Yuno what it is [autumn anime]

[Pedro_Bear]

It's on, chaps. The ultimate battle of purestrain moe as KyoAni goes hairclip to tarame against SHAFT with both studios attempting to kill us dead with heart attack cute girls doing cute things comedy.

Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb has a distinct advantage with several years worth of EGC-flatlining series behind it. We know the score: quickfire, 4koma gag comedy and moe from another dimension loosely based around girls attending an art school. This can't be anything other than off the scale comedy, it's going to take a very hungry competitor to come close to eclipsing it. Chuu Ni Byou Demo Koi ga Shitai! is going to give it a good shot at least. KyoAni sticking with what they know best, i.e. school-based comedy romance, and by PVs thus far cutting loose after Hyouka's more subdued tone. Daydreamers collide after school, and from the character designs of the boys I recon they're courting the same yaoi-lite female audience they've tapped into these last few years, which hasn't actually harmed their glorious shows at all.

Comedy series extraordinaire Gintama is re-running, apparently, with new episodes, maybe? Litchi de Hikari Club appears to be about comedy nazis, which obviously makes it worth watching, as does Girls und Panzer, although the latter suspiciously looks like an Upotte! clone. Japan is flipping out over Little Busters being made into a series, so I guess that'll be worth checking out. I quite like the look of JCS's Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo but it could equally turn out to be nauseating. Also, watchanimeon appears to have been nuked, which is a crying shame if true, and quite a puzzle given that it was very picky about staying copyrong legit.

[madhair60]

Eyepatch moe?  How did they know!?

Also, yeah, Hidamari is going to tear the arsehole out of every other anime since Hoshimittsu, obviously.

[Big Jack McBastard]

I've tried to get into Hidamari Sketch, really I have, got through 8 episodes (I think) and I'm really not sure I can be arsed with the remainder. It's not bad, some funny bits here and there but it's not wowed or drawn me in much yet.

I realise this means I'll be tarred and egged by the denizens of this thread.

One or two catch the eye there, might watch K (searching for torrents of that is gonna be a lark), To Love-Ru Darkness will inevitably be watched and I see there's some Boku wa Tomodachi business going on too.

[sirhenry]

Nothing to say, just wanting to be updated on new posts.

[madhair60]

I've tried to get into Hidamari Sketch, really I have, got through 8 episodes (I think) and I'm really not sure I can be arsed with the remainder. It's not bad, some funny bits here and there but it's not wowed or drawn me in much yet.

I will slash your throat and fuck the hole.

[Big Jack McBastard]

I'm 5 eps in I just checked.

It's too bloody calm, I need some kind of mayhem in my anime, I'm also not keen on the artwork <dodges bladed missile> though there are some cleverly crafted pieces and style switches.

I'll give it to ep 8 to grab me, if it doesn't, I may sling it.

[madhair60]

I will stick my cock in your eye.

[Pedro_Bear]

Madoka movie clips. Still no UK release news, but it's already sold out the entire US limited theatre release as of an hour after tickets went on sale. Episode I is a re-make of the TV series, with what appears to be improved art and tweaked music. Venari Strigas in particular from what we can just hear in these previews has been completely re-orchestrated from the already awesome original. The really good news with the popularity of the US release is that we possibly won't have to wait a year for a BluRay, maybe even as soon as Christmas.

[Big Jack McBastard]

I'm sort of enjoying Hidamari Sketch slightly more after the last couple I've watched, it's still not insane enough yet, but I do like the principal and the batty, plaudits hungry teacher and when Miyako and Yuno found Sae's filthy writings.

I do like it when there's something unexpected or even outright deviant just under the surface of an otherwise very composed character, secret obsessions and the like that reveal the corruption beneath the facade.

[Pedro_Bear]

Yeah, I'm going to really enjoy this show.

It's a lighthearted highschool comedy where daydreamers intersect and fuel each other's creative imagination. The MC, of course, is in denial and attempting to distance himself from his fantasist past, and has his life wrecked by our heroine as he resists seeing value in imagination. It's often very cartoonish, it's very honest if we're that way inclined, the fine line between playfully interesting and batshit attention seeking is clearly draw and then plough across at great speed, there's moe aplenty to spread around the characters, and it appears to be an ensemble piece as only KyoAni can whip up seemingly without effort.

The isolating effects of living in our heads is ever-present, again as only KyoAni can communicate without making it into A Message. The glimpse of our diminutive heroine at the front of the class talking to the teacher as her classmates interact socially is keenly observed, but in the background, for example. I recon it's going to be full of hauntingly realistic touches like that. In between slapstick and farce, of course.

The interactions between protagonists are naturalistic and nothing seems faked or rushed. This is exactly how these characters would interact when plonked together. I recon by about E4 we'll be seeing a show on footing with Haruhi.

Oh, and I was right about the yaoi-baiting, oh yes.

[madhair60]

Sorry for my absence, animebros.  I'm away to Scotland.

You should have seen my face when I went in Waterstones and saw a copy of the Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? manga volume 2.  Remember when there wasn't any fucking manga except Gunsmith Cats and Akira, not a decade ago?  Now we get stuff like Zombie and Hidamari translated.  It's mental and wonderful.

[Pedro_Bear]

28 seconds into full-length E2[nb]Ha, there are simultaneous short-Chuunibyou episodes, it's like KyoAni are trying to kill us HNNNNGGGGHHHH[/nb], first word spoken and I'm already HNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGHHHHHHH Rikka is, by far, the single most demonic moe construct in existence. She makes Yui seem harsh. E2 we're introduced more to Yuuta's sister Kuzuha, and the hairclip girl gets a few more teasing scenes. We haven't even met blonde twin tails yet!

Now... Hyouka was almost too good for the medium, certainly too good for it's own good, put it that way. It glowed darkly yet keenly, deftly stepping over everything else around it, to the point where we could legitmately question why so much ready talent was being lavished on a cartoon which would be enjoyed by so very few fortunate fans. Not that I'm complaining or even intending that as a criticism. As a stand alone however, it doesn't offer a way into KyoAni, let alone anime. It's more experimental proof of concept than tv show. Chuunibyou on the other hand, is both KyoAni and tv anime perfection.

[Consignia]

The season well away, which can only mean one thing, it's time for my pithy thoughts^TM.

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun: Very nice little romantic comedy. Hits all the quirky points with out seeming too over the wacky character limit.
Hayate no Gotoku : Can't Take Me Eyes Off You: As a big fan of the original TV series, I had to watch this no matter what it was. And what it is, is probably closer to the original manga than any previous installment despite being entirely original material. It's even formatted like the manga with the intros and yon-koma segements in the middle, and in general pacing. So far, it's very good, even if quite different to any of the previous anime installments (movie not withstanding).
Shin Sekai yori:An enjoyably dark post-post-apoclapytic fairy tale. It's mellow surface seems to hold gloss a rather depressing existance.
Btooom!: Ugh, another MMO style series. The twist here being it's all being translated into real life and made into a sort Battle Royale/Gantz affair. It's not entirely without merit, but it feels a bit generic. At least it's not afraid of holding back.
Ixion Saga DT: Bugger, another MMO style series. This is probably the most generic series about. The problem is, it makes me laugh. Quite a lot. It's surprising how funny it is. It's up in the air wether it'll be able to keep going at this rate, but for the time being, I'm enjoying it.
Teekyu:It's a 5 minute series compressed into 2 minutes. If you can keep up with the break-neck pace, it's quite fun.
Girls und Panzar:I'm not a fan of fetishising weaponary, and this series brings nothing new to the table. It's pretty much as the title suggests, girls and tanks. And nothing else. Not even fun.
Zetsuen no Tempest:Quite a boring series so far. A lot seems to be going on, but nothing seems to be happening.
Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo: I wasn't really looking forward to this, the title suggesting something far worse than the end product. It's not too bad, and is fairly amusing so far. Just don't expect too much.
Kintama': Yes. yes. One of my favourite series returning for more. It's still got it, and this time, with 20% more teste jokes.
Little Busters: Kind of a slow start. I've never liked a Key adaptation on the first episode, and this is no exeception. Like all of them, it should pick up, but it suffers from not having the attention to detail that Kyoani would have given it.
Psycho Pass: Yeah, yeah, dark, gritty, we get it. I think if the show was better it wouldn't played it's hand so early. I'm going to give it a bit more considering Gen Urobuchi is on board, but it better get more interesting.
Robitcs;Notes: A rather tame start for the series, spending time setting the scene. Nothing too weird, which is disapointing compared to Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate, which let the viewer know something was odd from the start. The last line did put a massive smile on my face though.
K:Seems like a show that's trying too hard to appeal to Westerners. Overly stylish, and little substance. Daisuke Namikawa doesn't help things with his stupid "Italy" voice. That said, the second episode is a massive improvement, and looks more like it doesn't take itself too seriously and is even quite fun. Which is nice.
Magi:A bit of a standard shounen-y romp. It's Arbaian setting is a nice change from the norm.
To Love Ru Darkness: The law of diminishing returns is no more present here. Every interation has been a step down, and I think I'm about to close the book on this series. Don't be fooled by anyone telling you it's darker than before, it's more like norks-a-plenty.
Hidamari Sketch Hanikamu[nb]sic[/nb]: Not much to say about this. It's more of the same, and that's no bad thing. Yep, it's great fun.
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai: NOW PRINTING
Busou Shinki: NOW PRINTING

[madhair60]

I'm not watching anything this season other than Hidamaris, downloading eyepatch-girl-kyoani thing for later.  Too busy rediscovering the PSP as a games machine...

[sirhenry]

This week I'm catching up with Bunny Drop as I only caught the first four episodes last year and am in need of something touching and relaxing.

[lemurman]

Little Busters: Kind of a slow start. I've never liked a Key adaptation on the first episode, and this is no exeception. Like all of them, it should pick up, but it suffers from not having the attention to detail that Kyoani would have given it.

Yep, I'm not convinced so far but sticking with it.

I've never liked a Key adaptation on the first episode

Yeah? I remember really liking the first few episodes of Air but thought the whole thing was a bit of a let down in the end. Maybe one to revisit.

K

Really enjoying this one so far - no idea what's going on, a bit daft, lovely animation = fun

Chaos;Head

So is this any good then? I thought Steins Gate was fantastic so if this is anywhere near as good will definitely investigate.

Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai

Struggled a bit with Hyouka (still haven't finished watching it) but the first episode of this was a joy.

[Pedro_Bear]

E3 steps over The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in terms of clever characterisation and meta-plotting; the benchmark for goddess tier television has been met and exceeded. This show even has the potential to challenge K-ON! for the crown, but it's got to earn it.

Having hairclip join their afterschool nerd club is possibly 2chuu. It won't ruin the show, but it will introduce a wildcard into a genre firmly focused on protagonists being out of step. K-ON!'s magic worked by having our heroines distanced from the core cohort by virtue of their charming fecklessness and immaturity. Nichijou's heroines endured a recognisable school experience where they negotiated everyday life in relative isolation, navigating and reinforcing friendships of convenience into warmer relationships very convincingly, the Lifelong Friendship Voucher inducing flood of tears in the audience because our heroines earned it. Having one of the most popular and responsible girls in the school year pitch in with the nutjobs is like Nadoka sliding off her School Council responsibilities to go and drink tea and eat sweets in the music room. Where Nadoka certainly warmed and naturalistically dropped her officiousness down several gears during K-ON!!, she was still in loco parentis for the most part, especially where Yui and arguably Mio were concerned. I trust KyoAni to handle this well though: it's their lightest comedy show since Lucky Star, and her often-static and always impossible hairclip itself is a meta-joke on animation shorthand. It's in keeping with the "everyone's a little bit chuuni" theme of the show, too. KyoAni are almost certainly vying to get Chuunibyou to follow K-ON! onto the Disney Channel, and so in terms of wider audience I can see the positive purpose of everyone going full chuuni by series end. It's still a genre wildcard, though.

K-ON! is about tempus fugit, everyday scenes and activities are infused with a sense of fleeting fragililty. Haruhi has the melancholy of the title sewn into proceedings every step of the way, and invokes a sense that striving to make things better is rewarding in and of itself, however doomed to ultimately fail we most certainly are. Hyouka is tempus arcet throughout, time frozen in history books and mysteries, static scenes of repeated forever. Nichijou is harder to pinpoint,"love hurts" is too blunt and "life is hard" too vague; there is a sense of negotiating the mundane rather than beating the odds.

Chuunibyou, thus far, seemingly takes Yui's "Fun things are Fun" and runs with it. There's no such thing as an overactive imagination, it's a derogatory term dull, defeated people use to try to grind us down. When Rikka hobbles into class clad head-to-toe in self-applied bandages because she's had a particularly difficult imaginary battle the night before it is creative, funny and charming. The rising confidence in her repeat of "No, it's cool" in E1 when she realises she's convinced Yuuta to keep his plastic swords and beautiful notebooks full of imagined adventures is almost certainly the theme of the show: the confidence to be a bit chuuni is hard fought for many of us, but well worth the battle. I really like Rikka's bluff, too. There's something endlessly charming about her insistence that everyday coincidences are directed magic; that's exactly what they feel like when we wander around casting spells in our heads.

Rikka's older sister and guardian is KyoAni's most accomplished take on Young Inexplicably Single Woman But That's Part Of The Joke to date, and she steals scenes more adeptly than Sawako or even Akira Kogami. I also really like the idea that ahoge is genetic: we visually knew this is Rikka's sister from the moment she was introduced pursuing her with a laddle in silhouette at the start of E2. It's so cleverly characterised with so few shorthand embelishes, it's what KyoAni excells at. We knew everything about the sister from less than five second's, in-shadows screentime: we knew her temperament, we knew she loved Rikka despite the confrontational elements of the scene, we knew that she was inexplicably single, and we knew she would steal every scene she was in. Now, if they could only poach whoever plots SHAFT's glorious E1's, injecting series with forward momentum like no other studio, we'd... well, we'd probably drop dead, wouldn't we? Best they keep as rivals, really.

Oh, and twintails is hilarious, and far more recognisable as a High Fantasy addict than Rikka. Her characterisation is very well observed: I know people just like this, at that age too, and they're as delightfully over-enthusiatic and giddy about expressing themselves in much the same way. They've got the same slightly crazy look in their eye, too, always a good sign.

[madhair60]

I found these among around 100 others in a charity shop today.  I'm going back for the rest soon.  They're - so far - a fascinating snapshot of the UK manga/anime scene at the time of their publication.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I remember buying a couple of those, I recall they reprinted Akira among other stuff. That was way back when Akira and the Overfiend ones were starting to sell like hotcakes, there was a show about the phenomenon that Jonathan Ross hosted around the same time also (features interviews with some Manga Mania people):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aTec0jadTI

[madhair60]

Almost done with the Bleach dubbing project now.  If you like witless swearing, fellatio jokes and excruciating meta wankery, this is the video for you!

[sirhenry]

Almost done with the Bleach dubbing project now.  If you like witless swearing, fellatio jokes and excruciating meta wankery, this is the video for you!

AtTRIButed.
But that's a story for another time...

[madhair60]

I think Chuunibyou might be the best anime I've ever seen.  It's hitting so, so many high notes.  I just pray they don't fuck it all up by making the fantasy elements turn out to be real.  So far it's eliciting feels in that effortless way that the likes of Azumanga and K-On manage.  I can see myself in floods by the end, I nearly was just from the end of episode 1.  The scene on the balcony where Rikka insists Yuuta not get rid of his "embarrassing" boxes, and she just about skirts with "breaking character" was a special kind of heartbreaking and so utterly relateable.

[Pedro_Bear]

Oooooh, guess I just got told.



I can't believe my little sister is this told [X]



It's that Eddie Izzard looking-like-a-dickhead, looking-like-a-dickhead scouting round the back of incredibly cool.



The character design of twintails is ridiculously well observed, the way she looks slightly unwell is spot on.

I also realise we're at E4 and already we've stormed past the point of being able to compare the show to KyoAni's other output, which K-ON! took until at least E7 to pull ahead from, so SHAFT's insistence that a show grab us by the eyeballs and not let up is clearly being heeded.

Typing of SHAFT, prepare your ears... GODOKA DAMMIT grrrrrarararaghhhh gah. Was it all done in one take for a reason? Do they all sound exactly the same, for a reason? It's only one of the very best animated television dramas ever made, completely wrong-footing like I cannot begin to describe, genre-busting, perfectly plotted, delicately scored, subtley nuanced, actually scary in places, haunting and memorable like almost no other show, don't make an effort or anything.

Fine. Butcher a work of art, see if I care; I've got this gif and there's nothing you can do about it:



New Magica Theme.

I appreciate that having a limited release, boosted price, cult hit distorts figures, but even so, Madoka's full houses took the USA's second highest opening weekend return of the year. If anime keeps this up we may see an end to dodgy dub-issues altogether, as some cash might actually be thrown at it Stateside. Or, you know, they might stick with subs?

Almost done with the Bleach dubbing project now.  If you like witless swearing, fellatio jokes and excruciating meta wankery, this is the video for you!

This was a better dub than Madoka! It's much better paced this time, too. Good job!

[Big Jack McBastard]

Oh I'd like to get into to some of the stuff that's on now but I've got this eternal game of catch-up to play, 2/3 of the way through Toradora now, I'm guessing Tiaga was a favourite of yours Perdo.

[Pedro_Bear]

Oh yes, I'm very fond of The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (About That Particular Group Of People, In That Particular Setting), and of Taiga in particular. It perfectly balances soppy, weepy, girly romance with slapstick and actual violence, including possibly the single most emotionally charged, vicious, hyperkinetic brawl in anime E16's Taiga Vs Sumire. The choreography in those 2 minutes is extraodinary, from the flying desktop assault right through the tension-break comedy-shoe-to-the-face, to Sumire's character-break and in-the-moment development, all crowning an epic weepy story arc. Absolutely amazing. ToraDora! paved the way out of the Girls' Anime Ghetto for all manner of great romance shows, not least Oreimo. It has an early series OP to die for, too. Plus Taiga was one of the first deliberately-BMI-healthy-for-her-height heroines, an obsession picked up by KyoAni and applied to less-petite characters resulting in podgy thighs and squishy upper arms ever since.

Russian anime fans like this cosplayer-extraordinaire melt my mind, more so than Chinese anime fans or even German ones: the idea that these quiet, niche comedies could storm through all manner of deep-seated cultural differences to be riotously enjoyed on the same level all over the World is amazing. We all know the British can be soppy and really enjoy comedy, Italians more so, but the idea of Russians cosplaying is... glorious.

[Big Jack McBastard]

Must be a bit of a bugger for the Japanese though eh? They make all this anime, get obsessive over it, make all these mad outfits of their favourite characters, then get cosplaying out of the basement and into the world and then a raft of foreigners turn up and do it better simply by dint of having the big wide eyes they drew the characters with. That said, I bet she's got a legion of native fans, so in a way it's like cultural advertising.

The next big religion should take note, less of the burkah, less of the circumcision, daft hats and beards. More cute girls if you're looking to recruit.

How is there not a cute girl religion? It makes perfect sense, no-one wants war with the cute girls (except the ugly ones), they'd bring in followers by the boatload just by getting 3 or 4 of them in a public place and giggling a bit. Any dodgy dogma they might espouse would be glossed over cos every priestess is just so dawww and trips up on her robes on the way to the pulpit making us all laugh and no-one would complain if they started shagging their flock on the sly.

[Consignia]

Finally caught up with the rest of the stuff I was planning on watching this season, and then some. So last spurt away:

Busou Shinki:Angelic Layer for perverts. Nothing too offensive in the first episode, but hardly setting the world on fire with mini-battle-maid-robots.
Chuu Ni Biyou Demo Koi Shitai: Yeah, I acutally quite like this. I do love it when we have weridos being silly. It does feel it a bit galge-ish, but considering the pedigree, that shouldn't come as a surprise.
Sukitte Iina yo: Another Shoujo series, but this one being a slightly grittier more realistic version of Kimi ni Todoke. Not too bad so far.
Aoi Sekai no Chushin de: The console wars as realised by a humanised Sonic taking on the evil tyrant Mario. Unlikely help in the form of a perverted Tertis master. It's not as off the wall as Neptunia[nb]anime series coming soon, yay[/nb], but it's bizarre in it's own right.
Lychee Hikari Club: Not sure what to make of this. Quite weird, but sadly not very funny. Only one chuckle in the first five episodes does not bode well.
Oshiri Kajiri Mushi : Something for very young kids really. Probably not a lot miliage for anyone else in a series about insects biting people's rears to invigorate them. Come to think of it, isn't that the basic plot for Karin?

Right, that's it. Not watching anything else new this season. Not even if it's gold.

[Pedro_Bear]

... ... ...

Like a +9 Vorpal Blade to the heart ;_;

I was skeptical about a romantic arc at series close, but as of E5 I am now completely vested in Rikka's happiness.




And lonely little Sanae's ;_; Oh no, no, no this has all gone horribly, horribly wrong ;_;

It's the rabbits ;_; and the fairy... and the way her room is so tidy because she has so much spare time to clean it ;_; ... the art designer is trying to kill us ;_;

[madhair60]

Yondemasu Yo, Azazel-san is getting a 2nd season.   :D

[Big Jack McBastard]

Coolness.