I hope they do the Spiders arc as much justice as they did in the original. There were some fantastic fights in there.
Thrawn
3122
Mirai Nikki, love Yuno’s eyes, love her expressions, her crazed eyes and her final expression in the first episode; she’s why I’m watching this. Great start, Deus looks better than before (That CGI in the short preview was horrendous) and the EP with everything rewinding and Yukii (?) catching the dart through the force. Far better than simply saying it’s playing backwards. Will be good fun with the yandere.
The others I choose at random, ranging from crap, boobs, harem and serious business.
Mashiro-iro Symphony: Love Is Pure White, oh god. I expected a romance/shoujo or serious romance drama stuff but I got a bit of comedy, inner monologues, a lost little sister, a harem (Has to be) and a rainbow of hair. The beginning even talks about what colors boys and girls are. It’s crap but the season needs a generic harem to make it three.
Maken-Ki! = Boobs. Eiken level boobs. Boob harem of boobs and good god the principal. And it’s about a girls school that just recently let in boys and it’s a magical fighting love school or some shit. Unimportant to the bouncing boobs and everyone is all oiled up and glistening with shine. As per the norm, the guy gets a handful before the half-way point.
Ben-To caught me by surprise. Sure there’s bouncing but people bounce when they hit the ground. And half-price bentos are serious business. People get beaten to mushy pulp for them! And it’s good fun, ludicrous maybe but it’s better than I thought it would be.
Being honest, the whole “i am searching for my father” motive was always a very long-term goal, truly an excuse to having the protagonist going here or there and in the end being implied in a separate story.
Thrawn
3124
Anybody ever seen the majesty of Popee the Performer? It’s high time I (Probably) mention it again and you can start at the beginning if you wish, as that first link is one of the best episodes.
Kinda killed my anime watching for a while but it was so bad it’s good with friends.
Watched ep1 of Gundam AGE. It’s… not very good. It does, however, have the second-youngest Gundam pilot of all 12 series, second only to Uso from Victory – Uso being 13, and Flit being 14.
One thing I did like is that the Gundam is very low-tech, none of the full-cockpit viewscreens like 00 or any of the spacenoid/mind control stuff they’ve done before. It’s all manually-controlled using pedals and sticks, the way it ought to be. However, it seems to be a series aimed at children. Violence is hidden and minimized, and there isn’t a single drop of blood in the first episode despite the deaths of countless people. Sigh. I’ll keep watching, but Flit is no Uso or Kamille. Bring on the next Unicorn OVA please.
Also, the art blows.
Lynxara
3126
AGE is really a kid’s show. The bit at the end where SD characters “introduce” a robot to you is identical to similar bits that Digimon and Pokemon do. (I also think Level-5’s last robot anime, Danball Senki, did it.)
AGE has posted some of the lowest ratings Gundam has seen in awhile, so I’m curious to see how the merchandise sells. Part of how AGE happened was sales of Danball Senki model kits absolutely crushing sales of Gundam kits last year.
Guilty Crown: LOL-Anime. Predictable plot, ridiculous powers, mechs, gratuitous fanservice, characters and scenes which skip the basic logic and common sense…
It’s like Code Geass but less interesting, with less charismatic characters, and even more senseless storytelling.
Quitch
3128
So some guys from Death Note and Code Geass really did come together and combine the worse parts of both?
It’s a gorgeous film and worth seeing, but I have to admit the story fell flat for me. Mostly it just made me nostalgic for Laputa. Go see Laputa instead. No, wait, see Steamboy first, then see Laputa so you can appreciate how much better it is.
Otagan
3130
I maintain that Guilty Crown is three parts Code Geass, two parts Fractale and one part Dantalian no Shoka with a hint of Ghost in the Shell on top.
Do not take the fact that I just linked Guilty Crown to Ghost in the Shell as an endorsement of Guilty Crown’s quality.
I really liked the first episode of guilty crown personally and thought it set up a potentially very interesting anime.
Also thought it was just well directed in general. The opening scene in particular is (in my opinion) very well done.
I’m not sure you can really say the story doesn’t make sense so far from what little we’ve learned. The first episode really doesn’t hold your hand. There isn’t very much “normal life” until “the world comes crashing down.” All you really know is the main character is apathetic and feels disconnected from the normal grind.
So far, to my eyes, it looks like one of the best anime in a few seasons. I am a huge Mirai Nikki fan though so i am a bit biased in that direction. To be fair, i haven’t watched a few anime yet though, Ben-To in particular i wanted to check out. I finally took the time to get the damn 10bit thing working so I will have to do that i suppose.
To me this is a really good thing though and I mostly agree. I did think it also reminded me of the later part of chaos:head though.
To be honest, what it made me think of most was this Final Fantasy vs 13 trailer.
Small hint for anyone who wants to watch 10bit encodes, CoreAVC 3 supports 10bit decoding and for about $15, is actually fast enough to decode 720p on my netbook with no stuttering or slowdown. It’s the only 10bit decoder I’ve found that can keep up with slower processors. Big plus: I watch everything in MPC-HC 64bit, and CoreAVC 3 handily comes with a 64bit filter. Took 5 minutes to set up, IMO well worth the price.
HRose
3133
Have you tried LAV Video? It’s usually faster and free. Also just use 32bit for MPC-HC as it runs better no matter the hardware.
No problems with 10bit on my computer on MPC, but then this is my gaming PC so - outdated though it is - I’d be surprised if I had many. I did have massive problems getting it to stream across to the 360 properly via PS3 Media Server, but after a couple of days of hair-pulling I’ve finally managed to sort that out. Unsurprisingly, the biggest problem was me overlooking one tiny thing.
Fate/Zero continues to rise above my expectations and Persona 4 continues to be enjoyable while making me panic about pacing, but most anime takes about three or four episodes before it really shows its true colours, so I can live with that for now. Haven’t watched any more HxH yet but I’ll get around to it.
Nothing else has really intrigued me enough to start watching yet. Ben-To and Mirai Nikki will probably get a watch when I run out of other things to do, and I kinda want to watch a bit of Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon if only because the synopsis I’ve seen makes absolutely no goddamn sense whatsoever. Guilty Crown just looks painfully generic, though.
For some reason that’s reminded me I still have Cromartie High School to watch, so I guess that goes on the list after Gungrave.
Just ordered the first two new Utena sets, while watching Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Strikers (holy shit, 7 episode climactic battle?). Yes, I live in the past.
I certainly hope you are at least keeping up with Penguin Drum. As of episode 14 it has officially gone full Ikuhara.
Otagan
3137
I haven’t been able to bring myself to start watching Penguindrum, even based on reactions in this thread. What about it makes it worth watching aside from how completely and utter ridiculous it seems to be? If that alone is the main selling point, it’ll be a tough sell, but if there’s more to it than that then I could probably be talked into it.
I’m really intrigued by where the story is going, to be honest. I’ve been really impressed with it so far, in that we get revelations that actually pay off, and that the show can explain some things while introducing new mysteries without ever giving the impression that there’s too many threads dangling. Maybe all the symbolism won’t ever be explained, but I think the mysteries will be.
I also adore the visuals, the music, and the general tone of the show. There’s kind of an uneasy feeling where you aren’t sure just how crazy they are willing to go, because they certainly keep ramping it up.
Also
will always amuse me.
LAV doesn’t have any DXVA support, and there’s no way I could have it choose CoreAVC if decoding an 8bit file and LAV if decoding a 10bit file.
And you’re nuts if you think LAV is the faster decoder. I tried watching the 10bit version of Gundam AGE (720p) in CoreAVC and it was fine. I switched filter preference to LAV, it ran like shit.
I did however switch to MPC-HC 32bit after reading up a bit about the 64bit version is essentially experimental at this point and just consumes more ram with no additional performance boost.
HRose
3140
I’m watching Nanoha now!
It’s… like Madoka Magica (or the other way around).
