190 replies to this topic

[David Meadows]

We watched something called Initial D, picked randomly from the lovefilm catalogue, no idea what it would be.

Ok, so it's about racing cars. Yawn. Bad choice.

Except... strangely compelling. We watched three episodes, to just where the hero driver turns up in his car to show up the big shot interlopers... and the damned disc finished!!! Arrgh! We don't know if the hero will win, or if he'll get the girl (or what her new bikini looks like), or if anyone will realise it's him driving the mystery car... arrrgh!

Now we have to wait for disc 2...

[Ogul]

First off, I'm not sure that "if you ever have to launch yourself into the vacuum of space, just cover your ears and you'll be fine until someone comes to pick you up" is a lesson we should be teaching people.

On the bright side, it isn't likely to come up.

[Adam Wednesdays]

On the bright side, it isn't likely to come up.

Don't scoff! We're entering an age of commercial space flight and asteroid mining; and really, how far away is that from your children and grandchildren flying around in giant anthropomorphized robot suits and bashing each other over the head while using poorly defined space magic psychic powers to trip balls in the middle of wars? And when that happens, do you really want them to have been exposed to such misguided safety guidelines?

[Ogul]

A fair point.

Anyways, a new season is unfolding (although one of the shows that interested me have started yet), and the old one is either wrapping up or hitting mid-season so:

Lupin: Mine Fujiko no iu Onna: I really enjoyed this one and highly recommend it (it ended with ep 12). I thought it would be a simple fanservicy action/adventure, and it had that, but it was also very introspective and artistic. It definitely focused on the other characters more than I was expecting, but each episode involved Fujiko either as a primary diver of the events, or the inspiration for them, as her history is explored. The art style is extremely unique, with flat and muted colored art that is then shaded using hatched ink-work that gives the whole thing a very retro and manga feel. While many of the characters are played for comedy, they are also given time to show a serious and capable side. I hadn't seen much Lupin before this, and always regarded him as a bit of a clown, but this series portrayed him as sort of a "Bond with a sense of humor," infinitely capable, never a wasted movement, but projecting an air of carefree humor to disguise his intentions. Fair warning though, there is nudity in almost every episode, but it's far more tame than, say, Game of Thrones, and it does typically seem natural to the plot and characters involved.



Eureka 7 Ao: I like this one. Lovely animation, fun characters, and Noah is probably my favorite "cute animal sidekick" ever. There's a lot of different conflicting mysteries going around, both for the characters, and for the viewers, as the history of their world is very different than our own, and unfolded slowly to the viewer. The episodes don't tend to flow together like a serial, nor are they completely standalone episodic, so the transition from episode to episode can be jarring, I could see this leading somewhere very interesting, and I'd like to see where it goes.



Accel World: is probably my favorite show of the season though. Each episode is just quite engaging and I enjoy the way it mixes the modern with the near future, like a mixture of Dennou Coil and .Hack. The animation and primary design work is solid, although I'm still far from a fan of the main character's "Silver Crow's" design, and they do a really good job of building and releasing tension throughout the plot. Of the three though this one has the most "fanservicyness" of them, no nudity or anything like in Fujiko, but more than a few low camera angles and accidental gropes that just seem a bit gratuitous.

[Ogul]

Eureka 7 Ao, ep12, holy ####!

[Ogul]

New show for the season, Sword Arts Online. This one is the .Hack of the new season, and takes it to a new level, throwing in elements of Lost. The basic premise is that it follows a guy logging in to play the launch of a new MMO, one which uses a full sensory VR helmet. One logged in, and having played for a bit, the system admin appears to everyone and announces that

Spoiler

none of them can log out. The option is gone and they can't control their bodies with the helmet on as it reroutes all neural impulses. And if anyone's helmet is removed or disconnected, it will use microwaves to fry their brains. 200 people have already died this way out of an initial population of 10,000. Dying in game is lethal in real life, and the only way out is to win it, something that is typically considered almost impossible.

Very weird, but a pretty slick start. I can definitely see this thing getting a bit dark though.

[David Meadows]

New show for the season, Sword Arts Online. This one is the .Hack of the new season, and takes it to a new level, throwing in elements of Lost. The basic premise is that it follows a guy logging in to play the launch of a new MMO, one which uses a full sensory VR helmet. One logged in, and having played for a bit, the system admin appears to everyone and announces that

Spoiler

none of them can log out. The option is gone and they can't control their bodies with the helmet on as it reroutes all neural impulses. And if anyone's helmet is removed or disconnected, it will use microwaves to fry their brains. 200 people have already died this way out of an initial population of 10,000. Dying in game is lethal in real life, and the only way out is to win it, something that is typically considered almost impossible.

Very weird, but a pretty slick start. I can definitely see this thing getting a bit dark though.

I can't help thinking that

Spoiler

the system admin needs to announce that in the real world too, otherwise people's brains are going to be fried by their wife/mother/best friend/the cops trying to "rescue" them. Also, after the first couple of deaths (regardless of a public announcement or not), the cops are going to step in and every white-hat hacker in the world is going to be working to shut the game down.

Plus, how long does this game last and how are the players drinking while hooked up?

So the premise is either monumentally stupid or there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. I'd be interested to hear how it progresses.

[Ogul]

Well, about Sword Art Online,

Spoiler

He shows the players live news scenes of people finding the bodies, I hope that this came with some sort of message. He seems to think that "the word is out" and most of the funny business will stop on the outside. As for "body maintenance," we shall have to see how that plays out. I imagine some people will die of dehydration and such, but perhaps they'll track down people by sales records and move them into a coma ward or something. They actually mention all of this, but as it's only the first episode they haven't fully resolved it yet. The main character has a mom and sister at home, who can presumably take care of him, but another character notes that he lives alone, so chances of him being found immediately are low.

It's unknown how long this is intended to go on, but the first episode ends with the ominous statement: "in the first month, 2000 have died. . . Floor 1 (of 100) has yet to be cleared."

So presumably by the second episode, the main character will be 1 month into the thing, and must have had his physical needs taken care of somehow. This is not a cartoony goof show, from what I can tell, they try to rationalize everything going on as best they can, so presumably the author has a plan for all of the logistical issues. It also helps that it's based off a book series, so most of the broad plot holes have probably already been raised by the fan community and plausible answers thought up.

Also, I just found out that Sword Arts is based on novels written by the same guy who writes the Accel World novels, so he's behind two of my current favorite shows (with slightly similar premises).

[Ogul]

Watched the first ep of Moyashimon Returns. amusing and educational, but nothing great in the first episode alone. As it's the sequel to a series many years old, it spent a lot of the first episode reminding people who the characters are, although it did also explain why most sake is watered down. For those that didn't know about the first series, the premise to this one is that it follows a bunch of students and teachers at a Tokyo agricultural college, that work in the fermentation department. The twist is that the main character has the ability to see microbes in the form of little anthropomorphized talking creatures, like adorable little Aspergillus Oryzae below. It's not like he can control them or anything, but they do talk to him, mostly about fermenting things. The last series was pretty funny, and this one might be as well once it gets going, with each episode playing as a slice of life comedy between these various friends, with lessons on how fermentation works in between.

[Adam Wednesdays]

Trying out the new Lupin/Fujiko Mine series. It's certainly interesting and not what I was expecting, but I'm not entirely sold yet that it's actually pulling off what it wants to do.

[Ogul]

I just read a good review about the show on ANN that I thought made some good points, one of which being that a lot of the core of the series isn't really apparent until ep 7 or 8 when the main plot crests the hill and really starts to roar. Until then it's mostly character pieces on two or more of the cast members, which are entertaining but don't really clarify the overarcing plot of the series. I promise it all works by the end of it.

[Ogul]

Just watched the first two episodes of Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita (Humanity Has Declined). It's very weird. It's not so completely random and insane as Excel Saga, but it's definitely out there. Most of the show is fairly tame moe slice of life stuff. And then really crazy #### happens that is hilarious.The premise seems to be set in the future, where people are living in peasant-style villages and are living at the edge of subsistence. Then there are these little faeries that seem to be able to do practically anything, Doraemon style, only they're also really stupid and childish and demand candy in exchange. The lead character is tasked with wrangling them to actually accomplish things. Also, animatronic bread tearing itself apart, and fully animate skinned and beheaded chickens. Definitely worth watching for anybody that enjoys "weird ####" anime, although the pacing can be a bit uneven.

[Lucian Von Dooom]

Just watched the first two episodes of Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita (Humanity Has Declined). It's very weird. It's not so completely random and insane as Excel Saga, but it's definitely out there. Most of the show is fairly tame moe slice of life stuff. And then really crazy #### happens that is hilarious.The premise seems to be set in the future, where people are living in peasant-style villages and are living at the edge of subsistence. Then there are these little faeries that seem to be able to do practically anything, Doraemon style, only they're also really stupid and childish and demand candy in exchange. The lead character is tasked with wrangling them to actually accomplish things. Also, animatronic bread tearing itself apart, and fully animate skinned and beheaded chickens. Definitely worth watching for anybody that enjoys "weird ####" anime, although the pacing can be a bit uneven.

That sounds really cool. I'm totally gonna check this out. I'm assuming it's not released in North America yet, right?

[Ogul]

Just airing in Japan, but maybe someone's officially streaming it, I don't know.

Ok, just did some checking, apparently Crunchyroll is simul-streaming it, and Sentai is going to be officially distributing it later.

[Lucian Von Dooom]

Just airing in Japan, but maybe someone's officially streaming it, I don't know.

Ok, just did some checking, apparently Crunchyroll is simul-streaming it, and Sentai is going to be officially distributing it later.

Thanks dude!

[Ogul]

So the second ep of Sword Art Online doesn't really explain how they're all still alive, having not been able to take care of their biologicals for the past month, but most of them did survive somehow, so until told otherwise I'm going to assume that they were taken to hospitals and treated like coma patients. Anyways, the second ep was pretty fun, with a big boss fight, and a social rift forming between the ~9000 "regular players", and the ~100 or so* "beta players" who know a lot more tricks of the trade. So far it all seems fairly reasonable.

*minus any for the 2000 casualties on either side.

[Ogul]

Sword Art Online is definitely a cool show. They've still made no effort to figure out what's going on in the real world, but they all seem to have adapted to their new lives. There doesn't seem to be much progress of any sort of ongoing plot line yet, the first four episodes are each rather standalone stories that help define the main character, and also set up characters that seem likely to reoccur (and some that definitely won't). They do a great job of taking the MMO premise and making it epic, but in a way that seems so much more "real" than other "virtual world" shows do. I mean, the rules and systems of the game just seem like something that would exist in a real epic game, right down to the UI elements.

[David Meadows]

We watched something called Initial D, picked randomly from the lovefilm catalogue, no idea what it would be.

Ok, so it's about racing cars. Yawn. Bad choice.

Except... strangely compelling. We watched three episodes, to just where the hero driver turns up in his car to show up the big shot interlopers... and the damned disc finished!!! Arrgh! We don't know if the hero will win, or if he'll get the girl (or what her new bikini looks like), or if anyone will realise it's him driving the mystery car... arrrgh!

Now we have to wait for disc 2...

We have now seen discs 1, 2, and 3, and assumed that would be the end of the series as there's nothing else in the lovefilm catalogue.

But ohhh nooo, the end of ep. 9 is a cliffhanger with the hero just going in to the dreaded five consecutive hairpin bends!!! The suspense is killing me... why is lovefilm doing this to me? Why?? Why???

Edited by David Meadows, 01 August 2012 - 10:33 AM.

[Adam Wednesdays]

I can't tell whether or not MD Geist is so painfully awful that it's entertaining, or if it's so painfully awful that it just took seven years off my life and shut down one of my kidneys.

Edited by Adam Wednesdays, 12 August 2012 - 07:23 AM.

[Ogul]

I haven't seen that since highschool. I remember it was bad, but almost worth watching because the sword was cool. Almost.