Recent Anime

[The Wykydtron]

My favorite show right now is definitely Aldnoah Zero. It has the most typical setup for a mecha series: spacenoids (Martians in this case) with superior tech vs. earthlings, and the closest thing to a twist that I can think of that this show has is that the main characters pilot a few grunt mechs (as opposed to a lone pilot getting a super powered prototype) and beat the superior customized enemy mechs with clever strategies. The pacing is really well done and there's an interesting cast of characters that all have varied motivations.

I'm watching SAO 2 and i'm... impressed but not surprised? at how good the first 3 episodes are. This is precisely how SAO 1 started, a really strong opening that doesn't quite live up to the hype or becomes the worst anime EVER, depending on which side of the SAO scale you're on. In general even people who hated SAO concede that the first episodes were good.

That justified self defense with Shinon in episode 3 though. That was the most hype scene I have watched in ages, why would you get traumatised over that? That shit was badass!

Kirito's only been in the game for like 10 minutes and he's already done 4 "unique" and "amazing" things that no one else in the entire world that's ever played this MMO has ever done. I also kind of dislike that they're doing the same thing as with ALO, where he just jumps into the middle of the game (albeit it happens slightly differently here). I'd like to see him learn the ropes from level 1 again.

I find the gun trauma aspect of the show interesting though. Of course something like that would traumatize someone. It traumatizes adults to be forced into that kind of situation let alone young children.

I have a love hate relationship with this series. Kirito's just a godawful main character, but I kind of enjoy it on an indulgent, guilty-pleasure level, and Yuuki Kajiuara doing the music for an anime about MMOs just pulls at my nostalgia strings.

Well with episode 4 Kirito proves that he isn't completely OP in the firing range because even though it was looking like a standard "you can never hit that, omg you nailed it on the first shot" Kirito shenanigans, he actually outright missed and looked like an idiot. Oh and for some reason I love when he keeps trying to put his sword away on his back subconsciously before he realises he looks like a total pillock. More moments like that please, funny how he's most interesting when he's showing small moments of weakness right?

Honestly I thought they would have to break away from Kirito as the protagonist if they were going to do a season 2 because he's just too OP and there's zero threat involved in any situation because it's goddamn Kirito. Maybe go for a more vulnerable main character who has to legit learn a game from scratch, though that would break away from the blatant wish fulfillment protagonist that Kirito shamelessly is. Shinon is going to be the one to watch though, i'm impressed that she had the whole of episode 2 to herself.

Also have no explanation as to why Kirito spawned as a female character (or really girly looking male character, it's super unclear) except that the writer just wanted to see Kirito genderswapped and this was a great chance to do it. I'm not opposed to it exactly, it's just been thrown in out of the blue

Yeah SAO still has loads of flaws waiting to be stomped into dust but it's still really fun to watch.

 

[raankh]

Also have no explanation as to why Kirito spawned as a female character (or really girly looking male character, it's super unclear) except that the writer just wanted to see Kirito genderswapped and this was a great chance to do it. I'm not opposed to it exactly, it's just been thrown in out of the blue

Nah, that was revealed right off the bat. He's a super-special character FS3000 (or something) since he converted from AOL. The exposition also mentioned that the female version was less rare and called FS1000 or something like that. If they do anything with that, other than light comedy, it would redeem many of the flaws you mentioned, for me at least.

So more Kirito being a traditional shounen-character.

Personally I was hoping that SAO2 would tone down the shounen themes and do a bit more romance, since they've done the whole power-fantasy thing already.

Maybe I'm just wanting it to be 'Kaiba'

 

[Kaimax]

Also have no explanation as to why Kirito spawned as a female character (or really girly looking male character, it's super unclear) except that the writer just wanted to see Kirito genderswapped and this was a great chance to do it.

Nah, that was revealed right off the bat. He's a super-special character FS3000 (or something) since he converted from AOL. The exposition also mentioned that the female version was less rare and called FS1000 or something like that.
So more Kirito being a traditional shounen-character.

M-9000 and F-1300 (Where did you pull those wrong numbers from...lol)
M and F is obviously means the gender model, while the numbers seems like the rarity of that model.

From the wiki

Kirito's avatar in GGO is the rare «M9000» type, which is speculated to be the result of an extremely rare occurrence of the system misinterpreting the player's brain waves (the system identifies the gender of the player via their brainwaves, but, on rare occasions, due to some impulse, it chooses the appearance of the opposite gender).

So, it's just a system glitch.

OOT: I'm currently watching 14 new anime this season, (19 with the ones from last season)
My favorites one is Akame ga Kill and Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

 

[raankh]

M-9000 and F-1300 (Where did you pull those wrong numbers from...lol)
M and F is obviously means the gender model, while the numbers seems like the rarity of that model.

Lol, yeah, the japanese audio pulled from memory was my source. My japanese isn't so good to begin with ^^

EDIT, oh, OOT:

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

Pretty standard cybermagic backstory; your usual brother/sister complex and general Magic High School stuff. Kind of wearing thin after a bit into the story.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Well I just spent a whole sunday from about 9 in the morning till 7 or 8 at night marathoning Steins Gate after some guy mentioned it in a comment somewhere and I looked it up on a whim. Pretty darn addictive. Tutturu!

 

[spartan231490]

I'm currently watching Sword Art Online and Irregular at Magic High, which are brand spanking new this year.

 

[Candidus]

This season I'm watching:

Aldnoah Zero - Best anime of the year unless something incredible happens. Aldnoah is a military mecha anime with a hint of space opera... It must feel pretty bad to be any other anime in the season of Aldnoah Zero, even if you're the mighty Sword Art Online II (which I'm also enjoying) and especially if you're typical brat-gets-mecha anime Argevollen.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - Best comedy of the year unless something outrageously hilarious happens. Do I need to tell you any more? Don't you like laughing? Go watch it.

Akame ga Kill - Angst. Tragedy. Tits and ass. Blood-soaked violence. In short, almost an S class anime.

Fate Kaleid II - Now this is the best service anime of the season hands down. It's the second season of Fate's new mahou shoujo line, and the second most important day of the week for me next to Aldnoah. Animation is excellent when it matters and decent when it doesn't. It's cute, funny, has great action as per the original series- and a bonus- it's so far drowning in non-consensual yuri liplocking and yuri NTR! Damn, almost a distillation of all the things I love most!

Sword Art Online II - Needs no introduction. Slow to get off the ground but quality as usual. That being said I expect shocking lapses in that quality on the narrative novel-to-anime translation side, which is also as usual for SAO.

Glasslip - I'm not even sure what this anime wants to be. I watch it because it's relaxing. The OP is nice. I'm sure that someone out there is appreciating it for the reasons intended by the studio, but I just don't get it. I only know that I like it enough to keep going.

Tokyo ESP - An anime about how mundane people would horribly mistreat and ostracize powered people (which is probably true), leading to an incident whereupon mundanes are slaughtered en-mass by powered individuals attempting a coup (which is probably accurate), during which mundanes find a saviour in the small band of powered individuals who managed to keep loving mundane humanity (eeeerrm). Watch it if you like watching special abilities dreamed up and smashed together like toy cars. Has a bit of light service, which is always nice.

Sabagebu - Remember C3 Club? This is a sexier version of that, with comedy where the drama and protag development used to be. It's actually pretty good.

HaNaYaMaTa - A moe blob anime about a girl with a hollow life finding yosakoi. It has a nice style and animation. I'm not giving you much to go on compared to my other summaries here, but I think it's well worth watching.

BOTTOM OF THE BARREL FROM HERE:

Rail Wars - Ignore the useless protagonist and the inane plots. You're just here for the service. The show knows that it doesn't have much else going for it, so the tits and asses are almost always present and doing something interesting.

Jinsei - Garbage, but there's yuri breast fondling so of course I'm watching it.

Blade Dance of Elamentalers - So-so animation quality. A samey story about an academy of familiar-wielding students in competition with each-other. A harem situation because protag is the only male. Bleagh. Only the service is good, so of course I'm watching it. But bleagh.

Phew! What a packed season! And I've actually left a few out.

 

[Kaimax]

This season I'm watching:

Aldnoah Zero - Best anime of the year unless something incredible happens.Aldnoah is a military mecha anime with a hint of space opera... It must feel pretty bad to be any other anime in the season of Aldnoah Zero, even if you're the mighty Sword Art Online II (which I'm also enjoying) and especially if you're typical brat-gets-mecha anime Argevollen.

Rail Wars - Ignore the useless protagonist and the inane plots. You're just here for the service. The show knows that it doesn't have much else going for it, so the tits and asses are almost always present and doing something interesting

I'm also watching Aldnoah Zero, which was a "bait and switch" when people was hyping for Urobuchi Gen, when actually he only writes for the first 3 episodes. To me, It's good, but it's currently a "drabbier" Valvrave.


and...Insert TRAIN PORN jokes here*

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Well my backlog of anime is quite big, but I'm currently watching Fate/Zero.

Other than that during this summer anime I am following/watching quite a lot of them and enjoy them immensely:

Aldnoah Zero
Tokyo Ghoul
Tokyo ESP
Akame ga Kill
Zankyou no Terror
Ao Haru Ride
Glasslip
Barakamon
Gekkan Shoujou Nozaki Kun
Sabagebu
Rail Wars
Hanamayata
Locodol
Majimoji Rurumo
Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

This is what I'm watching weekly and I cannot believe how good this summer anime season has been thus far.

Fall/Winter season do has it's work cut out for it.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

This season I'm watching:

Aldnoah Zero - Best anime of the year unless something incredible happens. Aldnoah is a military mecha anime with a hint of space opera... It must feel pretty bad to be any other anime in the season of Aldnoah Zero, even if you're the mighty Sword Art Online II (which I'm also enjoying) and especially if you're typical brat-gets-mecha anime Argevollen.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - Best comedy of the year unless something outrageously hilarious happens. Do I need to tell you any more? Don't you like laughing? Go watch it.

Akame ga Kill - Angst. Tragedy. Tits and ass. Blood-soaked violence. In short, almost an S class anime.

Fate Kaleid II - Now this is the best service anime of the season hands down. It's the second season of Fate's new mahou shoujo line, and the second most important day of the week for me next to Aldnoah. Animation is excellent when it matters and decent when it doesn't. It's cute, funny, has great action as per the original series- and a bonus- it's so far drowning in non-consensual yuri liplocking and yuri NTR! Damn, almost a distillation of all the things I love most!

Sword Art Online II - Needs no introduction. Slow to get off the ground but quality as usual. That being said I expect shocking lapses in that quality on the narrative novel-to-anime translation side, which is also as usual for SAO.

Glasslip - I'm not even sure what this anime wants to be. I watch it because it's relaxing. The OP is nice. I'm sure that someone out there is appreciating it for the reasons intended by the studio, but I just don't get it. I only know that I like it enough to keep going.

Tokyo ESP - An anime about how mundane people would horribly mistreat and ostracize powered people (which is probably true), leading to an incident whereupon mundanes are slaughtered en-mass by powered individuals attempting a coup (which is probably accurate), during which mundanes find a saviour in the small band of powered individuals who managed to keep loving mundane humanity (eeeerrm). Watch it if you like watching special abilities dreamed up and smashed together like toy cars. Has a bit of light service, which is always nice.

Sabagebu - Remember C3 Club? This is a sexier version of that, with comedy where the drama and protag development used to be. It's actually pretty good.

HaNaYaMaTa - A moe blob anime about a girl with a hollow life finding yosakoi. It has a nice style and animation. I'm not giving you much to go on compared to my other summaries here, but I think it's well worth watching.

BOTTOM OF THE BARREL FROM HERE:

Rail Wars - Ignore the useless protagonist and the inane plots. You're just here for the service. The show knows that it doesn't have much else going for it, so the tits and asses are almost always present and doing something interesting.

Jinsei - Garbage, but there's yuri breast fondling so of course I'm watching it.

Blade Dance of Elamentalers - So-so animation quality. A samey story about an academy of familiar-wielding students in competition with each-other. A harem situation because protag is the only male. Bleagh. Only the service is good, so of course I'm watching it. But bleagh.

Phew! What a packed season! And I've actually left a few out.

You should really watch Tokyo Ghoul, Zankyou no Terror and Ao Haru Ride as well, they are all pretty fantastic.

 

[SquallTheBlade]

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, I loved the first series but I put off watching Brotherhood for some reason, finally watching it and as you may have guessed, its really really damn good.

Also been watching Chi's Sweet Home, teeth meltingly cute, only 3 minutes an ep, so I watch one every now and then.

I just finished Brotherhood this morning, it is so freaking good. One of the most impressive, complex and deep stories ever put into anime form. It's even better than the original which I loved

Can I ask what was so deep about it? I watched the whole series after a couple of friends recommended it to me but I saw nothing good or deep about it. Hardly any characters got any character development. Maybe Scar and Roy a little. And I didn't see any point or meaning the series tried to tell. Maybe I just missed it.

 

[Story]

Does Shiki count?
No? Yeah, I guess that was from two years ago or so.

I'm thinking about re watching it again anyway, because I liked it that much. Also vampires.
But this thread and a pervious one just gave me a ton of suggestions.

 

[Drummodino]

Can I ask what was so deep about it? I watched the whole series after a couple of friends recommended it to me but I saw nothing good or deep about it. Hardly any characters got any character development. Maybe Scar and Roy a little. And I didn't see any point or meaning the series tried to tell. Maybe I just missed it.

Deep as in telling a richly detailed and large scale story, not implying a specific message or (although I guess the concept of equivalent exchange could be considered as one). They take advantage of having so many episodes for an anime series and don't waste time on pointless filler, even side stories serve to flesh out the setting, characters and story. It all comes together in a cohesive whole where you know and care for a large number of characters, not just one or two. They also establish the villains really well.

And Ed, Al and Winry all experience significant development in my opinion, along with Scar, Mustang, Ling, May, Dr Marco etc.

 

[raeior]

I'm currently watching Ergo Proxy since it was recommended to me because I liked GitS quite a lot. Currently in the 3. season and it's still pretty obscure to me but I'm quite liking it. The idea is interesting and it starts making at least a bit of sense now.

 

[jhoroz]

I've recently been watching Please Rape Me! due to its honest and straight forward title. It has been so far delivering what the title promised.