Winter 2015 Continued!

Ahg. I'm already bad at this. I can't even blame Puzzle and Dragons anymore.

[excuse here]

I noticed that I somehow overlooked nearly half the other shows airing this season in my last post and had somehow convinced myself I'd already done it. So here is what else has aired:

I felt like I'd already talked about the trashy light novel adaptations but somehow didn't mention Fafnir (not Fafner) and World Break. They're just so easy to forget about. In all honesty, they weren't bad and about par for the harem course. Animation, voice acting, substance and characters were all lacking but not downright horrible. I gave them both the good ol' 3 episode try, but they were uninteresting and predictable and I didn't find the characters to be particularly charming or cute. Isuca is running the same course so far, but at least with better animation if you can ignore the heavy white censor light beam over even the slightest of exposure.

Assassination Classroom seems different, but neither in a good or bad way. There just seems to be something missing and paced oddly. I'm planning on continuing it for now, but so far it just seems standard and might be fun.

I managed to get around to reading the first few chapters of Saekano before this season and was really looking forward to it since the art was great and the story seemed fun. The first episode released (an episode 0) kinda put me off, but in hindsight I feel like it was just trying to be too meta by giving fanservice while making fun of judging the first episode of a series based on blatant fanservice. The true first episode got back onto the fun track I was expecting, but I feel like the first episode might push a lot of people away who would have otherwise liked the show but so far so good.

Death Billiards is a short movie that deals with morally grey people/situations by pitting two people against one another in a game with their lives on the line. It's TV series, Death Parade, seems as though it is going to expand and explore the world that was introduced in Death Billiards. I was expecting the show to be stand alone instances rather than something with a plot so I'm curious to see how they develop everything and keep it interesting.

I'd been looking forward to the second season of Durarara!! since it was a pretty fun modern fantasy with a storyline and timeline that made sure if you were paying attention. The story is told in snippits and sections that overlap depending on the perspective of the character the viewers are following at the time. The first season came to a pretty well wrapped up conclusion, so I was surprised to hear it was   getting a second season. I knew the source material continued, but as a stand alone I thought the first season did quite well.

Koufuku Graffiti has also been pretty awesome. Its about cute girls eating, finding themselves, and bonding over delicious food in a semi-erotic fashion. The animation and art are beautiful and makes me hungry. Everything seems paced well and the characters are enjoyable. Its surprisingly fun to just sit back and watch cute anime girls eat and talk about delicious food for 25 minutes.

Second Impressions: Winter 2015

Alright,

So I've been totally consumed by this silly free-to-play game called Puzzle and Dragons that has been eating up all the time I usually spend researching and writing. But I have lots of new things to talk about and probably won't get to all of them in one post.

To begin with, this season's anime have been improving. The first episodes of Fafner, Rolling Girls and the second season of Aldnoah.Zero look awesome and are an aesthetic relief from the low budget adaptations this year. Junketsu no Maria was certainly different in that the characters weren't predictable and the story seems unique. The main character is female and has strangely pointless sleeves on a jacket that still shows off that this show oriented towards males, but she's actually pretty cute and the innuendo laden comedy between her(a self proclaimed virgin witch) and her succubus has been enjoyable without being lewd.

I did watch the other generic shows, but they're so generic I can't remember which was which. They're all about an empty, pointless, main male character surrounded by fanservice, loli and sis/brocon girls. I think one of them might have had a compelling story, but I can't find it under the heavy use of cookie cutter character archetypes and tropes. At least I won't feel bad for dropping them after my three episode grace period; I can always hope they get better by then!

Playstation has a pretty decent sale going on right now and compelled me to add more to my ever growing library of games "I'll get around to" including Person 3 Portable and LittleBigPlanet Vita. I'm sure I'll get around to them.

I've picked up some hours on CoD:Advanced Warfare, Hyperdimension Neputunia, and Pokemon, but  I spent most of my weekend playing through Kingdom Hearts working on a speed run achievement.

There were two "Coming Soon!"s to report in, but they got here a lot faster than I'd expected and while I was asleep so I'll report on my new additions once I get to look at them. So I guess...

Came Soon!
Shiro Figure
Kirby!

Now back to more Puzzle and Dragons!!

-DysNeko

First Impressions: Winter 2015

Absolute Duo, didn't give me high hopes for the season but watching The Testament of Sister New Devil (weird English translation not done by me), I was starting to feel like I should be embarrassed about my hobby. They're both trashy light novels that are getting adaptations because of their blatant fanservice with main characters about as deep and interesting as the directions on my cup noodle. Maybe I'm just judgmental and jaded, but I can't stand these animated excuses of male sexual angst.

Not a good start, but there are some redeeming shows already; "Magical Boys" (Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love!) appears to be a self aware, magical girl parody and is so far pretty funny but I can see it burning out its running gags. I don't know if it will be able to maintain its funny content for 11+ more episodes but it was a relief after the softcore porn I was suffering through earlier. 

I'm not really a big fan of shows that are adapted from games since there have been so few that were actually good and they mostly exist to bring in more cash while expending as little as possible, resulting in poor animation and writing. Kantai Collection is about par for the course right now. The backgrounds are either CG or uninteresting. There is lots of animation haphazardly spliced with CG but, to its credit, its at least pretty OK CG (personal preference; I just don't like aggressive use of CG). I was hoping that, given its popularity, it would turn out an above average adaptation. I am so far not disappointed, but not impressed either. It does at least introduce me to the characters that are popular on image boards and in fan art all over the internet without having to bumble around in a Japanese only mobile game. 

Yuri Kuma Arashi is my favorite so far mostly because I have no idea what happened or where it's going. There is yuri (lily or fictional lesbian relationships), there are kuma (bears), there is this mysterious thing translated as an "Invisible Storm" (arashi=storm) and weird heavy symbolism. You'd think with all the title drops some of it would make sense, but nope, I'm left off with a girl being eaten by a bear after a strangely suggestive "consuming nectar" scene. It looks and sometimes feels like it should be a comedy, but it maintains a very serious tone regardless of the cute bears and amusing situations. I'm looking forward to getting into this one since I still don't know how to react. 

There is more to come!

-DysNeko

Absolute Duo and New Additions

The first few episodes of the season are beginning to air in Japan! and I'm just about caught up.

I ended up finishing Tokyo Ghoul and I'm glad I did; I liked the gore factor (even with censorship) and that the main character seems to have finally found his purpose in life just before season two.

Next, I moved onto Fafner which will have another season airing this winter. I'd dropped it several times for being melodramatic but I kept coming back to it and thoroughly enjoyed the ending... enough so to stay up late and watch the movie only to then realize there is a prequel. Needless to say, I went to bed late. The array of characters and their interactions with each other was sometimes melodramatic, but it made up for it with great character development and a light touch of implied gay love. I'm pretty psyched to see where it goes this coming season since it's a big world that can be expanded on and I just want the two guys to kiss already.

Currently, I'm 9 episodes into the first season of Milky Holmes, but it may be for naught this season. Crunchyroll has recently removed the first season from their site and have given no sign of picking up the upcoming season. Typically, if a show is not simulcast on either CR or Funi (legal, subscription based sites) I will wait to find a complete (illegalish) download from a trusted site at the end of the season, rather than peruse risky sites with poor streaming quality. I'd be more than happy to pay for every show I watch, but some fall through the licencing cracks and leave me unable to support them.

I also obtained my Stone Badge today! I'm on my way to becoming a Pokemon master! (woo)

I finished up the Xblaze demo... it ended with a big cliche and was firmly on its way down Mundane Road so I think I'll pass on it unless I have nothing else better to do.

In other news, one of the first legally available simulcasts of the season made its way to Funimation this morning and it was underwhelming to say the least. The first episode of Absolute Duo has a bland main character with some mysterious "special" power that makes him the heartthrob of every female with vibrantly colored hair within a mile of his school. Mediocre. I do not see myself continuing past the third episode at this rate unless the female characters can carry the show, there is absolutely nothing unique, interesting or special about the show thus far.

My "Coming Soon"s from my last post have arrived!
Here are some pictures of my new additions to my collection and what I think so far:

ef - a fairy tale of the two. -- I'm looking forward to seeing how the source material of one of my favorite anime series plays out. I'm not usually a sucker for romance, but the conflicts and hardship the characters face was really tear jerking and I'm interested in seeing the different endings that were not adapted into the anime.

Hyperdimension Neptunia -- So far it has been very cute and funny, with lots of meta jokes about the gaming/anime industry and adorable characters. It looks like it will provide me with much needed lighthearted breaks from the drama of ef over the next few weeks.

That's all for now!

-DysNeko

Pokemon, Xblaze and Winter 2015 Anime Preview!

Alright,

So I've gotten myself tied up in cleaning, moving furniture and sleeping and have hardly gotten anything played or watched! I have squeezed in some play time before bed either with Pokemon Omega Ruby or the Xblaze demo but I've been lacking some dedicated anime and gaming time. Here's what I got so far:

Omega Ruby is a 3DS remake of the Pokemon Ruby game that came out on the GBA I'm-getting-old years ago. I had played through its counterpart, Sapphire, so I thought I'd give the new Ruby a runthrough first. So far, the mechanics are the enjoyable standard --catch Pokemon, take down gym leaders, level up and catch more Pokemon ect. but with cooler 3D models and battle graphics. There is a lot of other new stuff I haven't gotten to yet so, TBC, but it's hard to go wrong with Pokemon!

I was surprised to find out that the BlazBlue prequel, Xblaze Code: Embryo, is a visual novel(VN) rather than a fighting game like others in the series. The voice acting is in Japanese, which is a plus for me, and the character designs are cute and interesting. You seem to be able to change the story by choosing to read (or not read) news articles relevant to understanding the underlying mystery of the story. The demo has been as interesting as a VN demo can be (read...read...read...) but the story is nothing spectacular so far. I'll probably end up picking it up unless the story takes a turn for the worst since there is such a dearth of VN's available to purchase in English and I'm interested in the BlazBlue fandom.

Otherwise, I've got a full week ahead of me as the Winter 2015 anime season starts up and a few late Christmas presents to myself are soon to arrive!

Coming soon:
ef- a fairy tale of the two
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1

Airing this week:
Tantei Opera Milky Holmes TD (ohno I haven't finished the earlier seasons crap)
Absolute Duo
Yuri Kuma Arashi
"Magical Boys"
Military!
KanColle
Shinmai Maou no Testament
Koufuku Graffiti
Juugo Mujinn no Fafnir
Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata
S2 Tokyo Ghoul (ohno I haven't finished the first season yet crap)

Here we go!

-DysNeko