Aijin
Alternate Titles: Aijin: Demi-Human
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Alternate Titles: Aijin: Demi-Human
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Alternate Title: Aoharu x Machinegun
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Chiaki’s stream of consciousness writing on Arppegio of Blue Steel – WARNING, spoilers
Starting in Episode 5, let me make a list of all the things I don’t give a damn about:
Episode 5
The 4 minutes spent on Haruna walking around in her lingere and then playing dress up
The 3 minutes spent on bathtime.
The important things in this episode could have been summarized into about 5 minutes – backstory on Makie and the Vibration warhead
Episode 6
So I don’t mind the arc with the little girl, or her backstory
Here’s what bugged me, this girl is suddenly weeping upset over creating the warhead that would kill the fog because of Haruna, a girl she’s known for like what 12 hours? That’s hardly enough time to be more than years of wanting dad’s approval
On the flip side, 12 hours of knowing the girl changed the fog warship girl from who knows how many years of killing to not killing anyone and being willing to like, die for the girl?
The trip and fall to alert the girl to the soldiers
Teddy Bears fighting, enough said
Not bad fightscenes in this episode, primarily the whole thing
The emotions in this episode felt completely forced, I did not believe the bond between Haruna or Makie in the slightest so the climax and whatnot didn’t feel realistic nor was I invested
Okay we got to see Iona be a bit of a badass, that was nice, even if it was like 3 seconds
The army guys were just sitting at a tent, just, chilling, at a tent. It’s in the middle of an assassination raid and they brought folding tables and a tent? Seems unpractical as hell.
At the end of this episode I can only think of one line: “Spike, I hate three things, kids, pets, and women. Why are all three neatly on my ship?!” (pets=talking stuffed animals)
Episode 7
Girl snuggling with a sharpie body pillow of a man who tried to blow her up in lingerie sleep wear in the first 3 minutes, talking about showing engines.
Girl popping from a robot to hump another girl.
Slamming your torpedoes into me joke in the first 6 minutes
The fact that this became a harem show. WTF, can’t we have a show that can have women in it and not turn them into a harem?
The fact that all we have accomplished in 10 minutes is girls fighting over girls, and boys, and reaching a base
Somehow, I’m starting to like a girl being a teddy bear over a girl, at least I don’t have to watch her trying to bang anyone in that form
Repairing scene with the girl moving the points of light was kind of a cool concept
“What is this sensation?” Iona says, haven’t they been together for like 2 years? Does Iona only realize she gives a damn about Gunzou when there’s a host of other chicks taking interest? GOD! Typical woman
AND 16 minutes in we are on a beach, F-THIS
I don’t care how important what you are saying is, how touching the music is, or how character relations are being developed. IF the shot has a bikini girl’s ass in the foreground, it doesn’t matter.
Episode 8
Glad they addressed a reason why all the mental models are girls. And that it was a rather clever reason – ships are always female.
Maya, just, annoying for the sake of being annoying
That teapot did not make six cups of tea, the little things, the little things!
In the middle of important plot points and discussion regarding the future of humanity and the world? Let’s have a BBQ!!
Episode 9
I get it, so far their big crux is about finding a world in which everyone can get along and be happy. But, they’ve spent so much time on trivial things and had the fog and humans work together so easily there’s a distinct lack of tension created. It doesn’t feel like an impossible notion, it feels like there’s one ship that doesn’t agree and everyone else is cool with it.
Oh and the magical girl ship transformations are getting old
I’m tired of ‘the power of love’ being used for everything
They’re having a super naval battle and just… chatting in the third dimension during?
Episode 10
you know what, just, eff it. Sister ship twins?
I’m already bored, knowing this series will end in a “lets all be friends” finale
Once more, Gunzou is hurt and I don’t really care. Despite him being the main character he’s had relatively minimal screen time and development.
Can I say, as an American, I feel odd about the whole “America is the savior, give our technology to America” vibe?”
I like the music, especially the theme they play when Gunzou is dying
I really wanted to be super emotional, but I just, couldn’t
Episode 11
Wait, so like, they struggled to take on 2 of the fog ships in the beginning, and now they’re just straight mowing them down in a single flipping shot? Nagara class ships super awful or something?
Oh yeah, they couldn’t actually kill anyone
AAAAAND muther trucking death star
Episode 12
Its like the death star and the eye of Sauron had a baby
I dont even know if we’re fighting under the ocean, on the ocean, or in space, this has gotten stupid
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Alternate Titles: Shingeki no Kyojin
Staff
Director – Tetsuro Araki Also directed High School of the Dead, Guilty Crown, Death Note, and Aoi bungaku (This guy loves dark shit)
Creator – Hajime Isayama (based on a manga that is still running and is serilized in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine
Story
The Story of Eren Jaeger who lives inside a city surrounded by gigantic walls. The walls exist to defend the last of humanity from an enemy force known as the “titans”. These walls are all that stand between the Titans and humanity’s extinction.
City has three walls
The richer more affluent people are located at the center because it has the most protection
Eren lives in the outer most wall, which gets invaded in the early going of the story
After the outermost wall is breached, there is a lot of chaos. Eren’s mother is killed right before him, a defining moment for his character, and a lot of additional carnage occurs. Eventually, Eren and Mikasa and friends join the militia inside the city the help defend humanity and take revenge on the titans.
Aesthetics
Music
There are a number of great themes used throughout the show.
The openings are – of course – awesome
Production and Animation
Production was a huge problem in this show. There were some episodes where there were upwards of 8 – 9 minutes of still frames, panning, reused cells, or non-animated lip flap sections. There was also a recap episodes in the middle of the show that I believe might have been used to allow the production studio to catch up on the production.
The fight-scenes showed strength in their animation with the 3D maneuver gear
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
Certainly the uniqueness of the story is a big plus
Good action sequences but ones that I felt honestly, became a little redundant after the show went on.
Fantastic atmosphere and dread, especially in the beginning.
Great moments of tension and sorrow
Weakneses
Pacing. The shows pacing is Dragon Ball Z esque. It takes this show forever to do anything; LONG drawn out chase scenes, 5 episodes to move a boulder, and wordy as hell
The show often times would disrupt the most intense moments with LONG background information blurbs. They would be able to get killed by a Titan, and suddenly, an 8 minute flashback about how Eren should trust his comrades, or a huge section about scientific experiments on the Titans. These flashbacks always seemed to occur at really unfortunate times and it really pulled the viewer right out of the moment.
The dread and helplessness that the Titans generated early on TITAN dissipates by the middle of the season. The Titans go from being monstrous, unbeatable, sources of fear to easily killable and unnoteworthy. (For awhile, “special” titans aside, you see more titans getting killed than people)
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Plot:
Insights into the (actually funny) antics of three high school girls who seem to be completely clueless with life but sincere and in for having fun. Each episode is 3-minutes long and has a series of gags with an overall lose progression of time tying the series together over 12 episodes.
Studio:
It’s a 3-minute episode series, does this really matter?
Ahem…
I mean…
Director:
The director is relatively new to directing… not to anime but to directing. His latest directorial credits include directing the episodes 9-10 arc of Aoi Bungaku and the director of the recent Nerewareta Gakuen movie. This seems to be his first comedy, and three-minute episode formula.
Studio:
Liden Films
Source:
The anime is based off a manga that started in 2011 and is still ongoing. It currently has four volumes out. The manga is a yonkoma manga, meaning comic-strip four panel manga that plays up the gag formula.
Review:
Crabs! I mean… Yeah this anime has a thing for crabs right from the beginning though I don’t really understand why. And beginning, I mean, the opening.
This anime is enjoyable and funny though it doesn’t offer much by it’s nature. The best praise I can give it right off the bat is it made me laugh, and consistently did so up through about halfway through the series. Despite being about younger looking High School girls there was only one notable lolicon moment – involving the rain… and a later shot of swimsuits – and while I suppose they are “legal” at this age they still of course look about 12 so you know that they’re doing.
Around halfway through the series the anime changes and actually begins to follow some loose time-based plot. Which makes sense because it is difficult to string anything else together when you’re dealing with such short chunks of time, but it’s a little sad because it feels like it gets away from what I came here for and what initially kept me coming back – the actual funny moments.
The anime begins to ween off over time and loses the charm it started with. But, unlike a lot of other 3-minute shows it did leave me feeling somewhat fulfilled as it actually delivered on the promise of high-school girl comedy.
It’s not bad but if you were to spend even just 30 minutes on anime – an approximation of time it’d take to get through this – there are much better OVA’s to spend it on. But this is cute, and sweet, so if you’re trying to be an officiant on 3-minute anime then it’s not something you’ll likely resent watching.
At the end of the day I can’t give it a better score than Yama no Susume which is very different but I consider it to be just as good in different ways.
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Where to start with this one… So much to say so I suppose it’s best to just stick to the format…
Alternate Title:
Flowers of Evil
Plot:
The story centers around Takao Kasuga, a book-worm and generally quiet boy with his small circle of friends and normal social problems that come with shyness surrounding a girl in his class – Nanako Saeki – that he likes. Likes, may be a little bit of a general term. He considers her his muse, his angel, perfection embodied, which likely doesn’t help with crippling shyness when it comes to actually talking to her. One day he forgets his book in the classroom and goes back to get it and sees Saeki’s gym bag on the floor. Despite knowing that he shouldn’t do it, he ends up being compelled to touch and look inside the bag, holding Saeki’s gym clothes. After being startled by a noise he runs out of the room in a mad dash, gym clothes in hand.
The following day the class is a turmoil of whispers and frantic worries about the new “pervert” and “crazy man” who is stealing gym clothes and Kasuga shrinks deeper into his chair. His last shred of hope is crushed when the class outcast, the weird girl, and delinquent Sawa Nakamura confronts him telling him that she knows what he is, a true pervert, and that she knows about the stolen gym clothes.
Sawa and Kasuga enter into a, blackmail enforced, “contract.” She explains she wanted to see a true deviant in this boring town and that she will break down his walls to make him flourish as one.
Source:
Aku no Hana is based off an original manga that started running in 2009. It currently has 8 volumes and is unfinished. It was written by Shouzou Oshimi. Oshimi did the story and art for the manga Boku wa Mari no Naka and Drifting Net Cafe. This anime is currently the only other adaptation for Aku no Hana.
Director:
The director Hiroshi Nagahama has a few other substantial credits to his name. Including work on Kimi ni Todoke, Revolutionary Girl Utena: the Movie, School Rumble, Now and Then Here and There, and Mushi-Shi. However, all his work previously excluding Mushi-Shi has been working storyboard. Mushi-Shi was his first directorial credit.
Studio:
The anime was produced by studio Zexcs who have produced a huge list of titles including, My-HiME, Mushi-shi, Sister Princess, Umi Monogatari, and a fair bit of other things.
Music:
The music is, intentionally as far as I can tell, sparse throughout the show. What music is there is incredibly basic and is repeated. It completely works for the feeling of the show and images, however it is not something that will be winning any awards for its music. The ending theme is also nearly downright bad IMHO, but again, it’s nails-on-chalkboard esque feeling seems to fit every episode and that overall unnerving feeling the show gives.
Animation:
The animation must be mentioned. Zexcs used an animation technique called rotoscoping. This is a process where the animation is drawn over frame by frame over live action footage.
As a result the characters have a very natural movement and even subtle movements of lips, eyes, hands, and hair is captured. The world is incredibly detailed and everything has a very muted realistic tone.
However, some things are just awful, like water, and make the whole thing look really cheap.
Overall I liked the look of the rotoscoping but I’ve seen some people complain compared to the manga’s animation style. I think for the realistic feeling of the show it works but it definitely has aspects that will make you hate it.
Review:
Finally, we’re finally here… If I were to sum up this anime in a singular line it would be, a psychological train wreck that you can’t look away from.
The show starts out to center around the gym clothes but that is only for the first 3-4 episodes that they are the focal point. The focus eventually shifts to Nakamura and Kasuga and his rapidly failing mental state as a result of her handiwork. This show is entirely focused on the interpersonal relationships between the characters and psychological stability is the central point.
The only character who I can say is crazy from the onset is Nakamura. However, Kasuga, and even Saeki has their own share of problems that are only aggravated by their proximity and manipulations of Nakamura. Kasuga’s insecurities and crippling shyness is made worse by his developing dependence on Nakamura. Even Saeki’s problems that were previously unseen begin to come out, such as a need for validation.
Overall the pacing of the show is very slow, every episode accomplishes something. But it works up to two main climaxes, one at the end, and one in the middle at episode 7. The one at episode 7 is particularly significant as it shows Kasuga’s main break in his mental state. However, the one at the end – as it should be – is the most significant because it shows where the show will go in the future.
Speaking of the ending, it leaves much to be desired in that it has a minor conclusion/wrap-up of this season but it literally does a “part one of two” splash page. And, after being compelled to watch the manga, the show is about to really start. The entire first episode was simply a set up for where the characters are come the second season.
But, the second season may never come! Which this combined with the anime overall slowness makes it unworthy of a super high score, despite having some things really, really well done.
A pleasurably painful show to watch.
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