1. 

   halfadeckshort
   October 15th, 2008 - 20:40

   That leaf placement was most unfortunate. Hopefully her automatic modesty protection will degrade over the course of the season….

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2. 

   Kabitzin
   October 15th, 2008 - 22:39

   A Taiga cannot change her Stripeys.

   Nagi’s VA is totally awesome, and makes the anime really worth watching even though I have already read parts of the manga.

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3. 

   TheBigN
   October 16th, 2008 - 01:05

   as well as no

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4. 

   Watchman
   October 16th, 2008 - 03:04

   Equation that results in Taiga, IMHO (academic approval pending): (Chiaki +Kana) -(Haruka-nee +stabilizing influence) -ahoge

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5. 

   Haesslich
   October 16th, 2008 - 07:46

   Bad news – she gets more abusive in Episode 3. They’re apparently trying to turn her into the next Louise. Fuckers.

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6. 

   Kabitzin
   October 16th, 2008 - 08:24

   /headdesk

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7. 

   Zyl
   October 16th, 2008 - 09:03

   ARGH

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8. 

   Myssa Rei
   October 16th, 2008 - 11:58

   … Hrmm, I think it’s because Episode 3 of ToraDora is mostly anime-original? JC Staff seems to stumble when they have to make things on the fly.

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9. 

   totali
   October 17th, 2008 - 04:47

   Tiger versus Wood

   The nightmare…it won’t stop…!!!!

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10. 

    Haesslich
    October 17th, 2008 - 06:29

    Myssa: If this is a sign of how they’re taking the show… my next responses to blog entries on this will violate decency laws.

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11. 

    Watchman
    October 17th, 2008 - 08:59

    “Decency” ? In teh Interwebs ? What you say!!!

    …leave it to the animu staff (whose abilities in the fields of plot and character developement can often enough be generously described as “mediocre”) to screw up good work done by light novel authors (who for obvious reasons need to be rather better at them)… Wasn’t there something similar with Shana, too ?

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12. 

    Haesslich
    October 17th, 2008 - 11:05

    Watchman: More so with Zero no Tsukaima, whose second and third seasons deviated completely from the novels… and which reduced Louise to a murderous bitch with a jealousy streak a mile wide. And my response, if what I fear will happen does come to pass, will violate decency laws in its length, content, and its technical depth with regards to the analysis of the sexual habits, family histories, proclivities, as well as probable future of everyone involved in this atrocity who had any creative input.

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13. 

    Watchman
    October 17th, 2008 - 18:41

    Didn’t touch ZnT with the proverbial eleven-foot pole so I wouldn’t know about that, but I think I can imagine.

    I’m actually a bit curious as to the *why* of it. You’d think that when they were turning novel seriess into animus there would if anything be an excess of source material, promptly removing much practical reason to start winging it half-assedly…

    …also, now I actually kind of want to see Haesslich RAGE just to see what kind of hellfire’n'brimstone he/she/it can come up with… ^.^;

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14. 

    Myssa Rei
    October 18th, 2008 - 08:22

    Haess has been making his criticisms clear EVERYWHERE. He’s that disappointed.

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15. 

    Haesslich
    October 18th, 2008 - 09:42

    I’m not the only one disappointed. Watchman’s right about wondering who the fucking moron was who decided to make a filler when they had eight (now nine) volumes of story to work from. Usually you only do that when you’re out of story to work with, or if you’ve got 52 episodes worth of time to fill.

    Not on episode 3 of thirteen (now possibly 25). This makes me do something scatalogical in the lungs of the person who decided this was a GOOD IDEA ™

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16. 

    Watchman
    October 18th, 2008 - 14:35

    “Fing Fang Foom put you in his pants!”
    - stompy rampaging giant reptile thingy, Nextwave: Agents Of H.A.T.E.

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17. 

    Watchman
    October 20th, 2008 - 01:47

    Hmm. After reading the first few novel translations (Baka-Tsuki) and manga scanlations (Musashi) I can see where the anxiety comes from. Not that the original story was exactly world-class literature or anything, but Takemiya writes cleverly and credibly enough (as in, the characters and their actions make sense given the context and background provided) that things don’t get too stale or stereotypical. The anime adaptation, however, feels worrisomely “dumbed down” and devoid of the emotional and psychological gravitas; that they seem to have essentially skipped the part of the “pole scene” where Ryuuji and Taiga basically air their personal reasons for being perpetually, respectively, vaguely annoyed and seething with aimless RAGE doesn’t help one bit (although to be fair the manga kind of skips that too; but it at least retains enough of the ‘oomph’ and sheer anguish of the pole-kicking part itself that this isn’t terribly serious)…

    One also notes with worry that the anime version of Taiga seems much more prone of physical violence against Ryuuji than the novel/manga one (who mostly sticks to verbal abuse). Combined with the disturbingly harebrained writing of the 3rd ep there certainly does seem to be a cause for concern.

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18. 

    Zyl
    October 20th, 2008 - 09:23

    I’ve just seen Ep 3 of ToraDora. I didn’t think it was *that* bad – though I wonder if it’s because of massively lowered expectations. But I can see how Haesslich and Watchman’s criticisms are fully justified. If anything, this series might be ‘wasted potential’ rather than ‘truly appalling’ – little consolation to fans of the manga though.

    re: Myssa Rei’s speculation about JC Staff being weak with original material, I’ve got a rebuttal to that but will take a bit of time to gather the necessary data and analyze my case(s) first before posting.

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19. 

    Watchman
    October 20th, 2008 - 20:10

    Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to term it “appalling”; more like “damn shame”, should the misgivings prove to be fully justified. Possibly “epic fail” too, in the classic sense of ‘could have been awesome, turned out mediocre’.

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20. 

    Haesslich
    October 21st, 2008 - 10:31

    I’d call it “a fucking waste of a good property” more than ‘appalling’, unless we’re using it in the “appalling waste” category. Episode 4 doesn’t even introduce all the main characters. If this was 13 eps, this would be an outrage. If it’s 25, it’s still a damned shame, especially since these two eps may kill the good ratings they were enjoying after episode 1.

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21. 

    Watchman
    October 21st, 2008 - 11:07

    Spiteful enough for a goatee already ? ;P

    Come now, it’s still at worst “average” as of yet. That the adaptation is disappointing and falls short of the original doesn’t yet by default make it outright terrible.

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22. 

    Haesslich
    October 22nd, 2008 - 11:36

    No dragging Girl Genius into the subject. And give it time – I have faith in the levels of failure J.C. Staff can marshall; look at ZnT’s whole second and third seasons for that, or the pitiful attempt at a love triangle in Shakugan no Shana’s second season. This is what happens when they try to improve on the source material or ‘be original’ – if they can stick to the main points of the original source… they may do okay. If they can’t? They really CAN make a show suck like a vacumn cleaner.

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23. 

    Watchman
    October 22nd, 2008 - 15:42

    I thought the occasion merited a whip and sadistic electro-gauntlets, sneer optional… “Mediocre Anime Screenwriters: In Suck We Trust” being the ISO-certified industry standard after all.

    One can only hope they (and the guys at marketing dept) manage to keep it in their pants enough to not cause unrecoverable damage.

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24. 

    Haesslich
    October 22nd, 2008 - 17:19

    http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=2004837&postcount=1196

    Myssa Rei, you wanted RANT? Look at rant which involved two hours of research, checking facts, taking screenshots, and typing.

    Go look and tell me if it’s not a rant. If Ep 5 is fucked up as I think it’ll be, the Episode 5 rant will be even LONGER. But more profane.

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25. 

    Mentar
    October 22nd, 2008 - 19:34

    Excuse me, but in my opinion, Taiga is much WORSE than Louise ever was (who never bothered me all that much). Taiga is purposely hurtful towards Ryuuji in several spots, while Louise usually has some “reason” for going bakainu.

    In other words, Taiga is the First KugiRie-Loli which I can’t stomach.

    Dropped.

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26. 

    Haesslich
    October 23rd, 2008 - 02:33

    She want supposed to be this heartless or mindlessly abusive either. Verbal cutdowns and intimidation happen, but at least Ryuuji could cut those off and she knew when to stop.

    Oh, and Cantabile got butchered this week too. Oops.

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27. 

    Watchman
    October 23rd, 2008 - 08:53

    That’s pretty much my main beef with the series. I mean, I can tolerate a poorly written and thought filler episode every now and then; as anime overall goes those are near unavoidable, in the way of taxes and stupid people.

    But the idiot who decided it was a good idea to reduce Taiga to a cardboard Looney Tunes caricature needs to lose his job. Badly. It’s not just poor taste, but severely undermines some (IMO) rather important aspects of the story and the character relations. In the original material Taiga’s certainly foul-tempered and acid-tongued enough; Ryuuji seems to get used to that right quick (and talks smack right back willingly enough, although he unsurprisingly can’t really match her in pure spitefulness). Being generally hateful and rude appears to pretty much be her way of trying to deal with a reality she more or less hates (Taiga’s not a very happy camper at this point of her life… plus, Hell, we’re talking about teenagers here; irrationally hating stuff when life sucks is pretty much part of the job description), and Ryuuji obviously grasps this. It’s not like he was all that much better off himself, so the two can relate to each others’ circumstances easily enough.
    Not that Taiga’d very likely be Little Miss Sunshine even without all the crappy life circumstances, mind you…

    But it’s very rare for her to become concretely, physically violent. Seems to generally require some pretty acute desperation or fire-breathing rage before it happens, really. (I’ve a theory about this, connected to the rather startling physical feats she occasionally does offhandedly, but I digress…)

    This is why the JC Staff adaptation so annoys me. They take a pretty competently written case of teen anguish, frustration and anger expressed credibly enough as rather unsociable behaviour and vicious temper – and turn it into a crude physical-violence ‘comedy’ hack job for shit and giggles.

    That kind of thing is something of a cardinal sin in my books; dumbing down good source material into tasteless lowest-common-denominator bleh. Either their scriptwrites seriously dropped the ball, or – which I consider more likely – some luminary in suit and tie thought this’d make the show easier to sell.

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28. 

    Haesslich
    October 23rd, 2008 - 10:46

    Wasn’t, even. Damned typos.

    And yeah, the butchered adaptation (this week includes more Taiga flying kick) with extra violence and less characterization on everyone’s part but Ryuuji’s is why I really am starting to loathe J.C. Staff. The only reason Ryuuji’s interesting is because they didn’t cut out most of his character details unlike Taiga, who comes across as typical Kugimiya Rie tsundere.

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29. 

    Haesslich
    October 25th, 2008 - 07:26

    Oh good, I killed Myssa Rei with a wall of text. Ah well – at least the Kitamura confession was referenced in Episode 4. I feel a bit better about it now.. especially since that was important as she remembered that it was after he confessed and she tsun-tsun rejected him that she noticed Kitamura and THEN fell for him.

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