What are you watching/or completed? (Anime)

[EricDent]

Bought Heaven's Lost Property (1st season) at work with my gift card.
Still have about $60 left (bought LEGO Batman 3 for PS3 online, and it's shipping).

Watched the first disc, and it's pretty fun.
Obviously lots of boobs & butts.
However it also has a pretty good story so far.
Even though Greg Ayers has his "annoying voice" it works well for this show.

Will most likely buy the 2nd season & the movie as well.

BTW the price for the Anime Classics version (DVD & Blu-Ray) was $23 after discount.

[EricDent]

So I did buy the 2nd season & movie of Heavens Lost Property.

I also bought Demon King Daimao as well.

Finished the first season of HLP, and it has a good ending.
Though obviously they previewed the 2nd season.

[alienhulk2099]

Starting last week I decided to dive into Blood Plus and am currently at episode 21. I didn't care for the original OVA, but I enjoyed the live action movie that was adapted from it. Held off from seeing this one because I do not know. Bad music aside I actually really enjoyed this: Very well done mystery aspects, likeable monsters, good action (although they could have more of it), nice atmosphere and art (which reminds me of Death Note to some degree), no fan service or bad comedy, and the cast is solid, especially Saya, but I'll save thoughts on that for when I finish. Not sure why, but the cast reminds me of Escaflowne to some degree; I guess this is the answer to "what if Hitomi was a sword-wielding fighter?". Unfortunately the meat of the post will not go to something outstanding, rather something I am semi-divided over. The anime in question? Najica Blitz Tactics.

I marathoned this all day because I had nothing better to do. Directed by the same guy that did the first two entries in the Agent Aika trilogy (and it shows) and Blazing Transfer Student (a 90s Gainax ova I actually enjoyed). This review looks negative, but I promise it'll end up being positive. With that said....

I have never seen a TV anime with such a poorly fleshed out setting. Supposedly post-apocalyptic with some flooded waters and cities in ruins, but we get zero back story on this whatsoever. You can't even say just war alone because of natural disasters and whatnot (although that does explain why there were at least two laser cannon satellites). When your merchandise gives more details to something like that, you done flunked. Very hard. They could have at least made a few still shots and had a 15-20 second narration. Lets ignore the gratuitous panty shots all over the place and the fact that the first episode had the main heroine's sidekick nearly raped. The music, not counting the ending theme, was incredibly generic and not in a good way. The ending theme itself was just okay. The comedy was so poor and forced it is no wonder they dropped using much after episode 4. Then there is basic motivation: Why the hell would a perfume company (with spies I may add) want to retrieve rogue cyborgs? I don't even see the connection in that and they didn't even bother to explain it. Even the mad doctor never bothered to give her motive. Did I mention guns can be pulled out from nowhere even when there is nowhere they could have been placed? Did I also mention these rogue cyborgs also have sonic scream powers they never bother using most of the time? Well I mentioned them now. The animation ranges from decent to cheap (not surprised since this was only 12 episodes), but otherwise not bad. Then there is the audio other than the music: The first two episodes don't even use more than one sound effect or dialogue sequence at a time; you'd think this wouldn't be an issue, but when spy-oriented action is the main theme of your movie you'd expect this would be done right. This isn't even one of those times you can blame the dub on since I saw the subbed version of this (because the dubbed version was not on the site I watched this one; on side note why the hell was this listed as shonen? Because it certainly was not). On top of all that the pacing is kind of poor for the first quarter of the series.

Then episode 5 comes along and suddenly they start to fix their issues. The animation got more consistent, the audio got better, inconsistencies lessened (although how Najica can summon her main outfit from nowhere is very odd), no dumb jokes were present, the fan service slowly gave small bits of restraint, and none of the cast did anything annoying. In addition to this, unlike a lot of anime schlock, the emotional moments are surprisingly not forced and are written pretty decently. I am taken a bit back. The ending may have been okay-ish, but it was not bad. I do have to give the action props because it was surprisingly well executed for an ecchi anime. What the hell prevents this title from being simply decent or even bad? Najica herself. She might be one of the best main heroines in anime history. Not even joking with that statement. She's basically a better done version of Aika Sumeragi. She fights on a lot despite having limitations and against opponents who are essentially superhuman, she does not let her feelings cloud her judgment, she is very skilled at what she does, she is always alert and calm, and unlike Aika she doesn't get captured a lot. Comparison: 13 episodes across 3 ova series with 4 times being captured vs. 12 episodes in 1 TV series with a grand total of being caught once. I have nothing against damsel in distress characters, but if being caught often will conflict the credibility of a character's occupation then it can easily work against you. What makes her stand out is here age more than anything else. For some strange reason I bothered to check out the official site since Wikipedia had rather barren information on this series and under the character profiles I noticed she was the only human in the cast not to have her age listed. Her coworkers have theirs, but not her's. You'd think this would be trivial (and it is for the most part), but why do side characters have their ages listed but not the main heroine? After some digging I eventually found out the official volume 1 DVD booklet says she is 27, making her the second oldest employee of her agency only after her boss. Then it hit me: How many anime main protagonists, regardless of genre, are heavily sexualized females over 25 and are legitimately good at accomplishing serious tasks? Especially when they look their age and in most anime characters look much older than they are. That is.... Actually quite rare. The creators did something unique and executed it well, especially when you consider that most anime that aim for the demographic it does prefers their heroines a lot younger than that. You know what? F**k it, the creators get a solid applause out of me for having the balls to attempt this and succeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxAKFlpdcfc

(I could not find a decent applause gif. Somehow.)

She makes my top 4 best female anime characters no question, might even be at number one, but I will sit on that for a bit and wait until I finish Blood Plus to make sure I don't become fickle.

[Dr Kain]

One Piece Film Z - This movie was utterly terrific. The story was well done and felt fleshed out. It is too bad that the normal filler the series has is not even a quarter as good as this movie was, as everything felt right. Well, almost. The movie did not have enough Franky, but other than that, I have very little to complain about. The battles were great and it was awesome getting a taste of the dub set in the New World, but to be honest, I expected the characters to sound a little bit older. Nami is the only one that sounded a bit different. Another thing that I was confused with is why Luffy's arms just suddenly turned black during his fight with Zed. It just seemed random and out of place as then they were back to normal without a moment's notice. Overall, if you are a One Piece fan, this movie is a must watch. Hell, even if you aren't, check it out as it might get you wanting to see more as it did with one of our friends who was over today. I give it an 8/10 stars. It is probably not as good as Strong World, but it is by far the second best One Piece movie thus far.

[alienhulk2099]

Wednesday I finished Blood Plus. Very solid almost everything including the monsters, the art, the atmosphere, the pacing, the cast, the setting, and even the ending ended on a good note. The only thing bringing this down was the music. So mediocre and often so very unfitting. With that said, this gave me the idea to make a "best anime teams n groups list" whenever a specific team does well enough to warrant as being good, making the protagonist cast number 2 only after the Dagwon Team; that said I gave it thought, giving the number 1 best anime female character spot to Najica. Well, enough of my fanboy dribbling, continuing the topic!

Over the week I took on the Layzner OVA trilogy since after episode 23 I saw the rest of the series in raws and the third OVA has a more drawn out ending than the TV version because of early cancellation. First OVA cut out Gostero for no reason, but it also took away a lot of the slow pacing that plagued the first quarter of the series. The second OVA merely confirmed a few suspicions I had when I watched it raw. Third OVA I am glad they made, it was a lot better executed than the final two episodes complete with a solid final battle. The saddest part is that after seeing so many anime and toku over the years I can safely say very few battle OST insert tracks come anywhere near as good as the V-Max theme.

Yesterday I decided to give Sacred Seven a take on and finished it this morning. Likeable series, although I don't think it knew what type of series it tried to be. Episodes 1 to 5 and 9 acted like a MOTW series, 6, 7, 11, and 12 acted like a serious conspiracy sci-fi story, and 8 and 10 were more or less slice of life romance.... Yeah, this might have mixed fine if they chopped down some elements and spread them around the series more. The music and side characters are nothing special although the art style, darkstones, and writing were good. The weirdest part of this? Minus having no payoff the romance is actually done surprisingly well. I know this was aimed for kids, but still.

With that all said I have a bit of an anime backlog, anyone up for recommendations? A few of the current ones include:

-Paranoia Agent
-Blood-C
-Outlaw Star
-Monster
-Black Lagoon: Second Barrage
-Ultimate Hellsing
-Vampire Knight

Also half tempted to give Buddy Complex or Argvellon a watch since I have been very behind on anime from this year minus current the Sunrise trio.

[planetxleader]

We all know I don't watch much anime, but recently I discovered (on my own) Watamote (or "No Matter How I Look at it, it's Your Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!") and fell in love with it so much that I bought the first volume of the manga (and I don't read manga).

And lately I've been interested in learning more about the Persona games (since Persona Q is now out on 3DS and looks interesting), so I started watching "Persona 4 - The Animation." It's actually pretty decent.

[MekaGojira3k]

I'm on the new Gundam series Reconguista in G.
I'm also watching Sword Art Online here and there.
There's no time to watch this crap anymore. :/

[alienhulk2099]

This morning I watched Afro Samurai Resurrection. It was a very satisfying conclusion and continuation of the original television series, the animation and audio were as top notch as always, the writing and characters were still solid, and the change in theme was extremely fitting that dealt with the aftermath of so much violence. This franchise really is a bit of a buried treasure.

[Dr Kain]

I gave up on the new Gundam after the first episode. It was boring, poor designs, ugly animation, and way too much exposition that did nothing to explain the plot of the show.

[EricDent]

Finished Heaven's Lost Property (all of it & movie).
Was pretty fun, and seems like it would hold up to multiple views.

Now watching Demon King Daimao, which is also pretty fun.
Also looks like a keeper as well.

BTW the annual Right Stuf 12+ Days of Savings sale has started.
They are up to day 3.

Nothing really stupendous jumping out yet.
Though to be fair, I own most of the insanely cheap stuff they are offering.
Not into manga or long running fighting shows though.

They added a new "wrinkle" to the sale.
It's the "Mega Deal" of the day thing.
Basically a deal that's only available for 24 hours.

Today's deal is Aria Season 3/OVA for $9.99 (the older version)

[alienhulk2099]

[Dr Kain]

[alienhulk2099]

Over the past few days I took on Ground Defense Force Mao-chan before finishing it this morning. Eh, I found it good, even if it slowly waned off its charm over time and the ending was nothing special, you have to like the idea of baby animals being monsters of the week.

[EricDent]

That Mao-Chan show is REALLY cute!
I own it on DVD and there's no bad stuff, so it's great for kids.
The funniest episodes dealt with a certain apartment building with hot springs...

After a annoying weekend, where I decided to drop my phone in the toilet, I am back in action.
My Mom recently upgraded her phone, so thankfully I didn't have to buy one.

Finished Demon King Daimao, it was fun.
Though it got a little odd near the end.
Cute girls (often in the nude), cool main guy, and decent action/story.
Will be keeping it for now.

Borrowed Kamisama Kiss from the library.
Watched it and it was quite good.
Obviously a shojo looking show, kinda looked similar to Fruits Basket meets Ouran High School Host Club.
Girl becomes a god, gets a fox-guy (who she thinks is hot) as a familiar, other supernatural guys fawn over her as well.
Good story, fun dub, and fun characters.
Though the ending seemed to point to a possible second season/series (is there one?)

Up to day 9 of the Right Stuf sale.
Seems to be a lot of focus on manga & live action this year.
So far no insanely cheap bundles that I don't already have.
Thinking about buying one item from each day.
Under $10 for each item.

So far the list looks like this:
Battle Angel
Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Burn-Up!
Eden's Bowy
Yugo the Negoitiator
Strawberry Marshmallow Soundtrack
Ushio & Tora
Grrl Power
Kirameki Project
The Gokusen
Di Gi Charat TV series
Either Shangri-La or Di Gi Charat Specials

So only 4 (maybe 5) more days left.
Feel free to post opinions/suggestions on the choices

[Dr Kain]

Just finished the Freeza saga of DBZ and my god, they were doing one manga chapter per episode. In fact, there was one episode that only had two panels from the manga in the entire episode. Now the debate comes to whether or not I want to sit through the Garlic saga. <shivers>

[alienhulk2099]

Things I watched this week.... First I'll start with the Watamote special: It was basically a lackluster episode of an already horrible anime, one that outright insults its audience in the first three minutes, has painfully slow pacing, and the Tomoko is still the worst character in anime history.... Or maybe not as I'll describe below. So yes, garbage. Yesterday I took on A.F: Archetypes Forces, a short done by the same guy that did Godzilla vs. Biollante and man did the CGI not date well on this. Subpar visuals aside it was somewhat entertaining. Now for the bulk of this post: Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage. Oh yes, this one is going to have so much ranting in it.

Not only does this series have most of the problems of the first series, but it is even worse. First off, Dutch and Benny were gone most of the time with little to no screen time, they may have been stale but I'd rather have the focus be on them than Revy aka the only anime character I have seen that kills Nazis and yakuza and is somehow worse than they are. Hell, even the vampire twins were not as monstrous as her. "Don't mind me I'll just kill people that pose no threat and scream for mercy". She isn't just a rule 63 version of Ohta from Patlabor, she is worse. SOMEHOW. Some change would have been good even if its small, but no, she won't even help her partner when he gets beaten up by someone she would clearly fight. Kind of on the fence if she's worse than Tomoko and that is saying A LOT. The pacing got slower over time in the second half of the series (why?) to the point of becoming boring. You also have to face palm at the ineptitude of the Japanese police in the last episode "hey this person may have shot someone, lets NOT throw the cuffs on her". Don't even say diplomat license plate her ride did not come for fifty seconds. Eps 15 and 18 had very anticlimactic ends, they had nice build up yet the pay off is tripe. The philosophical babble in episode 22 is the point where I caved in and thought "this is really forced" and good lord this nihilistic point could have been decent with better execution. Roku caving in at the end felt like a cop out. Why couldn't Roberta be the main female lead instead of Revy? She isn't a complete monster and is more or less better in every aspect. Ugh. Lets also stack on how dumb the Russian mafia's goal was: "I am bored so lets kill the yakuza and kill a lot of innocent people!" Also the fan service was cranked up for no reason, it was tolerable in the first series but here it is just dumb. Why the hell is trash like this popular? It has to be the action and the characters that aren't monsters, only things in this that are actually any good.

Congratulations Black Lagoon, you succeeded in doing something I never thought was accomplished: Your second series gets a lower score than your first. Only Great Mazinger and ZZ Gundam ever accomplished that and even then the flaws in those weren't nearly this bad. I'd mention Ryu Knight: Adeu's Legend 2 and 3 and Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, but those are more wrap up stories with much shorter lengths than an actual series. It is times like this I wish I didn't have such a high alcohol tolerance so I could drink off this nonsense.

[Dr Kain]

I think Gundam ZZ is a fantastic series.

Anyway, I am now watching the Artificial Human saga of DBZ.

[EricDent]

I just ordered all this on Right Stuf's 12+ Days of Christmas sale

Battle Angel
Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Burn Up!
Eden's Bowy
Yugo the Negotiator
Strawberry Marshmallow Soundtrack
Ushio & Tora
DearS Soundtrack
Kirameki Project
The Gokusen
Di Gi Charat TV Series
Shangri-La SAVE
Otoboku: Maidens are Falling for Me
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue Soundtrack
Hellboy Animated Movies (Blu-Ray)
Kamichu Soundtrack

About $96

[alienhulk2099]

I liked ZZ Gundam too, Dr. Kain, just not as much as some other entries.

Anyway, today I marathoned the first Rosario and Vampire series because I had nothing better to do today. So very mixed on this series. For some reason it feels like a mix of Elfen Lied and Princess Resurrection. Many negatives include ultra-annoying fan service to obnoxious degrees (although it made sense with Kurumu since she was a succubus), some of the worst music I have heard in a long time, some rather lackluster writing (so many murder attempts on a private school and nobody does anything about it? I know this is a monster academy but for pete sake), the animation gets reused in areas it shouldn't (like having the same shot four times in a row for NO REASON), and most of the jokes, especially the fourth wall ones, are usually really bad. I say most because Kurumu's booby trap pun actually got a good laugh out of me. Strangely enough I found some positives like good action, the cast was actually quite tolerable, the ending was solid, more or less well done pacing, lots of neat monsters, and painful misunderstanding slapstick moments I usually encounter in ecchi titles are limited to just one episode instead of constantly throughout. It is.... Surprisingly not bad. I'll take on the sequel series Capu2 in the near future. Kind of odd this franchise is aimed for kids.

[Dr Kain]

I liked the first four episodes to Rosario to Vampire and then the show got really boring really fast. It also doesn't help that I hate harem anime, and that is what the show became. Oh yeah, and it has one of the worst dubs I have ever heard from Funimation. I switched to Japanese about ten minutes into the first episode.

I really wish Rightstuf would put the friggin Gundam Unicorn BDs on sale. I need 5-7 but I just can not afford to spend $50+ on them.

[Rody]

I'm ripping through another popular KyoAni show: Lucky Star. I don't get all of the references in the show (and there are a LOT), but the ones I do get nearly have me rolling on the floor. It's a delightfully crafted slice-of-life show overall.

[alienhulk2099]

By request of Hellspawn28 I review Apocalypse Zero or as I like to call it "People need to stop over reacting to short anime that aren't even that noteworthy and I am starting to sympathize with elitist snobs that assume most fans are 'filthy casuals'". I don't really call that, I just needed to vent. Anyway, this series was nowhere near as bad as people say it is, but it also is not that spectacular. This two part OVA is a homage to dark hero style tokusatsu and manga (the character designs and ending theme sort of give this away if the armor shells did not) except they based the main villains on grotesque sexualization in a post-apocalyptic setting.... Which somehow has functioning schools. To be honest I like the angle it was going for as horror writers like Clive Barker have shown us that sex can be disturbing and for an evil force it can be used for psychological warfare against survivors........ Real shame effort like that never went into very basic parts of this OVA.

-People somehow remain alive after having their blood and flesh burned to the bone. Nope, don't buy it, you'd die of blood loss in seconds after that. Yes I am making this a point because unlike most ultra-violent anime I watch they actually get organ anatomy CORRECT.
-Shouldn't we be seeing MORE radioactive animals other than an acid blooded bear and a bunch of over-sized cockroaches? This could have been a survival story if you think about it.
-Gotta love how the main villain is female (with vag lips outlines I may add) and everyone calls her a male.
-The tactical evils must have really pathetic bite forces if they have megalodon sized mouths and can't hurt a simple human with them. *facepalm*
-Why is the school even functioning in a ruined city?
-When there is no action going on the pacing is bafflingly friggin slow, good lord this was bad.
-The death creativity was lacking, three times they used intestines coming out through someone's mouth.

So yeah, but flaws aside this was decent and the main protagonist was actually kind of good, there are many anime far worse than this and many better even in its genre. Don't even go "but AH aren't you even grossed out by this?" To which I reply "are you a wimp? I've seen a lot of things way worse than this!" Guess it goes to show you how great having a titanium stomach is.

[Dr Kain]

DBZ Bardock - It is a decent origin story even though it kind of messes up the continuity established in the show. Unfortunately, Bardock just really isn't that interesting of a character and the shown down with Freeza is lackluster. Overall, I'll give it a 6/10.

DBZ The History of Trunks - Meh, this one is quite boring and needlessly takes a 15 page manga chapter and stretches it out to 48 minutes. Why? Because that is the Dragon Ball way. How many Saiyans does it take a change a light bulb? Only one, but it takes 26 episodes to do so. Anyway, there is very little reason to care about Gohan aside from him having the name Gohan and we know he is Goku's son. There is no character development from anyone outside of Trunks, and even that is minimal at best. I give it a 4/10.

[alienhulk2099]

Yesterday I decided to take on Outlaw Star and got to episode 10.

This is....

Without a doubt....

And I say this in all my years of watching anime....

In a wide variety of genres....

In a variety of spectrums....

One of the most obnoxious television series I have ever watched. It is not quite to the level of Kill la Kill levels of obnoxious, the action is somewhat decent, I like the scenery art, and the ending theme is not half bad.

Everything ELSE on the other hand has filled my mind full of in(s)anity. Let start off with the opening theme: It sucks meatballs, next. First episode, kind of forces everything all at once, not that I am surprised as very few first episodes are ever any good. Plot, two bounty hunters find some artificial woman (somehow not a cyborg because she has organs and muscles and if there is any point to this I am not seeing it) and run from some Chinese mafia called the 108 Sons. Turns out artificial woman is needed to pilot the titular ship because........... I wouldn't mind this so much, but they clearly show ship interiors of different vessels, none of the others do this, so why this? Anyway, some bounty hunter woman in an eye patch dies killing one mafia boss and from episode 5 the character design goes from semi-realistic to insanely cartoony because why not? Humor, absolutely dull. The main characters endlessly bicker to one another about money and it gets extremely old by episode 6. In fact that is all they do when not in a gun fight, just bicker! CONSTANTLY! On top of all that is a cat woman who serves an empire, leaving her duties on petty revenge just because the main protagonists happened to be rude! *face palm* This wouldn't be too bad if she was not so clumsy and such a loud mouth! Also an assassin geisha woman appears and joins the main cast because why not? Lets forcefully call her beautiful (talk about forced subjectivity there) to a total failure that can't remain on task after one episode. Every other episode the plot shifts to some menial side quest instead of methods of fighting the 108 Sons. Yes, interrupt what could be a decent story and mystery to go racing! UGH. The animation is also nothing to write home about, the quality has such severe whiplash it makes you wonder how the hell both Sunrise AND Xebec, two very good anime studios with a very solid track record, would allow this. The pacing is also dreadfully friggin slow, it almost hurts. Very hard. I don't even know what kind of specific theme its going for, Chinese? Space? Old west? Law enforcement? Otaku pandering? Racing? No consistency! You can't even claim adventure because there is nothing anyone is even going after so far!

You know, I didn't enjoy Trigun or Cowboy Bebop to the extent so many North American anime fans do nor do I think they are worthy of all the praise they get, but I did find SOME entertainment out of them and I can at least understand the reasoning behind them. While mostly for Adult Swim nostalgia/not being exposed to enough titles, Trigun I get the reasoning because it was straight forward steampunk series with lots of art and comedy and Cowboy Bebop references American movies (although aside from Alien and Enter The Dragon I never caught any of them) and acknowledge gay people exist at a time where LGBT rights started to gain momentum. "But what about music, characters, animation, etc?" Most of that was just average for them. Then there is THIS. Aside from being on Toonami what the hell was the appeal of this!? It has so little going for it that it makes me flabbergasted this had a following! I couldn't stop face palming at all the failures this had. You can't even really say its action packed because most of the episodes center around money troubles and pointless bickering that leads to friggin nowhere. The amount of praise around this series reminds me of garbage like Mystery Science Theater 3000 (CinemaSins, older Nostalgia Critic episodes, a good chunk of Anime Abandon, and Honest Trailers also qualify under this category): So much is said about a stated view point over and over and yet when you actually go to watch it for yourself it is NOTHING like you were told, ESPECIALLY in proper context.

It also makes me dumbstruck that somehow back when Cartoon Network had the broadcasting rights this series, filled with sexual innuendos, somehow was perfectly okay for Toonami, but Trigun, which had very little objectable content in it, could only get on Adult Swim's late night hours. HOW!? King of The Hill is less kid friendly! *dodges bricks* If its true that Firefly ripped off from this series I have no intention on watching that any time soon no matter how many Joss Whedon fanboys try to sway me otherwise.

[EricDent]

Apparently somebody really liked Outlaw Star, and they made a show called Firefly/Serenity.

So a slight goof on my order, and I had to call up Right Stuf.
They had an amusing answering directory done by Crispin Freeman (doing Captain Tylor).
Apparently somebody else (on a different site) had Alucard instead (during Halloween).