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Doomroar | Apr 21, 2015 8:53 PM
Time to add Ninja Slayer From Animation |
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Heavy-Maetel | Sep 17, 2014 10:25 AM
Please add this anime to the relations:http://myanimelist.net/anime/15749/Chiisana_Oji-san It's about an old man who gets picked up by a little girl and henceforth starts living with her. So far nine episodes are subbed, but I hope more will be available eventually. I really enjoyed watching them. Give it a try! |
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Doomroar | Aug 25, 2014 6:17 PM
Wow it is perfect! and it is also perfect for the shorts club! |
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RobdeFR | Aug 25, 2014 7:35 AM
I don't know why I never remembered about this one again but the weirdness of this particular tinz anime is top, and calling it unusual is being too kind.I'm talking of Mikan Seijin > http://myanimelist.net/anime/6907/Mikan-Seijin Youtube > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2KnNLlPaZs |
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Doomroar | Aug 7, 2014 5:43 PM
Well since more than half this has nothing to do with the club i will address the related part here and the other on your user page.Haha, well i agree most animes don't really have much budget to begin with. I see, sorry then. Well even if he is hokage level, he is still an idiot, and rasengan is what he knows to do... so he only knows how to improve on his previous powers, not really come with totally new ones. Is true i jumped to conclusions when i said that "i was raised watching Dragon Ball, and no battle of Naruto would ever get to the over powered levels of Goku." however it will take and incredible surprising thing to happen, for my statement to change, and as things stand now it is too unlikely to happen. The analogies were confirmed by the author on different interviews, and i do think he accomplishes his purposes, but it sure would have been great if i was able to deduce all that as a kid XD. That is actually a failure in storytelling, if you have to re-explain a concept that you already explained before you failed the first time, and at this point you are just trying to clean your mess. Naruto, Bleach, and plenty of others have magic and use it to explain their phenomena, whit Bleach being the most incompetent of them all, because to this day it still has to waste pages explaining how reiatsu works (remember the cannon). Well i will continue this on the comment section of your user page, because the thing really gets off topic from here onward XD. |
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Rethardus | Aug 7, 2014 2:50 AM
Edited: wow, I typed a huge wall of text, sorry for that. But please do read, I put a lot of effort into it :pWhat I mean with A, B and C titles was not literally the budget, but more about the reception. What I meant with "B" anime was the themes, not the budget, but it's an ironic usage of the word because the majority of anime is "B", lol. You're misunderstanding me, I didn't say Naruto is good now, because it's one on one... As a matter of fact, I totally wish it ended. My examples of "one on one" battles were more about the past, when Kishimoto didn't blew the whole war thing up, and acted like anyone cared. Nobody does, I think people originally watched Naruto for the twists in battles, and the cool techniques. There's nothing of that anymore. I haven't thought about it that way "there's no real risk involved". You might be right why I feel that way, but I think that's not the main reason. I think the reason is indifference. I couldn't care less because the story is uninteresting, so I don't care if they die at all. Actually, 90% of the audience know Naruto won't die, because it's a shounen. To achieve suspense is not literally about dying or not, since that could be done in literally one panel. It's more the question about HOW one dies that's important in a shounen (or any other show for that matter). If Naruto were to die now, it's just because Kaguya is a strong opponent, which should be apparant because they're so verbal about her being strong. I don't even care what "strong" is, since monster techniques have been used over and over. I can't grasp their level anymore, just like I can't imagine what having a billion means. So in that sense, it's not like I literally expect Naruto to be still dumb and not able to invent jutsu on the fly. It's my expectation for the manga to be more accessible. Sure, Naruto is hokage level and he fires off giant Rasengans with ease, but does that envoke any grandness that it's supposed to have? To me, it just seems like Kishimoto thought "Rasengan is cool, so bigger rasengan = cooler". That's the problem I have. And I still think Naruto was good until the Shippuuden, I reread the manga sometimes, and the first chapters feel funny, action-packed and clever. Also, I didn't say Naruto is better than DBZ, I said that certain battles did more for me than in DBZ, since that was something you said before. "i was raised watching Dragon Ball, and no battle of Naruto would ever get to the over powered levels of Goku." It's not because I liked SOME of the battles in Naruto more, that it means I think Naruto is better. Besides, the manga still hasn't ended yet, so I'll hold my verdict. You'll never know what might happen. Sure, you might say all those analogies, which I'm not completely sure off, but okay. The things you mentioned are totally irrelevant to the Macguffin problem. It's right in the story, but that's simple, because the writer decides what's right or not. But it's ridiculous to use the same story-device over and over again, even though they are legitimate reasons within that universe. Even if I did give you solid reasons why Ichigo lost his powers, it would still mean that the writer is unoriginal. Not saying that Toriyama is bad / unoriginal, but it is outdated, and this is what I'd like to elaborate. "Outdated" in my definition isn't so much the thematical issues. DB is very clever, so with that, I don't have any problem at all. What I mean with outdated is how modern manga tries to explain stuff without assumptions. But in the midst of typing this, I realize how this could be a bad thing too. Modern manga tries to explain itself too much so it gets a bit pretentious, whereas older manga just blamed things on magic and whatnot; which is totally fine, because it's a fictional world. Anyway, I think I said that argument because of the deus-ex machina. Even in brainless manga like titan, they would at least explain why some people die or some people gets revived. In DBZ, we just have to assume it's true, because "they said so". Sometimes they can use senzu beans, and sometimes they're out of it, we just have to believe them, because Toriyama decided it isn't an appropriate moment to have a lot of senzu beans. Or the whole wishing thing with Shenron could be so vague and inconsistent too. Sometimes a wish works because of this and that, sometimes it doesn't. I really can't name a lot of examples, because I've forgotten specific situations, but I remember me having to facepalm a lot of times when I read the manga. But on the other side, that what makes DB so good, it's so easy-going, so frivolous, it's so fun to read. Again, I didn't say his "man crush is better". This isn't one of those "SUPERMAN IS BETTER THAN GOKU" thingy. I take one specific sentence you said, and elaborated on that. To be specific, I liked how the man crush thing began, and how Naruto would chase him down, it just got dragged on in the latter part, and that's where I have to admit you're right. You seem to think if I say one specific aspect is good, that I support a franchise wholeheartedly. No, I don't think Naruto is better than DB, just because I thought the best fight is better. Some things were better in Naruto and some things were better in DB. Like you said, the villains in DB are pretty good, they all have distinct personalities and reasoning, not to mention they LOOK fucking badass. I think content wise "DB is better" could be debated. I mean, they both have their stupid tendencies to it, but Naruto has some pretty nice existential questions (yea yea, I know it sounds ridiculous, but hear me out). First, I have to state Naruto can be pretty stupid, before you accuse me I think Naruto is the best thing in the world. As stated before, I pretty much hate where the manga is headed at right now, and I think it should've stopped before he grew up. That being said, before you say Naruto is retarded, you should reread some conversations between Pain and Naruto. A friend once told me this and I have to agree, it's pretty beautiful. The friend said I should reread the conversation between Pain and Naruto, where Pain asked Naruto what he's fighting for. Naruto said Pain is the bad guy, destroying his whole village and killing his friends. Pain replied that he experienced the same pain before. He said that Naruto would do the exact same thing if Naruto killed him, and where did his arrogance come from that he (Naruto) is the good guy in this, since the village Konoha killed plenty of people too. And then, Naruto couldn't reply. I mean, I've read many manga, seen many anime, but this is the first time I saw a determined, hot-headed average shounen character being shut down by a few words. It's as if a fourth wall broke down, this villain just questioned the whole existence of a generic shounen character: what are you fighting for, why are you right? Things like that wouldn't have been possible a few decades ago, because manga is evolving. It's trying to add more depth to it, even though it's just a "dumb" shounen. That's why I said DB feels "outdated", but arguably, that might not be a bad thing, because Naruto can be too pretentious as well. |
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Doomroar | Aug 5, 2014 11:59 AM
Click bait, so low... so cheap, so effective.Well you would only had to watch Digimon Adventure 01, but just to get the basics of how Digimons work, other than that you could just watch the movie itself. I don't know what is the point of having a tirpple A production with C or B for it's standards of production and content? I bet that for most of them Aku no Hana was the very first time in their lives encountering rotoscoping, but they were chained by a preconception of what an anime should look like (which also affected those that already knew about rotoscoping), a pity really, but other than that the story was more dramatic than it should have been, is just kids exploring their sexuality, then making some mistakes, she was quite crazy tho, parental negligence is my bet here. But here is the thing, not even the situation itself or its context are really epic, because the big boss is not really that powerful at this point the best thing that she managed was separate them, and they got together already, and secondly neither of the main-characters seems to be in danger, even if they die their ideological legacies were already implanted into the other characters so there is no risk involved, because technicalities will take away any lost generated by the death of both of them. Well about the powers use, he is at hokage level already, and to explains all of his powers every time at this point would not make much sense, even more it is to be expected that a ninja at that point would be able to create new techniques in the middle of the battle, so i don't really see a problem with that (even if is a characteristic element of the series to give long monologues mid battle, which still happens XD), what i have a problem is that for both of them even for the big boss, their powers are not really as grandiose as they could be, they are indeed bland i totally agree with that, with all that power i was expecting to see better things than just spikes and chakra balls. Gohan VS Cell, after Goku dies... what i am saying is that Naruto was never as good as everyone believed it was, which doesn't makes it bad, it makes it not as good. "Outdated" so you are one of those? sure lets forget historical context. Vegeta was a prince that was used by Freezer as a pawn to fuel his planet selling business and empire, it would make no sense for such a prideful person to not rebel against him, the androids were humans used by Dr Gero that in the end were tricked and betrayed only to empower a better android known as cell, in both of their case it doesn't makes sense to just help destroy their common enemy. And finally Buu is a newborn child with a playful nature that can be seen as neutral chaotic with a tendency towards being good, in a way is Toriyama telling us that no child is really evil despite their mistakes or past, eventually Buu who is born a demon and with help of some horrible events separates and the real enemy appears, but Fat Buu loses most of his powers, is an allegory on how someone is not born evil but is the surroundings the one that pushes us towards one side or the other, in this case the anger and frustration of Fat Buu makes him unleash the enemy that will eventually destroy life on the planet, however the event was totally separated from Babidi's or Buu's nature, following this great idea of Toriyama, once Buu starts snowballing towards a path of evil, his good side in correlation becomes weaker, the genius of this man doesn't ends there, because after all is said and done Majin Buu gets a second chance to redeem himself, not only is good Buu allowed to live but his other half is reincarnated to have a proper life. But sure... Naruto and his man crush are better, because friendship right? such a beautiful thing, the good side was that friendship didn't conquers all in the end and Sasuke continued with his path, except that... friend ship conquers all in the end because of what is happening currently in the manga... If we are going for standards DBZ has way better content, Freezer is a critic towards real state agents, Cell is a critic on genetic manipulation and malpractice of science, Buu is a speech on the nature and disposition towards good and evil, and all 3 of those themes are still relevant today, quite far from being outdated. But what about Naruto? it is another shonen manga about friendship that was plagued with a patriotic speech sustained on a fictional village, luckily this part was debunked once the author finally decided to join the villages (by giving them a common enemy... but so what? that is how these things also happen in real history) and explore the past of the Uchiha and Senju clans, that was great, it was excellent, and makes Naruto a story worth reading, but... it took him way too long to do this, most of Naruto has this overtone and even now that part is still there, ingrained on the story, which makes Naruto good, but not as good, and that is what i am saying it is not as good as people think it is (in the past, now everyone hates it XD). So yeah DBZ is better, you even get to see Goku grow all the way until he even gets married and has kids, all things said he was an awful dad, even when he was not dead XD. About the deus ex-machina thing, yeah that is the whole point of Goku, and Naruto actually suffers from the same thing with him having the spirit and powers of the son of the big boss XD. Oh please don't mention Bleach, while i can defend some parts of Naruto, when it comes to Bleach i would have say that the only good thing it had was the beginning, the rest is just fanservice in different shapes and flavors, but it doesn't gets deeper than that, Ichigo loses his powers all to become a shinigami-human-quincy-hollow and who knows what is next XD. |
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Rethardus | Aug 4, 2014 4:39 AM
Yup, that's me, but you should be aware that I used those titles just to lure people to read the stuff. Pretty predictable how people would click on it, it totally worked.The Wiggly Tower was something I made in college, that explains it. I did not know it was made by the same director. You see, I don't have anything against a different opinion if it's well-argumented. The problem with a lot of opinions is that people just use it as a shield to learn or appreciate new things. Like "I like / hate it, so you can't do anything about it". You've explained the reason why you dislike Summer Wars, and from what I can tell, it seems to be very valid. I would say I'd love to watch the Digimon movie to compare, but then I'd have to watch the whole Digimon franchise. And I did not bring popularity in to the conversation. In fact, I never even mentioned that word, though I understand why you'd say I bring popularity in as a measuring factor. The point was not so much "popular = good", but that copying and building upon it is a very good way to create new stuff. I don't necessarily agree with the repetitiveness that's occurring in Japan, but I'm not against it either. I think there's room for your average crappy B-movie, as well as triple A titles. I just don't think B or C titles should become the standard (!), and how originality (Aku no Hana) is frowned upon because the style is "bad", because it's different. For the record, I like Titan and Madoka, but like you said, it's overhyped because it's something "new". I just used the war as an example, and it still applies to the one on two battle. It's supposed to feel epic because it's the "big boss", and the whole world is depending on Sasuke and Naruto. In that sense, it's still about the subject, and not so much the execution. Egoraptor phrased it pretty well in "sequilitis" about Zelda. Link had to jump over a floor full of lava and stuff, which is supposedly dangerous and intimidating. But in reality, all you had to do is press the stick forward and Link automatically jumps. He then said something like: "it's not because the situation is dangerous and strenuous, that the gameplay is difficult as well". The same thing applies to Naruto. The whole situation Naruto's in is pretty epic and grand, but the techniques he uses, the way he solves problems, ..., it's pretty bland and unoriginal. I don't think it's nostalgia (though that might be PARTYL it), but I remember Naruto using pretty clever tricks to deceive enemies. I remember when techniques really mattered because we saw it in "realtime" how he developed new techniques. He actually worked hard for it, and we saw the explanation behind stuff like Rasengan and Chidori. It makes sense. Nowadays, it's just because Naruto is talented, and he can make up shit mid-battle. It's very boring and uninspiring. Don't say Naruto was never good. I mean, you can still look up the battle of Sasuke vs Naruto, that shit is the best animated battle in shounen history for me. It's so action-oriented, it's not action for the sake of action, there's actually a whole story of friendship behind their battle. It's not animation for the sake of animating, but it serves purpose to the story. I really love that fight, and DBZ never achieved that kind of animation. But that's to be blamed on the animation studio, I really liked the manga. But DBZ feels outdated compared to today's standards. There's a lot of deus ex-machina going on, and Toriyama sometimes would use the same tricks over and over to advance in the story. Like introducing an enemy and use it as a Macguffin. Think of Vegeta becoming a good guy after they meet a common enemy. Or the androids joining forces to beat Cell. What about Fat Buu becoming less of a threat to beat Majin Buu? Though the same thing could be said of many modern manga. This whole Naruto conspiracy thing bothers me so much, it seems like everyone is a part of a bigger plan that's going on in the background, sigh. And how many times did Ichigo (Bleach) lose his power again? |
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Doomroar | Aug 3, 2014 5:58 PM
A dark past not worth mentioning... oh noes!? don't tell me that your nick name was DJJ-asshole... with the boobs avatar and all that, which makes your last blog "Cocks, vaginas and assholes", well i am glad that The Wiggly Tower is not about that, and is actually quite good and enjoyable, it definitively would improve itself by using the new video player tho.Yeah you are drifting off, but go on. I completely agree with you, but the problem is that since (and because) Summer Wars has the same director as Our War Game, it so just happens that the execution is also the same, what changes is the setting and some circumstances, but they are in essence the same movie, the question now is, if those changes are enough? and for me they are not. Please don't bring popularity into this, that is the very same factor that made you leave NG, however they have changed lately, it has been quite some months since i saw the last A+ rated submission making the front page, but anyway back to this, yeah popularity is not really equal to quality specially with world wide phenomenon and with pop culture, which also includes the Otaku Culture, and a bunch of others that start getting bastardized the more popular they become... (i am looking at you Hip-Hop!). Again the new things in Summer Wars are not enough, is the same movie, is a good movie, but for me is like watching the same thing twice but watered down... the principal changes being that one is from the transition of the 90s to the 00s and the other is already into the 00s yet it has the same events, one takes place in summer in the countryside, while the other takes place in midterm high school exams (poor Joe!) but is divided in both the city and... oh, the countryside too (fair enough due to time constrictions he was unable to show us more about the countryside which makes the majority of the movie taking place on Taichi's apartment), one has a romantic subplot (that for some is more than just subplot) and the other had... wait... a romantic sub-sub-subplot, the rest is the same, except that Omnimon is cooler, and that instead of a hacked nuclear missiles are to detonate in various parts of the world (just like in WarGames), so the problem here is that the same guy is remaking a movie, one of his movies, but the older one is actually better. Attack of Titan is over hyped, because they don't know better, the same happens with Elfen Lied, Death Note, Madoka Magica, etc. Actually Naruto is back to fighting 2 on one right about now... still boring tho, so the problem is not about a big wars or a battle with small numbers, is that the series is just no longer what people once saw on it, but in my humble opinion Naruto was always like that, i think that people just grow a little and they now understand that they over hyped it, and now they are disappointed, is a completely weird feeling for me, i was raised watching Dragon Ball, and no battle of Naruto would ever get to the over powered levels of Goku. Is funny, you are well aware of how people's judgement is awful in general when it comes to these things, and yet you talked about vocaloid and how it became popular and a worldwide phenomenon, and that was in one of your positive examples XD. Again man, Summer Wars was made by the same director, is not that Summer Wars was inspired by Our War Game, is that Summer Wars is just Hosoda Mamoru revisiting a theme that he is infatuated with, if anything both Summer Wars and Our War Game are inspired by WarGames (1983), the question is did he succeed with this one? is he besting his previous child? my answer is no, the style, animation ambiance, what we know as aesthetics, and its humor they are the same because they have the same dad/director, if anything Summer Wars has better graphics because is a newer movie with better technology, but that's about it, probably the most notorious change is the predominant factor of the movie taking place between the country side and a romantic-subplot, but that is not enough, if they make a "Our War Games Remastered Directors Cut" i bet he would be able (now with the extra time and budget) to explore the town of Yamato and TK's grandma, even more we may even know more about how Taichi managed to fix his relationship with Sora, or maybe he didn't (that probably will happen in the newer anime, which then makes the possibility of a Remastered Directors Cut not all that crazy of an idea, maybe for the next Odaiba Memorial Anniversary). No, i agree the movie is definitively an 8, is a good movie, i just like its elder brother more, they are practically twins. |
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Rethardus | Aug 3, 2014 1:40 PM
Yes, I noticed you were on NG, I was an avid Newgrounders too, but I didn't bother to mention my nick since that's my past. Do you know the flash movie "Mario's 20th anniversary"? That's my most famous entry. But I don't want to go on Newgrounds anymore because the priorities are pretty bad.I used to think I was very critical and knew stuff because I was on NG. You know, the whole blamming thing, taking it like a man when people give you a 0. But since I went to art college, it kind of opened my eyes how a lot of stuff don't matter. For instance, I was an animation nut (I still kind of am), but I realized a good movie does not necessarily have good animation. How to explain it, it's not like I'm fan of slideshows that low budget productions have. But since I got into that art college, they should me how art can be unconventional, which means that sometimes "crappy stuff" works too. Just like how the whole anime genre come to existance because of budget reasons, now it's became a style, even with high budget productions. If something works, it works. No need to draw on ones, if working on threes make your animation have powerful key movements. Being hyperbolic does not make your stuff better. It's the same debate with "powerful graphics" and "the bigger the better", I think those are nonsensical arguments to define what's good or not. Am I drifting off? Hmm, the problem about not remembering the show, I don't have that problem. I might forget some scenes or parts of the story, but never will I forget the name, unless it's some OVA I've watched once. Series leave a big impression on me overall. Well, you did say you'd like to give it a 0 if you're completely subjective. I agree with not being original is a very big mistake, but it's not as if the stuff I mention completely lack originality. I think people overestimate originality, or have a pretty weird definition on it. My definition for original is not the subject per se. For me, that's too literal. The execution is the most important aspect. Because you can never invent something new anymore, the human civlization has come way too far to really invent something totally new. It's always based on something else in the past. There is no divine inspiration all of the sudden, that's why my teachers always tell me to look around, look at animals, look at buildings, look at people's faces, then use it as an inspiration to make something new. The way how Japanese artists work is a pretty baffling / interesting approach too. I mean, the whole otaku culture is based around doujins and fan art, and adding your own spin to it. Just think of how Miku evolved. First it's a song from a random Finnish group. Then someone added a clip of Bleach to it. Then, someone used Miku to make a clip with that song. Now Miku is a worldwide phenomenon, known for her leek. Later on, anime like Black Rock Shooter came to existence, which is pretty irrelevant to the normal Miku. Or what about Fireball, Drossel is basically a mechanical version of Miku. Copying is not really black and white. What is the line between a blatant rip-off, inspiration, parody, ...? That's a very difficult discussion, but I think blatant rip-offs are stuff that have no personal input to it, at all. Which is totally untrue for Summer Wars. Like I said, you're looking way too hard at what it doesn't have, than what it does have. Unoriginality is pretty painful I agree, and it SHOULD be punished, but I think you're setting your eyes on the wrong aspect to punish unoriginality. A theme or subject that's the same does not warrant a bad anime. That's a problem I have with a lot of viewers. For instance, when they say "stuff is original", all they can see is the surface, kind of like a "subject fetish". I mean, does it mean someone invented a totally new genre if the subject is new? That's way too literal. Like, people say how original Attack on Titan is, but is it really? Just because the theme "titans" haven't been used a lot does not mean the essence hasn't been done before. There are so many anime with the same atmosphere, the same kind of characters like Titan. If someone were to replace titans with robotic pigs that attacked humans, would the show suddenly be different? I bet if I did make a show like that, people wouldn't even notice it's a titan rip-off, just because the theme and the style is different... But if there are 2 anime about cooking, people would immediately say A is rip-off of B! Or see both the anime in recommendations. How come people are so literal? Another example: if the subject is epic in a show (people die, a huge army having a war, ...) then you're automatically inclinced to feel it's epic. But is it really? You can have an epic theme, but pretty much totally abuse it. In Naruto, they're waging a war now, but it's extremely uninteresting. It was even way epic when Naruto fought people one on one. But no, because it's about a war, with thousands of people involved, it's supposed to feel epic and dramatic. And people just openly take it! Elfen Lied has a latin song as opening, people die, the opening style is based on Klimmt's painting "The Kiss". Oh, that show must be very mature, because kids can't watch violence, and it features adult themes like suicide and bullying! It might have subjects like that, but the approach is from the perspective of a 16 year old... Whereas shows like ping pong just talk about mundane stuff like friendship and a "stupid" sports like ping pong, but the writer's view on life is way more interesting. Sorry if I ranted and my point isn't really clear. What I try to say is that a subject on its own does not matter. It's more the director's execution and approach. Summer Wars, while it may have been inspired by Digimon (I don't know, I haven't watched it), still has enough quality to be called independant. Even if it's just the family, country-side feeling it provoked. What about the style and the fine animation? What about it's humor? I really doubt that 5 is an apt score. But I have to say you may be right, I really don't know. Can't say anything about something I haven't seen, right? You make a good point about consumerism, I haven't though about it that way. Maybe that just enforces the point I keep trying to make? Because people are too literal, they only care about the physical manifestation of being fresh. Because, if the outside looks new, it has to be new, right? Materialism does not motivate people to actually look for new ideas. It just wants you to buy the same thing over and over again, in a different package. It motivates hyperbolism. The never-ending cycle of craving for things. Bigger and faster. Not different and new. It's pretty horrible that a lot of people can't make that distinction. They think bigger = better. |
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Doomroar | Aug 2, 2014 4:36 PM
Well i got the idea from the Newgrounds system of rating that counts both reviews and the other score (sure, most reviews are just BS, but some try to be insightful).Like i said, is not a problem of forgetting the feeling, is a problem of not remembering the shows just by looking at the name when i look at my list, i actually need to click the entry and then i remember it all, the score is there to give me an extra help when i search for those series that i like more than others, is just that, indeed it is a completely personal thing. Indeed is not reliable at all, but that is seemingly the idea. Digimon is the next incarnation of the Tamagotchi which existed before Pokemon, the only difference is that if you had a Digivice and your friend had one too, you 2 could go and battle it out (the idea was to attract a male audience by selling what is essentially a manly tamagotchi), thus without tamagotchi there wont be digimon, and as the far as the anime goes, there was always Monster Rancher. I am not giving it a 0, i am giving it a 5, the 3 missing points are a result of the movie not being good enough to share the same rating of Our War game which is in reality an 8 but i give it 2 extra points out of nostalgia. I am completely fine with anime getting punished for not being fresh, i see absolutely no issue in that, indeed media in general should be punished for not being fresh, is funny to see how in a world of consumerism and waste, when we use a thing and the dispose of it afterwards, the only things that are getting recycled are ideas, which then are used to encourage that very world of consumerism, is like the Destiny Warriors series and its variations, all of them just re-skins of the same game over and over again, in my times that was called Shovelware, nowadays they are brand new games... |
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Rethardus | Aug 2, 2014 9:38 AM
It would be a better idea for reviews to actually count as a score, yes.The problem would be that there would be no score when nobody reviewed the show. Maybe there should be a system that count in review as well, but the reviews have a bigger impact on the score? It's all fun and stuff to fantasize about these features, but MAL is as good as dead behind the screens. Xinil barely fix the bugs, so yea... Well, you might have more entries, but I mean, the amount of days I have watched is kind of the same as yours. Sure, I don't remember all episodes / series, but at the end of a show, I remember the feeling I had. Especially since they're good shows. If I don't remember, it probably means they're not worth it, right? The compatibility tool, well yea, I'm pretty sure I missed plenty of people who had the same taste. But then again, that measuring tool is pretty crappy too. I saw people with 90 % compatibility, but it's just because a few scores correlate, and I thought their taste was pretty shitty lol. For example, I love Kyoto Animation, I loved Suzumiya Haruhi, but for different reasons than other people. I pretty much jizz when I see good animation, and Haruhi had these very nice scenes I still love till today. Some people don't care, and they might even give it a 10 because it has a funny ED or something, I don't know. That tool is not representative at all I have to say. About Summer Wars issue, I don't think you should rate shows because they're not original. If you think about the whole anime / Japanese culture, they're fond of copying each other, without shame. But their kind of copying is more the inspiring kind of copying than literally copy something. One can argue that Digimon copied Pokémon aswell, since there probably won't be Digimon if Pokémon didn't exist. Summer Wars on its own was a pretty decent movie, copy or not. I personally think you should rate a show for what it has instead of what it has not. It's got enough distinction from the Digimon movie, the atmosphere is probably different. It's pretty unfair to give it a 0 because it's copied, and ignore all the other things it did achieve on its own. If we start to base our judgment on whether it's fresh or not, half of the anime would fail the grade. Just working with genres mean the show bases itself on something that already existed in the past. |
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Doomroar | Jul 28, 2014 3:22 AM
It happens to everything, for example nowadays all the indie games seem to come with some rouge-like-like element, which is getting absurd, over exposure to anything gets tedious.Yeah i was not a fan of moe from the beginning, but enjoyed a couple comedies every now and then Lucky-Star is one. Well is a good intention, but is partially wasted (if not completely, you could always used later on by publishing the score, or just showing it to others), because the system is measuring popularity, however your criteria for your rating is based on quality, so the parameters used are different, it would be nice if the system had a different rating for reviews, in that case it could have both a quality and a popularity statistic, likewise reviews would become less wasteful, a lot of them are just people talking about how much they liked or not something, instead of the show itself. Is great that you don't need a reminder, but in my case i have over 400 alrady finished animes and once i start adding the black and white animes the the number will easily double, at 800 things watched, i can't really remember what i liked and what not just by looking at the name, hell that is already happening, but if my memory was better and i would simply add the anime without a rating at all. Another thing that also dis-encourages the input of a proper non biased data is the anime compatibility tool, which measures the compatibility of animes watched and their ratings between 2 users: In our case we have a difference of 1.31 points, if i was entirely fair on my list the difference should have been 0, for example: For Summer Wars my score is only 5 and yours is 8, Summer Wars is a great movie i definitively should give it a higher score, however in 2002 i watched Digimon Adventure: Bokura no War Game this movie aired in 2000 so there are 9 years of difference between the 2, and no matter how i look at it Summer Wars is just a copy of Our War Game, with a less imminent threat, less engaging, with less emotion, action, comedy, feeling in general (the birth of Omnimon was spectacular),a slightly worse sound track, but the same animation and premise (of course since they share directors), thus i can't allow myself to give a copy a rating above 5 specially when i have a constant reminder that after 9 years this new thing was unable to bring not only an enhancement to a previous formula but the only new thing is the inclusion of social media (which was only e-mail in our war game), and then things start spiraling out of control when i discovered that Our War Game was using the same formula of a 1983 movie called War Game, so i gave 10 points to the Digimon movie when in reality it deserves 8, where are the extra 2 coming from? part childhood nostalgia and part execution, when Bokura no War Game was aired in the west it was accompanied with other 2 movies that sandwiched this one, and the transition between them is perfect, really i only found out that they where 3 movies after i searched the movie in the internet many years later, so in my eyes Summer Wars is the copy, of a copy (a good copy, but still...). However even taking all that into account we shouldn't have any difference at all in our ratings, and the same goes for everyone else, in that case user rating doesn't matters, because taste doesn't affects any factor, and thus everyone should rate the same, basing their rating on the same factors, ending with the same data, using the same parameters, but that is not the case. |
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Rethardus | Jul 27, 2014 1:33 PM
I understand moe could be annoying, but a lot of people shouldn't condemn it just because it's popular. Just hope it'll be over soon, right? Small chance that'll happen though, it got a way too big impact on the Akiba culture, it won't just disappear like that. Maybe it'll get less popular, and get back to the way how it used to be? You know, anime has always been a bit perverted, there were always scantily clad girls since the beginning. Maybe it'll be like that again in a few years - decade?I don't think AoT and Hellsing are mature, but I know plenty of western viewers who think blood = mature. Mainly 14 year old kids who try to convince anime is for adults. Hmm, think slice of life is not really new. Maybe the way it is now, with moe schoolgirls etc, but slice of life is a very old genre. Think of Chibi Maruko Chan, the manga ran from 1986 already. The problem you address is not genre-related. A decade or two ago, the market was oversaturated by sports anime, and I'm pretty sure a lot of them were crap, but we only still remember the good ones. The thing with bad production is, that they tend to jump on the bandwagons, and when the newest trend arrives, they just jump on that bandwagon. But it's not the genre it's fault that it's getting abused by bad story writers. It happens to almost everything. Dubstep used to be a very underground genre 10 years ago already, but it got popular and people started to overuse it. Does it mean dubstep is bad? Well no, but the over-using and the amount of people abusing the genre made it bad. Or what about memes? When they used to be funny inside jokes, and the mainstream crowd caught up to it. Now it's "TROLOLOLOL" all the time, I even hear kids on the playgrounds use that word, even though the original term is totally alien to them. I think the disaffection you have is mainstream and selling out. Not so much moe itself (though it's possible that you didn't like anime girls from the start). But these feelings should be seperated imo. If one is able to objectively watch series, he should be able to distinguish the bad moe from the good ones. Last year, I watch this over the top moe-based called Aiura. I liked it, because it didn't use moe as an excuse to be good. It has moe, it had good animation, funny humor, so I really enjoyed it. But when a show lack all these things and only sell itself just because it's moe, then I would really dislike it. A lot of mainstream viewers wouldn't even bother to look at the difference, because all they can see is moe and tits, very sad. About the list rating, you make a very fair point. I try to be as objective as possible, so I even give stuff I didn't like a 9+, because I know my score affects the general score. I do this, because the shows that get on top don't mean how good they actually are, but just how popular a genre is. The score says more about how many people liked something, not so much how good the show really is. It's a lonely "battle" since I think I'm pretty much the only one who does this lol. I think the score for my own doesn't matter, because I know what I like. I don't need a reminder for myself. |
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Doomroar | Jul 21, 2014 3:25 PM
Actually we drifted off topic quite a comments ago, so i was wondering about that will try to condense this as much as possible this time.Oh no is not there always, what i wanted to say is that its popularity makes it more persistent, meaning that is more likely to appear in other genres, which is a problem for me because it ruins the experience, but it works for others elements too like eroticism, and extreme violence, they start appearing in places when they really make no sense or are even uncalled for, moe was just one of many examples the same happens with dark stories nowadays, which on that note are nothing compared to what the 90's and 80's presented us. Attack on Titan and Hellsing mature? XD, anyway. Yeah slice of life is a genre that is linked with japan, but it is also fairly new, if you go to the Black & White club you will see that the genres dominating the list are mostly folk tales, and after a certain age the super hero genre Giant Robo and Astro Boy enters to dominate the market, but none of those are really light-hearted, you could say that those slice of life series are part of a dominating trend that is characteristic of the Japan of now, but nowadays is getting mixed with other genres of the opposite spectrum, however the execution is badly done because it feels cheap and unpolished, it becomes fan-service with superficial deep in both its cuteness and its opposite side lets call it grimness, so we end with a work that doesn't excels in any department, and yet it becomes popular because it presents a combination of those elements, however popularity doesn't denotes quality, neither good or bad. I totally agree, a fair rating shouldn't by biased by our tastes, but the lists on these pages are personal lists, they are made for personal use, and thus it would be actually weird if they were not biased by taste, they are almost like the offline lists that we had before finding these pages, except that these are more convenient to use and allow for more services, the original purposes was to have a database of what you have already consumed, and we can see the rating as a bonus. But lets go back to the ratings, for example once you finish watching a series you could perfectly have 2 different scores the one based on the technical qualities of the series itself and the one based on your tastes, the first one can be seen as the one that you should share with the world and the one that matters for others, the second one is just for yourself it doesn't denotes how good a series is, but rather it shows how much you enjoyed it and the likeness that you will watch it again or watch similar things, so when you are making your list it would be ideal to have both scores, however this page only allows for one (you could always make a review with the technical score though), so which score will you use on your list? one doesn't really tells us that you liked the series, it just tell us that it has a good or bad production/execution, and the other one tell us about your tastes but not about the series itself, however we are watching your personal list so it makes sense that it has the biased score on it, the fault with these kind of pages is that they use the biased and unreliable score to get their statistics, on the other hand these pages have no link to anime companies so is not like they use it as feedback for future productions (they could though to know general trends). |
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Rethardus | Jul 21, 2014 1:19 PM
Let me comment on a thing first, since this looks like a long debate. I'll respond to the other section later.There's room for any genre, and the reasoning of "moe contaminating my other beloved genre" is only a valid argument in certain cases. You say as if moe is ALWAYS there to contaminate other stand-alone genres, in your example, horror. But you shouldn't treat it that way. Of course I agree there's way too much moe in everything. It's starting to get stale, repetitive, boring, etc... But that problem does not lie so much in the fact that the phenomenon "moe" exist. It's that companies just tend to exploit ANYTHING that's exploitable. Heck, if it wasn't moe, it would be something else. For instance, lately, there's this hype going on where it's cool to have a dark story, and have your protagonist die all the time. Even if it EVA used and vulgarized this trope (which is a great show), does not mean ALL violent excessive shows are and will be good. That's just naïve. I'm getting sick of these "dark" shows too, it's boring, and repetitive, just like moe. It doesn't mean I hate violence and dark themes itself, I just hate unoriginality. The same with moe, I hate how they exploit it, but not moe itself. You say it as if there are no good / original moe shows. That's not true. Moe is just an ELEMENT of a show, it's not a quality measurement. I would get sick of ANYTHING, given if it's repeated all the time, used as easy cash-in. It turns out moe is the new cash-cow, which doesn't mean I need to specifically hate moe. I just need to hate stupid consumers and companies using the same strategy over and over. And the problem with thinking like this is also dangerous. Sometimes, when I go on people's list, I can guess what kind of viewer they are, and I can predict their rating behaviour. How? I know they'll like all dark shows, and anything that does not fit in that context is bad. Think of only giving "serious" stuff like "Cowboy Bebop", "Hellsing", "Attack on Titan", "Death Note", "Fullmetal Alchemist" a high score, because it's so "mature" (which just mean it fits more in their western perception of "good"), and the more lighter stuff they just give a low score, just because it's not their cup of tea, while they are still good in their own way (K-on!, Lucky Star, Kannagi, ...). Basically dark shows = good, light-hearted typical Japanese stuff = bad. That's really not how it works. People confuse "good" with "correlating with my taste". And the problem is, they circle-jerk each other and made this weird standard of judging shows. It's just as annoying as those idiots giving shows 10/10 just because there are boobs in it. Like I said, same behaviour, just the opposite. |
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Doomroar | Jul 20, 2014 1:55 PM
I hate moe because i love anime, and moe is everywhere making things monotonous and boring, the hate/love relationship doesn't circles around the subject itself but around a part of it, in this case it circles around anime, and one of its lesser qualities (well lesser in my case) that is the one undesired would be moe, i would like to say that other people liking or even loving moe has nothing to do with it, but that would be an enormous lie, the majority of anime consumers like moe, and they control the market, and as long as they nourish and support that trend we will keep getting moe, even in productions where moe is uncalled for or eve inappropriate, an example of this is horror manga and anime using moe, the concept of innocence lost is an intriguing one, but it is also a weak one and it easily loses its impact and novelty with over use and over exposure, this happened already in the world of anime, without a shock factor we only had the cute side of things, at that point we cant really talk about horror can we? sure there is plenty of horror manga out there without moe or ecchi as one of their elements, but those productions hardly ever get animated, and when they do... let me present you the tragic fumble that was Gyo this is the animated "adaptation" of the great horror manga of the same name by horror author Junji Ito, however at best the only things that the manga and the anime have in common is a premise and some other superficial similarities, the anime adaptation has so many plot changes that you can see it as a totally different thing, not only that but the excess of fanservice just adds to the devaluation of what could have been a great dark horror anime, on the other hand that thing seems to take place in the middle of summer, hell i think that the setting of the story was in summer vacation, but it doesn't ends in adaptations, it follows new productions too, now we could debate if those new productions are bad, because the author itself has that kind of taste, or because they are already trying to please an audience, in the second case the fault is both of the author for playing things safe, and of the consumers for demanding such bad content, so when you tell me that it is bad logic to hate something because others like it, i will tell you i hate it precisely because others like it and that makes it more persistent even in unnecessary scenarios, making a neutral thing into a bad one. Oh there is the difference i know my horror genre and i care about it, thus i don't want it tarnished with cute elements, specially if is an adaptation of something that we all know is great as it is, but i wonder if the sex scenes in the cabin for the Gyo anime helped to sell the product? Ok here is the difference of Mass Effect and CoD, the story of Mass Effect is an space opera in which the main character takes command of a whole fleet to go and stop an intergalactic conflict, on its path it will gain allies and enemies, and what seems like RPG elements to an open choice ending which is really just artificial freedom, but is still there to some degree, on the other hand CoD is just a FPS, even on its single player campaign which can be seem as its best part (i was never a fan because i had Battlefield which allowed me to have combat vehicles plus an enormous map, and well no amount of CoD will ever replace the satisfaction of blasting enemies using a tank, plus the diverse classes and need of team cooperation in the taking of objectives added all the more to the enthusiasm, the problem with BF is that back in the day internet connection sucked, and to make things worse it didn't came with a single player campaign, plus to play the game properly you would need lots of people in both teams, so is easier to see how games like Counter Strike and CoD were way more accessible, they come with a single player campaign and the online games were easier to make and more importantly they were easier to sustain, so just being able to play the game gave CoD an advantage over BF) and it's single player campaign has been praised quite some times by extra credits, and i agree the single player of CoD is better than the one from BF, but who the hell plays BF for the single player? XD,single player on BF is a recent thing, a bonus totally avoidable, anyway the main critic of CoD is that it plays it safe with little to no change through the years, because they have a franchise and a formula to make and sell a game that everyone is familiar with, and some of us are even bored with that format, but that is the format of CoD, what would happen if Mass Effect adopted that format? most likely the RPG elements and adventure part would disappear, and we would end with a lineal game with FPS elements, if you want that just buy CoD. But they did it, and they are still far from redeeming themselves, the new output of exclusive games for a console already some some years on the market is clearly low, and to bet it all on Smash Bros and Zelda is just giving us what should have come with the console years ago, even more once those pass the question is what new games that are also good games can Nintendo offer? Every time they show us something good is because it is already part of a previous established franchise, what are the Pikmin and the Animal Crossing of Wii U? what are the new IPs? Well the new figurines that connect to the Wii U controller can be seen as IRL collectible DLC just like with Skylanders, if Nintendo wants they can perfectly go in that direction, after all they already have the infrastructure for it, but i hope they wont go that way. |
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Rethardus | Jul 19, 2014 2:45 PM
It's weird to be against moe. I'm actually sick of moe recently, because that's all people make these days. I hate it when moe adds absolutely nothing of value to a franchise, but hating moe is just the same as loving moe and blindly throw your money at it. It's the same, just the opposite. I don't like that kind of reasoning, you don't need to hate something because another party blindly loves it. You may dislike it, because it's not your cup of tea, but keep in mind that's something called taste.For instance, I will never try to talk critically about a football game, because frankly, I know nothing about football, and I know it's not a game for me. It's for all parties' best interest I keep my mouth shut about things I don't know / care about. If a reviewer on MAL gives ecchi show a bad score, just because it's not his cup of tea, that's pretty unfair. Like I said before, it's the same like how fans give a show 10/10 because there are boobs in it. Very irrelevant. About ME, I trust Bioware in making the right choices, but as stated before, I haven't played it yet. But according to many critics, the game is well-received. Also, I don't mind a CoD if it's good. That franchise gets way too much hate, it's suddenly so cool to be hating on CoD. I remember the first few CoDs being very good, and it actually reinvented the FPS genre. Later on, they began to release it yearly, which resulted in drop of quality. Now, since a year ago, even the mainstream caught up to the whole CoD hating hype. I wonder what people are thinking. "Hey, let's repeat the stuff that everyone says on the internet". Those were probably the ones that loved CoD and gave smack on BF. Think about it: how can fanboy flame wars be so divided just a few years ago (BF vs CoD) and all of the sudden, nobody seems to be liking CoD anymore. Don't tell me there is no overlap at all, I don't believe that shit. Those are probably the same 12 year olds who grew up and think it's edgy to hate on CoD. About Nintendo, that's why it's called a risk. If it worked every time, it wouldn't be a called a risk, would it? And I wouldn't say it's a luxury. People seem to think there's a huge vault with gold bars at the Nintendo HQ. While they may have an incredible amount of back-up cash, they still have to respond to shareholders. Don't think there's no stress or whatsoever for Iwata. This isn't like the average man's banking account. They need to use that money to invest in game and hardware development. Also, you'd hurt the trust of the shareholders if you don't make any profits (that's the predicament Nintendo was in these last years). So it's still a risk, especially if you do anything counter-intuitive, like not joining the HD last gen, and releasing an underpowered console with something gimmickly like a tablet controller. If they wanted to play it save, they could sell their multi-milion franchises like Pokémon to whatever company, but they won't, because they know people will abuse that franchise whenever they get their hands on it. Imagine what EA would do with Pokémon... I wouldn't be surprised they sold each Pokémon as a DLC... |
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Doomroar | Jul 19, 2014 1:42 PM
I see that is an interesting position you have there, what that guy said was clearly rude,and it can be even argued as wrong, because the essence of art is meaningless, and once it gets commercialized it becomes objectified, at that point it becomes a product, and when something is increasingly done with that in mind the less it could be called art.I actually am against moe and fanservice, specially in our times, by now it has become an overused scheme to sell a product just look at this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioOkG3U44Y4 the game is a Gradius re-skin, is exactly like Gradius and it could have ended there, but no they had to go that extra mile. That would be great for a new IP but Mass Effect is an already established franchise that is going for its 4th release on the series, and while receiving user feed back is good, they are doing it for the making of the whole game, if they decide to fully go with this model, it may end like another CoD, they are not asking if they like a series of presented ideas, they are asking what they want and how they want to play a game, that includes genre, and even narrative, is too extreme. Well that happens some times, but other times we get the Virtual Boy, and then it takes the industry years to recover and try the idea again, Nintendo is more of a risk taker, and with the amount of savings that the company has they can actually give themselves that luxury, because it is a luxury not even a gamble, they don't release enough new games per year to be called gambler (neither do they put enough in the line since they have a backup). |