JIII~

[l33tminion]

Made it to anime club last night, for the first time in a long time. Saw three shows I hadn't seen before.

K-ON! - Cute fluff about four girls who start a band for a school club. A good example of its genre.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (So Long, Mr. Despair) - A very dark, eccentric, over-the-top comedy featuring an incredibly pessimistic teacher, an incredibly optimistic student, and the rest of their incredibly messed up class. Bizarre art style, good music, totally awesome.

Darker Than Black - Seems like a pretty typical urban fantasy / conspiracy thriller kind of story. Not sure if I like it that much, but I only saw two episodes so I'm not sure I've seen enough of the story to get a real sense of it yet.

Comments

[tenshikurai9.livejournal.com]

Which club is this?

[l33tminion]

MIT Anime.

[tenshikurai9.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Admittedly I haven't actually kept-on with the mailing list, but I can at least say I subscribe to it.

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

your club plays good anime.

[l33tminion]

Their selections are usually pretty good.

Although, last week (a few weeks ago?), they did all of Endless Eight in a single showing. I missed that, though I've since watched those episodes on my own (great anime, not so much, but a great moment in trolling history).

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

I treat Haruhi's ∞8 in Anime studies more like how I treat Tale of Two Cities in English.

We talk about it. We don't actually watch it.

[l33tminion]

I'd much rather reread Tale of Two Cities than rewatch Endless Eight (would probably take about the same amount of time, too). Actually, Tale of Two Cities is pretty good, aside from a slow chapter or two in the middle. Unlike, say, Great Expectations, which was horrible.

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

Okay, I suppose the trauma of reading that book 3 times in high school made me want to kill myself, so I'll meet you with Great Expectations or House of Mirth.

[l33tminion]

I'll admit that having to read a book three times for English class would ruin it for anyone.

[seramir323.livejournal.com]

Pretty nice group of shows. Personally, I think that K-ON was the most meh thing to come out of Kyoani, especially when compared with awesome stuff like Haruhi and Lucky Star. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei was amazing, it is indeed over-the-top and hiilarious and as I recall, a fairly clever bit of satire on modern Japanese culture. Not completely sure if satire is the right word to describe it, but there's definitely some commentary in there. Haven't seen Darker Than Black, but I think they were one of the first anime to post their shows online for free (admittedly temporarily) so that's pretty cool.

Haven't had internet outside of work for the last 1.5 months, so I didn't see the end of Endless Eight. I remember around 6, people were cursing themselves hoarse on the internet, which I found hilarious. I had the advantage of owning the light novel and being able to read the ending, so I kind of cheated.

[l33tminion]

K-ON! is bland, it really doesn't take any risks. Which is why it's a good example of its genre, but not an exceptional show. (Also probably why it was such a commercial success.)

I had the advantage of owning the light novel and being able to read the ending, so I kind of cheated.

I read that bit in fan-translation to see what the fuss was about, and KyoAni really didn't add anything in their attempt to turn a 30-page short story into eight episodes that all cover the same plot. See the last episode of that arc and you've covered everything that was actually in the short story. See first, second, and last, and you've really seen it all. It wasn't so bad, but there are a lot of good stories in the books, and there were certainly better uses for that time.