Ryan

Gintama is really uneven quality-wise. The plot arcs are often incredible. The filler between can be okay but is usually cringeworthy. I quit watching around episode 200-something. Might pick it up later. Probably won't. Speaking of disappointment, I'm having a hard time getting into DurararaX2. They have introduced a new cast of freshmen and villains, and I don't like any of them. Season 1's cast is still there...but the focus of the plot is off of them. The show has earned a certain amount of goodwill and trust from me with its masterful first season, so I'm willing to give it a bit of time for the plot to take shape, but still...ugh.

Through various comments you've made, I know that you have a low tolerance for randomness in anime, and if I'd known that about you at the time I recommended Nichijou I never would have. It is the most random show I've ever watched. I will disagree about it being nonsensical. The only times I found it nonsensical were the times when, in order to get the joke, you would have to either speak Japanese or be intimately familiar with Japanese culture. And there's a lot of that as well, but the rest is compelling enough to me that I look past it. As for not caring what happens to anyone...I started out the same way. I remember the exact scene that changed my mind. One of the characters is a hyperactive, underachieving teenaged girl. It's easy to write her off at first, even be annoyed by her. But then there was a scene where she's trying to kill all the mosquitos in her room that are keeping her from getting to sleep, which involves a lot of smacking things. It's presented as a funny scene, and you think it's like every other little random sketch in the show. Then her mother comes in and shouts at her to stop making so much noise, and slaps her so hard that she falls on her back, hitting her head on her desk on the way down. After the mom slams the door, she is left stunned and staring, just as we, the audience, are stunned and staring. Then she realizes that the mom killed the last mosquito against her cheek when she smacked her, and she smiles. And then you understand that she's grown up with abuse and is doing the best she can with the hand she's been dealt, and that her happy, carefree attitude is actually a minor miracle. There are so many moments like that in the show. In fact, I would argue that the unifying purpose below all the randomness is to demonstrate the ways in which our ordinary, everyday lives are a series of minor miracles. I think it's almost Pratchettesque in its ability to blend the serious with the absurd, and I find it pitch perfect and entirely brilliant. That got way longer than I expected. I warned you! I can't shut up about it!

Moribito is definitely aimed at a more mature audience. Most of the conflict in the show revolves around adults and adult problems. I can see how a teenager might find it boring. You may find it more engaging now.

Dislike is perhaps the wrong word. To dislike something you have to have seen it, and it seems to me as though not very many people have.

I needed a break from One Piece (I'm up to episode 632 now), so I decided to rewatch the first season of Durarara! so I could watch season 2 without being quite lost. And yeah, it's completely bananas, and I love it. This time through I decided to try and figure out what the show is about. It starts out making you think it will be a character-focused slice of life, about three high school freshmen who are friends. Many of the episodes focus on the background and thoughts of a particular character, reinforcing this basic structure. But carefully, the thread of a plot is introduced in the background. Gradually, the background plot weaves its way through the slice of life until it seems to consume it. Then you realize that no, it's still a slice of life, it's just that life in this fictional Ikebukuro is bonkers. In the first 24 episodes, there are three main plot arcs and several side plots, all of which feel complete, and none of which feel rushed. So yeah, the story structure is pretty complex, and kind of brilliant. But, but, but. What's it about? Well, it doesn't need to be "about" anything; that's kind of the definition of slice of life. But if you pressed me, I'd pull out a line delivered by one of the characters towards the end of the second episode: "The world isn't as bad as you think." That is the central theme. It's never again told, only shown, but when taken as a whole, season 1 strongly makes that point. On to season 2!

You listed Moribito and Nichijou, the two anime that nobody else seems to like and that I can't shut up about. You and I are now friends.

Kvothe Bast Chronicler Auri Denna "Master Ash" Davi Ambrose Netalia Lackless Felurian For some reason I can't remember the names of any of the university professors. What are the first 8 elements on the periodic table?

Davy back is only half filler, unfortunately. There were a few non-canon fights, but the arc itself was in the manga. Or so I'm told. After I'm done with Water 7, I'd be curious to hear your reasons. I've found it to be excellent so far. And I did take back my negative comments. It's not perfect, but it's a really fun and imaginative show.

I love me some Yowapeda. It's surprisingly addicting. I'm a little cold on the Inter-High arc, though, since that's where the Shounen-style battles start in earnest, and you see less of Onoda. It's still fun, though. Ah man. That was a trippy show. I didn't know it was getting another run. Something else I don't have time to watch! In other news, I continue to watch One Piece. I'm up to episode 255, which puts me right in the middle of Water 7. The writing and animation really stepped up in this arc (1080p resolution helps with the animation, of course). Even the stupid Davy Back prelude served to set the thematic stage for the rest of the story. Don't get me wrong, it still sucked, but I do appreciate it a little now from a story structure standpoint.

You would probably like Baccano! (The ! is part of the title.) I watched it on Netflix, but I don't think it's on there anymore. I generally don't prefer dubbed anime, which is all that Netflix offers, but the dub of Baccano! is probably better than the original due to all the different accents. The show is set in 1930's America. There's a train heist and a gang war, a bunch of different competing factions, and a complex thread tying everything together. The whole thing is told in a non-linear fashion, so it takes about six episodes before you wrap your head around what's going on, but it's worth it. My second recommendation is "Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit". People on this thread are probably sick of me going on about it. It's about a female bodyguard charged by an emperor's second wife to protect her youngest son from his father, who wants to kill him because he believes he harbors a water demon that would bring drought and destruction on the entire empire. It's set in a very creative fantasy world, has gorgeous animation, great music, engaging characters, and a few breathtaking fight scenes rendered in a realistic style. I can't recommend it enough.

I assumed you were on Shippuden. Sasuke has a bigger arc in the second series than he does in the first.

IIRC that's right in the middle of Sasuke's big arc. There's some pretty epic stuff in there, mixed of course with annoyance at Sasuke.

Something like a year ago, I stopped watching Naruto because I was sick of fillers. Naruto fillers are extremely hit or miss, with more miss, by and large, than hit. I let them build a nice runway so I could skip the fillers that had been coming so frequently. Turns out I stopped right where all the fillers stopped. Extend palm, apply face. And the arc I'm on is dropping the payoffs, one after another. Some of these have been around 500 episodes in the making. It's a good time to be a Naruto fan. Or, well, it *was*, a year ago. You know what I mean.

Log horizon is back! First episode had a couple flash-forwards that left me confused, but other than that it was great. I give it 4 out of 5 glasses pushed up the nose.

IMO the Roguetown arc is where it starts to get good. That would have been a good "in media res" place to start the show. It runs from episode 48-53. Of course, then a filler arc starts that, having skipped the first part of the show, you wouldn't enjoy, so you could skip straight to episode 62. The first 47 episodes establish the backstories of Luffy and his first four crew members. That's part of why I found it so slow. It's all just setup for the actual story, which starts more or less on episode 48. All that background is important to the story, but if you really don't have the patience for it, you could probably just read plot summaries and be just fine.

I quit watching No Game No Life in the first minute or two of the first episode. Panty shots on prepubescent girls provoke an insta-drop from me. I'm up to episode 132 in One Piece. Somewhere along the way I started to really enjoy it. I take back every negative thing I ever said about it. It starts slow, but it's worth the wait. Maybe that could be your Shonen anime, Peter?

So much this. Remember that dark mode Rand cast Callandor aside because he would have to be subjugated to two women in order to use it safely. He called it a box. Being in a circle gives the leader a lot of control, as demonstrated by the a'dam. Even light mode Rand is not very trusting. Those two are the only ones he trusted that much.

RWBY certainly counts. It's more anime than anime. RWBY, well...RWBY is like a beloved friend that often lets you down. I love it so much, because: The action sequences are better than anything I've seen in any other anime. This is 100% Monty Oum being amazing. Even if the humor sometimes falls flat, it still cracks me up most of the time. Every character is likable and interesting. The protagonist, Ruby, is particularly endearing. The music is often excellent, and the sound design is top-notch. I really like the world building. There's just something alluring about it, a feeling of boundlessness. The facial animation is really, really good. Much better than most anime I've seen. Everything is also a gun. RWBY is often disappointing, because it is fundamentally an amateur production with a low budget. This shows through with things like: Weak plotting. The writing is amateurish and often cliched. I don't really watch it for the story, because the story mostly sucks. This is in contrast to the characterization, which as mentioned before is generally very strong. (As an aside, this is a common flaw in anime. They tend to emphasize characterization and forget about the plot.) There are moments of unbearable cheesiness. The visuals, while they get the job done most of the time, are pretty crude. The character models are low-poly enough that you can see the polygons, and the backgrounds are downright ugly. Proper lighting, not to mention shadows, is hard to come by, and the textures are low-res. This is the lack of resources showing through. The voice acting is mixed. Some voices are excellent, others less so. The character design. The girls dress skimpily and most of them fight in high heels. It's irritating. Loving RWBY is a lot like loving a person. You have to look past its flaws and see its good heart and boundless potential. You probably started in the wrong place. Watch the red and white trailers. They're awesome and are what hooked me on the show. The black and yellow trailers are gratingly bad, but should be endured because they set up some nice payoffs later on.

My favorite interpretation of that song is as a song about farting in public. So, I guess Elsa wins. Kaladin owns the wind? Well, she breaks it.

Are you saying Master Ash is supposed to be Sanderson? Because, well, no. Just, no. :0

I just finished "Raising Steam", the latest Discworld from Terry Pratchett, and now I have to talk about it. It was...different, and a little disappointing. Why do I say that? I'm glad you asked. Stylistically, it was a bit disjointed. It kind of reminded me of "The Long War" in that respect, only not as extreme. It says, "Here is a steam engine! Now let's see what this does to the Disc." So there are a lot of sequences where the railway is being developed, and a lot of little disjointed vignettes showing how the railway is influencing the world. And it's frankly all just a little dull, because it's entirely predictable. It's quite obvious how the railway will influence the world because we've been there before in our world. That could be forgiven if there were also a strong plot driving the story. There isn't. The stakes are kept relatively low, the obstacles relatively small and easily overcome. There is a point at the end where Moist says (paraphrasing), "That's it? Shouldn't there have been some grand conflict?" and it was like he was speaking my mind. The kicker is that the seeds are all there, but weren't used. At the beginning, Margolotta expresses concern over the dire consequences that a steam engine might have. This theme is echoed as Iron Girder appears to have supernatural, and sometimes even sinister, properties. And then it is revealed that the monks who keep their eyes on the time stream believe that it is not yet steam engine time, and that an early steam engine may usher in the end of all things. Okay! Big, high-stakes conflict there! Discworld has been here before. Death gave the universe the middle finger. Tiffany Aching kissed the winter. Susan saved the Hogfather. Those are just the three that come immediately to mind, but there have been many others, and always Pratchett has pulled it off beautifully. This time, though? Nothing ever came of it. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it never did. And then there were the unfulfilled promises. The railway to Uberwald was supposedly unfinished...until they arrived there and it turns out it was, barring a single incident with a certain bridge. And what on earth are loggysticks? We are never told. There was the goblin underground railway. Why was that shown? I honestly kind of hoped that it would turn out to be the salvation of the expedition to Uberwald, but it was never mentioned again. And what of Iron Girder's supernatural nature? That, at least, was explained: she is another small god, brought into existence by the belief of the masses. Cool! I wish that were used more than a brief explanation at the end. Oh, sure, there was the trademark social commentary; he still managed to weave a large number of social issues (chief among them feminism and terrorism) into the plot (though even that was more heavy-handed than usual). There was a bit of the trademark humor (though not as much as we usually get). Moist von Lipwig continues to be a great character, though he was not as challenged this time around as he has been in books past, nor does he develop very much. This is not a book with no redeeming qualities. It's just...an average book. Considering the series it's part of, that is really a shame. Finally, I can't help but wonder if I'm being unfair to Sir Terry. The man has Alzheimer's, after all. Everyone is watching his every word, looking for the cracks that we know must eventually appear. In my opinion, he has managed marvelously...until now. What do others think? Am I crazy?

I listened to their newest, whatever it's called. I really liked most of it; the main exception was when they brought in a male vocalist to do his best Korn impression. Loaded up Delain today, found it not much to my liking. Could have just been my mood.

Loaded up Within Temptation on Spotify. I'm two songs in. So far...kind of like the unholy love child of Evanescence and Alter Bridge. That's a compliment, by the way.

One song? One song?? I am FAR too obsessed with music to recommend only one song. So, here's a slew of recommendations, spread across a variety of genres. Though I have linked only one song per artist, I consider each selection a recommendation for the artists/albums from which they were taken. If you like the one song, check out the rest. The Piano Guys - Kung Fu Piano: Cello Ascends - A beautiful and emotional mashup of Kung Fu Panda and Chopin, with some modern beats thrown in. The Duhks - Toujours Vouloir - A great song from a great band I recently discovered. Few of their songs are in French, but some of my favorites from them (including this one) are. Vienna Teng - Landsailor - Vienna Teng is made of win. I'd recommend her two newest albums over the rest. Smooth McGroove - Super Smash Bros. Mele - Menu 1 Acapella - Smooth McGroove AKA Max Gleason records astonishing acapella arrangements of video game music. And his videos are a lot of fun to watch. Chris Thile - Raining at Sunset - If you listen to any bluegrass at all, you've probably heard some of this guy's work. IMO he's at the forefront of the genre. This is one of his older songs; he's done some amazing things since, but there's something captivating about this track in particular. Paramore - Proof - Odds are you've heard this already. In case you haven't, I think it's pretty great. Marchfourth Marching Band - Gospel - If you watched Monster's University, you heard this song several times. For some reason, it's not on the official soundtrack, despite being the best song in the movie. Rodrigo y Gabriela - Tamacun - Some of the best guitaristas in the world, period. I can scarcely believe that much music is coming out of two guitars. Zircon - System - I've only recently started getting into electronic music. Zircon is king of the track that moves. This one has helped me out on more than one workout. Hayley Westenra - Quanta Qualia - It's hard not to fall in love with this girl's voice. High, pure and clear. Pentatonix w/Lindsay Sterling - Radioactive - The best version of a frequently-covered song. I like it better than the original, by far. Rush - The Garden - Rush is the greatest rock band of all time (it absolutely is), and they're still putting out great stuff.

Don't sell yourself short. There are a ton of podcasts of fans of things geeking out about them, all on iTunes. Just because it's "official" doesn't mean it should be intimidating.