Post about Cartoons and Anime you like

[simonjedi]

The last 2 minutes of the latest Adventure Time was a hell of a thing.

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

Well, since my last post in this topic I have watched a lot more animes (sometimes I think I have way too much free time on my hands, but oh well).

After I had watched Rozen Maiden I went on anime hiatus for a few days, But I was able to start watching Code Geass at last when I got a day off school. Code Geass was brilliant, with engaging plot, memorable characters and battle mechs. Lots and lots of battle mechs. The plot was extremely interesting, and the use of plot twists kept me engaged with it, even if some of the plot twists weren't exactly easy to follow. I also liked the similarities to Death Note, even if they were only with the ideals of the main character. In both Code Geass and Death Note, the main character (Lelouch Vi Brittania in Code Geass and Light Yagami in Death Note) gains some supernatural power/weapon that can be used to kill people (among other things for Lelouch). They both decide to use their power to try and change the world, though both do so for different purposes. Also, both Light and Lelouch are absolute geniuses, though Lelouch is far, far smarter than Light. Actually, Lelouch may now be my favourite anime character.

After Code Geass I moved onto a slice-of-life anime called Watamote. It was my first time watching an entire anime with only English subtitles to go by, but it was simple enough to understand. There wasn't much in the ways of plot or character development in this, but it was an amusing show, mainly because the main character made a fool of herself multiple times every episode.

After that was Blue Exorcist. I wasn't sure if I would like this when my friend told me about it, but I gave it a look anyway. The religious undertones of the show helped maintain a constant context to build on, though having the son of Satan want to be an exorcist is highly unusual, if not extremely ironic. It was enjoyable enough, though only a few of the characters were particularly memorable. Plot twists were used to help things along, but they weren't as frequent or mind blowing as they have been in other animes I have had the pleasure of watching. I also watched the Blue Exorcist movie, which I discussed in slight detail in the "What was the last movie you watched?" topic.

Now I've moved onto Clannad. So far this is evidently a slice-of-life anime as well, but this one seems to have substantial plot and character development already, even though I've only watched the first 7 episodes of season 1 (there's a second season called Clannad: After Story). I can also tell that this is going to be a very sad anime. In fact, it has already been quite sad, though I assume the currently established sadness is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

I've also got numerous animes on my watch list for after Clannad, but the one I'm most excited for is Attack on Titan. The English dub of this is finally arriving, and will do so between the 21st and 23rd of March. I can't wait.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Star Wars NutJob 69

[PenPlays]

...Attack on Titan. The English dub of this is finally arriving, and will do so between the 21st and 23rd of March. I can't wait.

This may be the best news I've heard all week!

Glad you enjoyed Code Geass.

If you at all enjoy slice-of-life's, Lucky Star and K-On! (as I've mentioned before) are both absolutely fantastic!

I also started Baka and Test earlier in the month (I've been busy lately). It is a very odd comedy anime, and not really interesting. Almost boring at times from what I've seen at least.

Gonna finish my second watch-through of Code Geass when I get some time, then I'll start up on the 24 most recently dubbed episodes of Fairy Tail. After that, I'm not quite sure...

Edited March 14, 2014 by Penkid11

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

Well I've finished the first series of Clannad. It was a great series, with a great range of characters who all had their own quirks to keep things amusing. It was really sad, really touching and really happy all at different times. The range of emotions this made me feel was massive. I thought Angel Beats was really sad (and in places it was) but this often took sadness to a whole new level. On a different note, I really enjoyed how this series established character relationships and how the plot and characters were developed as the series went on. However, the OVA episode totally confused me. After I had watched it I searched it up to try and clarify it, and it turns out the OVA was set in an alternative timeline. It was a good episode, but it confused me in as much as I no longer know which girl I prefer the main character with. Nevertheless, this was a great series, and I'm sure Clannad: After Story will maintain this high standard.

I also forgot to mention in my last post one gripe I had with Code Geass: the amount of fake deaths, particularly in R2 of the series. It was fun at first, but by the end it was just ridiculous. Some of the characters who were brought back after "dying" made no sense at all. But I digress.

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

Well I've just finished Clannad: After Story. As with the first series, this was absolutely brilliant, with a wide emotional range. But this time the emotional range became far, far wider. There were still moments of happiness and sadness and moments that were truly touching, but the happy and the sad moments were far more emotional than in the first series. This was especially the case with the sadness, as I'm pretty sure I cried for a while after the unbelievably sad endings of episodes 16 and 21. The happiness was also more emotional, but these moments weren't as common as the sadness. Episode 22 gave the series an ultimate plot twist which changed everything and made it truly happy. I've never been so happy after an anime episode before then, and I can't imagine there ever being another moment like that in anime; this will stand as my happiest and favourite episode of anime for a long time. As with the first series, the OVA episode was set in yet another alternate timeline. This OVA wasn't as good or as impacting as the first OVA, but it was a pretty good episode nonetheless.

Overall, Clannad and Clannad: After Story are both simply amazing series, and the overall collection of Clannad is definitely one of my top 4 animes now (only 4th because Future Diary, Code Geass and Death Note are also such extremely high quality).

[Tinn-man]

Just a friendly reminder for anyone interested: The series finale of Kill la Kill is tomorrow (or later today, depending on your timezone)! This show has been one of my favorites in recent memory, and I highly recommend it to any and everyone.

Hopefully you'll be able to look past (or - I dunno - enjoy?) the excessive fan service and see the heart in this special little show. It's got great characters, amazing action, some pretty funny moments, and a story that is - for lack of a better word - absolutely nuts. Its made by a good number of people who worked on Gurren Lagann, so if you know that show, you should have a pretty good idea of just how crazy Kill la Kill gets.

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

My anime adventures have continued. Since I finished Clannad and Clannad: After Story, I have mostly been trying to watch shorter series for a while. Of course, I haven't been 100% successful in doing so, but it has continued to be fun regardless.

I first went onto Sankarea: Undying Love after Clannd: After Story. It was a strange series, using the unusual premise of a guy who is obsessed with zombies and wanting a zombie girlfriend getting the latter and living life in such circumstances. Naturally, this poses challenges such as rigor mortis and preventing her body from decomposing, which does take up a lot of the series. It doesn't just focus on that though. The other main essential plot element is the girl's extremely overprotective father who wants to get his daughter back even though she is a zombie and basically hates him. Some elements of the plot make absolutely no sense, and there were a couple of filler episodes too. Not only that, but the series doesn't really have much of a proper ending; it was apparently cut off when at some random point from the manga, for whatever reason. Overall, it was a surprisingly good series, even considering the gripes I had with certain aspects of it.

Next was another shorter series called Girls Und Panzer. I've come across many unusual premises for anime stories, but this has to be one of the most unusual yet. The main one which was odder was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, though I'll say more on those momentarily. Basically, Girls Und Panzer is set in a world where schools (for some reason built on aircraft carriers) battle each other with tanks for an extra-curricular activity. It sounds ridiculous, and I suppose it is, but it works surprisingly well and is actually a pretty good series.

Next was Sword Art Online. This was a great series, though was slightly let down by the second half of the series. The characters in the series were all excellent and many were very well developed. The series generally avoided filler and fan service, but these do creep in to almost any anime. There was a well constructed and powerful love story intertwined with the peril of the series, though the main female character was reduced to being some sort of prize in the second half of the series. That was the main disappointment of the second half, though it was also slightly more disappointing due to the sense of peril mostly being removed, among other things (e.g. the campy tone of the second half and the characters weren't as good). Overall it was a very impressive series, despite the second half somewhat dropping the ball in terms of quality.

Then I moved onto Another. I went into this really not knowing what to expect, so I was surprised to find it was a horror anime with a hint of mystery and a tone somewhat similar to detective shows (in places anyway). Naturally, it wasn't always easy to follow everything that was happening, but it was an entertaining challenge. The characters were great, and the character deaths that were a constant of the series kept things interesting and maintained the sinister tone and kept paranoia as part of the tone as well. This was also surprisingly good, even if I felt the development of the relationship between the two main characters would have been nice.

Then was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. I'm not going to say too much about these, but I will say that I felt this series was somewhat over-rated. The characters, despite being undeniable stereotypes, were very well developed and kept things interesting. The plot was extremely weird, too weird for me to even try to explain. You really need to watch it to get it. In terms of episodes, I thought they were good enough; there wasn't too much filler. However, I nearly went mad during the "Endless Eight" arc. The person who thought it was a good idea was clearly insane. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was a good movie, even if it was almost 3 hours long. But the length made sense, so I can't complain too much. I'm disappointed they never really developed a romantic thing between the two main characters, but it doesn't matter too much.

I'm on K-On now. It seems entertaining enough, but I'll have to watch more to be sure.

[PenPlays]

I'm on K-On now. It seems entertaining enough, but I'll have to watch more to be sure.

Let the ultimate moe anime sink in...

I just finished the Anime Guilty Crown. It had a very interesting premise, yet it also seemed very simple. A boy, named Shu, lives in a Japan wrought with a cancer that crystallizes the body. A form of the cure, called the Void Genome is absorbed into Shu, with a mysterious side effect that allows him to pull out the manifestation of a person's heart, also-known-as a "Void."

The ending was a bit lame though, no where near the climatic finale that was Code Geass, or the utterly satisfying ending of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

I'm going to start up Death Note soon. I hear that one is extremely popular.

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

Yeah... I have given up on K-On in the middle of season 2. Far, far too much filler for me to be able to continue with it. It's not a bad series, not by any means, but I simply cannot tolerate so much filler. The first series was fine and actually had some kind of plot line to conform to, but season 2 threw that out of the window and just had entirely random episodes with little or no coherence between them. That much was very disappointing, among numerous other issues that I had with this (which I cannot be bothered to get into).

To sum up, I have watched 15 animes so far, and have more on my watch list yet to come. These are my rankings of favourite to least favourite anime, with the number of the watching order next to it:

1) Clannad (Season 1, Clannad: After Story) - 9

2) Future Diary - 3

3) Code Geass (Season 1, Season 2) - 6

4) Death Note - 1

5) Angel Beats - 4

6) Elfen Lied - 2

7) Sword Art Online - 12

8) Another - 13

9) Sankarea: Undying Love - 10

10) Blue Exorcist - 8

11) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Series, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya) - 14

12) Girls Und Panzer - 11

13) Rozen Maiden (Season 1, Season 2, OVAs) - 5

14) K-On (Season 1, Season 2, Movie) - 15

15) Watamote - 7

My watch list includes Attack On Titan; Btooom!; Date A Live; Guilty Crown; Kanon; Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions (Season 1, Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions: Heart Throb); Rozen Maiden (Season 3); Spice & Wolf (Season 1, Season 2); Steins;Gate and Toradora.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Star Wars NutJob 69

[feed]

I’ve not read all of the thread, but the last few pages have an alarming lack of Full Metal Alchemist.

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

I'm undoubtedly very late to the party, but I finally started watching Attack on Titan yesterday, having grown bored of waiting for the English dub to be available on the internet. From the first episode alone I can tell that this is going to be a brilliant series. I can't wait to watch more. But first, I have to finish of Kanon, which I had started watching the first 12 episodes of before I started with Attack on Titan. Kanon is seeming likely to be a very good series, though I'm having issues understanding the plot. Saying that, it is made by the same people who made Clannad and Angel Beats, so it's obviously going to be really good and obviously be tragic at some point or other. Here's hoping.

[just2good]

I watched all of Rick and Morty today (from start to finish), and it is a good show! Not amazing, but entertaining. About a little over half the episodes were good, but then again, a little under half were mediocre or bad.

Edited April 13, 2014 by just2good

[Oky]

I watched all of Rick and Morty today (from start to finish), and it is a good show! Not amazing, but entertaining. About a little over half the episodes were good, but then again, a little under half were mediocre or bad.

Glad to see someone else here likes the show! Yes, it's not amazing, but it definitely scratches that sci-fi comedy itch. Which episodes did you think were bad? I don't think any of them were really bad, just some less entertaining than others, but Rick usually has at least one good line in each episode.

Speaking of sci-fi comedies... Did anyone watch the first season of the anime Space Dandy? Being from the creator of Cowboy Bebop and having such an interesting premise and retro visual style, I had high hopes for this series when I first saw the trailer for it on Toonami, but after watching it, I can't help but feel disappointed. The animation is great as can be expected, but the show is a lot more silly and episodic than I expected. There's hardly any character development or on-going story and most of the episodes feel very random. It's very comedy-focused and many of the running jokes tend to get old pretty fast, such as Dandy's obsession with BooBies and the whole space war semi-subplot. It seems as if this is Watanabe's outlet for all the strange, whacky ideas that he couldn't use in Cowboy Bebop. That's fine if this is your cup of tea, but not really for me.

Maybe it's just because of my growing disdain for cartoons that don't take themselves seriously which there are too many of these days in my opinion. Is it too much to ask that cartoons are funny AND have a good, serious story?

[just2good]

Glad to see someone else here likes the show! Yes, it's not amazing, but it definitely scratches that sci-fi comedy itch. Which episodes did you think were bad? I don't think any of them were really bad, just some less entertaining than others, but Rick usually has at least one good line in each episode.

The only one I thought was bad was Raising Gazorpazorp, really just for the Rick and Summer plot.

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

Well I finished Kanon a while ago. As I expected, there were moments of sadness and happiness, though much of it was overshadowed by a somewhat preposterous ending full of "miracles" that simply made no logical sense at all and just seemed to have been done as an excuse to finish the series. Even so, it was very much enjoyable and one of the better animes that I have seen as of late.

Then was Attack on Titan, which I got as far as episode 22 on before website issues prevented me from moving onwards from there. As such, I have decided to stop watching it there and wait for the English dub again. From what I did watch, I was extremely impressed; Attack on Titan certainly lived up to all of the hype.

Next I'll be moving onto Toradora, which should be interesting.

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

Well I have finished Toradora just a few minutes ago (at the time of writing). I have to say, I was surprised with how much this ended up impressing me. It was another slice-of-life anime (I have found myself watching more and more of these lately) with romance involved as well. The genre of the series dictates the typical characteristic of a story which can, at times, be difficult to follow due to the flow of the story not always being entirely cohesive all the time (depending how events actually unfold). In this case, some episodes didn't seem to follow on well from the previous episode, but I have started to come to expect this from slice-of-life animes now. The story itself is very well developed, and I was impressed with the development of the characters within the show; even seemingly minor characters got decent amounts of development, which was nice to see. With that considered, I was impressed that they were still able to fit in so much time to develop the ever-changing relationships between the four main characters and how this affects the other characters. The last episode (disregarding the typically irrelevant OVA) started out in a really nice (for lack of a better term) manner before taking an unexpected twist which made everything rather sad (far from the sadness of Clannad, Kanon or Angel Beats though), before then having a scene after the credits which ended things on a happy note after all. I like it when animes end on a happy note, particularly if it is done in a believable way (unlike Kanon, which was plain ridiculous), so I enjoyed this. Overall, a very good series.

I'm not sure what to move onto next. I know I'm going to watch an English dubbed anime this time (the last two have only been subbed but will soon have dubs), so I'm debating whether to watch Btooom! or Spice & Wolf next. Anyone able to recommend which of the two I should look at next?

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

I've reached the decision to next move onto Spice & Wolf in my anime journeys, and will probably make a start on that later today. On an unrelated note, here is a trailer for the upcoming English dub of Toradora (for anyone who is interested):

This will be my first time watching a dub of an anime after watching the subbed version. I've never understood why people often have such issues with English dubs of animes and why everyone says the non-dubbed version is always better, but I can somewhat understand where they are coming from now. Saying that, though some of the voice actor choices seem odd to me (having watched the non-dubbed version) this doesn't seem too bad. It could end up being very good actually. I guess I'll find out at the start of July or so.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Lord Rahl of Clannad

[DuckBricks]

Did ANYONE mention Legends of Chima or Ninjago?!?! Come on, this is a LEGO blog!

[Oky]

Did ANYONE mention Legends of Chima or Ninjago?!?! Come on, this is a LEGO blog!

Those already have separate threads dedicated to them. And it's not a blog.

[Lordofdragonss]

I recently started to watch Clerance. Such an adrable cartoonthat very well shows how kids used to play.

[PenPlays]

The last 2 minutes of the latest Adventure Time was a hell of a thing.

Was it now?

Compared to last week's, it was nothing!

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

It's been a while since I last posted here, and considering that I haven't really been very busy with anime as I would have usually been (I blame Game of Thrones for that though).

I started off with Spice & Wolf, which I went into with somewhat high expectations for some reason, so I was somewhat disappointed. It wasn't bad, but there were problems. First off, this is yet another example of an anime which has no real ending, as it cuts off from a certain point of the manga; it's always very annoying when this happens because the overall plot line is never actually completed,though at least this one ends at a point in which the small arc that was occurring in the series at the time had ended. The plot also felt very slow in places in that there were often episodes where so little actually happened that it was hard to understand how it justified another episode. On the other hand, I suppose most of the focus in the episodes like that was on character development more than anything, which isn't a bad thing when all the characters are so well done. The series also has a lot of old-fashioned business and currency talk, which made a lot of moments in the series very difficult to actually understand. All tings considered, it wasn't too bad but I would have liked to see the entirety of the overall plot, which is why I am going to eventually read the manga of this series as well.

Next I moved onto Btooom!, which I went into knowing that the premise as somewhat similar to Sword Art Online in one respect, and similar to The Hunger Games in another. As I have enjoyed both of those, I went into this with relatively high expectations. I wasn't disappointed. This series, despite its short length of 12 episodes, was excellent and I was always eager to see what came next. There was virtually no filler in the series, and I liked how they intersected character plots by showing what different characters were doing at the same time and how that leads to them eventually meeting and what follows from those meetings. Speaking of the characters, they were all excellently presented, and it was interesting to see how each of them copes with the situation they find themselves in. As with other series with a survival game premise (e.g. Future Diary, The Hunger Games), some of the characters involved are highly psychotic from the start, while others basically lose their minds in their desperation to survive the ordeal. Such a cliché is understandably used and is far more logical and useful than the cliché of the main character having highly convenient amnesia at the start of the series. There's also the cliché of a love story developing between two main characters involved in the series, but this is a cliché which I have no issue with. On a note different from endless clichés, I found it interesting how this series gave a new spin to the survival game scenario; this time more than one character can escape from the survival game, providing they collect enough gems from other people in the game (watch the series to understand what I mean). Overall, a very good series which leaves potential for a second series.

Now it's a matter of what to watch next. I'm probably going to go with Steins;Gate, but nothing is decided as of yet.

[Kintobor]

So, Twilight's Kingdom. Anyone else seen it yet?

[Aanchir]

So, Twilight's Kingdom. Anyone else seen it yet?

Oh yes. It was awesome! Truly an outstanding capstone to this season's ongoing story arc. It's good to see that there hasn't been too much disgruntlement over it in the brony community, either. Some people have some minor quibbles, naturally, but generally folks seem to agree that it told a fantastic story.

[Lord Rahl of Clannad]

It took me way longer than I had actually expected, but I have finally finished Steins;Gate. I had heard it was brilliant before I had watched it, but I was still pleasantly surprised by its excellence. The plot, despite often being highly confusing and frequently using terms which I do not understand, was excellently played out and equally excellently presented. I can guarantee that you will be confused a lot during the show, particularly early on, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In this case, having it be confusing makes suspension of disbelief far easier than if the plot was simply understood. The only issue I had with the plot of the show at all was near the end of the series, where the plot seemed to be deliberately dragging on, before adding on an additional plot thread seemingly for the sake of it. Even so, the series ended well, making use of a purposeful OVA rather than an entirely useless one as seen in most other animes. The characters in the series are also excellently developed and presented and all make the series more enjoyable in their own way. For instance, the main character is a self-proclaimed mad scientist who acts as one would expect from a mad scientist, which makes things highly enjoyable. Overall, this is an excellent series which balances confusion and overly-complex scientific terminology with equivalent levels of fun and seriousness. And hey, I learned more about the ideas behind time travel and its consequences than I have from watching Doctor Who for the past 8 years.

As for what's coming next for me, it will probably be Guilty Crown, which I should be able to start tomorrow.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Lord Rahl of Clannad