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New offerings this season I'm *not* crazy about...
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Naruto
Great manga, bad anime. Naruto is an example of what happens when you
try to simplify the art and also an example of what happens when you add
mismatched voices to characters thousands of fans love already... For someone
who hasn't read the manga it's okay (acceptable action/comedy... not great
but okay) but for someone who has (manga chasers like me) Naruto is a big
disappointment.
Update: I've stopped watching Naruto, no further news will be posted about
it.
Official
site
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Ghost in the Shell:
Stand Alone Complex
Another offering to keep the
fans busy while the Ghost in the Shell 2 movie is in production, SAC falls
short of the mighty standards it has to keep up to. Although the anime finally
rectifies the continuity problem of missing Fuchikomas, the character designs
are bad, the stories nothing special and the CG patchy. That and the op
song is in a language nobody seems to be able to figure out.
Perhaps it will get better with time, but at the moment it doesn't look
all that promising yet.
Update: Of all the series I decided to put on hold while deciding whether
to continue with, GitS:SAC has improved the most in the following 3 episodes.
After the shaky start in terms of animation, the art now has settled down
and is quite pretty (but Motoko is still in that horrible outfit). The Fuchikomas
were given kawaii voices though, for reasons I can't understand... but the
one thing holding this series back is the severe lack of a deeper plot. While
the simplistic stories presented in SAC would be great in any other series,
it carries the name of Ghost in the Shell and people (me ^^;;) expect a lot
more from it. However, there is no denying that SAC probably has the most
beautiful op sequence in the new season (brilliantly rendered CG)... perhaps
fans should get at least one episode just to see that. In contrast the ed
is horrendously bland though.
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Piano
From Kousuke Fujishima (best
known for Oh! My Goddess and You're Under Arrest!), this anime is as simple,
quiet and unassuming as its lead character, Miu. Miu is learning the piano
(she's at quite a high level already, playing advanced Chopin pieces...)
and well.... Miu has a normal family. Absolutely normal and believable,
none of that anime craziness at all. Which is kind of the problem. Piano
is like a peek into someone else's life... there's not much happening at
all. Anyhow, fans of the artist should get it anyway... even if the character
designs are very much toned down.
Update: It seems that the first two episodes were shown in advance, the
actual series is only just starting around now so it seems unlikely that
any new fansub episodes will be coming out soon.
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