The Old School Otaku Lounge

Ben wrote:I have to be honest, and say this is not my cup of tea, Gundam wise. I'm the biggest Tomino fan going, but this series is geared more towards the hardcore mecha model kit fan, not so much the old school Gundam fan (and I knew that going in, it's called Build Fighters for a reason, obviously). Really, the last Gundam I enjoyed was Victory Gundam, and that was 20 years ago now. I gave this one a chance, but bailed three episodes in. But again, I think Tomino's best work was Ideon, this was never aimed at me to begin with.

I don't think Tomino had anything to do with this, the overall energy was...well, very Not-Tomino.

Also it wasn't peppered with truly bizarre and near impossible to Romanize character names.

I might say you gave up a little too soon but that defense is used by too many to defend awful shows, I think Gundam Build Fighters is one of those 'either you get in synch right away or you'll never get hooked no matter how much you watch' kind of series. I'm kind of surprised that episode 3 didn't sink its teeth into you, that's when most of the silly stuff gets tossed.

As a fan of UC Timeline Gundam series, I am interested in watching this show for all the parodies and in-jokes that Steve says there are. One of the main reasons I like Keroro Gunsou is for all the spoofs. The manga spoofs quite a wider variety of things, while the anime (being a Sunrise show) mostly focuses on Gundam (and occasionally Evangelion and such). My little girl likes it for the funny frogs doing stupid stuff like blowing each other up. So it appeals to the little ones, while older anime fans will pick up on a lot of the gags and spoofs more. Heck, I enjoy Power Puff Girls for its brilliant parodies of tokusatsu, kaiju, and American comics. I can't see why Build Fighters wouldn't appeal to me. Maybe if it is on Crunchyroll and that service is as free as Usamimi says, then maybe it is time I get a VPN.

greg wrote:As a fan of UC Timeline Gundam series, I am interested in watching this show for all the parodies and in-jokes that Steve says there are. One of the main reasons I like Keroro Gunsou is for all the spoofs. The manga spoofs quite a wider variety of things, while the anime (being a Sunrise show) mostly focuses on Gundam (and occasionally Evangelion and such). My little girl likes it for the funny frogs doing stupid stuff like blowing each other up. So it appeals to the little ones, while older anime fans will pick up on a lot of the gags and spoofs more. Heck, I enjoy Power Puff Girls for its brilliant parodies of tokusatsu, kaiju, and American comics. I can't see why Build Fighters wouldn't appeal to me. Maybe if it is on Crunchyroll and that service is as free as Usamimi says, then maybe it is time I get a VPN.

I am unsure about some of the policies here, I don't know what is OK and what is forbidden. There are a couple of sites out there that are doing evil, pirate things such as (I guess) taking streaming videos and re-posting them so one can view them, even download them. This does not require any 'peer sharing' software such as bittorrent or such things.

I'm likely a terrible hypocrite for using these sites for my limited diving into current anime. Things I would otherwise buy had I the money and someone in the U.S. had some sensible licensing. blah blah.

Should I suggest someone send me a private message, is that more the cover of propriety?

I actually enjoyed Gundam Build. All the references to every Gundam series under the sun, characters in the background that should look very familiar and the fights themselves made this a good series. And the storyline wasn't half bad.

SteveH wrote:I am unsure about some of the policies here, I don't know what is OK and what is forbidden.

Actually, me neither. I guess as an assistant mod, I ought to know about this, but at least the best bet is to post in the fansub section about this sort of thing and let Daniel decide.

greg wrote:

SteveH wrote:I am unsure about some of the policies here, I don't know what is OK and what is forbidden.

Actually, me neither. I guess as an assistant mod, I ought to know about this, but at least the best bet is to post in the fansub section about this sort of thing and let Daniel decide.

That's just getting complicated and stuff. I went to your homepage, grabbed what I hope is your current email and sent you links. I hope it works.

Crunchyroll is completely licensed and legitimate.

There's a nice list of legal streaming anime sites here: http://organizationasg.kokidokom.net/20 ... y-in-2013/

We get our VPN from a few different places, but one is getusvpn.com. That's how we can watch US Netflix instead of the Canadian version, which has fewer titles. There's a add-on for Chrome and Firefox that automatically connects to a US VPN, as well.

davemerrill wrote:Crunchyroll is completely licensed and legitimate.

There's a nice list of legal streaming anime sites here: http://organizationasg.kokidokom.net/20 ... y-in-2013/

We get our VPN from a few different places, but one is getusvpn.com. That's how we can watch US Netflix instead of the Canadian version, which has fewer titles. There's a add-on for Chrome and Firefox that automatically connects to a US VPN, as well.

Whatever a VPN is, all true.

Only thing being, Crunchyroll (recall, they used to be a 'bad guy'! How complex all this crap is nowadays) isn't streaming Sakigake! Otokojuku. And the issue of control. Once CR decides they don't want to stream your favorite show, what do you do? It's worse than the gaptooth pain of missing DVD volumes!

Blah blah. I'm a dinosaur for good and sure.

SteveH wrote:
Whatever a VPN is, all true.

VPN is a Virtual Private Network - it is a piece of software that you can connect to via an encrypted channel and can be configured to have your exit or final source address appear to be part of a different geographic region.

SteveH wrote:Only thing being, Crunchyroll (recall, they used to be a 'bad guy'! How complex all this crap is nowadays) isn't streaming Sakigake! Otokojuku. And the issue of control. Once CR decides they don't want to stream your favorite show, what do you do? It's worse than the gaptooth pain of missing DVD volumes!

Blah blah. I'm a dinosaur for good and sure.

Crunchy Roll's about-face of legitimacy certainly was surprising; however, they've made good on a lot of licensing promises and should be commended for that. But more to the heart of what you're saying - that once a streaming license ends/drops or what have you, the show is removed from the service - I have approached it from the sense that nothing is permanent. I'll use Crunchy's* free stream, not skip the ads and just watch things. If it's something I like enough to own, I'll look for a release that matches my price-point at that time. But not everything is worth owning.

*Crunchy Roll can be in this case synonymous with Daisuki for me.

I've heard nothing but good things about Build Fighters, that it's one of those shows to get kids to buy models but there is enough going on to keep us older folks involved in it, too. I really like that idea and I've seen a bunch of screen shots that seem to belabor that a bit. It's on my 'To Watch' list, which seems to do nothing but grow longer and longer...

What happens when CR or Daisuki or Viki or Funi decides to stop streaming a show? The same thing that happened when your local UHF station decided to quit showing "Gilligan's Island" at 2:30 in the afternoon. You square your shoulders and move forward, in a world that's just a little bit colder.

Seriously though, right now streaming is the best way to get Japanese cartoons to the eyeballs of potential customers. And as Drew said, there are plenty of shows that you might enjoy watching, but don't necessarily want to own; with streaming I can watch a show without having to invest in a DVD set and/or the shelf space for it. Not everything has to be 'collected.'