Hell yeah! This is what I’ve been waiting for for years now: two Noitamina series, airing at the same time, taking up 22 episodes. Especially after the kick in the balls that was Guilty Crown, it’s great to see Production IG actually making up for that with two actually good series now.
Robotics;Notes and Psycho Pass are both science fiction series, but their execution is completely different. The former focuses more on suspense, the latter on slice of life. The former is about adults, the latter about teenagers. The former will be more tense and more exciting to watch, the latter will have better fleshed out characters. It’s a matter of time to see which one fares better.
The one thing I like about the semicolon series is that they’re all different. Instead of trying to make a Steins;Gate 2 with an Okabe ripoff, the characters aim to be completely different characters here, not to mention that the themes, while still science fiction, are completely different, and there is much more slice of life here, even compared to the already slow-paced Steins;Gate. The results are mixed.
The thing with Steins;Gate was that it had its complete own style that set itself miles apart from all other series. Robotics;Notes doesn’t have that and just looks like a teenaged high school series. On the other hand, this also leads it to try less hard: none of the characters are as out there as with the cast of Steins;Gate. The result is that the characters aren’t as enjoyable to watch, but also they’re far from as annoying as some of the characters in Steins;Gate were.
I still like the characters of Robotics;Notes, especially the lead female as she actually gets things done and has a goal to work for. The male lead still needs to crawl out of his shell and get away from gaming. By far the most dubious point in this episode was where he agreed in front of an exhausted female lead to pilot, only if she changed the controls to be more like his favorite game. I mean this guy just totally is not flexible. Why does he stand in the foreground of the promo art, hinting that he will be the central character? Let the girl be the one to stand in the spotlights! Oh wait, they did; never mind.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)
Hmm… I may be mistaken but I think you meant Psycho Pass and Robotics;Notes there on the second paragraph.
🙂
I’ve just been wondering, when you will talk about the actual episodes again. I’ve been missing your insightful posts for some time now. I know it’s your blog and all and you can talk about whatever you like here. Though your posts, when I started reading your blog (~2009) were a lot better. From the way your posts are written (like making mistakes about the plot or mixing up characters or being all about the technique or comparing them to whatever else without talking about the episode itself) it seems that the amount of series you’re blogging are too much for you to handle by yourself and you’re starting not to pay attention to the series anymore. This post is again one of those posts, where you manage to talk about nothing at all. Not a single sentence is about the episode itself. Maybe it would be better if you either do a weekly post about your thoughts about all of the series in general or just don’t cover that many shows at the same time. Of course, it’s all up to you and I don’t want, by any means, to tell you what you have to or should do. But I know you can do better. It’s just a pity, that you don’t.
Ack, I’m doing it again. Believe it or not, but people also said this to me back in 2009 and even 2008. I thought that it was pretty interesting to discuss series in terms of the big picture, but apparently not everyone shares that opinion. I actually did try to talk about the actual episode in terms of what impression the characters made on me (including that one comment by the male main character), but apparently that’s not enough. I’ll try to balance things out more.
I wouldn’t say, that it’s not interesting to talk about the big picture. But, as you said you should balance it out a bit more. The episode itself falls a bit short or sometimes is just missing in general in your posts. After I’ve watched an episode, I really liked coming on your blog and read, what you thought about that episode. What you liked, what you didn’t like or speculating on what’s going to happen next. In your recent posts it’s often been missing. And while I don’t always share your opinion, it’s interesting to read what someone else thought about it. Of course, the big picture also plays a role in it. However, your recent posts seem a bit…lazy and dry. I got the impression you somewhat lost interest in writing them. Or sometimes force yourself to watch something and write about it when you’re actually too tired to do so. That it’s more of a duty than a hobby. I recently discussed the topic with a friend of mine, who also really likes your blog and she had the same impression. Of course, if I’m wrong, I’m sorry.
Hm. I always thought you were trying to avoid spoiling too much though. XD But hal has some interesting points.
I think one thing that stands out a lot, is the chemistry between the two leads. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other couple in anime that is so enjoyable to watch.
Hai, I was actually just going to say that! I didn’t want to be rude but I agree with you. Only like two sentences were actually relevant to the episode. I got all excited for a blog post about it and it’s pretty much random thoughts that I thought were obvious. I ended up going to another blog.
Hmm… this is random but I noticed you compared steins;gate and robotics;notes as the semicolon series but didn’t mention anything about chaos;head. Now I’m curious, have you watched it, psgels?
I have. I didn’t hate it and had some nice ideas, but it was nowhere as good as Steins;Gate.