It sounds cute! I haven't read the story, but I've put it on my plan-to-read-list

Moved to the SKU forum

hayama wrote:

Notebook Darling wrote:

It sounds cute! I haven't read the story, but I've put it on my plan-to-read-list

Hehehe, be careful with that. I've seen the series, and believe you me, it's not cute.

Exactly what I was thinking. Oh that opening lies so hard...

I guess I need to get in gear and watch that series.
I believe it was directed by Chiaki Konaka, one of my favorite directors. I've loved just about everything he's done.
I was hoping to find a legal stream of it but all the usual suspects don't have it.

I should warn you all, this show isn't for the faint of heart...or the weak of stomach, as it were. At least it never got as bad as the manga did.

Last edited by Atropos (08-11-2014 07:45:45 PM)

Narutaru...[Norio...just, poor, poor, Norio. One of my favorite characters, too. His fate may be worse than Anthy's or at least as bad. At least his suffering eventually ended with his death.]

I can see how Shiina is a bit like Utena. They both have a strong sense of justice but tend to mess up more often than not and despite their best intentions fail to see their friends' issues for what they truly are. But while Utena's parents died in an accident when she was little, Shiina's has an overbearing mother of Gendou proportions. I mean, she gave her daughter a name that is written with the kanji for 'seed that bears no fruit', it scarred Shiina into only writing her name with kana even when teachers tell her very firmly not to.

They have in common being the less messed up in a highly dysfunctional cast. I'd say Narutaru takes the cake in that regard as virtually every single named character is so troubled that it would take years of therapy to even begin to unravel their problems. With bullies that make Nanami come across as an angel, social Darwnian crazies who actually follow their views to their logical extremes, and cute critters who morph into nightmare fuel, Narutaru is one of the disturbing manga I ever encountered.

Which brings me to Bokurano, from the same mangaka. A bunch of kids meets a kooky guy who signs them on this cool game in which they take turns controlling this absurdly giant robot and fighting kaiju. Sounds kinda fun, right? Well, wrong. [Turns out the game is real, which is bad, and that each pilot will die as soon as the battle ends, which is just as bad. They die whether they win or lose and when they do win they end up destroying some other world. ]

I found the way Bokurano is structured to be a bit like SKU. Each pilot is given a lot of character development so that you end up really feeling for them. It also has a most unlikely 'hero', a kid who routinely slaps his kid sister around.