Ceris

B-b-b-but event coming up after maintenance soon Nico ;-;

I feel this is relevant for any time a location card is played

I think she's fine both ways, but she does look slightly better when her hair is more messy/spikey, like how that Rin event card looked we got




 

I think we should all leave Nosebleed to answer this question. He had a post in a random thread (can't remember which) like 5 months ago about the origins of NicoMaki, but I don't think I can find it
 
*Realized the Rin event starts an hour later than he planned, begins searching the lands, far and wide to find this fabled post*

NOSEBLEED, DON'T SKIP THESE POSTS WHEN YOU WAKE UP!' Found a post~
 
 
Edit: I'm a Rinja~

Ahh I hope she is smile or pure idolized looks incredibly cuuute

Not going for top 1000 for Eli I like her unidolized

CLuBLioN you had 86 gems right you should look at your teams and decide which attribute you need the most and go for that

Im saving my gems for 15th october :3
(Lol I remember saying you can't spend your lunch money to Ceris now look at me)

I saw you guys in my dream couldn't see your faces but we were in the same place talking about sif and patato chips ahaha Ceris was trying to scare some little children and Nosebleed was like ehh wth is he doing -.- then talked about patato chips again :D

Going to increase my POTD to 3 for a bit, 1 feels lame.








Hanayo is waaay too cute in Rin's outfit, and also in that 2nd image too..

Going to increase my POTD to 3 for a bit, 1 feels lame.








Hanayo is waaay too cute in Rin's outfit, and also in that 2nd image too..

Here, have a Rin POTD that just got released today



I guess, here's a Nico too.

Just wanna share some love >////<      
 
 

Btw, that Poster is official artwork, I don't have the image, but I made a post about it a couple weeks ago
 
I said in that post that it IS the first OP outfits, but the poster/image is older than the anime, because the outfits were updated visually for the anime (the skirts are really short and only one side)






So, Kotori or Hanayo for POTD, hmm.. My biggest libraries are Rin, Hanayo, and Honoka images, just because they're the ones I spent more time searching (well, and Maki, but because of her personality, there's more images of less quality out there )

Double post because unrelated

New Printemps album preview




First song is the song they added to the JP version yesterday, liking it more I listen to it, pretty calming.

Ahhh, but sadly that's a misconception. But it's good because it will allow me to answer in a more constructed manner than my blurb above.
 
First, let us make a distinction: magical-girl anime vs fighting magical-girl anime. At its roots, the magical-girl genre that originates from Mahoutsukai Sally and its various copycats in the 60s, continues with the second generation of 80s magical-girls like Minky Momo and keeps seeing evolution later through modern shows such as Ojamajo Doremi  or Full Moon wo Sagashite, does not feature any kind of manicheist opposition of good and evil nor any fights at all. This notion is introduced very late in the sub-genre that sprouted in the 90s with Sailor Moon and became dominant in the last decade with the turning point of 2004 where both the Precure license (as far as little girls are concerned) and the Nanoha license (as far as otakus are concerned) took off.
The description you make of a "typical magical-girl show" corresponds very much to Precure, but only applies (and not so exactly) to that fighting magical-girl sub-genre, which is far from being as ancient and typical of japanese animation as the magical-girl genre as a whole.
 
Now before going onto 'heavy-handed' themes, I want to address the question of originality/creativity that you pointed out after. I do agree that very few things are 'truly original', but more than anything 'true originality' is not only rare, it's devoid of any interesting aspect. If you discuss with someone with a deep knowledge of a certain genre and its origins, you might be able to find works that approach 'true originality'... only to realize it doesn't bring anything interesting to the question.
When we talk about 'originality', it's more on a relative term. Fights in magical-girls didn't come out of nowhere, the codes of the genre were directly imported into Sailor Moon from the tokusatsu/sentai series that aired since the 70s. It's not original per se, but relatively to the magical-girl genre, it was a mini-revolution that had a deep impact on the genre.
To get back to Madoka, the point I want to make is that it seems original relatively to the perception that a lot of anime watchers have of magical-girls (which can basically be summed up by having seen some of either Card Captor Sakura, Doremi or Sailor Moon, depending on their generation, when they were kids), but it really isn't relatively to what the genre actually is.
 
Why is that? Well first, regarding heavy-handed themes. Magical-girl anime have always touched upon heavy themes.
Doremi handles subjects like alcoolism, divorce, bullying, parental violence, grave illness and death on a semi-regular basis. It might not be treated in a dark, pessimistic way but it's there. Actually most magical-girl shows talk about death at some point or another. Sailor Moon has bad guys like good guys dying on screen. The synopsis of Full Moon wo Sagashite is basically a 12 year old girl dreaming to be a singer... that has throat cancer and will die in a year. Card Captor Sakura has a subtle subtext full of sexuality. Sailor Moon even has plain homosexuality on screen. And the list goes on and on and on...
Just because kids shows don't have blood and guts spattered all over the screen doesn't mean they don't tackle serious stuff (well that's becoming less and less true but that's the sad days we live in and another subject entirely).
 
Even going onto the the "dark twist" thing we can find examples prior to Madoka. In adult shows there's no doubt about that, magical-girl 90s OAVs that feature the usual pulp mix of violence and sex are a good example and Nanoha and its various copycats aren't exactly light either.
In a more blurry territory there are series such as Mahou Shoujo-tai Arusu or Princess Tutu that probably have been seen both by adult and children audiences and where it's hard to know towards who it was geared in the first place, but that most definitely feature that "dark twist". I have to say that Princess Tutu probably does it the best, because of how relevant it is to its meta-fictionnal commentary.
 
In the end, the difference in Madoka is one of treatment rather than depth. The one thing that is introduced by Madoka is mainly the brutality. It goes primarily for the shock factor with its violent deaths and tragic Faustian contracts that never go well. The whole series is treated as a cruel tragedy, but the core isn't all that different.
 
If you say that Madoka "deconstructs" the fighting magical-girl sub-genre because it doesn't portray a manicheist conflict where Good triumph in the end by vanquishing Evil, then it's probably somewhat true I guess. And even then there would be arguable points.
Madoka is an excellent series, but it wouldn't be accurate to say that there's such a huge gap between it and the rest of the magical-girl genre, because it's simply not true.
 
One last thing, to highlight how much context is key in this kind of reflexion: you say that Madoka presents a huge gap between its first two 'innocent' episodes and the rest (and that's definitely what Shinbo aimed for), but the sole knowledge that it's an anime broadcasted late at night, produced by Shaft, written by Urobuchi and directed by Shinbo immediately gave away the fact that it wouldn't be some pinky sugar series. Once again, when confronted to the reality of its genre and its context rather than observed in a vacuum, Madoka isn't such a groundbreaking or surprising series. (And once again, I like it a lot. It's not completely uninspired either. It packs a lot of emotions because of that tragic aspect that is one of the selling points of the series, and has an interesting artistic direction.)
 
I hope I managed to make my thoughts clear somehow.
 
Also, when did you come back to the forums? That's a resurrection! =p

I actually just made a new account for my mass imgur uploads, since my main one had to be purged like 3 times already, and getting extremely close to a 4th.
 
And here's my Picture of the Day post, with a special occasion where the Maki event just ended, so have a bunch of Maki!
 

...

I'm just going to cheer myself up with Rin and RinPana picture, since that is all I'm ever going to get

It's painful ignoring that UR, but it's not like higher chance of New cards appearing means anything. I mean, 40% is absolutely nothing, right? Right?





Still have only ever gotten 1 "New" card ever.

My Wonderful Rush is over








Played my last match with my Wonderful Rush team, just for fun (minus Rin, forgot to change leader xD) Surprisingly, I only took 4th by 2k away from 3rd. (stomped by 1st and 2nd of course, everyone had their normal SR filled teams)

Picture of the day.




Don't have that many images to pick from Umi wise

It's the amount of score you earn in one day playing regular and daily songs (score match doesn't count towards this). I have no idea why there are people listed there when they should be playing the event.


I have a screenshot of that ranking board when I was first to get the event Rin

Okay, listened, and yes, there's a quick 1-liner that's different between characters at around 2:55. I don't understand Japanese, but Honoka says "Arigatou", I think Umi says "Doing well?", and Nico's phrase sounds familiar, but not 100% sure (good bye/cya later?), dunno about anyone else. I think Eli says something about the future (I think I heard Mirai) Also, Kotori sounds amazing in this song.

Oh, and here, have an awesome picture of the day, with a speciall sectioned off/backgroundless version too.

Okay, listened, and yes, there's a quick 1-liner that's different between characters at around 2:55. I don't understand Japanese, but Honoka says "Arigatou", I think Umi says "Doing well?", and Nico's phrase sounds familiar, but not 100% sure (good bye/cya later?), dunno about anyone else. I think Eli says something about the future (I think I heard Mirai) Also, Kotori sounds amazing in this song.

Oh, and here, have an awesome picture of the day, with a speciall sectioned off/backgroundless version too.

Okay, listened, and yes, there's a quick 1-liner that's different between characters at around 2:55. I don't understand Japanese, but Honoka says "Arigatou", I think Umi says "Doing well?", and Nico's phrase sounds familiar, but not 100% sure (good bye/cya later?), dunno about anyone else. I think Eli says something about the future (I think I heard Mirai) Also, Kotori sounds amazing in this song.

Oh, and here, have an awesome picture of the day, with a speciall sectioned off/backgroundless version too.

Ha, I was referencing a post I made a while back (July 20th, my large post comparing Rin and Honoka) and I found something I've thought about time and time again randomly whenever I listen to Korekara (my mind is weird and will remember random things like this). I guess it just bothered me I never gave an answer.

So, the "special line" in Korekara isn't special. I dunno if you ever listened to the full song, you probably already know this answer, but the line you hear that's "different" from others is actually in the song, but you can't pick it out because all 9 characters are having their own line playing at the same time. Meaning, because it is a solo, all the other 8 characters' lines being played at the same time are being cut out, leaving the solo, making it understandable.

Damn, that post was way back on page 105 xD

There's also a special thing with Kaguya no Shiro that's similar. In the full member version of the song, each character gets their own lines throughout the song, and some end with signature stuff, like Nico's first line ends with "NICO", Rin's ends with "NYA", and Kotori's with "ONOGAI!" but if you listen to the solo, say Rin's, she won't do the "NICO" but she'll do the "NYA", and in Nico's solo, she'll do the "NICO" and not the "NYA".

Accidentally double post, guess I'll leave this for the picture of the day

I love this one for some reason.

I thought about the yuri stuff in related to animation. The anime loves hints (they know people know). Random scenes came to mind, why the hell were Nico and Maki out together at night (the only two not in their homes) in episode 1 of S2. And the fact that they were pretty much strangers just months before, with Nico being the main member Maki interacts with in the anime. And then you have practically a confession from Hanayo that she wants to hold Rin. Unless it's different with girls, I don't see someone exclaiming that they want to hold you then blush uncontrollably when they realised they said it out loud and not have it mean anything xD

Yeah, the studio is a tease.



Oh, and this possible VN plot for Love Live: http://www.reddit.com/r/SchoolIdolFestival/comments/2iuul0/a_love_live_school_idol_project_galge_visual_novel/cl5sm7n