New and current FS anime Topic

[Tobal]

Da Capo S2 ep26, well, hmmm. What a boring, average finish with everything totally wrapped up by the end,

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about he only thing I like about the end was the Cat girl turning up and the characters had aged a bit, and Aisa turning up and walking off only for Asakura to call her back.

Season 1 was so much better in filler, story and music. I guess next is Da Capo2 season1, with all new characters.

Air Gear, every enjoyable first ep. I think I can get into this as they some already likable characters and plenty of fan service, though they never explained where this skates get there power from?

Kiba ep1 ? as others have said, enjoyable but I hate the look of the main lead, his eyes annoy me.

Suzumiya Haruhi ep1 ? brilliant stuff, the running commentary for the very amateur video was is excellent, I hope we get another episode of Combat Waitress (the fireworks stuff was priceless)

[Zapp$ter]

Air Gear, every enjoyable first ep. I think I can get into this as they some already likable characters and plenty of fan service, though they never explained where this skates get there power from?

Suzumiya Haruhi ep1 ? brilliant stuff, the running commentary for the very amateur video was is excellent, I hope we get another episode of Combat Waitress (the fireworks stuff was priceless)

Don't they explain it at the beginning of the first ep of Air Gear. Some bs about science advancing to such a stage that they are able to get the power of a fourwheeled vehicle in those inline skates. Don't think it matters to be honest.

Agreed about Haruhi, next episode seems like a more normal episode rather than centred on the movie. From what I'm reading we apparently might get to see a making of the movie which explains some stuff about it. Hopefully we'll get another episode of it but I wouldn't mind seeing what other movies they've come up with

[Tobal]

Mai Otome eps 25 and 26 -

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Brilliant final two episodes which wrapped up the series quite nicely, though there's still one or two things left unanswered, which is something I didn't think was possible about 3-4 weeks ago. It didn't feel rushed to me. So many ace moments throughout:
- Miss Maria activating her robe (and looking about 30 years younger in the process) and kicking ass, as well as everyone's reactions to her transformation.
- Miyu diving down to ancient ruins of Fuuka Academy(the school from Mai Hime) to "activate" the hime star and turn all the otomes into Himes more or less. Nice touch I thought. Does seem like it is a direct sequel and not an AU version as was suggested when it first came out. There's more than enough links to Hime shown throughout.
- Nekomimi otome Akane retelling the story of how she was still an otome i.e. they got stopped before they could go all the way.
- Shiho with her spiral curse thing and her crazy looking robe.
- Natsuki activating her ****ing huge weapon with a nice little homage to Mai Hime "load silver cartridge" etc..
- Lesbo Tomoe going mental and finally getting the beating she deserves.
probably some I'm missing as well.

Downsides were really that no main/secondary characters got killed in what was supposed to be a huge battle/war. I wouldn't have minded the good guys surviving but I'd have preferred it if Nagi had been finished off. Which brings me to another downside, Nagi and did not get the beating he deserved and in the end seemed to get off pretty lightly. Would also have liked Nina to get knocked around a bit more although that said I didn't think she was as bad in these two episodes as she has been previously.

The ending is quite a happy one, which is fine with me, and even Nina looks like she's getting what she wanted with Sergay losing his memory. One surprise though was that there was no reset for Erstin, I thought they might bring her back especially as she only vanished with that green light effect.

Thumbs up from me. Very entertaining watch throughout it's run. Very good but for me not as good as Mai Hime. Mai Hime once it got going(which was a lot earlier than Otome) didn't let up until the final few minutes of the final episode. There were so many holy **** moments throughout(cast "dying" left and right for example), loads of twists to the story and in general the pacing was excellent. In Otome on the other hand it did drag a bit in the episodes before Mai made her comeback and overall it was more straightforward, less surprises and/or twists to the story.

Also a 4 episode OVA series for Mai Otome has been announced and is scheduled for July. Given that it's four episodes I'm hoping it's new content and not a recap of the series. It's on animenewsnetwork if you want some evidence.

Finally watched the last 2 eps, 25/26. I liked that ending, it wrapped up very well and the last 1hr of entertainment was one WoW moment after another with everyone and there mum turning up. Still, I think I preferred Hime overall due to as you as the story, its pacing and the battles betting better thanks to its smaller main cast. Still doesn?t stop Otome being good, just wish the battles where more technical than a Bleach style ?Who?s got the biggest Special?, would like to see the next Mai****(be it follow up OVA?s or a new show) put more into the technical side of the fights like Naruto or Tokyo Underground.

Fav moments are pretty much what you had

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1# Natsuki giving it old school with ?DURAN?. LOAD SILVER CARTRIDGE? gave me giddy giggles.

2# Gundam Tomoe going mental and being shot down Afterburner style, and her ?death? at the end = LOL

3# Anything Miyu did, her window menu system for loading in weapons always rocks.

4# Miss Maria, which kicking ass with out a robe, then looking super hot in her Robe and kicking more ass.

5# Akane, coming back and vowing she?ll still have sex with that guy - lol

6# Haruka going nuts with GUTS power, and messing her sentences up.

Also the SS version comes with a description of the stones the girl wear through out the show containing any meaning or legends the stone have and there relation to the girl's personality

[Fuddle]

any advice on whcih version of .hack roots i should be getting?...i dont seem to be having much luck with it so far.
i went with asource's mp4 first, as i've actually heard of them and mp4s usually work ok on my computer. but with this one i just get sound and a big black screen.
so i thought i'd try somebody elses instead, so went for zw. watching it fine...nice karaoke on the intro, show starts...no subs. so unless they're on their site seperately and i cant see them thats another useless 200mb download.

i'll have to try and play the asource one through something other than VLC i guess. unless i try the luperry version, but i've never heard of them either and i'm a bit weary now. i just wonder who else will be subbing this as well.

[Tobal]

im waiting to to see subber i know to it, as for th mp4 stuff best check the subber site or irc they usually have this problem prop up and answer for it.

[Tobal]

Nana ep1, finally got around to watching to it, very good stuff, it feel like I?m watching Paradise Kiss again with out the fashion element, the interaction better the 2 nana?s is brilliant.

I can?t believe there already 4 must watch shows for me (Air gear, Nana, Sr2 and Suzumiya Haruhi) and still have .Hack and few others to watch.

[Zapp$ter]

I can?t believe there already 4 must watch shows for me (Air gear, Nana, Sr2 and Suzumiya Haruhi) and still have .Hack and few others to watch.

Same here, only I've got a few more must watch shows. What did I say about this season of anime looking very good in many ways it has surpassed my expectations so far with some real surprises in the form of Suzumiya Haruhi, Ohran High School Host Club(only going by the first episode though), Air Gear, Utawarerumono and Nana. There's still quite a few decent looking animes that either haven't been subbed, I haven't got round to watching(Aria, Zegapain, Simoun) or haven't started yet.

Suzumiya Haruhi episode 2 is another brilliant one. Not quite as funny as the first episode(not that I'm surprised as the first one was awesome on first watch) but it has it's moments such as

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The bit where Suzumiya's introducing herself to the class, where she's changing her hair every other day, then there's the scene where she "kidnaps" Mikuru to join her club and particularly the bit where she locks the door to the room and says "be quiet" plus the look on Mikuru's face and the little squeaks of terror she makes are priceless. Then there's the bit where she explains the term "moe" to Kyon. Not to mention the scene where that guy is explaining that she once dumped someone 5 minutes after agreeing to go out with them, cue video footage of the incident and then another cut back to the same guy who told the rumour, who they're all suspicious of as the one who got dumped after 5 minutes.

. I'm probably forgetting a few things as well. The narration is as dry, sarcastic and funny as in the first episode although there's a lot less of it.

The other thing I've noticed is that the production values seem to be skyhigh. The animation is fantastic(almost on a par with the dance animation in the ED), they seem to have all the little details down and in any one scene there always seems to be a lot of stuff that's animated even if it's in the background. Up there with School Rumble as my favourite show of the season.

Oh and Fuddle what exactly do you use to play your anime? What spec system do you have? The general choice of software seems to be downloading ffdshow and the appropriate splitters for certain containers(Haali's matroska splitter I think) or just going with CCCP. Not sure if I've got my terminology right. If you're looking for a performance boost with .h264 encoded files try this out --> http://www.cccp-project.net/wiki/ind...?title=CoreAVC . It worked for me, I was able to play HD versions of Fate Stay night without any slowdown or frame skipping which I did encounter before using it.

[Fuddle]

Oh and Fuddle what exactly do you use to play your anime? What spec system do you have?

tbh i dont think my computer is doing me any favours...its an old ibook. 800mhz G3, with 640mb of ram(which is its maximum) and i just use VLC 0.8.4. i'm not really clued up on a lot of this stuff, so i'll have a look at that thing. or search around for any other players.
most stuff works ok though. and i know that certain groups stuff will be fine, and to avoid others. i stopped watching eureka 7 and eyeshield 21 both in the mid teens as they seemed to just stop working, although i'm still downloading them for the future. Nana and hack roots are the only things i can think of recently that i've had trouble with.

seeing you two talking about Haruhi Suzumiya made me download the first two eps today, so i'm gonna check them out tonight (i hope).

[Zapp$ter]

tbh i dont think my computer is doing me any favours...its an old ibook. 800mhz G3, with 640mb of ram(which is its maximum) and i just use VLC 0.8.4. i'm not really clued up on a lot of this stuff, so i'll have a look at that thing. or search around for any other players.
most stuff works ok though. and i know that certain groups stuff will be fine, and to avoid others. i stopped watching eureka 7 and eyeshield 21 both in the mid teens as they seemed to just stop working, although i'm still downloading them for the future. Nana and hack roots are the only things i can think of recently that i've had trouble with.

seeing you two talking about Haruhi Suzumiya made me download the first two eps today, so i'm gonna check them out tonight (i hope).

Interesting.... I used to have a 1Ghz celeron laptop with about 128MB Ram and didn't have any trouble playing new releases up until late last year when loads of .h264 encoded files came out such as Shakugan No Shana subs. At the time I used CCCP + Media Player Classic. Don't know how a 1GHz celeron stacks up to your config but I wouldn't think there'd be much difference. I still do use that combo of software that is as it sorts me out fairly quickly only now I've got a better setup. I'd say try CCCP + a player of your choice, or alternatively get ffdshow and Haali's matroska splitter and play the files in MPC or something, see how you get on. I might try playing some of the files you're having trouble with on my old setup to see how I get on. I honestly don't think Nana or some of those .avi files should be posing too much of a problem, there's nothing special about them I believe certainly no .h264 in there which would mess up older setups. Also when you say "stop working" do you mean that there's no video/audio ? it doesn't even start up? any error messages displayed?

Hope you'll enjoy Haruhi, I notice you in particular look out for unique anime(I believe you were the on that pointed out Kamichu way back), if so this should be right up your street. Whilst the setting isn't anything different IMO the characters are ace and quite different from what I'm used to, Suzumiya Haruhi in particular. The first episode as well, all I can say is don't let the first few minutes put you off(I know some people stopped watching it after a few minutes because they thought that's what the actual anime was like), watch it through to the end. Trying not too hype it too much as invariably someone will be disappointed by it if they get too hyped beforehand.

[Fuddle]

Also when you say "stop working" do you mean that there's no video/audio ? it doesn't even start up? any error messages displayed?

Hope you'll enjoy Haruhi,

all i mean is that a certain number of episodes ran perfectly fine, and then at some point the newest episode was really jerky. the video pausing or breaking up while the sound carries on. VLC does pop up some message saying something like 'is your computer too slow? (which wouldnt surprise me) and probably some other stuff i gloss over. it seemed weird as they were the same subbers/file sizes (eg,eureka 7 and eyeshield) so i just assumed there might be something different at their end with something like encoders or other stuff i dont know anything about.

anyway, Haruhi is excellent as you guys have been saying. i did wonder if i had downloaded the right show, but carried on watching as it was funny anyway. the commentator is so good. must have taken a lot of guts to do such a weird first episode, especially for its whole length. second episode was slightly more normal, but it should be good to see what they get up to with more members. ( and the dancing on the end credits is cool too)

looks like i'll stick with that, kiba and air gear...and probably a bunch of the others too anyway. looks like its a great season.

[Stelvia]

I started watching Eureka 7 recently. Colour me impressed.


Has it finished airing in Japan?

[Tobal]

I think it ends around ep52

[Zapp$ter]

I started watching Eureka 7 recently. Colour me impressed.


Has it finished airing in Japan?

Yep. 50 episodes in total. Nanashi have just released episode 35 as well.

edit:

Another great episode of School Rumble season2. Some brilliant bits in it but I think I laughed the hardest at the end part, the bit where

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we find out who Eri really is. Just couldn't stop laughing at that scene. Especially the way her voice seemed different and then you see the bulging leg muscles and the rest of "her" physique Absolutely class. Other moments were with that new guy when he suggested the swimsuit wrestling competition and when those three were preparing to mount their own attack only for the fat guy to get stuck in the locker. Also the way Akira was it?(the girl with the short hair who's president of the tea club) revived both Hanai and Harima.

. As good as if not better than last week's episode. Can't wait for the next part of the survival game.

Zegapain ep1 - Perhaps it's just me but I got a Gunparade March sort of vibe from that first episode which is a good thing. Didn't really like the mecha design and the CG 3d in the battle scenes. Other than that it was a good first episode and one I'll be following since I think it's a pretty short series, 13 episodes in total, and as I said it reminded me of GPM.

Ohran High School Host Club ep2 - Funnier than the first episode and probably the funniest show after School Rumble and Suzumiya Haruhi from the new shows. Really liked it particularly Tamaki's reaction to Haruhi(yes this also features a girl called Haruhi) "moving in on his turf". Seems like they're not always going to be concerned about looking pretty but also helping out their clients as well.

Utawarerumono ep2 - more action than the first and again preferred it to some of the other action shows I've seen so far bar possibly Air Gear. Really does do the whole feudal setting well and again the characters are decent so far. Also really liked the music particularly the OP and ED songs, really helps with the atmosphere/tension in certain scenes. Decent animation as well so far. Perhaps a bit cliched with the events in this episode but it was enjoyable all the same. Apparently it is supposed to have a good story and I've liked what I've seen so far so I'll definitely be sticking with this for the time being. Only thing I hope is that they take that mask of his face soon as it makes him look ridiculous IMO. I'm hoping this'll turn out to be a decent replacement for Shakugan no shana, although there are a few more shows airing this week such as The Third and Tokko which also seem like they could fill that void.

[Tobal]

Aye School Rumble S2ep2, while not as funny as the previous ep, but still had some outstanding moments, including the butler

Utawarerumono ep1'n'2, enjoyed it, clean art, nice animation. Not sure where they're going to take it, maybe battling demons and gods that short of thing? reminds of that classic Scrapped Princess.

Strawberry Panic ep1 - enjoyed, animation ok and art's old school(like Angel Heart) not a must see but it got that Maria-sama vibe with the girls only school stuff, has more lesbo theme's to it though

Solty Rei 21-24 END - Quite the ending, it really ramped up the action and the backstory for the finale, and we even got outselves a 2nd finale to. The ending was very good, wrapped everything up.

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Even though i didn't really care for any of the character the last ep really does pull the string's and it was really nice this found what was left of Solty. And the story was surprisingly deep from what had been plain predictable story, liked all the stuff about the 3 computers.

FSN ep15 - Top Notch, we're starting to see the

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Archer transformation, i wonder if any of the cast will recogise it. It also looks like they may have Rin hurt in this one, and it almost looks certain Archer will be back at some point from the new intro.

XXXholic movie and ep1 - Enjoyed what i seen, much, much better than tsubasa, could stand that show and the art is so werid a different.

Air Gear ep2 - noticeable dip in animation already , how it doesn't continue this trend.

Now on to this.... BLACK LAGOON, YOU MUST WATCH IT, IT'S F'KING ACE!!!!!!111!!!

This is how gunplay, pirates and merc's should be, balls(tits) out action in a lara croft getup. Great art and Animation, the guns of the guns are excellent.

[Zapp$ter]

Black Lagoon - Wow. That was surprisingly good. I only downloaded it on a whim, didn't know too much about it at all and had one of the better first episodes of some of the new shows. Seems like an interesting setting/story as well. Definitely keeping up with this.

Solty Rei - ditto what Tobal said. Wrapped things up quite nicely in the last few episodes and there were quite a few surprises that I didn't see coming. Some nice background for the characters in particular Ashley. Also explains why Solty is able to kick so much ass throughout the series. Decent show and it had a good ending.

XXXHolic - Really liked the movie in particular all that CG and those effects were ace to look at. Plus the mansion was really weird, in a good way. The series has got a darker feel to it than Tsubasa Chronicles, decent first episode. Can't really say too much at this point since the first episode was more of an introduction. Will be keeping up with this one as well.

Fate Stay Night ep 15 -

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I think Rin will probably figure it out, I'm pretty sure she's got an inkling of what's happening especially when Shirou produces that bow. Good episode again with some decent action. Not to sure about the CG dragon or anything as replacement for the sex scene(at least that's what I'm sure it was). Some of the lines were pretty funny as well, like Shirou saying "I'm inside Saber now" or something while he was having that weird dream/sticking the bone of his sword(see what I did there) up Saber. Good to finally see Shirou moving away from being an annoying and idealistic moron to someone who's a bit more realistic.

Some new shows that came out this last week that should be worth checking out, the main ones being Tokko, The Third and Jyu Oh Sei(other new BONES show) for me. Tokko is apparently quite violent and gory, being compared to Elfen Lied by some people(means nothing to me as I've not seen that show). Don't really have a clue about the other two, just they were ones that caught my eye. Should hopefully see some subs soon. Also got Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni to check out subbed by Ayu.