What I just finished watching and what I thought about it 2 (USE SPOILER TAGS)

[samshadow999]

Finished Afro Samurai

To put this simply, stunning visuals, basic plot, all out action, an average show but worth seeing atleast once.

3/5 or 6/10

[ThePatches]

Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl - I liked it! Site review forthcoming.

[SilverSwift]

Just finished Trigun, the first anime I've watched in around a month! Very entertaining and good fun, although lacking a little depth and background in places (I hear that the manga is very much more fleshed out and with different characterisations, which is awesome). Still a great watch and a lot more than the regular action show it looked like on the face of it. 4/5. Some specific points:

Vash is an outstanding main character, and Wolfwood & the girls are almost as awesome. Knives is a pain in the ass with no depth whatsoever who seemed to lack meaningful motivation throughout (again, I hear this is notably different from the manga). Legato was pretty cool, although again the anime didn't do enough to sketch out his motives either, so he and Knives both came off as a bit...shallow, in terms of characterisation. Also, the reaction from Millie and the others after Wolfwood's death was heartbreaking, albeit done really well. =(

So yeah, great watch, highly recommend! Not sure what'll be next, maybe Bamboo Blade...

[chii]

Originally Posted by Nocturnalgloria

Maiden Rose
I am absolutely in love with the manga but this two episode OVA was subpar at best. The artistic values were absent, the music was jarring, the character design was a caricature of the original manga's. It does not help that it ends just when the relationship between Taki and Klaus begins to truly gain shape and to make sense. All the twisted angst is cheapened in the anime. The sex scenes were terribly handled too.
The greatest offender is probably the cute chibi epilogues after highly trauma inducing events. The manga is to be blamed for this, I'm afraid.

Rape and of a particularly nasty kind does not go hand in hand with neko mimi postscript-like bits. Taking into consideration that even by BL standards this was exceptionally brutal it simply boggles the mind.

sweet someone else loving this show XD

[Lyzl]

Originally Posted by Omurqi

Very little is still shocking / traumatizing after having seen a fair share of anime / internet randomness, I'll at least agree with you that much.

It was a good funnybad show, leaning heavily to the bad side of the word, although I'm intrigued that you're asking for more :P

Edit: Wow, I didn't actually expect there to be more, Papillon Rose

Ok, well, I don't think I'd actually spend the time to watch more, but if a bunch of friends wanted to have a fun time and watch some more, I wouldn't be against it. (Where with some other series, such as akikan, I would probably instantly say no).

[VivisQueen]

Victorian Romance Emma: Second Act

Oh oh oh! What a sweet and quietly beautiful ending. I enjoyed that. SO GLAD I finally found that last three episodes. 7.2/10.

[FireFlower]

Black Lagoon I & II and Air Gear

Black Lagoon: This series has a serious dark aura, that keeps following and gets stronger and stronger more you watch it. It is definitely in an other world that we cannot see with our eyes. I have to say Revy is very great character and dialogs with Rock are also rocking.

Air Gear: I have to say I really liked this series when I watched it first time and after second time it was pretty fun still but I didn't enjoy that much of it. I think it would have been a great visual novel with different options to happen in the story but sadly we don't yet have that much interactive movies / series.


And the next project is: Sakura Wars.

[ForgottenSon]

Spice and Wolf

I was under the impression that this show was supposed to be one of the best anime of recent years, so much more intelligent than those trite moe shows like Toradora! or cheesy crap like Code Geass R2. Perhaps I'm a colossal retard, but I find Spice and Wolf quite underwhelming.

Why is it necessary for Lawrence's companion to be a Wolf-God? If it is necessary for his companion to be a Lupine Deity, why does said deity have to behave like a obnoxious, teenage, human moron? Is it all for the sake of irony. Horo the Wise is in fact a self-centred child. Ho ho ho, I see what they did there. Totally worth hours of irritating, insolent conversation.

The show isn't redeemed by the setting - a core component of fantasy, akin to a main character in itself. This is just a shallow, Medieval Europe setting. Not that borrowing heavily from Medieval European history is a bad thing - GRRM does it fantastically - but if that's what you are doing make sure you use it for some commentary on the human society and psychology that makes its use relevant. Spice and Wolf might as well be set in a Japanese High School, like almost every other anime known to man.

Perhaps, though, it's my comparative economic illiteracy that prevents me from understanding Spice and Wolf. This does of course beg the question why the economics of this show seem basic, even to me. Between Lawrence explaining the "novel" trading goods for goods, avoiding entirely the use of money and him, a supposedly excellent merchant, sinking all of his substantial wealth into a commodity that he didn't check out the market for beforehand, I was deeply confused. Not by labyrinthine economic conspiracies - not that any meaningful focus is given to antagonists - that require an LSE graduate to unravel, but by how a plot such as this could be described as remotely clever. I mean good grief, barter is the oldest form of trade known to man. The smelliest, most undernourished peasant would know what barter is, let alone a well-educated noble. And what kind of merchant suddenly spends all his money, ney, goes into debt buying up one commodity without checking the market for it first just because he's getting it "cheap"? It's like buying up Northern Rock shares without bothering to read/watch the news simply because they're at an all-time low. This goes totally against Craft's - admittedly rather boring - character the first two-thirds of the show spent building up. The guy's cautious, not afraid to take a risk to earn money but always sure to keep a backup plan or 10. For him to suddenly do something so monumentally stupid defies all logic.

Fortunately, or sadly depending upon your perspective, this nonsense provides some of the shows most entertaining sequences. I actually half-care to see how Craft and Horo escape from peril, if only because it provides some respite from the usual focus on their exceedingly modern and exceedingly tiresome relationship.

I'd originally given this show 3 stars, but after this rant I think I'm going to mark it down.

[VivisQueen]

Lol. I thought Spice and Wolf was entertaining and deserving of 7/10. Most of my enjoyment came from Horo's performance, actually. But I never understood the hype behind the show as a whole as the plot was usually underwhelming as you put it. Interesting perspective.

[valondar]

Originally Posted by ForgottenSon

The show isn't redeemed by the setting - a core component of fantasy, akin to a main character in itself. This is just a shallow, Medieval Europe setting. Not that borrowing heavily from Medieval European history is a bad thing - GRRM does it fantastically - but if that's what you are doing make sure you use it for some commentary on the human society and psychology that makes its use relevant. Spice and Wolf might as well be set in a Japanese High School, like almost every other anime known to man.

I wouldn't go that far. The context of peasants abandoning pagan gods who oversaw their harvest for the Christian God (or some vaguely kinda sorta Christian god if I remember Spice & Wolf correctly) is a pretty integral context for the show's conceit and one of the more interesting ideas of the show. When the traditional gods of farmers get abandoned for an insutitionialised church, well, if they were real, what do they do then? (Eat apples, apparently. Is that about sin or does someone just like apples? Both, maybe.)

But yep, very Generic Medieval Europe-land, and the show's leads (bland, insert yourself here male and combination of various preferred fantasies female) could have wandered off any anime backlot. Perhaps they got lost in an doleful economic series that figured it could use the attention.

Nonetheless I found it an exceptionally enjoyable show personally (and Horo, if cliched, a rather good use of such), but eh.