What anime are you watching?

[Mouse2010]

Watched episodes 8-9 of My Daddy Long Legs. I'm liking this series a lot more now, ever since Judy's classes started. There were two things I really loved about the novel the series is based on: Judy's intellectual development/development as a writer, and the romance plot. It took a few episodes to get to her intellectual development, but once Judy started talking about the books she was reading in her letters, I started see more of what I liked about the novel in the anime.

I particularly liked Judy's introduction to Jervis Pendleton in episode 9. It was different from the book, of course, but I thought they handled it well for the most part. Summer vacation is coming up next. I'm looking forward to that, too.

There's one thing I still regret about the series . .
SPOILER: Highlight text to read: I still wish that they had kept Judy as a college student instead of making her a high school student. Her meeting with Jervis Pendleton was a little awkward to me because she was so much younger than him. An 18 year old college freshman going out to tea with a 20 something man whom she finds charming is okay with me. By the time you go to college, you're supposed to be entering adulthood. But a 15 or 16 year old high school freshman put in such a date-like setting is a little more problematic by today's standards (though maybe not by the standards of Judy's day, to be fair!). I can see that having Judy be younger would make the series appeal more to a young audience, so I understand why they changed her age, but I'm still a little uncomfortable with the age gap that creates.

[MangaRocks!]

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood ep.'s 1-64 (complete, sub):

The FMA manga is one of my top favorites of all time ( + it got a full 10/10 rating from me on MAL), and I'd heard Brotherhood was a pretty darn good adaptation of it, so I decided to go ahead and watch. And, well, all I can say is that what I'd heard was right! In fact, the only reason I kinda hesitated at first to give it the exact same rating is because its adaptation wasn't *entirely* perfect SPOILER: Highlight text to read: (there's not quite enough development with Maes Hughes in the anime to get as attached to him as you do in the manga, for example, and a number of other things in the first quarter or so of the series are kinda rushed, as well; etc.), and thus the manga is still just a bit better. Otherwise, however, this adaptation is downright fantastic, and does indeed follow the manga nearly to perfection; and thus, since the manga is (IMO) a masterpiece, Brotherhood pretty much is as well (...hence my eventual 10/10 for it also, regardless).

So, yeah-- well worth the watch, and then some!

[Vii]

Hotarubi no Mori e - Wonderful movie. I wish Natsume Yuujinchou had more sweet little romance stories like this.

[Neane]

I saw Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo.

Still cringing.

I watched Death Note a while back to see what everyone was talking about. Personally, I found it compelling but disappointing. I always wanted to keep watching, but I often felt the story didn't go where it was leading as far as interesting potential.

I didn't like Death Note, but I thank it for the best Doujin I have laid eyes upon.
(At 2:51 A.M, Neane will die from laughter after reading a Hidamari Sketch x Deathnote doujin, despite not comprehending a speck of Japanese.)

[skreyola]

Neane: hehe, yeah. I didn't like it, overall, either.

In the past two days, I've watched SILY, Robotics;Notes, and two episodes of Cross Game.

[Neane]

So I just got watched Adolescence of Utena.

What the

I think the last time I had that much fun watching a movie was...actually, I can't remember such a time. And it seemed to me like everybody involved with the movie was having the time of their life just playing around with everything they'd established in SKU - I'm not really in an analyzing mood right now but there is some interesting stuff in there. the TWEEST was quite the lolwut moment, tied into Juri's story from Someday We'll Shine Together, I guess, but I can't really see the link properly. or anything really.

I really liked the visual redesign - some elements worked better than others, the rose garden/dueling arena especially - in fact the entire campus was awesome and i want to live there - can't say I thought much of Utena's new design though, the uniform was meh and the short hair was just...ack. Liked new Anthy, though. Actually pretty, could see myself fighting duels over. Akio actually attractive also a plus, looked less like some guy who tries to pick you up behind a 7/11. (Although everything he did in the movie (which was like three things) made no sense to me whatsoever, at least he didn't make everything overly ridiculous - it was already too ridiculous for him to affect I guess). was there anything else? Hmm. Didn't get what was going on with Shiori at all, seemed like a kind of random choice to put her in the spotlight.

A-. The - is for too short. Could have made two hours out of that without a doubt.

[Panda4christ:3]

Gundam Wing

[SierraLea]

I am currently in the throes of Romeo x Juliet. Episode 18 has got to have one of the best romantic endings ever!

[Neane]

I just marthoned 19 episodes of Popee the Performer and I've been laughing so hard that my shirt is dripping wet with my tears.

[MangaRocks!]

Samurai X: Trust And Betrayal, a.k.a. Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen, OVA ep.'s 1-4 (sub, complete):

This is the OVA that covers Kenshin's backstory. There was only one change that I noticed that bothered me a little SPOILER: Highlight text to read: (in Tomoe's death scene, rather than her jumping in between them to stop the guy from using the knife, and then later scarring Kenshin's face on purpose {which is just kinda odd, IMO }, in the manga she jumped in between them to actually attack the guy with the knife, and then as Kenshin's blow hit the knife flew out of her hand and scarred Kenshin accidentally. Not sure why they changed that... ); but otherwise its adaptation was great, and it was just beautifully done overall.

[Neane]

I'm currently watching Anne of Green Gables and I accept Isao Takahata as my personal Lord and Savior

Anne is always depicted as a healthy and cute girl in the animated American version of Anne of Green Gables, but in Takahata's and Kondo's she is designed in a much more crude, realistic way, exactly as the book originally described the 11-year-old Anne. A faithful, fantastic representation of Anne, a result of the combination of Takahata's and Kondo's sense of realism and skills. I also find it admirable how they personally traveled to PEI in order to familiarize themselves with the place the story takes in. the art is pretty good. It has a real nice classic shoujo look to it. But with that shoujo look comes a new set of problems: everyone is too pretty, especially Anne. It makes Mrs. Lynde’s whole, “They sure didn’t pick her for her looks!” speech seem absurd. Matthew looks like a distinguished gentleman in search of his monocle rather than the old farmer in his 60’s that he’s supposed to look like. The most bizarre thing is how they draw Diana’s eyes sometimes. They are typical shoujo eyes most of the times, but there’s a few random scenes where they are just black holes of scribbles. It makes her look evil and scary. Diana is a wicked scary badass hell spawn in this manga. In short, it’s not really worth reading unless you’re already a fan of the novel/anime and can fill in the blanks, but even then it’s more likely to frustrate than please. It is unfortunate that despite the huge success the anime achieved in Japan it barely got any exposure in the west, especially in the U.S. and Canada, given how loved the original novel is over there. I find it ironic that the show got dubbed into a number of languages (Portuguese, French, German and even Spanish) except English. I’m sure it would have been a hit like it was in Portugal and other countries. I don’t know how things are today, but the anime was certainly adored in Europe back then. The love that Japanese people have towards the show and the book, however, is almost indescribable. I’ve read that up to this day tourists from the other side of the world visit Prince Edward Island, and have even have built a theme park featuring locations of the island in Japan. Said park isn’t active anymore, unfortunately. A real big shame. Another interesting fact is that long before the anime was produced, the original novel was a mandatory read for Japanese students. It is more than possible that Takahata himself was one of these students, which would explain the sheer dedication he put behind Akage no Anne.

I haven’t seen all of Tahakata films and I’m still half-way through Marco (excellent series, thus far), but I highly doubt it his other works will ever top Akage no Anne. It seems to be a consensus among Takahata fans that his work on the anime is the most exemplary in his career. A shame that most people out there only know about him due to his work on Grave of Fireflies. It is a very good movie, but in my opinion Only Yesterday and Akage no Anne are the best representatives of his career.

Akage no Anne, honestly, is just as perfect in engrossing the viewer into its very fleshed-out setting through the interaction between the character and their surroundings. The atmosphere feels down-to-earth, realistic and extremely natural. I would be lying if I said I didn’t fall in love with Prince Edward Island and its brooks, lakes, forests and landscapes. Being tired of most modern anime that always make of use of the old, boring places, what attracted me to Akage no Anne was exactly its charming and unique setting. An anime set in the 19th century, in Canada, a place and time I’ve never been to? How could I not be fascinated by it? This feeling was one of the main reasons I’ve set my heart on the WMT series. Throughout my experience, the immersion proved to be on a much bigger scale than I originally expected. Nippon Animation’s superb representation of the novel’s nature and environment descriptions allowed me to completely immerse myself into the show’s atmosphere. Despite the low production values, the artists involved in the art and animation direction blew me away with their painterly scenarios. Indeed one of the most gorgeous anime of the 70s, and it really makes me want to visit P.E.I. someday in my life.

In the same way Marilla and Matthew grew attached to Anne and her rich, multifaceted personality I also fell in love with her character. I believe that Anne herself reflects an aspect so characteristic of us, humans; people are heavily flawed, they can be stubborn, primitive and sometimes terribly mean to each other, but they all strive for the same thing; for their happiness and the happiness of others. This is why Anne is such a relatable character. She is imperfect like us and her personality is painted in shades of grey, and despite her so many shortcomings, she still is a person, and a good and very believable one at that. And indeed, through a gradual process Anne grows up; she evolves, she learns from her mistakes and matures into a strong woman. She undergoes one of the most believable character development’s I’ve seen in an anime, and it is all thanks to Takahata’s objectivism and complete understanding of the characters, their traits, personalities and subtleties. He and the staff involved in the production clearly are familiar with the source material and the characters involved, and made an exemplary job in making a faithful depiction of their characterization. Rather than giving the characters archetypes and superficial personalities (which the viewer is expected relate to), Takahata does a much more objective approach and captures the neutral narrative of the novel. He knows that fleshed-out, human and complex characters are much more relatable than an one-dimensional shell, which is why he tried so hard to make them true to their original personalities, thus providing a much stronger character-viewer attachment. Witnessing the relationship between Anne, Matthew and Marilla and seeing them grow together as a family, and then dealing with the tribulations of life was one of most emotionally engaging and compelling experiences I have ever had watching anime. The character interactions between Anne x Diana, Anne x Gilbert, Anne x P.E.I. (Green Gables, the nature and her romanticized speeches) and the overall slow pace-ness and melancholic sentiment towards the final episodes add up so much to the final result. It would take me whole paragraphs to describe how much I enjoyed all of these little aspects.

I have read only up to the 15th chapter of Anne of Green Gables, but based on what I’ve read so far and on some comments which regard the faithfulness of the anime to the novel, there are more than enough reasons to believe Nippon Animation’s work on Akage no Anne was exemplary. All of the 38 chapters were adapted into the anime, and apparently little was left out. There are some minor dialogues which weren’t included, but for the most part the anime seems to faithfully follow the guidelines of the novel. Some moments were more fleshed-out in the anime (there was a whole episode dedicated to Diana and Anne playing in Idlewild, while the book only gave small details of the happening) in the same way some character interactions get more screen time. It is true, in any case, that Takahata and his staff stayed true to the source material, and provided us with one of the best adaptations of the book ever, being even considered the definitive version by some fans of the series.

[mysngoeshere56]

Watched episode 10 of Toradora last night.

[SierraLea]

I watched Romeo x Juliet over the weekend. Sweet, but not sappy, although I do wish they'd let Romeo have more of the action.

[Neane]

INFERNO CUPP-EH continue to be awesome in ways that no mortal can fully describe.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Kodocha episode 15

[Neane]

Toradora!, I'm of mixed minds on that one. On the one hand it involves a decent deconstruction of the Tsunshun archetype, and the effort made to keep Ami genuinely unlikable without being malicious or cruel is neat. But OTOH the central premise is a tough sell; I can see Taiga and Ryuji having that sort of relationship if they were childhood friends, but to fall into it so easily after having only just met . . . not buying it. Also, it's not at all clear to me why Taiga and Yusaku don't just hook up (well, I know why, but it's another tough sell given that each knows about the others' feelings) and it's likewise not clear why Minori would keep Ryuji at arms' length when Taiga supposedly likes someone else anyway. It's like they're playing by the rules because they know they're in an anime show rather than because they're doing things people in those situations would naturally do. None of it's ridiculously impossible or anything, but it does feel forced.

Still, I'll probably stick with it until the end; the romance is full of derp but the characters are decent enough and I've seen worse.

[Zeldafan2]

Decided to continue to watch Tamako market. See this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&p=1606343#p1606343

[Vii]

Watched and finished Nodame Cantabile. I appreciated classical music before, but now I think I do even more. The dynamic between Nodame and Chiaki reminded me of Kasahara and Doujo from Library War, and that was great.

The CG was absolutely awful, though. There was really no need to show the instruments and hands in motion if there wasn't the budget for it, even if they were very accurate. I would rather have seen more of the 'carefully drawn stills with speedlines' that they used occasionally instead of the CG.

8/10

Onwards to Paris-hen! (Or maybe I'll watch the live-action version...)

[SierraLea]

I'm planning to give up anime for lent, so I'm watching all my old favorites. Right now I'm going over the best parts of FMA Brotherhood.

[skreyola]

Been a while. I haven't felt like watching anime the past several days.
Tonight, I watched Robotics;Notes. What will become of Airi-chan?

[ClaecElric4God]

GetBackers, Code:Breaker, A Certain Magical Index, and Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. My sister and I hop between them depending on our moods. I suppose we should just finish one.

[xxelement]

Just started watching Detective Conan.

[Crossfire]

GetBackers,

Oh man, I forgot I watched that. It's been so long... but I remember it being funny.


Anyways, I've been continuing the trainwreck misunderstood anime that is Gundam Seed. I hate Flay, but it's pretty okay so far.

[Neane]

Hermes: Winds of Love

I've watched it for the lolz, only because just a few people watched it, and now I know the reason. This movie is a different retelling of Greek mythology, and is the basis for next movies from the Happy Science(some kind of Japanese religious cult) propaganda movies.

The Golden Laws

Just like the movie above, I've watched it for fun. This is the third movie from the same Happy Science group. The concept of this movie is time traveling and watching different religious historical events happening around the world and retelling them to fit the religious propaganda of this cult. The whole idea of the movie is quite a big pile of dung but the movie was as a whole watchable.

Pattenrai!! Minami no Shima no Mizu Monogatari

This time no religious propaganda , just a normal historical movie. Quite normal, slow paced which makes it a bit boring, but fine.

These have to be the least popular anime I have seen.

I also saw The Boy Who Saw the Wind

Now I know what Castle in the Sky would have been like had it been funded by Steiner-Waldorf cultists. I lost it when I got to the scene in which a naked boy ghost with 72 magic possesses an obvious Hitler analogue who's already been possessed by a giant talking snake spirit.

[Cheetah]

Recently finished Kekkaishi and Fairytail.
Working on Getbackers, and Code Breakers.

[skreyola]

Last night, I finished Say "I Love You". The ending seemed a little rushed, but overall, rather enjoyable series.

Tonight, I watched Robotics;Notes. That was a dirty trick for the producers to play, both with the cliffhanger and with the... not cliffhanger.

[skreyola]

Tonight's episode is from Cross Game. That is all.

[A_Yellow_Dress]

I've been watching Hyouka and it is a thousand kinds of awesome. I really wish I watched it sooner.

[Neane]

I'm currently finishing Simoun. I've been watching Simoun slowly over the course of 2 years now. It has a really intricate plot that's hard to get completely on one view and it also handles tons of themes simultaneously. It's one of those series that you have to re-watch a couple of times in order to get it all.

[Oddood198]

Right now, I'm watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I hate it. There are so many things in this series I can't stand, but the worst of them is Haruhi herself. I've heard a lot of good things about it and it looks like it has potential, so I'll watch for a few more episodes, at least, but if it doesn't have a major turnaround very soon, I'm dropping it.