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Showed Black Lagoon 1-6 to the couple who live next door, they texted me before coming over and said they wanted to see a good action anime with lots of action and then more action, and maybe some guns, pew! pew! So, that's what I picked for them to see. Heheh, they're totally loving it!
 
Violet Evergarden ep 2
Still beautiful, but quite slow. A brief flashback and then it showed just how much she
doesn't understand human emotions and the nuances of words, seems from reading the MAL thread that most of it is anime original (including 2 new characters) and not from the source material. The question about whether she is in any way an artificial human is also answered, for me, in that Auto Memories Doll was the original name for the typewriter, but is now used as a name for ladies that write letters for people. Seems a mis-translated synopsis made it sound like Violet was a AMD with military function! i.e. An artificial being. Seems hilarious now I know the truth *Imagines typewriter with built in sub-machinegun* :D
 
Haibane Renmei eps 4–13 ( complete)
That was something really special. The last two episodes gave me chills.
— "No matter how much I wished for it, no salvation ever came to me."
— "Because... you never actually asked for help. The only thing you ever did was wait."
— "I was afraid. What if I ask for help from the bottom of my heart and nobody answers? What if I really am completely alone?"
Reki had a good heart, but considered her own motives suspect. Poor soul. :(
Masterpiece. 10/10 for me.

Robot Carnival
Watched this on Crunchyroll after reading @Professor Irony's appraisal and very much enjoyed it. I found the short 'Cloud' rather self-indulgent and 'Nightmare' pretty confusing, but it's mostly good — barring the pervading outdated sexist vibe some of it seemed to have.

The old-school hand-drawn animation is a treat.
 
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Watched the Godzilla movie on Netflix and it was OK. Liked the ending and the implications for the remaining 2 movies and I was strangely OK with the movie's HUD boner. Data and graphs everywhere!

Generally speaking I was pleasantly surprised with the animation, even if I'm not a fan of the way they try to make things seem old/used, which is just to scratch everything. It's too distracting.

The setting that was created here has a lot of potential, I feel. We'll see what they do with it.
 
Neil.T said:
Haibane Renmei eps 4–13 ( complete)
That was something really special. The last two episodes gave me chills.
— "No matter how much I wished for it, no salvation ever came to me."
— "Because... you never actually asked for help. The only thing you ever did was wait."
— "I was afraid. What if I ask for help from the bottom of my heart and nobody answers? What if I really am completely alone?"
Reki had a good heart, but considered her own motives suspect. Poor soul. :(
Masterpiece. 10/10 for me
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Haibane is up there in my top bracket of media that I didn’t just thoroughly enjoy as entertainment, but also found genuinely emotionally affecting. It is quite beautiful, thoughtful and heartbreaking, too bad it will never look good in HD (and don’t forget Reki is one of the top nine best girls).
 
Patient-X said:
I only discovered Haibane Renmei because it was on sale in the MVM Deal of the Week. Immediately went into my top ten. Even the fact that the DVD looks so bad didn't change how beautiful a show it is.
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I can only second everything you just said.

Blade Runner Black Out 2022
Another Crunchyroll viewing. (Can you tell I had a 48-hr guest pass? ;)) This far outstripped what I was anticipating from it. Looking at the end credits, it became clear why: some big names involved in some of my all-time favourites were involved in making it. Shukou Murase (Ergo Proxy), Joseph Chou (Appleseed Ex Machina and Harlock: Space Pirate), Luci Christian and Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed again)... And, of course, Shinichiro Watanabe was at the helm.

It's very atmospheric.
 
ayase said:
Haibane is up there in my top bracket of media that I didn’t just thoroughly enjoy as entertainment, but also found genuinely emotionally affecting. It is quite beautiful, thoughtful and heartbreaking
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It's an outstanding piece of work. There are anime series and films I've seen (and enjoyed) but, further down the line, the details nevertheless fade from memory. But I know that, for as long as I retain my faculties, I will always remember Haibane Renmei and what it made me feel — for its characters, its design work and for the mythology of the world it paints.

And speaking of painting, that background art... It goes far, far above and beyond the call of duty for a TV series. It's all been created in such painstaking detail. Could you even imagine how it would look in actual HD? I wonder if the actual physical boards themselves still exist in this world, and if so where they are. (I'm assuming they were created with real as opposed to digital paints, anyway...)

@ayase: Starting to watch the series, yes, it became very clear very quickly what you'd meant before about the unfortunate lack of image quality.
 
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Can’t really agree more with this chat about haibane renmei, did I read a while ago that there was a Blu-ray of this coming out? Would love to see a remake of it made just so the visuals are better. It was definitely an interesting show, can’t remember it fully now, I watched it years ago but remember really enjoying it. You guys have made me want to rewatch it!
 
Phobos said:
I see, that is a disappointing upgrade.
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It was like a $200 BD set at the time also. Japan has 2 BD boxes for the show. The original one which is 6 discs, and a cheaper re-release which is 3 discs. The re-release costs about 9,000 yen new, and the original is about 13,000 used.

The show will never get a good upscale due to be a very early digipaint anime, and all early digipaint anime suffer this fate
 
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.
 
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?
 
Paranoia Agent eps 9 & 10
A couple of darkly funny episodes, but the investigation element has disappeared.

Mai Mai Miracle
Has similar elements to Totoro. Similar time period, girl from big city coming to the country and (possible) magical things happening, but doesn't really do anything with them and then other stuff happens that also don't really go anywhere.
Bonus points for having archaeologists in it though :D

Märchen Mädchen ep 2 Dropped
Hazuki learns a spell whilst wearing fan service gym clothing, that's about it.

Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles ep 3
The ice is melting a little bit.

Yuru Camp△ ep 3
Warm and cozy. Concentrated on Rin and "Fujiko" ;) a bit too much with the other girls only getting a few minutes.

Love After Rain ep 2
Still funny and sweet.

Hot Fuzz
Deal with it!
 
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