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

[Blockio]

Gave Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 a watch on a whim; nothing to write home about, but a fun watch and certainly well-made. Definitely worth the 40 minutes of runtime it has

[Blockio]

86 is back, and it's as good as ever. This episode was well worth the couple months wait, beautifully written and executed in every aspect. From reading the novels I know what's coming up next week, and I could hardly be more excited for it

[Alaska Slim]

LUPIN THE 3rd PART 6 Ep 22



Kind of what I've been asking this show. I have no clue what it was trying to do this whole episode.

He arrives just to tell the girl to breathe, and give her flowers? Why bring Jigen and Goemon along?


Frequently this season it feels like they have a slate of plot beats that might have been good, but the connecting tissue was never really fleshed out.

There hasn't been a single episode this season that I thought was as well-executed or succinct as the second episode of Part IV. Everything is jumbled.

Kind of doubt this story, supposedly about Lupin's mentor / mother-figure, will make much sense in the end either.

[Blockio]

So, 86 - EIGHTY SIX - has wrapped up. And boy howdy was it good. Without a doubt one of my favorite shows start to finish; I urge everyone to go watch it.

[The Killer of Heroes]

Do I have to watch 1 through 85 first?

[Blockio]

If you want, it gives a nice amount of background lore. Not too long either, just 476 episodes, you can easily knock that out in a month

For those unaware, we're just talking out of our asses here, there are no related shows to 86

[Zoop]

@Blockio I would like to thank you for mentioning 86, I've started my binge and I'm loving it so far.

It's a bit like Code Geass: Akito the Exiled + the Skynet bits of Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Really digging it, tho at first it kinda felt like an Akito ripoff (86 = 11, being sent to their death in battle because they aren't considered human, brother wanting to kill the mainchar, but ending up giving him a superpower, syncing in battles being called a raid, the movement and speed of the mecha's, and a bunch more), but definitely manages to establish its own thing soon enough.

Edit: Ok i finished it, i teared up... i want next season!

[Blockio]

Oh yeah, I am fully convinced that the writer of 86 looked at Akito and went "hold on, that is a really good aesthetic, I bet I can make this not suck if I take out all the shoved-in nonsense", and sure thing, it worked.

[The Killer of Heroes]

Tbh I liked Akito well enough. The release schedule sucked and the tone was fairly different from mainline Geass, but I had fun with it for what it was.

If 86 has a similar vibe I'll probably like it too whenever I get around to it.

[Zoop]

Definitely same vibes as Akito but, imo, a much more compelling story.

Code Geass is mostly about Lelouch, the spinoff characters just feel too insignificant to that. A whole bunch of characters of which you'll know they won't matter for the overal story, but not really that interesting on their own either.
But 86 builds a beautiful story with wonderful characters, even if most of the premise and setting seemed to be directly ripped from Akito (but with a completely different enemy).

If you liked Akito then you'll love this one.

My only gripe with it is how random the timing for the end credits are, in a few episodes, the credits are smack in the middle of an episode ... So make sure to always watch the aftercredits bits, most of it is directly important to the story and won't be repeated the next episode. Also parts where the credits roll over normal episode content, which you normally only see done with the last episode or something, but here it does that pretty frequently.
So watch the full 23min of each episode, or you'll might miss out on something important.

[Blockio]

My problem with Akito is that it tries to be so much bigger than it can handle, brings in a bunch of characters from the main show that have no business being there, and jumps through increasingly ridiculous hoops to justify any of its nonsense.
I quite liked the first two movies, and have spent quite frankly way too much cash on getting figures of the whole squad, but the last two movies were among the longest two hours I ever willingly put myself through.

In unrelated news then; the other day, I watched Ep 0 of Hate no Issen, an indie mecha project that looks incredibly promising in all aspects. I highly recommend everyone who likes robot shows to check it out

[chazthesilencer]

during the fall season I'd probably take My Senpai is Annoying over it, but just by a bit.

Office comedies or shows about cute adults doing cute adult things seem hard to come by, so I was happy to hear of this one.
The first few episodes have some grown-up scenarios like getting drunk at the bar or dealing with office secret-santa events going on, but it doesn’t take long before it devolves into cookie-cutter episodes featuring sick-visits, valentine chocolates, and beach outings, which could just as easily have happened on any other show with any other group of characters. If the man-mountain Takeda stays out of frame- the show could easily be mistaken for just another typical high-schoolers comedy.
Fine for a casual watch, but mildly disappointing.
Let me know if you come across a show where the characters are regularly complaining about their income, taxes, income taxes, lack of free time, and waking up to new aches, pains and grey hairs and I’ve found my AOTY.
Kurobe is gorgeous. That Mona was a weird one. What was she even supposed to be? The funny one?

Gave New Game a rewatch. In my memory this was just CGDC game development… and it is… but it also had some enjoyable (if mundane) office humour, like arriving late for work and people warring over the A/C temperature, and I somehow completely forgot the surprising amount of fanservice it has.
As a depiction of a games development environment goes- this isn’t bad. The most outlandish thing about it was the idea of a mid-sized studio staffed entirely by women, which is something the show itself even jokes on.
Still has one of the most pointless instances of slow-motion I’ve ever seen. I can’t help but be reminded of Dark Place.

========

This season only had the one show I was remotely looking forward to each week:

My Dress-Up Darling – Teen romcom in which an apprentice doll-maker befriends a bubbly gyaru (who also happens to be a raging animay/gaming otaku) who wants to try out some fancy-dress.
If I can avoid typing “cosplay”, I will. I’m an old fashioned British gentlemen, y’see.
The show spends most of its time exploring the hobby of costume-creation and make-up techniques, which it manages to keep interesting through Kitagawa’s infectious enthusiasm. The bonding between the two leads is sweet, although some of the fanservice is tackier than it needs to be.
A certain amount of skin was expected to be seen in a show about dress-up, so when Kitagawa appears in her bikini in episode 2 for body measurements- it made perfect sense; but did we really need to see her unclad, post-shower heiny for no good reason in episode 10? Isn’t it enough to see the character dress up in revealing costumes?

I’m saying “Oh shut up, and put some clothes on!” more and more with every season. I must be turning into a sunflower…

I might have watched the third season of Teasing Master Takagi-san, but I can't find a legitimate means of watching it in Poland.
Season 1 on Crunchy. Season 2 on Netflix. Season 3? Nuts to you.

[Blockio]

Gave Madoka Magica a watch over the past few days; it's not as groundbreaking as people make it out to be, but its good reputation is definitely well-deserved. Outstanding show.
Gonna tackle Magia Record before too long.

[Mr. Tines]

It's that dead time between seasons again, though Tokyo 24-ku hit the expected Cloverworks overcommit limit, and has yet to deliver the last episode. Sabikui Bisco did finish, in a finale that echoed Vividred Operation for the way all the characters spent time being heartfelt at each other while the big bad was charging up his lazors -- in all, too many crazy ideas, and not really enough establishing of conflict.

The same charge can also be levelled at the new (gacha-game tie-in) series Estab-Life, which adds the one-style-fits-all 3DCG characters that are becoming too common these days, including an apparent high-school girl with a long track record as an operative (on a par with the Dirty Pair, but without the associated trail of destruction). Not, I think, a keeper.

From the backlog --

Nobunagun, which turned out to be a fun take on the "super-powered school-girl vs alien greeblies" genre, when ditzy mil-otaku Sio goes all-in when she discovers she can channel Oda Nobunaga in the form of a Gatling gun with moar dakka-dakka. This had the weirdest take yet out of Japan for the secret identity of Jack the Ripper.

Schoolgirl Strikers was a more genre-pure instance of super-powered school-girls vs alien greeblies, with some added power of friendship -- it managed to do things right which Ange Vierge spectacularly fumbled, including having most off the non-combat sections being elsewhere than the hot tub.

In the "Cute Girls Do Cute Activity" corner, New Game! presented a very sanitized -- and very gender-bent -- view of the software development process. Amusing enough that I'll probably do the second series later.

[The Killer of Heroes]

Gave Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 a watch on a whim; nothing to write home about, but a fun watch and certainly well-made. Definitely worth the 40 minutes of runtime it has

I watched this yesterday and while I'm not quite as positive I basically agree with your assessment, but reading around online I'm kind of surprised to see it has kind of a inflated reputation. Like apparently some Kickstarter to produce a restoration of it met its goal under an hour last year. Also if random Twitter people are to be believed, MADOX-01 is what is constantly being referenced whenever you have a promotional image or whatever of a mecha with all its weapons out in front of it.

tweet-body

— twitter-user (@username) date

Kojima apparently referenced this too with Death Stranding.

tweet-body

— twitter-user (@username) date

Like MADOX-01 is okay, but how the hell did a relatively nothing OVA like this gain any kind of cultural footing?

[Blockio]

Huh, that's wild, both the Kickstarter and the loadout thing. I doubt that this is the actual origin of displaying a machine with all of its components in front of it, I can easily see Madox being the thing that popularized the signature layout/image composition

[UrsusArctos]

Wow! I didn't think that an anime this old and obscure would have such a phenomenally successful kickstarter.

The twitterati are wrong. Madox simply copied the pose from common promotional images of strike aircraft with their weapons laid out on the ground in front of them. It's entirely unsurprising and fits in context, since the Madox was supposed to be a top-secret military mecha, but it seems like the mecha anime connection was made without any knowledge of military aircraft.

Here's an image of the late 1960s era F-111 with its full weapons loadout laid out on the ground in front of it -

SPOILER: Show

And the classic CF-104 Starfighter-

SPOILER: Show

And the formidable Soviet/Russian Su-25 "Frogfoot" -

SPOILER: Show

Eva-01 with all its weapons laid out in front of it need not be a Madox influence, since Anno, Shinji Higuchi and a whole lot of the other old-time Gainax guys were huge military otaku. It's a hundred to one they saw these promo images of military aircraft and thought "Gee, wouldn't it be cool to display Eva-01 and her weapons loadout in the same manner?"

[The Killer of Heroes]

Okay, this all seems a little more sensible than Madox of all things being hugely influential. I had no idea about this being a common thing with military aircraft!

[cyharding]

I think what made Madox popular was that it embodies all the aspects of what people thought anime was in the late 80s & early 90s: Giant robots, explosions, pretty girls, etc...
Because it has all that, it sticks around as it is the best example of this era.

One more thing, it probably inspired Anno as he was an animator on the project.

[Blockio]

The twitterati are wrong. Madox simply copied the pose from common promotional images of strike aircraft with their weapons laid out on the ground in front of them. It's entirely unsurprising and fits in context, since the Madox was supposed to be a top-secret military mecha, but it seems like the mecha anime connection was made without any knowledge of military aircraft.

Ah, right. I've seen it before on modern vehicles, but nothing that old, so I didn't wanna put that out there and then be wrong about it xD