Mr Poltroon

Ooooor... if you don't mind the fact that you'll be "missing content", the all ages version is fine. I played it; didn't feel like anything was really missing until I heard about it later. Not a big issue for me.

True enough. What's all these extra "features"? Clearly they're no more than bugs! Liking? Tagging/Pinging? Bah!

That's the thing about Rooke's Excellent Default Theme. It never breaks!

Confession: I had always believed my family has always remained "drama"-free. To an extent that remains the case, but I now see that it has more to do with my general lack of interest than there being nothing worthy of note. I have cousins that are up to their ears in very unpleasant drama. Oh, me, how blessed you are. Though I would guess that I have a penchant for avoiding serious conflict, I'm sure glad there are no unsustainable conflicts in my close family.

Indeed. Gamers! has been rather good. I haven't seen comedy based on misunderstandings I liked this much in quite a while.

Aho Girl - I've seen a lot of people complain that this is about making fun of the mentally retarded, and though I think the titular character of the show possesses certain traits that would generally exclude her from the label, others may not agree. That's fine. If you believe you would be offended by the concept, then perhaps it would be best to stay away. As for me, I find it hilarious. Tsurezure Children - This is very much my thing. Odd couple flirting/messing about etcetera. Oh, yessss

The problem with this thread is --what do you mean Never7 has a mediocre soundtrack?!!!1 Fight me, mate. It's one of my favourites. and such. I don't think you can quite define things like that. But best of luck to your endeavours. Edit: So as to actually partake... there's only about 4 tracks I like in Hoshizora, Chinamiism being one of them.

Japan was up to its Japanese things like hosting a radio show with the cast members of a popular TV anime when they were suddenly given a letter to read, on the final episode of the radio show:

I can only talk about the numbered titles, Da Capo II and Da Capo III. The former seems to be, by all accounts, the best they have done with the entire series. There's still plenty of vanilla blandness and still plenty of insanity. The main difference is that it is not quite as bland because they managed to create a cast of characters that all play off each other pretty nicely. The same cannot be said for Da Capo III. While the cast is still numerous, they aren't together quite as much and they get relatively few moments to shine altogether. It also moves away from the... semi-normal setting the previous two games had, so while the setting is somewhat interesting... not too much is done to make good use of it. I haven't finished it, though, so I don't know how many insane twists and turns it may or may not hold.

Like a puny, worthless, stalky thingie. I'd go with option C, yes. I happened to glance at the bottom of the forum homepage and see your name consequently.

Since I watched it to see all my favourite moments animated, I did not have too much of an issue, and rather liked it. Therein lies the problem. With everything. It shouldn't, but the existence of a "source material" affects one's enjoyment of an adaptation. It's not something people can just avoid. Just another application of my final sentence in the previous post. Ideally, things would be judged for what they are and nothing else, but that's not what happens. "Faithfulness" is a useful concept, but a lack of it should not lead one to dislike the material. It does, because it often leads one to think "it could have been better", even when such is not true. People who complain about lack of faithfulness have already been 'spoiled' about a version of the story: they know what happens and how, and thus its harder for them to clearly see how a removal of a scene would make the overall product 'better', so to speak. It seems likely that the ones who complain about a lack of faithfulness are the ones who thought the original material was good -- if it were bad, they would not care; therefore, it's not an inherent less=bad or not faithful=bad argument, it's also a mix with fandom and cult behaviour of "How dare you defile my favourite manga! Where's the scene where the main character was brushing her teeth in the morning?! Without it the entire story loses all meaning!!1". There's still plenty of more reasonable people who think "Scene A was boring and served no point, I hope they leave it out in the adaptation" or some such. Or simply do not care. As always, I presume these to be the silent majority. All of those points you mentioned are points I made as a hypothetical reaction a fan might have to an adaptation, for people who never watched/read other versions are not affected by said issues. I'm sure not all fans fall in these categories. I don't, for instance, and like to simply take things as they come. Changes aren't a problem so long as the overall product is good. But I don't believe any fan can be completely unaffected when watching an adaptation of something they love. If a fan doesn't think it is as good as the original there will be that small inkling in the back of your mind that will affect your enjoyment. Somebody who already knows the whole thing is less likely to be involved "in the moment", and instead may be looking at the big picture the whole time, and this affects how one perceives things. Experiencing a faithful adaptation is definitely affected by how good the material is at being rewatched/reread: Some products are simple entertainment or thrillers or emotion-hooks that aren't meant to be as good (or at least the same sort of experience) the second time around. A more vocal fan may try to latch onto any available excuse, such as how faithful it is or is not. So yes. I maintain the initial ideas I had about fans. Some want to re-watch things just in another medium; some want to watch all the good bits in a different form but don't care about the rest; some want something new and different done with the IP. The first two groups are the most likely to complain at the lack of faithfulness (the second group if a scene the person wanted to see didn't make it). Finally, when any fan feels that they aren't enjoying it as much 'isn't faithful' is the easiest excuse to use, even when it may not be the correct one in any particular case. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that even when the product the adaptation creates is good, but not as good as the original, fans are more likely to label it a bad product or, more commonly, a bad adaptation. Again, the cause is generally attributed to lack of faithfulness, for its easiest to identify. I have no particular opinions one whether transitioning between media should require large changes. I haven't looked, but I can think of no particular examples where a transition between mediums would be impossible or heavily degrade one of the versions (except for more apparent things like an anime about colours transitioning into black and white manga -- and that's still manageable! There's no lack of manga about music and other topics manga is not necessarily equipped to reproduce). This all said, I'm not very good at talking about such abstract and hypothetical concepts, so if anything makes no sense, do not mind it.

Happy Birthday to @krill!

I take adaptations as they come. If it is a faithful rendition then I watch it so as to see all my favourite moments animated. I generally do not care for much else, so long as the story and characters are the same (and they're in character, of course). Others seem to care about different factors: I don't see what the problem with the Little Busters! adaptation is, but 'tis true that popular opinion of it is not very good. If it is not, then I watch it to see its take on the characters and setting. This has a much higher chance of going wrong, because 1) A viewer would not know what, exactly, to expect, and it could simply be bad and 2) it could not be bad per say, but it could contradict the themes/ideas an other version of the series was trying to convey. Imagine that a studio picks up a serious series and makes it all happy and light-hearted: This isn't necessarily bad, but fans of the series will most definitely have their expectations betrayed. Even if it is in the same style as the original some people are actively looking for faithful adaptations. They want to see their favourite epic moments in this new medium. Some also want not to be bored with all the not as exciting moments and are looking for some original content. In short, some people don't know what they want. As for cut content, that's a bit of a problem. If it's trying to be faithful but cuts out content then... not terribly faithful. In those cases a fan simply needs to decide whether the cut content was important and/or relevant to the story, and this depends on what the fan thinks -- people who are watching for the first time aren't affected by this. Another case that occurs often is altering content, generally keeping things the same, but adding elements to streamline or "increase appeal". Once again, this wildly varies depending on what you're looking for, assuming you're a fan of the series. Unfortunately, these latter two seem to be the most common, and they have a giant propensity for "defiling" the original. Not dissimilar enough to attract new fans, but too dissimilar to make the old ones happy... If you're looking for a recipe on what makes a fan like adaptations of stuff they love, I'd say you're out of luck, as it appears each has, like with everything else, his own opinion. Some want things to remain faithful; they just want to see that story they so love once again. Others do not mind changes, but not if they make the story worse and such. Some don't want to watch the same thing again, and want something new (this also depends on the source material; some things work well with an episodic format or with arcs, and therefore original content could be made without diverging too far from the original). Then there's also one problem I hate: X is good, but when compared to Y it's not... Therefore, X is bad. Replace X with 'adaptation' and Y with 'source material'. Something 'good' being hated on because 'it could have been better' is one of the arguments I hate most in everything ever and such, but it does reduce people's enjoyment, especially fans who have seen it done better.

I don't see Tsuki ga Kirei in your list, but I'm assuming you've at least tried it out. I would highly recommend it as a simple romance. It's very much a story that could happen to anyone, and that's also its strength: because the way characters act is not exaggerated in any way I found myself actually empathising with the characters. I didn't have much of a school life but I definitely felt that the characters were very much like students their age would be.