Skyline's Anime Blog Thread - Winter '11 - '12 - Snow Falls; Excuse to Watch Anime

[Skyline]

Previous Thread: Fall '11
Fall '11 Awards - User Note Section (User Note #3)

Alright, so I've made it past one season apparently. Yay for me.

So once again, in this thread, you will get the following:

• An absurd amount of anime, both currently airing and already aired, in which 95% of the titles you have probably never heard / never considered watching.
• Myself writing up some reviews, varying in length and content, about my opinions on what I watched. I focus on points that I find that are either the most successful points or the most glaring weaknesses of an anime usually.
• A very good chance of random discussions that relate to anime that come up.

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Alrighty, so, header image time!



<Source> <My Personal Favourite of the Fall Season; Review Post Link Below.>

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Here is my Fall Season Weekly Schedule:

<Fall Season Chart.>

• Sunday - Beelzebub (Continuing from last season), Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon, Mirai Nikki
• Monday - Kimi to Boku, Shinryaku!? Ika Musume
• Tuesday - Mashiro-Iro Symphony, Tamayura ~Hitotose~
• Wednesday - N/A
• Thursday - Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai, Guilty Crown, THE iDOLM@STER (Continuing from last season), UN-GO
• Friday - Shakugan no Shana III
• Saturday - Bakuman 2, Ben-To, C³, Fate/Zero, Working'!!

Notable specials to air / release during the fall:

• Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira - Review
• Hidamari Sketch x SP - Completed

Fall Anime Previews / First Impressions:

• C³, Fate/Zero, Ika Musume - Here
• Bakuman 2, Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai, Tamayura ~Hitotose~, Working'!! - Here
• Shakugan no Shana III - Here (If you want me to briefly expand on this: 3rd season ---> Stuff is going down; less focus on relationships, more on plot but still evident; expecting great things)
• Ben-To, Kimi to Boku, Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon, Mashiro-Iro Symphony - Here
• Guilty Crown, Mirai Nikki, and UN-GO - Here

Not Included: Beelzebub and THE iDOLM@STER due to being carried over from the Summer season.

Fall Anime Reviews:

• Ben-To and C³ - Here
• Tamayura ~Hitotose~ (Special Review) - Here
• Fate/Zero, Ika Musume S2, Kimi to Boku, Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon, and UN-GO - Here
• Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukuani, Mashiro-iro Symphony, and THE iDOLM@STER - Here
• Working'!! - Here

Already Aired Anime Reviews from Last Thread:

<MAL links are in the review posts.>

• Yuno Character Review (This is representative of Hidamari Sketch) (This sums up all 3 seasons along with the Specials mentioned above) - Here
• Aoi Hana and Kashimasi ~Girls Meets Girl~ - Here
• Fuujin Monogatari - Here
• Kamichu! - Here
• <The Anime that shall not be named> - Here
• Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (This includes Purezza / S2) and MM! - Here
• Hoshi o Ou Komodo and Seirei no Moribito - Here

Personal Winter Season Weekly Schedule

<Winter Season Chart>

• Sunday - Beelzebub (Carryover), Mirai Nikki (Carryover), Rinne no Lagrange
• Monday - Ano Natsu de Matteru, Another, Daily Lives of High School Boys, Gokujyo~. Natsume Yuujinchou Shi
• Tuesday - Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai!
• Wednesday - N/A
• Thursday - Amagami SS+, Black★Rock Shooter (TV), Guilty Crown (Carryover), Inu x Boku SS, Kill Me Baby, Recorder to Randoseru
• Friday - Senki Zesshou Symphogear, Shakugan no Shana III (Carryover)
• Saturday - Area no Kishi, Bakuman S2 (Carryover), Nisemonogatari, Zero no Tsukaima F

Misery's picks for me: Ano Natsu de Matteru, Recorder to Randoseru. and Senki Zesshou Symphogear.
My pick for Misery: Nisemonogatari *BECAUSE THIS GUY WASN'T GOING TO WATCH IT!*

Notable Specials / ONAs / OVAs / Etc...

• Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko - Episode 13 (Thanks a whole lot SHAFT for not "finishing" this anime for 6 months.) - Review
• K-On! (Movie) (Will have to wait for DVD / Blu-Ray releases but ya know? May as well put this on here since it does air this month.)
• Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira - Review
• Kyousogiga - Review
• Hayate no Gotoku: Heaven is a Place on Earth (Movie) (DVD releases this month w/ vol. 31 of manga.)
• Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Special - Review
• Toradora! Special - Review

Winter Anime Previews / First Impressions:

• Amagami SS+, Kill Me Baby, Natsume Yuujinchou Shi, Nisemonogatari, Recorder to Randoseru, Rinne no Lagrange, and Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Here
• Ano Natsu de Matteru, Another, Daily Lives of High School Boys, Inu x Boku SS, Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai!, and Zero no Tsukaima F - Here
• Black★Rock Shooter and Gokujo. - Here
• Area no Kishi - Here

<Winter Anime Rating Predictions.> || Add-ons:

• Black★Rock Shooter - Benefit of the Doubt
• Gokujo. - Somewhere in-between Benefit of the Doubt and Hope Lost
• Area no Kishi - Going to be Solid

Already Aired Anime Reviews for This Thread:

<MAL links are in the review posts.>

• Umi Monogatari: Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto - Here
• Ashiteruze Baby and Serial Experiments Lain - Here
• Genshiken and Pumpkin Scissors - Here
• Kino no Tabi and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt - Here
• Stratos 4 - Here
• To aru Hikuushi e no Tsuioku (Light Novel and Movie) - Here

Anime that are ridiculously delayed (a.k.a. may never finish depending on what happens):

• Deadman Wonderland (Last episode still delayed... yippee...)
• Kaichou wa Maid-Sama! (Wait continues to a long, long, long time.)
• Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love 1000% (This continues to be Kagacode's fault.)

Skyline's Dream Anime: Animation and Presentation (Series):

• Chapter 1 - Flashbacks - Here
• Chapter 2 - "What If?" - Adaptations - Here
• Chapter 3 - Opening / Ending Songs - Here

For everything else:

MAL List of Semi-Absurd Length

Latest Update: Tuesday March 20th, 2012 @ 12:05 PM MST (GMT -7)
Changelog:

• Updated episode counts for Winter Anime

Previous Update: Sunday March 11th, 2012 @ 9:22 PM MST (GMT -7)
Changelog:

• Added Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Special to Completed - Review Here
• Updated episode counts for Winter Anime

Once again, too lazy to type everything I want to watch / plan to watch / etc..., so there's my MAL link. I'll try to update after every review post and notify you guys when it is completed.

Backlog is actually below 40 at the moment, which means the backlog is getting somewhere.

Other people's MAL lists

Because:

a) I'm not the only person with one.
b) I'm pretty sure they have animes on their lists that I don't.
c) Better coverage of what people have watched.

• Co2 Elite - Here
• GnawIron - Here
• MiSeRy - Here

If you have a MAL, and are fine with it being it on the OP, feel free to post yours too.

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And that wraps up that. Here's the question I asked the end of the Fall thread, just to repeat it again:

Originally Posted by Skyline

How was everyone's Fall season? Regardless of whether or not it was airing anime or not, what were your favourites that you watched and what were your least liked.

First review(s) for this thread comes before the end of the weekend.

[Ice Car]

Are you ever going to watch Gintama? Show is hilarious... Not so much on story as it is on filler... Tons and tons of filler, the story itself is actually quite strange and not too serious. But that's the point... You can take your time with it and watch a few episodes and continue later.

Also, FIRST!

[Skyline]

My only real guideline about picking up animes (Aside from a few exceptions, probably like three) is this:

• Less than or equal to 52 episodes per season.

Beelzebub is probably going to break this rule, as no one seriously knows when it's going to end. FMA: Brotherhood also breaks this rule as well but I watched the first rendition of it. The only other one I can think off the top of my head is Touch, a 110-episode series that I plan to watch.

In short, there is very little chance of me picking anything that is incredibly lengthy, including Gintama. This makes it so that reviews generally come at a weekly pace and that no anime I watch really outlasts its stay. That's how I've usually worked.

[Ice Car]

Originally Posted by Skyline

My only rule about picking up animes (Aside from a few exceptions, probably like three) is this:

• Less than or equal to 52 episodes per season.

Beelzebub is probably going to break this rule, as no one seriously knows when it's going to end. FMA: Brotherhood also breaks this rule as well but I watched the first rendition of it. The only other one I can think off the top of my head is Touch, a 110-episode series that I plan to watch.

In short, there is very little chance of me picking anything that is incredibly lengthy, including Gintama. This makes it so that reviews generally come at a weekly pace and that no anime I watch really outlasts its stay. That's how I've usually worked.

There are about 200 episodes, yes, but I'm pretty sure each season individually is about 20 or 25 episodes. (A lot of fourth wall breaking, they basically tell you when a season has ended or started. ) As I've said, you don't really have to knock it all at once or very fast. You could just watch it periodically. I stopped at episode 50 and haven't gotten around to watching the rest of it for months.

[Co2 Elite]

So Skyline I heard you like School Days.

I really need to watch Usagi Drop already. I've been meaning to but just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe I'll watch it after I finish finals for this semester (ugh).

[GnawIron]

I have a MAL you can add to the OP http://myanimelist.net/animelist/GnawIron

[Skyline]

Well, I let this fall of the map fast. Sorry guys.

Blame the following events:

Sunday: Watching Fighting Game Stream
Monday: Destroying myself on a program I've never used before from 8 that night to 7 the next morning.
Tuesday: The Witcher
Wednesday: Another Stream
Thursday (Tonight): Who knows. Maybe I'll actually review after I finish catching up on my airing animes (See after quotes for details.)

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Originally Posted by Ice Car

There are about 200 episodes, yes, but I'm pretty sure each season individually is about 20 or 25 episodes. (A lot of fourth wall breaking, they basically tell you when a season has ended or started. ) As I've said, you don't really have to knock it all at once or very fast. You could just watch it periodically. I stopped at episode 50 and haven't gotten around to watching the rest of it for months.

I'd probably lose interest before I finished.

The thing with anything over 52 episodes, aside from the exceptions, is that I'm only going to finish them if I'm watching it while airing.

Watching Beelzebub, which is pretty much 2010's edition of making a incredibly long anime, can be tedious if I let the episodes pile up. Once, I was 6 episodes behind, and that took some will to catch up. And with its length, 6 episodes is an eternity. 6 episodes in a 12 episode non-slice of life series, however, develops rather quickly simply because the timeline is quick.

Originally Posted by Co2 Elite

So Skyline I heard you like School Days.

I really need to watch Usagi Drop already. I've been meaning to but just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe I'll watch it after I finish finals for this semester (ugh).

I should start re-banning those two words together in this thread, shouldn't I?

As for Usagi Drop, you'll get around to it and it'll be worth for your time.

Originally Posted by GnawIron

I have a MAL you can add to the OP http://myanimelist.net/animelist/GnawIron

Thanks. I'll put that up.

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9:40 PM - Skyline [ =) ]: Alright.
9:40 PM - Skyline [ =) ]: It's that time again.
9:40 PM - Skyline [ =) ]: Time to decide the order of which I watch episodes.
9:42 PM - Skyline [ =) ]: Re-arrange the letters A - F.
MiSeRy is now Online.
9:44 PM - MiSeRy: D, A, F, B, E, C
9:45 PM - Skyline [ =) ]: I CALLED IT.
9:45 PM - Skyline [ =) ]: I ******* CALLED IT.
9:45 PM - MiSeRy: No way...
9:45 PM - MiSeRy: NO WAY.
9:46 PM - Skyline [ =) ]: HORIZON, BEELZEBUB, KIMI TO BOKU, NATSUME S3, HAGANAI, MIRAI NIKKI.
9:46 PM - Skyline [ =) ]: I. *******. CALLED. IT.
9:46 PM - MiSeRy: Well ****...
9:46 PM - MiSeRy: HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE!?
9:47 PM - MiSeRy: >_>
9:50 PM - MiSeRy: Forever linked I guess...

This is a warning to all of you. Never let Misery choose an anime for you to watch and add that anime into a list that he has to arrange. For 3 weeks, he has picked Horizon 3 straight times. First time was with 5 animes, second time was a literal coin flip, and this was 6.

Review hopefully comes tomorrow at the latest. I actually do want to get to writing this review simply because... well... it trolled me. And it was pretty gosh darn good at it. /Respect.

Sidenote:

Does anyone what to know why I was doing what I was doing on Monday?

[Skyline]

And thus, it's Friday past Midnight. Go figure right? Don't worry though, another review post will hopefully come in a few days to compensate. And besides, there's a mountain of reviews coming next week right?

For my excuse for why I did nothing this weekend:



I was watching people get hype. That enough?

For the rest of the week:

Psychonauts, Defense Grid, and screwing around.

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So, due to my week of The Witcher, stream monstering, and other things, I'm WAYYY behind on my airing anime. From what I count, there are 8 animes I need to catch up on at the moment. Regardless, I'll continue doing this:

Tamayura ~Hitotose~ (Up to Episode 11.)



... I'm gonna enjoy re-watching this series. I really am. I know that it sounds crazy coming from me, but I've learned a lot from this anime. There's a sense of being able to relate to what each episode shows, and understand it.

This is probably why I'm glad I prefer Slice of Lives over other genres. You'd be amazed about how much you learn about yourself by watching others.

Shakugan no Shana III (Up to Episode 10; Episode 11 to be watched.)



I chose this picture because it looked cool. Any objections to that?

Fate/Zero (Up to Episode 12.)



Okay, I'm going to have to give credit where it's due. Rider in Fate/Zero is a pretty awesome character. That and his Noble Phantasm is pretty dope as well.

Bakuman S2 (Up to Episode 12.)



Miura, I can relate buddy.

C³ (Up to Episode 11.)



Rainbow trollface.

/Deal with it.

Working'!! (Up to Episode 10.)



I'm gonna be honest here in reply to this picture:

Sometimes, I feel like people should just do that when they want to ask me something instead of actually texting me. Despite being from the new age, I honestly do not like cell phones. I simply don't.

Reason being is that:

a) I rarely use mine anyways.
b) It barely serves any purpose as it ends up just being for my parents to call me. I've only needed the internet once on it, texting maybe 3 times a month, and calling? Probably once or twice.

/Old school person.

Ben-To (Up to Episode 11.)



... I feel sorry for Asebi. I really do. But hey, she's always having fun so can't blame her.

Guilty Crown (Up to Episode 10; Episode 11 to be watched.)



Alright, I actually want to talk about this episode.

In complete honesty, I understood half of what was going on. This episode felt like it progressed in so many ways way too quickly for me to able to comprehend things on the fly. It could of been because I just woke up, but right from the start, I honestly felt like I was missing something in-between episode 9 and 10. Then it continued to snowball (no pun intended since this is the winter thread) where, at the end, you've probably thought about what the heck was going on that that you finally understood, for the ending to be even more confusing.

So yeah. I'm not sure where Production I.G. is going with Guilty Crown at this point in time. I'm calling the "This show needs two airing seasons" flag. For what it's trying to accomplish, I can say that it needs more than 22 episodes.

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Onto the Review! But first things first:

Natsume S3



Finally, I was able to finish it. I'm not going to do a review, because S4 is airing this season (Yeah, S3 in Summer; S4 in Winter) and I'm honestly expecting nothing different between S3 and S4. That means that S4 is going to be absolutely awesome.

I'm pretty sure when I reviewed S1 and S2 a long time ago, I gave it a 8.5/10. I'll give it a 9/10 this time around.

Now for the actual review:

Umi Monogatari - Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto

Amazon Japan Link (DVD Vol.1 ; No dub is currently present.)



So you may be wondering how this anime trolled me:

1) Since I didn't read the MAL synopsis (I actually rarely do and go straight to planning to watch it), I was expecting a Slice of Life.
2) First episode - sure, Second episode made me assume it'll be a magical girl anime of the typical kind.
3) After that went on for a few episodes, it does a 180. And I mean that.



Umi Monogatari is not your typical Magical Girl anime. It's not even a Slice of Life technically speaking. It's an anime that has a pretty damn good underlining story behind it. Beyond the glittering effects, the stereotypical episodic format of the first half, and the "I've seen this a thousand times before" character personalities in general, there's some very real meanings that correlate to the story. And I'm here to talk about them. Even when I finished this a couple of a weeks ago, it actually still impresses me.

<The following may be confusing. Please ask if there's anything that doesn't quite make sense.>

Before I start, I have to say this: Yes, the following is actually pretty crucial

The main idea here is Light vs. Dark (Or in this specific case, Happiness vs. Sadness). Sounds normal for a magical girl anime right? There's this one side that is doing things for good and the other side doing things for bad. If you haven't watched a magical girl anime before, try thinking of it like Power Rangers (Totally went there). What intrigues me is that Umi Monogatari takes that idea and warps in such a way that indirectly states: "What if the darkness was made by that light?" It's pretty true to life, amazingly enough. If you want me to give you a literal version of that, it would be along the lines of people just trying to be perfect. Now, for folks that have done enough philosophy thinking, you know where that statement goes: that we can't be perfect yet we still try to. Umi Monogatari, in essence, is able to label the cause and the effect of us trying to be perfect.

Branching out from that is the concept of honesty. Now, what you say is not entirely what you actually want to say. Thus, making yourself happy can sometimes be outweighed by making others happy. This goes into the realm of personalities, where some prefer one side, others the other, and a few attempting to balance the two. Regardless of the choice, it places a burden on us that is often kept in. It can build up over time, to a point where it can all just boil over, or perhaps when we just want to throw it away onto something else. Umi Monogatari uses this to great effect by progressing the plot using this concept (Which actually is pretty critical, in more ways than one). I fairly enjoyed the change of pace that this anime showed from your standard magical girl anime.

From honesty, let's move onto hatred. I'm sure that at one point or another, we've imagined some horrible things. People are like that, ya know? Sometimes though, those imaginations become reality if not handled correctly. However, like honesty, are you willing to put aside your own desires so that others' may be first? After all, the one you may have hatred towards isn't your average internet troll, but rather one that has much more significance in your life. And yes, while this sounds like a repeat paragraph, it goes to show that hatred and honesty deal with the same things, and even are on the same side at times. Umi Monogatari shows this side quite well with one of the main characters embracing this idea of hatred (Similarity, honesty has its own representative as well.)

So what's the point in the middle of those two things? Misunderstandings (Faults if you want something a bit more general). The majority of the causes of Umi Monogatari are based on the general idea of misunderstanding. While misunderstandings are evident in every anime, they rarely are used in a serious setting, much less one that has it being the center of all causes. With how Umi Monogatari turned out, misunderstandings influence the sides I mentioned above: Honesty and Hatred.

For instance:

Spoiler: In the 2nd episode, she throws around the word 'love' at Kanon a lot. Now, Urin, her sister, misunderstands Marin's honest feelings to be of that of betrayal or abandoning. As a few episodes pass, and things start progressing, Urin feels more and more separated from Marin, despite Marin never wanting to be separate from her. This is only Urin's assumption on the matter, but it's one that grows wings, so to speak, and begins to take flight.

While Umi Monogatari may be taking the idea of misunderstandings to the extreme here, it wouldn't have as much as an impact if it didn't evolve into something that is on motif level. Many of the plot revelations in Umi Monogatari are based on a misunderstanding at the start of it. Whether that be the on the 1st episode or even the last, it is represented in many ways.

Just taking theory talk here: we, as people, are afraid of things. Whether that be change, varying opinions, phobias, etc..., we try our hardest to wipe them from our existence. What we don't realize is that trying to remove these things can have negative effects down the road. Think of it as being short-sighted. We only see what is in front of us, rather than including what's in the distance as well. It's like living a "Day-by-day" lifestyle you could say, but it isn't entirely the same since day-by-day, you develop the path ahead of you and walk in front of it the next day. But enough of that I suppose.

So in summary, Umi Monogatari is a good troll. On the outside, it gives you the sense of knowing what will come next, and knowing how the characters are. On the inside, it's an interesting, and possibly over-exaggerated, take on how one perceives and deals with negativity.

8.5/10

Again, I apologize if there are parts that may not be completely understandable. Please reply asking me to simplify it if you'd like.

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So that's it. MAL update coming now before I go to sleep.

Next post should be in 2 - 3 days, depending on whenever or not I get more games from the Steam Sale. The next things to review are actually a couple OVAs. Oh, and I'll start rolling out the Fall Anime reviews next post most likely as well. Prepare for lots of praising though.

[Co2 Elite]

I'm just going to leave this right here. Hope you guys are enjoying your holidays.

[MiSeRy]

Originally Posted by Co2 Elite

I'm just going to leave this right here. Hope you guys are enjoying your holidays.

Oh God no!!