matt0044

Yeah, It was brilliant, that part. I found the episode as a whole confusing.

Sorry for the delay in responding, I forgot about your VM what with being busy over the holidays. You've been back in anime for more than a couple of months now - if you're asking about whether you can have access to CTS now, I'll discuss this with the other anime mods.

CotD isn't a bad concept per se, I think. The earlier COtD during the Kanto saga (like Akira, Imite, Fuuko, and Seiyo) were done right, their episodes served to develop Satoshi somewhat and were all unique characters in their own ways, and the episodes they appeared in actually stand out compared to the rest. What would have made it better was if characters like Akira, Imite, and Seiyo showed up at the Pokemon League, had the anime ended at the Kanto saga (these rivals were shown in the Orange Islands "Rival!" opening, so I thought they'd return - what a tease), being "integrated" as part of the anime's closure and acknowledged as important assets to the development that led up to that point, if you get what I mean. When CotD ends up falling into a meaningless formula, that's when it becomes a negative quality for an anime. Have you watched/read Fullmetal Alchemist (either the manga, original anime adaptation, or the second adaptation)? Some of the earlier characters could have been considered CotD, but they weren't pointless characters. The CotD in Pocket Monsters, however, end up being pointless in the long run. That's what makes it boring most of the time.

Regarding my anime blog, I linked to it a while ago in our VM conversation and it's in my sig, but here's the link anyway: オタクSPOT× Asian ramblings about anime, manga, and other Japanese stuff ×

To summarize it here (because I'm not up for ranting about the anime at the moment, I'm pretty burnt on that), I pretty much dislike all the league rivals to a certain extent. Their only excuse for existing is for Satoshi to lose, after all, and I'm not really fond of that. I suppose some of the battles are OK, like Hazuki and Takuto, but overall I would have preferred it if Satoshi won. The latter was the worst offender of my previous description of the league rivals - a terrible excuse for Satoshi to lose. At that point, there's no arguing that the main character *deserved to win *.

I might do a review of it on my anime blog once I get around to it and finishing it.

I've recently posted an article that questions the validity of using review scores when critquing an anime/video game/whatever. Quite a few fans in the Pocket Monsters fandom, let alone fans of anime in general, are guilty of using rating systems wrong, or using them in ways that make no sense. "Oh, this episode of the anime gets a 9999/10000!"

Yeah, the "kids shows" excuse is always stupid, but if you're going into that line of thinking, why not take that approach with Special as well, which is also aimed at kids? One problem with this fandom is that the opinions lack rational thought to them, and they twist everything to make their viewpoint look better. Just look at how biased those stupid "Red vs. Ash Ketchum" image macros are.

As for Tiger & Bunny, I actually never got around to watching that yet, but I have been interested. The director was in charge of some of my favorite mecha series.

Sorry man, but I tend to avoid lost causes when I see one unless I come into opposition with one during a discussion. She seems to be the type of person who keeps reading something she finds mediocre in order to actively find small reasons to reaffirm her dislike of the series, and sadly, I can hardly ever rationalize with those type of fans along with a handful of others in the Pocket Monsters fandom, let alone the general anime/manga/whatever fandom. If she never answers you, she'll probably never answer me, and I tend to not bother finding out the psychology of such stubborn people. It's sort of a waste of my time dealing with folks like that.

Okay--just be careful things don't get out of hand

Huh? What brought this on all of a sudden?

I saw an ad for the Time of the Doctor. Matt Smith's acting is incredible!

Good. Though I'm sorry to say I haven't started on your story yet :'(

Things have been VERY busy on my end and will be so for a while...

Hm, you posted a VM while I was busy studying for exams that I wanted to look over today, but it seems like you deleted it.

That sounds like a unique spin on things. I like it when authors touch upon family bonds within a story, one of the reasons why I loved the third Pocket Monsters movie (and Clannad) so much.

I pretty much imagine her the same way, except I add some of the endearing traits of Elie from Rave Master and some traits of Sora from Digimon Adventure to the mix (some of her insecurities, and of course, having a motherly role). Touya's usually the true main protagonist of BW in my headcanon.

That honestly sounds like a very good personality to give to her in a high school setting. I've always imagined Mei to be a very spunky and boisterous female protagonist.

Yeah, that really annoys me. After they outlived their usefulness in each region (besides Kanto, Orange Island, and Jouto), he pretty much never pays any real attention to them anymore.

Really. Considering that Special heavily focuses on plot, and that this is a monster battling series, it's highly understandable that Kusaka doesn't have the convenience of having too many slice-of-life moments for Pokemon in order to flesh out their human characteristics.

The fact that the trainers feel sad they their Pokemon are in mortal danger is enough to say that THEY'RE NOT WEAPONS, BUT TREATED AS FRIENDS.

We don't want to venture too far toward Fun and Games-based threads so the closest we have and plan to have is the Post Your Screenshots thread, where you can just post any screenshots you have from videogames.

Loved that. And it looked like Hurt did too.

People in my school think Hurt is the first doctor. Clearly they didn't see Eccleston's face or The Night of the Doctor.

I haven't been able to read that thing yet. Sorry. Though I need a link first.