Template:TMITA/April 2014

 

Where do I begin? Where do I begin? Where do I begin? WHERE DO I BEGIN?

It's been so long... Yes, yes it has been. After waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, we have finally gotten our anime back!! Is this a good thing? Weeeeell, I think so :D ...for the most part ^__^"

It's been so long I can't even remember how I used to do these... Oh! That's right! I used to start with a review of the OP and ED :D Guess I'll do that~



I LOVE THIS OPENING!!

Omg... Seriously. I was so high when the first ep aired (like, so freakin' high) and just watching this made me squeal with delight.

First, the song is just awesomesauce... Literally. The chorus is addictive and I love that it's such a poppy song, but the images of destruction and sadness paired with it throughout the ep just work.

The start is so well animated and really touching with the whole Natsu/Lucy thing - I mean, heck, this opening has so much NatsuLucy ^__^" NaLu fans must have spontaneously combusted just seeing it XD

Seeing Sting was great (he's so well animated!) and Crime S :D Again, this team has still fudged up Jellal's hair, but I'll leave that 'til later >__>

And then the chorus!! THECHORUSTHECHORUSTHECHORUS!! The bit with the Garou Knights is SO COOL, and I love the little clip of Natsu and Kama battling it out - the animation is just so smooth :O And then the threesome (hehe) between Erza, Minerva and Kagura... awesome! Fast paced and edgy and...

Hold the phone... ( .__.)

This is a very fast little clip here... Lemme just slow it down a bit...

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s557/LilOrangeCat/MasayumeChasing2_zpsac4b0b4e.png

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s557/LilOrangeCat/MasayumeChasing1_zpse0ec37e2.png

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s557/LilOrangeCat/MasayumeChasing3_zps7bb75cd4.png

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s557/LilOrangeCat/MasayumeChasing4_zpsad81b39c.png

Ahhhhh...?? ( .__.) Well... Hopefully I'm the only one who noticed the massive slip in animation quality here and all of the darn awful faces :) So good to know that nobody else is going to know about this~ ^__^

Back to business and Hisui looks wicked in this opening! The same with some of the later shots of Chelia and Lyon and Gray :D And, admittedly, seeing Natsu walking through that fire was very cool >__> Hem... just a little...

But, hands down, the best part of this opening was that little smile during the chorus. It was perfectly timed with the music and had me grinning like an idiot. Worry not anime-only peeps, I will not spoil, but soon you will watch this opening with new eyes~

Points to Gajeel too for that awesome little clip :D :D :D I think this opening deserves an A+, would watch again, Jellal or GTFO ^__^



Not much to say about this ending to be honest. I find FT endings normally bore me to death - there are very few that I actually enjoy and bother watching through/listening to... .... aaaaaaand this isn't one of them.

First, I was SHOCKED by the content. So much NaLu! And, usually, the endings relate to a character in the arc or include something that we've seen in manga material. As such, seeing this ending come right out of the blue when something like this has never been seen in the manga/anime and is totally A/U, I was really surprised.

It was sweet and well animated I guess and, again, I'm sure NaLu fans are drinking it up (haha NaLi fans >:3) but as a not-so-intense NaLu fan, it really does little for me ( .__.)

Hoping the next one is better~



After months and month and months of waiting and waiting and waiting, we open the newest episode of Fairy Tail wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith...

FILLER~! \( ^__^)/

W-wait... what? ( o__o) *starts the episode over* Filler? Why would there be filler if this is meant to be picking back up where the mang-

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s557/LilOrangeCat/LazerCollectionCat_zpsc3b27729.jpg

*anime's director runs in* Shhhhh... Shh Shh Shh... It's okay~

Uhhhh.... Okay then. So yeah, we start the episode off with filler, which I guess the anime team inserted to get everyone pumped for events to come and to give a dark overshadow to the arc. I can't really complain to be honest, and mainly for two reasons:


 * 1) This is the sort of filler I'd prefer to see rather than stupid/pointless conversations and poor and boring extensions of fights.
 * 2) The animation was stunning... full stop.

So, we see Natsu and Lucy (lol, well not really Lucy XD) fighting some Dragons in a barren wasteland~ Pretty cool :) This doesn't last long though, for we cut to the glorious opening and then jump back to a place people are probably more familiar with - the night of the 4th day of the Grand Magic Games.

Remember how I said, like, 5 lines ago that I hate pointless filler conversations...??

Heeeeeeeeh ( -__-)~

So, we fluff around for some time with Gray and Natsu fighting and Lucy telling them off and Mira and Elfman commenting on Wendy and Erza getting her cake smooshed... the usual. I dunno, I guess I can overlook this because maybe the animators wanted to slowly introduce the characters again now that their designs are different and such. This certainly seemed to be the case, what with them all entering one at a time and having their own little introduction and all.

But then Gajeel turns up (looking mighty fine too I might add~) and we finally kick off into manga material, as he states that he wants to take the group back below the Domus Flau to show them what he found earlier that day as he was wandering around.

BUT BUT BUT!! Hold the phone, because we are jumping~! That's right, fuck whatever huge ass secret Gajeel needs to show everyone, because we are heading to Sabertooth!

To be honest, I COMPLETELY forgot this scene existed until I saw it, and then a lot of feels came rushing back. I think the anime did an AMAZING job with this entire part of the episode - the animation was great, Sting's VA stepped up and just gave an emotional performance and everything was just top notch. I actually choked up when Lector disappeared and Sting was crying, something I didn't do whilst reading this particular part of the manga. You know the anime is doing a good job when it elicits emotions you never had when reading the source material, so a big thumbs up here :)

Though, I have to say the best part of that scene was seeing Minerva look like a cow as she smirked and stated that everything was good XD

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s557/LilOrangeCat/MinervaSmirk_zpsb2cd7ee5.png What up bitches?

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!! Guess who comes in next???

That's right, it's mah glorious, hunky, suave, supermegafoxyawesomehawt true love Jellal ^__^ And he's still stalking people~ What a man <3

Anyways, the anime does this retarded leap between two people's work as it zooms up on Jellal's shocked face (no, it was a very wtf moment for me too) but then we cut to Jellal talking to the other awesome members of CS...

MEREDY!! ^______________________^ Yaaaaaay~! She looks SO MUCH better in this version of the anime than she did in the last! I'm hoping we'll get a nice new profile pic for her soon :) Also, I noticed that they changed around the colour scheme for CS... Now Ultear and Meredy wear black cloaks, whilst Jellal's is still blue? Then again, they were shown with the normal colour scheme in the OP...?? Granted though the OP also put Minerva in her old clothes and stuffed up in a few places, so I guess we'll have to wait for more eps to see if they are sticking to these new colours.

Oh! On this note, kudos to the new team for actually bothering to make the buildings and backdrops look like they do in the manga. I am so relieved to actually see Mercurius looking like Mercurius, and not some drugged-up basement dweller's version of the Disney castle.

Speaking of amazing looking locations, we move to the Dragon graveyard and catch back up with Gajeel, Natsu and the gang as they arrive.

To be honest, I don't have much to say about the rest of this episode, because it just followed the manga exactly as it should have~ Zirconis looked great and his playful and serious nature was brought to life by his VA, the animation of the Dragons in general was nice, and the back-story colourful and properly represented. Milky Way looked STUNNING too - exactly how I hoped it would be. Yeah, in all honesty I can't find one thing to really berate the anime for here. Just a great, great job :D

In the last few minutes of the episode we see Arcadios and Yukino again, and, as seems to be the norm for this episode, they are looking good too. And then we cut back to this apocalypse preview for some more clips of Natsu fighting the Dragons, which I must say for the most part looked great :) I have to tip my hat to the animator that worked on Natsu's flames - they looked so awesome ^__^

Now, of course, I am typing this closer to the end of the month, so I have seen the episodes that come after this one. It's kind of sad, because at the time, I remember being so pumped over the episode and excited for what was to come...

...Sad to say that things didn't go as I would have liked, but, for this glorious little piece of anime perfection, I leave with a huge smile~ Even if you don't watch the anime, this is worth your time. If you would like to see the anime team at their best and watch an example of how the Fairy Tail anime should be done, this is the episode for you.

... and... if only... if only things could have stayed this good~



Fairy Tail anime viewers: OMG! The last episode was so amazing! I can't wait to see the next one ^__^ This is so great~ All of our waiting was totally worth it!!!

Animators: What's this you say? You like it when the animation quality is up, the bullshit is down and everything just makes you want to watch the episode again?

Fairy Tail anime viewers: Yes! Please, bring us more awesomeness~

Animators: Well, here you go~ Here is episode 177 :)

Fairy Tail anime viewers: Wait... What? What the fuck is this?? o__O It looks horrible!

Animators: Oh my~

Okay, stupidity aside... I think it was at this point in time that many of us realised that we had been trolled by the anime in episode 176. 176 was some mighty tease, getting us all worked up and enthusiastic so that the fall would hurt just as much.

I really don't have much to say about this episode - I did not like it that much, and I was just disappointed on so many levels.

However!! And this is a big however. I have to give credit where credit is due, and this episode did shine brightly in one clear aspect.

That.fucking.soundtrack.

I don't know how to compliment the music team behind Fairy Tail enough on their compositions and dedication towards making the anime sound (music-wise) as amazing as it can. Seriously, hearing the new OSTs throughout this ep was the only thing that stopped me from going completely insane. I can't wait for these tracks to be released :)

Back to the episode though, and I don't understand where the amazing animation went... Literally... I am gob-smacked by the instant and completely obvious drop in quality. Just obviously BAD moments in the anime where I go "Lol, just WTF am I watching?"

As such, I'm not sure what to type here. I could go scene by scene and point out all of the crappy screenshots I've found, but I think that'll just annoy anime-only fans, clog the Wiki with crappy screenshots and be a big bore for everyone else, and besides, the story was still followed quite closely, so I have no real comments on that either :/

So, I guess just to make a point to all of the anime-only fans, the reason we berate the anime so much on quality is not because it is a little worse than the manga. We understand that moving images are hard to make - the reason we berate the anime is that no, the anime is not a little under the quality of the manga...

...it comes nowhere fucking close.







And, probably most scarily, and the one you've seen 1,000 times over:



Think you can see my point? That last one in particular I do not understand in the slightest. Even in the anime IT WAS A STATIC SHOT!! There was no movement, so why did the team redraw the manga image to make all of the characters look like they have melted faces? Why not just copy it over? *sighs* Makes no sense to me. Plus, All of Blue Pegasus and Lyon also looked very poor. I dunno, the lines were just simple and the colours - they looked more like draft versions than a final copy imo :/

Oh, and I totally loled at those people in the crowd who were waving Raven Tail flags~

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s557/LilOrangeCat/RavenTailSupport_zps153b3ff0.png

Yeah... Good luck with that~

But, poor animation and set up story aside, I can't say I hated the episode :/ I dunno... I guess there will always be something I like about seeing the characters of FT put into colour and moving about with voices. Plus, as I said before, the soundtrack just awes me on so many level~

Though, just before I finish up here, I got such a laugh out of Mirajane's stupid run at the end of the episode. Oh man XD It was just so bad. If you are looking for a good laugh, I highly recommend looking at it again :P

And, so we went into the third episode preview hoping.... no, scratch that... PRAYING that things would improve. Did they? Well, I guess... but not by much ( -__-)~



Omg... that opening track * ^ *

Da da dum da da da da da de da di de dum, da da dum da de da de da de dah de di dum~

Good job opening with that track animators... you have calmed the raging beast somewhat ( -__-)

But this is the start of the final day of the Grand Magic Games!! So LET'S GO!!



... ( .__.) *sighs* ( _ _)

Let's try that again~

I said... LET'S GO!!!!!!



Much better ^__^

Oh... and before I continue, can I just comment that the new way the team animated Ichiya scares the living daylights out of me O__o He looks so scary it's not even funny DX

But, moving on and we are once again filled in on the teams - what say you anime-only people, do you know everyone yet, or should we repeat it ten more times??

Anyway, the rather well-animated (this time around) Rescue Team run towards Mercurius whilst the Games are getting underway. The final day is an all out battle and everyone - yes, even those Raven Tail supporters - are rearing to go~

I have to admit, this first part of the episode with all of the other guilds moving and striking each other was quite well done, and I don't really have any complaints. A few animation slip ups here and there, but overall it was interesting to watch.

I have to say though, I was kinda annoyed that the anime made that longer introduction to Sting smashing Bacchus. I thought it was a lot more epic in the manga simply because Sting came out of nowhere more unexpectedly, and I think it would have been nicer if the crew had just done the same here rather than the whole pause and "something is coming" technique. Ah well though :/

Then we got Mavis' little speech, and whilst I liked it, I was irked over the fact that they kept Mavis all cute. If you guys remember the manga, she got really creepy for a moment there, and seemed like that 100+ y/o master we all were waiting to see. I wanted her voice to go deeper and her actions to reflect this slight personality flip, but, alas, no. So, for the anime-only's, here's what you missed out on T^T Epicness:



But, the fights continue and FT steps in and I spend a good portion of the episode trying to decide whether or not Erza's new outfit looks retarded or whether it looks better than I thought it would... I still haven't reached a decision and slowly, member by member we are reducing the game down to the top tiers - namely: All of FT, all of ST, Jura, Chelia, Lyon and Kagura. Starting to make some fight match-ups anionly's? We were at this point in the manga ;D

But screw that, because we cut back to the Rescue Team for a bit of set up and more fluffing around. Dunno, guess this was fine XD As I said in my blog comment, I have to hand it to the team for Hisui... she has looked stunning in every episode so far - a real level of awesome that I wish all of the other characters could match :)

And so, the team + Lucy + Yukino become trapped in the rather good looking Abyss Palace~ To be honest, due to the opening I cannot wait for the events that occur down here to unfold, and I hope what comes up is animated well, because if so, it will be very, very awesome :D Plus we'll hopefully get new profile pictures and gifs for abilities and the like ^__^ Always nice~

A few seconds before the end and things are set up when Gray arrives in a library to face Rufus. I always wondered why the GMG planners decided to let these guys with awesome Magic abilities fight in the middle of the freakin' capital where they can easily blow things up, but whatever *shrugs* Rufus, looking pretty good and sounding super cocky with his awesome VA, decides to face Gray, and we head for the credits with Gray...



Having a weird haircut??

Oh... no... Sorry ^__^" My bad~



He's actually staring him down :)



This episode was all over the place for me. Some parts were just outstandingly well done... and others had me cringing, so let's divide this up, shall we??

THE GOOD:

There was only one part of this episode that actually impressed me, and that was the animation of some of Gray's spells. I must say, I was really worried that the anime would just throw aside Mashima's glorious art from the corresponding chapter and reanimate everything to be very simple. As such, I was glad to see that most of the spells looked great and/or were very close to their original manga form.



This in particular impressed me quite a bit~

So, kudos to the team for the spells, but unfortunately, this is where my appreciation of the episode ends :(

Oh... no... wait...

ORGA'S LIGHTNING IS STILL BLACK!

Okay... I'm done now~

THE BAD:

There are quite a few things here, but let me just start with the expressions Gray wore for most of the episode. I dunno... he just looked very.... derpy throughout most of the scenes :/ Rufus had his ups and downs, but I think he was at least a little better.

The fight contained a lot of filler, and, whilst I don't mind the odd addtional attack or banter, I felt it just dragged out here and made the fight really slow and boring. I dunno, are there any anionlys who would care to give me their opinion through manga-un-biased eyes?? Plus, whilst I don't blame the team for having Rufus create new spells - I mean, his Magic is very diverse - I found these spells were just kind of... lame :< Specially that giant in the ice one... no seriously wtf was that ( -__-)

And then we get other extensions through the crowd and Juvia...

OH LORD!! JUST KILL ME NOW! DX

These sorts of extensions bore me to tears, and this episode was no different. Cana and Lisanna and Makarov and seemingly every FT member in the stands had to comment at least 50 times, and I swear... how many times did Juvia appear and say the same damn thing!? Uhg ( -__-) I mean, Rufus is also fighting, why not cut Juvia's 4th personal monologue and add in Orga or Sting or Minerva being all cocky as Gray falls?? I mean, come on! Shake it up a little >__>

Overall I found it was this mess that really dragged the episode down for me :/

THE I-HAVE-NO-FUCKING-CLUE:

Uhhhhh... Rescue Team filler?? :/ Really? I wasn't expecting it and I know it was just meant to be for a laugh, but in all honesty, I didn't find it funny and it was just really lame. I mean... *sighs* I dunno... I just didn't like it >__>

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo... where does this leave us now? Well, Rufus is defeated and the Grand Magic Game rages on to some hopefully good fights and from the looks of the preview we are finally getting our first look at the people who will appear in the Abyss Palace. Again, I'm hoping the animation steps up and really delivers for these fights, but, to be honest, with 3 episodes of average animation come and gone, I'm not looking too enthusiastic >__>

I just hope the anime team realises how sad I am after the amazingness that was episode 176 T^T

Anime team: http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/hh523/chinchingering/f614ad93.gif

So, I guess this is it from me for this month~ Hopefully you're enjoying the return of the anime and of TMiTA, and I'll see you all next month for more *coughhopfullycough* good anime episodes!!

Carrot out~