Anime!

[Pedro_Bear]

Right then, f/a/ilgets, if you haven't already, get the fuck into this awesome thread right fucking NAOW! There is something missing from your life.

[madhair60]

I'm mopping up the rest of the specfuckingtacular Haruhi, finishing up the first disc of Negima!? and looking for something new to watch.

[The Boston Crab]

Oh, if you don't have it bookmarked, this site has very good streaming anime, saves torrenting a whole rar of crap.

I don't know how I missed this before but thankenstein. Just about to give Bakemonogatori a go...

[vx]

Surprised to see Noein mentioned only once here. I second a huge recommendation on that one. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0872308/
also I have to give a nod to Afro Samurai, which is especially great at high volume (and if you get blunted as fuck beforehand). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465316/

other perrenial favorites I have not seen mentioned in this thread:
(you'll have to settle for imdb & wiki links as my proxy is down - apologies!)

• charming animated short Cat Soup
  
• picking up from where the first Ghost in the Shell ended, Im really fond of the Stand Alone Complex series (animation resembles GITS2 more)
  
• and maybe Im alone on this but I think Cromartie High School is ridiculously funny.

*
As a side note for anyone interested in manga I really suggest you get your hands on the Lady Snowblood manga. even as a massive fan of the anything and everything related to the Shirayuki-hime stories (yes, including Kill Bill - idgaf...) I will admit I was surprised by how the manga, written in the early 70s, still surpassed the film adaptations. majorly good shit.

[Consignia]

Yup, another thumbs up for Noein here. Cat Soup and Cromartie are good too. I never got into Stand Alone Complex, even though I tried several times.

Something I'm enjoying immensely at the moment is Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (Or "When They Cry"). It's strange series based on a number of doujin sound novels (sort of like games but with very little interaction, just pure narrative) and is a horror series. It's quite unique, in the art style is very cute at first, but then all the characters go mental and kill each other because of some strange curse. It's told in a series of arcs, where the world is reset at the end of each one, and a different character goes mental and kills for different reasons. There's some brilliant head fuckery in it, as you are never sure exactly what is going on. The sound novels themselves are getting localised themselves thanks to eroge translator mangagamer, so that's something to look forward to.

[Pedro_Bear]

Just awesome 3d pig-disgusting K-ON! porno parody cut-scenes:

【京アニ】けいおん！× 軽音部！【TMA】吹替・比較 (1/2)

The effort they've gone to get Keion! half right is so cool. Can't seem to find a torrent yet though, these bloody otaku are too busy fapping. I'm sure you'll agree, we need to find this film asap.

[Pedro_Bear]

Well, I was going to write a tl;dr about weaponised synthenasia, to whit, a recommendation that we all watch the no-meta-nonsense Cannan.

But... then...



...Kuuchuu Buranko aka Trapeze unleases something close to the real thing on an unsuspecting population, and blasts me squarely back into promoting something that defies adequate description.

So let's have a fetishy nurse...



... an awesome "loli" doctor trollface...



... a greek chorus from a real doctor...



... and a beautiful blend of 3d and 2d ultra-colourful visuals...



... that has inexplicably managed to piss off morons for extra bonus points...











... with crybaby f/a/ggots everywhere being put off their fapping, for some truly unfathomable reason.

The challenge with having crazy characters manifest their insanity on their surroundings is that because anything random can happen, unless there is substance or purpose to what actually does layer on top of the mundane, we can be left with what amounts to a psychedelic dog's breakfast. Following so soon after the success of Bakemongatari's phenomenal eyemaze will also colour the way we receive Trapeze. Fortunately, if the series remains true to the first episode, neither of these will be an issue.

By no means as clever as Bakemonogatari, but then again it's not trying to be, the plot follows a trapeze artist's first steps towards mental recovery after failing to complete a particularly show-stopping routine. Only he's batshit insane, and we see the world the way he sees it. The symbolism employed is illustrative rather than obsfucatory, which is something of a blessing in that we can enjoy the show in one sitting, and it certainly isn't randomly chosen. There's a satisfying depth to his dementation, and it doesn't impede on the humour.

TL;DR? Trapeze is the shit, and it pisses off idiots, always a bonus. What a year 2009 has been for really good anime, eh?

[Consignia]

What a year 2009 has been for really good anime, eh?

Certainly, but there's been quite a lot of vile moe-yuri shit epitomised by Kanamemo.



I just watched all of Higurashi No Nako Koro Ni Kai in the space of a day after drawing the first series out over a period of 3 months. It's so enthralling, it kept me excited to the very end. It's difficult to say much without spoiling it, and spoiling would be so much of a shame. Even though it's a few years old now (2006,2007), it's definitely my series of the year. Throughly recommended.

[Pedro_Bear]

Fuckin' hell, Trapeze is a good series.

I did wonder how they were going to work the circus theme throughout the run, given that they resolved the trapeze artist's trauma in the very first episode. Turns out the series focuses on activity regarding the run up to the opening night, with characters associated with the event. This week it's a civil servant working in the office that grants performance permits, who was responsible for the Becky trollface in the first episode.



It's all very beautifully done, full of subtle, sly humour, even in an episode focusing in on a very unsubtle trauma. There's also a level of respect afforded for the afflicted, it can be quite touching.



Still cannot fathom the hatred for this great little show.

We'll see how long this stays up, it's the nurse injection exposition for the episode:

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


There's a certain satisfaction in watching something paced precisely to its limited running time. Some of these little cartoons have perfected their constraints, making every gesture count, every syllable matter. Trapeze veers away from crazy for crazy's sake, paces itself beautifully, and the result is a tight burst of entertainment, the many faces of Dr Irabu conducting the audience through what in other circumstances might be somewhat depressing or just plain unengaging.


To Aru Kagaku no Railgun aka A Certain Scientific Railgun... not that it could be helped, provides an example of a series that squanders its huge 24ep run with accidentally slack episodes.



It is very watchable, how could tsundere psychic loli yuri killing machines with kawaii hair accessories not be? It's just that the episodes feel stretched-out, as if they spread a tight season run over far too long partly on the premise that the show could provide its own h-content. Only, of course, this year it can't. Don't get me wrong, steam-clad, almost-lezzing out is very important cultural aspect of anime, but sadly it looks like its days may be numbered. There are significant moves afoot to limit the amount and extent of fanservice in regular anime, a sort of pre-emptive, token clean up to avoid legislation in Japan, and what appears to be driving this is a cunning use of "foreigners think we're weird" by censorship campaigners. So the meat of the h-content in A Certain Scientific Railgun has been hastily obscured, stripping it of purpose as it fails to strip the cast, and we're left with padded episodes.

Fans of agendas sinister may observe that despite the lesbian character being the stereotypical tsundere tomboy with completely the wrong sort of haircut, the object of her desire is far more dykie than most straight characters cast in that particular role, making the set up feel less forced than usual.

Needless to point out, the pro-censorship lobbyists are batshit insane, and want to ban absolutely everything animated, drawn or 3d pig disgusting they personally dislike i.e. 99% of Japanese print, TV and cinema. However, they have muddied the waters enough to confuse the discussion so that those on the receiving end don't really know where they stand, and A Certain Scientific Railgun won't be the last A-list show to in effect gut itself to be on the safe side. Goddammit.

[Consignia]

Continuing my obsession with the When They Cry franchise, I've spent the last couple of days getting up to date with Umineko No Naku Koro Ni (When the Seagulls Cry). I sampled it after binging on Higurashi, and it's fair to say it's a bit boring to start off with. But then it takes a turn for the awesome.

It starts out as mix of Higurashi and a western murder mystery; even going as far as giving all the Japanese characters western sounding names (although bizarrely, all written in kanji). Of course, people start dying, and they blame the curse of the Witch Beatrice. In steps Battler (who incidentally has the manliest name in anime since Charles Beams), who wants to prove that the murders were all pulled by a human. Then everyone dies midway through episode 5 but anything is resolved...


_{Hmm... intriguing}

...but then, no, we go into some weird room were all the dead characters basically "bugger, we died too early". Then Beatrice pops up and lauds it over them, but Battler is having none of it, and challenges Beatrice to a game to prove that nothing super natural ever happens. Then we enter a recurring loop, of said game until one of the characters is proven correct.



The whole thing is one meta-mindfuck, with lots of sequences that probably aren't happening, a whole meta world where they argue the facts, legions of hell represented as school girls. It's packed full of intrigue, weird symbolism. and even has probably the best ever deconstruction of the tsundere moe in an unexpected place.

Overall, it's not as good as Higurashi, but that's one high pedestal. It's probably more appealing to others though, since it doesn't have the cutesy character design of Higurashi. As such, I'd probably recommend it over Higurashi to the lay man.

Here, have a creepy child:

[Pedro_Bear]

^^now that sounds and looks awesome. BRBnyaa.

This is cute, it's a beautiful short by an amateur:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QqT1P4VO30

[AnonymousPoster]

I would say that Dance in the Vampire Bund looks to be the most promising of quite a poorly mustered bavin of new season animes, but to do so would leave me open to prosecution under s62 of the 2009 Coroners and Justice Bill, so I'll not do that.

[Consignia]

It can't be worse than Chu-bra, which is about 12 year old girls being obsessed with under-wear. I will check that vampiry thing out at some point though.

This season is a little anemic, but summer and winters are. It's the autumn and spring seasons that are always worth looking out for.

[Pedro_Bear]

Hmm... busy month on screen and off, where do we beign?

The very first thing that get's its teeth into us is the beautiful soundtrack, a pastiche of 70's electronica, giving way to more and more contemporary Japanese rock as the fourth wall of the show within the show collapses. It teases and directs us through the entire episode, hinting at reveals, and then cruelly denying us until the very end.

This is Shaft Studio's forté, Bakemonogatari's deliciousness owed as much to the aural bath as it did the eyemaze, and Dance in The Vampire Bund is refining the more experimental elements of its sister show's ear attack into focused storytelling.

Almost the whole debut episode is given over to the conceit of a tv panel show debating the non-existence of vampires, a concise, rip roar through contemporary vampire lore, with some interesting attention paid to alternate folklore interpretations.

The camera cuts to audience vox pops both inside and outside the studio, the show is interrupted with ad breaks and in-show product placement for ficticious products, much of which appears to be plot-strand weaving. It's going to be another case of rewatching the series and delighting at the foreshadowing, when we get there. The tabloid tv show is perfect for establishing exposition by what is omitted from the dialogue. The format for the forced manipulation of the studio audience, with quick cuts between reports of recent serial killings, and then back to the asinine panel guests to break the tension and dismiss anything like examples for the existence of monsters, is in and of itself worthy of it's own supernaturally flavoured series.

On and on it goes, and yet everything is in its right place, and the full episode seems to be five minutes long. We spot the loli vampire in the audience. The OTT guest in front of the cameras claiming to be The Queen of Vampires is suitably theatrical and fanserviced, but again, just like with Bakemongatari, we are being mocked for this indulgence, the bouncing breasts as much a part of the charade of entertaining the ficticious tv audience as straightforward anime cliché. More commercials. The hosts and guests of the tv show are concisely observed, their characterisations complete within the artifice of the studio.

So well observed is all this that when things kick off into a set piece for the anime we are actually watching, it really feels as if the tv show has been violated. The action is captured from the control room, with falling sound equipment and failing cameras; the standby screens a little in-joke left over from Bakemonogatari, but this time there is no hint that they have run out of time and money to animate a sequence.

And then... finally... my fucking goddess, finally... right at the very end...

.... this cartoon couldn't be more economical with the puny time limit imposed by the medium...

... it's just awesome...

... Mina muthafucking Tepes grandstands for fifteen seconds and steals the whole show.



Cut to reveal of episode title, and ED. That is how to open a new anime. We were so stoked we suddenly realised she'd been fully-clothed throughout, and had to replay the whole thing again just to make sure.


Any faint disappointment that we'd been denied delicious flat chest in E1 was annihilated by the OP, uhh, revealed in E2. The burst of beautiful, bright imagery in the darkness of the show is quite dramatic, such that the teasing, barely-clad dance she performs towards the end of the credits is visual overload. White-out version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orFPf0NQz6Y

(Quit fretting, even the hi-res, unglare version falls under 62(5). Why yes, I was part of the lobbying group that battled the insane Our Jacqui to protect fiction. You're welcome.) Just how we are expected to appreciate to it with colour-sore retinas is just another stab in the eye by the ever-so-knowing, ever-so-clever Shaft team.

E1 has about a minute of actual stated exposition tacked on the end of a Shaft headfuck of foreshadowing: the vampires led by Mina are taking over reclaimed land from the sea, the Bund in the title, and they're writing off Japan's woeful national debt in repayment. There are other, less Camarilla organised vampires and other beasties knocking about who are clearly going to be a pain in the arse, and of course humans who don't want a clan of predators on their doorstep. Actually, it's not fair comparing this with Masquerade fluff, these are more trad vampires, but even so, you get the drift, yeah?

E2 reveals far more than Mina on the outside (why of course she's going to need help applying Factor 5000 suntan cream to her whole body, she's the goddam Ruler of All Vampires, jump to it, strapping minion): Dance in the Vampire Bund is a romantic anime with supernatural goings on weaved in between. Don't be put off by this, nor the initial confusion of Hitagi voicing Miku doing a soppy Aya Hirano impression for the first half. This is Shaft, they do romance in an widely accessible manner. This is what Western vampire romance wishes it was: a story about a doomed love affair that isn't to be, and the heartbreak this causes the characters involved. Did I mention it has a goddam LOLI VAMPIRE PRINCESS in it who KILLS MASSIVE MONSTER THINGIES BY SIMPLY LOOKING AT THEM?



If British tv execs saw anything this good they'd jump out of their arrogant, undeserved skyscrapers, cutting their wrists as they fell in total shame that they could never make a series that came close. In primetime no less, let alone some graveyard otaku timeslot this goes out in. Dance In The Vampire Bund has set the standards for style and storytelling in mainstream 2010 anime insanely high, and we can look forward to whatever new magic spell character-focused series invoke to try to top it. An official Touhou anime is the only thing I can think of off-hand that might do the trick, fat chance of that.


And in a completely different Universe, the subs for the K-ON! ova! are! out! No, no, not the chibi bluray 4komas that weren't a touch on Haruhi-chan, a whole new episode!



The girls perform their first real gig on New Year's Eve, and much d'awwww ensues along with all new music. Well... okay... in common with most of S1 we only get to hear Fuwa Fuwa's chorus a few times, hopefully they'll expand the in-show music in S2 (confirmed, quelle surprise) to include some of the other, frankly better tunes on the character discs. The d'awwww is of sufficently high blood-sugar levels to endure that fucking song a few more times, however.

I dunno about ovas, I gather that they are fan rewards of a sort, giving us more of what we want at a more relaxed pace without progressing a series in any way, sort of like a layer on top of a series, rather than a continuation. That's what the K-ON! ova is like, anyway. Do you like K-ON!? Yes? Then this is 18mins of shameless self-indulgence spread over 24mins and well worth the bandwidth.

Highlights include each and every one of the girls doing what they do best...



...in particular Yui's blithe fearlessness at befriending the zomg punk metal band they share a dressing room with, Ui being Ui, the utterly committed manner in which the entire audience is female...



... (leaving the more nurtured of us to appreciate exactly what sort of nightclub it is), and finally, the rift between Ritsu and Mio is well and truly mended, with Mio taking the self-important stick out of her arse and being nice to - let's face it - the best character in the show. Tears may flow at the side door as they thank their four fans, but it's not worthy of a Finale type general warning.




In less woo-hoo news, A Certain Scientific Railgun for no goddam reason at all has stooped to slapping about distinctly underpowered Saten in a jarring, completely distasteful display of crude plotting. This is such a frustrating anime, we have so many good characters floundering about in what could be an awesome slice of life cartoon in a coherently magical setting.



It's not that it's bad bad, it's certainly worth a look, there's Kuroko, and Kuroko, some great set piece fighting in almost every episode, and not forgetting Kuroko, and then there's Kuroko, but... I dunno, you know? Maybe it's because I'm now only watching it for Kuroko's antics, and the certainty that such a flamboyant, likeable, entertaining character is not going to succeed in her heart's desire of winning her Onee-sama makes it seem a bit empty? It wouldn't kill Biribiri to be a bit affectionate towards her biggest fan, now would it? A little kiss doesn't make a person gay, and anyway, the twatty bloke she's fixated on instead of accepting Little Miss Fun into her hard heart is boooooriiiing. GAH! What is wrong with ficticious anime protagonists these days, eh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE7efoloH6g

[Consignia]

I watched the first episode of Vampire Bund, and quite enjoyed it. I loved the spot on recreation of those Japanese panel shows, and it overall had a bit of a Ghostwatch feel to it.

My favourite new show this season is Durarara, which is the stylistic sequel to Baccano (which everyone should watch incidently). A chaotic story of strange things happening in Ikebukoro, including a headless biker with a perchant for saving lives. Lot's of weirdness ensues.

I'm also watching this season: Ladies Versus Butlers, Sorawonoto,  Hanamaru Kindergarten, and Chu-bra. I'm also going to try and pick up Omamori Himari, and Baka to Test to Shokanjuu, if I get chance.

[Pedro_Bear]

Chu Bra!! is in the Nyan Koi! territory of a show that is simply indefensible as a concept to people not afflicted by animitis, and reeks of rolling dice to determine a premise, but quite enjoyable once we make the decision to just go along with what's happening on-screen.

With Nyan Koi! it's a show about kawaii, talking, sarcastic kitty cats interwoven with a school-based romantic comedy of errors, and isn't ashamed of itself. Chu Bra!! similarly makes no excuses for being a show literally about girl's underwear interwoven with a school-based coming of age story.

Both series use the open newspaper technique for their fluff, they slot-in whatever recent theme has been occuring in the media. Nyan Koi! has manba fashion in it for the first few episodes, Chu Bra!! includes commentary on paid-dating, and is at heart a story about surviving being bullied at school for most of the exposition episodes.

Chu-Bra!! isn't hentai, it is instead setting out to remove the embarassment surrounding underwear in good ol' fashioned "women's sexuality and associated items are dirty, dirty, dirty" Japan, and this comes across on screen. Whether the dvds are being snapped up by defiant little girls is of course another matter, but in any event, this is all tame, slapstick stuff, not zomg pronz.



It's not hard to find the neat plotting and positivity beneath the piles of cats or knickers in either, but the meta-point both animes are making is that we don't have to defend this stuff. We don't have to broadcast the fact we watch it either, but, you know, it's only us reading this thread anyway, I can't imagine 24mins of loli schoolgirls discussing their knickers is going to make us blink, even. Or in the case of Nyan Koi! we're not going to be put off by the punnage, the delightfully kawaii talking kitties, or the fact that he should get with his interesting, fun, tomboy mate and stop mooning over lil' Miss Perfectly Bland*.

Nyan Koi! Episode 2 Eng Sub part 1 (HQ)

No, we're not talking high art here (are we ever in this thread?), it's more a case of enjoyable 24min entertainment breaks. We have Nyan Koi! and Chu Bra!! on in the kitchen, they're perfect for washing up.

PROTIP: Chu Bra!! episodes get ganked from YouTube by the studio, and there isn't even a clear OP clip.


Thank you Consignia, we're all really enjoying Umineko no Naku Koro ni. My mate recons she can get hold of the translated visual novels for the series, more on that a bit later. Love Beatrice, what an awesome character!


*to be fair, they've acknowledged the character type is lame, and make jokes about it throughout, and they acknowledge our sympathies will stray to his tomboy mate, and take the piss with this too. It's a fun cartoon, pitched very much at the "suitable for all" mark, well worth the bandwidth.

[Consignia]

Thank you Consignia, we're all really enjoying Umineko no Naku Koro ni. My mate recons she can get hold of the translated visual novels for the series, more on that a bit later. Love Beatrice, what an awesome character!

Glad you're enjoying it. It was a bit of a hidden gem for me, as not as much noise is made over it as it's predecessor. I've got the first 4 chapters of the visual novel, which covers all of the anime so far. The ending is far better done in the visual novel in my opinion, as it delves into the mystery a bit more and gives more answers and destroys more hope.

If you need English patches for the visual novels you can goto: http://witch-hunt.com/index.html