I’m like… A week late on this, but my life was consumed by Star Guardian Lux and FFIV… so I was behind on my anime.
This season is pretty bad. There isn’t that much going on. The only show I was really interested in at the start of the season was Punchline, because it’s a noitaminA show, but there has been a few good shows cropping up over the past several weeks, and more importantly, a bunch of good OP songs. Can I give OP of the season to multiple shows??
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works 2 is still as good as you’d expect it to be. There are some changes and additions to what content the original provided, which is very nice. It’s no secret that, despite liking the Fate franchise, F/SN was one of the VNs I really didn’t like. The adaption is mostly dodging the problems of the original however, and I’m enjoying it a lot.
Oh, and they finnnnaaally got rid of those horrible Ufotable OPs! They got Aimer to sing instead, and y’know, it isn’t the type of song I’d expect from Aimer, but it’s a surprisingly amazing mix. Unfortunately they still have an awful ED, but hey, they can’t do everything right.
When it started, I wasn’t too sure about Plastic Memories. The start wasn’t very stand-out, so I didn’t have much expectation of it. I kept watching however, because the OP of this show is visually one of the best I’ve seen in years. Hopefully whoever was in charge of directing the OP gets control over the rest of the show. I think, as the weeks pass, the show has stepped it up a bit, and I’m invested in the characters now, so I’ll probably watch this show to it’s end. Speaking of characters, I’ve got to praise the protagonist. He’s young and selfish, but he’s not some overly dramatic school kid who is passionately fixed on his ideals. He’s a guy who questions things he doesn’t agree with (sometimes at the risk of hurting others) but understands that not everything will go in his favor, and sometimes you just need to let others do their job… And the rest of the characters understand this, because they all questioned the same things at some point.
So… it’s a very adult approach to growing up. It’s realistic, and while that might not be what everyone wants from their works of fiction, I enjoy realism. I like the feel of the show too. It feels like a kids show. Anyone else getting that vibe?
Sherry best girl btw. Oh, and here’s a countdown for those of you already watching the show.
Punchline is, as I said earlier, the only show I looked forward to before the season began. It’s the one that actually has promise.
The story is… It’s structured in a way that’s similar to Kingdom Hearts, a story that I adored. There is a face-value story going on, but if you actually pay attention to what’s going on, you can figure out whole chunks of the story before they even happen. I love that.
While it does annoyingly remove some complexity from the story, Punchline still looks to be a good mystery story.
Also, surprisingly, there’s not that much fanservice, and what fanservice there is gets quickly shoved aside or goes unnoticed. The OP though… most catchy OP with weird lyrics since DearS’ Love Slave. Oh, and that pink haired girl is great. She’s like the Kanon Otosaki of the season.
I think everyone who is watching Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majoknows why they picked the show up…
Cute protagonist wooooo! Actually all the characters are pretty good looking >.> It’s a pretty show.
In all seriousness though, I picked this show up because of the body swap thing. Those types of stories are usually pretty cool. At first, the witch hat theme in the OP was kinda off-putting, like it wanted to develop into something more serious… I like the show as it is now though, so I hope it doesn’t go too off the rails. Despite not liking the theme in the OP, I like the use of it. The progression of the hats is very smart, and man, that kiss at the end. Best couple hands down. Totally gonna read the manga once the anime is finished too.
It was really hard to decide between Yamada-kun, UBW, and PlaMemo, but I’m gonna give Yamada-kun OP of the season, because ugh that singer has such a nice voice, and the piano is godly. UBW’s OP isn’t something I’d listen to daily, and PlaMemo’s has an average middle surrounded by an amazing start and end.
I’ve only watched 6 episodes of Arslan Senki, so my opinion on it isn’t up-to-date, but I feel like this show is going the same way as Parasyte did. It started of entertaining, but now we’re at a midway lull where I’m not sure if I like the show or not.
It’s very clearly intending to be the story-focused anime of the season, so let’s hope it’s story is good enough to warrant that decision. The OP is great though. It’s more UVERworld-ey than any UVERworld song I’ve heard.
Now for the awkward bit… My ED of the season goes to Owari no Seraph… I’m really far behind on it, so I don’t have opinions on the show yet, but the ED is pretty nice. Yamada-kun is the only other show with a good ED this season.
I still plan on watching Re-Kan!, Denpa Kyoushi, Jewelpet, Kekkai Sensen, Show By Rock!!, Mikagura Gakuen Kumikyoku, Ore Monogatari!!, and the new Nisekoi, but they are all low priority, so I might skip a few~
Without going too much into detail, here’s what I think of the shows this season:
Denpa Kyoushi is a bit eh, a friend told me the manga is better
DanMachi is awesome, one of my favorites this season
KinMosa is, as expected, nice and relaxing, need my weekly dose of Ayaya
Euphonium is meh, I’m 3 or 4 episodes behind though, maybe something interesting happened there
Kekkai Sensen is a strange case, it has potential but the lack of a proper story in a setting like this is a huge mistake imo, still kinda enjoyable to watch though
Yuki-chan is kinda amusing, but doesn’t quite manage to keep me interested, Asahina boob-missile was funniest scene so far
Nisekoi is a good adaption, love the manga
Ore Monogatari is fun, that’s pretty much all I have to say about this one^^
Owari no Seraph is good, even though I’m not quite sure where the plot is supposed to be going, “kill all vampires” is hardly a main-plotline
Plastic Memories is good, but at the same time kind of disappointing, because I think the idea is great, but could’ve been executed a lot better
Punch Line is probably the most underrated show this season, I think the complexity is great, wasn’t surprised when I found out who wrote the script
Re-kan was amusing at first, but got rather boring after a while
Souma started out really weird, but by now it’s another one of my favorites, really fun to watch
OreGairu is top, period.^^
Yamada is good too, Nao a best, her episode was great
As for FSN/UBW… I love the VN, but ufo did not do their best job with this adaption, especially the defining scene of UBW of Archer vs Shirou, that was a disaster… it’s still a good enough show for what it is, but when viewing it as an adaption it disappointed me, which is sad because I really wanted this to be one of the best shows I’ve ever seen
When the season started I also tried Show by Rock, Houkago no Pleiades, Kyoukai no Rinne and Triage X, but dropped all of them after 1-2 episodes
Making a Top 3 for this season is really hard, because OreGairu, Nisekoi, KinMosa, DanMachi, Souma and FSN (yes, even tho it’s disappointing, that’s how much I want to like it T_T ) all deserve to be in it… will have to think a lot about this^^
really? I’m not really liking it as an adaptation (standalone it’s fine though). I know it’s not really Shaft’s fault that the manga became full of filler and they’re trying to cut around but they’ve done some chapters out of order (making Haru appear in episode 5 but not officially appear until episode 7. I also found it weird they adapted Magical Pâtissière Kosaki! and didn’t even attempt to fit it in. All of a sudden the go from magical girls to normal students, they could have at least pulled the “it’s a dream!” thing.
Interesting stuff happens, but it’s KyoAni, so they have to make sure it’s not good for most of an episode.
Most of the big story elements right now are anime original actually. Quite nice additions.
So rushed though x.x I really want to read the manga, because the past 3 episodes have felt messy.
Total opposite for me. VN was garbage, anime is pretty great. I feel like the release of F/Z might have changed my opinions on the franchise, but F/SN was just dull and annoying for the young me. I’m gonna revisit it though since it had a bunch of new content added.
Could someone explain Punch Line to me? Back when I watched the first episode, all I saw was a weird mess of incoherent scenes and fanservice, with no hint at what the show is even about. I never even watched the second episode and by now, I forgot most of what happened in the first one…
So I’m confused about the praise the show is getting
Long story short, it’s an interesting mystery show, with a colourful cast and a deceptively low focus on fanservice. It’s not amazing, but I think it’s one of the better shows of the season.
Too short! You’re not explaining anything. You’re just repeating some things from your previous post on the series, which I’ve read long before. I wouldn’t be asking about the series if this thread had provided enough information for me to understand it any better. If anything, I’m even more confused, since you’re calling it a mystery, which doesn’t appear as a genre of this series on the info sites I’m looking it up on.
I have yet to read an explanation to the series, I have yet to understand it and I most certainly don’t get the connection between Busjacking, superheroes, ghosts, panties and the end of the world.
Because the info sites only classify it based on the first few episodes. The mystery is only just starting now
That’s the mystery~ They’re all connected
And I think it’s that connection that makes it so interesting. That breaking of regular expectations when it comes to anime, and being served something totally different.
A lot of sites get the genre of shows wrong until the show actually finishes airing. It’s all guesswork.
The explanations for those things show up in the first 3 episodes.pretty much.
I’d argue it’s been there since the start, but… I have been since the start. The mystery was pretty present in the synopsis I read before starting the show.
I’m always up for Digimon. I’m a bit sceptical, but I like to give chances~ I just hope they don’t spend too much time in the digital world like in the recent series. The best bits of the best seasons (Adventure and Tamers) were in the real world, apart from that one Tamers bit… I always got exhausted of the digital world after a while.
Frontier and Xros, and to a lesser extent 02, were unbearable to me, and I think a large part of the blame is how much it focused on being in the digital world, and for Xros and 02, how simple the transition between worlds was. In Adventure and Tamers, and at times in Savers, going from one world to the other was a big deal. It always signified a big change in what was going to come.
I’m at episode 3 of Punch Line now and I’m finally detecting something worthwhile in the series. It’s beginning to take form.
Baka Taka. You should’ve said something along the lines of “It’s pretty messy at the beginning, but it’ll start making sense around episode 3” instead of posting useless links. Take Pepe as an example. He tried at least.
Still, the first two episodes were really off-putting. Those made the show look like a messy nonsense series for the sake of nonsense and with no substance that was seemingly not going anywhere. They (almost) ruined the show.
I’m totally looking forward to it. In fact, I find Adventure to be the best Digimon anime I know, so I’m hyped. 02 was a decent successor. Tamers was really weird - so I skipped 2/3 of it. Frontier was kinda ok. And that was the last one I’ve watched.
I believe the first two episodes are perfectly fine though. Personally, I’m annoyed at comments saying they had no substance or were “turn your brain off” episodes (I guess this is what it feels like to think highly of Oregairu :P)
Pretending there’s nothing to them just sounds kinda arrogant and pessimistic to me. It’s like you are ignoring things just for the sake of hating something…
The episodes definitely weren’t anything all that great, but they were decently strong episodes. Episode one brought to light the circumstances of the show and set up some questions to be answered, while the second explains the mechanics of the world and kicks off the house’s involvement in the plot.
Both episodes introduce the main cast, and talked through some exposition without overloading it. They did what they needed to do as a first and second episode for this type of story imo.
Maaan, you can’t just skip out on Tamers.
Adventure was my favorite, I love it to bits, but I wouldn’t say it was the best. (Uh, I went on a bit of a rant. It’s not the main point though.)
The intro arc was badly paced, the Devimon arc was just the intro arc again, the Etemon arc was god awful (man that Skullgreymon episode could have been so good,) Tai returning to the real world was great, the reunion arc was the intro arc yet again, the missing child arc was great, the Myotismon arc was weak, and then the final arc was pretty meh.
Despite a lot of the arcs not being good as a whole though, there are really nice moments of character development in the intro and devimon arcs, as well as the final arc, and I think that is what really sets the show apart from the shows that aired at the time.
The crests and tags were executed terribly, but the inclusion of things like “courage” and especially “light” really made their impact later on.
Why on earth didn’t they just go Greymon episode > exploration ep > Birdramon episode > exploration ep > Kabuterimon > exploration ep, and THEN split up the kids onto islands for the Garurumon, Ikkakumon and Togemon episodes? This way, evolutions last longer than one episode before becoming irrelevant, and the resolutions to the character development in the Devimon arc are also represented by evolutions, fitting with what the first chain of evolutions wanted to show. Maybe give some time before they get champion level too. Don’t make that evolution scene in the first episode so boring so quickly.
Then once they beat Devimon, have Genai give them the tags and crests so we don’t have a stupid convenience store filler episode, and instead of making Etemon, the dumbest big boss ever, the antagonist, make the desire to digivolve further the antagonist. Tai decides that since he’s the leader, he should get an ultimate level first, so he takes all the food and gives it to Agumon. Eventually after being forceful and reckless enough, Skullgreymon arrives, attacks the kids, and causes the weird wormhole thing that sends Tai back. Then you can either have the kids split up because they disagree over Tai’s actions, or hey, make the wormhole teleport the other kids around the digital world like you’d expect!
Man, that saves like… 10 episodes of nonsense.
Then they can rewrite Myotismon’s actions so that he doesn’t flip-flop between Sam Fisher and Japan’s greatest human trafficker.
Still, I do love it. I’ve just watched it so many times that the little things get to me x.x
Tamers however is what I’d call the best. It had a really slow introduction due to it’s focus on characters, which is very different to the other Digimon seasons, and can be seen as either good or bad. The matrix villain guy was pretty stupid too. Then it gets hype as things get revealed, then they go to the digital world which is a boring desert filled with bad Kazu, Kenta, Ryo episodes - worst part of Digimon ever. Then you get GOD DAMN BEELZEMON! - best part of Digimon ever. Then it’s bad 'til they get out of digiworld and after that it’s amazing. The stuff on Konaka’s site is a really nice addition to the show too.
I think 02 was annoyingly bad simply because it had so much potential with that dark ocean episode, and then they just went into a messy chain of not knowing who was writing what and when.
Frontier WAS my least favourite. I just hated it. The only redeeming thing about it was the digital world’s structure and one of the characters.
Then… Xros came. Dammit Xros, why do you exist? Just… stop. Stop being. Please.
I actually don’t get many nicknames anymore~ There’s the Fumi and the Tik-Tak, and Sakafumi was popular for a while, but Baka Taka is the classic. The earliest record of it is from the 12th of February 2012! Still going strong! Ah, that’s not a good thing though x.x
Takagami is my mmo name =w= It’s like a cool mix of both the Takafumi and the Sakagami! The best parts of both names.
Oregairu had high-level dialogues right from the beginning and characters were showing their stuff early on. Same with the comedy. The very first thing you’ll hear, Hachiman’s first monologue, introduced one of the series’ main topics.
You could tell from the very first episode that this is going to be an amazing show and where it’s going.
To my mind, the biggest mistake that was made in the first two episodes was to not giving the series a direction. IF you go into the show without knowing anything about it, it will confuse you and give you the wrong idea. It doesn’t tell you what kind of series it is or what it’s about. It’s just trowing out random information without mentioning its importance or the connection between those pieces of information. As if that wasn’t enough, they make everything seem ridiculous. Haha, panties. Haha ‘strange juice’ superhero. Haha random ghost cat. Haha time is like boobies. Haha, you destroyed the world due to panties. Y u do this? How are we supposed to take any of this seriously?!
I did not decide to ignore the potentially important things. The first two episodes made sure to portray them as irrelevant, random and silly, just like pretty much everything in it.
The scenes were totally disconnected from each-other. As a viewer, you can’t help but be confused and grow skeptical.
If they showed you where this was going, everything would be just fine.
If they showed the viewer that this is a mystery show, the viewer would start paying attention and try to figure things out.
If they showed that very serious stuff is going on, the viewer would take the anime seriously.
But they didn’t do that. Try comparing episode 01 to 05. They’re WORLDS apart! One is a silly, nonsensical gag-manga-style mess where the death of all humanity is a joke, the other is a dramatical and emotional episode where serious stuff goes down. From the perspective of episode 05, all those things that were supposed to make you laugh in episode 01 due to their ‘cheap joke’ presentation would now make you cry!
Be honest with me, @Takafumi . What prior knowledge of the series did you have before you started watching it? You said you were looking forward to it, so you had to know something. Did you know who the script writer was going to be? Other outstanding staff members? Did you stumble upon a more useful synopsis than the “If he sees underwear, humanity will be destroyed!?” one?
Wouldn’t that be missing the point? Why focus so much on Tai’s leader skills - or lack thereof - instead on focusing on his ‘element’, which is courage? To my mind, the most important scene in the Etemon arc was during the rescue of Sora: The rescue party, led by Tai, is standing before an electric fence which they need to get past. Izzy explains to Tai that touching the actual fence will kill you - and dying in the Digi-world means dying for real. This causes Tai, who used to mindlessly cross this allegedly illusional part of the fence before, to freeze up. He’s afraid of dying. That’s when courage becomes essential. That’s when Tai realizes what courage means. That’s when his courage is tested. That’s when he displays real courage.
That’s what the crests are about: Gaining access to a huge amount of power by displaying your most outstanding virtue.That’s one of the central messages of the show, isn’t it? That when you’re going on an adventure, you need these virtues to overcome all your trials. That’s what’s going to give you strength when things get tough.
The crests are about personal growth. Your suggestion, however, would dip into teamwork and group issues. It’s too early for that. It was essential for Tai to pull off a genuine Ultra-level digivolution for everyone to see. It was a hint for everyone, a ray of hope. It was a presentation of how they could find new strength even when they’re separated - which was exactly what happened next. Tai has shown the group how to not do it, and then he showed how to do it right. If you leave out the second part, you’ll just traumatize all group members, preventing them from pursuing the next level, thus halting their personal growth.
Well, you already know I disagree with the “high-level” and the “comedy” stuff.
Almost every show introduces a main topic in the first episode. That’s pretty much a guarantee.
You may have been able to see it as an amazing show, but to me, it just came across as another school romcom, which isn’t bad, since I like random school romcoms.
It had direction. Ghost kid must find a way to get his body back, to potentially save the world. Meanwhile, he can level up in spirit level to become a more powerful ghost, and he can watch everything that goes on.
Yuuta did chose to sit back and watch at the start though. I think that was a good decision from a writing standpoint, but I can see why people would disagree.
Then… read a synopsis? Don’t you go into most shows not knowing anything?
I thought that it being a mystery show was pretty clear. Kids have superpowers. The world is going to be destroyed. The protagonist is relegated to a position where he can largely only witness and rarely ever act. That’s the start to a show I’d put in the mystery genre.
You can piece them together though.
From episode 1 - Bus murderer guy recognizes thing on superhero girl’s neck, so they must know each other enough to stop fighting but not enough to recognize each other at a glance. Protag becomes a ghost and meets a cat who can give him some exposition, but the cat seems fed up with the protag. Maybe the cat isn’t trustworthy, or maybe he’s just annoyed. The book to get protag’s body back is in the house somewhere, so he has to find it. The person who took his body is also in the house, and has counter-measures up, so he must know what he’s doing. Protag finds out that a comet hits the planet if he gets excited and faints, and we find out that there is some fighting, a party, and a bunch of other stuff before the comet hits. Protag then learns that if he is determined enough, he can go back in time, which conveniently enough lets him gather more information.
From there, anything to do with the superhero girl knowing a guy in her past can be linked to the bus thing. Anything to do with super powers can be linked to superhero girl and protag. Anything to do with someone showing awareness or understanding of ghosts can be linked to the guy who took protag’s body. Anything to do with a comet can be linked to the flash forward scenes. Anything to do with possession can be linked to protag. Anything to do with time travel can be linked to protag.
Information won’t instantly become relevant. That’s why it’s justifiable to hate people who ask “why does _____?” during a movie without giving the movie time to explain it’s self. nod nod
Something being portrayed as random doesn’t make it so. If you throw aside everything you deem “random” then you are ignorantly avoiding a lot. Quick judgement based on a lack of information is still bad, no matter how many times you do it.
I didn’t feel that at all.
They literally did. They showed big parts of the first 6 episodes in episode 1. There’s even some material we haven’t seen yet~
The viewer should be able to realize that “oh, there are questions being raised. Maybe it’s a mystery show!” Then again, with how quick people are to pull the trigger on things like this, a recent example being Mekakucity, you’d figure the anime industry would know people don’t care for brainwork, they just want answers.
This is a change in information. Yuuta in episode 1 knew very little, what he did know is that if humanity was wiped out, he could just reset, and everything would be fine. It’s fine to make that a joke. It’s basically a plot device to let Yuuta gather information he otherwise wouldn’t be able to get. Saving the whole of humanity at this point in time is a joke. Yuuta doesn’t know why it’s happening, or anything about Qmay, and he doesn’t know that he can even influence the world, but he knows that he can reset everything again should it go wrong. He eventually learns more about what he can do, and what is going on, but it’s still just a wait for information game…
However if a friend dies in front of him, he can stop that from happening, because Ito is a much easier thing to monitor than the Qmay group, and it becomes personal to him, so he has a reason to act quickly. It just gets more personal from there.
I mentioned it somewhere else briefly, but never went into much detail. First, I found out who the writer was after I found interest in it, and iirc the writer of this show isn’t a guy I like the writing of. I don’t know anyone else who is on the show, however the animation studio is cool-ish, and the noitaminA block always gets good stuff, so I didn’t just shrug it off.
The synopsis I read was
If he sees underwear, humanity will be destroyed!?
An original anime series from the noitaminA block, PUNCH LINE centers on Yuta Iridatsu, a high school student, with a peculiar habit. When he sees a girl’s panties, he gets so excited he faints!
After a certain incident with a ghost cat, his soul gets separated from his body. Using his special powers, Yuta watches the daily lives of the inhabitants of an apartment and sometimes plays tricks on them. Eventually, Yuta decides to unlock the secrets to why Earth will be destroyed and tries to save it!
It’s actually a bit off the mark, but I didn’t know that before watching the show.
First, the top sentence is really stupid. That’s enough to make me want to avoid a show… however, first, he becomes a ghost. Second, he has special powers. Third, he watches the lives of inhabitants. Fourth, the final sentence is a good hook.
Cut away that first line and you have some weird Hamatora/Kino no Tabi hybrid. It sounds great.
You have a guy who can watch life pass by with little implied interaction, but for some reason, watching them leads to him wanting to save the world from whatever is threatening it. It adds this dynamic where a character deeply cares for and fights for a group that may not even be aware that he was watching over them, which is a dynamic I’m pretty weak to overall. (ONE, DC2, Litbus, Zegapain, etc…)
It hasn’t lived up to my hopes yet, but maybe they have a twist or two that steers it to a Taka-ey direction~
Ah, this isn’t for him to get Metal Greymon. This is to explain the idea of corrupt evolutions in a less wasteful manner.
There are plenty of opportunities for him to get Metal Greymon. He gets skullgreymon, it sends him back home, him and Koromon make up, do the stuff, go back to the digiworld.
After that you could show courage in many ways. For example, Tai is afraid of letting Koromon fight, because he think’s that it’ll cause skullgreymon to return. He doubts himself as a leader, and begins to fear the digital world, as they search for their missing friends. Some flunky comes along to prey on them while they are weak, and laughs about following it up by getting the two kids hiding at the theme park. Tai realizes that being scared and doubtful will just hinder their efforts, and that even if he’s unsure of the outcome, he’s the one who needs to bring everyone back together, and he’ll try to reach them no matter how many monsters get in their way. Or just do the bike thing.
I feel like that development was a bit too… sudden. It’s sandwiched between the bad evolution, Tai’s fear of evolution, and the return home. Ah, and didn’t he get the courage thing to activate when they charged at Etemon in a suicidal push? My memory of the parts focusing on Sora and that robot digimon are a bit hazy because it’s such a short arc in comparison to everything else.
Nope, because that’s what the show goes into two episodes after!
That’s great. The whole bad evolution thing was brushed under the rug in two episodes. No crying from Mimi, or anxiety from Joe, or research from Izzy, or insults from Matt. They should come to understand in their episodes during the group split-up that a bad evolution will only happen if you betray what you stand for. Let them have some development.
Sure Tai is the leader, but he’s as flawed as the others. He’s selfish and hot-headed and he doesn’t have the best foresight. He overcame his own fear, so why can’t the others?
Izzy is smart. Mimi is understanding. Joe is reliable. Sora is trusting. Let these guys show it. At least give them that much before you inevitably shaft them for WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon.
I had much my favourite anime stories of this season, I see Lyrical Nanoha Vivid, Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu, Kyoukai no Rinne, Hello!! Kiniro Mosaic and Hibike! Euphonium. But in January to March, I saw Dog Days 3 only.
