Author Topic: What Anime are you watching? (Read 469789 times)

B E C K · « **Reply #2790 on:** Apr 12, 2021, 02:37:19 PM »

Yeah, I found Pancreas most similar in tone to A Silent Voice. Even though it's sadder.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2791 on:** Apr 12, 2021, 06:58:31 PM »

It sounds like a fucking metal album, so I can't deny my slight disappointment upon learning the truth.

B E C K · « **Reply #2792 on:** Apr 14, 2021, 01:53:34 PM »

It's such a weird name. Like, it's appropriate once you see its context in the story. But I could see a lot of people passing on this film from name alone.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2793 on:** Apr 18, 2021, 03:26:18 PM »

I said this before, but there's too much that looks marginally interesting coming out this season, and there's no way I can watch it all. I'm trying to whittle it down by sampling first episodes, but so far it isn't going well at all.

Joran
Mars Red
Dynazenon

These three had enough of a hook that I can't bin them outright.

Combatants Will Be Dispatched! is such an absolute dog's breakfast that I kind of want to keep with it out of pure morbidity. Apparently it's another light novel adaptation, but it reminds me so much of every other low-rent anime that used to come out back in the early '00s. You know the type. Technically, it's anime, but... ugh. A shining example of what Hayao Miyazaki sees when he thinks of the state of modern Japanese animation, probably.

Rodent of Unusual Size · « **Reply #2794 on:** Apr 19, 2021, 04:13:31 PM »

Dynazenon is supposed to be a successor to Gridman, so I'm catching it.

B E C K · « **Reply #2795 on:** Apr 20, 2021, 10:02:34 PM »

The... main guy, I guess, looks weird. Normally I like shifty-eyed characters but I think that yellow bandage top is too much edge.

Let us know about Joran and Mars Red. Those caught my eye, too. Along with the shamisen anime. There were some others but I watched a bunch of untranslated trailers for stuff and don't recall some of the names. There was one with talking animals. Kinda surprised Netflix didn't snatch it up. Would've fit right in with Bna, Aggretsuko, and Beastars.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2796 on:** Apr 20, 2021, 11:58:07 PM »

Odd Taxi is the animal one, I just watched the first episode of that. Seems pretty good. I figured from the look of it that it was going to be cutesy/funny -- and it is -- but it also looks like there might be some underlying seedy shit going on. I guess that's kind of par for the course for recent Japanese animal stuff, though. "Oh, how sweet! But also ooh... how grim."

Sorry, those three I listed I actually had checked out already and determined they were worth my time, I just didn't really have anything to say about them. Right now I just want to know what I should be downloading. I've grabbed entire series before, sight unseen, only to find out that they weren't at all my cup of tea. I gotta go back and clean out older stuff before I dig into anything new. I prefer to binge once everything has aired anyway.

Speaking of binging, I sampled a bunch more first episodes today, I guess I'll try to talk about them a bit this time.

Shadows House: This one I'm still on the fence about. I want to know where it's headed, but I'm worried it might be a little too saccharine for my tastes. I'll give it a couple more episodes.

CESTVS the Roman Fighter: Watched about a minute of this whack CG and noped out.

Pretty Boy Detective Club? I think that's it. I downloaded this by accident. I saw the name of it and the titular pretty boys and thought I had skipped over it, but there it was in my downloads folder. It's got this metaphysical visual style that reminds me of Utena somehow. Stay of execution for now.

Super Cub: Lonely high school girl buys a moped. I watched the trailer for this and had to chell it. It's one of those warm, tingly security blanket type things. And there's Honda branding all over it so now I'm wondering if Honda commissioned it, or if they just decided to do product placement since the story centers around mopeds anyway.

86: This one seems pretty high concept, so I don't know that I can weigh in on it just yet. Basically this society of fair-skinned, silver-haired people live in opulence, fighting a war they aren't directly affected by with drones. But turns out the "drones" are manned vehicles piloted by every-other-color-but-silver-haired lower class, salt of the earth, rural types. So they're all constantly sacrificing themselves to maintain the privileged silver-haired way of life. I need to see where this goes. Probably bleak shit all the way down.

Full Dive: This is more or less an isekai, but the catch is that it's a VR MMO where you are what you are. So this teen wimp loser is in there and he has to deal with all the same problems he was trying to escape in the first place. Very tongue-in-cheek, though. Like, it's trash, honestly. Requisite harem of tiddy girls, blah blah blah, I'll give it another episode.

Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro: I don't know why I watched this. This demented chick relentlessly mocks this low self-esteem, friendless tool and he keeps going along with it because he craves the attention? It's fucked up, but you can't look away. I'll stick with it for now.

The World Ends With You: Based on a Nintendo DS game that came out years ago. I remember trying the game and not liking it. Something about fighting enemies on both screens simultaneously? I couldn't figure it out. Anyway, pretty standard shonen fare. I dunno, kinda bland.

I think there are a few more yet... ugh.

B E C K · « **Reply #2797 on:** Apr 22, 2021, 04:06:39 AM »

Shadow Houses was one that came up for me. Someone on YouTube commented it reminded them of Promised Neverland but that show surprisingly bored me.

Did you manage to get through Kemono Jihen from last season? I really liked the first few eps but it couldn't hold my interest for me to stick with it. Might still resume it but not right now.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2798 on:** Apr 22, 2021, 02:26:24 PM »

I've still only seen the first episode of Kemono Jihen.

This is probably going to sound gross, but the only reason I've been able to get back into anime is because I watch it all at either 1.5x or 2x speed now. I can't watch any of it at standard playback anymore, it puts me to sleep. The downside to this is that it makes even garbage anime weirdly watchable. Like, I had been powering through Dragon Ball Super on crunchyroll using a third party Chrome extension that allows you to adjust things like playback speed, but then crunchyroll nicely asked the guy who developed it to pull it down.

Recently Netflix added speed options on their site, so I've been watching way more there as well.

But yeah, I'll download video files, fire 'em up in VLC media player, and then it's as simple as hitting + or - on the num pad and I'm good to go. Sick of intros/recaps/outros/? 16x that shit.

Anyway, I watched a couple more.

To Your Eternity: From my understanding, God creates some kind of entity and sets it loose on post-apocalyptic Earth. Starts out as a ball of light, then decides to mimic a rock it happens across for who knows how long. Later an injured wolf dies next to the rock, and the rock becomes the wolf. Wolf wanders back to its human companion and hangs out with him for a while until he croaks, then becomes him. So the show seemingly is going to be about this thing playing at being human and going on various adventures. Or maybe it'll continue to transform as the story continues, I dunno.

Tokyo Revengers: This one's kinda fucking dark. Guy in his early 20s is living a crappy life alone, then sees on the news that his only girlfriend from when he was in high school had been murdered, along with her younger brother, in some kind of Yakuza business. This gets him thinking about his youth and where his life went wrong, then someone shoves him in front a moving train and he's transported back to his teenage years. Through happenstance he encounters the younger brother, basically tells him everything, and the kid believes him. He wakes up back in the present without a scratch, and the kid is there, grown up of course, and explains to the MC that he saved him from the train. He goes on to say that from the point they had met in the past, he had lived his life in preparation for the bad shit that would go down, and he survived obviously, but he failed to protect his sister. So now he wants MC to go back again to try and save the sister/girlfriend this time.

The premise is actually pretty great, I'll definitely watch all of it.

Rodent of Unusual Size · « **Reply #2799 on:** Apr 22, 2021, 08:32:16 PM »

I'm back to having a half-dozen shows I'm trying out. Last season I only watched three, which is my lowest count in...probably ever. But I did enjoy the few I watched. But as for this season:

Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro is grating with the main girl too much of an asshole and the boy too much of a titty baby. I'll give it one more show before I cull it, if it can find some way to make both leads redeemable in some way.

I enjoyed the first season of How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, and it's too early to tell here but it looks like more of the same. I love shows with an overpowered main, and I still get a laugh out of blatant fan service.

Regarding Full Dive: The Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life!, you know what's actually shittier than real life? This show. After the third ep where the MC finally grew a brain cell and decided to log out, I did, too.

I've been watching the Seven Deadly Sins anime for what seems like a decade, and this is just past the halfway point of the final season. I love the ending of the recent episode, even though you could see it coming a mile away. Splat!

SSSS.Dynazenon, as I mentioned earlier, is said to be a followup to the Gridman show a few seasons back which was more than your typical super robot show. Looking forward to this one delving into some the lore and characters, as the mecha action is good and needs to take a backseat for now.

The Slime Diaries: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is a side-story that seems to take place between the first and second seasons, the latter of which just wrapped up last season. It's not consequential or even funny, but if you like the characters you'll enjoy it, I guess.

Vivy Fluorite Eye's Song seems interesting, but I was disappointed that the production values seemed to drop off rather quickly. The first synthoid (or whatever they call them here) is visited by a quirky one from 100 years in the future where the synthoids kill all the humans with a new mission to stop it by intervening at various points in history to prevent the tragedy. Fun so far, but could have done with some better plotting at the end of the first mission (second episode) which was really disjointed. Or maybe I went to sleep and missed something. Anyway. We'll see.

So far, not a great start to this season.

B E C K · « **Reply #2800 on:** May 03, 2021, 07:56:29 PM »

Way of the House Husband was MEH. Didn't so much as titter at this thing.

I did actually pick up Spider show again. Just because I got clips in my recommends and saw she finally left her cave. So shit's picking up and it's something to watch when I'm bored. The CG is still a pail of pure ass, some of the villains are cringe, and it fucking sucks she's not a real girl. But it ain't boring.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2801 on:** May 04, 2021, 04:09:48 AM »

Man, you and that Spider show, eh? There's gotta be something there if you're keeping at it. I'll give it another go.

B E C K · « **Reply #2802 on:** May 05, 2021, 07:00:04 PM »

I watched an EP of Fruits Basket final season. It was okay. The drama of this show is a bit too much. Someone's always crying every episode. And the family members doin' each other is weird. Even if they are distant relatives. But still.

B E C K · « **Reply #2803 on:** May 14, 2021, 08:37:16 PM »

Odd Taxi seems... odd. It's not terrible. It just moves at a weird pace. I feel like this is a show made to binge because of the way the plot is connecting from episode to episode. I just want to know what's happening so I'd like to see it all at once. But, at the same time, it's almost too mellow to binge. Like it'll put you to sleep if you try to binge it. I am interested in the outcome of some of the storylines but I'm just not sure if I'll actually stick with it.

B E C K · « **Reply #2804 on:** Jun 06, 2021, 09:43:11 AM »

Odd Taxi's actually become something of a gem which really surprised me. It'll be a solid 9/10 from me if it sticks the landing. Not a straight 10 because it has--imo, of course--an accessibility issue. At first it doesn't seem like much is happening. But even though it felt slow, it still has some solid plot hooks.

Without being too spoilery, there's a dead body; two sets of parents dying in circumstances where info is missing (one could be that body); a missing girl (could also be the dead body); a guy getting kidnapped by yakuza; a broken crazy person is trying to kill our main character; and the main character is involving himself with a bank robbery. Oh, and also the characters might not actually be animals to begin with. Only the main character ever references different species and everyone takes it as a joke or something strange.

I'm also really impressed with this show's use of all of the characters. I was going to say "tertiary" but that's not true because characters that said and did very little then pop up with a larger part to play. There's a good size cast but there's no one you can ignore because they're all interwoven into the story.

This show also has media outside the show itself. It involves a real Twitter account and another character posts eavesdropping audio clips online that add flavor to the show. (Though I think the latter isn't done through an account posing as that character.)

Meh, this is a much longer post than I meant it to be. And given this is an anime, I expect the ending to be unfulfilling. But it's pretty interesting so far. I thought I'd be slogging through this one and now I'm on pins and needles waiting for Mondays so I can watch the new episode.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2805 on:** Jun 27, 2021, 03:12:50 PM »

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2806 on:** Jun 27, 2021, 08:58:40 PM »

I've watched that trailer so many times already, I'm so excited.

Chainsaw Man is easily one of the best manga I've read in years and years.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2807 on:** Jul 11, 2021, 08:41:38 PM »

I watched that Godzilla SP thing on Netflix. It was kind of dull, but somehow still compelling? Like, I'll probably watch more if they keep at it.

B E C K · « **Reply #2808 on:** Jul 12, 2021, 06:29:34 PM »

I've heard stuff about Chainsaw man but it doesn't look like it's for me. I don't know what to watch now that Odd Taxi and spider show are done. Maybe the shamisen show. That looks somewhat interesting.

Haven't even heard of the Godzilla thingy.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2809 on:** Aug 23, 2021, 04:24:02 PM »

Woooooo!

Rodent of Unusual Size · « **Reply #2810 on:** Oct 05, 2021, 10:47:23 PM »

I only watched a handful of stuff this past season...it was largely forgettable. This season at first glance looks even worse. So I'm catching up on some old stuff now that I neglected previously. I think I may be finally getting to the point that I don't care about this stuff anymore

B E C K · « **Reply #2811 on:** Oct 07, 2021, 10:33:37 AM »

I'm practically there already. Sometimes I wonder if it's a combination of age (growing cynicism, more easily being able to recognize shitty writing, and seeing certain tropes and storylines before in other shows already) along with media just getting shittier in general. The nineties was a creative peak in a lot of ways. For anime, movies, music. These days, what gets released is what offends the least amount of people. And I don't mean in a political sense or, like, sexism or something. I mean design-wise, music-wise, story-wise. It's bland, sanitized, "polished for commercial consumption" entertainment. Mayo and egg whites on white bread and no meat. The 90's aesthetic of "edge for the sake of edgeyness" was it's own level of cringe sometimes but you could pull out things from it: awesome character designs. Awesome soundtrack. A killer scene or two. Even if you didn't like anything else it had to offer. Now it's...

I'm a guy
an 'ordinary' guy
didn't have much of a life
now I'm in an isekai
Cute girls love me
Dudes are jealous
Argh, there's a thing here
And now I've killed it

Or, better yet....

Highschool
Just highschool
With maybe a magic thing or two

Even as milquetoast as most anime is, it's still above American shit where we can't even have cigarettes, guns, or *gasp* ....titty. It's either kiddy-crap or "adult animation" which is just all (1) Family Guy wearing a different coat; or (2) needless gore, sex, and cursing without any story at all. (Fuck you, Castlevania, and your goat-fucking. Wth.)

Like, Odd Taxi's ending could've been neater but it tried so many different things at once. With visuals, storytelling, music, characters... It was such a breath a fresh air.

After watching that, I tried Those Snow White Notes. There's a story there. There's definitely a story there. When it has an atmosphere, it really feels nice. The dude playing his shamisen, connecting with other people and with his own past. Everything with the shamisen is gold. But then it's all "BAKA!" and cornball and then we're back in highschool with highschool trope characters I couldn't give a shit about. Ugh. There's already loads of story with the main character and everybody NOT in the highschool and these highschool idiots--teacher included--just suck up time from the actual interesting portions of the plot.

Rodent of Unusual Size · « **Reply #2812 on:** Oct 07, 2021, 08:06:50 PM »

I just want to watch something fun that makes me laugh or feel entertained for a few minutes, and I prefer the medium of 22-minute cartoons drawn stylishly with j-pop and vocal gibberish accompanied with semi-related words at the bottom. I don't want to be grossed out or depressed or made to feel dirty or guilty for watching it, either. Is that too much to ask?

It's like my enjoyment of anime died with Eva.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2813 on:** Oct 09, 2021, 02:42:04 PM »

A few new shows that have caught my eye:

Heike Monogatari

Sakugan

Takt Op. Destiny

As usual, first episodes are promising, but there's still all the time in the world for these to go down the toilet.

I'm sure I've stated this before, but I truly believe that the vast majority of anime has always been trash, but we (Meaning us, in this thread) have now had 25-30 years to "see behind the curtain," so to speak.

Like, when I was 16 anime seemed like a gift from God. I would watch absolutely anything I could get my hands on and loved all of it. But as years go by, reality sets in.

Did you guys watch St*r WarzzZZ Visions on Disney Ploose? Talk about anime tropes writ large. Yuck. I did like the last one, though. Akakiri, I think it was called.

Rodent of Unusual Size · « **Reply #2814 on:** Oct 13, 2021, 09:13:52 PM »

Meh...I'm over St*r WarzzZZ at this point. I admit I mostly enjoyed Mandalorian and may chell the book of Boba Fett for curiosity's sake, but I never even bothered watching 9 and likely never will, nor any other main-line SW movie.

As for what's on my queue currently, it's a mix of old and new:

Steins;Gate (halfway...about where the shit hits the fan, apparently)
Mashiroiro Symphony (found this unwatched show on my old Atari 5200 HTPC...near the end but tired of it)
Edens Zero (just starting)
Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun (just starting)
Remake Our Life! (halfway)
The Aquatope on White Sand (halfway, ongoing)
My Next Life as a Villainess S2 (not started but watched first season)
Lupin the Third S5, start of S6 (not started; S6 is ongoing)
Restaurant to Another World S2 (ongoing)

Out of all that, I'd say there's only two on the list that are quality (Steins, Lupin) and only one I'm a real fan of (Restaurant).

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2815 on:** Oct 14, 2021, 02:29:58 AM »

Just to contradict myself, I will say that I don't think there's any old-timey anime that's anywhere NEAR as GODAWFUL as today's CG anime. All CG, mostly CG, partially CG, etc. -- it makes my fucking skin crawl.

There are always exceptions, of course. I could tolerate Dorohedoro's CG, but anytime they would briefly switch over to traditional animation I would wonder why it couldn't all be that way. The answer, I know, is time and money.

And that's my biggest problem with CG anime. It isn't being used to expand the medium, it's strictly meant to cut costs and accelerate productivity... to the ultimate detriment of the artform.

B E C K · « **Reply #2816 on:** Oct 15, 2021, 10:08:23 AM »

I completely agree about animation with CG. It's a crutch and it's not used in moderation like it needs to be.

I have to say I'm also over Star Wars. Frankly, I'm over Star Trek, too. And Marvel. MEH.

I liked the first episodes of My Next Life As A Villainess but it lost me by becoming main character circle-jerking.

B E C K · « **Reply #2817 on:** Nov 02, 2021, 11:47:30 PM »

So I finally watched "When Marnie was There" and YIKES. On technical level it's everything a Ghibli movie needs to be. Visuals, music, animation, voice acting (watched in Japanese) all top notch. The story was painful. I don't mean in a 'sad story' way. I mean painful to sit through. The biggest miss on this movie's part is the main character Anna. She is soooo unlikable. She's an artsy tomboy with social anxiety who has asthma, identity issues, and hates herself. And it's like... it felt like too much was jammed in.

Anna is kinda mean. I get she's depressive. And this may be my problem in that I don't watch Ghibli movies for this type of character and to see this type of character really put me off. She shouted at another girl and calls her a fat pig. What other Ghibli heroine would do such a thing? And then, when she meets Marnie, she just immediately latches on to her and it came off as weird. Some folks read sapphic undertones and I could see why. The fact that Anna just is besties with Marnie so suddenly fuels this. Because you could think, OHHH, Anna's attracted to Marnie and that's why she's eager to be close to this girl when she shuns everyone else. To clarify, I knew on the offset what the actual connection between Anna and Marnie was because I read spoilers on this movie years ago. But even with this knowledge, I could understand other people's interpretation.

Marnie... I liked Marnie. Marnie needed to be in the movie much more and much sooner. This movie is frontloaded with Anna when Marnie is the interesting one. As it was, she didn't feel as fleshed out as she could've been. When we find out the truth about Marnie, it's an info dump from a tertiary character. For what it's worth, I liked the character that gives us this information but that character was really not that involved in the overall movie. So it's kinda, "oh, hello, Info Dump-san."

There's another little girl in this movie named Sayaka who comes in later in the film and befriends Anna. Sayaka and her family are moving into the manor where Marnie's ghost or whatever is at. Sayaka is a goddamn treasure. Sayaka is the adventurous, plucky Ghibli heroine I wanted to see. In her few scenes, she moved the plot along by trying to find out who Marnie was and even saves Anna's life. Sayaka's brother who is barely a blip in this film shows more caring in his meager screen time than Anna does in this entire feature. I would've preferred watching a movie where Sayaka meets and investigates Marnie and just as well not have Anna in this movie at all. Ghibli takes liberty with source material all of the time. The setting of the movie was already moved to Japan. Alas, what could've been.

I can't believe this film is rated higher than "Earwig and the Witch." I mean, I get it because it's a far more beautiful film than Earwig and those songs in Earwig are jarring at times. And you could clip scenes from this Marnie movie and make nice gifs and wallpaper out of them. But Marnie's narrative was so unsatisfying. It's also rated higher than "From Up on Poppy Hill" and "the Secret World of Arrietty" and it's just... MEH.

jonhammstein · « **Reply #2818 on:** Nov 03, 2021, 01:46:24 AM »

I totally fell off the Ghibli wagon after Howl's Moving Castle. The only one I've seen in the past 17 years is Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and that's only because you brought it up here.

But then I was like, "Hey, what about Mary and the Witch's Flower"? Not even Ghibli. No shit?

Like, how do you break away and then still end up aping Miyazaki's style? Branch out, man!

B E C K · « **Reply #2819 on:** Nov 04, 2021, 11:24:56 AM »

Re: Mary and the Witch's Flower, I knew I made a comment about it here but it took me forever to find the damn post. I'm quoting it because my opinion's the same now as back then. Tl;dr - it's a poor man's Kiki.

Quote from: B E C K on Aug 28, 2018, 10:23:46 PM

I finally saw Mary and the Witch's Flower. Imagine Kiki's Delivery Service except Kiki's a completely unlikable brat and liar; she's raised by the old ladies except they have no personality; the town she settles in is barely an twentieth its actual size and looks completely barren and dead; the boy she interacts with barely has any lines and is cracker-bland; and the Jiji never spoke at all but has a gf. That is this movie.

Now for the kicker: the same guy who directed that film also directed When Marnie was There. Mary and the Witch's Flower is from Studio Ponoc. That studio is Ghibli without being Ghibli in that it has a bunch of people who worked there. Kinda like Gainax and Studio Trigger.

The thing is this guy's debut feature was The Secret World of Arrietty and Merla and I really like that movie. It's actually one of my top five Ghibli movies. (Link is just my own blog post which includes part of why I love it. For context on Merla's taste, I think her Ghibli top five is identical to mine except she'd probably swap out Arrietty with From Up on Poppy Hill.)

In looking up all three films, Miyazaki was a writer on the Arrietty screenplay so I wonder if his touch saved that movie for me. Arrietty, the main girl protag, is the same mold of likeable Ghibli heroines that Miyazaki excels at producing. Meanwhile, the protags from the other two movies, Anna and Mary, were brats I'd sooner kick into a well. I also think that, since Arrietty was the director's debut, he probably had a lot more help making it a polished feature versus his subsequent directed films.

The movies are the same on a technical level. All three are beautiful to look at. They sound fine music-wise but Arrietty's stands out more. Ghibli got a foreign composer to make the music for Arrietty and the music to me feels livelier and more dynamic. To be honest, I never noticed this until I started writing this post. I actually have The Secret World of Arrietty playing in the background by complete coincidence and it occurs to me this music is farrrr more beautiful than Marnie's or Mary's. The harp is just lovely. (Neither Marnie or Mary use Joe Hisaishi for music, btw.) Also, while writing this post, there's a scene in the movie that makes wonderful use of rain and I realized the sound effects are just better, too. Arrietty's on a stone tile roof right now and the wind rustles, the birds sing and caw, and the bugs chirp. The movie literally stops and lets the viewer soak it all in and it's all the more beautiful for doing it.

If you happen to watch Arrietty, the North American English dub gets fucky with the music. I know you'd probably watch the sub anyway but wanted to warn you. The UK actually made their own dub too so there's two official English dubs.