Anime of Early-Mid 2012 that has you excited.Follow

Like Allegory said, it's generally a deconstruction of traditional superheroes. It also goes to some really dark places (Think Gantz and/or Battle Royale) & throws you some curve balls, although I feel like a lot is missed in the fan translations (especially when explaining some "conspiracy" elements.). The art is good & the story is unique, though. My biggest gripe is it's not finished, and you can expect about 18 pages every month or two. However, the ride between the beginning and the current issues is pretty good.

Kouga's, who's kind of a Batman/Iron Man type hybrid, hero training is pretty much the most disturbing "hero" origin story I've ever read that wasn't written by Garth Ennis.

Saw 2nd episode of Zetman. Looks like it's going to tell the general story in Zet, in PG 13 format. However, with the way they've flew through material in just two episodes it leads me to believe we can expect only one season and a filler ending.

Yay?

hmmmmm, if it's a monthly then I may as well add it to the list. I've got like 10 different monthlies I'm reading as they come out



I don't know what you're talking about. I absolutely love Rock Lee. He's such a badass when he starts fighting...... until he loses.... but he's hysterical to watch.... when he's not annoying...

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Ok, Rock Lee's got his crazy awesome fight scene (where he actually won) in the third movie, and the whole "HAI! GAI SENSEI!" shtick, which I love. At least Gai's so much of a badassham that he makes up for lee's utter failure most of the time Tenten annoys me not because she's such a flat character, but because she has SO MUCH ******* badass potential and kishimoto totally wastes it. She ******* specializes in summoning, why the **** has she not gone out of her way to go find some awesome summoning beasts to make contracts with?

You forgot to exclude Sasori's grandmother, Chiyo.

Well, Sakura did have her moment of usefulness when she saved Kankurou. So as long as we are limiting it to medical ability and not detracting points for being f*cking annoying.



Most. Worthless. Team.

Do you remember when they had to fight versions of themselves during the Gaara Rescue arc, and Tenten just shot weapons at herself for hours?

And I hope Gai is dead by this point. Seriously, they kill Asuma (who was awesome) but let Gai live? ***** YOU KISHIMOTO.

This, so much this.

He's pretty average in in the spectrum of shounen stories. I can think of worse offenders.

Gonna second the Sasori vs Chiyo/Sakura fight as one of my favorites as well. Chiyo definitely cemented her place as a series badass. As for tenten, I guess I'm remembering the lolfiller where they gave her some backstory about wanting to be a great kunoichi like tsunade, in which they discovered that her specialty was summoning, which is what she uses to pull those weapons from hammerspace the scrolls and such. Also, Tenten and Neji are both capable of using ninjutsu, since that's what tenten uses to pull out her infinite weapons, and neji's just hax, they just don't for plotreasons no understandable reason. Gai can, too, for the record, unless summoning no longer counts as ninjutsu like it does for every other character.



Are you including Yoruichi/Soi Fon in that? Yoruichi has proven herself pretty badass when she wants to be, ignoring when she teamed up with urahara and isshin to fight marysuezen. And Soi Fon.... well, Jakuho Raikoben. But then again, that whole arc managed to make ******* Omaeda look badass for a little bit, so I guess that isn't saying much.

Watching Kanokon; guilty pleasures, etc.

Lee's ability to stand on water is really just plot no jutsu. His story as that he wasn't able to manipulate Chakra at all, and standing on water was supposed to be an advanced chakra manipulation technique.

IIRC, there were 4 ninja techniques. The inherited biological ones like the Sharingan, Genjutsu (illusions and mind control), Ninjutsu (transforming chakra) and then taijutsu, hand to hand techniques.

I don't remember how they distinguished between Nin/Genjutsu in the manga. I feel like it was a more artificial difference than the others. But summoning was definitely ninjutsu.

As for that team, Neji and Tenten could both use Ninjutsu (tenten used it to summon, and I can't imagine a prodigy like Neji couldn't). He also had his PlotNoJutsu eyes.

Lee was the only one who could only use taijutsu. Tenten could potentially have used 3 of the types, and Neji could have used 4.

Though this is all iirc.

Okay, according to the wiki.

Ninjutsu (ninja techniques) involve anything that allows you to do anything you normally wouldn't be capable of.

It is distinct from genjutsu because the effects of ninjutsu are real.

Use of weapons falls under the realm of Ninjutsu (I guess because a sword would, for example, let you cut something your hand wouldn't be sufficient for). But use of the body is taijutsu, which depends on physical stamina, conditioning, and mental focus.

They also apparently can be combined with ninjutsu to form nintaijutsu (what nonsense is this?)

So I was wrong--Ninjutsu isn't anything involving chakra, but anything involving a tangible alteration to the environment. Wiki says that most involve chakra, hand seals, and often elements, but not all.

But it seems to me that Lee still shouldn't be able to walk on water. There's no reason he should be able to do that, but can't use any other chakra-related gen or ninjutsu.

So, in the last two days we've been watching all the first episodes we could find time for, and now I'm ready to comment on them.

Hiiro No Kakera - The pacing seemed a bit off, and the show seems a bit weird. But another episode may tell whether we actually like it or not.
Medaka Box - Seems a bit standard, if crazy, but it was an enjoyable watch.
Nazo no Kanojo X - I quite like this one, even if it's rather weird.
Ozuma - From the art to the events thus far, everything about this anime screams "Old School!". Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Saki Achiga-hen - Speaking of pacing that drove me nuts, I'm not so sure I like this one. We're planning to give it one more episode to see if it gets better.
Tsuritama - In a season chock full of crazy, this one fits right in.
Uchuu Kyoudai - I have high hopes for this one.

Yeah, I'm not holding out much hope that we'll enjoy it more after a second episode.