General Anime/Manga Discussion 14: Second Cour

[Closet_Skeleton]

Bonus points for the two getting together early on and not dragging it out the rest of the series.

I'm starting to get suspicious that it has a nonaggression pact with its identically premised sister show Asterisk War where they alternate which one of them is going to be interesting and watch-able this week. Whenever I get the idea that one of them is pure dross and I should just stick with one of them they switch round which one of them is close to being good.

If they were one show with just the good bits we might have got something as entertainingly naff as Strike the Blood (aka How not to run a World of Darkness game: the anime).

[CarpeGuitarrem]

anyone looking forward to a second season of rokka no yuusha is probably in for a bad time

In a hilariously ironic twist, guess what ads I'm seeing on that site right now, next to the article?

EDIT: actually, forget guessing.

Spoiler

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[DoctorFaust]

If they were one show with just the good bits we might have got something as entertainingly naff as Strike the Blood (aka How not to run a World of Darkness game: the anime).

That sounds...interesting. Is there anything good about it, or is it just entertainingly bad?

[cobaltstarfire]

So Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE

It might be a little too rich for me, though we're going to give it a few more episodes.


We've also been watching Lovely Muco, usually just one every few days, cause more would be too much.

edit: We also started watching Daily Lives of Highschool Boys

It's very funny, there was much laughing. They remind me of middle schoolers with how weird and awkward they are.

[BWR]

That sounds...interesting. Is there anything good about it, or is it just entertainingly bad?

Nothing good that I can remember. 'Entertainingly bad' is a good description. Rather predictable if you've seen that sort of thing before, with all the ridiculousness of, among other things, old people who inexplicably look like little girls, gratuitous panty shots, skinny kids wielding oversized weapons in implausible ways and a useless-yet-powerful protagonist we are for some reason supposed to root for and tsundere love interests.

[DoctorFaust]

Nothing good that I can remember. 'Entertainingly bad' is a good description. Rather predictable if you've seen that sort of thing before, with all the ridiculousness of, among other things, old people who inexplicably look like little girls, gratuitous panty shots, skinny kids wielding oversized weapons in implausible ways and a useless-yet-powerful protagonist we are for some reason supposed to root for and tsundere love interests.

Hmm. I might give that a watch when I'm in the mood for a fluff series, then.

Oh, and they've announced the VAs for Deku and All Might in the Boku no Hero Academia anime. Apparently, it's going to be Daiki Yama****a voicing Deku, and Kenta Miyake voicing All Might.

[Fri]

edit: We also started watching Daily Lives of Highschool Boys

It's very funny, there was much laughing. They remind me of middle schoolers with how weird and awkward they are.

Glad you like it. They also kinda remind me of myself in middle school. Or maybe my idealized memory of middle schoo. Not highschool though, because I'm a loner with no friend in highschool ;_;.

[Sith_Happens]

Is it just me or do the main characters of Kill Me Baby look 100% like chibi versions of Fate Testarossa and Hayate Yagami with their eye colors swapped?

Spoiler: Kill Me Baby

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Spoiler: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

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[Closet_Skeleton]

That sounds...interesting. Is there anything good about it, or is it just entertainingly bad?

The characters and harem bits are actually quite good as harem shows go. The plotting and the villains are all terrible.

[Alent]

The characters and harem bits are actually quite good as harem shows go. The plotting and the villains are all terrible.

This pretty much describes my thoughts on it. The Strike the Blood setting is quite good compared to it's base plot. I actually liked the protagonist, because it was clear the entire time that his vampire powers were on loan and that he was being used as a proxy. Sadly, they never got around to firing that Chekhov's gun.

[kamikasei]

Is it just me or do the main characters of Kill Me Baby look 100% like chibi versions of Fate Testarossa and Hayate Yagami with their eye colors swapped?

Firstly: you're right, I've always thought the blonde one looked Fate-ish, though I didn't know the other Kill Me Baby character to compare. The eye colours are actually different, though.

Secondly: Fate, that is not a safe way to hold a magic sword. Think of the children (with magic swords) watching!

[Morph Bark]

A while back someone recommended Outbreak Company to me, and man was I disappointed. The first two episodes was typical juvenile otakubait comedy before the show really got off the ground, and then it was sorta nice for a while, although it never really ventured into the serious stuff that was constantly lurking underneath the surface. Not until all the way at the end, when the plot really picked up and got interesting, and then the final episode destroyed that pacing completely. To boot, the way that final episode went, realistically most of the main characters should have died (the entire building was on fire and the main guy was lying unconscious inside for several minutes), and the sound direction (which had been pretty good for most of the series) all of a sudden had become lacklustre, bland and ill-fitting.

Outbreak Company did do quite a few things right, particularly in the middle with regards to the relationships of Miusel the maid with the main guy and the Empress, and the main guy was pretty smart at several occasions. Sadly, he typically followed this up with something incredibly stupid, often something that he had told himself beforehand not to do anymore.

I followed it up with GATE: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri, and man, it was everything I had been missing in the plot and characters of Outbreak Company, but while keeping excellent sound direction and animation. It seems to me it accomplished everything it set out to do. The characters were believeable, the military action and politics well-done, and the link-between-worlds concept was more fleshed out. It did stand out rather that it portrays a lot of parties that the main characters don't belong to as dishonest, however. They're not card-carrying villains, and they all have understandable motives, but their methods make it clear that the audience is not supposed to root for them.

There's a bit of a will-they-won't-they going on between some of the characters, which one character's ex-wife even highlights at some point, but it's all really well done, and for a 12-episode series you often can't expect a lot more. Luckily, a second season is on its way come January.

[DoctorFaust]

Continuing my fairly recent trend of unexpected enjoyment of romance stuff, I've been reading Kaichou wa Maid-sama and Tomo-chan wa Onna Ko lately, and I'm actually liking them quite a lot. I'll admit that I'm not particularly well read or watched in that genre, but they seem genuinely funny and well written. I really enjoy reading about Tomo and Misa (which I'll admit may be because I really enjoy flustered tomboys), Jun is entertainingly oblivious, Usui is a goddamn hilarious troll, there are actual confessions early on (even if neither of the people who are being confessed to actually believe it), and the supporting characters are, well, supporting.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure Usui in Maid-sama dresses up like Dio Brando at one point, so you should totally go check that out.

[Sith_Happens]

Just started my magical girl crash course last night. Keroberos is best animal sidekick.

Spoiler: Large Image

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[cobaltstarfire]

Glad you like it. They also kinda remind me of myself in middle school. Or maybe my idealized memory of middle schoo. Not highschool though, because I'm a loner with no friend in highschool ;_;.

I have little to no memories of middle school personally, I was mostly basing their behavior on middle schoolers I worked with during student teaching, though the guy reminded me that 9th/10th graders (14-16 y/olds) can still be more goofy/awkward than not.


What's really striking me about the show so far now is that the dialogue feels really natural if that makes any sense, even when they're crushing the fourth wall into very fine particles of dust. I'm also oddly amused by most of the girls being some kind of terrifying/crazy.

[Prime32]

A while back someone recommended Outbreak Company to me, and man was I disappointed. The first two episodes was typical juvenile otakubait comedy before the show really got off the ground, and then it was sorta nice for a while, although it never really ventured into the serious stuff that was constantly lurking underneath the surface.

[...]

I followed it up with GATE: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri, and man, it was everything I had been missing in the plot and characters of Outbreak Company, but while keeping excellent sound direction and animation. It seems to me it accomplished everything it set out to do. The characters were believeable, the military action and politics well-done, and the link-between-worlds concept was more fleshed out. It did stand out rather that it portrays a lot of parties that the main characters don't belong to as dishonest, however. They're not card-carrying villains, and they all have understandable motives, but their methods make it clear that the audience is not supposed to root for them.

Eh... I'll have to disagree with you on that; out of the two I found Outbreak Company much more enjoyable. Bear in mind that I haven't watched all of the GATE anime, but I'm up to date on the manga:

Spoiler

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GATE just has so many scenes that consist of the locals standing and gawping at how superior the Japanese people are, whether in skill or technology or morality or whatever (or of villains hearing reports of things Japanese people have done and saying "It's a trick! No one could be that amazing!"). IIRC there's a scene early on where three veteran warriors fight a rookie JSDF member in melee and get defeated in seconds.

Outbreak Company, meanwhile, goes out of its way to point out that the only reason Shinichi treats Myucel as an equal is because he's an outsider who wasn't brought up to fear elves (and in fact, has a positive stereotype of them thanks to fantasy stories). Both cultures have much they can learn from each other, but neither is better.

You say that GATE accomplished everything it set out to do. I'd argue that Outbreak Company was always intended to be a "juvenile otakubait comedy" and then brought in sociological stuff on top of that, whereas GATE was intended to be a serious military drama and then brought in otakubait (it has a loli named Loli, for crying out loud ).
I can't go into detail because of the board rules, but GATE's handling of real-world politics can also be... odd; while Outbreak Company only gives us a limited glimpse of what's going on in that front, I'd argue what we do see there is more realistic.

[tensai_oni]

What's really striking me about the show so far now is that the dialogue feels really natural if that makes any sense, even when they're crushing the fourth wall into very fine particles of dust.

I know what you mean. It's one of the show's strongest points, and the only unrealistic part is that the characters always have perfect comedic timing (unless lack of comedic timing is the joke). But then it's a comedy show so it's expected.

I'm also oddly amused by most of the girls being some kind of terrifying/crazy.

That's because the show is written from the perspective of high school boys.

[cobaltstarfire]

I'll give you that highschool girls are probably terrifying and confusing to highschool boys, but I don't think they go around planting double footed kicks on boys chests and other forms of violence.


I'm really excited! Crunchyroll picked up Digimon Adventure Tri...and it'll be available to free users too!

Digimon Adventure alongside Pokemon is one of my first anime (With Escaflowne and Card Captor Sakura being my first foray into un-butchered subtitled works)

Digimon Adventure is an anime I really enjoy, I've liked most of the other Digimon series's, even Xros Wars (though not frontier). So this is very excited for me.

The guy isn't as gung ho, but that's because he hasn't seen digimon (and maybe he'll turn out to not like digimon at all).

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'll give you that highschool girls are probably terrifying and confusing to highschool boys, but I don't think they go around planting double footed kicks on boys chests and other forms of violence.

Unless their last name is "Orihara", but yeah.

[Sith_Happens]

Spoiler: MFW eleven episodes into Futari wa Pretty Cure

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Spoiler: MFW two minutes into HeartCatch Precure

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EDIT: Wait a minute...

Spoiler: Coincidence?

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Oh Shaft, you so silly.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Heartcatch and Madoka were made in the same year, so its unlikely either was copying each other.

Apart from pink they aren't that similar really. Get a lot of pink magical girls together and they'll only be somewhere in the middle of similarity.

Wait until you're 11 episodes into Heartcatch to judge. Heartcatch's problem for me is that its really strong when its strong but that's only just over 1/10 of the episodes. But I also like monster of the week shows and understand why people would not. I also liked Heartcatch more from the first episode and even after changing my mind on the series still think its a good first episode.

[DoctorFaust]

I have been reading way too much romance lately. I binged My Lovely Ghost Kana in less than 24 hours, I've been reading Kaichou wa Maid-sama as much as I have the time for between classes, I've been reading Akagami no Shirayukihime to prepare for the second season in January, and I started reading Your Lie in April just a few days ago. They're all so goddamn adorable (even if one does end pretty heartbreakingly) that I'm beginning to get a little annoyed with just how ruttin' cute I'm finding them all. I'm a man, dammit, I'm not supposed to like cute things!

That said, does anybody know any other good shoujo/romance manga to fuel my addiction?

[Alent]

I have been reading way too much romance lately. I binged My Lovely Ghost Kana in less than 24 hours, I've been reading Kaichou wa Maid-sama as much as I have the time for between classes, I've been reading Akagami no Shirayukihime to prepare for the second season in January, and I started reading Your Lie in April just a few days ago. They're all so goddamn adorable (even if one does end pretty heartbreakingly) that I'm beginning to get a little annoyed with just how ruttin' cute I'm finding them all. I'm a man, dammit, I'm not supposed to like cute things!

That said, does anybody know any other good shoujo/romance manga to fuel my addiction?

I wouldn't call it Shoujo, but ReLIFE is pretty good.

[endoperez]

I have been reading way too much romance lately. I binged My Lovely Ghost Kana in less than 24 hours, I've been reading Kaichou wa Maid-sama as much as I have the time for between classes, I've been reading Akagami no Shirayukihime to prepare for the second season in January, and I started reading Your Lie in April just a few days ago. They're all so goddamn adorable (even if one does end pretty heartbreakingly) that I'm beginning to get a little annoyed with just how ruttin' cute I'm finding them all. I'm a man, dammit, I'm not supposed to like cute things!

That said, does anybody know any other good shoujo/romance manga to fuel my addiction?

Living Game
Sweetness: ***
Tears: **
It's about people working in early 90s Tokyo where living space (and office space!) is limited and hard to come by. The main girl is only 15 when it starts out, but the story pans out over several years so it's not THAT weird (although it still is, a bit).

Emma / Victorian Romance Emma
Sweetness: ****
Tears: **
Kaoru Mori's art is amazing. In Emma, it's already good. In her series set in the steppes, Otoyomegatari, she illustrates the complexity of handcrafts in glorious detail. Like, a two-page scene about the complexity of wood-carving, or the details in embroidered clothing. Emma is the better romance story though, while Otoyomegatari is more about life in the steppes north of the Black Sea sometime in the 19th Century.

Orange Yane no Chiisana Ie
Sweetness: ****
Tears: *
Another story based around weird housing arrangements. The same house is sold to two single-parent families; hijinks ensue as the parents try to figure out what they are to their kids, and to each other.

Bitter Virgin
Sweetness: ****
Tears: *****
A romance story about learning to cope with loss. The female protagonist is left alone before the story starts, and the story actually handles the feelings of loss well.

Sasameki Koto
Sweetness: ****
Tears: ***
Two girls. One is openly a lesbian, and runs after various cute girls. The other is not a cute girl, so she hides her feelings and acts as the other's best friend and support.

Reimei no Arcana / Dawn of the Arcana
Sweetness: ***
Tears: ***
Romance with a plot! The romance gives way to fantasy kingdom politics and long-term planning, at times. I enjoyed it quite a bit.


Lovely Complex and REC I enjoyed more as anime.
I understand Maison Ikkoku is a classic, but it was dragging a bit so I ended up dropping it, but I intend to return to it at some point.
Spice and Wolf is fantastic story, but the romance in it isn't about falling madly in love; instead, it's about a slowly growing friendship. The manga hasn't gotten far enough to get to the romance, there.

[DoctorFaust]

-snip-

Damn. That's a lot of manga. Just glancing it over, Emma and Orange seem like the ones I would be the most interested in, but I do appreciate the rest of the recommendations.

And actually, I just finished up Maid-Sama.

Spoiler: And I think my reaction can be summed up thusly...

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Ohmygodtheygetmarriedandit'ssocuteandIloveit

[Fri]

I have been reading way too much romance lately. I binged My Lovely Ghost Kana in less than 24 hours, I've been reading Kaichou wa Maid-sama as much as I have the time for between classes, I've been reading Akagami no Shirayukihime to prepare for the second season in January, and I started reading Your Lie in April just a few days ago. They're all so goddamn adorable (even if one does end pretty heartbreakingly) that I'm beginning to get a little annoyed with just how ruttin' cute I'm finding them all. I'm a man, dammit, I'm not supposed to like cute things!

That said, does anybody know any other good shoujo/romance manga to fuel my addiction?

Nodame Cantabile? It's a romcom set in music conversatorie about a straight-laced conductor guy and a messy but talented pianist girl. Very funny

Also my friend swears for Bonnouji and.. there's another one but I forgot what it's called. Bonnouji is basically a romance story without much high premise, but it's very funny and cute. I can't read it because it makes me sad about my lack of romance story ;_;.

For something less serious, I find "Kaguya Want To Be Confessed" to be highly ridiculous and silly. It's a story about a girl and a guy who are totally into each others but both are first class tsundere, and consider love as war and those who confess first lose.

There's also "Tomo is a girl" which is the story about a tomboyish girl and her childhood friend who are into each others but are embarassed about it and their friends who are all pretty silly.

I read lots of romance manga it turned out, but those are what I can remember out of the top of my head right now.

[cobaltstarfire]

We finished daily lives of highschool boys a little while ago, and went on to Spice and Wolf, finished that today (well what is freely available, we're trying to decide if we want to just buy the rest or subscribe to funimation for a little while).

I liked Spice and Wolf, it was cute, though I had a bit of trouble following the trade/economics parts sometimes, but since those things were mostly just a vehicle for interaction it doesn't matter. I really like the Opening Theme too, something about it is haunting and nice and things.

[mallorean_thug]

Hihi.

I finally finished all of Ojamajo Doremi a little bit ago, and it really was fantastic. The last 11 or so episodes of Dokka~n did a fantastic job on capitalizing on the accumulated emotional weight of the series, with both of Mamoru Hosoda's guest episodes (40 and 49) being stand out master pieces. And then Naisho felt like a collection of the best stand alone episodes of the entire series.

I really can't wait until Sith Happens or closet skeleton to get around to giving it a try, because its now easily my favorite Magical Girls show (edging out Princess Tutu by just a little bit. Though its kind of hard to compare a short plot focused show to a sprawling 216 episode episodic show)

With that finished, I decided to start watching another Junichi Sato show; Kaleido Star. Its about a girl fulfilling her dream by joining an internationally famous circus called Kaleido Stage. So, its kind of a sports show about guts and hard work, but set in a fantastically colorful circus. With a completely inexplicable magical mascot character that's like some midget Phantom of the Opera that so far has mostly just given us a tarot reading every episode. It's been pretty great so far, 9 episodes in. Not good enough that I think anybody should rush out and start watching it, but good enough that I'll definitely stick with it till the end.

Separately, I've found a group of people to marathon shows with, and we've been mostly working through important shows I hadn't seen yet. But that list has gotten a lot shorter, so I was hoping you guys could help me out with that. I'm looking for 1 or 2 cour shows (13-26 episodes) with some focus on overarching events (I've found episodic shows aren't quite as enjoyable to watch 9 episodes at a time) that I haven't seen yet (So, nothing under "completed" on this list).

To give you an idea of what I'm kind of looking for, so far this group has watched Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Fantastic Children, Infinite Ryvius, Samurai Champloo, Neon Genesis Evangelion (This was a rewatch to celebrate the new bluray release, and because one person hadn't seen it), Birdy the Might Decode S1 & S2, Berserk, Macross Do You Remember Love (movie night), and we're currently in the middle of Last Exile.

Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated, regardless of genre or target audience, even if they don't quite fit the criteria I put forward. At this point, a good show is a good show, and there's very few types of shows that I don't generally enjoy. Though, I'll definitely give you bonus points if you can come up with something that you can't jokingly summarize as "Sad people in space". Because it seems like a large amount of older shows I should get around to fit that description to a T. You'll also get mega bonus points if you manage to mention something I haven't heard of before.

[kamikasei]

Also my friend swears for Bonnouji and.. there's another one but I forgot what it's called.

Horimiya?

Birdy the Might Decode S1 & S2

How is that? I've read a chunk of the manga and found it interesting, but clips I've seen make it look like the anime turned the fanservice way up.

[BWR]

For something less serious, I find "Kaguya Want To Be Confessed" to be highly ridiculous and silly. It's a story about a girl and a guy who are totally into each others but both are first class tsundere, and consider love as war and those who confess first lose.

There's also "Tomo is a girl" which is the story about a tomboyish girl and her childhood friend who are into each others but are embarassed about it and their friends who are all pretty silly.

Those two are good, especially Tomo.