Rate the last anime you watched out of 10

ayase said:
See the recaps didn't really bother me - I just skipped them anyway to get to more of the story much like I'm used to skipping next episode previews. I'm more than fine with unsolved and slow-burning mystery, Hell I'm a big fan of Twin Peaks, at least the wait for more Attack on Titan hasn't been 25 years.

In fact it was the start of Season 2 and friends' hype for it that finally motivated me to watch the first season, and I was very pleasantly surprised by how little focus was on fighting, something that does really bore the arse off me when it constitutes the majority of a show. The elitist in me had never been particularly inclined to try it before now mainly due to its reputation among younger and newer fans, something that led me to suspect it would be a lot shallower than turned out to be the case, but in truth I haven't been able to marathon something so easily for quite a while.
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If it works for you then that's great! A lot of people I know irl act like I'm some sort of elitest for not thinking it's the most amazing show ever though, and that just confuses me to no end. My position on the show despite what I just said is that it is good, but has pacing issues which are more apparant when you're watching it week by week. When you're waiting a week for new content and they kill off half of each episode with a recap and such, and end each episode with a cliffhanger it is far more heinous. You luckily escaped that by watching it years later, so you probably got a much better viewing experience than I did too. :D

Honestly, I am somewhat looking forward to watching series 2 all in one go in twelve weeks because I think binging it might nullify all the aforementioned problems I had with it, and enable me to enjoy it to a degree which is closer to yours.
 
Lord Bacchus said:
Don't worry, you aren't alone on this one. I'll admit for the first few episodes I was aboard the AoT hype train as much as anyone else, but I got sick of it for the exact same things you list here. I am so glad I'm not the only one who couldn't stand the recaps! Nobody I have ever talked to about that series mentions them, and I felt like they sucked so much enjoyment out of it, along with the stupid cliffhangers.
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That's reassuring to hear, @Lord Bacchus, because we're very much in the minority here. It started well for me, too, but by around mid-series I'd started to get very concerned by the pacing and the dawning realisation that "This is not going to end very conclusively, is it?"

Lord Bacchus said:
I am actually one of the few people who didn't care all that much about series 2 coming out, or how long it took, whereas many people have been getting incredibly impatient for it. I'll probably watch it, but not until every episode is out and I can binge it in 4 hours. I'm actually very happy that it's only 12 episodes this time, because maybe they'll tighten everything up and fix their pacing issues (small hope I know, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt).
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This is where I stand, too, I reckon. And I second your point about better pacing in fewer episodes.

And, at the end of the day, for all my damning criticism, I am still interested to find out more about certain things like the...
... Titans in the walls.

ayase said:
See the recaps didn't really bother me - I just skipped them anyway
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I might've done that, too, if only Manga hadn't botched the chapter markers by disregarding normal practice and instead just bizarrely placing them at roughly five-minute intervals during episodes. o_O [Sigh.]
 
Neil.T said:
"


I might've done that, too, if only Manga hadn't botched the chapter markers by disregarding normal practice and instead just bizarrely placing them at roughly five-minute intervals during episodes. o_O [Sigh.]
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That's the problem with Manga releases, at least lately. Whenever I start one up I inwardly pray it isn't one they authored themselves. You'd think that since people complain about this stuff with every single release that does it, and every other company pretty much standardised this yonks ago that they would fix their markers. Do Manga Animatsu even have a presence on these forums like the other distributors?
 
HWR said:
Ranma 1/2
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I think the way you describe it kind of reaffirms my feeling that I'd watch Ranma if it were UK streamable somewhere, but given its apparent inability to move beyond the basic setup and the sheer length of it, it's not something I really want to own.
 
Neil.T said:
I might've done that, too, if only Manga hadn't botched the chapter markers by disregarding normal practice and instead just bizarrely placing them at roughly five-minute intervals during episodes. o_O [Sigh.]
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Ah, the bonuses of watching on a PC and I can just click on the seek bar... I can see that would have been rather frustrating if I'd had to rely on a remote.
 
Jerome does actually have an account here, he just doesn't post. I can't blame him; the guy is busy and small companies have to stay focused. He has never tried to hide the fact that for Manga, their main priorities lie with the general market rather than hardcore fans.

I also doubt he's a massive fan of ours but that's just my personal and very biased impression.

R
 
Neil.T said:
Hoh? I didn't know Jerome had an account.

I'm intrigued now. What gives you the impression he's not a fan of us, Rui?
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Well, most of the stuff he moans about 'fanboys' doing is the exact stuff we effuse about over here. We're the kind of people who make his work harder, whereas his favourite class of people are those who lap up cheap sets without moaning about chapter stops or chipboard boxes or missing features (for perfectly rational, understandable reasons). He's dialed it back a lot nowadays but he used to shame 'fanboys' for spending money on premium sets or importing which encouraged infighting and put him at loggerheads with a lot of the hardcore buyers.

At the end of the day if their business model doesn't revolve around the hardcore end of the market I'm not surprised he's putting his valuable time into sorting out new deals with supermarkets and cinemas rather than trying to get involved in the neverending wars about yellow subtitles versus white subtitles, or digipaks versus standard cases, or collector editions versus standards. It's not a good use of his time and we're very lucky that other reps are willing to brave the constant negative feedback!

(I also got yelled at by him once on Twitter for similar reasons millions and millions of years ago which I am still actively annoyed about, but if he does ever want to post I will avoid letting my personal feelings become involved.)

R
 
Rui said:
his favourite class of people are those who lap up cheap sets without moaning about chapter stops or chipboard boxes or missing features
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Oh, well. That'll be me off Jerome's Christmas card list, then! :p

Rui said:
we're very lucky that other reps are willing to brave the constant negative feedback!
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Hear, hear. Much respect to them for it.

Rui said:
I also got yelled at by him once on Twitter
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That's just unnecessary, surely. I guess that's Jerome off my Christmas card list, then!

Was it anything like his anti-Evangelion 3.33 Twitter rants, may I ask? Those were fierce.
 
Serial Experiments Lain

It's been a full week since I actually finished Lain and I'm still unsure how I feel about it as a series.

At times, it's fascinating, like an exploded view of transhumanism as seen through the eyes of a child. It's one of the most densely layered things I've ever watched, every scene meticulously constructed and loaded with potential inner meaning.

Equally though, I find it extremely hard work to get through. There seems to be simply so much going on that it becomes virtually impossible to take it all in and, while I know other people have had a very different experience of her, I never felt sufficiently invested in Lain as a character to really appreciate the gravity of what she is experiencing. I cared more about what was happening to Lain's sister and her friend Alice than I did about Lain herself (indeed I feel like a more conventional treatment of the same material would place Alice, not Lain as the main character). The final revelation is apparent at least a couple of episodes before the end of the series and, when the ending rolled around, my final thought was little more than "huh, that's that then".

Despite this though, it's a show that gets under your skin like few others. There's always a teasing sense that, if you just tilted your line of thinking a little more in the right direction, suddenly it would all open up before you and reveal all its secrets. Despite this being far from the first time I've attempted to watch the series, I've even come away thinking that I might enjoy it more on a subsequent viewing, now that I'm no longer under any impression that it might all make sense at the end...
 
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Psychic School Wars

This tries too hard to be a Shinkai film with all the shining visuals and focusing on teens in love with each other while also throwing in sci-fi elements (time travel, psychic powers and something regarding phones being bad for you :confused:). It's also one of those that tells instead of showing, you barely see any psychic powers actually being used apart from bubbles floating around a character and either lifting them up or hurting them?:confused:. Apparently the guy that time travels from the future can awaken psychic powers in others and which meant more of the teens at the school at psychic powers like telepathy but again this is never really shown just mentioned in conversation. The plot ends up being so generic including the love triangle/square that it becomes predictable. Many plot points aren't followed up either, why are phones suddenly banned at school, the main character has inventions in his bedroom but nothing is ever mentioned of this, his psychic powers were sealed away years ago (why?).

All in all the film is fine for something on in the background but don't expect anything to wow you. 5/10

Will put my review of SAO Ordinal Scale up tomorrow.
 
Hells (2008)

Having never had an official release outside of Japan, the so-called 'lost' Mad House film is not the easiest thing to see through legitimate means (Eng subs on the JPN BD is the only option), but it is worth seeking out. The tale of a teenage girl trying to escape from hell armed with little more than her relentless bonhomie, it's not without its problems (the second half is overlong and lays the cod philosophy on with a trowel), but it's got a wonderfully puckish sense of humour and it's loaded with interesting character art.

In terms of both visual style and setting, it also seems to have been a significant influence on Kill la Kill and would definitely be worthwhile for fans of the series.
 
Yurikuma Arashi (or it could be Yuri Kuma Arashi, I'm not sure and maybe it doesn't matter)

I really enjoyed this. I didn't know a lot about it in advance and it wasn't at all what I was expecting based on the information I had but even so, it was surprisingly fun. I'm not really sure how best to describe the show, it feels like any description wouldn't really do it justice. At a basic level, it's a story about people from different worlds trying to make a connection while dealing with pressure from society. It's also a show where cartoonish bears eat humans.

The show can be playfully silly while dealing with serious issues in a way that doesn't undermine either aspect. It can switch from black humour to horror to silliness to genuine emotion and make all of them work. There's plenty of material that's open to interpretation for hidden depths but the show could also just be enjoyed as a more straightforward story with strong characters. I had expected something that would be quite heavily philosophical but was surprised that the show was actually very accessible and free to be enjoyed in a variety of ways.

I've read several different descriptions of the show and it doesn't feel like any of them are wrong so much as that they're all right. I certainly don't think the show will work for everyone but I feel like everyone should give it a try and that the best way to do so would be to go in without any real expectations and just see what you think for yourself.
 
Neil.T said:
Indeed it matters not, for either way 'tis "Lesbian Bear Storm". ;)
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Does it still work as "Lily Bear Storm" or would that be written differently?

Also, puttng the first two words together could have some relevance (in the show, Yuri and Bear are kind of separate worlds/peoples and a Yuri-Bear could be a whole other thing). Most likely, I'm just overthinking it.
 
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