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Maybe it was just two storytelling pet peeves of mine in inglorious disharmony. :P Rant incoming nonetheless.

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First, the audience knows most of the big reveals (about the Dollars, the Yellow Scarves, and Saika) from the very beginning of the second half (IIRC), undermining any sense of mystery, tension, and motion in the arc's central narrative. Watching characters figure out something you the viewer already know (or watching them suffer repeatedly for not knowing) is a losing battle; usually the only way to get away with it is with a very short delay, only long enough for you to get a sense of the implications but not long enough for you to really think about it (like some of the horrible things in "Shinsekai Yori" that you realize only moments before everything goes horribly and irrevocably wrong). Sometimes you can get away with a longer delay if you play it for tragedy and make sure there are rock solid, previously established reasons why certain characters can't learn major story details that the audience already knows. But even if you do that, the entire focus of your narrative has to shift; for the audience, a reveal only has oomph once, and the tragic impact of a character making a mistake based primarily on the lack of that "hidden" information fades quickly as well, so you can't pull that stunt repeatedly (i.e. make it the crux of the onscreen action) without causing frustration. As such, you typically want each character's narrative to not revolve around that "hidden" info. Instead, you want their misconception/ignorance only to come into play at the last possible moment, allowing the audience to know that the character may have been making mistakes and *suspect* the consequences but only reavealing the full scope at the climax. (It might also be possible to do the reverse, where the misconception comes into play only at the beginning, where a mistake rapidly redirects each character's narrative arc so much so that it quickly becomes mostly irrelevant whether or not the original misconception is ever corrected. Either way, the focus would quickly shift away from the drama surrounding the "hidden" information.) "Durarara!!" dwells on the exact situation that sharing the reveal would resolve, and it fails to preemptively offer a good reason why the reveal can't be shared.

And that leads to my second complaint: the entire conflict could have been resolved immediately if people with no reason not to talk to each other (i.e. the three friends, Mikado, Anri, and Masaomi) had gone and talked to each other. I get that the trio are not the kind of people to open up to (and foist their problems upon) each other, but the writers only establish those characters as being like that in retrospect, i.e. *because* they don't do it. As such, it seems like the plot necessitates the characters to be non-communicative morons in order to drag out the drama rather than the proper alternative, which would be establishing them as non-communicative morons, then forcing the viewer to watch as an otherwise entirely avoidable tragedy unfolds...due to their tragic flaws of keeping their problems to themselves rather than asking their friends for help. What they chose to do was an outstandingly frustrating - albeit perhaps legitimate - way of developing their characters...in a new direction, halfway through the show. :\

So, ultimately, I don't buy into their "justification" for 12 episodes of drama surrounding the gang leaders getting increasingly paranoid about the other gangs because they don't know that the other gang leaders are actually their bros and/or hos. And my suspension of disbelief was shattered, no matter how much I adore the other characters.

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TL;DR
They give away what they needed to be their big reveals at the outset.
They make the central narrative conflict the fact that the characters don't know the aforementioned big reveals.
They force the audience to wait for the characters to catch-up and figure it out.
The characters don't figure it out, despite having an easy method to do so.
12 laborious episodes pass this way.
The conclusion ends up being almost entirely predictable, and, minus the violence, probably exactly what would have happened had they just used the easy solution earlier, leading me to wonder what the point of it all was and why we couldn't just have more of Shizuo, Celty, and Shinra. And sure, let's include Izaya, that crazy, manipulative bastard.


If you need an unusual suggestion for a 12-episode show, I will go on record as the only person ever to recommend "Kuzu no Honkai." It's like an abnormal psychology class used Murphy's Law as their primary tool to help write a high school drama. I was impressed by how twisted yet completely coherent all the (major) characters are, but it seems like no one else likes that show or even begrudgingly respects it. My backup oddball rec is "Futakoi Alternative," which I'm pretty sure no one but me has seen. I can't even begin to describe it; it is whatever it feels like being. And of course, if you want something really short, it doesn't look like you've seen "Space Patrol Luluco" yet, and despite the limited animation, it's by TRIGGER, so it's really well-directed.

But I could blindly recommend things all day long. "Rage of Bahamut?" "Symphogear" (season one only, and maybe skip the last five minutes)? "Taishou Baseball Girls?" Maybe just keep watching "Plastic Memories" and tell me if I should move it closer to the top of my queue. I need reasons to delay watching "Darling in the FranXX" until it's finished airing. Although I think I'm going to end up starting that one no matter what.

Congrats on getting all the way through "Durarara!!." I really liked the first half, but I wanted to bludgeon myself to death with my television during the second half. How can you have put "Baccano!" on hold, though? For shame!

Irrelevant, unrelated comment: I was playing a video game with Egan when Morgan walked in, heard the female lead utter only three words - "Cheer up, okay?" - and immediately called Laura Bailey as the voice actor. Said it sounded exactly like Tooru. XD

Clearly that anecdote was worth the five seconds it took. Clearly. Just have to keep telling myself that.

Damn straight.

Go watch Shinsekai Yori.
Now.
...
You're welcome.
...
That is all.

Glad to see you liked Little Witch Academia!

You should watch Kill la Kill.

I understand you don't have a choice. That's why I pity you. Although, you could seize control of your club in a violent coup and then outsource all planning to me. I have a pretty decent track record with finding and showing good anime. Or so my friends tell me straight to my face.

Yeah, B Gata H Kei is horribly awkward and kinda all-around pathetic. I've only seen the first 4 eps, though, so I can't say for certain. For all I know, it'll turn into a touching romantic comedy that challenges the socially conservative views on sexual relationships that dominate Japanese culture.

HAHAHAHAHAaaaaaa no.

Anyways, yeah, "quirky" may not adequately describe Mawaru Penguindrum. But still, yeah, at least it's been pretty interesting, from the 12 eps I've seen. BTW, the guy who made the show also made Revolutionary Girl Utena, but he hadn't made anything since then. So the weirdness was to be expected by people in the know.

Anyways, enjoy! I haven't been a part of an anime club in several months, and it's fun to watch even bad anime in a group sometimes. I want to show Steins;Gate to Morgan and Egan, but we're watching the American "kid's" cartoon, Adventure Time, so it's hard to fit in anything else in our limited hang-out times.

B Gata H Kei?

Again, you poor thing.

You're watching Infinite Stratos? You poor, poor thing.

At least Mawaru Penguindrum should make up for that a bit...if only by being quirky. I've also heard Usagi Drop is really good.

Hey there! How is Welcome to the NHK? And how are you liking Steins;Gate?

'Sup Camacat?

Well, I've been pretty involved in the research, to the point of helping with the design of the experiment, not to mention actually running it, troubleshooting it, and processing the results a bit. It's pretty engaging and interesting.

Other movies? I saw Toy Story 3, which was great, like pretty much every Pixar film. I saw There's Something About Mary for the first time a couple months ago, and I guess I saw Caddyshack, too, but your question kinda implies RECENT movies.

I have been reading a LOT more manga than usual, though. It started when a friend mentioned Nononono, by the author of Elfen Lied. Long story short, it is really good. Then I asked for more recommendations from her, and that led to a website where I have taken to clicking on every series in the Recent Uploads list every time I log on. Then I download and read the ones that look like they aren't mind-numbingly bad. It's super random, and usually it's super BAD. It led me to KamiNomi, though, so I guess I'll keep at it.

Ah, I see; you'll watch it because you've heard good things from OTHER people. Jerk. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!

I'm gonna go eat my weight in ice cream, throw it up, then eat it again!

Happy Belated Birthday!!!

KPOP? If only I could use some sort of site that indexes the world wide web in order to figure out what you mean by that...certainly there is nothing like that in existence. Do you mean KPOP as in K-Pop as in Korean Pop Music?

It must be fun working in the psych lab. Well, to be honest, I don't know really, since my experience in research has been somewhat different from what I'd normally expect for undergraduate involvement.

I've just been totally out of it this summer, and I haven't gotten much done at all. I haven't even finished much anime (I'm running out of things I think might be good, and I'm starting to notice a dip in my ability to tolerate Standard Pushover Male Protagonist). I saw The Last Airbender, though, and I think you might appreciate hearing about it, since I'm sure the live-action adaptation is like a nightmare-come-true for a fan of the original. It was just as bad as I would expect from a movie adapted from an epic children's show that originally had 3 or 4 times the runtime to cover the same portion of the story. Actually, I take it back, since the movie was EVEN WORSE than that. And I don't even dislike Avatar (I still haven't seen enough in order to say for sure), it's just that the movie was really, really bad; we're talking bordering on so bad it's good.

In any case, you still need to watch Bakemonogatari. It is one of the best things I've seen, not that that means much to you, considering Dragon Half is in my Top 5. :P If anything, you should finish FMA just so you can get to it! Oh, and you should watch Code Geass, too, since that's super-good. Again, grain-o'-salt, Dragon Half, blah blah blah blah blah.

You totally need to get on top of watching Bakemonogatari. I'm pretty sure all 15 episodes have been released, and it is extraordinary.

Oh, by the way, how have you been?

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