Omni's Daily Dose of Anime

It's an oddly balanced trailer, but that's kind of the impression I got too.

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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

Omnizoa, I think you've misunderstood most of what I've been saying. Let's just forget about it.

Instead of forgetting about it, why don't you just cite an example so I don't have to assume what you mean?

It's just a bit tedious, and you'll probably misunderstand that too... I'll try later tonight. But I have gone through so many of those long debates and it's never once been productive. I'll try to just focus on the heart of the issue, but I'm getting ready for bed now, so tonight.

Yu Yu Hakusho (Dub) Status: INTERESTED
Episodes: 61-65

Well the big showdown is here, and how is it? Well, it's 4 episodes long so it feels unnaturally broken up in it's pacing. Does that ruin it? No, but it could definitely have been better.

Toguro goes from 80% to 100% to really real 100% at which point he just looks like a cluster**** of muscles. At this point, I think I'll say that my favorite part about Toguro is how he's the just the most caricatured archetypal strongman villian I've ever seen. All he ever does is punch things, and yet even goes from breaking bones, to destroying arenas, to leveling stadiums with the sheer force of his impact. He literally knocks Yusuke on his ass with a distant flick of his finger to make "air bullets". His aura is also so powerful that his mere presence begins to eat entire crowds of people in the stadium.

Toguro is unattractive as a character, both physically and mentally, but as a Final Boss-level enemy, Rule of Cool justifies his generic design.

Yusuke advances partway through the battle too by revealing that Genkai left him with one store of power in the form of spirit-energy restraining cuffs which force him to exert spirit energy at all times, which is compared to wearing body weights to build muscles.

Alas, it's not enough to defeat Toguro, and so we revisit Genkai's dying words and draw attention once again to another of Yusuke's character flaws: that he conceals his emotions, which compels him to hold back in case things don't work out for him.

Genkai possesses Puu who floats down to the fight and tells Toguro outright to kill one of his friends with the logic that Toguro will kill everyone anyway if he doesn't get the challenge he wants from Yusuke. I think this is an exceptionally horrible exercise in utilitarianism, but fortunately, this message doesn't seem to be the overarching point of the story, merely that it falls in line with Genkai's typically questionable moral ethics. I appreciate the distinction. What I don't appreciate is the disparity:

Toguro picks Kuwabara to die because "Yusuke seems the most protective of him" and as typical of Kuwabara's character, he steps forward and takes a stab to the heart.

My biggest issue with this sequence is how it's played out, which is to say, far less dignified then how Genkai went out. Whereas Kuwabara was rivals and friends with Urameshi for far longer than Genkai and exercised a particularly selfless moral code, Genkai was merely Yusuke's teacher, was already very old, expecting to die, and let's be honest, she was kind of a bitch, not the least of which because she suggested Kuwabara should die in the first place.

I care a lot more about Kuwabara than Genkai, but his death is given far less significance. This might have been my only complaint about his death if not for the fact that it also unintentionally foreshadows the twist that he didn't even die. Way to spoil it there, by disingenuously killing off one of the four major characters of the show.

I get it, honestly, I don't want Kuwabara to die for reals either, but it doesn't even make sense that he's alive. When Toguro turns on Kuwabara, it's like a nuclear warhead being turned on a mouse, HE'S GONNA DIE, but then he gets away with wounds he can just shrug off with the excuse that "Toguro missed"?

Thankfully the main four posit back and forth reasons for why Toguro might not have killed him, but even the settled for excuse, that Toguro didn't actually intend to kill him doesn't make any sense.

It's heavily implied near the end that Toguro was remorseful in some way for abandoning Genkai at the end of the last Dark Tournament.

If that was true, WHY DID HE KILL HER?

And furthermore, if he actually wanted to avoid killing bystanders, WHY DID HE EAT HALF THE AUDIENCE?

The best explanation I can come up with is that Toguro wanted Yusuke to keep his friends if he managed to win the fight as some sort of reward for beating him. But if that was true, WHY WAS HE TELLING YUSUKE TO GIVE UP ON PEOPLE ALL THROUGHOUT THE MATCH?

Seriously, while Genkai left Yusuke telling him that no one can be a one-man army, Toguro's constantly arguing the counterpoint that he CAN be a one-man army. He IS. Therefore he doesn't "need" other people.

I don't know. It's not a bad fight and it was certainly dramatic enough to be the capstone of the tournament.

So after the 4-episode final battle ends we get another interim episode which ironically turns out to be THE WORST EPISODE IN THE ENTIRE SERIES SO FAR.

I'm not even kidding, there are some crummy, boring, or even hilarious bad episodes in Yu Yu Hakusho, but none of them so far are as bad as this.

We open up with a replay of Toguro going down and we reveal Kuwabara isn't actually dead, which will from this point forward trivialize any future danger we may actually decide to put him in. Toguro didn't kill him, so why should we worry about him now?

Following that, the evil CEO who's name I still cannot be bothered to remember comes forward and starts a 15-minute self-destruct of the stadium since Koenma won't agree to kill him following Toguro losing the battle he bet his life on. All said, it's insane, but it makes sense for the backstory he's availed to us in previous episodes where his addiction to gambling explains his drive to seek thrills and his excuse, "It's no fun if you can get out of any bet you make".

Cut to Keiko and for some stupid reasons she's suffering "post traumatic stress" by watching the fight and is the only character in the whole cast who isn't sane enough to attempt to escape the crumbling stadium. Upon revisiting this scene in the manga, the moment is extremely brief and intended as some lightheated comedy, but it's exacerbated by how long it's drawn out in the anime that it just becomes stupid that people are yelling in her ear to GTFO and she won't even look at them.

Yusuke wakes her up and we cut to Kuwabara's older sister listening in on Koenma who's confronted the evil CEO who's agreed that he's not going through with his plan to let demons into the human world. Once again this emphasizes two big problems with this whole scenario:

Firstly, we've still never explained what his motivations were to do so in the first place.

Secondly, if we're abandoning this plotline, then it's all the more obvious that it was just another throwaway line like the best 3 out of 5 rule. Neither of them make any sense in context, but they're presented as hollow means to increase dramatic tension when neither of them even resolve in the end anyway.

And SPEAKING of "hollow means to increase dramatic tension", Kuwabara's sister gets ****ed over a bench with how horribly her character takes a left turn in this scene which is foreshadowed by Koenma acting as narrator at the end of the previous episode:

Ummm... what the hell kind of anime are you watching?

Chizuru (Kuwabara's sister) literally has ONE SCENE together with the evil CEO (yeah, I know I said his name) during the entire tournament in which all that happens is he escorts her away from some demon thugs saying that she should be more careful because humans are in a minority.

THAT'S IT, THAT'S ALL THAT HAPPENS.

Okay, if you want to count her eavesdropping on his talking about his grand plans to massacre the human race as "developing their relationship", FINE, but by no means does their interactions at any point ever warrant her pulling a Frodo when he dies.


He was a selfish scumbag who orchestrated the deaths of countless people including his closest peers. He has no redeeming qualities beyond a winning smile. I should not be seeing more tears shed over this guy than KUWA****INGBARA. HE'S NOT GANDALF.


And for the record, no, this scene is entirely absent in the manga.

>_>

As I've pointed out on this forum before and even shown in responses to your posts, I prefer to address points individually rather than make broad arguments. Broad arguments are more difficult to address purely because they often hinge entirely on one or two specific points the other person doesn't directly confront which obfuscates the source of the conflict and exacerbates misunderstandings.

If you have something more specific you're criticizing or I've missed some point you've made, please, point it out.

Well for starters I wish you would leave a margin for error when you asses things, in general. If there's one thing I've learned in my life it's that I know practically nothing.

In what way do you suggest that I represent that?

Kimi ni Todoke (Sub) Status: COMPLETE
Episodes: 23-25

If I only ever saw the first half-dozen or so episodes of Kimi ni Todoke, I would enthusiastically recommend it as an unusually enjoyable feel-good romantic drama.

However, having seen the whole series now, I'm far more inclined to say it's... okay.

My biggest issue with the series is that because of it's premise of an introvert gaining friends and learning about how to interact with them, the story fundamentally rides the train of new experiences. Sawako is introduced for the first time to all manner of things from friends, to keeping friends, to losing friends, to parties, to cell phones, to a variety of holiday events, and the series could almost certainly keep going with these because there are so many different new experiences she could indulge in, as is the sole source of story arcs in Yostuba&.


However, unlike Yotsuba&, the new experiences are presented as a means of developing Sawako as a character, whereas in Yotsuba& the new experiences are presented as a means of developing comedy.


The unfortunate fact of the matter is that Sawako is only developed so far before new experiences are presented simply as a pretense to keep the character around.

After the Kurumi arc, the series stops dead for a recap episode and then picks up again to spend several episodes developing Yoshida exclusively. Yoshida has always been paired with Yano and it stands to reason that if Yoshida is being developed, Yano will too, but Yano only gets a single episode in which it's revealed she broke up with her then-boyfriend after he hit her. The attention is completely unbalanced in Yoshida's favor.

And then as if Yoshida's story arc is totally resolved (even though it isn't really) we completely disengage with her and waste another handful of episodes on Sawako in which she hardly develops at all. The ending doesn't even confirm whether or not she or Kazehaya ever say "I love you" to each other even though it seems almost implicitly stated to be the reason why the series didn't end right after the Kurumi arc.


Frankly, even the Kurumi arc was long over-played. It's dragged out far longer than necessary and it could easily have comprised the latter half of a short 12-episode series, but instead it takes over entirely and honestly feels inferior to the earliest episodes due largely to how unlikable she is and how much the series tries it's hardest to make us like her.

Another issue I have with the series is simply how soft it is. And by soft, I'm not referring to the nature of the material, it's a romantic shoujo, they tend to be pretty "soft", but how difficult the series presents Sawako's obstacles.

Sawako has to deal with a rumors which are bad... but not awful.
Sawako has to deal with bullies which are bad... but not awful.
Sawako has to deal with her parents which very accepting and thoughtful... and what's the problem, here?

The worst thing Sawako is ever called is "Sadako", but it's used constantly as a sort of nickname by even her friends that it scarcely seems like she's being picked on at all.

One of most significant sequence in the whole series in terms of developing characters and raising dramatic tension is easily the scene in which Kazehaya is playfully told in front of the entire class that it would be a "punishment" to date Sawako for a week. Kazehaya makes a bold move by calling them out on the spot for being unfunny and not considering her feelings which does a tremendous job of making a distinction between Kazehaya and everybody else, something which informs both Sawako and the viewer about the merits of Kazehaya and the depths to which their classmates may sink.

Unfortunately, since Kazehaya is popular, almost as soon as Kazehaya accepts her, the vast majority of people are nice to Sawako as well which removes a substantial amount of dramatic tension.

It would have gone a long way to emphasize Sawako's struggle to break out of her shell as well as emphasize Kazehaya's merits if the class responded to him with disparagement and continued to ostracize her.

The worst insults ever flung at anyone are those flung at Yano and Yoshida who are the first to become Sawako's friends, however both Yano and Yoshida can handle that kind of abuse, they've dealt with it already. Sawako is accused to being able to "curse people" by the most superstitious (or genre-savvy) of her classmates, but for the most part people just don't interact with her. Conversely, Yoshida is regularly referred to as a violent delinquent and Yano is called a whore. These kinds of extremes lend themselves better to long-running dramas not just because they're harder to solve, but because the bigger the punch, the bigger the heartbreak.

Imagine for instance how different the last big obstacle Sawako has to deal with was changed? She wants to go to a Christmas party, but she feels guilty about abandoning her parents, who would, AND DO, encourage her to get out there, make friends and have fun. She bursts into tears at the phone when the party calls her simply because she cannot bring herself to ask permission to share some time with her new friends.

Now imagine if that situation was changed and the whole reason she couldn't go to the party was because her parents were mean, or abusive, or overprotective of her? Think of how much bigger the stakes are in that situation. Things like these would have gone a long way to making the happy moments in the series that much happier and the dramatic moments in the series that much more dramatic.

Not to mention, these sorts of situations could have been used to cure the handful of cases of lockjaw that prevent certain characters from presenting important information for otherwise poor reasons.


On a more nit-picky side, a couple small things got to me as the series went on. For one thing, the mouths:


Most characters appear not to have teeth. It wouldn't be terribly distracting if this wasn't the default expression that we go slow-mo for every single time Kazehaya smiles. The lack of detail seems at odds with the rest of the design. My only guess is the original artist is not a fan of teeth, which is fine, I guess, Soul Eater's artist had a thing for drawing everybody with flat upturned noses for some reason, but at least we didn't have extreme close-up slow mo shots of their nostrils flaring or something like that.

Another thing is the Maiden Gasp.

You know, the part where they get real close up, her eyes widen, and she's just utterly staggered and left speechless by the profoundly beautiful kindness that can only come when someone says...


I understand it's a ludicrously common thing in shoujo, but it just got ridiculous as the series went on, especially as the new experiences became more mundane and what was said was increasingly less *SHOCK GASP!*


That's pretty much it for my thoughts on the series. What it does, it mostly does well, even if not spectacularly well, but the first third or so of the series is far better than the latter bits. I would definitely recommend that part, but say the rest is worth skipping which is actually precisely what I read from another reviewer prior to seeing it, so I'm not the only one to come away with this impression.

And despite my relatively negative review, I will of course lend credit to the true star of the show: Chibi Kuronuma.

Well we were talking about quality and content, and I don't want to spend two hours explaining what I meant and how you misunderstood me. You made assumptions instead of asking me to explain what you didn't understand. And that just lead to paragraphs that were completely irrelevant, which were tedious to read through.

I'm sure there was probably a more constructive way I could have handled this whole issue, so I apologise if I've been coming across as a complete dildo this whole time. But just ask me instead of going with an assumption.

Man... I've actually been loosing sleep over this lol.

I'm never intentionally or knowingly misunderstanding you.

If someone says "It's been really bitter these past few days", and it's been snowing, I think it's fair to assume they're referring to the weather, and respond to them in that way. If their statement doesn't make sense or potentially covers multiple topics, I will ask what they're referring to or respond to all avenues.

I thought I had a pretty good grasp of what you were talking about.

Whoa you are Yotsuba, a masterpiece of slice of life manga.

I have several dozen anime titles that I consider among favorites. Movies are virtually all Miyazaki and Takahata (thanks to their emotional power), plus an Oshii and a Anno and a couple dozens of series, including:

Movies
My Neighbor Totoro
Nausicaa
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away
Porco Rosso
Grave of the Fireflies
Only Yesterday
Tale of Princess Kaguyahime
Kiki's Delivery Service
Gunbuster
Ghost in the Shell
Castle in the Sky

Yep, that's my top 12 animated films.

Series
Haibane Renmei
Madoka
Evangelion
RahXephon
Yamato 2199
Legend of Galactic Heroes
Clannad: Afterstory
Ping Pong: The Animation
Kaiba
Trigun
Serial Experiments Lain
Aria: The Origination

That would be my top 12 animated series.

It's very hard for anything else to break into these spots right now: All anime I watched this year (about 50 series and 25 movies or so) are not in the same level as these awesome 24 titles. Thing is that anime's quality, like anything, varies a lot so I am finding harder and harder to find really great stuff these days.

I noticed that Miyazaki was actually one of the first film directors that I appreciated from an artistic point of view: I was impressed by Spirited Away in the way it was directed, made and it's visual qualities, not wheter the dialogue and content were cool or not. So I discovered that film could be ART from anime.

Well, in Japan anime means animation. Simpsons and Inside Out are classified as "foreign anime". Yep, western animation fans use the term anime for Japanese animated TV series (and sometimes korean or American stuff that copies the typical Japanese style and sometimes computer games and manga which also copies the Japanese style). Some even said that Ping Pong the Animation is not "anime" because the character designs are not cute!

Need to watch Venus Wars.

Seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it.

HAVEN'T seen it. *Added to list.*

Seen some of it. I've seen the first movie and anime series, still have to see the rest, especially the new reboots.

Haven't seen 'em, but both are already on my list.

I stopped watching after the first couple episodes due largely to how slow and uneventful it seemed to me, but I've been wondering about picking it back up.

I actually went out of my way to find it originally because of the bloody angel scene I saw in this AMV:



Still watching.

I don't know anything about RahXephon, but Evangelion is very divided by it's critics. It was by far the most popular anime franchise in Tokyo last time I was there.

I've only seen the live-action movie. It was good.

Nope. *Added*

Nope, but they're on my list.

Watched the first season and got bored.

Watched the first 3 episodes and got bored.

Keep up the search for that next great gem!

Ghibli can certainly make a pretty movie. My favorites are still a combination of the two, though.

I typically interpret anime as a having a particular Japanese approach to animation (not necessarily "cute"). Stuff like Avatar: The Last Airbender would be "emulated anime" to me.

I would admit I have a certain difficulty in watching mecha titles. Mecha look rather silly to me and I find it hard to suspend disbelief when watching those machines. Still I have 2 mecha titles among my top 24 anime list I posted here. But I think it's unlikely that I will add more of those among my favorites.

Indeed. Several years ago, when I was 16-17 I remember I watched movies with Romans in it because it was about Ancient Rome since I was into history. I also watched the TV show Rome, which is vastly superior to anything else about ancient Rome (except I, Claudius). Now I tend to look for stuff more based on quality rather than theme.

I made a similar mistake when I watched Band of Brothers and then decided to try to find WW2 themed movies and series and found all of them vastly inferior to Band of Brothers. I was looking for quality not the theme.

I mean't READ youtsuba!

Now I am mostly reading manga because there are many more great manga compared to anime titles: I think I have watched >90% of the great anime in existence by now. Well, I even compiled a list of top anime ever from ca. 50 anime buffs and critics favorite lists from the internet in July:

1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica
2. Cowboy Bebop
3. Spirited Away
4. Neon Genesis Evangelion
5. Millennium Actress
6. Mushi-Shi
7. My Neighbor Totoro
8. Haibane Renmei
9. Legend of the Galactic Heroes
10. Fate/Zero Second Season
10. Gurren Lagann
12. Neon Genesis Evangelion The End of Evangelion
12. Revolutionary Girl Utena
14. Grave of the Fireflies
15. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
16. Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance
17. Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumia
18. Princess Mononoke
19. Trigun
20. 5 Centimeters Per Second
20. Bakemonogatari
22. Akira
22. Monster
24. Bunny Drop
24. Code Geass Lelouch Rebellion
24. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG
24. Wolf Children
28. Azumanga Daioh
29. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
30. Mushishi: The Next Chapter
31. Baccano
31. FLCL
31. Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal
34. Fate/Zero First Season
35. Code Geass
35. Gunbuster
37. Clannad: After Story
38. Fullmetal Alchemist
38. Perfect Blue
40. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
41. Redline
42. Death Note
42. Steins Gate
44. Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
44. Tokyo Godfathers
44. Toradora!
47. Aria: The Origination
47. Summer Wars
49. Kanon
49. The Tatami Galaxy
51. Princess Tutu
52. Welcome to the NHK!
53. Gunslinger Girl
54. Whisper of the Heart
55. Barakamon
55. Wolf's Rain
57. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
58. Blood+
59. Black Lagoon: Second Barrage
59. Paranoia Agent
61. Kino's Journey
61. Paprika (movie)
63. Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu?
64. Cowboy Bebop The Movie
65. Honey and Clover
65. Honey and Clover II
65. Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit
65. Shirobako
69. Serial Experiments Lain
70. Rose of Versailles
71. Anohana: The Flower we Saw That Day
71. Kiki's Delivery Service
73. BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad
74. Elfen Lied
74. Ping Pong
76. Cardcaptor Sakura
77. Girl who Leap Through Time
78. Nodame Cantabile
78. Planetes
78. RahXephon

I have watched all of these except Rose of Versailles, Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu?, Paranoia Agent, Blood+ and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG (watched the 1st season and got bored, reminded me of Law and Order but animated with cyborgs). By the way, I agree with Madoka in 1st place, it's a really exceptional show since it suceeds on all levels.

Not only in terms of pretty but in overall artistic terms: direction, style, symbolic significance, sound, music, etc. After I watched Spirited Away, which was the first Miyazaki movie I watched, it changed the whole way that I view animation since it moved me to tears.

There is no typical Japanese approach to animation since Japanese animation is enormous and very varied.

I also dislike the term "anime", I prefer the term animation, which is a much better characterization of what I am watching. I would even say that "anime" is rather prejudiced: its lumping a whole world that consists of 2/3 of all animation in the world with a single label. What liking anime means? It means to like animation.

To me Cat Returns is perhaps Ghibli's weakest movie. Miyazaki and Takahata are far above the level of the rest of the studio's directors and the best movie not directed by any of these two is Whisper of the Heart, directed by the great Kondo.