Yu Yu Hakusho (Dub) Status:
INTERESTED
Episodes: 44-46
Episode 44 is pretty much just an interim episode after the end of the last Dark Tournament round. Hiei finally gets into the ring after being screwed out of matches and of course it's like unleashing a demon... which it literally is, and Hiei stabs his first opponent through the face. Probably one of the fastest matches in the Dark Tournament yet. Meanwhile Genkai tells Urameshi to kill her as part of his final test.
Uhhh... okay. Of course he says no, and DUH, that passes the test and Genkai says he qualifies for the TRUE test! Basically she says she can't teach Urameshi anything more and the only way to gain enough power in time to tackle Toguro is to use hers. Apparently Genkai's been squirreling away spirit power into an orb which Urameshi has to absorb, but if he's not meant to have it, it'll kill him from the inside out in a trial that could take days.
Obviously he's THE CHOSEN ONE, but Episode 45 doesn't waste any time showing us Urameshi screaming away in a cave. At least he's still Urameshi and tries to distract himself from the pain by punching stuff. Genkai evens surprisingly backs out at one point and takes the orb back, but of course, Urameshi curses at her and takes it back.
Meanwhile Hiei gets into a real match against a guy who has a really simple strategy at first: if he endures one attack, he becomes further immune to all future attacks of that type. Straightforward enough, but then he can only exercise it by taking a ball, crushing it, inhaling fumes, and turning into a random demon reject.
I'd get it if he had to do that each time we wanted to start absorbing a new kind of attack, but it doesn't seem to work that way and before we can see all of his forms, in Episode 46 he idiotically gets close enough for Hiei to pull off a super at point blank range, killing him.
If your main power is being able to become immune to the last attack that hit you, I would THINK you would try not to get KILLED when it hits you! It's an interesting initial concept, but a pretty stupid fight that leaves Hiei in pretty bad shape.
Once again, Hakusho manages to surprise by offering both Hiei another fight which he wants, Kuwabara a fight which he doesn't want, and instead of satisfying demand or playing up irony, Kurama gets called up. Well played...
Kurama starts a fight off against some whip guy who's supposed to be "the perfect match for Kurama", but he starts telepathically pleading with Kurama to kill him for the sake of his family. This is totally different from anything we've seen in the Dark Tournament so far, so I think, cool, you know, they deserve an easy win.
But no, Hiei already got the easy win, and just as Kurama goes to feign the other guy's death, PSYCHE! Kurama gets trapped in the arena by a field of cords and apparently forced to inhale a toxin that will revert his age to a child. Apparently that's this guy's whole strategy:
trap,
turn into babies,
????,
profit!
But inexplicably Kurama regresses into... a fox demon!? This stuff's only been mentioned in passing prior to this and since Kurama's easily the least developed of the main four, it's well past due we saw Kurama do something badass. Once again lookin' forward to the next episode.
Episodes: 47-49
So apparently, back in the day, Kurama was a legendary bishie demon with far fewer morals before he was sealed /reborn/whatever as a human child (doesn't that make Kurama a human? Or a half-demon? Or Naruto?).
The best part about this, I think, is that it means Kurama who was easily the weakest if not second to weakest on the team, is potentially the most powerful of all of them (save Urameshi of course). But that's about all it does.
The round ends with a teamkill by the other side before the guy says something he shouldn't and Urameshi team for the first time get into an argument over who fights first which Kuwabara wins through rock paper scissors. I like how Hiei doesn't know what the game is until it's explained and then complains that Kuwabara reacts a fraction slower than everybody else so he could win.
Meanwhile, Urameshi's killing himself and just when he's about to give up, Puu comes along and tries to feed him water despite suffering surrogate pain. For some random reason a boulder's about to fall on him and the most f'd up Urameshi we've seen yet needs to stand up and save his little blue ass. It's dramatic, a little overly sweet, but it's a decent conclusion to this sideplot. He succeeds, collapses, and it's a sure sign that he's going to be out of rotation for several episodes again.
Episode 48 begins and without any real indication it seems as if the animation has improved. A lot more frames are given to animating even mundane actions. It's strange, but I'm not complainin'.
Kuwabara faces some guy with double ahoges and IMMEDIATELY gets teleported out of the stadium, losing by default, where he meets up with all the useless female characters who are just lost and literally looking for the plot. It reminds me that Botan used to be important and continues to forget THAT SHE CAN ****ING FLY which marks the second time in this series where she isn't present for events because of reasons. There seriously isn't any good reason why they're lost. Botan can just fly up into the sky, see which direction they have to go, fly back down, and escort them that way. Why is SHE the one getting them all lost?
It's a dumb plothole, but fortunately there are very few of them throughout the series, so I can overlook it.
While Hiei and Kurama decide who goes next, Genkai shows up and Hiei displays some refreshing skepticism that's she's even the real Genkai, since it would not be at all unusual for a saboteur to take their place and intentionally lose for them.
For reasons that are never explained, Double-Ahoge decides not to use his teleporting scarf thing and just fight her with his demon sword. It's revealed that Genkai is once again old which suggests Urameshi team is trying to cheat, to which Toguro interrupts (pleasantly quieting the crowd), and confirms it's the same fighter.
It's weird and even unnerving for Genkai to be in a fight at all I think. After saying her training with Urameshi is done, she says she can die now which implies she doesn't care if she loses, but the episode ends with her saying she must win just so she can face Toguro again. She fought Toguro before? *GASP!* Was Toguro one of her students????
Kuwabara and the girls find Urameshi (THANK YOU), and they decide to leave Keiko with him as Kuwabara and the others run off to the stadium. A not UNSUBTLE suggestion is left for Keiko to molest him while he's unconscious... Oookay.
Genkai gives Double-Ahoge the "oh no I have so little power, I can't keep dodging this forever" bit and then catches his sword, steals his energy making her young again, and trounces him like nobodies business. The ref comes over to comment on "girl power" and how nice it is that a young girl in a male-dominated tournament actually manages to accomplish so much, but she bites her tongue when she notices Genkai's aged again.
It's at this point that I realize that despite all of the thoroughly useless female characters on the side who so far have only had very small roles throughout the series, the strongest female character, both literally and...
literaturally...is obviously Genkai. Similar to Hiei, she demonstrates a moral code that shifts as the series goes on, she's no push-over when it comes to other characters getting in her way, and she has a significant impact on how everything in the series unfolds, both as Urameshi's mentor and otherwise.
It's a shame that she's the only female protagonist treated this way. Kuwabara's sister's neither a maiden like Keiko and Hiei's sister, nor a genki girl like Botan, but she could be cut out of the story and it wouldn't affect anything. I don't even remember her name.
The episode ends with Kuwabara swaggering back into the ring and hopefully into a redeeming win to finish the semi-finals.
Kimi ni Todoke (Sub) Status:
INTERESTED
Episodes: 8-9
I accidentally watched episode 10 through 14. I thought the anime must have glossed over some parts, but NOPE, just totally watched them out of order, whoops. Anyway, Sawako finally meets and becomes friends with Kurumi who I already know will become a total bitch. Since episode 14 has them make up and become REAL friends... maybe? Sorta? Perhaps Kurumi will get some redeeming qualities.
I don't know, but considering her good points apparently end at: competes with other girls for Kazehaya's affection, I'd really rather not see her again. Of course, that plotline takes so much time, it has to be resolved and contribute to Sawako's overall development in some way beyond finally opening up to Kazehaya, so it remains to be seen what will be done with her.
Episodes: 15
Kurumi finally confesses her love to Kazehaya to which Kazehaya apologizes and says he's interested in someone else. This is unfortunately getting to that annoying dating phase of romance stories where we start introducing "RULES", the first unspoken one obviously being monogamy. If Kazehaya says he loves someone else, all that implies is that he can't love her back because by default he can only love one person. It would make a hell of a lot more sense if he simply said he didn't share her feelings. It's obvious that this is that case which is why it doesn't bother me too much, but it's still that vague implication of structure of "this is how society says your relationships should work" ******** that always gets to me.
There isn't even any mention of, "well can we still be friends?", because Kurumi goes straight into casually insulting him for his choice of women. It seems as if she at least got a lot off her chest, but she's still a bitch. I guess the progress here is she's a bitch that's out of the way?
Later she goes to see Sawako, babbles at her, and when Sawako pulls the, "well can we still be friends?" line, Kurumi says that they're rivals. With a smile, so they're happy rivals?
I'm not getting that sort of rivalry here at all. ...like, at all. They define rivalry at the end of the episode as a "a worthy opponent", but all that really translates to here is: Sawako's already won Kazehaya's affection, and Kurumi's going to get in the way of that.
I feel like Kurumi just turned into the Pokemon equivalent of Gary.
She's presented like someone who's enjoyable to compete against, but all she is is a trash-talking loser.
My biggest question now is how the series can continue for another 9 or so episodes. We tackled rumors, bullying, competing love interests, so what's left? They've basically confessed to each other, are they going to start dating now? I'm not looking forward to that. I'm even less looking forward to Kurumi using her "rivalry" as an excuse to cause more trouble.
Darker Than Black [Dub] Status:
LOSING INTEREST
Episodes: 2
Ehhhh... I don't know. I don't know a LOT of things. Is the main character a good guy? Am I supposed to be empathizing with him? He makes a point of admitting he uses other people, but then doesn't like it when people speak ill of would-be sentient dolls? Whatever dolls are supposed to be? Robots? See, I don't even know. Honestly, the whole plot arc that began in the first episode has already turned inside out by this one and it's pretty much as if the entire story OF THE ANIME has been resolved.
I don't mind if they have brief plot arcs, but I don't get the sense that this series is designed to be episodic adventures, and if they're not there doesn't seem to be any indication that it did absolutely ANYTHING for the overaching story other than vaguely hint at who's working with our hero. Is he even a hero?
I'm giving it until episode 3 to decide.
Episodes: 3
I still don't know what's going on. As I figured the last two episodes contribute virtually nothing to the third and now the main character (whatever his name is) is now floating around this girl who I guess is implied to be a contractor? Or someone becoming a contractor? Does the glowy thing in her wrist indicate she is a contractor? Or does it mean that she'll become a contractor?
I actually just realized that the anime never explicitly explains the "pay-the-price" mechanic to each contractor's powers, this was explained to me by someone. They only briefly mention that one character has to organize small pebbles in a certain grid to regain their powers, but it's very briefly mentioned and probably easy to miss.
Other characters seem to have to do things like fold over the corners of every page in a book or eat a ton of food, but if you're watching this anime and you didn't pick up the purpose of these actions, the emphasis on them will probably confuse you.
I legitimately like the powers, their diversity, and the costs they come with, they're very interesting, like the girl who can sense the surroundings of water while she's in contact with it, whatever her name is, or the guy who can replace matter he's in contact with and in eyesight of, whatever his name is.
...what's even the main character's power though? I've already spent the average length of a movie on this damn show and I still don't even know the limits of the main character's abilities. My best guess is that he uses electricity? It would explain how he can causes seizures to people he's hit with his cord, and how he can light up a theme park at will, but you know that's another thing, why in the hell would a girl, who's well aware she's being stalked by a stranger, allow herself to be lead into a closed theme park and then without argument, close her eyes when he tells her to without offering any reason to do so?
That's some seriously sceevy ****.
I mainly watched this series because I'd heard good things about it and knew that Studio Bones was animating it, but the action sequences are pretty lackluster compared to Bones' other works.
I GUESS I'll give it one more episode since it seems like we're right on the verge of something, but it better start explaining what the hell is going on, or I'm done.
Zoids: New Century (Dub) Status:
LOST INTEREST
Episodes: 1-3
Screw this. The main character, Bit, is a thief, gets handed a spot on a Zoid battling team for no reason other than he can pilot the super-extra-special Zoid they're not using, AAAAAAAAAND that's all you need to know about him.
They do some piss poor exposition about him wanting to create the ultimate zoid, but selfish aspirations don't compensate for selfish faults. The Zoid battles are slightly better than Chaotic Century so far. The models have more dynamic animations (as they should) and more emphasis seems to be put how these robots would logically work, but if you give even the slightest crap about "realistic Zoid behavior", you'd account for a really jarring inconsistency with them:
They're robots. When the plot calls for it.
At any given moment a Zoid will stand stock still and not respond to anything, but then as soon as the plot calls for it, they'll make growly noises and move around. What provokes them to alternate between "motionless vehicle" and "sentient robot"? There doesn't seem to be any logic to it whatsoever.
Episode 3 really kicks the already crap characters in the ribs by suggesting that the old leader of the Zoid team is SO confident that Bit's a capable member that he's going to retire (and hopefully cure that dreadful case of bedhead) at the same time that his whole team gets worthlessly team-killed by the one girl on the team that won't stop bitching at Bit and simultaneously wants him to fight for her honor because she's deluded herself into believing he cares in the slightest.
Both of her teammates defeat their targets and she just AoEs everybody, literally killstealing, causing expensive damage to her whole team, and then pulling a Noblewoman Laugh. Heeeeeeeeell no.
Saiyuki (Dub) Status:
LOST INTEREST
Episodes: 1
This is just... weird. In a bad way.
The character's faces look messed up, the editing is crap, the action is WAYYY underbudget (I'm talkin' slideshow fistfights here), and what little story or characterization we have seems like a rejected script from a JRPG.
I might talk about how there are four main characters, one's a human priest and the other three are demons, or how the demons have repressed their power so they're MORE powerful than regular demons, which decided to stop co-existing with humanity because of watch-the-next-episode, BUT HONESTLY, I just don't think I could get over the fact that there's a dragon that turns into a jeep.
Like, it's not even treated as a joke. It's just a thing that happens.
The sky is blue.
Toasters make toast.
Dragons turn into jeeps.
And then back into dragons.
And then back into jeeps.
I guess it's fuel efficient and you get an free on-board talking GPS, but they don't even comment on it at all!
I seriously feel like I missed a whole anime series that takes place before this. I guess there are two OVAs which I didn't watch, but after this I don't even have the slightest interest in seeing 'em.
Apparently Saiyuki's supposed to be a Journey to the West adaption, but I was way more engaged in the story of Enslaved: Odyssey the the West than this, and I don't even care for it as a game.
In fact, after searching for this I found Saiyuki: Journey West which actually looks like decent tactics game for once. I think I'll try that instead.
Reply to Topic
