What are you watching/or completed? (Anime)

[EricDent]

Started on Watamote.
The dub is very fun.
Monica Rial is great as the main girl.

[Dr Kain]

Finished the DBZ movies today:

Brolli Second Coming - This movie has some good moments in it, but it is ultimately lackluster. There is just no way Brolli survived getting Goku's fist through his body, and yet, he somehow made it all of the way to Earth only to conveniently get frozen for 7 years. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. And of course, instead of just having Gohan use his power to defeat Brolli, we have to have Goku come down to save the day in ghost form. The best part of the movie is watching Trunks pee on Brolli. The writers do not even seem to know the concept of drabon ball with the randomness of them performing a wish without Shenron appearing, disappearing without giving a second wish, and every other plot hole imaginable, this movie sucks. I give it a 3/10 stars.

Bio Brolli: Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, what the hell did I watch? This is without a doubt the worst of them all. The plot is just so damn stupid and boring. The only thing I give the movie points for is for having 18 wreck Satan's home and not having Goku come down to save the day. Other than that, thi movie sucks. I give it a 1/10 stars.

Fusion Reborn: This movie is easily the best of them all. It has a unique plot to it, it is funny, and the fights are awesome. While Janemba is far from the most interesting villain in the series, the lack of any dialog from him is a nice change of pace. He is just there to kick ass and chew bubblegum, nothing more, nothing less. It is cool to see Freeza back for the whole 30 seconds he was there. The highlight of the movie is easily Hitler facing off against Goten and Trunks though. That was just awesome. Overall, I'm giving this one a 7/10. Oh, and I love the ending with Shenron.

Wrath of the Dragon: This one is quite interesting because it seems to focus more on Trunks than anyone else, which makes it strangely good. Like Janemba, Hildegarn ends up being a unique villain for the heroes to face, which once again is nice. In fact, it seems Toei really played up their A game with their final two movies when it came to trying something new and in their animation department. The animation is just gorgeous and looks really high quality here. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the audio as it is extremely low to the point that I had to turn my receiver up almost to max. The story is interesting even if it is slow moving. Once again they seem to have forgotten the rules of the show though, as Shenron just leaves after one wish is made instead of two and Bulma somehow has Trunks' time machine. Despite these little flaws, I'm giving this movie a 7/10.

And that is it as far as the DBZ movies are concerned. It was nice to rewatch them for the first time in nearly 6 years, but it was also a refresher for me on why I don't want them all that often. In fact, if it weren't for them having Dragonball Z in their titles, I wouldn't keep them. Still, they are vastly superior to what Toei gave us with GT as regardless for these movies' issues, they don't just completely jack up the characters themselves.

[Hybrid Gojira]

Started watching Hunter X Hunter 2011 again...I'm up to ep 80 now and so far really enjoy it.

[sentaison]

Finished Black Lagoon. Very dark and gritty, watching Rock going down the dark path while trying to keep his values was tough to watch. But overall an excellent series, hopefully we'll see another.

[EricDent]

I am hoping you watched Roberta's Blood Trail as well?

I also would love to see more Black Lagoon in the future.

Along with more Full Metal Panic as well.

[sentaison]

[EricDent]

Finished Watamote.
It was odd, but funny at the same time.

Monica Rial easily made this show much better dub wise.

Still not sure what to think about Sentai putting little notes to call out references.
For example there's a few Haruhi references in Watamote, and they had stuff at the top of the screen to tell you that.

[The Shadow]

I've seen a few subbed series where the company did that too, I'm not 100% settled on the concept either. On one hand it is neat getting that bit of extra information right there, but it almost always appears and disappears way too quickly for the viewer to read both the subtitles and the notes without pausing. And of course lengthier notes tend to cover a good chunk of the picture.

I think the notes are generally worth keeping, but it would be nice to have them as an option on home video releases; just include two subtitle tracks on future releases, one with the notes and one without.

[Dr Kain]

I watched the first disc to Dragonball Season 2 and can I honestly say that this show is BORING!!?? I absolutely loved the manga to the point that I read all 16 volumes in about two weeks. The anime on the other hand, moves at the pace of a snail. The fight with Full Metal Jacket (who is for some reason called Sgt Metallitron in the anime) lost all of its hilarity by being drawn out, and that battle was only one episode in length.

[Dr Kain]

I finished watching Dragonball Season 2 tonight and thankfully things really picked up once it got to the General Blue arc as the first half of the season was very sluggish to get through. I loved Muscle Tower in the manga, but it just seemed to drag on in the anime. Not just that, but some of my favorite jokes in the chapters when Goku finds Bulma were not in the anime. The only thing that completely lost me was the Dr Slump stuff as it was just throwing in all of these characters I guess you are just supposed to know who they are and what their backgrounds are, and it made them hard to sit through. Like there were these aliens that were just there and they were picking up trash for some reason. Then there was some dude that looks like Yamucha (which was also confusing in the manga, but he only appeared for like 3 pages there). The worst part was General Blue hitting on some 10 year old boy. That was just really really creepy and disgusting that Toei would do that at the same time. Thankfully, things kicked ass again once Tao Pai Pai entered the fray. In fact, he is one of my favorite villains from the original Dragonball series, and at least some of the filler gives him more screen time, so I am sort of okay with that.

[EricDent]

I think the notes might be a carry over from the ADV days when they had certain titles with "Pop Up Video" type subtitles.
Called ADVidnotes (Sentai did it again on the most recent release of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi).

Borrowed these from the library recently:

Kirameki Project: short 5 episode show by Studio Fantasia (so plenty of panty shots & nudity).
Giant robots vs Cute Girls, not too bad for a sub-only show.
The robots were a bit old-school looking (Big O/Mazinger Z).

Another: A rather dark & bloody show about a cursed class.
It was kinda similar (in the amount of ways people get killed) to Final Destination.
A very appropriate song for this would be "Another one bites the dust".
Usual Sentai dub cast (Greg & Monica were great), and a lot of bloody deaths.
Might have to mention that to the library, since it was in the Young Adult DVD section.
Which at this particular branch is right next to the kids section...

Overall two decent shows, which I kinda doubt I would buy.

Any thoughts/opinions on any of these?
They cost about $5 each at Fry's.

Sin The Movie
Lady Death
Ellecia
Volume one of Yugo the Negotiator (

[Dr Kain]

I finally finished the Red Ribbon Army arc of Dragon Ball along with the Baba stuff. I absolutely loved the RRA stuff but my god, I don't think the anime dragged the Baba tournament out enough. I'm pretty sure they could have stretched out the fight with Dracula for another 13 minutes and the fight with Devil for another 15. :lol

[EricDent]

So I guess nobody can recommend buying those $5 shows I mentioned?

How about these $15 ones?

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
Samurai Bride (Samurai Girls is $45)
Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya (seen the first Fate/Stay Night, which is on sale for $14)

[Hybrid Gojira]

Finished Hunter X Hunter. It doesn't complete the manga (since it was on hiatus for 2 years of something) but the show is pretty good. It's really more of a drama series with action spread throughout. I'd recommend it.

[EricDent]

Borrowing Bodacious Space Pirates (collection 1) from the library.

Up through disc 2 of 3, so far it's pretty darn fun & quite good!

Still have no clue why people say that Sentai dubs are "bad", when this one is GREAT!

Will most likely be buying this show very soon!

[The Shadow]

I believe I watched both the sub & dub (the dub seemed pretty solid to me) of Bodacious Space Pirates when the Anime Network was running them over the last year or so. BSP was a fun show to watch, it'd be cool to see another round of episodes -- a movie was released earlier this year, hopefully that makes it's way over hear soon too.

[Rody]

I recently watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and found it positively delightful - absolutely surreal, nicely animated and extremely clever. It's definitely one of my favorites.

Now I'm watching Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I'm 10 out of 12 episodes in, and all I can say is WOW. No wonder I've heard this show get so praised.
EDIT: I just finished it.
That.. Was.. Amazing.

[EricDent]

There's a bunch of Madoka movies (but not on Netflix yet).
Apparently talk of another season as well.

I watched the first 2 episodes of that on Netflix (watching parents house), pretty interesting.

I did buy Bodacious Space Pirates at work for about $40 (after tax & discount) so I got through disc 5 of 6 (or disc 2 in collection 2).

I hope Section 23 gets the movie! Hopefully they dub it with the same people as well (hearing all my favorites from old ADV/Funimation dubs is great).

[Dr Kain]

Oh boy, I have a lot to say from today.

First up, the anime:

Sailor Moon Crystal 7 - Another fantastic episode with incredible animation and probably the best fight scene of the show thus far. There was quite a bit deviated from the manga, but it still kept the main plot and idea true to the story, so I am okay with that.

Ghost in the Shell Arise 4 - A confusing, but truly incredible finale to this four part OVA. I do hope Production IG decides to do more stories in this universe as I feel like the story was not truly complete since not all of the villains meet their end. Nevertheless, the soundtrack to the show kicked ass and I look forward to watching this show in English in a couple weeks.

Gundam Reconguista G 1 - I'm not really sure what I can say here as it was boring, featured way too much exposition, and yet, I feel like I know next to nothing about what is going on, and the animation is quite lacking. Also, it seems like the main character knows he is the main character as he can already do anything. I mean, he is a low ranking officer, but no one objects to him just opening up the Gundam cockpit and playing around with the controls. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. There is just not really much here to talk about as in the 22 minutes I feel nothing actually happened. I know it is a Gundam series, so it is bound to get better after 15 episodes, but there is nothing really here that makes me want to come back. Finally, I cannot figure out if they are trying to make this series be serious or comedic.

Finally, this is not really about anime, but it is related to Dragon Ball, so I wanted to post it here. I finished the Z manga today and I have to say that I have spent the last 7 weeks reading through the entire series in manga form for the first time and this series was nothing short of stunning. While it was my first time experiencing Dragon Ball, even reading the Z portion felt like I was experiencing the series for the first time even though I have watched the anime a million times. Some of the fourth wall breaking jokes in the manga (like the one where Krillin calls out Toriyama for reusing the same panels when Trucks and Goten are practicing the fusion dance) were fantastic. In fact, I have to say that the Boo saga was really well done in manga form compared to the anime. It felt like it was taking the mysticism and comedy of DB and adding in the action aspect of Z. Boo is actually a pretty cool villain even though I do still feel it got ridiculous as the villains came off like a sales pitch. "Freeza is the most powerful being in the universe, but wait, there is more. Cell is actually the most powerful being as he contains the DNA of all of the characters including Freeza. Hold on there though, we have even more. If you buy Cell and Freeza right now, you will get the true ultimate evil in the universe, who was forgotten because he was locked away, Boo."

From a story point of view, I definitely think Dragon Ball was the better of the two series as the plots were short and simple, but had this great mystery to the world around it. Not only that, but I like Goku much more as a child than I do as an adult. On the other hand, Dragon Ball Z has a lot more memorable villains compared to the original series, who really only had King Piccolo. Sure, I love Tao Pai Pai and Pilaf was cool, but Tao was barely in the thing and Pilaf never accomplished anything. In fact, I think that is one of the biggest weaknesses for Z, as it seems like Toriyama just forgot all about Pilaf. Hell, in the anime, it would have made more sense for Toei to have used Pilaf over Garlic in the Black Water Saga.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy everything about the manga except Raditz. I do not know why, but Raditz is just hands down the worst character Toriyama had ever created in this series. He was not the least bit interesting, did absolutely nothing, and never received any sort of development. I would love to see Toei just put the money and effort and do an entirely new Dragon Ball anime that adapts all 42 volumes of the manga into a 100% accurate series and does it in less than 200 episodes.

Finally, there are some issues I do have with Viz's translations. First off, when Trunks is telling Goku about the future, he says it is 19 and 20 that have ruined his world even it is 17 and 18. That just makes no damn sense. Also, I do not like that Viz changed Mr Satan's name to Hercule and they call Vegitto Vegerot.

Overall, I give the series as a whole a nice big 9/10 stars as it is phenomenal and one I plan to reread in a few years.

[EricDent]

Finished Bodacious Space Pirates, it was pretty fun.
Hopefully Sentai gets the movie!

Now in time for Halloween, I am rewatching Moon Phase (dub since it's so fun).
Great mix of spooky, cute, and funny.

Will see if the library has anything interesting as well.

[Dr Kain]

Garo Anime Episode 1 - GO watch Berserk instead. This sucked and is pretty much just Berserk with Garo like armor in it and the monsters are named Horrors.

[Dr Kain]

We watched the first two episodes of The Devil is a Part Timer and they were quite hilarious. It isn't the greatest show ever, but it is something different, and that works for me.

[DannyBeane]

[EricDent]

Finished Moon Phase, it's a very fun show.
The last episode is rather odd though...

I borrowed Dusk Maiden of Amnesia from the library (boy the library must LOVE Section 23).
It was more funny than spooky. The package seemed to suggest it was a pretty spooky show.
There's quite a bit of fanservice.
The dub was also pretty good, with Britney Karabowski as a rather fun character.

After finishing that & Moon Phase, I started re-watching Hellsing Ultimate.

Quickly blew through the first 4 episodes.
Obviously going with the dub option, since the dub is beyond great.
This is to prepare for the upcoming home release of the final two episodes on DVD/Blu-Ray.
That comes out October 28, so just in time for Halloween!

Will watch more either Sunday or Thursday, depending on what I feel like doing.

[EricDent]

Bought & watched Black Jack the movie.
This was at a local HPB, and was only $7.99.

Pretty decent movie, and while I am not that familiar with that character, this was good.