Anime Summer 2014Follow

Sailor Moon - Pretty decent. There are some oddities with the CG, especially during the transformation sequence, but in general I really like the new art style.

Sword Art - Can't really judge this yet because absolutely nothing happened in the first episode.

I'm still waiting for Tokyo ESP next week but I'm not that interested in anything else this season.

I read that up to the time skip and it was okay. It did remind me about Tokyo Ghoul, which I thought would be about zombies when I first started reading. It kind of is, but not the shambling undead type. I'm kind of curious about it animated, but not curious enough to check on it myself.

Sailor Moon is apparently once every other week, which already makes me feel like dropping it.

-Tokyo Ghoul is trying very hard to not accidentally say the word "vampires." Other than that it's a decent but mundane grim dark action series. The anime has markedly improved art, pacing, and narrative style over the manga in its favor.
-Space Dandy looks to be more of the same dice roll of episodes, starting off on a high note.
-Black Butler is still the same passable fujoshibait with victorian airs. I never tire of that cheesy line "I'm oen hell of a butler."
-Sword Art is impressive really. The author seems to honestly know so very little about games, economics, technology, tropes, or anything he has written about. I've had part of the ending spoiled for me by a friend and it's pretty hilarious how it makes absolutely all the events in the show entirely pointless. It might as well been a dream all along.

-Ceoncoroll 2 should be coming out soon. I look forward to it.

Edited, Jul 13th 2014 3:05pm by Allegory

JoJo is still going strong.

Sorry, JoJo's Bizzare Adventure.

The original manga was drawn in the 80's, and the creator refused to allow the anime to be created unless it was extremely faithful to the manga. It's a really good series, and if you do decide to watch it from Season One it the action gets going from episode 3 and on. Episode 1 and 2 are backstory for the main characters.

Haven't read the light novels, Spoilerbut I'm guessing that Shino's friend Asakawa is Death Gun.

KLK is a very well done and trope aware show.

The one thing holding me back is that it's a giant download, 40gb or so if I remember correctly. Still not that big a deal I guess so maybe I should try it.

Just finished watching Knights of Sidonia. It's exclusive to Netflix for the moment, and there's only 10 or so episodes so far, but it's very well done. Interesting setting and story, very good animation, and they don't bog down any one episode with too much exposition/backstory. Plus, most of the anime cliches--giant robots vs. giant monsters, random awkward teenager is "the chosen one", random awkward teenage inexplicably has several cute girls fighting over him, etc.--don't feel too terribly worn-out (they are a bit - it was only cute when Aquarion did it because that show was so over-the-top cheesy).

Overall very pleased with it, and apparently the second "season" is in development right now. My only concern is that the plot of said second season seems pretty obvious based on the last episode. Long story short, Spoilerthe stereotypical entitled, arrogant rich kid wants to watch the world burn, but will invariably be dissuaded from destroying everything by the overwhelming kindness of the friendly protagonist. Stop me if you've heard that one before.

I marathoned the full twelve episodes on Saturday night. I more or less agree with most of what was written here, though I think they managed to handle the whole "random awkward teenage inexplicably has several cute girls fighting over him" thing better than most series. It was more logical since he fairly quickly became a celebrity thanks to Spoilerthe captain's constant interventions making him stand out.

Edited to add:I have no words. Let me ask Nathan Explosion what he has to say about that.
Thank you, Nathan. But seriously, while I wouldn't go and call this show dark, Spoilerit racks up quite a body count, the ruling council is totally messed up and one of the main characters even dies. Calling this "lighthearted" is like Gen Urobuchi saying Madoka would be "a heartwarming, happy story".

Edited, Jul 20th 2014 11:41pm by Poldaran

SpoilerI HAVE A THICK. MEATY. ******.

*dry heaving sounds* I haven't stopped laughing.

Quack.

I'm not necessarily calling the show itself brutal. I'm saying that the fact that this is an attempt at a lighthearted, upbeat story is brutal.