Rate the Last Anime You Watched Out of 10

Nisemonogatari

Moving from Bakemonogatari to Nisemonogatari, I found I had to make a few concessions to aid my viewing pleasure. Chief of those concessions was not treating it as a horror title, but as a comedy-drama which happened to have one or two horror interludes. Secondly, said horror interludes were not to be taken seriously. Consequently my train of thought when viewing such scenes was somewhere in line with a deadpan: “Oh look, Koyomi got his heart ripped out again.”

What also helped was me warming up to the characters. Koyomi appealed to me as a cross between The Crow and Wile E. Coyote. The music too was very appealing, especially the third opening – Platinum Disco - in all its toe-tapping glory. And I also love the portrayal of Koyomi’s relationship with his twisted, verbally abusive but no less loving and devoted girlfriend.

And now: why am I still not fully sold on the Monogatari series?

Short answer: the writing and the resulting issues in pacing. I understand that wordplay forms a major part of the dialogue; that alone would not be a problem to me. The problem comes when the story frequently grinds to a halt just so the characters can revel in their cleverness. Five minutes could be spent on dialogue, followed by another five minutes explaining why the preceding dialogue was oh so clever. Pacing suffers as a result, and my patience was tested more than once as I screamed internally: “Get to the point already!”

In fact, the lack of proper pacing can best be seen in the second story arc, Tsukihi Phoenix. The arc lasts for four episodes, yet the actual Tsukihi Phoenix part only occurs onward from the last five or so minutes of the penultimate episode: why all the filler?

To conclude: Nisemonogatari is empirically a better product than its predecessor. The animation – in fact, the production values overall – are better. But it has retained the self-indulgent nature of Bakemonogatari and as a result uses eleven episodes to tell a tale that could easily be told in four episodes, tops. In the end it scores 6/10.
 
Nise is the series at it's most self indulgent. It also goes on huge tangents, giving each girl their fair share of fanservice instead on focusing on the heroines (which the other arcs do a good job on focusing on their main characters).
 
I kind of feel like the whole point of Monogatari *is* the dialogue - the witty repartee between the characters, the back and forth of it all. It's like the old saying, the joy is in the journey, not the destination (especially when the view out of the window is so pretty)
 
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Season 1)

Overall I enjoyed this a lot.

The mysteries and ideas are generally interesting but I think the show is ultimately made by the characters. It's often subtle but the characters develop a lot throughout the show and they're a great bunch to begin with anyway.

The main story was interesting. I did think there were some events that weren't really a part of the main story as such (or didn't feel directly related) during some of the later episodes but they were enjoyable in their own right anyway and it would have been tough to split a Complex episode into some Stand Alone parts. Besides, they were still related to the story of the Section 9 characters and in that sense they were still kind of tied to the big picture. Maybe it's more a matter that The Laughing Man wasn't really the main point of the story, it was just a "stand alone" aspect of the story itself and the actual story was more about Section 9 and the work they were doing. I could certainly see something like that having been intended.

I think I probably generally liked the Stand Alone episodes a little more than the Complex ones. Or, at least, I'd say my favourites were probably Stand Alone episodes while the Complex episodes were perhaps more consistent. I didn't love every single episode but even the "worst" were still thoroughly enjoyable.

It'd be interesting to see what re-watching the show would be like. Quite a few moments (especially in the Complex episodes) include twists that wouldn't have the same impact the second time. Still, maybe watching for the foreshadowing and such would make up for anything lost in foreknowledge. Also relevant, I found that the majority of twists did a good job of keeping me unsure about what would happen. Even if I had a pretty good guess I still wasn't confident enough about being right for it to affect the reveal.

I hope I'll enjoy the second season at least as much.
 
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Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig

I wasn't really sure about the story to begin with, I think the way it was distributed between more of the episodes (rather than the clearer split in Season 1) sometimes worked but probably caused some issues as well. It perhaps worked best when you watched a seemingly non-story related episode and then only realised later how it was relevant to the story. While the "Stand Alone Complex" idea worked well in the first season, I think it slightly held things back in the second season to begin with until the writers figured out how to integrate the idea into the story they actually wanted to tell.

Towards the middle of the show things seemed to improve and become more focussed. There were more non-story episodes for a while in the middle but these were generally brilliant and as I mentioned they did at times contribute to the story in unexpected ways. As things came together towards the end everything tended to work much better and it was consistently enjoyable. I'd probably consider episode 10 the weakest and episode 11 one of the strongest, which makes for an interesting shift.

Still, I tend to prefer the character stories and that's true here as well. To be fair though, I think one of the reasons the story worked better for me in the second half is how well it tied the stories of the characters into the overall storyline. In a way, one of the shows weaknesses in the beginning became a strength in the later episodes.

I enjoyed the show quite a lot in the end. I think I overall prefer the character stories and investigation elements that are stronger in the TV series to the more philosophical tendencies of the movies. Of course, the TV series does have it's own movie.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society

It's a movie but with more of a focus on investigation and the characters than big ideas. I really enjoyed it.

I think there are a lot of ideas here that could maybe have filled out another season but the film does a fairly good job of making things work in more limited time. I wouldn't say the story is necessarily perfect, I could see it being difficult to understand at times (I can't say for sure that I understood it but I think I was okay and having just watched the TV series probably helped). Still, I thought it worked quite well and made very good use of the characters. If nothing else, it was worth it to see everyone working together and sorting through some issues. In a way, the character interactions felt more important than the solution to the mystery.

I'd say that watching the TV series first is essential, there are a lot of references to characters (sometimes quite minor ones) from the two TV series and quite a few moments in the film are almost fanservice by giving some of the potential favourites their own moments. Speaking of fanservice, I hope there'll be cute maid/nurse androids to look after me when I get old.

I think one thing that Ghost in the Shell does quite well is messing with it's characters. It always seems to be able to draw you in to care but it stops short of feeling too cruel or manipulative. Bad things happen but they feel more natural rather than forced for drama. I think that's well represented in the movie but also stands out quite often throughout the TV episodes.

All in all, I've enjoyed getting into the Ghost in the Shell "franchise". I think it does a good job of mixing philosophy, technology and more human elements together to produce something that can appeal in a variety of ways. If you're at all curious then I'd say it's worth giving it a go. Plus, if you don't enjoy one entry in the franchise then you might still find one of the others appeals to you because they do offer somewhat different experiences.
 
Space Dandy season 2

As good as the first season overall. It took a few episodes to get going (with episodes 2 and 3 easily being the weakest of the run for me) and not as many "amazing" episodes as the first season for me, but less "weak" episodes. Stand outs for me are episodes 5 and 8 with 11 and 12 being of high quality too.

Excellent fun, some amazing art styles utilised and a more than fitting conclusion.

8/10
 
El hazard OVAs

I just finished so hazard the wanderers and il be honest the OVAs are better then the wanderers the tv series felt like it wasn't giving a damn to the characters in the wanderers which I give a 6/10..... the OVA was more entertaining and interesting

8/10
 
Paprika.

I think this is actually the first Satoshi Kon work I've seen. I hadn't really heard much about it before and I think that might have been a good thing, knowing what to expect might have lessened the experience somewhat.

I really loved it. I'd imagine it's another movie that is very subject to interpretation but basically everything just worked for me. I felt like I understood it, even if that might have been differently than the creator intended.

It's a tough movie to describe really, the events themselves don't really seem to be quite as important as the meaning behind them (or your interpretation, maybe). Kind of like dreams.

I did like the idea of movies being the next best thing to sharing dreams with people.

The art and animation were kind of amazing, even standing alone it would be quite an experience. The sound, story and characters are all great too and it adds up to something even more wonderful as a whole.

I kind of expected more explanation about the world and characters to begin with, I guess I'm just used to that sort of thing. As it turned out, it wasn't necessary at all because everything you need to know is shown throughout the movie. There are quite a lot of subtle touches with characters and their reactions that add quite a lot of insight without being blatant and yet they're also noticeable enough that I managed to pick up on them (and I'm not the most perceptive).

I particularly liked the character of Konakawa, he pretty much stole the show at times and his story was very interesting. It may also have been the "simplest", which is maybe why I felt like I understood it. There's certainly a lot going on in the movie. Another possible reason that I found Konakawa easy to like is that he has the same voice as Batou from Ghost in the Shell in Japanese (Togusa's voice also appears, I thought that was kind of funny after watching so much Ghost in the Shell).

I'm not sure if there's a "right" way to interpret the movie and if there is I'm not sure that my interpretation is close. Still, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I'll most likely watch it again some time (it might be interesting to see if I interpret things differently with hindsight). I wouldn't say it has become my favourite but I can only think of a few films I'd rate higher than it.
 
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Heroic Age

Enjoyable Sci-Fi series. Decent overarching storyline with a satisfying conclusion. Likeable cast of characters, space battles were done well but lack of visiting alien planets and seeing different locations hurt the show for me (admittedly that's my fault as I wanted this to be something it wasn't).. Also, the explanation of what "starways" are was not really well done so I was always trying to grasp space travel and how it worked in the show.

However, it was a great ride and the positives stand out.

7/10
 
Smeelia said:
Paprika.
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Paprika is still arguably my favourite of Kon's films, although the ending never really sat well with me. The doctor suddenly declaring her love for the manchild guy just seemed too much out of nowhere.
 
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Professor Irony said:
Paprika is still arguably my favourite of Kon's films, although the ending never really sat well with me. The doctor suddenly declaring her love for the manchild guy just seemed too much out of nowhere.
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I have mixed feelings about it, I think they did enough to show that she liked him but I'm not sure they really sold the "in that way" part. Though, I suppose part of the point was that she wasn't really being honest with herself about how she felt/who she really is before the end and maybe she didn't realise until she had the "dream". I do think they overdid it a little with the message saying they'd be getting married.

I don't think it's really a problem, although perhaps it is one time where they do explain things when leaving it to the viewer might have worked better. I expect there's some reason behind it, maybe just to make sure the ending was "happy". I think the film would have been fine without it though.
 
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I enjoyed Paprika but it's by far my least favorite of Satoshi Kon's films, by a huge margin. I felt bored by it a lot, and even the visuals failed to impress me compared to his other works. I think that the opening is the best thing about it. Either way its still a masterfully directed film, which comes to no surprise since it's Satoshi Kon.
 
^ Nice avatar, Q. And Paprika was most certainly a poor film when you strip away the dream novelty and music. I think it officially made me regret watching when tentacle rape was thrown in. Tokyo Godfathers was a bore, mind you.

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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (S1): 8/10

It's rare an anime lives up to its title but JoJo was truly quite bizarre, in the best possible ways. There was the first ep 'stage play' intro that set up JoJo Kenshiro vs. Dio. Then everyone got bodybuilder muscles and it became FotNS / a shounen parody with vampires. And that was only pt1: ep10 onwards having a new lead / timeskip and being something of a lulzy DBZ parody where power-levels jumped sky high, complete with one of the best main characters of all time: a main character that made fun of how in shounen series people state the obvious during fights. Seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jnVadPvjro - the series is like a self-aware stupid that makes shounen dumb entertaining.

Pt2 was much better than pt1, if only because the DULL lead got replaced and Iwasaki's epic-almost arabic style OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUhVCoTsBaM - I think by the end my brain had been melted by the awesome of muscle-men in manthongs, "The Ultimate Thing", Nazi nakama and Joseph jumping off a cliff, only to seconds later by piloting a warplane. So awesome was it I'm now buying the lovely hardback omnibus releases of the manga.

It had its flaws, such as a lack of animation, but I feel the direction and stylisation won out. Just look at this OP! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-HWQ4hQPo8
 
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