[TV] The What Anime Are You Watching Thread!

GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Eromanga Sensei



Genre: Ecchi, Romance, Harem, Squick

Fanservice: Yup, if you can call it that

Premise: Light Novel Author is in love with his loli step-sister.

You can only be told how bad something is so many times before you check it out for yourself. I blame @DarkAudit .

From the same author as Oreimo, here comes another pedotastic incestfest that tries its damnedest to be endearing. "Technically" she's not a blood relative, but neither were Greg and Marsha Brady and that would have been unfortunate too, now wouldn't it? And it doesn't change the fact that he's 15 and she's 11.

To be honest though, I wasn't as bothered by the siscon/brocon/lolicon themes in Eromanga Sensei as I was in, say, No Game No Life. However, Eromanga Sensei does not have the engaging story and characters to it that NGNL had, so it comes off as being a worse total package. Heck, even KissXsis seems less awful than this because KissXsis is at least a train wreck of discomfort you can't look away from and deuteragonists with a conflict you could get invested in... but ES is a big ball of bland tropes wrapped in taboo cellophane. If it wasn't for the shock value of the brother-sister taboo, this would still be an exercise in formulaic tedium at best and lazy writing at worst. Throw in the fact that the little sister is, 90% of the time, completely unendearing and needs nothing so much as a swift kick in the rear and to be made to get the fuck out of her room, go to school, go outside, and the extent to which everyone coddles and indulges her unhealthy shut-in-syndrome just makes watching it all the more irritating. The supporting cast is entirely one-dimensional as well.

All in all, it's a bad show, and not even the kind of bad that you want to watch to relish in the badness... it's just a waste of time.

And just for giggles, here's Gigguk (spoiled for slightly NSFW):
 
Last edited:
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Of the three siscon/brocon LN writer shows (this, ImoImo currently airing, and Imouto sae Ireba Ii.), Imouto sae is far and away the better show.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Reincarnated as a Slime -

Boy, I'm glad this got 24 episodes in its first season. The pacing feels better than Overlord's, but they still got a lot of ground to cover.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Got a two-fer here:

Initial D: First Stage



Genre: Car Racing, Drama, Action
Fanservice: Not much, a couple bikinis with full body pans in the water park episode.
Premise: The son of a tofu shop owner is, unbeknownst to himself, groomed by his father to become the ultimate street racer. Having driven the same mountain pass every day, rain or shine, for 5 years (4 of those without a license) delivering tofu as fast as possible without spilling a drop of water in a cup in the cup holder, Takumi Fujiwara has unwittingly become a racing savant, able to beat almost anybody and any car, despite driving a 10 year old underpowered Toyota Corolla AE86 "Trueno." In the local street racing circuit, the whispered rumors of the "Ghost 86 of Akeno Pass" grew into legend, which makes the reveal that the mountain's most badass driver is a somewhat spaced-out 18 year old kid even more of a shock. Soon, all the prefecture's biggest and best names in street racing come looking for Takumi, whether he likes it or not.

I started watching this one a few years ago but got distracted and never finished it, so I started over and watched it all the way through. It's got its rough spots, both in the writing and the fact that this is a 90s anime that is DEFINITELY showing its age both in hand-drawn art and laughably antiquated CGI, but once you get used to that, there's a really good story going on beneath it all. And, despite the visual quality issues, I really dig the style and aesthetics of the character design - you can tell this took place in 1998 just from the fashions of both clothes and hairstyles. I've griped before about how stupid recent anime hair looks, what with all the boys growing their bangs stupid-long and criss-crossing over their nose... but there's none of that nonsense here. The shirts, the jackets, the hair all remind me of people I went to high school with (except for Takumi's annoying best friend, who is the dumbass bowl-cut scrappy-doo comedy relief that too many anime works feel they have to have). And aside from aforementioned scrappy, I really dig the character designs, both in look and in personality. I also like that the story isn't just about Takumi, but also about the conflict between all the various street-racing teams, such that not every single race has to involve Takumi, and gives the rivals and antagonists opportunities for personal growth. I really enjoyed watching it, despite its warts.

Oh, and of course, you gotta know I loved the eurobeat soundtrack :D I've been a fan of eurobeat since high school.




Initial D: Second Stage



Genre: Car Racing, Drama, Action
Fanservice: Nope, squeaky clean.
Premise: Continuing the story immediately where First Stage left off, following Takumi as he matures both as a driver and a person - having to deal with disaster both on the streets and in his personal life, and coming to terms with his own shortcomings so that he can deal with them and get better.

Wow, season one was decent, but they really found their footing in season two. There's a little bit of an art-style change that caused me some discomfort at first, but once you get used to it, it's fine. The CGI on the cars got a noticeable improvement, but it still feels like an upgrade from starfox to ocarina of time - a lot of the textures of the roadside scenery (grass, walls, rocks) looks smudgy and blurry, but the cars are much, much improved. Additionally, the story is excellent. They even managed to work in growth and sympathy for the Scrappy, such that I didn't mind him so much anymore. No easy feat, there. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's really good.
 
Last edited:
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
AshburnerX said:
Honestly, the best part of Initial D is that it focuses on street racing in a car you could actually own.
Click to expand...
Heh, when I was 18 in 1997, I drove an '88 Mazda MX-6 GT, which had a turbocharged engine. I bet I could have at least given Itsuki's AE85 a run for its money :p The long, straight, empty stretches of I-25 in New Mexico between Albuquerque and Socorro let me open it up and find that it hit orange line at 131 mph (210 kph).

And, much like Takumi,
I pushed it too hard and blew out the engine. Only while he threw a rod, I melted a piston head.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Initial D Extra Stage 1



Genre: Car Racing, Drama, Romance
Fanservice: Uncensored full-body nudity, male gaze shots, gainax bounces
Premise: Taking place during Second and Third Stage, these two EVAs follow the ladies of the Impact Blue racing duo in the aftermath of their loss to the Akina 86, and how Mako gets her groove back when the Lancer EVOs of team Emperor come calling on their home turf. Also depicts how she gets out of her funk after her heart was broken by Takumi's boneheaded friend and team leader of the Akina SpeedStars, Iketani.

There's really no other way to put it, this two-episode EVA is a thinly-veiled excuse to show Mako and Sayuki naked. The premise of them going up against team Emperor had a hook, but it went nowhere and dropped without any effect on the long-term storyline of the series, and the one-episode romance arc served less to reinvigorate Mako's character than it did just to show how apparently every member of the Myogi Night Kids is a blockhead. The constant barrage of unsubtle fanservice makes it feel patronizing and maybe even a little icky.

Verdict - entirely skippable, unless you just really fancy having a wank over Impact Blue nudity, or just REALLY have to consume every single drop of Initial D content.
 
Last edited:
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
PatrThom said:
:rolleyes:

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Everybody wants the D :p

Anyway...

Initial D: Third Stage (aka The Movie)



Genre: Car Racing, Action, Drama, Romance
Fanservice: just a girl in a swimsuit in a flashback to the beach episode
Premise: As fall turns to winter, Takumi is faced with the prospect of graduation in 6 months, and is forced to think about what he's actually going to do with his future when Ryosuke Takahashi, leader of the Red Suns racing team proposes that Takumi join him on an ambitious year-long street racing tour of other prefectures to learn and hone the craft. Before Takumi can make up his mind, he has to put his unfinished business to bed by having a rematch with Kyouichi Sudou's Lancer Evo. He also has to deal with a ghost from history - the son of his father's old racing rival, come to carry their rivalry into the current generation. And most importantly of all, he and his estranged girlfriend Natsuki Mogi have to come to terms with how they feel about each other, and decide if their relationship has a future.

This movie packs in a LOT of content. I feel like it could easily have been a 10 episode run in series format. But it paces well, and once again the art and CGI are a measurable improvement over Second Stage. The scenery in the racing sequences no longer hurts to look at, and there's a lot less repetition in the action. The underlying story remains interesting while the technical improvements shine. Definitely a good watch, though it should be obvious that it requires having watched First and Second Stage first, and is not a standalone movie in any way, shape, or form. I liked how the movie tied up a lot of loose ends that had been dangling even since First Stage, especially the romantic entanglements. It's gratifying to finally get closure by two people talking to each other instead of letting things fall apart because they're afraid of what might happen if they speak.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
I just re-watched this series last week, so I'll give it an entry:

s-CRY-ed



Genre: Action, Drama

Fanservice: barely any

Premise: A natural (or perhaps unnatural) disaster destroyed the Kanagawa prefecture one day, cutting it off from the mainland and causing a tremendous upheaval of the land. 22 years later, this "Lost Ground" is still a struggling no-man's land, slowly undergoing efforts to be resettled and recivilized. However, a percentage of the children who are born in the Lost Ground began to manifest telekinetic powers of a sort - the ability to break down matter and reconstruct it according to their will, using a mysterious power called "Alter." These alter users, or alters for short, frequently turn to crime and violence as ordinary humans cannot hope to stand against them. This causes the mainland authorities to create a special law enforcement division called HOLY, comprised entirely of alter users, so that they can bring order to the Lost Ground and its inhabitants. With financial assistance from the mainland government, a city on the edge of the Lost Ground has returned to some semblance of society, and plans are in the works to begin redeveloping futher out as well - but a lot of those beyond the city walls have gotten used to the idea of living free and independent of the mainland, and a lot of them are alter users. This sets the stage for a grand conflict of order and chaos, collectivism and individualism, freedom and oppression - and at the center of this conflict are two men: Kazuma, an alter user who refuses to be coerced into any action he doesn't want (but will do anything for money), and Ryuho, a senior HOLY agent whose fanatical devotion to restoring (or rather, imposing) order masks an obsession with avenging the death of his mother at the hands of an alter user. These two alter users' completely incompatible philisophical differences drive them immediately and constantly into conflict, one that will literally shake the nation as the underlying causes for the Great Upheaval are discovered, along with the true intentions of the mainland puppetmasters behind HOLY.

This is a great series. It's well paced, it's got great characters and a really enthralling storyline, the artwork is top notch (especially for an early 2000s anime), and best of all, it's got a beginning, a middle, and and end, along with sequel potential (that got realized in the form of a followup movie) and hints at a great deal of background lore that could be used to tell even more stories without making the main one drag on forever.

It does, however, have its problems - first and foremost, the English localization. Like I said, this is an early 2000s anime, and that means the industry as a whole was still finding its feet as far as translating Japanese culture, concepts, and idioms into those that readily can be absorbed by western viewers. As a result, a lot of the dialog can completely be failed to be understood even though the words are English, on the first viewing, and a lot of watching this show is understanding things based on familiar tropes and visual context. I've watched the whole thing through at least 4 times and every time I STILL pick up on more of what's going on than I previously did. It was given a lot of slack back in the day, because back then Anime was still new and cool and enough of a visual spectacle for the lack of cohesive intelligibility to be forgiven (see also: Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Akira). These days, it sticks out a lot more.

Also, there are a few scenes contemporary/casual viewers may have issues with today that weren't as sensitive subjects as they had been previously, such as an early scene where one of the HOLY members makes a helpless woman believe he is about to rape her, but then reveals he's joking and/or just impressing upon her how dangerous the Lost Ground can be. It is a lesson that doesn't stick, however, as she continues to act with callous disregard for her own safety and comparative fragility (she's not an alter user) for the entirety of the show's run.

I guess that brings me to my final gripe - I can't stand Mimori Kiryu. But if you watch it, I'm sure you can find your own reasons to do the same.

Still definitely worth watching, if you never got to, by this point.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Initial D: Fourth Stage - Project D



Genre: Car racing, Action, Drama

Fanservice: not really any to speak of

Premise: After graduation, Takumi has joined his old rivals, the Takahashi Brothers, in launching their new "Project D" racing team. Going above and beyond what could be expected of amateur speed racers, they (and multiple vans full of support crew and parts) go from town to town of other prefectures challenging the fastest drivers on all the mountain passes that they've never driven before, taking only one day to practice and tune before each race. The difficulty has never been higher, and each race forces Takumi and Keisuke to adapt, improve, and go beyond their limits - and make hard choices about what's more important to them in life.

It continues to be a good show, with a compelling narrative. It averts the "opponent of the week" format running the risk of becoming repetitive and formulaic - the story always manages to find enough twists and new features to make it such that each race brings different challenges and requires different methods to overcome. The art and CGI continue to be excellent in the flavor of the Third Stage movie.

I only have really two gripes at this point -

First one is a minor one: There's a LOT of content in this season. The 24 episodes only cover 3 or 4 arcs, but it feels like a lot happened in just one season and honestly I think it could have been broken into two seasons to give the viewer a break to process and prepare for the second half. I know, sounds funny, complaining about too much content in a show's fourth season, right? Like I said, it's a minor gripe, but having binged all 24 episodes over the course of 2 days, I feel like my brain just ran a marathon. Not that that's gonna stop me from starting the next one tomorrow! (Although it's Extra Stage 2, so I'm bracing for another disappointment).

The second one is that there's one area in which the show HAS become repetitive to the point of risking becoming trite: the no-girlfriends running gag. The guys all can't get girlfriends, and the ones that can can't keep them - either because they're young and dumb and don't know what to do with women, or they decide to prioritize racing and "don't have time for chicks," or flat out just get dumped on by fate constantly. It saps all the tension out from any potential love interest stories (and the show taunts you by starting quite a few romance arcs), because you come to learn there's absolutely no possibility that anyone in this series will find love or live happily ever after. Spoiler alert:
Kazumi's bait and switch treatment, leading Itsuki on then kicking him to the curb with his heart shredded right out of his chest is almost enough to turn anyone into a misogynist. Not even the scrappy deserved that.

But everything else is great. The story. The races. The characters and their growth. The art. The graphics. The (unnnghhh) soundtrack! Fast and Furious got nothing on Initial D.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

I don’t get what a “We value your privacy but we’re going to invade it anyway” message has to do with anything.

—Patrick
 
Dei

Dei

Speaking as someone who has had her Asuka wallscroll up since college...

Eva still makes my head hurt, and not in a good way.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Initial D: Extra Stage 2



Genre: Car Racing, Romance
Fanservice: PG-13 shower scene
Premise: Six months after their missed connection, Mako and Iketani have another chance encounter, and try to rekindle the old flame that guttered due to his idiocy.

Spoilers follow, but trust me, if it stops you from watching this travesty, you should thank me.

Oh man, I was braced for disappointment, but this is even worse than I thought. Watching this 60 minute OVA was excruciating. Torment.

First of all, there was no reason this needed to be an hour long. The pacing was awful. Way too many long, silent gaps with cursory camera pans to fill time. Slow, awkward dialog. Tedium runs rampant. Furthermore, the plot points feel at once both contrived and predictable. I had to force myself to sit through the whole thing rather than go look up a plot summary and call it done. And most grating of all, I just got done griping about the trite and repetitive nature of the "none of the guys can have any luck in love" constant recurring joke that this series has had going on since First Stage. It's not even remotely funny anymore. Watching this is an embarrasment-by-proxy knife in the gut, and that knife was given one last final twist in the closing credits where any hopes for the future were raised and immediately dashed by the movie framing the two lovebirds in hearts and then literally shattering the image into jagged shards and printing "and they never saw each other again." What the FUCK, are you trying to be funny by wasting my time and giving me mood whiplash? After dozens of episodes of Iketani pining over his missed chance with Mako, you're gonna end on THIS huge dickpunch? And then to add insult to injury, there wasn't even an english dubbed version available (though I could see why, nobody would want to watch this dreck IMO). And to top it all off, even the soundtrack sucked this time around, swapping out genuine eurobeat for saccharine j-pop.

I mean, there were good points. The art and CGI continued to be up to the high standards set by Fourth Stage (for what little actual racing there was), and the fanservice was remarkably tasteful compared to the lecherous shamelessness of Extra Stage 1, but those aren't enough. This was awful. I want my hour back.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top