Manga/Anime You Read/Watch

[quote=XeresAce][quote=xIchi] I read the Tokyo Ravens manga, dropped it when it just became boring as hell lol [/quote] Can't say anything about the manga or Light novel, but the anime was a fun watch :3 Also, I'm pondering whether to watch Machine-Doll wa Kizutsukanai. Anyone have something to share about it?[/quote]

[quote=lifebaka][quote=XeresAce] Also, I'm pondering whether to watch Machine-Doll wa Kizutsukanai. Anyone have something to share about it? [/quote] It was solidly mediocre. I dropped it around episode 6 when I realized that it was taking effort to watch the next episode. Largely because I didn't care about the characters or plot and it wasn't visually interesting. It having a really weird romance subplot with the robot/doll girl didn't help either. You might like it. Sooooooo my brother and I just got around to watching the third Madoka movie, [i]Rebellion[/i], and I am [b]FULL OF FEELINGS[/b] about it. I need to get all my friends to watch it, since they're better read than I and I want their takes on the Milton-esque Homura over-love. And because their minds deserve the same kind of blowjob that mine just got. It's going to take me a while to really unpack the movie, and I'm going to need to watch it several times to really catch everything, but I do have some initial thoughts. First, we're now past the Faustian and mahou-shoujo deconstruction elements of the series, but holy balls the Christian allegory is still going strong. This kinda' cements my theory that Madoka is a Christ figure as basically impossible to argue against. And there's a shot towards the end with Kyouko and an apple that seems very symbolically important and really suggests to me that apples are actually supposed to represent the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and I want to rewatch the series to try to figure out what the whole Kyouko/Sayaka apple scene is about know that I'm very sure that the writers really know what they're doing with the Christian imagery. Yeah. If you've seen Madoka, watch the third movie. If you haven't seen Madoka, watch Madoka and then the third movie (or maybe all three movies instead, I'm told the first two are a really good retelling of the series). I am never going to stop pimping this anime, because it's kinda' the best anime I've ever seen.[/quote]

[quote=Searz]I just read through four first volumes of American comics. I got a bunch of them in a humble bundle. First off we have [b]The Walking Dead[/b]! As I've seen the first season of the TV series that was based off this it was an interesting read. The death scene of one of the characters was heavily dramatized in the TV series. I'm kind of torn over which one I liked more. I guess they're about equal. There is also one kind of key person dying in the comic that doesn't die in the series O.o One thing I do think that the TV series did better was the whole horse and tank scene. In the comic he didn't do anything with the tank while the series included a really cool and clever scene with the tank. I really liked that one. The first volume ended roughly halfway into the TV series, I think. It'll be interesting to see whether the research facility is in the comic too, because that is probably the worst part of the TV series. As for whether the comic is worth reading: yes, definitely. It's good. I'm not gonna say great yet though, until I know how it plays out later on. [b]Invincible[/b] is a lighthearted superhero comic. It's definitely cliche, but it doesn't matter, the whole is just really nicely put together. The dialogue is funny at times and does exactly what it needs to do. The art is very interesting and unique and I really like the style. It's just really solid in general. I would recommend giving this one a read. [b]Chew[/b] is a weird one. It's this weird mix of detective mysteries and food. It has a decent amount of well done humor and some very interesting parts, while others are just cliche detective nonsense. It ends on a very twisty note and I'm not really sure what I think about it. I can't decide if I think this is worth reading. Read the synopsis and figure it out for yourself. [b]Too Cool To Be Forgotten[/b] is not all that good. The art is pretty bad, it has a ton of dialogue and the biggest problem is that the dialogue just isn't good enough. The good parts are buried beneath piles of useless fluff. I nearly dropped it several times and I have a fairly high tolerance for shit; I usually finish a volume without too much trouble. I'm glad I finished it though, as the ending is one of the best parts about it. But I definitely wouldn't recommend it. Next up I will be reading Saga, Signal to Noise, East of West, Fatale, March, Morning Glories and Lazarus. And possibly Wizzywig, but that one seems boring and is 300pages.. sooo I dunno...[/quote]

[quote=xIchi][quote=lifebaka] [quote=XeresAce] Also, I'm pondering whether to watch Machine-Doll wa Kizutsukanai. Anyone have something to share about it? [/quote] It was solidly mediocre. I dropped it around episode 6 when I realized that it was taking effort to watch the next episode. Largely because I didn't care about the characters or plot and it wasn't visually interesting. It having a really weird romance subplot with the robot/doll girl didn't help either. You might like it. Sooooooo my brother and I just got around to watching the third Madoka movie, [i]Rebellion[/i], and I am [b]FULL OF FEELINGS[/b] about it. I need to get all my friends to watch it, since they're better read than I and I want their takes on the Milton-esque Homura over-love. And because their minds deserve the same kind of blowjob that mine just got. It's going to take me a while to really unpack the movie, and I'm going to need to watch it several times to really catch everything, but I do have some initial thoughts. First, we're now past the Faustian and mahou-shoujo deconstruction elements of the series, but holy balls the Christian allegory is still going strong. This kinda' cements my theory that Madoka is a Christ figure as basically impossible to argue against. And there's a shot towards the end with Kyouko and an apple that seems very symbolically important and really suggests to me that apples are actually supposed to represent the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and I want to rewatch the series to try to figure out what the whole Kyouko/Sayaka apple scene is about know that I'm very sure that the writers really know what they're doing with the Christian imagery. Yeah. If you've seen Madoka, watch the third movie. If you haven't seen Madoka, watch Madoka and then the third movie (or maybe all three movies instead, I'm told the first two are a really good retelling of the series). I am never going to stop pimping this anime, because it's kinda' the best anime I've ever seen. [/quote] Agreed. Machina wa whatever, read the manga, knew the anime wouldn't be anything but medicore. Problem is the generic romance subplot and really generic character developement, u guys know the 'guy is nice, girls fall in love' - route? Yep, right here over and over, on every girl he meets. One could say he is a less whimsy Kirito. lifebaka, please. Do a blog or sth about the movie when you are done, if you look back a the last page, I also posted stuff. But I did not pay much attention to the whole series, as of why I am super confused now (tho I watched Bakemonogatari 7 times in a row cus bored, but can't do so with madoka, too many feelings). Also, I started a new manga, called [b]World Customization Creator[/b](lol). As I can guess, it was originally a novel, the story is similar to SAO/LH, but the main character seems more human, since his reaction at first is rather happy than shocked. The actually shock will come when he realizes that it is his new reality, I guess.[/quote]

[quote=lifebaka][quote=xIchi] Do a blog or sth about the movie when you are done, if you look back a the last page, I also posted stuff. But I did not pay much attention to the whole series, as of why I am super confused now (tho I watched Bakemonogatari 7 times in a row cus bored, but can't do so with madoka, too many feelings). [/quote] Oh, yeah, I can probably answer most of those. 1) All of [i]Rebellion[/i] takes place after the series. All of it. Absolutely none of it takes place before or concurrently with the series. Also all the events of the movie occur in chronological order. 2)I'm honestly not sure what's up with the Nightmares yet. I do think some things, though: [spoiler=Thinking!]Mahou shoujo need to fight something. Without having something to fight, there's no reason for them ever to have been made. As they can fight neither witches, because witches supposedly don't exist any more, nor wraiths/demons (translations are awkward here), because those might actually be dangerous and require help from the Incubators to get rid of. Did you notice that all of the Nightmares we see look pretty much the same? And they also all have those two blue hands with them, which we also see during the scene where witch-Homura is putting together the world. I think that Nightmares are some kind of familiar that causes witches curses on the actual humans in Homura's world, giving the mahou shoujo something to fight.[/spoiler] 3) I don't think people turn into Nightmares at all. See above. 4) [i]Rebellion[/i] takes place in the same universe after the events of the series. Or, rather, [i]Rebellion[/i] takes place in the universe created at the end of the series. To tackle your other questions: [spoiler=A quite long stab at things]We're going to have to back up a little bit here to explain what a witches' curse is in the series. Witches "curse" people with negative emotions to make them do things they otherwise might not do. Commit suicide, for instance (see episodes 2, 4). So the witches' curse is negative emotions. A mahou shoujo turns into a witch when their soul gem has become too cursed. The series tells us that the soul gem is literally the mahou shoujo's soul, so when it gets darkened by curses it's because the soul it represents has been darkened by negative emotion. The source of these negative emotions doesn't really matter, they can be from the stress of having to fight witches or other things in the mahou shoujo's life (see episodes 8 and 9). And it seems to be the act of giving into those emotions that triggers the change rather than simply having them, which is why Homura didn't succumb even after failing to rescue Madoka so many times and why Madoka doesn't succumb as long as there are other mahou shoujo to help. All of this is important because what's driving Homura's transformation at the end of [i]Rebellion[/i] isn't a curse. She's not full of hate or despair or anything like that. Rather, her soul is blackened by a much darker and more powerful emotion: love. Homura can't bear to be separated from Madoka-the-girl, and Homura doesn't care one bit about Madoka-the-god. Basically, Homura's going full yandere on Madoka. So this is why Homura doesn't turn into a traditional witch. As for why she gets so powerful, recall that Madoka's power was caused by Homura turning back time to try to save her so many times. Every time she did that, both the Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht) and Madoka got more powerful as more and more timelines got tied up in their fate. But Homura was also instrumental in doing this, so I figure that Homura was also getting more powerful each time. Her mahou shoujo ability just might not have really been suited to displaying that power during the events of the series, since she doesn't have an offensive ability. But it certainly does explain why she might be powerful enough to defy God. Now when Homura does this and basically becomes Lucifer (a fallen angel whose sin is that he loved God too much a la Milton's [u]Paradise Lost[/u]), she doesn't destroy Madoka or seal her power or anything like that. Rather, she separates Madoka-the-girl from Madoka-the-god and builds a new world/labyrinth to house Madoka-the-girl in so that she can spend more time with her. She also fills that world with things that are important to Madoka-the-girl (parents, friends, etc.), to make her as happy as possible. I'm really not sure what the consequences of this are going to be, but it's pretty obviously a tenuous situation, given that Madoka-the-girl and Madoka-the-god almost immediately reconnect as Madoka-the-girl walks around the school with Homura. And this is what Homura means when she says that Madoka is going to become her enemy. Homura has become that which opposes, which is a really old school Western way of thinking of evil. Homura opposes Madoka because she wants Madoka all to herself, because Homura has become possessive yandere. But Homura really only intends to take Madoka-the-girl for herself and doesn't care about anything else.[/spoiler][/quote]

[quote=Latest Legend][quote=XeresAce] Also, I'm pondering whether to watch Machine-Doll wa Kizutsukanai. Anyone have something to share about it? [/quote] I enjoyed it. I liked the magical steampunk setting. There is some (ecchi) comedy mixed in, which you may or may not like. After watching it in full I can say there isn't much of real romance in it. I would recommend giving it a few episodes if you like magical steampunk and aren't looking for something all too serious or sophisticated.[/quote]

[quote=xIchi]Oh that explains, ty. [spoiler] I have to admit that I did not sense any yandere coming from Homura, but after reading this it is fairly obvious that Homura turned yandere. Have to say that they made her a great yandere without all thos generic yandere stats :p! I will be looking forward to when you rewatched it a few times and have more insight. Personally, I'd love to understand everything fully, but do not have the endurance to watch it over and over :/. One more question: So people cannot turn into Nightmares. But the emotions usually turn into nightmares. But why did their friend (forgot name again) turn into a 'demon/wraith'. As it is probably the new 'enemy' in Homura's world? [/spoiler][/quote]

[quote=Searz][quote=xIchi] Today the 17th chapter of All You Need is Kill was released. Obviously, the ending was different from the Hollywoodstyled 'Edge of Tomrrow' - and I have to admit, I liked it.[/quote] Eeeeh, I wasn't impressed. The big twist came out of nowhere. It was handled pretty well, but the twist was just bad. It's not at all like the twists in say Shingeki No Kyojin, where your mind is blown by all the incredible foreshadowing. <3 Annie. Hehe. [quote=Darealone] Just read SNK/AOT chapter 58. [spoiler]I doubt Jean is dead. After seeing some pictures I think that Armin saves him. And Mikasa and Levi are sibilngs. Or...OR MARRIED. Nah jk. lel. Also...I read a theory that said "What if Eren's dad was a shapeshifter and he ate his dad" or something like that." [/spoiler][/quote] [spoiler]I doubt that. Remember that whole injection scene? I don't know if Jean will die. Both are possibilities.[/spoiler] Ravioli really rose in my mind. I'm starting to like him more and more.[/quote]

[quote=YayaFTW]So I followed you guys' advice and skipped [i]Hanasaku Iroha[/i] after the 2nd episode where it seemed like it's going nowhere. For my 200th anime I decided to overcome one of my bad habits. I started watching currently airing anime. [i]No Game No Life[/i] seemed great from the reviews and the 8.70 on MAL, and I'm downloading the first episodes as I type this. I also had time to marathon the first season of [i]Seitokai Yakuindomo[/i]. It brought back in me the highschool memories, typical sex jokes that I can't help but laugh at because of how well it's illustrated. Also, this was pretty crazy funny: [embed=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNX8LZPTRz0] (Context: She hates being called little/short, she's supposedly 16) If you can stand the overused sex jokes, SYD would be a decent comedy anime to watch. Anyway, will update after catching up with NGNL.[/quote]

[quote=XeresAce]@Everyone who answered my question, I might give Machine Doll whatever a try [i]sometime[/i]. But from what I'm hearing now, the overly dramatic machine + human thing and the "guy is nice so every girl suddenly wants to marry him" thing is a big turn off :c Meh any /good/ anime out this season? I started watching no game no life, stopped at episode 4 and probably will continue it at a later date. I'm just back to my old fantasy obsession, so if anything fits the "modern day magic and magecraft" theme, feel free to recommend it xD[/quote]