Rate the Last Anime You Watched Out of 10

[Geriatric hedgehog]

Acca 13

An interesting political intrigue romp around an environment that feels somewhat dystopian whilst also not really feeling dystopian.

Artwork was great, characters were on the whole pretty interesting, the story was a little predictable once I'd seen enough of the pieces falling into place.

If I had any complaints at all the pacing was a little slow for the main plot development. We often went off to go smoking or eating various baked goods.

The OP was really good I thought , a nice change from some of the more generic ones I've seen lately.

7/10

That is a great OP and the show sounds interesting, will have to try and bump it up the watchlist now!

Koikimo (It's Disgusting to Call this Love)

....it ends up being a surprisingly innocent and endearing story rather than the creepy grooming fantasy that you might fear by looking at the concept.

I've been watching Higehiro which has, as far as I've seen, done a pretty good job of making a good drama with the age-gap premise without having descended into creepy territory (at least not in the first seven episodes; am very much hoping it stays that way heh). Was put off Koikimo based on reviews implying it was creepy pervy, but may give it a chance if you say it does well without going down that road.

 

[Lordhippos]

SAO Season 3 + 4 + Ordinal Scale movie

I'm not going to spend a long time writing anything deep or meaningful about SAO here, I'm sure most of you have seen it.

The first season was better than I thought it would be (and is still probably the best narratively), the 2nd season wasn't bad, and Ordinal scale, Season 3, Season 4 really kicked the artwork up a notch.

SAO is not without it's problems, it's got a lot of problems, but sometimes it does things well, and on the whole I enjoyed it, and after all that is one of the main reasons I watch anime, not necessarily because it's got the deepest or most logical story, but sometimes I just want to enjoy the show even if flawed.

Season 3 and 4 in particular were fairly polarising at times, we had some absolutely amazing artwork that wouldn't look out of place in Fate/Zero, and other times we have ridiculous fan service, or out of place gore. The underworld was beautifully rendered and the scenery and characters never looked so good.

Based on all of SAO to date, I'd give it an average of:

7/10

three things I particularly value in a story: a beginning, a middle, and an end

This is more rare than common, I concur a good completed story is well worth being a point of consideration!

That is a great OP and the show sounds interesting, will have to try and bump it up the watchlist now!

It's definitely worth a go, and is only 12 episodes so not a long commit

 

[Geriatric hedgehog]

SAO is not without it's problems, it's got a lot of problems, but sometimes it does things well, and on the whole I enjoyed it, and after all that is one of the main reasons I watch anime, not necessarily because it's got the deepest or most logical story, but sometimes I just want to enjoy the show even if flawed.

Having just finished watching season 1 of SAO to see what all the fuss is about, I am on the same page as you here. Flawed but enjoyable overall. Despite my getting fairly irritated at how hard it works on wish fulfillment, I did find it & most of the characters rather endearing. On to the next few seasons now heh.

 

[Lordhippos]

Yep it's not perfect but I found it an enjoyable watch on the whole

Some wtf moments (good and bad) but that's just the way it is I suppose!

 

[ActionFaust]

SAO Season 3 + 4 + Ordinal Scale movie

Funny you compare the art to Fate/Zero as while compositing director Kentaro Waki didn't work on that show he did work on GOD EATER, another ufotable series. His style is definitely comparable to what you'd expect from a ufotable series and it's amazing how much effort he put into SAO Ordinal Scale and Alicization. Pair that with amazing animators like Yoshihiro Kanno and you have one of the best looking shows of recent years.

While I've yet to watch SAO (despite owning S2 and Ordinal Scale), I'm definitely gonna get around to it sometime. Definitely one of those series that has plenty of divided opinion but I'll try to keep an open mind about it. A flawed but enjoyable series is still enjoyable.

 

[WMD]

I've really enjoyed SAO so far. Only seen the AL released stuff. Years ago some random at comic con told me not to watch it as he was having a go at his mate for checking out SAO figures so it took me a while to start watching it but I really dont see why anyone would hate it enough to tell others to avoid it. Maybe its because I like it I see it that way.

Anyway if you havent seen it definitely check out the Gun Gale Online spin off show. It's a good, short, complete story with it's own cast and is worth your time if you enjoy the franchise.

 

[ActionFaust]

I've really enjoyed SAO so far. Only seen the AL released stuff. Years ago some random at comic con told me not to watch it as he was having a go at his mate for checking out SAO figures so it took me a while to start watching it but I really dont see why anyone would hate it enough to tell others to avoid it. Maybe its because I like it I see it that way.

Anyway if you havent seen it definitely check out the Gun Gale Online spin off show. It's a good, short, complete story with it's own cast and is worth your time if you enjoy the franchise.

Yeah Gun Gale Online is the only SAO related series I've watched. Definitely one of my favourite series from the year it aired. An easy series to get into without needing to watch the rest of the franchise. The writer of the GGO light novels Keichi Sigasawa (also known for Kino's Journey) is a big gun nerd so it makes sense he'd write GGO lol

 

[RadFemHedonist]

Anonymous Noise - So this was quite good? I saw the first few episodes years ago subbed, but watched in English this time, (though they didn't dub the songs, probably wise in this case). I think this is an interesting series with some really great music in it and a chic sense of style, but as with many of these 1-cour glorified source material adverts, I'd probably prefer to read the 18 volume manga that I assume the anime only adapts a small part of, than watch the anime again. I am underselling it a bit tbf I do think a lot of people would find it worth watching once (obviously as it's a series about making music it benefits from having audio), and it does have something of a unique feel, but I think I'll sell it now I've watched it once all the way through and try to seek out the manga at some point in the future. 7/10.

 

[WMD]

The writer of the GGO light novels Keichi Sigasawa (also known for Kino's Journey) is a big gun nerd so it makes sense he'd write GGO lol

Oh interesting. I only watched the Kino's Journey anime recently and it was excellent so that's good to know.

Anonymous Noise - So this was quite good?

Haha. I really liked it but I have a soft spot for music anime (K-on! is one of the greatest things ever created as far as I'm concerned). Amd I really liked the more dramatic take here.

 

[RadFemHedonist]

Oh interesting. I only watched the Kino's Journey anime recently and it was excellent so that's good to know.


Haha. I really liked it but I have a soft spot for music anime (K-on! is one of the greatest things ever created as far as I'm concerned). Amd I really liked the more dramatic take here.

I loved the earlier Kino's Journey anime series and quite enjoyed the more recent one, the LNs are one of my most wanted unlicensed titles of all time.

I did like it quite a bit and looking at my short review I didn't mention how much I liked Nino and Yuzu (tbh wasn't overly keen on Momo in the anime maybe he comes across better in the manga), but FWIW I did like the character dynamics and the dramatic feel. I think I'm giving off the impression that I liked it less than I did maybe as honestly if I didn't like it I wouldn't have finished it (that's my general policy on all media - life's too short for sitting through an entire cour or two of something I really don't like when I don't have to!) It's just that I suspect the manga's probably better and more satisfying as one assumes it tells a complete story I really like K-On! as well, I got the most recent US BD release for the best picture and sound quality and it's generally very cute and endearing Have you seen Beck or Nodame Cantabile? Two of the best music anime out there IMO

 

[WMD]

Have you seen Beck or Nodame Cantabile? Two of the best music anime out there IMO

I haven't seen Nodame but I have seen Beck. I enjoyed Beck but didnt love it to be honest. It was a touch too slow. I remember thinking at the time that probably would've loved it when it first came out but I was pretty late coming to it and the pace of the show seemed so slow by then compared to other newer shows. I preferred something like Kids on the Slope a lot more. I imagine I'd be a lot more into it if I ever rewatched it now knowing what I'd be getting in for.

 

[Dai]

Witchblade

The Witchblade anime is a story with an identity crisis. This might not be apparent from the early episodes, which follow a monster-of-the-week action formula. In order to make enough money to stay with her daughter, homeless young mother Masane does cleanup work for a shady weapons manufacturer, transforming into her hyper-sexualised Witchblade alter ego to dispatch the company's escaped cybernetic weapons, a series of utterly bizarre creations that look like something out of a Shinya Tsukamoto movie.

What you might not expect from this show at a glance is how it develops later. The weird cyborgs become less frequent around the halfway point (though there's still plenty of action), and instead we have an ongoing story that focuses on different facets of parent/child relationships. It's here that the identity crisis becomes a problem though, as the show tugs at the heartstrings while simultaneously serving up fan service shots of Masane fighting with her bare ass on display. Despite that, there's surprising emotional weight in the latter part of the story, especially at the end. This is that rare anime that has adult characters coping with adult problems, and does so well, for the most part.

Just as the story takes a while to get into its groove, so too does the artwork. Some of the animators struggle with the stylised female designs in early episodes, frequently going off-model. Fortunately this gets ironed out for the most part by the second half, but watching this show again after so long made me remember how normal it used to be for in-series art to fall woefully short of the original designs, and how impressive it is that it's become less of a problem over the last decade (pandemic issues aside).

For a show with so much action, the animation and fight choreography are serviceable, at best. Much as I enjoy watching sexy ladies fighting in biomechanical underwear, it's the scenes on either side of the action that made this show exceed my expectations.

8/10

 

[RadFemHedonist]

I remember enjoying the first half of Witchblade years ago (mostly for the parent-child relationship stuff you talked about), I think I'll try and pick up one of the US BD releases and watch the whole thing

 

[Dai]

Appleseed (1988)

I dug out my old VHS copy for this one. Manga Video promoted the hell out of this OAV circa 1995, and what a disappointment it was. I'd only been watching anime for a couple of years at that point, and every new tape I bought felt like a revelation, something that immersed me and made me rewatch it dozens of times. Until this one. It's not that the magic of being a freshly-minted otaku had worn off by that point; this OAV is just that bland.

It certainly doesn't look that way in trailers, since the one thing it has going for it is its technically impressive action animation. The trouble is that this one-hour OAV feels like a bunch of clips from a two-hour movie. All the big action scenes are there, but everything inbetween gets rushed through in a rote and dull fashion, like it bored the staff as much as this viewer. For example, a major part of the story is meant to be the two lead cops tracking down a terrorist, but their entire investigation is reduced to a brief montage of random shoot-outs in the middle. The story is too impatient to get to the next action scene, and so almost all the characters are reduced to empty shells.

The one character who fares better is the cop-turned-revolutionary who's one of the two main villains. Many of his grievances against the biodroid-controlled city seem valid, and the dystopian future he's trying to prevent seems like a legitimate threat, to the extent that other characters' off-hand dismissal of these problems feel like a strawman argument. Unfortunately, the OAV doesn't have time to delve into the moral grey areas here, as that would get in the way of the next robot shoot-out. Even the action starts to feel unfocused towards the end, with one of the villains going on a rampage that has no dramatic weight, serves no obvious purpose, and ends with a whimper. The same problem faces the OAV as a whole, the climax sputtering out in such an unsatisfying way that I swore I zoned out and missed something the first time.

5/10

 

[Professor Irony]

It’s probably the least of that run of Shirow adaptations from the mid-‘80s, but I remember quite liking Appleseed ‘88 - it didn’t stand out much, but I thought it was okay as an undemanding thriller. Saying that, I was 11 when I first saw it though, and I don’t know how I’d feel about it now...

 

[RadFemHedonist]

I haven't seen Nodame but I have seen Beck. I enjoyed Beck but didnt love it to be honest. It was a touch too slow. I remember thinking at the time that probably would've loved it when it first came out but I was pretty late coming to it and the pace of the show seemed so slow by then compared to other newer shows. I preferred something like Kids on the Slope a lot more. I imagine I'd be a lot more into it if I ever rewatched it now knowing what I'd be getting in for.

That's fair re: Beck, I loved Kids on the Slope too I find it so sad that NC has no English localized BD release

 

[Girls with Guns]

Have you seen Beck or Nodame Cantabile? Two of the best music anime out there IMO

Oh wow, I SO much loved Nodame Cantabile, especially the Japanese voice actor for Nodame. The quirky sounds she makes - all of her exasperated grunts and groans and such - are an absolute treat. So endearing!

I wanted to pickup the TV series DVD from Siren Visual, but waited too long and missed the chance to get it. I do have all of the 24-episode TV series, the 11-episode Paris Hen, the 12-episode Finale, and the live action movie saved on my PC, until any of it ever gets a release on disc.

OK, with the talk about this it finally got to me; I just found a new, unopened R4 Siren DVD for the original series from Australian seller on eBay, and once I saw it is NTSC and also has an English dub track, I just bought it right then and there - I really need to show that series to the neighbor girl, even if I have to show it to her in English, lol.

Another favorite music anime of mine (besides Your Lie In April) is La Cordo d'Oro: Primo Passo. For all you violin fans - but also only on DVD.

 

[RadFemHedonist]

Oh wow, I SO much loved Nodame Cantabile, especially the Japanese voice actor for Nodame. The quirky sounds she makes - all of her exasperated grunts and groans and such - are an absolute treat. So endearing!

I wanted to pickup the TV series DVD from Siren Visual, but waited too long and missed the chance to get it. I do have all of the 24-episode TV series, the 11-episode Paris Hen, the 12-episode Finale, and the live action movie saved on my PC, until any of it ever gets a release on disc.

OK, with the talk about this it finally got to me; I just found a new, unopened R4 Siren DVD for the original series from Australian seller on eBay, and once I saw it is NTSC and also has an English dub track, I just bought it right then and there - I really need to show that series to the neighbor girl, even if I have to show it to her in English, lol.

Another favorite music anime of mine (besides Your Lie In April) is La Cordo d'Oro: Primo Passo. For all you violin fans - but also only on DVD.

I wasn't as keen on Your Lie In April (it wasn't bad but I thought the hype surrounding it was a tad excessive), but I would like to see La Cordo d'Oro And I agree, Nodame's Japanese VA is utterly charming and hilarious

 

[Girls with Guns]

La Cordo d'Oro is a lighter story with some humor in it as well, and also has a little magical critter (I really hate that trope in anime, oh well), but it does have it's share of serious drama and the music performances are pretty good. I would highly recommend it! There is also a La Cordo d'Oro: Blue Sky anime which is on Blu-ray here but I didn't even make it through the first episode, it came across to me as a very poor rehash of the original series. I guess I'll have to finish it sometime to see if gets any better.

OH, and I recently picked up Kono Oto Tomare! Sound of Life on Blu-ray, that one's a pretty awesome instrumental performance series featuring the Japanese Koto.

 

[Geriatric hedgehog]

That's fair re: Beck, I loved Kids on the Slope too I find it so sad that NC has no English localized BD release

Kids on the slope has great music, unsurprisingly given Yoko Kano was involved.

I always wanted to watch Nodame Cantibile, after reading about it following my watch of the fantastic Your Lie in April (no hype for me, that one is my second favourite of all time after Evangelion). So it never had an English release? No wonder I couldn't find it anywhere to buy or stream, what an absolute shame...