Since iron leaguer, I finally had time to watch another anime. I have lots more anime on my 무anime too-many-to-watch list including other sports anime. i also have the same thing with j-dramas, american dramas, music. When I Was watching iron leaguer, I was watching love shuffle at the same time. This time I was watching suzuki sensei and battle athletes victory and let me say anime 2, drama 0 by a landslide (p.s. the manga drawing in suzuki sensei is horrendous ! I don’t even read manga but i can tell it’s shit ) . I’ll write more about suzuki-sensei when i finish which may be next year or this year. I’ve gotten to episode 15 of battle athletes victory daiundoukai. That Episode was amazing… it was shocking and there so much emotion, thoughts and events… I was trying to figure out what’s going inside this one character’s head because the situation is complicated with all the information revealed in the episode. I still am unsure of what thought process the character had and everything. Maybe I’ll find out later in the show or somebody online will have some insight. of course I had to re-watch the scenes for that episode. There’s this amazing song in the episode (aw man it’s differnt. the song in the episode had no vocals i like that better… i don’t see another version in the ost!!! uggggggggh), there was also another great song (I can’t find it in the ost sob sob 😦 it’s a great song ) in that same episode with a violin which I haven’t found in the ost yet. it was so well-done with the emotions. for me, especially in the new anime the “emotional” stuff feels very contrived especially with the crappy drawing style where they care more about being moe or cute or pretty than actually drawing characters with depth and personality (I just think it limits the individuality of the characters when they start obessessing making them cute and moe. it reminds me korean plastic surgery, everyone looks the f’in same. i wouldn’t say they’re pretty. some of them look like aliens. others just look the same and i just think they’re complete idiots. INDIVIDUALITY IS GREAT). i found the scenes in the episode touching…. for fruits basket it always felt like i had to force myself to feel empathetic or get into it and it ‘s always a sob story that seemed to be only made to make people sob? So basically fruits basket suck with the exception a couple episodes. don’t get me started on clannad or kanon which are shit. I really am glad to have seen an anime episode that is so genuine and real. it’s goosebumps level!!! obviously episode 15 couldn’t have been episode 15 without episodes 1-14. that’s what I call quality!!! kiss my ass 13 episode anime that suck (there are ones that are good but lots of ’em just SUCK)
So first I must comment on the OST and sound effects and voice acting.
The OST is good and I liked it. truth be told it is hard to reel viewers into a sci-fi /future anime without good bgm… It really sets the atmosphere since the anime is set in the future and has its own world going on that’s different from ours. That’s what I love about anime… it’s well-done and fun to watch that I was absorbed and in that world when I was watching it. I almost feel guilty like I’m a loser for ignoring the real world since i’m watching this anime instead of xyz in the real world lol. but at the same time the people who made it achieved an amazing feat of luring in viewers into the “anime” world they created (not all anime achieve this. when they don’t my reaction this shit is lame or this shit is boring). the only way they’re going to make the viewers “believe” it is to WORK THEIR ASSES off and have passion. I almost feel like it’s a slap in the face to the creators for me to not watch this great piece of work. I really have to see if there’s any interviews or anything like that online. similar to iron leaguer with my piqued interest. Overall, I would say that rather than feeling guilty I feel happy that I had the opportunity to see a GOOD ANIMe and in japanese (I did work hard/spend a lot of enjoyable time in japanese) that is so enjoyable because there’s a lot of shitty anime out there. Without good OST there’s no way you can take a show seriously. there’s no way you’ll get into it, in other words “believe it” . The songs matched and set the world and made me believe it and become engaged. A couple of the BGM Songs i really liked so when they repeated it I was glad to hear it. I mentioned before with the songs on tepisode 15… those 2 particular songs as far as I remember came up for the first time in episode 15 and i haven’t seen the rest so i don’t know if they’ll be used again but that particular song that i linked is called slum spiritual song which was specifically made for Jessie. It seems like they put in a lot of effort into the OST like not recycling songs like crazy or having only a a very small selection of bgm songs.
I like all the voice actors. akari’s voice is sorta annoying but whatevers. I really like some of the casting like the russian girl and jessie and chris. anna’s voice was eh. there were a bunch of “crying acting” that I thought was AMAZING> usually in dramas and in anime it gets melodramatic or awkward or dragged-out. but here I felt the emotions the characters were going through. I believed it. It was sincere without a doubt….. the reasons behind the crying scenes themselves were “real” and the voice actresses pulled through. Of course i’m not referring to akari here….
STORY
So the x-factor aka the anime factor is one of the reasons why sports anime are so good. it’ll be set in the future or whatever but for whatever reason they always surprise me. with real-life sports or even sports dramas you prettty much know all the boundaries and possibilities of the plot/game developments (they can stilll have their twists and be shocking by all means) but with anime there is none because it’s the future or it’s robots… you really don’t know x is possible until you see it unfolding on the show.there seems to a bunch of sports anime that aren’t fansubbed or not fansubbed completely or not licensed that look REALLY good… and i have access to it now since the japanese barrier is not there anymore lol plus i got my chiebukuro. anime has an upper-hand or at least more to work with compared to other mediums when it comes to stuff that’s sci-fi, set in the future, involves robots, involves sports etc etc in my opinion. I strongly felt that with this anime and Iron Leaguer.
I also really want to check out the ova because i enjoyed the series so much (what i’ve seen of it thus far). it came out before the series so it’s not like iron leaguer where it came out after the show … so hopefully it won’t be completely disappointing. i know i shouldn’t expect too much from 6 episodes. 26 episodes… wow you can get A LOT accomplished… I must say it’s a goood number. I’m on episode 15 and man a lot of shit happened! i can tell there’s a reason they’ve stuck with this number since a long time ago. I have no idea why they make 13 episode anime now a days. it’s like they’re not even trying or want to screw themselves over. one of the things that compels me to say that is the midou tomoe thing. so the first 10 times they mentioned her i was like i don’t get what’s so special about her with the gasping and the reactions etc. then the 11th time etc i find out more about her amazing accomplishments and other info and I finally realize that wow she IS AMAZINg… people are reacting like THAT for a reason. I didn’t really get it till later on. I don’t know if that was the creators’ intent or if it’s the way I perceived it as a “slow” or “unreceptive” viewer . At some point maybe episode 10 or 11 it got so interesting i watched 5 eps in one a day. if i had time right now i would go and finish the rest in one day or something! it’s a lot of fun.
OH AND LIKE I SAID with iron leaguer this gets EXCITING AND INTENSE. I hate how some people think sports anime are boring and blahblah just because they saw a couple shitty ones made after 2000 + something. maybe there are good sports anime made after 2000+ I wouldn’t know myself… i just know it’ll be a long time till i watch any of those lol since i have a long ass anime list and i’m watching in the order of what i think will be the most fun, exhilarating, and worth watching. like i said before there’s a lot that aren’t fansubbed or available or whatever and i’m sure there’s gems among there. it’s one of the huge reasons i hate the OLD ANIME VS NEW ANIME ARGUMENT.
COMEDY – it’s on the money. It’s funny. it’s right up my alley. they have a great sense of humor and the characters’ awesomeness propel the comedy higher. Unlike iron leaguer comedy is a more major component of this show and so we got to see serious characters react with the goofy anime reaction face at one point or another. that was priceless. similar to iron leaguer, it has yuri which is the yaoi counterpart lol. I would say shoujo-ai more than yuri because the show can be watched by kids… there’s nothing really inappropriate in this show.
CHARACTERS
So what I absolutely despise with 1-shtik one night stand episodes with anime and drama is that it feels contrived and boring and fake (they’re usually the filler episodes)…. and I have to force myself to be sympathetic to try to connect. You know those episodes where it focuses around 1 character whether it’s a side-character or some random “guest” character that you’ll probably only see in that episode and there’s a message or moral to the story but it feels shallow and lazy ESPECIALLY when it’s NAMIDA CHOUDAI ie sob story. somebody bawling or they expect the viewer to bawl at this cheap ass set-up. the INTENT IS REALLY OBVIOUS. The set-up is really simple and obvious and I sorta feel offended as a viewer. with this show when they do stuff with characters ie episode 15 or the episode with ayla it’s real. they don’t ignore the characters and then focus on them for 1 whole ep and then expect you to be moved like certain other animes (that’s what I mean the cheapness…. my inability to connect. and by doing that it just shows how lazy they are). they give each one exposure here and there in a bunch of episodes and then give a majority of a later episode to a specific character. it seems well-planned out that they’re not completely ignoring x y characters and then focus almost the whole episode on x character and expect me to care.
ANIMATION
I love 90s animation. I love the cell animation. I love seeing all the different things they devised to show intensity, speed, a certain emotion, etc etc. there’s a lot of things that have to be portrayed on the show animation-wise especially since it’s set in the future and they have sports. i think they pulled it off. like I said before I “believed” it. in general I really dislike how the animation nowadays seem “watered-out”/down? sterile? … it’s because it’s not cell. I was reading about it in japanese as to why does it look so cheap, not as detailed, and no effort and all that now all days. some anime remind me of eroge and moe shit lol. by all means I like the suzumiya haruhi animation and other shows that are from the 2000s. there’s lots of things they do really well now-a-days wth the technology but there are things you cannot do without cells (especially the “feel” with the colors and depth? in japanese they called it 薄い I THINK). i’m not saying they should bring it back or anything like that. I juts really like the color scheme/feel that occurs with the cell animation. http://cosmoneapolitan.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-92.html
http://repsoku.net/articles/23499.html
(there’s more links but this is all i got now ) that was another reason I really enjoyed watching thsi show. I just love 90s animation.
One thing that bothered me with the animation was there were times it’s not as well animated ie when they showed the girls walking in their uniforms and their legs were like 2 thick blocks and the skirts were mad short and we didn’t see underwear lol (it’s not like i want them to draw underwear… it was just that short… the animation just looked awkward )… there were scenes that weren’t as well-animated as the other scenes… but you know they gotta do something to save the budget for the more important scenes. the お約束の作画崩壊 is one of those things that we expect from 90s animation lol… it’s interesting imo and sorta don’t mind because it is funny and so real but if it’s too much it’s bad lol… ideally you don’t want any.
I love the character designs too. i love the differnt uniforms, chris’s design especially (the eye color and hair color! ) and i liked her uniform that was a short dress or short skirt) you can’t have good characters without character design period. you can’t have good anime without a good ost. nuh-uh. p.s. chris’s hairstyle is god-awful in the ova lol.
AS FAR AS THE MAIN TOPIC IS CONCERNED ABOUT THE JAPANESE. what i did this time was different from iron leaguer since my korean did improve and my japanese improved since then.
since it’s from the 90s so the resolution is 4 by 3. so i made the kmplayer 16:9 and then loaded the subs vertically on the side so it doesn’t cover up any animation. I left the subs in korean. I didn’t translate it to japanese. when i was watching it most of the time I relied on my ears and listen for the japanese. sometimes i read the korean (quickly) and listened to the japanese. i use the korean to note down lines that i’m unsure or have no idea what my ears heard so i can go back and have an easy time at only looking at the parts where i want to look into. it’s a lot easier then pausing, moving the mouse, writing g down the minute: second.
I wanted to share the lines i got from the for ep 1-15 in case anyone else wants to learn japanese from this anime. I asked on chiebukuro a lot since there were lines i could not catch or i was unsure of and wanted to confirm that i’m right. some lines i just liked so i jotted them down (so it’s not like i wasn’t able to catch allll these lines that are in the .txt but i must say some of them are damn hard to catch or i didn’t know the word so there’s no way i could’ve figured it out – by all means there are times where i figure it out even though i don’t know the word. generally, probability of me figuring out what i’m hearing goes down if i don’t know the word vs. if i know the word) . i added a bunch of those words and lines to my anki.
JAPANESE SUBTITLES JAPANESE TRANSCRIPT ANIME BATTLE ATHLETES VICOTRY DAIUNDOUKAI LEARN JAPANESE FROM ANIME
anime is a great source for learning japanese. like i said with iron leaguer it’s really feasible to remember stuff SYLABBLE PER SYLLABLE (which is reallllllly good and helpful for really remembering/feeling/learning the language) because i’m invested and engaged with the show and the line might be dramatic or significant in some way.. the seiyuus do a great job. that’s definitely another reason. happy learning! ❤
my only warning is that some episodes have the timing to include the OPENING but most of them are the timing WITHOUT THE OPENING. you gotta do 1:30 + _- dpeneding on your video file.
– also they come with japanese explanations and definitions. some of the explanations i didn’t ask for but the person included in their chiebukuro answer anyway so i just pasted the whole thing. if you need it read it, if you don’t, don’t.
UPDATE: ** .txt. file THE LINES FROM all 26 EPISODEs = NOTE THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERLY LINES SO DO NOT READ THE LINES TILL YOU SEE THE EPISODE UNLESS YOU DON’T MIND GETTING SPOILED..
the .txt file works. the mediafire preview sucks balls! it includes all the lines i couldn’t catch so if there’s lines that are not here that you can’t catch then it’s probably easy to catch lol and you should try listening again or ask on chiebukuro like me and piss off japnaese people lolz.
the episode previews were taken from a blog that somebodoy runs where they only wrote down the lines from the episode previews! thank god somebody did it lol some of it is mad hard to catch.
here’s the gifs and a couple screenshots i took.
p.s. wats up with thse random people liking and following me. those peple that obviously are doing hat in the hopes that i go to their blog and follow the mback.. it sure as hell doesn’t look like they’d be interested in any of my entries and i sure as hell am not interested in their blog…. it’s to get my attention?? so i follow ’em? i don’t get it. no.. get lost.
追追伸 I will update once I finish the show with more lines and thoughts!!
there’s more in the .rar since tumblr sucks lol.
– I don’t really agree necessarily with the listen/watch episode twice for the sake of improving your japanese comprehension. if the show or episode is so good that it’s just as fun it not more fun to watch it again, i don’t mind but if it’s not at that level i’m not doing that! even so just because you watch it a 100 times doesn’t mean you’ll understand and catch everything that came out of the characters’/people’s mouths (watching it multiple times will improve your comprehension of course but not to 100% depending on the media)…. I know that i will never (not never but a whole lot later) be able to catch what they say with some of the lines no matter how many times i listen to it or think about the context or the characters etc…. hence i ask on chiebukuro to save myself time from listening to something 15 times and still not being able to catch it. i recognize the fact that my ears aren’t as japanese as a japanese person’s lol… the words and the sounds sorta elude me sometimes. some days i have a bad day. some days i have a good day. sometimes it doesn’t matter what day it is, i just can’t catch it. you’ll notice some of the stuff i have in my .txt isn’t realy difficult or uncommon japanese necessarily but i just couldn’t catch it (of course I also have lines that i wrote down myself just because I liked the line) a tip to people learning from anime. get the high quality file with the high quality audio. that is a factor to even to natives
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초롱이 ★ ごきげんよう 