Misleading Description?

Is it?

On a scale of 1 to death, how boring will this be?
Don't particularly hate the theme but they're not making it sound more interesting then it really is so I really can't tell.

If the 10 in here leads to death I'd say 0 or 1..

When the concept is other than the usual boy-meets-girl, normal-boy-that-is-weak-but-wants-to-get-stronger, or whatever so generic it's always a bad thing..

The premise seems fine enough for me to watch it..and when I do I don't drop it..never did such a thing..

So, to resume..this thread is what I like to call, generously, very useful to debate an anime that hasn't even aired..

being a original anime, there is nothing to debate over, so this thread is most useless...

Im sure it wont be, but the premise sounds a little like the second half of Eden of the East

I agree. I think the worst this can get is 2, if only for the fact it is a noitaminA original. Not a single noitaminA anime I watched failed to grab me, especially the originals.

The plot seems pretty interesting, even though it is kinda like weak male lead meets female, or something a long those lines. After the first episode the description doesn't seem misleading at all.

I agree with Noodlebowl, and i must say, for the first episode, it can lead to a interesting history.
We will see =)

I wasn't nearly as impressed as I was hoping to be. But it is still better than most things this season.

On a scale of 1 to death, I think it ranks somewhere around medical complications.

The scale does not apply, as there isn't sufficient information to determine whether the anime is good or bad.

I wouldn't be completely sure about that. If you've seen enough anime, you can generally get a feel for what to expect from a series in 1-3 episodes, depending on how original of an idea it is (and usually it isn't too original). Usually when a series is completely original and isn't derived from some other source like visual novels, manga, graphical novels, etc. that's usually a dead giveaway that it will be rather average at best, or terrible at its worst.

In this case, I'd say that after one episode, this is looking like it could be sub-average. Not terrible, but not overly original either. Right now, this series could go in a few different directions, but I'm thinking it will probably end up falling into the basic shounen plot, which involves a reluctant loser who breaks the rules (if you don't know what I mean by this, then I'll just keep it at that. If it is this, you'll probably be able to figure out everything involved with these sort of plots real fast. ). If it doesn't follow that plot, and does stay seinen, then there's a few other plots as well which it could follow, but I'll refrain from mentioning them, in case you haven't encountered them. I mainly mention this specific one because if it does end up being this, then it's one of the most overused plot setups, and it really won't be worth much at all for watching.

Usually a completely original series is rather good at capturing the audience with effective use of the soundtrack and end of episode suspense. A completely original series can change its plot according to the reception received on previous episodes. A completely original series provides room for the production staff to be creative with the characters and the environments they are thrown into. A completely original series at best can be far superior to an adapted series because it is made for animation. A completely original series is NOT average at best.

Even though I said that, I have to agree that this series would probably be sub-average.

The main problem with original series is that the concepts aren't usually well developed in advance (usually it's just some generic idea that some producer thought up of a year or less in advance) and then are done on a constrained deadline which is unforgiving to actual creativity when the scripts are in the process of being written as they are animating it (doesn't *need* to be the case, but more often than not, this is what ends up happening). When the series chooses to build off of the audience's reaction, they usually have to do so 5-6 episodes in advance, since they need to keep an animation buffer queue, and by then, what the audience was thinking of can change quite drastically and might make plot shifts that they do feel like an ass-pull to overly predictable, depending on where they gaged the audience reaction to be. And, when the story is being written on-the-fly, they are expected to produce something every week for as long as the series runs without a break to do research to develop the plot, and are also constrained to the test models and props to which they have already drafted in advance. Changing models and settings/props too much requires much more of a buffer than the 5-6 episodes in advance, so if they decided already to go down a particular route that they hadn't planned, they are essentially SOL until they allow for enough time to get the test references done. It's not like a manga where if they want to make a sudden shift from what they wanted to do, they can do it within a week/within a short time period, since with animation, they are trying to mass produce the workload and can't have as much fine grained control over what can/can't happen.

Of course, that doesn't mean that they can't be good (but in those cases, they aren't building off of audience reaction, but instead are working off of a script which was already well developed enough by the time it was animated that they could have released it to a different medium as well), but from my own experience, the rushed nature which they tend to push on them tends to put them at more of a disadvantage than if it was developed and written elsewhere that has lower production overheads and bureaucracy first. OVA's and movies don't seem to have the same sort of issues as ones which are pushed weekly, since they don't have as many timeline restrictions imposed on them. In those environments, I'd say that original series can do rather well, and can perform just as well as series which have some source material to fall back on.

Just thought I'd explain my line of reasoning into why I say what I do about original series. Like I said, it doesn't mean that they can't be good, but I don't really know of many at all which manage to be phenomenal unless they are basically already completely pre-written. As an example of some original series which tend to be fairly good, IMO, would be series like Dennou Coil, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Kaiba, etc. which were essentially fully written in advance and aren't being reactionist to the audience. So, they are series which are developed enough that they could have been pushed to a less expensive media first, but they chose to skip that route for one reason or another. What I'd consider to be bad examples would be series like Kiba, which was fairly easy to tell that they were drafting it as they went on, and was a series where they also made it twice as long as they were originally anticipating for (which is almost always a huge cause for concern).

It will take an episode or two more to be able to gage if this is being written on-the-fly or one which was well plotted in advance, but for now, all signs seem to be pointing to this being the former, instead of the latter.

I'd say that I agree on the specifics of anime production you've made here, most of which are facts rather than opinions (so it's not really like I COULD disagree), but what I find troubling is the implication that titles with extensive pre-created source material somehow manage to make better anime most of the time. While it's true in a general sense that greater forethought and planning are MAJOR benefits to production time and quality in most ventures (regardless of what the specific production mediums are), the bureaucracy of the anime world really detracts from the benefits normally received by such efforts.

For instance, a manga title could be 'subpar trite nonsense' in every way possible right from the start, and it would still get an audience because there are quite a few fans of 'subpar trite nonsense' out there. A lot of these get made into anime, because there's a market for that nonsense in anime as well, and being an anime isn't likely to improve on that aspect (agreed?). Now, in the case that a manga (novel, bishoujo game, etc) is actually a unique and enjoyable experience, there's still the issue of adapting that uniqueness to a television screen. Sometimes this process does well to preserve the 'flavour' of its source, and sometimes it doesn't (even when it tries its best), but let's not forget the third option- that it isn't exactly rare for a title to be intentionally re-worked in order to fit with the specific 'anime' audiences for which it's being marketed.

Cardcaptor Sakura is a famous example of 'content tampering' (by Nelvana, the maker of 'CareBears', when it was brought over to the states), but only because of the scale on which it was altered. Such changes to suit an audience on smaller scales are much more common, and argued about CONSTANTLY by manga-aficianados the world over (of which I'm not one). Granted, the tampering of CCS wasn't brought about by a manga->anime transition, rather a regional transition, but I bring it up for a second reason as well- the anime series (in Japan, not the butchered version) remained faithful to the tone and content of the manga due to an active involvement of the original authors/artists, CLAMP, in the anime's production. Most titles don't have that kind of interaction, so they have the chance of being made 'subpar trite nonsense' twice- when they're originally written, and when they're adapted (to better resonate with the fans of said nonsense).

An original anime series has an advantage in the game of 'chance' if nothing else, in that there's only one opportunity to make it unappetizing for fans of unique titles. Not only that, but there are cases (especially in the action genre) in which trying to maintain the tone of the original actually manifests itself as a detrimental wall that the animators struggle to climb over. Manga is composed of static images, and similar in a sense to the way that novel->TVseries/movie transitions so often fall short of being well-made, there's a fundamental difference in the delivery of story elements that makes it quite difficult at times to convey in one format the same atmosphere that was created in another. I think that original animation has a major benefit for anime fans in that the animators are given much more freedom in how to portray things without the heavy burden of 'remaining true to the source' on their backs, or even remaining true to a manga-stylized set of source characters.

Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy, Last Exile, Dennou Coil, Higashi no Eden, Kamichu, Angel Beats, and almost every great anime movie that's been made in the past five years (Makoto Shinkai be blessed) are original to anime. I'll only go so far as to agree (now that I've consulted my list) that the chance for titles to be 'relatively well-done' between adaptations and original works is about 50/50 (from the 800 total titles I've seen now). However, a much greater number of original animation occupies my 'top 20' list, which is composed almost exclusively of titles I consider to be unique- and that's despite there being noticeably less original works in anime than there are adaptations from other sources.

Just thought I'd give my thoughts on that. None of it has absolutely anything to do with this title in particular, but I'm never one to turn down a good discussion with an obviously intelligent person.

while I'm a little displeased at the CG 'QUALITY' on occasion in EP 2. You quoting ANN, so no... its not accurate. SOURCE ANN. Its basically a pre-opinion and ANN has made clear its pre-opinions are not valid.

its likely derived from some statement from the producer trying very hard to avoid spoilers. But really now it says nothing.

as for original works being better? WHILE Japan has a habit of messing up anime adaptations of things, its more a function of the shounen magazine.

things made from stuff serialized in Shounen magazines tend to not be very unique. because otherwise it wouldn't be serialized.

There's also the bit that when something is appearing for the first time in one particular medium, it isn't nearly as tested and vetted. So, when a series is completely original, there's going to be a higher risk of it bombing, since if it has been elsewhere first, the developers for the show are more likely to have a better feel as to whether the show will be successful or not.

Agreed completely- I think that when something is based on existing work there's a much higher chance of it being 'mediocre', and thus 'tolerable' by almost all standards (read: popular, profitable). The upside to that is that it's not likely to be completely horrible, but the downside being that it isn't likely to be exceptional either (from my experience and to my tastes of course). My argument was a lot more about titles I consider 'exceptional', and the greater chance I noticed that an original work has of being in that category when compared to adapted works- that's something I realized after I wrote it though.

My absolute favourite title of all time thus far is without a doubt 'Kara no Kyoukai'- I think it was exceptional from every angle, and unfortunately for my argument it was released based on something else (in this case the original source wasn't a public release, but it still existed far in advance of the anime OVA series, so it had a long timespan in which to be reworked and fine-tuned as per your argument). But yeah, looking at things in the perspective of 'I want unique titles', I won't make the argument that adapted works aren't unique because they already existed in another format, that would be petty and pointless, but I've noticed that even the originals to those works which get adaptations just aren't that unique to begin with, or lose its uniqueness in transition. Big exceptions like Kara no Kyoukai exist, but they're pretty rare it seems.

There are a lot of people out there just looking for 'solid' titles, titles that follow a given formula and do it well, but to me... uniqueness is everything, and whether I'll enjoy something or not is based almost entirely on how 'fresh' the content feels to me. That's why I dislike adapted works almost by default- a ton of adapted works get shoved into the 'mediocre' category, they have sale-ability because they're made using a tried-and-true formula, but that isn't what I'm after. So yeah, original works might bomb, and they have a higher chance of being horrible, but they also seem to have a higher chance to be exceptional (to my tastes) with a lot less chance of being vaguely in the middle somewhere. Adapted works have a lot more in the middle, and a lot less to either extreme, so I don't prefer them at all.

In the end, we're really talking about different things here, and I apologize for that since I brought the exchange about. A fun discussion though.

This is becoming a huge dissapointment. With all the ways in which they could have shown the crazyness of the financial world of today; they ended up with some sort of battle manga about day traders and their loli looking HFT algos.

Japan can do great things, but as for anime, they don't seem to have the balls to touch certain more delicate or controversial topics. And for that reason I do recommend The Boondocks. Anime look alike, and with the balls anime never had.

t-up

got the same ideia; was omg, anime w the power of money in daily life, love and that stuff. Then.....
Shitty battle started out of nowhere.

after 4 bad episodes I dl'd ep 5 and havent had the urge to complete it.

I think I got about halfway thru and the virtual girl asking to eat ramen thru the card just made me drop the series.

Series got terrible

I would now like to direct you to what else is out this season.
A Channel
Dog Days
Hen Zemi
Lotte no Omocha
Nichijou
Oretsuba
Sanjuu Sai
Qwaser 2

Never satisfied with anything it seems. This show isn't nearly as bad as you anime "connoisseurs" make it out to be.