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1) Ping Pong: The Animation I love Masaaki Yuasa, and I love sports anime so when this show was announced my expectations were sky high, and it did not disappoint. Yuasa's track record is gold and he continued that tradition here by putting his own spin on a critically acclaimed manga that examines what it truly takes to be the best at a sport. The animation is stellar, the characters memorable, and it's just incredibly satisfying on every level. Anyone who hasn't seen it is doing themselves a disservice! 2) Space Dandy While I didn't find every single episode of Space Dandy funny, I tuned in every week because there's really nothing like it. I legitimately did not know what to expect each week due to the large variety of talent being given the freedom to do whatever the hell they wanted. Even the weaker episodes would have something about them that I could appreciate. In short, Space Dandy was a fantastic series that served to showcase a lot of the talent currently working in anime. I think that making anything more beyond a one-shot OVA or movie would ruin some of the magic, but I would love to see another project with the same plan behind it. 3) Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun Comedy is hard to write about. Nozaki-kun was just a hilarious show where every character was entertaining in their own ways, and not a single character was a flop. It might be taking the piss out of shoujo cliches at times but it's coming from someone who earnestly enjoys the genre and can have a laugh about it. 4) Barakamon It might not be quite as funny as Nozaki-kun, but Barakamon made up for it by having a lot of heart. It's predictable and a bit repetitive what with the protagonist constantly learning life lessons in similar ways, but with a show this strong I didn't mind at all. Like Nozaki-kun it had a great cast that played off each other quite well, and that's really all I ask for in a comedy. 5) Gundam Build Fighters While the current season of Build Fighters is going through a lot of growing pains, the first season was solid as hell and let a lot of animators strut their stuff. Shounen sports anime + a Gundam theme was a combination that, while not having a whole lot of meat to it, was a blast to watch every week. It was a goofy show that knew how to have some fun with the silly premise instead of taking itself too seriously. Honorable mentions to Free! Season 2 and Yowamushi Pedal, both of which were fine shows that didn't quite make it to my top 5.
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Dec 20, 2014 18:30
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WickedHate posted:I'm going to say Kill la Kill just barely edges out Stardust Crusaders. It was kind of a weak year overall, in terms of number of great shows, but the ones that were good were spectacular. Watch Ping Pong. Big Anime Fan Here posted:EVERYONE WHO DIDN'T WATCH PING PONG THIS YEAR IS A REAL MORON I'm glad we have a big anime fan here to tell everyone that Ping Pong rules.
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Dec 22, 2014 03:18
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WickedHate posted:I've seen gifs of it, but aside from good animation it doesn't really interest me. I don't want to put you on the spot but I'm curious, why not?
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Dec 22, 2014 03:49
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WickedHate posted:I find the art style really off putting and I don't care for most sports anime in general that don't involve racing or direct fighting. While that is fair, I do wanna comment that putting sports anime all under one umbrella can do it a disservice. Lots of different types are present in that genre (the bulk of which follow shonen tropes but not all of them are like that!) and Ping Pong is fairly unique among them! If it wasn't such an excellent character study and was just about dudes playing a sport, it would have its fans but it wouldn't be as critically acclaimed as it is.
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Dec 22, 2014 04:11
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WickedHate posted:I don't like most sports, though. Like I don't wanna be snobbish about it but if I can't get my head into the game a show is centered around it probably do much for me. ViggyNash's description sounds like that isn't a problem with Ping Pong, though. The open secret about a lot of sports anime is that you don't even have to be interested in the particular sport at all to enjoy it. All of my favorites I enjoy for their strong cast and they could be doing any sort of activity and I'd still watch 'em. I am sure a lot of the people that post in the sports anime thread would agree on that. Srice fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Dec 22, 2014 |
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Dec 22, 2014 04:39
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GloomMouse posted:See Chihayafuru with it's eXtreme card slapping action Yes exactly! It's a game that's impossible to play without being fluent in Japanese, but were that a barrier to enjoying it then it wouldn't be as adored as it is.
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Dec 22, 2014 13:58
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Nate RFB posted:It's less about the sport than it is about the characters. Ping Pong and Chihayafuru have excellent characterization, with arcs that are well fleshed out on both our heros' sides and their rivals which ultimately don't directly require simply winning or losing their matches. There is a clear distinction in my mind between shows like those and what I guess I'd call hyper-shounen burning passion training montage content like Ippo, Prince of Tennis, or Eyeshield. Yeah I do wish there was a better way to distinguish those types of shows. Sadly they all just get lumped under "sports anime" and then someone will try watching Prince of Tennis or something and they'll swear off sports anime forever. That has been my biggest barrier when it comes to getting pals to watch Ping Pong! Well, that and the attitude towards sports that a lot of nerds have (I even know someone who loves the hell out of Chihayafuru but doesn't like to admit that it's a sports anime because he enjoys "every genre except sports" so I've had no luck in getting him to check out Ping Pong).
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Dec 22, 2014 14:43
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Hagop posted:5) Rage of Bahamut: Genesis: A card game anime that is not hot garbage. What the hell Japan, now I have to watch the next 30 of these hoping to strike gold twice. At least if you skip the ones where the characters actually use cards instead of being something like Bahamut then you won't have an overwhelming amount to watch!
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Dec 22, 2014 17:37
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Alder posted:Aldnoah Zero: The one mecha series I've watched that didn't have the MC gain a super secret mecha somewhere between the first and last episodes. It's going to be a trainwreck but it'll be a glorious trainwreck experience to be had by all~ If what you want out of the genre is a series with no top secret super powerful mechs then it sounds like you could use some Votoms and/or Macross, stat.
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Dec 22, 2014 22:03
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Alder posted:I tried Macross but it was kinda like is this a sci-fi idol show? I don't really like idol/musical shows. Macross Plus has that at a minimum and is the best Macross thing out there as well as being only 4 episodes so that could be worth a shot. I can guarantee that Votoms has no idols or musical shows though!
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Dec 22, 2014 22:08
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Hagop posted:No its better than that because the super mechs are there, they are just what you would expect super mechs to look like after being constantly tweaked by a group of autistic knight lords honor dueling each other for 15 years while seething over a war they never got to fight. I have watched it and I just didn't care for the show in general but I can see the appeal. In my eyes it definitely doesn't compare to either of those series I mentioned though  (Also putting it like that kinda reminds me of Nadesico?)
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Dec 22, 2014 22:22
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Adelheid posted:Can I vote only for Ping Pong? I liked a lot of anime this year but the idea that any it compares to Ping Pong is a joke. Nobody is stopping you from only putting in a single vote, friend.
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Dec 24, 2014 06:11
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laplace posted:Did you notice how the characters wildly changed art styles in every cut. Somehow. Even though they were 3dCG models. After watching that I was convinced the girl was just an amorphous blob shapeshifter. Heck, considering how they did that thing where make it look janky by cutting the framerate so they can try to trick people into thinking it's like 2D animation, perhaps that was just an extension of that idea
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Dec 27, 2014 05:35
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StandardVC10 posted:Kaze Tachinu or The Wind Rises was really good, but I didn't include it in my list because I saw it in limited release in November 2013 after its release in Japan earlier that year, so including it in 2014's best seems wrong. Movies are kinda in an awkward position for these lists since most people here aren't going to see them until they get a physical release and considering the usual timeframe for that a good chunk of movies just kinda slip by.
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Dec 31, 2014 22:42
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I just like Battle Tendency a lot more because it builds up the villains instead of having an endless stream of mostly disposable stand users to fight through. Perhaps if the anime went faster and/or cut some stuff out I'd like it more but dang, at 50 episodes I'll probably just tune in for D'Arby and the Dio fight for the second season.
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Jan 3, 2015 21:13
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dogsicle posted:I understand why people might like BT more but if JoJo's stayed a show about a JoJo being the only competent fighter 24/7 it'd be way worse than villain-of-the-week. That said I think this half of SC is fairly weak and only gives a middling impression if people were going to judge it. Those two things aren't exactly mutually exclusive at all. I have read the manga so I've seen all of part 3 and I just think it's a downgrade from part 2 outside of a few fights. Pootybutt posted:That's an understandable tradeoff. I just like how the more rapidfire, vignette storytelling style of SC pushes or informs the characters involved. Instead of Joseph punking everybody, everyone gets a chance to shine and pull through, and even a lot of the less inspired early Stands generate a lot of fun situations. Yeah that stuff does help with the supporting cast which is more than what some of the cast in BT got, I just wish SC had more variety with its villains. D'Arby is cool and so is Hol Horse but for everyone like those guys you get a bunch of dudes who now live to serve Dio and that's about it for their personality. Srice fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 3, 2015 21:51
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Jojo is incredibly shounen as all hell so it's easily understandable why it's not to everyone's tastes. If someone doesn't like shounen fighting stuffs it's probably not gonna change their mind.
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Jan 4, 2015 02:06
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