What anime are you watching right now? Summer 2016 to now

[Mr. Tines]

I finally gave up on Sakugan after the adventuring party accumulated even more characters that, like the original duo, each individually would be enough to drag down a whole series. And after discovering that this series is in fact adapting just the first volume of a light novel series, indicating that there will be no meaningful progression toward the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The ED tune was probably the best thing about the series.

Also tried and dropped, Ange Vierge which initially looked like Strike Witches meet Magic: the Gathering, but then turned into a continued bout of UNDERSTANDING and Power of Friendship as the underdog team hop from colour-world to colour-world to retrieve the respective members of the primary team who had been corrupted by the local Neuroi-equivalent in episode 2, plus a rather discordant brief dumb military training skit at the half-time break. This was a series with a clear "buy the BD" message, as most of the off-duty sections had the characters relaxing in their local hot tub with steam and light beams obscuring most of the screen.

[Alaska Slim]

I finally gave up on Sakugan after the adventuring party accumulated even more characters that, like the original duo, each individually would be enough to drag down a whole series. And after discovering that this series is in fact adapting just the first volume of a light novel series, indicating that there will be no meaningful progression toward the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The ED tune was probably the best thing about the series.

Have you seen the music video? The subject is... not what I expected

SONG: "I WILL, NEVER, EVER-R♪ GIVE UP HALF WAY-AY-AY♪--"

Me: "... so the girl sitting there at the café ate all of her sandwich, is that the takeaway?"

[chazthesilencer]

(Restaurant to Another World) BTW, did you know the Master is like 12% ogre? That explains why he's so tall I guess.

What a wonderfully useless piece of information
The ending of episode 11 had the biggest, longest group “Ehhh!?” I’ve ever heard in a Chinese cartoon. This will take some effort to top.

==========

Mieruko Chan – Will be the show I’ll miss the most from this season.
It’s a difficult recommendation, every episode boils down to: grotesque spirit appears before a terrified girl, see how long she can ignore it without suffering a nervous breakdown.

Somehow, it works. Get past the horrific ghost designs (which are often rather impressive in just how nasty they look and animate) and the sight of a poor teenager fighting back fright-tears, and you’ll be treated to (or subject to) an interesting kind of dark humour with the occasional heart-warming moment, made all the sweeter by contrasting them with everything else seen in the show.

The direction didn’t start great with its skeevy camera angles on Miko, it became debatably better into the middle of the show run as Miko’s posterior mercifully became less focused on in the shot framing… and got replaced instead by Hana’s attributes, whose weight gain from her constant snacking apparently all went to two places, just higher-up.

We are left with a hook for a second season, but this season is complete as its own entity.

I’m not obsessed with butts, I swear  SPOILER: Show

This has been a quiet season, not much caught my interest, so I’ve rewatched a few things, including From Up on Poppy Hill.
It’s fine, just fine. That one scene however, arguably the most important scene of the film- the walk in the rain, is a funny one. And no, I don’t mean “ha-ha” funny.
I'll keep the specifics spoiler free, even though the key revelation of the scene is played out in a trailer.

I saw the film play in a Glasgow cinema back when it was newly released, and remember the audience chuckling at the line “It’s like some cheap melodrama”.
It’s clearly not supposed to be taken as a funny line, this is a tragic moment the character is trying to soften with a weak attempt at humour, the delivery of the line and the lack of expression on his face speaks volumes.



I could only roll my eyes at the people surrounding me for failing to “get” the scene and laughing at it. Because I are smrt cinema goer, yis?

Watching it a second time however, I can’t help wonder if the audience actually did react the way the director wanted…
In the trailer you’ll notice that there is no background music accompanying the dialogue, all we can hear is the sound of rainfall, which gives the words spoken some extra weight, one can tell it’s supposed to be a powerful moment. But the film doesn’t do that, instead the dialogue is accompanied by music, some light, casual piano playing along, almost like the music is trying to downplay the seriousness of the moment, to make it all sound and feel as “yeah, whatever” as the character tries to do, but fail… except it didn’t fail, because it worked and the audience laughed.

Is this brilliance?

Or am I just overthinking this out of boredom?

Probably the latter.

[Alaska Slim]

Meanwhile in 1999...



... Frieza was really short.

In 2021, kids now watch violent Korean live action shows. And Frieza is at least 10 cm taller. My how times have changed.

[EvaChero]

Just watched the 4 part mini-series "Resident Evil - Infinite Darkness" on 'flix....

pluses - gorgeous CGI, textures and atmospherics are outstanding. Gravity and object physics are pretty good although Claire's pony tail does a lot of mindless wafting. The show is at it's best during heavy action sequences where it becomes difficult to tell that these aren't real people acting.

hohum - facial expressions are still a problem, emptiness behind the eyes makes it hard to tell who are the zombies, soundtrack is forgettable.....

minuses - plot.....reminds me of a long game cut scene, very predictable, but still engaging by episode 3. 4 eps makes for a short season and some of the
character facials are just over-kill over designed....

[Blockio]

So, Megaton Musashi and Kyokai Senki have both hit the end of their first season now.
KKS finally got its act together and delivered a really good final episode with some genuinely chilling moments and I am actually unsure if Amou died or not, that's an achievement in its own right and a VERY promising setup for S2;

Megaton just went hard in general. I cannot believe how good this show turned out.

[Alaska Slim]

So, Megaton Musashi and Kyokai Senki have both hit the end of their first season now.
KKS finally got its act together and delivered a really good final episode with some genuinely chilling moments and I am actually unsure if Amou died or not, that's an achievement in its own right and a VERY promising setup for S2;

Megaton just went hard in general. I cannot believe how good this show turned out.

I've heard some call Kyokai Senki the "Boomer's anime", because it has a nationalistic bent. Something I didn't really feel until I saw the translation for the OP. Afterwards, the fetishing of Japanese handicrafts and the "I do this for Japan!" was looking a little less platonic.

It still has nothing to say about immigrants, as I heard accused, but...

Also, some of the portrayals seem oddly specific to present day Japan.

"We don't have autonomy, their people commit crimes here but are not tried in our courts. They're shipped back home to be tried in their own courts where we don't hear of the outcome."

And I'm like "...Is that all?" That is an legitimate issue, but to say that means you don't have autonomy looks like a gross exaggeration.

What happened to the earlier implication that NAC (America) was annexing mainland Japanese territory? Which has thus far been brought up by the NAC character, and nobody else?

The former just looks passive-aggressive. I prefer complaints of America hegemony where it's dug into, and put on display like Concrete Revolutio did. Since the NAC character has yet to be an outright enemy (really, he borders on deuteragonist), I don't even know where this series is going with this complaint. Will it be the same as those Asian soldiers, who are just wowed by the MCs virtue, and subdue voluntarily?


To another issue,

SPOILER: Show

the show seems to have the same problem as Fang of the Sun Dougram, where they can't show much breaking on the MC bots, because then, since the MCs are guerrillas with no fixed base, you start to ask "how are you going to replace that, realistically?"

Which means the Russian character was leaving a more tepid impact then he should have, as he wasn't hurting anything on the MC bots. It's not like, say, Zoids Zero, when Vega Obscura joined the battle in a stripped-down bot and kicked everyone's ass.

Ghost does give off some of the same air as Vega's ancestor Raven... a loose cannon that upturns otherwise winnable battles. That is one of the few elements of the show that actually works, and provides intrigue that isn't entirely predictable.

One last thing that wowed me; they had a backup, to the backup, to the back up plan for fighting Ghost. It's like, they're actual soldiers, minus the lack of uniforms or standard dress, which you can forgive on the count of them being guerillas.

[Blockio]

I feel like the whole boomer natinalist aspect would stand out a lot more to me if most everything before the Ghost operation didn't feel so inconsequential and detached; at times the show felt like it actively refused to engage with the themes it was obviously playing with, although I'd probably count that to the director apparently only having done slice of life before; it certainly explains the painfully episodic nature and overwhelming lack of overarching plot points.

I'm gonna partially disagree on the logistics bit; for being guerillias, they almost have too much of the stuff. There's never a time where they go "o shit, we have to conserve ammo", where they can't do proper repairs on something, where they can't stage an attack they want to for lack of manpower or equipment, or even just have to actually hide for an episode or two. Instead, all their movement is obscured by all-powerful AI, they have exactly the right things in their supply lines at all times, and half a dozen more small things like that that break the illusion of them being on the back foot for me. You are absolutely right when you say that they feel like a proper army; which is good in the moment, but on the whole detracts from the show for me.

The whole thing very much feels like a writing-by-checklist kind of thing, that they're just going through the storybeats and tropes that mecha often uses, without really u8nderstanding what makes them work, and subsequently not putting in the right buildup to make them work.

[Joy Evangelion]

Mieruko Chan – Will be the show I’ll miss the most from this season.
It’s a difficult recommendation, every episode boils down to: grotesque spirit appears before a terrified girl, see how long she can ignore it without suffering a nervous breakdown.

It was a great show, chaz. And a lot of it was like no other show I'd watched before. Had its funny moments, its unsettling moments, its sentimental moments, and some pretty nice action scenes. Itd be cool if they continue the story. But during the fall season I'd probably take My Senpai is Annoying over it, but just by a bit.

------------------
Bit late to this, but just wanted to give Wonder Egg Priorty my Anime of the Year award. Man, I loved that annimay. Easily was my favorite show since Rakugo wrapped up in 2017 and maybe my favorite magical girl series of all time. Wish I could have posted on it here earlier in the year but I was avoiding the forum just in case of Shin Eva spoilers. That special they released at the end of June was kind of a let down, but it didn't do anything to hurt my appreciation of the series as a whole. Haven't been able to stop thinking about the show since I watched it.

My other favs from 2021, which was a great year for anime would be Megalobox 2: Nomad, Dr. Stone 2, The Aquatope on White Sand, Cells at Work Black and special shoutout to the new season of Thunderbolt Fantasy even though it isn't anime.

[chazthesilencer]

Mieruko Chan – It was a great show, chaz.

I like how this post looks like you are trying to offer me reassurance

Bit late to this, but just wanted to give Wonder Egg Priority my Anime of the Year award.

I was waiting for someone to finally do this, thank you. We should make this a tradition for us.

Time for some new-year’s honours/acknowledgements:

There were a good few second seasons/returns including Non Non Biyori; the Fruits Basket finale; The Quintessential Quintuplets; Laid Back Camp and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.

My top pick of 2021 was undoubtedly The Duke of Death and His Maid. A gothic romantic comedy that managed to deliver on the comedy, romance and the gothic. Loved it during its first airing, now I'm enjoying it all over again with the dub.

The award for biggest, pleasant surprise of the year goes to My Next Life as a Villainess; season 2 episode 8. Gushing.

The award for saddest failure goes to Battle Athletes Victory Restart!. An ugly, poorly animated, terribly written project, that hadn’t a single good idea attached to it, with the worst idea being its very inception.

[Joy Evangelion]

Mieruko Chan – It was a great show, chaz.

I like how this post looks like you are trying to offer me reassurance

Heh heh, I suppose I did. Everythings gonna be okay!

I'll have to check out your pick for AOTY, you mentioning Ascendance of a Bookworm last year got me to watch it and I loved it. The tradition must live on.

And speaking of isekai, I did also actually really like 2021's So I'm a Spider, So What?!

[C.T.1290]

Since Netflix had decided to remove Fullmetal Alchemist( the original and Brotherhood), I’ve decided to watch it again on Hulu.

I don’t know why Netflix decides to remove some of the good stuff, but Hulu is a little more better and has more variety, anyway.

[Blockio]

I spontaneously decided to rewatch the first season of 86 with two firends who hadn't seen it today; still as good as the first time. Probably the best TV show to come out last year.

[pwhodges]

Eighty Six is kinda frustrating. It's really good, and it even persuaded me to read the books it's based on. But that's when I realised how much detail and explanation from the books is left out... The two-cour series covers three whole books! And then the delays - it's almost like Wolf's Rain that way. (The books are a good read, though not that well written, at least in English translation.)

While I'm here...

I'm still enjoying Yashahime; nothing especially great about it, but it's consistently good entertainment. Inuyasha and Kagome have just shown up, to remind us of the links with the original Inuyasha series.

Platinum End is complete crap. Really tediously slow; worse in every way than either Future Diary or even Death Note. I glance at it occasionally to see if they have found another way to make it worse.

Going back a bit, Fruits Basket was as good as I'd hoped it would be (though I had wondered if they'd tack Fruits Basket, Another on to make the third season the same length).

I rewatched Star Driver recently. It gets a "pretty good" rating from me; but there are flaws in the story-telling - it feels like it starts in the middle, and the ending is extremely rushed and strange (the two main characters reconcile - by battle - at the last minute, but then float off into space together abandoning their common love interest all together...). I love the facial expressions in this series.

I just watched Planetes for the first time. I recommend it highly, both for its story and for the detail and relative accuracy of the science it's based on. Having seen high recommendations for the original manga, I read that too - and was extremely disappointed. There's only about 50% overlap between the anime and manga stories, and the anime is far more coherent; the scientific accuracy I praised is also mainly added in the anime.

What next? Well, I just discovered the 1993 Battle Angel, which is the same story as the recent movie Alita, Battle Angel. It's just a 2-episode OVA (also shown in theatres as a single feature). This comparison of various scenes from the OVA and the movie is interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6izXHpLMymE

[Blockio]

Eighty Six is kinda frustrating. It's really good, and it even persuaded me to read the books it's based on. But that's when I realised how much detail and explanation from the books is left out... The two-cour series covers three whole books! And then the delays - it's almost like Wolf's Rain that way. (The books are a good read, though not that well written, at least in English translation.)

Yeah, I've read a bit of the novels after the hiatus was announced, there is a lot more in them. I'm with you on the writing style, the sentence structure is almost frustratingly simplistic, there is never anything to establish a good flow of narration, way too many dots and too few commas. I don't find the difference in detail as pressing an issue, a lot of the details are still in the show, albeit as more of a blink and you miss it type of things; best example would probably be the ammo type used, APFSDS; if memory at all serves me, the books have a decently sized explanation for what that is and does (for those unaware - AP = armor piercing, designed to go through metal plate; FS = fin-stabilized, has sheets of metal at the end to stabilize its flight trajectory; DS = discarding sabot, a filling around the projectile to allow it to be fired from a larger gun with more propellant, achieves higher speed and penetration power); in the show, it's just an offhand mention somewhere and the visual of the projectle flying in the handful of slowmo shots that still communicates its design to those aware of the real world equivalent; a lot of the show relies on an existing baseline understanding of the concepts and tropes in it.

I rewatched Star Driver recently. It gets a "pretty good" rating from me; but there are flaws in the story-telling - it feels like it starts in the middle, and the ending is extremely rushed and strange (the two main characters reconcile - by battle - at the last minute, but then float off into space together abandoning their common love interest all together...). I love the facial expressions in this series.

I just watched Planetes for the first time. I recommend it highly, both for its story and for the detail and relative accuracy of the science it's based on. Having seen high recommendations for the original manga, I read that too - and was extremely disappointed. There's only about 50% overlap between the anime and manga stories, and the anime is far more coherent; the scientific accuracy I praised is also mainly added in the anime.

What next? Well, I just discovered the 1993 Battle Angel, which is the same story as the recent movie Alita, Battle Angel. It's just a 2-episode OVA (also shown in theatres as a single feature). This comparison of various scenes from the OVA and the movie is interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6izXHpLMymE

Been meaning to check all three of these out for a while, heard good things about all of them. Alita was a super fun movie and having picked up the first handful of volumes of the original manga I quite enjoyed those, too.

[Mr. Tines]

I just watched Planetes for the first time.

It's another of those series which were animated at about the same time as the manga was entering its final straight -- see also Bokurano and Chobits. In the case of Planetes, there is an unusual bifurcation in the audience, typically preferring whichever of manga or anime was encountered first, rather than there being a consensus on adaptation decay -- the very different endings (a result of them coming out about the same time) being a common point of contention. The differences in emphasis between the two are significant (the symbolism of the long-tailed cat being symptomatic) and go deeper than superficial things like choosing between Space Elvis or Moon Ninjas.

[Alaska Slim]

I just watched Planetes for the first time.

It's another of those series which were animated at about the same time as the manga was entering its final straight -- see also Bokurano and Chobits. In the case of Planetes, there is an unusual bifurcation in the audience, typically preferring whichever of manga or anime was encountered first, rather than there being a consensus on adaptation decay -- the very different endings (a result of them coming out about the same time) being a common point of contention. The differences in emphasis between the two are significant (the symbolism of the long-tailed cat being symptomatic) and go deeper than superficial things like choosing between Space Elvis or Moon Ninjas.

Planetes first introduced me to the idea of Kessler Syndrome; at the time just an occasional nerdy thought experiment brought up when some nation did an ASAT test.

Made me realize ""wait, the word syndrome can relate to something other than human beings, a population or anything biological?"

Now people won't stop talking about KS 'cuz mega constellations... which don't appreciably increase the chance for KS as most said constellations are planned for lower orbits wherein any debris would decay quickly. It's still ASAT tests that present the lingering possibility. Especially when nations don't bother putting a target in a low orbit, and just shoot whatever... Russia...


BTW, the Did you Know Anime episode for Planetes is voiced by Scott Manley. (hullo!)

[Alaska Slim]

The Orbital Children



I think this is the first time I've seen something from SpaceX in an anime. Has it really taken this long?

[Gus Hanson]

First uncensored episode of World's End Harem was the first anime I saw today and getting a peek at the fanservice without the censoring was a visual satisfaction. Some of the females share qualities from the Eva characters. For example, Mira acts like Rei and Misato in that she's stoic and dedicated to her job but she may have a deep, sensual side that Reito hasn't awakened in her yet.

Second anime was the second episode of Class Reunion Again which confirmed that the other episode with Tatsuya and Mizuho as a couple was superior. Not that Tatsuya and Ayu are defective, just that Ayu is the traditional tsundere childhood friend which doesn't necessarily catch my eye anymore.

[Mr. Tines]

Clearing up from the backlog -- Un-Go which was weird detective story in a near/alt-future Japan after a war, with a mix of AI, powersat-politics and battling kami : OK but who comes up with mix-and-match ideas like that to even make them work in the first place? And Heroic Age, which did what one pretty much might have expected from the initial (and well-trodden in the literature) premise, and thus did manage to stick a satisfactory ending.

From the current season Sorairo Utility was too short to establish real "a cute girls doing activity" scenario; Akebi didn't establish itself as an alternative CGD-whatever, and the weird art style didn't help motivate to watch a second episode.

Sabikui Bisco is being crazy enough in its take on the "a random disaster strikes (at least) Japan, and things become weird and anarchic" genre that I'm still following, and my reaction to date to Tokyo 24th Ward is simply this

At least it's not Schroedinger's Cat  SPOILER: Show