Japanese Cartoons

[Silverdream]

Is there a dub? I couldn't find one, so I had to watch it subbed. Also Nui is the most hateable character I've ever encountered. Those guys at Gainax know something, if they can make me hate someone more than Gendo.

Good trolling. You almost got me to respond seriously.

For those that didn't get what he said, he was wrong in every sentence:

6. There is a dub.

7. Nui is the best girl.

8. Kill la Kill is done by Trigger.

[Gorthaff]

Made up mostly of ex Gainax folks, I know. And thanks, where do I find that dub? I was too dumb to find it myself.

[cleanupcrew]

[Vami IV]

inb4 Trattorian Alisa Uraga

Joke aside, nice post.

[Quantumsurfer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnZEoOJ-cxE

[Insert_blank]

I like MILFs too, Colette.

[Silverdream]

I like MILFs too, Colette.

I believe the term is Manly Santa Day Cake.

[Silverdream]

http://charactersort.6te.net/index.html

Here are my results for Shaft and Gainax/Trigger/Khara:

[cleanupcrew]

From the anime sorter:
1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica
1. Neon Genesis Evangelion
3. The End of Evangelion
4. Psycho-Pass
5. Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion
6. Rebuild of Evangelion
6. Code Geass
8. Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
9. Toaru Majutsu no Index
10. Sailor Moon
10. WataMote

[Insert_blank]

Gosick was pretty terrible. The first few eps before the plot kicked in were ok then it all went to hell. Fuck this dumb shit. At least the name described the feeling I had while watching it.

[Silverdream]

Just watched April's anime. It was pretty good. Some arcs were better than others, and I really liked the muted fantastical Japanese setting and the very colourful art style.

Spoiler

Show

What really weakened it for me was the lack of a true ending though.

[Theblackdog]

So, Aldnoah Zero.

Spoiler

Show

At the end of episode 11, I thought the final battle was a stupid, gratuitous setup - after all, there was basically no reason for it. But the final episode was surprisingly good. It did a decent job of showing why Slaine and the others would go out fighting even though it was a pointless decision, and I really felt the finality and the despair of their situation. The CG animation got a major bump too: it was the first time in a while that it felt like I was watching a show instead of video game footage.

So yeah, a pretty good ending. But not enough to save the show as a whole.

Aldnoah had one good idea: invert the standard mecha show formula. Instead of having a hero in a superpowered prototype mowing down hordes of mass-produced enemy robots, it gave us protagonists in mass-produced mecha going up against far more powerful opponents and winning through a mix of teamwork, cunning, and sacrifice. This worked well at first; I especially liked how, in the first season, the heroes had to fight a losing battle with each enemy mech in order to learn about its capabilities, then come back with a plan and beat it. Even when you know the formula, it's good at making the enemies seem dangerous and keeping the stakes high. Adding to this, the science on this show was impressive: even if Inaho's plans sometimes had major holes that the show never addressed, there was always some basis in fact to them. But as the show went on the fights became less desperate and more just "Inaho pwns every enemy mech he comes across". And at that point there was really nothing left to engage viewers.

Aldnoah's failure wasn't so much a lack of talent as it was a lack of artistic courage. They were unwilling to do anything new or different with the show, so every twist just ended up anticlimactic and muted with no real consequences. The way they treated character deaths is probably the best example. They had Princess Asseylum getting killed by Rayet in episode 9, they had two out of their three main characters shot in the season 1 finale -- both in a transparent attempt to say "LOOK AT US BEING SO GRIMDARK THIS IS TOTALLY A UROBUTCHER SHOW" -- but in fact the only recurring characters who died for real were Saazebaum and that guy back in episode 2 whose name I don't even remember. They wanted to look like a Urobuchi show, but Urobuchi is successful because he's willing to take the risks that come with hurting and killing main characters, and Aldnoah wasn't.

There are other examples of this, like the aftermath of Inaho shooting down Slaine in episode 7 and the end of the subplot involving his cyborg eye. Then there's the Aldnoah aliens: in any other show that would have been the setup for a major twist where the aliens re-appear or whatever killed them comes back for more or something, but in this show it's just a justification for how we have all this super-powerful technology. Really, all of this comes down to the same thing: it takes a surprising amount of courage to change the status quo in a story. But if you don't, you end up with a story that never rises out of mediocrity. Every time Aldnoah hinted at a twist, the status quo reasserted itself almost immediately and so the story never went anywhere. At some point you start to wonder if actions even have consequences in this show, when every cliffhanger gets resolved in the first five minutes of the next episode.

Yes, the characterization and the show's portrayal of relationships was incredibly shallow. If there's one other moment that represents Aldnoah's failures, it was the montage of "romantic" moments between Inaho and Asseylum that consisted largely of the time he gave her CPR. How is that at all romantic? Does Inaho have a thing for dead people? I'm almost tempted to say yes, because it would double the number of character traits he displays throughout the series. Yes, the CG animation was grating at times, especially during the faster-paced battle scenes. But I was able to overlook both these things when the show was giving us something genuinely new and interesting. It's a shame that they weren't willing to commit to their ideas.

[Tzan]

does anyone here actually read those walls of text or what

i just came - should watch it too

No

[Insert_blank]

Good call, Tzan. You should watch Yu-Gi-Oh!

[Tzan]

You missed my rewording of his post.
Also I don't read the walls of text for anime I've never seen.

(Naruto sucks!)

So yes to Yu-Gi-Oh! then?