The (not BL but) Anime Thread

[Red]

What a coincidence: it's the very same anime and also the only anime that is in the Netflix library here. But the library seems to suck anyway so there's that. Not really so much quality series as they hype.
I've been hoping they would bring something more, something unique, more anime for instance, but seeing how people like and judge it here in general, won't give that hope enough backing. Entertainment means mostly something cheap that comes from the west, and I feel I am among those rare who's slowly starting to get a little fed up with it. It's an inconvenient fact that no one does not seem to notice. Media forces people to like something they want, so people won't watch elsewhere. Disappointing.

[Kreekakon]

I just finished all 291 episodes of Dragon Ball Z for the first time ever in the Funimation English dub. Took me several weeks of continuous watching to complete this marvelous task.

It really was a outstanding enjoying ride overall from start to end. All arcs have their own strengths, and weakness in terms of enjoyment so it's kind of a shame that not one of them was able to fully employ all of the strengths to create the "super perfect" arc. Btw though my personal favorite story arc is Cell's.

The show does indeed drag on for very long, but it didn't bother me as much as I initially thought it was going to. The show just sucks you in, and spends its sweet time in playing out every single bit of juicy enjoyment that it can muster out of its story/action, and by golly it WORKS. I didn't mind at all that some fights lasted 20 episodes, because I was so suckered in by the show.

Another thing that I don't know whether to call a strength, or weakness of the show is that character flaws are very VERY apparent. This usually manifests in the characters doing extremely stupid, or annoying things. I'm not sure whether, or not I should be bothered by this since on one hand this is part of their character, but on the other some of the things they do are really stupid.

The overall ending of the series wasn't something I would call disappointing, but it left a sort of bad taste in my mouth. It mainly comes from two aspects:

One is the circumstances on how the final main villain Buu was defeated. This is an interesting topic, because it gets me thinking on how much one should relinquish real world realism common sense to create a more optimistic, and wish full-filling scenario. In more spoilerly terms:

Spoiler below!

Kid Buu was defeated by Goku's Spirit Bomb Attack which he created by gathering energy from all of Earth's people. They initially refused to do so out of skepticism when asked by Gou, and Vegeta, but later instantly gave their energy when Mr. Satan (A false hero who took credit for defeating the previous villain Cell) did it.

On one hand it's a very realistic interpretation on how we would react, but on the other hand it's just downright depressing, and cynical to see the entire Earth turn away from what can save their world, and only do it when a false hero does the asking. The whole thing just turns out very depressing.

Which is why I think that sometimes to create a more satisfying viewing experience to the viewer, sometimes it's okay to take advantage of a viewer's suspension of disbelief, and create more wish fulfillment. I would not have noticed it at all if Earth decided to give their energy when Goku, and Vegeta did it.

Second is the actual ENDING ending final scene of the series: Goku is a horrible father, and husband. That is all.

Still though this show was definitely worth every second of my time, and it was a blast to watch all 291 episodes of it, and seeing it through from start to end!

------------------------------------------

The next show I am going to watch is going to be Clannad. Main reason for this is because I seem to have a soft spot for D'AAWW mushy cute love stories*, and I heard that this show delivers hard.


*I noticed this trait of mine even more during Dragon Ball Z after Videl came into the show. After she did a whole ton of my attention in the ENTIRE show was devoted to being excited about how Gohan, and her's love life was turning out.

EDIT: Oh and favorite single moment in the show ever:

Spoiler below!

[Red]

Clannad ? I recommend to pile up some tissueboxes already, and prepare emotionally for the worst, then you might make it trought. Good luck.

[CorinthianMerchant]

Finished Texhnolyze, really depressing and bleak, sometimes slow, but very fascinating. Solid 8.5/10.

Also if Kreekakon whatches NGE we'll get a 50-page analysis!

[Kreekakon]

Also if Kreekakon whatches NGE we'll get a 50-page analysis!

That really depends on if my brain decides to start thinking after I finish a show lol. If I have thoughts I could type for near an eternity, but if I finish a show and I only think "Wow that was great, really entertaining", then I can't type anything. Not meaning that something that makes me think this is bad, just that it didn't kickstart a train of thought.

Anyways started watching Clannad. On episode 9 so far. It's sweet, cute, touching, humorous, and slow as hell...all aspects that come out when it needs to be! Just the way I like it! Looking forward to how this plays out.

[Red]

The real shit starts from the After Story, the second season. The first season is just a warm-up for the events to come. Compared to each other, they're both at the whole different level. You will definitely notice the change at some point.

[Kreekakon]

Ok so I just finished the first season of Clannad, and I have to say as a whole it is pretty good. I’ll share some thoughts on the show, but don’t expect me to cover everything since these are mostly spontaneous thoughts that popped into my head!

There WILL be very light spoilers in the following since I don’t think there’s a way to properly convoy what is going on in this series without talking about them.

First things first I want to talk about the characters since this story is highly character driven. Almost all of the main cast are extremely likeable each with their own unique quips, and charms that drive me to smile whenever I see them bantering around on screen. This is greatly amplified by the extremely simple, but mellow BGMs that pop up to accompany these moments from time to time. There are no assholes in this series, and the atmosphere is cheerful throughout.

Continuing on I want to touch a bit on characters more individually, and in-depth: This show carries itself through at least in the earlier phases through various arcs. (Strictly speaking only two have extreme deviations from the main overarching plot though). The “heroines” of these plotlines were the main outstanding stars in great characters.

My favorite one is likely Fuko. The reason I liked Fuko so much is because her arc carried variety, and with that variety came a splendid amount of varying moments for her. She could go from completely sad to dizzied by Starfish to snarky to being childishly happy in her own way. All these reactions were very well placed, and the more serious moments really made me feel as if it was exactly how a person like her would feel. She was all in all a great character with problems that are relatable.

There is one thing that I didn’t like about Fuko which is that after her character arc ended, and her wish was now fulfilled she would continue to appear as comical relief for gags. The main reason I didn’t like this is because since her character arc just ended on such a bitter sweet note, and she was believed to have gone, then why bring her back just to act as some weird gag character? In my opinion it trivializes her entire previous character arc somewhat. However since the story-writers seemed to at least be very consistent with her appearing all over the place in even later episodes multiple times I was gradually more okay with it, and it didn’t bother me that much anymore. From a critical standpoint though I thought it was still worth pointing out.

After Fuko then comes a very close runner-up who is Nagisa herself. She probably wouldn’t have made it this high on my likings if it weren’t for the last couple episodes which focused a lot around her. She is much more static than Fuko, but still has noticeable traits and a very likeable quality to her overall. It’s difficult not to like her. However the glowing example shines through in the last two episodes during which she has to come to terms with a very difficult inner obstacle. The progress of her overcoming this hurdle with the help of her family, and friends proved to be one of the very high points for the series, and pushed her character way up. It was incredibly touching.

A minor flaw that I have noticed with her is that I didn’t really feel the power of her motivation of her wanting to reform the club extremely strongly. Instead of feeling like “Yes! I must recreate this club! It is the dream of the century, and my life is over if I don’t!” it felt more like “Eeeehhhh, I kind of want to remake this theater club, because I think it’s nice, and all…” The motivation was not felt very strongly in my opinion.

Next up unfortunately falling way back, but someone I feel I should address anyways, because she’s one of the heroines is Kotomi. She does undergo growth, and has her own share of problems that needs to be dealt with, but I found her the more boring of the heroines simply because her variety was more lacking, and it never seemed to pick up that much.

After talking about those three, I’d like to get onto the slightly more negative side starting with Okasaki, the main character of the story. I’ve found that this “problem” (It may be viable to argue that this isn’t one) is there in various media which usually have a high number of characters in which a high number of them require attention from the story. It’s that the main character usually sacrifices room to have his own distinct traits in favor of developing the character that is in the spotlight currently. He never seems to ever have developed anything too substantial regarding his supposed “hate for school”, or his dad problems. The problems were just there and never touched upon. That being said I really liked the progressions on his “romantic” life, and I’ll touch on that later.

For the most of the supporting cast they really didn’t have too much of screentime to develop depth of their own. Sunohara, Sanae, and Akio were all extremely colorful though so they’re highly appreciated!

Next I want to talk about the pacing, and the story’s atmosphere itself. Possibly one of my favorite things in anime is when they are able to pull off compelling, and funny happenings in the series without resorting to heavy fanservice. There is a bit of fanservice occasionally, but the series mainly wins me over with its extremely cheerful and optimistic tone that it has throughout. Never does it have to resort to ridiculousness that crosses the line in good taste.

The story’s pacing is an area which has flaws, but also has parts that it excels in. The parts that it mainly excels in is taking the plot extremely slowly, and therefore slowly bringing out the ending point of the series, or even just one arc. It makes the whole thing feel very satisfying. Probably my favorite one of these is arguably a spoiler so here:

Spoiler below!

How Okasaki realizes his love for Nagisa, and how the two eventually discover that themselves. It took it very slowly, and it worked out great in the end.

An aspect that I felt could have been improved is the sense of the overarching plot in the early character arcs. This is more subjective since a greater focus on the character arc at hand is good for the character arc, but I felt that it made the story feel like it deviated extremely far. It was always kind of funny to me how the characters are trying to set up the theater club, and then get distracted by someone else’s character arc.

Finally in the very end I felt like ranting for a small bit on why I don’t like full-blown harems (Since Clannad arguably has that in a sense). Simply put I feel that it is simply too coincidental, and unlikely that SO many girls could like the same guy at one time, and in such close proximity to each other. One could argue that this is part of the ridiculousness that certain anime has to offer, but I would say that I don’t have a problem with most of ridiculousness since most of that is done for humor purposes, and falls under suspension of disbelief. Cold, hard character relationships I believe do not fall into this category (At least not for me), so it is not a ridiculousness that I can overlook.

All in all, Clannad has its share of imperfections, but its greatly optimistic tone, and touching character-driven plot has made this time exceptionally worthwhile. Extremely solid 8/10

Also holy moly, that was a lot of words. I did not expect to end up typing this much when I started (Says me everytime XD)

[Potato]

Maaaan, looking back on it, Nichijou had a really nice soundtrack. I'll have to watch it again, I really need something so warm to watch again. Seeing as how it got taken off CR I'll have to resort to shady streams off of google, but that's fine with me.

[video=youtube]http://youtu.be/YprMfkYL6tg[/video]

[CorinthianMerchant]

I recently rewatched the entirety of NGE+ EoE. Such a spectacular series with so many fascinating themes and deep characters.

And now for something completely different...

Spoiler below!

The hype train is ready for departure!

[Kreekakon]

Well, this post is coming in a bit late, since I already finished the show a couple days ago...but I still want to talk a bit about Clannad: After Story.

Long story short, and most important tibbit: You WILL cry. Once the feels train starts going it is not going to stop.

Long version (No SPOILERS): After watching the first season I thought it was pretty good, but After Story despite having a rocky start completely took my heart, and deconstructed it to a pile of lovely mush.

After Story's opening stories were mostly quite meh especially when compared to the first season's character stories.

Yukine's story, despite her being quite a likable character, was particularly horribly contrived, and definitely the lowest point of the entire series. Her story made very little sense, and many of the reasons that certain events that are set into motion are result of the characters' stupidity.

The others were much better (Though that's not saying much) with Misae's arc being probably my most liked one out of the three.

But after the character arcs are over it's when the "fun" truly begins. Referencing a review that I saw, the first season of Clannad is the depiction of "school life", and After Story is the depiction of "life itself".

There are so many reasons that the story works, and I'll list them off point by point since there are more than a few:

1. The characters' interactions, obstacles, and natures are all good at heart.

Not once in the series have I seen problems arise because of "cynical" issues such as cheating, distrust, or general bitching (Save for very few things which I feel like was handled well enough that it didn't give off a negative vibe too much, or that I just couldn't blame them). The characters in the series are all very supportive of each other, and want each other to succeed. Seeing them all be so positive, and never resenting one another makes the plot, and story very likable, and in turn makes me want to see them succeed.

This is extremely impressive since they came up with obstacles that the characters had to overcome without making them seem like bitchy people who resent their lives.

The obstacles are no less impactful though, and put very heavy strain on the characters.

2. The character development is extremely apparent, and very well paced.

You can see the main cast move through their lives, and VERY visibly be different from when they were still high school students. They are now members of society with family members to support, and they mature up massively. When they run into problems they also deal with them maturely (Or at least realize that they have to mature up)

3. The contrast in theme between season 1, and After Story.

I have seen complaints on some reviews that the first season was relying too much on moe aspects, and too randomly cute. However, same as with what I said before with Higurashi, I believe that this was actually an intentional, and positive theme that they put in for the series AS A WHOLE.

The cutesy nature of the first season reflects the care-free nature of pre-adult life. There are problems in such a life, but they are all trivial for the most part easily overcome when worked towards hard enough. It is significantly less heavy than society life problems.

However once the characters graduate from school the cutesy nature of the series is mostly gone save for light-hearted segments. This reflects the heavy nature of society life, and how serious dealing with it can be sometimes.

I believe another intentional addition was removing many of the secondary characters from the picture. While this is apparently done so that the main characters can have more screentime, I believe it was also done to reflect how everyone parts ways, and rarely see each other after school.

4. The characters all are extremely close, and work VERY hard to maintain this closeness, and their happiness.

Nothing much to say about this. It is a hard sensation to describe in words. It is also a very main reason why one will cry when it works out (Happiness), or doesn't work out (Sadness) for the characters.

5. The story is relatable.

It is actually scarily relatable. The story is one that one could not rule out completely of happening in one's true life. All the happy, and all the bad could happen, and that boosts the power of the story oh so much.

It is so relatable that it can even cause you to rethink certain aspects of your life, and realize things that you have overseen...mostly in the department of love, family, and relationships with people in general. It has potential to be life-changing.


That's basically all of my main thoughts on After Story. I could go deeper, and talk about individual story happenings, but I felt that they would all eventually lead back to one of my above mentioned points, so there's little point.

All in all, this series was amazing, and potentially life-changing. The opening episodes were a bit on the weak side, but the second half is truly amazing. Once the feels train starts it won't stop.

This has now officially become the second media which has made me cry genuine tears after Higurashi Kai, and the FIRST to make me continuously cry on multiple occasions.