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Shelf Life - False Hopes


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mewpudding101
Industry Insider


Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Posts: 2206
Location: Tokyo, Japan
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 10:19 am Reply with quote
Looking Up At The Half-Moon being perishable!? I don't think I've ever seen anything be perishable since I started reading this column, and THIS is what was chosen? o_O
I guess that's one person's opinion, but I personally enjoyed this series very much. The story was so popular it also inspired a live-action drama. I also think it's a dark, sad, but touching look at a hospital romance. Sure, it doesn't look amazing, but it looks like just about everything else from the mid-2000's era.

Anyway. Personal opinion. To each their own.
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Zhou-BR



Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 1422
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:05 am Reply with quote
Despite not caring for the first season of Index, I thought about watching Railgun because Tatsuyuki Nagai and Seishi Minakami are a quite solid director/head writer combination, but the thought of having to endure Kuroko for 24 episodes made me give up.
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5469
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:13 am Reply with quote
There's always Railgun S2 where Kuroko's screentime and thus her antics get cut down quite significantly. Hell, her endeavors towards Mikoto were comparably restrained.
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consignia



Joined: 06 Jul 2011
Posts: 392
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:27 am Reply with quote
I found Railgun far more fun than the poe-faced Index. Index gets weighed down considerably by it's mythology. By discarding the magic side, most of the technicalities of the science side, and focusing on, in my opinion, more interesting characters, Railgun is a far more compelling series.

Kuroko maybe a problem for some, but there a lot of times were she is far more subdued. Of course, on the flip side, there are more of her wacky moments as well.
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myskaros



Joined: 13 Jun 2011
Posts: 598
Location: J-Novel Club
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:40 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Hardly an episode goes by where Kuroko doesn't try to molest her “onii-sama,” despite the older girl's loud protestations.

Should be "onee-sama" ;P

Seconded on Railgun season 2 being much better. I know some people who specifically like the "gaggle of teenage girls hanging out and acting like teenage girls" who did not like season 2, but for the other half of the audience who's into the Academy City conspiracy plot thread and people who like superpowers and battles, season 2 is spectacular.

The big difference between Index and Railgun is that Index is more focused on the world Kamachi created using Touma as a vehicle, whereas Railgun is more of a straightforward character study borderline hero's journey. The two stories will certainly appeal more to different audiences.
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kguillas



Joined: 22 Jan 2015
Posts: 7
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:41 am Reply with quote
Now I really want to hear Chitoge's mickey mouse impression. I remember a lot of hilarious moments from Nisekoi season one, but I don't remember that one... Which episode/approximate time(?) is it? I'd love to see it again.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4082
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:45 am Reply with quote
I loved Satomi Arai's performance as Kuroko in Railgun, deservedly award winning, the framing of most the incidents and "powerful" characters as urban legends, the overarching plot and how the team dynamic of Railgun, "Black Girl" and their powerless moral support affect it and are driven by it.

What killed the show for me was the second season, which decided most of that was unnecessary. But this first season was a lot of fun in the "with great power comes great responsibility" sort of superhero storytelling that's going out of style, even in its greatest example. I don't see Railgun as a power trip for its audience, mostly because Misaka is your "friendly neighborhood Railgun" so she's humble and relatable - well, she is in any scene where she's not with Tomoe- despite almost being a walking god.

If Nisekoi was a self contained show with a definite ending then maybe it'd be better but when the fans of the manga say "wait until such a girl joins the cast, then it starts getting good", you know you're in trouble.
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Ingraman



Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 1077
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:15 pm Reply with quote
myskaros wrote:
Quote:
Hardly an episode goes by where Kuroko doesn't try to molest her “onii-sama,” despite the older girl's loud protestations.

Should be "onee-sama" ;P

You mean that I _didn't_ somehow miss the gender-swapping when I watched the series long, long ago? ^^ Hmm... Does that mean that Funimation actually used "onee-sama" in the subtitles? Probably not, since the review's typo most likely wouldn't have occurred after having to read the term so many times.

Quote:
Seconded on Railgun season 2 being much better. I know some people who specifically like the "gaggle of teenage girls hanging out and acting like teenage girls" who did not like season 2, but for the other half of the audience who's into the Academy City conspiracy plot thread and people who like superpowers and battles, season 2 is spectacular.

I watched and mostly enjoyed the first Railgun series (enough to import the BDs from Japan). I like Mikoto and her little sisters, but the first part of Railgun 2 bored me, and I never bothered with the rest. Maybe it was having seen parts of that story so long ago in Index 1, or maybe it was having read it in the US release of the manga a while back, but I just wasn't interested this time around...

Quote:
The big difference between Index and Railgun is that Index is more focused on the world Kamachi created using Touma as a vehicle,

Touma and that guy who just talked, talked, talked were my primary problems with Index, and why I didn't like that series. Maybe I can overlook one character being minorly annoying in a series (Kuroko), but not multiple (in Index).
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Polycell



Joined: 16 Jan 2012
Posts: 4623
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:17 pm Reply with quote
@mewpudding101:

I've never seen the series, but I have to say what's perishable here is the review: it starts off by complaining that the main character is solidly Yuichi and moves on to whining that it doesn't fit her tastes while trying desperately to pretend this is an objective weakness, but giving detail enough to put paid to that pretense.

On the other hand, she does succeed in making it look interesting, so there's that.
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Zoneflare



Joined: 11 Mar 2015
Posts: 521
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 3:53 pm Reply with quote
wow two of the rentals I have on my buy list. to each their own I guess Razz
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AbZeroNow



Joined: 14 Jan 2013
Posts: 519
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 3:56 pm Reply with quote
@ Ingraman, they probably used "Sissy" instead of Onee-sama for their subtitles too. [Don't feel like pulling out my Railgun DVDs to check].
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Ingraman



Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 1077
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 5:20 pm Reply with quote
AbZeroNow wrote:
@ Ingraman, they probably used "Sissy" instead of Onee-sama for their subtitles too. [Don't feel like pulling out my Railgun DVDs to check].

I'm expecting that to be the case, but I thought that there was a reeeaaaally slight chance that Funi might have altered the subtitles for this latest release. Too slight, probably. ^^
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 5:22 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Looking Up At The Half-Moon marks another fine entry in the “a woman's pain is all about her boyfriend” genre.


Stopped reading there. I hope the reviewer grasped that Rika's pain is about her heart condition and her permanent residence within the walls of the hospital. And that for the entire series, the one who is attempting to make romantic flails for attention is Yuuichi.

For a review to get the very basic of character interaction and motivation completely wrong in the first sentence is just incompetence that leaves me awestruck.
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_Cyphon_



Joined: 16 Nov 2014
Posts: 996
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 5:37 pm Reply with quote
I swear I see Nisekoi everywhere right now. It has been on so many shelf lives before. Also, it's not a love pentagon, it's a harem. I do believe there is a difference.
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Calathan
Subscriber



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 9112
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 5:42 pm Reply with quote
I've never seen Looking Up At The Half-Moon, so I can't really comment if the review is accurate, but I'm very surprised to see that the review is so negative. Looking Up At The Half-Moon is currently rated as the 72nd best anime in the encyclopedia out of 4734 with enough ratings to qualify. Over 2000 people have rated it, and those people overwhelmingly liked it. I know that Gabriella can only give her personal opinion of the anime, and I certainly wouldn't want the reviewers to write their reviews based what others think rather than giving their real opinion. However, I think maybe it would be useful for the reviews to mention when the opinion differs greatly from the majority opinion on the anime. It just seems like readers would be better served by knowing that most people thought the anime was excellent even if the reviewer personally felt it was terrible.
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