I have several weeks' worth of anime that I want to watch. But watching it alone is no fun. So I call on my Twitter & Fediverse followers, the readers of my website, and their trusted friends: let's meet at my house, and watch some.
Details:
- I'm in London UB5, DM or e-mail for the actual address
- a Saturday, most of the day: get there before noon, go home when you want
- lunch included, especially if you bring some
- feel free to bring your own anime (BluRay, DVD, or USB-connectible storage)
We usually meet on the third (or sometimes first) Saturday of each month.
Upcoming meetings
March 25th.
The mailing list
If you want to receive e-mail about upcoming meetings, write me and I'll add you to the mailing list.
What we watched
April 2nd 2011
May 7th 2011
- Fractale up to episode 5
- Puni Puni Poemi
- Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt episode 6 (review)
June 5th 2011
- Fractale from episode 6 to the end
- Oruchuban Ebichu episodes 1-2
- Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt episodes 7-8 (review)
July 2nd 2011
- Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, up to episode 3 (review)
- Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, first episode
- Meitantei Holmes, first episode
- Robot Carnival
August 20th 2011
We were only two, so we watched some random stuff that nobody would miss.
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K-On!, first 2 episodes (review)
Four high-school girls forming a band. More or less. Klutzy main character, plenty of moe. These first episodes are mostly showing the setting and the characters.
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Super Gals, first 2 episodes
Gals in Shibuya. Funny with slightly jarring serious moments. I seem to remember the manga mixing them better.
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Charming Figures of the Magical Girl Trio (OVA)
20 minutes total, of which about 5 are actual new animation, and the rest are collages from three mahou shoujo series. If you have never seen Creamy Mami, Persia, and Magical Emi, this will make no sense at all. If you have seen them, it will just be a bit boring :)
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Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt episodes 9-10 (review)
This one keeps getting more and more surreal.
September 17th 2011
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Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, up to episode 5 (review)
The main character is still not a Magical Girl, people keep getting hurt, and I trust Kyuubee less and less.
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Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, up to episode 3
Against all odds, Itoshiki & Fuura manage to do some good deeds. People still behave in incomprehensible ways.
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Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt episodes 11-13 (review)
Episodes 11 and 12 are the usual randomness. Episode 13 would be a story-arc-end, if there had been any arc to begin with. Half of the premises are implied, and a seconds season in promised.
October 15th 2011
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This is a live-action movie, not an animation. It tells more-or-less the same story as the first season of the anime series of the same name. The acting is rather average and the pacing is horribly slow. The visuals are quite well done, though, and the aliens look alien enough.
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Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, up to episode 8 (review)
I'm not going to put plot spoilers here, but I have to say that we guessed some of the big twists an episode or two in advance, mostly by assuming that Kyuubee is way more evil than we thought he could be. Right on the money…
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Jungle wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu episode 1
10 years old slapstick-comedy series, I had forgotten the sheer craziness of it.
November 13th 2011
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Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, to the end (review)
Oh my. They won. Kyuubee was even more of a bastard that we could have imagined. And Homura's backstory is a very good one. Just watch this series!
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Gamera: Guardian of the Universe
Yes, really. Not anime, not even old enough (it's from 1995!) to excuse the ugly props and the confusing story line. Also, the music was quite horrible and out of place, I hope it's just the edition we had. Quite the waste of time.
December 17th 2011
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Very nice mini-series, from the same author as Pale Cocoon (see below), on the possible social consequences of the introduction of Asimov-style humanoid robots.
The episodes of this series were watched thanks to crunchyroll, an ad-supported streaming service for recent anime titles, with English subtitles.
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Detroit Metal City, episodes 1 to 4.
Shy, melodic-songs loving boy becomes the frontman for a death metal band. Bad things happen. Hilarity ensues.
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Short OVA, about the reconstruction of history through restoration of ancient archives. A few centuries in the future. Not a totally original premise, but an interesting take on it.
January 21st 2012
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Detroit Metal City, episodes from 5 to the end.
More bad things, more hilarity. Worthy of been watched. Once.
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Summary of the series, with some added details, and an almost-explanation of some unclear points, during the ending credits.
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Meitantei Holmes, episode 10
Yes, a random episode. And we chanced upon the one from which most of the scenes in the opening titles are taken.
February 12th (Sunday) 2012
Just two people, we watched a few music videos that were mostly forgettable. Nothing interesting happened.
March 3rd 2012
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Evangelion Shin Gekijouban: Jo and Evangelion Shin Gekijouban: Ha
We watched the first two movies of the new Evangelion. The story matches quite closely the anime series from 1996, especially at the beginning. Some events are changed significantly, but the "feeling" is the same. We'll have to wait almost two years before we'll get the final (fourth!) movie…
March 31st 2012
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Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho
Movie written and directed by Makoto Shinkai. Alternate history SF, with dreams and quantum mumbo-jumbo. As in other works of his, the main focus in on the characters' growth and interactions. Slow and short on explanations, but worth the time.
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Kachou Ouji: Hard Rock Save the Space first episode
A salaryman with an exceedingly sad life get accosted by strange women who want him to perform the songs he was famous for when he was a rock star. There might be aliens involved.
April 21st 2012
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Dai Mahou Touge, all of it.
Another "magical girl". Heavy violence: if the main character can't win by magic, she wins by beating her opponents into a pulp. Not recommended for the faint of heart; others will laugh.
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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni first 8 episodes.
An isolated village, mysterious murders and disappearances. The story runs, with some significant differences, six times during the series. We've watched the first two "repetitions", and we're still not sure what's going on. We know this: we weren't bored at all. Even if it does feel like watching someone play a murder mystery game over and over (the series is based on such a game, and it shows).
May 20th 2012
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Movie clearly directed by Mamoru Oshii, about life and war. Very slow, but with interesting insights.
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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni episodes 9-13
One more run through the events, with even more differences. Is the main character completely crazy?
September 22nd 2012
- Karigurashi no Arrietty
- Re:Cutie Honey
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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni episodes 14-15
Some back-story. I still can't understand where the whole thing is going.
October 20th 2012
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The latest Ghibli movie, see also my review
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Shinichi Hiromoto wrote this complicated and meandering story of a schoolgirl in Hell. It's got some attempt at ideas about consensual realities, but it's confusing and it feels way too long.
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Very funny adaptation of Ryuusuke Mita's manga, too bad they ony made two episodes.
March 31st 2013
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Very confused story, badly developed, with random mixing of unrelated events.
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Sora no Woto, first 2 episodes
Switzerland, after a very long war, a military post is held by young girls, who play music. Not sure where it's going, but it's very pretty to look at.
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Idol Defence Force Hummingbird
Military defence has been outsourced to the private sector; only the idol/showbiz companies were willing to take it up. So we have idols who pilot fighter planes. Slow and not particularly interesting, surprisingly made in the early '90s: it feels at least ten years older.
October 26th 2013
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Penguindrum, first 16 episodes.
A complicated story of siblings, identity, destiny, and penguins. I wrote a review.
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Kill me baby, first 3 episodes.
Very random slapstick comedy: a stupid schoolgirl, her assassin classmate, and a visiting ninja. Short sketches, easy laughs.
December 7th 2013
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Bog standard RPG converted to anime. Easy watching with some laughs.
- Kill me baby, episodes 4-8.
February 15th 2014
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Very nice story about raising children and chosing our own life.
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Comedy / farce about high school thugs. I watched it for the first time years ago, and it still cracks me up
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Jesus and Buddha living together in a rental flat in Japan. Funny, but we lost all the Buddha in-jokes, and the pacing of the story is uneven.
October 4th 2014
- Mai Mai Miracle
- Ouran High School Host Club, the first two episodes
- Kyou kara ore wa… episodes 4 and 5
February 28th 2015
- Patema Inverted
- The woman called Fujiko Mine, first 7 episodes (review)
March 21st 2015
- The woman called Fujiko Mine, final 7 episodes
- some shorts from the Anime Mirai series.
April 25th 2015
- live action Yatterman
May 30th 2015
- Gatchaman Crowds, all of it; see also my review
June 20th 2015
- When Marnie was There
- Marvelous Melmo, first 2 episodes
October 24th 2015
- Hinata no Aoshigure 20 minutes short about 10-year-olds in love
- Princess Tutu first three episodes; very weird but very engaging story about a duckling who falls in love with a boy dancer, gets transformed into a girl who becomes a magical girl… it all makes more sense in the series, I promise.
February 27th 2016
March 13th 2016
- Now and Then, Here and There one of the bleakest series I've even watched. Content notes for kidnapping, child soldiers, war, rape, graphical violence, discussion of abortion, drowning. I think that covers it.
May 21st 2016
- Kyousougiga, all of it; see also my review.
June 18th 2016
- Katanagatari, first 2 episodes: slow, boring, cheaply animated, 50 minutes episodes. We gave up.
- Ano Hana, first 4 episodes: we really liked this one!
August 20th 2016
- finished Ano Hana, it's a really good story.
- Punch Line first episode: overly messy and complicated setup, most reviews say "it gets decent after six episodes"; I'm pretty sure we're not going to watch the rest
- HaNaYaMaTa first episode: cute story of unlikely friendship
November 19th 2016
- Bakemono no Ko, very nice movie by Mamoru Hosoda
- first three episodes of Baccano": lots of characters, lots of plot threads, quite difficult to follow, but promises to be good
December 17th 2016
- The Tatami Galaxy, first 5 episodes: very weird time-loop story, it gets a bit too repetitive if watched all at once, so we stopped halfway through
- Expelled from Paradise movie about uploaded humans, fake utopias, the nature of consciousness; as usual with Nitro+, I find the questions much better than the answers (also, the CG animation is terrible)
January 28th 2017
- Flip Flappers, first 9 episodes: oneiric magical girls, many episodes are clearly spoofing other animes or tropes; I've finished watching it on my own, it turns very Akira-like by the end.
February 18th 2017
- Gunbuster, all 6 episodes: epic giant-robots series, early Gainax.
March 17th 2018
- Madoka Magica: Rebellion, the third movie of the series.
June 16th 2018
- The Great Passage, all 11 episodes: very nice story of friendship and teamwork between people compiling a dictionary
November 17th 2018
- Girls' Last Tour, a few episodes; two your girls drive a kettenkrad through an immense deserted city
- Nagi no Asukara, a few episodes; love polygon with sea-dwelling people
April 13th 2019
- Ping Pong, first episode. Unusual sport anime, with a strong focus on the characters' personalities. The art style is also quite peculiar, like sketches and watercolors
- Chio's School Road, first episode. School girl who plays video games way too much, has surreal and awkward adventures on her way to school
- Joshi Kausei, first two episodes. Extremely short episodes (3 minutes each), no dialogues, slice of life
- HINAMATSURI, first five episodes. Telekinetic girl teleports into the house of a yakuza member, making his life even more complicated. Sweet and funny.
May 18th 2019
- Carole & Tuesday first 3 episodes. Two girls trying to live and make music on Mars (we're not sure why it's set on Mars). Cute, written and directed by WATANABE Shinichirou, director of Cowboy Bebop.
June 15th 2019
- Carole & Tuesday episodes 4 to 6. Not much plot here, we're still not clear why it's on Mars
July 20th 2019
- HINAMATSURI, all remaining episodes. Too many plot threads half-forgotten, but still funny.
September 14th 2019
- Carole & Tuesday episodes 7 to 13. Things are happening, lots of drama, many new songs.
November 16th 2019
- finished Carole & Tuesday, things did happen!
February 11th 2023
- Millennium Actress fantastic in the way it mixes memories / movie fragments / present time; one of my friends has recently been watching classic live action Japanese movies and caught many many references. I was reminded of Catherynne Valente's "Radiance", both for the love of cinema and for the style of reconstructing a life from documentary fragments.
- Belle visually stunning, with good music, and a story that's at times very engaging. But it leaves some plot points way too implicit, and the conflict resolution in the end is… wrong? Like, boy, that's really not what you should be doing in the future, you've been doing that all along and what necessitated your actions is the whole problem!
