Official Anime/Manga Thread

[Sami]

I was lost at the alternate dimension theme in Nazi Germany and Dante's whole reason to ending entire civilizations was weak. Sure, Father was vague and pretty much an enigma, but he was not going so far to end life as we know so he could live out some twisted Twilight fantasy.

Yeah, he just wanted to become God.

Dante's supposed to be pathetic. She wants to live forever, and she'll do whatever evil thing she can to get it. It's pointless, it's pathetic, and it makes her seem really stupid. But that's the point.

Father, on the other hand, is as generic and boring as a villain can get. "BWA HA HA I'M BECOMING GOD AND NOTHING CAN STOP ME OH NO THE PROTAGONIST NEVER MIND WAAAAAH" doesn't cut it for me anymore.

[Soniman]

What I liked about Father was that I figured he wanted to become a god to become as far stretched from his initial origins a a black tiny dwarf in a flask, but in the end he ended up right back where we started, it's kind of tragic in a way.

[Endy]

You know, Haruhi would be a lot more interesting if it were about a character like Haruhi being completely oblivious to the reality that she is a pathetic human that needs help, and then in the end, breaking out into a fit of tard rage.

so basically chris chan the anime

but no instead we get god motorboating kyle reese ripoffs

[Kuzu]

Yeah, he just wanted to become God.

Dante's supposed to be pathetic. She wants to live forever, and she'll do whatever evil thing she can to get it. It's pointless, it's pathetic, and it makes her seem really stupid. But that's the point.

Father, on the other hand, is as generic and boring as a villain can get. "BWA HA HA I'M BECOMING GOD AND NOTHING CAN STOP ME OH NO THE PROTAGONIST NEVER MIND WAAAAAH" doesn't cut it for me anymore.

I always saw Father as trying to discover the truth to the world by becoming God, I mean yeah it's Cliche, but it's at least handled well.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Humanity Has Declined was one of the best shows of last year. Why people said it was crap I'll never understand.

[Silencer226]

Humanity Has Declined was one of the best shows of last year. Why people said it was crap I'll never understand.

It kind of lost it's charm for me after the first few episodes. I actually dropped several shows last season.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Little Noel

[Remy]

Yeah, he just wanted to become God.

Dante's supposed to be pathetic. She wants to live forever, and she'll do whatever evil thing she can to get it. It's pointless, it's pathetic, and it makes her seem really stupid. But that's the point.

Father, on the other hand, is as generic and boring as a villain can get. "BWA HA HA I'M BECOMING GOD AND NOTHING CAN STOP ME OH NO THE PROTAGONIST NEVER MIND WAAAAAH" doesn't cut it for me anymore.

What I liked about Father was that I figured he wanted to become a god to become as far stretched from his initial origins a a black tiny dwarf in a flask, but in the end he ended up right back where we started, it's kind of tragic in a way.

Becoming god and "wanting to live forever" are pretty similar motives so I don't really see the distinction that makes Dante better.

I side with Soniman here.

Dissident, you don't think Homunculus, the being in the flask was pathetic? He desires freedom, liberation and power after living his life in the flask but his own greed and theivery betrays him. He's consumed by the sins he allegedly has expelled, loses control of the "god" he thinks belongs to him and ends up absorbed by the Truth in the game, once again pathetic and powerless.

Father is only boring if you ignore his backstory, he was a little cheesy yeah but Dante is way worse, having motives that have nothing to do with the rest of the series and making absolutely zero sense. Brother did kind of cheese up the Homonculuous though so I can see your point... kinda. dante is still shit

You know, Haruhi would be a lot more interesting if it were about a character like Haruhi being completely oblivious to the reality that she is a pathetic human that needs help, and then in the end, breaking out into a fit of tard rage.

so basically chris chan the anime

but no instead we get god motorboating kyle reese ripoffs

err what are you talking about

[Sean]

I don't remember a single thing about Dante so I probably didn't like her either. I did like the idea of a parallel universe being behind the gate though, but I suppose the way they did it could have been better, like how it gave a really dumb explanation for alchemy's workings that come completely out of nowhere.

Oh well, chalk it up to BONES not being able to make good endings. I still like the direction the first FMA anime went after it diverged from the manga's storyline, but it did have a pretty weak conclusion, final battle aside.

[Kuzu]

For what it was, the first anime's storyline is pretty decent, I just feel the Manga had a better, more solid story.

[Mangoaxe5]

I personally like Dante better then Father because she has a more down to earth goal. In my opinion the best villains are the down to earth ones. Plus I love her speech to Ed in episode 49 about how Equivalent Exchange isn't real.

Plus I think that Dante's a good character foil for Ed. Dante is what Ed would have become if he compromised his morals.

Father just seemed like an overpowered character with little personality. When he was in the flask he seemed to be interesting but that dissaperaed when he became a recolor of Hohenheim.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Vampfox

[\gunther]

Humanity Has Declined was one of the best shows of last year. Why people said it was crap I'll never understand.

Huh? People hate it? I've heard almost nothing but praise for it.

Then again, I'm only 4 episodes in soo I might not be qualified to say anything yet.

[Sami]

Father just seemed like an overpowered character with little personality. When he was in the flask he seemed to be interesting but that dissaperaed when he became a recolor of Hohenheim.

Pretty much this, yeah.

I was interested in Father after seeing the flashback episode, but everything he did besides that was so ridiculously shounen I just couldn't take it seriously.

[The Kid]

Father wasn't the most interesting character in the story, but his final end was tragic beyond belief. You almost feel sorry for the guy.

What really made me love Brotherhood was the way the Greed side-story was handled. He's an asshole, but you just have gotta love the guy.

I don't know... I just can't get passed FMA's ending. It was so stupid.

[Remy]

FMA Manga/Brotherhood-

Hmmm. I wonder if my more positive reaction to him is because of reading the manga more often and watching BroHo for fights.

I also don't like Dante because she indirectly ruins Hoenheim. He seems like less of a good guy when you realise he's committed 3 large scale massacres along side his groupie girlfriend, and then settles down to become a family man/drifter. At least manga hoenheim makes sense, as a character carrying a severe burden alongside his crazy powers.

This week marks the second episode of personal favourite Jojo's Bizarre Adventure in which men play rugby, get in street fights, the OP has it's debut and hobos go fucking crazy.

Watch the OP here http://www.dailymoti...7AynnSESQp3rrLa

I was a little wary when I heard the OP was going to be CG, unlike the show but it was actually pretty fuckin' cool. Loooove the song they used (jojo! jojo! jojo!) and it was great seeing some of the best panels of part1 animated in CG, which gets me even more hyped for the rest of this series. The callouts to later parts in the first few secs get me super dang excited too.

As for the EP itself

Once again the show is moving at a brisk pace. They've manage to preserve the tension and slow build of the mystery from the manga, whilst cutting out a lot of the slower less meaningful stuff. Definitely giving Phantom Blood a pace more appropriate for anime. Once again I have to commend the use of music, this is probably the best I've heard in a while in an anime, with the regular backround tracks being used well and sounded great in the scenes, and the mixing in of Roundabout in the last few minutes of the show being flawless.

Also good too see they're not censoring it too bad. They've kind of shaded out some of the more overtly gory moments but it gives me hope the DVDs will be uncut. More importantly- they've maintained the horror feel. Very good.

The real test for this show will be next week though. Episode 3 is going to mark the the first real intense sequence in Jojo's and will definitely be a make or break moment in terms of whether the scenes are dramatic still or well animated. I have confidence though, they have so far handled the material perfectly, so I imagine next week is going to amazing.

I don't know why more shows don't run the start of the ED into the end of the ep. Loved it in Brotherhood and here.

[Soniman]

In the latest episode of SAO, Kirito still can't catch a break!

Also mild incest.

[Solkia]

Also just watched SAO, and

I'm really getting tired of arranged marriage plot twists. It's been done to death and it's annoyingly cliché at this point.

[Soniman]

Also just watched SAO, and

I'm really getting tired of arranged marriage plot twists. It's been done to death and it's annoyingly cliché at this point.

Not to mention that the fiancee is so cartoonishly evil that I couldn't help but laugh.

[\gunther]

I actually think SAO is getting more interesting now. I'm eager to see where it goes from here.

In other news

Look at how canon my OTP is, nuggas.

[turbojet]

My main problem with the first anime that it completely disconnected from real world issues and became some twisted love story that made no sense. Father used human irrationality and nationality to further his goals. He intentionally manipulated heads of state with ternal power such as an army and complete and total control. Everything about Scar's character, and that guy who works for Armstrong's sister, to the whole nation of Amestris just reeked of Hegemony is not exactly a good thing. Let's not forget the parallel of the Amestris army looking like Nazi Germany or it handled the whole discussion genocide even handedly while the first anime just glazed over the whole topic to make a crappy demented live story. The characters such as Ed and Mustang became larger the world they were in instead of the other way around. There was nothing human or even relate-able to Dante, or,by extension, Hohenheim.

[Mangoaxe5]

My main problem with the first anime that it completely disconnected from real world issues

How was it disconnected from real world issues? There are clear parallels between the Amestris miltary and the Nazis. There are also clear parallels between the Ishbalans and the Jews.

There was nothing human or even relate-able to Dante

Really? You really think that there's nothing human about Dante. Dante is afraid of dying. Being afraid of death is a very human thing.

[Remy]

This post contains massive FMA spoilers so don't read it unless you've finished the manga and 03 anime. you haff been warded.

---

How was it disconnected from real world issues? There are clear parallels between the Amestris military and the Nazis. There are also clear parallels between the Ishbalans and the Jews.

Really? You really think that there's nothing human about Dante. Dante is afraid of dying. Being afraid of death is a very human thing.

[Mangoaxe5]

For some reason the quote tags were giving me a hard time so I had to get rid of them.

First anime Roy was just as upset at killing the Ishvalans as he was at killing Winry's parents. In episode 13(Fullmetal vs. Flame)during his battle with Ed, Roy has a flashback of killing an Ishvalan boy that's about the same age as Edward. This causes Edward to get the upper hand. Clearly murdering the Ishavalans is still eating away at Roy.

Other then Envy and Pride the other Humuncuil follow her because they believe that she'll make them human so that they will belong in the world. Of course by the end of the anime it's pretty clear that they know that she's using them.

And Dante's a very powerful alchemist. So they don't want to mess with her. She weaken Greed and made him puke up the Red Stones that were inside of him.

I wouldn't say that she was shoehorned in. You make it sound like she was just thrown into the story in the last five episodes which is not the case.

And I wouldn't say that she's one dimensional. She's a character foil for Ed. Someone on TV Tropers even pointed it out. I'll post it because they explain it better then I can.

During a recent binge of FMA’s first series, I noticed that Dante and Edward’s relationship is far deeper than it seems to be, and that Dante is one hell of a Shadow Archetype to Edward. I noticed this on several levels:

• Firstly, both Dante and Edward had an opportunity to restore a loved one using the Philosopher’s Stone. Edward, after learning the true nature of the stone, refused to sacrifice society’s undesireables (convicted criminals) to restore his brother, even though he was clearly tempted. He, like Alphonse, decides that they don’t want to be restored if a single person needs to die. Dante, like Edward, sacrificed undesireables (persecuted “witches” and those dying of the plague, who were more innocent than the criminals), but she didn’t hesitate for a moment. When Hohenheim nearly died as a result of the transmutation, she also didn’t hesitate to sacrifice their butler to restore her loved one to a new body, showing that she came to the opposite conclusion.
  
• Continuing from the first point, Dante shows what Edward could have become if he had compromised his morals for Alphonse. Both Edward and Dante are exceptionally gifted alchemists, but Dante, unlike Edward, allowed her natural talent to feed her ego. Edward connects with non-alchemists like Winry and develops meaningful relationships with the less gifted. Dante, on the other hand, separates herself from the rest of humanity. As Izumi pointed out, she looks down on the masses from her hilltop, seeing them as nothing more than “petty, egotistical things” who didn’t deserve her help. Dante’s Grand Theft Me plot is a twisted reflection of Ed and Al’s journey to restore themselves: if tens of millions of lives need to be sacrificed so she can live for another year, so be it. Contrast this with Edward, who frequently uses his alchemy to help others. If Edward didn’t have Winry, Alphonse, and Izumi to keep him in check, he could have easily gone down this route.
  
• Both Edward and Dante demonstrate atheistic beliefs, but their convictions lead them to different conclusions about reality. Edward is clearly suspicious of gods and religion, but believes in a meaningful world governed by Equivalent Exchange. He has a strong appreciation for human life. Dante, however, believes the world is innately meaningless. She demonstrates a clear disdain for humanity, which is reflected through her belief that her homunculi should be purged of human emotions. Edward’s beliefs make him a humanist, while Dante’s lead her down the path of nihilism.
  
• Dante and Edward are forced to see the valid points in each other’s philosophies at the end of the series, and Dante is defeated because, unlike Edward, she fails to re-evaluate her beliefs. Edward accepts that the principle of Equivalent Exchange is flawed, but sticks to his humanist principles and doesn’t embrace Dante’s doctrine of a “beautifully chaotic world.” Dante’s moment of clarity is much more sutble than Edward’s – when Gluttony comes in and breaks down over Lust’s death, she stares at him for a moment and looks visibly uncomfortable. In this brief moment, she sees the strength of humanity and realizes that people may have dignity after all. Instead of changing her beliefs like Edward, however, she remains closed-minded and purges Gluttony of his humanity. What she doesn’t realize is that his humanity allowed Gluttony to fear and respect her, and without that, Dante becomes just another meal to him.
  
• Ultimately, Fullmetal Alchemist focuses on Edward and Alphonse’s coming of age. They’re thrust into an ugly world, but instead of abandoning their principles and becoming like Dante, they find a middle ground. They realize their philosophy on life isn’t perfect and there’s always room for growth. In a story where growing up is the central theme, Dante is the ideal antagonist because she flat-out refuses to grow and learn from the world around her.
  

Edited October 15, 2012 by Vampfox

[Sami]

SAO is getting really disappointing. It started off with a ton of potential, and I definitely enjoyed it up to this point, but not as much as I would have hoped, unfortunately.

That and this episode was so melodramatic it ended up being pretty dull. My friend and I were rather bored throughout the whole thing -

Edited October 16, 2012 by Dissident

[SenEDDtor Missile]

http://manga.animea.net/mahoraba.html

So yeah, Mahoraba. I can definitely say this is one of my favorite slice of life manga, and yet surprisingly it is very unknown. So I shall spread the love here!

[Solkia]

SAO is getting really disappointing. It started off with a ton of potential, and I definitely enjoyed it up to this point, but not as much as I would have hoped, unfortunately.

That and this episode was so melodramatic it ended up being pretty dull. My friend and I were rather bored throughout the whole thing -