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I'm watching A.I.C.O.. I gotta admit, I did not see the cute animal companion coming. It didn't seem like that kind of show.
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Apr 13, 2018 23:05
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Fumoffu ep. 9 featured lots of Kurz being Kurz. Ugh. I'm tempted to just skip to Second Raid at this point, but it looks like Ep. 10 will feature Bonta-kun, so I'll probably give it a shot.
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Apr 14, 2018 02:20
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Silver2195 posted:I'm tempted to just skip to Second Raid at this point no don't
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Apr 14, 2018 02:50
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You could not do a more wrong thing. Cherish every moment of Full Metal Panic. You'll also have some amount of backlog of Invisible Victory to binge.
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Apr 14, 2018 03:36
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I was wondering how far they were gonna get into the plot with only 13 episodes in Invisible Victory, but after watching the first episode holy crap they're gonna try to burn through the whole thing this season, aren't they. With this kind of pacing I'm already not expecting anything near the quality of Second Raid, but it's better than nothing after 13 years I guess. The Arbalest vs. Belial fight and Merida Island Behemoth battle in the next episode will be the real test of how the rest of the show is going to shake out, I think.
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Apr 14, 2018 05:40
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Fumoffu ep. 10 recycles some plot ideas, as Chidori acknowledges: "Why am I always getting kidnapped by bad guys?" It uses these elements somewhat differently from past episodes, however. Sosuke's training of the yakuza gets less time than his training of the rugby team, and instead of a joke about drill sergeants, the central gag is Chidori's inexplicable ability to translate Bonta-kun to Japanese. (Maybe it's a Whispered ability.) Overall, I'll call this one of the better Fumoffu episodes, but it's not quite up there with "The Hamburger Hill of Art."
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Apr 14, 2018 07:25
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New Full Metal Panic thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3854361
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Apr 14, 2018 21:15
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post your favorite Franxx
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Apr 16, 2018 23:31
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Guy Goodbody posted:post your favorite Franxx 
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Apr 17, 2018 01:29
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nice one the brain powerd OP sure has a lot of bush for a non OVA show
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Apr 18, 2018 07:53
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Guy Goodbody posted:post your favorite Franxx My heart's always belonged to 
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Apr 18, 2018 19:58
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Star Driver is great, but it would have been so much better if they'd done a round of refights instead of dragging in the trashbois and gratuitous lesbians.
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Apr 19, 2018 00:06
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I watched Garzey's Wing, and dubbed as recommended. That uh, sure was an experience. If you took out the conversations between Chris and Chris, I'm pretty sure what you would be left with is a Nightmare on Elm Street story. Raxivace fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Apr 19, 2018 |
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Apr 19, 2018 00:07
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Raxivace posted:I watched Garzey's Wing, and dubbed as recommended. That uh, sure was an experience. USE THE GADA POWDER
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Apr 19, 2018 00:11
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Fumoffu ep. 11 featured Sosuke being even denser than usual (he usually seems aware that kidnapping is generally considered wrong), and Shinji being even more spineless than usual (he's totally the third-worst character, surpassed only by Kurz and Mardukas). Still reasonably funny, though. And Sosuke talking with the old lady was rather sweet.
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Apr 19, 2018 05:18
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Ep. 12 begins with Sosuke actually showing some sense. His weapons supplier, not so much. And we have yet another conflict caused by Shinji being too spineless to warn someone against doing something until it's already too late. Wow, this is pretty dark for Fumoffu. The ending is suitably silly, though. Edit: Started on Second Raid. The new villain is actually more unhinged than Gauron. Why can't we get a competent and calculating villain for once? And incestuous lesbian twins? Really? That said, I am enjoying the action so far. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Apr 19, 2018 |
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Apr 19, 2018 09:07
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Relin posted:nice one
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Apr 20, 2018 03:47
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Ranzear posted:Star Driver is great, but it would have been so much better if they'd done a round of refights instead of dragging in the trashbois and gratuitous lesbians. What do you mean by trashbois?
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Apr 20, 2018 04:10
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Eela6 posted:What do you mean by trashbois? The three duders who also have swords and are also missing in the final episode. Reiji's plebs who hang around the jukebox. Two of them just kinda ... _show up_ don't they? Orange haired dude is the only one that really does anything outside of robits I think. Them and their dumb edgy black robots get like one or two refights each, even tag-teaming, stiffing the more interesting main cast. I take certain characters being missing from the finale as an apology for them being poo poo and wasting everybody's time. Kiraboshi getting their phase up should have lead to everybody getting a refight. Maybe not in the same order, but with new tricks all around. Ranzear fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Apr 20, 2018 |
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Apr 20, 2018 04:22
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Silver2195 posted:Edit: Started on Second Raid. The new villain is actually more unhinged than Gauron. Why can't we get a competent and calculating villain for once? Gates and the incest thing were both added to the anime adaption. In the books the twins are still there, but they're men and have much smaller roles.
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Apr 20, 2018 04:54
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Droyer posted:Gates and the incest thing were both added to the anime adaption. In the books the twins are still there, but they're men and have much smaller roles. It's weird that they would add such a seemingly important character with such a strong personality like that. So the scene where he pokes one of the twins in the mouth and she doesn't react at all was totally added? It seems to be implied that Gauron survived but is very heavily injured, probably both maimed and comatose. Shows that his plot armor does have some limits.
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Apr 20, 2018 05:07
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Silver2195 posted:It's weird that they would add such a seemingly important character with such a strong personality like that. So the scene where he pokes one of the twins in the mouth and she doesn't react at all was totally added? I'm not sure how far you've gotten yet but the first 3 or 4 episodes are anime original.
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Apr 20, 2018 05:55
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Droyer posted:Gates and the incest thing were both added to the anime adaption. In the books the twins are still there, but they're men and have much smaller roles. Funny. In the manga, they're twin twin-tail lolitas. And Gates is never seens outside of AS, and is only known as Mr. K. Decided to read the manga to prep for IV. Out of 19 volumes of Sigma, definitely did not expect TSR (or the entirety of both Ending Day by Day books) in only 4 volumes.
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Apr 20, 2018 18:53
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I finished Exkaiser today, I'll make a post about my thoughts tomorrow. In the meantime have this:
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Apr 20, 2018 23:20
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On Second Raid episode 4. There's some pretty blatant plot armor going on in the Mao vs. assassin twin fight. The assassin twin is super efficient in dispatching those two redshirts, then she just shoots Mao and hits the gun instead of Mao's body, then she puts her gun aside and engages Mao in a swordfight because...why? And Mao holds her off with a knife for a while, somehow; I guess I can sort of accept that because she stated back in season 1 that Kurz was bad at close-range combat, implying that she was better at it, but the choreography still feels like the assassin twin is pointlessly showing off rather than going for a quick kill in a way that feels out of character. Suspension of disbelief in action anime is a funny thing; I can accept that the assassin twin can dual-wield swords as a relevant skill on a modern battlefield, but not that she uses them like that. Edit: OK, turns out she wasn't actually trying to kill Mao. Fair enough. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 20, 2018 23:34
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I finished A.I.C.O. Incarnation. I didn't like it. The Matter was a great horror concept, the idea that there's this massive formless flesh organism slowly growing towards the sea and if it get's there it'll spread throughout the world. That's great. And the only way to defeat it is to travel through the area it has taken over to get to it's origin point, also great. But the show did so little with it. They walk through a canyon, flesh tubes shoot out at them, they shoot the tubes and get through that area. It's exciting the first time, but the seventeenth time, not so much. Especially once you realize that the show like it's characters too much to kill any of them. It's the same with the setting. It's a canyon and there's just these linked sheets of flesh draped over the ground and pillars of flesh rising up, it's really weird and creepy. Until you're several hours into the show and it's still the exact same. I think what really kills it is the complete lack of menace. The show likes it's characters to much to kill them, but also to make any villains. There's one character who wants to stop the protagonists, because he's crazy, but that doesn't actually become an issue until the last episode when there needs to be a big fight. Which would be fine, lack of antagonists isn't a killer, but if the show is going to do that it needs to make the situation more serious. And, as I said, nobody dies, the situation never feels like it's getting worse, the whole thing about the Matter reaching the sea is never brought up again, there's no ticking clock. Like, at one point they set up a ticking clock, "the area is going to be bombed!" but then that gets settled and the bombing is canceled, and it's like, OK. That could've been exciting but I guess not. For example, one thing I really liked is the dams. They've transformed the sluice gates on the dams into these giant electric guillotines, that cut off new Matter growth and then electrify it so the Matter down stream dies and the Matter upstream is paralyzed for a few hours. The first time they do it it's a great action set piece, and a good bit of worldbuilding. The second time they do it, I'm thinking, OK, something is going to go wrong. Increase the tension, subvert expectation, the thing that was effective isn't anymore, things are getting serious. No, the second time it works fine exactly like the first time. By the third time they do it I had cottoned on to the shows deal and was not at all surprised when everything worked fine. There is also a little bit of excellent body horror later on in the show. That probably should've been expanded and focused on more.
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Apr 21, 2018 18:34
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Guy Goodbody posted:I finished A.I.C.O. Incarnation. I didn't like it. I mostly concur with this. One of my big criticisms is that the divers felt redundant. They didn't do enough or say enough to warrant there being two teams of them, and they have almost no input in the ultimate resolution of things besides to yell things and shoot at an infinitely replicating mass of flesh while the characters who actually matter resolve the entire situation. A lot of the weaker parts of the show(the repetitive fighting, the weird "it's a competition" plot point that never matters, the pointless Aico is attracting the matter oh no!!! "betrayal" plot) are tied up in them and I almost feel like they were incidental to the actual story they wanted to tell. The show's main story thread is pretty cool and good since it's a neat look at transhumanism but the actual execution of the show is kind of sloppy and repetitive. It probably should have been a couple hours of OVA instead of a full single cour show.
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Apr 21, 2018 18:53
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The divers would've been fine if they had died. Like, that's basic horror movie stuff. You include a few stock characters just to kill off along the way, and that fits the various divers perfectly. The genki girl, the oneesan, the spunky earnest young kid, and the oniisan. They're even paired up so you can have one die and the other react or a dual heroic sacrifice, lots of options. But I think at some point early on they worried that since Aiko is the Matter, if there was a big bodycount of named characters by the time they got to her that might make the situation uncomfortable. So yeah, all these disposable characters just got dragged along to the end. Speaking of characters, Aiko wasn't great either. She's the main character that the whole series is built around, and there's nothing really interesting about her. She was kind of afraid at the beginning, although nowhere near as afraid as she had a right to be considering the absolute nightmare she was in, but after that she basically didn't have any flaws. She became extremely self-sacrificing and selfless, but without any real investigation about what that meant for her. The fact that she never once thought something like I don't want to die, I don't want to let this other girl have the life I've lived for the past two years made her so perfect she was just dull. edit: Like, when the two Aikos meet in their dreams, and one is like "I've spent the past two years trapped as a murderous potentially apocalyptic flesh mountain, watching another girl live my life in my dreams, but I haven't gone crazy and am in fact totally fine and nice" and the other is like "I just found out that I'm a medical device created to save someone else's life, was never supposed to be conscious, and now will have to sacrifice myself to save that original girl, but I am also completely OK with everything" Guy Goodbody fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 21, 2018 19:26
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I finished Exkaiser last night, but before I get into the review proper I figure I ought to talk a little about my history with the Brave franchise. I have seen Gaogaigar before, as well as parts of Da Garn (You might remember i did episode by episode reviews of Da Garn in the previous mecha thread) and bits and pieces of the other ones in youtube clips so I'm not going in completely blind. However, I'm going to try to avoid making comparisons to future shows in these posts, because part of the enjoyment of this project for me is to see how the shows change and how their traditions form. And so without further ado... Brave Exkaiser - The first one Brave Exkaiser is a story about 6 members of the Kaiser Space Police (Exkaiser, Green Raker, Blue Raker, Sky Max, Dash Max and Drill Max) coming to Earth in pursuit of the interplanetary thieves the Geisters (All but one of which are recolored dinobots of Transformers fame) and coming into contact with elementary-schooler Kouta, with Exkaiser himself possessing Kouta's family car as his physical body. Almost every episode deals with the Geisters trying to steal something and the Kaisers coming to stop them. My first, and by far biggest, issue with the show is that villains are just thieves. I didn't expect particularly deep villains, but the Geisters very rarely feel like a threat at all. I realize this is partially intentional since they're also used for comedy a lot, but I think it's a mistake to have all your villains be comedy villains. This is somewhat alleviated towards the second half however when their leader Dino Geist shows up since he's repeatedly shown to be a genuine threat. The show is far less toyetic than I expected, but I'm not sure in a good way. We meet all 6 Kaisers very early and usually see their combinations (Exkaiser combines with a trailer to become King Exkaiser, the Rakers become the left and right side of a combined body called Ultra Raker, and the Max team combine into God Max) the same episode their introduced. Exkaiser gets an intermediary upgrade (combining with a jet to become Dragon Kaiser) and final upgrade (combining with both to become Great Exkaiser) but that's all you get. To me part of the fun of mecha shows is seeing the new cool robots, so I think it's a shame there aren't more, or at least that the ones that are there are revealed during the course of the show instead of all of them joining right at the beginning. My last major problem with the show is that Exkaiser lands the final blow in every single fight. This makes the fights feel pretty predictable and it also makes the secondary teams feel kind of unnecessary, and they're in fact almost entirely removed from the finale of the show. Don't let that last paragraph fool you into thinking I didn't like the show though: I very much did and the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. Kouta and the rest of the human cast are very fun and charming. Exkaiser also has several humanizing moments just talking with Kouta as a car in the garage, which makes him a more compelling character than if he was just a perfect hero the whole time. The humor with the humans I feel also lands better than the Geister humor. Though I said earlier that the fights felt predictable, the more important fights had very neat choreography, with the final fight in particular being very impressive. Speaking of the final episode, I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of buildup they had to the final conflict for an episodic show. I was afraid it was going to feel like the end was very sudden but it didn't whatsoever. Ultimately I found Exkaiser to be an enjoyable but flawed children's show, and a good foundation for the later Brave shows to build on. If you want an episodic and formulaic but ultimately quite fun show with quite a bit of heart I would recommend it.
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Apr 21, 2018 23:42
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Droyer posted:Ultimately I found Exkaiser to be an enjoyable but flawed children's show, and a good foundation for the later Brave shows to build on. If you want an episodic and formulaic but ultimately quite fun show with quite a bit of heart I would recommend it.  I agree with this review, especially how the supporting robots felt unnecessary. Also toss in how Exkaiser could NEVER finish a fight in his base form, and it was like, why not instantly power up and use the super-move and be done with it... But yeah, flaws aside I really love this show and I'm super-glad you enjoyed it. 
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Apr 21, 2018 23:51
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StrixNebulosa posted:
I thought the implication was always that he needed to disengage to get the time to combine/do his super move, but it's a flimsy excuse at best. Speaking of flimsy excuses I just remembered that Kouta was told to keep Exkaiser secret because "it'd lead to complications if the adults found out" and that's the only reason you ever get, which is pretty lol.
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Apr 21, 2018 23:54
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I watched Wings of Rean. :
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Apr 24, 2018 13:24
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Raxivace posted:I watched Wings of Rean. Baby explosion!
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Apr 24, 2018 17:17
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Raxivace posted:I watched Wings of Rean. See I haven't seen that but I was vaguely aware of that being less insane than garzey's wing, I take it that isn't the case?
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Apr 24, 2018 18:22
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Artum posted:See I haven't seen that but I was vaguely aware of that being less insane than garzey's wing, I take it that isn't the case?
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Apr 24, 2018 22:05
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Also there's this weird, nationalistic right-wing bent in the show about how Japan was a pure innocent victim in World War II that seems very uncharacteristic of Tomino.
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Apr 24, 2018 22:17
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Raxivace posted:In Wings of Rean, Tomino feels the need to address abortion. i want to hear more about this
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Apr 24, 2018 22:35
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ninjewtsu posted:i want to hear more about this Also, the main character goes on an vision quest through time (Sort of like in Gundam Unicorn) where he learns that his Japanese mother was threatening to abort him unless his American father leaves his American wife for her and they get married. Also looking back at that scene, there's this silly line: 
Raxivace fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Apr 24, 2018 |
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Apr 24, 2018 23:21
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Raxivace posted:Also looking back at that scene, there's this silly line: https://twitter.com/DeelanRH/status/988839642324709376
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Apr 24, 2018 23:33
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The beginning of the third trimester likely has special significance there so it's probably just chunky editing. But yeah, kinda silly without context.
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Apr 24, 2018 23:33
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