Why do you think that?
The original Anime ended in 2009. That’s 5 years with no indication that there will be a continuation. My understanding is that it sold well below expectations. People just don’t want Deen to butcher a second season. I can’t see it happening.
Been a while since I updated~
Recently I finished Wolf Children which was kinda boring, and Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru (don’t judge me >.>) I also rewatched Now and Then, Here and There which is always entertaining. I finally finished Tatami Galaxy too! It dragged on waaay too long, but I kept going back to watch a couple of episodes every day. Not amazing, but I can totally understand why people love it so much.
Finished Isshuukan a couple days ago. It was good. I can’t figure out if I like or hate the protag, but Bro-dude is amazing, and I eventually warmed up to 420-chan. She reminds me of an old friend I had~ (Ohgodthatsoundsrude.)
Oh oh! I tried to watch Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei again, but… yeah, no I’m never going to get past the first episode of that anime.
I’m currently watching Re:Hamatora. It’s as annoying as the first season. Amazing, then random comedy, then amazing, then letdowns, then amazing. Needs more Hajime and it’ll be perfect.
I’m planning to watch Stop!! Hibari-kun! (a childhood anime <3) Kimikiss, I My Me!, and the famed Rose of Versailles. I’m having a weird cutesie romance anime month, so I’m going to burn through as many as I can before I loose interest!
My top 5 has changed quite a bit recently.
- Guilty Crown - It’s not moving.
- Tari Tari - The best transfer student character you’ll ever see is in this anime.
- Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou - Cutest romance 2014. The support characters are brilliant.
- Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai - It’s dropped a couple places. It’ll probably shoot back up to number 2 if I ever rewatch it again, but I need time to let the franchise leave me ;~;
- White Album 2 - No words. Only doki dokis.
Good point, but I don’t think it will “never happen”. “Not happen anytime soon” sounds plausible, though.
Watching Shinsekai Yori right now, I’m up to the halfway point. Anyone else seen/watching this?
The Umineko anime was hated by a lot of people. The source material is a bit too crazy to adapt well with anime standards~ ^^;
I watched Shinsekai Yori with my sister when it aired. She adored it - showing humanity in a negative light. I found it to be a bit boring. None of the characters really mattered to me, and the overall feel of the anime just made me want to stop watching it. Exposition for daaaays. I understand what the director was going for, but making me hate a world so much that I simply can’t enjoy the anime is a bad move. I couldn’t really appreciate what it was trying to do, but my sister is very critical to everything that isn’t Shoujo-ai so it must be pretty good! Although, Shinsekai had it’s Shoujo-Ai moments~
The first part was disturbing and the story was cut short! THERE, I SAID IT!
Seriously though, It felt like they forgot to add in a conflict to end on, so they added multiple, and then forgot about all but one of them. The animation was bad whenever it wasn’t a close-up of a character’s face or a transformation. At points, the story was more boring than Totoro (the movie famous for never doing anything ever,) and the overall message of the film was completely forgettable. It was a bad Ghibli knock-off with some interesting ideas, a cute childhood montage, and some drama that had potential…
YOU ASTRONOMICAL RUMP.
‘The story was boring’
Taka confirmed for literally heartless. Might wanna look for some cute girls in the afterlife.
All your problems stem from not caring about the characters, unlike every other human being in the world.
Well aside from complaints about animation which is more a ‘how high are you?’
It was boring. There was little conflict, and when conflict finally came along, the movie suddenly ended.
As I said, the middle bit was cute. Seeing them grow up was nice. But that was all - it was nice. It wasn’t interesting, or enjoyable, or memorable, and while it did actually make me feel for some of the characters by the end, they didn’t do ANYTHING with the characters beyond the mediocre melodrama that was all shoehorned it at the last minute. It was a movie of character development that went nowhere, and rushed writing.
Can I just say I disagree with everything you’re saying ‘_’
I watched it a couple weeks ago. I’d heard people say it was a worthwhile movie, so I picked it up with some interest. While the start of it put me off for a bit, I eventually watched it all because cute kids annoying their parent is nice to watch. I started to get enthralled by the sudden drama. The weather is bad! Angsty teen kid wants to be a lone wolf! Girl at school is affected by it! Aaaand… end…
It’s better than anything Hosada has done so far, but the characters were flat until the ending scenes despite having a childhood’s worth of development, and the story went nowhere. Sometimes the story would randomly slow down and we’d get scenes that are completely pointless, then it would randomly speed up and skip 3 or 4 years of time. If the film had more time to actually do stuff, it could have been great, but it didn’t and it wasn’t.
The only reason I can see someone actually liking it, is because “Oh, it’s kids and family struggles and emotional!” Get dragged in by the stereotypical family-film concept and then become totally oblivious to the terrible execution.
Pretty with no good substance, just like my ex.
I feel the same way about Shinkai’s films. Shitty stories and characters but damn it’s wrapped in a nice package.
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It just felt a lot like reality to me. The universal themes of growing up and raising a family in a difficult situation, and watching them grow up and eventually leave you are things everyone can understand. I think it did it very well. If you start criticizing that kind of story telling, you’re essentially turning your back on every disney film ever 
Wait. Taka I thought you said you wanted realistic characters AND listed Hosoda as an example of this:
And if Wolf Children is
[quote=“Takafumi, post:17, topic:27”]
better than anything Hosoda has done so far
[/quote]then why don’t you like it? Im so confused.
The characters were so flat for most of the film, that I struggled to even connect with the characters. I haven’t raised a family in a difficult situation either, so it’s not exactly a relateable film for me
That’s not true. I used to love Disney movies~ Had every Disney-related VCR released in the UK when I was growing up =w= Disney is most certainly not reality though, the early films were created to manipulate the growth of working class children, while the later films were created to cash in. I think Disney is very different to stuff like Wolf Children though. Despite being gross and very commercialized, I feel that Disney (usually) is better at making believable characters, but worse at providing something meaningful.
They are well-accepted names. I know that my hate of Hosoda isn’t popular, and that using his works as examples will make people largely agree with what I said~
In my opinion, Hosoda tries to make realistic characters, but doesn’t make his characters do anything remotely interesting. He is pretty much a bad Ghibli. It’s unfortunate, because I loved Our War Game, and judging from my anime-film preferences (Ocean Waves is my favorite) the stuff Hosoda covers is the kind of thing I’d rate highly. He just fails at every hurdle.
Just finished Nagi No Asukara, and it was fantastic. Definitely recommend it to everyone where who hasn’t seen it yet. It felt to me that it got better on an exponential scale, by the end it was amazing.
So the year is almost at a close. What did everyone think of 2014’s anime selection? Let’s pose a few questions!
Favorite anime:
Least Favorite anime:
Favorite moment:
Best guy:
Worst guy:
Best girl:
Worst girl:
Best cast:
Worst cast:
Guilty pleasure:
Biggest disappointment:
Unexpected favorite:
Favorite OP:
Favorite ED:
Favorite Soundtrack:
Late to the show: (favorite anime from before 2014 that you only watched this year.)
Looking forward to in 2015:
Pick and choose which ones to answer, or add in your own!
Here’s my thoughts~
Favorite anime: Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou. A solid cast of characters, a well-paced storyline, beautiful animation, a wonderful soundtrack, brilliant writing, and the cutest pair of teenagers you’d ever see. Kawaisou has everything I want apart from a second season.
Least Favorite anime: DRAMAtical Murder. You know, I could have put Wonder Momo here; most people probably would. DRAMAtical however had potential. It has a strong fanbase, a good overall plot, and some good characters. How studio NAZ managed to make an anime so lifeless that it became disturbing to watch, I don’t know. I’ve never been so creeped out by a show. It’s just empty… and when a Moomin fan complains that something is empty, you know it’s bad.
Favorite moment: Mekakucity Actors - Episode 7. Just before the credits role, a beautifully heartbreaking scene takes place. It’s not a big moment. It’s a quiet little sentence as the scene exits… but it’s the best thing I’ve seen from any Kagerou Project works. What gets me most is that I can’t find a single person mentioning it in a review or episode discussion. This moment makes me appreciate Kagerou Project as something more than a series of songs. It shows that there is potential for an amazing story in there. It shows that, when Shaft stop focusing on Shaft moments, they can break hearts with a single sentence. If you haven’t watched Mekakucity or anything Kagerou Project related, just watch the anime up until episode 7. Maybe watch ‘Lost Time Memory’ on YT after episode 5.
Best guy: Shougo Kiryuu - One Week Friends. When your best friend not only decides not to turn a romance into a love triangle, but also decides to stop you from being a selfish idiot, you know he is a true best friend. It’s one of the three signs of the BFF status. The other two signs being access to a burial ground, and complete loyalty.
I honestly didn’t enjoy One Week Friends as much as I thought I would, but it wasn’t bad by any means. Kiryuu pushed the anime above average in my mind.
Worst guy: Hatate Souta - Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara. There’s honestly not much to say about this guy. He’s blank and depressed, but with a mix of some harem protag tropes thrown in. It doesn’t help that the art style is unexplainably ugly…
Best girl: Hajime - Hamatora. Hajime was a bit of an unexplained wonder in the first season of Hamatora, and it was very compelling, but in the sequel she finally got the much needed screentime that she deserved. Generally she’s seen as a quiet tomboy-ish character that loves food and is very sympathetic. The juxtaposition of her cool OP scenes and her absent-minded joy is adorable, and speaking of adorable, there is some of that later on in the show~
Also at one point she has a ridiculously long fringe. I swear I have a sixth sense for detecting characters that will end up with this hairstyle. Best superpower.
Worst girl: Five - Zankyou no Terror. ZnT (not to be confused with the many other ZnTs) was an intelligent, compelling, exciting show… for a good few episodes. Starting from episode five (Five huh?) the show became so boring that I was seriously considering dropping it. Episode nine (Nine huh?) grabbed my attention again, but still…
So what made those episodes different from the ones before them? The attention shifted to the character Five. An antagonist of sorts with no satisfyingly explained motive. Episode Nine onwards shifts it slightly away from Five and back to… Nine. (Think they planned this? The names and the episodes are way too fitting.)
So yeah, Five’s introduction and whole characterization essentially ruined the whole show… Puurrretty bad
Best cast: Tribe Cool Crew! Yeah, a children’s TV show… This isn’t about the show overall (that’ll be brought up in the airing anime thread) so I’ll skip the discussion of not judging a show based on it’s demographic, but I can’t say I’m not surprised that this show got a “best” of something in my mind.
The main cast is as follows: A clone of Kamui from CFV, a Dandere from a rich family who goes to an all-girls school and somehow manages to not feel like a trope, a scary street-fighter turned good guy from the Sakagami family, a post-development Dandere who is supportive, and a fat gentleman with blond hair that all the girls fangirl over.
So far I’ve watched 11 of the 12 episodes (no idea how long it’s gonna be) and already the main characters are developed really well. The spoiled brat (Kamui clone) is learning to listen to advice, and the Dandere is opening up and being accepted by her school and family. They are showing some early signs of romance too, so I’m uneasily sailing that ship. The three other characters have had their own development, but mostly act as support for the two young leads.
What makes it all work is the chemistry between the characters. They all bounce off each other so well that I can’t help but marvel at it in surprise. It’s amazingly done. I can’t stop watching it. I can’t stop writing about it! SEND HELP! PLEASE!
Worst cast: Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete. There are only 2 characters in this show I care about at all, and one of them is criminally undeveloped and sidelined. There’s not a lot of chemistry, development, or standout traits that make me like this cast. It’s just awful…
Guilty pleasure: Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete. I love this show man! Anime of the MONTH. So much energy and excitement. I can pretty much guess what’s gonna happen, but god am I excited to see the show’s predictability! OP and ED are love. That’s all the praise I have for this show, but it gets me every single week…
What’s wrong with me? ;~; Why didn’t I just say Trinity Seven and save myself this embarrassment?
Biggest disappointment: Sora no Method. An Ex-Key writer makes an anime!? WOOOOooooooo,oh it’s trash. Nevermind. I guess we know why he’s an Ex-Key writer…
The animation is nice… usually.
Unexpected favorite: Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis. “I TOTALLY CAN’T WAIT FOR THIS ANIME BASED ON A TRASHY OVERRATED P2W MOBILE CARD GAME” says my inner Kanon… and yet, it’s great. I think the show has become less enjoyable in comparison to it’s early weeks, but it really is a great show. If this was 2012 or 2013 this show would probably be a contender for anime of the year. Unfortunately it’s 2014 and there’s a bunch of shows that are better than great. I also kinda wanna play the card game now… I managed to enjoy Sword Girls Online, so I can probably enjoy SnB…
Luckily I don’t have a phone.
Favorite OP: There were a lot of good OPs this year. Nobunagun’s, Mekakucity’s, Mahouka’s, Tokyo Ghoul’s, Parasyte’s, Ushinawareta’s, Trinity Seven’s… Buuuut I’m gonna say Shingeki no Bahamut’s. I talked about how surprisingly good the show was, but what’s even better than the show is the OP. Whoever wrote this needs to be praised.
The song is sung from two perspectives: Bahamut’s (the big bad) and Favaro (the main protagonist.) Bahamut, being a dragon, is inventively represented by screamo vocals, while Favaro sings along and voices his ideals and his view of the world. At this point in the anime (I’m at episode 10 right now) it’s hard to tell… but I feel like it’s some very clever foreshadowing. I might just be looking into it too much, but still, it’s really well done~
ALL I WANNA BE IS MEEEEE
Favorite ED: Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete. I need to talk about this show more apparently! I could have just picked one of the few good Trinity Seven EDs, but nooooo, I had to go and pick Ushinawareta.
There’s a couple versions of the ED, and occasionally it gets an different video shown alongside it, but it’s always amazing. I love the animation of the town the most. This ending song is slow and peaceful, but it fills me with so much energy and excitement. The lyrics are masterful and the meaning of them evolves and becomes deeper every episode. The same can be said for the Opening.
Favorite Soundtrack: Most of Zankyou no Terror’s OST is suited to a very specific taste… and it’s a taste I enjoy. Quiet, melancholic, lonely… but filled with hope for the morrow. I think it’s absolutely perfect for the material Zankyou covers, and you should really listen to a few tracks. Von, Bless and Is should be good tone-setters.
Shout-out to the Tribe Cool Crew OST too.
Late to the show: White Album 2. I hear the show pales in comparison to the VN. It didn’t do the protagonist justice some say. It wasn’t as personal say others. I’m sure they are valid complaints, but I can’t read the VN, so the anime will do~ It was pretty great. Waaay better than White Album. Probably the best over-the-top romance drama I’ve seen since… Kimikiss? It’s nice to see characters acknowledge each other instead of refusing to accept moments of peace.
Looking forward to in 2015: Di Di Di. Di Di Di. DIGIMON. DIGIMON. DIGIMON ADVENTURE TRI! I am watching all of Digimon Adventure in every language I can find until this thing releases, and if it’s disappointing, I will refuse to acknowledge it’s flaws and smite all who aren’t blind! Hah, hahaha. HAHAHAHA!
So I haven’t actually seen most of the shows I actually want to watch from this Fall season because I’m one of those wait for it to finish guys. And wow looking back on it I actually missed a bunch of stuff I still want to watch. So I’ll just answer a few of these temporarily for now and then update it later.
Least Favorite Anime: Not gonna count ones that were so bad I dropped (Girlfriend, DRAMAtical, etc), so I’m gonna go with Glasslip. First off, its totally not about glassblowing, which was a huge letdown. More importantly, it made zero sense, had disgustingly bad writing, extreme melodrama over trivial things, the list goes on. The worst part was, the longer it went on, the more pointless and yet more confusing everything seemed, to the point where at the end of the last episode you were left wondering if any of the crap had even really happened. Thanks again, P.A. Works.
Favorite moment: The final scene of Zankyou no Terror. I considered the motorbike and Ferris wheel scenes too, but I think this is the one that was the one that hit the hardest. It was just a couple of casual sentences of conversation, the characters walk away, and the credits roll with the track “Bless” playing. It wasn’t some huge reveal or anything, it just made me go “oh damn” as I sat there and thought about it. ZnT may or may not be my AotY, but it is certainly worth anyone’s time to watch.
Best girl: Chitoge Kirisaki - Nisekoi. I don’t really have any good reasons for this. But a best girl had to be chosen , so it was done. I think the best reason I can give is I really like her VA, Touyama Nao. Hmm… I remember liking the character, but I don’t feel like putting any more thought into why. Oh well.
Best Cast: For now I’ll put Noragami in here, but I’d have to rewatch it to explain why since it was back at the beginning of the year. Definitely in contention for AotY spot.
Worst Cast: Gonna have to throw Glasslip in here again, thats how bad it was. There was only one character who I didn’t hate at first (the new kid), and even he soon started to annoy the hell out of me. You may actually want to watch this show just to witness how utterly… I can’t think of a synonym for confusing that has a bad enough connotation…
Guilty Pleasure: Trinity Seven. I went into this show thinking “Its gonna be shit. I know its gonna be shit” and there wasnt a single episode that was shit. I look forward to it every week. I actually want to know whats gonna happen. Everything about it is average: average plot, average characters, average OP, average EDs, average animation, average OST. The only thing above average is the MC openness to ecchi at every single moment. And yet I enjoy the hell out of all of those things every week.
Biggest disappointment: Black Bullet. I found out later that there were actually a bunch of other reasons, like staff, etc., to look forward to this show that I didnt even know about, and it was still the most disappointing. First episode and OP got me pretty excited. But the pacing was shit, the writing was shit, the ending was shit, etc.
Unexpected favorite: EDIT: Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de. Almost forgot about this one. I started out only watching because I wanted to see what Trigger would do next, but it ended up being a really interesting and enjoyable watch. It was like they took a ton of tropes and reworked them to make it original and comedic.
Favorite OP: Noragami wins out. Period. Could watch that over and over again. The air guitar gets really intense. Definately part of why I loved the show so much.
Favorite ED: Hmm, this is a hard one for me. SAOII ED 2 by LiSA was the only thing that could have made me cry in that show, not the supposedly tearjerking arc; but the only reason I decided to watch Mikakuni de Shinkoukei was because of its unnaturally fun ED (OP was pretty fun too). Screw it, I’ll just leave you with both. No one’s gonna force me to decide. Except for Sony, I guess, who has made sure Shirushi is nowhere to be found. So I guess you’re only getting Masshiro World. And while I’m at it, you can have Animenz’s cover from which I first learned of it.
Favorite Soundtrack: Taka hit it on the nose with this one. Zankyou no Terror’s OST by Yoko Kano is god tier.
Late to the Show: Fate/Zero. Fate fans everywhere would scream at me for watching this before see/reading any of the rest of the franchise, but I don’t care because I loved it all the same. Animation by ufotable is stunning. This is why I have become such a big Fate fan, and it is one of if not my favorite anime.
Looking forward to in 2015: Before today, I think I would have said Death Parade. Its a 1 cour extension of the Anime Mirai short Death Billiards, which is amazing and you should all go watch now because its just a short and you dont have any excuse not to. But now, absolutely, positively I’m most hype for Charlotte.
Want to put in an honorable mention for No Game, No Life. I thoroughly enjoyed every little bit of that show, its just that none of it was favorites worthy.
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Oh man, sounds like CLASSIC P.A. Works to a T!
Learn from this young one, never touch P.A. Works.
Except you know I can’t do that because now Charlotte is a thing.
