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adamclark83
Student Council President
Last night on Blu-ray:
- Sailor Moon Episodes 38-42.
- Sailor Moon Episodes 38-42.
ayase
State Alchemist
Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Episodes 9-16
THANK YOU. Unfortunately Battler's change of heart doesn't last long, I really don't know where this whole plot of "I'm going to prove the murders weren't committed by magic" is going. For a moment there it appeared to just be a red herring, yet Battler is still persisting with this line of thinking even though he's now spent enough time in the land of the time witches outside of existence that he's probably eligible for a residency permit. And from there, he has been watching magic happen while continuing to deny its existence. Unless he and even we in the audience are not supposed to trust what we're being shown in which case I don't know how any of us are supposed to work anything out at all.
I swear to Satan after that conversation with Virgilia if Battler ultimately wins his wager with the argument "What you're referring to as "Magic" is in factGNU/Linux following scientific principles, ergo it can't be considered magic, checkmate," my left hand will have to hold back my right from punching out the monitor.
I have enjoyed these episodes more than the first batch however, seeing the murders committed in different orders and by different methods so there are different combinations of people left alive to try and solve them is probably the most interesting thing the show is doing from a narrative point of view. It might possibly have been more compelling if it had just been that without Battler's whole Ace Attorney act, it would certainly have been a lot more mysterious. We would have missed out on a lot of fun witchy shenanigans I suppose and with Beatrice being the most entertaining part of the show (for now, please don't go all pathetic on me Beato) I can't necessarily say it would have been better. Also if it got to the end without actually showing any magic and then presented "It's magic, I ain't gotta explain sh*t" as the solution, that might only have made things even worse.
I think my preferred outcome for the show is still that Beatrice just kills everybody and takes Maria as a protĆ©gĆ©. I do like that we now (I think) have a pretty solid explanation for witches as being created from part of a person's psyche as their own entity, which explains the whole Rika/Bernkastel situation as well as what looks very much like Satoko/Lambdadelta(!) which may have VERY interesting implications for Higurashi GÅ/Sotsu, here's hoping. WILD speculation for the entire Higurashi universe follows: I'm presuming Maria is not suffering from low-level Hinamizawa syndrome when she goes full creepy, but Beatrice seems to think she does have the potential to be a witch and Maria also blames her mother's abusive behaviour not on her but on "the bad witch" could we in these moments be seeing the parts of them that have the potential to break off and become witches? Could Hinamizawa syndrome itself even be a form of this?
Yes please.
THANK YOU. Unfortunately Battler's change of heart doesn't last long, I really don't know where this whole plot of "I'm going to prove the murders weren't committed by magic" is going. For a moment there it appeared to just be a red herring, yet Battler is still persisting with this line of thinking even though he's now spent enough time in the land of the time witches outside of existence that he's probably eligible for a residency permit. And from there, he has been watching magic happen while continuing to deny its existence. Unless he and even we in the audience are not supposed to trust what we're being shown in which case I don't know how any of us are supposed to work anything out at all.
I swear to Satan after that conversation with Virgilia if Battler ultimately wins his wager with the argument "What you're referring to as "Magic" is in fact
I have enjoyed these episodes more than the first batch however, seeing the murders committed in different orders and by different methods so there are different combinations of people left alive to try and solve them is probably the most interesting thing the show is doing from a narrative point of view. It might possibly have been more compelling if it had just been that without Battler's whole Ace Attorney act, it would certainly have been a lot more mysterious. We would have missed out on a lot of fun witchy shenanigans I suppose and with Beatrice being the most entertaining part of the show (for now, please don't go all pathetic on me Beato) I can't necessarily say it would have been better. Also if it got to the end without actually showing any magic and then presented "It's magic, I ain't gotta explain sh*t" as the solution, that might only have made things even worse.
I think my preferred outcome for the show is still that Beatrice just kills everybody and takes Maria as a protĆ©gĆ©. I do like that we now (I think) have a pretty solid explanation for witches as being created from part of a person's psyche as their own entity, which explains the whole Rika/Bernkastel situation as well as what looks very much like Satoko/Lambdadelta(!) which may have VERY interesting implications for Higurashi GÅ/Sotsu, here's hoping. WILD speculation for the entire Higurashi universe follows: I'm presuming Maria is not suffering from low-level Hinamizawa syndrome when she goes full creepy, but Beatrice seems to think she does have the potential to be a witch and Maria also blames her mother's abusive behaviour not on her but on "the bad witch" could we in these moments be seeing the parts of them that have the potential to break off and become witches? Could Hinamizawa syndrome itself even be a form of this?
Yes please.
Dragon Slayer
The Wildcard
Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister Episode 1 Moving In.
Yuru Campā³ Season 3 Specials 1-2
Yuru Campā³ Season 3 Specials 1-2
kieran1
Kiznaiver
Little Women II - Joās Boys eps 21-25
(non-anime)
Terrifying Girls High School-Womens Violent Classroom (movie)
Terrifying Girlsā High School-Lynch Law Classroom (movie)
Terrifying Girls High-School Delinquent Convulsion (movie)
Terrifying Girls High School-Animal Courage (movie)
(non-anime)
Terrifying Girls High School-Womens Violent Classroom (movie)
Terrifying Girlsā High School-Lynch Law Classroom (movie)
Terrifying Girls High-School Delinquent Convulsion (movie)
Terrifying Girls High School-Animal Courage (movie)
Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister ep1: A very conventional romantic comedy setup, this time with a shrine maiden theme. The hero, who is notably unusually handsome for the point of view character in this kind of show, moves into a shrine so that he can study (he doesn't actually care for the gods at all). He quickly meets the three hot granddaughters of the head priest - and accidentally ends up in compromising positions with all of them, only to learn at the last minute that their grandfather expects him to end up marrying one of the girls one day. Cue situational comedy tropes and, I would wager, lots of saucy boob-grabbing accidents as the hero slowly endears himself to his three attractive housemates. It's a throwback to an era where Love Hina and Ah! My Goddess were considered instant classics so fans of that kind of show should find a lot to like here. I'm not sure that it's going to convert anyone who isn't already hooked in shounen romantic hijinks, however, and it feels very much as though the middle girl (a massive tsundere) is the animators' favourite even though there are hints that it might be a harem ending. It was ok. Not the worst show of the season but not something I'm going to keep watching.
Acro Trip ep1: This was funny; easily the best premiere so far this season (admittedly that isn't especially difficult). It's yet another magical girl parody show, but this time our heroine - whose life revolves around trying to get a glimpse of the local magical girl - ends up crossing paths with the local villain instead. He's completely rubbish and makes me laugh, and his flamboyant personality immediately clashes with the cynical school girl lead. The other positive is that everything is designed to be bright and colourful which makes for a much more visually interesting experience than the tired copy-paste designs of Loner Life in Another World. I'll give the second episode a watch later tonight.
R
Acro Trip ep1: This was funny; easily the best premiere so far this season (admittedly that isn't especially difficult). It's yet another magical girl parody show, but this time our heroine - whose life revolves around trying to get a glimpse of the local magical girl - ends up crossing paths with the local villain instead. He's completely rubbish and makes me laugh, and his flamboyant personality immediately clashes with the cynical school girl lead. The other positive is that everything is designed to be bright and colourful which makes for a much more visually interesting experience than the tired copy-paste designs of Loner Life in Another World. I'll give the second episode a watch later tonight.
R
adamclark83
Student Council President
Last night on Blu-ray:
- Sailor Moon Episodes 43-46. And that's season 1 finished.
In the final episode, Sailor Moon got her "Return of the Jedi" moment. Also, what I found out is that the last two episodes were combined into one for the original dub.
- Sailor Moon Episodes 43-46. And that's season 1 finished.
In the final episode, Sailor Moon got her "Return of the Jedi" moment. Also, what I found out is that the last two episodes were combined into one for the original dub.
Negative Positive Angler, Episode 1. A story about someone with a serious illness getting into fishing. I'm not saying it sounds familiar, but I will say that if later in the series I see a dog searching for a briefcase, Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse might want to sue for copyright infringement. Some pretty good animation in this opening episode too.
ayase
State Alchemist
Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Episodes 17-26 (Complete, I guess)
WUT. Either I'm too stupid for this show or it's too stupid for me, I'm willing to entertain both possibilities. But I can't claim that was a particularly enjoyable experience. I knew going into Umineko that it seems very unfavourably compared to the VN it's based on, but then VN fans are like that with everything and said the same thing about Higurashi. Personally I got bored of the first episode of the Higurashi VN when for about the third time in the first few hours of play it was just describing a bloody game for a length of time that would feel tedious to an endless witch. I much preferred the anime breezing through such scenes in a couple of minutes rather than having to cookie clicker my way through reading about it for half an hour.
So perhaps that's why I never found Beatrice and Battler's "game" very compelling either. Certainly not by the end, at the point Battler was throwing out theories to which Beatrice was just responding "Ha, that's so stupid and wrong, I'm not going to tell you why or what really happened, but you can just have this round for free anyway, I'm that confident of victory. OH NO! I've lost! How could this happen!?" Way to turn a character who was shown to be competent, manipulative and highly dangerous into an absolute idiot at the last second. One thing I wasn't fully aware of is that this series only adapts the first half of the VN, which means I'm not actually getting any answers, ever. Unless I read a 150+ hour VN that will probably bore me to tears if it's full of this bloody "game".
This last batch of episodes was so all over the place in terms of both storytelling and my attitude towards the show. I thought with the time-skip and the introduction of Ange (and some old friends) we were finally getting closer to answers following something more akin to a regular investigation. The focus on Maria also started to make things clearer. But no, then it all went so incredibly weird that I don't even understand the timeline any more. How can Maria become a witch and kill her mother before the events on the island, where she wants to become a witch and her mother is still alive? If as (sort of) previously established (except in the case of Ange, it seems, more confusion) Maria and witch!Maria are different entities like Eva and Beatrice 3, that still doesn't explain the out-of-sync matricide. How could Beatrice appear to Maria and teach her witchcraft prior to the events on the island, wasn't the whole point of the murder-sacrifices the show is literally based around to allow her to manifest herself in the world again because she couldn't do that? In the end Ange's arc created more questions than it answered. And don't even get me started on SakutarÅ.
The basic idea behind Umineko, that of a murder house mystery with supernatural reasons behind it, the setting that has been created, the worldbuilding that's gone into it and the links to Higurashi all have so much potential. But the whole thing is dragged down by so much unnecessary convolution and little to no development time for the majority of its bloated cast of characters including Battler, the protagonist who even after 26 episodes I couldn't tell you much about apart from "likes boobies, is living proof denial is not just a river in Egypt". And the characters I did find compelling (Beatrice, Maria and... that's about it. Maybe Kinzo, even though we didn't see a whole lot of him at least what I did see was intriguing) seemed to have their established characters thrown out the window at the last second.
In Higurashi, mysteries were created by omission. It was what you didn't know or didn't see which, when gradually revealed, all eventually made sense in a pleasing manner. Umineko seems to want to create mystery by obfuscation, by showing you things that may or may not have happened without bothering to delineate between fact and theory, only doing so via the process of the "game" which, to my mind at least, is just a failure as a storytelling device. I started by comparing Umineko to And Then There Were None, but it's more like watching a production of that story that keeps cutting to a commentary box as though it's half time at a football game. The show didn't really do anything to make me care about Battler (or most of his family) so I didn't care if he lost. In fact since I liked Beatrice more (and Maria, particularly after she went full "Give me the power to f*ck sh*t up" I had a grin a mile wide, it's a real shame SakutarÅ ex machina kept her from her rightful destiny) I actually found myself hoping that he would lose. And frankly, if you've managed to make me root for the villain against the protagonist something has gone very wrong somewhere with your writing. In a word, disappointing. Maybe Higurashi Kira will cheer me up.
WUT. Either I'm too stupid for this show or it's too stupid for me, I'm willing to entertain both possibilities. But I can't claim that was a particularly enjoyable experience. I knew going into Umineko that it seems very unfavourably compared to the VN it's based on, but then VN fans are like that with everything and said the same thing about Higurashi. Personally I got bored of the first episode of the Higurashi VN when for about the third time in the first few hours of play it was just describing a bloody game for a length of time that would feel tedious to an endless witch. I much preferred the anime breezing through such scenes in a couple of minutes rather than having to cookie clicker my way through reading about it for half an hour.
So perhaps that's why I never found Beatrice and Battler's "game" very compelling either. Certainly not by the end, at the point Battler was throwing out theories to which Beatrice was just responding "Ha, that's so stupid and wrong, I'm not going to tell you why or what really happened, but you can just have this round for free anyway, I'm that confident of victory. OH NO! I've lost! How could this happen!?" Way to turn a character who was shown to be competent, manipulative and highly dangerous into an absolute idiot at the last second. One thing I wasn't fully aware of is that this series only adapts the first half of the VN, which means I'm not actually getting any answers, ever. Unless I read a 150+ hour VN that will probably bore me to tears if it's full of this bloody "game".
This last batch of episodes was so all over the place in terms of both storytelling and my attitude towards the show. I thought with the time-skip and the introduction of Ange (and some old friends) we were finally getting closer to answers following something more akin to a regular investigation. The focus on Maria also started to make things clearer. But no, then it all went so incredibly weird that I don't even understand the timeline any more. How can Maria become a witch and kill her mother before the events on the island, where she wants to become a witch and her mother is still alive? If as (sort of) previously established (except in the case of Ange, it seems, more confusion) Maria and witch!Maria are different entities like Eva and Beatrice 3, that still doesn't explain the out-of-sync matricide. How could Beatrice appear to Maria and teach her witchcraft prior to the events on the island, wasn't the whole point of the murder-sacrifices the show is literally based around to allow her to manifest herself in the world again because she couldn't do that? In the end Ange's arc created more questions than it answered. And don't even get me started on SakutarÅ.
The basic idea behind Umineko, that of a murder house mystery with supernatural reasons behind it, the setting that has been created, the worldbuilding that's gone into it and the links to Higurashi all have so much potential. But the whole thing is dragged down by so much unnecessary convolution and little to no development time for the majority of its bloated cast of characters including Battler, the protagonist who even after 26 episodes I couldn't tell you much about apart from "likes boobies, is living proof denial is not just a river in Egypt". And the characters I did find compelling (Beatrice, Maria and... that's about it. Maybe Kinzo, even though we didn't see a whole lot of him at least what I did see was intriguing) seemed to have their established characters thrown out the window at the last second.
In Higurashi, mysteries were created by omission. It was what you didn't know or didn't see which, when gradually revealed, all eventually made sense in a pleasing manner. Umineko seems to want to create mystery by obfuscation, by showing you things that may or may not have happened without bothering to delineate between fact and theory, only doing so via the process of the "game" which, to my mind at least, is just a failure as a storytelling device. I started by comparing Umineko to And Then There Were None, but it's more like watching a production of that story that keeps cutting to a commentary box as though it's half time at a football game. The show didn't really do anything to make me care about Battler (or most of his family) so I didn't care if he lost. In fact since I liked Beatrice more (and Maria, particularly after she went full "Give me the power to f*ck sh*t up" I had a grin a mile wide, it's a real shame SakutarÅ ex machina kept her from her rightful destiny) I actually found myself hoping that he would lose. And frankly, if you've managed to make me root for the villain against the protagonist something has gone very wrong somewhere with your writing. In a word, disappointing. Maybe Higurashi Kira will cheer me up.
DAN DA DAN episode 1 Abduction.
Negative Postive Angler episode 1 Cast Away.
Rurouni Kenshin -Kyoto Disturbance- episode 25 Atonement.
Trillion Game episodes 1-2 Investing.
31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day III: Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky (Films)
Urusei Yatsura episodes 15-18
Negative Postive Angler episode 1 Cast Away.
Rurouni Kenshin -Kyoto Disturbance- episode 25 Atonement.
Trillion Game episodes 1-2 Investing.
31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day III: Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky (Films)
Urusei Yatsura episodes 15-18
adamclark83
Student Council President
Last night on Blu-ray:
- My Unique Skill Makes Me Op Even at Level 1: Episode 1.
Emily is a sweetie. The bunny girl looks nice too.
- My Unique Skill Makes Me Op Even at Level 1: Episode 1.
Emily is a sweetie. The bunny girl looks nice too.
Dan Da Dan ep1
I could quite happily not see another teenage girl in sexy peril for the sake of grabbing attention in your opener, but otherwise this seems fun; the quest-swapping dynamic between the two leads is entertaining. The animators have certainly been huffing magic markers again too, it looks great.
Bullbuster ep8-10
The CR app keeps reminding me that I never finished this low-key Patlabor wannabe from last year, and I kinda liked it, so here we are again. Unfortunately, it seems to have switched gears away from slice-of-life mode so it can wrap up the plot, and appears to be heading for the most obvious conclusion possible, spiriting away my enthusiasm in the process. Iām just about interested enough to finish it, but when you get this close to the end and think āhow does this have four episodes leftā, it aināt a good sign.
I could quite happily not see another teenage girl in sexy peril for the sake of grabbing attention in your opener, but otherwise this seems fun; the quest-swapping dynamic between the two leads is entertaining. The animators have certainly been huffing magic markers again too, it looks great.
Bullbuster ep8-10
The CR app keeps reminding me that I never finished this low-key Patlabor wannabe from last year, and I kinda liked it, so here we are again. Unfortunately, it seems to have switched gears away from slice-of-life mode so it can wrap up the plot, and appears to be heading for the most obvious conclusion possible, spiriting away my enthusiasm in the process. Iām just about interested enough to finish it, but when you get this close to the end and think āhow does this have four episodes leftā, it aināt a good sign.
365 Days to the Wedding ep1: A workplace romantic comedy about a pair of coworkers who have to fake being engaged to one another, in order to avoid being sent to a remote new location. Unfortunately, their colleagues are more excited about their impending nuptials than expected, which forces them to learn about one another to maintain the charade. The designs are nice but the animation cheaps out quite often, which is a shame. I found this harmless but unlikely to maintain my interest, so unless I hear of hilarious melodrama later on it's probably not going to stay on my list. I might end up passively watching it anyway though as my partner (who has more tolerance for 'nothing much actually happens' shows) is going to continue on to episode two.
DAN DA DAN ep1: This bouncy, energetic account of two very different teens meeting up and each getting personally embroiled in the other's special interest (she believes in ghosts, he believes in aliens) certainly wasn't boring! We're only one episode in but there's a lot going on, with action scenes, meaningful exchanges, horny chaos and ongoing character development; it feels as though these characters are fleshed out better already than most isekai casts are by the end of a season. Controversially, my opinion is that the material is great but the adaptation isn't doing it for me; there's a lot of ambition in the dynamic animation but it simultaneously feels a bit homemade, like a final year student project (which might well be part of the appeal for some viewers). I also find the use of music really distracting (the show spends most of its time BGM-free, which feels weird, then blasts short bursts of music which distracts me from the dialogue). I respect what it's doing and I'm really glad that we're getting stuff like this, but while this style worked for some other shows it's not clicking for me here so I might try the manga instead. Awesome to see DAN DA DAN simulcasting on multiple platforms, though; we need more of that.
R
DAN DA DAN ep1: This bouncy, energetic account of two very different teens meeting up and each getting personally embroiled in the other's special interest (she believes in ghosts, he believes in aliens) certainly wasn't boring! We're only one episode in but there's a lot going on, with action scenes, meaningful exchanges, horny chaos and ongoing character development; it feels as though these characters are fleshed out better already than most isekai casts are by the end of a season. Controversially, my opinion is that the material is great but the adaptation isn't doing it for me; there's a lot of ambition in the dynamic animation but it simultaneously feels a bit homemade, like a final year student project (which might well be part of the appeal for some viewers). I also find the use of music really distracting (the show spends most of its time BGM-free, which feels weird, then blasts short bursts of music which distracts me from the dialogue). I respect what it's doing and I'm really glad that we're getting stuff like this, but while this style worked for some other shows it's not clicking for me here so I might try the manga instead. Awesome to see DAN DA DAN simulcasting on multiple platforms, though; we need more of that.
R
RonJB
Vampire Ninja
One Piece episodes 31-44: I thought we'd be just picking up Nami and moving on to finding more crew members (they really need to find a doctor/healer soon). Instead, we get 14 episodes telling Nami's backstory and resolving all the trauma caused by those fishmen. Will all the characters have a tragic childhood? I'm now 3/4 of the way through the BBC iPlayer episodes and I've only met Luffy and four of his crew. I'm starting to see why there's over a thousand episodes.
Also watched the first half of season 3 of Bluey. And rewatched some of By The Grace Of The Gods for light relief. None of this is reducing my pending pile. I shall have to get serious this weekend.
Also watched the first half of season 3 of Bluey. And rewatched some of By The Grace Of The Gods for light relief. None of this is reducing my pending pile. I shall have to get serious this weekend.