(CR) Fortune Arterial

[Shinji103]

[larethian]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

Nice bit of foreshadowing about Kiriha there with the old photos....

Spoiler for catching ep4 for more than meets the eye for Kiriha:

that's a nice catch if it was really intended to be so, though except for the faint ribbon on her left side, it's hard to tell she's the same person in the photo.

[Master_Yoma]

Why does Tougi keeps tell Shiro to stop help Kouhei

[Archon_Wing]

So I was wondering where the plot was, and there it is at the end. But at least Kohei is settling into his new role, while everyone else is kinda uncertain about him.

[Wigwams]

Originally Posted by larethian

Spoiler for catching ep4 for more than meets the eye for Kiriha:

that's a nice catch if it was really intended to be so, though except for the faint ribbon on her left side, it's hard to tell she's the same person in the photo.

dont forget haruna and her letter too.

[HitoriTomoyo]

Now it's starting to pick things up...slowly.

The gradual pace, personally, is what's making it so enjoyable in the first place anyway. I'm really enjoying all of the character interactions.

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by Master_Yoma

Why does Tougi keeps tell Shiro to stop help Kouhei

It could be 3 reasons in my opinion...

1: It could seem like Shiro is getting too attached to Kouhei... Tougi is concerned that it might lead to something strange.

2: Shiro is carrying the family's influence with her as well, and since her family is well known, and respected, he just wants to keep a tight eye on Shiro at all times, since she may do something out of track.

3: It could interfere with a certain plan that Tougi and Erika's brother are scheming...

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Shinji103

The blue they mixed into Erika's hair on the OP CD cover looks really bleh (I have no idea why they did that ), but otherwise yeah, the CD covers look nice.

By the way, I just received these CDs today, and this is just an artifact of the colour conversions in the scanning process. On the actual cover, her hair just looks darker brown in that section (with a slight red tint). The way things are printed in CYMK with halftone screens can do funny things to cheap consumer-grade scanners (which process everything in RGB).

(As an aside, I would sort of like to know why people are using such an annoying image uploading service these days. An ad that covers the image and then spawns a pop-up when closed? Ick...)

Edit: Also didn't quite realize that there were 10 different variations of the ED in all. I guess that explains why we already had a different version in Episode 4.

[Shinji103]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

By the way, I just received these CDs today, and this is just an artifact of the colour conversions in the scanning process. On the actual cover, her hair just looks darker brown in that section (with a slight red tint).

Ah, okay that's nice to know.

(As an aside, I would sort of like to know why people are using such an annoying image uploading service these days. An ad that covers the image and then spawns a pop-up when closed? Ick...)

Because I stopped using Imageshack when it a) kept "bouncing" my images (not uploading them right) on a constant basis, and b) Imageshack would constantly shrink down the image if it even got close to more than 1 MB in size. I went through 5-7 other image hosting sites which either had the resizing problem or wouldn't accept files 1 MB or more at all, until I found Imagevenue.

[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for ep5:

Ahahaha, Yoake and HaniHani characters cameo in the episode.
It's been a long time since I watched the HaniHani anime... Don't really remember much about it. Just that the full name was really long...

Non-cabbage Yoake characters are very good!
(Though as simple mob characters, it wasn't as Bekkankou-ish as the FA characters, unfortunately.

[Midonin]

Spoiler for Fortune Arterial 05 - If It Walks Like a Duck:

That was fun. Good to see Kiriha getting some time in the spotlight. I was expecting Erika to be the one he'd run with, but Kiriha works too. The cat maid is a nice standby, but there's something to be said for a full body duck costume. Kaede provides more great moments on her own, such as the obviously biased color commentary and her little song. Still not sure what direction things are going in, but it looks like next week will provide a few hints.

[Haak]

I haven't seen anime that tasted like diabetes this much since Kimi ni Todoke. Well atleast this episode was actually bearable this time, and actually slightly funny.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Haak

I haven't seen anime that tasted like diabetes this much since Kimi ni Todoke. Well atleast this episode was actually bearable this time, and actually slightly funny.

Lol. Good description of Kimi ni Todoke, but I don't think FA is anywhere near THAT. Though I can agree with you that it's a little too sweet for me at times...

I did laugh with the "it's the key to my room" comment at the end of the episode.

[Skyfall]

My impressions on the episode as a whole can be summed up as this: pick any one degradative term which comes to your mind first, and chances are you wouldn't be off. Easily the least enjoyable episode thus far for me.

On technical side, there is the animation ... or lack of it. The amount of still frames made me think i am watching a slideshow at times. I am not sure why they thought a budget saving episode and sports festival would go well together, because there is hardly a place to make it more obvious. Both the camera angles/perspectives and animation just screamed "budget" from start to finish.

On the character interaction side, things felt awkwardly directed as well. I am not really sure where Haruna's warm feelings towards Kiriha came from, never mind the rest of classmates suddenly feeling like placing their confidence in her for no reason, but it wasn't really convincing. The BGM used for her at start was quite blatant in a "Look at her, this is mysterious behavior!" manner as well.

Meh, i will just stop ranting here, but suffice to say, while i found the previous episode plenty enjoyable, this one was quite painful to watch. There were a few good jokes that genuinely made me chuckle, but overall ... not impressed.

[Klashikari]

Well... I certainly hope Episode 5 was just a budget measure for the whole series, because the copious amount of still shot with 0 animation was a bit too much if you ask me, although I won't deny that the activities weren't anything important (although it is so blatant it hurts).

The real problem with this episode is how they literally forced few developments for Kiriha in a lukewarm fashion. I understand they have to merge a lot of stuff together, but they drastically changed Kiriha's dynamics, which would make any anime viewers missing the point.
They kept few elements intact, but the approach was borderline OOC.

That "forced" impression is also applied with the whole festival issue in general, which obviously make the mood a bit too cheesy at times. In retrospect with previous episodes, it seems the scripters favor a direction similar to theatergoing, which is not really a good idea if you ask me, but well...

Anyway, the direction was kinda goofy, but hopefully not going to be the same for the rest.
At least, some screentime for Kiriha.

[Reckoner]

I pretty much agree. It's a complete embarrassment for an anime company in this day and age to go through that much trouble to save budget... This episode ended up feeling like a waste of time.

For every time there's a still anime frame, god kills an otaku.

[Seihai]

Originally Posted by Midonin

Spoiler for Fortune Arterial 05 - If It Walks Like a Duck:

Still not sure what direction things are going in,[...]

I'm in the same boat. I don't have the feeling the tension will suddenly rise up about things (maybe, plot-wise?) next episode, it would be nice though.

All in all, it was peaceful and it had its funny moments. I can't get enough of those lighthearted moments in FA.
Maybe I was also lucky that I was in "just watch, don't think" mode this time.

edit:
One of the best moments where I cracked up:

Spoiler for No, it's not!:

[Kaoru Chujo]

Spoiler for ep5:

This is about as far as I read in the manga. I found the festival really good there, but it had much less impact here. It seemed to be done in a more conventional and cliched way here, to me. Or maybe I just want more ErikaxKouhei, lol.

I don't require any tension, however.

[Saturn Beaver]

Yeah, I have to agree with the opinions here, it's not really all that bad but compared to the manga chapter for this material, I liked the manga better...which is a bit weird, as usually when Light Novels and Visual novels are adapted, usually the anime version is better than the manga version. I would still very much prefer playing the original VN though compared to those two.

If there are good moments in the episode, I guess Kanade in a wet T-shirt and green bloomers, as well as Kiriha in nekomimi maid outfit is pretty nice.... Oh, and Erika in a giant duck outfit (especially when she falls) is hilarious as well. Also, and this is especially more of a contrast comparing it to Sora no Otoshimono I just watched before it, it's pretty uncommon for a harem male lead to be popular, not just in his little circle of harem, but throughout the whole school as well.

[mangatron]

That's all I have to say about that. Ok you know that's not all I have to say about that! I want to be that cat damnit but, nice way to end the ep.

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Spoiler for ep5:

Ahahaha, Yoake and HaniHani characters cameo in the episode.

It's been a long time since I watched the HaniHani anime... Don't really remember much about it. Just that the full name was really long...



Non-cabbage Yoake characters are very good!

(Though as simple mob characters, it wasn't as Bekkankou-ish as the FA characters, unfortunately.

Wowser, I thought I was the only one that recognized the cameo's. Though, is it funny that I remembered Yoake Mae for it's "weird" animation, and Hani Hani for I don't know, the ponytail? Thinking about it, Hani Hani Operation Sanctuary is best remembered by me as another one of my "princess hour" setups alongside Wind a Breath of Heart at the time (I know, it's funny calling 2 half half-hour shows an "hour")

Originally Posted by Skyfall

I am not really sure where Haruna's warm feelings towards Kiriha came from, never mind the rest of classmates suddenly feeling like placing their confidence in her for no reason, but it wasn't really convincing.

Hmm, I actually thought this was directed towards Kouhei's confidence in Kiriha. Considering their confidence carried over from last ep (lol @ taped gate), I figured they thought "oh, if he thinks Kiriha is good then she must be" considering everything he dived into has been going good so far.

But it's too convenient, right? Oh the coincidence....

Originally Posted by Klashikari

The real problem with this episode is how they literally forced few developments for Kiriha in a lukewarm fashion. I understand they have to merge a lot of stuff together, but they drastically changed Kiriha's dynamics, which would make any anime viewers missing the point.

They kept few elements intact, but the approach was borderline OOC.

I viewed some angles as Kiriha's point of view, she did spend quite a considerable amount of time looking in and for the most part of the ep, I was viewing it through Kiriha's eyes (haha), with the end product being her view on participation, enjoyment level, etc. While I didn't play the game, I'd probably just throw this into the void that is my brain's thinking box

Originally Posted by Saturn Beaver

If there are good moments in the episode, I guess Kanade in a wet T-shirt and green bloomers, as well as Kiriha in nekomimi maid outfit is pretty nice....

I got a big laugh during Kanade's wet shirt scene. She was not too concerned like "oh, it's just a swimsuit" and the guys are like "Swimsuuuuuuuuit" I still would prefer to see Kiriha's sw-...

I think I'm weird for not being fazed by the amount of still frames in this ep. Don't tell me it's age, but I think I've just about had it with complaining about that for more than a decade or maybe it's because I died when I saw Kiriha's butt at the end, or... ah, I know. I guess I have the "as expected" feeling here, because if they pulled this 1 frame stuff in something like Hyakka Ryoran then maybe I'll bear arms and go mercenary