Anime & Cartoon Megathread V: I, Gacha

That new animation for One Punch Man is huge downgrade from Season One. Not as bad as I thought it would be based on the trailer but enough that it was extremely noticeable.

Fuck me, it's bad right? I like the story, the music, the characters, but Goddamn the art and animation is TRASH right? It doesn't help that they use fucking CG for Genos, and try to obscure everything with smoke, at least for the first episode

Just saw this cool video about CG animation in anime that I thought would be worth sharing here:

My week has been PACKED WITH ANIME.

I've watched seasons 2 AND 3 of MHA, and fuck me, what a show. WHAT A SHOW

S2 was pretty great, all things considered, but Season 3, good GOD. The first half was so balls out action packed that I had my hair blown back. The "Big fight" blew my nips off! And the back half was also super meaningful.

JJBA continues to be amazing, with todays episode being the best in the season so far. Risotto was GREAT.

God, I've watched more anime THIS YEAR than the last years combined. I'm tending to watch a lot of "Long form" stuff though, and with me considering Dragonball Super next, it looks like that trend won't end soon. This is me so far this year. I'm also watching JJBA as its airing, OPM S2, and I have SnK on the docket when it hits in a week or so!

I got back from vacation and began watching "Sorcerer Stabber" Orphen again. Typical 90s fantasy anime, but the main characters help the show be silly and dumb enough to be enjoyable. Certainly better than whatever the video game tie-in turned out to be.

Jojo is getting WILD

AOT so good.

Still haven't had time to really dig into the new season, but did watch an episode of Sarazanmai and WTF. Then I looked up the credits and saw Ikuhara's name and it all made sense.

Also watched some Kimetsu no Yaiba. Solid stuff, will keep tabs.

Anybody seen Ergo Proxy? Wondering if it's good.

@liquiddragon: I dunno how to review Ergo Proxy. It starts out good, then they meander around for like half the series on a hoverboat, and then they remember they have to write an ending and it becomes a whole mess of tangled plot points at the end. It's not bad, but it is an acquired taste.

On the other hand, it does have some deep philosophical references and the ending theme is a Radiohead song so that's cool.

@dochaus: ok thanks, I like the look of it.

Have to say I've been pretty blown away by the quality of Demon Slayer. Right from the start I really dig the visual styyyyyle and fidelity. The soundtrack is extremely well done as well. The production goes a long way in selling me on what feels like a fairly typical battle shounen with a few fun twists. I can't imagine how I'd feel about this premise if I had read it instead of watching it but right now I'm liking what I've seen a whole lot.

I'm still watching and enjoying One Punch Man season 2. It's no secret that the production quality has taken a hit compared to before. I don't know, I've always viewed OPM as a comedy first and foremost and in that regard it's giving me what I need. Cool fight scenes are nice and all but for this type of show it should all be in service of the comedy in my opinion.

Speaking of low quality animation Ace of Diamond has been pretty decent though to be fair the last time I watched the show I was able to binge through it. Watching week to week feels a bit more underwhelming. I like the idea of next generation players coming onto the team though I'm also dreading any of them outshining my main man Sawamura. I still think Kuramochi should've been team captain even though Miyuki makes the most sense.

Pino side character of the year all years

Jojo is 100% the best thing going in my life at the moment.

The English dub of Diamond is Unbreakable has been on Adult Swim and is four or five episodes from its conclusion. Kira is not as good as Dio, but he is definitely a villain that you want to see get beat.

I picked up the short English comic run for Dominion Tank Police and it reminded me of watching Saturday Anime on the old Sci Fi channel. I remember watching Akira one day and was so terrified by Tetsuo's transformation at the end of the movie that I couldn't sleep that night. Beyond that, I remember watching Project A-ko, Roujin Z, and Vampire Hunter D.

@jewunit: I didn't grow up watching anime on the Sci Fi channel but I have watched all of those shows and they are all pretty great. It has been years since I last watched the full series but I love the English opening to the Dominion Tank Police anime.

You know what I'd love?

Remember how they remade Fullmetal Alchemist once the manga was done?

Imagine if they did that with Soul Eater. I know it won't happen, but seeing such a cool manga finally reach a proper conclusion would be fanatastic

Anyone watching Fruits Basket? My wife and I were super excited when we saw it pop up, it was just criminal the OG run stopped halfway! After the initial wave of nostalgia though, we're seeing the budget cuts in direction and animation. It's making me wanna rewatch the OG run, 'cause there's some stretched that drag for no reason =/

Also, anyone know where to watch Boogiepop Phantom? The new release Boogiepop and Others has been really intriguing, so I wanna check out Phantom, but I can't seem to find it on any of my streams (VRV, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime).

@sombre: I believe Studio Bones said the reason they didn't do an FMA Brotherhood-style remake of Soul Eater is so the spin-off, Soul Eater Not!, could be made instead. Which is unfortunate, because Soul Eater Not! is a generic high school girls anime that happens to take place in the same universe, and it got bad ratings in Japan and did even worse elsewhere. It's a huge bummer, the original is probably my favorite anime ever.

@sombre: I would be for a Soul Eater remake only if Omigawa Chiaki deliberately brings back her terrible voice acting as Maka.

I might sound stupid, but can someone explain why anime is delayed because of the French Open (A tennis competition)

Like literally, why the fuck is TENNIS delaying anime?

Finally been watching Jojo and I'm glad it lives up to the years and years of hype. I'm at the second part of Stardust Crusaders and I got to say "Last Train Home" is extremely welcomed after 24 episodes of "Walk Like An Egyptian".

I bailed after two episodes of One Punch Man S2, should I give it another shot? What a major disappointment! That old studio could have had such fun with the whole Hero Hunter Garou storyline.

Season 2 is a solid 7/10. The great story and interesting characters are still TOTALLY there. The "Saitama in a martial arts tournament" is really funny, and the "You did well to hold on for as long as you could" moment was some Sakuga level of coolness.

However, as I'm sure you know, the change in animation studios is a real stinker. Garou vs Tank Top was an alarmingly well animated fight, but bloody hell if the general animation doesn't stink. It sucks, because you can see glimpses of greatness there, for sure, but it's such a drop in quality from Season 1.

Also, it's WONDERFUL to see someone enjoying Stardust Crusaders! I actually wrote a short essay on this website a while ago about why I thought SC was probably one of the most important anime I'd ever seen! I spent about 4/5 months watching every day, and now I've been watching P5 weekly along with some friends, and let me tell you, it feels GOOD to be watching a weekly anime that you're REALLY invested in.

You're gonna LOVE the 3 part "Dio's World" mini arc at the end of the season. I've seen hundreds of anime in my 25+ years of watching it, and I think that arc is my hands down favourite of all time

@sombre: fujoshi who are really into Prince of Tennis infiltrated the networks?

I'm trying to explain how to explain what Jojo is to a friend. How would you guys describe JJBA as a whole?

Castlevania meets the pageantry of pro wrestling ramped up to 11.

Okay, thats Phantom Blood covered...

I finally saw Teen Titans Go! To the Movies and loved it. As someone who loves comics, cartoons, and cartoons about comics I found it unbelievably funny. It's odd to think that you'd never associate DC animated films (or DC films in general?) with good musical numbers yet this movie has several great ones. In terms of pure personal enjoyment I give it 4.5 white tiger Michael Boltons out of 5.

I finished watching the CG run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and may go so far as to call it my favorite iteration of this franchise ever. It strikes such a superb balance of action, comedy, intrigue, and character development to create something that feels really special overall while maintaining loads of reverence for the source material. Sadly the main plot wraps up at the end of season 4 but season 5 is a series of very fun mini-arcs that rope together some truly great fan service. One of my favorite things about the show is the way it makes most of the villains ACTUALLY formidable fighters. I'll be surprised if I like any TMNT this much ever again. Have not watched any Rise of TMNT though I like what I've seen of that art style.

On a lark I was rewatching episodes of Wolverine and the X-Men and yup, still an incredible show. Such a shame it only got the one season because this was arguably the best era for Marvel cartoons ever.

@mezmero: I don't think kids are into the half hour superhero cartoons anymore or executives don't think kids are into them anymore. I believe the latter because wasn't there that story floating around that Cartoon Network cancelled Young Justice because a large portion of its fan base was girls instead of boys.

I loved all that DC stuff as early as Batman:TAS to as late as Batman: Brave and the Bold and all the shows in-between. That animated Superman cartoon made an otherwise boring superhero into one of my favorites as a kid. When I collected comics I was mostly a Marvel kid but DC killed it with their cartoon stuff. How great was Justice League Unlimited or Batman Beyond or even the original Teen Titans?

@not_a_bumblebee: Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. I just find it funny that for all their success with the MCU Marvel almost never could get their shit together when it comes to cartoons. I mean sure people like myself probably have a lot of nostalgia for X-Men and Spider-Man in the 90's but the production and plotting of those series have unquestionably aged poorly in spots. It wasn't until the late 2000's that they were making stuff that was genuinely great between Wolverine and the X-Men, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, three shows that were grand slams in terms of quality and yet were still canceled rather unceremoniously. I wouldn't necessarily call the shows that came after 'bad' but they certainly regressed in a way that leads me to believe they'll never be that good again.

I haven't been up on the summer season of anime. What's good out there?

@notsosneakyguy: So far of the newer shows...

• Cop Craft: He's a loose cannon who doesn't play by the rules (and slightly racist against elves) but he gets results. She's a noble elf(?) knight with amazing sword skills. They fight crime.
• To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts: What if the Civil War ended with a bunch of soldiers who could transform into mythical beasts? Granted the show is not as well paced as the manga, but still has some charm.
• Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?: Roughly "How much do you lift, bro?" A show about highschool girls getting swole that uses actual workout routines.
• Vinland Saga: Haven't seen yet but it's based off a fantastic historical fiction manga about vikings set during the rise of Canute the Great.
• O Maidens in Your Savage Season: Drama/comedy about schoolgirls trying to figure out their growing changes. Not quite my thing but I've heard good things about it.
• Fire Force: Apparently it's from the mangaka behind Soul Eater about a bunch of magical firefighters in an alternate world where people can spontaneously burst into flames. Also not quite my thing but I've heard good things about it.

Yooooooooooooooooooo! Astra Lost in Space basically plagiarized Star Trek Voyager!

Jojo on Sunday. The two week wait has physically aged me

Jojo ended with a solid 9/10. An absolute wet fart of an ending though. I've thoroughly enjoyed my year of VA, but that ending kinda stunk

I'm a little worried about Araki though. He gives his villains some of the worst deaths in fiction. Diavolo suffering infinite deaths for all time? Fuck me

Okay, I just listened to Dan's latest Eva podcast where they turned on the series HARD. I've never watched the dub, so I'm curious if it leaves a ton of stuff out, or did they just miss a whole lot of major character and plot points, because they sure seemed to think a lot of answered questions were unanswered.

@alkusanagi: I did watch the Netflix dub of EVA, and I didn’t feel like I missed anything (in fact, I feel like I picked up on a lot more than I did with the ADV dub when I was a teenager.)

I think the actual answer is that a lot of details in Evangelion are told through subtext or small moments, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just Dan missing things. Who would’ve thought Metal Gear was political, after all?

Dan's watching EVA, what? It's like the most not-for-Dan anime out there. Excuse me for being out of the loop, but how the hell did that even happen?

Dan and his wife Bianca have been doing a podcast where they watch tv shows and movies on different streaming services and talk about it, and so when Evangelion got put on Netflix they decided to watch it, and since people had already been recommending it to Dan for some time after he discovered he liked anime.

I watched all of Evangelion for the first time over the past 2 weeks and wrapped up End of Eva about an hour ago.

Fuck all of this.

Vinland Saga - The art style is really sharp and the whole historical fiction bent is very cool to me. Looking forward to seeing more of this but I'm bracing myself for loads of tragedy along the way.

Fire Force - I'm liking this though I'm not sure if I love it just yet. You can see the Soul Eater DNA pretty much straight away in the art and the concept itself feels unique enough to keep my interest. I'll say the best thing to me so far is having the best muscle girl of the season with Maki.

Dr. Stone - I'm a lot more lukewarm on this than I thought I'd be. The premise itself got me very intrigued but I guess I wasn't expecting the characterizations to be as over the top as they are. Also wasn't expecting this first arc to remind me so much of Battle Royale (manga). The thing keeping me interested is the notion that science is the actual main character as I'm not exactly digging anyone else in this show.

Some ongoing stuff as well:

@farleyslundgren: Man, what were these people thinking? XD

@clockworktony: Well, good news for you, because the ride ain't over. Time to get on those remake movies.

I tried the first episode of Fire Force and found it to be the most shonen-ass shonen anime I've ever seen.

@mezmero: Vinland Saga is so good. I highly recommend checking out the manga if you find the anime compelling.

Watching Dr. Stone is a weird experience for me. I have enough faith in Inagaki's source material, but maaaan, dat BOICHI art style is causing all kinds of unpleasant flashbacks.

The end of Jojo was fucking brilliant.

Now comes the LONG wait for Stone Ocean

@alkusanagi: I don't watch a whole lot of Shonen stuff but yeah it has all the hallmarks of a Shonen show. That said based the first three episodes it might be one of my favorite shows this season. Episode four was a bit strange and seemed to have some stilted animation but it might be due to them having to quickly change somethings and alter some scenes in the episode due to the Kyoani Arson attack.

The Waypoint re-watch of Evangelion ended and it was a hell of a ride!

Ended up binging the whole first cour of Carole & Tuesday over the weekend. It started out really strong and kept it up pretty well until faltering at the first (and final) significant arc where it lost a lot of the breezy pacing and emotional resonance of the first half, including one truly terribly executed subplot. It manages to bounce back enough for a decent last episode, and I enjoy seeing the two leads being goofballs enough that I'll keep watching, but it feels like a lot of wasted potential so far with plot threads being introduced at a rapid clip and being dropped just as fast.

Overall I'd say it's definitely worth a watch to see if you like it. They're framing these first 12 episodes as pure setup so I'm hopeful that the remaining episodes will better explore the themes they seem to be driving at.

Oh the music, a pretty big focus of the show, so far has been pretty good to great, the main song of this first half of the season is excellent in how its used.