday, I watched the first episode of Gundam 00. It looked really good too, but I just wasn't in the mood for one of those angsty-angry Gundam heroes we've seen more than a few times. Yes, war sucks and that's why we fight, to stop war. I hope to check it out next weekend since it's been a while since I've see a really good giant robot show. Macross F has some outstanding air-to-air combat sequences. The best I've seen since, appropriately enough, Macross Zero.

I still haven't finished Prince of Tennis but I am more than half-way though. I needed a break, but I haven't tired of it yet.