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Anime |OT| Summer 2019 - Avenge the Off Modeled
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Angel Beats! 7
Naoi joins the gang because Yuri wants to use his hypnosis to draw out Otonashi's memories. He's reluctant to remember though, not wanting to risk what he has now.
Inlook
Otonashi had a bedridden little sister. (He's either on summer vacation or is avoiding school.) A nihilistic youth not really interested in socializing, all he did was work enough to eat and buy his sister random comics. Unlike him, she was full of optimism. If only they could switch places. He avoids thinking too much about life, though, since it'd probably make him quit working. During winter, he decides to do something special for her, so he took on more part-time jobs. He then carried her out of the hospital and talked to her, taking in the sights. Despite the growing lack of responses, he kept talking and walking. That was their last experience together.
Yuzuru Otonashi didn't realize what he lived for until it was gone. While aimlessly walking around, he sees a girl being released from the hospital and this ignites him to do what he can so others don't end up like his sister. He turns his life around and studies hard. On his way to entrance exams for college, however, his train derails...
Then and Now
Like everyone else here, Otonashi can't accept fate, so he still supports the struggle against it. On his way to a new operation, Otonashi notices Tachibana gardening by herself, so he brings her along. He does what he can to get her to fit in during the fishing trip, like showing her what to do. She then immediately hooks a monster fish. Everyone helps reel it in, except Yuri. Because it's such a large catch, they end up serving it to the NPCs. Otonashi's happy with the results and asks Tachibana if he can call her by first name. Don't misunderstand, it's just because he thought her name, Kanade (to play an instrument), was so pretty! Now that Yuzuru and Kanade are on a first-name basis, he formally asks her to join the group too. If it's him telling her to do it, she'll accept. Then, the clone she spawned during the operation shows up...
Outlook
What are we fighting for! There's no more "angel" and Naoi's obviously no God/devil. Kanade never having friends makes her being student council president more suspect than before. Since her abilities were self-made, of course they can malfunction too. I can't wait to see how the solution falls into Yuzuru's lap this time!
I remember connecting with Yuzuru's past character now; this was part of what I liked. Relating is important after all. Still, I feel like a more thorough job could have been done with his story—zero mention of his parents—at least the VA performs the role excellently. The Christmas sights were reminiscent for me too.
One thing omnipresent in these stories is how small the character's world is depicted; they're always presented to be incredulously introverted.
Naoi joins the gang because Yuri wants to use his hypnosis to draw out Otonashi's memories. He's reluctant to remember though, not wanting to risk what he has now.
Inlook
Otonashi had a bedridden little sister. (He's either on summer vacation or is avoiding school.) A nihilistic youth not really interested in socializing, all he did was work enough to eat and buy his sister random comics. Unlike him, she was full of optimism. If only they could switch places. He avoids thinking too much about life, though, since it'd probably make him quit working. During winter, he decides to do something special for her, so he took on more part-time jobs. He then carried her out of the hospital and talked to her, taking in the sights. Despite the growing lack of responses, he kept talking and walking. That was their last experience together.
Yuzuru Otonashi didn't realize what he lived for until it was gone. While aimlessly walking around, he sees a girl being released from the hospital and this ignites him to do what he can so others don't end up like his sister. He turns his life around and studies hard. On his way to entrance exams for college, however, his train derails...
Then and Now
Like everyone else here, Otonashi can't accept fate, so he still supports the struggle against it. On his way to a new operation, Otonashi notices Tachibana gardening by herself, so he brings her along. He does what he can to get her to fit in during the fishing trip, like showing her what to do. She then immediately hooks a monster fish. Everyone helps reel it in, except Yuri. Because it's such a large catch, they end up serving it to the NPCs. Otonashi's happy with the results and asks Tachibana if he can call her by first name. Don't misunderstand, it's just because he thought her name, Kanade (to play an instrument), was so pretty! Now that Yuzuru and Kanade are on a first-name basis, he formally asks her to join the group too. If it's him telling her to do it, she'll accept. Then, the clone she spawned during the operation shows up...
Outlook
What are we fighting for! There's no more "angel" and Naoi's obviously no God/devil. Kanade never having friends makes her being student council president more suspect than before. Since her abilities were self-made, of course they can malfunction too. I can't wait to see how the solution falls into Yuzuru's lap this time!
I remember connecting with Yuzuru's past character now; this was part of what I liked. Relating is important after all. Still, I feel like a more thorough job could have been done with his story—zero mention of his parents—at least the VA performs the role excellently. The Christmas sights were reminiscent for me too.
One thing omnipresent in these stories is how small the character's world is depicted; they're always presented to be incredulously introverted.
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Angel Beats! 8
Harmonics allows Kanade to duplicate like Gremlins. Because the original clone was spawned under peril, it inherited that directive as its nature. Thinking about "saving" Yuzuru and his friends made it aggressive about disappearance, unlike Kanade's passive approach. While stalling to come up with a plan to deal with this new threat, Yuri happens to discover a new command on Kanade's computer, Absorption. How convenient. Naturally, this means the clone could create new commands too, so Yuri adds one herself that will force Absorption's activation after Harmonics. But before the changes can be tested, Kanade gets abducted from the infirmary...
Thanks to information gathered off-screen, Kanade's at the old guild. As expected, the clone has cloned itself and likely did en masse before Yuri's fix. One by one, the Afterlife Battlefront members sacrifice themselves to stall the clones so the rest can advance. At the end, Yuri manages to best the clone waiting for them by foiling its new sitting-duck skill. Fusing the clones back into Kanade dangerously mixes their minds though. Maybe folding her mind so many times will result in a personality.
Oh boy, more close-quarters combat between Tenshi and Yuri that's somehow less exciting than my life. The fight down in the guild had its moments though. It's a mystery why Kanade didn't absorb her first clone after it served its initial purpose... and maybe someone should have been guarding Kanade... Oh well.
There's solidly 6 potential pairings: Yuri x Yuzuru, Yui x Hinata, Yuzuru x Kanade, Naoi x Yuzuru, the dark-horse pairing of Yuri x Kanade, and Matsushita x beef bowl.
Harmonics allows Kanade to duplicate like Gremlins. Because the original clone was spawned under peril, it inherited that directive as its nature. Thinking about "saving" Yuzuru and his friends made it aggressive about disappearance, unlike Kanade's passive approach. While stalling to come up with a plan to deal with this new threat, Yuri happens to discover a new command on Kanade's computer, Absorption. How convenient. Naturally, this means the clone could create new commands too, so Yuri adds one herself that will force Absorption's activation after Harmonics. But before the changes can be tested, Kanade gets abducted from the infirmary...
Thanks to information gathered off-screen, Kanade's at the old guild. As expected, the clone has cloned itself and likely did en masse before Yuri's fix. One by one, the Afterlife Battlefront members sacrifice themselves to stall the clones so the rest can advance. At the end, Yuri manages to best the clone waiting for them by foiling its new sitting-duck skill. Fusing the clones back into Kanade dangerously mixes their minds though. Maybe folding her mind so many times will result in a personality.
Oh boy, more close-quarters combat between Tenshi and Yuri that's somehow less exciting than my life. The fight down in the guild had its moments though. It's a mystery why Kanade didn't absorb her first clone after it served its initial purpose... and maybe someone should have been guarding Kanade... Oh well.
There's solidly 6 potential pairings: Yuri x Yuzuru, Yui x Hinata, Yuzuru x Kanade, Naoi x Yuzuru, the dark-horse pairing of Yuri x Kanade, and Matsushita x beef bowl.
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Cop Craft 12 - COMPLETE
Welp, guess that's over with. In comparison to some other episodes, this wasn't so bad but I do think that it's a good encapsulation of what does and doesn't work in this adaptation. As is the norm for Cop Craft, the script generally comes out on top. It's not exceptional material, and it won't amaze you with it's pretty "by-the-numbers political thriller as interpreted by a television cop show" ending. But what it lacks in originality it makes up for in clever evolution of a repeated fight against a re-occurring villain, a decent rebuttal against the xenophobic attitudes of the older, more conservative Japanese populace (at least in relation to a cultural mix of East and West), and a nice if simple culmination of Kei and Tilarna's personal and professional relationship.
Where this falls apart and had little effect on me this episode and for the series as a whole was the style in which this was adapted. Now, I could dog on the show for looking cheap most of the time for any number of reasons, but I've enjoyed shows with obvious production flaws holding them back before. The issue here really comes down to directorial decisions here that seem to fly in the face of maintaining a sense of excitement and tension these shows are known for. Whether it was the sword fights that lacked any sense of tangible location making them feel removed from the setting, to the police hunting a vampire in an episode so dark it was often impossible to tell character from background, to car chases operating on Looney Toons physics in the hands of someone we've only seen practicing driving a car once... these all feel like decisions that, if kept from the source material, were missed avenues to enhance the material they had to work with.
So often, Cop Craft would make me sigh as much as it made me smile, and that's rather frustrating because I see a better show in here than the one we got. From memorable one liners to a sometimes hilarious and sometimes horrifying mix of magic and police work, there's wonderful potential for greatness now and again. But other times you end up with episodes where you can't see the most important things, action scenes that feel rushed as to be pointless in their inclusion, and source material left unchanged which leaves our female protagonist's qualities being shit away into a litter box. Cop Craft feels like it should leaned into more of the zany comedy and sometimes utilized hyper-realism you'd find in Kekkai Sensen, or the should of doubled down on the grit and grime that wouldn't have felt out of place in Stand Alone Complex. Instead, it tries to flip flop between both, and that tone never quite works the way I think they hoped it would.
Do I regret watching Cop Craft through to the end? No... but will I remember it a few months from now?
Probably not.
Welp, guess that's over with. In comparison to some other episodes, this wasn't so bad but I do think that it's a good encapsulation of what does and doesn't work in this adaptation. As is the norm for Cop Craft, the script generally comes out on top. It's not exceptional material, and it won't amaze you with it's pretty "by-the-numbers political thriller as interpreted by a television cop show" ending. But what it lacks in originality it makes up for in clever evolution of a repeated fight against a re-occurring villain, a decent rebuttal against the xenophobic attitudes of the older, more conservative Japanese populace (at least in relation to a cultural mix of East and West), and a nice if simple culmination of Kei and Tilarna's personal and professional relationship.
Where this falls apart and had little effect on me this episode and for the series as a whole was the style in which this was adapted. Now, I could dog on the show for looking cheap most of the time for any number of reasons, but I've enjoyed shows with obvious production flaws holding them back before. The issue here really comes down to directorial decisions here that seem to fly in the face of maintaining a sense of excitement and tension these shows are known for. Whether it was the sword fights that lacked any sense of tangible location making them feel removed from the setting, to the police hunting a vampire in an episode so dark it was often impossible to tell character from background, to car chases operating on Looney Toons physics in the hands of someone we've only seen practicing driving a car once... these all feel like decisions that, if kept from the source material, were missed avenues to enhance the material they had to work with.
So often, Cop Craft would make me sigh as much as it made me smile, and that's rather frustrating because I see a better show in here than the one we got. From memorable one liners to a sometimes hilarious and sometimes horrifying mix of magic and police work, there's wonderful potential for greatness now and again. But other times you end up with episodes where you can't see the most important things, action scenes that feel rushed as to be pointless in their inclusion, and source material left unchanged which leaves our female protagonist's qualities being shit away into a litter box. Cop Craft feels like it should leaned into more of the zany comedy and sometimes utilized hyper-realism you'd find in Kekkai Sensen, or the should of doubled down on the grit and grime that wouldn't have felt out of place in Stand Alone Complex. Instead, it tries to flip flop between both, and that tone never quite works the way I think they hoped it would.
Do I regret watching Cop Craft through to the end? No... but will I remember it a few months from now?
Probably not.
Beef Stroganoff AXZ-
This was bad. No way to dance around it. This was probably the worst season of Symphogeah that I've seen. Were there parts in other seasons that were worse? Sure. However this manages to be both offensively stupid and boring at the same time, something I had never really attributed to Symphogeah. For starters, the heavier focus on the Noise just felt like a waste on everybody's part and were just filler in terms of padding out the runtime. The designs have barely advanced since the earlier seasons and are in no way threatening at this juncture. Wars of attrition aren't exactly fun to watch. When the Noise showed up in the final episode, I literally groaned out loud.
Then for a little over 2/3rds of the season there were the jobber alchemists who served to pretty much show up and get Team Rocket'd every 10 minutes or so. When they initially got their Faust Robes I thought they might serve to be credible threats but no, they still kept on jobbing. There was one point where I was questioning why the heroes needed the Fool's Stone to upgrade their Symphogears as they had already shown they could possibly beat the alchemists without it. Then we have Saint-Germain who goes on and on and on and on and on about control and the laws of the world but she doesn't really advance this philosophy much nor has much of a character outside of it. I just played a game called Control that takes place in the Federal Bureau of Control and I think I heard/read the word control more in this season of Symphogeah than I did playing that game. The writers gave her one sad flashback and think that was enough characterization. The other two alchemists had even less character than that and served to again pad out the run time or be fanservice.
Then this happened at the end of episode 12 and I'm just dumbfounded at how stupid and unnecessary of a 'reveal' this is as the duo didn't do jack shit when Saint-Germain was actually fighting Adam and everybody was in trouble. They just showed up to die again.
Finally came the end game boss Adam who initially seemed okay but then started jobbing too and just reverted to a typical power hungry villain. He says the above line after he had already lost an arm and his 1000 year plan had gone down the tubes. He never seemed threatening outside of his introductory scene, all the way to the final episode he never once came across as intimidating or remotely interesting. This crew didn't even sing outside of their death song. Just like the Illuminati in real life, they were an utter disappointment on every level.
Moving on, the show had this utterly despicable episode justifying child abuse. There's an entire episode dedicated to Maria justifying her mom beating her with a riding crop. At least now I know that children are like tomatoes and if you starve them to the brink of death then you're being a great parent. I understand the writers had been trying to soften 'Mom' for awhile but this wasn't the way to do it. It reminds me of Bungou Stray Dogs and how the writers there brushed off the child abuse with a similar logic.
The side material, such as with Chris, didn't work at all. Part of it was repeatedly flashing to the same exact flashback but also every time there was an emotional scene, one of the alchemists would show up and start a fight such as in the above scene. I also thought it was a bit ridiculous/plot contrivance that Chris ran into Sonia's brother in the first place. Kirika's emotional issue was just bizarre in how being called an easy-going girl bothered her.
The fights weren't particularly memorable outside of the above one, largely due to the enemies. I also didn't think the character songs were special, with the exception of Chris's cherry boy and Saint-Germain's final/only one. What I was impressed with was the background OST, I thought there were a few good tunes there. The animation was fairly solid but that's not a surprise at this point as Symphogear is the only Satellite franchise where the studio/staff seem to give a shit. The CG was still bad but eh, it's Satellite.
Genjuro's training sequence and some of the duet songs near the end were the only thing of value in this season.
This was bad. No way to dance around it. This was probably the worst season of Symphogeah that I've seen. Were there parts in other seasons that were worse? Sure. However this manages to be both offensively stupid and boring at the same time, something I had never really attributed to Symphogeah. For starters, the heavier focus on the Noise just felt like a waste on everybody's part and were just filler in terms of padding out the runtime. The designs have barely advanced since the earlier seasons and are in no way threatening at this juncture. Wars of attrition aren't exactly fun to watch. When the Noise showed up in the final episode, I literally groaned out loud.
Then for a little over 2/3rds of the season there were the jobber alchemists who served to pretty much show up and get Team Rocket'd every 10 minutes or so. When they initially got their Faust Robes I thought they might serve to be credible threats but no, they still kept on jobbing. There was one point where I was questioning why the heroes needed the Fool's Stone to upgrade their Symphogears as they had already shown they could possibly beat the alchemists without it. Then we have Saint-Germain who goes on and on and on and on and on about control and the laws of the world but she doesn't really advance this philosophy much nor has much of a character outside of it. I just played a game called Control that takes place in the Federal Bureau of Control and I think I heard/read the word control more in this season of Symphogeah than I did playing that game. The writers gave her one sad flashback and think that was enough characterization. The other two alchemists had even less character than that and served to again pad out the run time or be fanservice.
Then this happened at the end of episode 12 and I'm just dumbfounded at how stupid and unnecessary of a 'reveal' this is as the duo didn't do jack shit when Saint-Germain was actually fighting Adam and everybody was in trouble. They just showed up to die again.
Finally came the end game boss Adam who initially seemed okay but then started jobbing too and just reverted to a typical power hungry villain. He says the above line after he had already lost an arm and his 1000 year plan had gone down the tubes. He never seemed threatening outside of his introductory scene, all the way to the final episode he never once came across as intimidating or remotely interesting. This crew didn't even sing outside of their death song. Just like the Illuminati in real life, they were an utter disappointment on every level.
Moving on, the show had this utterly despicable episode justifying child abuse. There's an entire episode dedicated to Maria justifying her mom beating her with a riding crop. At least now I know that children are like tomatoes and if you starve them to the brink of death then you're being a great parent. I understand the writers had been trying to soften 'Mom' for awhile but this wasn't the way to do it. It reminds me of Bungou Stray Dogs and how the writers there brushed off the child abuse with a similar logic.
The side material, such as with Chris, didn't work at all. Part of it was repeatedly flashing to the same exact flashback but also every time there was an emotional scene, one of the alchemists would show up and start a fight such as in the above scene. I also thought it was a bit ridiculous/plot contrivance that Chris ran into Sonia's brother in the first place. Kirika's emotional issue was just bizarre in how being called an easy-going girl bothered her.
The fights weren't particularly memorable outside of the above one, largely due to the enemies. I also didn't think the character songs were special, with the exception of Chris's cherry boy and Saint-Germain's final/only one. What I was impressed with was the background OST, I thought there were a few good tunes there. The animation was fairly solid but that's not a surprise at this point as Symphogear is the only Satellite franchise where the studio/staff seem to give a shit. The CG was still bad but eh, it's Satellite.
Genjuro's training sequence and some of the duet songs near the end were the only thing of value in this season.
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OP
OP
This is actually a pretty weird complaint because the only time a Faust Robed alchemist loses before they get their ignition module is Prelati and that was to Kirika and Shirabe who have the strongest natural duet. Ignition Module was needed to boost their off pair duets to a strong enough level to "beat them".
Also Oppression was definitely the better translation choice for St. Germain's shtick versus Control.
I like AXZ, but this was a really big mark against that season. It's BAD.
Moving on, the show had this utterly despicable episode justifying child abuse. There's an entire episode dedicated to Maria justifying her mom beating her with a riding crop. At least now I know that children are like tomatoes and if you starve them to the brink of death then you're being a great parent. I understand the writers had been trying to soften 'Mom' for awhile but this wasn't the way to do it. It reminds me of Bungou Stray Dogs and how the writers there brushed off the child abuse with a similar logic.
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Pretty sure it's been free for a few years at least , I remember watching it on youtube just don't remember what year
I think this community got too bored of SAO to even hate on it.
I suffered through Alicization because I love pain apparently - Alicization has easily the worst episode in the entire show (episode 10), and should be dumped on for that alone. That the season is the best the show has ever looked, and Eugeo is *occasionally* ok as a character, isn't enough to salvage it from the usual SAO trappings, which are probably the most present they've ever been.
The setup for the second half is promising? But a lot about SAO is promising on paper. I'll probably watch it anyway (again, I love pain), but I highly doubt it will suddenly be well written or anything.
The setup for the second half is promising? But a lot about SAO is promising on paper. I'll probably watch it anyway (again, I love pain), but I highly doubt it will suddenly be well written or anything.
Alicization started off strong(ish), but it fell apart as soon as the quintessential SAO-experience kicked in. Which is the perfect summation of SAO, really. SAO is good when it isn't SAO.
Named kid characters do pretty well as long as they're 12 or younger. 13 or so, yeah, you're probably going to bite it especially if you go anywhere near the cockpit of a giant robot.
Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo. 12 [END]: All this just to learn that "thinking isn't going to get us anywhere." Thanks, the storytelling already accomplished that.
Joshikousei no Mudazukai 12 [END]: I've almost already forgotten about this one. Oh well, I managed to finish it so it must have done something right...
Machikado Mazoku 12 [END]: The brisk pace was still a mood killer, and the subtitles made it worse. Lines were often not condensed sufficiently—way too many doubles that left the screen too soon. It was easier watching this with them off. Yet, the story and relationship were still cute, these characters being so well taken care was unexpected. Kudos for keeping the scope within its lane too while adding so much lore. A satisfying show overall, but likely forgotten without a sequel.
Joshikousei no Mudazukai 12 [END]: I've almost already forgotten about this one. Oh well, I managed to finish it so it must have done something right...
Machikado Mazoku 12 [END]: The brisk pace was still a mood killer, and the subtitles made it worse. Lines were often not condensed sufficiently—way too many doubles that left the screen too soon. It was easier watching this with them off. Yet, the story and relationship were still cute, these characters being so well taken care was unexpected. Kudos for keeping the scope within its lane too while adding so much lore. A satisfying show overall, but likely forgotten without a sequel.
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season in review -
symphogear xv - aots
dumbbells - the other good show
vinland saga - the other other good show
one piece - looks good now, nothing happens still
kitaro - kinda sucks now this arc is lame
fire force - largest discrepancy between production value and script ive seen in a very long time
o maidens - yet another elaborate ruse where people convince themselves okada is good
tejina senpai - worse then dagashi kashi s2
final rating - pretty crap. looks better then next season i guess.
symphogear xv - aots
dumbbells - the other good show
vinland saga - the other other good show
one piece - looks good now, nothing happens still
kitaro - kinda sucks now this arc is lame
fire force - largest discrepancy between production value and script ive seen in a very long time
o maidens - yet another elaborate ruse where people convince themselves okada is good
tejina senpai - worse then dagashi kashi s2
final rating - pretty crap. looks better then next season i guess.
Gonna copy MPR's review style for this season when I get home because I haven't an original thought of my own.
i liked this anime, should i check out Dagashi Kashi? i think it was supposed to be getting a blu-ray release here soon
Symphogear just seems like such a fucking mixed bag, looking at Jarmel's review of AXZ and going off overall impressions of the series. If I want a good yuri series with action/animation and story, I'll just rewatch Flip Flappers!.
It really is a mixed bag, but that's mostly because every season basically has different strengths and weaknesses. Shitty parent/guardian defending is probably the most notable problematic aspect of the series though the fifth season does course correct two of the more notorious candidates a bit.
The second season of Symphogear? Because that's like the most liked one generally.
OP
OP
Fall OT is up
https://www.resetera.com/threads/anime-ot-fall-2019-falling-down-the-rabbit-hole.144488/
This OT will be closed shortly.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/anime-ot-fall-2019-falling-down-the-rabbit-hole.144488/
This OT will be closed shortly.
symphogeah is 5 seasons of pure nonsensical writing, whether that nonsense is good hype shit like the second season or toxic shit like AXZ pretty much depends on luck of the draw lol. I dunno if it's comparable to a thematically planned out project like flip flappers
flip flappers is indeed excellent though
flip flappers is indeed excellent though
Okay wait, what's toxic about AXZ outside of Maria excusing Mom's abuse.
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