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What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0


wolfx

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Watched recently the 49 episodes of Gundam Age and quite honestly i didn't find it to be bad at all.

Nothing superb, nothing awful, just a decent enough piece of enternaiment. I actually enjoyed it more than say, the second season of "00" for example or again Seed or Seed Destiny.

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anyone watching captain earth?

Yup. But mostly because I'm a mecha freak so I tend to watch those no matter what. The show is really quite meh IMO. Having said that, the last episodes have kind up picked up a bit so I hope it gets a good final stretch.

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I'm currently watching Rurouni Kenshin for the first. Up to ep 21 so far. Loving it quite a bit actually. What's this about some Kyoto arc being insanely good? What episode does the Kyoto arc kick in?

I'm lagging behind you on my first run through Kenshin TV, but I agree that it has been a fun addition to my backlog.

I found this guide to the different arcs. I guess the anime does go its own way eventually...

http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=487037#msg16898775

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Anyone else watching Aldonah Zero? Style wise it greatly reminds me of RahXephon. Good mecha action, good character drama, grittiness, and none of the Sunrise-mecha silliness.

It's also authored by Gen Urobuchi, of Mahou Shojou Madoka and Fate Zero fame. Main op song by Kalafina. What else can you ask for??? Highly recommend it!

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While I will go into more details later I just finished the supposedly infamous School Days. The series was excellent, I don't know why people are complaining about it, even the ending was good with Sekai getting her well earned punishment although Kotonoha only bringing Makoto's head on a boat instead of the whole body was weird. Poor Makoto, just a victim of circumstances, but I suppose that is what tragedy is like.

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The episode was brutal. :o

I wasn't sure in the beginning, but now I'm confident that things are about to step up to Claymore levels of destruction.

The casualty rate exceeds that of other similar manga to be sure :-)

I think they're doing a good job adapting it. I'm looking enormously forward to this upcoming arc.

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For the past two and a half months I have decided to watch anime adapted from eroge. Born from porn, but not porn. Because of their seedy origins unlike normal anime or TV or movies or games and the like these will receive no rating whatsoever. With that I decided to embrace as many as I could so I could have a sizable sum to dub as exceptions. With that lets get started.

Nanatsuiro Drops: Only watched this because before doing this take on I watched the first episode before realizing it was from an eroge. That day I took on Uta Kata, burying it only for a few weeks before returning. Not going to lie, it is a cute series. First four episodes are not bad, but episode 5 onward goes full romance mode, which was not bad, until episode 10 comes and turns the last quarter into a bad attempt at a sob fest. The main male protag turns into a sheep until then in which case he loses his memories until his "heart remembers" at the end of the last episode. Never seen an anime where the pacing goes from good to bad like that. The strangest thing is that despite being based on an eroge I found no objectionable content in this aside from a hot spring scene which was one minute: No sex, nudity, fan service, drugs, or even violence. This could have easily been a kids show. This is what I thought the original Nanoha was going to be like and good thing this had no pedo service or horrid writing. If you like fantasy give it a shot.

Canary: A short I learned about months ago and only did not watch because it was an eroge adaption, since this was a one shot OVA I figured to take it on next. Basically some school band cannot perform because bureaucratic permit not available reasons. You would think it would be limited to just get the paper work to the official, but for some reason they throw in a school festival montage and one girl accidentally restraining herself to a giant kite which was meant for her boyfriend because why not. Aside from two panty shots in the beginning it there is no objectionable content despite being based on an eroge. Decent for a slice of life type of story.

Kira Kira 5th Anniversary Live Anime: Kick Start Generation: A one shot OVA featuring three rock bands performing songs before combining for one song in the finale. Aside from one blonde girl having g-cups I do not see anything pointing toward this being an eroge, but all this has is concert songs so who knows. The visuals were good and the music was neither good nor bad, rather decent.

Akane Maniax: Three episodes about a Ryoma Nagare clone acting like Sweet Pea from Sucker Punch aka constant day dreaming except instead of escaping a brothel he is trying to woo a girl. Said delusions are filled with giant robots including a God Gravion knockoff. There is a little ecchi, but it is not annoying or even enough to have one draw the conclusion this was from an eroge. Interesting to note that this is a spinoff of a franchise called Rumble Hearts, both of which have eroge games and both of them being in the same canon with Muv Luv, which I did not find out until I finished the last episode. Some jokes are dumb, but others work, so it is decent for a comedy.

Refrain Blue!: The plot is basically high schoolers on the tanabana summer festival at a beach with two following in love after their exes died. The main male's ex comes out of the ocean as a different person doing nothing for the first two thirds before revealing herself because she wants him to move on. This is an actually decent story in this and unlike the other stuff taken on I can see this coming from an eroge, not just with substantial ecchi elements, but the fact that the main couple actually had coitus.... And even had a kid in the epilogue. The pacing and music were surprisingly good, but side characters were used poorly, especially some brown haired guy that did nothing but bully the main female in the second third (which is odd considering he did nothing in the first third and we do not see him in the last third). I expected something bad, especially since this was made by a company that does mostly hentai, and instead I got a good romance story.

Koi-ken The Animation: A group of high schoolers want to become idols and train until the big night in which they perform for the last quarter. Surprisingly decent in the visuals and audio department, there were some ecchi elements although nothing to indicate this was from an eroge, and it has decent pacing. Not much else to say, it is short and decent for a story like this.

Moekan The Animation: Some corporate head is sent an obsolete combat android maid to do his house work when he already has a lot. On one hand the voice acting is sometimes grating, the setting is not expanded upon, and the humor does not work well. On the other hand it gets somewhat better over time, the last episode had nice action, and there was some decent military conspiracy plot. The ecchi elements slowly increased over time with the beginning of the second and third episodes indicating that this could have been from an eroge. I did not care for the ending theme, but then again good ending themes are rare in and of themselves. Overall I thought it was decent even if it could barely stick to its genre which is likely military.

Underbar Summer: High schoolers kind of sort of fall in love with each other and most of it is just hijinks without any real cohesion to it. This felt like a series of events and despite some ecchi elements there is not enough to indicate this came from an eroge, Decent for slice of life. Then there is the omake specials which were actually amusing and tried to be funny.

Night Walker: The Midnight Detective: A vampire detective hunts monsters called breed with two female assistants and a fairy. While there is barely any ecchi in it you can tell this came from an eroge based on the amount of sexual dialogue in the first half and eventually sleeping with one of his assistants in the end of the final episode. Nice art, pacing, and action although the music and animation were subpar. I also did not expect the main villain to be gay, talk about surprising. Undoubtedly this is the best of the eroge adaptions taken on, definitely recommended for those that are into horror, crime, or action.

Baldr Force EXE Resolution: Some hacker is caught by the military so he joins to find the killer of his friend. I really did not know what to expect from this, but wow did it turn into a mess. There is little to no ecchi in it, but there is a rape scene in the second episode from one of the cyber terrorists, which can make you tell this came from an eroge. The first half is structured decently, but then shortly after the beginning of episode 3 the plot turns from finding a murderer to a story of some girl that had her body taken away and serves as the final boss. The real villains are the military insiders and contractors with a cyber terrorist group being the main focus of the first half with only one insane member being remotely evil (at least compared to everyone else). It feels like two different stories thrown together. The action was not bad, but man the CGI dated horribly. The music was mediocre and the pacing could have been better. Decent for mecha although the second half needed to be refined.

Prism Magical: Prism Generations!: Like with Nanoha: Lyrical Toy Box this was on a separate disc packaged with the eroge which I had no problem with.... I wish I could describe the "plot", but it is just a long hot spring moment with one of three girls attacking a guy for no reason. It was incredibly annoying to say the least yet somehow the opening theme never bothered me. Since Masami Obari worked on this apparently that allowed for a random cameo of Big Moth from Dancouga because elephant-dick comparison jokes. If this was not part of the Prism Ark series I probably would not have seen it. Pretty much exclusive to the ecchi and comedy crowd.

Prism Ark: Some princess is tsundere for a guy while in a school for wizards which takes place in the far future with late renaissance technology. Oh lord where to begin on this. The first episode had absolutely no focus as it went back and forth between a random battle that is never mentioned again and children yapping to one another. The pacing is absolutely horrible for the first three quarters of the series. The music and characters are nothing but jokes. The amount of ecchi was incredibly dumb and despite having so much you might not tell this was from an eroge as nothing actually sexual is even uttered. The weird part is that the last quarter was actually kind of good and well rounded, but nothing about it was great. The worst aspect is that they blatantly ignore the enemy faction after the beginning of episode 2 save for episode 7 and the second halves of 9 and 10. "Yes, let us take this story about medieval style war and instead have most of it about school aspects with bare minimal development." This more or less was for fans of comedy, ecchi, and school anime.

Lunar Legend Tsukihime: A story about a rich teenage boy that befriends a vampire because he accidentally nearly killed her. The amount of disappointment is staggering. Going in I was no aware at first this was serious adaption decay and how fans tried to denied it exists. Since there were multiple sexual acts you could probably tell this was from eroge. The first quarter of this series is solid, but right after that every other episode is about slice of life talking that goes nowhere with a brief zombie fight until episodes 10 and 11 reveal tons of back story. The series makes a good creepy atmosphere with potential with psychological horror yet fails to do anything. After episode 3 there is barely any plot aside from romance that is not intimate and barely romance at all. The second half deals with a villain who turns out to be the main protagonist's brother who was the reincarnation of a rogue vampire. Sounds simple except THEY FAILED TO MENTION THAT AT ANY POINT. Seriously, I had to look that up at MAL on Arcueid's profile which gave better explanations for connecting things than this series did. That has NEVER happened to me! I mean yes similar things happened in End of Evangelion, but most of that was translation errors, this they OUTRIGHT PUT NOTHING IN! There is a difference between telling through visuals and being so vague the audience can barely make connections! I honestly thought they just changed the plot in the last third. What was even more jarring was that in the final episode the main protagonist shoves a knife into the concrete floor of an elevated hallway AND IT COLLAPSES. HOW!? This could have been a good horror story with a tragic romance, but it was incredibly boring due to somewhat slow pacing and a lackluster cast. It is a shame because while the opening theme is pretty eh the ending theme is somewhat good. This is for fans of romance, horror, and vampire anime.

Wind -a breath of heart-: First part is a short Christmas special which, unlike the rest, was hard to track down and like Lyrical Toy Box and Magical Prism was on a fan disk. Basically just teenagers preparing for a Christmas party and that is all. The tv series was mostly dreck with lackluster music and the first half having nothing to do with anything. It is not until episode 9 that some semblance of plot occurs. Oh and apparently everyone had powers, but until episode 11 they do not both saying anything about it, turns out the town is home to some wind god. The series ends with one girl complaining to the main male he does not care for her. Then the special episodes happen, which have far better plot than most of the regular episodes, and the two eventually have coitus. Keep in kind this series has no fan service outside of swimsuits, even then it would be hard to tell this originated from eroge. The characters themselves are rather mediocre save for this one father that manipulates smoke. Finally there is a three episode ova series in another continuity, instead of being slice of life-ish this acts as a ghost story and is actually interesting despite the pacing slowing down over time. TV series is for slice of life folks and the OVAs are for horror folks.

Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse: The premise and majority of the problems can be summed up as "Lets make an anime based on an eroge about fighting swarms of killer aliens, but add unnecessary racism themes that go nowhere, a rushed military conspiracy plot that replaces the main antagonists half way with little build up, very forced romances, dragged out dialogue scenes, waitresses that were really terrorists, and have bombs strong enough to blow up giant chunks of Alaska that for some reason were never used against the invaders!" Add really bad music and sluggish pacing as well as the last two episodes having the conspirators having random splinter cell agents killing their allies and themselves off and you get this mess. So many issues with this and most of it can be reduced to "bad writing". The action scenes themselves are not bad and there is some attempt at character development that is decent. I also have to give this series credit with, not counting episode 19, was very restrained on the face service. So much so you probably could not tell this was from an eroge. In fact I do not think this was intended to be from Muv-Luv, rather it was supposed to be some original real robot series that was only sold because it had a franchise name on it. At the very least WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU SWITCH MAIN ANTAGONISTS LIKE THAT? At least haters of Gundam SEED Destiny admit the protagonist was gradual and not all at once. This is made for action, sci-fi, and military people, but be warned as stupidity hit this with a ton of bricks.

Roar of The Machine God Demonbane: The main reason this take on exists because Super Robot Wars UX and me being a completest. At first it does not seem like eroge material since panty shots aside there is surprisingly very little ecchi. Then the second quarter starts and attempted and implied rape territory starts and by then you can tell. This is surprisingly the best of the eroge adaptions: atmosphere, pacing, action, art, and literary allusions make this surprisingly well made. In fact only the music is actually any bad. For every one thing I have heard about Demonbane several things I was caught off by appear such as: The Necronomicon turns into a flying chibi doll, a surprisingly cool butler, one of the bad guys having 4 arms, Dr. West being a great character, him having a gynoid assistant, Al having a shogoth for a bed, the main villain's mother being a loli, Cthulhu doing surprisingly NOTHING, Dagon can revive himself from the dead apparently, and when/where the hell does this take place? Seriously, the first two episodes imply this takes place in the 20s or 30s, but later episodes you see Japanese swimsuits, bathhouses, bikinis, and taco trucks FRIGGIN TACO TRUCKS (at a fair I may add). WHAT ERA IS THIS!? Hell with said swimsuits being around does this even take place in the US? Also why does Nyarlathotep need friggin GLASSES? Also for a supposed ecchi anime there is surprisingly very little sexual content in it, I am taken back by it. Anyway, definitely for those interested in fantasy, horror, and action.

Soul Link: Some terrorists take control of a space station and it turns out most of them are mutations of regenerating cells. Wow this was executed horribly with pretty much everything mentioned in Prism Ark except here there is slightly more action. Also, yes, you can tell this is from eroge because there is a sex scene at the end of the first half. I would not mind this if the first three quarters are about rescuing hostages (at a lazy pace I might add). It also took me a while to figure out who the main characters were (do not trust the eye catch it is misleading). Just replace fantasy with sci-fi and it is another version of Prism Ark.

Triangle Heart: Sweet Songs Forever: I have been dreading this one for a while because of how much I loathed the Nanoha trilogy and this was before she got her own series. Assassins saving singers from mercenaries with mutagenic properties is what I think the plot is. I say that because the first half of these four episodes do not really have one, they instead involve training sessions and one married man talking to some chick that was apparently his adopted sister. The pacing, music, and execution were lackluster although the action was decent. What disturbs me the most is that should I ever decide to take on hentai one day I will have to see the prequel to this. Also who lets a 9 year old child be the cashier? That is just dumb. Anyway, definitely for fans of action and military.

Rumbling Hearts: Some guy has relationship issues between his current fiance and his former girlfriend that awoke from a three year coma; also in the same universe as Akane Maniax and Muv Luv. Honestly this was good and it could have been great. The writing was good, the pacing okay, the music was not bad, and nothing about it was obnoxious. The main problem was length, sometimes the pacing was too slow, but more so there were too many "at the office" type scenes. More of a nitpick, but some emotional moments were very forced at times. Fortunately the semi-alternate universe although not really ova ending Next Season fixed these problems while adding rather good art. Despite being able to tell this was from an eroge with all the sex scenes the ecchi was surprisingly minimal. Anyway, definitely for fans of slice of life and romance.

School Days: This one has gained a ton of notoriety to it. To be honest I do not see why. The art style is good, the pacing, at least for the most part, is surprisingly fast, the music was decent, the writing was not bad, everything went in a logical order, and at no point did I find any character bad or obnoxious. The ending was surprisingly fitting given the tragic nature that was being built up over time. Only things I have to question is A) when is it legal to allow high school students to have a sex room B) why do none of the recordings lead to an arrest and C) why would a psychotic girl only take her boy friend's head with her and not the whole body? No idea why that sticks out. At least the two crazy girls get their just punishment. The ONA and Valentine's Day specials were ignored because they were game footage so I went toward the Kokoro special which was basically a parody of tokusatsu, magic girl anime, and 80s OVAs like the Iczer franchise. By all means I should have loathed it, but with the amount of detail in it I simply found it not funny, not good yet not bad either. Strange. Anyway, I guess this would appeal to slice of life fans.

However this is not over! Stay turned for the conclusion which will encompass the Fate/Stay franchise with Carnival Phantasm. In the conclusion there will also be ranking of these various anime compared to one another.

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Triangle Heart: Sweet Songs Forever: I have been dreading this one for a while because of how much I loathed the Nanoha trilogy and this was before she got her own series.

Ah, thanks for reminding me!

It's been a while since I've watched Nanoha. I should sit down with both series and marathon 'em.

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Still watching on Crunchyroll as they air:

Captain Earth - So far a fun show, a good action adventure Sci-Fi.

Brynhildr in the Darkness - Creepy fraked up wierd awesome Super power stuff. Keeps kicking me in the nuts every couple of episodes.

Sword Art Online 2 - We have put the horror of the 2nd part of Season 1 behind us, and gone back to awesomeness.

Aldnoah Zero - i love super competent main characters, and this has that plus cool mecha action and conspiracies. Cool show!

Sailor Moon Crystal - Sailor Moon without all the dragged out fill in. Gorgeous animation too.

Argevollen - Weirdly compelling mecha action show. Its not anyting unique, its just kind of well done mecha anime.

Agame no Kill - Weirdly atonal anime. One part comedy weirdness, one part horrific violence and nastiness.

Glass Lip - A silly romance comedy I am oddly enjoying a lot. Kind of my guilty pleasure.

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watched latest episodes of Akame Ga Kill and Tokyo Ghoul back to back. bad idea as both are rather depressing. but both shows are definitely good and will keep on watching.

cheered myself up with some GIrls und Panzer and Toaru Kagoku no Railgun specials.

Tokyo ESP had a flashy first episode, but the animation quality now seems to be petering out. shame, as it has some awesome moments in the musical score department. the parodies are kinda amusing with a King Leonidas deadringer and what seems like a cross between Cable of X-Force and Heihachi Mishima. i'm sure i've missed a number of other nods.

finished Brynhildr in the Darkness. it had several strong episodes but the overall story was not up to par.

SAO II is definitely back in form.

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I've been on a Harlock kick lately ever since I caught the movie from last year! Just finished the '78/'79 TV series and working on SSX via YouTube. I'm also watching Space Battleship Yamato 2199 on the side (never saw the original series but loving this one so far!).

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started watching Blade and Soul. the animation is gorgeous but uneven, ie. the female characters always look fantastic, the rest though pale in comparison.

jury is still out on the story, but it's not bad, even if a bit generic.

the ED though has to be one of the most embarrassing i've heard in a while.

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Yeah Kenshin awesome, once you are done with the TV series , there's also 2 kenshin new kyoto arc OAVs that totally redrawn with new animation , and different new scenes. there's also a live action kenshin movie too, which is not bad. But of course if you have time the manga is there too.

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man, i've never seen animation fall from such lofty heights as with Blade and Soul. seems like by the 9th episode they were so out of budget they used kindergarten students to animate the rest of the show.

from this:

blade-and-soul-anime-ep-1-preview-sevent

20140326073512a0dqs57j8lr11bbn.jpg

to this:

5ITIrGn.jpg

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to quite possibly the worst rendition of fire in a modern animeF6BlCiM.jpg

seriously???

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LOL. You guys know how much I love Japanese animation. I love the designs, the stories, crazy worlds they come up with. But if there's one thing that I've never understood is how they manage their budgets. Their project coordination leaves much to be desired. The way the quality can fluctuate like that is cringe worthy. Still nothing beats our very own Max vs Miria fight in SDFM!

The last episode of Space Dandy was absolutely marvellous. It had references to the Sex Pistols, Jojo Stardust Crusaders and featured and honest to goodness Guncannon too boot.

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Yeah Kenshin awesome, once you are done with the TV series , there's also 2 kenshin new kyoto arc OAVs that totally redrawn with new animation , and different new scenes. there's also a live action kenshin movie too, which is not bad. But of course if you have time the manga is there too.

Yeah but I read those are terrible. See the reviews @MAL:

http://myanimelist.net/anime/11441/Rurouni_Kenshin:_Meiji_Kenkaku_Romantan_-_Shin_Kyoto_Hen/reviews

What about the Samurai X movie?

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If by Samurai X you mean Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal, it's really good. Much better quality (story, animation, art) than the series. I can really recommend it. About the only negative with it, is that I think the dub team made too liberal a translation of the script. Stick to the subs.

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I've caught up with the current chapter of the Space Brothers manga, and have the waiting for more manga & anime blues. Unfortunately, what'a out would probably only fill about 15 or so episodes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm currently watching Fang of The Sun Dougram. At about 8 episodes in all I can say is this is some epic hard sci-fi military action going on. While some might not like it because there isn't mecha blowing up every five seconds like some other shows I really like the deliberate pacing and effort it's putting into telling its story.

This isn't your typical kid gets shoved into the cockpit of an invincible mecha and saves the day, this is a story about a kid who is comes face to face with the realities of politics, war, family, social standing and has to choose between what is expected from him, and what is the right thing to do even if it means turning his back on the people he loves.

As far as "real robot" mecha series go this may be the most grounded one I've seen in a while with a heavy focus on combined arms and battlefield tactics winning over the hero charging in and blasting away everything ala gundam. I'm not sure if it will stay that way now that the titular Dougram has been introduced.

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