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 Puella Magi Madoka Magica is an original 12 episode anime that aired between January and April of 2011. It remains Shaft's only original anime in the past 10 years and the only anime where Gen Urobuchi has both served as script supervisor and writer for every episode. Since airing it has received massive amounts of critical acclaim, won many awards, and has become one of the best selling original anime ever made. It got a lot of love on this forum both while it was airing and for a long while afterward. This new thread is being made because the old one has grown rather unwieldy and it needed an updated OP anyway to account for developments since the series has finished airing (spin-offs, tie-ins, movies, etc.). Story Madoka Kaname is a 14 year old middle school student with a kind, honest personality but no particular talents to speak of. One day when she's out at the mall with a friend, she encounters Kyubey, a messenger of magic, and Mami Tomoe, a magical girl who is one year Madoka's senior at school. Kyubey offers to fulfill any one wish that Madoka has. In exchange, Madoka must become a magical girl and exterminate Witches, monsters who drive people to suicide. Characters  Madoka Kaname (VA: Aoi Yuuki in Japanese, Christine Cabanos in English): A good-natured eighth grader who thinks of her friends before herself. She lives with a loving family, her two parents and her younger brother. As a magical girl, her weapon is a bow that shoots arrows made of energy.  Homura Akemi (VA: Chiwa Saito in Japanese, Christina Vee in English): A student who transfers into Madoka's class. Madoka feels like the two of them have met somewhere before. She prefers to operate alone. Her fighting style and weaponry are not initially identified.  Sayaka Miki (VA: Eri Kitamura in Japanese, Sarah Williams in English): Madoka's friend and classmate. An energetic girl with a sense of humor. She has a crush on a boy named Kyosuke Kamijou, who is currently in the hospital after suffering an accident that has left him crippled. As a magical girl, she uses a sword.  Mami Tomoe (VA: Kaori Mizuhashi in Japanese, Carrie Keranen in English): An upperclassman to Madoka and Sayaka. She is an altruistic girl who takes her responsibility as a magical girl very seriously. Mami attempts to get Madoka and Sayaka to form contracts with Kyubey in order to form a team of magical girls. Her primary method of using magic is to form ribbons with which she can bind enemies, however as this is generally ineffective for killing Witches and their Familiars she has learned how to create other objects that she can attack with.  Kyouko Sakura (VA: Ai Nonaka in Japanese, Lauren Landa in English): A selfish magical girl who shows up later in the series. In stark contrast to Mami's altruism, Kyouko is a hedonist who is determined to use magic only for her own benefit. Like Homura, Kyouko prefers to operate alone. Her weapon of choice is a spear.  Kyubey (VA: Emiri Katou in Japanese, Cassandra Lee in English): A cat-like animal that seeks out young girls with the potential to become magical girls. He offers one wish in exchange for becoming a magical girl. He'll also offer support and advice for magical girls if they desire it, although he has no fighting ability of his own. Staff Director: Akiyuki Shinbo (lots of stuff) Story Supervisor, Screenplay (all episodes): Gen Urobuchi (Fate/Zero, Saya no Uta) Character Designs: Ume Aoki (Hidamari Sketch manga) Music: Yuki Kajiura (Kara no Kyoukai, Fate/Zero) Monster Design and Witch Barrier/World Design: Gekidan Inu Curry (Usually they work on music videos or anime openings. Their work on this show is utterly fantastic and adds a lot of atmosphere that wouldn't have been there otherwise.) Animation Production: Shaft Buying and Streaming Options Rightstuf has the Bluray and DVDs available on their website, but the price is quite high. Owning the entire series costs 90 dollars for the DVDs, 120 dollars for the Blurays, and 225 dollars for the special editions that include the DVD, Bluray, soundtrack CDs, and other bonuses. The physical release also includes an English dub, but the English voice actors don't do a particularly good job. If you don't feel like paying that much, the show is available for streaming on Daisuki, Crunchyroll, and Hulu. Why You Should Watch This Show Whether it be Shinbo's excellent directing skills, Urobuchi's well written and fantastically paced screenplay, Kajiura's stirring soundtrack, Aoi Yuuki and Chiwa Saito's nearly perfect performances as Madoka and Homura, or Gekidan Inu Curry's incredibly unique and disturbing monster designs, nearly every element of this anime was pulled off in an excellent manner (the non-key animation could've been better though). Madoka Magica takes a genre known for being dominated by ultra long enemy of the week shows aimed at young girls and rather creepy shows aimed at older otaku, managing to avoid the baggage associated with both as it tells a short, very tightly-paced story about the power of hope against absolute despair while not breaking up the pace to peddle merchandise or sexualizing its characters. Once the plot takes off it is a roller coaster ride right up through the ending, with every episode developing the characters, expanding the story, and raising the stakes without a single superfluous scene in the entire series. When the show was airing I had never seen anything before where I had waited with such bated breath for each upcoming episode, and I have not seen anything that has garnered that reaction from me since. Madoka Magica is one of my favorite anime and it's certainly my favorite original TV anime, and it is totally worth checking out if you have not seen it. Spin-Offs, Movies, And Other Material Since airing, Madoka Magica has generated a host of side material, with a decent amount of it actually worth checking out.   Films In 2012, the series was compiled into two films. The first film, titled “The Beginning Story”, compiles the first eight episodes of the series. The second film, titled “The Eternal Story”, compiles episodes 9 to 12. The first film edits out or condenses a few scenes while the second film does not remove any scenes or replaces a scene with an equivalent one (the final scene of episode 9 is the most noticeable). Both films feature completely rerecorded dialogue, which for the most part is an improvement on an already excellent performance. Several scene backgrounds were changed or redrawn, and a good deal of the animation was cleaned up. Kyubey is actually somewhat consistently on model now! There are also new transformation sequences for the main cast that replace the ones present in the show (the ones for Homura and Kyouko in episodes 9 and 11 in particular are much better now). Yuki Kajiura also composed a few dozen new tracks for the films, most notably all of the Witches now have their own unique theme. They're worth checking out if you've already seen the series but I wouldn't call them a replacement for the show, more of a side-grade. There's a few scenes from the first eight episodes that got cut that shouldn't have been, and I don't like some of the music changes in the second film (Nux Walpurgis and Sis Puella Magica not being used in the content for the final two episodes didn't make a lick of sense). The films were released in July 2013 on home media and can be bought from rightstuf. There is a third film titled “The Rebellion Story” coming out later this year. No one knows quite what it's about, as the promotional videos for it have been deliberately vague. All that's known about it is that it will focus on Homura. Personally I'm excited at the idea of more Madoka Magica, but I'm also a bit apprehensive as the series feels very complete already without the need for a major anime production. The Japanese release is dated for October 26th. Like the first two films, Aniplex is planning on a limited release of the film in theaters internationally.  Drama CDs There are currently four drama CDs that can be found with an English translation available for Madoka Magica. Each of them are about half an hour long. Memories of You: The events of the first part of episode 10 from Homura's perspective extended to fill 30 minutes. It also gives a real origin to the black cat in the OP that was originally inserted in there as a joke by the animators. Sunny Day Life: What if Madoka Magica were actually a slice of life show in the vein of Hidamari Sketch? It's nice fluff that doesn't overstay its welcome and makes fun of the characters a little. The music composer for Hidamari Sketch contributed some new tracks just for this drama CD. Farewell Story: A prequel of sorts that fleshes Kyouko's backstory a bit more. It's good enough on its own merits, but A Different Story and the PSP game tell the same story better so this has been rendered a bit redundant. Summer Magical Girl Training Camp: More “what if this were a slice of life show” antics. This one isn't as good as Sunny Day Life was, there are only a couple of jokes in here that got a chuckle out of me. It's still worth checking out if you like that sort of thing though.  Manga Adaptation Illustrated by Hanokage, who is a big fan of the series and has done some fanart for it outside of official work. The manga version of the series used the original scripts but didn't make the minor changes that were made between finalizing the scripts and animation (some changes were made during animation to accommodate the art style) and voice recording (Urobuchi sat in on recording sessions and altered some lines that didn't sound quite right when spoken). It also follows the original character designs by Ume Aoki more closely than the anime does. It's interesting to read if you want to see a different spin on the series, but IMO the panel layouts aren't very good and the story feels too fast paced in a manga format. Yen Press sells an official release in English, so buy those if you're interested.  Kazumi Magica This is bad. Avoid it. Most things that Madoka Magica does right, Kazumi Magica gets horribly wrong. Available in English from Yen Press, don't buy it.  Oriko Magica A side story of sorts featuring the original characters, but mostly focusing on two plots. One involves Kyouko reluctantly taking care of a young girl who has been orphaned by a Witch, the other involves two magical girls who are trying to prevent a catastrophe and set about doing so by murdering other magical girls. The story is decent enough, but the art style can be rather strange and off putting. Available in English from Yen Press.  The Different Story Another manga by Hanokage following the character designs used in the anime this time. This is a prequel to the show that focuses on Mami and Kyouko's relationship, then explores some of the events of the series with a heavy focus on Mami and Kyouko. Of all of the spin-offs and side materials, this one would be the one I recommend above all others. It is really quite good and gives Mami and Kyouko a good deal of additional development as well as doing some neat things with the other characters. Yen Press has recently licensed this manga and plans to begin releasing it in March 2014.  PSP Game A game for the PlayStation Portable based on the series. There are five “routes”, one focusing and giving additional development to each of the major characters. There is also an “Extra” route that you unlock after finishing the rest of the game that pokes fun at the characters and the events of the series. The Extra route and many of the important scenes from the game can be found translated on YouTube. There are a couple of different projects aiming to provide a translation of this game, but I don't have a lot of faith in any of them. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though, from what I've seen the game looks pretty good. Some Useful Links Official Japanese Website Official American Website Fan Wiki. Very useful as a resource of information about Madoka Magica, but watch out for sperging about dumb things. Original ADTRW thread jonjonaug fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 08:01
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This post is for recommendations of other shows in the magical girl genre. The point of this post is mostly so we can avoid the old tired "Madoka is a deconstruction of the magical girl genre!" (it isn't) thing from ever coming up again. I liked this show. What else should I watch? Before I go into recommendations for other good magical girl shows that I've enjoyed, I'd like to say a few words about the show so that the dumb “deconstruction” argument never pops up again. Madoka Magica is as good as it is partly because it is neither aimed at young children to get them to buy toys (stuff like Precure) or written and animated to appease the older creepy otaku crowd while peddling character merchandise (Vividred, Nanoha, etc). Madoka Magica had the benefit of the producers of the show telling the production team that they should just pretend that merchandising and the like did not exist. While Aniplex would later go on to make a killing from selling merchandise based on the show, there are a lot of things about it that couldn't have been possible in a show where pandering to a specific crowd or selling merchandise was a driving factor in production. Madoka Magica takes the conventions of the magical girl genre and uses them to tell a unique story that in the end is still faithful to what a viewer might expect from a magical girl show, it wasn't made to “tear down” genre tropes or anything of the sort. Madoka Magica also benefits from being a tightly plotted show that is only 12 episodes long in a genre dominated by 26+ episode shows that mostly consist of monster/problem of the week style affairs. There are not a lot of shows that are capable of taking the magical girl genre in an interesting direction free (or almost free) of market forces, but here are a few that you might like if you enjoyed Madoka Magica.  Princess Tutu A show made for young girls that can be enjoyed by all audiences that avoids the “gotta sell these toys to kids” trap that Precure falls into. Instead of following the formula of a child transforming using an easily marketable item to beat up weird looking monsters, Princess Tutu is a show about a young girl who triumphs against an oppressive narrative (and I mean that quite literally) through the power of ballet dancing. You can check for more info on the show and reviews from goons on the ADTRWiki.  Revolutionary Girl Utena I liked Utena quite a bit but I'm probably the worst person to recommend it to someone else because there are a lot of things about it that people like that I'm sort of indifferent toward. What I can say is that is a very well directed show with fun characters that revels in its use of shoujo cliches while at the same time subverting the hell out of them (an abusive boyfriend is actually fully portrayed as a bad thing, Akio's “dashing prince” image is very fun to watch but also so absurdly fake that by the end of the show he is the most hideous of silmeballs, etc.). You can check for more info on the show and reviews from goons on the ADTRWiki. Zorak sells the show better than I ever could, although I'd disagree with him on some things I've found from past experience that it is way more likely that someone going into the show for the first time would agree with him over me (and I would say “good” if that were the case, I think).  Cutie Honey The original transforming magical girl. I could  all day about Cutie Honey and how great it is, but I'll try and keep this brief. Cutie Honey is a franchise with multiple unconnected entries that have the following things (usually) in common. Cutie Honey is the story of a young woman named Honey Kisaragi who discovers that she is an android. After her father is killed by the villainous secret organization “Panther Claw”, she takes on the identity of Cutie Honey to avenge her father and eliminate Panther Claw. Things like the setting, the nature of Panther Claw, the designs of the villains, Honey's personality, and the other major characters vary between the different entries. At its core though, Cutie Honey is a show about a woman who transforms into various different identities each with their own abilities as she runs around murdering the hell out of monsters that are lifted straight out of tokusatsu (the earliest entries in the franchise are 70s tokusatsu parody) with a rapier.I've typed up a short description of entries in the franchise that are available in English on the ADTRWiki. jonjonaug fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Jul 13, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 08:01
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Here's the old thread OP, which was last updated in early 2012 and was left mostly untouched since before the series had started airing.quote:
jonjonaug fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 08:02
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Just gonna throw out there that Nanoha is like magical girl Gundam, which is pretty different, imo. Also, the kyu is for cute!
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Jul 8, 2013 08:11
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jonjonaug posted:
So why isn't Shaft basically printing money by having Gen Urobuchi write basically everything for them?
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Jul 8, 2013 08:52
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Safe and Secure! posted:So why isn't Shaft basically printing money by having Gen Urobuchi write basically everything for them? He's busy writing more fan-fiction of American cyberpunk B-movies. Here's some Meguca if you've already watched the show! (contains series spoilers, so only watch if you've seen it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKHXNzcOlPQ
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Jul 8, 2013 08:55
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For the third movie, it's still entirely written by Gen right? I'm just curious about the chances of an extension to a completed story being as good.
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Jul 8, 2013 15:14
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ChronoReverse posted:For the third movie, it's still entirely written by Gen right? I'm just curious about the chances of an extension to a completed story being as good. As far as we know, yes.
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Jul 8, 2013 15:20
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And just in time we get this confirmation that Gen is writting it; http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-07-08/3rd-madoka-magica-film-main-staff-cast-listed We also get confirmation about nearly every role in the production bar who made the coffee.
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Jul 8, 2013 16:45
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It's subtitled "Rebellion"? Now I'm really curious what Gen has in mind.
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Jul 8, 2013 17:09
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ChronoReverse posted:It's subtitled "Rebellion"? Now I'm really curious what Gen has in mind. The working title was "Kyubey Strikes Back".
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Jul 8, 2013 19:11
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Those recommendations are the most rightest, all of them are basically the best.
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Jul 8, 2013 19:58
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jonjonaug posted:or written and animated to appease the older creepy otaku crowd while peddling character merchandise (Vividred, Nanoha, etc) Excuse me, what?  Did you just read the Vivio manga and assume it was representative of the anime or something?Nanoha was written and animated to appease people who like kickass aerial fights with huge lasers everywhere 
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Jul 8, 2013 20:55
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Don't mind the OP part about Nanoha, that was written by Kyuubey. You can tell because even though what's stated may not be an actual lie, there's enough omitted and implied to make the statement shamefully misleading anyways.  Really hoping the third movie plays in the same locations as the first two movies.
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Jul 8, 2013 21:08
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Can we not poo poo up the first page with a discussion of a completely different magical girl series, please?
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Jul 8, 2013 21:14
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Since the SFdebris reviews were popular in the last thread I'm gonna go ahead and repost a link, and a couple others I liked. SFdebris - Somewhat satirical, fairly insightful. Primarily reviews TV sci-fi(Star trek, Doctor Who) JesuOtaku - Primary anime reviewer for TGWTG and occasional ANN contributor. Lathan Crowe - Extremely satirical, well-edited.
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Jul 8, 2013 22:10
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Redcrimson posted:Lathan Crowe - Extremely satirical, well-edited. Heh, this is pretty good. Watching Madoka Magica on VHS while sipping Vimto does seem the optimum way of experiencing it. I'm re-watching PMMM (for the 4th or 5th time) and it's made me think about my initial reactions to and impressions of the show. All I knew going in was that it's a magical girl series (duh) and that Kyubey is an evil abomination who I would come to despise. I remember being very suspicious of Mami - she seemed too nice and perfect, I was dead certain it was all a ruse to trick Madoka and Sayaka. I knew there was no way Homura wasn't going to be good in the end. Once Homura's powers became known, I subscribed to the theory that Homura was Madoka's mom.  Looking back, I'm not sure how I justified it, as there's no way it could make any sense. Probably because they both have purple eyes, so they must be the same person, right?I loved the ending and still love it, though my opinion on how happy an ending it is has changed. Also, I didn't come to hate Kyubey, even if bunny-cat is a dick.
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Jul 9, 2013 08:23
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Is the English dub for this show worth experiencing? I've watched it twice previously with subtitles and am musing another revisit. Will it totally ruin the pristine bubble i've built in my head for this show to hear Westerners lazily squeak out their lines?
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Jul 12, 2013 12:53
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I liked the dub just fine. Not the best dub in the world but ages better than dubs like Angel Beats!
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Jul 12, 2013 13:09
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You can notice that some of the cast members are really inexperienced, but it's nothing to flagellate yourself over. It works fine as a dub and never pretends to be anything beyond that. Unlike Baccano, which felt like an almost completely different show, in the best kind of way. 
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Jul 12, 2013 15:07
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Alice Liddell posted:Is the English dub for this show worth experiencing? I've watched it twice previously with subtitles and am musing another revisit. Will it totally ruin the pristine bubble i've built in my head for this show to hear Westerners lazily squeak out their lines? Sayaka goes to 4chan a bit too much, otherwise the cast is just wonderful. Some say passable, but I enjoyed the dub just fine.
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Jul 12, 2013 17:23
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The dub isn't quite the top quality that a show like Madoka should have, buts it's certainly not bad. My biggest problem was actually the dialogue, rather than the actual VAs. The characters just don't really speak the way I expect candy-colored teenage girls to speak, and its a little jarring. But that's more of a nitpick I guess. CrisVee does a good Homura, Cassandra Lee does a great Kyubey, everyone else is pretty much okay. I think Christine Cabanos as Madoka is probably the weak link in the dub. I feel like she's doing an impression of William Shatner doing a reading for Madoka.
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Jul 12, 2013 18:18
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I am literally incapable of watching a dub with Christina Vee in after finding her youtube videos of her doing lovely dubs of like the Haruhi OP and other poo poo.
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Jul 12, 2013 19:13
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Namtab posted:I am literally incapable of watching a dub with Christina Vee in after finding her youtube videos of her doing lovely dubs of like the Haruhi OP and other poo poo. Except those are all amazing and she's a great singer?
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Jul 12, 2013 20:33
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I thought Sayaka's VA did a great job, Kyubey was also decent. The dub was mediocre overall, but I thought they nailed the Madoka and Homura naked space reunion scene.
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Jul 12, 2013 22:43
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Lobsterhead posted:I loved the ending and still love it, though my opinion on how happy an ending it is has changed. Also, I didn't come to hate Kyubey, even if bunny-cat is a dick. I can't really consider it anything but a happy ending when Madoka literally dies to save us from damnation. I mean, drat.
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Jul 13, 2013 00:03
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cheetah7071 posted:Except those are all amazing and she's a great singer? Yeah, like, her Shuffle and Higurashi OP covers are pretty great.
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Jul 13, 2013 00:39
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I guess goons really will watch anything.
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Jul 13, 2013 14:19
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Namtab posted:I guess goons really will watch anything. poo poo, people have different tastes, call the loving cops.
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Jul 13, 2013 19:59
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Largely thanks to SFdebris' review for reminding me just how much I liked this show I caved and sprung for the blurays. I had been resisting that because it's available for me to legally stream from crunchyroll and Aniplex's pricing scheme generally pisses me off. But hey, it's been a year since I got my new job, I actually have disposable income again and what is that for except to sometimes buy things I really like? 
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Jul 13, 2013 20:49
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You might want to add to the OP that the series is available for streaming internationally at daisuki.net
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Jul 13, 2013 21:07
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rvm posted:You might want to add to the OP that the series is available for streaming internationally at daisuki.net Neat! Added to the OP.
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Jul 13, 2013 21:41
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This series ruined me. Now whenever anime characters have a longer average life expectancy than fruit flies, I feel like the writer is being needlessly sentimental.
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Jul 14, 2013 23:53
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Cool, in on the ground floor on a new thread. Always wondered if SA had a dedicated thread for this show.
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Jul 15, 2013 21:32
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This is actually the second thread, made in preparation for the impending movie releases.
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Jul 15, 2013 21:38
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Speaking of which, I know they're supposed to ship by the end of the month, but does anybody know if Aniplex is shipping them to retailers sooner than that?
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Jul 16, 2013 00:14
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Is there any agreement on which version of Magical Burst is the best? I've been using Burst ReWrite 3.1, but with a game like this, it's hard to tell what is and isn't balanced.
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Jul 19, 2013 11:00
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jonjonaug posted:
Thank goodness I'm not the only one that thought this was bad. I remember having to read the comics multiple times because I couldn't understand what the gently caress was happening, thanks to an artist that apparently can't draw fight scenes that won't appeal only to schizophrenics.
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Jul 20, 2013 02:29
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Colon V posted:Is there any agreement on which version of Magical Burst is the best? I've been using Burst ReWrite 3.1, but with a game like this, it's hard to tell what is and isn't balanced. Not really, no, personally I prefer the original 3rd draft over ReWrite and supposedly Ewen is going to eventually release a new draft of MB which will apparently feature revised everything, sometime after he gets his Kickstarter obligations taken care of. But this is really better suited to Trad Games anyway. In other news, a mere 10 days to movie blu-rays, and drat are they pricey. Also, since Right Stuf won't charge me until they actually have the product in stock, that order keeps hanging over my bank account like the sword of Damocles.
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Jul 20, 2013 04:07
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Kwyndig posted:In other news, a mere 10 days to movie blu-rays, and drat are they pricey. Also, since Right Stuf won't charge me until they actually have the product in stock, that order keeps hanging over my bank account like the sword of Damocles. I know how you feel, I wish they would just charge me and get it over with so I can wash myself clean. Side note: AniplexUS put up a translated version of the Rebellion trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnGESq_CiQY
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Jul 23, 2013 05:26
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