Anime and Manga Thread: 2nd Season

[Brad]

S1 episode 9 I think. He just beat the

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32

[Asura]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa.

Did someone say INITIAL D SEASON FIVE?

When the **** did that happen and how don't I know about it?

Also, watched Gundam Build Fighters. Was fun for a daft bit of fan service, especially since I watched it for free on the official Gundam YouTube channel.

EDIT: Also, I may love Initial D but it is offputting to a new viewer. Even a poor looking video game today looks better than the early CGI.

[speedlolita]

Not to mention Final Stage.

That's only a 4 episode OVA though as I recall. Get it watched though!

Fifth Stage was only available through some streaming service from 2012 to 2013 with a new episode every two weeks or something like that. 14 episode in total.

Actually wraps up the series as a whole, as the manga has been wrapped up too.

[importaku]

In between log horizon been watching barakamon today, it's been getting quite a few giggles out of me.

[Tobal]

Summer season round up

Good

Aldnoah Zero - short 12ep run and one heck of ending, basically new spin on the Gundam trope of Colonists vs Earth where the hero only gets to pilot a grunt unit with other cannon fodder taking on the Colony super robots, good fun and pretty tense the main crew just about surviving each skirmish. Has a lot of hate from die hard gundam fans nicpicking over the military grunts being cannon fodder when the hero teen can come along and asspull some simple but effect plans to beat this boss of the week. And the ending...

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Slain really messing up by sticking with the colonists(after what they did) but saving the big boss so he could murder his princess.. and then the punk blows Eggs brains out.

did not expect that so will look forward to season 2 in the winter season.

Barakamon - 13eps - really comfy slice of life and a decent dose of comedy from a childish adult learning to live on his on in the boonies. Ends up playing about with the villagers most of time instead of training his calligraphy and then ends up finding inspirations from his interactions to produce new art. I really like it and they kind of threatened some family stuff with the kid that lead to some dark moment in the back of my mind but hopefully that's just me overthinking

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that her parents are dead and she been alone a lot until "sensei" turned up

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - 12eps - top notch high school (romance)comedy about a 17 year old bloke writing shoujo romance manga, has a lot of great characters and funny setups. worth watching.

Space Dandy 2 - 13eps - more one off stories with a much wider and weirder settings compared to season 1, a lot of good episodes for me and they tie it up all neatly with a fantastic final episode which explains everything which us subtly hinted at through out both seasons, great stuff. Also featured aton of fanservice cameos including fridge from cowboy bebop.

Average
Mahouka 24eps - starts well, and had a decent middle with the school tourney but then the power creep and overall superman abilities of the MC just made everything so trivial there was no tension in any of the fights he was involved in and I started rooting for the badguys as they where so outmatched it felt really unfair and they got some pretty gruesome deaths from the "heroes". Also that brother/sister plot thread and **** right off to, i'm sick of it.

Ao Haru Ride - 12eps- shoujo high school romance, some pretty decent interactions between the main "couple" and it avoids a lot of the shoujo tropes off misunderstandings which is refreshing.

Argevollen - about as close as we'll get to a Front Mission anime, small independent unit stumbles on a pro-type keager(mecha) which they use in a lot of hit and run guerrilla tactics against a superior force. Lots of decent little plot hooks like the overall view of the war, the war economy and military secrets. The MC turns from whining loner to team player fairly quickly which saved the show for me at the start and it improved from there in out.

Captain Earth - 25eps - Super robot show with 4 teens taking on aliens invaders, I really like the designs, the robot introductions and that the characters actually develop relationships which is a rare thing for super robot show. The thing that drags it down was how slow the plot moved, and really dragged around the time they got operation summer going. The ending was rush with everything going down in the last episode, wrapping everything up quick exits for everyone and

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I'm pretty sure where suppose to take it that Captain and Brown girl died, which is a right bummer of an ending

so a typical Bones ending.

Sabagebu ep12s - average and lazy art/animation for the most part but the gun survival nut show is has it best when Momoka's being a vicious and vengeful bitch which never, ever failed to make me laugh.

Bad
Glasslip - just not a sodding clue what PAworks was trying with this show, started as there usual teen drama stuff with multiple couples but infused with some nonsense spiritual/psychic crap which is never explained like seeing glimpses of the future and lead to dozen or so plot threads that are just not followed up on.

Rail Wars - really bonkers, bordering on hentai rail security team... just some of the things they shoe horned into make a "exciting" railway got a few laugh from me. best thing about was gun nut lady and the op credits.


still watching Akame Ga Kill and SAO2 which continue on into autumn.

[Tobal]

Zankyou no Terror - 11eps - Show had me at the start then lost me with the introduction of a new character midway through that changed the paradigm of the show from Terrorist bombings to cat and mouse, but the main detective guy pulled me through those bits to the ending arc, which was fantastic tense stuff up until it shat in my cornflakes with that ending bit.. don't think I've been quite so miffed off since phantom requiem. To be fair

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Sphinx got what they wanted in the end which was the experiments going public as it was very likely they would have died young anyway... not sure why the Americans wanted them dead though even from that short radio transmission it didn't make much sense Sphinx would do anything about America ****ing up the airport and police transport, especially when there where a lot of police witnesses. I liked seeing Lisa and 12 together, I don't know if would liked to have seen him slowly dying in her arms or quickly over a snipers bullet.

Worth watching if you want something different from the norm and it has a fantastic sound track from Youko Kanno (as usual).


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as for new October shows I've only watched Gundam Rec G, hmmmm not great and very messy first 2 episodes with to many characters doing stupid things for no good reason, with all the hype over the original creator back at the helm then I think he should have stayed retired, it feels like the worst bits of AGE with a really annoying hyper MC. It could have been more interesting with the redhead girl as lead but she in the space of 2 episode is made to look a retard.

[Asura]

Apart from Tomino's involvement, everything I've seen about that new Gundam series seems poor, and I'm a huge Gundam fan.

The only things I know are that it's about a Space Elevator (which is one of the key plot points of 00) and the main mobile suit looks like something from 00. Should probably say here that I hated nearly all the designs of 00, apart from Virtue and some of the grunt suits.

I just think this sort of thing...



Will always look better than this sort of thing...

[Tobal]

I thought Exia 1st design looked really good with its shield blade and blaster, the rest apart from the Flag and the Russian one looked bad. As far as my favourite design goes my heart always goes to Tallgeese II, the go fast of char's zaku2 with gundam colours.

The only thing I know about this show is its UC and potentially a prequel to TurnA, I hope it gets better but with the sequel to Build Fighters in the same season (why?) I probably gravitate towards that as the last one was a lot of fun.

[Asura]

The only thing I know about this show is its UC and potentially a prequel to TurnA, I hope it gets better but with the sequel to Build Fighters in the same season (why?) I probably gravitate towards that as the last one was a lot of fun.

To be fair, Build Fighters has been a fun series but there's no conflict with it running alongside a proper Gundam anime; I mean Build Fighters is essentially Gundam Yugioh. Some fans among us will watch both, but they're really for different markets.

I also don't think it'll tie in too closely to Turn-A, though they coul throw in a surprise twist.

[Paddy]

Working through watching Psycho Pass. I'd heard it was good but hey, its actually quite good and interesting. Like a previous review said, the main investigative team in the show actually work on and solve cases and are more than one-dimensional stereotypes. The villains seem quite interesting too. I need to keep watching as I hear the 2nd season starts very soon.

More anime series like this are most welcome.

[Asura]

Hopefully someone will be able to answer this - I have a complete set (vols1-6) of Akira, the large volume ones by Dark Horse.

Does anyone know how much they're worth?

I'm moving house, I've read them well and they're huge. I doubt I'll ever read them cover-to-cover again.

The problem also is postage. Each volume weighs a fair amount (though they are paperback) and I'm worried it'll make selling them not worthwhile.

[speedlolita]

At the bring and buy at Kitacon 2014 (of which you also attended ) there were two sets. One was ?30 and the other ?35 if I recall correctly. Didn't have the budget at the time otherwise I'd have picked a set up. They're really nice!

[Asura]

At the bring and buy at Kitacon 2014 (of which you also attended ) there were two sets. One was ?30 and the other ?35 if I recall correctly. Didn't have the budget at the time otherwise I'd have picked a set up. They're really nice!

Yeah, well, I'm not too hard to spot - the UK con scene doesn't have that many Commander Shepard cosplayers

One of them was this actual set, and didn't sell. It'd have to be more than that; given the weight, the postage might be about ?20.

I'd rather give them to a charity shop at this rate, and tell them to put them in the window for ?60 for 3 months.

[speedlolita]

Ah, too bad. Maybe charity shop is for the best then?

[Asura]

Upon hearing about that Initial D 5th Stage, my lass mentioned that we'd watched an episode years ago and she'd like to get into it.

Cue me this evening discovering that there is literally no legal way to watch it in the UK. No streaming services have it, the DVDs were never released here, it isn't on some kind of official YouTube channel...

I've been legit with my anime for quite a long time now, as things have improved to the point where I get to see everything I want without many problems. Stuff like this still happens though, I guess.