Lurker > Robazoid

Someone on the MAL forums in a discussion about AICO said an anime called ID-0 was exactly the same as AICO except better. I love AICO so I thought, what the heck, the premise sounded interesting. Now I'm eight episodes in and, god damn, ID-0 is bad. The characters are uninteresting, the plot is absurd they're running from a teleporting moon that's chasing a little girl I mean come on and the animation is just so off-putting. I'm not even someone who minds CGI in anime, I loved Knights of Sidonia and I barely notice cost-saving CGI other anime use sometimes, but ID-0 looks crummy. I also haven't seen even a single real similarity to AICO so I kind of feel like I was trolled. I'll finish it anyway because the bottom tier of my ranking has to be filled by something but I'm certainly not enjoying it.
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Chloe Price (Life is Strange)
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Today I watched all of This Art Club Has a Problem, which I chose basically at random while bored at work earlier. It had a lot of really good moments (Colette in particular was consistently great, she was basically Dekomori from Chunibyo, even having the same VA!) but overall I thought it was just okay.
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I just finished watching Claymore. I'm pretty sure it was Mac who recommended this, but regardless, thank you to whoever it was. There were a few rough patches, especially towards the end, but overall I enjoyed it! Clare and Teresa especially were great. I also enjoyed how, in quite a few team battles, they used their unique abilities together in strategic ways. I always love it when fights have stuff like that.

Raki was lame though. I thought his arc was building up to him helping Clare but then in the end he hindered her more than anything. Let her kill the mass-murdering monster you dumb kid.
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Mareep
Hoothoot
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FN-2199

always suspected that Finn was a traitor
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Rapidash
Meowth
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Since it released on Netflix today, I just got done watching all of Children of the Whales. I didn't like it as much as AICO but I still thought it was really good. It had an interesting setting and approached it with solid world-building (aside from a few small details that I was willing to overlook). I found both the plot and the characters to be enthralling, too. A lot of moments really got me in the feels.
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Don't worry, I'll carry Flareon until I ultimately sacrifice it for Venonat!
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Mareep
Hoothoot
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Just mentioning it for this show since it's good.

Yeah, I've watched it now and it was a fun episode. I also watched some random shorter episodes which were also okay. There's another OVA and more mini-episodes with the second season too but I couldn't find them, and I guess a sequel movie came out in January? I'll have to try and track that down someday too.
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Meowth
Toxicroak
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Dekomori was good! Not my favorite but a solid character overall, she played well off of Rikka and Nibutani especially. I also liked she had a verbal tic that sounded like 'death' or something.

And I haven't watched the OVA but I read about it after. I keep meaning to go back and try to find all the OVAs and stuff that I've been missing.
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I just finished the second season of Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions. I have a few spoiler comments but overall liked it more than the first!

I'm glad this season wasn't a rehash of 'stop being chuuni', Rikka got to have more fun and there were even plotlines dedicated to strengthening her power! It was also refreshing to watch an anime where the romantic pairing was already together. They got to explore things like truly coming to know each other and when/if they should escalate (they really should've kissed though, man what a tease). Satone was an excellent romantic rival, too. She always tried to do the right thing despite her feelings and she became a true friend to Rikka in the end.
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Rapidash
Kabutops
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Mareep
Hoothoot
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**R.O.B.A.Z.O.I.D**

Venonat
Flareon
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I think only one other person here has watched A.I.C.O.: Incarnation (hopefully more do) but I want to post some thoughts about it. This is the first anime to enter my top five that came out recently rather than being one you guys all watched months or years ago. And while reaching top five might not mean as much for me as it would for someone who has watched 500+ anime, I still thought it was pretty special. I also recently had someone semi-jokingly wonder if I'm trolling with all my unpopular opinions. I realize it might seem that way at times, what with me disliking a popular movie series while heralding Katana Maidens as best anime of the season, but I assure you my opinions are all genuine! There are just certain pet peeves that can instantly degrade a story in my eyes no matter how good the rest of it is. On the flipside, I can also be endlessly forgiving of a story that does things that appeal to me. I figure that talking about AICO might be a good way to illustrate how I form opinions.

Anyway, sorry for the preamble. Spoilers for all of A.I.C.O.: Incarnation

To begin with, I did have a few problems, primarily with the setting. It was never clear to me why the matter was restricted to that one river when it has no problem creeping through buildings, meaning water isn't a necessity. I also don't get why the matter attacked people to begin with, the one controlling the red matter never intended to be hostile and the confused lashing out of the purple matter was treated as a recent phenomenon. Still, this is science fiction, so problems like that are usually ones I can look past on the basis of 'this needs to happen for there to be a story'. I would've appreciated a two-minute technobabble answer to these questions, sure, but the absence of one doesn't ruin the story for me in the way other things might.

However, aesthetically, I loved everything about the matter and watching a small team fight their way through hostile, shape-shifting terrain. I also appreciated the way combat was handled. Fiction often has little strategy beyond 'shoot the thing until the plot says the thing has been shot enough'. In AICO, positioning mattered, like when Kaede accidentally led an enemy to the main vehicle and cost them a day in repairs. I also loved how they often needed samples of new enemies. It added tension by having them rush to synthesize ammo even as the matter threatened to overwhelm them.

There's lots more I could talk about, but my favorite thing was the character of Aiko. Given her role in the story she could've easily been a lifeless plot device for the others to drag along. In my opinion, this was very much not the case. Right from the beginning I sympathized with the trauma of her losing her family, and how she struggled to bear it rather than letting it throw her into all-encompassing angst. I also loved how she dealt with the revelations about who she really was, particularly the final one where she learned who would need to be sacrificed. So many heroes in fiction are the gung-ho self-sacrificing type, instantly willing to throw their lives away. Here, Aiko freaked out and ran away, only coming to terms with it after having time to think. Also, this was a small moment, but I loved the conversation where she was afraid the real Aiko would be fine with sacrificing her. After all, she had been willing to sacrifice the real Aiko earlier and they were basically the same person so it makes sense, right? Fiction doesn't usually take character motivations to logical conclusions like that.

Beyond that, I've always had a soft spot for characters who encounter pain, clearly let it impact them (rather than stoically bearing it), but never let it destroy them. Aiko's connection to the matter frequently left her writhing in pain but she never once wanted to stop. She also refused to be a damsel in distress, often taking over firing the laser or using her enhanced body to dual-wield huge guns.I dunno, I really liked her.
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I was never much of a fan of Jusis or Millium on their own but their dynamic together was always great.
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K-2SO

Thank you
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Still trading for FN-2199
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Nabob is a coffee brand
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WataMote: No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Unpopular!
Squid Girl
Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!
Kara no Kyoukai/The Garden of Sinners
Scum's Wish

Sure let's go with those. Two in my top ten, two I really didn't like, one somewhere in the middle
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I was certain these weekend rounds being early would mean the death of FN-2199 (well, it still could tomorrow) so thank you TexWolf for saving the hero
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GranzonEx posted...

very surprised HSF beat Girls und Panzer for you

I just didn't feel like the girls in GuP had anywhere near as much character. The main girl and the one who liked tanks were fine but the other three main ones were such boring characters and the only side teams I liked were the historical chuunis and the student council. In HSF all the main characters were fleshed out at least a little bit and every part of the crew was memorable in some way.
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Today I watched all of High School Fleet. It reminded me of Girls und Panzer in a lot of ways except I enjoyed this a lot more. Warships are cooler than tanks, for one thing, but I felt HSF had way better characters and they were all used really well. Like, I barely remember anyone's names but by the end I recognized them all by sight and knew their quirks and there were so many little relationships that they'd formed. It was great. In addition to the awesome naval combat, it was nice just watching the crew having fun together whenever they got a chance. That cat they had was also a real hero.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

he lives in Alberta, so he made that post at 5:47 AM his time

And that was only two minutes later than I normally go to sleep! Working evenings is great.

I'm actually kind of sad to get confirmation that the AICO dub is terrible, hopefully most people realize that and switch to subs rather than holding it against the show. Bad voice acting would seriously kill the tone of a lot of emotional scenes.
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Rapidash
Toxicroak
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Well, I just watched all of A.I.C.O.: Incarnation and I really, really enjoyed it. I found everything from the plot to the characters to the setting to be amazing, but it did a lot of things that have always appealed to me so I don't want to hype it up too much. Still, if anyone thought it looked interesting, I highly recommend it! I do have one or two small complaints and some other thoughts that I might get into if anyone watches it and wants to talk about it, but it's late so for now I'll just rank this 10/10 on MAL and go to sleep.
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FN-2199

is who I aspire to be
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Rapidash
Toxicroak
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Just seemed like you were more into it than that.

I definitely still think it was a lot of fun but it never rose to the level of becoming a favorite. I might've overhyped it when it was airing because I think it was one of the first fifteen or so that I watched. It was my favorite of the season by a wide margin at the time.

GranzonEx posted...

I use 5/10 as my average score and anything below that doesn't really matter unless it's a show I hate, which would be a 1/10

I feel weird if I don't use every number, plus ranking things obsessively gives me something to do while bored at work!

That's a neat site, too. My rankings are predictably fairly evenly spread.
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LapisLazuli posted...

I had a feeling this was coming. Sad to hear, but don't feel like your opinions being off norm makes them less valid. The movies are not for everyone.

Thanks for being understanding, especially since I saw them at your #2 spot on the top ten lists I saved (and it looks like Reg had them at #1 too). Honestly, they were going to rank around Devilman in the 'fine but not for me' column until that seventh movie hit a whole bunch of my personal pet peeves.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Wait, you only gave Animegataris a 6 Roba...?

Regarding my rankings, most are still in flux as I watch more stuff because they shift around relative to each other. I treat 'average' as a point between 5/10 and 6/10 and do my best to keep half the shows I've seen on either side of it. If I suddenly found ten shows better than Watamote then everything would skew down, for example. I think Animegataris recently bumped up to a 7/10 but I'm not going to update MAL too much until I reach 100 shows. Also anything above 2/10 were ones I still enjoyed, they were just less than the current average.
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Davin Felth
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Hoothoot
Mareep
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Snake5555555555 posted...

Trading for Felth auto

For FN-2199

And for the record FN-2199 is neither a joke nor a villain. He is the most honorable character in the Star Wars series!
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**R.O.B.A.Z.O.I.D**

I just finished the seventh Kara no Kyoukai movie and... I'm going to stop there, even though there only seems to be three shorter movies left. I don't want to write too much because I don't like being negative and I know a lot of people here really liked them, but these movies were not for me at all. There were individual moments in the first six that were alright (it's hard to screw up good music paired with neat fight scenes) but as a whole I found them nonsensical and, quite frankly, boring. Then the seventh movie... I swear, if someone set out with the express purpose of writing a story that would piss me off, they would create the seventh Kara no Kyoukai movie.

Regardless, I'm glad I watched them. I'm still new to anime and missteps like this will help me narrow down the kinds of things I like and the kinds of things I don't. I'll just chalk this up as another instance of my opinions diverging wildly from the norm.
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If anything, After the Rain could stand to have a bit more wish-fulfillment.

Anyway, now that I've looked at the numbers some more I'm at least happy to see Yuru Camp is apparently killing it. Katana Maidens also a 2-cour so hopefully it picks up a bit later on. I must say, 3000 being the measure for success seems high when most of those shows apparently won't get anywhere near it.
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**R.O.B.A.Z.O.I.D**

Hoothoot
Mareep
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FN-2199

still has traitors to kill
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I'll definitely watch Steins;Gate at some point but I went through the VN less than a year ago so I'm still in no rush. Besides, there's a good chance I'll play the SG0 VN in April since I'll be going on trip and it would be good for the airplane ride.

That is a good OP though, I'd never watched it before!
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Venonat
Flareon
Hoothoot
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Mac Arrowny posted...

That's about it for now. Ask me anything?

How could you write so much and still not mention the best character, Sara Valestein?

Also, I liked being able to choose a love interest (Sara forever). Forcing Rean to date Alisa of all people would've been awful.
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**R.O.B.A.Z.O.I.D**

And now I've finished it. I enjoyed it quite a bit, there were lots of little details for fans to notice and the story itself was good. It was also a decent length, though I managed to finish it in an hour and a half. There were ways it could've been better but I suppose that's true of anything. I have no major complaints, at least!
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swordz9 posted...

Its not really limited to Japanese culture. Its like playing pretend aka something thats cute when youre a kid, but very unusual to most when youre older. Its something youre supposed to grow out of as you get older and make actual social connections and stuff so a teenager still running around playing pretend magic and stuff is just gonna be viewed as weird by most people

I can understand why it would be viewed as immature and something people encourage her to grow out of, but the sheer urgency of how a few characters approached it made it feel like they just didn't appreciate how Rikka was causing trouble for them. Her sister even manipulated Yuta into destroying Rikka right before a show where she would be metaphorically acknowledging that her persona is entirely theatrical. Little steps like that would've eventually gotten Rikka to the same end without the trauma, I think.

BK_Sheikah00 posted...

*Yoshiko

It's Yohane!
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Rapidash
Venomoth
Mareep
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**R.O.B.A.Z.O.I.D**

Today I watched the first season of Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions, mostly because I've enjoyed other 'chuuni' characters in the past (LL Sunshine Yohane, Gabriel Dropout Satania, etc). I wanted to see if that was universal, and I suppose it is since I thought Rikka was a lot of fun, but I wasn't expecting this to be such a deep examination of the chuuni mindset. I enjoyed the anime, don't get me wrong, but I also had a few issues with the direction that it went.

Maybe this is a cultural thing, but everyone seemed very insistent that Rikka drop her persona immediately. I felt it was unwarranted for something so innocent. It began as an unhealthy coping mechanism, sure, but forcing her to drop everything all at once came off to me as cruel more than anything. It seemed clear that her relationship with Yuta was helping her progress already, they should've just given her time and she probably would've come out of it naturally without thinking she needed to sacrifice her sense of wonder and energetic personality. I liked the ending where she appeared to embrace her persona again, but now I'm curious how the second season will handle her character. I hope they don't retread this plotline. Now that she's coming at it from a healthier direction, I want Rikka to revel in her delusions a bit!
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I know! I probably won't be able to play it until late tomorrow night though so someone else might make a discussion topic before me. I'm excited for it.
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You call it Speed and use a helicopter because it can easily move in three dimensions.
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Woo, I was the first one with five nominations to get eliminated! I'll pretend that was my goal all along
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