[D'rek]

Just watched Durarara x2 Ten episode #2. Ah, that was great! The whole warehouse scene floored me when I first read it in the books, and it was adapted pretty much perfectly.

Oh, what's that? A spade?

Spoiler

For when you find the head? To immediately crush it perhaps?

Spoiler

Nope! Gonna EAT THAT HEAD!!!

Just in case anyone was starting to think there was anything even close to a "normal" character in this show.

And then that 'reveal' of who the fourth information broker* might just be the most knowledgeable of events across the entire show - awesome!

*(okay that might be a bit too far as there's not really any brokering going on)

Is it just me, or does the middle food magazine cover in this bit look like something they cooked in Shokugeki no Souma?

Spoiler

[Studlock]

I'm currently having a nostalgic tinged to watch Gundam Wing, which I'm actually enjoying quiet a bit despite of the cliche soldier boys in awesome mechs and since everyone here is demonstrably knowledgeable about the animes which other Gundam series would you recommend? There's a lot and there's like 12 different timelines so after I follow up Gundam Wing with Endless Waltz I was wondering where to go next.

[Dolmen 2.0]

Studlock, on 16 July 2015 - 10:09 AM, said:

I'm currently having a nostalgic tinged to watch Gundam Wing, which I'm actually enjoying quiet a bit despite of the cliche soldier boys in awesome mechs and since everyone here is demonstrably knowledgeable about the animes which other Gundam series would you recommend? There's a lot and there's like 12 different timelines so after I follow up Gundam Wing with Endless Waltz I was wondering where to go next.

Gundam Seed wasnt bad...Unicorn was really good, cliche, but great popcorn.

I personally prefered Zone of the Enders much more. The animated adaptation was not what I hoped for but a great watch if you're into mecha.

My Gundamese is rusty, will ask my brother which he liked best. he's watched most of them and Unicorn was one of his Recco's.

This post has been edited by Dolmen 2.0: 16 July 2015 - 11:48 AM

[LinearPhilosopher]

Studlock, on 16 July 2015 - 10:09 AM, said:

I'm currently having a nostalgic tinged to watch Gundam Wing, which I'm actually enjoying quiet a bit despite of the cliche soldier boys in awesome mechs and since everyone here is demonstrably knowledgeable about the animes which other Gundam series would you recommend? There's a lot and there's like 12 different timelines so after I follow up Gundam Wing with Endless Waltz I was wondering where to go next.

Dolmen 2.0, on 16 July 2015 - 11:47 AM, said:

Studlock, on 16 July 2015 - 10:09 AM, said:

I'm currently having a nostalgic tinged to watch Gundam Wing, which I'm actually enjoying quiet a bit despite of the cliche soldier boys in awesome mechs and since everyone here is demonstrably knowledgeable about the animes which other Gundam series would you recommend? There's a lot and there's like 12 different timelines so after I follow up Gundam Wing with Endless Waltz I was wondering where to go next.

Gundam Seed wasnt bad...Unicorn was really good, cliche, but great popcorn.

I personally prefered Zone of the Enders much more. The animated adaptation was not what I hoped for but a great watch if you're into mecha.

My Gundamese is rusty, will ask my brother which he liked best. he's watched most of them and Unicorn was one of his Recco's.

Seed is ok, just don't watch seed destiny. Its awful

If you want something in the same vein as gundam wing, i highly recommend gundam 00. Great show and it's more recent so the animation is good.

[Studlock]

Thanks people!

[Maark Abbott]

Finally sat down with Attack on Titan. 3 episodes in and it's good fun.

[D'rek]

Finally finished Cromartie High School. Overall it fell very short of the hype for me. The characters almost all have just one big quirk that gets focused on too much, the show as a whole is more focused on being quirky than jokes and the comedic timing is lacking. None of those things are too bad by themselves, but even with the episodes being only 10 minutes long the show is just too predictable and repetitive to still be fun for all 26 episodes. I think it would have worked a lot better as an episodic 4-minute-episodes series where the jokes would not be so drawn out and it would be more expected that the same character traits come back up over and over again.

Nichijou is queued up as my next BDSL comedy

---

Also got caught up on Rokka no Yuusha (ep 3). The latest character designs are... ugh... weird/bad and seriously kind of break up the immersion for me, a bit. And what the heck is with anime having characters that are elite snipers who wear eyepatches OVER THE EYE THEY AIM WITH???

(picture of case in point)

Spoiler

Geez that's dumb, and they even have the camera look out from the sights of the rifle as if we were seeing from her impossible perspective at times.

---

Durarara episode 3 was great, Akabayashi has so many great badass moments and it's good to finally see that backstory on him (as well as Anri).

Things are certainly starting to get more complex, with more gangs and organizations showing up and getting involved, right? Brace yourself, because that's not about to stop! They probably could have explained a bit better who the guys confronting Akabayashi at the end were - in short, Akabayashi used to work for a different Yakuza group (whereas now he works for the Awakusu) and you saw in this episode him and the boss off that group. Those guys who confronted him are former members of that same Yakuza group who (spoiler from this episode)

Spoiler

think that Akabayashi killed the boss, since Akabayashi never told anyone about that teenager who killed the boss

[Maark Abbott]

So I'm 6 episodes into AoT, and I'm thinking; "Erikson wrote this, right?" It seems the only logical conclusion. Failing that, Abercrombie. So GRVMDVRK.

[LinearPhilosopher]

So im mostly done the greed island arc of hunter x Hunter. Im really enjoying this anime

The latest arc that finished, did not culminate in some fight with some last blow struck with a power up arising from the power of friendship. It culminated in a hostage exchange. I love it. It makes all the other shounen i've watched look childish in comparison. It has a good power system, training is ever present, characters don't just get random powerups. Many of the contests in the show aren't just about brawn, its about ingenuity as well. There was even a dodgeball challenge, (yes a dodgeball challenge), that was just as exciting and riveting as any other fight, or i'd argue more because it isn't a simple matter of exchanging a few meaningless blows before having a couple of coup de gras moves back and forward.

[D'rek]

Maark, on 21 July 2015 - 04:12 AM, said:

So I'm 6 episodes into AoT, and I'm thinking; "Erikson wrote this, right?" It seems the only logical conclusion. Failing that, Abercrombie. So GRVMDVRK.

"Hey, here's twenty new named characters! Make sure you memor-"

*everyone is eaten by Titans*

"Nevermind!"

[Maark Abbott]

D, on 21 July 2015 - 07:04 PM, said:

Maark, on 21 July 2015 - 04:12 AM, said:

So I'm 6 episodes into AoT, and I'm thinking; "Erikson wrote this, right?" It seems the only logical conclusion. Failing that, Abercrombie. So GRVMDVRK.

"Hey, here's twenty new named characters! Make sure you memor-"

*everyone is eaten by Titans*

"Nevermind!"

If my fiancee were to watch it, her reaction would probably be much like when she plays Hungry Shark. "NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!". And I'd never hear the end of it.

The fact that nearly everyone dies and the protagonists wind up severely traumatised as a result does seem to lend it a certain gravity that I've been missing in shows. That said, I'm pretty behind on almost everything. Also, it opens the show up to the 'guess who dies' game!

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I'm enjoying Charlotte so far, but the Crunchyroll subtitles are so fucking poorly translated and edited (or the Japanese script is extremely stilted).









It's sort of ruining my experience of the show. I wish fansubbers were faster. Too bad speedsubbing is dead these days.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 25 July 2015 - 04:21 AM

[Silencer]

Do what the rest of us are doing and wait for it to finish airing. XD

[Silencer]

But I will echo the sentiment re: the current state of fansubbing.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

After a bit of searching, I found a better fansub by this group, whose tagline is "where fansubs are made not with quality, but with love" lol. The translations are probably not as verbatim, but at least they flow:

Anyway, here's a few comparison shots:

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 25 July 2015 - 04:57 AM

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Just read a pretty intriguing look into what the fansub scene is like for an insider these days. The group whose subs I ended up using (previous post) have a blog, and one of the members posted their thoughts on modern fansubbing.

http://www.mezashite...ing-fansubbing/

[D'rek]

Anime subtitles have always been a compromise between getting high quality slowly or low quality quickly. Even before simulcasting started, there were fansub groups that would get a mediocre translation out as fast as possible and groups that do slower, better translations. I'm sure it was the same even back in the days when bootleg VHS tapes were being mailed around between anime clubs.

Now the fields of what's possible and what's available is broader, so the times can be even shorter, the quality can be even higher, but therefore it's an even bigger compromise between the extremes of quickness and even higher quality. Unfortunately, Crunchyroll and Funimation seem to be in a licensing war and are trying to simulcast as many shows as possible so the quality is really, really dropping as they focus primarily on getting so many shows out on time (and even then, they're not making it - some episodes are having delays of up to a day or two). But that's exactly why there are still fansub groups out there doing higher quality subs over a longer period of time.

It's unfortunate that CR and Funimation are taking the route of trying to gobble up as many licenses as possible and do the bare minimum of getting mediocre subs out for all the shows they've licensed, instead of having fewer subs and forking out the money (and/or making the effort of negotiating with the studios for the time/resources needed) for making better quality official subs. But there are still other options available.

What I particularly don't like is that CR and Funimation do some shady tactics to try and drive away the fansubs, like announcing their simulcasts at the last minute. They want to have their fast-but-crappy-subs and pretend that it's good enough so they have the high horse to push aside those who are doing slow-but-quality.





...and then there's commie subs.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

What about commie subs? I generally think they're not bad.

[D'rek]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 26 July 2015 - 01:42 AM, said:

What about commie subs? I generally think they're not bad.

They do lots of type-setting shenanigans, most of which I love - the Nisekoi clips I linked above is a bit of an extreme example but that sort of thing. They also stick memes and other jokes into their translations, especially with the songs, so sometimes their translations are deliberately over-exaggerated.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Ah, yeah. Sometime I enjoy that wackiness from them, sometimes it's annoying.