Anime General Thread (Official)

[Terminus]

So, the SAO dub.Not really much I can say, as the only characters you really see are Kirito and Klein, and they have pretty decent voice acting. Definitely holding off until next week to judge the dub.There was a different credits scene, though, using a 30-second cut of Crossing Field (the OP song). Don't know if this is a TV thing for the first episode or something else, it's the first anime I've watched on cable.

[dotcom]

I have almost finished Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood.

The last theme kind of stinks compared to the others.

Even Golden Time Lover? I've always thought that one was the worst. Not awful, really (because pretty much every song in FMAB is great, except for the 3rd ending) but still. Rain is an SID song and like most of those it's pretty great.

 

None of the openings are as good as the first, though. Maybe the fourth.

[The Lonesome Wanderer]

I still like 4th and 2nd the best.

[dotcom]

Yeah, second one is great too. Like I said, most of them are. That's part of the reason why FMAB is my favorite anime. Ish. (It shares that position with PSG)

 

Changing the subject, the Sisters arc of Railgun is now over, and that last episode was, all-around, fantastic. Especially more of Accelerator being broken. He is best when broken.

 

Even if the filler ends up awful, this arc has been so good that they've bought themselves some leeway.

 

Speaking of filler, it appears that ITEM--or at least Frenda--is going to be in the next episode. That's interesting...

[DYLAN the SINKING STAR]

I'm very curious to see where the filler arc goes. Hopefully it's at least fun to watch every week (Mikoto probably deserves some fun, too). I wonder if ITEM is going to be joining in on the summer vacation. Maybe some more cool esper fights?

 

Also I heard the preview for the new opening and I'm excited to see that in action.

[Kothra]

I got my Madoka Movie blu ray box today (the limited edition), and everything is just excellent.

[The Lonesome Wanderer]

I just found an Abridged series that has a better theme than the show it's parodying.

 

wat.

 

If you want to know, it's Soul Eater Abridged.

[dotcom]

I just found an Abridged series that has a better theme than the show it's parodying.

 

wat.

 

If you want to know, it's Soul Eater Abridged.

Better than Resonance? That's crazy. I gotta hear it.

 

*Listens*

 

 

Noooope. It's good, but Resonance is too good to be displaced by just good.

[Terminus]

I have yet to see a fanmade OP that tops the original, but maybe that's just me.

 

Anyways, the mention of Abridged series reminded me to check and catch up on the ones I'm following, I was kinda disappointed that Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series (which was pretty popular with all the guys at my high school, only anime-related thing they watched besides Panty & Stocking) only had one new episode this year, but Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Abridged Series had a few episodes for me to catch up on.

 

I've kinda wanted to do an abridged series for a while, but I end up throwing the script out halfway through writing it.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Terminus

[Kothra]

So I'm listening to the Madoka Movie soundtrack and I hear this song and think it's silly.Then I'm skipping through the first movie just because, and I get to the part where the song plays, an I'm just like... ;_;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j38ZeqBJzA

[Terminus]

So, I got my Madoka Movie LE BDs today. Put in Beginnings, and wow, the menu music is really good. Actually, haven't gotten past the menu and the TV Commercials yet...

 

And, it came with a code for Madoka Magica Online, glad to finally get some exclusive stuff for that.

[dotcom]

So that new Railgun op is pretty good. Not as good as any of the others, but those set a really high bar, so it's still fine. It looks like we'll be seeing a lot more Kongou this arc, which is great. Lack of Kongou was one of my main gripes with the first season.

 

The inclusion of ITEM felt kind of phoned in, but maybe they'll become actually relevant later on. A nice episode in either case, even if it really didn't have much in way of a plot.

 

The preview for the next episode makes me think that Haruue is leaving the show soon. I guess it's only logical...

[Terminus]

Railgun is one of those shows that can transition from a fast-paced arc heavy on the story and action to a slow, pointless, funny Slice-of-Life episode, and do it well. And this episode once again reminded me why Kuroko is my favorite.

[DYLAN the SINKING STAR]

Looks like there is going to be more to this arc than I originally thought, which can only be a good thing.

 

I heard there's not going to be a new episode next week, instead they're airing a special preview for the Index movie which is coming out on home video in Japan. Sucks that we have to wait another week when this arc is just getting started, but when the movie is released hopefully it'll be fansubbed fairly soon so we can finally watch it!

[The Lonesome Wanderer]

I've finished FMA:Brotherhood.

New favorite anime^ .

 

Also, started Bacanno! First episode is confusing.

 

And I really should get around to finishing Index/Railgun.

[Kothra]

Baccano is generally regarded as confusing by a lot of people I've talked to, though I didn't particularly have any problems with it.It jumps around to different time periods pretty frequently so I can see it being a bit difficult for some people to follow.

[dotcom]

Baccano! is confusing at the beginning if you don't keep track of the years or the characters very carefully. The first episode in particular is definitely very confusing, as there is some stuff there that doesn't ever get brought up again. It starts to fall into place more and more down the line. It's really pretty great if you stick with it, though.

 

(and yes FMAB is the best)

[Hodor]

So. How're the Berserk: Golden Age Arc movies?

 

I adore what I've been reading of Berserk, so far (barring how annoying Isidro and Puck are, though the fact Miura's putting humor in an incredible downer of a story is nice), and am kinda tempted sit down and watch through them, especially since the Golden Age arc was a brilliantly written storyline. I'm told it's much more faithful to the source material than the original TV series ever was, but I'm still not sure since it also suffers from being tightly compressed into three movies and jarring animation shifts?

 

and maybe it'll help stave of the knowledge of Miura's update schedule will have the series never end

[Bio D]

The first and third movies are alright, with the former suffering from animation the most and the latter from compression in the first half. They're worth watching, but nothing special.

The second movie is absolutely brilliant. It nails the promise of a Golden Age so perfectly that you anticipate the inevitable turning point with with equal parts dread and excitement.

[The Lonesome Wanderer]

New Attack on Titan episode!

Holy karz Reiner was awesome.

[Terminus]

FINALLY the first PV for BlazBlue: Ater Memory is out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsR8rD4GpA The animation style is kinda inconsistent with the games, although they were all inconsistent with each other so it really doesn't matter (everything in the trailer up to 0:47 is from the games, everything after that is the anime), and Faylan is still doing the OP, which is cool. Now I'm just confused as what the series is going to be, as it was originally going to be Calamity Trigger, but Continuum Shift, CS2, CSX, and Chronophantasma are all featured in the trailer. I hope they don't try to fit all that into a 12-episode season, they might be able to fit all that into a 26-episode season, but... Yeah. Still really excited for this, been waiting for this for years (because we all knew it was inevitably going to happen one day).

[T-Dawg]

So I recently finished AnoHana and I have to say, I haven't cried like that in such a long time, It really got to me in a way I didn't expect it was just a happy but sad sort of feeling. I highly recomend it to those who haven't seen it. In other news I've also started Attack on Titan which honestly is looking pretty good, and Sasha is freaking awesome.

[The Lonesome Wanderer]

Sasha gets the best moment in the manga

 

She kills a titan using a BOW,&ARROW, and HATCHET. No 3DMgear at all.

 

[Narglepuff the Protector]

 

So I recently finished AnoHana and I have to say, I haven't cried like that in such a long time, It really got to me in a way I didn't expect it was just a happy but sad sort of feeling. I highly recomend it to those who haven't seen it. In other news I've also started Attack on Titan which honestly is looking pretty good, and Sasha is freaking awesome.

 

I too finished AnoHana recently, and I highly recommend it as well. Secret base starts playing and the tears fall.

[Terminus]

Well, I'm all caught up on Attack on Titan, and so far the second half is much, much better than the first half. IMO, the recent episodes of Hyperdimension Neptunia were better than the first half of AoT, but I'm actually liking it a lot more in the second half (although the first two Preluse to the Counterattack episodes were kinda meh). My only problem with the current arc is

how blatantly obvious it is that the female titan is Annie, especially since Eren's titan form didn't look too much like him, and the FemTitan looks exactly like Annie.

 

But AoT is still only a mediocre alternate version of Gurren Lagann, IMO. It's kinda like how Guilty Crown was sort of a mediocre Code Geass.

 

Speaking of which, Funi rescued Code Geass! Definitely picking up both seasons when they release them, as Bandai's Anime Legends releases are both somewhat hard to get and sometimes commonly have bad coding- I only bought my AL copy of Gurren Lagann because it had been tested beforehand.

 

And in it's last two episodes, Prisma Illya got real. The Saber Alter battle finally made it feel like something from the Fate universe, and Illya's

archer transformation

was pretty awesome.

[The Lonesome Wanderer]

woot saber alter.

u da man, girl.

 

I don't see any relation between Gurren Lagann and AoT.

[Ektris]

Well after trying to ignore all of the hype, I failed, and marathoned Attack on Titan and am currently almost done catching up with the manga as well...I was initially turned off by how repulsive the Titans were (in particular the Colossal Titan, given its prevalence in promotions for the series) and was worried it was just a shock gimmick... Well, there was plenty of shock, but I think it was done pretty well. I'm definitely enjoying it right now.That makes it the third series I watched during summer vacation. I started with finally getting to Gurren Lagann (I also see zero connection to it from AoT) and later Shinsekai Yori. Probably could've squeezed in others but just couldn't commit to any series. TTGL was tons of fun and Shinsekai Yori I found to be very deep and quite enjoyed it.~|ET|~

[Terminus]

Yeah, I bet I'm just reading into everything too much, but I've just noticed some things that seem kinda similar...

-Humans turn against humans and force all of humanity into a limited space.

-General attitude about the outside in the beginning is that you don't think about it, and anything relating to it is illegal.

-Humans can't really do much to their enemies until they get the power of their enemies.

 

...Yeah, I'm reading into everything too much. But Gurren Lagann was pretty much the first thing that popped into my head when thinking "series similar to AoT."

 

EDIT: Yeah, apparently I'm not the only person who thinks this, found out other people on the internet agree. Mainly, it's still the base concepts, not much else, but it's enough to make the connection, IMO.

 

In both series, humanity is driven to a corner by a superior foe, forcing them to live under restrictive conditions (Underground/behind the walls). And the main point of each show is recovering their once lost land/home/territory(whatever).

Edited August 16, 2013 by Terminus

[Dapper-Sama]

Where can I find a copy of Princess Mononoke? I saw the film many years ago, but never finished it.

[dotcom]

If you have Netflix you can order it from there. Otherwise, you can probably find a decent copy from Amazon or such. Or you could find something on the internet. It's not really an obscure work.

[Dapper-Sama]

Yaaaaaaaay

 

I've been looking for ages, and it's kinda obvious.

Ha ha.

I really like Ghibli films.

[dotcom]

They are usually pretty good, and Mononoke is great.

 

My favorite Miyazaki work is Nausicaa. Speaking of which, I have to read the manga at some point....

[Dapper-Sama]

I'm more of a fan of Totorro and Castle in the Sky.

[Terminus]

Well, since the season is about half over, might as well post midseason rankings of everything I'm watching:

1. A Certain Scientific Railgun

2. Rozen Maiden Zuruckspulen

3. Fate/Kalied liner Prisma Illya

4. Watamote

5. Attack on Titan

6. Hyperdimension Neptunia

 

Railgun is just always entertaining, and even when not much is happening, you know something is just around the corner (who is that girl who knows Misaka?).

Rozen Maiden has just been solid after the recap episode, and it's story is one of the most interesting I've seen for a while.

Prisma Illya started off kinda low, but since then it's definitly become recognizable as part of the Fate/ series, and that's definitely a good thing.

Watamote's been slipping lately, it just isn't as funny as it was in the beginning. Also, Tomoko has had zero character development, which makes me wonder "Will she ever start to be normal?"

Never thought Attack on Titan was that great to begin with, but it's gotten somewhst better. Still not good enough be be higher on the list, though.

And I had no expectations for Neptunia in the first place, it had a short good streak, and then it went back to being mediocre.

[The Lonesome Wanderer]

Started Darker Than Black today.

 

Mai ;_;

[WriterofReapers]

Woo, Darker Than Black is awesome. We totally need a third season/prequel movie/anything that is more DTB.

[Dapper-Sama]

Just finished .hack//Legend of the Twilight, volume one. Now that I've managed to figure out how to read right-to-left, I've enjoyed it. Except, the library doesn't have volume two.

 

Last anime I watched was the Cowboy Bebop movie, or something.

[The Lonesome Wanderer]

Woo, Darker Than Black is awesome. We totally need a third season/prequel movie/anything that is more DTB.

But wasn't season two horrible?

Or at least Mindscrew-y?

[Terminus]

So, I found the first Armitage III Sub VHS at a thrift shop yesterday, watched it and thought it was pretty good. So I looked up the other 3 parts on Amazon.Then I find out the dub features Bryan Cranston and Kiefer Sutherland. WHY DID I NOT KNOW OF THIS SOONER?!?Definitely buying the complete DVD set soon.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Terminus

[WriterofReapers]

 

Woo, Darker Than Black is awesome. We totally need a third season/prequel movie/anything that is more DTB.

But wasn't season two horrible?

Or at least Mindscrew-y?

 

It wasn't quite as good as the first season, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And yeah, some of the twists do require either some time or a Google search to understand. Still, I don't believe it is in any way horrible.