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Comments
@DYRE: No, same thing with a little more insight and lots more blood and gore.
Ah, okay, then probably not something I'm interested in. Given the same story I think I'd usually rather watch the anime version than read the manga, unless like... the anime sucks or something, but that's not really the case there.
Hopefully Yen Press will translate the other two manga series which are different from the Anime (Kazumi and Oriko).
Those two... I might be interested in.
Although maybe not since I read a little bit of Kazumi and it didn't seem to have anything to do with Madoka Magica at all except that it kept telling me it's a spinoff of it (because otherwise I'd forget, presumably).
@Everest: The main complaint about Skypeia is that it was drawn out (a lot of keeping Luffy away from Eneru because you just knew that it would be over since rubber > lightning was a bit obvious). I rather liked it. Some people I've talked to thought Skypeia could have been shorter while setting up some stuff (will of the D, dials, Poneglyphs, existence of sky islands, etc), and I'll concede that point.
I didn't like Fishman Island. It's an okay arc if you skim. But the current arc, Punk Hazard, is just amazing so far. If I had to recommend an arc, I'd say you can't go wrong with Water 7.
I'm still waiting for Don Krieg and Ghin (okay, mostly Ghin) to reappear in the New World and save the Straw Hats while they're on the verge of starvation.
I have yet to try Madoka Magica because I'm afraid it won't live up to the hype. Thoughts?
Yeah... I can understand that. The first time I watched it I kind of hated it because nobody would stop talking about how great it is (this was when it was airing). But I think once I got past that and rewatched it recently I liked it quite a bit. It's definitely not perfect, but it's a fairly solid show. Feels like Nanoha in a way, except... darker and a lot more Shinbo-ish (in fact, Akiyuki Shinbo actually did direct the first season of Nanoha, but his style wasn't really evident there).
Hmm. True enough. It was kind of obvious that Luffy would be immune to Eneru's attacks (and let's face it, if not for that, no one in Skypeia could have stopped him), yeah, but I don't mind that they dragged it out, personally. It was definitely more interesting than Davy Back (though I'd like to see that game return in the New World, but with crews that can actually threaten the Strawhats) and Fishman Island.
Agreed on Fishman Island and Punk Hazard, but do you mean Water 7 as an arc to start with? Water 7 is one of my favorite storylines in fiction, period, but I think it loses a lot of its dramatic weight if the reader hasn't come to know and love the crew by reading the rest of the series; as an avid fan of the series, Water 7 had multiple moments that were very painful to read, but I can't imagine any of it would be more than mediocre if you start right there, not to mention it might skew one's idea of what the series is like, since it's unlike any of the other arcs so far. Personally, I couldn't recommend starting any later than Alabasta. I have to concede that One Piece doesn't lend itself that well to newcomers, since there's so much that carries into future events.
Yeah, I'm hoping we can see Gin as an ally this time. Couldn't care less about Don Krieg, though.
It's definitely worth a watch, but it'll help if you ignore the hype. There are very few shows that match up with the critical acclaim they've received.
Well, I'd say there are quite a few.
There are a lot of really shitty shows that no critic cares about, so...
Whoops. I meant the ones that receive a ton of it.
Enjoying Eureka Seven AO, AKB0048 and Hyouka right now. I like Natsuiro Kiseki, but it isn't as up to par as the other three, it's a wonderful slice of life show though.
I'm wondering whether watching the Fate/ shows would be worth it. They don't interest me but everybody seems to believe they're the best thing ever invented and ufotable (Animators for Fate/zero) are the new god of the anime universe.
I'm watching Haiyore! Nyarlko simply because the whole animeness of the concept. It's not what I'd call good but between the lovecraft, toku, and animu references it's never boring.
Lupin is undeniably a far superior animu but I'm more lukewarm on it because I'm no so into Lupin as a dark psychosexual story. Though it's more of a Fujiko story where Lupin occasionally shows up...
I can't really speak for Fate/Zero, but Fate/stay night the anime... isn't very good.
The VN it's based on is definitely worth a read though.
The VN was never released in English (Plus it's not... clean).
I'll give /Zero two episodes and see if I like it.
That's what translation patches are for.
And why I can play steins; gate. ^_^
And there's only a couple explicit scenes, and you can skip them without losing anything important.
I guess I'll give it a chance after checking out /Zero.
Supposedly, Fate/Zero is a lot better than the Fate/Stay Night anime. At least, that's the impression I get from hearing people talk about it.
Aww, Natsuiro Kiseki is like... my favorite show this season. I even like it more than Hyouka, I think, which is somewhat surprising.
Other fun shows this season are Sengoku Collection, which absolutely nobody likes except me (though it might just be because of the format. Other shows that do the different-story-with-different-characters-every-episode thing also tend to not be well-received so... yeah) and Kuromajo-san ga Tooru!!, because non-Sailor-Moon-esque mahou shoujo.
There's also a really good Let's Play of F/SN floating around.
Yeah, Fate/zero is an excellent show, by virtue of being by Ufotable, the guys behind the Kara no Kyoukai movies, rather than Deen.
I think it's more about the animation for me lately than anything, subjectively I love the thing to death but I can't just put it in my top 4. If it did have good animation though, I'd probably put it much higher than Hyouka, I mean, episode 2 was about running around the city but it was interesting and fun to watch!
This needs to stop being a thing. I love everything by BONES but that doesn't mean everything by BONES is amazing.
Speaking of Fate/... Zero was just okay for me. Too... awesome, too sort of obsessed with itself. I'll finish it but I don't think I'll spend any more time with the franchise.
I meant so far. If I had to recommend an arc to start it, it would be Alabasta for a manga newcomer or Drum Kingdom for someone who had passing familiarity with the series.
I've read/played F/SN but I guess I won't be watching the anime any time soon.
The Naruto chapter this week was full of Uchihahype/wank. The One Piece chapter was all right, but I wish Oda was willing/allowed to have competent women in his story besides Robin.
Ah. Sorry. I wasn't really sure, from the "can't go wrong with" part. For me, I'm not sure if my favorite arc was Water Seven or Marineford; the first had the best one-arc plotline the series has ever had, and much more emotional diversity, but the sheer, unadulterated craziness and spectacle of the latter, after over fifty volumes of familiarity with the world and the hype surrounding these people, was amazing, and it was very satisfying seeing all of these things come to a sort of head.
I feel like this most recent One Piece chapter was one of the slower ones, honestly. Even with as much space as the anime apparently fills with the openings and recaps, I can't imagine how they could make an entire episode out of this. Unless they extended the bit where Luffy fights Smoker-in Tashigi, since that was kind of amusing. Agreed on the part about competent women, though you put Kishimoto instead of Oda.
It also doesn't surprise me at all that Sasuke would still be stuck on Uchiha stuff. It was the same way when I dropped it way back when.
Oops. I guess that's telling. :P Claymore and Fullmetal Alchemist are the only manga I've read that really allow for women to kick ass. Bleach too, I guess, but I haven't read much past the end of the Soul Society arc/saga.
Sabaody is my favorite of the "mini" arcs. We got a lot of characters, some plot, and Luffy punching the shit out of a World Noble. Good times.
See, here's another thing that saddens me: Bleach actually started off really well. The Soul Society arc was actually really fun, and even the first arc was kinda cool with the way that it set things up. But then it just went on a rapid decline, and I took way too long realizing that.
Gonna leave that there because I agree.
Can't comment on Claymore or Fullmetal Alchemist since I haven't read or seen much of either.
What annoyed me about Claymore is that it fell into the traditional shonen rut of power levels. A lot of its content is quite creative and sometimes even quite clever, but it ended up throwing a lot of that away because it ended up quantifying the combat power relationships between different characters. As a result, the conclusion to any given conflict was always going to be a case of playing it straight or an "amazing" subversion of the alleged expectation, and that didn't make for interesting conflicts given that the majority of conflict in it is physical.
Fullmetal Alchemist is a lot stronger in this regard because, apart from having a heftier emphasis on character conflict over physical conflict, contests of combat ability are based on a combination of mundane martial arts ability and skill with alchemy, alchemy being reasonably analogous to our rules of chemistry. Ergo the dominant character type in the setting is the "scholar soldier", which is great because it can provide a wide variety of applicable scenarios and lots of different kinds of conflict, from straight-up physical fights to conflict over scientific philosophy and everything in between.
Don't get me wrong; Claymore is still a good, even exceptional manga and anime. It's just disappointing that it wasted so much of its potential, which is particularly frustrating for me because tastefully handled female characters with exceptional fencing abilities should be one of my favourite things ever. The anime is worth a watch to see the early part of the manga in action, but around the time the anime ends, the manga overtakes it in quality by a long shot. For my money, though, Fullmetal Alchemist is the better anime in both its earlier altered form and its recent "true" adaptational form.
My big gripe with Claymore is from an artistic standpoint more than anything. Since all the Claymores look so similar*, it makes all of them blur together. And later on the manga just kept adding characters, when the lady I started reading it for, Clare, was sidelined more and more.
*albeit for reasons explained in the story and to drive home the point that they are manufactured
@fourteenwings:
I don't really see what's wrong with saying some studios are better than others?You know, because they are.
Because there's a difference between 'some studios are better' and 'these guys are the gods of anime who will never be replaced'.
Albeit, the Soul Society arc took fucking forever, to the point I gave up just before the conclusion because seriously fuck that.