LOL opinions....

Folktales from Japan -
Space Brothers -
Zetman -

Cheers

Sakamichi no Apollon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8owoGJntHJw

Is there one of those... picture things that covers the general idea of what the upcoming season is going to be like? Someone have one handy? I'm one of those monkey types that needs visual queues to process anything.

Link to Moetron's chart

http://i.minus.com/i70RqqpyS5WHh.jpg

Link to Neregate's chart

http://static.neregate.com/2012/04/neregate.com-Spring-2012-Anime-v4.png

Nazo no Kanojo X.

People on imageboard have been arguing about the girl's voice actress. Supposedly she's a novice and that is her first / first professional acting role.

Complaints that because she's new she must suck seem rampant but then again this is imageboard we're talking about...

I for one find her voice a refreshing change from the artificial, high-pitched ramblings of too many female voice actresses (or rather, the character they are made to portray) these days but as I refuse to speak a single word of Japanese myself the notion that she's Japan's equivalent of a shitty English VA simply goes right over my head. Urabe, to me, sounds like an actual person and fits my impression of her from reading the manga rather well.

In addition the art style is a change of pace. My uneducated plebeian eyes tell me it seems to be throwing back to earlier animation styles as well as keeping the general theme of the manga. Something I appreciate, being a fan of the original work.

Putting aside the 80's hentai sound effects and the... unique... plot devices, I think this will turn out to be a fairly enjoyable show. At least for me.

Thoughts: (in best to worst order)

WILL WATCH

Mysterious Girlfriend X - I rarely enjoy romance in anime since it's normally one of two extremes. Either sanitised, devoid of any real intimacy or feeling, or it's ecchified to the nth degree. Either way feels generic. This title is neither. It's intriguing in so many ways. Gorgeous background art, very refreshing character art style form days gone by, an abnormal pairing for a couple and a balanced amount of kinkiness. That ED theme is delish too. If people are complaining about Urabe for the reasons Bazza claims, they're clowns. Urabe is somewhat an outcast and beats her own drum. She does things her way and is meant to be different and sound that. The voice is meant to be somewhat unrefined. But frankly I find Urabe to be intriguing, quietly confident and a bit dominant. Frankly this has given me a lot to like thus far and I hope this continues. I'd like to have a romance to like for once. I hope it continues to be different.

Space Brothers - In typical A-1 fashion of late, the production values are good, that OP is a belter, Mutta is one engaging man and there's a feelgood edge that can't be denied mixed in with the realities of modern life. Mutta's definitely the best male character I've seen in quite some time. The female in the second episode promises to be good. It's somewhat like Planetes, but more optimistic.

Lupin: Fujiko Mine - Redline director takes on a risky project. So far it's working. I DON'T CARE if people can't handle the show being about Fujiko and not Lupin as the centre of attention. It's been Lupin in the middle for four decades. If you can't handle an adult woman being in control with considerable eroticism in the mix, then too flocking bad. It has good style, good music and is entertaining. It doesn't go to the degree of indulgence or stupidity that pervades Shaft that infects people like that does. Fujiko ain't cheap. This is meant to be a fun romp. I'm having fun and naked Fujiko drawn well is a delight.


MAY WATCH

Sakamachi no Apollon - The return of Shinichiro Watanabe and Yoko Kanno was very hyped. So far, I don't see why. Certainily the show has good art and ambience. But it's so light and slow....too much of it, in fact. Aria and Mushishi feel pretty frenetic in comparison. So two guys and a girl in the 60s become friends over jazz? What's the big deal? Certainly something this different has novel value. But I didn't see much in terms of content to compel me to like it. Quite underwhelmed.

Natsuiro Kiseki - I had this near the bottom in my anticipation rankings. The fact it's now this high is scary. Despite its bitchy characters and bland style, decent art and a somewhat interesting premise could make this watchable yet. But if this turns about to be Japanese Idol #18641894, good night...


WILL NOT WATCH

Accel World - Scenario feels reminiscent of things already done by Serial Experiments Lain, Dennou Coil and Welcome to the NHK. Absurdity and virtual battling seems like the weakest excuse yet for mech/body-suit battling aka typical Sunrise content. It's so absurd it's painful. And why would anyone believe the highly popular vice-president of the student council would need to be rescued and cared for by a fat kid with next to no redeeming features? Doesn't even fit into the so bad it's good category.

Tsuritama - One of many titles seeming to flaunt style this season to try to sell. Doesn't hide the fact the show itself is boring...Maybe some plot development would have helped, but next to nothing happened. Heck, this treaded similar ground to Sakamachi no Apollon to such a chilling degree. Why are there two shows with similar scenarios - the main difference being one involves jazz and the other fishing - on back to back in the timeslot?

Zetman - Cramming 15 volumes into one season is not going to work. Nor will it when the art quality is ghastly, which is a fatal sin for an action/horror show. Pity because there's an interesting story in this, albeit somewhat absurd.

Shining Hearts - Once again, a good artist is butchered at the anime level, but one wonders if the source game ever had much going for it anyway. An episode about selling bread and then traversing a forest only to argue with an elf is a crap way to spend 25 minutes. Tony Taka's best adaptations still remain to be H-titles...huh.

Jormungand - Way to kill your momentum after Steins;Gate, White Fox. This merde makes almost any action show look good in comparison.

Sankarea - Worst light effects and backgrounds I've seen in quite some time combined with intentional attempts to be like Shaft from a guy now doing something for Deen. Characters are pricks, emos or bland. Why is this airing during a season where potential buyers would buy Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka season 2 instead? Really smart, Deen...not!

A darn good follow up week. Ep 3 of Space Bros, Ep 2 of Fujiko Mine and Ep 2 of Mysterious Girlfriend X were all pretty win. I have to say this season is well exceeding my expectations. I haven't had a show hitting the 9/10 mark since April 2010 in terms of currently airing material. I might have 3 the way these three titles are going. I've having fun this season. Ironically, all 3 titles are involving old school content/style/tactics in some form.

Last Exile wrote:
Jormungand - Way to kill your momentum after Steins;Gate, White Fox. This merde makes almost any action show look good in comparison.

This show is awesome and is making it onto the playlist.

Ryan White wrote:

Last Exile wrote:
Jormungand - Way to kill your momentum after Steins;Gate, White Fox. This merde makes almost any action show look good in comparison.

This show is awesome and is making it onto the playlist.

Seconded, this show is going on as soon as a slot opens up

Oh look, Fate/Zero is up for a vote this week

Boys on the Slope ep2 was brill. Well into Will Watch territory now. Kanno owned the music in that episode.

Jormungand is some funny sh.it. Had me cracking up in some scenes. Really black humour, but funny all the same. The way they dropped their opposition in deep in the second episode.... Then there is the preview music.

As much as I like Space Brothers, the art style does detract from it, somewhat. It may seem odd to say this about an anime, but it is a little too cartoonish at times for me to take it more seriously, even if it is supposed to be a light comedy. Of course, being a prime-time anime, it would cop it in the quality department.... Then again, A1 Pictures are past masters at taking good ideas and cocking them up.

Mappy wrote:As much as I like Space Brothers, the art style does detract from it, somewhat. It may seem odd to say this about an anime, but it is a little too cartoonish at times for me to take it more seriously, even if it is supposed to be a light comedy. Of course, being a prime-time anime, it would cop it in the quality department.... Then again, A1 Pictures are past masters at taking good ideas and cocking them up.

They were also masters of having 10k+ series galore last year. (AnoHana, Blue Exorcist, Idolmaster, Uta no Prince-sama, Working S2) A-1 aren't wasted potential anymore. Although i didn't care for any of those five shows at all. Space Bros, definitely. Sword Art Online - one I'm looking forward to in July.

I think you should give that title to Ordet, Mappy. Black Rock Shooter had enough of a fanbase/known brand to have blown apart January. Hard to find a worse title than it - in quality and sales - than BRS last season.


Space Bros's appeal for me is a quality rarely seen within anime in quite a while - ambition. The whole conservative, stick to the tried and true formulas and characters that people know what to expect from and anything wild being something other wordly is getting somewhat dull. Career ambition is something that has been lacking within Japan for quite a while. The notion that Mutta, someone who once had a dream, lost sight of it, got knocked down by the world, but at the age of 31 is able to pick himself up and take one more shot at something seemingly impossible to obtain is quite insatiable. Yes, the series is mainly about him this far and sometimes fairly comical in look and feel. But that's the whole point. If you take it or life too seriously, the ability to dream or go for one is lost. It's shooting for the stars with some manliness but not to an excessive degree. It ain't perfect by any means but I'd take this over anything from 2011. And I do mean, ANYTHING.

Hyou-ka - So KyoAni's latest effort reads like an ingredients list...

Bring 2 Clannad VAs (Tomoyo and Sunohara VAs) together with similar male 1 + male 2 dynamic to said pairing and
Mix in female with design morph of Mio and Tsumugi from K-ON and try to deny the fact the zurückgeblieben chipmunk look of modern KyoAni doesn't work on males
DEM PURPLE EYES!
Make male 1 be as apathetic as Kyon
Induce feeling of that actual S1 last episode of Haruhi for first 10-15 minutes then spout gibberish to make it not seem the case
DEM PURPLE EYES!
Bring everyone together via high school club (aka, JUST LIKE Haruhi, K-ON and Clannad)
Forget to acknowledge what the show is acutally about (Geez, none of the aforementioned shows failed to do that in ep1...not even K-On....)
DEM PURPLE EYES!
Provide good looking backgrounds to pretend something important is happening like in K-On
Episode dominated by male 2 instead of the lead characters....again, forget what the show is acutally about...
DEM PURPLE EYES!
DEM PURPLE EYES!
DEM PURPLE EYES!
End with a rain scene just like Clannad


And there you have it! KyoAni cut and paste several shows's successful traits and pour it into an LN adaptation and make it feel exactly like everything they've done in the last 5 years!

Furthermore...apparently this is supposed to be a mystery show! Except there was NOTHING mysterious about Episode 1!

But hey...DEM PURPLE EYES! It'll still sell because of DEM PURPLE EYES!

Jormungand is frikkin awesome and I hate action anime shows.

Tsuritama is doing the whole boys slice of life thing which I am a fan of so yeah its the show I am most excited for this season actually.

Slice of life with boys is the new moe, apparently.

Also, Acchi Kocchi gave me diabetes.

Slice of life with boys gives me what I loved from K-on! those relatable situations from high school without all the drama. Its nice to watch and relax to.

Best show this season is Akibaranger.

Delete button overrun because of too much of this....



Honestly, people, don't make me lock the thread.

Hans Stockmann wrote:Best show this season is Akibaranger.

Also worst acted.
After Zetman.

Hyouka: not a terrible show because of the protagonist. But the actual "plot" of the first two episodes was nothing short of boring. I'll tolerate a show being bad, but boring is something else.

And KyoAni decided to do this after the "failure" of Nichijou.

Gotta love that Sakuga though, Holy Crap that show looks good. So many wide shots. The background art looks amazing. At the very least its nice to look at.

kiddtic wrote:Gotta love that Sakuga though, Holy Crap that show looks good. So many wide shots. The background art looks amazing. At the very least its nice to look at.

DemiSoda wrote:You have to be shallow to like Hyou-Ka. I shift into shallow maode to be able to enjoy it in any way. it's boring as anything, but it is pretty. And you have to go into shallow mode to see that.

Last Exile wrote:

kiddtic wrote:At the very least its nice to look at.

DemiSoda wrote: it's boring as anything, but it is pretty.

Noted~

As much effort as KyoAni tries to put into Hyouka, I'm not at all convinced that this was a light novel series that translates well into a visual medium. Actually, that is a problem with a lot of light novel series that become anime.... their pacing is scheiße to hell and most of what happens is limited to dialogue. In Hyouka it is made just that little bit more obvious by the effort KyoAni is trying to put in, because there is nothing like flashing pretty pictures at people to distract them from lots of nothing worth worrying about happening elsewhere.

This is why I'm more entertained by something like Acchi Kocchi, which is a banal 4-koma show and not always funny, but it knows it and doesn't try too hard to be something it isn't. I even like Polar Bear Cafe and Tsuritama more than Hyouka, because (they're) oddball. (Hyouka plays things far too straight).

Kuroko no Basketball,

Excellent basketball anime and has Hydain singing at the end.

Jormungand

Have beef with this anime at third and fourth episode, We are assassins let sit in the middle of a wide open space. Yer... I leave the millions plot holes at that.

Mappy wrote:Hyouka: not a terrible show because of the protagonist. But the actual "plot" of the first two episodes was nothing short of boring. I'll tolerate a show being bad, but boring is something else.

And KyoAni decided to do this after the "failure" of Nichijou.

It's going to sell well regardless, at least they were doing forced humor like in Nichijou.

Mappy wrote:As much effort as KyoAni tries to put into Hyouka, I'm not at all convinced that this was a light novel series that translates well into a visual medium. Actually, that is a problem with a lot of light novel series that become anime.... their pacing is scheiße to hell and most of what happens is limited to dialogue. In Hyouka it is made just that little bit more obvious by the effort KyoAni is trying to put in, because there is nothing like flashing pretty pictures at people to distract them from lots of nothing worth worrying about happening elsewhere.

This is why I'm more entertained by something like Acchi Kocchi, which is a banal 4-koma show and not always funny, but it knows it and doesn't try too hard to be something it isn't. I even like Polar Bear Cafe and Tsuritama more than Hyouka, because (they're) oddball. (Hyouka plays things far too straight).

Are you trolling? About every single anime that sold anything at all could as well be put in that bracket both good, bad and plain horrible like UN-GO ( especially the monster fight god that was great)

Pirate Man wrote:Are you trolling?

You'd think you've had enough practice to recognize it.

Mappy wrote:

Pirate Man wrote:Are you trolling?

You'd think you've had enough practice to recognize it.

If you had to ask the question, I succeed in what I am doing.

Pirate Man wrote:

Mappy wrote:

Pirate Man wrote:Are you trolling?

You'd think you've had enough practice to recognize it.

If you had to ask the question, I succeed in what I am doing.

If you think I asked a question, I succeeded in what I am doing.

Mappy wrote:

Pirate Man wrote:
If you had to ask the question, I succeed in what I am doing.

If you think I asked a question, I succeeded in what I am doing.

If you think I thought you have asked the question, I have succeeded in what I am doing.

Pirate Man wrote:

Mappy wrote:

Pirate Man wrote:
If you had to ask the question, I succeed in what I am doing.

If you think I asked a question, I succeeded in what I am doing.

If you think I thought you have asked the question, I have succeeded in what I am doing.

If you thought I think you thought I asked a question, I have succeeded in what I am doing.

Jor 8: What kind of crap has these people been smoking?

Country A? Country B?
OH THAT'S RIGHT JAPAN GOT TOLLLLLLLLLDDDDD!!!
OR they verdammt fail at geography.

Even if its based in Yugoslavia that has been cut up into 6 countries. The wonders of Japan basing a show in Europe without even a hint of study. EVEN DYNASTY WARRIORS CREATORS AT LEAST READ THE HISTORY.

Jormungand through one episode has ruined it of being good series or "Top Contender" sort of like UN-GO an alright series that went absolute scheiße in one episode. Sorry but I wouldn't be surprised if this anime broke even.

Random Curiosity's Spring Season 2012 Retrospective Podcast.

Shows they try and cover: Fate/Zero, Aquarion EVOL, Space Brothers, Sakamichi no Apollon, Jormungand, Mysterious Girlfriend X, Tsuritama, Eureka Seven AO and Hyouka.

Also: Apparently, at 13 episodes, we're about a quarter the way through Space Bros.

A quarter of the way through Space Bros and things are no longer moon. Oh well, the new ED is nice.

Short thoughts:

Sakamichi no Apollon - Needed less dorama and more music. The concert scene that didn't happen would have been legendary. That said, it was still pretty good.

Tsuritama - Fishing, friends and annoying aliens. The fishing and other early parts were mostly good, but the final arc kind of went off the deep end. Not bad, overall.

F/0 - Very faithful adaptation (perhaps too much so?), but felt stiff and lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. The books were better.

Bodacious Pirates - Struck a good balance between fluffy SoL and high space sci-fi ADVENTURE. Surprisingly detailed on some of the concepts, which was nice, and an excellent soundtrack to boot. Enjoyable.

Dropped: Medaka Box and Ghost Yomi - Both duuuuull. It would be nice if Silver Link produce something again that even comes close to their début.

Ongoing: Hyouka - Delightfully mundane (in the best way). Shaping up to be a fantastically strong slice of life, and holy scheiße is it ever pretty. Good that it's continuing, because this coming season looks like absolute bollocks.

HOW COULD I FORGET YOU: Lupin III, Fujitits - It was cool, sexy and fun. A Lupin show, then. Halfway through (?) it sinks to the bottom under the weight of terrible, awful, horrendous plot. Why?

Adamar wrote:this coming season looks like absolute bollocks.

A pretty accurate summation.

Sakamichi no Apollon - Needed less dorama and more music. The concert scene that didn't happen would have been legendary. That said, it was still pretty good.

If Watanabe and Kanno weren't in charge, this show would have flopped at the crazy rate of subject matter compression into a single season. Goes to show those two are still at the top of their game.

F/0 - Very faithful adaptation (perhaps too much so?), but felt stiff and lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. The books were better.

If Urobuchi hadn't wasted his time in the first novel with a tsunami of dialogue, the adaptation would have been more effective. Still, did ufotable really need to focus on as many static episodes in the 1st half as they did? Frankly, this should have been 30 episodes. If the title is the only thing getting close to Shaft this year, why go half-arsed?! Novels are better due to amount of material skipped late and ill-timed late character development and lack of others being developed, but I think I'll always wonder how Nasu would have done with writing the novels. I feel he would have done better. Not the worst T/M adaptation by a long shot, but still pales compared to Garden of Sinners.

HOW COULD I FORGET YOU: Lupin III, Fujitits - It was cool, sexy and fun. A Lupin show, then. Halfway through (?) it sinks to the bottom under the weight of terrible, awful, horrendous plot. Why?

Simple - they let Mari Okada write some of the episodes. When you don't have Tsuyuki Nagai around - aka the ONLY person with the balls to tell Okada 'This is a load of !&^!#$!&%^*! Rewrite this and do it properly this time!' - Okada goes too far. Ep11 is beyond insulting even by Okada's standards. But meh, I think the novelty of this title was always the romp factor.

So how did Kuroko's Basketball ended up getting to numbers bigger than anything else in April that wasn't Fate/Zero? Seeing 11k pre-orders for this was definitely not something I expected.

Fujoshi.