Re: Winter 2011 anime thread

[0utf0xZer0]

I thought Infinite Stratos was pretty so-so myself. Charlotte was amazing - one of the most charming and clever female characters in recent memory, and great chemistry with the male lead to boot. The problem was, after her arc they put the brakes on all the great development we were getting with her and Ichika, and went back to the usual harem antics we were getting prior to Charlotte's introduction, which only highlight how much worse the non-Charlotte arc episodes were. Plus, the end battle felt less tactical and more ability spam-ish than the early fights.

Did I mention how awesome Charlotte is?
http://oreno.imouto.org/post/show/177662/alice_in_wonderland-caidychen-charlotte_dunois-inf
Seriously, she's even cute as a guy, probably because she gives off the "moe feminine shouta" (ala Renji, Haruka, etc) vibe when she crossdresses.

[Five_X]

Yeah, Charlotte was the most awesome character of the whole series. That's also the general consensus of pretty much everyone else who's seen it as well. I liked the other parts, too, though. It was a very fun show to watch overall.

There should be an Infinite Stratos visual novel, to please everyone! :3

[Piero]

I'll admit the show has some fairly significant flaws. Cecilia is annoying, Rin is severely underutilised after her introductory arc, and the last few episodes prior to the finale are kind of weak. But that doesn't chance the fact that this is the show that's stuck in my head as the one I had a lot of fun with last season in spite of all those flaws.

[SPARTAN 119]

I realize I put the Kyube thread in the wrong thread so, repost for you all:

Spoiler:

Also, Moar Kyube:

Kyube in a Akihabara computer store:


The many faces of Kyube (embed wont work)

Kyube.exe:

Translation: Make a contract with me and become a mahou shoujo.

One of several snow-Kyubes:


Not Kyube, but here's a Mami flash drive:


Source

[Kiskaloo]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica 11+12 [End]

When it cam to ascension to godhood, I think Evangelion did it better, but overall, this was a pretty entertaining story.

[Piero]

Madoka: I'm not really that sure what to make of that ending and to be honest I'm not really inclined to try that hard. I was interested in the show early on, but the series overall consistently failed to make much of an impact. The characters didn't hook me in, the big dramatic developments didn't have me going "holy shit" the way they should have, and even Homura's "unlimited rocket launcher works" in episode 11 seemed like it should have been way more awesome than it was. While other shows have made me experience an emotional roller coaster along with the characters, this one provoked more of a "oh geez, another bad development" reaction to how it treated its characters. I also felt some of the characterisation was inconsistent and that some of the story elements weren't overly well handled (Madoka's family seemed to largely disappear during the middle of the series for instance).
So yeah... overall it's not even close to unseating my current favorites in the magical girl genre. I'm actually kind of inclined to lump it in with some shows that seemed to have something they wanted to do that didn't come out properly, but I'm not sure that's quite so much the case here. It might be more a matter of the show just not being able to make me care very much.
On the plus side, I got plenty of entertainment out of things like the "Everyone Hates Kyubei" pool on Danbooru and making "head" related comments around someone I know who is a Mami fan*, so I guess I need to give the show some credit for making my life interesting.

*For example, when he talked about it being time to revive Mami I made a comment about "Now now, let's not be getting ahead of ourselves" and when he commented that Mami had the most fan art of the Madoka characters on Danbooru but surprisijngly little was pornographic I made a comment along the lines of "So there aren't many pics of her getting head?" Things like that.

[Entropy]

I can understand the arguments many fans like Piero have put forward regarding the series, though it's purely a matter of taste. Personally, I loved the series, though it only hooked me after episode three and it became rather obvious that it was not your mother's magical girl show. Hell, I don't even see it as one. Most super-Madoka-analysts have concluded that it is little more than a modern retelling of Goethe's Faust put the through the lens of the magical girl trope.

I do agree about the weird absence of Madoka's family/personal life in the middle of the series, though her mom comes up often enough.

It's also one of those endings people are going to be arguing about forever and anon, but I thought it was a brilliant way to both resolve the main conflict within the series and provide closure, as well as add the element of epicness that they couldn't really provide with any other ending.

[Piero]

I probably shouldn't say too much more on Madoka, as I've already stated quite a number of criticisms, but there is one issue that I kind of neglected in my previous post and that's that it is difficullt to see what prompted Madoka to choose the path she did. It seemed to me that her resolve to sacrifice her existence as a Messiah kind of came out of nowhere.

On another note, did anyone else watch the finale for Stardriver? I dropped the series before the halfway point but ended up seeing the finale when my friend and my brother showed it to me. Apparently they had trouble following what was going on in the finale too though.

[Entropy]

I probably shouldn't say too much more on Madoka, as I've already stated quite a number of criticisms, but there is one issue that I kind of neglected in my previous post and that's that it is difficullt to see what prompted Madoka to choose the path she did. It seemed to me that her resolve to sacrifice her existence as a Messiah kind of came out of nowhere.

Spoiler:

[MadHatChemist]

Old hat: Haruhiism

New hat: The Church of Madoka

Spoiler:

[SPARTAN 119]

Spoiler:

More Madoka demotivational posters:

[Kiskaloo]

Break out your Platinum cards, kiddies. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is now available for pre-order and if you want the Limited Edition DVD/Blu-ray with CD (and you know you do), all three sets will run you $300 at list. The Right Stuff has them on sale for $75 each (so $150 for the set). You can also get the DVD or Blu-ray for about $30 per set.

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