TurinTur
3841
-It’s different from the past arcs. Togashi doesn’t like to repeat himself.
-It’s a great twist on the shonen tropes. Some parts remember a bit Dragon Ball Z, a great example of traditional shonen, but it’s done on purpose as homage, and it’s totally different in execution.
-It’s the best love story done in HxH, with a beautiful end :O.
-It starts slowly, and bit a bit it starts to change into a direction the protagonists can’t guess (nor the viewers). It’s a very natural progression, at the beginning it seems is just going to be a simple bug hunt, a “side quest” that surely it will be short, but the problem turns to be bigger than it seemed, further complicated by the political standing of the country where it happens and the bordering dictatorship, and in the end it blows up so spectacularly in their faces they have to retreat, regroup and rethink their strategy.
-It has themes like sacrifice, redemption, human vs nature, love and motherhood.
-There is a good sense of thrill and danger, with the characters going against all the odds as the enemy is just at another level.
-It’s a very long, very detailed arc full of stages, factions and individuals with their own agency. If you are into “epics” it’s the most epic arc of HxH. It goes to the extreme of using several episodes to detail in slow motion a super powered multi-faceted battle, with perspectives changing to every character.
-The narration can be poetic at times.
-Really interesting nen powers, as always.
-It has some of the best episodes of the series, including some of the best deaths and some of the best fights.
The only problem is that is too slow. Well, part of the problems in pace are because the “epicness” of the Arc, it’s a lot of episodes because a lot happens and there are a lot of characters, and another reason is because the author plays a lot with tension and suspense. But, it only explains it up to a point, the truth is that it could be edited and cut down to 4-5 less episodes in total.
So, I just watched Wolf Children with the wife…
And man, this is Miyazaki-at-the-top-of-his-game level filmmaking. Impeccable and moving. I’m just incredibly surprised I hadn’t heard more abou it till now. A indisputable masterpiece. An incredible script… Anybody here watched it?
TurinTur
3843
Yes, it’s great. One of the best anime movie from the last years. I was going to say “the best anime movie” instead of “one of” but I remembered the last Miyazaki and last Takahata movies were also excellent.
I just didn’t liked
end
that Ame chose to be a wolf. I think it felt a bit forced, because the writer wanted to have the dichotomy of one of them choosing the path of human, and the other choosing the path of wolf.
It doesn’t make sense because he isn’t a real wolf! Just a shapeshifter. Where it counts, his mind, he is human.
arrendek
3844
Thanks!
I might try a few more episodes…
I had no problems with it.
end
[spoiler]I think in the movie the animals are considered to have a mind as well, they just can’t communicate with humans (and we, as the audience, are stuck on the human side of the comprehension gap, we are seeing the story mostly from the human side, not from the wolf side -even when we follow Ame as a wolf, he’s still not a full wolf and still somewhat anthropomorphic, with human facial expressions, unlike in the last scene when we lose track of him-). Thus Ame is at best half wolf and half human, not a human that can turn into a wolf. Basically, they don’t seem to be werewolves in the traditional Western sense.
Moreover, there’s a point to be made that they are really wolves (that is, more wolves than humans). There’s a line of dialog about Ame’s father that says that he’s a descendant from a wolf, not from a human, so if anything they are implying that they are wolves that shapeshift into humans. In a way, Ame’s sister also speaks to this, when she says I’ve decided I want to become a human, which means they don’t necessarily think of themselves as such.[/spoiler]
TurinTur
3846
Rokka ended, the mystery wasn’t solved in the best way, I think, and in the end that was the main element of the story. It was kind of Deus ex Machina, in fact.
end
The main character fails at guessing the true fake and another secondary character, off screen, decides to excavate in the temple in a random way and by miracle just there buried there were tablets and instructions that were the key to solve the enigma.
Chimera arc is horrible. Seriously bad. If this was it’s own show, possibly it would be interesting, but Gon is gone. It’s like they forgot what this show was about. uggghh. I have 20 episodes left so I’m going to finish it, but man what a disappointing unnecessary segue in this series.
Having finished I would say you could skip the chimera and just pick it up with exipsode 131. The last episode was good and had nice message, but I can’t help but feel they dropped the ball. I wanted a final battle with Hisoka or something. I would recommend the 1st season and then stop.
FREEZING
WTF? WHAT AN AMAZING SOUNDTRACK!! WHAT A TERRIBLE SHOW.
I can’t recommend this show based on the 3 episodes I watched. This is fan service cranked up to 9. Needs giant robots.
High school Girls called Pandoras fight giant aliens that show up on earth. The girls link up with boys (pacific rim without robots or machinery) to freeze the aliens in place so the girls can land the killing blow. Interesting premise except each episode I’ve seen has our hero “The untouchable Queen” (shocker she gets touched a lot) fighting another girl student till their nude. Hero girl gets beat up and riduculed . Boy says leave her alone you’re cruel, which then activates her super saiyan mode. She kicks the other girls ass and then the teachers break up the fight. This show is what I imagine people who don’t watch anime think anime must be like.
TurinTur
3848
What are you going to watch in the new season?
I know I will watch:
One-Punch Man
Hakkyuu!! season 2
Lupin III
Owarimonogatari
New series, they look possibly good, I hope they are:
Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru
Subete ga F ni Naru: The Perfect Insider
Both are mystery series with murders and all that.
I will give a try:
Young Black Jack
Gil102
3849
The second season is slightly toned down and kind of sad, but everything you’ve said about Freezing is correct. There are 6 mini-episodes that…um…take place after the first season. If you think the regular series is fan service cranked up to 9, the 6 mini episodes are fan service cranked up to 11. I could not stop laughing.
Just finished Devil Is A Part-Timer on Netflix. I really liked the show…much funnier than I thought, still has a bit of fan service, but overall, very light and fun. Though I had to keep turning subtitles on an off because in some episodes, there were characters speaking a different language even though I was watching it dubbed. Its only 13 episodes, goes quick.
Crunchyroll sent me an email about a guest pass that I can gift to someone for 48 hours of Premium access. Which seems odd since I thought you could get a 2-week trial at Premium anyhow, but maybe I’m missing something. Anyway, if anyone wants it, PM me.
I found Night Raid 1931 via a search for stuff similar to Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, and gave it a try. Thought it was pretty good…similar to GITS in the sense of a small group of semi-independent operatives doing shadowy things with abilities beyond the merely human. Other than that, very different: historical rather than future, inherent powers rather than tech augmentation, spies rather than police. Bit of alternate timelines hinted at as well. All in all, good fun. Enough that I wouldn’t have minded seeing a few more than the 13 episodes that they made.
geewhiz
3852
Night Raid 1931 was excellent so much in fact that my wife watched it with us (there can be no higher rating than that). :)
Owarimonogatari 1-2
Hey this is Monogatari!. Same characters, same dialogue, same visuals, same direction. Continuity of experience.
Except…
I have to say it…
This was pretty boring. Looking at the clock from time to time-boring.
It’s literally a 45 minute dialog scene between two people talking about something that happened in the past and no parlor trick or gimmick can avoid the inherent problems of something like that. The dialog itself lacking the typical snappy humor/wit that usually have with some of the girls (like with Shinobu/Kanbaru/Senjou/Mayoi) didn’t help. Yes, I know that *monogatari being just pure dialog is a this point not a surprise for anybody but sometimes it can be done in a way that is engaging, and sometimes not. This is the latter.
About what happened: maybe I’m paranoid but the feeling that Ougi gave me
speculation
when she appeared in the past season, as if every character knew her from before, is that she manipulates people’s memory and with that, somehow even reality. And that’s what happened in this episode. Nothing of this happened, the classroom as Araragi says didn’t exist. She made Araragi “remember” a false episode of his life.
I think some of the stuff that happened with Kanbaru and Nadeko with Ougi were similar, with people doubting what she said, and then shrugging it off and saying "oh, I suppose you are right, I don’t remember exactly whatever), now we have seen it directly.
mok
3855
Saw the Live Action version of “Attack On Titan Part I” at the theater this week(subtitled) - it has a high amount of cheese to it. Acting scenes are quite rough (probably so even if you speak Nihongo), and you find yourself longing for action at times. Special effects start out interesting with the colossal titan but the regular ones are a little less so…They also evidently radically changed the storyline according to the fanatics I went with - I have only seen the first few episode - but it did even vary from those.
For those that do go see it, there is a post main credits trailer for Part II.
Just watched Fate Unlimited Blades. I didn’t realize going in that it was going to be a direct sequel to fate so that was actually a nice surprise. If you’re familiar with the original then there are some nice nods to that show and how things are supposed to work. There’s a lot l liked about the show but Fate Zero overall is just better story.
Rokka I liked a lot. The villian was not a surprise. Although the writers cheated with part of it.
I did love how it ended and I can’t wait to see where it goes.
The Perfect Hipts… Insider 01
In summary, a bit too hipsterish with sophomoric attempts of existentialism that gives a bit of cringe because they don’t feel earned, but put in your face from characters you barely know. I mean, for example it was ok with the old guy remembering what happened, in that scene it makes sense, he is reminiscing of the entire life of a person, but it doesn’t feel natural with the young professor does it.
Ok
Not ok. First thing in the morning you start talking about continuity of conciousness, really?
“From where.” “From this world”.
Give me a break!
But attempts of philosophy aside, the character’s design from Asano are good and feel unique, the series looks good (a bit muted, an interesting contrast to Bones-Sherlock), and more importantly, the mystery is intriguing and it seems the entire series will be dedicated to it, instead of spreading too thin into several arcs.
I don’t know how the anime presents it, but Unlimited Blade Works is an alternate path in the original visual novel, not a sequel per se. It starts from the same premise (and literally the same events, to begin with), but things play out very differently and you see things that either were vaguely alluded to and/or that were entirely absent from the original path (Fate). Then there’s a third path, Heaven’s Feel. It’s true that UBW is unlocked by completing Fate and Heaven’s Feel by completing UBW, though.
Otagan
3859
The UBW anime frames itself as the direct sequel to F/Z, so Shieldwolf’s probably referring to that rather than to the Fate route in F/SN.
No, I know he’s talking about the anime, I’m just saying, it’s not actually the sequel. That’s hollow ataraxia.
