ittaku

This must be the season for necroposts. I very much doubt the opening poster is still looking for responses more than a year later.

That's actually not a good thing. Go see a doctor instead of talking to us.

I'm still baffled by this myself... Last time I brought it up people thought it was just because I was anti loli but that's not the reason... It's that its legality in the west is so questionable that I wonder why any company would take such a risk to bring the wrong sort of exposure to their label and this medium. Pushing the envelope is not a good way for something marginalised to begin with.

Rewatched Girls und Panzer with my wife. Initially she didn't like it because she didn't like the lead character (that's often one of her showstoppers) but after I insisted she keep watching it, she loved it, and so did I. Now rewatching Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou with her. The same thing happened to begin with there too, but after a few episodes she really started to like that too. Alas my one fail with making her persist was Kaleido Star. She loved it for the first half of the series but then when the drama gets all over the top and the new characters get nasty during the second half, she totally lost interest and refused to watch any more after 34 of 52 episodes. This is a real shame because after toughing it out, the way all the nasty characters are that way for a reason and they evolve and everything falls into place for one of the most beautiful anime endings ever is really worth it. Myself, of the non-current season, I'm still working my way through AmagamiSS. It's all good fun so far.

One thing's for sure, re zero certainly has grabbed our attention more than all the rest with its intrigue. There have been a couple of times already it took a totally unexpected direction, and they were mostly well executed, making it feel very fresh compared to so many other shows.

Joining in the hype since I didn't predict it.

I agree with your sentiment. There is a whole unresolvable debate that will rage for all eternity on that one though, and it mostly comes down to taste. This debate appears every couple of days in some form or other here. Probably the most interesting part of this debate to me is that my tastes changed the more I understood Japanese language and culture and by the time I understood Japanese well myself, what I thought was an accurate representation in an English translation was totally different.

That has to be the most impressive necropost I've seen to date on fuwa.

Mother's Rosario was precisely 'not the droid I was looking for' in an action fantasy anime trying too hard to be some kind of moral social commentary drama. As for Sinon's plot, once again whoever wrote that shit is obsessed with So disappointed... I kept watching SAO and SAO spin offs and series in the hope it recreates the magic of first half of S1 but it just keeps going further and further downhill. I'll foolishly watch the movie/special that's coming out shortly and no doubt will be equally disappointed.

Dropped a lot more this season than last. Stand out new shows are: Koutetsujou Zero Kara Hajimeru Netoge Haifuri Watching lots of others as always but they're all just time fillers whereas I look forward to those above. Koutetsujou no kabaneri will likely be the one to watch if you end up watching just one series this season. Special mention for Hundred since episode 3. Silly tropeworthy show in the extreme but it's still silly fun.

What has reality got to do with it?

This wasn't always the case as it has taken 3 decades for Japanese 2D art forms to slowly gravitate towards that one time in life. Nowadays the bulk of anime, manga, light novels, and of course visual novels start with a protagonist who's 16 years old and in 2nd year high school (year 11). The reason it has happened is actually deep rooted in Japanese life and culture and multifactorial. In a nutshell, though, the main reason is that it is the one age of life they believe represents the greatest period of possibilities and potential. The bulk of people's working lives in Japan end up being in mundane office jobs with long hours and slave like conditions working for corporations with little regard for its workers as the so-called "salaryman". Once in employment, even if they have their own family and keep their circle of friends, they become largely faceless people in a sea of other faceless people and work with little scope for further change in their life. Pay is bad, hours are long, owning their own home is rarely affordable, conditions crowded, affording the time and money to have children and the thought of bringing children into a hard life prevents them having many kids etc. etc. etc. and basically it's pretty depressing really. When people are 16 in Japan, they are at a point in their lives where nothing is set in stone and absolutely every opportunity is yet to be explored and available. You are at the age where IQ is the absolute highest (if not relatively so) so capable of digesting the most complex concepts even if you look at them through immature unwise perspectives. Thus it's the age to explore relationships and new emotions for the first time through adult eyes. To experience and understand love, happiness, sorry, etc. They haven't decided their future careers but have been presented with enough information to get ideas for what direction they might want to take. They still have a year before all important college entrance examinations if they wish to take that direction so they are relatively free from time-constraining commitments. They're able to take on public roles and stand out in the world in (apparently) exciting events such as the tropeworthy school festival. On the sexual side, it's the legal age of consent, and the age people can get married. It's also the age where hormones are raging from both sexes and even if it's not conveyed in each character's personality, it is implied that they're all ready to hump like dogs in heat underneath whatever exterior persona they put on. In addition, every culture has an obsession with barely legal, and that is portrayed in all sexualised media, so it's mainstream to create stories surrounding that age, and in 2D they can then get more and more underage depending on how far they want to deviate from the mainstream since their laws allow such flexibility in drawn work for the time being. It's basically a clean slate for infinite possibilities in their eyes. That's not to say I think it's the only age they should portray myself, but I can at least see why they do it. The opening and ending you describe that is overused is basically starting the story defining that moment where all the possibilities are laid out and ending the story with choosing one happy direction to take it.

While I get annoyed at the naming aspects on my filesystem, at least exclamation marks mean something... I'm far more annoyed by meaningless apostrophe abuse by Japanese Engrish [sic] titles such as Clover Day's.

You're lucky that TH2 only has one per route, although they're very long scenes. If you think that editing is hard, you should see what translating those H scenes is like Having a convex outer glyph makes things look much nicer... Damn I should have put that in the style guide since they've all intentionally been made !?

Giving this another go since there are so many episodes. I'm up to 11 now and the show has picked up somewhat with some amusing character interactions and development as you said. The overriding fantasy story is still childish but not enough to make me stop watching it. I'll keep going now.

Can't tell in survey when it's referring to regular games or visual novels making it hard to decide on answers as the responses are totally different.

Well I'm a sucker but I really enjoyed hundred #3 no matter how formulaic the whole show is.

Watched rezero 3 and it has become far more interesting and exciting after the first couple of episodes where I was worried it would become incredibly repetitive if it kept doing that. A worthy watch indeed.

It also has some kancolle mixed in, but I agree High School Fleet (Haifuri) is turning out to be quite good. Netoge is also decent and for a crazy short I don't mind Uchuu Patrol Luluco.

This was actually a serious suggestion...

Finished playing Clover Day's finally for myself. Well that was kinda awesome. Best route and best grill was Izumi.

Finished bodacious space pirates. It was okay. The last 4 of the 26 episodes were finally a little engaging and there were some mildly amusing character moments but not enough. The story really never broke out of its shell being largely pointless and the drama was always fixed with incredible ease and infinite coincidences making it not much more than a kid's show. The animation was very pretty and the ED has great music at least. Next up AmagamiSS. I've finished the first arc and so far so good.

Announcement says it's only 5 episodes. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-04-15/planetarian-anime-project-revealed-as-both-5-episode-net-anime-and-film/.101099

Mate, your entire followup post is no better... it's still chock full of spoilers and spoiler discussion. Your other post was edited by a mod...

You're one of the few people on earth that enjoyed the ending... maybe the only person. Anyway can you edit your post to hide the ending spoiler? There may still be a few people who haven't suffered that ending yet and bad form to spoil shows in that way no matter how fucked up it is.