@seikenfreak: They almost didn't get the rights. SNK sued the shit out of the manga for using their characters and games in it, but they came to an agreement. I'm surprised they used SNK games in the show as well because of it.
Anime & Cartoon Megathread V: I, Gacha
If "Irregular at Magic High School" was Ayn Rand in Japanese light novel form then "Rise of a Shield Hero" is a reddit incel raging against the Chads and Veronicas who kept him down instead of having any other redeeming qualities.
In other news, AOTY poll about to close, so get out and vote if you haven't done so yet!
Some thoughts on the new season so far...
- Bang! Dream Season 2: It's pretty much Love Live but with girls bands. All but one of the bands from season 1 are back but several new bands are introduced (the marching band themed one is so kawaii!). The animation studio seems to have changed as the CG on the faces seems more low res. The costume design in this show is so amazing it blows most shoujo anime out of the water. Season one brought me to tears with the heartwarming story and the season 2 opener brought me tears of joy as if a long lost friend came back.
- The Rising of the Shield Hero: Another isekai anime but with a new twist. This time there are 4 heroes who are summoned to another world but they all are very self aware they are in a video game. Each one has a unique weapon but they can not party together (for story reasons)... The main protagonist immediately is down on his luck and this is the story of how he becomes the greatest hero. Liking it so far but other that the twist, a very by the book isekai show. I like shows where the main protagonist goes from being the weakest to the hero everyone is unsuspecting.
- How Clumsy are you, Miss Ueno: If you didn't like Aho-Girl you will probably not like this show. But I loved Aho-girl and this has the same slapstick perverted humor. Animation style is a bit of a turnoff but tolerable. The first episode is about pee and up-skirts so be forewarned....
- Boogiepop & Others: I never watched the original so I didn't know what to expect of this remake. It appears to take a Quentin Tarantino approach to it story telling as everything is told out of order which makes it a bit hard to follow. Based on the description I was not expecting as much gore and violence. I will keep with it just because Aoi Yuki is the main.
- Price of Smiles: A 12 year old princess rules a kingdom... Her retainers will do anything to make sure she keeps her smile at any cost. Story so far is nothing special. Who ever did the mecha designs I'm not a fan.
Hey gang,
So, I've been a long time fan of anime. Infact, almost all my life. I'd argue that nowadays is pretty much a golden age of being an anime fan. With services like Crunchyroll and Netflix, it's never been a better time to be a fan. However, I don't really understand how different countries are licensed differently. Like, why is it that Denmark has the entire run of One Piece for example, when the UK has none of it? Why is that some shows are up on CR an hour after release, but certain shows aren't? Why can I not watch anything on there from before the 90's, to a large extent? How do licenses actually work? Wouldn't companies want as many people as possible to see their content?
It's something I've wondered for a long time, but never fully understood, and it's frustrating, as I can't watch a lot of stuff that my European/American friends can.
Thank you!
@sombre: Anime licensing in a nutshell: one party wants rights to a show in another region/country, said party contacts other party and they try to make a deal. Things either work out or they don't.
Generally speaking, the approach to licensing hasn't really changed all that much. Sometimes it's the original publishers reaching out from Japan wanting to sell their show in another region, other times it's a regional distributor asking for the rights of use. The specifics are often decided behind closed door and non-disclosure agreements usually get signed. I can go into more detail if you want to know, but it's mostly just legal and money and logistical stuff that most fans don't really care about.
Streaming is bit of a special case in that the Internet is conceptually borderless, but ever since people started using it for business and commerce, policies have been adapted to regulate this new market. For streaming, it generally comes down to whether the original copyright holders care about their stuff being put out in other regions for free, and if the distribution platform has the balls to keep unlicensed stuff up and deal with the risks of legal trouble should it arise. To use a simplified example, if some dude started uploading full episodes of unlicensed Gundam onto Youtube, the streaming service would probably freak out and take that down unless SUNRISE called them up and said, "yo, it's cool, we won't sue you, but don't you dare monetize that shit. Here's a formal agreement." Formally licensing stuff protects the distributor and licensee from being sued and generates the potential opportunity for additional profit.
So, in essence, whether a show gets aired or streaming in a specific region these days has everything to do with how good the potential licensee is at negotiating a deal and if the partnership can result in more money.
@seikenfreak: Yeah, I also really loved High Score Girl. There have been a few anime series recently that have tried to mix video games with a com-rom (like Recovery of an MMO Junkie, Gamers, and Wotakoi) and High Score Girl is up here as one of the best (personally I like MMO Junkie a little more).
I just love how the charcater's hobby, video games, influences their relationship and in turn their relationship changes how they interact with their hobby. There are also some real deep video game refrecnes that aren't just thrown in there but that actually play a role in the story. Like when Koharu buys the Super Nintendo version of Final Fight in the hope of playing it with Haruo only to find out later that the console version doesn't have co-op. Great stuff all around and one of my favoite shows I saw last year.
So I finished watching Sirius The Jaeger just now.
Overall, I really enjoyed it. I liked the characters. I thought the action was generally pretty cool. The story never got more complex than it needed to be. I think the middle of the show has some character twists that work really, really well.
(I wound up writing a lot and the following is extremely spoiler-y)
Yuliy’s brother, Mikhail, is a fairly complex and fairly well-explored character. His arc goes in a direction that makes sense, doesn’t get too melodramatic, and isn’t entirely predictable and he turns out to be the more interesting part of the show. He doesn’t like being a vampire or working with them, but he has to because the big bad can mind-control him without even lifting a finger and he’s got this inner conflict of “how can I do this without hurting people I care about” and it’s pretty great. Willard turns out to be more complex than “just some mentor guy”. Yuliy starts off seeming like he’s going to be a smug, rebellious guy who gets away with stuff because he’s “just that good”, but doesn’t take that character arc at all.
…which brings me to complaints. I think the last bit of this show fumbles the landing quite a bit. Exactly why Yuliy needs to unseal the Ark is never fully explained. “Because it can cure my brother’s vampirism” would have been excellent and believable, but instead he wants to unseal it because… he wants everyone to live happily together and coexist despite the fact that vampires kill people for food and the Sirius no longer exist. What? That’s kinda dumb. I mean, it would be kinda dumb to unseal the Ark for the sole purpose of curing one guy, but then you’d have a cure for vampirism and you might be able to save some vampires instead of indiscriminately killing them to protect the rest of humanity. Sure, you’re running the risk of some ancient asshole consuming it for ULTIMATE POWER, but you’ve got a plus, too. Instead, we’ve got some vague “good of the world” bullshit that reeks of “we didn’t know what to do”.
They also didn’t seem to know what to do with Yuliy’s entire character after the big reveal that Willard was trying to live out his revenge through Yuliy. That’s a really good character moment, when this guy who seems more brooding than vengeful realizes that he’s just living out someone else’s motivations. “What will he do now?” is a good question. “Finding out where his father went and why” is a good answer. “Becoming some kind of demigod with a vague motivation” is over the top and doesn't really fit with what the rest of the show is trying to do.
I’d also like to hear a better explanation of what Yuliy is. He seems to be a werewolf, but he only transforms once and it’s barely a transformation. In his human form, is he stronger than normal humans? Faster? He seems to be, but this is never commented on or brought up. He can heal pretty fast, I guess. Characters who aren’t supernatural in some way rarely do anything more than fire guns, so we never really get a good comparison. Also, in traditional werewolf myths, the moon affects them in some way, but other than occasionally looking up at it meaningfully, it never seems to do anything to Yuliy. Does Mikhail’s vampiric transformation rob him of any powers he may have had when he was a werewolf? I couldn’t tell you. On the flipside, this means that the next season of the show could have a human character that goes toe-to-toe with vampires and they don’t have to come up with some bullshit excuse for why. Speaking of vampires, let me talk about them and the Ark for a minute.
The vampires couldn’t find the Ark in a thousand years of existence because they weren’t really interested in a filthy werewolf artifact until they got desperate enough to believe it could cure them of a fatal disease – but this is never really explored and is a plot point that just randomly shows up towards the end without much in the way of foreshadowing. The show’s also unsure of how it wants to treat vampires. They start the show off as cackling cartoonish villains – which I don’t have a problem with, really. As I mentioned above, Mikhail stands in stark contrast to the rest of them and is an interesting character. Then suddenly we have Bishop, who just shows up kinda out of nowhere for some reason and decides to become a good guy… because reasons? And then just goes and dies. Because for some reason Yuliy didn’t kill him as soon as he figured out that Bishop was a bad guy. After Bishop dies, one of the two creepy little gothic girls hears Yuliy giving his coexistence speech and suddenly has a random change of heart and is no longer a psychopath who takes joy in murdering people. This is coupled with her master, Yevgraf, giving a speech about how he now has ULTIMATE POWER and now doesn’t care about curing some silly vampire sickness. This is too sudden and doesn’t work anywhere near as well as even Bishop’s heel-face turn, though that's mostly because we had no idea who he was before and he makes it clear that he’s sick of vampires anyway - after holding someone hostage and acting like he's going to fight Yuliy.
Speaking of Yevgraf, there’s… not much to say about him. If you’ve seen an anime or JRPG protagonist, you’ve seen this motherfucker. He has no motivation beyond ULTIMATE POWER and no regard for anyone or anything but himself. His voice actor seems to be having fun chewing all the scenery, but otherwise he’s as bland and vapid as possible. He has no backstory, no real interaction with the protagonists beyond being an obstacle, and he basically exists because the show needs a final boss.
Also, Dogville is real stupid name for a place.
All of this said, I still really enjoyed Sirius The Jaeger despite how vague some of the characterization gets towards the end. The show smartly keeps the struggle between Yuliy and Mikhail front-and-center for much of its runtime. That coupled with some really good pacing and some really cool action scenes are enough for me to say “hey, maybe watch this if you’re looking for some interesting anime vampire stuff”. Here’s hoping Season 2 has a better hold on its themes and characters and ideas.
Anyway, now back to Robotech. I should really watch Hellsing Ultimate one of these days.
@lentfilms: Hadn't heard of those (I don't really follow the anime scene) so thanks for the heads up. I'll check'em out.
Hi Score Girl just felt like a giant love letter to older games and the psychological stuff. Being young and impressionable. Coincidentally, or not at all, I finally purchased a Neo Geo AES for the collection. Was suggesting the show to my friend to watch, had me thinking about those arcade games, got me thinking about the Neo Geo AES because I've wanted one but I've heard its all just fighting games and expensive. As all impulse purchase stories start, I hit up ebay to remind myself of the prices, found one that seemed relatively mint, complete in box and put in an offer on it that I didn't think they'd accept. And they did.. Waiting for it to arrive from Japan and such but yea, I will forever associate this purchase with Hi-Score Girl.
Anyway! Slightly off topic.
So, I'm religiously sticking to my "Two episodes of two shows a day" routine, and rapidly getting through some GREAT shows.
I'm really into the shows I'm watching atm. Here's a little recap:
Persona 5 OVA: I'm a little disappointed at how short this was, for how much content they had to fit in. It was wonderful to see this story conclude up to the point it did, but the 3 months we have to wait to see the "True" ending is a real piece of shit. I don't know why they even did it like this, so if anyone can explain why they did half the show as a 24 part series, and then crammed the last half into 2 OVA's, I'd love to hear why. It seems a disservice to the fantastic source material.
JJBA: Diamond is Unbreakable: I'm up to episode 16 next, and I'm very much into it. I will admit, I don't like the art anywhere near as much as I do P1-3. A big part of anime for me, as an older viewer who grew up watching anime in the 90's, is expressive art. I love the shaded, gritty, realistic look that everyone had especially in Part 3. I do like the use of colours in P4, but the art is a bit of a letdown. This is totally a personal preference though. The story is brilliant. I like the uniqueness of the new stands, I love Okuyasu (sp) and it was nice to see the return of Joseph. I'm watching on CR, so the localisation is totally stupid though. "Bad Company" becomes "Strange Company", "Red Hot Chilli Pepper" just becomes "Chilli Pepper", despite you explicitly hearing the original phrase in Japanese. It's kind of dumb.
Attack on Titan: Wow, what a first season. Absolutely mesmerizing stuff. This probably adds up to the show I'm most thinking about outside of work. I will say, I wasn't into it AT ALL from the beginning. It was slow, the characters were 2D, and I fucking HATE how incredibly STUPID the titans look. Then, at about the halfway point, it just CLICKED. It was probably when they join the survey corps, but when they added the SC commander and Levi, it all just...happened for me. If there's another thing I love in anime, it's quality animation, and the fights have it in spades. I love how dynamic the animation looks when they're all whizzing through the air, sometimes 3/4 at a time, and it's just art. I can't wait to start S2 after this Starcraft tournament begins today (HOORAH). Oh, special mention to the Annie reveal, which absolutely made me throw my hands up and cheer in real life. She was my fave character for a while, so for us to find out she's the Titan was an AWESOME moment. Definetely the stand out moment of 2019's anime so far for me!
The Promised Neverland: I started this on a recommendation from a friend who I know I can trust her opinion. I really enjoyed the first episode. It starts off as some happy go lucky, super charming anime about little kids living in an orphanage, and VERY QUICKLY gets VERY dark. I loved the sinister tone of it, and seeing those...things really amped me up. I look forward to watching a weekly show like this, and I can't wait to see what happens next
Okay, so some early impressions for this season:
Boogiepop - Like it so far. Episode 2 took a noticeable dip in the visual department, but 3 picked it up again. There's a possibility that I will wait for it to finish and watch the whole thing in a single sitting.
Shield Hero - Hmmm. Will watch more, this can either be decent or go bad pretty quickly. The premise is sort of refreshing for an isekai show.
Mob Psycho - YAY!
Dororo - This might be really good? Zero familiarity with the source material, so going into this blind.
Love is War - Maybe the style of humour just isn't for me. Nothing clicked during the first episode and I can't see myself watching more if this is all it has to offer. There's something that feels very sparse and overly utilitarian about it, and I suspect it's the sound design. I can see this working very well in manga format, but it doesn't really translate directly into anime.
Watched Hi-Score Girl just last week and absolutely loved it. It's a bummer that I finished it pretty much just as the GBAD polls closed because it could've easily been number 1 or 2 for me. The use of retro games is downright pervasive and exploitative, but damn it it's effective! I was surprised how believable I found the main character. I feel like I grew up knowing people like this, have been like this in the past myself, and even think there are people in games coverage today who can be like this at times. Going in I was fully expecting to find the titular Hi-Score Girl character to be super annoying yet came away thinking she was terrific. If I had to compare this show to another series the only thing that comes to mind is that it's like a reverse Dagashi Kashi with video games instead of snack foods. If you have any love and/or nostalgia for retro games you owe it to yourself to watch this anime.
@zomgfruitbunnies: Boogiepop as in Boogiepop Phantom? Or something else?
I just found out that the soundtrack to Hi Score Girl was done by Yoko Shimomura, who I didn't know did any work outside of video games. It is super fitting that a show about 90s kids playing fighting games has a score by the composer of Street Fighter II. Pretty cool!
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@justin258 said:
@zomgfruitbunnies: Boogiepop as in Boogiepop Phantom? Or something else?
As far as I understand, Boogiepop and Others is a new adaptation of the original Boogiepop light novels, which Boogiepop Phantom was more of a sequel to? Someone feel free to correct or clarify this. I'm interested in watching it, but hearing about the non-linear storytelling makes it sound like something I'd be better off checking out all at once.
The only show from this season I've actually checked out thus far is Mob Psycho 100, which is predictably fantastic.
@zomgfruitbunnies: read the manga for kaguya if the anime didn't do it for you. Granted it gets better when three certain characters are introduced but give it a shot nonetheless.
@justin258:The new one, whatever it's called in English. The Japanese title is Boogiepop Doesn't Laugh which is the exact same as the old TV series without the Boogiepop Phantom subtitle. @arbitrarywater might be right.
@therookie727I'll give the anime a couple more tries. It's likely an immersion issue.
Boogiepop Phantom is an anime original sequel to the first novel so it's not considered canon. This current iteration is a proper adaptation of the first few novels.
There's something about the way this show looks/moves that is making it hard for me to get into it. It also doesn't help that some of the characters look fairly similar so the non-linear storytelling gets extra jarring trying to double check who is who.
The gap this season between the highs and lows is staggering. You have Mob, Dororo, and Kaguya and then mostly everything else is scraping the bottom of the barrel. My Roommate is a Cat seems ok and Kakegurui continues to exist purely as a painful reminder that Liar Game doesn't have an anime adaptation. I'll probably only end up watching these 5 + Shield Hero so this will be the lowest amount I've watched in a season in a few years.
I would agree the quality of shows this season is down compared to the previous one. I am enjoying at least a dozen shows this season and the other dozen+ I am watching are okay but not mind blowing. But my tastes wildly differ from everyone in this thread....
@instantryan said:
The gap this season between the highs and lows is staggering. You have Mob, Dororo, and Kaguya and then mostly everything else is scraping the bottom of the barrel. My Roommate is a Cat seems ok and Kakegurui continues to exist purely as a painful reminder that Liar Game doesn't have an anime adaptation. I'll probably only end up watching these 5 + Shield Hero so this will be the lowest amount I've watched in a season in a few years.
I've been too busy writing 5000 word anime blogs to post about anime here, but I just caught a couple episodes of Dororo today. Tezuka's manga all look basically like Mickey Mouse, or the other way around, I forget how those influences go. And then decades later you get this anime that just looks like a modern anime. It's very interesting to me when the original manga looks like this and the new anime looks like this. It means the tone is very different, even if much of the story is the same. Like how Hiyakkumaru now also got his skin stolen, and has no sensation other than seeing auras, making him more of a robot. When in the manga he just learns to sense where shit is and can talk no problem, pretty much acting as a regular human. They're very different characters.
It's fine aside from that, but I think it's most fascinating as an adaption of something super old.
Mob Psycho 100 season 2 though, still stellar stuff.
Attack on Titan S2 was a 7/10. It started off SO STRONG, with the beast titan, and Levi/Hange/Erwin, but then they completely spaff any good will away. I started to really resent the main characters, as they became flat as FUCK.
Eren has gone from this semi-cool "I wanna avenge my parents" and half titan character to "I'M GOING TO SCREAM ALL THE TIME TO SHOW I'M EMOTIONAL". Mikasa...fuck me. I'm not feminist in the SLIGHTEST, but her ENTIRE CHARACTER exists simply to supplement Eren. Her premise is "I'm going to protect my man at NO REGARD for anything/anyone else". If I was a woman, I'd probably be offended by her portrayal. The other's are fine, but underused. I fucking love Erwin, but I worry with what happened to him at the end of the season, he's gonna feature less. Who knows.
I know that I'm gonna watch S3 starting tomorrow, but I guess my hopes aren't high. I hope they finally reach this basement, as that's my main reason for watching atm.
JJBA- Diamond is Unbreakable continues to rocket on at an alarming pace. I'll admit- I liked the new stands, but the "stand of the week" aspect got boring fast. I'm really happy to see that Kira has been revealed, and we feel like we're in DIO territory now, where we have an identifable, despicable villain. I have high hopes for the last 14 episodes. Also BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN is a fucking FANTASTIC OP
@sombre: I think the only thing I really liked about S2 was what they did with Ymir. The rest was just okay.
But S3 was pretty easily my favorite season. It renewed my interest in the series significantly. The plot finally develops beyond its basic premise, and several characters get some much needed character development. If you're waiting for them to reach the basement you're going to be pretty disappointed though.
@zeik said:
@sombre: I think the only thing I really liked about S2 was what they did with Ymir. The rest was just okay.
But S3 was pretty easily my favorite season. It renewed my interest in the series significantly. The plot finally develops beyond its basic premise, and several characters get some much needed character development. If you're waiting for them to reach the basement you're going to be pretty disappointed though.
Yeah it was kinda boring man. I really have high hopes for S3 though, as I hear it grows up a bit. I'm gonna finish it next week, then see where I go from there. Fuck I hope this basement is good.
Best OP for you? I'm torn between 3-2 and BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN
Finished Revisions over the weekend. I don't know what the scheduling is like for this dumb show outside of Japan, so I'll hold off on spoilers until the TV run is finished. As for the show itself, I am really confused about. This show is either fucking brilliant or fucking stupid. I'm really not sure. It still has all of the telltale problems of many Netflix related shows from last year, but there is this one mind-blowing moment near the end that I'm not sure is intentional. The ending didn't straight fall off a cliff this time, so at least that's an improvement.
Why does Ben Pack keep saying Dragon Ball Super is still ongoing? The Japanese TV broadcast ended in 2015 but on the most recent Bombcast he makes it sound like there new episodes coming out. I had to do a double take and look it up because it made me think there were new episodes I wasn't aware of. I know the US version had a serious delay but I assumed they were caught up by now. He's going to be really disappointed in his predictions on the end of the show.
@puchiko: Are you confusing Super with Kai? Yes Super is over now, but it didn't finish until the end of March 2018.
@alkusanagi: Yeah, I got the start date confused with the end date.
@puchiko: I'm pretty sure the English dub of Super is still airing on Toonami, so maybe he means that?
Speaking of English dubs, Crunchyroll stealth-dropped a dub of Konosuba's first season last week and it's surprisingly alright. For a show whose humor was half-reliant on the delivery of its voice actors, the English cast does a solid job of replicating a lot of that energy.
Also, catching up on 2018's hottest anime led me to watching through Iroduku: The World in Colors, also known as "That show everyone praised for having incredibly pretty backgrounds but didn't really say much else about" I give it a resounding fine/10. Even with only like... two years of serious anime watching experience under my belt, I feel like I've seen that exact kind of "mildly sad slice-of-life show with minor supernatural elements" before. It's a competently made, sweet and empathetic little show, but in terms of ultra-pretty sadness factories, it's kinda hard to top Violet Evergarden in that category.
Quick summaries:
Diamond is Unbreakable: 9/10. I wasn't a fan of the new artstyle, but I liked the new use of colours. Kira was a fanastic villain, but not as good as DIO MOTHERFUCKING BRANDO. I liked how he was just a normal guy living a normal life, except he killed people. Killer Queen is the best stand so far I think, it just looked and acted cool. I really hope Golden Wind is as good though. I really wanna read SBR, as people make it sound like the best manga of all time.
Attack on Titan S2: Middling. I liked a lot of what they did with the characters, but it was a bit slow. I think I've said previously how fucking boring Eren and Mikasa are, despite being the main characters. Maybe I just don't like anime about angsty teens?
I recently watched MEGALO BOX because I saw some favorable comparisons to shows I've liked in the past.
It begins well enough but even at 13 episodes starts to spin it's wheels near the end of the run. I guess my main issue is that I was hoping this would be about more than just boxing, and the show certainly tries to spin that idea really late into the running to it's huge detriment actually - but it never really tries to say anything more than the cliched "believe in yourself" that many sports oriented stories heavily rely on. The art style is also interesting in that I've heard (and haven't confirmed) that the director was a fan of oldschool shows, the way they were somewhat blurred and washed out, so they downscaled all the art and then upscaled it back up to give it that strange blur around the edges. It's an interesting idea but doesn't go far enough to really have much impact one way or the other.
As someone that watches an anime show like once a year these days, this wasn't great but it wasn't terrible either.
@humanity: I briefly touched on Megalo Box in my AotY post and basically had the same problem as you did when it came to the theme of the show. To put it bluntly, by the time it wanted to do something other than to rely on its sense of nostalgia, it was already neck-deep in the the Ashita no Joe formulae and had no way of getting out. It also wrote itself into a dead end in the sense that the only way for it to differentiate from Ashita no Joe is for Junk Dog to not die, and when the audience becomes aware of that it kills all of the suspense and tension. I can see this show resonating particularly well with people of an specific era, namely the postwar economic boom, and those who grew up with material from that time period, but a barrier to entry into that zeitgeist is definitely present and that may or may not be a good thing.
I've been able to get into Love is War now after episode three, mostly because the gags are getting better and the narration is far less intrusive. Having said that, it is still fairly formulaic as a rom-com.
It has come to my attention that Cygames has made another Rage of Bahamut anime thing. HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU HAVE, CY?
I've been reading manga a lot recently. I originally skipped around in Berserk because I started with the original anime, and tried to just continue reading from where it left off. Somehow I missed Lost Children at the time, so I went ahead and started there, and didn't stop until I got to Ganishka's demon city.
It's great, still. A large portion of Berserk is just Guts separating people's top halves from their bottom halves, but there's a maturity to the themes, a quality to the artwork and a depth to the characters that makes it feel like more than just action shlock. It's been maybe a decade since I last read it and I was moved just as much this time around. Tore up at the end of Lost Children, I tell you what. I get why you wouldn't adapt it both for content and pacing, since it is this standalone story full of dead kids, but I sure am glad I got around to it. Ended up watching a clip of the new anime on youtube just to compare them a bit. It's no good.
I've also been making my way through Hatsukoi Zombie. As far as these ecchi rom-coms go, I quite like it. It's got a good gimmick going on with dudes' first loves manifesting as ghosts above their heads that only the two leads can see, which is a great excuse for both drama, fanservice at any time and instant insight into people's feelings. It feels pretty original, and it gives everything a solid framework to build a whole series around.
If the first love is accepted, the zombies disappear happily. If not reciprocated, first love zombies turn aggressive and bothersome, so the two leads work together to solve people's love issues so they're less bothered by floaty angry pin-up chicks. One of the leads is a chick masquerading as a boy to try and avoid seeing first love zombies of herself everywhere, but the male lead's first love zombie is based on his memory of the leading lady before she started crossdressing. The leads obviously basically love one another, but they've been apart for a long time and they've got a lot of baggage to unpack before they're in any shape for a relationship. Additionally the lead male's first love zombie kinda gains a mind of her own and becomes both of their ghost friend, and neither of them want her to vanish.
There's good room for both ample misunderstandings and sweet love stories here, with an easy framework for side stories as well as the overarching romance plot, and I like all of the main characters. It's a bit difficult to recommend to people not into literal male fantasies floating around in the backgrounds everywhere, but I have personally enjoyed my time with it. Brought me back to the times I've fallen in love myself really, which made the big dramatic relationship moments hit me hard. I'm very invested in these characters getting a happy ending.
@zomgfruitbunnies: Yah I agree. When I finally came to terms that this show is just going to be a straight forward boxing thing and just wanted to see the end fight, they decide to flip the script and suddenly claim this wasn't about boxing after all, basically serving you up an ending that is unearned and the worst of both worlds.
So I just watched Star Blazers 2199 for the first time and I have to admit the ending made me tear up... I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would considering how old the original source material is (I watched the remake btw). The similarities between this and Macross are very apparent in story and characters but minus the idol singing. The plot twists and battle scenes had me on the edge of my seat and had me coming back for more. The remake has very good CG work and the japanese voice actors you will recognize if you have watched any modern anime.
But I am saddened to find out there is no easy way to watch the Star Blazers 2202 followup. Amazon has the Blu-ray of the first 13 episodes for sale for 90 dollars.... and Funimation has the first 13 episodes for streaming but dubbed.
I watched "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" today in my effort to make it through all the Ghibli films. It didn't really wow me like it did when I was a kid. I think the middle part kinda dragged a LOT. The visuals and music were absolutely wonderful, but the story just didn't do it as much as it did when I was younger.
7/10
If you didn't already know, the results for the 2018 GBAD AOTY poll are now up!
Also, this season has largely been trash with the possible exceptions of the Promised Neverland and Kakegurui xx, neither of which I have seen yet.
After finishing Iroduku, I wanted something light, dumb, and slightly trashy. Somehow, that led me to The World God Only Knows, which is decidedly all of those things. There's something to be said for the way it sidesteps a lot of the problematic, even sociopathic, implications of its premise by not taking itself all that seriously. If the show wasn't filled with continual (surprisingly decent) goofs, I think I would've dropped it immediately. It's pretty much what I asked for, so I can't complain, even if it turns out what I asked for is basically a slightly more genre-savvy romantic comedy series that dabbles with going full harem. And also it has a lot of anime and video game references, because what would a modern anime be without either of those things?
This all said, it's also one of those series where a large chunk of the manga wasn't adapted for the anime. If this, of all series, is the thing to get me to start reading manga, I feel like I've made some sort of grave mistake. But also I kind of want to see some of the arcs they didn't adapt.
@arbitrarywater: agreed on all your points but even as a fan of the manga, the later arcs kinda go downhill and ending is rushed.
Finally got to the halfway mark of JJBA: Stardust Crusaders, and... I do not like it as much as Battle Tendency. I love Stands as a concept, of course, and I enjoy the characters who aren't part of the Joestar Bloodline, but Jotaro isn't great and they ruined Jonathan ;_;. Maybe it's that I'm watching the dub instead of the sub (purely because Avdol is voiced by the guy who voices Gundham from Danganronpa 2), but he's just so boring compared to his younger self.
Also, I suppose this has been a thing in the entire series, but it's really noticeable in Crusaders; boy there are not a lot of great women characters. Especially the whole 'yeah the one person who has a stand and can't take it is the mom and we have to save her' aspect. Ugh. It's not a show ruiner or anything, and I realize that Jojo is a shounen series and a lack of women usually comes with the territory, but...
I like that anime has become a topic, even a minor one, during Super Bowl week pertaining to the Patriots 'Anime Club'
@therookie727 said:
@arbitrarywater: agreed on all your points but even as a fan of the manga, the later arcs kinda go downhill and ending is rushed.
Oh really? That's a disappointment. That third season of the anime has a real gut-punch of an ending (with Katsuragi crying on the roof about Chihiro) but it's also kind of abrupt and I was dangerously close to downloading a manga reader app. Well, if those later chapters aren't worth reading, I guess I'll just spoil myself. Oh, okay. He confesses his love and makes up with her at the end. That's all I wanted to know. Chihiro best girl. Anime sure is great/dumb.
With that out of the way, what are the noteworthy shows this season outside of Mob Psycho? Is it worth it for me to actually check out Shield Hero, or is that show merely popular because it's another vaguely grimdark Isekai? The other ones on my radar are Promised Neverland, Boogiepop, and Dororo. I guess I could just watch none of them and finally get around to watching like... JoJo, or something.
@arbitrarywater: Neverland is good, dororo I heard is also good not sure about boogiepop. Shield hero is worth watching the latest episode was great.
Finished up the Godzilla: The Planet Eater trilogy. Yeaaaah... The first two films are pretty okay, but last installment is something special. Janky visuals aside, things just went horribly wrong with the writing in the final movie. I looked up the staff and studio responsible for this, and lo and behold, Netflix showed up in there. The way this flops actually reminds me of Ubukata Tow, but I would have never guessed Urobuchi Gen wrote this mess. Not sure how much involvement he had in the production process, because this is the worst thing I've seen that has Urobuchi's name attached to it.
@animasta: There are quite a few female stand users not only in this arc but in subsequent ones as well. Part 6 has Jolyne and I'd argue she's one of the most strong willed protagonists in the series. Not to mention that a large chunk of part 6 is female stand users just going ape shit savage at each other. Sorry, but you seem to be ignorant of later arcs in Jojo. Parts 1-3 came out in the late 80's/early 90's which was the peak of the whole macho Fist of the North Star era of shounen, which is why these parts mainly have these types of characters.
@jackv211: huh? I'm very aware of the origins of Jojo as well as the fact that future arcs feature more girls. Doesn't mean I can't complain about it in Stardust Crusaders, though. I have a bigger problem with Joseph and Jotaro than I do with the lack of women anyway.
Plus, considering Stardust Crusaders takes place in the 80's and they fight with, basically, manifestations of spirit or w/e the lack of women is slightly less... valid, I guess? Especially considering one of the stand users is a literal baby.
Okay, I finally saw the first few eps of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War. It's actually...not bad? A funny little rom-com where a boy and a girl try to make the other say "I Love You!" first and the various gameplans they make in their heads to accomplish that goal. The OPs pretty catchy, and then there's this rotoscoped ED:
I'm glad they shared the line data for the Kaguya-sama ending because it shows just how impressive the fabric animation was. It's got those minor snaps into position that don't follow the same flow and let people guess it was rotoscoped, but it's nearly flawless otherwise. pic.twitter.com/Zy1h1lCQyt
— kViN (@Yuyucow) February 1, 2019
I'm not super-enthused about it, but I do like what it's done so far.
@dochaus: kaguya in it's first arcs is kinda slow but once certain other characters show up it gets going.
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