[D'rek]

Good, those are the easier ones

Probably most people here would say Shin Sekai Yori is the best fantastical anime in the last year (has it been a year?) even if I don't like it all that much

Attack on Titan is probably the most acclaimed best actiony-entertaining anime in the last yearish (not quite the last year, but it fits in the last year and a quarter/half or so).

I have no idea what to recommend for funny animes in the last year. Can't think of any in the last year that hold a candle to Hataraku Maou-sama! {The Devil is a Part-Timer} - which was early 2013, IIRC - or Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de {something like "Super Battles in Everyday Life"} - which just started.

[LinearPhilosopher]

D, on 14 October 2014 - 05:54 PM, said:

BalrogLord, on 14 October 2014 - 05:45 PM, said:

Ill definetly have to check out bahamut.

Very much enjoying F/UBW, psychopass s2 and Log horizon s2.

And much liek d to the rek I skipped latest ep of GGO once i realised it was a recap episode. Best recap episode was Kill La kill IMO, and no other series comes close to it.

Not even the meta-game-show episode of Ergo Proxy? (I'm kidding, that was stupid)

They actually did a whole first season recap OVA of SAO1 a while back, too, with the last 20 minutes being new content (just a random little fairyland adventure with no bearing on the rest of the show), and the whole thing framed within Kirito being interviewed by the government guy and the girls teaching his sister how to swim. Nice that the new content was at the end so you can just skip to that if you're curious.

IIRC, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann tried to do something similar but the new content was right in the middle of the whole thing, so it was kinda weird (and the new content itself was basically a "lost episode" that maybe should have been there from the start).

What did Kill la Kill do?

I re edited my post.

Also iirc, the game show on ergo proxy wasn't an actual recap episode, It was an exposition episode. For ttgl the recap occupied the first half of the episode (wasn't it also the same episode as the beach episode?)

Best recent anime was No game no Life. If you want anime outside of this year, there's Attack on Titan, Shin sekai yori and Psycho-pass, Blast of the tempest also had its moments

This post has been edited by BalrogLord: 14 October 2014 - 07:11 PM

[D'rek]

BalrogLord, on 14 October 2014 - 07:07 PM, said:

If you want anime outside of this year, there's Attack on Titan, Shin sekai yori and Psycho-pass, Blast of the tempest also had its moments

Hmm, I guess those were all technically not airing within a year ago. Maybe it's better to say "of 2013" and "of 2014", as there's lots of good shows on right now that may or may not finish as strong as they've begun, so the jury is still out.

Then you can add Log Horizon S1 (let's say half-fantastical half-actiony) and I can happily leave the best comedy suggestions as Hataraku Maou-sama and Space Dandy.

[LinearPhilosopher]

d'rek did you see the video yet?

[D'rek]

BalrogLord, on 14 October 2014 - 11:34 PM, said:

d'rek did you see the video yet?

Ok, yup, that wins

[Silencer]

D, on 14 October 2014 - 03:31 PM, said:

All the shows I'm watching this season come out Saturday/Sunday so I can just do a big weekly post!


Fate/Stay Night/UBW (ep 1, but there was an ep0 last week) - I'm not sure I get what the point of the "episode 0" was last week...I'd even say I think flipping the order of ep0 and ep1 would have been better. It would have made the Lancer->Shirou more surprising. It makes this weird tone shift of episode 0 being tense and scene-setting, then the start of episode 1 being super happy days/slapstick (especially with the Fuji bits) and then back to dark. Oh well, no biggie. Not sure how I feel about a protaganist who doesn't know the rules of the game itself, considering how little this series ever explains of whether there even are any rules or not, let alone what they are, but whatever we'll see how it goes. And Iris' daughter is creepy!

Hmm. I am inclined to agree with you, and I think the only reason I can see for doing it the other way around is that 1) UBW is Rin's storyline, not Shirou's and 2) That's the order that stuff happened in the source game. Otherwise I agree, it doesn't flow exceptionally well.


The rules are simple (and I think get explained in this week's episode, iirc):

1. No fighting in public/NO WITNESSES - upholding the Masquerade is paramount.
2. The Church is safe ground - no fighting there or killing any who have sought sanctuary with the Church and are on the grounds.
3. Everything else is fair game. Kill all other Servants, preferably their Masters too, and claim the Grail for yourself.

Spoiler

Shirou mostly says "fuck you" to the basis of the game anyway. Or tries to.

[D'rek]

Weekly update!

Fate/Stay Night/UBW (2) - Well, nice to have some actual rules laid out about this whole deathmatch thing. Even having watched Fate/Zero it's nice to have some of the "wait, they're allowed to do that?" bits from Zero made a bit more clear.

Kirei sounds like an ass, he's probably got some secret agenda or something... heck why does he get to be the church representative anyway, you'd think they'd have sent someone a bit less creeptastic. Interesting that Rin already knew Shirou was a mage, I expected her to not know he had any involvement in the arcane world.

And mini-Iris is still super creepy


Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de (3) - Still hilarious.

However, even then I'm not giving this show enough credit. I thought this show would be pure melodrama and slapstick, but at the end of episode 2 there was a surprisingly touching part. Episode 3 continues on that, and the ending/preview for episode 4 looks like it is going to be even more so. As much as this is chiefly a silly comedy, there's a deeper and grimmer side to these characters and it looks like this show is going to deal with that, too. So far, it looks like it will do a great job of that, too.

This show has a lot of heart in it, but there's a few little hints and bits that were glossed over with comedy earlier that if they come up again in a more serious light could be a bit of a tearjerker, too. Plus there was a new tertiary character in this episode that, if I'm remembering the end-of-episode-1 hook correctly is a lot more than he seems, meaning the superpowers plot is definitely going somewhere eventually. I'm very curious to see where and how this goes forward.


Log Horizon s2 (3) - This week's episode is Log Horizon doing what Log Horizon does best: being as super duper MMORPGish as it can, with detailed explanations of a Raid and learning boss abilities, talking about stats, etc etc. It was fun.

The amount of detail in this show continues to amaze me, with every background character having such different looks, styles, vocals, etc.

I really don't get what they are trying to do with Akatsuki. IIRC, in the first season she said she was past college. She's not a little girl, and as much as she may enjoy roleplaying being a dutiful assassin servant, she's been in the MMOPRG world for over a year like everyone else, and I don't get why she goes along with them treating her like a kid or why she stays in town doing nothing just because Shiro didn't invite her along on his quest. Girl, if you want to go on a raid because you've never been on one, you don't need to wait for Shiro to suggest it. Tell him you really want to come on his raid, or better yet go on your own damn raid without him. This same episode references very easy raids for beginners, shouldn't be too hard to organize a handful of others in town who are interested! But instead she just mopes around town like a puppy told to stay.


Shingeki no Bahamut (3) - Really good episode this week. Very well done, subtle adds to the worldbuilding and character backstory while the episode was still mainly just "Favaro, Amira and Kaisar fall into a sticky situation along their journey and must fight their way out, with a few surprises along the way" as it should be. To be honest, the first two episodes kind of throw a lot of random references and visuals at you with not enough context, and its nice to see they are going to explain it (gradually), not just be weirdly vague and confusing all season.

Also, zombies and necromancers make for the best late-Halloween episodes!


Sword Art Online II (15) - Go go gratuitous naked Asuna scene! Siiiiigh.

So they are back in ALF and have a new quest, and Kirito is still center stage. Is this going to be a little two-episode interlude? Because from what I have heard of the Rosario Arc this doesn't seem like it is setup for that. Or were all the Rosario Arc rumours just rumours and maybe they are not doing that at all?

[Silencer]

RE: SAO - Caliber is a side story, the same as Mother Rosario. I expect that between them, they'll round out this season to the full 24/26 episodes, unless they are 1) including some other side stories or 2) going to cut down the next full arc, (Alicization) to less than ten episodes. Which they could do (I haven't read it yet, not sure how many episodes it could use) but I think I'd be slightly disappointed because of how well the Phantom Bullet arc came out with the length and pacing they gave it compared to how weirdly they presented Aincrad and how much they cut down Fairy Dance, resulting in both being a bit underwhelming.

Hopefully they just round out the season with the side stories. Both Caliber and Mother Rosario could do with more than two episodes to them, but not sure what would go in the left over episodes...

[LinearPhilosopher]

SO finally got the time to catchup on everything. Just got a new job so im still figuring out how to schedule stuff.

Anyways,Shingeki no bahamut is starting to grow on me. Really good episode (3) and im interested inw here this show is going.
Latest episode of korra didn't dissapoint.
Psychopass s2 is already building up so im looking forward to the next episode.
CHaika is coming along well, so let's see where this latest arc.

I just hope SAO doesn't drop in quality since the GGO arc was phenomenal.

[Silencer]

SAO today was good. Only downside is it keeps reminding me of the problems with Destiny as a game. XD (Well, that, and not enough Sinon. >.>)

Fate, however....was absolutely unbelievably FANTASTIC. Helps that I was watching it on a 60 inch tv with surround sound for the first awesome fight of the story, but still. Pure gold.

Now I need to watch Psycho-Pass, but all I want to do is rewatch Fate/Zero and the three episodes of UBW that are out. Dammit. XD

[D'rek]

This week's episodes!!!


Log Horizon s2 (4) - Kind of a boring episode this week, IMO.

Fate/Stay Night/UBW (3) - Fantastic battle episode, and we needed a good fight episode since the last 3 only had bits and pieces. I'd dare say the fight choreography is even better in this than it was in Fate/Zero! And oh my god Archer is actually an Archer!!!

Sword Art Online II (16) - Kirito is such a gloryhog. Still, fun episode with lots of fighty fighty. Good pacing, too - one episode for the whole dungeon, including mini-bosses, and another episode for the final boss next week I presume!

Shingeki no Bahamut (4) - Favaro and Amon's reunion was fantastic - "huh" >> hug >> fight >> "wuuh?" - I loved it! Amara gets the best weird lines. Looks like things are really moving forward big-plot-wise, too, which is even better - I wouldn't have minded 12 singleish episodes but things getting into bigger plotlines will be even better.

Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de (4) - Still funny, but this episode was also quite touching. There's so many little things in this show that totally sell it to me - like Chifuyu being impossibly cute and little, but also clearly smart and manipulative with Andou. And Tomoyo acting embarassed at Andou's reaction to her costume, but smiling when no one is looking... now I know those two are going to end up together! The lolichan bit was unexpected and suuuuper melodramatically creepy, in a perfect way - didn't see that coming at all!

[Silencer]

Aww man, UBW must have the most glorious animation budget. I mean, the only productions that are in this league are KyoAni, and they don't usually have action, just awesome backgrounds. I can't believe they've one-upped Fate/Zero in terms of visuals.

Also: Taiga-sensei is awesome. And possibly the best female equivalent of a wingman ever. XD

Next episode should be super interesting, and then I'm thinking the following episode will be another battle.


SAO wraps up the Caliber arc with a fairly lacklustre boss fight (probably the weakest thing in the first season as well, though this was admittedly better, still not great) and Sinon proving she's still best girl, again (now with more cat ears!). XD

And based on the next episode title we will be going straight on to Mother Rosario.


...and this is the part where I have to give in and start watching Fate/Zero again. Too much win with UBW for me to wait the week out. >.<

[D'rek]

UBW is absolutely well-made, but it is annoying me a bit with its characters being kind of paradoxically dumb sometimes. Like, they outright say a couple times that a big key to this deathmatch is keeping yourself hidden/figuring out who other masters are, but Rin still fights in her highly recognizable school uniform, and Shirou still hasn't thought back to Sakura's hand being marked? Worst of all, Shirou introduces Sabre to other people as... Sabre.

And if Rin and Shirou don't want to enemies so bad (they've said so like five times now) how come neither of them has said the extremely obvious "well, Rin, I don't actually want to fight you if I don't have to. My biggest concern is the Grail being won by someone bad, so how about if we reach the point where it is just us two left we talk about it and maybe there's a wish we'd both want?" It's the super smart and obvious thing to say, there's no reason for either of them not to suggest it.

Likewise, Ilya's "oh, I didn't manage to kill anyone. And my enemies now know who I am, what class my servant is, what his noble phantasm is and from that they can figure out who he is. But no I can totally just pretend everything is fine and that this doesn't affect my supreme dominance." Basically cliche supervillain talk there.

All of which layered on top of Fate/Zero is incredibly frustrating to watch sometimes...

[QuickTidal]

Got a chance to watch the CGI-movie verison os SPACE PIRATE: CAPTAIN HARLOCK...and damned if it wasn't really good! I mean imagine the nicest video cutscene animation on a PS3/X-Box360 era console game, and that's the quality level of the animation. Flowing, and lovely. The acriupt is a prety basic early Harlock plot, but it's really nicely executed! Well worth a look and is on Netflix.

[D'rek]

Silencer, on 02 November 2014 - 02:55 AM, said:

SAO wraps up the Caliber arc with a fairly lacklustre boss fight (probably the weakest thing in the first season as well, though this was admittedly better, still not great)

What? The boss fights in season 1 were great! Season 1 boss fights had people getting slaughtered, heroes screaming in rage and despair, secret moves and revelations coming out, etc, all because there were huge stakes on the line (even in Alfheim {yes, I include that flying-upwards-getting-hit-with-dozens-of-flying-swords in the list of awesome boss fights}).

Thrym wasn't a very interesting or entertaining boss fight because only Leafgirl cared about the consequences (I especially doubt much of the audience would), no one took much more than a scratch, and there wasn't anything really all that cool about the boss himself, either (compared to, say, the bone centipede thing or the flying tree guardians).

I guess that's ok for a little 3-episode interlude though, the whole point is that it's a bit of a by-the-numbers let's-do-a-quest-in-alfheim that doesn't really have any emotional or long-term-plot impacts.

[D'rek]

Alright, now let's talk about Log Horizon S2 for a second, here.

There's a lot I like about Log Horizon. The sheer variety of detailed characters, even just background ones, has been astounding from the very beginning, and I love how you can have a totally random, aside character who has never been named or seen before throw off a few lines and it can be both unique and totally in-character with how they look and act (like the chef two episodes ago tossing a quip or two about Demikas not liking the food).

Plot-wise, I found season 1 a bit meandering but overall it was cohesive and went somewhere.

I have before and continue to find the "gravitas" of the characters sometimes extremely disjointed. They all seem so carefree and go-with-the-flow almost all the time, then one of them will get super serious about a minor bit of etiquette or something. I was really reminded of this in the latest episode, where Akatsuki is thinking about how hard things must be for Lenessia and how great Lenessia must be for bearing so much weight on her shoulders.

Uh... excuse me? Lenessia doesn't do anything, ever. She sits on a few couches listening to people come and talk to her, then she frets a bit, then her servants come and give her a 5-course meal, and then she whines about how hard her life is when no one is listening. The only thing I can remember her actually doing is announcing the goblin quest in season 1, at that was entirely planned and scripted for her by the council. Akatsuki being so outrageously serious about how hard things are for Lenessia was just utterly immersion-destroying for me.

Oh well, that is sort of a minor complaint, it is just a weird tone problem that I have with it.

However, a more major issue is that I find the plot so far this season has gone off on a bunch of random new ideas without continuing any of the things set up last season. Last season was all about relations with the Lander council and the impacts of the changes to the Adventurers' behaviour, like the goblin invasion. Neither of those have really been touched on again so far. There was also a continuous mystery of what happened to the Izumo Knights, and again that was neither resolved nor has it been mentioned again this season.

Furthermore, the season 1 finale did a big dramatic reveal of the Planta in the west, that the inter-city warp portals were secretly operational again, and that Shiro was researching a way to get out of Elder Tale. None of this has been touched on again either, except for a couple tiny references of western spies possibly being amongst the easters.

Instead of following any of those plots or setups from last season, we're 5 episodes in and its all been about financial woes, Shiro's big raid (to alleviate the financial woes), Akatsuki feeling useless, Christmas festival planning, and evil Santa Clause. They're setting up new mysteries about the Kunnie Clan and where money comes from, without any attempts to resolve or even bring up the Izumo mystery again.

Heck, they haven't even revisited Shiro's daydreaming about Kanami again.

Maybe they will tie all of this together in some fantastic way, and I get that they need to try and draw in new viewers at the start of season 2, too, but there's a real lack of continuity from last season into this one and it means I'm really not as invested in this series as I could be. So far it seems like all those season 1 dramatic revelations were just a gimmick to add hype for season 2.

[LinearPhilosopher]

Yesterday i finally caught up on everything, it felt amazing. I dropped chaika due to lack of free time.

I'll have to come up with a reply for d rek (caught up on lasty 3 eps this weekend), im just to tired to really thing of any thing.

Psycho-pass though... latest episode was intense, i felt uncomfortable watching that, which in turn means i need to give props to the director and writer of this show

[D'rek]

If there are some of you out there reading this thread who haven't checked out Shingeki no Bahamut yet... you really need to check out Shingeki no Bahamut!

Here's a few things that happened in the latest episode:

• A zombie slapping a man by detaching its arm and throwing it at him
  
• Holding an alcoholic god and his pet duck hostage
  
• Fighting a giant demon monkey (with epic Spanish classical music that would fit right in with the Zorro soundtrack)
  
• Beheading a flying creature that is half-Cthulhu, half-Howl's Moving Castle, by closing a portal around its face
  
• The line "Catapults and sorcerers, give the Dragon Knights cover!"

I was worried I was just in a crabby mood this week, since I was criticizing all the other animes, but all is well! This even makes up for Inou-Battles being late this week!

[LinearPhilosopher]

thanks to your reccomendation i did start watching shingeki no bahamut. Recall my early post saying i was all caught up? WRONGGG i'd forgotten about it. Next weekend...

[QuickTidal]

Started watching BARAKAMON, first two eps (streaming at Funimation)...didn't know if I was going to like it, but DAMN that's a watchable and hilarious show!