Anime and Manga Thread: 2nd Season

[Asura]

I'm a bit saddened that it's an OVA, though. I was under the impression it was a complete series, of usual Gundam length (i.e. ~50eps, like Seed, Destiny, Wing, original Gundam, Zeta, 00 etc).

[briareos_kerensky]

I'm a bit saddened that it's an OVA, though. I was under the impression it was a complete series, of usual Gundam length (i.e. ~50eps, like Seed, Destiny, Wing, original Gundam, Zeta, 00 etc).

Renconguista in G (whatever its spelling is) is a 50 episode series, it's by Tomino and the Eureka 7 guys, so there's hope that it will be good. I don't particularly like the mecha and the character design, but I'll be pretty happy if it's going to be Turn A v2.0.

[edit] Got it wrong, it's 25 planned episodes.

[PaTaito]

For a while now, I've considered buying the Cowboy Bebop 2-part Blu-Ray set, as Bebop is my favourite anime by some margin.

Currently I have it on DVD, but the DVD transfer isn't great. That being said, I'm not sure if it's the actual transfer, or perhaps just the original footage is like that. Being from the late 90s, it has a gritty, faded quality with muted colours that works in its favour.

I have the Blu-Ray of Highlander (the "Immortal Edition") and that uses digital noise reduction extensively to remaster the film. The result isn't bad in the light scenes, but in the darker parts of the film it's really grainy (as it was filmed with that grainy look that was all the rage in the 80s). I'm worried Bebop will have the same problem.

That being said, half of the appeal with Bebop is the music, and I imagine the quality of that could be really good on Blu-Ray.

Has anyone watched them? What are they like? Are they worth the upgrade?

Bebop is a proper remaster on blu...

The difference is almost beyond description... if you have the pal dvd discs, then you have messy ntsc-pal converted, composite sourced ****(sorry not to sound rude), where as the blu's are scanned from the original negatives at a very high resolution, meaning its as good as it will ever look.

Check out bakabt and look at the best quality version of bebop there, should be screen shots up just for comparisons sake.

I just wish they would get round to doing both vampire hunter d's, bloodlust in particular would look amazing at 1080p with a proper mint.

[bash]

Hoo sheet, the CBBP hd transfer is awesome!

[Tobal]

End of Spring season rap up

The good--
Knights of Sidonia (12eps) - Been a while since we had a decent space opera with the right amount of hard science (attention paid towards acceleration and the effect of recoil/mass/gravity, real concerns for energy consumption on the mecha) to make it believable and a fairly unpredictable story due to the characters being disposable similar to Attack on Titan. The low FPS on the cgi does take some getting use to early on and they do improve it a the episodes go on, and if you do get into it your in for some good action. Looking forward to season2.

Ping Pong the Animation(11eps) - unique art style combined with really good sports story and likable characters who grow through the short run, puts a lot long running and 26ep+ sports show to shame.

Jojo part3 (13+ on going to 54+) - not much to say other than its jojo and its good.

Mahouka (13eps on going) - just about makes in here, has the usual blank slate MC but at least they have a decent reason for him being emotionally retarded to everyone and i enjoy his forced and fake interactions, spliced around various well animated fights with long winded technical breakdowns on how the MC macgyvered his way through each situation, could definitely do with the sister character getting less airtime.

Mangaka-san to Assistant-san (12ep 5mins shorts) - prevy manga artist just about gets by in life with the help of his various assistants, which is really comes into it own in the embarrassing creepy comedy genre

Mushishi s2 part1 (10ep) - more life/moral stories of human dealing or living with Mushishi, as well animated and drawn as they come. Felt to many of the stories this time followed the Mushishi ****ting up human lives formula instead of my preferred MC centred ones which we only got one of, will have to wait till winter season comes for part2.


Average--
Baby Steps (13+ on going) - decent sports show, and as the name suggests it takes it time to tell each tennis match usually across 2eps a time. MC is cut from the hardwork cloth, so you can't help but route for him as he gives his all against seeded players, but has started to fall in the unrealistic side when the most recent tennis opponent plays tennis to draw a pictures in his mind.. they kind of lost me on that and if that indication of how stupid the seeded players might get, i'll stop watching as they sold this to me on 1st 12eps with tennis players have normal goals and play styles, I don't need another prince of tennis.

Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou (12eps) - teen "romance" show which is pretty much about a 17year olds crush on his girl house mate who is a book nerd. Well drawn and fairly charming mainly thanks to the other housemates bringing their A game every episode (30 yearold single drunk women, 20+ serial dater college girl and 30+ handyman weirdo) generally taking the mick of him and each other.

Captain Earth (13+ on going) - started really well with the human made giant mecha (with an awesome launch sequence) who fights off aliens looking to eat up earths energy should they reach it with their all powerful alien mech. After few episodes in space it moved the story back to earth and things just really slowed down, the mecha action became small time and the same situation every week for the last 8 odd episodes, hoping it will pick back up now they've dealt with introducing all the named enemy bosses.

Gochuumon wa Usagi esu ka (12eps) - girls doing cute things while working in coffee houses somewhere an modern times but old looking European looking city. Really well drawn art style, and the usual no real plot outside the girls getting know each other over the changing seasons which is very typical of this type of show. Had one of my fav moments this season which still cracks me up, vacant stare Cawfee and Green T (repeated for 5 mins)



Haikyuu!! (13+ on going) - volley ball show, pretty decent, every well animated with wide selection of characters introduced as they build up the high schools volley ball team, seems like it will stay on the side of reality when it comes to sports action and they really work the MC short height well in to the action that you can't help but route for him.

Hitsugi no Chaika (12 eps)- fantasy story of a villain's girl collecting the body parts of her dead (badguy) father. The MC girl herself is very bland so the show is carried by the brother/sister merc duo and the morphing dragon. By halfway you'll start think that the show has a big twist coming but they never let it out the bag and finish the show after a pretty good flying fortress fight with a "to be continued" though it likely not to be... shame as looked like building an interesting story.

Love Live s2 (13eps) - same as before, so more slice of life/practice/coming up for new songs, while this time building to getting into Love Live and the dealing with the half the group leaving high school, which latter part making a really good last few episodes. Music still **** though but they chuck lot of budget into mixing the cgi dances with real animation this time.

No Game no Life (12eps)- didn't feature any videogame playing as the trailers and most people thought it would do, but I enjoyed it for what it became, 2 neets overcoming the odds with near god like predications to formulate strategies to beat other magical races in challenge games. If you your the sort of person who enjoyed Lelouches plans from code geass or batman like readiness for any situation when you should like this, and I did enjoy that it wasn't always them that got the win for the team. The really good animation helps to.

One Week Friends(12eps) - girl loses memory of friends every Monday, so cue some lad with the hots for her making friends with her each week and eventually giving a her a more normal high school life, the show like a few others this season is carried by the secondary characters of tall lad and slow girl and scenes are a lot better when it involves either of them and on occasions just them, could definitely have done with the MC couple getting past the special friends stage...

Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin - takeshi castle challenges with death traps, to find ghost Indiana Janes treasures she hide all over a man made island. Well animated and come decent action between the competing teams, very unlikely to get a sequel so it not worth the time watch a 1/4 told story.

M3 - (13+ going) - didn't really click with me till after the island training ep4'ish, when the hints at some pretty damn dark, last days of humanity so morals are out the window so lets experiment! story to come(and does). Teens fight in mecha against monsters, similar to Eva, Rahxephon or Fafner setup, animations just about alright.

Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii (12eps) - tomgirl rainmaker gets married of to a prince, I thought it would be a pile of shoujo prince crap but was surprised to find it had a backbone for politics and governing the land thrown in to, along with a likeable MC duo.

Guilty pleasures
Akuma no Riddle (12eps) - class room full of inept assassins take turns each week to try and kill a smiling idiot, and in taking itself quite seriously is where all the fun comes from during each ridiculous set piece, and wide ranging peaks and drops in the quality of the art and animation.

Black Bullet (11eps) - Merc's fighting with pokemon flavoured loli's... mainly suffers from setting to much ground work trying to tell the kind of story you expect out of a 52ep epic, and so characters seem very by the numbers without knowing much about their motivations, so much so that the best character in the show and the one most people watching seem to route for was the masked psycho badguy. Did enjoy it for well animated fights, the masked badguy and the yandere boss girl making the MC's "justice" look weak and with no real reason for him stick to it after watching a lot of friends die across 11eps. 0 chance of a sequel.

Brynhildr in the Darkness (13eps) - artificially made witches escape to which they are hunted down and risk dying if they run out of the drugs which stop them melting in a puddles of fleshly goo. Started so well with of cruel and uncaring violence of the badguys bringing tensions to the fights, and the Kansai-ben talking witch. But then last 5 eps the characters start making out of character choices, sense of time goes out the window and story stops making sense, the final episode even skips the last the couple fights only showing who won.. looked up what happened and fans of the manga said they had stuck 100+chapters into 4/5eps so lot of important plot got cut.

Blade and Soul (13eps) - Korean mmo advertising show and done with bugger all budget which is why I think enjoyed it for incredibly funny animation shortcuts, making up the story each episode so nothing really made any sense and killing 99% of the side characters introduced each episode. And the final episode.. on man I never seen any studio seeming say "**** it, I don't care" this badly since Excel Saga's last ep.

Soul Eater NOT (12eps)- slice of life soul eater isn't all the great and trying to force whiny none-combatants in fighting shounen story looked pretty crap and wasn't helped by the terrible animation.

[Tobal]

New stuff for summer

Sword Art online 2 - Kirito returns to the online world in a game call GGO which basically looks like borderlands, seems he'll use a sword to take down everyone else using a gun, in a FPS mmo... just to be difficult mfer as normal. Very boring 1st ep, just set up the reason for Kiritio to come back.

Sabaegu - another airsoft club, this one seems more comedy and fun than Cbu, I was pretty much ready to delete it till they got to the gun shop and it ended up being a lot of fun.

Sailor Moon C - seems pretty terrible to me, the CGI transformation looked awful and SM's voice is grating as hell... I was hoping it would cheesey fun like Jojo but I don't think I could stand Sailor Moon acting an idiot very episode.

Aldnoah Zero - gundam setting without gundam (so far), hoping they'll kept to the Feds grunt units using group tactics to overcome to the superior tech of the colonists, good 1st episode even with the blank slate of a MC.

Ao Haru Ride - shoujo romance like Kimi no Todoke (same team) so I hope for good things. Setting for the MC couple is they know they liked each other in the past but after years away there "different" people now.

Argevollen - wartime mecha about a ragtag unit escaping with the prototype mech they across, while their army is losing to a superior force.

Glasslip - probably be a coming of age show for a group of high schoolers who's world just been invaded a weird transfer kid.

Rail War - bonkers show about railway security set present day, pretty stupid(and ecchi) but if they can make bread baking fun why not this.

Akame ga kill - not a great 1st episode, the anime doesn't go a great job transferring the opening chapter. The tension and threat of the night raid is ruined by the OP(so avoid first sitting) and some of Akame's reactions, but at least the violence is not censored for once. Not a fan of the colour scheme either but I can live with it as I know the show will get better.

Tokyo Ghoul - dark show about kid coming to terms with becoming a flesh eating ghoul, will probably feature a lot of fighting and gore.. which would be alright if everything wasn't censored... ep2 was completely butchered into an unwatchable mess, so I might be best to just wait till the BD are out.

Zankyou no Terror - very interesting show, following two gifted teens on a revenge mission, terrorising japan with bombings. one to watch.

Part mentions for continuations of Space Dandy 2, Fate/Ilya 2, Baby steps, M3, Mahouka, Jojo, and Captain Earth. Everything else to seems to be terrible low budget singing crap, bad looking shounen or homo-pandering shoujo prince ****.

[fishbowlhead]

Another fan of Knights of Sodonia here too. Very well thought out and you never really know what the command characters real motivation is, for now. Great characters as well, while there still alive that is anyway. Roll on season 2 for more binging goodness

[Paddy]

As I couldn't get to sleep last I watched some openings for 2014 shows on Youtube. A couple have peaked my interest so intend to watch those and see what I make of them (Ryugajou Nanana no Maizoukin has the most charming intro I've seen in a while and Akuma no Riddle looks quite Battle Royal-ish but I could be totally wrong).

Will also get the 1st episode of Zankyou no Terror watched as Shinichiro Watanabe is the only director besides Goro Taniguchi I can trust to always head a great anime series.

[Tobal]

As I couldn't get to sleep last I watched some openings for 2014 shows on Youtube. A couple have peaked my interest so intend to watch those and see what I make of them (Ryugajou Nanana no Maizoukin has the most charming intro I've seen in a while and Akuma no Riddle looks quite Battle Royal-ish but I could be totally wrong).

Will also get the 1st episode of Zankyou no Terror watched as Shinichiro Watanabe is the only director besides Goro Taniguchi I can trust to always head a great anime series.

Posted spring14's rap up for what I was watching on the previous page. Found Akuma no Riddle enjoyable for being just a trainwreck of a show, no so much battle royal though, more 13 assassins vs 1 idiot and her protector.

[Paddy]

Yeah I'd read that the girl who the others are trying to assassinate in Akuma no Riddle has a really bizarre personality (like she'd get depressed when some of the assassins were stopped from killing her as it meant she couldn't enjoy her school days with them anymore or something like that). Maybe its to make viewers feel like they want to see one of the assassins succeed but I'm aware how sadistic that sounds.

I might check it out at a later date but going to watch Ryugajou Nanana no Maizoukin as I enjoy shows with a decent amount of mystery about them.

[Tobal]

Aldnoah Zero ep2 - wow, proper tense episode with the vers going on the attack, and its looks like the set up will be Enemy super mech vs grunts and tactics, but I haven't a clue how the MC and their training mecha are going to fend of that monster of mech, but I hope it something right of Lelouch's dirty tactics handbook. im hyped for ep3.

SAO2 ep2 - from boring 1st episode to an entire action episode to introduce the new female lead(sniper), does a good job of setting the rules GGO plays by and makes the sniper look a badass.

Tokyo ESP ep1 - didn't know anything going into this but I was mighty surprised to see Ga-rei Zero cast in it doing a cameo (so its set during or before it), so it sets up spiritual and esper universe right away and i fully expect terrible ends for most of the new cast. Will definitely keep watching this one.

Sabaegu ep2 - and the fun continues, a fair few scenes in this 2nd ep got some loud laughs from me for the unexpected way the MC deals with people,

->Open Spoiler<-

from the revenge lariat, the morning punch(the best), causing nato related ptsd, and being cold blooded bitch to those surrendering

. I hope it keeps up this level of laughs.

Rest are decent shows i'll probably store to watch later.

Barakamon - SoL with hot headed calligraphy artist heading out to the boonies to find himself, and get wrapped up with the villages youngest scamp out to show him life can be fun. really enjoyable and the right amount of comedy thrown in to, giving me flashbacks to Honey'n'Clover.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - high school comedy/romance, Manly looking high schooler writes Shoujo manga along with help from girl with a crush on him, expect lots of misunderstanding's and him trying to get him'n'her to test out ideas for his stories. good fun.

Locodol - SoL about 2 local idols in a small town doing local work, seems alright.

Majimoji Rurumo - ecchi high scooler kid get caught up with a witch, again another one that seem decent enough with the plot around magic costing his life(expectancy?), I did like that the panties that cost him the 1st time round, he held on to for good 10 mins of the episode

Rokujouma no Shinryakusha - the ecchi-harem show of the season, vibes of Kore wa Zombie Desu ka, with girl per fantasy type all fighting for his cheap 5000yen room for various reasons.

[importaku]

Stumbled across log horizon, loving the whole mmorpg based take on things. The characters are fun & the battles are satisfying to watch i like the fact that it's very self aware about the rules of mmorpg games.

[Brad]

Enjoying Initial D. Dunno why. Objectively it's terrible.

[Tobal]

Stumbled across log horizon, loving the whole mmorpg based take on things. The characters are fun & the battles are satisfying to watch i like the fact that it's very self aware about the rules of mmorpg games.

your in luck to, season 2 start beginning of October. Would love them to top Database OP but I doubt they'll find that kind of magic again.

Got a few last episodes to get through from the summer season due to playing destiny.

[speedlolita]

Enjoying Initial D. Dunno why. Objectively it's terrible.

Shut up. lol

Which season so far?

Improves a ton in terms of animation from S1 to S5.