What are you Watching?

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

Post by SteveH »

usamimi wrote:(Pssst hey guys remember there's a specific thread for non anime shows ;) viewtopic.php?f=15&t=401 )
Phrasing! :)
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DKop
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by DKop »

SteveH wrote:
usamimi wrote:(Pssst hey guys remember there's a specific thread for non anime shows ;) viewtopic.php?f=15&t=401 )
Phrasing! :)
I guess I forgot that thread existed, whoops. :?
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

Watching Log Horizon. It's uninspired, but acceptable as a time waster. As far as MMORPG animes go, I think I prefer Sword Art Online simply because there is more drama in the main hook, and there seems to be more of a hard sci-fi bent to the concept. Thus far Log Horizon is very low drama. It doesn't help that the production values are mediocre too.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

Watching Kokoro Connect. Remember the brief body swapping phase in Hollywood at the time of Big and Vice Versa? Good times. Anyway, Kokoro Connect is basically that with *drumroll0*.... 5 high school kids! Seems amusing enough so far though. As much fun as this concept is, I've never seen anyone truly ever got the most out of it.
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Char Aznable
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by Char Aznable »

I've been re-watching Gundam 00. Picked up the complete Season 1 and Season 2 "Anime Legends" DVD sets at FYE for dirt cheap a couple of weeks back.

I first watched the series back in 2009, and was very impressed with Season 1, but disliked Season 2 immensely. Watching it again, I still found Season 1 entertaining, especially the first thirteen episodes. I'm now up to Season 2 and, so far, it's better than I remember.

Overall, Gundam 00 is one of the more intriguing of the non Universal Century shows. The concept itself is unique and unlike Gundam Seed--which I really didn't like--it doesn't feel like a lazy rehash of the original Gundam series.
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greg
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by greg »

I watched another episode of Molett's Space Pirates (I don't even want to mention the stupid English title). I forget which episode I am finally up to now, because I am so very extremely slowly watching this show on an average of one episode every 5 months or so, as with most other anime. So suddenly the absurd premise of having a pirating license in outer space makes sense now: it's all an insurance sham. They allow pirates to raid commercial space liners to steal valuables from the wealthy passengers, put on a grand show, and later reimburse the passengers for their losses. It's essentially like a phoney stagecoach robbery at Knott's Berry Farm. It's an elaborate stage performance with much pageantry, except they actually steal stuff and are allowed to get away with it due to insurance write-offs. This is getting kinda cool. IIRC, someone on here gave up after an episode or two, but I think it's interesting so far. And despite Marika being the captain, it's not all just a bunch of school girls on this show.

Has anyone seen Arpeggio of Blue Steel? I've begun building one of the models from the show. The OP makes the show look real dumb, but I've had modelers on my YouTube channel telling me that it's actually pretty cool.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

I rewatched Mobile Suit Gundam Movie 3, to compare the differences to the manga which I've almost finished. There are quite a few differences! Yas definitely punched up the drama of several important bits, including how the White Base crew handled Sayla's meeting with Char late in the series. In the anime she only told Bright and he mostly let it slide, but in the manga the whole crew was present in the room when Bright questioned Sayla after the fact and she was put on suspension until further notice.

One thing that struck me about movie 3 was how rushed the first hour seems now. They basically go through 3 big battles with very little transition scenes between them, so it feels like a neverending series of big battles one after another, when in fact several days--even weeks--actually pass between these battles. That's probably the biggest problem with the movies in general. The TV series and manga show the downtime between these battles.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

Yurikuma Arashi--Have to admit, I am pleased and amused that even after nearly 20 years and different trends and standards, Ikuhara is still as unique and distinctive a director as he ever was. I haven't seen Penguindrum yet, and part of me wondered if he would be neutered by the demands of modern anime trends when going into this. Not so. Even with moe designs, Ikuhara is still Ikuhara. Love him or hate him, I'm glad to see he's still the same maverick he is and his vision shines through. There are way too many bland anime directors these days with no distinctive personal style (let alone cinematic sense), so getting hit by Ikuhara's design heavy, non-sequiter narrative was a nice blast of fresh air.
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Char Aznable
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by Char Aznable »

Started re-watching Zeta Gundam. I own the Bandai "Anime Legends" releases and haven't "upgraded" to the latest version (and probably won't).

I remember hearing on a different forum people mentioning that the opening title song was changed for the US release. I finally watched the original Japanese opening yesterday on YouTube and, wow, the DVD-only opening is a massive improvement. The original song, with its pop-like vocals and tone not only doesn't fit the feel of the show, but it doesn't even look like it syncs to the editing of the opening clips. However, the instrumental version used on the US DVDs meshes perfectly with the visuals in terms of editing (the added sound effects help too) and has an epic space-opera/militaristic vibe.

And also just finished up Gundam 00. I don't know what I was thinking the first time I watched it a few years ago. I remember disliking Season 2 but, this time around, I genuinely enjoyed both seasons. I'll have to hunt down the movie, even though I've heard very mixed things about it.
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llj
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Re: What are you Watching?

Post by llj »

I like the instrumental OP for Zeta Gundam too. That said, the purist in me is still a little irritated about the change.

The Bandai Zeta Gundam DVDs had really nice picture quality. Given that the recent BD made minimal improvements to the script and still kept the altered OP, I too passed on the BD.
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