Aikatsu
Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to become an idol
Oh god no! After the past spring season I have been spoiled by good idol shows with AKB and Natsuiro Kiseki’s idol subplot. But this season serves to remind us that there also is a lot of crap in the genre. When not about idols, this show is decent: just your average slice of life, nothing special but nothing really bad. When the idol performances begin however… oh dear lord. The CG! The horrible, horrible CG! Make it stop! Make it stop!
OP: No CG, interestingly enough.
ED: Nice idea to use a record for the ED. Boring song, though.
Potential: %
Psycho Pass
Short Synopsis: Our lead character weilds a gun.
Well, one season, two series with a fantastic soundtrack. First the audio of Zetsuen no Tempest blew me away, now Psycho Pass did the same. This is the kind of soundtrack that I can listen to over and over again even outside the series. For some it’s a bit too much on the foreground, but that’s something I really like. Beyond that, Psycho Pass just is a really interesting series, and this episode was an excellent example of that. This may be the umpth time in which we see a story from the perspective of a rookie, but this episode really was there to drive home how naive this rookie is. I also like how this episode wasn’t told from the perspective of the main character himself; they used him well for that, especially near the end of the episode. Beyond that the animation is for most part of the episode very nice, but there are a number of scenes that have visuals that really stand out. The gore is very detailed in this series, but also random scenes of really detailed lips caught my attention. These are the kinds of scenes that add so much to the visuals. And at this point, this season’s Noitamina aren’t the biggest budgetted series in terms of animation. Instead they’ve got very solid writing and characterization. Psycho Pass and Robotics;Notes first episodes were in any case much more interesting than the opening episode of Guilty Crown, and this looks to be far from the trainwreck that that show was. Thank god, because what we really have here is unique: not one, but TWO series on the Noitamina timeslot that go on for 22 episodes!
OP: Creative use of sounds and vocals.
ED: A bit too poppy, but quite energetic and fits the show.
Potential: 90%
Robotics;Note
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a gamer and high schooler.
Okay, let me get one thing straight: Steins;Gate had an amazing opening episode. Robotics;Notes does not. Instead, this show is more of a slow burner. We’re probably going to have to wait a while before this one really kicks off, but in the meantime Production IG delivered some solid characters and a varied cast. The two leads work well together and they’re well acted, even though they’re just teenagers. It’s a good set-up, especially with another Noitamina series of 22 episodes again. I still don’t like how this show is meant to glorify games, but this episode did a good enough job of dancing around that issue and highlighting some of their other parts, and this is far from as bad as with The World God Only Knows. There is this bit of realism in the characters that helps too, not to mention that even though the characters are teenagers, they don’t try too hard and instead their charms are natural ones. All in all, this can work out quite well if it knows its build-up.
OP: Solidly made, but too plain.
ED: Entirely dedicated to one character who only made one short appearance.
Potential: 75%
Is PSYCHO-PASS better than SAO?
By like a million times, yes.
Ok .. so you are an Oracle who somehow found out the Psycho-pass is -insert ridiculous arbitrary number here- times better than SAO .. so can you tell if it’s going to rain tomorrow or not XD
Well, it IS better in just about every aspect; I’m confident that if it wasn’t for the light novels, SAO would’ve just been an average anime at best.
You can’t really judge unless you have seen the same amount of content from both series not to mention neither series is over (we are still half-way through SAO and only saw a single PP episode)… PP could go downhill starting from its 2nd episode for all i care.
That’s besides the fact that comparing series from different genres is pointless because people who like SAO genre will be willing to overlook its flaws to enjoy what it has to offer .. same with PP (and to say what we have seen from PP so far is flawless would be ridiculous .. it isn’t).
Sure PP has good production values and it’s a Production I.G series after all but its first episode didn’t have the same impact SAO first episode had on me.
Fair point. Well, SAO’s first episode was it’s best, so in the case of Psycho Pass we’ll just have to wait, I guess.
probably going to be one of the overrated ones of the season, but at least the writing doesn’t seem as shitty as SAO, then again it’s only the first episode, urobachi’s gonna have a fun time trolling people…
You’re better off comparing this to Jormungand, maybe BTOOOM! this season. It sounds like the guy who worked on this worked on Fate Zero and Requiem of the Phantom so look for that kind of atmosphere.
Why the heck do even compare those two !!?, completely different genres, moods and target audience set them miles apart .. there is no point in comparing them.
Really? It seems like people who like Jormungand or BTOOOM! would like Psycho-Pass. Gunplay, gory violence, sex/rape scenes, dark atmosphere, etc. Maybe Jormungand is too light-hearted? But BTOOOM! looks way down there with Psycho-Pass.
My reply wasn’t to you “meow”, i’m replying to “Daniel” who seems to be comparing SAO with PP which doesn’t make any sense.
And i agree that BTOOOM and Psycho-Pass share some elements and are indeed comparable (and in my case Psycho-Pass is a lot better so far, i did read a little bit of BTOOOM manga and i hated its guts .. IMO it’s completely senseless and retarded with all the pointless violence/sex/necrophilia in it) .. and while Psycho-Pass seemed to overdo it with the violence (gun blowing up the kidnapper completely)it still didn’t feel senseless or mindless like BTOOOM.
Ah. My mistake.
Why would anyone compare these two series. They aren’t meant to have anything in common.
Sword Art Online is terrible, poorly written, hilariously melodramatic adventure of an overpowered self-insert character. But one has to admit it succeeds at what it does. And what it does doesn’t concern plot or writing, but the growth of e-penises.
Psycho Pass is too young to be judged on its plot, but it has already shown competent writing and very detailed and well developed anti-utopian setting.
lols, let’s just trash a famous show to show-off how smart and above the masses we are … i’m afraid your plan quite failed XD
whose eyes are those eyes?
This was a line from Chaos;Head, if I’m not mistaken?
haha, I can’t believe how much I agree with you about Robotic;Notes. I guess we can say that Production IG was successful in what they wanted to deliver. I like all the characters already, including Madam Vice Principal.
I’m less optimistic about Psycho-Pass though, I like the premise and all, but something tells me i’m not gonna be very convinced about the plot. That said, I really hope i’m wrong.
I’m sort of worried that Psycho-Pass will disappoint…. But it’s probably some sort of PTSD from Guilty Crown 😛
Urobuchi Gen can write good scripts and create elaborate settings, so I’ll try to be optimistic.
Pscho Pass kind of reminds me of a cross between Judge Dred and Equilibrium, both of which were rather mediocre movies, truth be told. Still going to give it a download though.
I assume Robotics;Note is from the makers of Steins;Gate (hence your reference to it)? Personally, I think S;G is a tad overrated, though it not bad by any means. I’d say it’d great, just not as great as some people make it out to be. Okabe, however, was awesome (both the character and the VA that played him). If R;N is even half as decent as S;G, I’ll be entertained at the very least.
Off to download….
About Robotics;Notes, it’s a pseudo-sequel to Steins;Gate – set in the same universe years after. I think at least one Steins;Gate character will make a reappearance. It’s about a robot-development club in a school that is about to be shut down due to it’s huge costs requests to the school but no results – it’s been trying to develop something for a robot tech festival for years but has yet to come out with a working prototype.
Of its two remaining members, the main character of the story is a disinterested gamer who’s only talent is mastery over a robot fighting game on his tablet. He’s apparently so good, he easily defeated the developer of the game and usually gets out of responsibility by challenging people who demand things of him to beat him in the game. If he wins, he gets out of it.
The other member is a robot otaku who’s been madly in love with this super robot anime which the game is based on since she was a kid, and is semi-obsessed with developing a working replica of the main robot in the anime. I think she’s a gifted mechanic but has trouble working on the O/S for the robot. She’s been trying to rope in a new student to their school to the club, who’s apparently an even bigger robot development genius, but he has zero interest in their hack club.
That’s about as far as I got in the PS3 demo before I dropped it. It’s as dry as Steins;Gate ever was in the beginning and I have no idea how it could pick up since it’s about Super Robots rather than time travel but who knows. There are other mysterious characters hanging about and this is a world where time/dimensional travel is feasible. A lot of the game interface centers around the main character’s tablet computer, which he uses for VS games, communicating with different characters and for it’s Augmented Reality functions, which let him scan the environment for extra details as well as add costumes to people on it’s camera. (Eg, putting the Robotics Club’s prez in a catgirl outfit.) Oh yeah, I think their Robotics Club also has a rival club in the same school, which is part of their budget problem.
Did you know that Gen wrote an Equilibrium fan fiction?
No, I am not kidding. You can download and read it here
http://tlwiki.org/index.php?title=Jouka_no_Monshou
Psycho-pass so far seems quite promising, the cyber-punk mood and edgy atmosphere are top-notch Production I.G trademark when it comes to serious Sci-fi .. in that episode i got vibes of Ghost in the shell, Blade Runner, Minority Report and even Gantz (guns that make people explode with invisible energy waves).
I did like the “new recruit” plot-device being used to explain things to us as well .. this crime-fighting business is as alien and new to her as much as it is to us .. so this way not only can the exposition actually feel meaningful but it makes it easier to relate to her (and it’s funny that not only she feels out of place story-wise .. but even her character design -specially her big eyes- makes here feel out of place .. IMO that was intentional).
The only thing that bugged me is the excessive use of force .. with aliens in Gantz i can totally understand needing guns that blow them apart to tiny pieces .. but seriously .. why the heck does those guns switch from non-lethal paralyzer into pulverizing invincible ray of doom .. it’s just too extreme .. there should have been some sort of middle-ground there (i.e i thought when the guy in the end of the episode got shot with lethal mode that only his arm will be shot/severed/explode .. but he completely blew up in the most gruesome way possible as if he was hit by a tank shell XD).
I still think there at least needs to be a way to control the strength of that death ray to minimize the messy results and leave something for forensics to work with (it would be silly to assume that all crime cases will just involve a single desperate guy .. what if it is a case of a serious crime network or something that needs tracking evidence and such .. blowing up people this way will leave little evidence to work with) .. not to mention with crazy guns like these they will always end up with very messy crime scenes (imagine if there were 3 to 4 more guys involved that got exploded .. yikes XD).
Also .. does anyone else see the “pun” in the series title .. Psycho-pass = psychopath XD
Found some interesting gossip about Psycho Pass.
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=503103
Urobuchi said this anime has cruel scenes both physically and mentally. Motohiro joked that he wanted kids audience to have a trauma for life by watching this anime.
Probably just gossip but…uwaaaah. XD Have fun, kids. Please keep real kids away from this.
only problem is that the premise is set up for tragedy way to easily. one simple terrorist attack, and the entire country is going to need tranquilizers.
Lols, yeah .. i guess the way they treated the “victim” immediately as a criminal because her “rating” was high in this episode showed that everyone (except our heroine) is following the directions of the AI that scans people’s psyche without any consideration to the circumstances and common sense .. the logic they use is simply that if you see someone with criminal potential shoot tranqulizer .. if you see someone with a too high rating blow the shit our of them regardless of what reason induced that so-called high-rating.
I guess that will be one of the main sources of conflict between our heroine and the other force members .. no .. actually the entire system .. she might end up bringing it all down .. she might not look it .. but she is quite tough seeing she didn’t hesitate a sec to shoot the enforcer before he killed the “victim” which clearly had a high “rating” because of the shit she has been through in the past few hours before they saved her (ironically the way they treated the guy who caused all this mess is what ended up turning him into a criminal and also turned his own victim into a potential criminal according to the flawed logic of that AI that controls the system).
Sounds like a really nasty version of minority report. For a lot less proof, kill the potential criminal?
@HunterWulf about the show aikatsu for me if they will minimaize the cg in during the preformence in the stage then it will be more watchable what do you think?
I like the fact that the explaining into certain things throughout the episode was done by one of the Enforcers. It does lead to some ideas about whether the characters and world of Psycho-Pass has become dependent on a somewhat flawed system.
While some would argue that using an AI system makes the decisions and judgement of a criminal fair, there could be flaws in that no one knows who the criminal could be and there’s no evidence apart from monitored stress and mental levels. This is all theory and hypothesis, that because of the man’s environment and inability to cope with stress, he became a criminal.
From what the old man Enforcer (guy looks like he is from a hard-boiled detective novel) said to the rookie, the thoughts and wishes of a person could be transparent.
It could leave it open to that they can only go after a criminal that had some sort of mind fuck or they’re a headcase. That makes the AI flawed and yet maybe in the technocratic world of Psycho-Pass, they can’t trust themselves or each other to pass judgement on people.
Maybe some cases and criminals they go after are sociopaths and psychos who are able to kill and not exert any sort of stress level can pass the rating.
I like the rookie based on the fact that she treated the victim as human still and not just a screwed order and confirmation to kill/neutralise like an animal.
I saw the pun about psychopath and I was thinking another meaning to it. Psycho-pass as in they’ve all gone beyond being a psycho or they pass the psycho limit and are made to serve society knowing they can be killed any time if they lose their shit, haha.
@elior1
Sorry, but i’m not really interested in Aikatsu, and even if i did .. i already chose +10 series to watch this season .. so i won’t be watching Aikatsu XD
Dude, love your comment on Aikatsu, though I didnt finish the first episode and I pretty much closed my media player when the idols started to sing…
Psycho-Pass: WTF, I have absolute nothing against extreme settings, but if you can get killed just because you had a horrible encounter?!??? Seriously are you kidding me??? Just talk and then it goes back to just stunning????????????????????????????????????????????? Sorry but this kills this show for me.