I've read it before, but I read it again to make sure. I'm not talking about plot holes, I'm talking about scale. It's never "Here's a guy that's slightly better than us" or "Here's someone really smart that outthinks us at every angle". The new bad guy can literally take 7,000 full force punches to the face while laughing, then, after training, the good guy can blow on the bad guy and send him flying 8 million miles through space and the bad guy can land 7,000 punches to the face of the good guy while the good guy laughs. There's either total annihilation that doesn't happen because the enemy doesn't take it seriously, or no risk at all. There are no tactics...its just train and then wail on the bad guy and hope this time he doesn't evolve.

It's also insulting that the enemies come in scale. Why did Cell come after Frieza? Because they don't care about tactics, they care about muscle size. Its the pro-wrestling of Anime...pretty cool until you realize there are similar products with depth and at least a hint of reality.

Google Play had a bunch of episode one's for free a while back and I picked them up, but never watched any of them. Buso Renkin, K - The Complete Series, Kekkaishi, LAGRANGE - The Flower of Rin-ne, Tiger & Bunny, and Zetman - The Complete Series. Anyone recommend any of these?

~SE++

Only watched Busou Renkin out of those.
I mean, it was ok. Just another fantasy battle series.

K had nice visuals and a fairly good premise.

I liked K. It's a really enjoyable non-so-great show. The visuals are really nice, and the music is top-notch.

I do not recommend Kekkaishi. I don't think it was necessarily bad, it just... didn't do much of anything. You could probably watch the first episode and then pass on the rest of it.

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Due to circumstances, I've started watching a bit of Kenichi: the Mightiest Disciple, though I started almost 20 episodes in rather than at the beginning. The main story episodes I kind of like, the side-stories (whether they're proper "filler" or not)... not so much.

Two things have gotten really old really fast: the running gag of Miu having big breasts, and Nijima. Just Nijima. This is after maybe 5 episodes.

I do love Apachai, though.

Despite what I normally say about not following currently-airing anime, I must admit I am leaning toward watching Monster Musume. I think it's mostly because I came across what I assume now was an H-doujin, because I remember thinking it was an original H-manga with an interesting premise. Turns out, I brought it up with a meatspace friend and it seems he read the same doujin and also thought it was an original manga.

Why don't you watch currently airing anime? Is it because you've also become spoiled with binge watching and no longer have the patience to wait through an entire week to see a storyline make a five minute progression?

I watched the first to episodes of Gate (seems like itll be good, but feels like there might be a Harem thing going on eventually ) and Ushio and Tora (also seems ok, kinda reminiscent of Yu Yu Hakusho)...

Also picked up Tokyo Ghoul which is good so far.

The manga is not H. The creator did make some H shorts as well though (that was his first work actually)
But the ecchi manga Monster musume no iru nichijou is the thing that's being adapted now.

So far it's pretty spot on. 2 chapters for the first episode. And judging by the previews, 2 chapters for episode 2 too.

If it continues at this pace it will end with
to link to a possible S2.

I much prefer watching or reading something that has already been finished, because I have been burned a few too many times on things that I liked that will likely never be finished (as long as we're talking anime, I can point to Deadman Wonderland as a good example). I don't really care about binge watching because I've only ever done that with two shows, and neither was really worth it. I generally watch an episode a day, or 4-5 episodes a week, when I'm serious about watching a show.



Wait, what? So, is the show ecchi or not ecchi? I mean, I can already tell it's going to spend heavy amounts of time in innuendo and sexual comedy territory, but I can't tell from your explanation what the show is supposed to be.

On that note, apparently I can only watch Monster Musume if I have a Crunchyroll account, so watching it isn't really an option for me right now.

It's ecchi, but not H.

You have Life with Monstergirl shorts. Those are H.
You have Everyday Life with Monster Girls manga. That is ecchi and the thing that's being adapted now. How truthful it will be will be determined in the next episode.
Because in the manga chapter 3

I'm afraid I don't follow, then. I had understood ecchi = H. I'm assuming then, that H = erotic and ecchi = innuendo/sexual humor? Or perhaps a more apt comparison would be ecchi = Sports Illustrated while H = Playboy?

The second episode was actually kind of okay, which was a relief, since the first one was actively painful the watch. The main character and his existence is still egregious, but watching medieval cavalries get slaughtered by modern weaponry is kind of amusing.

My favorite shows of the seasons includes a harem show on a pretty consistent basis, so I don't see the sadface, but I don't expect GATE to be it.

It depends on how in your face the harem aspect is. I don't mind a love story in a show, nor do I mind unrequited love stories, but when the women/girls start turning into catty idiots and draping themselves on the otherwise clueless main character it's just a dumb, unrealistic fantasy that's distracting from potentially good aspects of the story.

Sword Art Online's Harem aspect is fine, I think. The main character acknowledges the affection thrown at him and reacts to it in a realistic (if kind of dickish) way. The women interested in him also act fairly normal in their competition/desire to show said affection. It also doesn't distract from the plot and often adds positively to the character development.

Based on the opening sequence of GATE, it seems like the "I'm so unbelievably awesome (or sweetly mundane but passionate) and attractive that it scrambles the brains of every girl who sees me but I'm such a good guy I don't even notice" type or maybe the "I have no glaring weakness as a character so I'm painfully shy and every girl I meet teases me relentlessly for it...(but they really like me shhhh)" both of which are just eye rollingly bad parts of a show. The interactions do nothing to the show except add "comedy"...which I guess the author believes is best captured by "look how dumb or cruel women can be!"

I just think 99% of Harem anime would be better if they got rid of the Harem part altogether. If I want to indulge in that kind of fantasy, there are...other...media options available.

Your post just gave me flashbacks to when I tried to explain the concept of why people like "tsundere" characters to Cato. You don't get it but you don't have to because you are not the target audience.

I'll have to correct my statement to exclude purely romance/hentai shows. I don't watch those, but I imagine many of them are harem as well. I don't care about those, harem is probably relevant to whatever they're trying to accomplish in that show since, you know, it's a show about romantic/sexual relationships. I care about shows that tack on the harem aspect to something else.

You see, whether or not someone considers it cliched, lazy, or good, tsundere characters still show character development and have consistent personalities (in a relative sense I mean, their actions make sense in light of the overall character or character arc). It's a relevant story-telling/character-developing technique. Most anime that uses the harem theme never has that growth or makes that attempt. For the entire run of the series the characters continue the same patterns of behavior and react in the same patterns (either blissfully ignorant or comically panicked). The harem parts also don't drive the main storyline or affect it in anyway. Passing something off as fine and claiming you're just not it's "target audience" is a terrible argument for something's existence. Beside's, I'm not even saying to get rid of the whole "nine women want this one guy" story arc...I'm saying if it's in the show it should contribute in a meaningful way. If you want prat-falls and instances of people looking like idiots in your anime, that's fine too...but maybe it should be derived from the overall personality of that character (rather than "strong woman becomes drooling idiot around one man") or have some relevance to the plot of the show. For instance, Ed from Cowboy Bebop is an example of a comedic character who is relevant in the show. Kuwabara from Yu Yu Hakusho is also an excellent comedic character. Kirie Konami from World Trigger is an awesome example of a strong character who just happens to be a bit ditzy. These characters don't need a romantic relationship to make them comedic or idiotic and they can HAVE a relationship at some point in the show while still maintaining that comedic output...maybe even developing as a character because of that relationship.

I just bought 4 volumes of GATE (but haven't read them yet),
so I'm hoping it's better than POS is making it sound.

Oh, my bad, I didn't mean to make it sound bad. It seems really interesting right now...just the opening sequence has four female fantasy characters chasing the main character around while he panics and runs away.

As of episode 2, there isn't anything that's not in line with the show. It's pretty good so far I think. Nothing mind-blowing or life-changing, but entertaining and interesting. Like Mown said, it was fun seeing a show acknowledge "Helicopter beats Dragon" . Beyond that, the show is taking a fresh stance on the whole world invasion genre, which is nice. They invade our world and are immediately CRUSHED. Then we invade their world.

I have complaints about the show, but nothing is so glaring right now that I won't finish watching it (or be annoyed at my need to finish a show I started )

Hentai = everything
Ecchi = softcore. Bare breasts, innuendo, pantyshots, etcetera.

Normally, there is no sex in manga or anime which are considered ecchi as conceived of in the west. Such works are classified as hentai. In an ecchi work though, it may appear as if a couple are engaging in sex as for example when the two of them are seen in silhouette from outside a tent, even though they are doing something completely innocent.

Gotcha. Thanks for that. As much as I enjoy watching anime, I'm not all that knowledgeable about the culture surrounding it and I am far, far removed from the "fandom" as it were. Digibro's videos showed me that when he talked about Lucky Star.