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Hunter x Hunter-Episode 60

I'll be interested to see what they do with this arc. I like the concept of people being transported into games although the only anime I've actually seen do it is Accel World. I need to watch more shows that do this, Log Horizon, Sword Art Online and it's sequel, No Game No Life, etc as I think I'd probably like them.
 
I always found the Greed Island arc a little weird as it's such a sudden mood shift from the darkness of the Yorknew City arc before it. Not to say it's bad, but it's far from my favourite arc in the show - you just want it to hurry up so you can get onto the Chimera Ant arc. It's sort of a training arc really, although it does introduce the show's most significant female character at long last (in terms of screen time).
 
Yeah, it does seem to be going lighter right off the bat. It is a sudden mood shift, but no more sudden than going from Heaven's Arena to Yorknew, the only difference is it's going from dark to light instead of the other way around. Besides, I've heard the Chimera Ant arc described as Attack on Titan esque in terms of tone (Of course, I don't know how accurate this is) then it sounds like it will switch back to a darker tone again soon. I'm looking forward to the Chimera Ant arc just because of the sheer size of it. I mean, if the episode counts I'm seeing are correct, then it takes up almost half of the show on that one arc, so it must good if it spends that much time a single premise.
 
Yeah, the Chimera Ant arc is a real beast to get through, as there's so many episodes to it - but if you get into it like I did, I ended up blasting through it in a few days as I just couldn't stop watching - I ended up doing about 20 eps in one day sometimes, I was that addicted. I suppose it has some of the same psychological shock and awe that Attack on Titan has, but applied in a way that feels much more cerebral - partly because the 'enemies' are far more developed, and built up as individual personalities.

In many ways, that's the aspect I like most about Hunter x Hunter - as I'm sure you experienced with the Phantom Troupe in the last arc; even the most detestable, awful people in the world are given motivations and a sense of value in terms of their lives, so you end up caring for them, even if they are mass murderers. A theme I find the series comes back to again and again is 'What is the value of life?', and what do you do when you're staring death in the face. As I think you pointed out before, unlike so many other Shonen series, you don't just have one overpowered main character who will always beat the bad guy - there are times when you're facing a power so far in advance of your own, you might as well be a piece of dirt under their shoe - and it's about how you might react in those situations.
 
Watched and completed Soul Eater Not! a couple of days ago. I had seen maybe the first ten episodes of Soul Eater a couple of years ago but put it on hold as I was streaming and wanted to get the Blu-Rays. (I've got them now - need to watch at some point). I picked up the Soul Eater Not! LE for about 11.50 during the amazon.it incident.

I'd heard the Not! series was fairly stand alone so decided to give it a go. First impression was that it was kinda "cutesy" which is not something that I normally go for but I actually quite liked it in this series and thought it worked well. Whilst a serious story arcs through the whole series in the background the foreground has a number of short tales and quite funny comedic moments.

I particularly liked the girl with the really bad memory - which sounds like it could be an overused character affliction although I can't think of any other characters in other series with that same affliction. Strangely her affliction seemed to resonate with myself somewhat. Of course this setup is a recurring source for many of the comedic moments.

In summary I'd say this series amused me more than any I can think of has done for a long time and if you picked up a copy, I'd say it's well worth a watch.
 
As far as I can tell not prominent at all (I can't remember who those are) but from what I can work out the main chick puts in a couple of appearances and is nice to the new protagonist a couple of times and some dude who I think was in the old series puts in an appearance to say some stuff should be symmetrical.

Basically cameo's and you didn't really need to know who they were.
 
Ah, that's slightly disappointing to hear. Soul Eater had such a **** ending I thought this new series might continue the old series and have the old characters fighting alongside the new characters. Oh well.
 
I recently finished Soul Eater after putting it on the backburner for a good long while - I really enjoyed it, I have to say, and it still holds up remarkably well today, partly, I think, because the art style is so unique. It certainly helps to paper over the fact that in many ways it is basically just 'another' Shonen anime - though I think the characters and emotional resonance behind them lifts it a lot too. It's hard to pin down quite what makes it work so well - I suppose it has a really sharp sense of humour, which a lot of similar shows tend to skimp on.
 
Lutga said:
I recently finished Soul Eater after putting it on the backburner for a good long while - I really enjoyed it, I have to say, and it still holds up remarkably well today, partly, I think, because the art style is so unique. It certainly helps to paper over the fact that in many ways it is basically just 'another' Shonen anime - though I think the characters and emotional resonance behind them lifts it a lot too. It's hard to pin down quite what makes it work so well - I suppose it has a really sharp sense of humour, which a lot of similar shows tend to skimp on.
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I loved the first half of Soul Eater. The show goes quite downhill after the Keeshin pisses off up a mountain for most of the second half and they introduce a new villain who is hardly even a threat and gets dispatched off incredibly easily. I thought the second half also got way less fun and became way more angsty IIRC. I still really liked the show but it would have been way better if they kept the tone of the first half or simply halved the number of episodes.
 
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To clarify - Soul Eater NOT! is NOT soul eater ... MAL has it as shonen but not sure I would classify it as such... From what I saw of the original I'd say they have very much different atmospheres... but I certainly enjoyed it... Some people have compared it to K-ON... I can't comment too much on this particular comparison having only seen the K-ON movie however I think it could certainly be said to contain cute girls doing cute things... Which I think Mr IL has previously said he likes?
 
See I kind of liked the angst you stuff - again it seemed to fit the art style well. The whole show felt very 'emo' in a way, ha...

And then there's the Excalibur episodes, which are just mental, but ridiculously funny.

you can definitely tell the second half starts going off into anime original material, but it's certainly not as noticeable as when something like D Gray Man did it, which had way more padding than Soul Eater ever did.
 
msgeek said:
To clarify - Soul Eater NOT! is NOT soul eater ...
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Well I guess that's an apt title then :p

msgeek said:
Which I think Mr IL has previously said he likes?
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That I do! I do want to check out the show at some point but it's not high priority for me right now. I was almost tempted to get it during the Amazon IT thing but I ended up not risking it. In hindsight, I probably should have. Oh well.

Lutga said:
See I kind of liked the angst you stuff - again it seemed to fit the art style well. The whole show felt very 'emo' in a way, ha...
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Well different strokes and what not :p
 
Hunter x Hunter-Episode 61

I like Biscuit so far. Not sure why she looks 12 when she's actually 40, no doubt they'll explain it, but it kind of just seems like an excuse to get a Loli character into the show...
 
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IncendiaryLemon said:
it kind of just seems like an excuse to get a Loli character into the show...
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You never need an excuse for a Loli.

You guys sure are making Hunter X Hunter sound interesting, I'm quite fond of shows that give their "bad guys" development. I haven't really watched a shonen battle series for a while but maybe it's time to give another one a go. I'll see how I get on with my watching pile but I might have some time coming up so I can maybe try to blitz through it at some point. 150ish episodes is a little daunting but then it'd be like watching Space Brothers and Polar Bear's Café together. When I put it like that it sounds even better.

I watched episodes 4 and 5 of Himouto! Umaru-chan.

This show just seems to work for me, for some reason. I doubt it'd be the same for most people but I'm impressed at how much I've enjoyed it. I wouldn't say it's going to end up as one of my favourite shows exactly but there are a lot of little things that appeal to me.

I like that the show doesn't seem to feel a need to spell everything out for the audience. Maybe I'm reading too much into things/giving the show too much credit but I'd like to think it's deliberate. One part that I particularly liked was where Sylphyn makes a comment in passing that has wider implications, it worked in the situation but I thought it worked even better if you think about it. To be specific: She says to "UMR" that a Rival becomes your friend once you defeat them, which I thought tied in nicely to a possible reason she wanted to try so hard to defeat Umaru.

Even if that is all in my head, the show does have some quite funny moments too. I liked the little look into Onii-chan's working life that we got (it seems it's another world where everyone is an eccentric). The bit where he was leaving the office with his co-worker was particularly funny.

Another element I'm quite fond of (and I did mention it before) is the way the stories manage to integrate some more touching sentiments. It tends to particularly be family/friend relationships and I think that's nice in itself. I'm not really sure "touching" is the right word but I wouldn't go so far as to say it was "emotional" exactly, basically it's just nice stuff that makes me smile quite often.
 
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Baby Steps s2 ep19.

Nadia: Secret of Blue Water ep22.

Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace ep6. A light-hearted episode, looks like it's back to the serious stuff next week.

Space Adventurer Cobra. I only bought this because it was 50p, and I kind of wish I hadn't bothered. It might have been watchable if the main character wasn't such an overgrown child with no apparent emotional attachment to anything. I'm not even sure he knew why he went along with events as he did.

The Heroic Legend of Arslan ep18. So the Sindhura arc is complete. And from what I can tell it was a complete failure from Arslan's point of view as he gained nothing meaningful from it, yet no doubt lost many soldiers in the various battles. They should have just killed that prince at the start and have been done with it.
 
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