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[Furtuka]

So I finished Code Geass. To be honest, it was a rather satisfying ending to a great show and I wouldn't change a single bit about it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But god damn it's still so freaking sad! Lelouch, you were the best!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just remember, fanon is that he got VV's code and is still alive. Or faked his death through more mundane methods. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Didn't Word of God come down sometime to truly confirm that he was dead though?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yah, there's a picture drama where his ghost shows up to give everyone a happy shared hallucination.

Amusingly the fanon is actually canon to the SRW Z games though.

[Andres]

Spoiler: Code Geass (click to show/hide)

What I think is really ironic is that Suzaku redeemed himself in the eyes of both the audience and himself by killing off the audience's favourite character. It was all very well done.

So I finished Code Geass. To be honest, it was a rather satisfying ending to a great show and I wouldn't change a single bit about it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But god damn it's still so freaking sad! Lelouch, you were the best!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just remember, fanon is that he got VV's code and is still alive. Or faked his death through more mundane methods. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That would make his "death" completely meaningless. He doesn't get redemption and he doesn't live up to his "only those who are prepared to be killed" motto. He just becomes Light Yagami. It might be sad but doing anything other than accepting Lelouch's death is doing a great disservice to the character.

[Reelya]

On the ongoing topic of comparing what is big in Japan vs America in manga
http://myanimelist.net/news/42435966 <= Japan
http://myanimelist.net/news/42453702 <= America

Well, the easiest way to sum up the American stuff is "robots, fighting, boobs, magic". If your series doesn't tick at least one of those boxes, it's not going to get in the top 10 in America.

Whereas 8 out of the top 10 sellers this week in Japan feature no supernatural or sci-fi component whatsoever. The categories that make up the entire top 10 in America are represented by two entries in the Japanese top 10 this week, Tokyo Ghoul and Fairy Tail. Well I guess Kuroko's Basketball is an edge-case, since some of the special abilities the players have seem hard to believe. A guy who can shoot a 3-pointer from anywhere on the court? Unbelievable, yes. Magic, no.

Hell, at least four of the top 10 in Japan this week are of the Josei genre, which is basically non-existent in America. Yeah, almost half the top 10 manga in japan this week are titles aimed at adult women: 3-gatsu no lion is #1 and #5 (it's by the author of Honey and Clover), Skip Beat comes in at #7 (I count this as josei since all the characters are of working-age), and Koudai-ke no Hitobito comes in at #9 (it's comparable to Princess Jellyfish apparently). Four of the rest are team sports series, two about baseball and two about basketball.

[Frumple]

... no, no, it's probably magic if that "anywhere" is in fact literal and they can make a 3 point shot while in the 2 point zone, too. Probably some variation of enchantment or charm, to convince the refs the rules have spontaneously mutated themselves.

[JoshuaFH]

No, when he says 'anywhere' he means ANYWHERE. From directly underneath the net, from outside the court, from the stands, the parking lot, in bed at home, he can shoot that three pointer from absolutely anywhere. He can shoot it directly into the future and have it count in next week's game, he's that good. He can do the opposite as well, but b-ballin against time travelers is hard for the audience to follow.

[IronyOwl]

Finally finished the first season of Magi. I liked it, but it was oddly... standard, I suppose? Felt very, very anime-ish, whatever that means. Which, I guess in this case means pretty boys cuddling and crying over how much they love each other while fighting monsters with flaming swords in magical palaces in an attempt to defeat war and discord in a literal sense.

The political focus was nice and unusual, though; gave a nice sense of gravity and purpose to all that ADVENTURE! that wasn't just your standard vague "oh geez, this guy's gonna blow up the world, guess I'll stop him." Wasn't as fond of the "let's wait around doing nothing for a month" lines, but they didn't dwell on it and I suppose it was more realistic than having everyone jumping right from thing to thing.

And as usual, filled with delicious, delicious concepts to harvest. Most notably...

Spoiler: Semi-Actual Spoilers (click to show/hide)

The Falanim are ridiculously powerful, to the point where a common slave is able to run with an avatar of life and his Chosen daggerprince. So powerful, in fact, that when The Empire shows up with supersoldiers that aren't even trying to be human any more, everyone is utterly shocked that one is able to match a Falanim hero's strength. That's how terrifying they are, that an obvious monster being equally matched with one is mind boggling.

The fact that the Kou are up to that in the first place is also nice, of course, and most deliciously, this explains where the Falanim came from in the first place, doesn't it? :3

Though I think they show up proper in the second season, so they probably go into more detail confirming and/or denying that interpretation later.

Also and mostly unrelated, I wasn't fond of the Djinn origins, but I did love the idea that all of this Kingmaker shit isn't some objective mandate from heaven or anything, it's just the remnants and backlash from an ancient empire. I mean, the Magi seem to maybe be that, but the major source of power in that world is basically just carrying around a 7,000 year old magic noble that likes you.

Oddly post-apocalyptic world, if you look deep enough.

Hell, at least four of the top 10 in Japan this week are of the Josei genre, which is basically non-existent in America. Yeah, almost half the top 10 manga in japan this week are titles aimed at adult women

Hmmmm. I wonder if anime and manga are aimed more at the busty shonen area because other categories are more filled out and/or less open to different sources? If you want a sappy romance about normal life, you have the Hallmark Channel (may it burn eternally). If you want busty women hitting each other with magic swords, you've probably got slim pickings in terms of recent Western stuff.

Similarly, I would assume the younger battlebot crowd would be more open to anime "or whatever" than your average 40 year old female romantic comedy enthusiast. Maybe not, or maybe that's because the battlebot crowd isn't getting enough as is, but it feels like it.

[JoshuaFH]

Maybe if we had more anime in the style of Mexican soap operas they'd have an easier time picking up the older women demographic.

[Flying Dice]

Spoiler: Code Geass (click to show/hide)

What I think is really ironic is that Suzaku redeemed himself in the eyes of both the audience and himself by killing off the audience's favourite character. It was all very well done.

So I finished Code Geass. To be honest, it was a rather satisfying ending to a great show and I wouldn't change a single bit about it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But god damn it's still so freaking sad! Lelouch, you were the best!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just remember, fanon is that he got VV's code and is still alive. Or faked his death through more mundane methods. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That would make his "death" completely meaningless. He doesn't get redemption and he doesn't live up to his "only those who are prepared to be killed" motto. He just becomes Light Yagami. It might be sad but doing anything other than accepting Lelouch's death is doing a great disservice to the character.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's your opinion and you're certainly entitled to it.

Me? Here's why I'm partial to the idea of him surviving:

1. His plans are foiled one last time by forces out of his control.
2. Despite still being alive, he can never hope to ever see any of the people he loves again--he must spend the rest of his life in complete and total isolation to preserve the peace he sought.
3. It's an elegant continuation of the Codes being passed down in ways which are emotionally destructive for their new bearers, and continues the cycle, if you go with that element of it.

More simply, it's too neat an ending. Just about every major turning point in the plot throughout the course of the series involves catastrophic failure in some element of his plans; Zero Requiem, if WoG is taken seriously, means that the series concluded on Lelouch's terms. He reconciled with those closest to him, upheld his ideals, and attained his primary goal.

Yes, boo hoo, he deaded, so sad, baaw. I prefer to think that he survived, went into hiding, and had to watch as the world tore itself apart in the coming decades because seriously that was the most hackneyed "solution" to human conflict I'd seen in a long time, leaving him with the choice between resurfacing and causing even more bloodshed or staying hidden and watching passively as his work was undone.

[Neonivek]

Maybe if we had more anime in the style of Mexican soap operas they'd have an easier time picking up the older women demographic.

Remember Japan is a different culture, and though sometimes you can watch an anime and just see a great story. SOMETIMES you really can see the vast difference between two cultures.

Japan, for example, still has the sensibilities of the 1950s.

Well I am watching Heavy Objects because it has a great premise. Though given that 4 women, or rather underage girls, are on the title card... chances of it being good are slim.

Which sucks because it has a genuine premise. It is a world where our remote control technology has reached the point where we can wage wars devoid of actual human soldiers (and unlike Gundam... It wasn't because dolls were better). Yet there is something wrong about this somehow.

[JoshuaFH]

Maybe if we had more anime in the style of Mexican soap operas they'd have an easier time picking up the older women demographic.

Remember Japan is a different culture, and though sometimes you can watch an anime and just see a great story. SOMETIMES you really can see the vast difference between two cultures.

Japan, for example, still has the sensibilities of the 1950s.

Well I am watching Heavy Objects because it has a great premise. Though given that 4 women, or rather underage girls, are on the title card... chances of it being good are slim.

Which sucks because it has a genuine premise. It is a world where our remote control technology has reached the point where we can wage wars devoid of actual human soldiers (and unlike Gundam... It wasn't because dolls were better). Yet there is something wrong about this somehow.

I'm calling back on my memory from Middle School here, but the premise of that anime makes me remember... I remember reading a Scifi novel about a world where politics and warfare have evolved to the point where all international political disputes are solved by teenagers playing a shitty multiplayer game against eachother, and this led to the creation of genetically selected babies raised in isolation and trained from birth to play this videogame. It's kinda like if every government had a secret underground eugenics program dedicated to making the perfect Gang Beasts player in order to decide who gets all the oil in the Middle East. None of that was about anime, but I was just reminded of it for a moment and it made me smile.

And I'm not sure which country's 1950's you're referring to here, since I'm pretty sure 1950's America never had public sex hotels and penis parades.

[Reelya]

Well America always had seedy districts to go get that stuff. The big difference in Japan is that it's extra-clinical and compartmentalized and corporatized. So it can't be compared to any era in America, it's just a different way completely of looking at fulfilling the same needs.

[Leafsnail]

Well I am watching Heavy Objects because it has a great premise. Though given that 4 women, or rather underage girls, are on the title card... chances of it being good are slim.

DON'T WATCH IT THEN

[ggamer]

Well I am watching Heavy Objects because it has a great premise. Though given that 4 women, or rather underage girls, are on the title card... chances of it being good are slim.

DON'T WATCH IT THEN

Slight defensiveness: detected

also

oh my jesus Aoi Honoo is incredible

[Reelya]

That reminded me of the hoax, where some guy got a newspaper in europe to write "Code Geese: Rerouch of the Reberrion. Code Geese is a comedy series about a delightful youth named Rerouch who became the King of Britannia through use of his mystical Geass, which allowed him to gain control over any individual whose name he had written down in a black note book. Unfortunately Rerouch is countered by a revolutionary named Jeremiah Suzaku who fights against Rerouch by using a mecha named EVA.". My guess is that the reviewer need a review fast, so he PM'd someone to give him a synopsis he could use, and got trolled, big time.

From there I read about a guy who wrote an article about anime based on a book he was writing about sexualization in the media. The section on anime was cringeworthy, with Gurren Lagann being mentioned as being just as sexually explicit as "Legend of the Overfiend". Which is plain crazy talk. (Overfiend is just about the only hentai I'd recommend seeing for it's impact on the genre however, there are actually some great battle scenes and apocalyptic story to go with the gore and sex). Mentioning TTHL and Legend of the Overfiend as being the same genre, wasn't even the most ill-informed thing in the article. i.e, don't read this guys book as you'll probably know less about the subcultures he's telling you about than you did at the start.

And then I came across Lou Dobbs from FOX News, who wrote that Studio Ghibli's Secret World of Arriety is secret communist propaganda to make people support Occupy Wall Street.

Ok, that's it for the crazy-train, I'm out for now

[Neonivek]

Well I am watching Heavy Objects because it has a great premise. Though given that 4 women, or rather underage girls, are on the title card... chances of it being good are slim.

DON'T WATCH IT THEN

Because who would I be if I immediately wrote off an anime as trash without seeing it and proving it was trash?

This could be another Princess Tutu where I went into it expecting bottom of the barrel mediocrity and got probably one of the best animes ever made. Heck I only watched it originally because I LOVED its into music.

---

On the subject of little girls... I have to give my congratulations to Excel Saga once again for creating the GREATEST Parody of "Gunslinger Girls" years before the actual anime was released.

Every year that passes without Excel Saga, there is a growing need for it to come back. We NEED a anime to come out to take a bite out of the anime of today.

---

Ok this is a pet peave of mine and it pops up in anime a bit too much... but...

I really hate the "It cannot be harmed by conventional weaponry so we have to invent crazy kookie science" when most of the time the monster involved doesn't really justify its neigh on immunity.

God Eater, Black Bullet, Hitman Reborn. They all had this in one way or another.

Why do they have to make it so overwhelmingly indestructible (yet still have this huge gaping weakness)? Why can't they just be resistant or have overwhelming numbers (like they always do) or be more portable... or heck actually make them powerful enough that I can see them being immune to tank fire.