Anime that I have to watch. - now my anime review thread!

[Micharus]

well, you have to watch all eps and then decide what you think about all this, and wait for the prequel to start around end of time

Well. While I was writing the '4th episode thing' on Bakamonogatari, I had a look at the AniDB page for it, so I could find Araragi's name.

As I am currently not able to sleep for some stupid reason, I went and revisited the AniDB page for Bakamonogatari and found this useful little note;

Info: In each chapter of the series, he encounters a different heroine, each involved with a different "apparition". The events of the previous chapters play an important role in the subsequent ones. The series primarily focuses on conversations between characters; it contains a fair number of parodies of other series, as well as Nisio Ishin's trademark wordplay and meta-humour.

This is probably why I'm a little confused.
I'm understanding the story..... but not getting the jokes/puns that are in there somewhere.
I'm guessing that some of the conversations don't translate well to English and that a knowledge of 'Kanji' lettering is needed to get some of the puns/jokes.

@ Meandola.

I certainly hope it will. It does make sense story wise, but some of the conversations, while they are entertaining, are, as I have stated above, confusing.

Hanekawa Tsubasa is her name. She has a 'rating' of 6.98. Gotta love AniDB, that sort of info is right at your finger tips as it were. The database is picky as though, if you get the name wrong, you get nothing.

Now to go and try sleeping again.   

[Micharus]

Just watched episode 8 of Bakamonogatari.

Discovered that I can watch two episodes and not be so confused afterwards that I don't get anything from it.

Also.... this is starting to look like it's going to have sort of really strange 'harem' thing going soon.

I'm also enjoying the way the characters are drawn, but the way they keep going to close-ups of the characters eyes during parts of the conversations is starting to bug me, even though they are really well drawn.

Also, when the characters smile with no teeth showing, it reminds me a heck of a lot of the way 'Odo' from 'Deep Space Nine' smiles. Yeah, I know, I'm a little strange.

They have somehow worked an old, old, really damn old, story called "The Monkey's Paw" into one arc. It's very well done too.

The main reason I'm still watching?

Senjougahara (Tsundere-chan) is sexeh and Hachikuji Mayoi (Snail Girl) is cute, as in 'aw cute' and makes me laugh. It looks like she is going to be a fixture in the series, which is good. Interaction between her and Araragi is classic funny.

On a totally off topic note, uTorrent tells me that all of the anime I have gotten down recently has now seeded up to 150%..... except for the 'desktop thread' torrents. Time to give some serious thought to what to get down next.

[Havoc10K]

Ararararagi :p
:D

[Micharus]

Ararararagi :p

Hehehe.

Love that 'stutter', I'm sure Hachikuji is doing it on purpose to stir him up.

[Micharus]

Currently slightly annoyed.

The LAST episode of 'Bakemonogatari' had no subs that I could find, no matter what I did.

I'm presently  getting down ep 15 from both of the other encodes. Hopefully one of them will have subs, so I can finish the series.

Annnnnd as I am typing this, both of the files in question have completed.

[Micharus]

Well, I've watched four episodes of "Bakemonogatari" and I'm a little confused as to what exactly is going on.

I know that the main male character, Araragi, is an ex-vampire.

Somehow he was returned to being a human again, but has retained some 'vampire' abilities, like accelerated healing and extra good eyesight.

So far it seems that Araragi runs into various people that have problems of an interesting type and he directs them to the person who returned him to human form, Oshino, who seems to be some sort of priest/holy person, albeit a strange one.

The other thing I have to say about this particular encode of "Bakemon"([Coalgirls]1920x1080_Blu-Ray_FLAC), is that while the subs are excellent, why, oh why, did they have to translate and sub every single sign, written sentence and basically anything that you might be able to read on screen?

Everything else about this encode is perfect, crystal clear, great sound, everything you could ever want in an anime.

I'm going to watch the rest of this series, just to see where it's going to end up.

It's not helping my understanding of things that I've been a little out of sorts the last few days. I think I'm coming down with something. bleh.

Just watched episode 8 of Bakamonogatari.

Discovered that I can watch two episodes and not be so confused afterwards that I don't get anything from it.

Also.... this is starting to look like it's going to have sort of really strange 'harem' thing going soon.

I'm also enjoying the way the characters are drawn, but the way they keep going to close-ups of the characters eyes during parts of the conversations is starting to bug me, even though they are really well drawn.

Also, when the characters smile with no teeth showing, it reminds me a heck of a lot of the way 'Odo' from 'Deep Space Nine' smiles. Yeah, I know, I'm a little strange.

They have somehow worked an old, old, really damn old, story called "The Monkey's Paw" into one arc. It's very well done too.

The main reason I'm still watching?

Senjougahara (Tsundere-chan) is sexeh and Hachikuji Mayoi (Snail Girl) is cute, as in 'aw cute' and makes me laugh. It looks like she is going to be a fixture in the series, which is good. Interaction between her and Araragi is classic funny.

Currently slightly annoyed.

The LAST episode of 'Bakemonogatari' had no subs that I could find, no matter what I did.

I'm presently  getting down ep 15 from both of the other encodes. Hopefully one of them will have subs, so I can finish the series.

Annnnnd as I am typing this, both of the files in question have completed.

Well. Finally found a way to watch an encode of 'Bakemonogatari' (not a coalgirls one) episode 15.
It was this one -> Bakemonogatari [XviD H.264 FLV4] [Koharubi][gg][pem].
Note that this is almost definitely taken from TV, but it's not 'eye cancer' and is still quite watchable.
Ended up using the old 'Windows Media Player' to watch it, as KMP just didn't want to know.

As you can see, I've quoted from my last two posts on this anime.

As far as the story goes, it's not too bad.

Basic story goes something like this. Our hero, Araragi, tends to bump into people who have 'special' problems. He then takes them to 'Oshino'.... hang on I think I've already written something along this line.
Yep, there it is in the first quote.

Anyway, he ends up helping people with these problems, most of the problems in question being a 'spirit' of some sort.
The odd thing is..... all of the people he ends up helping are girls.
Cute ones. Literally something for everyone.
We have, not in order of appearance;

Oshino Shinobu -- Vampire
Senjougahara Hitagi -- Crab spirit
Hachikuji Mayoi -- Snail
Kanbaru Suruga -- Monkey/Demon
Sengoku Nadeko -- Snake
Hanekawa Tsubasa -- Cat

Araragi helps deal with all of these spirits in one way or another.

Animation is well done and the music is good. I'm pretty sure there is a LOT of piano work.

Check out the other review on the Baka Blog site.

Going to watch something that is likely to be completely insane;

Motto To Love Ru. Yes, I have the 'uncensored' version.

[Al_Sleeper]

Update your KMP. Its latest version plays Episode 15 without any problems.

The odd thing is..... all of the people he ends up helping are girls.
Cute ones. Literally something for everyone.

(click to show/hide)

However, some of them are already dead .

[Havoc10K]

Update your KMP. Its latest version plays Episode 15 without any problems.

The odd thing is..... all of the people he ends up helping are girls.
Cute ones. Literally something for everyone.

(click to show/hide)

However, some of them are already dead .

huh ? dead ?

[Micharus]

Update your KMP. Its latest version plays Episode 15 without any problems.

The odd thing is..... all of the people he ends up helping are girls.
Cute ones. Literally something for everyone.

(click to show/hide)

However, some of them are already dead .

huh ? dead ?

Yup, one of them is dead....well technically two of them, if you count Shinobu, but she is a Vampire, so she is more like 'un-dead'.

Hachikuji Mayoi, the girl with the big bag on her back, is dead. She died in some fashion on the way between her fathers house and her mothers house and her spirit had been trying to get to her mothers house for some time.
Araragi and Hitagi eventually help her to do this, but she comes back again, as she was 'promoted' 2 levels to a 'wandering spirit'.

@ AL.... hmmm should have thought of that. I shall go grab the latest version and see for myself.

Edit: did not work. Grabbed latest version of 'Media Player Classic - Home Cinema' and that played it nicely. I'm still going to use KMP as my main player, but keep MPC as a backup.

[Al_Sleeper]

Have you tried turning internal subtitle renderer off in KMP?

[Micharus]

Have you tried turning internal subtitle renderer off in KMP?

Probably a lot of things I haven't tried.

I did notice that the subtitles for ep 15 are pretty funky looking in WMP.

I'll give that a go.

Edit: This will tell you how much I mess around with basic settings..... Tried to find the setting you are talking about aaaaannnnd couldn't.
Directions would be useful.
In the meantime, possibly Gooogle will be my friend and tell me what I need to know. lol

Edit2: yep google was my friend, problem sorted. Subs now show in ep 15.

[Havoc10K]

ah yeah, the snail, but you know, she was dead to start so that doesn't really count does it ?

[Micharus]

Lala, the cute alien girl with the tail is back, along with her old friends and some new ones in this latest anime, Motto To Love Ru.

The season is more 'slice of life' with no real story line, the only thing that sort of holds the season together is who Rito will pick, Lala or Haruna?
 
Each episode has several 'mini-stories' in it, for a total of 35 over all, with very few stories running across the 'mini-episodes'.

The OP, like the first season, jumps out and grabs you, daring you to dance to the music.

As I said earlier, this season is more 'slice of life' than anything else and there are a few new characters, Momo, Nana, Celine and from the last series Kyoko, who stars in her own TV show in the series 'Magical Girl Kyoko' who solves everything with fire.
Also, the class president, Kotegawa Yui, gets more screen time this season. Watch for her classic line, "How shameless!".

Momo and Nana are Lala's younger sisters, while Celine seems to have been a flower in Rito's garden at one stage.
I can't remember how Celine came to be, but she grows on you and is very childlike.

Nana definitely has a thing for Rito, while Momo isn't really sure what she feels for him.

Kyoko meets Run/Ren (Run is female/Ren is male) and they become friends and Run discovers a secret about Kyoko.

As in the last season, Lala still hasn't got it into her head that wearing just your 'skin and a smile' isn't the proper thing to do on earth, so you get to see a lot of Lala, so much so that it almost gets to the point where you go, "oh she's naked....again".
Lala's seemingly complete innocence about things like that is one of the main things I like about her.

There is also pantsu in abundance, locker room scenes with girls in bra/panties, plenty of 'boing' care of Lala and a few other girls and the usual violent reaction to 'intrusion' jokes.

Best thing about this season in my opinion, is that there is more Yummy Yami. (Golden Darkness)
It would appear that Mikan (Rito's cute younger sister) and Yami have built a solid and lasting friendship.
Prepare to see Yami in clothes other than her battle suit.
This season also see's Yami 'exploring' her 'self', as in feelings she isn't used to and how to deal with her reactions to those feelings and other things she is finding out about herself.

It's worth watching the anime, especially if you are feeling a bit meh, I can't guarantee that it will perk you up, but it'll change your frame of mind.
It's easy watching, there are no 'dark' moments and there is a general feeling of 'happy' in the series for the most part.

For those that like taking screen shots, there are plenty of 'splash' screens between the stories, not to mention many 'scroll up the body' sequences on various female characters.
That delicious alien Doctor, Mikado Ryouko, is also back, for those that like their ladies a little older than school age.

No idea, what I'm going to watch next, I still have a few to choose from on my list.

[Havoc10K]

short question, did you watch the OVA episodes ?

[Micharus]

short question, did you watch the OVA episodes ?

From the previous season? Yes.

Problem is, my memory is less than perfect and I watched them a fair while back, so I don't remember too much about them.
I can't even say how many of them there were.

I'm guessing that Celine came into being during one of those OVA's.
If there are OVA's for this season as well, I guess I need to search them out.

On a slightly different note, I'm watching "Asobi ni Ikuyo!".
It caught my interest with the way it started, so yeah, I'm watching that now, just finished the second episode in fact.

Edit: Found and getting those OVA's (all 6 of them) as we speak. I'm sure I have seen them already, but watching them again won't hurt.
My uTorrent client doesn't say that I've already got them, but then the current client doesn't have all of the torrents I've gotten previously anyway.

Edit2: Checked my external drive and I do indeed have the OVA on there.... but only three of them.
Getting all 6 of them will be good, as according to the subbers (Mamiko) this batch is the DVD version and they have tweaked the subs a bit to make them better.

[Havoc10K]

Celiene is from season 1, at the very end, Lala's father used some seeds that grew into giant plants, one of them was shrunk and "tamed" (sort of) that is Celeine, I have to say I lolled hard when their parents visited after a while and asked whose kid Celine is XD, also one of the episodes with Mikan had a short story when Rito's and her pasts were told, about Mikan being scared of thunders, what Rito did in his sleep there made me lol very hard, but more surprising was the fact that Mikan's fans (and we have a lot of them) did not even budge about it

As far as characters go, Lala is the girl I like and I would rather have her being chosen by Rito, simply because of what she said at the end of the show when she talked with Haruna

Personally I like Golden Darkness most, probably like a lot of fans

[Micharus]

Celiene is from season 1, at the very end, Lala's father used some seeds that grew into giant plants, one of them was shrunk and "tamed" (sort of) that is Celeine, I have to say I lolled hard when their parents visited after a while and asked whose kid Celine is XD, also one of the episodes with Mikan had a short story when Rito's and her pasts were told, about Mikan being scared of thunders, what Rito did in his sleep there made me lol very hard, but more surprising was the fact that Mikan's fans (and we have a lot of them) did not even budge about it

As far as characters go, Lala is the girl I like and I would rather have her being chosen by Rito, simply because of what she said at the end of the show when she talked with Haruna

Personally I like Golden Darkness most, probably like a lot of fans

Ah, I see, so that is where Celine comes from.
All I can remember from the last season is that there was a heck of a lot going on in the last few episodes.
In fact I'm remembering bits and pieces of that season as I type this.

Lol, yeah that was funny, the reaction to that question made me laugh.
That episode where Mikan is in Rito's room in order to stop Nana from 'fooling around' with Rito and he semi-molests her in his sleep, her reaction was like 'what do I do here', you could almost see the thoughts running through her head.
How she solved that was very well done I thought and the bit where the thunder went off, Mikan got frightened, made a noise and Rito's reaction to that noise Mikan, despite being asleep is very much an 'aww how sweet' moment.
The morning after the night before was funny too, that Nana, she is a wicked girl. lol.

[Havoc10K]

The entire royal family is wicked lol, we have yet to see Lala's mother lol, I bet that will be overkill, if we get to see her in anime, dunno how it's in the manga, but I actually want more, and that wasn't just a semi-molest, that was borderline hentai moment XD he actually put a finger up, but knowing Mikan, she doesn't care much with just this, it's obvious she cares too much about him, I can actually understand the girls simply falling for him, he is a nice guy, with a lot of bad luck whenever Lala is around XD

[Micharus]

The entire royal family is wicked lol, we have yet to see Lala's mother lol, I bet that will be overkill, if we get to see her in anime, dunno how it's in the manga, but I actually want more, and that wasn't just a semi-molest, that was borderline hentai moment XD he actually put a finger up, but knowing Mikan, she doesn't care much with just this, it's obvious she cares too much about him, I can actually understand the girls simply falling for him, he is a nice guy, with a lot of bad luck whenever Lala is around XD

I totally agree on all counts.

Lala's mother.... now there is a lady I want to see.
I was quite surprised to see that Mikan and Rito's mother isn't really that cute and the father is well..... less than I expected as well.

Mikan is like all sisters, no matter if they are younger or older, if a girl is interested in their brother, that girl has to live up to the sisters standard before she will accept them and will also be ferociously protective of their brother too.
It's pretty obvious that Mikan wants to see Rito with Lala and is willing to get in Nana's way to make it happen, but I don't know if she knows how Haruna feels about Rito.
It's possible that she does, but I can't remember if she knows or how she found out.

That Rito sure is a lucky guy, he seems to have pretty much every cute girl in the series after him, except for a couple of them. The funny thing is, he only knows about two of them.
I guess like most of us males out there, he is pretty dense when it comes to noticing things like that.
I'd like to see another season myself, I don't see how they can possibly run out of material after only two seasons.

[Havoc10K]

Mikan is not only pretty but very smart as well, she can guess what people think during conversations, she pretty much knows about every girl that likes Rito, but so far, Yami-chan remained undetected, although she herself admitted that to herself at the very end of the second season.