AnimeSuki Forums

Well, that clears up some things for me. Is there any material left to cover or is that franchise finished? It's gotten to the point I find IS doujins more interesting than the series itself.

One of my best friends IRL is English. Need I say he doesn't like IS one bit and that Cecilia is a big reason?

Oh, yeah. The days of writing 3 page essays in 40 minutes. I had that down to a fine art back in the day. I don't really consider that demonstrating knowledge properly, though. Really wish exam systems would get overhauled - not all people are memory tanks.

I basically attribute it to light novel authors, having a tendency to drag out their works - combined with the tendency to adapt incomplete series, this is easily one of my biggest pet peeves about anime ATM, since it tends to result in weak climaxes. I've seen a lot of light novel adaptations crash and burn after the first arc (AKA first novel), Infinite Stratos is a little weird because it was actually the second novel that was the good part.

For reference:
Novel 1 - introduces Houki, Cecilia and Rin
Novel 2 - introduces Charlotte, Laura
Novel 3 - silver gospel arc
Novel 4, chapters 3 and 4 - merged into the OVA, although skimming the translation the order of events differs.

Also, I have to say, that you managed to render one exchange from the OVA like 10X funnier for me:
"I wish to demonstrate my skills as the representative of Great Britain!"
"The British people would find your representation of them troublesome."

Exams aren't quite over yet, I'm just feeling comfortable with starting to be back here a bit again. The ones I've taken have gone well although my writing is probably a bit sloppy structure wise since most of the tests are designed such that they can't be completely answered in the time allowed.

How did your exams go?

That IS OVA was a letdown - aside from 1 minute of decent Houki service, the rest of the episode was a real troll. Can't they have the balls to let one of them get Ichika?

Reply when you can, all good. Hope your exam season goes well.

Some amusing vids for when you need to chill:

Squid Girl - all the 'de geso' from Season 1 for 11:48
Steins;Gate - Tuturu + other puns
Yogusa no Sora - Nimu Nimu Nimu Nimu for almost 10 mins

Just as a note I’m kind of winding down a lot of my discussions at the moment… I’m seriously taking a break from this site until Christmas break rolls around, my papers and exam studying schedule looks brutal.
Most of the shoujo lovers I know started with Sailor Moon. The show was pretty big here, much more so than in the US.

(Ranma ½ is another show I don’t hear mentioned very often by American fans but seems to have been a gateway anime for many Canadians. Most of the fans I hear mention it are male though.)

Many of the ones I know wouldn’t know about Toradora either, since only a few of them watch fansubs. I just was able to get some reactions to it due to a local anime club deciding to screen it for a Valentine’s Day event this year.

Also popular cosplay choices here, along with Soul Eater.

This is probably a big part of the difference, but perhaps not in the way you were thinking.

One in five Vancouverites is of Chinese descent. Other East Asian races add a few more percentage points. In my experience, young East Asian women are far more likely to like cute things than women of other races. They’re also more likely to have a build that works well for cosplaying cute characters (petite). Romance anime is a different matter, I haven't encountered a lot of female fans who like it but when I do they come from a variety of ethnicities.

I dropped some hints about it and she trolled me by reading a non-H scene from an eroge she had on her laptop.

I get that one a lot.

That is what I'm implying. The only cute characters females have ever talked about with me are Hatsune Miku, Haruhi Suzumiya and Saber/Rin from Fate/Stay Night.

The ones around my parts are quite anti-shoujo actually. Except for a few who dig Sailor Moon, but that's about it.

Doubt that many would even know what Toradora is. I usually find loli-loving males to be the Toradora fans. Bishies are popular for certain among them. And actually, they like hot females. A LOT.

Yaoi/bishouen outsells almost anything over here in my state amongst females. And it's not younger females I see buying it. It's mid 20s females, dressed up very classy/office style ducking in, slyly getting it from the shelf, paying and escaping post-haste. Wish they were into seinen stuff - I don't know any that are. You know what title is the most bought title by females in my state at the bigger of the two manga stores? Gantz. I kid you not - the females like it apparently. Black Butler is also a seller.

Most of those don't here. C.C. from Code Geass is an eternal fan favourite along with Final Fantasy 7/10/13 characters. Along with the glut of Naruto, Pokemon, One Piece and Bleach cosplayers *sigh*. There really isn't much variety there. And the judges don't seem to favour bravery - unless the costume had a lot of effort put into it.

Australian women are more active, aggressive and demanding than most other countries. Can tell you cute shows that were popular 10 years ago like Fruits Basket are turn offs for the current generation. Or if they are fans of that stuff, I don't meet them or see them - they could be the reclusive ones. Seriously, most of the titles you mention - I bet 99% of them wouldn't have a clue what they are.


You still going to dare her to read some h-material out loud? :P

That explains a lot.

Sounds like her sanity's intact so that's a good start. Doubt she missed much from Evangelion. Lain she definitely would have and should give another lookover.

It's more a matter of demographic than timeslot. People who will eat instant noodles for two weeks to afford a figure aren't exactly the target audience of most advertisers. Hence, a show like Monster is going to be more appealing.

Monster aired at 12:40 but a lot of Noitamina shows did too... and if you pay close attention, you may notice that Noitamina shows are frequently 23 minutes rather than the 24 of most late night shows. More ad time. Monster does admittedly use 24 minute episodes, but to me the difference suggests a difference in the importance of advertising to a project.

I can see how you might see my girlfriend's specific tastes in cute surprising, but are you implying you don't know many female anime fans who like cute stuff? Because most of the "90s shoujo fans" I know (which is most of the female anime fans I know who are older than me) love cute stuff, along with their bishounen and sappy romances (gay or straight). They may not necessarily have the sensibilities of the modern moe fan, but if I show them Toradora they'll usually love it.

Moving to younger fans, the fujoshi crowd is definitely there but I've also noticed a lot more female fans that are into seinen stuff. I do convention photography, and I've seen an awful lot of girls cosplay characters from Haruhi, Higurashi, Shana, Toradora, Madoka, Angel Beats, K-On!, Macross Frontier, and maybe Fate/Stay Night, Clannad, and Working. That may be a bit of selection bias on my part though, since the vast majority of the cosplay photography I do is cute girls cosplaying shows I know.

My girlfriend is a bit unusual in that she's not really an action fan at all - most female fans I know watch shows with at least a bit of action. On the other hand, she's really into drama, romance, and seifuku - most of which I gathered because she was cosplaying Chihiro Shindou from EF: A Tale of Memories the first time we met. Also, girls likes girls who are "s". She's actually watched some ecchi/harem stuff that borders on softcore because she likes the uniforms or a particularly "s" girl. I've met other girls who watch and love seinen romance such as Key shows, EF, Sola, True Tears, etc, alongside shoujo romances, but she's one of only two girls I know who will look to ecchi shows for her fix... and the other just seems to dig perverted stuff in general.

Forgot to mention, Boku wa Tomodachi is another one she wanted to watch in fall but didn't get time for. Also, if I had to pick what older series she likes, I'd said Cardcaptor Sakura and Utena. Both of which she saw around age ten. Actually, she also saw Evangelion and Lain around age ten with her older siblings (eight and ten years older, respectively) but doesn't remember much of them beyond "robots, penguins, and teddy bear pajamas". I'm not quite sure what to say about that.

I wouldn't have thought Monster to be showing in better time slots though. TV revenue means little unless you're in the kids or dinner slots, which Toei and Bandai benefit big time from.

Hmm, interesting list. Lot of drama and cuteness. Very anti what the females around my way watch. There seems to be three predominant types in my parts - fujioshi, shounen junkies and those who like their female characters but in a non-yuri way.

Monster has always struck me as a broadcast revenue rather than DVD revenue centric show – the one place I’ve heard it’s a hit in the west is French cable TV. Actually, I’d say that the relative strength of broadcast revenue and DVD /Bluray revenue explains a lot about anime in recent years, as the way I understand it the former has been weakening considerable since around 2007.

(Know what else has aired on French cable? Kurenai. Which as you know isn’t even licensed in English markets.)

I met my girlfriend through doing cosplay photos at conventions so I our tastes might be a little more otaku than those of most couples that watch anime. I’ll start with the stuff we watched together after it aired:

Moon Phase
Genshiken
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Bungaku Shoujo (the movie, I think we saw the OVAs separately)
Bakemonogatari (Bluray cut)
various episodes of Azumanga Diaoh and Sketchbook.

One of the major reasons I still haven’t gotten around to Kara no Kyoukai is that she wants to see it and isn’t available most weekends. That’s probably my top priority for Christmas break, then. She also expressed interest in attending events for Serial Experiments Lain, Toradora, and Haruhi (all of which she has seen) but was too busy to attend.

And as far the stuff we've watched as it airs:

Fall 2010:
Kuragahime
Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru

Winter 2011
Madoka Magica
Wandering Son

Spring 2011:
Steins;Gate
AnoHana
Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
Moshidora
A Channel (stalled)

Summer 2011:
Steins;Gate (carryover)
Mawaru Penguin Drum
Ikoku Meiro no Croisee
BakaTest II
Yuruyuri (stalled, then she watched the last few episodes without me)

Fall 2011:
Mawaru Penguin Drum (carryover)
Mashiro-iro Symphony

We were going to watch Fate/Zero together but that kind of fell through because she’s been super busy and there’s limits on how long I’m willing to wait before watching new F/Z episodes.