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I get what you're saying about the Monogatari franchise, they sucker you in. It feels like 5 minutes have past by at the end of an episode.
I cannot watch Owarimonogatari as I've yet to see from Hanamonogatari. Waiting for MVM to release before sitting down to watch....

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk: Episode 1 - That was bad, visually pretty but that's all. I'll give it a few more episodes to see how I feel..
Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry: Episode 1 - Everything Asterisk did wrong, Cavalry did right. Was it standard and generic? Sure but it did it well. I'll keep watching.
AOT: Junior High: Episode 1 - Nowhere near as bad as I expected, sure some jokes fell flat but the show had its moments. I'll keep watching.
One Punch Man: Episode 1 - That fight scene & OP, yeah this was great. I'll keep watching
Comet Lucifer - Episode 1 - Like others who've seen the first episode noticed, some heavy Eureka 7 vibes coming from Comet. Very much enjoyed the first episode. I'll keep watching
Concrete Revolutio: Choujin Gensou - Episode 1: Okay, it had some pacing issues as it dashed between past and present (could've been smoother) yet saying that this was the top of what I've seen so far, I love the animation, that ED, the crazy, the wacky. This is my type of show. 100% keep watching

I'd say thus far, for enjoyability it goes as so : Concrete > Coment > OPM > Cavalry > AOT: JH > Asterisk

Have yet to watch Yuru Yuri & gonna give "Beautiful Bones" (what a lame name..) & Perfect Insider a go too.
 
Interested in checking out Concrete. Art style looks neat and I only have 2 shows picked up this season (Assuming AoT and GochiUsa S2 don't get Streamed in the UK) so I need something to watch. Anyone know when it goes up on Daisuke? I assume you're all watching it through Funi and a Proxy as I can't see the actual episode up on the Daisuke site yet.
 
IncendiaryLemon said:
Interested in checking out Concrete. Art style looks neat and I only have 2 shows picked up this season (Assuming AoT and GochiUsa S2 don't get Streamed in the UK) so I need something to watch. Anyone know when it goes up on Daisuke? I assume you're all watching it through Funi and a Proxy as I can't see the actual episode up on the Daisuke site yet.
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Next week. Because FUNi have it, it's on a 7 delay in anywhere vaguely connected to an English-speaking territory (and the Netherlands for some reason too).

The art style hurt my eyes, I couldn't watch more than 30 seconds of it. I think it's that there's so much going on in the background (lots of thin stripe effects) my eyes couldn't focus on any one thing. Maybe I'll give it another try when I haven't been staring at a PC all day.
 
I'll give it a try. I mean, it's free, why not? I'll just wait the 7 days though, I really can't be bothered going through a Proxy. It's strange, 3 or 4 months ago before I got my CR sub I used to go through and torrent single episodes for every show I wanted to watch. Now CR has spoiled me and I can't even be bothered to do something as simple as installing a browser extension once to watch something. I can't believe I went through so much hassle before haha.
 
IncendiaryLemon said:
I'll give it a try. I mean, it's free, why not? I'll just wait the 7 days though, I really can't be bothered going through a Proxy. It's strange, 3 or 4 months ago before I got my CR sub I used to go through and torrent single episodes for every show I wanted to watch. Now CR has spoiled me and I can't even be bothered to do something as simple as installing a browser extension once to watch something. I can't believe I went through so much hassle before haha.
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It's not that simple, I believe the FUNi version is premium subscribers only.
 
Attack on Titan: Junior High ep 1. Not too bad actually, it's similar to the chibi specials on the main series blurays.

Chivalry of a Failed Knight ep 1. Could this be any more generic? I'll give it a fair chance though.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans ep 1. So far, so Gundam.
 
Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin I: Blue-Eyed Casval

I only watched this the other week, but I felt like watching it again, and I think my opinion of it only improved.

Except for that one stupidly brief shot of Kycillia Zabi topless. It's so offensively unnecessary and so brief that I can only assume Sunrise were desperate to have nudity listed on the classification descriptor, but wanted it to be vaguely teenager friendly. Whoever said "fifteening" was dead?
 
Ep 1 of Haikyu!! Second Season
Ep 48 of World Trigger
Ep 1 of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans...great start so far
Ep 1 of One-Punch Man
Ep 1 of Noragami Aragoto
Ep 1 of K: Return of Kings
 
Buzz201 said:
Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin I: Blue-Eyed Casval

I only watched this the other week, but I felt like watching it again, and I think my opinion of it only improved.

Except for that one stupidly brief shot of Kycillia Zabi topless. It's so offensively unnecessary and so brief that I can only assume Sunrise were desperate to have nudity listed on the classification descriptor, but wanted it to be vaguely teenager friendly. Whoever said "fifteening" was dead?
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To be fair that scene is in the original manga too. That said, it's without a doubt shameless fanservice - but then, there's a lot in the accompanying essays that come with the various manga volumes that goes on about how fans of the Original Gundam shifted their 'allegiances' from Sayla and Frau Bow to Kycilia and Hamon as they got older. The Origin is a total play to the 'silver otaku' generation after all - and that scene is 'their' fanservice. Although I like to think it adds to Kycilia's character too in terms of presenting someone who is completely and utterly confident and unabashed, but maybe that's just the way I read it.
 
Lutga said:
To be fair that scene is in the original manga too. That said, it's without a doubt shameless fanservice - but then, there's a lot in the accompanying essays that come with the various manga volumes that goes on about how fans of the Original Gundam shifted their 'allegiances' from Sayla and Frau Bow to Kycilia and Hamon as they got older. The Origin is a total play to the 'silver otaku' generation after all - and that scene is 'their' fanservice. Although I like to think it adds to Kycilia's character too in terms of presenting someone who is completely and utterly confident and unabashed, but maybe that's just the way I read it.
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The shot in question is so brief, I'm not even sure it qualifies as fanservice.
I think that's what annoyed me most, either go full in or don't do it at all.

I would have thought bombing your own brother to death and then chastising your other 11 year old brother for crying over it got that point across much better. (Assuming it was her, I haven't read the manga.)
 
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YuruYuri Season 3 Episode 1.

I'm not sure if it's just because I was in the right mood for it but I enjoyed this one more than I expected to. It does look like they plan on keeping the improved balance from the second season so far (though it's only the first episode), with elements of "cute girls doing cute things" as well as the comedy.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the episode was that I enjoyed pretty much everything involving Kyoko. She was probably my least favourite character in previous seasons but somehow the way she was used here worked quite well. It's hard to say exactly what was different, I think it may have been that she only appeared as needed and it didn't feel like they were trying so hard to make her the main character/centre of attention (as much as she might like to be).

I haven't been overly keen on the "Akari suffers" elements of the show in the past, I find that they tend to be a bit too mean-spirited and rely on laughing at her misfortune rather than having something more to them. Still, it did work slightly better in this episode with the addition of the other character who was doing their best to be nice. In a sense, Akari's suffering was a little more to do with her trying too hard and worrying too much, which is a nice change to just having horrible things happen to her for no real reason. To be fair, they weren't always that bad in the past but I found them to often be some of the weakest parts of the show. That said, it's probably mostly just about personal taste anyway and I expect some people thought the Akari segments were some of their favourites.

I'm not so fond of the new OP, maybe it'll grow on me but it feels like it's trying too hard to be hyper and I don't think it compares well to the previous ones. I'd say the previous season openers did a bit of a better job of setting the mood for the show, especially since this third season seems to be happy to slow the pace down at times. The ED isn't too bad though.

I think the larger cast can be a strength of YuruYuri because it gives a bit more diversity but at the same time it can be a weakness because it means there'll likely be less time for your favourites. I was glad to see Sakurako and Himawari appear and the show seems to have accepted that it doesn't really just have four main characters but it's hard to say how that'll go in the long run. It does also seem that Chitose might be a bit left out, I was surprised she didn't really get anything to do (especially during the King Game) and I'm not sure she even had a nosebleed in the episode.

It's hard to say how the Yuri elements will go, there were a few decent moments and they seemed fairly well executed (I especially liked the bit with Sakurako but then I would). I also liked that they avoided being too blatant at times, I wouldn't necessarily say it would count as subtle but there were times when they could easily have gone over the top but managed to avoid it. On the other hand, when they did go over the top it also worked well as part of the comedy.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the season goes.

Edit for update: Komari-san Can't Decline/Komori-san wa Kotowarenai! Episode 1.

I'd heard it would be short but 2 minutes seems a bit too short. I guess Wakakozake was okay, though it did have the advantage of only really having one character and a kind of limited subject.

It did seem like the show might have potential so it could be fun, although in some ways that makes the short run time a bit worse.
 
Bakemonogatari - Episode 01
I was told that if I wanted to understand Monogatari I should watch some. Whoever said that was wrong, if anything it makes less sense now I've seen an episode. To be honest, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Maybe there's something there but it's drowning in pointless, excessive and most of the time completely illogical stylisation. I have no problem with stylisation, but here it's overpowering to the point where it's quite hard to tell how we're supposed to interpret certain moments. Some moments were seemingly supposed to play as jokes, but weren't delivered as such, whilst other moments were delivered as jokes even though they weren't jokes. I think most of the problems here lie in the script, Durarara!! gets away with a lot of ambiguity and genre fluidity because it's very tightly plotted and scripted. The script here is loose and floaty, and as a result the entire show takes on that vibe, but not in a good way, in a way that seems indecisive.

I can't really tell if I liked it or not, I think I did, but it's hard not to be annoyed by the fact it's all over the place and then some. I'll probably watch some more just to see if I can get a grasp on what the hell it actually is, but I can't see myself being as fully on board with it as everyone else. It did give me the impression that the novels would probably play slightly better, so maybe I'll pick up a copy when Vertical put the prequel out.


All of this is not helped by the quite frankly abysmal PQ on Viewster, I can only assume the blu-ray master is a lot sharper and crisper, because even at 480p Viewster's master is soft and starting to get a bit blurry, which is a shame because the animation and design is fantastic. Also, whichever poor bastard got the job of subtitling this, you have my condolences...
 
I'm not sure it's worth the effort of using a VPN. I kinda liked it, but on the basis of one episode (not really a fair judgement I know), I don't see why it's got the ridiculously over the top cult fanbase it has.
 
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