Anime - Kono Dio Da!

[majestic]

Will you look at that, in the Love Live! movie the girls all go to London New York. While Ho-Kago Tea Time (that's the name of the girls' band in K-On!, by the way) accidentially stumbles into giving a concert and is later invited for one at a pop culture festival, they're going there to give a concert.

So yes, they're going to New York to get a broadcast going to increase their popularity in Japan. If that seems nonsensical to you, then that's because it is. The only reason the girls go abroad is to copy the K-On! movie as much as possible. Honoka behaves like a Ritsu/Yui combination expy and Umi does her best Mio impression right off the bat.

Eh, and the girls are really impressed by the skyscrapers in New York. While it's never stated where their school is, it was modelled after one in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area. One would think Honoka has seen a skyscraper before, but... apparently not. She really wants to go to that "pencil shaped" one which I suppose means she wants to visit the Chrysler Building.

Honoka writes down the hotel name, gets it wrong and the taxi driver drops Umi, Rin and Kotori in front of an either condemned or otherwise close to falling apart building in the middle of... dunno, some ghettoish district with mostly black and hispanic people in the background (best guess, probably supposed to be the Bronx?), and once in the real hotel Umi is terrified and doesn't want to go outside.

Yeah, I guess that ended up being unintentionally racist, huh? No Umi, you weren't close to being murdered in broad daylight.

Edited September 30, 2021 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

And now a crossover that will never happen:

[majestic]

46 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Now we can flood this thread with Steins;Gate gifs and  @majestic and @Bartimaeuswill have no other choice but to watch it.

I already watched the first episode, so... just need to wrap some other stuff up first.

Umi is afraid of going into Central Park. Why not. Nicocchi is greeted by a random woman of color with a terrible pronounced "konnichiwa" on their morning run and is a little weirded out*. Yeah. Uhm. Good job there, animators and writers. Morning runs are also the perfect moment to finally get some fanservice in, we almost went 20 minutes without closeups of butts and breasts.

Anyway, enough for now, time to rest a bit.

edit:

Rin and Kotori go running in their mini-skirts. Yeah, none of the people involved in this ever walked or ran any sort of appreciable distance, did they? Kek.

*There's a chance she was just surprised that the woman said konnichiwa, when ohayo would be more appropriate in the morning, right? I mean... yeah, I guess that's it. Also, help me, I'm turning into a weeb here, I think some of the subtitles are wong. Eri talks about how beautiful the scenery is, and the subtitles read "It's so calming" - not that it makes much of a difference here, but what? I mean, unless you can use utsukushii as "pretty" and I missed something else (as in "pretty calming"), but she just said nanka utsukushii which is "like, beautiful" in a more direct translation. Eh... weeb on!

Edited September 30, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

11 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

And now a crossover that will never happen:

Hmmmmm are there bananas in AoT?

10 minutes ago, majestic said:

I already watched the first episode, so... just need to wrap some other stuff up first.

THE WOLRD!

[InsaneCommander]

Steins;Gate 0 21-23, OVA:

 

Spoiler

21- Kyouma is back.

Damn it! They did everything perfectly this time. F*** the convergence.

 

22- There is still one time travel event that was not explained. Apparently it was Amadeus sending a d-mail. Never mentioned again.

 

23- Why is Moeka a super assassing in every timeline?

 

24 (OVA) – A Valentine Day special, chronologically happens before Steins;Gate 0 episode 11 or even earlier. Not sure now. Better not to watch it until after the main series, since there are some inconsistencies that might spoil important things.

 

No spoilers for the main story here, but you may want to wait and watch the episode, so I'll tag it.

Spoiler

Faris invites all the girls to make homemade chocolate and the result is almost as disastrous as Sailor Moon’s baking episode. Hiyajo fails to get exactly 100.00 grams for the recipe and freaks out.

One of Mayushi’s friends almost starts a fire and Moeka literally destroys the microwave. Yuki and Ruka appear at the last moment to save the day.

 

Now spoilers for the main story:

Spoiler

Better hide it properly.

Spoiler

- Something is messed up. Kagari looks like she still has amnesia in this episode and doesn’t behave like a child, but at the same time she is aware of her mother's identiy.

Iirc she recovered her memories after Hiyajo traveled back to the US, so this episode makes no sense, unless Kagari made the chocolates for one person, kept them somewhere and after recovering her memory she gave it to Okarin.

 

 

Edited September 30, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Steins;Gate 9-11

You know too much.

[Bartimaeus]

Neon Genesis Nadia: The End of Blue Water.

Spoiler

"Do you know what this is?"
"A human hand? A giant?"
"His name is Adam."

Spoiler

A whole bunch of stuff about God, aliens, giants, spaceships, experiments in creating humans...you know, normal adventure stuff. However, unlike Evangelion, all of this stuff is...mostly besides the point, and it mostly stays focused on our characters and their fairly normal adventure story. So there is that...plus probably a little too much philosophizing, as an Anno special (but not quite as bad as Evangelion). And hey, we finally got to see the true form of Adam, which we never got to in all of Evangelion, so that's cool. Turns out...he's a big ol' human! Guess whoever it was in Evangelion that said Angels were just different yet valid forms and practically the same thing as humans (even if descending from a different seed of life) was right after all.

 

The last handful of episodes beat the snot out of the preceding filler episodes, at least. Thanks, Mr. Anno - very cool. At least you knew your own characters, unlike the hack frauds that took over for you for a bit. My official review for the show:

7/10: Has some of the absolute worst filler I've ever seen in a show (roughly 9 episodes could be classified as such), but pretty good outside of that. The characters never quite developed how I wanted them to and the story kind of stops, starts, and sputters a lot towards the end...but it's still worth a watch if you want a classic adventure with some extra oomph to it. Just don't be afraid to skim through the filler episodes, because they are truly terrible.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Neon Genesis Nadia: The End of Blue Water.

Oh noes, now I really have to watch it.

[Bartimaeus]

11 hours ago, majestic said:

Oh noes, now I really have to watch it.

Yeah, don't feel compelled to watch it on my behalf, it's probably even more frustrating on the whole than the original NGE was, and the payoff isn't as good IMO. My rating of the show is also overly generous because I'm mostly not taking the terrible filler episodes that were not written/intended by Anno into account (indeed, apparently he made his own cut of the show which he released on laserdisk waaay back, and the totality of stuff he took from the filler episodes was a mere fifteen minutes). It's probably worth watching if you want to experience a strange proto-NGE adventure show (and I read on Wikipedia that NGE was actually originally intended to be a sequel to Nadia, but they couldn't obtain the rights to it so they had to sever the connection). I went poking around for how people feel about the filler, and was pleasantly surprised to see the general reaction is about as bad as mine was: "they ruined the characters", "none of it matters at all, it's totally skippable, so do not hesitate to do so", "jimminy freaking crickets, those are the worst episodes of any show I've ever seen", et cetera.

19 hours ago, majestic said:

Rin and Kotori go running in their mini-skirts. Yeah, none of the people involved in this ever walked or ran any sort of appreciable distance, did they? Kek.

Even if they did, would they care? The demographics are the demographics, after all.

@Steins;Gate: What are the chances that I'd like Steins;Gate, folks?

Edited October 1, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

11 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

What are the chances that I'd like Steins;Gate, folks?

Do you like conspiracies, self-aware otakus, and techo-babble? If so you may enjoy it.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, don't feel compelled to watch it on my behalf, it's probably even more frustrating on the whole than the original NGE was, and the payoff isn't as good IMO.

I don't. I feel compelled by this having even the most tenuous of links to NGE.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

It's probably worth watching if you want to experience a strange proto-NGE adventure show (and I read on Wikipedia that NGE was actually originally intended to be a sequel to Nadia, but they couldn't obtain the rights to it so they had to sever the connection). I went poking around for how people feel about the filler, and was pleasantly surprised to see the general reaction is about as bad as mine was: "they ruined the characters", "none of it matters at all, it's totally skippable, so do not hesitate to do so", "jimminy freaking crickets, those are the worst episodes of any show I've ever seen", et cetera.

Well, isn't that a nice thing. Normally when you go poking about opinions like that, you end up with essays called "In defense of SuperS" which sadly is no longer available, I would've liked to read what pathetic excuses one can make for that mess.

I guess I'll see soon enough if it can replace SuperS as the worst episodes of a show ever.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Even if they did, would they care? The demographics are the demographics, after all.

Hey, don't ruin my complaining about the film here, but you're right. However it really neatly proves Miyazaki's point. All of the show does, with all the unnatural movements and poses the girls do for the benefit of the boys watching it.

I've stopped watching the movie after a couple more minutes today. It suddenly burst into a musical after the first 25 minutes or so, with Rin jumping out into the rain and having a costume change, singing at the others. That seems like an odd complaint about a film based on a show that was largely about girls singing in a competition, but it was never like that. The end of the first episode was, in a way, with Honoka deciding to do the idol thing and jumping down the street singing and dancing, but that was also the outro of the episode.

This is different, it's just so out of place. Plus Rin isn't exactly the best of the singers in the group (editor's note: this is probably putting it mildly). Rin isn't even a real character (editor's note: this is actually hyperbole, but she's one of the lesser defined characters, a downside of having a nine piece cast), all she does is meow and wear pyjamas with cat ears. There even is an ad hoc costume change and her pretending to be a cat all the time. It's... impossible to convey just how much of a failure this is, so watch it in its full glory:

Nyan! Nyan! Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! I'm a cat you guys, a CAT! It was funny in K-On! because it was used like once in a while, it isn't in this...

Before that the girls go sightseeing in New York and they stay at the hotel over night. Ericchi talks in her sleep, Kotori and Umi play cards all night, Rin and Hanayo have a friendship moment. From talking about it you'd think all of that stuff was actually good, and it would have been... in the way Love Live! is occasionally good (i.e. in spite of everything that's bad about it). It just all falls so flat after watching K-On! doing exactly the same stuff two years earlier and better.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

@Steins;Gate: What are the chances that I'd like Steins;Gate, folks?

It's a time travel story, just a minor heads up. The way the first episode is set up and animated broke my brain in some way, I couldn't watch more than five minute spurts of it. I'm hoping the other episodes will be different because otherwise this is going to take a while to finish, even at a rather low episode count.

 

[Bartimaeus]

15 minutes ago, majestic said:

Well, isn't that a nice thing. Normally when you go poking about opinions like that, you end up with essays called "In defense of SuperS" which sadly is no longer available, I would've liked to read what pathetic excuses one can make for that mess.

I saw a few people psychopaths like that, too, but they were mostly booed by the people with brains. One person psychopath said they didn't even really notice anything difference, while another person psychopath said it was awesome, classic Gainax humor just like Little Witch Academia and Kill la Kill. No, you read that right, they listed shows that weren't by Gainax as best exemplifying Gainax. No, really:

Quote

It's the TRUE Gainax Comedy, just like in Little Witch Academia, Space Patrol Luluco and Kill la Kill! All those comedy moments showed me that Gainax was always insane with it's humor!

I initially thought this person was a troll, but the rest of what they posted made it pretty clear that they just needed to get their pants in the proper place - firmly secured on their head.

25 minutes ago, majestic said:

It's... impossible to convey just how much of a failure this is, so watch it in its full glory:

Just from a stylistic viewpoint of how the songs are done and presented, K-On is so clearly superior to Love Live! in pretty much every way...and never mind the rest of the show. Throw away the tape and move on, .

28 minutes ago, majestic said:

It's a time travel story, just a minor heads up. The way the first episode is set up and animated broke my brain in some way, I couldn't watch more than five minute spurts of it. I'm hoping the other episodes will be different because otherwise this is going to take a while to finish, even at a rather low episode count.

That and it's a 2011 show. If it breaks your brain, it ought to break mine.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Steins;Gate 12 and 13.

God damn, I did not see that coming.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I saw a few people psychopaths like that, too, but they were mostly booed by the people with brains. One person psychopath said they didn't even really notice anything difference, while another person psychopath said it was awesome, classic Gainax humor just like Little Witch Academia and Kill la Kill. No, you read that right, they listed shows that weren't by Gainax as best exemplifying Gainax. No, really:

Quote

It's the TRUE Gainax Comedy, just like in Little Witch Academia, Space Patrol Luluco and Kill la Kill! All those comedy moments showed me that Gainax was always insane with it's humor!

I initially thought this person was a troll, but the rest of what they posted made it pretty clear that they just needed to get their pants in the proper place - firmly secured on their head.

They're saying that "unironically" because Studio Trigger was founded by the director of several later Gainiax animes. I guess for some people Trigger is the "real" Gainax these days, and the ludicrous thing is that Kill la Kill is a 25 episode long parody, and when I read posts like that I'm guessing they don't really get that. They probably all watched Kill la Kill "unironically" and liked it.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Just from a stylistic viewpoint of how the songs are done and presented, K-On is so clearly superior to Love Live! in pretty much every way...and never mind the rest of the show. Throw away the tape and move on, .

Can't really throw away the tape, but it would probably be a good idea. It's not even earning me likes to post about it right now, so what's the point. Oh, right, finishing it because I have to. Eh.

There's a certain artistry that went into K-On! regardless of how the show ended up looking that makes it much easier to appreciate than Love Live!. We could of course debate the (de)merits of modern anime, but in that sea of mediocrity, Kyoto Animation sticks out, and not just because they make really beautiful shows (except maybe for close-ups of Violet, you might not like the anime based on the characters, but the shot composition, framing and detail in it is top notch).

Modern moe and chibi looks might never really fully work for me, but K-On! got pretty close to me liking it. At the very least I didn't hate it, and I mellowed a little over the course of the show. Unlike, say, Girls' Last Tour, where the looks stuck out like a sore thumb until the very end, and I really liked it in spite of the animation.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

That and it's a 2011 show. If it breaks your brain, it ought to break mine.

That... would be interesting to put to the test. I didn't mean that to say that I didn't like the first episode, just that it was exceedingly difficult to watch for me. Well, Okarin is... sort of annoying.

edit:

Wow, the movie does the "Honoka gets lost on the train" thing again. Except this time on the subway in NY. Good job recycling your own jokes. At this rate, I'll be done watchin this next week or so.

Edited October 1, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Steins;Gate insomnia binge 14-24

Ok, this went places but overall I think it was good. I'll write more later, but it's a recommendation for @majestic and a caution towards @Bartimaeus who probably couldn't stand the animation or Okarin.

Oh, and near the end Okarin did several JoJo poses before doing his laugh.

[InsaneCommander]

18 hours ago, majestic said:

That... would be interesting to put to the test. I didn't mean that to say that I didn't like the first episode, just that it was exceedingly difficult to watch for me. Well, Okarin is... sort of annoying.

Yes, he is annoying. But that works well for the story later. It will start a different pace by episodes 11-12. If you can get there you won't regret.

2 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Steins;Gate insomnia binge 14-24

Ok, this went places but overall I think it was good. I'll write more later, but it's a recommendation for @majestic and a caution towards @Bartimaeus who probably couldn't stand the animation or Okarin.

Oh, and near the end Okarin did several JoJo poses before doing his laugh.

And now you know one of the funniest scenes in the entire series (from episode 24).
Spoilers below.

Spoiler

@KP the meanie zucchini when you begin Steins;Gate 0, don't get confused, since

Spoiler

the first episode is episode 23 with a different ending.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

16 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Yes, he is annoying. But that works well for the story later. It will start a different pace by episodes 11-12. If you can get there you won't regret.

And now you know one of the funniest scenes in the entire series (from episode 24).
Spoilers below.

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

@KP the meanie zucchini when you begin Steins;Gate 0, don't get confused, since

  Hide contents

the first episode is episode 23 with a different ending.

 

I've read about 0 being more of an alternative storyline than a sequel. I'm not sure if I'm going to start it now, or start the JoJo rewatch so I can hear "KONO DIO DA!".

I thought the can toss happened earlier?

Mayushii is hilarious. Too-too-roo! Her slapping Okarin was a great moment.

Overall though, my favorite character is probably Daru. His lines are absolutely hilarious.

[InsaneCommander]

12 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

I've read about 0 being more of an alternative storyline than a sequel. I'm not sure if I'm going to start it now, or start the JoJo rewatch so I can hear "KONO DIO DA!".

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I thought the can toss happened earlier?

Mayushii is hilarious. Too-too-roo! Her slapping Okarin was a great moment.

Overall though, my favorite character is probably Daru. His lines are absolutely hilarious.

 

 

More like an interlude.

Spoiler

It is basically the story of why Mayushii slapped him. Somebody on reddit suggested people only watch episodes 23 and 24 after Steins;Gate 0. It would be the chronological order in a way. I think that is torture, I needed that happy end before Steins;Gate 0.

Mayushii is a sweet lovely girl and the absolutely last person that should be killed so many times. Daru is hilarious and you will get more fun with him in Steins;Gate 0, that also has Hiyajo, another funny character.

Okarin is really annoying and treated Rukako horribly in that alternate timeline. But as I told Majestic above, this works great for the story when he starts suffering for all his friends.

 

Btw, there will be a tv live action adaptation.
 

Quote

 

The Steins;Gate live-action TV series is a forthcoming adaptation of the visual novel Steins;Gate, originally developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus. It will be produced by Skydance Television, a Hollywood studio that has produced the TV shows Manhattan, Grace and Frankie, Ten Days in the Valley, Altered Carbon, Dietland, Condor, and Jack Ryan in the past.

The Steins;Gate live-action TV series adaptation was initially announced on January 26, 2020, by Chiyomaru Shikura on his Twitter account at https://twitter.com/chiyomaru5pb/status/1221427165553577986, as well as by the Science Adventure Series on its official twitter account at https://twitter.com/kagakuadv/status/1221414410029170689, on the same day Steins;Gate 0 Elite was announced.

CBR.com has written an article speculating that this live-action adaptation is actually likely to turn out to be good, given the previous work Skydance Television has done on Sci-Fi shows like Altered Carbon, and the fact that Skydance Television has promised to use Asian actors and be faithful to the source material for an earlier live-action adaptation they announced, their Sword Art Online live-action TV series.

Given that their Sword Art Online live-action TV series adaptation was announced back on August 2, 2016 and still has no estimated release date as of 4 years later in 2020, and that this project was only announced on January 26, 2020, it is probably safe to say that this forthcoming Steins;Gate live-action TV series will not be released for several years. The official website for this upcoming series is at http://steinsgate.jp/10th/project10/ and in Japanese.

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

@InsaneCommander

In that case I guess it's time for 0.

And now I have seen Steins;Gate 0 episode 1.

So like half the time, reddit is full of ****. The recommendation that you should watch this before the last two episodes of Steins;Gate is dumb. It does set itself up as a an expansion of those episodes and to show us something about our favorite mad scientist, but just in terms of pacing it would be hugely off. Anyways the hooks are there, the lab members are dressed for winter, and we'll just see how this goes.

Edited October 2, 2021 by KP the meanie zucchini

[majestic]

7 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

and a caution towards @Bartimaeus who probably couldn't stand the animation or Okarin.

I see you agree with me.

Anyway, I'm still not finished with the Love Live! movie. It really doubled down on the musical interludes, and now that they're back from New York they're suddenly hugely popular idols. As if winning a national competition in the show proper wasn't enough for that, but a single overseas concert is.

Yeah, makes sense.

They also just had a whole scene where the dialogue was nothing but OOOOOOOH AAAAAAAAAH WEEEEEEEEEEEE WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH EEEEEEEEEEEEEEH WAAAAAAAAAA LAAAAAAAAAAA OEEEEEEEEE? with the girls looking at all the µ's flyers and broadcasts and whatnot. Sure.

Well, I guess that's it, I complained about Love Live! not nearly being as bad as I thought it would be, but this is it. This is terrible. Umi is sitting in a corner and crying, saying this is too embarrassing and that she can't deal with everything. I hear you, my dear Umi. I hear you. You and me both, you and me... both.

It's hard to believe this was written by the same person that made the Rome and Juliet episode of K-On!. Sigh.

53 minutes left.

edit:

One minute later they're kidnapping Honoka to force µ's to not disband. Wow.

edit 2:

Scene lasts all of 20 seconds. Such funny. Much laugh.

Edited October 2, 2021 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

3 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Anyways the hooks are there, the lab members are dressed for winter, and we'll just see how this goes.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

22 minutes ago, majestic said:

I see you agree with me.

Maybe Sueamitrab will like it along with K-On!(!)after they take over Bartimaeus' life and imprison them somewhere, but Bartimaeus generally doesn't like anime dudes and really doesn't like post-90's animation at all so...yeah I agree with majestic, the destroyer of gummy bears and bane of Bruno Vercini. On the other hand, it probably wouldn't kill them like watching Naruto would. Not dying is good.

Iggy and Polnareff in the mansion.

10 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Faris' winter costume with cat stuff had me laughing.

Spoiler

It looks like in the beta timeline all the ladies have bigger boobs. Lmao, I wonder if Daru somehow is responsible for that.

Speaking of Daru, one of the funniest events in the anime was when Okarin and Kurisu were looking over a dating manual and Daru just hands them a hentai game strategy guide.

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by KP the meanie zucchini

[majestic]

The film suddenly decides to have a Honoka go through a psychotic episode, or some other surreal fantasy of hers. Back in New York she met someone after getting lost, a Japanese singer that managed to find the hotel they were staying at based on Honoka saying "It's a big hotel near a big subway station" - said woman immediately disappeared after bringing her back to her friends, with nobody seeing her. She talked to Honoka about leaving her friends behind.

I thought that was eerily similar to one of these ghost story setups from Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, but then dismissed that idea as too ludicrous for this film. The same woman now guides Honoka through her surrealist episode, and she knows things about the childhood flashback from early.

So yeah, I guess this really is going to be a Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction episode. Nani?

 

[InsaneCommander]

All the times they called Christina a tsundere were hilarious.

Sorry. I got have some fun with Steins;Gate gifs since when I get to Jojo I won't risk any spoilers for a long time.

I'm already back to Legend of Galactic Heroes. 55 episodes to go.

Edit: why did I write Kurisu? I meant Christina.

Edited October 2, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[majestic]

19 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Maybe Sueamitrab will like it along with K-On!(!)after they take over Bartimaeus' life and imprison them somewhere, but Bartimaeus generally doesn't like anime dudes and really doesn't like post-90's animation at all so...yeah I agree with majestic, the destroyer of gummy bears and bane of Bruno Vercini. On the other hand, it probably wouldn't kill them like watching Naruto would. Not dying is good.

Wha...t. Wat? Nah.

@Bartimaeus' evil alter ego might like K-On! assuming the first few episodes don't scare him off, but that's just going to be a statistical outlier, not a trend.

Also... what? Since when did Bruno get a last name? Did I miss something?

Skoop's been pretty annoying lately though.

Edited October 2, 2021 by majestic