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Dracos said:
Rin Daughters Mnemosyne. Immortal women, sex crazed angels, private eyes, blood, breasts and confusing time jumps make for quite an interesting action series. The main characters are not all that well rounded out considering how long they have been around. Meeting up with some of the ageing characters again is interesting especially when they have a whole back story.
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I'm watching this at the moment too. It feels a tiny bit like the trashy OAVs back in the good old days with its almost desperately shameless need to involve lesbians, explosions and kinky physical abuse whenever there's the slightest excuse, but it falls a little flat in parts. Having said that I think I've liked each episode more than the last.

R
 
Rui said:
I'm watching this at the moment too. It feels a tiny bit like the trashy OAVs back in the good old days with its almost desperately shameless need to involve lesbians, explosions and kinky physical abuse whenever there's the slightest excuse, but it falls a little flat in parts. Having said that I think I've liked each episode more than the last.
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Quite. It has all the right elements but somehow it didn't grab me as I thought it would. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the final episode, as it didn't make much sense to me.

Also, Funimation's dub helped make Desert Punk far more entertaining than it had any right to be.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Quite. It has all the right elements but somehow it didn't grab me as I thought it would. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the final episode, as it didn't make much sense to me.
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Erm, yes. Just finished it. I never really felt I quite knew what was going on and what the ground rules actually were in the series at times and that was the culmination. Still, not a bad way to spend a few hours. I was glad that Mimi finally got a little character development towards the end after seeming like a pointless cutesy plot device throughout. The way all of the main characters became completely useless whenever the angels appeared instead of zooming around beating things up became tiresome quickly since it seemed to happen in every big scene towards the end. More action, less blushing please.

R
 
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Rui said:
I'm watching [Mnemosyne] at the moment too. It feels a tiny bit like the trashy OAVs back in the good old days with its almost desperately shameless need to involve lesbians, explosions and kinky physical abuse whenever there's the slightest excuse
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I resent the suggestion that they should feel any shame at all at this. ^^;

But yeah, Mnemosyne was "really enjoyed it, but thought it could have been a lot better, too" for me. Especially the overall narrative concept, which I liked but could have been executed a lot more smoothly.
 
Had a looksee at the first Black Cat volume last night. Volumes 2-3 arrived yesterday, and it's a Gonzo title. Since I'm currently going through all the Gonzo anime I own on DVD...

With its title and DVD art, I expected something very kiddy. But Black Cat has had death and bounty hunting mixed in with Sven's money woes and the usual shounen character superpower stuff. It's also looked very nice; both in terms of the art and animation, which I didn't expect from a Gonzo title.

The characterization has been a little too... straight-forward so far. The lead is an emotionless killer who is set to become a more normal guy after a cute, talkative and slightly weird girl talked to him a lot. Eve - another main character - is going to change from a weapon; changing into a normal girl after seeing and experiencing what the world has to offer. Etc, etc. There's a lot I've seen before on the character front. But, on the plus side, Sven is a cool and funny guy, what with his 'chivalry' and all, and I think the different character types will bounce off each other well as the series progresses.

I give it an early 8/10.
 
Professor Irony said:
Aion said:
Black Cat
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It's an okay series, but Sven should have been the main character. Unless they missed out an awful lot of character development from the manga, Train just didn't seem that interesting.
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Agreed. I thought he was the main character at first, despite the title. He's certainly the most likable and cool character--he saves girls, fights against hunger and looks cool with his eye-patch. What's not to love? (It's too bad about the typically shallow explanation about his past, though...)

Train just hasn't been developed very well. There was plenty of room for him to develop from an empty shell, killing simply because he was told to kill, but it's more like he's jumped from being empty to being a full of life, constantly hungry, stereotypical shounen lead. He kind of bores me...

The fact he can no longer kill - not even to avenge the woman who was killed because of him - because killing is evil and good guys don't do that annoys me a fair bit. It's childish for good characters to only be allowed in extreme circumstances to kill evil characters. Life isn't black and white like that, and it only highlights the audience the show is aimed at. I'm no longer at an age where I'll accept such rubbish.

To start with, it had potential: there was death, a dark vibe and just the right amount of comedy was mixed in. But, once the setup was out of the way, it moved into the land of shounen absurdity, with the usual band overly colourful villains (a boy on a skateboard, a high school girl who breathes fire, etc), which lowered the quality. At this moment in time - halfway through - it's no more than a nice looking, enjoyable series; nothing truly special.

----

As for Desert Punk, the latest round of episodes on the fourth volume were ok. A two story arc about mercenaries protecting a **** transport can only be so enjoyable. I'm tempted to rate it 8/10 for the lulzy 11th episode, but the rest of the series - 'my mother ain't no whore' aside - has been very much 7/10 all the way.

Punk is an amusing guy, what with his tit obsession and all, but he's also a complete and utter prick. He only cares about himself. He works as a comedy lead, and I suppose that's good enough... but he's a hard guy to like, regardless of the genre.

Edit: Also...

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/q4XFDGVI8Jc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/q4XFDGVI8Jc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Junko: "...Over time, we've (women) learned to use every accessory we have as weapons."
Punk: "Including birth control?"
Junko: "Well, I've always found the best 'birth control' to be to simply point at it and laugh, little guy."
 
Currently watching Shigurui: Death Frenzy, watched the first 4 episodes so far. It's quite slow and for something called Death Frenzy I was expecting more...um, death frenzy-ing. Other than that misleading subtitle it's alright so far and the slow, non-linear narrative will hopefully build to a, dare I say, death frenzy.
 
Watched episode 5 and 6 of Shigurui last night and it just kicked it up a notch. Until then there'd been just a few severed heads but now there's
placenta everywhere, nipples being torn off, then said nipple being eaten, birds killed just for the hell of it and some eye slicing (getting to see, bad pun, how Irako ended up blind).
Seems like business is about to pick up in the second half of the series.
 
I'm a bit late, and you've probably finished it already by now, but Shigurui ends up going nowhere. The entire series is build-up for nothing--I kid you not. At first you think it's going to be a brutal tournament style series, then you realize the series is going to be focused almost fully on a flashback... and then it ends, inexplicably, right when there should've been a fight to the death. With it not leading to an epic finale, the entire flashback story was rendered pointless.

All Shigurui has is blood, rape/sex, a lack of animation and an attempt at making it stylish involving the entire picture being grainy as hell. And, worst of all, none of the characters are likable. The lead was down with watching his love interest get raped, making him a complete tosser, and the only character I cared for at all was, strangely enough, the 'villain' of the piece.

If not for it having samurai and being a serious business title, I'd have 5/10'd it.
 
Last night I attempted to watch the first episode of Gasaraki. Good Lord. It must have been the most boring 15 minutes of anime I have ever watched. Can anyone who's seen Gasaraki assure me that I might be rewarded with a vaguely interesting show if I can just stay awake? Or not, in which case the discs will make themselves useful as coasters.
 
Started watching This Ugly Yet Beautiful World. It's very generic so far but short enough that it should be mildly entertaining even if it goes nowhere, I hope.

fabricatedlunatic said:
Last night I attempted to watch the first episode of Gasaraki. Good Lord. It must have been the most boring 15 minutes of anime I have ever watched. Can anyone who's seen Gasaraki assure me that I might be rewarded with a vaguely interesting show if I can just stay awake? Or not, in which case the discs will make themselves useful as coasters.
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I made it to disc two before just giving up forever. Some people over the years have assured me that it becomes interesting later on but I just didn't care about anything that was happening (they also tended to act as though I was stupid for not immediately latching onto its deep meaningfulness or something). The awesome music was the only saving grace, so I bought the CDs instead of the rest of the show.

R
 
Aion said:
I'm a bit late, and you've probably finished it already by now, but Shigurui ends up going nowhere. The entire series is build-up for nothing--I kid you not. At first you think it's going to be a brutal tournament style series, then you realize the series is going to be focused almost fully on a flashback... and then it ends, inexplicably, right when there should've been a fight to the death. With it not leading to an epic finale, the entire flashback story was rendered pointless.
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Well I finished Shigurui today and I have to agree with this. Here was me thinking the whole point of the flashback was simply to inform us of how we got the fight set up at the start and then continue from there, but no it somehow finishes before we even get to the start and accomplishes nothing. The majority of what happened, or didn't really, could have been done a lot better over just a few episodes and even then mixed in with the current narrative so it's not purely just flashback. The use of European style sword fighting in contrast to Japanese was interesting but would have worked a lot better in a tournament style series where everyone would be trying to figure out how to ocmbat it.
 
Maromi: You should check with me before watching anything, as I have excellent taste. Be sure to refer to my MAL page if you need to know what to watch.


After buying Gasaraki, someone told me it's probably the worst anime he's ever watched. He was perplexed as to why I was happy getting it new/sealed for £15.

The guy I purchased the DVDs from is still trying to sell 1-8 collections on eBay for £15, even now. It pleases me that someone will/has suffered with me because of me bringing it to peoples' attention...
 
Rui said:
I made it to disc two before just giving up forever. Some people over the years have assured me that it becomes interesting later on but I just didn't care about anything that was happening (they also tended to act as though I was stupid for not immediately latching onto its deep meaningfulness or something). The awesome music was the only saving grace, so I bought the CDs instead of the rest of the show.
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Hmm. That's doesn't sound too positive. I really wanted it out of the way but I'm not sure I can make it through a full episode, at least not without having consumed a dangerous amount of caffeine first.

Maybe it's time for... Noein?
 
You'll probably 6/10 it, so why bother?
Only people with taste rate it highly. There's some hope for you, since you did like Gankutsuou, but I'm not expecting much from you these days, tbh...

I meant to say this before you... 'cut your hair' and became a new woman: The first episode is a good indication of if you'll like Noein. It ends on a major cliffhanger, and if you're left wanting more then, chances are, you'll end up loving it since it only gets better and there's some wonderful same characterxsame character development. However, if you don't care after the cliffhanger, you might as well just drop it and move on.

You should check out 'Karasu's theme' on Youtube if you want some incentive. Noein has some bloody epic orchestra tracks on its soundtrack.

...Or, you could watch AMG instead. I'm sure you'll LOVE that. Or Claymore.
 
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