Your anime viewing journal

Girls wIth Guns said:
I'm still planning to get the JP re-release, just because of the benefits of BD over DVD media in general, even if the PQ is not an improvement. I do own the nice US DVD art box set with all the children on it.
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I'd honestly love to pick up the initial BD Box because goddamn if that box isn't classy as all get out.

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Neil.T said:
I've just been watching some Haibane Renmei DVD extras. There was an interview with producer Yasuyuki Ueda, and this is what he had to say about the series:

"This story is a little unusual: it has very few elements that are intended to hype up the viewers' emotions. Instead, by seeing the characters go through whatever they do, the viewers can reflect on their own experiences and feel something."
​
He's bang-on there, don't you think?
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I'd say that's a great way to describe HR, which I also discovered via MVM's dotw. Even with the meh looking dvds it was certainly an experience. Yoshitoshi ABe' artwork and character design is distinct and I quite like it, and want to check out more of his projects (I'm watching Lain soon and I took that Texhnolyze challenge a while back.)
 
How to keep a Mummy episode 2 Still cute, and it's keeping me interested enough to keep watching.

Miss Koizumi loves Ramen Noodles episode 3 More food porn. Nice to see Koizumi grow as a character.

Violet Evergarden episode 2 Decent, and wonderfully animated, though how many emotionally distant/naive female anime characters have we seen by now? I'm hoping they do something different with this trope within the narrative.

Yuru Camp episode 3 More laid back anime viewing, after the day I've had this is most welcome.

Scrapped Princess episodes 22-24 (Complete. It's nice to see a good adventure story with a decent cast and ideas. The story, though episodic early on, manages to develop nicely, though the amnesia trope being thrown in kind of bugs me since it's predictable as to what will happen-it sort of dragged my rating of the series down a notch because of this. That being said I'm a sucker for fantasy and this series satisfied me, I'm glad Funimation gave it another chance on Blu Ray.) 3.5/5
 
HWR said:
Violet Evergarden episode 2 Decent, and wonderfully animated, though how many emotionally distant/naive female anime characters have we seen by now? I'm hoping they do something different with this trope within the narrative.
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Reading the MAL comments for the episode it seems that this part of her training is skipped over in the novel and we pick up when she is competent at it. So hopefully it moves on quickly. Although maybe they are planning on a second season and want to string this part out.
 
D1tchd1gger said:
Reading the MAL comments for the episode it seems that this part of her training is skipped over in the novel and we pick up when she is competent at it. So hopefully it moves on quickly. Although maybe they are planning on a second season and want to string this part out.
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Ah that's interesting. I hope they do something interesting with the concept, since it has some potential.
 
HWR said:
Ah that's interesting. I hope they do something interesting with the concept, since it has some potential.
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From where they are with her at the moment, they've obviously got to show some "growth" as at the moment she's totally unsuited to the job. I would like to see some more flashback stuff as she was only with the Major 4 years if I remember correctly, so she was obviously mistreated/not taught anything before that and then became a bad ass (that could also read/write) pretty quickly from the mess that she was.
 
Violent Soundgarden ep2

Thinking I might switch to the dub for the next one - that joke about Hodgkins's first name felt quite garbled in the sub script. I noticed a few little things like that with Netflix's subs for Devilman Crybaby too.

This is also the first I've noticed that you can't directly screengrab from Netflix. GG, guys.
 
Professor Irony said:
Violent Soundgarden ep2

Thinking I might switch to the dub for the next one - that joke about Hodgkins's first name felt quite garbled in the sub script. I noticed a few little things like that with Netflix's subs for Devilman Crybaby too.

This is also the first I've noticed that you can't directly screengrab from Netflix. GG, guys.
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The one about him calling out another girls name in bed? Didn't really make sense in the dub (just watching back now, probably more sense than the subs though) and there were some points when I thought of switching to subs because they didn't make the VO loud enough to hear it over the music!

Screenshots blocked on Phone app and PS4 as well BTW.
 
D1tchd1gger said:
The one about him calling out another girls name in bed? Didn't really make sense in the dub (just watching back now, probably more sense than the subs though) and there were some points when I thought of switching to subs because they didn't make the VO loud enough to hear it over the music!

Screenshots blocked on Phone app and PS4 as well BTW.
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That's the one, yeah. I could be completely wrong, but I thought it was supposed to be that Hodgkins's first name is 'Claudia' because his parents wanted a girl, and Cattelya thought it was weird to be shouting that when they were having sex. Honestly though, your guess is as good as mine :/
 
Apparently it ranking quite low with Japanese fans, but still riding the hype train on MAL. It was nearly at 9 before release, down to 8.66 now, but still the front runner by a long way in terms of new IPs.

Probably about 4th or 5th at the moment for me and that's just down to the visuals (story has potential and nothing more at the moment)
Spoilery-ish:
 
D1tchd1gger said:
Apparently it ranking quite low with Japanese fans
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I've been reading Japanese comments on the show, and they are pretty brutal. Most say while the show looks good its carried by the usage of Sakuga, and the plot is uninteresting, and at worst confusing (I think this is over certain events, and how things have been described/layed out).

The story being the issue is the most prevalent complaint I can find on Japanese sites.

There were concerns over the score of the show as well. While the score is good according to fans the score doesn't match properly with certain events especially in episode 1.

Overal it seems to be getting a much more negative opinion in Japanese circles compared to English ones.
 
I feel like I'm the only one who dislikes the constant filters in Violet Evergarden. Some scenes it works but most of the time it just feels unnecessary.
Maybe I'm too used to the vibrant colours of Free! and Hyouka but I really didn't like the constant foggy look much.

Comparisons with filters removed

I know it's silly to criticize this shows visuals of all things but it has everything to look incredible (And it does at times) so it just disappoints me to see it made worse by unnecessary fluff that doesn't really need to be there. I just found it a bit frustrating and also distracting tbh.
 
Azar said:
I feel like I'm the only one who dislikes the constant filters in Violet Evergarden. Some scenes it works but most of the time it just feels unnecessary.
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It wasn't something I'd particularly noticed while watching the show, but I see what you're getting at. Generally, I don't mind them adding filters to things, as it breaks down that very obviously digital look that used to be common in the 2000s and anime studios seem to be getting much better at film stock emulation, but I dunno. In this case it does look a lot like all they've done is turn up the bloom and call it a day.
 
Those "corrections" don't show off how it actually looks without filters though, they're just somewhat shoddy attempts at removing them which has resulted in over-saturated colors and some crush in the darker areas.

Look at the skin tones in this "correction" for example, it has completely thrown them off
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HWR said:
Yoshitoshi ABe's artwork and character design is distinct and I quite like it, and want to check out more of his projects (I'm watching Lain soon and I took that Texhnolyze challenge a while back.)
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I really hope you'll enjoy Lain. If you could even get something out of Texhnolyze, you're bound to. Surely...?


So, as I ordered the Girls und Panzer bundle in MVM's Xmas sale, it's about time to start my...
'GIRLS UND PANZER MARATHON', beginning with:
Girls und Panzer (eps 1–3)
Mako is already my favourite. (Obviously.)
 
Lambadelta said:
I've been reading Japanese comments on the show, and they are pretty brutal. Most say while the show looks good its carried by the usage of Sakuga, and the plot is uninteresting, and at worst confusing (I think this is over certain events, and how things have been described/layed out).

The story being the issue is the most prevalent complaint I can find on Japanese sites.

There were concerns over the score of the show as well. While the score is good according to fans the score doesn't match properly with certain events especially in episode 1.

Overal it seems to be getting a much more negative opinion in Japanese circles compared to English ones.
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Honestly I am kind of not surprised, think westerners have just got swallowed up in the hype from what I have seen people just seem to be praising the technical aspects, I do the think these opening two episodes haven't done a good job at all for laying out the story in an engaging maner it is as if we are missing a whole cour and we jumped into the second half, these teases aren't doing for me, like the end of episode 2 when they were drinking they were talking about stuff like we as audience know what they are talking about and then they ended it with the "reveal" Gilbert was decent or whatever, what am I supposed to feel? I don't know who the hell Gilbert is or who the hell this guy is and they tried to play it as this shocking reveal. Oh wow I almost fell off my bed in shock!

A question to ponder if this wasn't KyoAni would this show be even as hyped as it was? Say if A-1 pictures or someone did it, it would probably just be buried with the rest of the season.

The show is too beautiful and I will stick with it, but I do hope the story gets better.
 
Attempted to watch empire of corpses, had to turn it off after a while, just couldn’t engage with it which left me frankly, well, bored. Don’t think I was in the best frame of mind for watching things so will likely give it another go at some point but it’s getting relegated to the bottom of the pile.
 
Phobos said:
Attempted to watch empire of corpses, had to turn it off after a while, just couldn’t engage with it which left me frankly, well, bored. Don’t think I was in the best frame of mind for watching things so will likely give it another go at some point but it’s getting relegated to the bottom of the pile.
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It all goes horribly wrong about half way through and decends into a mess by the end. Its a shame as it has all the elements of a great film but its poorly exicuted.
 
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