Anime

[Meteo Xavier]

That actually sounds awesome.

Has anyone seen Dokuro-Chan?

I mostly just want to confirm that I'm not ritualistically insane and that someone has actually created something like it.

[Brycepops]

That actually sounds awesome.

Has anyone seen Dokuro-Chan?

I mostly just want to confirm that I'm not ritualistically insane and that someone has actually created something like it.

Hahaha. What got me was the epic faces they would sometimes make.

[Meteo Xavier]

The first thing I thought when I saw the first episode was "Fuck, and I thought that Fritz the Cat movie was the last thing I'd see before I die."

Still, its different, and I love different.

[H. Guderian]

Man, Gundam 00 seemed promising at the end of its first season but ended up a piece of shit. Hey, let's stop developing the characters and make them totally unrelatable and solve all the world's problems with magic mind particle BS. Lame!

Yeah, but I squealed like a fan to have Amuro back in the RX-78 in the last episode. I for the most part enjoyed the tail end of 00, but I'm about as angry at the show as I like it. Unlike SEED/Destiny which my hate for it can probably melt through steel. I mean, the end had a lot of plotholes, useless equipment, and characters fading into obscurity doing nothing, but it did an overall nice job.

This season has slim pickings, so I'm staying with FMA, Mazinger Z, and Spice and Wolf II slated for the end of April, S&W2 is likely gonna be my favorite from the season.

[OverCoat]

I never made it to the 2nd season of Gundam 00, it was such a fucking disappointment. Lots of "oh shit!" nice twists at the end of the first season but I didn't like a single one of the characters except for Sergei and his little loli supersoldier. And they probably die in season 2. Trans-am? Are you fucking serious? I haven't seen a good non-UC Gundam except for maybe Wing, and that's with my teenage nostalgia goggles on.

Then I watched Macross Frontier and got the bad taste out of my mouth :3 I've enjoyed almost all Macross series ever, especially 7, and Frontier was just executed so goddamn well.

[Avatar of Justice]

Unlike SEED/Destiny which my hate for it can probably melt through steel. I mean, the end had a lot of plotholes, useless equipment, and characters fading into obscurity doing nothing, but it did an overall nice job

Alrighty so you are a UC fan. I am SEED fan (it's one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever). I'm not trying to start a flame war I just wanna see if I'm right about something. I know a lot of you UC fans hate SEED (Destiny has problems I'll admit). But do you like UC Gundam primarily for the fights and the mechs, or is it the drama or both? I love SEED because it so dramatic and emotional, but when I watched Zeta I realized that UC's fights were way more tactical and interesting. However, I found the character development severely lacking. And I primarily consume fiction for the emotional drama not the action. I'm just trying to see the other side of things that's all, not antagonize you.

Also yeah, I might watch Spice & Wolf 2, although I'll have to catch up on the first season first. Not sure whether to wait for the DVD's to come out and Netflix it or what.

[Knives]

NODAME CANTABILE!

Features a shitload of classical music, I loved it.

[Brushfire]

Shiro Sagisu, the guy who did Evangelion's score, also did the score for Bleach.

And while I don't particular care for either of those anymore, they are both really great scores.

[Avatar of Justice]

Shiro Sagisu, the guy who did Evangelion's score, also did the score for Bleach.

And while I don't particular care for either of those anymore, they are both really great scores.

He also did the music for the Casshern movie. There's actually a song in Casshern that comes straight out of Bleach.

[Soma]

Yeah, but I squealed like a fan to have Amuro back in the RX-78 in the last episode. I for the most part enjoyed the tail end of 00, but I'm about as angry at the show as I like it. Unlike SEED/Destiny which my hate for it can probably melt through steel. I mean, the end had a lot of plotholes, useless equipment, and characters fading into obscurity doing nothing, but it did an overall nice job.

This season has slim pickings, so I'm staying with FMA, Mazinger Z, and Spice and Wolf II slated for the end of April, S&W2 is likely gonna be my favorite from the season.

Was Amuro actually in 00? I must have missed that. I just rewatched the end or do you mean that Setsuna is like Amuro? I'm a little confused is all.

FMA seems awesome, and I'm about to watch Guin Saga. I never finished watching Spice & Wolf, should I continue?

[Native Jovian]

Amuro wasn't in 00; it's an alternate universe. But the Japanese voice actor for Ribbons was also the Japanese VA for Amuro. The "Amuro back in the RX-78" comment refers to the fact the Ribbons (ie Amuro's VA) was piloting the 0 Gundam (which was in RX-78 colors) for the final battle between Ribbons and Setsuna.

On the subject of Gundam 00 as a whole, my general opinion on it is "it was alright, but there was a ridiculous amount of wasted potential". Season one was great, I had very few complaints about it (mostly the occasionally-gratuitous fanservice and the way they had Saji completely puss out toward the end). Season two was a lot less interesting; it's like they felt like they had to make up for the lack of Gundam cliches in the first season by kicking them down your throat in the second. Elite military force supposedly working for the good of all that's actually evil and trying to take over the world? Check. Angsty masked rival for the main character? Check. Threat of massive damage to Earth due to falling objects? Check. Giant space laser? Check and double check. Main character plothax that makes him sixteen times more awesome than everyone else by default? Check, double check, and triple check.

Overall, Gundam 00's main problem was the same as Destiny's (though admittedly not nearly to the same degree) -- too many characters, too much wasted time. I was looking forward to the return of the Al/Hal mind-meld for pretty much the entire second season, and perhaps a similar merging for Soma and Marie. What do we get instead? Endless repetitions of Marnia singing that damn song with those damn orphans. Andrei has two subplots (his relationship with Louise and implied rivalry with Saji, and his conflict with Soma vis-a-vis his father) that never went anywhere. The relationship between Kati and Sumeragi never went much past "old college buddies turned rival commanders". I could go on -- the point is that they laid the groundwork for all this cool stuff and then never followed through on it.

However, Patrick is still awesome. And many props to the creators for sparing Evil Haro, who was also awesome.

[I-n-j-i-n]

IMO 00 held up better overall than many Gundam shows, but the movie sequel IS coming out. I think they could've done more with the drama on Earth rather than go all Star Wars on us all the time. At least it didn't get long in the tooth like the original series did at around Zeta.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Amuro wasn't in 00; it's an alternate universe. But the Japanese voice actor for Ribbons was also the Japanese VA for Amuro. The "Amuro back in the RX-78" comment refers to the fact the Ribbons (ie Amuro's VA) was piloting the 0 Gundam (which was in RX-78 colors) for the final battle between Ribbons and Setsuna.

On the subject of Gundam 00 as a whole, my general opinion on it is "it was alright, but there was a ridiculous amount of wasted potential". Season one was great, I had very few complaints about it (mostly the occasionally-gratuitous fanservice and the way they had Saji completely puss out toward the end). Season two was a lot less interesting; it's like they felt like they had to make up for the lack of Gundam cliches in the first season by kicking them down your throat in the second. Elite military force supposedly working for the good of all that's actually evil and trying to take over the world? Check. Angsty masked rival for the main character? Check. Threat of massive damage to Earth due to falling objects? Check. Giant space laser? Check and double check. Main character plothax that makes him sixteen times more awesome than everyone else by default? Check, double check, and triple check.

Overall, Gundam 00's main problem was the same as Destiny's (though admittedly not nearly to the same degree) -- too many characters, too much wasted time. I was looking forward to the return of the Al/Hal mind-meld for pretty much the entire second season, and perhaps a similar merging for Soma and Marie. What do we get instead? Endless repetitions of Marnia singing that damn song with those damn orphans. Andrei has two subplots (his relationship with Louise and implied rivalry with Saji, and his conflict with Soma vis-a-vis his father) that never went anywhere. The relationship between Kati and Sumeragi never went much past "old college buddies turned rival commanders". I could go on -- the point is that they laid the groundwork for all this cool stuff and then never followed through on it.

However, Patrick is still awesome. And many props to the creators for sparing Evil Haro, who was also awesome.

The biggest problem they had with 00 is that they made that four year jump. There were new characters, conflicts, organizations and all that jazz, but they only had 25 goddamn episodes to cram it all in. Of course it's not as bad as Desitny(dammit I liked Luna and Stellar) that had a full 50 episodes and still turned out to be a shitty redo of Seed, but it was still pretty bad.

Fanboys: "Waaaah!! You killed off our favorite character!!"

Director: "OK OK Don't hurt me! We'll bring him back and say this guy's his twin!"

Surprising that the director of FMA himself didn't have the balls to leave Lockon as a dead guy. Shit, they didn't even know what to do with Soma/Marie and just left her there to simmer until about the 20th episode when they just said "fuck it, bring back crazy Soma."

I think towards the middle of the season, I was just watching it to say that I saw it. So much wasted potential.

[Native Jovian]

I don't think that the four-year jump was a problem -- it was just the executive decisions made between seasons that was the big issue. 25 episodes is a lot of airtime -- a lot of the really classic anime (Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, for example) are only 26 total. The problem is that they wasted it -- they spent way too much time on nonsense like Marina (ANYTHING with Marina counts as "wasted time" in my book), Saji and Setsuna having the same conversation over again ("We will fight to get Louise back!" "Yeah... okay..."), the Mr. Bushido nonsense (seriously, they spent like half an episode right at the very end doing nothing but fapping to how awesomely samurai he was by being as wapanese as possible!), etc etc. They could have done awesome things with the time they had, but they didn't. Like you said, wasted potential.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

They pretty much established Marina as the "waste of a character" character. I'm willing to bet if they wouldn't have tried to turn her into some kind of Relena Peacecraft-type character and left her out from the series entirely, it would have been a good move.

And it was interesting to see Graham as the Char in the series, but all they did was have him go "I have a permit" this or "I'll win with this custom flag" that.

They should never have resolved the Alleluja/Marie thing so soon(if at all), 'cause all she ended up being was dead weight to both the characters and the writing staff.

Ugh... So damned frustrating. I think I'll actually make a full write up about it when I'm bored enough.

[Dr.Flintlock]

Speaking on the topic of anime that's only around 26 episodes long, I finally got around to seeing The Vision of Escaflowne after having it recommended a few times by various people. I have to say that for only having said number of episodes, this one managed to craft a pretty compelling story with nice character development and a nice amount of quasi-knight mech action. The fact that Yoko Kanno collaborated on the music was another plus to this series.

I'm mostly into classics like this and was curious if anyone could recommend any others along these lines.

As an aside: If anyone's seen this series, is it just me or do the mechs in Escaflowne share a startling resemblence to the ones from an RPG on the PS One called "Vanguard Bandits"? I find the likeness between the two pretty uncanny.

[H. Guderian]

I actually like most of the non-UC shows, X, TurnA were fun for me.

To be fair though, Lyle showed up long Niel died in Season 1. He's at the graveyard one time in the background. It was a planned kill-and-revive, and I feel Lock-on's end-of-series story was one of the better ones, actually dealing with loss, revenge, and pulling some neat things outta his hat.

I agree with the -massive- wasted potential among most of the cast though, Marina features prominently in every opening as a love interest for Setsuna back to the first opening of season 1 though there's less chemistry there than between... ...Something with low chemistry.

Anyways, still enjoying Mazinger for this season, despite a...boring 3rd episode, I have hope. FMA remake is cruising along nicely. I'm busy so a slow season isn't a bad thing.

as for Escaflowne? I keep getting interupted when I watch that show, but if that is only 26 episodes I almsot keep finishing it, haven't ever gotten past 19 episodes. I'll have to borrow the DVDs off my sister.

[Gollgagh]

ah escaflowne there's another one that I still need to watch

I'll do that after I finish GTO

[Dr.Flintlock]

Recently (as in a couple hours ago) I checked out the first two episodes of Black Lagoon with a buddy of mine through netflix. Three words to summarize this sucker.

Hyrdoplaning PT Boat (eh, technically four words)

It kinda reminds me of Outlaw Star, only with the aformentioned boat instead of a space ship. Neat.

[Gollgagh]

Yeah, Black Lagoon is one of my favorites.

[Native Jovian]

I actually like most of the non-UC shows, X, TurnA were fun for me.

UC is vastly overrated. It's good (for the most part -- I still loathe Zeta as much as most people love it, and Gundam 0083 would be a complete waste of time if not for the mecha porn) but not the be-all end-all of mecha anime. The only AU I really dislike is Gundam Wing (yeah, I managed to scrap a certain amount of enjoyment even out of Destiny, though it was the omg-it's-so-bad-it's-good type), though I'm only about halfway through Gundam X and I haven't seen Turn A at all yet.

I feel Lock-on's end-of-series story was one of the better ones

I thought the "I'm too goodie-two-shoes to take cold-blooded revenge but I get to kill you anyway because you totally tried to out-draw me!" thing was retarded, but given Al's or Tieria's ending, it still comes out as one of the better ones, which is somewhat sad...

It kinda reminds me of Outlaw Star, only with the aformentioned boat instead of a space ship. Neat.

Black Lagoon has been on my "I totally need to get around to watching this" list for a while, but this description bumped it up to the top. Outlaw Star is awesome.

[I-n-j-i-n]

I'm still surprised people can actually stomach the inane dialog in Zeta and the worst teenage angst I've ever seen in any medium in my lifetime. It's seriously that bad.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Yeah, but said teenagers WERE getting slapped around quite a bit. And if that's not entertaining, I don't know what is.

[I-n-j-i-n]

Or getting a full fist of oldschool 'discipline' going their way. And girls all being treated like house-wives-to-be.

[Native Jovian]

I'm still surprised people can actually stomach the inane dialog in Zeta and the worst teenage angst I've ever seen in any medium in my lifetime. It's seriously that bad.

Yes.

I seriously don't know why Zeta is treated as the Holy Grail of Gundam. It's literally painful to watch. Best part of the series was the very end when everyone died and Kamille got Newtype mindraped into a rambling man-child.

Then they had to go and fix him in ZZ. *grumble grumble*