-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Winter 2014 Anime |OT2| Waiting for Sakamoto
- Thread starter madp
- Start date
- Status
I would say the music element is more substantial than that of the mysteries to Hyouka. Second, the group dynamics play a more integral part to the music craftsmanship than the mysteries in Hyouka. The K-ONs also incorporate their fluffy SOL stuff into their music.
dakkumauji
Member
Kinda surprising you can have filler in a mahjong series.
In non-Hyouka news, the episode yesterday of Sazae-san, the 45-year long running series about the mundane life of a family in Tokyo, absolutely crushed the competition with a 21.8% rating in Kanto. This is probably because of the death of Ichiro Nagai who voices a much beloved character on the show.
For perspective, that's higher than what Laputa or Totoro gets in its biannual showings and is in Spirited Away territory. You could add all the ratings of ALL midnight anime showing this season and you probably don't get half of that.
For perspective, that's higher than what Laputa or Totoro gets in its biannual showings and is in Spirited Away territory. You could add all the ratings of ALL midnight anime showing this season and you probably don't get half of that.
Basileus777
Member
Mahjong training camps, just what you need when your mangaka is slow.
How long is an episode of Sazae san?
Two episodes in a 30 minute block.
Japan loves the crazy, but also the mundane still thrives. Well, watching and reading story on mundane family activity have its own charm.
Thats highly impressive to be this popular as a full tv length series.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Ugh. Why does Nichibros have to be only in Hulu+. I refuse to give Hulu money after they smoked the subscription pipe and removed free episodes.
KirbYuuYuu
Member
I thought they still had those, and had ads in place
and the paid versions still had ads lol
They really did this?
No. I just watched Princess Tutu and After Story free on Hulu. Maybe they removed free episodes of some shows?
Everybody grew up watching Sazae-san. Its basically a Sunday night tradition, I guess.
Even when FujiTV does its special 27-hour TV marathon every summer, Sazae-san is the only timeslot that is left untouched.
I feel like these things are related.
Personally, I don't care that much about plots. A good plot is obviously preferable, but it's much less important to me than the characters, and their development. Stupid, unexplained, or abstract things can happen, but as long as they're true to the cast and give them the respect they deserve, I'm more than happy.
Evangelion is a show with a plot hidden behind layers of obfuscation, but understanding the truth about NERV or SEELE or what the EVAs or Adam and Lilith actually mean is much less rewarding or interesting compared to the journeys of the Eva pilots, and their significance. In that respect, the series succeeds admirably, and the personal journey is something the Rebuild films have lost sight of to some extent, 3.0 in particular. In that movie, the plot may be stupid, but its more significant that the characters have lost what draws me to them.
I know there are people who love poking holes in plots, but I feel like most of what we poke holes in here has to do with characters. There are a lot of complaints about how Kill la Kill is playing out, but even if many of them might superficially have to do with the plot, they're mostly about whether Ryuuko, Satsuki, or the other characters are developing in a satisfactory and sensible way. Even Sword Art Online's gross plot matters less than what it says about Kirito or Asuna as characters.
If the characters are there, you can have a show about dueling where all the duels have mediocre fight choreography and it can be an all-time classic. If the characters aren't there, the best animation in the industry will do nothing for you.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Man I have an issue with being too vague. I should've said "when they started to withhold new episodes for weeks so you basically had to get a subscription which also had ads"
Hulu basically went the same model as Crunchyroll. My issue was that it wasn't always the case and I would gladly watch the ads if it meant legally streaming something for free. They used to have the latest 5 episodes of a show (not sure about anime but western tv) up for free streaming while the rest of the show would be for hulu+. Then it moved to free episodes being available a week or more after initial broadcast. I don't know how deep down the rabbit hole they've gone but last time I checked I wasn't even able to watch a show i wanted. It was instantly hulu+ or nothing.
edit: though looking at anime it seems they offer it without subscription. Maybe I can still watch anime in it.
Hulu basically went the same model as Crunchyroll. My issue was that it wasn't always the case and I would gladly watch the ads if it meant legally streaming something for free. They used to have the latest 5 episodes of a show (not sure about anime but western tv) up for free streaming while the rest of the show would be for hulu+. Then it moved to free episodes being available a week or more after initial broadcast. I don't know how deep down the rabbit hole they've gone but last time I checked I wasn't even able to watch a show i wanted. It was instantly hulu+ or nothing.
edit: though looking at anime it seems they offer it without subscription. Maybe I can still watch anime in it.
Chet Rippo
Member
Uh, what game?
With that new online legislation coming it may be much more expensive to watch streaming anime to begin with.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Jesus I really do hope somebody overturns that if they don't want thousands if not millions of subscribers to drop and go watch anime/tv shows via other means. It'll be an inevitability depending on how much prices increase.
Pancakes
hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
10 pages? You need to subscribe to GAF+ sir.
Ice Lightning
Member
Are you outside of the U.S.? I just checked the first minute or so after the first ad loaded and I could watch this series without even signing in.
http://www.hulu.com/daily-lives-of-high-school-boys
This is what you are talking about? Hulu+ only shows should have a (H+) in the top-right corner or something, which I myself do not see.
You mean gaf gold right?
He means gaf gold+. It's better than just gaf gold.
Admiral Woofington
Member
It was an assumption of mine after I searched for it in Crunchyroll and got linked to a news saying it was for Hulu, which I (wrongly) thought did with anime what they're doing with a lot of shows nowadays.
Join in the fun!
Actually, before you all get too far off topic of Hyouka so I don't wind up derailing the thread back into being about me again tomorrow, I figure I owe the thread a better explanation of my problem with the show, so that there can be some manner of closure and because I feel like my display earlier is a poor way for me to end out the day.
So let me give you the bad, first. Please note from here on out (and disregarding comments I made in the heat of earlier today) that this is reflective of my opinion of the show and its quality, and I promise to do my best to avoid claiming it as fact. I will, however, avoid the use of "IMO" and just state things as I have seen them. All the same, this is only the way I have seen the show.
First, as I stated before, I really do not like the show's character designs. I'm bringing it up first because it's the least important. It's hard to exactly explain it since it really boils down to "it did not please my eyes" but the style really wasn't my cup of tea at all. About the only design I did like in the show was the long-haired movie girl. The rest I was not a fan of the massive eyes, no rest of face sort of thing going on, and the characters felt sort of round of head and spindly of limb to me. I realize I'm not making much sense here, but that's how it is. Someone earlier said that others have made the claim that the show looks like K-On, and while I do feel that way, having never seen K-On I can't say how much that effected my opinion of character designs. I'll simply leave it at "I really did not like them."
Second, I honestly found too much of the show's mysteries, well, boring. Maybe the words "mundane" or "banal" work better here. Maybe Slice of Life isn't my thing. To wit I can think of very few shows that fall into that category that I have seen, and most of them are easily reclassified as other kinds of things. So it's entirely possible that they just weren't my thing. Speaking from that perspective, however, I cannot deny that they felt boring and unimportant. Even knowing that they weren't going to be whodunnits, they felt so very empty to me. The only one that kept me interested in how it was going to turn out was, as I've said before, the one about Chitanda's uncle. Because it actually mattered. There was a reason to pursue what was going on, and there was an evident relationship between the cast and the plot. I felt though that every other plot arc in the show had nothing to do with the cast. Finding earrings in a swimming pool and helping Chitanda understand emotions she had no more than a few hours prior felt more like a waste of time than anything I was meant to care about. This disconnect between the cast and the events around them constituted a significant problem with the plot to me, and one I dare say I find even in shows where a connection is more "blatant." Since we were talking about Kill la Kill earlier this evening, I'll use that as a similar example, in that while Ryuko is blatantly connected to the plot, so little of it feels like it really is connected to her character. Again, a terrible attempt at explaining myself, but I'm thinking on my feet here, and it was the first show I hadn't expressed vitriol for that came to mind.
Third and final, would be the cast. To be perfectly frank, I could not find it in myself to be attracted to Hotaro and Chitanda independently or as a unit. Hotaro felt entirely cliche to me, a stereotypical loner outcast disaffected youngster who just can't give a darn gosh dang it! The path of his growth I can comfortably admit, I suppose, inasmuch as it was "Hotaro slowly begins to open up and give a shit about solving these mysteries" but it wasn't anything new or engaging. It felt textbook. In fact, it was difficult to not see much of the show as the writers opening "High School Anime 101" and writing from there with plot points like hot springs trips and school wonders going on, but I digress. The point is Hotaro could not interest me because I felt like I'd seen his character a thousand times when I was his age. Chitanda came across as a manic pixie dream girl without the magical elements. When she wasn't being gratingly stupid, though, there didn't feel like there was that much to her. The arc about her uncle granted her some measure of depth beyond being the Eye of Sauron that compelled Frodo to Solve the Mystery of the One Ring, but once the arc concluded, that development was gone and Chitanda was back to shoving her face in Hotaro's face. Satoshi bugged me even more because I felt like he was less a character and more a living plot device, extant only for the sake of drawing attention to (often, I felt, in absence of any visible evidence of) how Hotaro had changed or providing pointless info dumps. He lived and breathed exposition and nothing more. Even his Sherlockian development did nothing for me, since it meant that the guy who liked to give info dumps could now do that and go "HOLMESHOLMESHOLMES" whenever he wanted. Mayaka I was least bothered by, since I felt her sour mood best reflected how I would cope with these same circumstances and peoples, but as all of you can readily attest from your frequent interactions with me, putting up with someone who is a constant bitch kind of sucks. As a result, Mayaka, though decidedly more sympathetic than the others, could not carry the show for me. Ultimately, I think what causes me to remark "there is no character development in Hyouka" is not so much that there isn't but that I was expecting something unique, noteworthy, special, engaging, moving or deeper than what I got, for all that I had been told it existed, rather than the developments I encountered, which felt, for all I could see, stale, mundane, obvious, and cliche. I realize what it must mean to hear me saying this about a show so heavily lauded for its character development, and I'm apologetic because nobody likes hearing someone say lots of bad stuff about shows they like, but I have nothing else really to add to that. Indulging in more base methods of expression for a moment, I think that The Flowers of Evil handled the development of its cast in a much, much better way, and in about the same amount of time I spent watching this show.
Moving on to the positive elements of the show, for a moment, I did think that Hyouka was well-made.
Although I did not find the character designs pleasing, I cannot dispute they were well animated. Motion was fluid, hair in KyoAni is always top notch, and expressions, such as they were, worked. The lighting in the show was hands down the best part of it, but scenery and the use of color were also high quality. I really found Hotaro and Satoshi's bike ride out to Chitanda's residence particularly beautiful. They spared no expense in that, I feel.
Likewise I thought that the music in the show was very nice, and fitting for the scenes. There have been shows I have hated the sound track every inch of the way, or where the music has sounded like an unbearable noise in the background the whole time, but Hyouka's sound track was pleasant enough, and fit well with what it felt like the show wanted to do. With that I have no qualms.
So ultimately, whether by taste or through fault of product I do not presume to say, I could not bring myself to like this show. I appreciate that many of you do, and I'm very happy for you. For myself, however, the search for a good show I can really sink my teeth into and connect with both the plot and the cast must continue. I apologize for causing a stir and, glancing at my clock, I realize that such time has passed since I began typing this that perchance the topic has moved on from Hyouka and I am doing the thread a disservice by opening the wound once more and pouring salt atop it, but I felt I might as well do this now, so that I can avoid doing it tomorrow, and because I honestly did think I owed it to the thread, and to those who made the recommendation, a better explanation for why I did not like and am not continuing the show, rather than a lengthy string of petulant F-Bombs.
So let me give you the bad, first. Please note from here on out (and disregarding comments I made in the heat of earlier today) that this is reflective of my opinion of the show and its quality, and I promise to do my best to avoid claiming it as fact. I will, however, avoid the use of "IMO" and just state things as I have seen them. All the same, this is only the way I have seen the show.
First, as I stated before, I really do not like the show's character designs. I'm bringing it up first because it's the least important. It's hard to exactly explain it since it really boils down to "it did not please my eyes" but the style really wasn't my cup of tea at all. About the only design I did like in the show was the long-haired movie girl. The rest I was not a fan of the massive eyes, no rest of face sort of thing going on, and the characters felt sort of round of head and spindly of limb to me. I realize I'm not making much sense here, but that's how it is. Someone earlier said that others have made the claim that the show looks like K-On, and while I do feel that way, having never seen K-On I can't say how much that effected my opinion of character designs. I'll simply leave it at "I really did not like them."
Second, I honestly found too much of the show's mysteries, well, boring. Maybe the words "mundane" or "banal" work better here. Maybe Slice of Life isn't my thing. To wit I can think of very few shows that fall into that category that I have seen, and most of them are easily reclassified as other kinds of things. So it's entirely possible that they just weren't my thing. Speaking from that perspective, however, I cannot deny that they felt boring and unimportant. Even knowing that they weren't going to be whodunnits, they felt so very empty to me. The only one that kept me interested in how it was going to turn out was, as I've said before, the one about Chitanda's uncle. Because it actually mattered. There was a reason to pursue what was going on, and there was an evident relationship between the cast and the plot. I felt though that every other plot arc in the show had nothing to do with the cast. Finding earrings in a swimming pool and helping Chitanda understand emotions she had no more than a few hours prior felt more like a waste of time than anything I was meant to care about. This disconnect between the cast and the events around them constituted a significant problem with the plot to me, and one I dare say I find even in shows where a connection is more "blatant." Since we were talking about Kill la Kill earlier this evening, I'll use that as a similar example, in that while Ryuko is blatantly connected to the plot, so little of it feels like it really is connected to her character. Again, a terrible attempt at explaining myself, but I'm thinking on my feet here, and it was the first show I hadn't expressed vitriol for that came to mind.
Third and final, would be the cast. To be perfectly frank, I could not find it in myself to be attracted to Hotaro and Chitanda independently or as a unit. Hotaro felt entirely cliche to me, a stereotypical loner outcast disaffected youngster who just can't give a darn gosh dang it! The path of his growth I can comfortably admit, I suppose, inasmuch as it was "Hotaro slowly begins to open up and give a shit about solving these mysteries" but it wasn't anything new or engaging. It felt textbook. In fact, it was difficult to not see much of the show as the writers opening "High School Anime 101" and writing from there with plot points like hot springs trips and school wonders going on, but I digress. The point is Hotaro could not interest me because I felt like I'd seen his character a thousand times when I was his age. Chitanda came across as a manic pixie dream girl without the magical elements. When she wasn't being gratingly stupid, though, there didn't feel like there was that much to her. The arc about her uncle granted her some measure of depth beyond being the Eye of Sauron that compelled Frodo to Solve the Mystery of the One Ring, but once the arc concluded, that development was gone and Chitanda was back to shoving her face in Hotaro's face. Satoshi bugged me even more because I felt like he was less a character and more a living plot device, extant only for the sake of drawing attention to (often, I felt, in absence of any visible evidence of) how Hotaro had changed or providing pointless info dumps. He lived and breathed exposition and nothing more. Even his Sherlockian development did nothing for me, since it meant that the guy who liked to give info dumps could now do that and go "HOLMESHOLMESHOLMES" whenever he wanted. Mayaka I was least bothered by, since I felt her sour mood best reflected how I would cope with these same circumstances and peoples, but as all of you can readily attest from your frequent interactions with me, putting up with someone who is a constant bitch kind of sucks. As a result, Mayaka, though decidedly more sympathetic than the others, could not carry the show for me. Ultimately, I think what causes me to remark "there is no character development in Hyouka" is not so much that there isn't but that I was expecting something unique, noteworthy, special, engaging, moving or deeper than what I got, for all that I had been told it existed, rather than the developments I encountered, which felt, for all I could see, stale, mundane, obvious, and cliche. I realize what it must mean to hear me saying this about a show so heavily lauded for its character development, and I'm apologetic because nobody likes hearing someone say lots of bad stuff about shows they like, but I have nothing else really to add to that. Indulging in more base methods of expression for a moment, I think that The Flowers of Evil handled the development of its cast in a much, much better way, and in about the same amount of time I spent watching this show.
Moving on to the positive elements of the show, for a moment, I did think that Hyouka was well-made.
Although I did not find the character designs pleasing, I cannot dispute they were well animated. Motion was fluid, hair in KyoAni is always top notch, and expressions, such as they were, worked. The lighting in the show was hands down the best part of it, but scenery and the use of color were also high quality. I really found Hotaro and Satoshi's bike ride out to Chitanda's residence particularly beautiful. They spared no expense in that, I feel.
Likewise I thought that the music in the show was very nice, and fitting for the scenes. There have been shows I have hated the sound track every inch of the way, or where the music has sounded like an unbearable noise in the background the whole time, but Hyouka's sound track was pleasant enough, and fit well with what it felt like the show wanted to do. With that I have no qualms.
So ultimately, whether by taste or through fault of product I do not presume to say, I could not bring myself to like this show. I appreciate that many of you do, and I'm very happy for you. For myself, however, the search for a good show I can really sink my teeth into and connect with both the plot and the cast must continue. I apologize for causing a stir and, glancing at my clock, I realize that such time has passed since I began typing this that perchance the topic has moved on from Hyouka and I am doing the thread a disservice by opening the wound once more and pouring salt atop it, but I felt I might as well do this now, so that I can avoid doing it tomorrow, and because I honestly did think I owed it to the thread, and to those who made the recommendation, a better explanation for why I did not like and am not continuing the show, rather than a lengthy string of petulant F-Bombs.
Ice Lightning
Member
The only anime series I recall needing Hulu+ are FUNimation's Mass Effect and Dragon Age movies.
astrogamer
Member
Trigun 22
Good episode showing that Wolfwood still can't accept Vash's philosophy seeing how Wolfwood has trust issues
Good episode showing that Wolfwood still can't accept Vash's philosophy seeing how Wolfwood has trust issues
Usagi Drop 1-11
All these feels
I love this show. Best feel good anime except for that one depressing episode in the middle.
KnightBuster
Member
Black Rock Shooter 02
So, according to what the counselor is saying, the dreams of close friends can express what can't be put into words. So these excursions into nightmare fuel funland might be just that, dreams. But then would that imply some semblance of symbolism? That deadzoned area filled with doll heads definitely look like it could be psychololi's territory. And Yomi's powers linked to chains (how subtle).
Everything about this girl is terrible. There is nothing wrong with her legs, but she still uses them as an excuse to guilt and abuse Yomi. I mean damn...
That was... I mean... WTF. I actually got a bit angry that Yomi was trying to convince Kagari to change, despite being abused by her for... how many years? And it wasn't even her fault Kagari was hit by a car. Where the fuck were Kagari's caretakers in that instance? Even putting that aside, Kagari obviously has deep-seated psychotic issues. I mean, using her injury to emotionally manipulate Yomi is just... ew.
And then that ending. WTF at that ending.
So, according to what the counselor is saying, the dreams of close friends can express what can't be put into words. So these excursions into nightmare fuel funland might be just that, dreams. But then would that imply some semblance of symbolism? That deadzoned area filled with doll heads definitely look like it could be psychololi's territory. And Yomi's powers linked to chains (how subtle).
Everything about this girl is terrible. There is nothing wrong with her legs, but she still uses them as an excuse to guilt and abuse Yomi. I mean damn...
That was... I mean... WTF. I actually got a bit angry that Yomi was trying to convince Kagari to change, despite being abused by her for... how many years? And it wasn't even her fault Kagari was hit by a car. Where the fuck were Kagari's caretakers in that instance? Even putting that aside, Kagari obviously has deep-seated psychotic issues. I mean, using her injury to emotionally manipulate Yomi is just... ew.
And then that ending. WTF at that ending.
I just got home from work, give me some time!
Usagi Drop 1-11
All these feels
Anime of the year for me that one. Here's hoping there will be not any season 2.
Ice Lightning
Member
What if it was anime original content
that had nothing to do with volumes 5-10 of the manga
I love this show. Best feel good anime except for that one depressing episode in the middle.
I really enjoyed the show too. It had all kinds of feels. Will it have another season or is it just going to stop with that one? It left in a really good place but I would like to see what happens afterwards. I really liked how it ended though so I'm conflicted. A second season wouldn't be bad though right?
Supposedly it's an entertaining read.
I'll creamed my pant if this be reality.
Ice Lightning
Member
Seems like that would be pretty interesting.
Was it not as good as the first half then I guess? Why are people not wanting a second season?
Space Dandy 5
This episode was really enjoyable, maybe the most enjoyable episode for me so far. Yet I can't help but feel conflicted in my enjoyment of this episode because it's probably not what Space Dandy is meant to be. What Space Dandy kind of had going in previous eps was this crazy "we can do anything" kind of vibe. From the silly search for alien ramen to the zombification of all society... everything was just about going with a random flow of crazy ideas with no regard to reason or logic or laws of nature.
And then this episode comes along, and while I loved it, it felt incredibly safe and full of cliches and just really, really... normal. It also made the robot and cat-alien-thing seem rather irrelevant.
This episode was really enjoyable, maybe the most enjoyable episode for me so far. Yet I can't help but feel conflicted in my enjoyment of this episode because it's probably not what Space Dandy is meant to be. What Space Dandy kind of had going in previous eps was this crazy "we can do anything" kind of vibe. From the silly search for alien ramen to the zombification of all society... everything was just about going with a random flow of crazy ideas with no regard to reason or logic or laws of nature.
And then this episode comes along, and while I loved it, it felt incredibly safe and full of cliches and just really, really... normal. It also made the robot and cat-alien-thing seem rather irrelevant.
Well as an anime original with no manga *cough*, a second season would be cool, but I don't think it's really necessary. Show wrapped up really well, I feel like a second season would be retreading the same territory.
DON'T READ THIS IF YOU WANT YOUR PURE BUNNY DROP MEMORIES TO STAY PURE
Rin grows up, falls in love with Daikichi, and offers to bear his children.
Ice Lightning
Member
If anything, everyone dislikes
what Rin decides she wants for a relationship in the ending
- Status