[Dolmen 2.0]

Kill la kill is alot like Gurren lagaan but the school girl version and with skimpyness factor maxed out.

I am tempted to get back into ginatama, can anyone recommend a new anime thats gotten a few laughs out of you? I'm keen for some relaxation once all the marking gets past through...

[QuickTidal]

BalrogLord, on 24 November 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 24 November 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

I tried KILL LA KILL....and hated the animation style...I found the story to be servicable, but nothing special.

until what episode?

I thunk I watched the first two only. But I was unimpressed.

[Silencer]

D, on 25 November 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Silencer, on 24 November 2013 - 07:45 AM, said:

Strike the Blood is actually pretty good so far. I'm a few episodes in and aside from the typical romance angle it's been moderately intriguing and well presented in terms of exposition, action, and plot development getting just enough of each to keep them balanced.

I watched the first two episodes of this. Seems to be another one of those shows where for no reason whatsoever they've decided the female characters all need to wear schoolgirl outifts all the time for no reason whatsoever, and in fact the entire plot of the first episode could have been avoided if lance girl was wearing pants. Or even just culottes, which would make perfect sense given how much she likes doing triple backflips.

So that was kind of annoying. Getting major twilight vibes from it, too, so I'm not interested in watching the rest of this show regularly. The quality of the art is good, so I might put on an episode here and there when I'm multitasking.

Lastly, "Lion King Organization" is the stupidest thing I've heard all week.

Haha, I generally have no issue with the schoolgirl uniform when the character in question actually attends school at least semi-regularly.


I guess, and I can't believe I'm defending constant sailor suits, I have to point out that, for a long time, and even to some extent today, Japanese school students are expected to wear their uniforms waaaaaaaay more than Western kids are. Considering the school week is like 6 days long, and you have to wear your uniform to and from school, and some even just have a general "wear it all the time" outlook, it's actually not that surprising that any given character who attends school in Japan is wearing their school uniform 90% of the time they are on screen. Granted, anime tends to play things like that up for fanservice, but even so, it does have some grounding in reality. (The lack of pants for someone so prone to acrobatics is, naturally, inexcusable in a modern setting, however, you are quite correct. Chalk that up to obligatory fanservice. *sigh*)

>.>

Anyway, point being, if you're marching into a nuclear wasteland, no, you should not be in your sailor fuku. If you are between school and home and get distracted by having to kill a few thugs, then yes, you probably will be doing so in your sailor fuku. How they keep them clean, or how much it costs to constantly replace them due to all the damage sustained, is not disclosed. XD

Also, the main character does actually drink blood, so it's about ten thousand times better than Twilight so far. XD

[D'rek]

Silencer, on 26 November 2013 - 12:04 AM, said:

D, on 25 November 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Silencer, on 24 November 2013 - 07:45 AM, said:

Strike the Blood is actually pretty good so far. I'm a few episodes in and aside from the typical romance angle it's been moderately intriguing and well presented in terms of exposition, action, and plot development getting just enough of each to keep them balanced.

I watched the first two episodes of this. Seems to be another one of those shows where for no reason whatsoever they've decided the female characters all need to wear schoolgirl outifts all the time for no reason whatsoever, and in fact the entire plot of the first episode could have been avoided if lance girl was wearing pants. Or even just culottes, which would make perfect sense given how much she likes doing triple backflips.

So that was kind of annoying. Getting major twilight vibes from it, too, so I'm not interested in watching the rest of this show regularly. The quality of the art is good, so I might put on an episode here and there when I'm multitasking.

Lastly, "Lion King Organization" is the stupidest thing I've heard all week.

Haha, I generally have no issue with the schoolgirl uniform when the character in question actually attends school at least semi-regularly.


I guess, and I can't believe I'm defending constant sailor suits, I have to point out that, for a long time, and even to some extent today, Japanese school students are expected to wear their uniforms waaaaaaaay more than Western kids are. Considering the school week is like 6 days long, and you have to wear your uniform to and from school, and some even just have a general "wear it all the time" outlook, it's actually not that surprising that any given character who attends school in Japan is wearing their school uniform 90% of the time they are on screen. Granted, anime tends to play things like that up for fanservice, but even so, it does have some grounding in reality. (The lack of pants for someone so prone to acrobatics is, naturally, inexcusable in a modern setting, however, you are quite correct. Chalk that up to obligatory fanservice. *sigh*)

>.>

Anyway, point being, if you're marching into a nuclear wasteland, no, you should not be in your sailor fuku. If you are between school and home and get distracted by having to kill a few thugs, then yes, you probably will be doing so in your sailor fuku. How they keep them clean, or how much it costs to constantly replace them due to all the damage sustained, is not disclosed. XD

Also, the main character does actually drink blood, so it's about ten thousand times better than Twilight so far. XD

Okay, but why did she have to enroll in school in the first place? She moves to this island from a secret cult temple where no one knew she existed. Her job now is to follow the dude around so much that he can't walk across the street to the convenience store without her rushing out to follow him. Why wouldn't she just not enroll in the school, thereby not having to go to class, meaning she can follow him obsessively during those school hours too?

[amphibian]

I don't understand the insistence upon school as a setting. A ton of anime do this and it's gotten beyond a reflection of Japanese life into a tired crutch that leads to the same dynamics over and over again. It's often lazy dirty telling and makes a fetish out of being a stupid teenager.

[blanketman2.0]

D, on 26 November 2013 - 03:50 AM, said:

Silencer, on 26 November 2013 - 12:04 AM, said:

D, on 25 November 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Silencer, on 24 November 2013 - 07:45 AM, said:

Strike the Blood is actually pretty good so far. I'm a few episodes in and aside from the typical romance angle it's been moderately intriguing and well presented in terms of exposition, action, and plot development getting just enough of each to keep them balanced.

I watched the first two episodes of this. Seems to be another one of those shows where for no reason whatsoever they've decided the female characters all need to wear schoolgirl outifts all the time for no reason whatsoever, and in fact the entire plot of the first episode could have been avoided if lance girl was wearing pants. Or even just culottes, which would make perfect sense given how much she likes doing triple backflips.

So that was kind of annoying. Getting major twilight vibes from it, too, so I'm not interested in watching the rest of this show regularly. The quality of the art is good, so I might put on an episode here and there when I'm multitasking.

Lastly, "Lion King Organization" is the stupidest thing I've heard all week.

Haha, I generally have no issue with the schoolgirl uniform when the character in question actually attends school at least semi-regularly.


I guess, and I can't believe I'm defending constant sailor suits, I have to point out that, for a long time, and even to some extent today, Japanese school students are expected to wear their uniforms waaaaaaaay more than Western kids are. Considering the school week is like 6 days long, and you have to wear your uniform to and from school, and some even just have a general "wear it all the time" outlook, it's actually not that surprising that any given character who attends school in Japan is wearing their school uniform 90% of the time they are on screen. Granted, anime tends to play things like that up for fanservice, but even so, it does have some grounding in reality. (The lack of pants for someone so prone to acrobatics is, naturally, inexcusable in a modern setting, however, you are quite correct. Chalk that up to obligatory fanservice. *sigh*)

>.>

Anyway, point being, if you're marching into a nuclear wasteland, no, you should not be in your sailor fuku. If you are between school and home and get distracted by having to kill a few thugs, then yes, you probably will be doing so in your sailor fuku. How they keep them clean, or how much it costs to constantly replace them due to all the damage sustained, is not disclosed. XD

Also, the main character does actually drink blood, so it's about ten thousand times better than Twilight so far. XD

Okay, but why did she have to enroll in school in the first place? She moves to this island from a secret cult temple where no one knew she existed. Her job now is to follow the dude around so much that he can't walk across the street to the convenience store without her rushing out to follow him. Why wouldn't she just not enroll in the school, thereby not having to go to class, meaning she can follow him obsessively during those school hours too?

i just chalk up the show as a guilty pleasure of this season because i cant reasonably say why i like strike the blood but for some reason i do but Unbreakable Machine Doll i watch for the same reason i watch the second haft of Death Note
as i watch a good premise become crap and i'm enjoying it as it hits the proverbial fan so to speak.

[Silencer]

D, on 26 November 2013 - 03:50 AM, said:

Okay, but why did she have to enroll in school in the first place? She moves to this island from a secret cult temple where no one knew she existed. Her job now is to follow the dude around so much that he can't walk across the street to the convenience store without her rushing out to follow him. Why wouldn't she just not enroll in the school, thereby not having to go to class, meaning she can follow him obsessively during those school hours too?

Better complaint. I'm going to say "because PLOT and FANSERVICE!" are probably the real reasons, but one could argue that being enrolled in the school is less conspicuous than just stalking someone in a school randomly. Would have made more sense if she lied about her age and got "conveniently" put in the same class as him, though, rather than the current setup. If I were apologizing for the poor excuse, I could also guess that maybe at some point it may be dropped that one does not simply walk around on the specially constructed magical island thing without either being a student, or employed there. Perhaps. Think of Academy City in INDEX/Railgun, but more pedantic. At least, if I had anything to do with the plot and just HAD to have the female lead in a school uniform, and had almost completely free reign over the setting, I'd probably do something like that to explain it. >.<

I think also there's a bit of a sub-plot going on with the LKO (because, yes, "Lion King Organisation" is the WORST secret-supernatural-police name EVER...though at least you'd probably be mistaken for a bunch of crazy kids if you ever got found? XD) deliberately setting them up to fall in love, or something. Which is so very anime, and cliche. But may provide further insight into playing the typical schoolgirl tropes to the nines with our love interest. *shrug* Also think the convenience store bit was quite obviously NOT to do with her mission; or at least, it was her blatantly taking her mission to "observe" him too seriously. At least, that was how I took it. >.> Then again, I tend to write most of that crap off as "fanservice, ignore" in plot terms. Anime requires a certain amount of leeway with that stuff. Personal thresholds are obviously different, but after you've watched the tenth anime or so you tend to manage to put aside some of the gratuitous tropes which are far too universal.

Leading us to...

amphibian, on 26 November 2013 - 03:58 AM, said:

I don't understand the insistence upon school as a setting. A ton of anime do this and it's gotten beyond a reflection of Japanese life into a tired crutch that leads to the same dynamics over and over again. It's often lazy dirty telling and makes a fetish out of being a stupid teenager.

A very good complaint. Personally it's almost to the point where I am more surprised at an anime NOT being set in a school of some kind than the main character dying a horrible death in episode 7 or so. I don't think it's entirely a bad thing - the setting does provide for some very easy reference points, and relationships are easy to establish, so if it's done well it serves a simple, familiar base on which to build the proper story and so forth.

It is not usually done very well, however, and ends up being the basis for lazy storytelling and very tired tropes and obvious gags. If I peruse my top ten, however, I notice something interesting. Generally, the are either not set in high school, or the high school setting is almost entirely ancillary to the plot/action/characters. In fact, by and large they fall into the latter category. Which I find interesting, because it does mean that the issues wit high school settings tend to come from it being handled poorly and overused (likely trying to ape the success of the very good ones, while missing the point) rather than the setting engendering too many of the tropes.

Then again, when I look at my whole list, I don't watch that many generic high-school setting shows. Sure, half or more of the shows are set in high schools, but most of them I can barely recall more than a couple of the obligatory high-school tropes being present, and none are meaningful.
Either that, or I'm blissfully able to coast over the painful parts and forget them. XD Entirely possible, but, seriously, I think you could elaborate a bit on your complaint, amph - much as I instinctively agree with it, I'm now struggling to put my finger on more than one or two series I've watched which actually abuse the high school thing.

(I wouldn't be too surprised at the fetishising being a teenager, tho'...there are a whole bunch of reasons why that is, and most of them should be readily apparent - escapism, "write what you know", and yes, fanservice, the omnipresent trope of doom, as far as anime is concerned...)

[LinearPhilosopher]

amphibian, on 26 November 2013 - 03:58 AM, said:

I don't understand the insistence upon school as a setting. A ton of anime do this and it's gotten beyond a reflection of Japanese life into a tired crutch that leads to the same dynamics over and over again. It's often lazy dirty telling and makes a fetish out of being a stupid teenager.

marketing, most of their demographic is in highschool.

QuickTidal, on 25 November 2013 - 05:59 PM, said:

BalrogLord, on 24 November 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 24 November 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

I tried KILL LA KILL....and hated the animation style...I found the story to be servicable, but nothing special.

until what episode?

I thunk I watched the first two only. But I was unimpressed.

i had similar feelings, again i think you should give it another try.

[Kanese S's]

One of my friends was dating a woman from Japan who was coming here for college, for a while. Apparently her high school hadn't had uniforms. So school uniforms are, while common, by no means ubiquitous, in Japan.

[Kanese S's]

Yeah, that's my main complaint with Attack on Titan. Relatively minor incidents take way too many episodes.

[Silencer]

Kanese S, on 26 November 2013 - 09:26 PM, said:

One of my friends was dating a woman from Japan who was coming here for college, for a while. Apparently her high school hadn't had uniforms. So school uniforms are, while common, by no means ubiquitous, in Japan.

I don't think anyone made the claim that they were (never mind that the Discussion Board part of my brain is screaming "anecdotal evidence!" ). They are insanely more common than in the US, however, and probably most of the rest of the 'West', too. Certainly, until recently the trend was for highly traditional uniforms, too, like the sailor fuku and it's opposite male number. Apparently, Japan has lately been moving away from those and towards more Western uniforms, but it's just an inherent part of their culture at this point. Especially with more traditional/prestigious schools, wearing the uniform properly outside of school is a pretty big deal.

As with everything, of course, the presentation in media, in this case anime, is not going to perfectly reflect reality, though. *shrug*

[amphibian]

Isn't the primary audience of anime and manga over 20? I recall seeing that something like 70 percent of One Piece fans are out of their teens.

[Kanese S's]

Silencer, on 27 November 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

Kanese S, on 26 November 2013 - 09:26 PM, said:

One of my friends was dating a woman from Japan who was coming here for college, for a while. Apparently her high school hadn't had uniforms. So school uniforms are, while common, by no means ubiquitous, in Japan.

I don't think anyone made the claim that they were (never mind that the Discussion Board part of my brain is screaming "anecdotal evidence!" ). They are insanely more common than in the US, however, and probably most of the rest of the 'West', too. Certainly, until recently the trend was for highly traditional uniforms, too, like the sailor fuku and it's opposite male number. Apparently, Japan has lately been moving away from those and towards more Western uniforms, but it's just an inherent part of their culture at this point. Especially with more traditional/prestigious schools, wearing the uniform properly outside of school is a pretty big deal.

As with everything, of course, the presentation in media, in this case anime, is not going to perfectly reflect reality, though. *shrug*

Oh yes, way more common than the USA, but not quite universal. Still, in anime, practically any time there's a high school setting, they are in uniforms. I admit to having drawn false impressions from this and was surprised when said Japanese woman noted that her high school hadn't had them. I suppose I was dumb for making the assumption, though.

[Silencer]

amphibian, on 27 November 2013 - 05:52 AM, said:

Isn't the primary audience of anime and manga over 20? I recall seeing that something like 70 percent of One Piece fans are out of their teens.

The demographic you're referring to is 'seinen', and at least in Japan, it's apparently not the big market - TV Tropes on the subject. And that's a pretty broad demographic - 18 to 40!

I don't know about outside Japan, though. In Japan anime probably suffers even worse from the whole 'otaku' thing, so apparently kids to late teens are the primary target audience and make up the bulk of viewers. You kinda get that impression from all the stupid shonen action shows (like Dragonball, etc, are almost all "shonen"-oriented) which are around, and yes, they probably tend to be more action oriented, less solid plots, and less actual romance on screen.

That being said, I can probably think of plenty of seinen shows which are set in high schools. And it may very well have more to do with the fact that 20+'s are watching the shonen shows a lot more than surveys or statistics would imply, as it's pretty much something you don't want to admit, over there. XD

[LinearPhilosopher]

amphibian, on 27 November 2013 - 05:52 AM, said:

Isn't the primary audience of anime and manga over 20? I recall seeing that something like 70 percent of One Piece fans are out of their teens.

not sure if this is true of the home market, but in the abroad market, most of the individuals watching anime got into it in their teens years.

[D'rek]

amphibian, on 27 November 2013 - 05:52 AM, said:

Isn't the primary audience of anime and manga over 20? I recall seeing that something like 70 percent of One Piece fans are out of their teens.

One Piece probably isn't a very good example, since it's been running so long anyone who was a teen when it started is now in their seventies

[amphibian]

One Piece is the biggest seller in Japan, isn't it?

I think you guys are confusing my questions regarding what the demographics are of those who make most of the manga purchases and anime buying/watching with who the many different ones are targeting.

Who buys the most of this stuff in Japan?

[LinearPhilosopher]

http://anime.stackex...lar-demographic

http://otakulounge.w...e-demographics/
"Today, shounen manga continues to be the highest selling demographic of manga to date."

given it's the internet, this isn't exactly imperical but for our purposes it should be conclusive

This post has been edited by BalrogLord: 28 November 2013 - 12:15 PM

[Dolmen 2.0]

BalrogLord, on 28 November 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

http://anime.stackex...lar-demographic

http://otakulounge.w...e-demographics/
"Today, shounen manga continues to be the highest selling demographic of manga to date."

given it's the internet, this isn't exactly imperical but for our purposes it should be conclusive

...so, the lion share is mostly manga aimed at teenage boys and young men alike? Not surprising, though I'm a bit impressed by the amount of shoujo sales. As low as the shoujo listings are, I thought it would be less Maybe the market is growing?

Also I'd like to highlight all the girls I know familiar with manga are as interested in shounen as they are with shoujo...that may muss up the translation of these numbers quite a bit.

[Silencer]

Dolmen+, on 28 November 2013 - 02:47 PM, said:

BalrogLord, on 28 November 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

http://anime.stackex...lar-demographic

http://otakulounge.w...e-demographics/
"Today, shounen manga continues to be the highest selling demographic of manga to date."

given it's the internet, this isn't exactly imperical but for our purposes it should be conclusive

...so, the lion share is mostly manga aimed at teenage boys and young men alike? Not surprising, though I'm a bit impressed by the amount of shoujo sales. As low as the shoujo listings are, I thought it would be less Maybe the market is growing?

Also I'd like to highlight all the girls I know familiar with manga are as interested in shounen as they are with shoujo...that may muss up the translation of these numbers quite a bit.

It's also not unthinkable that there are guys who like shoujo too, of course.

@Worry - wasn't mixing up your question, shounen is the largest target demographic *because* it's the largest selling market. Not least because older guys (and as Dolmen points out, girls) are also a viable part of that market despite not being in the demographic, whereas seinen stuff has a lot less mass-market appeal.