Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

@CanisWolfred: I was surprised Dog Days or High School DxD managed to get a third season. I'm tempted to try watching Symphogear next, but I've been too busy watching old Heisei Era Kamen Rider shows.

Just listen to the music on Youtube while watching Kamen Rider, it'd be 100x better...

Well...I can recommend my favorite shonens:
One Piece
Hunter x Hunter
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Gintama

I also hear Toriko is great, but still haven't gotten to it. I'd recommend all of these strongly, like I always do.

I think RR529 would love Gintama.

You know, I think he would too. It's huge focus on comedy, it's memorable/well-done characters, and occasionally emotional stories make for a more than winning recipe. Considering his own tastes that does make a lot of sense.

^I think he'd like Jojo, too, especially the first two or three parts, for similar reasons to what you stated with Gintama, coupled with some thought-out action scenes.

Thanks for the replies. I'll be trying out Gintama tonight (if I don't find any newer chapters of Tokiwa Kitareri, which is the name of that other series I mentioned a few posts up).

Oh hey, here's a great idea to advertise a food product! Use abnoxious cartoon characters to parody the implied R@pe scene from an anime! I'm sure that'll totally go over well!

Seriously, Namco has officially lost their minds...

Also: DAMN YOU CRUNCHYROOOOOOLLLLLL!!!!
Always the temptress...gotta be the zillionth time in a row that they've had some cool looking model in the sale window.

Read the first few chapters of Gintama last night.

I like the setting so far. Mixing traditional Japan with high technology in a way that makes sense (it was all introduced during an alien invasion 20 years prior to the start of the series).

I haven't grown particularly attached to any of the characters yet, but the series is still just starting out, so I'm sure that'll change.

From what I understand, it's somewhat known for poking fun/referencing various Shonen Jump series (as well as other aspects of Japanese pop culture)? I'll be looking forward to that if true (they've already established that SJ exists in their universe, and Gintama himself is a fan).

And ZKC finally reaches over 400 chapters and Ch. 401 has a front color page, time to for a little catching up to do (here's hoping the series can reach up to 500 chapters and for this year being the 10 year anniversary of the series a 2nd anime season of the series, please?).

Haven't seen Ep.11 of Shinmai yet, might watch it tomorrow or later (must read ZKC first). I heard people are saying that 11 is taking a different path from the LN. Meh, since I have the raws I could check on it later. Although, some events were change in the anime (IIRC) for instance, Mio was capture in the tennis court, not in the construction site (someone correct me if I'm wrong please), there was also suppose to be an important conversation between Zest and Zolgear (this is all in the LN), where Zest convince Zolgear to reframe from assaulting Mio any further, that it would be better to take her powers now, instead of setting off the Master-Servant curse to the maximum level to fry her brains out making her a puppet, because she'll lose her powers if she loses her purity (I know this applies to Zest 100% positive, not so sure for Mio), this is right before where Leohart orders him to explore the ruins of the ancient heroes. Also, the last 2 events of volume 3 may happen in the final episode (that's enough spoiling around).

I'm almost done getting all the Shinmai characters names down from Chinese - English, may start on Vol. 4 this Friday.

Edit: Shinmai will now have a 2nd season, the new title is Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha BURST. BURST is schedule for this October. This may cover Vol. 4 - 6 (I'm hoping it includes 7 as well). I now have less motivation to translate the volumes now (people can wait now).

Just hoping for when the Blu-Rays hits to be uncensored.

Oh, The Testament of Sister New Devil. I thought that synopsis sounded familiar. Also it's from the same writer as Aethetica of a Rogue Hero. Why am I not surprised?

Read the first few chapters of Testament last year, didn't see anything there worth investing time into. Just a tired hobcobble of ideas used in 5000 other LNs and manga. I didn't even finish the Rogue Hero anime :x

Honestly, I remember giving Rogue Hero a shot, I'm certain I finished the first episode, yet I don't remember thing-one about it other than the name. I'm usually pretty lenient as far as anime tropes go - I care more about how they're used rather than whether or not it's something I've seen a lot before - so take that for what you will.

I almost made it to the end of Rogue Hero, but I was so overcome with apathy that I didn't even make a conscious decision to stop watching. I just... forgot about it until now.

I didn't make it through the first season of High School DxD either, but these sorts of stories seem popular, so maybe I'm just missing something or watching them with the wrong sort of mind set.

^Nothing wrong having a bit of guilty pleasure, though, the anime adaptation of those 2 weren't so great (can't believe people are really praising the anime of Shinmai). It does makes me wonder if the author (Tetsuto Uesu) has ever been interested in making a eroge. It would be nukige if that were to happen, though.

Can't wait for the ****storm when the studio censors the scenes of Basara and co. for the 2nd season.

Edit: Time to read Gunsmith Burst (Burst is certainly a popular word).

My guilty pleasures are mostly cute, nonsensical fluff. Just finished BakaTest. That was pretty good.

DXD was at least mostly fun. It could be obnoxious, but it felt genuine in the sense that the creators involved actually thought this would be something they'd enjoy - it just had a sense of fun in the less serious scenes, while sort of being balanced in the serious parts. I'll admit I didn't finish that one, either, but only because I got distracted (happens to me even with the best of shows). I keep telling myself to finish it someday. With the season 3 announcement, I kinda have a deadline now.

Speaking of not finishing good things, I started rewatching Fang of the Sun Dougram. I was greatly enjoying it 3 years ago, but halfway through, Wikipedia spoiled the entire latter half of the anime, including the ending, so I had to wait until I forgot it all before I could go back to it. Now I've forgotten the whole first half of the show...but now I get to experience it all over again, which is great, since it's a great show. The first episode is still jarring as hell, though - it's one of those rare pilot episodes, where they want to get right to the action so they fast forward to a latter part of the plot without actually introducing any of these characters or their motivations...or really anything other than a lot of melodrama and military action. They didn't even establish the setting - I didn't even know this was taking place on another planet until episode 2. In fact, I spent the whole episode thinking it was a misnumbered episode 10 (in fact, I still do, we'll see when we get there whether or not that's the case), especially since episode 2 could've easily been episode 1. Oh well, I guess they would've had to do it that way to get the attention of the kids shows like this was still aimed at (it was made in 1981, when Mecha was just becoming a thing), since the next couple episodes were slower paced and story oriented.

I do love it, though. The story seems very well-written. There's a lot of grounded political and social discussion going on, in between the usual military strategizing. The main theme seems to be the importance of truth and communication - both how it can be hidden or manipulated, but also how misunderstandings can lead to some major problems, and perhaps how simply knowing and/or accepting the truth can lead to better things. Granted, I'm mostly getting this from what little I've seen and/or remember, however, the tagline at the end of every episode so far has been "Not Justice, I want to get Truth", so maybe I'm not too far off the mark.

The main character, Crinn, does act rash and usually barely survives because of his foolishness, but IIRC, that's kind of a big part of the theme of the show, and he'll mature as things progress and he gets a sense of the bigger picture. He's kinda like Zeta Gundam's Kamille in that regard, but unlike Kamille, the show tries to make it clear that his actions often have positive and negative consequences, and the negatives usually catch up to him.

The setting's still weird, though. This is obviously a Terraformed planet, since it could very well be Earth most of the time. The X-Nebula and Binary stars seem to be the only reason to set it in space, since they both have unusual effects that limit long-range combat, especially guided missiles, thus making the perfect excuse to utilize giant robots. Yet thankfully, this show never actually makes the robots the "superior" weapons. They're simply a large component of the military. Even in the first episode, the Dougram arguably has more to fear from the helicopters than the other mechs, who are dispatched with punches and even a soldier armed with a bazooka. And the Dougram doesn't appear again until episode 9 - in the meantime, our protagonist, who is military trained, utilizes a variety of weapons and tactics to get the upper hand.

...wow, I don't remember the last time I had so much to say about a show, especially after only 4 episodes (though I do seem to remember more than I thought). That's pretty refreshing.

Ok, how do you guys have such patience to watch anime without spoiling the fun? Really the difference between anime and western cartoons is that in Anime, the gags drag on and on and not so in cartoons.

I accidentally spoiled out City Hunter a bit and now I feel bad about it. Still I feel that Karoi as of now, is still a useless character. There's really no reason to even have her in the manga. I just don't get that at all. Every episode that does show some support from her can easily be done by Ryo himself. She can't even be independent and I hate the character so much because of her development becoming so vague.

This problem occurs only in adaptations of ongoing shounen manga. I've never seen the legendary DBZ pacing problems anywhere outside of that.

Most anime these days are notorious for being too damn short, as in trying to fit too many ideas in a short span of time so some aspects don't get enough time to develop...

Seriously, Artwark, have you only seen, like, 3 anime, all of which are Dragon Ball-related?