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The Grey Wolf

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1 hour ago, Meera of Tarth said:

So if I watch Fate I should only watch the official one?

Funnily enough: No! Not at all! Fate/Zero is a prequel written by Gen Urobuchi (the author of Madoka Magica). It is pretty much the only story that actually makes the most out of the premise.

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2 hours ago, Toth said:

Funnily enough: No! Not at all! Fate/Zero is a prequel written by Gen Urobuchi (the author of Madoka Magica). It is pretty much the only story that actually makes the most out of the premise.

ok so from all of them fate zero then...?

(did I understand it correctly? This is a prequel but it's the "compulsory" one? Or if not Maybe i need another coffee today to read the forum..)

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1 hour ago, Meera of Tarth said:

ok so from all of them fate zero then...?

(did I understand it correctly? This is a prequel but it's the "compulsory" one? Or if not Maybe i need another coffee today to read the forum..) 

Yes. Fate/zero is a prequel to the main series, Fate/Stay Night (which in itself is divided into three 'routes', Fate, UBW and Heaven's Feel, all of which focus on different characters because the Visual Novel source started out as porn... yes, really, but at least they got rid of the sex scenes as they realized it had potential to be a mainstream Anime...). And Fate/Zero is the superior one.

But opinions are a bit divided about whether Fate/Zero spoils Stay Night or whether Stay Night spoils Fate/Zero. As it happens, Zero sets up storylines none of the Stay Night routes is able to conclude on their own, which makes Stay Night very frustrating to watch after Fate/Zero. The difference in quality of writing is extremely jarring as well (though even I have to admit that the first season of UBW is actually pretty fine, if a bit underwhelming, the second season however is a flaming trainwreck because the director apparently had no more guidance in regards to why people hated the Fate Anime and opted for a word-by-word adaptation with a new epilogue that made everything even worse). My own opinion is that they could have salvaged the story simply by merging the routes and making a story that gives a conclusion to all the stories, not just the ones the moronic protagonist gets in bed with.

From all this I take the conclusion that your time certainly is better spent elsewhere. :P

Even though, yes, Fate/Zero is really, really good on its own... it really just gets dragged down by the fact that it is a prequel that sets up a sequel that simply doesn't exist.

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2 hours ago, Toth said:

Yes. Fate/zero is a prequel to the main series, Fate/Stay Night (which in itself is divided into three 'routes', Fate, UBW and Heaven's Feel, all of which focus on different characters because the Visual Novel source started out as porn... yes, really, but at least they got rid of the sex scenes as they realized it had potential to be a mainstream Anime...). And Fate/Zero is the superior one.

But opinions are a bit divided about whether Fate/Zero spoils Stay Night or whether Stay Night spoils Fate/Zero. As it happens, Zero sets up storylines none of the Stay Night routes is able to conclude on their own, which makes Stay Night very frustrating to watch after Fate/Zero. The difference in quality of writing is extremely jarring as well (though even I have to admit that the first season of UBW is actually pretty fine, if a bit underwhelming, the second season however is a flaming trainwreck because the director apparently had no more guidance in regards to why people hated the Fate Anime and opted for a word-by-word adaptation with a new epilogue that made everything even worse). My own opinion is that they could have salvaged the story simply by merging the routes and making a story that gives a conclusion to all the stories, not just the ones the moronic protagonist gets in bed with.

thankss

2 hours ago, Toth said:

From all this I take the conclusion that your time certainly is better spent elsewhere. :P

Even though, yes, Fate/Zero is really, really good on its own... it really just gets dragged down by the fact that it is a prequel that sets up a sequel that simply doesn't exist.

indeed haha.

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32 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

@Toth

What about the new Heaven's Feel movie trilogy? I watched the first part and it seems to be quite similar to Zero in tone and style.

Well, I had made my review just a couple of pages before: https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/143882-anime/&page=5&tab=comments#comment-8175141

Yes, it's a faithful adaptation and does a pretty good job, but like all the others it can't stand on its own. It forces you to at least watch UBW because it skips all scenes the two have in common. And while Sakura and Ilya get some kind of closure, Saber gets brutally shoved aside and Rin acts utterly OOC in later chapters just to keep cheap drama in limbo. I also was a bit iffed how the movie keeping Rin out of focus for as long as humanly possible severely damaged the punch of her figuring out Sakura's fate. But yeah, it's my usual gripe that Rin is so deeply connected to all the events of this Grail War and has such a huge potential for character growth that it's a damn shame she is not the main character. Limiting the POV to Shirou is just so... awfully dumb...

The first movie was good, no question there. But the trilogy as a whole can't possibly cover all of Fate/Zero's storylines by being a faithful adaptation.

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On 1/2/2019 at 5:35 PM, Meera of Tarth said:

(did I understand it correctly? This is a prequel but it's the "compulsory" one? Or if not Maybe i need another coffee today to read the forum..)

I wanted to reply but Toth already summed up everything incredibly well.

Fate/Zero may be strange to watch at first without the background knowledge on the "Fate" concept. But nothing a quick google up can't remedy (although there is the risk of spoiling Fate/Zero itself with the googling), or simply a heads up from someone who knows what it is about. It is not "compulsory" to watch in any case, it's just that it's the only good thing to come out of the Fate mess.

It's a great show on its own, if you like ensemble pieces of characters fighting each other, that is, and all the (interesting I believe) drama that comes with it. And the characters are all great in their own way, contrary to the rest of Fate.

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7 hours ago, Pliskin said:

I wanted to reply but Toth already summed up everything incredibly well.

Fate/Zero may be strange to watch at first without the background knowledge on the "Fate" concept. But nothing a quick google up can't remedy (although there is the risk of spoiling Fate/Zero itself with the googling), or simply a heads up from someone who knows what it is about. It is not "compulsory" to watch in any case, it's just that it's the only good thing to come out of the Fate mess.

It's a great show on its own, if you like ensemble pieces of characters fighting each other, that is, and all the (interesting I believe) drama that comes with it. And the characters are all great in their own way, contrary to the rest of Fate.

Thanks, yeah. I guess my choice of the word was not appropiate. I mean, if it waas the only one that is worth it, XD.

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20 hours ago, Pliskin said:

Fate/Zero may be strange to watch at first without the background knowledge on the "Fate" concept. But nothing a quick google up can't remedy (although there is the risk of spoiling Fate/Zero itself with the googling), or simply a heads up from someone who knows what it is about. It is not "compulsory" to watch in any case, it's just that it's the only good thing to come out of the Fate mess.

Hey, in Fate/Zero's defense, it does devote nearly the entirety of its feature-length prologue to dry info dumping despite the fact that the premise of "Modern mages summon spirits of dead heroes to fight for a wish-granting grail" really isn't all that difficult to explain. XD

So actually, no Google sweep necessary, in my opinion.

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4 hours ago, Toth said:

Hey, in Fate/Zero's defense, it does devote nearly the entirety of its feature-length prologue to dry info dumping despite the fact that the premise of "Modern mages summon spirits of dead heroes to fight for a wish-granting grail" really isn't all that difficult to explain. XD

So actually, no Google sweep necessary, in my opinion.

I googled it, but I tried not to look too much just in case, as Pliskin said! :P 

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  • 5 weeks later...

second season of Dragon Prince builds on everything set up in season 1. It feels more like anime than any other non-anime cartoon in the sense it's not just a show for kids with complex characters so none of them seem particularly bad or good and the ones that act badly seem really justified in doing so. But it's also funny and cute when it needs to be eg the narcoleptic pirate and elf pretending to be human. It's genuinely one of my favourite Netflix shows.

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On 1/19/2019 at 8:53 PM, The Grey Wolf said:

Anyone else watch DBS: Broly?

Late to this post, but I saw it in theaters. I thought it was really good. I mean it's not the most creative story, but they upped their animation quality quite a bit it seemed and the writing was alright. Kind of reminds me of an MCU movie in that it had decent writing, good production value, but  it is also not going to win any awards.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 2/18/2019 at 10:32 PM, Calibandar said:

I'd been wondering if anyone had started on the just released second season already.

Should give this a shot and catch up.

It's worth it, besides the frustration of it ending again after only a few episodes. The next instalment should be interesting as the show's dynamic is shook up quite a bit in the last episode. What I really enjoy about this show is that I've no idea where all the young characters could eventually wind up. In most cases they all have the potential to become quite evil or heroic or better yet become evil for heroic reasons. I also think the animation is improved in season 2 - my brother started watching season 1 based on me harping on about how great season 2 was and I noticed the jumpy animation instantly in season 1. Although it might be a frame rate thing as my brother's TV is a lot better than my own.

 

Almost finished cowboy bebop. First few episodes I was wondering what all the fuss was about but it does become a lot more compelling once they have a full crew and a spotlight episode on each character. The world building is quite extensive if somewhat overambitious in where we'd be by 2071 (prove me wrong Elon!) and I got a giggle out of the show mocking videotape while at the same time using CD/DVD as data storage. Maybe it's because I've come to the show far too late (not sure why it's taken me 15 years to watch it despite having copies from a flat mate all that time) but I have no problem at all with a Netflix adaptation beyond them screwing it up. The anime could easily be expanded upon - even if it were just giving the 20 minute episodes 1-2 hours to fully shine. Although I guess there is a charm that fits with the musical theme of short bursts of random story from the anime. 

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I watch very little anime usually. I did watch Netflix's Castlevania though, which was pretty good. And then, last week, through a chain of events I'm still not exactly sure of, I watched all of Kill La Kill, and I actually liked it quite a lot. I did like the first half more than the second half, but I thought the whole thing was really well done. There was no filler, the moments of cliched angst were resolved extremely quickly, the action was stylish, and I mostly enjoyed the humor (except the pet dog). Good music too, and really good English VA (which is key to me because I don't like subs).

In fact, I liked it enough that I got interested in finding another anime to watch; which led me to discovering that Netflix's anime selection is almost entirely the kinds of anime that drove me away from the medium in the past. I don't like stories featuring kid/teenage bland/naive male leads going on a journey of self-discovery or finding their powers, or (usually) stories set in high school or featuring kids/teens at all (technically Kill La Kill was, but it was so abstracted and everyone basically acted like adults anyway)*.

However, I did stumble across a recommendation for Black Lagoon as an anime with adult characters, and I'm watching that on a Hulu free trial. I'm really liking it too. Rock is sort of like the adult version of the teen characters I don't like, but he has a little more depth and is age-appropriate at least. More importantly, Revy and Dutch have been getting just as much focus so far and are much more fun characters. It's got fun, dumb action and again has really good English VA. I'm going to keep watching it, and when I finish up, I have another recommendation lined up to check out, Psycho-Pass. 

I'm wondering what are some other shows in a similar vein to these that are worth checking out? I did see some number of Ghost in the Shell movies years ago, and those were good.

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