Dagger

Got my hands on the movie (thanks, Santa). I'm deeply irritated that even the latest edition isn't done in anamorphic widescreen, which meant that it was about the size of a postage stamp on my monitor, but whatever. The good thing is that I didn't love it quite enough to plunk down my money for the anamorphic R2J DVD--although that might happen sometime in the future. Meh. Anyway, this came at a good time. I've been watching a lot of slice-of-life stuff lately, and seeing EoE really reinvigorated me. I liked it quite a bit, although it never gave me shivers or anything, the way that the end of the TV series did. I even felt that the live-action footage worked pretty well in the context of the film, which is something I thought I'd never say about any anime. It would be tiresome to hash over the things I enjoyed, so I'll just mentioned stuff I didn't care for. I did want to say that I thought the vocal song choices were very good, though. I didn't find myself glancing at the clock, either, which is unusual for me. Anyway... [spoiler]One thing that really frustrated me was the abruptness of Asuka's transformation/revelation. Everything that happened after it was unbelievably cool, but I just couldn't buy into how she reached that frame of mind. They could at least have spent another minute or two on it. My second complaint is actually very similar. I didn't see any reason for Rei to reject Gendou, given how her character was built up in the TV series. That needed to receive more screen time--it should have been a monumental decision for her, even if she chose to communicate it in her usual calm way, and I would have preferred to have gotten a better sense of that. The romantic language ("Let's just be friends" and so forth) used in one of the later sequences seemed a little off to me. I understand how it fits, but to me it just seemed off. I was unpleasantly startled by the ending scene. In my opinion, it should have come slightly earlier. The shot of the moon, the sun and then Unit-01 would have worked better as a final image, along with the narration that accompanied it.[/spoiler] All things considered, I prefer the TV ending, but EoE was obviously worth watching. Next time I might watch 1-24, then EoE, then 25 & 26, just to shake things up. ~Dagger~

I agree to a certain extent. I rather enjoy well-done fanservice, myself. What I meant is that it doesn't make sense for him to basically say "suck it up" to people who are upset about women being portrayed badly in anime, when he himself makes a big point of complaining about men being portrayed badly in anime. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Avenged666fold']If you dont like it dont friggin watch it. Go watch pokemon.[/quote] If the answer is that simple, then why do you complain about how males are portrayed in anime? ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=Akilamo]Correction, anime is japanese animation and only japanese animation. The animation in russia or korea or america is not called anime. Anime only mean japanese cartoons, so your statement is incorrect and it is incorrect to say japanese anime, it doesnt make any sense, anime is japanese and only japanese. Teen titans is anime if you were wondering. What makes anime be anime? It is the style of drawing of the characters in anime. Thats how you distinguish the animation from other animations. :smirk:[/QUOTE] You contradicted yourself so many times in those two paragraphs that I can't tell whether you're being serious or just not-so-subtly mocking all of us. I almost hope it's the latter... :animeswea ~Dagger~

It's refreshing to see someone say that a 2001 series is "fairly new." I'm not being sarcastic, either. Gives me a little jolt of confusion every time I hear stuff like RahXephon or Noir being called old. So, what makes this different from the rest of the maid anime out there? I still have a vestigial interest in Mahoromatic, although I've been spoiled for its apparently shocking ending multiple times. ~Dagger~

If I could meet [B]Soushi Minashiro[/B] from Fafner, I'd ask him if he really [spoiler]desecrated Shouko's grave.[/spoiler] Because that's not hinted at in the TV series, but in one of the Fafner audio dramas, he all but admits to it. That adds a much more sinister layer to his character--one that's already present in the anime, but not to such a great extent. So I'd like to know. If I could meet [b]Akane Soir[/b] (from My-ZHiME) and/or [B]Akane Higurashi[/B] (from My-HiME), I'd ask her why Sunrise has it in for her. Not to mention poor Kazu-kun. If I could meet [b]Subaru Muryou[/b] from Gakuen Senki Muryou, I'd force him to find out about his origins and everything related to his past--in detail!--and then report back to me about it. The end of the TV series was such a tease in that regard, though it was satisfying in many other respects. ~Dagger~

Dags, huh? I like it. :catgirl: I remember there being a really nice Christmas episode in [b]Full Moon wo Sagashite[/b], but unfortunately, the details escape me. I imagine it was probably about as warm & fuzzy and touching as the rest of the show, though. [b]Big O[/b] has an episode that's obviously meant to evoke Christmas, although the name of the holiday is never mentioned specifically (which makes sense, given that the setting is a city without memories). Of course there are battling giant robots and monsters too, haha. But as I recall, it ends on a surprisingly contemplative note. Actually it might be one of the softer episodes--I haven't seen it in a while--so I could be wrong about the fighting robots part. I always get it mixed up with "Day of the Advent." However, I think it's actually episode 11 of the first season, "Daemonseed." There's a Christmas party at some point in [b]Chrono Crusade[/b]. And fairly early on in [b]R.O.D the TV[/b], the Paper Sisters are shown celebrating Christmas together. The [b]RahXephon[/b] Christmas episode involves a party full of sublimated romantic tension, followed by [spoiler]Sayoko being trapped in a Dolem[/spoiler] while the whole island is covered in snow. Not really the kind of thing that evokes holiday cheer. Overall, though, my favorites are the first two I mentioned. ~Dagger~

[CENTER]Retribution - 6 Kitty - 3[/CENTER] Merry Christmas, [B]Retribution[/B]! You're the official winner of the first annual OBGT. Anyway, I'm going to leave this thread open for discussion, congratulations, and so forth. Just remember that voting is closed, folks. :animeswea ~Dagger~

I haven't read the book. So that's more of a complaint with the core story itself, I guess. What I did read over the past summer was [url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743444299/qid=1135454867/sr=2-3/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3/102-9913801-8800134?s=books&v=glance&n=283155][u]this[/u][/url] non-fiction work, and I keep getting it mixed up with Arthur Golden's novel... :p ~Dagger~

Yay! :catgirl: Here's a screencap I've been dying to use. It's from episode 6 of the delightful bishoujo series [url=http://www.my-zhime.net/][u]My-ZHiME[/u][/url] (often called My-Otome). [img]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=25033&stc=1[/img] The girl on the left, with the spiral hair, is [b]Shiho[/b]. The girl on the right is [b]Nao[/b]. ~Dagger~

Well, I went to see this last night. It was pretty good overall. The cinematography was gorgeous, and I thought the main female characters were well-cast in terms of looks. In my opinion, Hatsumomo was actually the most beautiful, at least in the parts when she showed up. I kind of wish the whole thing had somehow been done in Japanese, but whatever. When she did speak Japanese, Zhang Ziyi's accent was pretty jarring; the same was true for a couple of other characters. I almost would have preferred for them to leave out the Japanese snippets and do the whole thing in English, because the fangirl-ish sprinkling of Japanese phrases was distracting. The story was a little too neat for my tastes, although I'll admit that it left a lump in my throat in several places. I didn't like how Sayuri's entire world revolved around the Chairman, but I still found the ending satisfying, so I guess I can't complain about that too much. The one thing that really irked me was [spoiler]Sayuri's dance.[/spoiler] What the hell was that? It was almost embarrassingly bizarre, and by the end it wasn't at all attractive. Anyway, they did a good job of matching Zhang Ziyi with the little girl from the beginning. Even their manner of speaking was similar. ~Dagger~

It started airing recently, so it hasn't yet been licensed for a North American release. Given the genre, though, you can probably expect it to start coming out here eventually. ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=Avenged666fold]Can anybody tell me of any Good dark anime? No horror! Beacause their not scary!!!!! More like berserk or ninja scroll that sorta thing. Any suggestions?[/QUOTE] [b]Elfen Lied[/b] is commonly called horror, but it doesn't really aim to be scary. If you don't mind the inclusion of harem elements or some black comedy, it's probably a good choice for you. It's very dark & violent, often to the point of being melodramatic. Try looking into [b]Gantz[/b], while you're at it. ~Dagger~

[quote name='IceRose']Most colleges at least require a recommndation from your English teacher. :catgirl:[/quote] Hm... really? For me, it was coincidental that one of the people I asked was my English teacher. I was always told that it just had to be an academic teacher (well, usually two, but I think that varies more). ~Dagger~

[quote name='Sting']I agree. Although I would've thought that was the 3rd arc.... O_o Isn't it?[/quote] There's going to be a filler arc first. Sorry for the confusion over the third attachment--apparently what it says does relate to the filler arc, but the image itself does not, which means that the image is essentially just a goodie for the fans. Which makes more sense. As for Bleach in America, there's been no word yet. I [i]really[/i] hope FUNimation gets it, instead of Viz, but we'll have to wait and see... ~Dagger~

Okay, I just cleaned up about half of this thread. In the future, replies that consist solely of "blah vs. blah" will be deleted, as they're considered to be spam. So as to help foster a more interesting discussion, please try to give at least one or two reasons for why you would want to see those characters in a fight. As for me, I'd love to watch a fight between Subaru Muryou (from Shingu, also called Gakuen Senki Muryou) and some shounen hero... probably Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho or Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that Muryou would win handily, but it would be really amusing to play the witness as his opponent(s) realize that their usual power-ups are totally useless against him. Oh, and it'd be neat to see Kino (from Kino's Journey) take on a Gunslinger Girl. I think Claes or Triela would be the best matches for her. ~Dagger~

It's not really that hard to imagine Izumi losing... [spoiler]in the parts of the series that have aired on CN, I definitely recall there being some scenes in which she had to struggle a little to hold her own.[/spoiler] Her toughness is a central element of her character, but Motoko is all that and more. It's been too long since I saw GitS: SAC for me to offer good, specific examples, but I think the enemies Motoko faces are of a far higher caliber than the ones faced by Izumi. Plus, combat is perhaps the central element of her job. That's not true for Izumi. ~Dagger~

Hardy har har. Nice one. We've had general anime quiz threads in the past, but even those struggled. Something limited to a single question simply won't work here. Moreover, [b]darkartic[/b], this looks like a blatant attempt at self-promotion--which is a bannable offense. The only reason I didn't just delete the thread outright is that Arvie's reply deserves to be read. ;) Thread closed. ~Dagger~

I'm really curious about how they'll transition to the filler arc. I've read that the 2005 Jump Festa Anime Tour Bleach OVA could almost be a kind of preview of the direction in which the filler arc will head. For the record, it appears to deal with [spoiler]the shinigami in the real world--which means high school, haha.[/spoiler] I attached two magazine scans with images from the OVA. Kubo Tite provided the design for the villain, but I don't know how much input he will have on the actual story. The third attachment is an image that relates directly to the TV series filler arc. Despite what it shows, they want viewers to "wait and see" about whether shinigami will appear. I certainly hope so--one can only do so much with the real world characters. And I want more of Yumichika and Higashi, dammit. :animeswea Lastly, a Bleach movie is scheduled for the end of next year, but no further details have emerged yet. ~Dagger~

Ayame: "And [i]that's[/i] the story of how I told all those doujinshi artists you were gay for Kyo." ~Dagger~

[size=1]OOC: Sage Kaley, you deserve +500 HP for that new banner & avatar combo.[/size] Persona, who had not wasted any time in showing them what he had found, stood back so Okita and Echo could look more closely at the thing on the gurney. Okita reached out to touch it. Echo cast a sideways glance at him before she finally stepped forward, swallowing visibly. Far be it from him to stop her, if she thought she could handle it. What he found most unsettling were the clashing scents: blood as old as a month and blood as young as two days, blood from so, so many different women. The individual smells leaked together to become a kind of olfactory sludge. It was terribly distracting--much more so than the stench emitted by the other creature, the one they had destroyed; his adrenaline had held that smell at bay. Now he struggled to focus, to keep his vision from muddying, because a strong part of him instinctively longed to untangle those scents. He wanted to pinpoint their exact origins, down to the vein of that hand or the artery of that paler, skinnier arm or the deep cut along the mass of flesh that formed the upper part of the torso. The sewing was sloppy at best. "Why do it like this?" Okita asked, indicating the stitches by waving his hand. "Why not do it more professionally? The one behind this had the resources for . . ." He gestured meaningfully at the crates; no further elaboration was needed. "The point is, he had the resources. Why carry it out so crudely?" He had hoped they could wrap up the mission with a simple raid; the enigma here irked him. He wished he could detect more than just varying degrees of age and warmth in blood--he wished he could scent out the perpetrator as well. "A re-enactment," said Persona from the shadows behind Echo. She twitched, as though startled by the sound of his voice. "What?--Oh. Oh, of course. That does make sense." Okita looked at him sharply. "But is the film itself relevant? Was it the story that seized him? Or could he have known someone involved?" He nudged at a tower of crates with his toe; black stains poured down over the wooden slats, as though something inside had overflowed. "Or was he involved? Dammit." He laughed, as though to reassure himself that he wasn't actually shaken. But fingers of perturbation--or anticipation--had begun to manifest themselves somewhere deep in his abdomen. "I didn't misinterpret you, did I? Care to tell us about the movie?" "It was a Mammon work--derivative of Frankenstein. I don't remember much." "Frankenstein." Glancing back at the gurney, Okita continued, "I'm afraid I've only read the novel. In it, the monster asks for a companion. A woman. That's what I thought of when I saw this. Then again--" He broke off when he saw Echo gesturing frenetically. "There's something you want to say, right? Well, I'll try . . . Monster? Mammon? Frankenstein?--no? I see. Insane? Evil doctor? Not an evil doctor? Well, maybe it's not about him." He jerked his thumb at the creature that had been made by cobbling together different women. "Is it about--[i]it[/i], then?" She pointed more wildly. "Ah," he exclaimed suddenly. Drawing his sword, he struck at the ground as though killing a snake. "I'm sorry," he said to her, extending his arm; the blade had stabbed through the palm of a hand that still jerked inward, like a dying spider. "You meant this." The hand was attached to a forearm but nothing else, and gangrene darkened the part near the absent elbow where it had been sawed or hacked off. With a flick, Okita send it soaring into a corner. "So even these bodies have an expiration date." It was growing very late. As they rummaged around, Okita asked Persona whether the stimulus used in the film had been the same as the one used in Frankenstein. "The stimulus used to awaken them," he corrected himself. "To bring them to life." Persona made no reply beyond the most minimal of shrugs, and Okita retreated back to his frustration. For him, this situation--and the very vagueness and mystery that surrounded it--still struck much too close to home for comfort. He smiled relentlessly to keep from gnawing his lip. It was clear to all of them that the person responsible constructing these hideous amalgamations had not been gone from this place for very long, but simply lying in wait would almost certainly be futile. Okita realized that Persona was motioning at him, so he tapped Echo on the shoulder, and they gathered near the entrance. "Did you find something?" Okita asked. Persona shook his head. Echo gave Okita what seemed like a faintly pleading look and pointed her gaze over his shoulder, at what lay outside. "Someone's out there," he hazarded softly. She repeated it in a whisper, nodding. "You're certain of it?" "Certain," she hissed. He was again impressed by her perceptiveness. He leaned toward her and Persona. "In that case," he murmured, pitching his voice even lower, "Let's--" An explosion interrupted him. No, not quite an explosion. It was something else, something almost soundless, a white burst that made his eyes wince back violently and made his fingers momentarily loosen from around the hilt of his sword. He re-adjusted his grip, whirling. It had come from behind them. From near that gurney. He located Persona--who hadn't strayed far--as the flare of light dimmed. Where was Echo? He strained to see. He heard a squelching noise right then, like something severing, and darted at the source of the sound. A glance was sufficient to tell Persona to come around from the other direction. Finally glimpsing Echo, Okita pulled up short; the female thing had its hands about her neck, but they were more than hands: they were misshapen paws, with stubs of fingers poking out here and there, yellowed nails surging up between knuckles, lined palm-skin where the backs of the hands should have been, and vice versa. What did she have to do to escape? He calculated the motions quickly and dropped, coming in low, his sword leading him. Echo appeared to have stopped breathing, but she succeeded in imitating him, and at that moment Persona arrived to destroy it. "It was the machine," Persona told them as he stepped over the monster's remnants. "It was activated." "The creature looked unfinished, though," Okita said. "Maybe he's desperate. But he's here, either way. He can't have gone far." "He?" The new voice lanced through Okita like an unexpected jolt of static. He turned reluctantly to face the speaker. "[i]He[/i]?" A chuckle, low and creamy. "You're slower than I thought, vampire." Their mad scientist was a woman.

[QUOTE=sand dragon 19][COLOR=DarkSlateGray][SIZE=2][FONT=Times New Roman][spoiler] ..... but then Azien blocked it with one finger...then grasped the sword which almost cut Ichigo into a half shingami...[/spoiler] that part made me laugh so hard that I actually cried..Seriously..I really did. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/QUOTE] Haha, yeah, that was frigging awesome. I found certain parts of this episode kind of irritating, though, especially the fact that [spoiler]it made Hinamori's revival seem imminent. I really hope she just stays dead.[/spoiler] I also hope that [spoiler]Urahara[/spoiler] doesn't ever become an outright enemy, since I like him quite a bit, and it would cheapen him as a character (in my opinion, anyway). Right now he's morally ambiguous, but he still serves as a non-evil foil for [spoiler]Mayuri.[/spoiler] That's the way I see it. Speaking of [spoiler]Mayuri[/spoiler]--I think his makeover was what shocked me most about episode 61. I mean, what the hell? [spoiler]He went all weird & bishounen! Where in earth did that blue hair come from?[/spoiler] The world may never know... :animestun ~Dagger~

[quote name='freeziepleasy']i would think that eerie queerie is more sexually explicit than ring finger...but oh well. thanks for answering that. :)[/quote] Yeah, but it's hardly borderline pornographic. It's less explicit than Gravitation, for example, which is also considered to be shounen-ai. ~Dagger~

[quote name='persocomblues']Strange, a number of people I know caught News Channel 4 mentioning how it didn't take in even 10...[/quote] That's probably a reference to the Wednesday take, which was [strike]around[/strike]

Regarding the box office results... I read that the weekend domestic take was somewhere in the realm of ~$50 million. Not stellar, but not flop-worthy, either. Here's an interesting [url=http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/13437371.htm][u]article[/u][/url] that touches on future expectations and so forth. ~Dagger~