Kaye

^ what's exactly so bad in "stupid hand-monster-alien thing"? I don't really get the hate on this exact character due to the lack of elaboration 
 
Other than that, enjoying Kiseijuu and Shigatsu pretty much (and the former doesn't feel "outdated" despite being based on late 80s/early 90s manga - which I dig as well)
 
Perhaps I might be way too easy to please? Lol.

Skipped a bit through the manga and literally no one is safe. There's more to come!
 
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I have become strangely attached to a main kid from a romance anime which isn't even that great. Oh well, I guess I'll blame being "female" or something for that.
 
Still liking Donten ni Warau. Still liking Hitsugi no Chaika. Still liking Parasyte. Still liking Amagi Brilliant Park even if it's just because I could watch KyoAni animate pretty much everything, and would listen to nothing but Uchiyama Kouki (voicing Seiya) talking for an hour or more without any issues. Terra Formars  and Fate/Stay Night got slightly more interesting to watch. The new Gundam: G is a total mess but the lead is at least a bit fun to watch? Kokkuri-san is still ridiculous. Akame ga Kill literally just kills off everyone. Garo makes me laugh more than I'm sure it intends to. Psycho-Pass needs to get rid of that new girl because if she even so much as appears into the screen I get insanely annoyed.
 
Special mention for Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso because everything about that anime is just really well done.

Skipped a bit through the manga and literally no one is safe. There's more to come!
 
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I have become strangely attached to a main kid from a romance anime which isn't even that great. Oh well, I guess I'll blame being "female" or something for that.
 
Still liking Donten ni Warau. Still liking Hitsugi no Chaika. Still liking Parasyte. Still liking Amagi Brilliant Park even if it's just because I could watch KyoAni animate pretty much everything, and would listen to nothing but Uchiyama Kouki (voicing Seiya) talking for an hour or more without any issues. Terra Formars  and Fate/Stay Night got slightly more interesting to watch. The new Gundam: G is a total mess but the lead is at least a bit fun to watch? Kokkuri-san is still ridiculous. Akame ga Kill literally just kills off everyone. Garo makes me laugh more than I'm sure it intends to. Psycho-Pass needs to get rid of that new girl because if she even so much as appears into the screen I get insanely annoyed.
 
Special mention for Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso because everything about that anime is just really well done.

Agree on this. Both BTS and EH put out solid albums this year. I'm a happy fan.
 
Also, I know these guys aren't very big and all, but I saw them on a fanevent today and they are the nicest and most adorable group I have seen in my entire life. Saw them last year as well and one of them just straight out asked me "How old are you?" in English. This year he seems to have remembered me and asked my friend how long I'd been here for before, trying to make sure I wouldn't notice. Not sure what he's up to.
 

Oh MAN I loved Rilla Go! Not a big fan of their previous releases (though they're a talented bunch for sure) but Rilla Go has been my jam all week Curious to see what direction they'll take from now on.
 
And you might have a potential love interest Kaye LMAO.

Haven't gotten to Seo Taiji yet, been stuck on the new Epik High all week Though that's not really K-pop, more like K-Hip Hop lmao. But yeah Shoebox is definitely the best Korean album I've heard this year next to BTS' Dark&Wild.

So basically you're saying it's amazing "as an anime based on the VN", which I perfectly understand. (I'm already way too hyped for DRRR, or Soukyuu's 2nd season for instance, while most people probably will have never even watched the first season because it's 10 years old. So I get what getting hyped is and I don't see that as an issue)
 
I didn't mean I don't like it. I didn't mean it's bad. What I mean is that it's overhyped for what it is so far. If it's hyped up because of fans loving the fact that there's an adaptation, then I can understand. But if it's solely based on "omg this anime is so perfect already with just an episode in (or two, well)" then I don't get it because I'm not seeing anything I haven't seen before.
 
But I'll surely anticipate future episodes then

Maybe something of marginal interest to some fans here.
 
イツエ (itsue) vocalist Mizuki has participated in some anime song with "SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]" (not familiar with him):
http://www.jpopsuki.tv/video/SawanoHiroyuki%255BnZk%255D%253Amizuki---AZ/0b768b7fccc66c93f3040db197fbffb5

Imo, it's kind of a basic power ballad... Cool that she's getting more exposure, but on this track, there's not really any traces of her amazing vocal work with イツエ.  

The only two Gazette albums I can still care for, but DIM wins the top spot in the end. Why? Despite NIL having been my real introduction to the band, DIM is an album I loved from start to finish, and has some kind of mysterious flow through the tracks. I doubt they'll ever be able to upstage that.

No, what DogManX is simply saying is that there is no "good" or "bad" change independent of the person making the judgement, i.e. you, another fan of the band, or whoever else.
Let me break it down. To say that a band's music has "changed" is to be making an objective, factual statement - namely, you listen to the band's music and point out how certain aspects of it are now different from before. No one is even going to dispute these factual claims unless they're deaf or you're plain wrong. But to say that the music has "progressed" (or regressed) is to add a normative spin on whatever it is that has changed - you are making a value judgment, and this claim being made is only specific to you, and anyone else who (happens to) agree with you.
I'm in complete agreement with DogManX here, even if it may be an unpopular opinion. You said that "without a degree of change there is no progress". Implicit in this is the presupposition that there is such a thing as "progress" that is separable from whoever it is that decides what "progress" means, and which everyone ought to strive towards regardless. This is already a very dubious claim in politics, but even more so when we find ourselves in the sphere of art and aesthetics (which music is part of). Does abstract art represent "progress" from Renaissance painting? How about Prokofiev over Bach? 20th-century stream-of-consciousness literature over Charles Dickens? Who decides?

Who cares about the genre, this EP is epic shit. Way better than their previous releases. For me the electro parts suit them really well. Vortex and Go Ahead are my favorite.
Overall: 4/5

Okay y'all please stop the genre debate in this thread please! if you want to argue over what is what then by all means feel free to make a separate thread for it and have it out there. This topic is about Girugamesh's new album, nothing more. If i see any more off topic discussion about genres in here I will start to delete posts and possibly hand out warnings for the repeat offenders that can't comply.
 
Thank you.

Artist: Sadie Album: GANGSTA Score:
The musical equivalent of the human centipede, where genres are held hostage and stitched together ass to mouth so shit flows in one end and out the other. Except one of the genres is emaciated, another is dressed in drag, and a third took five too many Xanax and huddles unconscious in the corner. Making heads or tails of what GANGSTA wants to be is fruitless. A convoluted mess of bad ideas, worse ideas, and terrible execution, the best thing about it is how little the name has to do with anything. If you like your clouds with silver lining, it's not the visual kei equivalent of Sasuke Uchiha's mixtape, but the turntable scratching and rapping still rears it's ugly head when Sadie is done violating all the other genres they think they can handle.
 
The beginning of the end of my expectations starts with MODE OF GANGSTA, which kickstarts this thirteen track tour de force of all the ways to not juxtapose genres. Evoking feelings of a coked out futuristic dystopian cyberpunk electro-rave punctuated with gang vocals, it's about as good as DEATHGAZE's Japanese Meliorism. And by that, I mean it's cool for eight measures and then it needs to stop. But by this point, you've already ventured into the ectosphere and are being pulled towards the gravitational singularity that is this album whether you like it or not, and the only question you should have is why.
 
One of the few constants within this album is how any attempts to extinguish the flaming wreckage only makes things worse. Lead single DEAD END's intro may give you hope - as a formulaic Sadie rock number they're in familiar territory - but even here there are signs that things are going to go wrong fast. Not only do I feel like I've heard this song before - probably because I have - but the song feels like a disjointed collage of half-executed ideas that don't play well together. There's some sugar, some spice, a funky guitar line or two, a chorus with complex delivery, token heavy sections, and harsh vocals that feel like an after thought, thrown about to take up eight measures worth of time. There's some good and some bad, but it's the most consistent track on here.
 
Differences in opinion over the first two tracks can be summed up into "at least they're trying!" and "diversity!", so I can't knock this band for having no ideas. But at the end of the day, the inability to execute a vision even with a multitude of ideas is not a matter of opinion. It's a fatal shortcoming that births tracks like WELCOME TO THE UNDERGROUND, which is the most clumsy jazz-kei attempt of the last decade. It also marks the point where the album crosses the event horizon and there's no coming back. They keep up their cabaret pretenses for three minutes before sliding back into their trademark metalcore sound so they don't feel too out of their comfort zone, but the awkward focus on English lyrics and inappropriate guitar tuning betrays the band's intentions. The left-field metalcore section sports harsh vocals poor even by Mao's standards, and the aggression displayed near the end is at odds with the rhythm in the beginning. If they had held consistent, it would have been an amusing LIPHLICH imitation at best. Instead, this is a muddled mess.
 
But it's not just WELCOME TO THE UNDERGROUND that sounds like a spiked cocktail of ill-executed concepts. The second constant of GANGSTA is that Sadie doesn't know what it wants to play. A puree of shit banded together by interludes forms whenever Sadie tries to coax ideas into places they don't fit, and a majority of the album falls into this category. Whenever they stumble onto an idea that might work, they suddenly switch gears before it can get going. It would be more prudent to highlight all the songs that stay the course - wherever that course may be headed - from beginning to end. For that, I give props to Tokyo Gypsy, MESSAGE FROM HERE, and the piano outro PHRASE OF LIFE. I would never say any of these three tracks are "good". Singling one out as the best song is deceptive; it's like comparing a turd to twelve less smelly turds. What we have here are three tracks that didn't elevate my blood pressure, and thus I'll take the road less traveled and talk about the few positive aspects of this album.
 
Tokyo Gypsy is a slower rock song, which in the hands of a different band could have worked a lot better. It's the first song on the album that isn't a total disaster, but the band refuses to let it's hair down and get into the groove. This creates unneeded apprehension in the atmosphere. Nothing about this song screams "Listen to me again!", but the greasy back alley male strip club vibe I get from listening to it gives it a place of distinction in my mind. MESSAGE FROM HERE is a six minute ballad driven by a piano where only the rightmost five keys work. There's a feeling of the piano sitting on top of the music instead of integrating itself to it, and feels at odds with the prominent bass line. It deserves brownie points because it doesn't have a section of asinine songwriting to ruin the flow, but it doesn't captivate me either. It's far too long for what little ideas they're toying with, and could have been four minutes and delivered the same impact. The fact that it follows another ballad and leads into a piano outro means that while the album takes a sonic detour into consistency near the end, it's sinks into obscurity in a sea of similarity.
 
I won't mention much of PHRASE OF LIFE, except it's a nod to Kisou and STACKED RUBBISH - a disjointed album ending on a pleasant note.
 
Once the piano from PHRASE OF LIFE twinkles it's way to an understated ending, my hopes are crushed. I've listened to the entire album but I don't know what the purpose was. How can GANGSTA be justified as the product of hard work and musical creativity, when corners were cut and questionable choices were made at every turn? When the band wants to play metalcore, I'm bombarded with rave synth, embarrassing gang vocals, bars of absolute shit songwriting, demented gerbil sounds that are supposed to pass for harsh vocals all held together with derivative pop hooks so recycled the logo is visible. How can one rectify the disparate influences that pull tracks apart rather than brings them together? Take bleach as a four minute excursion into all the things wrong with this album. There's prominent DJ scratching, more bad gang vocals, random unexplored changes in riffage, and melodic metalcore over a house beat held up by Sadie's favorite musical crutches. None of these things go together either on paper or in practice, but the band insists that they do. I can't find any redeeming qualities in this album, and additional listens of GANGSTA reveal more flaws and no hidden gems. If there are any in the music, it's hidden deeper than it's worth to find them.
 
There's trying, trying too hard, and then having no idea what you're doing anymore. Sadie has always been a straightforward metalcore band. The contention with their sound in the last few years is that they're using the same formula to come up with their tracks and they need a way to distinguish them. Thinking outside the box, gathering all of these ideas, and then leaving them outside the box defeats the purpose of gathering those ideas in the first place! If these ideas can't be used, they should be discarded. Instead, the box is as empty as it was before, the ideas are neglected like a child whose mother doesn't love them, the presentation is messy, and it's left to the listener to puzzle out what the band's true intentions were.
 
I'd rather vomit on tinfoil and eat it than listen to this again.

I'm almost on it. If I can get myself to watch the first two episodes that is.
 
Skipped through the unsubbed Donten ni Warau and so far it looks exactly like I had imagined it to be. I really liked the manga so I hope the anime will be just as good.

huehuehue

I might be.
 
But no, seriously... I've been waiting for Donten Ni Warau because I read the manga, and I'm sure Parasyte will at least be interesting. I'm also up for a little bit of drama with Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso but who knows where that's going to lead to. Apart from that there's only Chaika I was really planning to watch as the first season was pretty decent. All the rest is just "whatever" to me. I'll give the new Gundam series a try though.
 
Watching Terra Formars too and not sure where that's going to go.
 
Lots of people were complaining the summer season was so bad, and the fall season is making up for it but I don't get it at all. What are they watching that I'm not seeing on the list? All I get is dozens of series of one guy with tens of girls and the usual drama.
 
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Also just finished the Buddy Complex special and there's not really room for another season sadly. They wrapped that up nicely, even though it was all too rushed. Dio made me sad in the end though ._.

I came to ask this same question. Are you me?
 
Karen Senki seems like a Japanese take on RWBY, with worse CGI animation because whoever did this isn't Monty Oum. Storyline is robots from a dystopic future try and fail at killing MC girl for reasons. It's like Terminator without the time-travel. It's only ten minutes a week so even if it becomes a disappointment I won't have wasted too much time.
Terraformars was ok, convoluted plot is a mess, but that censoring is ass. Makes Tokyo Ghoul look like they did a good job. I'll give it 3 episodes before I make my mind up, but I'm not sold. At all.
 

M3 was actually a rather decent show. It really started to surprise me about half way through, and while the mecha action wasn't top notch the characters were really good and most of them had a lot of really good development that really made the show for me. Also the soundtrack wasn't half bad either. The overall plot could of been a little more well put together, but it still worked the way they decided to do it. Overall this was a surprise show from this last season that turned out a lot better than I originally anticipated... definitely a sleeper imo.
 
I downloaded the new Buddy Complex OVA's as well but have not watched them yet... do they completely wrap it up and eliminate all hope for a second season? Buddy Complex was a show that I had problems with in some areas and in others it was all good for me. If by chance the OVA's did leave some wriggle room for a second season, I would not be against watching another season if it did indeed happened.
 
P.S. Bakumatsu Rock was pretty shit if you ask me... XD can't believe I stuck through it all the way, it really started to get ridiculous after the halfway mark.

Have to admit.. the DSS version of Hage sucked all the life out of it...

Artist: girugamesh EP: Gravitation Score: After a few years of borderline radio-friendly stagnation, Girugamesh have hit back with quite possibly their best release yet.
After a few years of borderline radio-friendly stagnation, Girugamesh have hit back with quite possibly their best release yet. Last year's Monster symbolised a beacon of hope for both fans and the band. The aggression was back, the heaviness was back, Girugamesh was back. Although steeped in pop-sensibilities at times, the album took a 180 from pop to electronic metalcore, leaving the burning wrecks of Now and Go far behind.

It's been a year since their last full-length Monster, and Gravitation not only keeps this reclaimed heaviness in place but polishes it to perfection. Kicking off with their hardest song to date, 'Go Ahead' lures you in with gentle tones before ripping your head off. Satoshi's transition from gentle crooning to terrifying growls, for example, are nothing short of frisson worthy. Having the rawest vocals, the hardest breakdown, and the most memorable chorus, this song characterises the EP and spearheads their new sound. As a song that can only be described with superlatives, 'Go Ahead' highlights how Gravitation has led the band to a new level of heaviness. This permeates throughout the EP. While 'Reflection' displays a hard metalcore influence, for instance, 'Vortex' goes beyond that, opting for a thrashy deathcore vibe; a massive departure from Go in many respects.

I thought it would let up at some point but the whole EP is like this; every time a lull in the intensity is expected, it continues its bombardment of chunky riffs and pleasantly incessant drumming. This is exemplified best in 'Reflection' where Satoshi tries to do some severe damage to his throat...in the best possible way. They could have included a slower, gentler track to give the listener a breather, but instead they opted for five heavy songs varying in loudness and intensity. The infectious electronic elements and catchy vocals which have characterised their more recent efforts are used to full effect here, modernising their previous sound and making each track as memorable as the last. All of these elements culminate in 'Vortex' which, replete with screams, riff-heavy guitar work and double-bass pedaling, is the best way to end Gravitation: in the same loud and exciting way in which it started, exuding a confidence not found on their older material. This is the Girugamesh we wanted after Music and the band sure as hell knows it.
 
By cramming everything their fans love about them into one neat package, Girugamesh has created their best effort yet. Contrary to more recent releases, the intensity and loudness of their old sound is back and better than ever. While taking a new form reflective of some current "-core" genres, classic Girugamesh permeates to the point where they might win their older fanbase back.

Upon listening to Gravitation it's clear that Girugamesh are back and louder, heavier and better than ever!

Same as Saku tbh. Loved a lot of the characters and the story itself isn't bad, but at times I really went "what?" at just about everything. I think the only reason it was fun to watch to the end was because I'd gotten slightly attached to Nice and Art? Second season is about the same. It's a fun watch but a mess at times. It's certainly not bad, but nothing outstanding either.

it's hard to say... I find the show enjoyable at times and then other times i just can't stand it. I will say that for the most part I really like most of the characters, and the story isn't absolutely terrible but there are times in the plot where I'm just like "wut just happened?". I wouldn't say the show is great or anything but it's not trash or even mildly bad. I would just call it decent and a good distraction from boredom.
So if you need something to watch and you don't have any other better candidates out there then I say go for it because you could do a lot worst than Hamatora, that's for sure.

They are not j-core , j-core is techno , its a japanese version of hardcore trance . Girgamesh new style is a mix of alternative metal riffs and drums , with modern rock elements and melodies . Also screamo is a hardcore punk subgenre , so no its far from that .
Also DarkWater you forgetting some big things here ,
1st they are not visual kei anymore so saying where are the vk elements is kinda out of place .
2nd they a mainstream rock band , so getting pop elements in their music is standard , and should be expected .
3rd There is no such thing as real rock , its just something made up by ppl who want all rock bands to sound as they think true rock should sound , but there are many rock subgenres .
4th metal can be soft as well , melodic power metal bands sometimes are not even tagged by ppl as metal cause they dont sound that metal , there are also bands who play atmospheric symphonic metal that are also tagges as rock . Also if you would think about oldschool heavy metal that could be what you mean by true metal , than you would notice that it was a lot more softer than todays heavy metal , sounding more like todays hard rock bands .
Otherwise , good review .
Maybe ill write my own review later , when i get the ones for the fanzine done and will have some spare time .

This EP makes Crossfaith look like a bunch of chumps.
"don't worry guys, we'll clean up the mess you made"