Author Topic: What animes/series are you watching right now?  (Read 305223 times)

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Offline Gortef

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
Quite a lot of mecha anime is on air during this spring. I've checked these three at least.

Majestic Prince - So far this seems to be balancing between Wacky&Fun and Trying to be Cool.
Valvrave The Liberator - Feels like Sunrise is trying to make this the next Code Geass.
Suisei no Gargantia - This one is the most interesting one from these three candidates IMHO. The setting feels good enough and Chamber is quite a cool mech.
Habeeb it...

 

Offline FireSpawn

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
Was just thinking about acquiring the complete series of "DotHack" for my modest (read: almost nonexistent) anime library. Anyone have any opinion on it? Is it worth getting, will I need to read up on back story or get the games? Will I ever find out if Goku's soul bomb will charge in time to beat Freeza in the next exciting episode of DRAGON BALL Z? Does it actually have a proper plot?
If you hit it and it bleeds, you can kill it. If you hit it and it doesn't bleed...You are obviously not hitting hard enough.

Greatest Pirate in all the Beach System.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
It depends on which version of .hack you're talking about.  Do you mean the original series .hack//SIGN, or Legend of the Twilight Bracelet, or Roots, or something else I'm not aware of that may have come after that?

 

Offline FireSpawn

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
It depends on which version of .hack you're talking about.  Do you mean the original series .hack//SIGN, or Legend of the Twilight Bracelet, or Roots, or something else I'm not aware of that may have come after that?

And here's where I want the help. I have no fracking idea, besides people telling me "Hurr Durr, get Dot Hack! It r0x0rz b0x0rz, lolololroflmao n00b"...

Well maybe not that bad, but it's how they come across to me when they constanty say the same bloody vague reply as to WHY i should get it and what "It" is!  :mad:
If you hit it and it bleeds, you can kill it. If you hit it and it doesn't bleed...You are obviously not hitting hard enough.

Greatest Pirate in all the Beach System.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

 

Offline BloodEagle

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
My personal recommendation is to simply avoid it entirely.  If memory serves, everything following .hack//SIGN requires supplementary materials to understand.  (Another series to avoid over this is the (Tower/Shield/Sword of) Druaga series)

Watch Sword Art Online instead.  And Accel World.

 

Offline Dark RevenantX

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
Watch Sword Art Online instead

I'd recommend reading it instead.  The anime starts decently but then devolves to **** in the second half.  Accel World is pretty good though.

Watching Suisei no Gargantia right now.

 
Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
Was just thinking about acquiring the complete series of "DotHack" for my modest (read: almost nonexistent) anime library. Anyone have any opinion on it? Is it worth getting, will I need to read up on back story or get the games? Will I ever find out if Goku's soul bomb will charge in time to beat Freeza in the next exciting episode of DRAGON BALL Z? Does it actually have a proper plot?

Ooookay, this is always a fun question to answer.

.hack takes place a few decades into the future (or at least it did when it was written). There is a globally-popular MMO called "The World" that all the characters play. On the surface, it's a story about these players and what they get up to online. But "The World" is deeper than that: there are parts of the game that do not seem to follow the normal rules, and characters who get up to some strange activities. What's clear is that the game is hiding something sinister. Very little of the series takes place "offline", pretty much everything of import happens while players are playing the game. Furthermore, each installment usually stars a brand-new cast, with older characters occasionally making cameos.

The series is centered around the games. Those are where the main plotlines lie, and where the series storytelling is at its best, IMO. The first set of games (.hack//Infection, .hack//Mutation, .hack//Outbreak, and .hack//Quarantine) form the core of the "classic" storyline and have good characters and story, but very repetitive gameplay. It's fun enough, but it can get old after a while. The second set (.hack//GU, Volumes 1-3) is much improved on almost every count, and personally I count it as the peak of the series as far as the story goes. All of these games are on the PS2, if you're interested.

The two anime, .hack//SIGN and .hack//ROOTS, are prequels to the first and second sets of games, respectively. SIGN is amazing (very light on action, mostly dialogue, but it's good dialogue, good character development, and Yuki Kajiura writing the music). ROOTS is less so, but still decent.
But the point is that neither anime series fully resolves its plotline, as it leads directly into the games. (Well, SIGN sort of does, in that its main character gets closure, but the story continues without them.) There's a few anime movies that take place in the future of the series after the third game (which is not available in English), but they are more side stories than anything else.

The various novels and manga are either alternate (and non-canon) retellings or miscellaneous side stories. It's perfectly possible to enjoy the series without ever touching them: they just flesh out The World a bit more and show some alternate perspectives.

SO, my advice if you're looking to get into the series is to either get either set of games, which, as I said, contain the heart of the plot, or watch .hack//SIGN to get a taste of it, but know going in that it's going to leave questions unanswered, as it's a prequel. You can jump in at either set of games and enjoy what's going on, but the whole universe and plot only really comes together if you've read/watched/played everything.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2013, 12:06:12 am by Dark Hunter »
"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" -DEATH, Discworld

"You can fight like a krogan, run like a leopard, but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard!"

  

Offline Mongoose

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
I totally got beat to the punch, but who cares, Imma post anyway. :p

It depends on which version of .hack you're talking about.  Do you mean the original series .hack//SIGN, or Legend of the Twilight Bracelet, or Roots, or something else I'm not aware of that may have come after that?

And here's where I want the help. I have no fracking idea, besides people telling me "Hurr Durr, get Dot Hack! It r0x0rz b0x0rz, lolololroflmao n00b"...

Well maybe not that bad, but it's how they come across to me when they constanty say the same bloody vague reply as to WHY i should get it and what "It" is!  :mad:
Well, I can at least help a bit, since I do have some experience with the franchise.  .hack as a whole is very much a multimedia experience, with the anime/games/manga/novels all contributing, but SIGN works pretty well as a stand-alone product, since it's basically the beginning of that part of the story.  It's actually the show that first piqued my interest in anime, since I had this reaction of, "Huh...it's a cartoon, but it's a bunch of people standing around talking about personal stuff, instead of doing wacky hijinks!"  It has a pretty deliberate pacing, which I've seen some criticize as too slow, but I was fine with it myself.  Plus, its soundtrack is gorgeous.  SIGN acts as something of a lead-in to the original four-part PS2 game series: Infection, Mutation, Outbreak, and Quarantine.  Each of those was bundled with one episode of a four-part OVA called Liminality, which dealt with events happening at the same time as the games in a real-world setting.  Legend of the Twilight Bracelet was a follow-up series which focused mostly on different characters than SIGN and the games, but it wasn't all that great...aaaaand it has the rather dubious nickname of ".hack//Incest" for good reason. :lol:

After that, my knowledge trails off somewhat.  I know that the anime series Roots represents something of a "reset" of the franchise, taking part in an MMO that's a sequel to the one used as a backdrop for SIGN and the other earlier materials.  Just like SIGN did, it leads into its own set of video games, this time a three-parter called .hack//G.U.  However, I can't really tell you myself whether it's any good or not.

Bottom line?  I'd recommend giving SIGN a try, but beyond that, it's really up to you.

My personal recommendation is to simply avoid it entirely.  If memory serves, everything following .hack//SIGN requires supplementary materials to understand.  (Another series to avoid over this is the (Tower/Shield/Sword of) Druaga series)
As far as I'd heard, Tower of Druaga was fairly self-contained, since the only thing it was based on initially was a fairly-plotless NES title.  But maybe I'm mistaken.

 

Offline BloodEagle

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
My personal recommendation is to simply avoid it entirely.  If memory serves, everything following .hack//SIGN requires supplementary materials to understand.  (Another series to avoid over this is the (Tower/Shield/Sword of) Druaga series)
As far as I'd heard, Tower of Druaga was fairly self-contained, since the only thing it was based on initially was a fairly-plotless NES title.  But maybe I'm mistaken.

While Tower itself is fairly well contained, it's unfinished if you don't continue with shield/sword/whatever.  And those are the ones that bring in the stuff from other material.

I also found the ending to be completely unsatisfying, but that might just be me.

--

Watch Sword Art Online instead

I'd recommend reading it instead.  The anime starts decently but then devolves to **** in the second half.

I really wish they had tried to flesh out the relationships involving the side characters a little more, and let the first season end
Spoiler:
where he wakes up and wanders after her, rather than get into the whole second game thing.  It felt kind of tacked on to the rest of it. 

I'm also disappointed that the 'revive someone' item never came up after he got it.

 

Offline Droid803

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
I've only watched the anime for Tower of Druaga and I never even knew a) it was an adaptation and b) that there is more.
I thought it was totally fine and complete, tbh.

SAO is a decent premise turned to **** from horribad writing, still, it's a decent watch if you try not to think about it. The side stories are better than the main story - the Asuna/Kirito relationship is like starwars prequels level... The series as a whole had so much potential if it actually just followed the progression through the game as a survival story instead of hopping right to the end with some wish-fulfillment romance and cheesy ending (don't get me started on ALO, where the writing is even worse, and totally pointless). Not the anime's fault though, the originals are totally the same and even has a full on pr0ns chapter like some bad gary-stu fanfiction. The author even admits it...

Accel World is a whole lot better in that regard, I guess.


On another note, I'm watching Suisei no Gargantia, Shingeki no Kyojin (aka. Attack on Titan; Eotenas), and Valvrave the Liberator this season.
Thoughts so far:

Gargantia: wtf, this is supposed to be urobutcher? where is the despair? where are the exploding bodies D:
Eotenas: oh I guess this is where all the exploding bodies went
Valvrave: this is hilariously bad, in the good way. space vampire with geass bloodcells piloting a gundam who's special attack is committing sepuku fighting space nazis for a chunk of miniature dyson sphere the anime.
(´・ω・`)
=============================================================

 

Offline Fury

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
I have pretty much lost all faith in anime because they are almost all crap. Almost every season there are one or few watchable series, or if fortune so graces, even good series. Finding those seems to be an exercise in frustration though.

- Defiance. Doesn't seem to be good but jury's still out.
- Da Vinci's Demons. We'll see if Starz can pull another Spartacus with this series, but the concept is very different. Only seen one episode so far, so jury's still out.
- Elementary. Season's almost over but I am still not convinced this is worth watching. Guess that says about my available time more than quality of the series.
- Game of Thrones. Everybody loves this series except for me it seems. It's good entertainment but I haven't seen any episodes since latest season premiere.
- Grimm. Great show, I can recommend this one.
- NCIS. Used to be great show, but age is taking its toll.
- Person of Interest. It is hard to like the main character in this series, but other than that it's pretty decent.
- Revolution. Only seen one episode so far, but it does have some potential. Jury's still out on verdict.
- Supernatural. Used to be great show in the beginning, then hit by bad writing. This season has been its comeback and quality has been oddly close to what it used to be. Still, time's running out for this show and they should wrap it up soon.
- The Big Bang Theory. Again used to be good at the beginning but somehow the show became more mainstream since the first season. It still has some pretty good comedy every now and then, but I think they should wrap it up.
- Vegas. Great series, I can recommend this.
- Vikings. More based on legends than actual history. But still better than average series.
- Warehouse 13. I dropped this series after its ****ty season 2 finale but recently picked it up again. At times I don't know what I should think of writing in this series, but I guess it passes by being above average.

And series not currently airing.
- Breaking Bad. What more there is to say.
- Burn Notice. The series would have been better as more focused but it seems they have forcefully drawn the series out. Used to be great but now it's above average. We'll see how upcoming season works out.
- Strike Back. Good military action.
- Suits. There's just something in this series that's fun to watch.
- The Legend of Korra. First season was somewhat disappointing, especially its ending but I'll get what I can.

And last, what animes I am currently watching. The list is short for obvious reasons.
- Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. There's also manga but it seems that both are based on novels. So far decent.
- Hataraku Maou-sama!. There's manga too, but again both are based on novels. I quite enjoy watching this one.
- Suisei no Gargantia. It seems decent enough to keep watching, for now.
- Date a Live. Probably dropping this, after curious beginning it's going stupid very fast. Based on novels like manga adaptation, which was discontinued.

Will probably watch in the near future.
- Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S

 

Offline FireSpawn

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
Thanks a bunch Dark Hunter & Mongoose, you've shed quite a bit of light on the situation. And I think I'll give the whole thing a miss. I'm a bit of a comletionist and hate having questions left unanswered, so I'd have to go the whole nine yards if I started watching it. And I just can't afford to do that (both in HDD space and money) for one story that once I'd reached the end, would have left me questioning just why I sank so much time and money/Disk space into it.

If you hit it and it bleeds, you can kill it. If you hit it and it doesn't bleed...You are obviously not hitting hard enough.

Greatest Pirate in all the Beach System.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

 
Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
Fair enough, .hack is freaking expensive if you want to get everything. :p

Though I am a fan of the series, I haven't been keeping up with it as of late, largely because a lot of the more recent stuff hasn't been getting an English release.

Still, I'd recommend checking out the series' music. If nothing else, .hack always has fantastic music.
"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" -DEATH, Discworld

"You can fight like a krogan, run like a leopard, but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard!"

 
Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
- Revolution. Only seen one episode so far, but it does have some potential. Jury's still out on verdict.

Unless it's gotten much, much better recently, it's terrible. It's got tons of potential, but for the first... 6-8 episodes that I watched, I saw all of that potential get shoveled into the toilet and set on fire.

 

Offline Dark RevenantX

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
SAO is a decent premise turned to **** from horribad writing, still, it's a decent watch if you try not to think about it. The side stories are better than the main story - the Asuna/Kirito relationship is like starwars prequels level... The series as a whole had so much potential if it actually just followed the progression through the game as a survival story instead of hopping right to the end with some wish-fulfillment romance and cheesy ending (don't get me started on ALO, where the writing is even worse, and totally pointless). Not the anime's fault though, the originals are totally the same and even has a full on pr0ns chapter like some bad gary-stu fanfiction. The author even admits it...

The reason to read it is to get to the far better later material.  But yeah, slogging through ALO is a pain.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
I have pretty much lost all faith in anime because they are almost all crap. Almost every season there are one or few watchable series, or if fortune so graces, even good series. Finding those seems to be an exercise in frustration though.
Do what I do and just don't watch currently-airing stuff.  There are a few decades' worth of really good series and OVAs out there, and if you give the current seasons a few years, the worthwhile stuff tends to get filtered out and stand the test of time, so it'll be there when you decide to watch it.

 

Offline Fury

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
There are a few decades' worth of really good series and OVAs out there
I would venture to guess that I've seen all that there is worth to see. Ever since I visited this guy long time ago who I met in irc and copied his anime collections, watched them and then kept consuming anime like food, I've forgotten more anime than most people have seen in their lifetime.

And just now I realized how utterly sad that sounds when said out loud. **** me.

 
Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
Why aren't you hanging out in the WoD IRC with the rest of us anime geeks? ;)
17:37:02   Quanto: I want to have sexual intercourse with every space elf in existence
17:37:11   SpardaSon21: even the males?
17:37:22   Quanto: its not gay if its an elf

[21:51] <@Droid803> I now realize
[21:51] <@Droid803> this will be SLIIIIIGHTLY awkward
[21:51] <@Droid803> as this rich psychic girl will now be tsundere for a loli.
[21:51] <@Droid803> OH WELLL.

See what you're missing in #WoD and #Fsquest?

[07:57:32] <Caiaphas> inspired by HerraTohtori i built a supermaneuverable plane in ksp
[07:57:43] <Caiaphas> i just killed my pilots with a high-g maneuver
[07:58:19] <Caiaphas> apparently people can't take 20 gees for 5 continuous seconds
[08:00:11] <Caiaphas> the plane however performed admirably, and only crashed because it no longer had any guidance systems

 

Offline Fury

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
Because I never played WoD further than first few missions and because I've never had a need to have conversations with anime as subject.

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: What animes/series are you watching right now?
There are a few decades' worth of really good series and OVAs out there
I would venture to guess that I've seen all that there is worth to see. Ever since I visited this guy long time ago who I met in irc and copied his anime collections, watched them and then kept consuming anime like food, I've forgotten more anime than most people have seen in their lifetime.

And just now I realized how utterly sad that sounds when said out loud. **** me.
I've seen over 400 shows in all sorts of genres and I'm still discovering new stuff I've never heard of before.
You probably haven't seen as much as you think you have.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them