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Voddas said:
Also been watching Higashi no Eden (or "Eden of the East") over the last two nights. There's 11 episodes in all and I've seen upto episode 8. Now, I wasn't expecting thsi anime as good as it has turned out to me. The animation style once again is beautiful and very enjoyable to watch. Very similar to FLCL imo, in some respect.
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Looking forward to seeing what you think of the ending, I just finished watching it myself (posted my thoughts in the "Eden of the East" thread).
 
Area 88: 1-6

Liked it so far. I wasn't very keen at the start, where it was all planes, no story and filler to stretch out the series, but it got better in the second volume. The second volume focused on Shin's character, what happened (not much, tbh) with his old friend who betrayed him in order to gain power and the introduction of a new female pilot who joins the Area 88 team.

So far, if I ignore how a simple and what was originally a short story was stretched to fit into 12 episodes, my only complaint is with the CG plane battles. Because the action is fast and the sky endless, it's hard to keep track of what's going on at times. But, to be fair, plane fights aren't meant to be slow and the whole point of the battles being done using CG was to make them flashy.

On the evidence of the first six episodes, the £11 I spent wasn't wasted. If nothing else, it's a good watch.
 
I had hoped that the Area 88 TV series would tell more of the manga story and expand on the OVA, but apparently it covers even less ground. Speaking of the OVA, it has some brilliantly animated dogfights, so I'm curious to see how the TV series' CG action compares.

Eureka Seven 5-16
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this series. Bones are keeping their cards close to their chest, revealing little about mysteries that I don't find myself eager to unravel. On the plus side the show has some good dialogue and a real sense of adventure. There's rarely a dull moment.
 
From what I could tell, the dogfights involved lots of planes chasing each other and the ace pilots doing a flip somehow, ending up behind the plane chasing them and shooting it. Too fast and hard to tell what direction the planes were going in for the most part.

Speaking of the manga, the character bio on disc 2 helpfully informed me about the dogfight at the end of the manga and who died. How great is that - an official character description on DVD spoiling the plot.


That's how all Bones series are. Xam'd is a shorter version of Eureka Seven, and that made very little sense because of the few explanations. It bugged me, and I ended up putting it (Xam'd) on-hold.
 
Last Exile: 20-End

I really enjoyed this, but it was another one of those series which seemed to keep slowly building towards the grand finale in a very effective way...

onlytorunoutoftimeandendasquicklyaspossiblewithverylittleexplanationandbeultimatelyunsatisfying.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with mysteries - I'm fine with things left to the imagination but the biggest problem with Last Exile
was Exile. What the hell was it good for exactly? I got that it was a colony ship which brought the ancestors of the world there... Okay. So:
1- Why was it aggressive towards everything which came near it?
2- Why did it create the Grand Stream?
3- Why, if all it did once activated was destroy the Grand Stream and become passive did Delphine want to activate it? Wouldn't she have wanted to leave it as it was in order to maintain her power? Or did she want to use it for something else - In which case that was never made clear either.
It was getting 9/10 from the beginning but has to drop to 8.5-8 because of the unsatisfactory conclusion. The characters however were all excellent and well developed, so much so I really was made to feel for them in their moments of both joy and sorrow.
 
Yeah, Last Exile would benefit so much for having some expanded universe stuff out there. A side story manga or something to expand on some of the backstory.
 
Kurau Phantom Memory. Kurau becomes Dr Manhattan as a kid through an experiment into new energy carried out by her dad. Flash forward she has become a agent using her special abilities. Chased by world police her and her "sister" Christmas end up in a conspiracy chase plot. It ends a little odd, then they have another go at the ending set a bit further into the future.

No matter what you think about what I just typed it was not a bad show, but I would have liked more if the feel from the first half had carried on longer.
 
Kara no Kyoukai 4: Garan no Dou

Finally i think that's all the backstory out of the way, and by the looks of the footage at the end and the preview, the main storyline is about to kick off. I love this movie series though, i wish someone would get their behinds into gear and license it already.
 
Glad you're enjoying Higurashi mono :)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni ep 2 So far so good, the episodes end showed a bit more of its Higurashi heritage :p The opening and ending themes are already beginning to get under my skin though
 
True Tears 9-12

To those who have watched it all, I was shocked at the end of episode 12 but I had to laugh at Noe's "fly" attempt. Still one more episode to go.
 
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Since I last posted here I believe I had finished...

Kannagi - The lead character, Nagi, her character design drawn me in the most, so I decided to bite, what took me by surprise was the super crazy and catchy opening song. YEAH, CRAZY SHRINE GIRL! Series started off strong, but as it progressed further onward it became less interesting and felt like a punishment, it had a few laughs and there was one that guy obsessed with anime to keep me watching, near the end it pulled back together but only enough to warrant it a 6/10.

Chobits - After watching Code Geass and a bit of CCS I was on guard to stay away from CLAMP. Now I know they didn't have anything to do with CGs story, but the character designs by God, they had more of a Yu-Gi-Oh feel to them than... Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds. But Chobits was actually pretty good, the main character can be a pain at times and over-exaggerates a lot, but I can generally symapthize with him, he was fairly realistic most of the series. Chi was really easy to fall for, she was so naive and could have been so easy to take advantage of, I liked how Hideki treated her, nearly made me tear. But that one male persicom at the end, he was like a rejected Code Geass character for looking too much like Kurogane from SRC so they decided just to throw him in Chobits, srsly.

Also watched Birdy the Mighty 02, after being a little underwhelmed with what the first series brought to the table the second more than just made up for it, I mean... Holy ******* **** I watched pretty much the entire series in a couple of hours, I haven't burned through something that much AND enjoyed it since Noein which ironically has the same script writers and director. Why isn't this licensed yet? Dear God, this is probably the best series I've watched this year, I'm serious.
 
I just watched the first Birdy OVA the other night and enjoyed it. I presume you guys are talking about the recent series though - I'll definitely be checking that out too.
 
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