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KYM Anime General

Last posted Apr 02, 2024 at 10:29PM EDT. Added Sep 20, 2013 at 07:46PM EDT
1766 posts from 157 users

Why the old one died I have no idea.

Sic transit gloria mundi, I suppose.

So, I just saw the first episode of Ore no Imouto Blah Blah Blah Something Or Other,

Anime I've watched (all dubbed, because if I wanted to read, I'd get a book/fanfic):
>One Piece
>Gundam Wing
>Dragon Ball Z
>Pokemon
>Ouran High School Host Club
>FLCL
And the one I'm currently binging on, >Code Geass

One Piece is great, plenty of story and shit tons of world building. With the Enies Lobby Arc in full swing and the prequel Buster Call done, I'm finally starting to see why people hate the UN World Government so--and the World Nobles haven't even entered the picture yet.

Gundam Wing sucked. I had fond Nostalgia Filtered memories of watching it and its "balls in space" (those space explosions) with my brother, but when I tried rewatching it, I ended up utterly despising the rebellion and wanting the Earth Sphere Alliance to kick their asses. Mainly it was due to show don't tell. I was told how terrible the ESA was and how the rebellion just wanted to be free, but with said rebellion blowing up entire military bases (which probably have more civilians on them than actual military), threatening to assassinate a princess who's only crime is talking to you and the ESA…defending their bases and citizens from said rebellion, it's kind of hard to take their cause seriously. I'm sure it was eventually revealed just how bad the ESA was, but I couldn't bear any more after four episodes.

Dragon Ball Z always kicks ass. Even with its ridiculous plots and absurd ramp up in villain/hero power level (I get the feeling Goten's fetus could have kicked Freiza's ass) it was still great when I rewatched it.

Pokemon sucks you in with its Nostalgia and then drains whatever life you have with horribly repetitive plots, idiotic heroes and villains that don't remember shit, and an overwhelming desire for worldbuilding (what the fuck is the name of the country!) that'll never happen, resulting in a mindless husk visiting pokemonepisode.org each week to see what plot they can wring out of Orange Islands this time (I wonder if they'll bring back the Goldman Sachs Ball).

Ouran lulls into a false sense of security with its wacky hijinks and shipping only to hit you with some surprisingly poignant episodes. Its shortness meant I went into withdraw and had to self medicate with fanfics where Kaoru is always murdered/kidnapped/held hostage.

FLCL was just one, six episode long mindscrew. It had a few funny moments, but that couldn't make up for the incomprehensible plot that was going on. I'm all for crackfics, but that's just ridiculous. I'm pretty certain no one who wrote it had any idea what the hell was going on and just "went with the flow".

Fucking Code Geass, man. I should have known when children were gunned down in the first episode it wouldn't end well. I've read [Grimdark] fanfics where everyone died horribly that didn't punch me as hard as this did. In the dictionary, next to the definition of "Hope Spot", there's a picture of Euphemia. There's also a picture of her next to the definition of "Bullshit [Grimdark] Plot Device" Of all the things you could have said (make me a sandwich, bitchslap my dick of a dad, etc), Lelouch, it just had to be that.

I'm debating whether I should watch the original Gundam next, or if I should do like I did with Pokemon, Code Geass, and One Piece and let the desire fester for a year until I finally snap and watch it.

Last edited Sep 21, 2013 at 12:15AM EDT

I don't really have much to talk about in terms of Anime I have been watching recently, though I did just finish watching Fate Zero (Absolutely Fantastic).

And as luck would have it, a remake of Fate Stay Night is on the way, but it's probably coming sometime in the Winter or Spring quarters.

Still waiting for another season of Jojo's Bizarre adventure to be announced. But in the meantime I have Blazblue Alter Memory to look forward to.

So what do you think of this, boys 'n girls? I pretty much agree with it from beginning to end.

To answer his question at the end of the rant, while I'd love for anime to become recognized for what it really is (an incredibly rich, diverse, and varied type of cinematography) I don't really want it to join the "mainstream". I'm perfectly fine with it being just a little quirky fandom that gets a few weird looks.

I haven't really been watching any anime in a long time, until recently.

I happened to run into DVD box set of Space Cobra with all 31 episodes, and a nice 3€ price tag, so I decided to give it a chance. It's pretty "80's", but it has got that strange charm to it, and it hasn't got any of that eye gouging 3D CGI stuff that has overrun modern day anime.

It's from the same era as the original Macross, and Galaxy Express 999, both of which I'd really love to watch someday.




As for manga, I've been reading WataMote and Attack on Titan whenever there's a new chapter, and Soul Eater whenever I feel like it. I've also been going through the classic Devilman manga.

I also tried reading JoJo more, but somehow Stardust Crusaders just isn't doing it for me, and I can't seem to get through it. I really did enjoy the first two parts a lot though.

Last edited Sep 21, 2013 at 05:15PM EDT

Natsuru Springfield wrote:

I don't really have much to talk about in terms of Anime I have been watching recently, though I did just finish watching Fate Zero (Absolutely Fantastic).

And as luck would have it, a remake of Fate Stay Night is on the way, but it's probably coming sometime in the Winter or Spring quarters.

Still waiting for another season of Jojo's Bizarre adventure to be announced. But in the meantime I have Blazblue Alter Memory to look forward to.

Do you need to watch Fate Stay Night before watching Fate Zero? I really want to watch Fate Zero but I don't think I have enough time right now to watch Fate Stay Night and Fate Zero with all the other stuff I still need to watch.

Papa Coolface wrote:

>Implying that's the best anime
>Implying it's the best mecha anime
>Implying it's the best Studio Gainax anime

Eh, I like 'em both… I think I like Evangelion just a liiiittle bit more, but that's probably mostly just nostalgia on my part.

Objectively, I think it's really hard to say that either "Gurren Lagann > Evangelion" or "Evangelion > Gurren Lagann", simply because those two shows could not be more different in terms of tone, content, and flavor.

Evangelion is about an insecure teenager who blames himself for everything and gradually becomes more and more deranged while fighting increasingly bizarre Lovecraftian monsters in a mysterious biomech. More importantly, NGE takes the super robot genre and tears it in half. Up until NGE, mecha were these giant, nigh-invincible juggernauts that could take asskickings just as severe as they dished out. But the EVAs transfer their pain to their pilots. That completely turns the tables. Up until NGE, when a boy would climb into a mech, he would become a man. But when Shinji would climb EVA Unit-01, he would return to the womb.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann on the other hand is about trepidatious teenager who follows in the footsteps of his Bro and grows into a confident young man, all while fighting monsters in a face-shaped mech and become like unto a god in power, saving the universe from destruction. It's not a deconstruction of the mecha genre, it's a celebration of it. If Gundam is mecha's X-Men, Evangelion their Watchmen, and GaoGaiGar their Kingdom Come, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is The Incredibles of mecha anime!

I like both Gurren Lagann and Evangelion, but I liked them for fundamentally different reasons. Gurren Lagann got my blood pumping and infused with more adrenaline than the gasoline at Nascar is with octane. Evangelion fucked my brain half and made me cry, and it felt goood. Apples and cantaloupes, people.

Also, that picture was really more intended to be tongue-in-cheek than anythings else. You know how die-hard evageeks insist that it is "superior" and "deep and artistic".

Last edited Sep 21, 2013 at 07:00PM EDT

Muumi: If ya don't like reading Stardust Crusaders, how about I recommend Diamond is not Crash/Unbreakable. The characters are fun and who doesn't like a good murder-mystery once in a while. Also, don't fuck with Josuke's hair.

Oh yeah, have any of you guys seen this:

So far confirmed are Goku (Base, SSJ), Vegeta (Base, SSJ), Luffy (Base, Gear Second), Toriko, Zebra, Naruto (Base, Sage, Bijuu), Sasuke (Base, Susanoo), Ichigo (Base, Hallow, Final Getsuga Tenshou), Kenshin, Gintoki (Base, Scooter), Ryotsu (Base, Bike), Yusuke (Base, Demon Mazoku), Gon Freecss and Yamada Tarou.

Support-only characters like Jaguar have also been added as well!

Last edited Sep 21, 2013 at 07:24PM EDT

neet wrote:

Do you need to watch Fate Stay Night before watching Fate Zero? I really want to watch Fate Zero but I don't think I have enough time right now to watch Fate Stay Night and Fate Zero with all the other stuff I still need to watch.

No, you don't need to watch them in any particular order, as they wind up spoiling each other no matter which you watch first.

Though if you are constrained on time, watch Fate/Zero first. As said before, Fate/Stay Night is getting a remake so around the time you finish Fate/Zero, Stay Night Remake should be around the corner.

Gurren Laggan is the GOAT anime and I hope Kill La Kill lives up to the hype.

Anyways, I would like to talk about kemonozume. You know, this gif

It seems like the definitive "WTF Japan" show, but I'm 7 episodes in and it's actually really good. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

@Sir Genry

Also, that picture was really more intended to be tongue-in-cheek than anythings else.


Oh really, you don't say? Now, I might be just silly, but I think his post was just tongue-in-cheek as well.

Papa Coolface wrote:

>Implying that's the best anime
>Implying it's the best mecha anime
>Implying it's the best Studio Gainax anime

The funniest part about this picture is that because of Gainax's weird obsession with religious symbolism, Kamina is basically Jesus.

Also the fact that the picture itself is fucking hilarious.

Right down to the name of his first disciple.

It's weird that between Evangelion and Gurren Lagann, it's easier to find actual religious themes in Gurren Lagann, even though it's Evangelion that has the Christian motif.

Once again,
- Lupin the 3rd. Really good vintage anime if you haven't seen it.
- Last night I tried to stay up to watch Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlines with some friends and family, but got tuckered out and just went to bed. Seems good so far though, if a little… over-exaggerated.
- Still want to see Jojo, but I'm too afraid to search for it outside of a streaming service.
- Want to see Akira, but too afraid to search outside of streaming as well.
- Thinking about Attack on Titan, Dangan Ronpa, or Gurren Lagan to try and catch up.
- I forget if there was anything else.

As much as I like anime, I don't really have a good resume…

Just finished watching Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (a show I've been wanting to watch since I heard about it back in 2011 but couldn't as it lacked a dub) and I can confirm that Code Geass and its Grimdark murdered what was left of my heart because nay a tear was shed. It didn't help that Mirai was angsty and mopey before the earthquake ever even started and actually got less depressed and bitchy as things went on.

I also wasn't impressed by the very simplistic character designs. It seems like they blew half their animation budget drawing those fantastic pictures for the opening credits and had to scrap things together for the actual people.

Still, it was a very impressive Hope Spot. Not as soul crushing as Princess Hope Spot, but still feels inducing--or it would be if Geass hadn't had my heart commit suicide.

xTSGx wrote:

Just finished watching Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (a show I've been wanting to watch since I heard about it back in 2011 but couldn't as it lacked a dub) and I can confirm that Code Geass and its Grimdark murdered what was left of my heart because nay a tear was shed. It didn't help that Mirai was angsty and mopey before the earthquake ever even started and actually got less depressed and bitchy as things went on.

I also wasn't impressed by the very simplistic character designs. It seems like they blew half their animation budget drawing those fantastic pictures for the opening credits and had to scrap things together for the actual people.

Still, it was a very impressive Hope Spot. Not as soul crushing as Princess Hope Spot, but still feels inducing--or it would be if Geass hadn't had my heart commit suicide.

Convoluted. Faux-symbolic. Sponsored by Pizza Hut. Gayer than Boku No Pico. These are all things I have heard about Code Geass. But I have never heard someone ever consider it grimdark. And that's because it isn't. Code Geass is not grimdark. That's like saying Die Hard is grimdark. Is anything with substantial violence grimdark to you? How far did you get, anyways? It sounds like you got to the Princess Massacre part and just stopped there. That'd be like stopping when Kamina dies and calling TTGL grimdark. Without spoiling things, I'm just gonna' say that while Code Geass isn't Pretty Cure by an stretch of the imagination, it remains fairly positive, surprisingly. Even if it subscribes to a "Things have to get worse before they get better" philosophy, things still do get better, eventually. Also:
>a show I’ve been wanting to watch since I heard about it back in 2011 but couldn’t as it lacked a dub.
>couldn’t as it lacked a dub.

Not a valid reason.

Genry wrote:

If you want grimdark, watch Evangelion. Not Rebuild, the original TV Series.

That thing is a mindfuck to behold.

I think people don't really appreciate how much messed up stuff came out in the 80s and 90s. Especially when it comes to ultraviolence. Anybody here ever see Genocyber or Violence Jack?

I mean, weird and violent stuff is still released today, but nowhere near the same amount as it used to be. I guess that's the result of anime expanding and becoming less and less niche.

Ray Shadows (Free Cake) said:
How far did you get, anyways? It sounds like you got to the Princess Massacre part and just stopped there.

I watched the whole thing. Personally, I don't really get why people complain about season 2. The first episode of it sucked because it was nothing but a rehash of the first part of S1, but after that, it got better.

Grimdark's a fairly subjective thing. It certainly isn't the most Grimdark thing I've seen, but the show's a steady march down the slippery slope as you see everything Lelouch supposedly fought for wither away. It may end "positively" but I'd question if things at the end were really better than they were at the beginning. Millions dead, a Britainian Empire stronger than ever, an Empress who could easily be replaced.

I'm sure compared to things like Evangelion or Berserk, it's a walk in the park, but it's still fairly dark.

>a show I’ve been wanting to watch since I heard about it back in 2011 but couldn’t as it lacked a dub.
>couldn’t as it lacked a dub.
Not a valid reason.

Why not? I don't watch subbed anime (if I wanted to read, I'd get a book). Since I don't watch subbed anime and it lacked a dub, I couldn't watch it.

Sir Genry said:

If you want grimdark, watch Evangelion. Not Rebuild, the original TV Series.

I was thinking about watching it, but since I already know what happens (deconstruction, eldrich abominations, mindrape, Congratulations!, etc.) I don't really see the point.

@xTSGx
That's fair, but it's just hard to see Code Geass as grimdark. A tragedy, definitely, but not grimdark. Code Geass has so much hilarious filler that it even has the in-joke of taking one of many scenes of the student council goofing around and making it into a demotavational poster with the words:
"Code Geass: It's a show about terrorism".
At least with your policy of never watching subbed anime you got to see the infinitely better dub of Code Geass.

xTSGx wrote:

Ray Shadows (Free Cake) said:
How far did you get, anyways? It sounds like you got to the Princess Massacre part and just stopped there.

I watched the whole thing. Personally, I don't really get why people complain about season 2. The first episode of it sucked because it was nothing but a rehash of the first part of S1, but after that, it got better.

Grimdark's a fairly subjective thing. It certainly isn't the most Grimdark thing I've seen, but the show's a steady march down the slippery slope as you see everything Lelouch supposedly fought for wither away. It may end "positively" but I'd question if things at the end were really better than they were at the beginning. Millions dead, a Britainian Empire stronger than ever, an Empress who could easily be replaced.

I'm sure compared to things like Evangelion or Berserk, it's a walk in the park, but it's still fairly dark.

>a show I’ve been wanting to watch since I heard about it back in 2011 but couldn’t as it lacked a dub.
>couldn’t as it lacked a dub.
Not a valid reason.

Why not? I don't watch subbed anime (if I wanted to read, I'd get a book). Since I don't watch subbed anime and it lacked a dub, I couldn't watch it.

Sir Genry said:

If you want grimdark, watch Evangelion. Not Rebuild, the original TV Series.

I was thinking about watching it, but since I already know what happens (deconstruction, eldrich abominations, mindrape, Congratulations!, etc.) I don't really see the point.

>"I was thinking about watching it, but since I already know what happens (deconstruction, eldrich abominations, mindrape, Congratulations!, etc.) I don’t really see the point."

I thought the exact same thing, at first. But boy was I wrong. A lot of the nasty shit that happens in Evangelion is spoiled, yes. But there is still a lot of stuff in it that hasn't yet.

If you still say "nah", then try Something Something Madoka Magica. It's basically Evangelion for magical girls.

neet wrote:

I think people don't really appreciate how much messed up stuff came out in the 80s and 90s. Especially when it comes to ultraviolence. Anybody here ever see Genocyber or Violence Jack?

I mean, weird and violent stuff is still released today, but nowhere near the same amount as it used to be. I guess that's the result of anime expanding and becoming less and less niche.

It's not the ultraviolence that make Evangelion grimdark. It's the mindfuckery, the deteriorating sanity of the characters, and the overall atmosphere. When we're talking about a series being grimdark or not grimdark, it's the setting and the characters more than the content itself that matters.

Look at the origin of the term: Warhammer 40,000. Why do we call it grimdark? Not because of the violence in it, but because of the pervading sense of hopelessness and despair. No faction is truly good, just like in EVA, where no character is truly sane.

Genry wrote:

It's not the ultraviolence that make Evangelion grimdark. It's the mindfuckery, the deteriorating sanity of the characters, and the overall atmosphere. When we're talking about a series being grimdark or not grimdark, it's the setting and the characters more than the content itself that matters.

Look at the origin of the term: Warhammer 40,000. Why do we call it grimdark? Not because of the violence in it, but because of the pervading sense of hopelessness and despair. No faction is truly good, just like in EVA, where no character is truly sane.

Oh I agree with you on that, I'm just saying that the 80s and 90s had a ton of really messed up stuff, of both the gory and mindfucking varieties. I think that's something we need more of in the modern anime scene.

Last edited Sep 26, 2013 at 03:33PM EDT

I've watched so much anime it's hard to list it all off. Now I'm just watching anime seasons mainly. That reminds me, anyone got anything in particular they really want to watch this fall? Personally, I'm interested in watching Kill La Kill, Ace of the Diamonds, Kyokai no Kanata and Kuroko no Basket season 2.

I was needing something to watch while I ate a sandwich, so I randomly picked an anime called Blue Drop. Two episodes in, it's okay. The mystery's decent, but not anything special. (Whenever I watch something, I always have to remind myself of the 700+ episodes of Pokemon I've seen, and how much 70% of them such. It makes whatever I'm watching ten times better.) Whenever there's an advanced mecha/submarine/whatever I always wonder what the Government Accountability Office thinks of blowing hundreds of millions of dollars on something, and then parking it a mile away from a high school to observe the teenagers/have those teenagers pilot it.

Last edited Sep 26, 2013 at 07:47PM EDT

Wightprincess wrote:

Surely Fullmetal Alchemist is the master race? No other anime has muscles so fabulous!

>No other anime has muscles so fabulous!
>has muscles so fabulous!
>muscles
>fabulous

Do you even pose?

Further proof, opening:

LOOK AT ALL THE COLORS!

Last edited Sep 27, 2013 at 06:24AM EDT

I binged on the rest of Blue Drop, and I must say, it was better than I thought it would be. Unlike some shows, the mysteries were resolved only for new ones to appear. That said, the ending was shit.

So basically, the plot's a combination of High School Drama and Alien Invasion. Five years before the start of the series, a ship from the alien survey team ("survey" being an unusual choice of wording for a force consisting of five battleships) suffers an Event Horizon style catastrophic failure of its FTL drive, resulting in an entire island going raving mad and murdering each other. All but the Captain and a gunner of the "survey" ship also die.

The show follows the only survivor of the Island Incident as she's shipped away to an all female boarding school that also happens to house the Captain of the "survey" ship. High School hijinks and breather episodes ensue.

Meanwhile, the aliens, a species composed entirely of lesbians (I'm not joking, they only have females) wearing skin tight leotards is planning their invasion of Earth. The invasion is due to the fact that biology is homophobic and they'll go extinct without any males. As it turns out, the Event Horizon incident was intentional so that the aliens could mindrape us and claim and easy victory in their invasion. Whether this was done with the apporval of the "Central Command" or was a rouge action by the admiral of the "survey" team is unclear.

The reason the ending is shit is because of the climax. The aliens possess ludicriously advanced technology, including FTL drives, anti-grav abilities, holograms, laser/plasma cannons, and most impressively, interdimensional drives. One of their kickass military tactics is to teleport to another dimension, charge a massive railgun, and shoot it through a portal at the target in the other dimension. They also possess orbital ships and high energy laser/plasma cannons capable of firing from said ships. Their fighters cannot be detected by radar and they spam those fighters like we spam AA flak.

So, what do they use for their big invasion? They park a bunch of Independence Day motherships over our cities and…lower thousands of leotard-clad women from them who take a page from Bin Laden and blow up. That's right, instead of using their interdimensional railguns, they spam suicide bombers. Not only would this kill many of them (who can't be replaced) but it causes them to essensially lose the war. A hasty thirty second scene at the end shows that thirty years after the war's start, a peace treaty is being negotiated.

Then there's the whole reason they're invading. Supposedly, it's because they need our men. How interspecies relations are supposed to work is never stated. How thinking launching an invasion that will kill most of our men (who's going to fight off the invasion) will allow them to breed makes sense is never stated. Why they didn't just go "Hey, we're a bunch of desperate Space Lesbians who need to reproduce. Wanna have sex?" is never stated.

Most people would probably get mad at the pointless sacrifice of the Captain (who fell in love with our orphaned protagonist) that only served to try and force feels down my throat, but I was too busy wondering who was in charge of the invasion and why they thought it made any damn sense.

I still enjoyed it, but damn was that ending bad.

Last edited Sep 27, 2013 at 06:19AM EDT

Genry wrote:

If you want grimdark, watch Evangelion. Not Rebuild, the original TV Series.

That thing is a mindfuck to behold.

>implying everyone and their mother hasn't already seen it or heard of it at least.

I kid, I kid.

Anyways, "Grimdark" animes I would recommend would be kemonozume( the gif with the girl cut in half in my previous post), Monster, and puella magi madoka magica.
Also Attack on Titan, but we have a thread on that with plenty users participating, I'd imagine most anime fans on kym are watching it.

Last edited Sep 27, 2013 at 02:16PM EDT

Dac wrote:

>implying everyone and their mother hasn't already seen it or heard of it at least.

I kid, I kid.

Anyways, "Grimdark" animes I would recommend would be kemonozume( the gif with the girl cut in half in my previous post), Monster, and puella magi madoka magica.
Also Attack on Titan, but we have a thread on that with plenty users participating, I'd imagine most anime fans on kym are watching it.

>everyone and their mother
>their mother
>mother

Twenty-One wrote:

I've watched so much anime it's hard to list it all off. Now I'm just watching anime seasons mainly. That reminds me, anyone got anything in particular they really want to watch this fall? Personally, I'm interested in watching Kill La Kill, Ace of the Diamonds, Kyokai no Kanata and Kuroko no Basket season 2.

Along with Kill La Kill, I'm also interested in Gingitsune and Pupa.

Dac wrote:

First episode of Kill La Kill is up. It's off to a promising start.

So much Gainax it hurts

in the best way possible

Last edited Oct 05, 2013 at 02:34PM EDT

So I just watched Kill La Kill.

I was hooked the moment Gamagoori started chasing that one kid by jumping out a window. Laughing the whole way down. Complete with doppler effect. The shameless fanservice with Ryuko's outfit was also a plus.

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