Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

That reminds me...I have netflix now, I should actually use it...

So I watched the first three episodes of Assassination Classroom, Death Parade and JJBA Stardust Crusaders S2, and I have all of them are awesome! The quality on all three are through the roof, at least compared to what I ws watching last season. I'm glad this season is putting out some great shows for me to watch.
Still need to catch up on Log Horizon S2, but I feel like the writing isn't as good as the first season, and it's harder for me to actually care as much, which is a shame because I loved the fist season.

I'm gonna have put Durarara on my to watch list if I'm gonna see the second season, but I've heard great enough things about it.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping (and suspecting). Especially since the shows they had during those timeslots were so old (IGPX & Samurai Jack).

Saw the first episode of Log Horizon Season 2, and you weren't kidding about the story being not-as-well-told. This episode jumped around too much, it was kind of hard to follow. I also feel like I'm just missing information rather than trying to figure things out with the characters, so its less exciting. And the beginning montage was a bad idea, I'm actually kinda glad I couldn't follow it at all, because what little I could ilk from it, it had a ton of spoilers it had no reason to spoil. I miss the openers where we'd get more info about the world and stuff, but maybe they just left it out of this one episode?

That said, I'll keep going - it wasn't terrible, just a little disappointing.

I kinda understand why they do this but I've heard of a decent chunk of anime that just try to animate the good parts for the fans while assuming everyone watching reads the manga. Which is dumbdumbdumbdumbdumb and awful. Makes me want to avoid an anime entirely.

This is apparently what they did for the last season of The World God Only Knows (why I haven't seen it yet). I'm not sure if I should be angry at the people behind the anime or that not enough people watched one of the best anime I've ever seen that they could only afford a short 3rd season to allow them to animate it all.

So I watched and loved Nagi no Asukara (Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea) recently.

I have just ordered Oreimo season 2 on dvd

So i just saw on the latest jump that Hi-Fi Cluster got canceled.thats unfortunate. i liked that series.the series shoulda stuck to short episodic fights. towards the end it was this long arc that just dragged.

Yeah, I was kinda bummed too. It was kinda all over the place however, and I can see why it got dropped. I hope World Trigger keeps going because I really like it so far.

@TysonOfTime Yea i like World Trigger also cant wait till the eventual trip to the neighbors world

By a recap, do you mean a clip show like Evangelion's Death and Rebirth, or do you mean something like the Psycho-Pass Season 1 New-edit?

I read the newest chapter of Bleach earlier!

Okay, so Toonami got reduced even further, to Midnight to 3:30 AM...that's a problem. A very serious problem...

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I was last here. This past season I've been following Yona of the Dawn, Parasyte, and Death Parade. All of these shows have been great, imo, so far and I'm enjoying them a lot. (Especially Parasyte atm)

In regards to manga, I've been recently getting into some seinen stuff like Kingdom, Tokyo Ghoul, and Berserk. I've also begun watching Mushi-shi, a quite beautiful show.

And of course I'm still following One Piece's manga week by week, buying the volumes when I can, checking the One Piece sub-reddit, and generally going One Piece crazy. (For Christmas I got Strong World on Blu-ray, Unlimited World Red on 3DS, and Viz's Manga Boxset 2: Skypiea-Water 7. Since I was still watching the anime throughout the Skypiea and Water 7 sagas, it's fun to read them in manga form)

And it's a shame about Toonami, I heard on Crunchyroll yesterday. While I don't have cable, this is quite sad since Toonami seems like such an awesome block, and has been a huge part of many western fan's anime experience. Not to mention it'll be hard to get better ratings to "prove" themselves to Adult Swim with a reduced time-slot. :I

Well, a final little bit of exciting news was that Gintama is getting more anime this spring! Yeah, great Sunrise! I'll be hoping we get at least 2 cour, but any Gintama is better than none.

Well, happy to be back, see you all!

Good to see you, Rocko! And yes, more Gintama is exciting.

I'm on episode 4 of Log Horizon 2, and it's getting more interesting. Episode 3 could've been cooler, but that whole raid zone thing could've gotten stale quick if they stretched it out, I'm kinda glad they skimmed things.

Also, @Tasuki, there's more Fushigi Yugi manga coming: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/daily-briefs/2015-01-28/yuu-w...

I've watched the first episode of Log Horizon not too long ago. It sounds like a rather interesting take on the now popular "trapped in an mmo" scenario. The focus on world-building and politics people say it has sound quite cool.

On a related note (Well sort of...both are on the topic of games) does anyone here play/read Visual Novels? I've been looking into them a bit more recently, and I've been thinking about buying Steins;Gate. I'd also be interested in playing Fate/Stay Night, but not before watching Fate/Zero. Of course, the two titles I've mentioned are some of the most popular/acclaimed VNs around, so is anyone around here more of a VN vet who could recommend some titles I might not have heard of?

I think I stopped LH at S2E4ish? If it picks up and gets good, let me know~

I don't play much, but Steins;Gate is definitely one to get. It's one of the best. Have you seen the anime? I can imagine the story in the VN losing some impact if you've already seen it, but the anime is awesome too.

Fate/Zero is a prequel to F/SN and should be watched after it. It assumes you've already played or seen F/SN, therefore giving you no time at all to ease into the world and rules. More importantly for later on, it assumes you already know about some very important character revelations, especially who the Big Bad of F/SN is. It's very spoilery. I would suggest either playing the F/SN VN or watching the currently airing anime adaptation by ufotable first. I wouldn't recommend the 2006 anime adaption. It's not a very good adaption for story reasons, but also production value. 2006 vs 2014.

Also, yes, F/SN the VN is an eroge, but it's like 20-30 minutes worth of porn stuff in a 60 hour game and it's only really there because eroges were easier to market and sell in Japan at the time. There's also the Réalta Nua version, which removes all the H-scenes.

Hmm, I had always had the opposite impression of F/Z. I have an irl friend who's rather new-ish to anime, who watched F/Z with zero knowledge of the fate series and absolutely loved it. (It, as well as Gurren Laggan and FMA are his favorite anime currently) Also, from other sources (i.e. reviews) I've heard that the climax/ending of F/Z is kind of removed of tension/spoiled if you're a prior fate fan. And others still have said its best to watch F/Z first while still blind about the whole thing. (Such as another irl friend who's watched all the Fate anime including the apparently crappy 2006 one, and has played all the routes of the VN. Not sure if he's played the sequel VN though) So now I'm really not sure. I guess why decision will have to come down to which anime/game I'd feel worse about spoiling. I had thought. up till now, that F/Z was made to stand on its own and bring people into the series.

Also, regarding Steins;Gate, I have not yet seen the anime, although I'd like to do so, I've been holding out for a bit now so that I can experience it in its original VN format.

^If you want to know more about VNs, then I recommend checking out this site: https://vndb.org/

It let's you know if there's a English version of the game and a link if you want to buy a copy of the game.

I've always been interested in talking about VNs, but some of the ones I want to talk about are a bit "mature".

This week's episode of Log Horizon was great. It's been a while since they've covered the political aspect of the series.