What Are You Watching?

[The Shadow Gentleman]

The Second Raid is glorious.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The Second Raid is glorious.

Told you!

I'm glad to see you're enjoying it. The first season, which I honestly like, was still the weakest part of the series, but it is better in retrospect when you go back and understand later parts of the story that it was setting up for (and I mean stuff in the later novels, not TSR). That said, it had its problems with pacing and the like, and the fact that it was done by Gonzo hurt its overall quality as well.

But TSR pulls out all the stops, and really ratchets things up to a new level in every regard, from the writing (it helped that the original author was involved in the script), to the characterization, to the fucking kick-ass action scenes. The pacing was also perfect.

Also, just out of curiosity, did you already watch Fumoffu, or did you skip it and plan to watch it later?

[Painted Outlaw]

Been watching through SDF-1 Macross recently, the show really surprised me with how good it's been so far.

[The Shadow Gentleman]

Also, just out of curiosity, did you already watch Fumoffu, or did you skip it and plan to watch it later?

I skipped for now. I'll probably watch it after I watch some other things on my list.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Alright, I finally finished re-watching FMP season 1, but I'll just need a couple of days to put together my portion of the entry for it, and then I can collaborate with Foggle on how we can organize our article from that point.

On that note, I assume Fumoffu is next on our list. Is that correct, Foggle?

[Foggle]

Article 2 will be the KyoAni seasons. Fumoffu first, then TSR.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Article 2 will be the KyoAni seasons. Fumoffu first, then TSR.

Sounds good, although rather than doing them both in one article, I think that it might be better for us to do a short article for Fumoffu, and then a separate article for TSR, since I think that TSR is significant enough to deserve it's own individual entry.

[gunswordfist]

Ok, so I'm on episode 1 of the Chimera Ant arc and so far I noticed that I've seen characters in HXH with similar powers to these YYH characters;

Kurama (well if chains count lol)
Toguro (2x)
Shizuku (sp? I'm refering to the self cloning power)
Yo yo kid (forgot his name)
Sensui
Hiei
Genkai
Karasu (I always loved his Gambit-like powers)

Other random thoughts:

Gon really shocked me in the last Greed Island fight)

I think Kite reminds me of Roberto from Monster just because of his nose.

I like how the villains constantly go up against the heroes while knowing little to nothing about their powers. Togashi is excellent at that. The Bomber and his friends literally thought they were going after 3 helpless kids. This kind of reminds me how Karasu in YYH that Kurama would be helpless against him. He had no clue about his hidden power.

I love how many games are in GI. Dodgeball being my favorite one.

Ugh, lets see if I can give a damn about this Chimera Ant queen. I was so invested in hearing about Ging that her appearances were just annoying distractions to me.

Please no more little hints about this season, EK. I actually skipped the OP and will continue to do so to go in blind.

Ok, off to episode 2 or 3 of this arc.

[Spark Of Spirit]

You probably won't care too much about the Chimera Queen. That's all I'll say about that. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Kurama (well if chains count lol)
Toguro (2x)
Shizuku (sp? I'm refering to the self cloning power)
Yo yo kid (forgot his name)
Sensui
Hiei
Genkai
Karasu (I always loved his Gambit-like powers)

It's like I've always said. Nen is basically like a more intricately detailed version of territories from YYH.

Gon really shocked me in the last Greed Island fight

Is it in that he came up with a good strategy, or that he was willing to sacrifice his own arm just to get a hit in on Genthru?

I like how the villains constantly go up against the heroes while knowing little to nothing about their powers. Togashi is excellent at that. The Bomber and his friends literally thought they were going after 3 helpless kids. This kind of reminds me how Karasu in YYH that Kurama would be helpless against him. He had no clue about his hidden power.

Well, the brilliant thing to me is that it goes both ways. There are also many instances in the series where the heroes are completely clueless about the powers of the villains, so a lot of the early stages of these fights, as you've already noticed, deals with opponents trying to outwit each other into revealing their main abilities, rather than to try and overpower one another.

I love how many games are in GI. Dodgeball being my favorite one.

The dodgeball part was easily the best part of that whole arc, IMO. You could tell that Togashi was having a ton of fun with writing it, and that translated pretty well to me, as I had fun with it as well.

Ugh, lets see if I can give a damn about this Chimera Ant queen. I was so invested in hearing about Ging that her appearances were just annoying distractions to me.

Well, that's just Togashi's usual nature of trolling you. Every time he gets you interested and completely invested in learning about a significant revelation, he immediately throws in some new dilemma by some ass-hole to drive the main characters' attention (and consequently the viewers') away from it. It's both frustrating and hilarious at the same time, especially if you catch on to the fact that he's doing it in the first place.

[gunswordfist]

Yeah, witty, the fights are. Togashi writes them smarter than pretty much everyone else.

The dodgeball game is also my favorite part of the arc.

And Gon willing to sacrifice his arm was what surprised me.

Oh and speaking of territories, all that talk about taboo had to be a nod to them.

[gunswordfist]

I forgot to mention this: I liked Greed Island's nod to Dragonball when they said the winner may have a dragon be summoned that'll grant them 3 wishes. At the end, I figured out that that's what the 3 cards are supposed to be like.

The Chimera Ant arc really is dark with episodes like Evil And Terrible. I am not too shocked by the character deaths so far but the last episode I saw made me sick from what happened to a character and the atmosphere feels like how FMA did when they made it seem like anyone just about could die but HXH feels like it could actually go that far.

I knew Gon was going to say scissors with how long he took but  at the power he used.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The Chimera Ant arc really is dark with episodes like Evil And Terrible. I am not too shocked by the character deaths so far but the last episode I saw made me sick from what happened to a character and the atmosphere feels like how FMA did when they made it seem like anyone just about could die but HXH feels like it could actually go that far.

Spoiler

Do you mean Ponzu (girl who got shot to death and then eaten), Pokkle (Guy who got his brain probed and then was butchered alive), or a certain other character who I won't name yet in case you haven't gotten that far in the story? Either way, I hated all of those scenes.

[close]

I should make it clear that I don't mind characters being killed of at all. I do however hate it when it is clearly just done for shock value, and isn't handled well, which is my problem with the first 3rd of the Chimera Ant arc in HXH. Togashi just exploits his gore fetish (and he has admitted that he enjoys gore and violence), and doesn't give any of these characters proper send-offs at all. I mean, even if you're going for shock value, the death scenes can still be handled better (Joss Whedon does it all the time ).

[Spark Of Spirit]

The Chimera Ant arc really is dark with episodes like Evil And Terrible. I am not too shocked by the character deaths so far but the last episode I saw made me sick from what happened to a character and the atmosphere feels like how FMA did when they made it seem like anyone just about could die but HXH feels like it could actually go that far.

Spoiler

Do you mean Ponzu (girl who got shot to death and then eaten), Pokkle (Guy who got his brain probed and then was butchered alive), or a certain other character who I won't name yet in case you haven't gotten that far in the story? Either way, I hated all of those scenes.

[close]

I should make it clear that I don't mind characters being killed of at all. I do however hate it when it is clearly just done for shock value, and isn't handled well, which is my problem with the first 3rd of the Chimera Ant arc in HXH. Togashi just exploits his gore fetish (and he has admitted that he enjoys gore and violence), and doesn't give any of these characters proper send-offs at all. I mean, even if you're going for shock value, the death scenes can still be handled better (Joss Whedon does it all the time ).

The death scenes in Chimera Ant aren't handled very well at all, in my opinion, aside from certain ones later on. The only one I think was handled really well were the last ones, honestly. Sure, it ratchets up the tension, but they could have been done in much better ways than random mass slaughter.

If it wasn't for his gore fetish, Chimera Ant could have really been something special. He just needed some restraint that he clearly didn't have.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I'd still say that the Chimera Ant arc is special. It's just that some of it is special in a really fuck-awful way, while the rest of it is special in an awesome way. Either way, there is some kind of "special" feeling to this whole arc in how all-over the place it is.