REIDEEN 01 raw
Saiga Junki is a normal high school student. One day, he hears that his father, an archaeologist missing for the past 10 years, was found dead in ruins located at Iwate Prefecture’s at Mt Kurokami. Junki blacks out while in the ruins. Upon waking up, he finds a gold bracelet left beside him with the inscription, "The Great Reideen." At that time, a meteor falls from the sky and a large mechanical beast appears out of a lake..."
Remake of the 1975 series Yusha Reideen.
Robots anime
Realistic-looking settings. 3D is good but dizzying camera angles. The hero had the same dream over and over in the past but when the vision becomes reality all he can say is "what's going on"? He's supposed to be a genius! Oh well - probably intended for kids... but with an adult-looking hero.
>>148 LOL... it's so true.
Kanon was good though, and Air was good, and therefore through association anything else based on a Key game which ends up being animated by Kyoto Animation must be good.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 ep01 raw
"With the age of fossil fuels gone, the three superpowers have build their own energy generation systems. Constant warfare around the globe for fuels lead to the formation of a private military organization, called "Celestial Being", dedicated to eradicating war."
War anime.
I can never understand how gravity works in the Gundam universe. It seems that people sticks to floors in space, and that inertia doesn't apply to Gundams. Also, if they have such superior weapons, why not use its technology to solve the energy crisis instead of fighting? Fighting war with war only brings more wars.
Anyway, nice animation, nice girls, nice updated "retro" look in the chara designs (the humans, not the red-white-blue Gundam). The plot doesn't make too much sense (why to show off Gundam superiority to the 3 superpowers if the bad guys were terrorists?) Oh, and those guys need badly a haircut. How can they fight with so much hair in the way?
KimiKiss pure rouge 01 raw
"Follow the lives of the young heroines of Kibina High during the springtime of April, the perfect season to for chance encounters and budding romances."
Slice of school romance life.
It's a kind of washed out "To Heart 2", with childhood friends being reunited, and falling in love with other guys/girls in the school... Not bad, and it flows okay, but the quality of the art seems to fluctuate already after a few minutes. The too-far-apart eyes bothered me too much, probably because there's not much happening. Meet a girl, see friends, go to school... Kiss a girl being the highlight of the episode. I want to say this is shoujo (anime for girls) and that's why it's so boring (for me), but there are too many girls so I'm not sure. Anime for sensitive guys?
ef - a tale of memories 01 raw
"Hirono Hiro is a poor high school boy who gets by drawing shoujo manga. On a Christmas night, he chases down Miyamura Miyako, the girl who stole his bike. With the chance encounter blooming into a friendship, will Hiro’s childhood friend, Kei, just watch idly by the sidelines?"
Encounters in the town.
Existentialist anime. Reminds me of Da_Capo (violent jealous sister, pigtailed blonde, art style), mixed with Black_Cat "artistic" storytelling (cutout characters, extreme zooms...) Well, the scenery is pretty, I guess. Lots of clouds. ... I'll pass.
ボク サッチー
γ⌒ヽ (〒)
| ( ゚∀゚) \
| 屮 屮 \
ノ : 8│ ~(〒) \
ε= (___,ノ 。
Shugo Chara! ep 01 raw
"Little do the students of Seiyo Academy know that the “spice princess” Amu is actually a softie deep inside. With her wish to break away from this mask of coolness comes the birth of Amu’s three “Shugo Charas” (Guardian Charas) who are said to represent her desired personalities (or is it..?)."
Magical girl anime.
I could tell within seconds this is a toy-sponsored anime. Multiple characters animated in the street, smooth animation, different backgrounds in rapid succession, the anime has a budget.
Ep01 was entertaining to watch, even tho it's the usual same "chosen girl has to save the world with magic" routine.
Kaiji 1 (sub)
This is the best show.
CLANNAD 1 (sub)
This is still somewhat Key dating game. However, Clannad has no supernatural occurrences, passable original art, and a realistic family setting, so it might actually work. It's somewhat different from the horrendous and inhuman writing in AIR and Kanon.
Main character is a guy doing a Tomokazu Sugita impression since Sugita is off doing terrible Gonzo anime.
an Clann as Dango/Dango daikazoku is a really good song for some reason.
Sketchbook 1 (raw)
This is a slice-of-life show, well known to be the worst anime genre. The character direction and sense of comic timing are so bad (characters go into :3 and SD faces randomly without a scene cut or change in proportion) that it's nearly unwatchable, but the background art is okay. If you're a plebeian and not a cool guy like myself you might be able to watch it.
Rental Magica - 01 raw
"Due to his father’s disappearance, the cowardly Itsuki Iba takes over their magician-dispatching company, Astral. As he leads a pack of magicians in carrying out requests from clients, he uncovers his powers and unravels mysteries of his past."
Magical harem anime.
Looks like a straight adaptation from some ero-game. 1 wimp with hidden superpowers all the girls are in love with, 4 girls, 1 cat-loving asexual priest in the exorcism company. Plus all the other girls in the class, the soft girl, the haughty rich blonde, etc... no other guys. For the fan.
Minami-ki - 01 raw
"The three Minami sisters (Haruka, Kana and Chiaki) live together, taking care of each other. With nobody to answer to but themselves and each other, the three sisters get up to some very odd shenanigans."
Slice of slice of sliced life.
Animation is more fluid to the expense of details and shading.
Three dumb sisters making big drama out of small nothings? I'm bored already within the first few minutes of viewing...
Night Wizard
This is half comedy and half some slightly incoherent RPG fighting thing.
Animation is TV class but okay. It feels like they're taking direction cues from StrikerS even though it's terrible…
There's an echoing piano music effect that sounds exactly like it came out of Chrono Trigger.
PRISM ARK - 01 raw
"Preicia and Hyaweh are aspiring knights-to-be of the Rozenberg Knights Academy, who find themselves caught up in a devastating war..."
RPG anime.
Haha, I remember that ero-game, it had good-looking babes... too bad they hide the nudity in the anime. ^^;
Whoa, Simon's VA... but he's also the voice for some secondary characters, I heard one soldier yelling using his voice. ^^;;
I stopped listening to the dialog when the girl said some cliched "It's not like (I love you), I do this for the Kingdom" to the guy. The bad girl's lines were also similarly corny. ^^;;;
For the fan.
Jyushin Enbu - HERO TALES 01 raw
Taitou, a young man living in ancient China, is the prophesied seventh star of the Hokuto (Big Dipper). He must travel with his companions to retrieve a sacred sword that was stolen.
Supernatural, superpowered fighting anime.
It reminds me of "Legend of Condor Hero", with better animation. I'm not a big fan of the historical Chinese hero genre, tho. It's basically: get beaten up, walk a lot, find a master (preferably a babe), get trained, defeat original bad guy, the end (get the babe).
Maple Story
This show is for 5 year olds. If you're a five year old who can speak Japanese I guess you can watch it.
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/894/maplestoryhe0.jpg
I think it's the guy from the Big Dogs shirts.
Oh also the main character has a lisp. A LISP! Is that an approved moe defect?
Quick reviews
Suteki Tantei Labyrinth 02 raw: still haven't seen this subbed. Still a lot of yapping going on. Looks like the hero is gonna be a kid solving adult problems (Conan clone?). I'm starting to get a bad vibe from this anime...
BAMBOO BLADE 02 raw: good kendo fight episode, then it faded into molasses.
Sketchbook Full Color's 02 raw: still dumb. I feel getting stupider watching this...
Myself;Yourself 02 raw: not even a slapping in this episode. OTOH it's more realistic that way, I suppose.
Genshiken 2 - 01 raw: the usual gang. I need to see this subbed to see if it lives up to the earlier season. So far it doesn't look good, lots of talking heads in this episode, no action whatsoever.
Quick reviews 2
Dragonaut 02 raw: more explosions "because it looks cool", more unnecessary use of violence. I guess we shouldn't pay attention to the (bad) script and just look at the visuals (and the girls bosoms).
Mokke 02 raw: still using this weird, washed, childish, almost ugly art style. Apparently the anime will focus on the younger sister daily life, with the big sis relegated in the background. IOW, an anime for kids... A shame, the manga was so nice.
Genshiken_2 01 sub
"Genshiken follows the lives of a group of college students drawn together by their shared hobbies, and the trials and adventures associated with being otaku."
Slice of real life.
The club decides to produce a doujinshi. The episode was quite heavy, technical and talkative and dealing with commercial sharks and professional authors, instead of the funny antics from season one. Doesn't look like a club-for-fun anymore, more like a budding business venture. Not a bad episode by itself, but there was a radical shift on the atmosphere.
Kodomo no jikan 01 raw
Daisuke Aoki is a new teacher at Futatsubashi Elementary School. But his class is rebellious, and the leader of the pack is a precocious young girl named Rin Kokonoe with a dark past, and who plays on his weaknesses.
School life comedy. Based on a manga for adults.
lol, heavily censored, even for stupid things. ^^; It looks like the TV networks want to play it down as safe as possible.
Anyway, I have mixed feelings about this one. The difficulties a male teacher has when he tries to teach a class of unruly preteens coming into adolescence is an interesting (and thorny) subject, but I'm not sure I want to sit through it.
Moyashimon - 01 raw
"Story of a college student who can see bacteria/fungus, an ability which lands him often in troubles."
Agricultural college life.
The intro is a must-see, animated 3D bacteria dancing around in the real world. Nice original concept, well-implemented for most of the episode. At the end it gets repetitive, with that S&M slut repeating over and over "I can't accept this" - who gives a damn about her opinion. I wonder if this is turn to be an "Arjuna", a well-intended ecologist/green anime with a good first episode that turns out sour at the end. We'll see.
Quick reviews
BLUE DROP 02 raw again, 'like the scifi parts, 'hate the murky female-female(-robot? -alien?) relationships.
Clannad 02 sub I was bored to tears and kept skipping forward. The only part I liked was with the guy announcing to the whole class the tough girl was bisexual, and all the idiots believing
it. Give me more "Monty Python"-nesque scenes and less dull dumb drama.
Night Wizard 02 RAW not as funny as ep01, but still watcheable.
Gosyusho-sama Ninomiya-kun 02 RAW Ahaha! I found this ep incredibly hilarious, but probably for all the wrong reasons.
>>170
Fuck, so the Japanese gyp us from having a good anime, and the Americans gyp us from having a good manga.
I hate you both.
Perhaps it is time to own up to the fact that that manga is just not very good. All it really has is fanservice for the pedos.
Shion no Ou 01 raw
The violent murder of Ishiwatari Shion’s parents at a young age made her lose her voice forever. The only evidence police found was a shogi board and one piece, "the King". As the years passed, she improved her shogi (shōgi=Japanese chess), and ended entering the pro shogi scene. But coming in the open may be her demise...
Horror thriller + cerebral sports anime all in one.
Quality in this first episode varied wildly. It looks like if two animations teams worked on the episode, one quite good team and one quite bad one. Script quality also was going up and down -- like if someone with no talent got hold of a tight thriller by a reputable scriptwriter and tried to make it accessible to 5-year olds and below. The result - as well as my opinion of it - is quite equivocal -- I liked the tight parts, I hated the dumbed-down parts.
Suteki Tantei Labyrinth - 01 subbed
"Mysterious events unfold in the now-devastated city of Tokyo where few inhabitants still remain. Young boy detective, Mayuki Hyouga, sets out to uncover these mysteries in the city, now known as "Labyrinth"."
Mystery/detective(?) anime.
Boy? "Mayuki"? That's a female name, normally.
Okay, so the "boy" can solve police cases at a distance using some supernatural power? Good for the police, but I don't see what so exciting about it. But then there is that super-girl trying to find some immortality artefact in the "boy"'s house and fighting super-"dolls" which is not yet explained. I'll probably watch a few more episodes to see where this goes.
Yattokame Tanteidan 01 (The Appearance of The Old Lady Detective Group) raw
An old lady is running a mom-and-pop candy store downtown in Nagoya City. Various mysteries are solved with the help of her elderly companions and children from the neighborhood.
Tales of the elderly, solving crimes from afar.
Simplistic anime style, casting a crude light on the reality of the daily life in Nagoya. Heavy dialect. For the fans.
> Perhaps it is time to own up to the fact that that manga is just not very good. All it really has is fanservice for the pedos.
Isn't that a good thing?
Quick reviews
All the eps 02 are of the same vein as the eps 01, so nothing to add here, save for
PRISM ARK - 02 raw: The flashbacks have stopped, story have gone back at the beginning of the conflict.
One thing I noticed: there are some cartoonish fast movements (not even flashing or bright lights), and those scenes are heavily darkened/desaturated, even way prior to the actions. A new form of censorship? Was there something in the news about some guy going berserk after seeing some fast movements, or what?
> Script quality also was going up and down -- like if someone with no talent got hold of a tight thriller by a reputable scriptwriter and tried to make it accessible to 5-year olds and below.
I'm not sure if you could judge this raw; it's not that easy.
The character design is completely worthless, it ruined the animation entirely. I can't stand to watch it at all.
other Afternoon shows:
Mokke (1 raw)
This is kind of like Mushishi (in fact it seems to be Mushishi) except more modern times. Also, instead of Ginko solving problems, the little girl whines and faints until other people solve them for her!
That means it sucks. Very good technical quality though.
Moyashimon (1 raw)
This show is great.
http://www.riuva.com/?p=763
Ghost Hound 01 raw
Taro, Makoto and Masayuki are junior high school students. Because of a traumatic childhood experience, the three can travel to/experience the spiritual world...
Drama, school life.
One school boy has frequent OOB (out of body) experiences and a (creepy) councellor is called in to "cure him". I suspect things will go very wrong... Hopefully it won't turn into an horror movie.
GunxSword
Take it as you will.
That's not March 2007+ at all.
yeah... Gun X Sword is 2005. Old!
Gunbuster
A girl called Noriko is at a School for mobile suit pilots, though is bottom of her class. She gets into a fight in her mobile suit, with a girl who has been teasing her. In this fight, which is witnessed my many, including her coach, she shows great promise, for which she is chosen to travel to space with the school's top student to defend the earth from creatures known not other than 'space monsters'.
This is a mecha that will definitely eventually become a classic. It's six episodes in, but don't let that put you off.
Gunbuster
Vintage: 1988
>>162
Night Wizard is based off a Japanese tabletop game, Think it was sorta like Shadowrun or RIFTS.
Ghost Hound 1 sub
This is complete plagiarism of Serial Experiments Lain!. The audio production and at least four of the shots (one repeated constantly) are exactly the same!
Same terrible character designer as Jigoku Shoujo; she's good at everything else but her character art is so bad I find it practically unwatchable…
Same director, same scriptwriter.
And everyone else, too, I know. But that doesn't mean they can reuse backgrounds.
Minami-ke
First three eps I've seen quite solid. Ichigo-mashimaro-style deadpan humor slice-a-life comedy with three sisters elementary, middle, high school. Good seiyuu and some quality animation from a young, but promising studio.
>>193
except for the hard fucking language. someone sub this fast
At least two groups are subbing it already.
Is evaluated high in this term in Japan.
Damn the Chinese work FAST! Two subs out already.
China is so taking over the world.
These guys own.
Clannad 01, 02 (sub): Pretty much everyone is an asshole.
Star-ghost-tan isn't an asshole.