Otagan
3381
Series are usually allocated a certain initial run, usually set into 12-13 episode increments. Some series will run for 12 initially, and if they do well, there can be a follow-up series of 12 (or more) at a later date. Some are given a full 24-26 initially, and those can occasionally get multiple runs as well.
You rarely see shows get more than about 26-28 in one run, but it can happen sometimes. That’s why the shows that air any given season (like SAO, which I’ll set aside my inflammatory views on for the moment) are viewed a bit differently from the shows that never stop airing (Bleach, One Piece, etc.)
The worst thing that can ever happen, though, is for a series to begin with multiple planned runs, and for the show to sell poorly and never get the formerly promised follow-up. Legend of the Legendary Heroes (stupid name, I know, but the show was good) suffered terribly from this as it sold like garbage, leaving the story half-told and with a huge cliffhanger, plot twist ending that will never be resolved. One of my biggest disappointments of the last few years.
Appreciate the explanation. I’m also curious why you don’t like the show (SAO).
Otagan
3383
If I have the time and inclination, I’ll type it up one day. The short version is that I think it’s an unholy trainwreck in multiple ways, but I would be able to better justify that if I rewatched a portion of it so it was fresh in my memory and I could cite examples rather than just railing on it for a few paragraphs.
HRose
3384
The actual ending of the TV version of Evangelion is the true real ending. But it ignores most of the mythology to go full metaphor.
The meaning is completely explained.
The movies instead restore the mythology part in the ending. But in general, the answer to pretty much everything are out there. The show by itself can be rather cryptic, but it can be figured out.
Just because you can understand it if you withstand a grueling 2 hours of non animated, poorly written text and spend 3 hours on wiki does not in any way point to it being a good ending.
At least mass effect 3 was animated.
Yeah, no. It does not explain most of the central mysteries. It hints and teases, no more. I mean, certainly the ending is basically a disjointed, we-ran-out-of-budget non sequitur, but the show doesn’t particularly bother to provide answers along the way either, which RahXephon most certainly does. So it’s not ascribable to whatever happened to cause the ending trainwreck. It’s part and parcel of the entire scripting of the show.
I wouldn’t be surprised if fans have pored over it with a fine toothed comb to sift loose tiny hints and clues with which to concoct some sort of unifying theory (this is something people do whether or not there’s one to find or not), but even if they’ve succeeded that is by no means the same thing as the show actually offering those answers.
(And FWIW, until those last couple of episodes, I did enjoy Evangelion. I just think RahXephon covers similar ground, better.)
Enh, it comes and goes. This year we got SAO, PSYCHO-PASS, Zetsuen no Tempest, Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse, Jormungand, BTOOOM!, Binbou-gami ga!, and Moyashimon Returns; last year we got Lupin, Ben-To, Persona 4, Kamisama Dolls, Kami-sama no Memo-chou, Usagi Drop, Tiger & Bunny, and Level E. Nothing on the level of Bebop or GitS:SAC, but I found them to be fairly entertaining shows; and you can’t say that’s not a diverse list. And that’s not counting series like Fate Zero and Sakamichi no Apollon which I’ve heard good things about but haven’t gotten around to watching yet, so I can’t judge `em. I’m sure others could add more good recent titles I missed. There’s still plenty of dreck out there, of course, but anyone who thinks there hasn’t always been plenty of anime dreck had the good fortune to miss a lot of terrible shows over the decades. [Lucky you!]
Next season, OTOH, looks pretty dreadful. Which I guess gives me time to get caught up on anything good I missed the last couple of years.
Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: There are like 3 mangas for this. not sure what the difference is, but i read one of them and it was pretty different and good. Some hero attacks a demon queen in the stereotypical manner but then she turns it around by being (basically) a business master, tells him it is all economic and if he really wants to be a real hero, better to boost the economy (something to this effect). Ends up having a lot of economics and business stuff.
Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT: I thought the first season was super funny personally.
A few other mindless fun ones too i guess. Overall a mediocre season, but i haven’t watched most of this season yet so i will probably watch it then.
HRose
3390
Depends on what you consider central mysteries.
Lots of Evangelion is simply metaphoric, so thinking it in terms of plot is about missing the point.
Studying some Kabbalah actually revealed to me most of the patters that the show was directly using, but it’s because it works on various level. On the most central one it’s a show about Anno, the director, so it can be read as a personal story. And it works very well.
The movies also embedded Anno’s reactions to the reactions of the people to the show, so it’s even more a direct parallel.
There isn’t any unified fan theory. But if you look at some of the material the show used (like the Kabbalah, again) you simply can track and understand the sources that the show used in the first place.
(there’s actually an unified theory, but it appears on side material like games. It’s not certain how much of that stuff can be considered “canon”. And then there are the new movies, that some people think will be revealed as sequels to the series, instead of retelling)
Uh-huh.
Allegory, namedropping mystical theology, and studying the director are all well and good but they don’t substitute for plot, and Evangelion most certainly pretends to have one of those. Which it does not explain or elaborate upon.
Thraeg
3392
As someone who never got into anime, but with a modicum of curiosity to see what I’ve been missing out on, what are the very best titles currently available for streaming? I have subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu+, and Amazon, and am open to just about any genre as long as the quality is high.
All I’ve seen so far is isolated episodes of random shows here and there, a couple of Ghibli movies, and the series Record of Lodoss War.
Thanks for any suggestions!
malkav11
3393
How’s your tolerance for dubs? Because I would never recommend watching anime that way, but that’s pretty much the only way Netflix is going to be any use, and I think a fair amount of Hulu’s stuff is also dubbed only.
Samurai Champloo, Full Metal Alchemist, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and FLCL are all on Netflix. I’d recommend all of those without reservation.
Thraeg
3395
Huh, hadn’t even thought of that factor – I just saw that across the services there were dozens upon dozens of series, and assumed at least a few of them had to be really excellent. I suppose it would depend on the quality of the dub. If it’s good, then fine, but if bad voice acting detracts from the overall experience, then obviously subtitles would be preferable.
I’m not tied to only using those services if there’s something better out there. I’m probably not going to put in significant time or money to indulge idle curiosity, but is there a better, reasonably convenient source out there that I should look at?
Thanks!
Not as far as I know. There’s a service called Crunchyroll that specializes in anime, but it looks like they don’t have any(?) anime that’s been licensed for sale over in the US, so while it might be worth checking out I wouldn’t confidently be able to recommend anything on it - I just plain haven’t seen most of those series.
And personally I think all dubs are pretty bad, with the possible exception of Disney’s Ghibli dubs (as long as you haven’t heard the original, in which case the dub quickly palls), so I can’t really recommend on that basis. So, with the caveat that the voice acting might be painful, I would second Brad’s recommends and offer the following as well:
Blue Gender, Last Exile, Darker than Black, Le Chevalier D’Eon (all on Netflix, some on Hulu also);
Black Lagoon, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Haibane Renmei (also might want to check out Texhnolyze and Serial Experiments: Lain, but Haibane Renmei’s one I recommend to everyone). (Purportedly on Hulu, though I didn’t click through to establish whether they had the entire series - it looks like some of them are just a couple teaser episodes.)
Good series there: Level E, Usagi Drop, Moyashimon returns (but it isn’t as good as the first season). Tiger & Bunny started nice but it dropped in quality around half the season, finishing as average, Zetsuen no Tempest started pretty good but the last three episodes turned into mediocre.
I thought the RPG / Monster Hunter parody bits were pretty funny, as well as when it was poking fun at typical “harem romcom” fare…right up until it turned into a fairly typical harem romcom (so, like, ep. 3, maybe), but with the only twist being the cast is a bunch of social misfits.
My favorite interpretation of Eva is that it’s all one long piss-take on Anno’s part at the fans’ expense as he mocks them for everything they hold dear - like a really mean-spirited spiritual successor to “Otaku no Video.” But that doesn’t exactly make for what most people would describe as a satisfying narrative…
Miramon
3399
Just watched the first episode of SAO on crunchyroll. My FIOS line apparently can’t handle the glory of HD, or else their servers were having problems tonight, but it looked pretty good.
From just the first episode it seems kind of a retread of .hack in some ways, with the cautionary tale of why you shouldn’t wait on line for launch products…
There are so many shows that take place inside an mmo it is hard to take any anime seriously right now.
