Anime and Manga - ゴゴゴゴ

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

I googled it and this image appeared.

Ok...

That looks quite representative of first episode

[Amentep]

2 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

I googled it and this image appeared.

Ok...

That's a main concept in the series

 

Shuichi wakes up with the ability to transform to a monster. He ends up teaming up with Claire, whose sister has also transformed into a monster. Claire realizes Shuichi's form is inexplicably a mascot costume, and they become a team trying to unravel the mystery of what is going on, shuichi with his monster form and human Claire with an indomitable will.

[majestic]

I'd rather not talk about what goes on in my mind when I look at this manga volume cover. Let's just say it's not pretty. It's also not really making me want to check it out. Neither the manga, nor the anime.

Edited March 12, 2022 by majestic

[Sarex]

Yeah I remember reading chapter 1 when it came out and it was fairly weird in a furry sort of way.

[uuuhhii]

so guyver but updated for modern audience

[Amentep]

27 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

so guyver but updated for modern audience

Maybe in the same general ballpark, but not really the same.  Mind you I read the Biobooster Armor Guyver manga years ago.

 

While it seems like alien intervention is involved (maybe, im not sure i trust Alien's description of what is going on), so far the alien doesnt seem to have an agenda like the Zoanoids did (that said, there's a lot left unexplained about Alien, who is granting wishes in exchange for collecting the coins that it claims are its crewmates.

The character's monster forms and powers are dependent on personality and specificity of the wish (some monsters dont have actually any change in appearance). And instead of aliens trting to take over, the plot so far is about the people with monster powers slowly forming groups and clashing with one another based on their own reasons for trying to collect more coins.

[InsaneCommander]

19 hours ago, majestic said:

I'd rather not talk about what goes on in my mind when I look at this manga volume cover. Let's just say it's not pretty. It's also not really making me want to check it out. Neither the manga, nor the anime.

This other image reminds me a lot of Crying Wolf from Metal Gear Solid 4:
 

Spoiler

 

[Amentep]

Supēsu Kobura / Space Cobra

Episode XV: "Ryū Suishō no Tomoyo!" aka "My Dragon Crystal Friend!"

Cobra goes to help an old friend, Vega, who he promised to share a drink with.

Spoiler

Cobra hears that his friend Sheriff Vega (who saved Cobra from pirates at Planet Wing years before Cobra tried to ditch his old life) is now a wanted man as the Pirate's guild beat his planets defenses and took over.  Vega has been harassing the Pirate Guild to an unknown end; when Cobra shows up he offers to help. 

"Plus, our vegetables."

It seems Vega has one goal and little time left to achieve it, to steal back the Dragon Crystal that was stolen from his planet and was responsible for controlling geothermals, regulating the weather and stabilizing their climate allowing for stable plant growth on the planet.  The Pirate's guild currently has it in their museum which acts as a front for items they want to appraise and sell.

They break into the museum, with Cobra pretending to be the antiques expert that he and Vega waylaid.  He manages to pass the museum employees test of knowledge, but Vega is stricken ill.  It seems he has only a few hours left until his last "attack" and when that happens, he'll have 6 hours to live.  Also, the museum at night is protected from attack by lightning attracted to any metal, so Cobra isn't sure how they'll escape.  But with a short amount of time, he sneaks off (as they're staying overnight ostensibly to appraise items in the museum).  

Cobra then runs into the interior security - the dinosaur exhibits are actually robot guards! 

"Eye see you!"

Cobra then assumes the most logical path - he disables its sound input on the dinosaur with a well placed shot, then he jumps on the back of the dinosaur reasoning that it'll eventually lead him to the room with the crystal.

"Cue Was (not Was)'s WALK THE DINOSAUR"

Cobra eventually gets found out after the sound problem raises concerns with security.  He manages to get the crystal, but security believes he can't escape due to the electrical storm defense.  Vega finally succumbs to his final attack which is reveled to be - him molting.

"Congratulations! Your SHERIFF VEGA has evolved into FLYING VEGA"

Vega changes just in time.  With only 6 hours to live, Vega has sacrificed the last of his life to fly Cobra to safety.  Cobra ditches all of the metal equipment he has and leaps out a window.  Vega catches him and they fly off - the Pirate Guild unable to pursue.

"Good thing I got rid of all the metal I was carrying...wait a minute, what about this belt buckle...?"

Later, Cobra vows to a dying Vega he'll return the Dragon Crystal to his world so they can once again prosper.

It was an okay episode.  Interesting to see the original Cobra look on display again for the flashback - I didn't figure it'd come up again (although they also make sure to have Vega unable to recognize him until he shows the Psychogun).

"OG Cobra"

[Bartimaeus]

Dinosaurs with headlights aside, doesn't sound like the most interesting of episodes, .

Episode 19 of Emi. What a lovely doll - truly, any little girl would be very envious.

Uh...now, I'm not exactly a doll expert, but I'm pretty sure that dolls aren't supposed to cry.

Nothing weird going on here, folks - just your average everyday creepy creep doll, that's all...

Yep, everything's cool...

Edited March 14, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

1 minute ago, Bartimaeus said:

Dinosaurs with headlights aside, doesn't sound like the most interesting of episodes, .

Yeah riding a dino with headlights was the episode highlight.

1 minute ago, Bartimaeus said:

Uh...now, I'm not exactly a doll expert, but I'm pretty sure that dolls aren't supposed to cry.

 

[majestic]

Yeah, my cousin had one of those too. Well, a local variant, but they were all the rage back in the very early 90ies. Give them a bottle with water, then they make a mess of the room, sort of. I mean, yeah, in theory they were supposed to have diapers, but tell that to a four year old boy, he really liked spraying people and the room more than doing what he was supposed to.

33 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Dinosaurs with headlights aside, doesn't sound like the most interesting of episodes, .

Episode 19 of Emi. What a lovely doll - truly, any little girl would be very envious.

Uh...now, I'm not exactly a doll expert, but I'm pretty sure that dolls aren't supposed to cry.

Nothing weird going on here, folks - just your average everyday creepy creep doll, that's all...

Yep, everything's cool...

That makes Futari wa Pretty Cure look so pale in comparison it's painful. How many episodes does Emi have?

[Bartimaeus]

@Amentep Yep, you figured it out, that's exactly what was going on in that episode. Mai's little brother kept dumping bottles of water into the poor thing anytime she wasn't looking.

Spoiler

No, that's not what happened at all...but since majestic is perhaps going to eventually watch this maybe, I guess I won't say what actually happened.

@majestic 38...guess I got halfway through pretty quickly here - I'd be more upset about it if I didn't also have the insane Ririka waiting afterwards. And yes, Pretty Cure doesn't look...horrible, but there's just a certain kind of charm and atmosphere that comes through with a lot of these 80s-90s series that you simply will never find in anything past the year 2000 - it's precisely why I have gone through so much trouble to investigate all this old garbage, . It's a pretty lousy job, but someone's gotta do it...preferably someone without your particular brand of OCD, . Seriously makes me the big sad that so much of this stuff will only ever be on DVDs...sometimes pretty bad looking DVDs at that, too - the quality this show is available in is pretty bit-starved unfortunately, but there's nothing outstandingly wrong with the transfer it came from, so the colors and shapes and all of that do look alright, so at least it's not distracting to me...except for when I pause or take screenshots and subsequently cringe at the fine noise and lines that I know should be there that have instead become either blurs or blocks.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Does anyone know what the heck Mai's mom is doing with this...whatever it is?

Mai came home from school and her mom was sitting with this broom next to this burning pile of leaves or whatever literally in the middle of the street, and Mai didn't seem to take any notice of it, but I have no idea what she's doing or what this is supposed to be. To me, it looks like she swept up some leaves and set it on fire...but, uh, why?

Edited March 18, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

20 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

To me, it looks like she swept up some leaves and set it on fire...but, uh, why?

Sweeping up fallen leaves and burning them to bake sweet potatoes is something common in Japan, they're called Yakiimo, unless it comes from street vendors/food trucks that use hot stones to bake them, in that case they're called Ishiyakiimo (stone baked sweet potato). Magic nor no, that's not nearly enough leaves for that though, so no idea what she's doing there.

Ishiyakiimo is something pretty similar to what we have in winter, except people here bake regular potatoes and sweet chestnuts. I wonder if any of the street vendors survived the COVID-19 lockdowns. Guess we'll see next winter, assuming there won't be any more lockdowns, at least.

Edited March 18, 2022 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 minutes ago, majestic said:

Guess we'll see next winter, assuming there won't be any more lockdowns, at least.

You know what they say about assumptions.

I have not watched anime in a while. Not sure what I'd want to watch next. Maybe a feature instead of a series.

[ShadySands]

Did you already give Ergo Proxy a shot?

[majestic]

9 minutes ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

Maybe a feature instead of a series.

Yeah, like the Utena movie?

I'm going to show myself out.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 minutes ago, majestic said:

Yeah, like the Utena movie?

I'm going to show myself out.

 

4 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Did you already give Ergo Proxy a shot?

Nope. 

[Sarex]

@KP wants Blue VelvetIf you want something light and fun my suggestion would be Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Been thinking about rewatching that one myself, or maybe giving Monster a go.

[Bartimaeus]

21 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Did you already give Ergo Proxy a shot?

Some months ago, I gave the first episode like ten minutes of my time before I said "maybe next year". Don't know if that one will ever work out for me, though.

37 minutes ago, majestic said:

Sweeping up fallen leaves and burning them to bake sweet potatoes is something common in Japan, they're called Yakiimo, unless it comes from street vendors/food trucks that use hot stones to bake them, in that case they're called Ishiyakiimo (stone baked sweet potato). Magic nor no, that's not nearly enough leaves for that though, so no idea what she's doing there.

Ishiyakiimo is something pretty similar to what we have in winter, except people here bake regular potatoes and sweet chestnuts. I wonder if any of the street vendors survived the COVID-19 lockdowns. Guess we'll see next winter, assuming there won't be any more lockdowns, at least.

Weird, I'm not sure then. Maybe she's just a firebug and this is her way of harmlessly acting out.

[majestic]

What I haven't mentioned yet is that I've watched two episodes of Visions of Escaflowne. I'm a little confused so far, as I haven't really done any research before trying it at all, and it's... some sort of high fantasy anime with cat people, wolf people, humans and mech combat and while it's not splatter level, it's a good deal more violent than I expected. It's not bad, but didn't draw me in either. Had a good chuckle when the fantasy prince told the lead character that he doesn't need help from a girl and she just slapped his sorry ass for it.

The next episode is going to introduce a knightly character that looks an awful lot like Touga (from Revolutionary Girl Utena) with blonde hair. Yay, I guess. The subtitles on Amazon Prime are so bad that I'm actually watching the dub instead of the original. Still have the subs turned on, might as well be watching two entirely different shows. Really weird.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

@KP wants Blue VelvetIf you want something light and fun my suggestion would be Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Been thinking about rewatching that one myself, or maybe giving Monster a go.

Fun and light eh? Monster it is.

Spoiler

 

[Gorth]

Finished Gleipnir Episode 5... pleasantly surprised so far. By now, we have gotten a bit of background, the why's and how's and some actual objectives for the two protagonists (in the beginning it was "just" about basic survival and unknown circumstances).

 

 

[majestic]

Watched two more episodes of The Vision of Escaflowne.

After getting used to what this is - and as that was in the same package of recommendations as Lady Asuka (or for those that didn't follow all the other threads, that's Rose of Versailles), I should have expected it to be anything but what it was recommended for - it's actually... more on that later!

The anime follows Hitomi, the girl in the middle of the image here on an adventure she gets acidentially swept up in after a vision helps her save a strange boy from a dragon's attack. Said boy is Van, prince of some kingdom or another, and before you get the idea that Van is the princely looking blonde guy on the picture, nah, that's Allen.

I used to be a prince and was even crowned king for a bit, but this is a fantasy anime, and as such now I'm just a nobody.

Van is your average shounen character. Brash, always on the attack, wants to die for honor and glory and reacts to having his life saved by Hitomi in the only way a shounen character can, by telling her that he doesn't need help - and for sure not from girls. I said that before, but Hitomi just slaps him for the comment, which he so readily deserved.

Hi, I was just trying to run 100m in under 13 seconds, and suddenly everything is weird!

Hitomi is a nice school girl with an interest in track and field, specifically the 100m sprint. She also likes fortune telling and has her own tarot deck and a pendulum - or better put, an heirloom pendant that can double as pendulum. She does that for fun, knowing it's a tad silly, but she realizes pretty quickly that she's got more than a knack for the arts, particularily after she's whisked away and the world where she ends up enhances her abilities to actually having visions of the future.

Now, the first episode, sans the appearance of the dragon that ends up being slain by our shounen dolt up, isn't much more than three quarters slice of life and one quarter fantasy action. That changes pretty quickly after Hitomi accidentially accompanies the dolt back to Gaia, a planet apparently close to Earth as both the Earth and the moon are visible in the night sky, and frighteningly close.

Well, it's fantasy, don't expect gravity to work as it should.

After returning home by being escorted by a group of wolf-men, having slain the dragon, the dolt is quickly hailed as the whatever it is they hail him as, beause it really doesn't matter. He's crowned King of Fanelia, and we're treated to the first really strange deviation from regular fantasy tropes in the anime, the kingdom is attacked by stealthed mechs. King Dolt runs to his own mech while his Samurai Guard is slaughtered in theirs, which is revealed to be Escaflowne and powered by some crystal thing he took from the dragon, but all he can do is watch how Fanelia is burned to the ground. Hitomi does something with her penadant and they're again whisked away...

Mechs aside, there's also a slight break with the usual high fantasy population. No dwarves or elves so far, but cat girls, wolf men, mole men (no really, there's a guy they call mole and he's digging tunnels alls day long) and lots of weird technology. It takes the occasional dip into having a JRPG story because the enemies that burned down Fanelia have a... a... well, a flying fortress, pretty much a JRPG staple. There's always and airship or a flying fortress. In fact, The Vision of Escaflowne has both.

I wonder if they're looking for the mana tree here?

I'm an airship! Luckily I'm not piloted by Oswald Fiddlebender, because that wouldn't go so well...

To round out the flying, some of the mechs can fly, and Escaflowne has a dragon mode where it turnes into a mecha-dragon that can be ridden by King Dolt the Shounen.

Now, to document the sad decline of anime in the 2000s, look at the screencaps above and know this was animated by Studio Sunrise, who later went on to make this pearl of animation in 2013:

Today I ran into some incredibly big boobs! -- Tamako

Guys, for the love of god, do not just search for images entering Love Live! Nozomi boob rub gif. I mean, yeah, there's the boob rub from the Love Live! anime, but that's not the only thing you'll find. A whole lot of:

Well, and worse.

Have this here gif from Love Live! just in case you missed my posts about it:

Dancing, dancing, non-stop me dancing! Yes, actual lyrics.

 

So, where was I. Finish an already a little structureless post about a whole lot of nothing, the bad guys are commanded by a mysterious figure who said they're trying to restore Atlantis. Since the planet they're on is called Gaia (or Gaea, which is the same thing, anyway), I'd say they all came from Earth at some point, or are some reflection from Earth, or something. The four episodes have breakneck pacing, some mech action that's pretty bloody - people get speared to death, burned to death, hacked to death and there's some fun blood splatter going on, but it's not full Blood-C level. It's pretty violent. The shounend dolt is pretty shouneny, and the other main character that was introduced aside from the villains who are either mysterious, traitors or guano-insane is Allen, a chivalrious knight, and someone Hitomi pretty quickly develops a crush on. There's also a cat girl.

To sum up, we have a nice girl lead character who does fortune telling, a shounen male lead who is shouneny, a knight in shining armor (well, shining mech), breakneck pacing, JRPG elements all over the place, a high fantasy setting with lots of out of place looking technology and pretty much no time to breathe for anything, which makes my conclusion at the time being all the more strange, I guess. Because, really, when watching this, what I should be doing is this:

Or, maybe this:

In reality, while watching this anime, I'm looking more like this:

 

Yeah, no, I'm serious. I think I actually like this, and I have no idea why. With Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, at least, I knew why. That was just great entertainment and more of a special ops / superhero squad fighting of a villain with decent quality world building, great pacing and quite decent writing (I'd say more than decent, but some problems crop up at the end). With this? I have no idea. I should be groaning and facepalming throughout each episode, but I don't do that. Not when King Dolt does something stupid, not even when the Cat Girl (well, her name is Merle) is on screen and jealous of how much King Dolt likes Hitomi, as if she'd be interested in that dweeb. To his credit, Chivalrous Knight in Shining Mech explains to King Dolt that honor and bravery are all nice and fine, but surviving to fight another day beats pointless last stands, and dishonor can be carried with dignity if it means saving your people. I guess he's not a complete moron.

I'm kinda hoping that'll change and the show will do something inexcusably dumb soon so the world rights itself.

Edited March 20, 2022 by majestic
Forgot an image of Hitomi, lel

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, so that wasn't how I expected that post to end. I was gearing up to write my monthly "why the hell do you keep trying to watch shows that you should obviously leave to someone else that doesn't have your particular OCD, good lord - don't you have enough endless trash on your plate?".

Please tell me that this "Merle" doesn't pronounce her name as "Earl" with an M. Also, please tell me that the show looks a lot better on the streaming service (Amazon?) you're watching it on than those screenshots you presumably pulled from Google, because I've seen screenshots of the BDs previously, and I know they looked a lot nicer than that.

This was not the one I was going to link because it's obviously not a key frame, but the visual combined with the subtitle was hilarious and it got the point across.