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Making my way through season 2 of One Piece. New ending credit song! I was just starting to memorize the first ending song. At least now it's not the 'Luffy n'Sanji' show anymore. I was starting to miss Zoro and Usopp.
While it's still fresh in my mind, here are some of my thoughts on Oregairu:
Spoiler: click to toggle
At first glance, I somewhat expected a cookie-cutter rom com, and all the usual tropes seemed to be there: A lovely tsundere, a shy outcast mc, etc. However, this notion was quickly dispelled, and I felt walking away that the series was intended to be a parody of sorts on the genre as a whole, and quite a brilliant parody it is. I have to admit though, I was hoping for a little bit of romance, but the closest we get to that is this kinda creepy Yaoi-esque relationship between Hikki and uh, the boy that looks like a girl that I refer to as "Boku no Pico Guy". What the hell, it works. Despite that tinge of disappointment, the series quite well-done from the animation to the voice acting, and most importantly, the plot and writing.
Despite that fact that a fair bit of the writing is meant as a satire, there are some poignant lines about what it feels like to be a loner, breaking down the social hierarchy of high school, basically anything you might have felt as an introverted high school student. I know I had a high school experience that was similar, and I definitely related to the commentary on those sorts of things. This kind of empathy is all made possible because Hikigaya is such a relatable protagonist. Sure, he has somewhat of a volatile personality, but for the most part I felt his self-deprecating sense of humor to be a breath of fresh air, and he does have a little bit of tenderness in him despite his weirdo exterior. The fact that he gets dumped on by just about everyone including himself makes him the consummate everyman. The constant incredulous look on his face makes him perfect for this kind of show, and he always seems to have a witty remark that seems to be exactly the opposite of what you should say in a certain situation. But it's that kind of brazen (or stupid) attitude that makes him great.
MC aside, the other characters are a bit predictable, but fun nevertheless. Yukino is an intelligent young woman with a sharp tounge and a penchant for making harsh observations about the other character's personalities and tendencies. To me, she came off as a bit of a predictable Tsundere, we later learn she grew up in the shadow of her older sister, but all in all, she's not really quite as compelling as Hikigaya is, though she does do well as his foil.
Yughama was probably my favorite female character in the show. Her bubbly personality and general aloofness made me smile. She was a breath of fresh air and this kind of genuine care for others that helps Yukino break out of her shell and be slightly less of a Tsundere.
The plot was relatively straightforward, and served well to provide interesting interactions between the main characters, such as the fireworks ceremony, the ritzy hotel, though I felt it somewhat waned towards the end.
In the end, I greatly enjoyed this series, it made me smile.
It's currently 5:30am, and I just finished Bakemonogatari a short while ago... Even if it was slow at first, it's really an interesting show.
Bakemonogatari 9/10
“Being kind to everyone, simply means there’s no one special.”
Story: (8 / 10) The general (spoiler-free) plot is at first glance very simple. Araragi finds out about an aberration in some way, and then proceeds to deal with it in some way. Simple enough. However, even if all of these “arcs” may seem pretty standalone, they all sort of tie together in a not-so-direct story related event, but how they all affect Araragi’s relationships with people.
I thought each of the “problems” that appear throughout the series were quite well done, and rather interesting, and most of the episodes had small twists to further entice the viewers.
As you probably know, this is a very dialog-heavy show, and so at first I thought it felt kind of slow. However, once you actually get into it, that problem quickly disappears. But because this is so focused around the dialogues, and they don’t always talk about things related to any aberration or anything else seemingly related to the story of the episode, it can be hard to follow (or even remember) what the original point of the conversation even was.
Even with this minor complaint, the show manages to keep you interested with whatever’s going on, whether it’s an exorcism or talking about things you’ve heard on the radio.
Art: (9 / 10) The art in this anime is simply amazing. While the quality of the art and the detailed backgrounds are a big plus, that’s not all that makes up for the amazing art; It’s also about the very special way things are visually presented. As someone else pointed out before me, a lot of the art in Bakemonogatari more or less serve as visual aid, as opposed to eye-candy. This is clearly exemplified by the “text-only screens” (I’m unsure what to actually call them, to be honest), where it’s simply a single-colored background with a single line of text. This can sometimes be a repetition of what was just said, to sort of “enhance” the message trying to be delivered, and sometimes they transition between these screens really fast, to write out entire pieces of the story, (so to speak).
Another thing is how there’s not really a lot of movement going on in the scenes. While there are some scenes featuring the characters walking somewhere, and even the occasional fighting scene, which all have very fluid and good-looking animations when it actually comes down to it, a lot of the scenes play out with the characters sitting down, or moving from place to place in between jump cuts. Because of this, a lot of the scenes may sometimes have weird camera angles, a lot of jump cuts (as I just said) with characters switching positions in the area, and of course the occasional head tilt and “hair twitch”.
All of this serve to keep the viewer interested throughout all of the dialog the show presents, as I think it might’ve been a pretty boring experience had they done it any other way, whether they just had a static image of the characters currently talking, or more “normal” animation techniques....
Sound: (8 / 10) In a series so focused on talking, it obviously won’t work out if you have “bad” voice actor’s, or VA’s who don’t really seem to know what they’re doing. Fortunately, this is not the case for Bakemonogatari at all. All of the voice actors do a very good job in portraying their respective characters, and they’re all a joy to listen to. The cast also features one of my favorite voice actors, Hanazawa Kana, as a somewhat important character, so bonus points for that!
As for the music, I think it’s an overall great OST. A total of 5 different openings are used (one for each arc?), including one by Hanazawa Kana; However, only a single ending song is used, “Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari” sung by Supercell’s Nagi. The actual background music is also very well done, and adds a lot to each scene, whether it’s a loving moment between two characters, or an intense battle between Araragi and an aberration.
Characters: (9 / 10) This would also be a section very important to an anime like this, but yet again they’ve succeeded in creating interesting & enjoyable characters. All of the characters are rather different from each other, which makes for a nice contrast when they’re interacting with each other. There is character development present throughout the story, though all characters don’t share as much of this as the others do, however it’s not really needed for these characters to develop any further at the moment either.
It’s really a well done and interesting cast of characters which, again, is important to a series so focused on dialog, because having emotionless drawings talk about stuff would really take away from the feeling they’ve managed to draw out with their work.
Enjoyment: (9 / 10) At first I was a bit reluctant, and didn’t think I’d enjoy this very much (or well, not as much as I did), since as far as I knew it was basically 90% dialog. But somehow, because it’s so well done and whatnot, I really enjoyed just watching the characters talk to each other even if it did feel slow at first, and I’ll happily watch the rest of the franchise hoping for the same level of enjoyment.
I've never quite encountered an anime that could be so gut-wrenching and emotional, yet so crudely funny. Through sheer brilliance, Angel Beats manages to be an all-encompassing series, with a little bit of everything all thrown together and weaved in a beautiful web of awesome. With a torrid plot, memorable characters, and terrific writing, it tell's the story of a cast of characters, raging against the cruel life they were dealt in a kind of limbo if you will, an afterlife world that seems so alive yet so empty at the same time.
The object of their ire is Angel, who later we find out is Kanade. As they carry on their seemingly endless struggle, we get to the real meat of Angel Beats, and that is it's amazing cast of characters. Each one has their own brutal life story to tell, I thought Yurippe's was truly awful, and Hinata's made me feel more strongly about his character. The flashback's are really just genius. While incredibly emotional and mostly depressing, they really make you feel and care about these characters, it's almost as if you know them. The flashbacks also serve to show how painful and short life can be, perhaps none of the back-stories had more of an impact on me than Otanashi's.
He's one of the most compelling MC's ever; a young boy with a terminally ill sister, no direction or purpose in life, until his sister's illness stirs a fire in his heart, and he sets out to become a doctor, to heal and help people, even signing up to donate his organs upon death in the process. His life is cruelly ripped away in a train wreck while on the way to take a test to become a doctor. He's almost like the perfect MC, a good-spirited guy with a sense of humor, useful in a pinch, but also the ability to gauge the feelings, hopes, and dreams of his comrades. It makes him the perfect person to help send people along to the true after life. Simply put, he's the man.
Those last few episodes, (in particular the last) were nothing short of masterpieces. Really, the whole anime was an avant-garde meditation on life, death, life after death, and everything in-between. It's tough to describe, it makes you happy, sad, it makes you want to appreciate life more, especially after watching some of those flashbacks.
There's never been an anime that's had this kind of impact on me, and I don't know that there ever will be another like Angel Beats. I feel like I could write more, but most of you guys have seen it, and I think you know just how I feel.
Almost done with Nagasarete Airantou. Can be funny at times, but I have yet to figure out why it's a 26-episode series when there's absolutely no plot nor character development... Not to mention there are so many bath scenes for rehashed comedy.
So, since I was getting tired of that, I started Trigun.
No regrets. Probably going to spend my entire day tomorrow finishing it.