What are you Watching?

Discuss anime, especially but not limited to 1950's~1990's series, and related sub-topics
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Char Aznable
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by Char Aznable »

I've been re-watching episodes of the '80s Japanese Transformers Headmasters series. It's definitely the closest anyone's ever come to recapturing the spirit of the original G1 series. It's a pretty enjoyable show--though the English dubbed episodes are insanely comical...and fun in their own right.

I'm also about halfway through Akame Ga Kill. I'm enjoying it far more than I thought I would have. My only gripe is that some of the pacing isn't handled very well. For instance, one moment would be played serious and the very next second would be intercut with some slapstick, completely ruining the scene. Other than that, I'm liking it. Not sure how the second half of the series will fare, but we'll see.
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Drew_Sutton
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by Drew_Sutton »

mbanu wrote:I've been watching ACCA, a show about political intrigue, smoking, food, and bureaucracy. It seems kind of Francophile, although maybe that's just me: http://www.crunchyroll.com/acca-13-terr ... ction-dept

Not bad if you have a high tolerance for slow shows. Much of the show is about following the protagonist around at his day job and watching him take lunch breaks. (^_^;)

One thing I found a little fascinating is that Yoshiaki Kawajiri is doing a bunch of the storyboarding for the show -- there hasn't been a single gristly death or crazy spider demon, after all. (^_^)
So, I started watching this show this past weekend, pretty much purely on your recommendation from this post, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm only two episodes in, so my initial thoughts so far-
[*] I'm digging the setting and want them to extrapolate the world a bit more. It also does well, what little setting description they do, in that there isn't some massive info-dump and instead weave little bits into the flowing narrative.
[*] Setting up the political drama so far is really good. They're introducing new characters but are still leaving things for us to learn about them and making a more dense plot for us to dive into.
[*] The animation style on the openings and endings is great; kinda flashy, pulls me in. Some interesting character designs. Animation during the show is par for the course.
[*] I definitely see where you get the francophile vibe - lots of cafe scenery, very European looking architecture, cigarette peddlers, abundance of pastel coloring painting a romanticized picture of a small French city. I want to see more of the political drama and more details of the setting as it could be an allegory of somewhere else.
[*] I kinda wish they'd ditch the whole food/drink stuff. It really pulls me out of what all is going on with the main plot and makes the show appear written by committee and gauging only what's popular here and now. I mean it's really weird for a political drama to go off on these food and drink tangents -
Image
Oh.
If they are going to need to do the "food/drink to distract us from our daily lives", they don't need to build this fictional world around them. Put them in an actual agency and give them those realistic character traits and make that nice, slice-of-life escapism show. I'd watch that, too!
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Drew_Sutton
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by Drew_Sutton »

^ Welp, please forgive my (terrible) joke falling flat and poorly formatted list. Thanks, edit button!
Akihabara Renditions: Japanese Animation of the Bubble Economy
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usamimi
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by usamimi »

Well we at least got streaming LOTGH started just recently! viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1181

I'm hoping that means the physical release is getting worked on!
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

Ever start watching a series you forgot you watched before? I did that recently with Ef, A Tale of Memories. I had assumed that I was interested in this once but never watched it, so I rented it and after seeing the first 5 minutes I realized I had already seen this.

In fact, I posted about this show right in this thread back in 2013:

llj wrote:
I also watched Ef A Tale of Memories. God, what an awful show. Romances are a guilty pleasure of mine, but when they're bad, they're REALLY bad. I almost wished for a School Days ending here. Actually, a lot of romance anime today might be better served for a School Days ending. I sometimes wonder if these writers have ever been in a relationship. These characters are written so phony and false that it's like the writers' entire knowledge of relationships is based on other anime. There's an scene halfway through the series which is absolutely cringeworthy in its contrivance. I actually wanted to throw my remote through the TV screen because of how condescending it all felt. The sad thing is, I almost feel like they think that they were being "real". This is another SHAFT show I find absolutely terrible. Why does this studio get so much acclaim?
:lol:

Even though I now remember a bunch of scenes in this show, I must confess I have completely forgotten how it ended. So I'm deciding to watch it all the way through again.

I'm not having as strongly vicious a reaction this time around. I still think the show is bad, though.
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DKop
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by DKop »

My rule for watching things is if I forget more than 50 percent of something, it wasn't good to begin with. But then again I can remember stuff that people will say is terrible. I have a vivid memory of MD Geist, so maybe it's not all that terrible?
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

DKop wrote:My rule for watching things is if I forget more than 50 percent of something, it wasn't good to begin with. But then again I can remember stuff that people will say is terrible. I have a vivid memory of MD Geist, so maybe it's not all that terrible?
I agree, there is something to be said about being memorably terrible. I think the least any product can do is leave an impression of ANY sort.

MD Geist wasn't THAT bad anyway. ;)
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DKop
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by DKop »

llj wrote:
MD Geist wasn't THAT bad anyway. ;)
A true believer that looks at Geist the same way I do. I'm still holding out for either an MD Geist LA film or MD Geist 3 to be made. It's not a matter of if, but when.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

Finally got around to watching A Letter to Momo... it was generally good, with nice "realistic" Okiura style animation and a cute story, although the setting and imagery is very reminiscent of Ponyo at times. So again, like the majority of anime films released in the last 15 or so years, it's Ghibli-esque-- a recent trend I've talked about on these boards before.

I've also started watching Gantz. I'll admit, I'm somewhat of a fan of Gonzo--not because they are great animators (sadly, they are not) but during the 2000s they seemed to be the only studio that was doing the "type" of shows I was interested in. Red Garden, Welcome to the NHK, Speed Grapher are just a few examples of the stuff I kinda dug...weird stuff, dark psychological stuff, sexual stuff, b-anime type stuff. Their best period in terms of animation quality and design was probably 1998-2003. But a lot of the more interesting manga they animated was during 2004-2007, which unfortunately was when the animation quality for the studio nosedived and they started having major financial problems.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

I finished the Gantz anime. The anime is a deeply cynical show that goes so over the top with everything that it ends up being something of a black comedy. The dub is also hilariously crass, but surprisingly, not that unfaithful to the original script either. Like most Gonzo shows of this period, I like the fact that it maintains the "balls" of its source material, but I can't give it too high a mark because the art and animation quality is extremely substandard. It gets the job done, and no more.

I've seen it described as a "bad" show, but I would disagree because it's too smart and self aware about its cynicism, so it's not quite Angel Cop and Mad Bull 34 kind of earnest "edginess." I've read through some of the manga and while the anime definitely comes up sad artwise (the manga is beautifully rendered) I feel that the fact that the manga became more of a conventional "alien invasion" story somewhat undercuts its social commentary, whereas the anime never actually gets to the full on alien invasion part of the manga and it maintains its dark satirical elements more keenly.
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