[saint.panda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dhwilkin The manga and anime have fairly big differences in their plots, you might as well regard them as entirely separate stories. The "male cross-dressing princess" bit from the manga is not in the anime, I got a good laugh out of that when I checked the manga version out the first time. Mai-HiME did the same thing, the manga and anime were quite different. Hint, the anime was MUCH better, believe it or not.

Cool, thanks. I'll check it out. I also thought the Mai-Hime anime was a lot better than the manga although it didn't quite live up to the hype imo.

 

[MikoLayer]

Just got back from watching the first episode of Binchoutan/REC

Binchoutan - There wasnt much happening in the 1st eps, but it has gorgeous drawing and laid-back atmosphere - possibly more so than ARIA?
REC - Again, drawing is pretty nice and looks pretty fun. Kinda reminded me of genshiken for some reason, and Aka is an interesting character.

I would say its rigth up there with Magikano, and thats being conservative. Cant wait to see the second episode

\


As I was browsing through my anime/games hdd that was revived just yesterday, I decided to sit through a few episodes of Melody of Oblivion (I do this often, which is why I am sticking with more HDD rather than DVDs now), as I have been listening to the OST quite often as of late. Great show up until the last arc, which was um... bizzare, but the ending was alright. There is a scene in eps20 where narration of letter exchange between Bocca and Sayoko is voiced over the final battle of 7th Act. Not only it was satisfying in the visual department, great BGM music in the background really goes well with the narration. One of the best narrations I have seen animes

b Good stuff.

 

[AdamWill]

FMA movie SPOILERS:









My take is that they weren't passing through the gate in the movie the same way as they did in the anime...that's why it took so much work to open up this new kind of connection between the worlds, it was some new type of connection which could let lots of people, rockets, whatever through.

Their Dad wanted to open the connection because he wanted Ed and Al to be reunited, I thought.

 

[YamiTenshi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamWill FMA movie SPOILERS:.....

I wish they would have explained what the heck the gate really was. I was really amazed that the gate actually lead to our world and was hoping they explain more about it. The movie essentially just refuted everything about equivalent trade that was set up by the anime. Though Dante was already hinting at this by the end of the series.

As for why their father did what he did... I understand that he wanted his sons to reunite again, but it was just such a stupid way to do it. I mean for a guy that had lived hundreds of years you figure he have more common sense than to give the power to open the Gate to that insane woman. It just completely ruined the image of his anime character.

 

[megawzrd]

Samurai Champloo
Naruto
Bleach

 

[Patu]

I've started Hikaru no Go and watched 14 episodes of it now. It seems to be a very promising series.

It tells about a boy named Hikaru who finds his grandpa's old Go board (Go is a traditional Asian board game which has been played for thousands of years) and the spirit which lives in that board. Hikaru gets posessed by this spirit and starts playing Go. The series tells about his development as a Go player. It's funny that they can make a great anime series about a board game.

If you like Hajime no Ippo I think you find HnG to be very good also.

 

[saint.panda]

Another anime I've been starting to see is Sosei no Aquarion. The best I could describe this anime would be "Memoirs of a Geisha". Like the Hollywood movie, it features an excellent soundtrack (Yoko Kanno), has a huge budget (Bandai) and a famous producer (Kawamori Shoji, who also did Escaflowne and Macross), but is nothing more than fancy movie credits coupled with mediocre entertainment value. Animation and battle scenes are eye-candy. However, everything feels totally random, the characters are flat and the plot tries way too hard. Lots of filler episodes, almost monster of the week theme, shallow characters, etc. It's not bad but falls extremely short of the expectations.

After seeing four episodes of Mai Otome, I just can't continue because the characters are annoying the heck out of me. I especially can't stand the red-haired protagonist with her high-pitched voice. The battle scenes are really nice though. I might just skip forward to episode 16+.

 

[dhwilkin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by saint.panda After seeing four episodes of Mai Otome, I just can't continue because the characters are annoying the heck out of me. I especially can't stand the red-haired protagonist with her high-pitched voice. The battle scenes are really nice though. I might just skip forward to episode 16+.

Haha, yeah I felt the same way about Arika for the first several episodes. She's not quite as bad in the later episodes simply because she gets ever-so-slightly less naive and not always super-duper cheerful (she might become tolerable by the end of the series, maybe), and Nina isn't always icy-cold. If you do skip ahead, at least watch episodes 7, 10, and 14 before going to 16, as I think they have some fairly important plot points to understand the things that are happening in 16 and 17 (nothing past 17 is subbed yet). Maybe 6 as well, though it's more a lesbian pool comedy episode w/ Shiho antics and Nao tearing things up.

 

[saint.panda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dhwilkin Haha, yeah I felt the same way about Arika for the first several episodes. She's not quite as bad in the later episodes simply because she gets ever-so-slightly less naive and not always super-duper cheerful (she might become tolerable by the end of the series, maybe), and Nina isn't always icy-cold. If you do skip ahead, at least watch episodes 7, 10, and 14 before going to 16, as I think they have some fairly important plot points to understand the things that are happening in 16 and 17 (nothing past 17 is subbed yet). Maybe 6 as well, though it's more a lesbian pool comedy episode w/ Shiho antics and Nao tearing things up.

Hey, I'm glad you felt the same. Now I have more motivation to see the rest of it or skip to the suggested episodes including episode 6. Thanks for the tips.


Edit: Eureka Seven is getting better and better. Episodes 27, 28 have been very good. And it's not screaming "next-gen" all the time anymore or I've gotten used to it. Just simple story-telling coupled with a nice cast of characters, good animation and a groovy soundtrack. Nice pacing and not trying to hard to convey a message, perhaps a little bit. However, some story parts still feel like an Evangelion rip-off and there are some very weird "dream" scenes where they try to introduce some kind of mysterious dimension or something like that, not very well-done though. Ok, the protagonist is also a bit whiny but not as plagued by angst and self-doubt as Evangelion's Shinji was.

 

[Crimson Tear]

I just finished Heat Guy J. Man, that series was fantastic! That last episode was just straight up fun. The story was quite good, good build up and some nice surprises worked in there aswell. I highly recomend this one, it's just a blast to watch.

 

[spike33]

Anyone seen REC?

 

[lovebell]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spike33 Anyone seen REC?

me

I 've read the manga too.

 

[MikoLayer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spike33 Anyone seen REC?

Well I did say I liked it, same goes for Bincho

Now lets see what Lingerie Senshi Papillon Rose turns out

 

[saint.panda]

Just finished Kimagure Orange Road and movie sans OVAs. I think it's pretty good although not quite as good as Maison Ikkoku. The final movie is awesome though. Animation is obviously dated, especially the TV series, but if you're tired of constant panty shots, super-cuteness and hinted-at pedophilia, and if you can stick with the 80s feeling, I think this is one comedy/romance anime worth watching. Anyway, probably not everybody's cup of tea since it's also fairly long (48 episodes + movie). There are also 8 OVA episodes and a second movie but they're not relevant to the story.

I also started watching the first few episodes of Blood+, apparently the new hot thing. Pretty average to decent so far. Action scenes are ok but I expected more of the Japanese prime time successor to Gundan Seed Destiny, at least in the action department.

Mai Otome is starting to be very entertaining but the director apparently has a few fetishes he needed to let out. I really dig the transformation scenes, super cool. These definetely have come a long way from the Sailor Moon transformation scenes. Soundtrack is amazing as hoped for, especially during key moments. I think the overall tension, angst and excitement would only be half as convincing without the right music at the right time. The characters are growing on me as well. But I remain confused about the correlations to Mai-Hime.

 

[YamiTenshi]

I've finally started watching Bleach. Sweet. Can't believe I put this off for so long. Intially impressions were that it was a little slow and boring at the beginning. But the story finally got good around 25-30. I'm up to 50 now and it just seems to get better. I like Ichigo's character more than Naruto, he's just so badass.

I also have the new Hellsing OVA sitting in my hard drive, just haven't had the incentive to watch it yet. I skimmed it briefly and found that I'm not at all impressed with the animation. It's much more exaggerated and cartoonish than compared to the anime. Also the music doesn't seem as good, more techno sounding than the anime OST. I won't pass absolute judgement yet but I've decided to lower my expectations.