Rate the Last Anime You Watched Out of 10

That-Bastard-Bad-Guy-Aion said:
Kaiji: 8.5-9/10
Another psychological thriller and another example of Madhouse's excellence. My new #9 anime.

Kaiji differs from its psychological thriller brethren for one very simple, easy to understand reason: its titular lead isn't a perfect genius. In fact, he's a good-for-nothing bum who slashes wheels in his spare time. But all that changes when he gets tricked into going on what he thinks is a 'ship of hope' for those in debt. In reality, it's a ship for the scum of society to gamble against each other; the losers getting sold into slavery and losing it all. From this point onwards, Kaiji has to evolve as a person or die as he quickly learns about the true nature of friendship through betrayal after betrayal. The three games - two of which being no more than simple card games - provided thrill after thrill because of how superbly fear and the human mind were examined; the conversations being amazingly intense as the players tore into each other verbally. Much like with One Outs before it, all that let Kaiji down was its story ending incomplete; requiring a sequel.
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Agreed on all points.

The electrified girders was the highlight of the series for me. The fear and anguish was really intense. Hell, some of it even transferred over to me. That fear and tension was by far the thing that made me love this series, and I hope Madhouse can do it again if they ever get around to a second season.

Also, AAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU!!!
 
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If there's one thing Kaiji taught me, it's to NEVER trust fat people. People who can't help but chuck food into their mouths - even when they aren't hungry - WILL spend money on themselves, rather than others.

The 'electrified walk of death' was probably the best part of the drama, if only because it was the most simple yet frightening test of courage imaginable and didn't take as long as the card games to reach the end. Using the grim reaper to highlight how fear would take over the senses when one wrong step would lead to death was a very nice touch.

It'd be a shame if neither Kaiji or One Out get concluded in animated form. With Madhouse being as great as they are, I don't really want to switch over to the mangas. Going on how Gankutsuou sold in Japan, I'm doubtful two series without ANY women/pantsu would've sold well enough to warrant continuations, but I'll keep hoping...

Here are a few other ratings I'm too lazy to type about:

Coo, from the Distant Seas: 6.5/10
I'm in Love With My Little Sister: 8-8.5/10
Hataraki Man: 7.5/10
Himitsu: 7-7.5/10
Rainbow: 7.5/10
Highschool of the Dead: 7.5-8/10
Toradora: 7/10
Casshern Sins: 4.5-5/10 (WHY MADHOUSE!?)
Fantastic Children: 8-8.5/10
Beck: 7-7.5/10
 
White Album (s2) - 6/10

A frustrating series to watch because so much is ambiguous. I often complain about series that overindulge in inner monologue, but White Album is the exact opposite; a few on-screen subtitles aside, the viewer is not privy to the inner workings of the characters' minds. Thus their feelings and motivations must be interpreted through their actions, which often make little sense, and their dialogue, which is often maddeningly vague. This skirting round the issue/not expressing oneself clearly must be a Japanese thing.

And, predictably enough, this ambiguity extends to the show's ending. Those who desire a conclusive finale in their anime are advised to look elsewhere, as are those who thought School Days' Makoto got everything he deserved. White Album's complete bastard Touya gets off much lighter.

But even though I never felt as though I had a solid understand of what the characters were about, White Album is nonetheless an enjoyable soap opera, albeit one that meandered about too much in the second half. I had to see it through to the end but I can't say I cared a whole lot about any of the characters by the time the epilogue rolled around.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
And, predictably enough, this ambiguity extends to the show's ending. Those who desire a conclusive finale in their anime are advised to look elsewhere, as are those who thought School Days' Makoto got everything he deserved. White Album's complete bastard Touya gets off much lighter.
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I hear you. I never made it to the end of season two. There were some innovative touches in the direction throughout but after a while I just felt too disgusted by Touya to keep watching.

Earlier in the series his flirtations with Yayoi were more excusable and dramatically speaking more interesting, but it just became unbearable to watch after he uses Rina and Haruka - all while Yuki continues to love and trust him. Hell, while almost everything female in the show continues to inexplicably swoon over him.

It didn't exactly help that the story seemed to try and show him as some kindly troubled soul along with this when my sympathy had long since dried up and desolved into outright hatred. To my mind at least, the only truly redemptive ending would have been episode long beating for Touya at the finale.
 
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I did sympathize with Touya at beginning as he was clearly finding it difficult to cope with Yuki's absence, but as the series progressed that sympathy evaporated. As for why he was so popular with the ladies, I can only speculate that it was owing to his decidedly bishie-esque looks. It certainly wasn't his personality they were after.

As you didn't finish I am pleased to inform you that he did at least manage to keep his hands off the loli. Small mercies.
 
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fabricatedlunatic said:
As you didn't finish I am pleased to inform you that he did at least manage to keep his hands off the loli. Small mercies.
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I think it was my fear that the loli would be his next -ahem- goddess that made me stop watching. Some relief then at least, though small mercies indeed...
 
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Fullmetal Alchemist Conqueror of Shamblabla

7/10 It was better than I expected but I was mega pissed when it looked like it would end the same way the series did, fortunately it didn't or I'd have felt I'd wasted 100 minutes of my life. I mean more wasted than watching an anime film :p
 
Mobile Fighter G Gundam - 5/10

Hmmm... So I knew this wasn't going to be a true Gundam series, but I still wasn't prepared for what I saw:

Bizzare attack names (Burning Finger? Rose Bits?), Gundams shaped like Windmills, Viking Boats and general stereotypes like you wouldn't believe, and worst of all, the actual humans themselves had super powers, begging the question why are they fighting in Gundams? I mean if one fighter can miss a kick and cut a skyscraper IN HALF, then why use machines? If Domon and Master Asia can kick an entire skyscraper IN THE AIR then why bother??

Bah, the few good points were the character development between Domon, Master Asia and Rain, and the last eight episodes, which were at least "epic".
 
HdE said:
Ah, methinks you took G-Gundam a bit too seriously. :wink:
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Nah, if I took it seriously I would have watched it in Japanese with subs. I watched the English language version solely to have a laugh with it (which I did). I guess it's like I either want people with powers (ala Dragon Ball) or giant robots fighting, but both seemed... wrong?
 
Shigofumi: 7.5-8/10
The cute, loli character designs of God's mail deliverers was off-putting, before I started the series. But with it having 'psychological' as a genre, and PlayUSA having sold it for £17.99, I was willing to overlook that and give it my time. I mean, really: if God did pick delivery people from the deceased, who's to say he wouldn't only pick little girls? It's not as if the lead is a loli because anime fans love children, or anything!

Shigofumi blended together episodic stories about Japanese kids being pushed towards suicide by bullying and a main plot thread involving an eccentric author using his own daughter as a writing pad in order to release his anger over his wife leaving him; him seeing his wife in his daughter. So many kids died or had bad things happen to them at one school that I can't help but be thankful I wasn't born in Japan. Shoujo suggests rape is a common occurrence for high school girls as they fall in love and other stories suggest only isolation and suicide await school kids over there. Not nice!

The main, Madlax-esque split-personality issue was contrived; it never being explained how one half of a personality can go about leaving the main body and delivering mail for the dead. And there were a few moments in the episodic stories that made my eyebrows raise, such as a girl randomly - and stupidly - murdering the guy she'd been hanging around with, in an almost Higurashi manner. But, on the whole, the characterization was pretty good, and the episodic content succeeded at being meaningful; the episode about a video game artist having cancer impressing me, in particular. The main plot didn't really do a lot for me, and it irked me how the recurring characters and their love drama was never fully resolved, but it had just enough quality not to drag down the overall quality of the show.

Not the worst £17.99 I'll ever spend.


Yomigaeru Sora: Rescue Wings - 7.5/10
This is something you don't see every day in anime: an attempt at a realistic portrayal of the work members of disaster rescue squads go through. Where's the moe?

A good job was done of making the lead come across as very human, right from the get-go. Kazuhiro found himself flying a helicopter instead of the jet he'd always dreamed of, and he even had to move to some out of the way area - away from his long-time girlfriend from his high school days. Him struggling to come to terms with the realities of his new job, as well as adjusting to his new location and being away from his girlfriend, received lots of focus, early on, and that made Rescue Wings very easy to get into.

The rescue operations entertained without being overly melodramatic. There was a limit to what could be done in order for the drama to be exciting without coming across as fake, but I never found myself bored with the attempts at saving lives. From choices over whether to risk the lives of the crew in order to save civilians with the conditions harsh to races against time to save missing jet pilots - there was a decent amount of variation.

What let the series down, ultimately, was the complete lack of closure. Kazuhiro's girlfriend, Megumi, received a lot of time - even her work at a publishing company getting shown - and it left a bitter taste in my mouth for the main two to end the series separate, with no plans for marriage or the like. The best episode in the series for me was episode four; the episode being about the two meeting up for the first time since his move after she surprised him with a visit. His anger at her not turning off her phone; her tears over a Catcher in the Rye reference proving to be offensive after tragedy on his last mission; and him ending the episode by telling her that she's his 'Catcher' - great stuff. But for an episode like that - not covering rescuing at all; focusing 100% on romance - to be included and then the series not ending by having the main two advance their relationship...

Overall, a good series. Not as good as it could have been but different and mature enough to be worth investing time in. (And the CG helicopter looked nice!)
 
Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom - 9/10

I'm seriously starting to get sick of finding new favourites constantly AFTER using the MAL favourite glitch...

MAL tag: "Cal's transformation from loli to babe made child molesters cry. And EP25/Cal making me cry makes it a top tenner. Enthralling crime drama with no happy endings; ignoring the odd flaw - such as characters dying but not dying. Pimp Zwei & his hip-hop, FTW!"

Spoilerific EP26 post: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1 ... msg9723404

Why it's good to think like Maes and go young:

>>>

(They sure grow fast in two years, these young'uns...)

What the following hip-hop track for the lead's new stylin' image made me think of:

Track:
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YYVl5LYb11I?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YYVl5LYb11I?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

Thought:
z87511769.gif
 
Okay, now having subjected myself to Isshoni training.

It's like reused sequences the anime.

Think there's about 3 minutes of animation in the 25.
Posibly even less voice and music (it's very repetative BGM).
Voice consists of a short intro/shower scene (and end scenes), and counting from 1-24 . The counting is mostly reused (all the stuff during exercises is). The other audio (my god there's so much reuse I can actually talk about all of it) consists of her breathing 24 times in a slightly more strained way, the very bad BGM and *boing*.
1, *boing*, 2, *boing*... etc.
Then it a does version with no voice: *breath*, *boing*, *breath*, *boing*
Followed by her lying on bed counting to 12 in a relaxed way.
Animation is the intial 3 exectise shots (about 2mins long) being reused, sometimes with zoom to cover more bouncing. All repeteing the same 1-3 second loop 12 or 24 times to her count. 4 alternate outfits are used, along with different BG and posible lack of voice etc.
There's also the intro, and the bits at the end of the two "episodes". Everything after the first 10 mins is just counting, 14 minutes of counting from 1-12 or 1-24, it's bloody pschological torture!!

Animation quality isn't that bad, there's just so much reuse. And the plot *shudder*: Hinako used to be a normal 3D girl, but got sucked into a favourite anime of hers due to being too into it. She's now at risk of having said show (which she now stars in) axed due to getting a bit chubby. As a result she's doing daily exercises along with you. Self-insert at the absolute worst level.

I survived, just about.
Music: actively harmful -3
Plot: where am I.. urgh.. what the hell did I just do to myself -9
Charcter design: think the sporty one from Mitsudomoe but with melons. +1
Character development: "*boing* ,1, *boing*,2, *boing* ,3, *boing*,4, *boing*,5, *boing*,6, *boing*,7, *boing*,8, *boing*,9, *boing*,10, *boing*,11, *boing*,12" REPEAT enough times to cause halucinations -10
overall -7/10, yes that is a negative.
 
Get out of my thread if you can't be insightful, you useless hoebag. I don't agree with such postings unless you're rating Giant Robo.

(Watch the Midori Days' English VA randomness extra for comedy/understanding purposes.)

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4rwquLQZlXY?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4rwquLQZlXY?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
 
Street Fighter Alpha

The Street Fighter II movie was no masterpiece but it was better than this. Jeez I could not get into this movie at all, the fights were few and far between, the plot was nonsense (Dark hadou?). Perhaps it's the fact I'm not a Street Fighter fan, but that didn't stop me enjoying SFII.

The dub has some pretty competent voice work I must admit, though it's let down by the script, including this exchange at one point "That was the dark hadou, where did you learn that?" "From Dad, he used the dark hadou too" "He used the dark hadou?" I guess it's not unexpected coming from the creators of Resident "What IS this?" Evil.

I understand the difficulties of working a story into what is essentially a series of fights, but this movie has managed to do it pretty poorly. The story of Ryu's brother kills the plot dead and everything else seems peripheral. Not to mention Ryu struggling with the dark hadou is a massively boring plot thread because we know he'll overcome it. Not to mention there is a pretty negligible list of SF characters actually in this compared to SFII, which managed to include a pretty large number without it feeling obtrusive, allowing each character to have their moment.

Not to mention the fanservice is incredibly obvious, but it's not like "ooh girls in skimpy outfits" it's completely gratuitous and out of place crotch/ breast shots, the camera often moving to the female character's crotch for absolutely no reason. That kind of thing fits in some anime in the right places, but in this it just makes no sense in context of the scene. If Chun Li's onscreen you can guarantee a butt/ crotch shot is mere seconds away...not a bad idea for a drinking game actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqS9oHE ... re=related

seriously, from 6:30 onwards, count the number of times Ryu's talking to a disembodies crotch or butt.

There's also a pretty rapey part where a villain grabs both of Chun Li's legs and spreads them so she makes a Y shape.


Aside from the voicework (which wasn't perfect either) there is very little about this that grabs me. It's by no means "bad" but it's not good either, placing at a solid mediocre.

5/10
 
I'll be reviewing each movie at Scotland Loves Animation in Edinburgh.

Redline

Well, Johnathan Clements was right when he told us it would be chaos. To put things in perspective, Redline is Wacky Races on speed (pun partially intended). For me the most impressive aspect was the animation. There was so much going on and the animation quality doesn't let up once. The effects of things like nitro boosts and facial distortion from acceleration g force were pretty cool. It really did feel like things were going at "HOLY CRAP F*CK" speeds. Yeah the plot is pretty thin on the ground and is nothing more than an adult intergalactic Wacky Races, but that's fine. You only need to focus on the incredible action going on before you. It's an exhilarating movie.

7/10

One Piece - Strong World

I wasn't so keen on this. Maybe because I'm used to watching the TV episodes. It wasn't actually bad. The animation was pretty good, and the plot felt pretty solid. I don't know. Something just didn't sit right with me with this movie. Anyway, the plot is pretty solid like I said, and it doesn't feel dragged out or too short. It was just right for a feature length animation. The comedy was typical One Piece humour, which went down well with me and the audience. Due to the fact it's canon material, it's essential watching if you're a big One Piece fan. If you're an appreciator like me, then you can afford to skip it without missing much.

6/10
 
Professor Layton and The Eternal Diva

I admit to not having played the Prof Layton games (yet), so perhaps I was missing something when watching this movie. It was clear to me that this was aimed at children. I felt I was being patronised most of the time, such as Luke stating the extremely obvious to the Professor as if the Professor, someone who appears to be a genius, wouldn't notice. Perhaps that was more for children. Meh. Plot twists were pretty predictable and if they weren't they were not surprising. If it wasn't aimed at children then I could maybe think better of it.

3/10

Summer Wars

Summer Wars gave me a surprise. I had been hearing on the internet it's good. I liked The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, but nothing more. I had a feeling we'd get more of the same. I was wrong. Summer Wars far surpassed my expectations. The charm of the atmosphere it was makes this movie work so well. The feeling of a close knit family eating, laughing, drinking and crying together and coming together to help fight against an enemy is very heartwarming. You won't remember many names of the family, but that's the idea. That's the feeling Mamoru Hosoda wants you to feel. Despite that inability to name no more than a few, you still grow to love them anyway. It's great fun and it's my movie of the year. In fact it's one of the best movies I've seen in a couple of years.

10/10

Trigun - Badlands Rumble

Nostalgia time. It's been nearly 5 years since I saw Trigun. I saw the TV series back when I was just finding my feet as an anime appreciator. I think Trigun was responsible for shaping my taste in anime (I tend to prefer action comedy, hence my love of Slayers and Full Metal Panic). I have to say, despite being an obvious cash in, it's a very good cash in. Even the creators knew that. It's supposed to be a fun movie, and it really was. There were some golden comedy moments that show they haven't lost their touch. It's by far the most fun movie of Scotland Loves Animation.

7/10
 
Pleased to hear about Trigun. I knew it was just gonna be the same kind of standard and style as the Bebop movie as soon as I even heard thr rumours about it, but that's really all I want.

A feature length episode of Trigun, what could be better? :)

I also agree mostly with your Summer wars review. It's the atmosphere and overall warm feeling to film that really make it. It is pretty much by the numbers in terms of story, however the characters are so likeable, and the film won't fail to put a smile on your face.

So I would go for a 8/10 on that one.
 
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