I completely agree.

As for Umineko... Did they at least do the epic magic battles justic?

I haven't noticed any pacing problems with Deadman, though I'm not entirely sure where it's going. They've only got three episodes left to wrap the thing up and unless they want to go the uber depressing route that means dealing with Shiro's backstory and secret identity and bringing down the whole prison in that time. And Ginta's got absolutely no leads on how to do so considering how badly the last plan fell apart.

I'm still not quite caught up on Cashern but yeah, every episode so far has been depressing. Though I've seen worse in that regard. Both Bokurano and Zegapain were considerably more depressing. And, overall, I really liked Zegapain (the characters and story were pretty interesting and the ending was fairly positive) so I'm not going to drop Cashern just for that. Bokurano isn't bad either, but it's pretty dark and twisted in addition to depressing. The best thing about it by far is the awesome opening theme, which made me a fan of Chiaki Ishikawa.

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Colly and I have actually been watching quite a few anime this season! I don't know how we're managing that, but we are! So, now that they're nearing they're end, I'm gonna give a quick review of what's been going on:

Psycho-Pass - just ended (it's 22 episodes and started last season) and I'd highly recommend it. Written by Urobuchi, who also wrote Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero, and Saya no Uta, it's... well, pretty dark, I guess. But honestly not as much so as some of his other works. Which is good! Because forced DEEPness isn't a good thing. Not that Psycho-Pass is exempt, though it's more forced "We're super smart here" with all of its arbitrary literary references. But... I appreciated that because I caught most of them... never would have expected a Foucault reference in my animu, and Shakespeare's common but to pick Titus Andronicus of all things! ...Anyway. It's a Dystopian future story, based around a technology that can read people's emotional stability - their "Psycho-Pass" - and capability to commit a crime. It can dictate people's futures based on this and the whole thing is... generally very interesting. Check this one out if you haven't already. It's an original series too, not based on a manga or novel.

Chihayafuru - is on its second season now and it's just as good, if not better, than the first. I'm not actually sure if it's officially classified as a shoujou or jousei series, but like... it's... really good. It's about Chihaya, a competetive karuta player. And it blends in high school life and love triangles (like any shoujou must have) with Japanese culture and poetry, but most importantly, with the awesome karuta matches. But it's nothing like Saki, that ridiculous super powers Mahjong anime... nobody has special magical powers. Good luck some times, but it's all real techniques that people playing professional karuta actually use. THIS is the series that I look forward to every week. It's animated by Madhouse and based on a manga of the same name.

Tamako Market - Light and fluffy KyoAni Slice of Life. Mostly. If it was only that, it would actually be a lot better. The animation is cute and all the characters are memorable and likeable (except the super jealous lesbian anyway), but most importantly the cast isn't limited to 100% high school girls. The main character works in her father's Mochi shop, and all the other local shop keepers are important and diverse and make the series stand out from all the other generic moeblob slice of life anime. It has one major flaw, unfortunately... it thinks it has a plot. There's some stupid crap going on about this magical talking bird from a mysterious island that came to seek the destined bride for his prince! ...It doesn't work, it's forced, none of the other characters respond accurately, and more than anything it's a stupid plot to begin with. but everyone complained that K-On didn't have a story so they tried to force one in... if only they hadn't. This one is also original, no manga or light novel before it.

Kotoura-San - This one's mostly a light and fluffy slice of life, high school girl meets extremely perverted high school guy and a romance ensues, they join the Psychic Powers Research club and make friends and do high schooly things. But what caught us on this one was... well, the first episode is... ok, so the reason why Kotoura joined the Psychic Powers club int eh first place is because she actually has them. And because of it, everyone hates her and her parents get divorced and that poor cat gets killed and that's the first episode. So, I mean, it's... something. Based on a 4koma manga.

Vividred Operations - Uuuuugh. Writer of Sora no Woto and the character designer of Strike Witches means it should be good, right? But the plot is stupid, the characters are plain (also, they completely stole Homura from Madoka and just pasted her in there, I guess to cash in on the hype), and it over-sexualizes middle school girls' posteriors. Plus... their magical girl attacks and combinations... consist of "Naked <Weapon Name> and "Docking"... I just... I just can't... Seriously Japan, why do you ENGLISH... we checked it out because it's another original series and the team working on it seemed promising. But...

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure - The new anime adaptation of the first two arcs. We're pretty far behind on this one, actually. It's big and over the top and super actiony and holy JESUS is the pacing fast! I mean, you hear "shounen that's been running since the 80's" and you expect fight scenes that last twelve episodes and charging power levels and ridiculous flashbacks and all that, right? NOPE, not Jojo. It's refreshing in some ways, but I also can't take it seriously because everything seems like a sudden plot twist. But this one's a fun watch all the same. /a/ loves it because IT WAS ME, DIO! ...it's memetically mutatable. Also, the openings are awesome. Especially that Bloody Stream. Based on the long running manga, of course. It covers the first two Jojos, which for some reason had never been properly animated before.

Puchimas: Petite Idolmaster - I shouldn't even bother with this I guess, because it consists entirely of inside jokes. It's one of those "three minutes per episode web only" series, based on the game series "THE IDOLM@STER". But it's not based on the actual story. There was a spin-off manga, which relied on jokes that the fans made about the characters, exaggerating their personalities and giving them silly quirks that they didn't have in the source material. And they animated it, just for the lulz. It doesn't really make any sense unless you know the source material though, and we've been watching it so there it is.

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"Irregardless" and "Over exaggerated" are NEVER CORRECT EVER because they are redundant
Regardless means "without regard", and adding "ir" on the front actually makes it a double negative; exaggerate means "to overstate" so you're literally saying "over overstate."
Example: I can not exaggerate the importance of this fact enough, regardless of how often people ignore it.

Unless I end up paying for a Hulu Plus or Crunchy Roll subscription at some point, my anime viewing is mostly limited to stuff that's unliscensed or that I buy on DVD. That rules out most of the good stuff on the above list except for Jo-Jo (which I plan on watching soonish).

Currently, I'm finishing up Turn A Gundam. It's decent, and acts as a sort of distant epilogue to the entire Gundam saga. That said, the action, political mechinations, and pretty much everything else about the plot seem a bit toned down compared to many of the other Gundam series. It's decent, but not one of my favorites.

I've got FMA Brotherhood next. I liked the original FMA up until the ending and I liked the manga the whole way through and seeing how Brotherhood is supposed to be a more faithful adaptation of said manga, I don't see how I can go wrong there.

I've also got the last two Sailor Moon series and Victory Gundam sitting around, though I'm thinking I'll try and catch up on some newer unliscensed series (like Jo-Jo and Carnival Phantasm) first.

On the list of stuff I really want to see but need to buy or something is Psycho-Pass, Fractal, Sword Arts Online, C-Control, and Future Diary.

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My signature site. Because ripping off Silver's ideas is fun.

But... just about everything on your list are up streamed for free on either FUNimation's channel or Crunchyroll... I hate Crunchy as much as the next guy, and the quality might not be that great, but it's free, legal streaming.

Also, on the subject of FMA Brotherhood: I... didn't really like it much. The entire first half felt rushed and the actually skipped quite a lot of content. And I know it's because they already animated all of it competently the first time around, but it was still almost unbearable to actually watch it. It also means that I can't recommend Brotherhood to someone who wants to get started on the series. I have to tell them to watch episodes 1-26 of the original series (at which point they may as well just finish it because, while it wasn't accurate, it was pretty successful and a really interesting alternate ending overall) and then like episode 13 and on in Brotherhood. However, I didn't like the animation style (that annoying yellow hair outline that totally contrasts with everything else) or the soundtrack (that annoying one song that they used all the time and with that one really terribly screechy sounding instrument too) in Brotherhood nearly as much as the original anime. Overall, I just... didn't enjoy it. The story was great, sure - but I had already read the manga so that didn't matter. And poor animation and sound quality compared to the first series makes it pretty pointless.

So, for someone who wants to check out FMA, I tell them to read the manga and ignore BOTH anime series. And that's pretty sad.

PS: Sword Art Online is overrated. Not terrible, but not very good, either. Story's a complete clone of .hack with the added bonus that the main character's an obnoxious emo kid, who (spoilers but I think you need to know this because it's that stupid)


Escapes from one life-threatening virtual reality game only to IMMEDIATELY JOIN ANOTHER because the author was seriously THAT DESPERATE to not have to end the series.

[Off topic rant] I was kinda hyped for it because Haruka Tomatsu is my waifu, but in the end the series got way too big and now I'm all hipster about it... if the only role you know is Asuna, you aren't REALLY a fan! I've loved her since 2006, when she had a relatively minor role in super obscure anime Kyouran Kazoku Nikki! But this ending song and I fell in love... also Nagi and Ai and God damn she's so perfect.[/Off topic rant]

_________________
"Irregardless" and "Over exaggerated" are NEVER CORRECT EVER because they are redundant
Regardless means "without regard", and adding "ir" on the front actually makes it a double negative; exaggerate means "to overstate" so you're literally saying "over overstate."
Example: I can not exaggerate the importance of this fact enough, regardless of how often people ignore it.

For Crunch Roll at least, don't you have to pay to watch anything except the latest episodes?

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My signature site. Because ripping off Silver's ideas is fun.

Speaking of Crunchyroll, and it could be that this was already mentioned (I am too lazy to check), they also have Kids on the Slope, which I have been watching lately (am on the last two episodes), and is really good. It's about jazz and life. I'd recommend it to anyone into anime and music, and I thiiiiink it's up free some place. But I may be wrong.

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Stevenson's Vocabulary Word of the Week:

Foment: (verb) To excite or arouse, i.e. 2014's Week of Randomness hopes to foment some activity on the forums.


Stevenson's Latin Phrase of the Week:

Brutum Fulmen: (senseless thunderbolt) This phrase, coined by Pliny the elder, is used to refer to an empty threat.

What? No, no, you've got it backwards. You only have to pay for the latest episodes, also high quality. You can watch anything that's been out for... two weeks I think? For free, in 360p. With a subscription, you get the newest episodes in 720 p (and poorly upscaled 1080p, because Crunchy doesn't realize that TV Versions air in 720p at most...).

Ah, I've been meaning to watch that. I had seen a couple of scenes and the animation style looked really impressive, plus it's something different from the usual shounen action and slow-paced moeblobbery that dominated the industry. I guess that's why I like Chihayafuru so much... Anyways, at Emily's recommendation I was convinced, but I just haven't gotten to actually watching it.

_________________
"Irregardless" and "Over exaggerated" are NEVER CORRECT EVER because they are redundant
Regardless means "without regard", and adding "ir" on the front actually makes it a double negative; exaggerate means "to overstate" so you're literally saying "over overstate."
Example: I can not exaggerate the importance of this fact enough, regardless of how often people ignore it.

((Emily is my girlfriend, whom Silver has met. Just to clear up that confusion.))

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Stevenson's Vocabulary Word of the Week:

Foment: (verb) To excite or arouse, i.e. 2014's Week of Randomness hopes to foment some activity on the forums.


Stevenson's Latin Phrase of the Week:

Brutum Fulmen: (senseless thunderbolt) This phrase, coined by Pliny the elder, is used to refer to an empty threat.

Really? That's...pretty good actually. Guess I'll have to start watching some shows on there.

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My signature site. Because ripping off Silver's ideas is fun.

To tell you the truth, the animators don't get a lot of money off of legal streams or localized DVDs. It goes more to the publisher than anyone else, and I really don't think Crunchy deserves even the ad money from me. They expect money from me when they still can't do proper editing?

If you really do feel morally bad about it, I'd let a stream run but watch the high quality version instead.

Not only am I back in Florida, but I picked up a bunch of spending money recently, a lot of which I spent on anime DVDs. I just finished the really awesome (but way too short) C Control. Next is the new Black Lagoon OVA. After that... Not quite sure, but I've got xxxHolic, Tsubasa, and season 5 of Detective Conan. I also downloaded Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and will probably do the same for Nanoha soon since I can't buy it (I got some extra spending money, but not "that" much).

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My signature site. Because ripping off Silver's ideas is fun.

Thread revival!

I just got out of Madoka Rebellion and wow... It was awesome, but a complete and total mind****. I mean, I wasn't expecting it to be particularly happy or straight forward but the story actually wasn't what I was expecting in the least and the way it ended... Wow. They really better not leave it like that. I'll be waiting for another movie, or maybe a second season.

On a related note, I kind of want to get a Kyubey plush just so I can tear it to pieces (and throw every piece into a fire, I guess).

Anyone want to have a not so spoiler free discussion (in a separate thread, of course)?

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My signature site. Because ripping off Silver's ideas is fun.

Connie and I were watching FMA Brotherhood but now that she's gone, I think I'll switch to something I haven't seen before. I've got DVDs for Galaxy Express and Shakugan no Shana Season 2 sitting around...

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My signature site. Because ripping off Silver's ideas is fun.

This tophic is good info, i like it.