3241

I like how that second one includes very obscure ONAs and things that have never aired.

3242

Not sure if this is sarcasm, but that is because no filters are set so it is just listing every anime in its database sorted by rating from what i can tell, which obviously includes anime that are just announced.

Anidb is my favorite site for looking up information on anime precisely because it is so compressive and has a nice UI. You really do need to create an account to set some settings to make it readable though or else their searches display the same actual result multiple times due to listing each different name as a unique result. Once you check that one box though it is nice for searching by genre or by tag.

You can also mouse over the tags which is useful when i see one i don’t know (very common since they seem to have a tag for everything).

3243

A little. Also bemusement. I suspect this listing method tends to consistently rank the #1 most popular anime as something that doesn’t exist yet, and therefore hasn’t been able to disappoint anyone.

3244

Sorting by rating is itself a popularity ranking in my opinion so that does make sense. You can sort by review rating too which is probably a bit more accurate, but obviously there is no such thing as a perfect list for a person unless they make it themselves.

Still, i’ve found numerous interesting anime by picking some random tag/genre that struck my interest (to customize the search somewhat to my tastes) and then sorting by rating.

Ano Natsu de Matteru: This is Onegai Teacher. I’m not sure who copied who here, but someone did. I haven’t had much time for anime recently (obviously since i am only getting around to this one now), but even after dropping Kill Me Baby and Recorder to Randoseru, i’m not sure i will have the time to watch Onegai Teacher a second time. Still, not bad though.

3245

Revived, because nothing truly dies in anime, unless it is in madoka…

Mouretsu Pirates/Miniskirt Pirates (the English name amuses me): This reminds me a ton of Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo except with worse writing and (at least so far) no plot at all. It is only 2 episodes in though so maybe one or both will change, but it seems highly unlikely they will ever be better than Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo.

It also kind of annoyed me that they have weapons that look almost exactly like modern projectile weapons, but they shoot lasers. They even have clips that look to be exactly the same as modern day ones. I suppose there is probably a logical argument why you would load bullets or something from an ammo clip (clearly not a battery pack!) in order to fire a laser, but still annoys me.

Watch Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo instead if you haven’t seen it.

Aquarion Evol: I liked Sousei no Aquarion. It wasn’t my favorite mech anime ever, but it was pretty good. This is no Sousei no Aquarion. The plot and characters are pretty clearly targeted at a younger audience than the previous series. Be prepared for constant annoying “oh no the boys and girls can’t meet, cooties!” scenes.

The art is generally good, except the mechs, which will no doubt be on screen a lot in this show, look like shit. Low budget CGI mechs. This is pretty sad because the art otherwise is actually pretty good. I think the previous series might have had the same crappy cgi mechs, but i was pretty sure it looked better. It has been a long time since i watched it though, so just a guess.

I cringe at some of the scenes, but i still like this one. As of episode 2 or 3 (i think it is 3 but the first episodes were sort of bundled together) I don’t think you need to have watched the first series to get this one. You will miss out on some subtle references and some scenes won’t have the same impact but nothing that will stop you from understanding what is going on. This may change however.

The first one is very noticeably better though, so if you haven’t seen that, watch it instead.

I still want to get around to watching Another (the anime name, not another anime ha ha ha). I read some of the manga and it was a really weird horror story. One of those stories where you can’t tell whether it is really good or really bad until you see the end.

Oh and Guilty crown is still the best anime this season. Future Diary is still the second best. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Guilty crown is very heavily reminding me of code geass now with the recent turn of events. Future diary… well, i’m sure some people watching this that didn’t previously read the manga are a bit disturbed now.

3246

I personally find Guilty Crown to be a hilariously awful and derivative trainwreck, and not even in a subtly endearing way like Code Geass was. It got so bad that I actually decided to drop it mid-season, and I almost never do that for anything.

Mind you, I don’t have anything from the season that I found to be particularly stand-out, but that’s just the way things go sometimes.

Also, thanks for reminding me to finish Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo. I think I stalled out just over halfway through a while back and never got around to wrapping it up.

3247

Yeah, I take back all the vitriol I spat at Guilty Crown earlier in the thread. It’s currently my favorite, with the new Last Exile coming in at second. Also, has anyone watched Symphogear? I’m 3 episodes in and I like the wacky premise and characters: songs are used as, literally, weapons, to fight against an otherwise invincible enemy called Noise that devour people when they touch them. The animation is good (lots of frames per second), the songs are good, and it has a weird premise that is somewhat similarly explored in Macross, but not to the extent as in this. The only thing I wish they’d done is make the younger girls’ eyes a bit smaller; I’m used to big-eyed anime girls, but seriously, it looks like they have two salad plates mounted on their faces.

3248

I like it too, but i almost have to willingly suspend my disbelief when they start doing crazy fight moves while also acting like they are in the middle of a jpop concert at the same time.

The art style is also somewhat lacking in certain areas, especially the noise who look pretty bland and so far 3 out of 13 episodes in, haven’t been fleshed out AT ALL.

It also kind of suffers from being a mini Madoka.

Otagan: Are you saying Code Geass is derivative? If so, of what? I’ve seen a lot of anime and nothing really comes directly to mind. Even having real anti hero protagonists (ie it is not just a comedy element) is quite rare.

3249

Sorry, a couple of my thoughts got blurred together into one statement. I meant to say that Guilty Crown is derivative (of Code Geass foremost among a wide array of other series). The other thought I was trying to express is that both GC and CG are trainwrecks, but that Geass was at least entertaining and relatively novel for its time.

3250

There was lots of sneering about “Death Note with robots” when it was announced. Geass certainly comes off as something meant to capitalize on the Death Note craze, but that’s true of lots of properties.

Portions of Geass’s plot are also completely identical to the plot of Armored Trooper VOTOMS, particularly near the ending. The director has admitted as much, even modeling some of Geass’s mecha off of VOTOMS’s ATs.

The thing to remember here is that most anime is intensely derivative of other anime, and with mecha shows this becomes doubly true. A property that possesses any originality at all comes along maybe once every five years, unless you happen to be in a creatively fertile period.

3251

How do you guys watch/enjoy your anime and from what sources?

I’m looking for better and more reliable sources of anime and, unless I’m blind, there is sadly no steam-like store yet.

I have the following (utopic ;) ) criteria:

  • jap dubs + subs
  • download rather than streaming, although being able to purchase from the site (at a (low) fee per episode would be very nice) (a lot handier due to placement of PC, TV, router and internet speed).
  • prices per episode or an all-you-can-eat buffer style price per month or other time period
  • since more and more anime are getting licenced, and I’d like to support the industry a legit site would of course be preferred
  • the site serves EU customers

As far as I can see a lot of the current offers (Netflix, hulu etc.) are best in the US and reserved to a few territories.

How is crunchy roll? Can one download episodes from them, what about the quality of animation/subs?

Thanks

3252

Very few services offer anime episodes for download that don’t otherwise offer TV episodes for download. Look for whatever services are active in your region.

Where in Europe are you? This makes a huge difference. France and Italy have massive anime markets and you should be able to obtain more licensed material on home video there than any American can. Other regions like the UK basically just re-license things from US distributors and there’s much less available, regardless of format.

Crunchyroll offers streaming only anime with 720p as the max resolution. The quality of the subs varies from series to series, sometimes wildly. Sometimes they’re excellent, sometimes they’re like watching sub-par fansubs. I believe all Crunchyroll shows will be sub only.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for a legit Crunchyroll-style simulcast service that lets you download episodes. Japanese licensors really don’t want people able to keep those sorts of files on their hard drives. If it’s already old and out on home video in a territory, sometimes that’s different.

3253

I’m in the Netherlands, a small and often forgotten territory/market.

I don’t think I’ve even ever seen an anime dvd/boxset/bluray in a store…

3254

Then you’re probably going to have a hard time buying episodes digitally. I want to say I have an acquaintances in the Netherlands into anime, but he mostly imports DVDs and BRs from either the US or Japan.

3255

Another is being the more decent anime of the season. It’s being a remix of tropes (ghosts, creepy dolls, mysterious girl, dark secrets in the past, conspiracy in school about it, tons of creepy weird sounds in the background) but it’s being interesting and well made.

3256

Alright, thanks. At least those prices are getting a bit lower.

3257

Unexpectedly, the problem with Bodacious Space Pirates is that it suffers from a critical lack of sex, violence, and interstellar robbery. I appreciate the time taken for characterization and it’s certainly the most heartwarming piracy-based girls’ high school anime I’ve seen this season, but there’s no conflict to hang your hat on when we all know that Marika will eventually become captain and turn out to be an awesome one.

What Future Diary sometimes lacks in logic or consistency it makes up for with holy shit Yuno is crazy. That’s what I came for and I’m glad to be getting it.

Guilty Crown, on the other hand, has parted with logic entirely - 100% of the student body commutes to school in exactly such a way that they’re cut off from their parents by the wall, and there aren’t any teachers around either? They’re desperate for food yet have enough supplies to hold a festival… and the dudes that attack them are desperate for food but don’t try to actually seize supplies… and none of the other ordinary students come up and ask Shu why he can pull swords out of singers? The way Shu and Ayase take that back-to-back pose… argh, my brain. But it’s still so pretty! I just go limp and let the images have their way with my eyeballs.

On the gripping hand, I checked out Rinne no Lagrange and found it to be simply wonderful. It’s got heart, it’s got humor, it’s got likable main characters, it’s got giant robots German-suplexing each other for the fate of the world. I especially like the military commander who tries to keep a straight face while he’s on the air and just can’t (“HE TOTALLY HIT YOU!!”).

3258

Yeah, I think Rinne no Lagrange is going places. I fucking loved the suplex; it’s nice to see giant robots doing something other than zooming around so fast and shooting each other I can barely tell who is who. I have not yet seen Bodacious Space Pirates, mainly because of the name I guess. I figured it would just be trash.

3259

I’m totally not kidding about the “not enough sex and violence” bit. So far, the only thing that’s gotten shot in Bodacious Space Pirates is a mothballed tank. The “apparent tastelessness::actual tastelessness” ratio of this show is way off kilter (which is one of the reasons I was willing to watch a show with that name - you really can’t judge a book by its cover in anime). The first three episodes comprise a fairly well-done introduction of characters and premise. It just doesn’t have any zing when the only conflict so far - “Our heroine inherited a pirate ship, but will she accept her role as captain and fly it?” - is a foregone conclusion, and there isn’t enough energy in the humor or action to make me enjoy watching the lead-up to the main character actually becoming a Bodacious Space Pirate.

3260

Future diary does make sense, although some of the things are not explained until later on. I read the manga and felt it did overall make sense in the end, although it is somewhat strange.

Rinne no lagrange is pretty good for a mindless mecha anime. Well, saying it is mindless isn’t really fair, but you can’t really take it seriously. I think that is the angle they were going for though.

Massive Guilty Crown Spoilers if you haven’t watched episode 13

The students not living directly next to the school isn’t too hard to believe. I also don’t get the feeling they walled in a HUGE portion of the town (as most of the undertakers are not within the walled area). This pretty clearly seemed like an attack on the main character.

I thought i remembered seeing a teacher or two earlier. It isn’t a huge surprise that people aren’t jumping to take charge in the current situation and given the recent events.

The food comes from that blond girls father who is something like a gun runner (or at least a crime boss) if i remember right. He air drops it in.

The attackers are pissed at a bunch of rich kids having some festival while they are starving. Think an extreme example of class warfare. They didn’t exactly spend a ton of time in the school. They pretty much attacked and almost immediately were attacked back so they didn’t exactly have tons of time to take the food. Getting back at the rich kids taking their fair share was also part of the attack though and once they students started fighting back, anger took over.

The students were likely in shock given it JUST happened. I’d imagine the next episode will see people confronting shuu about his powers and the lockdown being because of him. In any event, he just saved their life with his sword from singer so they probably have enough decency to wait a little while before turning on him.

P.s. I REALLY hope the plot dealing with his sister is not over. It was quite interesting and it got almost no air time before being VERY QUICKLY resolved.

The implication that he is in love with a clone/replacement/whatever of his sister is kind of amusing though given that he didn’t seem to return her feelings (although can’t be sure because he seemed to be saying monster due to her disease showing). Although, I want to say that they briefly mentioned that shuu’s father remarried and that mana is the new wife’s daughter, so if that is true, they might not have been related by blood.

I think i am mistaken about her only being a step sister, but for some reason i could have swore they mentioned something about his father remarrying.