Anime Club - Heaven Society

[Benji_w]

1 minute ago, BashZeStampeedo said:

Oh, ok. I hope you don't experience the same thing I did with Konosuba. I found the first 4 or 5 episodes pretty funny, it just started to really phone things in after that.

Fair play, kinda like the whole midget/short joke in full metal alchemist? 

[BashZeStampeedo]

1 minute ago, Benji_w said:

Fair play, kinda like the whole midget/short joke in full metal alchemist? 

Yes. Except it's not just a blemish on an otherwise fun show.

 

But hopefully I don't taint your enjoyment. Maybe you'll be more forgiving.

[Techicolors]

1 hour ago, BashZeStampeedo said:

I'm just finishing the second half of Konosuba myself, but I'm quite disappointed in it so far.

yeah, i didn't like the second half. i still laughed here and there out of sheer ridicule, but that's it

[Benji_w]

So what should I bother to watch next?

[BashZeStampeedo]

3 minutes ago, Benji_w said:

So what should I bother to watch next?

What are you in the mood for? Do you want a series that's already aired completely?

[Benji_w]

22 minutes ago, BashZeStampeedo said:

What are you in the mood for? Do you want a series that's already aired completely?

Anything that has blown the socks off all of you guys lately seeing as you're all very hard to please.

[BashZeStampeedo]

51 minutes ago, Benji_w said:

Anything that has blown the socks off all of you guys lately seeing as you're all very hard to please.

Well, others will have to chime in, but here are some suggestions depending on your mood/tastes:

 

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu if you'd like to try a character drama.

Concrete Revolutio if you like the idea of an alternate history type show mixed with superheros (a bit weird at first).

Nozaki-kun or Jitsu wa Watashi wa if you just want a silly romcom (give Jitsu at least 2 eps if you try it).

Komori Can't Decline if you'd like a cute short moe show.

Gundam Origin if you like Gundam.

[BashZeStampeedo]

Well, finally finished KonoSuba. I should have quit while I was ahead.

 

KonoSuba. mediocre.
I wanted to be kinder to this one, I really did. The first few episodes were on the slow and repetitive side, but they had some real high points. It had the air of a comedy that was just struggling to find its footing. And then it gave up and settled into a rut of telegraphing punchlines and playing them straight, and repeating the same character interactions ad nauseum. There was definite potential here until they started phoning things in in episode 6, and the finale was the only marginally decent episode in the second half of the anime. So while it's maybe worth watching the first 4 episodes (if you're forgiving of a comedy if it has a few stand-out moments), once the silly cabbage battle is over, you've seen the best the show has to offer, and a lot of the rest can barely be called comedy.

 

For the curious, my thoughts on the episodes (6 onward) are in the spoiler.

 

 

KonoSuba (6). disappointing.
Figured I'd finish some anime from last season, starting with the one reputed to be the funniest of the lot. And wow was this ever disappointing. So there's this Dullahan villain, and the MC has a powerful steal ability. Gee I wonder what'll happen, right? Except stealing his head is way too obvious to be funny, so I was wondering what they'd do to kick it up a notch. Maybe have MC steal the body instead, and use it like an RPG mount? Or maybe steal the head, and then the body turns out to be a separate funny character? Nope. They just steal the head, kick it around like a soccer ball, and effortlessly destroy the villain. Lame. Way to kill off your best character in the most anticlimactic manner. And just to get to that point they contrived that he's weak to water, apparently just so they could end the episode with another obvious gag. Surely they're not out of ideas already?

 

KonoSuba (7). mediocre.
Normally enough happens in an episode to distract me from how unlikable this cast is, but this episode was dull enough to notice how botched its execution was, right down to the MC pointlessly acting against his own character for a cheap "change of heart" moment. I mean, it would have been funny if the MC was given a chance to get what he wanted, only to lose it because he revealed what a jerk he really is. Like maybe the kind goddess slowly realized he wasn't a nice guy, and then just let Aqua drag him back thinking "they deserve one another". Heck, it would fit better for Aqua to be the bloodthirsty one who drags them to kill the cute monsters anyway, given that they wanted her to be unable to bring herself to kill them later. If you're going for obvious comedy, then at least have the decency to not make it a mess in the process.

 

KonoSuba (8). so-so.

So the fun Dullahan's replacement is a boring meek lich girl who is Aqua's opposite. And half the episode is beating a dead horse into powder by showing that Aqua's the evil one. Hilarious! The second half of the episode was a little better, but it basically boiled down to lame pee jokes and other rather tired horror humor involving creepy dolls. Honestly, it doesn't help to call out how cliched your material is if you're not going to aim any higher than mediocrity. I also don't really know why the MC wasn't patting Aqua on the back for what she did, instead of chastising her for it. Isn't he supposed to be a greedy prick too? Ah, whatever. I guess it's asking too much for some form of character consistency from a slapped-together character comedy. I just wish it was less repetitive.

 

KonoSuba (9). awkward.
I like me some cringe comedy, but there has to be some comedy to go with the cringe... not so here. The way cringe comedy typically works is that you set up a character as being desperate or weird enough to do something self-destructive, and then have them do it. This sounds like just the kind of thing that would work in KonoSuba, right? Unfortunately, they didn't base the "comedy" here on established character tics. They just pulled some new stuff out of their asses. Suddenly Kazuma's a horn-dog who wants to see Darkness nude. Suddenly Darkness is dumber than an 8-year-old and goes along with it, despite not wanting to. It's icky, but not in a funny way. Thing is, as usual, this COULD have worked. Why not have Darkness be the one who wants the fantasy, since she's never able to get her fix? Then have the MC also visit the succubi, but have no idea what a proper sexual fantasy IS, being a pathetic shut-in neet, so HE plays along. And then have the wide-eyed innocent Megumin walk in on them and be traumatized and blow up their hard-earned mansion, only to reveal that this was all Aqua's plan (that she secretly gets off on manipulating people and abusing her power as a goddess), and as usual her plans backfired again. You'd have your cringe comedy, some non-cringe comedy, and it would all feel completely in-character. But nope, it's all wasted opportunities again. Come on, KonoSuba. At least deliver in your finale.

 

KonoSuba (10). decent.
Ah, screw it, I'll be kind here. At least they put a bit more effort into the humor here than the last 4 or 5 episodes, and there were a couple of amusing scenes sprinkled here and there. They also gave more than one obvious possibility for the punchlines/resolution, so it wasn't completely boring. It's basically just another typical shounen series-ender, where the Big Bad politely waits to be defeated (several times) without ever doing anything more threatening than killing a bird or getting warm. It also ends quite predictably and anticlimactically, but at least they treated it more like an actual punchline, rather than just something to be spoon-fed to the audience. This episode wasn't enough to justify watching anything past episode 4, though. It would have been so much better if the MC had stolen the body of the Dullahan, who then went insane and came back to beat them all with his shiny new body: the Destroyer. Oh well. God obviously didn't bless these scriptwriters.

 

 

[Tr3vor]

well its been a while since I posted here, or actually lurked too. should come back more often

 

been watching k-on, not as bad as I expected.

[Charger]

5 minutes ago, Tr3vor said:

well its been a while since I posted here, or actually lurked too. should come back more often

 

been watching k-on, not as bad as I expected.

not bad just moe. I didn't care for the second season as much as the first though.

[Boobies Sprinkle]

What goes up and never go down?

[BashZeStampeedo]

31 minutes ago, Tr3vor said:

been watching k-on, not as bad as I expected.

It was just overhyped a long time ago, so there was hype backlash. As far as I'm concerned it's no Aria, but it's an okay time-waster playing on people's wish to see a wonderful highschool experience that doesn't really exist. But the way fans were selling it you'd think it was the Second Coming, when really it was just a spin on Azumanga that was more concerned with in-between animation than comedy. It also has a mixed reputation since its success made it the model for a whole over-exposed genre of low-effort "type B moe anime" (as others call it).

[Avericious]

28 minutes ago, BashZeStampeedo said:

But the way fans were selling it you'd think it was the Second Coming

Indeed. I've seen several people including Digibro talk about it as if it has peerless characterization and is among the best anime ever created. It's quite absurd.

[BashZeStampeedo]

30 minutes ago, Avericious said:

Indeed. I've seen several people including Digibro talk about it as if it has peerless characterization and is among the best anime ever created. It's quite absurd.

Well, it's the quintessential Digi anime, full of on-model in between animation and pretty colors. Remove those things and he'd be right there with everyone else not getting the hype.

[Fred Castellum]

Started watching Kamisama Hajimemashita, haven't finished episode one. The comedy? Well I'm not laughing yet... I've got a feeling this one isn't going to be worth my time.

[BashZeStampeedo]

Well, Dagashikashi isn't proving to be anything more than I expected, but at least it's not completely unbearable now that I'm treating is less as a comedy and more as a wimpy attempt at a slice of life series. Thankfully some of the current season's stuff makes up for the lack of "funny" in my anime diet this week.

 

Dagashikashi (4). so-so.
I don't recall this show having a two-halves episode format, but whatever. The first half's blind taste test sketch had a moment that was actually mildly funny, where they couldn't tell based on taste and had to use other factors, but the humor vanished for the rest of the segment, which became a slice of life thing instead. Hardly memorable, but also not too obnoxious (though it ended exactly how you'd expect). The second half was littered with lame boob jokes, but also had some lame math jokes of all things, and was otherwise just more passable slice of life with some shounen tropes tossed in. But you know what? I'm okay with that. Candy ads and juvenile anime sex junk notwithstanding. What I couldn't tolerate was the weaksauce ending. Saya loses points as a character there, and so does the anime overall for it's amazing lack of originality.

 

Dagashikashi (5). decent.
This was easily the best ep in the series so far, though that's not saying much. The first half had probably the funniest gags so far, but it also had the most tiresome and blatant set of in-anime commercials. I do worry that they'll use Yo too much - his type of character is best in small doses. The second half of the episode was just more dumb shounen slice of life, but it was at least amusing enough to forgive it's slowness. I even liked some of the BGM in this episode, too, though it was pretty quiet. So that's one episode I found more entertaining than not. And since we're at the halfway mark of another anime "comedy" series, I'm fully prepared for this to be the best episode we'll see (especially since they've shown no sign to escape their dull and repetitive episode formula).

 

Dagashikashi (6). mediocre.
This episode was just about everything that's wrong with this anime in a nutshell. It was so tedious that I was yawning by the end. It's not that the material was all that bad, in fact they made at least some effort to frame their product placements in a "charmingly awkward" manner, but when it's dragged out to twice the length it should be, then any semblance of comedy or charm is lost in the line noise. Cut it down to half its running time and the setups and punchlines would probably work alright, but as it stands I was practically begging for them to get to the obvious punchline so it would end.

 

Dagashikashi (7). so-so.
This managed to once again hit the basic beats necessary to be alright slice of life, but honestly there were two problems holding this ep back: the first is that they don't often make the dialogue about the candy feel natural, and the second is Saya. We all know there's no romance that's budding between her and Coconuts, so no matter how much they try to make their interactions "charming", it's all for naught. It also has nothing to do with a show about candies - it's filler. We're getting shortchanged in every way with this pointless teasing. On top of that, there was barely anything funny here. Still an okay episode if I treat it as something from another series, but not as part of Dagashikashi.

 

Dagashikashi (8). mediocre.
So they ran out of candy-themed ideas and just ended up doing horror stories, because there's a brand of gum that has scary stories written on its labels. Okay. And the joke is that no one's scared except Saya. Okay. Then the second part came and went, with the main joke being that... wait for it... Saya is good at another (not related to candy) game. You don't say. The final, and shortest segment, seemed like it would be about a candy, but it turned out to be about peeping at panties. Joy. Really, the only time this episode came to life was between the first two segments, where they snuck in one of the series' best jokes with a fake-out about Coconut's dad apparently being punched in the face. Otherwise this was a very mundane episode that felt like it was just coasting in place rather than trying to entertain me.

 

Sansha Sanyou (4). good.
That "childhood memories" segment at the start was instantly funnier than anything I saw so far in my efforts to finish Dagashikashi and Konosuba. They also had fun with the animation in this one, and dialing up really mundane situations to 11 to keep it amusing. It really does make a difference to not repeat the same thing too much and to not drag your sketches out (let alone deliver things with personality and energy). Even just pointing out the joke can work when you turn that fact into a joke and point out two punchlines instead of one. The episode kind of petered out by the end with some thick sap, but by that point I didn't mind (it was quite painful to see what happened to that Wagyu beef, though).

 

Girl Meets Bear (5). decent.
This episode made up somewhat for the previous one. It started off shaky, with a scene with the kid being taken to the bear in the cave to scare him straight after stealing a bike. It went a bit far, but at least they acknowledged that fact and set up that the kid deserved some punishment, so it didn't really faze me compared to Machi's various abuses so far. The second half of the episode was better, but also went overboard at times, skirting along the boundaries of being funny and just being clumsy or awkward. And yet, it gave Machi some contrived payback for things, and it did a genuinely funny job with her obliviousness, so I'll forgive its lesser moments. I could have done without that pointless bath scene at the end though (this anime sure pushes its luck with the "fanservice").

 

My Hero Academia (5). decent.
I just couldn't help but picture Millhouse saying "my mom says I'm cool" after the first part of this episode. The full episode didn't really cover much ground, but it did the job it set out to do, even if it was pretty lame in parts... clearly intentionally so, but still having All Might fawn over Deku for doing the obvious thing is a bit much, plus they pushed Bakugou's unlikable side more than I expected. The real news is that I'm not seeing Bones putting that much effort into this series - it'll be a straight-up adaptation of the manga, playing it safe as usual for a shounen anime. That's disappointing, but I guess Bones can't be expected to take risks on a potential cash-cow franchise. I can't say that I'm expecting much from it, though.

 

Helck manga (c69). so-so.
Well, that was amazingly twee for a series about humans turning into unstoppable killing machines. I wonder why they dragged it out for two chapters? I can't say that this was worth all that buildup. I'd be disappointed if the series hadn't set me up so clearly for disappointment.

 

1 hour ago, MyInnerFred said:

Started watching Kamisama Hajimemashita, haven't finished episode one. The comedy? Well I'm not laughing yet... I've got a feeling this one isn't going to be worth my time.

It grew on me after a while. It's not great, but it's about as charming as that sub-genre seems to get.

[eelnico09]

Kamisama Hajimemashita was a good anime.

On 30/4/2016 at 2:34 PM, BashZeStampeedo said:

Well, others will have to chime in, but here are some suggestions depending on your mood/tastes:

 

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu if you'd like to try a character drama.

Concrete Revolutio if you like the idea of an alternate history type show mixed with superheros (a bit weird at first).

Nozaki-kun or Jitsu wa Watashi wa if you just want a silly romcom (give Jitsu at least 2 eps if you try it).

Komori Can't Decline if you'd like a cute short moe show.

Gundam Origin if you like Gundam.

I second the romcom's recommendations as they are the only ones that i know.

 

Nozaki-kun, was a lot more comedy than romance (but sitll romcom) And very funny.

Jitsu wa watashi wa has very nice comedy (to me at least) but as far as i remember, it was another school harem.

 

 

 

13 hours ago, Tr3vor said:

well its been a while since I posted here, or actually lurked too. should come back more often

 

been watching k-on, not as bad as I expected.

It isn't, i liked it quite a bit, watched every season and i think 1 movie (when they go to london)

 

On 30/4/2016 at 1:32 PM, Benji_w said:

Anything that has blown the socks off all of you guys lately seeing as you're all very hard to please.

Nana was the last anime that blew my mind. Such masterpiece to me.

 

Also check out Chihayafuru. I actually watched both seasons (24 ep each) in 2 days from monday to tuesday, such an amazing anime. I'm dying for a season 3.

 

 

 

 

PS: Nice, after not being so active on the forums every once in a while i come back to read stuff, in the last 4 times this is the 1st one that i saw people discussing anime. Wonderful.

[wolfgang]

4 hours ago, MyInnerFred said:

Started watching Kamisama Hajimemashita, haven't finished episode one. The comedy? Well I'm not laughing yet... I've got a feeling this one isn't going to be worth my time.

It was alright. A few moments that I remember for the joke.

[Crowes]

16 hours ago, Tr3vor said:

well its been a while since I posted here, or actually lurked too. should come back more often

 

been watching k-on, not as bad as I expected.

K-On! is one of my favorites, and for someone who doesn't have a sense of humor really, it had me laughing lots, which is weird. Apart from the moe and humor, there isn't much to it, though. Definitely watch it between serious anime for a break, never watch it as a serious anime.

 

http://i.imgur.com/mi60SEe.gifv

 

 

[BashZeStampeedo]

7 hours ago, Crowes said:

K-On! is one of my favorites, and for someone who doesn't have a sense of humor really, it had me laughing lots, which is weird. Apart from the moe and humor, there isn't much to it, though. Definitely watch it between serious anime for a break, never watch it as a serious anime.

 

http://i.imgur.com/mi60SEe.gifv

 

 

Ah yes, the humor in K-On... I hope you like them repeating the same joke that Mio is a scaredy cat, because that's about 90% of it

[Charger]

2 minutes ago, BashZeStampeedo said:

Ah yes, the humor in K-On... I hope you like them repeating the same joke that Mio is a scaredy cat, because that's about 90% of it

there were jokes in k-on? i thought it was just moe band... I really dont remember it having many jokes

 

[BashZeStampeedo]

1 hour ago, Charger said:

there were jokes in k-on? i thought it was just moe band... I really dont remember it having many jokes

 

Well, they were more attempts at amusing character quirks and interactions than jokes with punchlines.

[JuztBe]

18 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

 

[eelnico09]

2 hours ago, Charger said:

there were jokes in k-on? i thought it was just moe band... I really dont remember it having many jokes

 

I agree, i remember k-on as an anime easy to watch, nothing to get hooked on, just (to me) a solid anime to watch when one feels like watching something but don't know what.

 

1 hour ago, BashZeStampeedo said:

Well, they were more attempts at amusing character quirks and interactions than jokes with punchlines.

That!

 

And i liked almost every bit of it

[BashZeStampeedo]

3 hours ago, eelnico09 said:

That!

 

And i liked almost every bit of it

To me it was like watching kitten videos on YouTube, for the most part. I would certainly have appreciated a bit more than what we got, both in terms of variance and a sense of progression.

 

Speaking of which, that's why I consider it a "slice of nothing" series more than a "slice of life" one. Aside from a couple of episodes, I never got the feeling that anything was progressing. Contrast with Aria, where it felt like the girls were progressing in their quests to become ace gondoliers, and every time they reached a milestone it actually felt like they had earned it. Not sure if I'm the only person who cares about such distinctions in their moe anime, but there you go