What are you watching/or completed? (Anime)

[Dr Kain]

Taken from another post on another board, so it's two posts in one:

So we decided to hold off on watching X a little bit longer and started AGE tonight. We watched the first 10 episodes and I have to say, this show is so damn BORING!! I just don't give a damn about any of the characters and the villians have done absolutely nothing. Of course, we don't even know who the villains really are so far, making them generic and bland. One of the best things about Gundam is that both the good guys and bad guys are supposed to have their lines blurred where neither group is totally evil, but neither is truly good. Here, everything is good or bad, there is no inbetween. Woolfe is annoying. Flint is boring. Emily serves no purpose other than to be the girl that loves him, but we don't know what drives her to him, why she loves him even though he pretty much blows her off, etc. The Gundam is uninteresting too. Fortunately, episode 10 was easily the best episode of the series thus far, so maybe things are about to take off. For now though, I am left underwhelmed and feel this makes Destiny look spectacular.

Well we decided to just finish the Flit arc since it was only 5 episodes more and in the end, it sucked. I just didn't care about anything that happened. Hell, I couldn't even care less about Yurin because the show did nothing to make me want to believe her and Flit had any sort of relationship whatsoever. If she is supposd to be this series' version of Lalah Sune, they failed to make any sort of impact with it. The reveal of the UE were as well was pretty dumb and once again, I didn't give a crap about it. I feel like this series is just going through the motions to get through the generations of characters without actually developing anyone whatsoever. I hope the rest of the series is not like this.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this, but damn, no wonder Tomino was pissed off at Sunrise. The animation here is as trite as the story itself. It looks like every other anime ever made. There is nothing Gundam feeling about it. If you were to show me a picture of the cast without me having any knowledge of what the show is, I would swear it was a Yu-Gi-Oh! series or something because it is just so one dimensional looking. Also, there is no way in hell Flit is 14 years old. I could believe he is 12, but not 14. No way in hell is that little brat 14!!

Overall, the first arc is done with, thank the gods for that. Let's hope the characters in the next arc are actually likable and are fully developed and the reasons actually come out of just being your standard Saturday morning cartoon ones.

[O.Supreme]

Yeah the fist part of AGE was really rough. It does get better, but still far from my favorite Gundam series. The ending though...yeah I can already foresee your rant about it, rightfully so.

[EricDent]

Finished Scrapped Princess, still a very good show.

Now watching Wild Arms Twilight Venom.
Has a good mix of action, comedy, and a good dub.
Not sure if anybody has rescued it (former ADV show).

BTW I didn't notice that OmegaSupreme had asked about Dai-Guard.
I say get it ASAP!
It has a great mix of action, poking fun at corporate stuff, and of course you can't go wrong with giant robots vs monsters.
BTW it's not really a super robot, in fact it has weapons that are pretty practical.
IE no beams, lasers, blazing swords, etc.

Plus it has a rather rocking opening theme by The Cobratwisters.
I got the singles a few years back at a local used game store (which recently closed down) for a good price.
Since they were having a buy one get one free deal so it was about $30 for all 6 volumes.

Not to mention it was one of a few ADV shows that was dubbed in Austin.
Obviously that went away pretty quick.

[Dr Kain]

[O.Supreme]

Yeah I get that, but then again, I've come accustomed to pretty much every series having a Char clone. I'll say, there are some cool moments later with the 3 generations fighting together, I'm a sucker for things like that. I've been generally unimpressed with most anime since the mid 2000's. The 70's has my favorite stories, and the 80's/90's my favorite style of animation. That's also why I think Unicorn is so unique, and amazing. A Modern anime with great attention to detail that hasn't been seen in some time.

[Dr Kain]

And the AGE old decent into mediocrity continues. I'm not even sure where to start. Well first with the Asemu arc since I finished that earlier today. It sucked. It was a giant pile of ****. There were so many half baked ideas that could have gone somewhere if they actually felt like developing anyone, or anything for that matter. Zeheart is supposed to be our way of humanizing the Vagan right? Because he did nothing to make them seem human. Plus, these guys just outright killed people in the last arc for petty reasons. They got abandoned by their cohorts. Boohoowahwahwah "No one wants to play with me on the playground." Seriously, these guys have the mentality of first graders. Then we have a character that was blantantly blown up in the first arc, Desil, who some how survives, and he just wants to blow more **** up. Why? What for? That makes no sense. The Magicians 8 sounded like they could be an interesting group, so of course why bother spending any time developing them? Oh, and why the hell do their mechs look like they cross bred dinosaurs with Tekkaman Evil?

Then we have the good guys. Flit has been turned into a total jackass. I wish he would have died because the dude is one of the most unlikable little shits to ever grace a Gundam series. He treats his own son like dirt and doesn't give a damn about anything but his own selfish desires. We get another worthless female cast that do nothing but be there to pop out a child. Seriously, the women in this series are flatter than a Japanese woman's chest. They have no personality and make Frau Bow look like a goddess. Then we have the old captain dude who shows up and dies all in the same episode by some random character who is then killed off 3 seconds later, making him completely pointless. Yes, I know it is the boy from the first arc, but he was never seen before that moment and never seen again. RANDOM!!! And how the hell did Flit find out the minister was dealing with Vagans at the end of the arc? We saw NOTHING leading up to this discovery. We didn't even know he was even investigating it. Finally, there is Asemu, who seems to have a little bit of development, but then the writers got scared and decided to leave it half cocked. There is one scene where he is training to be a better pilot at another dude's factory and then the show cuts to the next scene which has him and Woolf in their mobile suits about to fight in a space battle. WHAT THE HELL????!!!! That final scene of Asemu's wedding was also there and gone if you blinked. NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE.

And that is supposed to be the good arc of the show? Are you people on crack? o_O

So I watched the firt 4 episodes to the Kio arc, which is all I could stomach on tonight. First off, the first episode repeats the EXACT SAME PLOT AS THE LAST TWO FIRST EPISODES!! Peace, Vagan attack, boy gets Gundam, boy pilots Gundam. DID WE NEED THIS AGAIN?!!! Then we have a female character introduced in the third episode who has to have the cliche of having a sick sister, so what does she do? Become a spy for the villains. OH FOR "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" SAKE!!!!!!! Hasn't this plot been done to death in everything else? And of course the only way to redeem herself is by sacrificing herself for the hero. :banghead::banghead::banghead:

Yeah, that is where I quit for the night. Only 17 god awful episodes to go and I'm going to try to get this crap done before Denver Comic Con on Friday.

[O.Supreme]

[EricDent]

Went through the Wild Arms Twilight Venom show pretty quick.
Based (loosely) on the first 2 Wild Arms games.
It was a good mix of action, comedy, and a bit of fanservice.
The dub was pretty good as well.
Not sure if anybody has rescued it (it was an ADV Title).

Kinda surprised they seemed to have stopped making those games after 5.

[Dr Kain]

Well I spent another day watching another batch of episodes and well, I didn't hate everything this time. I watched 33-44 today. I actually liked the episodes when Kio was on Mars and made friends with the siblings. It was very nice and something I never expected out of this show. Also Girard Spriggan was hands down the best character of the entire show so far. I can't believe they actually spent time to develop her as a character. That was awesome and I wish the show had more moments like this. In fact, I can't hate Kio as I think he is the best of the trio. His ideals are dumbfounded, but at least he isn't the douchebag "Kill'em all!!" that Flit has become or the "I'm going to play keep away by being a Space Pirate" that Asemu is. I like what he was trying to do during the battle on the moon. I also like the Gundam Age-FX, but then, I'm a sucker for any machine that has funnels. Oh, and the music has been pretty damn good these last few episodes.

Unfortunately, that is where all of the positives end. The plot has gotten down right stupid and is still poorly paced. Like okay, as I said, I liked the sibling stuff, but what the hell? The sister has 3 months to live when Kio meets her, but he manages to get her medicine that is supposed to extend her life. Was that a lie? Because she was dead like three days later. WTF? Did Elzecant lie and have Kio give her poison? That makes no sense to me. Also, Elzecant tells Kio that he always gave people the chance to survive. Um, was he not paying attention to anything that has been going on these last 40 something years? The Vagans were out right blowing people up. This just seems like some halfbaked way of trying to humanize them into being the Gundam antagonists. Oh and then like the next episode he reveals his assnine plan which makes even less sense. This is soon followed by him giving Zeheart his crown and Zeheart for some reason agrees to continue the plan. WHAT THE HELL??!! That goes completely against everything that Zeheart has stood for!!!

Well, only five episodes to go, which I will finish tomorrow.

[Dr Kain]

Wow, just wow. I'm impressed. That was like the best way you could end Gundam Age. Never saw that type of ending coming. Not all at. No seriously, that was an awesome ending. Can't you tell excited I am? Because I'm very excited that I am now done with this giant **** turd of a series.

I just... I just can't fathom what the hell was happening in the writers room when they made these last batch of episodes. Were they even trying? Did they just stop caring? Of course, I guess that would require them caring in the first place. Zeheart completely writes off who he has been for the last several episodes just because and then he is killed of just so easily. There wasn't any sort of satisfaction in his death at all. Of course, it didn't matter because our heroes then have to deal with some random evil clone that just comes out of nowhere and we are supposed to care, why? BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!! Shido comes back and can now fuse with machines and fuses with the clone's mobile suit to create the... weakest, most unfulfilling final boss mobile suit ever. The thing was so weak it was destroyed off-screen. Speaking of the Shido, why are we just hearing about the EXA-DB now? Shouldn't this have been something that was talked about back in like episode 10? It's only like the most important device to ever exist according to Zeheart and Asemu. This really felt tacked on as if they wanted to capture something of Unicorn in their show since they were ripping off every Gundam series in existence at the time.

Oh, and Flit, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! The dude had a stick shoved up his ass for 40 years and in the last second he just decides to put his hate aside? That makes no sense and doesn't even fit with the way he was written at all. Then again, it's not like the writers need a reason to alter someone's personality since they did a complete 180 on Asemu during the show just because they had nothing better for him to do. And that ending, what the hell was that? It felt like the epilogues were tacked on at the last moment just to give the show some sort of closure.

Overall, Gundam Age is by far the worst Gundam series ever spawned. In fact, it is Gundam in name only as it is a travesty of the entire franchise. Add on top it being one of the worst anime series I have ever had to sit through, and I've sat through some mighty deep "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" (Weib Kreuz and Kimera, for example). There were some good ideas thrown in here with the different generations, but the writers had no idea how to execute it. The pacing was all over the place and was ultimately a mess. This is a show that Sunrise should have commmited to being a 100-150 episode series so we could have had 40-50 episodes spent on each generation with proper development and pacing. As is, there was not a single character that was likable, no one was worth even wanting to try and like, the female characters are the worst this franchise has ever had, and the plot, if you can call it that, is so cliche and boring. The Vagan were generic villains that suddenly the writers tried to make human in the last bit of the show and they failed miserably because everything was on a Saturday morning cartoon level. Or, they should have just kept Flit the main character from start to finish and just had him age as the show progressed without having a conveniently placed baby maker in the way. It doesn't help that this show also features the worst character designs of any Gundam series. Maybe they should have let a real animation studio handle this show instead of the childish nonsense that is brough to us by the people behind video games such as Youkai Watch and Professor Layton. Level 5, stick to video games because you don't know jack about anime. In the end, it doesn't matter, this mockery of a Gundam series is one I will never waste my time on again and Rightstuf shoudn't even waste the time or money to bring this one out to the US unless they are looking to take a major loss. Good riddance Gundam Age!! May you rot in hell!!

[O.Supreme]

[Dr Kain]

0080 is brillaint and one of the best because it does something new by having the view of the war from a different perspective, and is very character driven. I was bored to death with it when I saw it back in 2000 but I loved it when I watched it two month's ago.

I like Reconguista of G. It isn't the most well written series, but it tries to do something new and unique with its characters and world. The biggest flaws are its final episode, the last 10 or so episodes have things just randomly happening that aren't fully developed, and the lack of any exposition whatsover. On the other hand, because there is no exposition there are no Captain Obvious moments. The problem is that things get lost because there is so much dialog going on that isn't subbed it is hard to miss the side conversations. I think this show would definitely beneft from having an English dub. Also, supposedly they redid the entire final episode for the BD release, but I have no idea if that was for the story or animation. Tomino had a lot of great ideas here, but I think he got short changed because clearly he thought he was doing a 50 episode series as the first 15 episodes are paced as such.

I'm watching IBO on Toonami, so I can only speak on what has aired so far.

Next week I'll be watching X.

[O.Supreme]

can't say my opinions changed on 0080 over the years, but to each his own.

X is interesting...You can definitely see elements of Gundam Wing, but it is very different. I may be influenced having played so many Super Robot wars games, but even though X came before Turn A, and has nothing to do with Turn A, X almost feels, to me at least, that if Wing & Turn A got mashed together, that is what X is. Of course that's just me, I'm sure you will probably have a different outlook.

[Dr Kain]

Well G-X do take place in the Turn A universe.

[EricDent]

Now re-watching Black Lagoon.
It's still great, but obviously keep the kids away.

[O.Supreme]

Dai-Guard ok...I am 13 episodes in (1/2 way through) and it is well... Interesting. I don't hate it. It has some good points, but I guess it is just not what I'm used to when it comes to Super Robot series, as well, the titular robot is anything but super. It has no real powers whatsoever, other than a series of detachable limbs for various different situations, but I guess that's part of its charm. The three protagonists seem to be well developed characters, even if they are more on the comical side. I find it odd that it has some similarities to NGE, but without all the hate, and angst, and end of world grim/dark faux religious angle that NGE has, that turns me off of it. I do find it amusing that in one simple 30-60 second piece of dialogue Dai-Guard was able to explain where its series' monsters came form in a very satisfying way, something that NGE did not do in 26 episodes (purposefully done or not it was still annoying).

"Office workers saving the world!" -that definitely gave me a chuckle, as I am a career office worker, it gives me hope for the future . Unfortunately my week is so busy I'll probably only get to watch an episode or two each evening until the weekend when I can finish it.

[Dr Kain]

So I watched the first disc to Gundam X today. The show has already had a better story arc in just five episodes than Age had in its entire run. So far I'm enjoying it, but I hate Garrod's voice. He is so damn annoying and does not sound likea 15 year old. I do hope Tiffa gains a personality though because so far she is more robotic than R Dorothy Wainright. Those two aside, I really do like the crew of the Freedom, especially the captain dude.

Animation is all right though, but I think that has to do with the DVD. I don't know what went wrong during the transferring process, but the DVDs came out in the last month and look like they came out at the same time as Wing. There are areas where the picture is very dark and faded looking. It's kind of ugly. The music isn't anything to write home about either.

Nevertheless, these five episodes flew by really quickly and I look forward to see where this show goes.

[EricDent]

That's one of the best things about Dai-Guard, it takes the super robot and turns it on its ear.

Anyhow I got a copy of Jin-Roh The Wolf Brigade at the same HPB I got Red Barron (see the Japanese Hero area) from.
It was on clearance for $3, despite being the one that's OOP (2002 release).
Yes I know it's been re-released a few times.

[Dr Kain]

We watched the second disc to X lastnight and they were an okay set of episodes. The new girl villain isn't really anything special and Garrod is starting to get on my nerves. He is like they took the worst aspects of Amuro and cranked up them to 10. On the other hand, the two mercs are starting to grow on me. At the same time though, the Frost Brothers kind of suck as far as villains go. I hope we get a real villain throughout the show. I really dig the new mobile suit with the Funnels that showed up at the end of the tenth episode that is piloted by that girl (well, I think they called the pilot a he, but the character looks and sounds like a girl). I'm interested in seeing more, but honestly, I can see why this show struggled in ratings, especially with having three Gundam series prior to it. It is better than Wing though, so I will give it that. Oh, and I forgot to mention this the other day, but this series has by far the worst ending Gundam song ever.

[O.Supreme]

I largely believe Gundam Wing Suffers (or perhaps benefits from) what I call the "Voltron" effect (WEP literally could have picked any 70s/80's Giant Robot series to adapt into Voltron, but they picked 4, only 2 of which actually got adapted, and they struck gold with Golion)

Gundam Wing was the first Gundam series to Air on Toonami back in march of 2000. Although Bandai America had been "softly" releasing other series on VHS (The 3 original MS Gundam films, 0080, and 0083 up to that point) , CN struck Gold with Wing. I have to hand it to the execs at that time. They probably had access to any Gundam series from the beginning through X (Turn A was not quite finished yet), yet they seemed to have made a wise decision.

16 years later, sure the efforts can be picked apart, but you can see Bandai America and CN were banking everything on this series, and it paid off for a time. The dubbing efforts were some of the best at the time, the marketing and merchandising campaign was huge. Heck I can even remember a Semi-Truck that was a traveling Gundam museum/exhibit that appeared at my local Wal-Mart. Additionally I would go in my local comic shop, and they would have various toys & model kits from every Gundam series, but they were all labeled "Gundam Wing" .

It was a fun ride while it lasted. I remember in 2004 when Seed started airing, I never finished it as I think CN jacked with the timeslots/airings or maybe I was too worried about becoming a father and didn't have time to watch, but I eventually got the DVD's , and even though I was in my mid-20's when Gundam Wing first aired, I can see if it has that sort of Nostalgia with me, I can only imagine how much more it effected younger people. Now I can honestly look at the entire run of various Gundam series and say Wing is not my favorite, but I do recognize it for the effect it had on the American market for a time.

[EricDent]

Finished Black Lagoon.
Still a great show.

[Dr Kain]

We watched the third disc tonight to X and those were all a bunch of really well done episodes. The first four were a little slow moving, but well done. I liked the return of a Cyber Newtype and how this little arc played out. Plus, Garrod actually stopped being a whiny "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" for a change, which was nice. The last episode on the disc is probably my favorite so far of the show because it developed the other two Gundam pilots. Not only that, but that episode had way more character development in its 22 minute run time than any character in both Age and Wing had in their entirety.

On the other hand, man, the animation in this show is so lazy and lacking. Everything looks so damn flat with very little in the way of detail.

[Dr Kain]

[O.Supreme]

[Dr Kain]

Watched the fourth disc today and these episodes were decent. Not as good as the ones on the last disc, but serviceable. It's nice that Tiffa might actually get a personality from this point forward becasue so far she has been the worst charcter in the entire show. The episodes with the dolphins were weird, really weird. All I kept waiting to see was some huge dolphin revolt. The next two with the Newtype girl were enjoyable though. I keep forgetting to mention this but there is one aspect of the show I really do not like and that is the Master of Exposition. Does he really need to tell us every little detail that is happening on screen at all times? I don't mind exposition, but only when it makes sense. This is overkill.