Scars Unseen

Just finished the Fate route in Fate/Stay Night. Definitely a good read, though I'm still not a fan of the text completely covering the art like that. Bittersweet ending there, though it didn't hit me as hard as Steins;Gate did before I figured out how to unlock the true ending. Probably going to start Unlimited Blade Works tomorrow, but I need some sleep first. Er... I guess I mean I'll start later today since it's 6:00 AM already. Yeah, definitely need some sleep...

I wasn't overly fond of G-Gundam either. And Seed wasn't terrible, though I could live without the backpacks. Destiny can go to hell. 00 was... not great. Not terrible either, but yeah... Mostly I'm a UC fan when it comes to Gundam.

Honestly, while the story isn't really bad in my eyes, it's not amazing either. There are worse, and there are better. The main reason I continue watching is that the concept - real robot vs super robot - is an interesting one, and the resulting battles are fairly different from what I usually see in mecha. The battles have an almost Rurouni Kenshin-like quality that appeals to me(it's not exactly the same, but there are parallels). And frankly, if other members can be entertained by plotless shows because they have cute girls doing cute things, I don't see why I can't be entertained by largely forgettable plot propped up by science-tactical action. I've gotten worse from Gundam series.

Understandable, even if I don't agree(except for Slaine. Didn't like him in season 1; really don't like him now). But like I said, for me at least, the thing that redeems the current state of the cast in season 2 isn't really just that it's plausible, but that it's consistent with what we saw in light of that plausibility. The character with the exit wound turned out okay(sans eye), and the one without one is comatose. And like I said, the Odin thing had to be planned from the beginning. I can't see that being an accident. Did they play with our expectations? Absolutely. Was it a cheap cop out? IMO, it was not. But if you didn't like the show for other reasons, that doesn't really help.

Well, H-Scenes don't do anything for me anyway, so my main concern in a VN is whether the scene actually helps drive the plot forward or whether it's just a "reward" H-Scene. The former I like if I already liked the VN(Saya no Uta being the most obvious example I can think of), and the latter I just skip through(Muv-Luv, I'm looking at you). That's my only criteria. Since I don't enjoy them sexually, I'm also not turned off from darker content. Basically, it has no more effect on me than any other violent content, which is to say it has none.

Though their next tweet does say that they will have that info out before the Kickstarter ends. I'll just hold out till then.

Well I'm financially okay to back this now(finally caught up with bills after my ridiculous $1200 vehicle inspection + Christmas spending). Now I just need to wait to get more concrete details on the 18+ version...

I'll usually watch them once unless I really like the music(Serial Experiments Lain, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Last Exile, and most recently, Akatsuki no Yona). Then I skip them every time afterward. The one exception to this is when I'm making someone watch Madoka Magica for the first time. I swear, whoever thought to do the OP that way is a genius. Watching it grow further and further out of sync with the actual content of the show just forces me to include it as a mandatory part of the experience.

Kind of cheating on some of these since some are from movies or OVAs, but they also may not be quite as commonly referenced due to age Armitage III Polymatrix had a great soundtrack that really fit the cyberpunk feel of the show Iria: Zeiram The Animation wasn't big on the bombast, but it had a great OST with a fair bit of subtlety to it Last Exile... Hey! An actual series! Okay, I think this show is fairly well known, but maybe some people have forgotten how awesome the soundtrack is. I haven't Huh... just noticed that the same woman composed for Last Exile and Code Geas.

Sometimes(e.g. most of the time) it isn't necessary to put "IMO" in front of viewpoints that are obviously opinion rather than statements of fact. People posting what they think of a show: one of those times. IMO

What the hell just happened to Akame ga Kill? It's been a nearly flawless adaptation for 19 episodes and then... this.

Aside from the other issues others have already mentioned, am I the only one that was creeped out by this episode's fan service? The show has been pushing the panty shots like nobody's business already, and I'd gotten pretty good at just tuning it out, but this episode... panning up while Michiru is struggling in a coffin... quick shot of her panties... moving on... nope! let's get a closer focus shot of that crotch while she's buried alive and crying for help! Slightly weirded out.

Well... My JCI just cost me about $1200. Maybe I'll be able to help fund this toward the end of the KS, but I'll be too busy trying to catch up on the bills I couldn't pay to catch it at the beginning...

Steins;Gate is slice of life? Since when? But yeah, if you have such a strong dislike of GnK's slice of life, I do suspect there isn't much point in conversing about it. It's one of the few examples of the genre that I can tolerate(the only other ones I can think of off hand being bizarre comedies like Azumanga Daioh and Nichijou). To be honest, though, I don't think 24 episodes is sufficient for the entire trilogy. It would be enough to do GnK by itself justice, but anything more would be stretching it.

This right here tells me that you and I are going to have wildly different views on this anime. The common route was long to be sure, but shitty? Highly disagree. It is -so far- the best slice of life comedy that I've encountered in an anime or VN. Now to be sure, I think that the anime could tone down the sheer volume of panty shots, but given the nature of the comedy in the story, it's not really a black mark against the show. I think that ignoring the common route would have been a huge mistake. Heck, I don't think that ignoring the common route would even be possible without completely sidelining Michiru(all of her best scenes are in the common route).

To be fair, it would be hard to recommend GnK in any capacity to people who have a strong dislike of fan service or sexuality. It's not like High School of the Dead where you could take the sexuality out and still have a complete show. GnK is about sexual situations and humor as much as it is anything else. It's just that GnK is really, really good at it.

I finished Steins;Gate true ending(finally). Turns out that the first time I played, I ran into a glitch where one of the true ending flag emails(and thus all subsequent ones) failed to show up. I ran into the same glitch again, but I knew about it in advance, so I just had to reload a save from earlier in the chapter. Next up, Fate Stay/Night. I want to watch the Ufotable adaptations, but I refuse to watch any adaptation of a VN I haven't played. Unless, of course, it hasn't been translated and likely never will be(like Kimi ga Nozomu Eien). Just finished the prologue.

If we aren't talking VNs(because then the answer would be "whatever the last VN I played was"), I'd have to say either Saints Row IV or The Stanley Parable. The first had an enjoyable story, was ridiculously over the top, had one of my new favorite video game antagonists, and just knew how to have fun with itself. The second was The Stanley Parable, and saying anything more about it would be spoiling the experience(there's a free demo on Steam you can check out, though).

Hopefully I'll be able to pledge for this. I've got my JCI this month(Japanese Compulsory Insurance: a bi-annual event where car shops charge around $600 to put a stamp on a paper saying you can drive your car for the next two years), which may put me behind on rent. Once I get that sorted out, GnK will be the first thing I look at.

I notice your location says you're in japan, given how you're watching the dub with friends I assume you're actually english. I wonder if being in japan and commonly interacting with the culture makes a difference in how much localisations affect your enjoyment. ...I think I'll rewatch the dubbed version to refresh my memory. American, yes, and all of my interaction with Japanese people has been with people in their 30s or older(I'm 34 myself), so I wouldn't say I'm especially familiar with Japanese geek culture. In fact, a lot of the stuff I do know, I originally learned from the Steins;Gate VN(which goes into more depth than the anime and has a glossary). I think another reason I prefer the Japanese Okabe is that the Dub voice actor exhibits much less range(so far). I find it hilarious whenever events catch Okabe by surprise and his voice jumps a couple octaves. The English VA doesn't really do anything similar(so far).

I bought the Steins;Gate Blu-Ray, and am watching it with my friends who prefer dubbed anime. The voice actors aren't terrible, though they don't match up to well with their Japanese counterparts(well, maybe Daru is close). But the translation? It's not. Or at least half of it isn't. They pulled a Working Designs and completely localized the humor. They ripped out all the otaku culture references and turned them into generic geek references, including some rather old ones(e.g. there's an "All Your Base" reference). This becomes somewhat problematic when it comes to Okabe because the dub version of him comes off as actually insane instead of just insanely immature. We've only gotten 4 episodes in, but so far, the switch to more western-friendly references seems to be hurting the experience more than it helps.

I don't think it would be possible for a 12 episode GnK not to suck. It's just too long a VN to cram into so small amount of airing time. Doesn't mean they won't do it, but it would be truly disappointing if they do.

This was one of my favorite shows that I watched from this season, but I would agree that it felt fairly rushed. I think that the show needed more room to breathe and develop the characters a bit. This is especially true with a protagonist like Inaho. There is such a large discrepancy between the bluntness of his communication and the subtlety(or even complete absence) of his emotional reactions... I think I need a lot longer than we were given to get a good feel for him as a complete character. Now granted, we are getting another season, and I'm glad for that. It's just that it feels like it should have taken longer to get to the point we have. The show has some good raw material, but all we've gotten to see from it so far is a few really good "boss" fights followed by... another boss fight.

Just finished Aldnoah season finale... damn. I've kind of flopped a bit on my stance with the shows I've been watching. I stopped watching Tokyo Ghoul altogether, though I may finish it if I get really bored. Akame ga Kill, on the other hand, now has me firmly hooked. Zankyou no Terror is enjoyable, but it's looking like it's not going to be nearly as amazing as it looked like at first. Rail Wars and Aldnoah.Zero are the only two that I feel the same about as since I first started watching them(a pleasant time waster and buy-on-disc favorite respectively). In other news, Nvida pushed a new driver out that has screwed up H.264 playback in Movie Player Classic. Using GOM Player for the moment, but it keeps showing... translation notes, maybe? alongside the normal subtitles. It's annoying.