Rottcodd

It told me to not expect anything original - to just settle in for the same insipid, contrived edginess they've already beat to death in the Monogatari series

Four years later and this surprising gem finally returns.

That was some fine iyashikei.

Ponko continues to be a great character and Yachiyo is definitely growing as an individual (and not just with the va-va-va-voom upgrade). And it was nice to see the rest of the Tanuki family applying themselves.

And we got more aliens, and now Yachiyo can talk to them.

Just nice and heartwarming all around.

The only ones I've seen are to the only series I'm watching this season - Apocalypse Hotel, which is of note for an oddly off-key OP.

The first time I heard it I just took it to be the OP as sung by an awkward and poorly skilled robot, endearingly trying to sing a song that's more upbeat than she is, and I loved it. I still do and I still do.

So I started off the week finishing up Noein: Mou Hitori no Kimi e, which was excellent. It's part political thriller and part coming of age story, played out against a backdrop of quantum mechanics and multiverse theory, and just very well done.

Then I watched both seasons of Getsuyoubi no Tawawa, which, in spite of its four minute episodes dominated by fanservice is actually pretty good.

Then, somehow, I ended up watching Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! for the third time, and enjoyed it all over again. (And just thinking about it, I now have Easy Breezy stuck in my head).

And at the moment, I'm watching Mekakucity Actors, which atarted off being all style and no substance, which is particularly disappointing in this case, since its style is just a retread of the Monogatari series. And I don't just mean that it's the same basic style - it's the same sort of character designs against the same sort of backgrounds (and seems as if they could be literally the same backgrounds) doing the same stylized gestures and motions accompanied by the same sort of droning narration of the same sort of edgy pop philosophy. So basically the anime equivalent of reheated leftover cup ramen.

The first time I saw a character do this damned head tilt, I almost shut it off right then and there.

Thankfully, it does seem to be finally revealing some actual substance (seven episides in) though whether it ends up being enough to be satisfying or not remains to be seen.

Because Kirito's honorable..

The seed is a tool, of which he just happened to come into possession. He didnt create it, nor would he use it to create other things. Any profit he might've made off of it would be a result of basically just being a gatekeeper - barring others - people who would actually use it to create things - from accessing it unless and until they paid him. And that's a fundamentally dishonorable way to make money.

I don't think I'd call it a secret "masterpiece," but it is surprisingly good - much better than it seems like it should be, given the tropish concept.

Ooh... this should be interesting.

Great episode - Ponko is awesome. The "don't be the prey" scene was especially good.

The Nudel was a bit too similar to the Graboids from Tremors for it to be an accident.

And Yachiyo got the "pretty voice" reward, so maybe the OP will evolve?

Tawawa on Monday

I bounced off of this one a few weeks ago. I liked the first episode and (what I thought was);the overall concept, but when the next episode introduced a different female lead who was immediately mostly defined by large bouncy breasts, I was a bit disconcerted, and then when I skipped ahead and sampled some of the other episodes, all apparently featuring different women, all defined by large bouncy breasts, I lost interest.

I'll have to give it another shot though. It's not that I dislike large bouncy breasts, but that I tend to assume that when they make such an early and prominent appearance, there's not going to be much else of note.

Mmm... I can sort of see that. There are some impressive special effects that accompany the future technology that were likely dazzling for the time. And the CGI for the backgrounds likely was state of the art (and certainly better than, for example, Initial D).

Still though - the character animation seems pretty poor regardless of age, and the contrast of rough, fuzzy character art with simple, rigid, entirely rectilinear CGI backdrops is distracting.

All that said though, I don't want to focus on the art too much. It's a thing I noticed, so I mentioned it, but more to the point, the story is very good and intriguing and (so far) well plotted and paced, and the characters are well developed, and I'll forgive pretty much anything for a good story with good characters.

I'm really looking forward to this. I love the manga, and I can't wait to actually hear a Wada rant. And some of the manga scenes are going to be epic if they're done well in the anime. I'm especially thinking of the "what to do if you're attacked by a wild animal" scene, since it relies on slowly building tension and excitement capped by perfect comedic timing.

Started off the week with Gabriel Dropout, which is a barrel of fun. The basic setup is that in order to qualify as full-fledged angels or demons (as the case might be), angels/demons in training have to spend some time on Earth, which is how we end up with two angels and two demons making up the foursome for a CGDCT screwball comedy slice of school life. I liked it all the way through - good characters (none of them are particularly good at what they're supposed to be), laugh out loud humor, nice artstyle. It's not quite to YuruYuri or Lucky Star quality, but was well worth it.

Then, craving a bit more screwball comedy, I went back to a long-time guilty pleasure and rewatched Photon aka Photon: The Idiot Adventures. It's a sort of sci-fi adventure story set on a far distant future Earth with a straightforward comedy hook - every single major character is an idiot of one sort or another. And in fact, their entire sort of quasi-mystical technology is based on "aho energy" - idiot energy. It's not great by any means, but it's good idiotic fun.

Then I sort of steeled my resolve and dove into one that I dropped after a couple of episodes about a year ago, because I could see it was going to be a rough ride, and at the time I wasn't ready to invest as much energy and attention as it was going to demand - Noein: Mou Hitori no Kimi e. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the 24 episode run, and it has been very dense and dramatic, and very good. It's a sort of Evangelion knock-off insofar as it's in part a complex and vague science fiction/superpower war allegory on coming of age, but without the religious claptrap - it's instead all built around quantum physics and multiverse theory. The only real downside to it is that the animation is frankly terrible - an awful combination of cheap fuzzy hand drawn and cheap low poly CGI. But the characters and the story make it worth it.