Glorious Escapism Roleplay

Toutaku · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 5:24 pm Post subject: Winter Season 2010

Your thoughts?
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"Victims, aren't we all?"

Phil the Time Wizard · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 8:22 pm Post subject:

Like the last season, this one has few things that stand out to me. I'm probably going to have to just try most things and see what sticks with me again.

One thing I'm suddenly ecstatic for is Freezing. I've read a good part of that manga, and it's fairly awesome.

The one about Cthuhlu strikes me as very intriguing. Could be quite fun, even if I'm tentative of shows focused on "normal high school students". The same with the zombie one.

But yeah, other than Freezing, nothing is immediate this time. I'll porbably give most things a shot.
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Rabukurafuto · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 9:29 pm Post subject:

It looks cute.
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Rahkshi500 · Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Posts: 3230 Location: Unknown

Hmm, I'll probably take a look at .hack//Quantum, since I haven't seen a .hack animation in a long time. Hopefully it would be a step up from the last animation I've seen. Other than that, I'm still watching SRW: The Inspector and caught with real-life stuff.
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Phil the Time Wizard · Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2010 8:59 pm Post subject:

Anime blog Random Curiosity posted their preview of the coming season. These previews are always helpful in informing me about the series and thus giving me a better idea of what to watch each season.

After reading it I can say these three are must watches for me:

Freezing - badass hot chicks; like the manga
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica - interested to see an original take on Magical girl concepts by Studio SHAFT.
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? - I see an armor girl... and zombies... and a chainsaw.

I will also try these:

Rio RainbowGate - sexy female lead; lots of fanservice and a pie is what the preview shows. Could be good, though I'll have to wait and see if it has anything else to offer.
IS Infinite Stratos - I really hate it when there's the only male in the world able to do anything. It seems cheap. Especially when it's bland uninteresting anime protagonist guy. That said, the girls look remarkably sexy and the action looks impressive. The good might outweigh the annoying parts. I'll have to wait and see.
Yumekui Merry - Heh. Not sure what to make of this series even after reading about it and watching the previews. Looks like it might be worth a look though.
Wolverine - Iron Man was kind too slow to take off for me, but I'll at least try this again. I see hot chicks in the image there, so that might be what it needs for me.
Gosick - sexy pie. Plot sounds kinda meh. We'll see.
Fractale - excellent director; lots of talent working on it. COncept doesn't strike me immediately, but it's worth a look.

We'll see what sticks once the shows start.
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Phil the Time Wizard · Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:16 pm Post subject:

So, the winter season is officially underway. Tonight I sampled the first episodes of four shows...

I started with Rio: RainbowGate, easily the dumbest thing I watched tonight. A lot of it really doesn't make a lot of sense. What sort of negligent old man lets his pie granddaughter wander around casinos while he goes off and gambles? Why the hell would a casino hire a woman with the supernatural ability to make people win? How many ecchi fanservice shots can you possible pack into a twenty minutes... it was dumb, base, illogical and at times bizarre. Rio is admittedly incredibly hot though. It was stupid, but it features the type of fanservice I like. Just a really sexy chick in a hot outfit. It's fanservice just for her to be there. No lame ecchi gags, just a few nice close ups. This show has no subtlety, and I felt a little stupider after watching it, but Rio's sexiness buys it another episode at least.

I went from that to Yumekui Merry. This is an anime about some guy who is tortured nightly by anthropomorphic cats in his dreams. One day he meets a really cute girl named Merry Nightmare, who is apparently some sort of uber badass from the world of dreams. She proceeds to beat the crap out of some freak in a mask with a bunch of saw blades who acts as the cat's leader. Yes, it's kind of ridiculous. I still have a hard time absorbing it all. But I kind of liked it. At least enough to give it another episode or two. Merry, despite her weird name, is a cute, intriguing character. The show left me confused, if interested.

Next I went to Infinite Stratos. I had qualms with the premise here. I still don't like the whole "one guy in the world who can do such and such" thing. It feels cheap. All girls schools don't need male students. It just seems like a cop out from making a show that truly focuses on female characters or a means to force a harem situation. Stepping aside from all that momentarily, IS looks somewhat promising. Crucially, I do not hate the male lead. He's not Kyon or Kyousuke from Oreimo, but he does sort of veer in that direction enough to where he's tolerable. I might come to actually like his character. His sister/teacher is lovely and amazing; currently my favorite. His tsundere childhood friend and probable main love interest is cute. The British girl is also rather cute and fun. I'm left eager to meet more characters. Wasn't a lot of mecha action (or any action really; a harsher critic might call the episode a little dull), at least not that meant anything to me, but this mecha show looks a lot more likely to keep my attention then Star Driver did last season. It gets another episode from me. Probably more.

Finally I watched Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It's hard to express how impressed I am by this opening episode, how already completely in love with this I am. It's magical girl, but then it isn't. There are girls with special powers who have transformation scenes and there's talking cute animal mascot character and the main girl is kind of pie and it's all really adorable. And yet there's is such a world of difference between the Nanoha series I watched two days ago and this. Granted, Nanoha isn't a typical magical girls series either, as I became increasingly more aware watching that.. but just watching this... I don't know what to say... It feels so fresh and unique. I went into this expecting to compare it to Nanoha, but watching it it felt like an entirely different species. I'm going to make some predictions. This will be my favorite anime of the season. This will be SHAFT's next big thing. Perhaps their biggest thing yet. Probably will be the most talked about series of the season (and yes I know that Fractale show has a lot of talent behind it), at least in Japan (us westerners might still resist the Magical girl thing because we suck). The direction is Akiyuki Shinbo at his absolute best. The characters are well designed and instantly interesting. The visuals are superb and striking. The opening is rather enticing. The character designs remind me of Lucky Star (they'd probably remind me more of Hidamari Sketch if I had seen that, though) in their super moeness. My enthusiasm for this is higher then its been for a show in quite a long time.
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Toutaku · Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 5:41 pm Post subject:

Having read that, I think I'm going to watch everything you did.
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"Victims, aren't we all?"

Phil the Time Wizard · Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:17 pm Post subject:

Awesome.
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Phil the Time Wizard · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:16 am Post subject:

I watched four more premiers. This time out I'm really trying most everything.

I started the day with Onii-chan no Koto nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne!! (or "I Don't Like You at All, Big Brother!"). From the overly long title that obviously has something to do with a big brother/little sister thing, it might remind you of Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai ("My Little Sister Can't be this cute"). Unfortunately, this comparison doesn't really carry on to the actual content, at least not in terms of quality. The first episode of Onii-chan whatever it's called was quite honestly, very hard to watch for me. Oreimo was my overall pick of last season. Why the discrepancy? Both shows revolve around the bro-con/sis-con theme. Both are billed as comedies. But Oreimo was subtle, intelligent and ultimately unique... this is not any of that. It's crass and really rather tasteless. While Kirino was a multi layered, intensely likable and wonderfully unique and flawed character, little sister this time is anything but. She's a scheming, airheaded pervert who wants to have sex with her brother and makes failed attempts at being a tsundere (something that came by Kirino masterfully and naturally); there's nothing compelling about her. Now examining the brothers, Kyousuke was likable and relatable; an execution of the Kyon-esque protagonist on par with Kyon himself. The brother in this is a bland by shounen protagonist standards pervert who wants to have sex with his sister (or at least kiss her and stare at her naked and stuff; he never actually says sex). Admittedly, the scene where said pervert brother's porn mags were discovered did give me some of the few laughs of the entire episode because it was handled better than most such scenes are, and the shear level of his perversion is vaguely refreshing, but he's still largely worthless. Like Oreimo, this show expects to pull back the jokes very momentarily to have a plot. Thus enters the ridiculous twist. The two main characters, the brother and the sister, they're not blood related! Better yet, the sister has amnesia! Never seen those two devices used... Groan... A lot of this was groan worthy actually... And to top it all off, I don't even really find the sister attractive. The art style used is kind of weird for me. The characters all look way too thin and have overly long arms and necks. It all added up to a hard to watch, dumb conventional ecchi incest show with absolutely nothing compelling me to give it a second look.

Taking a step back from that sort of rant, I moved on to something a little more palatable. Beelzebub. Some shounen anime about a baby. I say palatable, but that doesn't mean I really loved it. I just wasn't tempted to turn the video off halfway through. I suppose with this one I should start by saying this: I like babies. They're cute. That said, shows and movies that prominently feature infants typically annoy me. With babies around it's only a matter of time before things degrade into sick gross out humor, something that doesn't sit well with me. In the case of beelzebub, that matter of time was about a minute in when the baby urinates on the main characters head. So it started off rather poorly for me, and though it never again quite feel to that base level again, it still had a naked baby on screen at all times clinging to things and making baby sounds, which was kind of grating for me after a while. But once the show stepped back and explained itself, it became mildly intriguing. The baby is the son of the demon lord and has been sent to Earth to be raised to become a badass so he can wipe out humanity. The badass he clings to is the high school delinquent type shounen protagonist, who obviously doesn't know anything about babies and tries to get rid of the kid, which seems apt to lead to amusing situations. Making things even better is a sexy girl in a goth pie dress who shows up halfway through. But even with that, I can't see this being a show that I'm going to follow. It's wasn't bad and it had it's moments, but I just don't think it's going to be for me. I'll debate giving it another episode, but knowing me, I probably won't.

Gosick was third on my list. This is a show about a fictional European country where no one has ever seen a person with black hair and black eyes (not a lot of trade with Spain or other such countries, I'm thinking...). A bland shounen protagonist from Japan transfers to some sort of school there for a reason I forgot because I wasn't paying attention. Then he finds an adorable blonde kuudere (or tsundere; can't tell yet) goth pie named Victorique in a tower and the show becomes kind of awesome. She has mad detective skills, but for some reason she doesn't leave her tower and let's some weirdo with ridiculous hair take all the credit for the cases she solves. This pisses off shounen protagonist guy who confronts detective guy and then eventually gets pie Victorique to leave her tower. She acts really cute and moe. More mysteries stuff then it ends. Cute pie equals win so I'm in for more. Always liked mystery stories too, so there's that as well.

I ended up with the one thing going into the season I knew I'd like, Freezing. I had read some of the manga (or manwha, as it's actually originally Korean in origin) and enjoyed it. I however, wasn't prepared for the anime to be this awesome. It's been a while, so maybe my memory of the manga is hazy, but I do not recall this much awesome bloody violence and nudity. Really, when you have limbs falling off in the combat scenes, you know it's gotta be good. And ecchi nudity makes it better. Freezing is about hot chicks fighting. The goal is to get the hot chicks to eventually fight alien type things warring against man, but to get to that point they must train by fighting against each other. As these girls can recover from most wounds (the alien things effortlessly take off limbs and such, so recovery is a necessity), there's no holding back for the trainign matches and blood flies everywhere. Especially when female lead Sattelizer el Bridgette is around. She has the most ridiculous name this side of Merry Nightmare (seriously, Korean guy who wrote this... Sattelizer is not a good name... especially not as the given name...). She happens to be the toughest sexiest badass chick around. But, unbeknownst too most, she's a tsundere. Enter the bland shounen protagonist of the day, some guy who's sexy sister sacrificed herself valiantly in battle against the alien things. Mistaking Sattelizer for his dead sister, he jumps on her. Suddenly her deredere side is awakened where she had only ever before been tsuntsun. The episode then pretty much just ends. This was a lot of fun. It might provide Madoka stiff competition if the anime studio keeps up the good work with it. I'm definitely in at least.
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Toutaku · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 1:55 pm Post subject:

Epicness.

I'll be watching eveything you watch, I think, bcause even those you dislike may have some appeal to me
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"Victims, aren't we all?"

Phil the Time Wizard · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 6:29 pm Post subject:

Cool. I support that. My tastes are different from everyone else's. I like the idea of you trying them all for yourself.
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Toutaku · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 6:36 pm Post subject:

Kewl, I've downloaded qute a bit.
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"Victims, aren't we all?"

Phil the Time Wizard · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 6:44 pm Post subject:

Awesome. I'll be interested to hear what series succeed for you this time out.
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Toutaku · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 6:50 pm Post subject:

I actually turned off Onii-Chan halfway through..

I was a bit 'wft?' to Rio, but ultimately thought it was kinda awesome.
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"Victims, aren't we all?"

Phil the Time Wizard · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 6:58 pm Post subject:

Heh, really? I half expected it to be more tolerable to you.

Rio is definitely.... kinda odd. Rio herself is really hot though, which makes it better.
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