Your anime viewing journal

Uptodate with Bleach again (ep197). Woop! Go Kenpachi!

Also Watched Episodes 1-14 of Berserk. Loving this anime so far. I feel the friendship between Griffith and Guts is a million miles away from Harry and Brandon. Can't wait to see what happens! ^____^
 
Basilisk disk 1 from the box set. It's like a cross between Romeo and Juliet and a grown up version of Naruto. It's quite fun so far but I just wonder how long it will last.
 
Rewatched 'Sword of the Stranger'. It was amazing back when I watched a low quality SD version, but it was something else watching a film with such fluid animation in HD. The added clarity and details, together with more vivid colours, made it quite an experience, even though I was watching it on my 19" monitor! I've upped my rating from 9/10 to 10/10.

I just had a look at the unwatched, 2 GB DVD-rip of the film (over double the size DVD-rips usually are) I have on my HDD and it doesn't compare. It looks great, don't get me wrong, but it's still vastly inferior visually and takes away from a film with stunning action.

Watching the film in HD has made me want to get a HDTV and PS3 for the Blu-ray. I've been saying it for years now, but I think next year will be the year when I move from SD to HD. Hopefully a highly rated 100hz 32" set will be selling for around £400 next year! :D
 
Fate/ Stay Night ep 24- A good ending, tied up most of the plot threads and only left some things hanging but i guess they weren't that important to the overall plot (like why Archer and Shirou shared abilities to an extent) Luckily the internet was able to explain that one :p Though it seems a similar ending to another Type-Moon adaption, Tsukihime with the way that the main character had to say goodbye to the woman he loved but at least Shirou and the type of guy he is was able to move forward and not be to depressed about it

All in all i felt it was a pretty good series probably rate it at 9.

Now to get back to Higurashi...

EDIT: Sorted out some spelling mistakes :roll:
 
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Hyper Police 1-3

An occasionally serious but mostly silly cop show about a bunch of anthropomorphic bounty hunters. Not enough catgirl fanservice but I hold out hope that later episodes will deliver on that count. But the star of the show thus far is undoubtedly the devious fox-girl Sakura, whose husky voice is the sexiest I've heard in a while.

Best moment so far was the laugh I got out of this fairly innocent line (God bless American English).
 
Rewatched Macross Zero in HD. I thought it looked lovely in SD, but it's a visual treat in HD. Like with Sword of the Stranger, the vivid colours get the most out of the upgrade: where as they looked simply nice before, everything looks far more eye-catching and beautiful with the improved colours. And of course, the added picture clarity was nice.

However, I think the difference I noticed might have something to do with the quality of the DVD encodes since the DVD-rips I watched were in .avi format and released by a group I'm not familiar with. I'm sure if KAA, the group famous for improving the video quality of DVD-rips, had released the DVD-rips then the difference wouldn't have been so great.

Speaking of KAA, there isn't much of a difference between their DVD-rip and the Thora Blu-ray rip of TGWLTT. The difference was so minor that I actually kept the KAA release and deleted the 720P version after watching it. Going on those releases, TGWLTT isn't worth buying in HD.
 
Watched the first Gundam movie. The first 30 minutes, which were pretty much repeated in Gundam SEED (like pretty much everything else), was enjoyable enough to sit through, but the rest of the film was boring. Maybe I expect too much from a shortened version of an anime series that came out 9 years before my birth?

There was little to no character development included, and when there were character development scenes they just seemed to have been randomly thrown in with no build-up. I ended the first film not caring at all about any the good guys, with only Char, the baddie who had a body double apear in Gundam SEED, catching my eye. Poor characters in a war story makes it hard to care about what's going on.

It just goes to show how standards have changed since 1979 and how much the same story has been repeated since them. As classic as the story is, it isn't able to hold its own in these day and age where standards are sky high and originality is at an all time low. Newer anime fans have seen the story of Gundam before even watching it.

On the plus side, the transfer is pretty good. Considering the film content is just parts of the TV series from 1979, it looks clear and the art doesn't cause my eyes any pain.
 
(Can't remember when I last posted what episode I was at) But, I watched 5cm per second. Which was excellent. The art was stunning, especially in HD. The storyline was sad at times, but the ending left me smiling. The characters were great, and so was character development, despite it being a series that lasts only 1 hour.

Also, I have watched 1-12 of Full metal panic! which has been very enjoyable. The mecha and action scenes are very well made, and nice and short; There is no stretched out filler fights which is nice. The characters are also interesting - Sousuke in particular.
 
Aion said:
There was little to no character development included, and when there were character development scenes they just seemed to have been randomly thrown in with no build-up. I ended the first film not caring at all about any the good guys, with only Char, the baddie who had a body double apear in Gundam SEED, catching my eye. Poor characters in a war story makes it hard to care about what's going on.

It just goes to show how standards have changed since 1979 and how much the same story has been repeated since them. As classic as the story is, it isn't able to hold its own in these day and age where standards are sky high and originality is at an all time low. Newer anime fans have seen the story of Gundam before even watching it.
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I half expected you would feel this way about MSG. It might not seem so special now, but you have to appreciate it for what it was back in the day. Anime had never really presented war in a manner which showed both sides and affected the characters like that before. The fact that you (as almost everybody does) picked out Char, an antogonist, as being as interesting character was more or less unheard of before Gundam - the villains (as well as the heroes, to a lesser extent) were all one-dimensional.

Back on track,
Martian Successor Nadesico: 1-5
Loving this, it's like a Gundam parody (the main character likes watching a mecha show when he's not piloting his own) with shades of Excel Saga.
 
It's very difficult for someone who got into anime in the 21st century to get a lot out of the special series that were original when they first came out. It's not fair to put series that stole and built on it against it, but I'm always left feeling that I've watched a better version already. It's nice to look into the past and see the beginnings of the Gundam series and "super robot" genre but it isn't a very rewarding experience. I'm just glad I'm managing to skip lots of the series and only see the best bits with these 3 films: it's bearable this way.

Even though I haven't watched Gundam SEED for years, I remember enough to know that Gundam SEED stole practically everything. The whole battle at the colony in Gundam SEED played out exactly like it did in the original, with the young hero ending up fighting to save the colony in a new Gundam. Then, once the story moved away from the colony, the inexperienced crew onboard the ship that escaped were forced to run from the Zeon armies trying to steal the new Gundam, eventually reaching Earth. But, as well as stealing, SEED added excellent characters that the original lacks, and a rivalry which resulted in one of the best mecha fights in all of anime halfway through.

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I watched Vol. 1 of xxxHolic just now. I expected it to be more mature and have more depth than the average anime, the cover artwork and name tricking me, but it's really just an unoriginal series with the usual slapstick humour, very little depth and a truly unique story involving high school kids and spirits, which none of us have ever seen before. And, to rub salt in the wounds, the "lanky" art doesn't work, the animation is fairly cheap (an example of which being the grey colours all background characters have) and the soundtrack is poor. I expected more from a series so highly rated on MAL.

Still, it is a decent 7/10(ish) sort of show that's watchable. I can't complain too much when I only paid £7 for a sealed set that contains Vol. 1-3. If only Manga Ent. had been so generous as to offer multi-DVD releases for Claymore, DtB and Hellsing Ultimate...
 
Completed watching Berserk last night. Loved the series but the ending left me wanting far more. I need more!! Please somebody tell me the story continues in the manga?
 
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