The all things Anime related thread.

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Finished watching the Space Battleship Yamato film.

I really enjoyed it for the most part, yes it was cheesy, but I'd liken it to the Japanese take on a Michael Bay film. It's a fun ride and cinema experience that doesn't rely on details for you to enjoy it.

Fans of Sci Fi, especially the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica will recognise allot of similarities in the style and camera shots. Oh and there is one part of the film, that i'm certain is a direct rip off from an episode of Season 3 of BSG, 'Exodus Part 2'. Those of you who've seen the series will know it when you see it :p. It's kind of hard to miss.

There are several character deaths, all in quick succession, so they kind of lost their impact i thought, and the ending was a huge anti climax. I was expecting a huge showdown of some sort but..poof, it's over.

Overall i'd give it 7/10. It's a fun watch.

Arrietty tonight me thinks.
 
Finished watching Durarararararara!! today. It's an interesting series, I'll give it that ... it's one of those series where if you consider the plot as a whole it is quite simple but when you're watching it seams quite complicated. It does seam to over complicate itself at times and you do need to pay attention to what is going on otherwise you will become lost. But overall the series is an interesting action/drama packed full of strange characters. I did find it an enjoyable watch.

One annoyance with the series though was the packaging. I have the UK release of the series from Beez .... as it was significantly cheaper than the US release. The series is split across three volumes with two disks per volume and the packaging is very non-standard. Each volume is presented like a hardback book which is about the size of a DVD case ... but these are in a landscape form-factor instead of a DVD's normal portrait form-factor ... means they don't fit well on a shelf at all.

Also watched today ....

The Girl Who Leapt Through Space Part 2 ... enjoyable watch, would be even better if it was on BD.

K-On! vol. 2 ... good fun watch, but urgh the english language video of Fuwa Fuwa Time in the extras is appallingly bad. It sounds like someone recording themselves singing along with a CD, the balance is wrong and the singing is awful.
 
K-On! vol. 2 ... good fun watch, but urgh the english language video of Fuwa Fuwa Time in the extras is appallingly bad. It sounds like someone recording themselves singing along with a CD, the balance is wrong and the singing is awful.
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Erk, just looked this up on youtube for the hell of it.

My god...that's REALLY bad for a 'professional' dub, I've heard far better fandubs of songs!
 
Yep, it really is awful.

Finished watching the Nozomi release of Sora no Woto this evening. Nice series about a platoon of girls who man a remote fort with lots of trumpet playing (of various degrees of skill). It's a nice series with a good mixture of humour and drama as well as nice characters. The original series has a nice conclusion although the extra 13th episode, (which is included in the set as well as episode 7.5), does open up the possibility of another series.

The disks do have an unexpected second subtitle track with honorifics (a la Maria-sama ga Miteru) which was a nice surprise. The timing track on the disks is a bit odd to .... instead of the usual "none/reset the play time at the start of each episode/don't reset the play time at all" that you get on disks it actually resets after every two episodes (so the time clock goes up to ~48-49mins before reseting) ... bit odd but doesn't appear to affect anything.

The set also comes with a nice booklet on the characters and settings.

In my opinion it's a really nice series and I would recommended the set.
 
Is there going to be a Blu Ray version released?. Sora No Woto is one of those series that really takes advantage of hd resolutions, especially with all of the fantastic looking background art.

I just watched the music video for the English dub of Fuwa Fuwa time. Yup it is pretty awful. I'd have thought it was a Hannah Montana song or something, if i didn't know it was actually K-On. It's the really strong American accents that ruin it imo. It sounds very tacky.
 
Demoniser said:
Is there going to be a Blu Ray version released?. Sora No Woto is one of those series that really takes advantage of hd resolutions, especially with all of the fantastic looking background art.

I just watched the music video for the English dub of Fuwa Fuwa time. Yup it is pretty awful. I'd have thought it was a Hannah Montana song or something, if i didn't know it was actually K-On. It's the really strong American accents that ruin it imo. It sounds very tacky.
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If I remember correctly Nozomi have indicated that the authoring costs for BDs prohibit them releasing things in that format at present.

I wouldn't necessarily rule it out in the future but I wouldn't expect it in the short to medium term though (which is a pity)
 
Finished the Sentai release of Hidamari Sketch×Hoshimittsu this evening, (series plus the two OVA episodes). It more of the same from the earlier series about a group of female art students living in a small apartment complex. Series 3 adds in a couple of new characters in the form of two new first years moving in.

I find this series(es) very marmite (not to be confused with marimite). The episodes non-linear nature can be confusing at times and the art style can be strange ... but the characters are nice and the stories are cute. You also manage to also always have a girl in the bath at some point in almost every episode ... but without it really being fanservice-y at all. It is very slow and at times it feels it ... you can think "oh it's the end of the episode" but when you look you are less than half way in. If you can see past these things then there is a good series, based on some better manga, there.

Series 3 (this one) does have an extremely good ED though :) I like Hidamari Sketch but it is an acquired taste.

Also watched the latest Iroha ... which was great :)
 
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Just finished watching The Borrower Arrietty.

I don't know what to make of it really.

Visuals 10/10 - Great Background art as always, they really are great at doing nice, sunny seens that have lots of vegetation and trees. They cram in so much character it looks great.

Audio 10/10 - Nice, relaxing soundtrack which fit the film perfectly i thought.

Characters 5/10 They weren't really fleshed out in the 1hr 30 mins. The kid, Sho, is dying of a heart problem, unfortunately it never gets much further than that. The same with the Borrowers, they weren't really fleshed out. Which, made the end of the film a big let down. I never really grew to care about the characters, like those in Spirited Away, or Princess Mononoke.

Story 5/10 - It started off great, the premise, characters and all the major plot elements were established nice and smoothly. Unfortunately it just...fizzled out by the end. Definitely felt like it was only half a film. I was surprised when i saw i was already two thirds of the way through the film. The end credits seemed to come about very quickly and the end was a big anti climax.

I think many of the Ghibli movies are overrated in terms of the execution of their story, and the end result. This film is one of them.

Overall, 8/10. The visuals and music saved it imo. Definitely worth a watch, but it's not one of their best.
 
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Demoniser said:
Just finished watching The Borrower Arrietty.

I don't know what to make of it really.

Visuals 10/10 - Great Background art as always, they really are great at doing nice, sunny seens that have lots of vegetation and trees. They cram in so much character it looks great.

Audio 10/10 - Nice, relaxing soundtrack which fit the film perfectly i thought.

Characters 5/10 They weren't really fleshed out in the 1hr 30 mins. The kid, Sho, is dying of a heart problem, unfortunately it never gets much further than that. The same with the Borrowers, they weren't really fleshed out. Which, made the end of the film a big let down. I never really grew to care about the characters, like those in Spirited Away, or Princess Mononoke.

Story 5/10 - It started off great, the premise, characters and all the major plot elements were established nice and smoothly. Unfortunately it just...fizzled out by the end. Definitely felt like it was only half a film. I was surprised when i saw i was already two thirds of the way through the film. The end credits seemed to come about very quickly and the end was a big anti climax.

I think many of the Ghibli movies are overrated in terms of the execution of their story, and the end result. This film is one of them.

Overall, 8/10. The visuals and music saved it imo. Definitely worth a watch, but it's not one of their best.
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Agree totally ...I don't know if someone left the other half of the plot on the train on the way to work but when the credits roll you think "it can't just end like that .... surely?" Having a complete story would also have helped with the characters development as well.

Looks great, sounds great ... where's the rest of the plot ...?

I'll get the BD when it's released but it isn't one of Ghibli's best. I am interested in Kokuriko-zaka kara though which is due out at the end of the week.
 
I'm slowly making progress through Buso Renkin (about halfway through disk 4), but haven't had much time to watch anime :(

I'm not sure if anyone is interested, but Amazon.com have Chobits on blu for about £20 delivered (about £15 pre shipping), I've ordered a copy as apparently it's region A/B so should play on normal UK players, although I'm aware it's not a proper blu, but rather an upscale from the original SD sources (so should look at least a little better than the normal DVD's).
 
Werewolf said:
I'm slowly making progress through Buso Renkin (about halfway through disk 4), but haven't had much time to watch anime :(

I'm not sure if anyone is interested, but Amazon.com have Chobits on blu for about £20 delivered (about £15 pre shipping), I've ordered a copy as apparently it's region A/B so should play on normal UK players, although I'm aware it's not a proper blu, but rather an upscale from the original SD sources (so should look at least a little better than the normal DVD's).
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Chobits on BD is reasonable, for an upscale. Although you do need to take into account that the original DVD release was pretty well done so it's not much of a difference.

Finished re-watching the second half of Allison and Lillia earlier, (i.e. the Lillia half). This half of the series revolves around the Lillia character (who is the daughter of Allison from the first half). Although we meet many of the same characters again.

This second half is slightly less "boys own adventure" compared with the first half but it is still "good clean fun" adventure stories for the whole family :) Don't get me wrong, it's a good series, reasonable stories, nice characters and does have an ending but it really does help if you consider both parts of the series as being a 1950's adventure story and treat it all slightly tongue-in-cheek.
 
Noticed a story on ANN's feed earlier which is quite interesting. Apparently there is a English subbed screening of the Kimi ni Todoke live action film at the weekend at an Asian film festival in Dallas.

It would be nice if this led to a DVD (or better yet BD) release of this live action film with subtitles as it's one of the better anime series -> live action film adaptations I've seen. They managed to keep the main plot pretty much intact and slimmed down the side plots and changed the ending to allow for the story to conclude in a single film instead of a couple of series. Their changes were not jarring and fitted well with the story as told.

I like the anime, manga, and the film for this, (and have box 1 of the former on pre-order, am up to date with the English release of the second and own the JP BD release for the latter).
 
A friend posted about bleach on facebook and got recommended to try out Ao no Exorcist
The blurb I read seems a bit, generic however. Has anyone watched it?
 
I've not, although the people I've spoken to have themselves pretty much echoed your thoughts - generic.
Unfortunate, as its a show whose premise interested me.
 
Really liking Usagi Drop, probably the best show from the newest crop this season.

I also think Ushio from After Story has a new rival for cuteness in the form of Rin.
 
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