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Kill La Kill Episode 20

Buzz201 said:
Bakemonogatari - Episode 01
I was told that if I wanted to understand Monogatari I should watch some. Whoever said that was wrong...
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I watched the first episode years ago back when AOA was about to release a limited edition of it. After watching the first episode I decided not to buy it and I have not watched any more of it (or the later series) since.
 
Aura Battler Dunbine - Episode 1

I've seen this once about 7 years ago, so about time I watched again as part of my revisit of all the 80's mecha classics. I really do like the insectoid mecha designs in Dunbine.
 
With Monogatari it's probably worth sticking things out until the end of the first arc if possible, simply because it's told in short, mostly self-contained stories and the 'set up' for the eventual ending isn't necessarily the most interesting part. When I watched Owarimonogatari (the latest adaptation) a couple of days ago, I felt quite lukewarm about it at the beginning but because it was presented as a double episode which told a complete story, I ended up really enjoying it. It's obviously not going to appeal to everyone, though, and if the art or storytelling styles annoy you it's not going to get much better as the series progresses.

It's funny how the viewing experience can greatly affect things. With Bakemonogatari I purchased the unsubtitled BDs as a first viewing experience since I was confident it was something I should watch, and if I'm honest the amount of money I spent probably persuaded me to give it more of a chance than I ordinarily might have. Whereas viewing something mediocre via a poor quality stream is the nail in the coffin if the show itself can't immediately grab me.

R
 
What would you consider to be the arc? I meant to watch the first two episodes of Bakemonogatari (it's a two-parter) but ran out of time. I think the stylisation would be less annoying now I know what to expect.

I'm not a PQ nut, it's just there's a lot of on-screen text. Clearly you aren't supposed to read it all, but even if I wanted to I couldn't, because the subtitles weren't sharp enough to read in a flash. In the future, I'd probably seek out a HD source, Daisuki seems to have it in the US, so they'll do.
 
Rui said:
With Monogatari it's probably worth sticking things out until the end of the first arc if possible, simply because it's told in short, mostly self-contained stories and the 'set up' for the eventual ending isn't necessarily the most interesting part. When I watched Owarimonogatari (the latest adaptation) a couple of days ago, I felt quite lukewarm about it at the beginning but because it was presented as a double episode which told a complete story, I ended up really enjoying it. It's obviously not going to appeal to everyone, though, and if the art or storytelling styles annoy you it's not going to get much better as the series progresses.

It's funny how the viewing experience can greatly affect things. With Bakemonogatari I purchased the unsubtitled BDs as a first viewing experience since I was confident it was something I should watch, and if I'm honest the amount of money I spent probably persuaded me to give it more of a chance than I ordinarily might have. Whereas viewing something mediocre via a poor quality stream is the nail in the coffin if the show itself can't immediately grab me.

R
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It's the sort of show that needs to be watched on blu ray because of how awesome it looks.
 
black1blade said:
It's the sort of show that needs to be watched on blu ray because of how awesome it looks.
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Because you know, I can afford to toss away £45 on a show that I had never seen before and may or may not like, and the best, most accurate description anyone could provide of it was "it's indescribable, you have to watch it to understand".

Forgive me for not shooting MVMs ear off to buy a copy :p
 
Buzz201 said:
black1blade said:
It's the sort of show that needs to be watched on blu ray because of how awesome it looks.
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Because you know, I can afford to toss away £45 on a show that I had never seen before and may or may not like, and the best, most accurate description anyone could provide of it was "it's indescribable, you have to watch it to understand".

Forgive me for not shooting MVMs ear off to buy a copy :p
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Shaft being Shaft they do have a tendency to rework some of the visuals for their home video releases. That being said, in no way does it change the nature of the show so it's definitely not needed, but merely a bonus. I don't blind buy either so I understand your position.
 
BlackStrat said:
Shaft being Shaft they do have a tendency to rework some of the visuals for their home video releases. That being said, in no way does it change the nature of the show so it's definitely not needed, but merely a bonus. I don't blind buy either so I understand your position.
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I blind buy quite a bit, some of my best purchases are blind buys. The fact not even fans of the should could describe it, without resorting to a list of pretentious genres, some of which I had to google, is why I decided to watch it first. That, and it's quite expensive for 15 episodes.
 
It's too bad, Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari on Blu Ray had a bizarre price crash back in July. I got both for about £15 each.

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Would have been a great opportunity to blind buy.
 
£38 is still probably a little too much for me at the moment for only 15 episodes. Maybe I'll watch some more and consider asking for it at Christmas.
 
Mr. Osomatsu/Osomatsu-san Episode 1.

I did enjoy this a fair bit. It's quite a strange comedy and it's clearly happy to break the fourth wall. The parodies were quite fun and I do like the kind of comedy where you have one "straight man" reacting (quite strongly, in this case) to the over the top silliness going on (if you don't like that kind of thing then it's unlikely you'll enjoy this).

It's tough to say what it'll be like going forward, it looks like most of this first episode was a one off joke and the rest will be different. I guess it's going to be a sketch comedy and the characters will probably be fairly consistent so it could work out. I have to admit, I did quite like the end of the episode (where it reverted to what I guess will be the usual style) and particularly the next episode preview.

Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note Episode 1.

It's a short anime (just under 10 minutes, I think) that promises to be about a detective team solving "exciting cases". The team isn't officially established by the end of the first episode but they do kind of get their first case (which presumably results in the idea of continuing to do investigations), it's the "exciting case" of a missing mountain bike (owned by one of the team members). It might be fun if this is one of those anime that suddenly turns very serious, with the search for the bike leading to some grizzly murders or something. I doubt that'll happen though, I'm expecting more down to earth antics and life lessons.

I suspect I enjoyed this more than I should have, I don't think it's self-aware and I wasn't taking it entirely seriously so that may have made it more fun. Some of the subjects that Osomatsu-san was having fun with seem to be played straight here, with a plain unremarkable girl suddenly finding herself having to spend time with four popular boys that she just recently got a bad impression of. Of course, most people don't know what the boys are really like and I'm sure our heroine will get to know them better (well, she already does).

The bit about the heroine not having friends was interesting. It seems that she doesn't have friends because she doesn't want to stand out but she doesn't want to pretend to fit in either. I guess the lesson will be that she shouldn't be afraid to be herself and that there will be people who like her for who she is. I'd usually expect at least one wacky friend that manages to see past her distant attitude, though I suppose the team will be those friends.

I mostly gave this one a go because the main character's name is Aya Tachibana, which is the same as the penname of Sae from Hidamari Sketch. I'll watch the next episode at least (I've got to know what happened to that bike), although I don't know if I'll keep up with it or not. It does seem to be aimed squarely at children. Still, some of the humour had potential and I like that Aya seems to be secretly sarcastic so you never know.

Hakone-chan/Onsen Yousei Hakone-chan Episode 1.

Another short, around three and a half minutes. It's tough to judge short shows, it was somewhat entertaining but there wasn't much to it and even at just over three minutes it felt like there was too much downtime (though I find that's often the case with short shows). Still, it looks like it might be some light and simple fun so I'll probably stick with it for now.
 
So over the past few days i've had the opportunity to check out 3 autumn shows, with gundam my next target.

One-Punch man 1 - I have a funny feeling we have our autumn success show here. It's got an absolutely superb first episode, just what i was hoping for after being a fan of the manga for so long. The animation is spot on, flowing amazingly well and the transition from comedy to action is as it should be. Watch this show on daisuki, it's enough of a reason to use the service alone.

Asterisk War 1 - Fairly atypical light novel adaptation with a hero who's more than meets the eye and a fire tempered female lead. It's not bad at all, it just does nothing special. there is issues here and there for pacing and a little too much focus on trying to be ecchi than it needs to be. I'd maybe check out episode 2, but not sure.

Lance n Masques 1 - I should've known this wasn't for me, but my girlfriend wanted to check it out, and so we did. We didn't get half way before we turned it off. It's pretty damned awful. animation is so budgeted too. The story is all over the place, the characters do nothing, it's disjointed in what is going on. It's just badly made. I've never dropped a series before half way through an episode, but this is the first time. Sure, i already knew i wasn't the targeted audience for this, but i can't even imagine there is an audience that would want to watch this all the way through. it's blah =/
 
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex (Dubbed)-Episode 1

I good start. I already like this show way better than the movie if this first episode is anything to go by. A lot simpler in terms of story (Although I can't really judge that yet as I haven't seen a Complex episode, this first one was Stand Alone) and by proxy far simpler to understand. A nice feature on the DVD of the show is each episode has a Synopsis included on disc so if the story does get a little complicated or hard to follow or you just need a quick reminder of what happened you can just read the summary to get a better idea of what's going on. Not really handy here since this first episode was quite a simple one but it's nice to know it's there. Animation is, obviously, far below the original film which looked gorgeous but this still looked decent barring that horrendous PS1-esque OP. Overall, this first episode is a good setup episode and I'm looking forward to start the main arc of the show.

Something a little off topic but I started my first fulltime job last Monday and man, the amount of anime I have watched has significantly dropped. It's going to take forever to get through this series haha.
 
Beautiful Bones episode 1 - Really, really excited to see the rest of this series after the opening episode. I like the dynamic between the two characters and the fact Sakurako has a fiancé means that Shotaro isn't interested in a romantic relationship with her, which honestly just makes it better because you know well ahead of time it's probably not going to do that.

Good opening, I can't wait to see it build on the ideas it has placed in front of us so far.
 
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