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I always thought Envy was a girl too. I'm usually pretty good at spotting such things (a side effect of being into BL) but the way he acts and thinks is beautifully androgynous. I love him as a character.

At the moment I'm on disc 2 of Gundam 00. Enjoying it; I'd say it feels more like Wing than anything else. There's plenty of fresh content so far (slightly more rambling in the Gundam 00 thread though I'm sure I'll have more to say when I've watched farther).

R
 
GTO: 5-15

The alterations to how events play out continues to piss me off.

Manga fans, remember when Tomoko started playing with her dolls on stage after Onizuka told her to be herself, getting an emotional reaction out of the entire crowd with her heart-felt story? In the anime, Onizuka stands up and throws her a phone with Miyabi's number on, and she gives a melodramatic speech about her friendship with Miyabi. They replaced one of the best parts of the manga for no good reason... It was also illogical because Onizuka first saw Tomoko's talent when she was playing in the sand with her toys.

Another annoyance is that Tomoko's nickname is Toroko instead of Slomoko in the anime... Why!? I don't even understand what Toroko means. Slomoko was funny, Toroko isn't.

There were other annoying changes just before the Tomoko arc, too. Examples? The scene involving the P.E teacher getting called out by mistake by Tomoko was replaced with a panty thief plot by Miyabi. And Onizuka never went to see Kunio's mom to talk about his grades; that was never mentionedwhen he visited her.

Thankfully, there weren't any major changes to the Teshi story, but it's still frustrating to think how SP have lowered the quality by constantly adding filler and making needless changes earlier.

Suzuka: 4-7

Suzuka is a sold but generic show. All of the character types have been seen before; there's the drunk female harem member, the bookworm harem member, the ladies man, the uptight harem member and the plain lead. There's zero originality, and Suzuka comes across as a bitch more often than not.

...still, I can't deny that I like the series. I'm a sucker for romance, and Suzuka was well made if nothing else. I can see me finishing it this week.
 
Aion said:
Another annoyance is that Tomoko's nickname is Toroko instead of Slomoko in the anime... Why!? I don't even understand what Toroko means. Slomoko was funny, Toroko isn't.
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Toro means slow in Japanese. The English version has her called Slo-moko.

I'm pretty sure the dub has her called Slo-moko though, can't remember exactly, been a while.
 
I thought that might be it; wasn't 100%. I missed the explanation about her name and and only caught the last part - the part where the girls called her a cow because of her breasts.

Hearing Toroko even with understanding doesn't make the name anywhere near as funny as Slomoko. It's too bad the JP track is superior to the dub...
 
Phantom The Anime. Not enough of this series for me, it is just too short to have decent character development. I am glad they have re-made it as Phantom Requiem For The Phantom.
 
Tokko - Modern Manga Ent. title that's for sure, same manga-ka as GTO and it's just as a mess, it has the distinct GTO character designs, but it was just so cheap throughout, the anime fight scenes were just bad, there was barely any solid fights, it was mostly just slide shows. Music was nothing special, some cheap electronica garbage, occassional decent tune here and there but that's it. This series doesn't know what it wants to be, there was some moments in there I enjoyed, but it just deviated too quick from one thing to another. The ending it just becomes something you see from Bleach and then as it starts getting good BAM. Hiatus for the manga. Also, if you ever watch this, be sure to watch it dubbed, it's a great dub, but the lines are hilarious.

"... And if I follow the same path as your brother?"

"I'll cut off your fuckin' head, cutie pie."

------

"I think he cracked into your computer too."

"WHAT!? BUT I'VE GOT 80 GIGS OF PORN ON THIS THING!"


5/10
 
@Lupus, those are pretty much my thoughts on Tokko, the ending was the most rushed i've seen in a while. The pacing should of been a lot better.

since last post:

Umineko no Naku Koro ni eps 3-5

That's the first story arc down and i'm really getting into it now. The second part of ep 5 did confused me at first till it became clear what it was setting up.
 
When i do get a chance, i've been working my way through the ever hilarious Gintama, and so far i'm up to 25. Now, i assume episode 25 was filler(its been a while since i read that early in the manga), but it was still quite funny. I'm sure its safe to say that had some form of spoofing for Death Note(Ryuk at the end kinda pointed that out), but it was well done. Now if it is filler, its certainly a strong filler episode, which in long running shows such as many SJ series, is a rare thing. Only other one i can think of that has decent to good filler is One Piece. Naruto and Bleach have never really had any good filler, ever.

Also been working through FMA: Brotherhood, watched up to 16 so far, and have 17 to watch later on today. 15-16 have been very enjoyable i have to say, and its now onto manga content not covered till now in the anime. With the two episodes they've been in so far, both Ling and May Chang seem to be voiced well, Ling more so. His voice seems to bring out the comical side of him just right as well as his more serious moments as well. The new opening is very nice as well, the fight scene in that is very well animated and a pleasant thing to watch, and the new closing ain't to shabby either.
 
Arbalest, I found, since Gintama is such an episodic show. It's fillers aren't even noticeable. The same way Detective Conan slips in filler episodes among canon episodes. Gintama does. One Piece and the others are so serialized - fillers look like they are stalling. You can't care for a character, because it won't affect anything in the long-term. In Gintama, you know nothing dreadful won't happen, so there's zero difference, like, at all, between canon and filler. So... Yeah. Don't worry about filler. ;p
 
Serial Experiments Lain 2-3
Its strange,after leaving the series for a year due to its wierdness,I decided to give it another shot only to find I love it now for some reason?!
 
Today I actually stopped blowing stuff up in Red faction and watched some anime:

5 episodes of Negima- episodes 8-12
5-6 of Shangri-la
Watched the first two episodes of Saki. Already prefer it to Shangra, even with the OTT moves :p
 
GTO: 20

It's been fairly fathiful to the manga after the Tomoko stage mess. The Urumi story wasn't changed a lot, which pleased me, her being my favourite GTO character. It did annoy me how Onizuka slapped Urumi (the original anime bastard...) and how Urumi's big secret got revealed to the other kids in the class like it was nothing. The corny anime only "You can still be friends with the teacher who betrayed you!" scene at the end of the Urumi arc, which replaced manga content, also pissed me off. But, to be fair, the anime had to try to tie up subplots early because it only covers 13 or 14 out of 25 volumes, and that's why a lot of the dumb changes were made by SP.

I did like episode 20 - one of the few episodes with changes to the source that worked out. The KunioxGiant Girl sub plot was ignored in the manga, so it pleased me to see the chapter get decent filler added. The scene at the end episode, with Kunio running after the bus of Giant Girl at complete random, was plain weird...but aside from that, it was a very good episode to watch.

Jyu-Oh-Sei: 6

A decent premise, let down by a rushed execution and poorly handled character development. Have you ever had a woman say she wanted you for her husband and declare ever lasting loyalty to you/the kitchen after seeing you fight? No? Didn't think so.

If there had been character development at the start, with time spent getting the viewers to like the cast and understand them better, it could've been great. Starting with the twins parents dead and the duo sent straight to the planet of exiles wasn't the best way to go.

Suzuka: 20

Before watching, I read a blog post that said Suzuka is an anime that rewards viewers who don't drop it after the first few episodes. Whoever created that blog was right on the money - my rating has jumped from 7-8/10 as I've watched it.

I've seen all of the character types before, it's very slow-paced and Suzuka - the woman the plain leads wants to give some lovin' to - is a bitch. But the romance and sporting aspects of the story blend well and, though lacking originality, the story is involving and well written. With me being a sucker for romance, paying £15 for the series was a good move.

It's obvious how the story is going to end, yet I find myself wanting to watch more. Totally different from in the case of Planetes, a series where I never got into the romance and the disjointed space rubbish collecting story only distracted me. In terms of genre mixing, Suzuka is better than Planetes.
 
Aion said:
Jyu-Oh-Sei: 6

A decent premise, let down by a rushed execution and poorly handled character development. Have you ever had a woman say she wanted you for her husband and declare ever lasting loyalty to you/the kitchen after seeing you fight? No? Didn't think so.

If there had been character development at the start, with time spent getting the viewers to like the cast and understand them better, it could've been great. Starting with the twins parents dead and the duo sent straight to the planet of exiles wasn't the best way to go.
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I completely agree that it could have used at least twice as many episodes to expand on...well, everything (though the manga speeds through some points even faster!). However, I found Tiz's rather feral priorities quite charming. Despite being cute and pretty, she acts very much like a barely-domesticated cat most of the time which fits her environment growing up on the planet without any of the social niceties or considerations of the colony life. The glimpses of the characters who live in the more civilised world tended to hint that they are more like normal people and probably go through slightly more familiar courtship rituals.

I think the manga explained the finer parts of their world slight better; since the average lifespan on the titular Jyu-Oh-Sei can be rather unpredictable at best I imagine the women have learned to be quite aggressive in picking their mates in time for the Rings' breeding seasons. Tiz seemed to be calling dibs over her prized property more than latching on to her soulmate.

Although the Tiz thing interested me, overall I was expecting more time spent on the colony aspect and I also found Rai's death very abrupt; I kept expecting him to suddenly reappear at any moment for the rest of the series.

R
 
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You know the pacing is off when, with a few seconds in between the scenes in the first episode, Thor goes from refusing to accept that he has to kill his brother to survive to pulling out his lightsaber and trying to kill his brother. They had supposed to have been walking for five hours, but since nothing was shown between the two scenes and the characters had only just gotten introduced it came across as a poor attempt at getting the twins apart. The jump between those two scenes sums up the overall pacing of he series.

As for Tiz, I find the whole 'Women are fewer in number; lets respect them!' thing to be stupid. It's like saying that men would treat women with respect if the men were in a normal prison and a woman got thrown in. There's a very good reason men and women are kept in separate prisons, and it isn't because men would let the women rule over them.

I don't dislike Tiz, I just see her personality as fake and think the 'Men respect women, despite 99% of the men being criminals trapped on a lawless planet' thing is too far-fetched. She's certainly cute, though; I'll agree with you on that point.

As for Rai: I assumed he'd appear at the end, leading one of the factions or something. The anime intentionally made it look like he'd returned in episode 6. It would've been fairly awesome if the series ended with a twin vs. twin battle. (Thanks for spoiling, btw!)
 
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