Gintama’
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a samurai.
I originally dropped the first Gintama season around episode 120. In short, the reason was the change of direction: it was less funny, the focus changed from dialogue to bloody action and some arcs got dragged out needlessly. It wasn’t bad by a long shot, but nowhere up to the standard of the first 100 episodes. With that in mind though, I really have to say that this episode felt much more like the first 100 episodes than the second. It was a really hilarious episode that completely broke the fourth wall in usual Gintama fashion. This is really the Gintama that I’ve been waiting for. The dialogue is again sharp and witty and I loved this episode. However, I do have one major criticism here: After watching more than 120 episodes of this show, it is getting predictable nonetheless. I could see quite a few of the anti-climaxes in this episode coming from afar. While those punchlines were utterly hilarious, it’s this predictability that will be the biggest problem for this sequel. Also (but this is just nitpicking), another thing that bothered me in this episode was that the facial expressions tried too hard. I think that a little more deadpan would have been a better choice, especially because of how characters hardly ever seemed to change their facial expressions.
OP: Best OP song of the season so far. Awesome guitar riffs.
ED: Nice idea, bu the cheesy vocals don’t fit in well.
Potential: 80%
Steins;Gate
Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets involved in a time travel conspiracy.
Steins;Gate… again is an excellent addition to this already excellent season. This one stands out in the best atmosphere: it’s really good at using its quiet pacing to build up tension and to retain that tension with some excellent climaxes. It’s got a deliberately overacting lead character (another adult, by the way), who against my expectations contrasted sharply with the dark atmosphere of this series, which worked really well. He’s exceptionally good at keeping the balls into the air and making things consistently interesting. This is a series that depends a lot on its dialogue, and it passes here with flying colors thanks to this guy, who just keeps changing the setting and topic in order to remain fresh and interesting. And yet there is some order to his chaos, which pays off during the climaxes in this episode. The females also were really great to watch, and knew that they shouldn’t try to look like moe stereotypes, but just play themselves. This was a quiet yet very interesting episode and I’m really looking forward to seeing more.
Potential: 85%
Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is surrounded by a bunch of girls.
Keeping up in the tradition of this season in which series are either really really good, or not interesting at all, Oretsuba is utter crap. Of course, I pretty much expected it to be bad when I first learned of it, but this show is so bizarrely horrible in a way that I never saw coming. The best way to compare this show with is with Shukufuku no Campanella on weed. The production values here are utterly terrible, with especially the voice actors laughably bad, but what really striked me here is that the scenario writers had no idea what they were doing. This entire episode was just a string of random sketches with no point or purpose that were nothing more than endless unfunny and terrible dialogues between random characters. Most of the time in this episode is actually not focused on the lead characters, but some random dialogue between three random guys that just refuses to end. The lead character only appears twice. Once to be hugged by all of the main females (who also don’t appear for most of this episode in favour of a random waitress and young girl) and one that simply out of nowhere had him claim to come from a parallel dimension. It just… made no sense whatsoever. Oh, and the fanservice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a TV-series with fanservice that was THIS lazy… to the point where it just gets bizarre.
ED: Um, random.
Potential: 0%
Just to be clear, there are 3 leads in this anime.
The one in school Takashi, the guy with orange hair Shuusuke and Hayato.
There isn’t one protagonist more important than the others, they will share the spotlight equally.
Oh and for the parallel dimension thing, well it’s not much of a spoiler since it’s revealed pretty early in the game but it’s just nonsense, basically Takashi is just not right in the head.
Why is it that EVERY SEASON we get like 3x more shows like these then any of the GOOD shows that made anime so popular??
Shows and Manga like this are the reason why people like the governor of Tokyo pass bills to try to stamp out Manga and Anime as a whole! wtf!
if these companies would stop throwing out trash every fucking season then maybe Anime/Manga would become a lot more mainstream, instead of just some nerd/loser/otaku thing (in Japan and America)
I pretty much have to HIDE the fact that I like and watch anime from …EVERYONE anime as a whole really needs to shape the fuck up,
You can say that again. No way am I ever coming into contact with this show. And hasn’t the industry had ENOUGH of this garbage!? We need more GOOD shows (like more World Masterpiece Theater titles! Why can’t THEY be more appreciated than this garbage!?)!!
What do above two posters expect? Every season to be filled to the brim with gems like Cowboy Bebop? Jesus.
Poor Oretsuba… the dialogue was supposed to be the shining point of the original game
Damn I haven’t seen the episode yet but I was looking forward to this show. The premise seemed really interesting and I’ve heard great things about the visual novel. Need to watch it myself to see if it really is that bad.
>the females
>plurar
Heh, you’re in for a surprise. Can’t blame you, though.
Do I need to watch Chaos;Head before I watch Steins;Gate? Or will it not make sense?
You don’t need to watch Chaos;Head to watch Steins;Gate.
@Lunacie: I belive, not sure, that both are standalone stories even if there are a couple of references and yet, even if you watch the Chaos;Head anime you won’t understand because the adaptation wasn’t that good.
Psgels, did you know that this comes from the same mind behind phantom?
Sorry for the, maybe, sucky English. Spanish is my native language
Ah, okay, thanks for the quick answers!
@DestinyAlx ; well,it’s the same studio (Nitroplus),but when Phantom was written by Gen himself,Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head was written by another writer…
Steins:Gate was good. Definitely helps that I like the main character, crazy as he is. So far, Steins, Tiger and Bunny are the shows I’m going to follow this season.
>>>What do above two posters expect? Every season to be filled to the brim with gems like Cowboy Bebop? Jesus….
Y E S!
Anime has had MORE THAN ENOUGH time to evolve into something great, sadly survival of the fittest doesn’t seem to apply here.
Uh, market forces are why you get the shows you do. None of the businesses that invest in these works is running a charity. If you are a wealthy benefactor looking to indulge in some patronage, then feel free to contract a series.
The shows that you probably think ‘made anime popular’ didn’t, and don’t dominate in three major classes of animation of films, daytime shows, or night time shows. Though neither do the low-brow shows; they’re just cheap to make have a consistent customer base.
Also, please spare me the bad science metaphors. I get enough evolutionary biology fail from television writers.
Please stop spreading misleading information.
Steins;Gate is a collaboration between 5pb. and Nitroplus. The original concept of Steins;Gate and its script both come from 5pb. staff although people from Nitroplus did help with the game (the art director was from N+ and Shimokura helped with the overall story).
Chaos;Head, like Steins;Gate, was also a collaboration between the two companies (with assistance from Red Flagship).
Please give credit where it’s due.
So far I’m watching Hana-Saku Iroha and maybe Nichijou. Tiger and Bunny looks way too much like American Superhero stuff. Still waiting for Stein;Gate 720p ;_;
Steins;Gate was… I’m not sure. It kept me wanting to watch it, but I’m sure if I was enjoying myself because of that. I think it’s going to be one of those where I can’t appreciate the series early but might enjoy it later on as things becomes clearer. There was just too much vagueness for me, though I can see where it would need to be vague…
Oh, Sorry for the misleading info, simply got my information wrong.
Oh man, me write pretty someday. On to less silly things (one hopes)…
Gintama: I like Gintama and I’m glad to see it come back. The only major complaints I have with the series are that it becomes really melodramatic at the end of major arcs, no matter how silly they are; and the characters I like the most aren’t popular enough to show up as much as I’d like.
Steins;Gate: The atmosphere in this episode was decent. Everything came across as cold and distant, which worked well for building the mood. I really liked the hammy Rintarou presentation. A+. I didn’t really care for the voice acting for Itaru.
The only thing I liked about OreTsuba was Kakeru, and that was just because he was doing what I wanted to do: Verbally insulting the people on the show.
I enjoyed all of the last Gintama. They move away from bloody action for a while and then come back to it. Usually the plot driven arcs are quite bloody while the rest are basically as they were before.
I think it’s actually a change in direction in the source material since all the bloody arcs were almost straight from the manga.
Steins Gate was terrible. I mean the budget must be low if they only had 10 seconds of background music for an entire episode with continuous dialogue for 20 minutes. Milking the cicada sound effect and looping it for all it’s worth makes me never want to hear that sound again.
Devard :Thanks for your correction, but,really,CMIW again,things that I stated isn’t wrong,right? It’s not come from the same mind as Phantom.even though it’s still Nitro+.Nitro+ has several project teams (again,CMIW).
mds: I’m sure Nitroplus has many different teams and staff members, yes. The problem with what you and DestinyAlx were saying was that your statements gave the impression that Nitroplus was the (only) company behind C;H and S;G as there was no mention of 5pb. anywhere in your statements. The fact of the matter is that when you ignore the actual development work (the programming aspects of it, which Nitroplus works on on the PC side), the general concept and design, the scripts, and the storyline behind the science adventure series are by 5pb. staff and not people from Nitroplus (though they did help with Steins;Gate as an example, as I noted in my first comment).
I have no qualms with people crediting Nitroplus for Phantom, that was Nitroplus’s work and if you like it then good for Nitroplus, and if you didn’t like Phantom then feel free to not like Nitroplus and critique them as you like.
On the other hand, I have read (game) reviews of Steins;Gate where the reviewer bashes on Nitroplus or compare it to other works of Nitroplus (disclaimer, I love both Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate and both 5pb. and Nitroplus). If you didn’t enjoy playing S;G for whatever reasons, well, I’m sorry to hear that but you are entitled to your own opinion. However, please at least do some research and criticize the right companies (note the plural here, bash both 5pb. and Nitroplus or just 5pb. as 5pb. is the brains behind S;G).
So to the people that are experiencing Steins;Gate for the first time through the anime, if you like it, then commend 5pb. (and Nitroplus too if you wish) and White Fox (the animation studio) for their work. And if you find yourself not liking Steins;Gate, then by all means please critique 5pb. and White Fox (and again, add Nitroplus too if you wish) for the anime.
errr,okay,did I ever mention I didn’t enjoy S;G ? No.
Well,I’ve played C;H.It gots it’s strong points,but also becoming very weak at times (especially towards the end; it just plainly rushed).If you want some comparisons on the net,I wholeheartedly agree with C;H review on goldensneer.wordpress.com.
I haven’t played S;G ,simply because I’m too lazy to re-install my agth+atlas on my PC,but I hear good things.I’m also looking forward to R;N.
Well,no need to include my opinion on Phantom here,kinda pointless…hufff I’m sorry to say this but you looked like some sorta 5pb staff now,or at least some crazed 5pb fanboy.
Oops,I think that we OOT enough.Sorry,I just want to clarify my point here.
mds: No, you didn’t, that was a general comment and not intended to be directed at you personally. I apologize if it seemed that way.
You guys should give ‘Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai’ more of a chance I think: the main character is apparently a schizophrenic! 😀
The prince dude? I loved the ED.
Man that show has some real potential. It’s bizarre; yes, that’s the perfect word for it. Of course it had too much fanservice (a point that was hit home by one of the characters at the end who actually came out and said “Will the next episode have more awkward panty shots at inappropriate times? Aw heck yes, you know it will…” I’m gonna give it another couple of episodes before I pass judgment. I think the old bartender’s Go-kon prior to his wedding is a hilarious device to get these guys together.
“Shh, you know everyone in Japan is a pedophile” — lol. Classic. This show knows how to make fun of itself. What’s with the TV channel changing to signal scene changes? Just more creepiness.
The character designs were pretty nice, though. As long as the obligatory fanservice remains ridiculously awkward self-aware teases and doesn’t quite devolve into Yosuga no Sora territory, it’s worth a shot or two.
Okarin, Mayuri and Daru really remind me of another trio of otaku, conspiracy-obsessed weirdoes…Sato, Misaki and Yamazaki of Welcome to the NHK.
Ore-tachi’s first episode is one of the worst I’ve seen this season. I just got confused right away. I don’t know a thing and this is the first episode they come up? Only the ones who played the game will get it. This isn’t how you do a first episode. Confusing and frustrating.
Just finished watching Oretsuba, and I have to admit this one is within my Top 3 of the year. It may appears like another fan servicing moe anime that adapted from a galgame, which is true. But what makes this one has character is the main character himself (or should I say themselves). The plot really gives their story structure and as you get deeper in, the more subtle and solid it gets.
I can understand why people feel rejected watching the first episode. Actually, I suspect this anime is not made for a first timer who has no idea they are watching. I was aware of somewhat of the main story when I watched first ep, and I found it make sense, and also very interesting and exciting. This is those kind of adoption that don’t afraid of spoilers. So if someone decide to give it a try, I recommend you at lease read through the Japanese Wikipedia, because the English one doesn’t tell you much.
In fact, I really want to play the original game after I finished the series. And this alone convinces me that Oretsuba is a galgame adaption made successful.