What are you watching/or completed? (Anime)

[EricDent]

Found some OOP stuff at a different HPB (near work).
All in the clearance section, and all priced at $3 each...

Bottle Fairy Volume 1
Bottle Fairy Volume 2
New Dominion Tank Police (Manga Entertainment complete collection)

If you have a Half Price Books in your area, be sure to check the anime & clearance section.
Also sometimes the Blu-Ray or Kids sections of the store also have some anime.

I know that the ones near me somehow get new sealed copies of Astro Boy (black & white version), and some of the Urusei Yatsura DVDs...
As well as some of the '80s Astro Boy as well.

[EricDent]

"Finished" (at least what's available dubbed) Hellsing Ultimate.
Can't wait until October 28, for the last volume & the last 2 episodes dubbed.
The dub is the default way to watch this one IMO.

Speaking of Hellsing Ultimate, looks like Toonami won't be playing episode 10.
They only got up to episode 9.

Replacing it will be the rather long delayed network debut of Inuyasha The Final Act.
Also for DST they will air Cooler's Revenge during the extra "hour".

Watched the first disc of Bottle Fairy, it's really funny & cute!
Got another keeper here!

[Rody]

TCM played the Toei film Magic Boy the other week, so I recorded it and watched it today. It was a straightforward, delightful adventure story of a boy who (duh) learns magic so that he can protect his sister & woodland friends from a newly awakened witch. It's nicely animated, with an exciting soundtrack. It's a good family film.

[alienhulk2099]

Anime I have finished since late last month:

Panzer World Galient: A classic hybrid robot series from the 80s, could have been one of the best anime of it's day if not for the main villain's sudden heel turn in the final episode, eps 13-22 having slow pacing with a good chunk of dialogue eating up too much time, and secondary protagonist mecha barely doing much of anything. Otherwise it is a definite recommendation.

Otaku no Video: I can safely say this is probably the worst anime created by Gainax (which is saying something). Bad pacing, bad jokes, bad music, boring characters, those dumb otaku portrait documentaries constantly stop the story for no reason (yes, chase after some random guy at night just to interview him!), and the ending comes out of left field so hard it felt like they were insulting the audience on purpose. The only good thing to come from this junk is the art style, which is not saying much considering most anime can accomplish that much.

Devadasy: The supposedly notorious Neon Genesis knockoff which was actually quite good with a good art style going for it and the writing and pacing were good. Unfortunately the first episode jumped around a lot and there could have been more action.

Riki-Oh The Wall of Hell: Reminds me a lot of Violence Jack and the main character was pretty friggin awesome even if it was too short. Will definitely see the second OVA at some point.

Black Lagoon: Really mixed on this one. The music was absolutely horrible, Revi is without a doubt one of the worst characters in any anime I have ever seen (reminds me WAY too much of Ohta from Patlabor), the rest of the cast is stale, and the first half of the series was not interesting. Then the second half came and it was structured really well, plus Roberta was awesome as hell and I am not just saying that because she beat Revi to a pulp. Will take on the prequel OVAs and The Second Barrage later down the line.

Captain Earth: Never got around to watching it when it was airing. Strong start in the first few episodes, a really well done final episode, a decent cast, a good main villain, and Pitz is probably the most adorable anime mascot ever. Unfortunately most of the series had very slow pacing, uniteresting dialogue, mediocre music, and the action was scarce for a series that promised it at the beginning. Having very dumb fanservice bits certainly did not help it. While I do not find it boring as most people think I can understand why they felt that way.

Angel's Egg: One of the best anime movies of all time, filled with wonderful animation and atmosphere. Hard to believe this came from the same guy that made Patlabor.

Magical Witch Punie-chan: It is rare to to come across a magic girl anime that is decent, let alone likeable. By every means this 4 part OVA should annoy me to no end, but it does not, it was actually pretty friggin funny. Unfortunately it does not have much else going for it and it does hurt it that most of the cast is rather mean spirited.

Normally I'd finish some more, but a combination of real life issues, plans I have been making for Halloween, and watching Goggle-V have prevented me from doing so. Now for stuff I am watching now!

Gundam Reconquista in G: Five eps in, I don't find anything particularly wrong with this so far, it delivers in action and art, and Megafauna is now my new favorite Gundam ship. Tomino might be back in action! I certainly hope so because after Victory Gundam the man really has not struck his classic vibe.
Gundam Build Fighters Try: Three eps in and it does not have the wow factor yet like most people think (then again most of these people are shippers/die hard otaku), but the first series took a while to find its charm and I think this one will too.... Even if the romance pandering is almost into face palming territories.
Cross Ange: I legitimately have no problem with this series beyond the lack of detail they're giving on the setting and DRAGONs, but no, fan reception blows its top all the time with "medical exams are now rape!" and "yuri everywhere!" and "I hate the main character because I expect perfection!" and "They had urination how unclassy!" and "This male protagonist will ruin the show because he looks like some other character!" and blah f**king blah. Fanboys ruined Gainax anime I actually like, I really hope this nonsense does not do something similar. The less I say about s**trave comparisons the better.
Mawaru Penguindrum: Started watching it with the first episode an hour ago. Seems artsy and all, not really much else going for it. Considering this had the same staff or whatever that ha Utena in it I am not really looking forward to this, but this was recommended to a friend of mine and I said I'd take it on at some point.

Not watching the new Garo anime because aside from that one flute direct to video story I have fallen behind since the third series. Still got a movie, the Zero specials, and Flower of Makai to get through first, oi.

[EricDent]

How can a villain make a heel turn?

Started on New Dominion Tank Police, and after only 2 episodes it's kinda fun.

Not sure what you are talking about with Patlabor, though I have only seen the first movie.

I blew through Bottle Fairy pretty quick, mostly cause it was really fun & CUTE!

What's that about prequel OVAs of Black Lagoon?
Is that Roberta's Blood Trail?
Cause that's a sequel.
Not sure if you were watching the same show, cause Black Lagoon is very good.
It's basically a huge action movie omage IMO.
Did you go with the dub option? Cause that has a seriously good dub.
Plus it makes Revy awesome in every way IMO.

BTW I goofed in the last post about Hellsing Ultimate.
Toonami only has up to episode 8, not 9.
Would guess since it's so close to the release of episodes 9 & 10 on DVD/Blu-Ray (TODAY!!!) they didn't want to cut into potential profit by showing them for free.

[alienhulk2099]

[EricDent]

Yeah I have seen that before where the bad guys just decide to leave.
Despite besting the good guys all the time.

[EricDent]

Finished New Dominion Tank Police, it was a rather fun show.

I also bought and watched Hellsing Ultimate Volume 3 (Episodes 9 & 10) at work (Fry's) for $24.99 (after my discount).
It was amazing in every way, and is easily one of the best anime of all time IMO.

[alienhulk2099]

Just finished some one shot ova called Kirara. Generic ecchi nonsense with whiplash pacing and dumb comedy, surprisingly the music was actually kind of good.

[Dr Kain]

Watched this thing called Short Peace today which featured a bunch of anime shorts. To be honest, they all sucked. Possessions was the most creative of them though, but made very little sense. The rest were just blah, especially the last one titled something like The Last Weapon, which was flat out boring as hell.

Ghost in the Shell Arise 1 and 2 - The dub of this is quite good, but I am really having a hard time adjusting to a few of the new voices, specifically Togusa, Aramaki, and Ishikawa. I do miss Epcar as Batou, but Sabat did a good enough job to mimic the new Japanese voice. Also, this is my fourth time seeing the first episode and I think I am finally understanding the plot to it. :lol

DBZ Battle of Gods - This movie was awesome in theaters, it is just as awesome on video, especially with the extra footage. The new scene with Whis opening a hole in the window to ask 18 about ice cream was freaking hilarious as was the added backstory to Pilaf and the Rock Paper Scissors challenge to Oolong. Still a nice big 8/10.

[EricDent]

Got The Devil is a Part-Timer at the local library & watched all of it.
It was pretty funny.
Japan just LOVES McDonalds (or as it was called MgRonalds).
The "love interest" named Chiho was rather amusing.
She did resemble a very grown-up Chiyo-Chan from Azumanga Daioh.

I watched the first disc of Magi The Magic Labyrinth (also from the library).
This was rather an odd find, since Aniplex of America stuff is rather expensive.
Anyhow so far it's pretty good, and has a good dub.
Interesting that Japan would make a show based on 1001 Arabian Nights.

[Dr Kain]

So after my October break I finally sat down and finished the third season to Dragon Ball. I hate to say it, but these episodes were quite bad. It wasn't bad enough that the first five were nothing but filler, but there is so much filler in the tournament arc that it isn't funny. Okay, the first few episodes of filler were somewhat enjoyable, especially the one where Goku had to go to the Demon World to save the princess, but the one after it with Tenshinhan, Chaozu and this purple pig is one of the worst DB episodes ever. At least, it was until I watched the last episode of the season, which turned this nobody fighter Goku beats in three hits into an entire episode of pointless filler. Not only that, but what kind of tournament does a match, ends for the night, does two more matches, then ends for another night? This is ridiculously dragged on to the point of boredom.

[alienhulk2099]

Finally got done with the first quarter of Mawaru Penguindrum. Normally I marathon anime and complete them in the course of a few days, but I have been doing that with the original Kamen Rider since I found it in its entirety. Anyway, as of now I can safely say this anime is kind of bad at this point. The art style and music are decent, but man does this have problems. First off are the jokes: They suck. Nothing special, plenty of anime fail at comedy, much like with GTO the good parts are when they are actually trying to be serious, then again unlike GTO the humor doesn't go into insulting territories to the point that makes you wonder if the police are just awful at their job. Next is Ringo, crazy stalker after her old school teacher because she thinks being in love with him will fix her family or something and GAH! The worst part is the writing. "I am going to possess your younger sister while insulting you as I demand you go fetch me a drum that you have no idea what it looks like or what it does and I just cut you off because my logic makes no sense". At the very least it shouldn't be done entirely with stock footage, ESPECIALLY if there is NO POINT. At least when stock footage is done in action oriented anime there is some relevance like how someone goes into battle or defeating an enemy, here it is just pointless dribble that amounts to NOTHING. Even Utena got that much right. "But AH this was made by the guy that did Sailor Moon!" To which I reply: This is not Sailor Moon and unlike Utena this has a considerable budget behind it and isn't an adaption from anything. I like how MAL lists this series with an R rating when aside from one shot of a girly magazine from one of the penguins this could easily pass for PG given what little content it has; I'm even watching this dubbed and it's not like with Black Lagoon where it just throws curse words in every other sentence just to make it more "edgy".

[Mexigojira]

Just found Uchusen Ssagittarius on Dailymotion. an old school anime from the 80's

[EricDent]

Got through the first part of Magi, will watch part 2 later.
They had part 2 at the library when I returned the other shows I borrowed.

[Dr Kain]

Well I just finished Dragon Ball and overall I have a lot of mixed feelings about it as a whole. The 23rd Tenkaichi tournament arc was down right awesome in the anime form. I do think the Goku/Piccolo battle was about two episodes too long, but it was such a great fight. Unfortunately, the series ends on a boring pointless five episode filler arc that was awful and seems to have dumbed down Goku's abilities for some strange reason.

The series as a whole was good, but I really think I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I not read the manga first. The amount of filler throughout the show was tiresome, especially when certain areas were needlessly stretched out (such as the 22nd tournament). It also does not help when there are things the filler contradicts later on that occurs during the series (like Gero being the creator of the Artificial Humans instead of Flappe). Another thing I found to be weaker here were the jokes. A lot of the jokes done in the manga were much funnier than the anime, but there were some great ones in the anime nonetheless. Finally, I do think they should have taken advantage of Toriyama's major time jumps with their filler, as they tended to spend just the first few weeks after a manga event in filler and then just made the time jump. I would have loved to have seen Goku's training with Popo spread throughout the entire three years instead of what they did do.

Overall, it was great to finally experience the series in anime form now, but I doubt this is a series I will ever watch from start to finish again. My favorite arc is hands down the Red Ribbon Army saga followed by the 23rd tournament.

[Rody]

It took me almost a year, but I finally finished a short series titled Tonari no Seki-Kun, about a high school girl who has to deal with the various, absurd games her classmate across from her plays during class. It's a funny show, but there's no cohesive story to it between its 21 episodes, so it really feels like a mere sampling of the original manga. It was fun, nevertheless.

I just finished the second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's not nearly as good as the first season, but it's a good compliment and fairly experimental in its own right. While I continue with Haruhi through the manga & the original light novels, I'm making my way through Air, which is an incredibly melancholy, fairy tale sort of story, and Kyoto Animation's first full series; and since I can't have enough of KyoAni, I also started watching Lucky Star. I can tell I'm going to love this one.

I'm patiently making my way through Lupin the IIIrd. It's a great show, but since it's episodic I'm in no rush to finish it, with all the other shows I'm currently watching.

Oh, and I'm watching one other anime you guys have probably never heard of: some cheap, dull show called Kill la Kill.

[Dr Kain]

I can not get into Kill La Kill. I'vw atched the first two episodes twice, and while I did enjoy them more in English than in Japanese, it is not a show I find myself able to sit through well. Not just that, but also the fact that Aniplex is the one releasing it on BD makes me not even want to bother trying either.

Well, I started to watch DBZ and holy crap, I am so glad I bought the Dragon Boxes when they were coming out. The video quality is freaking incredible on them.

[EricDent]

Finished Season 1 of Magi.
Apparently there's a second season called "The City of Magic".

Overall it was a decent show, but it looks like it's headed in the same direction as a long running fighting show.
Of course it doesn't help that the main character of Ali Babba was voiced (in the dub) by Johny Yong Bosch.
Seriously for a guy who says he "hates" doing anime roles, he just keeps doing them.

[alienhulk2099]

Whoo whoo boy have I been watching lots o' stuff in the past week!

To begin, Riki-Oh 2: Child of Destruction or why aren't ultra violent anime normally this awesome? Improved from the first OVA, this gave nice background information on our main hero (who is friggin awesome I may add). It isn't MD Geist levels of win, but it is close. After that I decided to take on more stuff from CLAMP which I haven't done in a while, specifically Sweet Valerian. I always complained that they are better making Loony Toons-esque stories and here we have one.... And it was actually decent! Normally their stuff is bad, but gotta give credit where it's due. After that I took on Street Fighter Alpha Generations since I saw Alpha and 2 The Movie a long time ago and never got around to see this. Very slow paced, but the action and art style sort of make up for it; better than 2 The Movie, but I prefer Alpha due to better action. I also took on some nice artsy anime shorts like Highway Jenny, Grandfather's Lamp, and Fastening Days, but instead I am going to go on a rant about some trash.

Lingerie Soldier Papillon Rose, a one shot ova that answered the "what if?" question of if Sailor Moon was an ecchi anime with a setting at a strip club, somehow not a hentai. Ignoring obviously face palming jokes and eye rolling ecchi-ness the gross out factor was legitimately bad and I am a guy that stomach'd the Feast trilogy and enjoy stuff like Mad Bull 34 and Violence Jack so that is saying a lot. Never thought I'd see a man getting raped to death by a lesbian demon* with a hose or outright molestation before killing her or a vibrator for a weapon. *shrivels* I lost it at the end from the mascot cat giving fellatio. *hurls* I was half tempted to give this the 1/10 rating, but two things prevent that from happening: 1. Unlike Puni Puni Poemii children were not involved in any perverted acts (and kudos for making everyone college students) and 2. As much as I REALLY don't want to admit it the pacing actually was good. Plus I'd be lying if I didn't chuckle at flammable breast milk due to sheer WTF factor.

*No she was not a succubus

Then there was the television series aka the reason I watched the garbage in the first place! Papillon Rose New Season, one year after the OVA. What makes this unique? You know how one course anime normally has 12 or 13 episodes? Well this had a mere six. Yeah, what the hell, how cheap was this? Well f**k me because I found out how. No doubt one of the cheapest anime I have ever seen and replacing the sheer gross out factor for horrendously slow pacing and bad music. Ignoring the fact of how dumb the meta bits got (I know they likely couldn't show a vibrator weapon on TV or at least the way they did in the ova, but why mention "beyond our control" instead of "it was destroyed in battle"? Poor effort). Replacing the enemy demons are a bunch of aliens dressed in Haniwa-ian outfits. This had promise: Haniwa-esque aliens (like in Steel Jeeg) take over Akihabara using combinations of various famous cryptids. Could have been watchable, but the laughably terribad fan service further aided into stupidity and after episode one the animation quality took a very hard nose dive. I also like how apparently alien cops from Venus were watching the villains and decided not to arrest them right away. Ugh. The saddest part about this? I actually like the ending. It was "cheesy stupid but make you feel good" type endings where nobody dies and the villains are both no longer evil and the heroes forgive them. F**k it, executed bad or not, that's not a moral used enough that I happen to agree with.

Finally I made it up to episode 16 in Mawaru Penguindrum and wow the dumb moments prevent me from liking this as much as I should. On one hand you could say stuff like not having people's eyes drawn on, extras resembling sign people, and background characters having paper over their faces may be an artistic choice, but I see it as lazy, inconsistent to its very style (sometimes real people are drawn in their place, REALLY?), and why would you wear paper on your face? It doesn't even make sense in-universe, they do it in paintings and- GAH! While we're at it lets bring up not one, not two, but THREE different occasions there was attempted date rape complete with drugs. None of them actually went through with it (good), but they come across as horribly unnecessary/pure shock value designed to eat up time. Then there is episode 15, why the hell would an artist chisel her daughter's limbs while she's naked? If it was trying to disturb me it failed horribly, that was just dumb. I also like how the penguins decide to trip the people they are looking out for by putting garbage in their path so they can trip and fall; yeah real thinks bird brain, someone nearly got raped over that. *face palm* Then there is the point where the three main siblings reveal that their parents are criminals wanted by the police for over three years, nice explanation and such, but what the hell did they do? That is some nice basic s**t we could be told at some point since the only thing known was that it was related to some subway accident that killed stalker girl's older sister and- Gah! I see a good story in this that has too much fat on it that could use a lot of trimming.

[Dr Kain]

Watched the next two discs of DBZ (8-21) and man, it has been a while since I have seen these episodes. In fact, there are a few I have only seen once before (such as the robot Gohan meets) due to rarely getting to see the early stuff uncut.

Also, this came in today:

[alienhulk2099]

I just finished Mawaru Penguindrum and now it is time to rant! I am fine with the dumb theme of "children will suffer for their parents' sins" since that is a misconcepted Bible quote, some of the writing was okay at times, it did bother explaining everything in the end, and the ending itself was not entirely terrible thanks to the epilogue. Now to concentrate on the negatives:

-The main bad guy was a ghost that hates the world, fair enough, but his methods of doing so are reduced to a cult bombing a subway with his enemy on it and sending a bunch of children in a factory sized broiler. Nope, don't buy it, at least not to the sheer size they make this factory/slaughterhouse to be. There isn't even a reason for it!

-Turns out the Penguindrum was the actual heart of one of the brothers. Wow, really? Weak twist is weak. And people think Shamylan is bad.

-"My blood is turning into penguin logos and turning into apples, lets eat it and call it the fruit of destiny so we can rewrite time!" Speaking of which....

-The forbidden fruit of Eden was about morality, not destiny, and there was a lot more to that story than "the first couple ate it and got cursed". There is a difference between misconception and outright rewriting religious text to suit your story! Epic fail and points off for that alone. It's one thing to have biblical references and have spins on them, it is another to take a religious story and make flat out lies about it.

-Rich girl turns out to be the blood-relative sister of one of the main brothers (BTW the main three siblings are all adopted from the cult leader).... Why the hell did you kiss him in episode 10!?

-Celebrity woman's former lesbian pal almost kills her fiance in an act of revenge. I'd have no problem with this if they showed her more than JUST BEING A FLASH BACK. It comes as out of nowhere and has zero build up!

-From episode 13 onward there is a different ending theme EVERY TIME. The issue? They're all awful!

-Episode 22 was out of place, suddenly we went from fantasy to crime? And somehow you can apparently survive a barrage of gunfire no problem!

-You can't survive being that close to a bomb that strong. What makes the scene more insulting is that the time rewriting diary is destroyed because of fires caused by this. Oi.

-"I know how to rewrite time despite the fact that the diary used to do it was burned. How? Some pop idols irrelevant to this story gave me their song!" *face palm*

-Hat creature was useless for the entire second half of the series, to add to the ultra-weak twist she turns out to be stalker girl's dead sister. Ugh.

-In the epilogue time is rewritten and the two main brothers are instead not killed off, but now they are ten years younger and in another family. This doesn't bother me too much, but the age change seems so pointless it makes me think "why bother?".

Not much else I'll say. Masako might have been a decent character if she was in a better anime (and they subtract random incest crap) and the main villain had potential for being good, but the fat kills this oh so badly.

[The Shadow]

[EricDent]

We sell that Sailor Moon set at work.
Not sure if it's worth $70 for 23 episodes (even if it is on Blu-Ray)...

[Dr Kain]