What Anime are you watching?

[jonhammstein]

Honey & Clover! Holy shit. Haven't thought about that one in forever. That's gotta be going back like 15, 20 years.

I remember that's when subbing wasn't nearly as ubiquitous/punctual as it is today, and I would impatiently watch raws ASAP. I liked the art/vibes of H&C, but the relationship stuff made me a little uncomfortable because I thought she was straight up just a child. And I think it was you who explained to me that she was actually an adult who simply looked like a child, and I was like okay that's not so bad. But really, it still is, just in a different way.

I never finished watching Honey & Clover. You know what, I think I'll try to find it.

[B E C K]

I watched episode one of Honey and Clover on Netflix and imagine my surprise that it's actually the sub and not the dub.  Too bad I don't really care for it though.  Those dudes being in love with that tiny child-like chick, it feels like I'm watching "The Story of Two Dougs".

I'm hazy on this one. Wasn't she just a straight-up child?

Hey-hey! Found it and it only took 39 pages of browsing. I really need to fix searching on this board. Not that anyone but me really uses it.

And 11 years so not as long as you think.

I also recall loving the artsy vibes. But that weird little girl being the sun, moon, and stars of this show ruins everything. She's supposed to be 18. My ass that's 18.

[jonhammstein]

I watched the first four episodes last night, what a weird sensation it gave me. I had completely forgotten about the show's existence until yesterday. That fucking bizarre stop-motion intro with the jumbo shrimp glove that thrusts out of the bowl at the end! And the cast is just a Möbius strip of unrequited feelings, good lord.

I gotta watch it all now. I can't remember how much of it I've even seen, I only recall falling off at some point. Don't think I've ever seen any of the second season.

And now I feel myself gravitating towards that new Fruits Basket adaptation that I had previously ignored...

This is all My Dress-Up Darling's fault. I had completely sworn off "relationship" anime years ago, but now I'm being dragged back into the pit.

[B E C K]

Be aware that new Fruits Basket starts off good and turns into an overdone weepfest. First season was great but by the third I was meh. Maybe my heart's too cynical but I just found the drama annoying and drawn out. Like if every pair of animals on Noah's Ark has their own soap opera of issues. I just wanted people to stop crying already. I like a bit of drama but damn. I'm an outlier though. This anime could drown a bus full of Make-a-Wish children and still have at least an 8.5 on MAL and IMDB.

[B E C K]

I watched the first episode of Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl, an anime from 1989.  It's a nice show about a teenage girl who just wants to teenage.  Meanwhile, her grandpa is pushing her to become a Olympic champion in judo.  It's over a 100 episodes long tho'.  If this was twenty years ago when I still watched regular tv and this show was coming on, I'd tune in every week to watch it.  I don't think I have it in me to watch that many episodes.


Tubi has Ranma 1/2 so I was rewatching some of that.  I love love love the first season.  It has so much charm.  I looked up info about Ranma 1/2 because I was curious: I've always felt the show lost its initial appeal very, very quickly to me.  It devolved into a overly-stupid hit-or-miss gimmick of the week instead of a quirky slice of life with fantastical elements. And the art became progressively more soulless and glass-eyed looking.

Firstly, there wasn't enough manga material out to begin with when the show came out.  I somewhat recall knowing this at one point.  Secondly, apparently Ranma 1/2 had 18 episodes, was canceled, and then was re-tooled as Ranma 1/2 Nettohen and relaunched into it's more successful form.  The 18 episode series had three women working together on it in terms of animation direction.  After the initial cancellation, one of the women left, the other two stayed on, and a bunch of other animation directors came in.  The show also had budget cuts.  This was the part I didn't know and explains so much for me.

Maybe I'm being unfair to this show because it's not as if I've seen every episode.  This was back when I had to buy these things for 30 bucks a pop or hope that the video store had some for rent.  And the series is over a 160 episodes not counting the films and OVAs.  But even early on it felt like it was running out of steam. 

Also, in rewatching one of the OVAs slapped up on YouTube, I forgot how I much I absolutely loathe Happosai.  I hate that man, I really do.    The panty thief gimmick was gross enough as it is.  When I was young and watching this show, I overlooked it as "ha ha, stupid joke."  As an adult, it legitimately disgusts me.  Even if I try to put the panty-shit aside, the character is garbage.  His design is unappealing and he's cruel and mean-spirited.  None of the jokes involving him land for me.  He adds nothing to the show other than "here's a loathsome asshole" and I don't think the show needed that. 


Also, I was curious and watched a bit of Jungle de Ikou! on Tubi.  What a disgusting show.  From the cover it appears to be plain cheesecake and it's not.  I wouldn't give a shit about the girl-becomes-voluptuous alter-ego trope but this is a young school girl and it's tits flopping about and panty shots.  Several of the panty shots are of the young girl in her young girl form.  And the young school girl does some sort of erotic dance to change forms.  I feel unclean.  It kinda cheeses me off that this pedo trash got licensed and released with a dub.

[jonhammstein]

Woof. I Googled that Jungle thing, and I totally remember those ultra-grotesque busts on popsicle stick bodies.

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

I'd forgotten just how much I hate most 90's anime faces.

[B E C K]

I have a love/hate relationship with Tsukasa Kotobuki's artwork.  (The Saber Marionette J guy, basically.)  Unrestrained, it's the literal worse of the distorted 90's anime face.  But then he'll do relatively tame things like Fire Emblem Heroes artwork for Ursula where she looks beautiful.  Or some of his Sofia artwork from Battle Arena Toshinden.  For the most part, I like how he draws her.  But then he'll go make a pic with whacked, rubber proportions.  Sock boobs or weirdly-shaped ones.  Five-heads, huge chins, spider legs... Like, yikes.

I'd post examples but I'm lazy.  Just search his name in Google images and his art will come up.

[jonhammstein]

 

[B E C K]

I was gonna mention that specific picture in my post.  I hate that picture.   He's done a Chun-Li pic that's equally heinous to me.

[jonhammstein]

This is the only one I could find, but it doesn't seem particularly offensive.

[B E C K]

It is to me.  The weirdo face, the elastic spine and the slime-blob hooters. 

[jonhammstein]

Please share some of his stuff that you do like, because everything I've seen seems highly tuned for the male gaze.

[B E C K]

It is and don't misunderstand me: I don't hate it for the male gaze or whatever.  That's part of the appeal for his art in the first place. I just hate when he goes Play-doh on the proportions.

[B E C K]

Bah, I hate when attachments get fucky...

[jonhammstein]

He drew Pink Diamond from Steven Universe? That's pretty cool. Reminds me of Go Nagai/Cutie Honey. But then also a little bit Monkey Punch/Fujiko Mine.

I've definitely seen his Sofia from Toshinden. That Ursula is nicely done, but she almost could have been drawn by anyone, you know? Like, his personal style just barely comes through in her facial features.

I do get what you're saying about some of the physiques. The 100lb breasts and 360° rotating waists are a little iffy.

[B E C K]

I watched the last ep of this third season of Ascendance of a Bookworm.  I wasn't going to and I don't remember what compelled me to watch it but it was good.  I wondered if I had misjudged the season and looked at some of the other episodes.  Nope.  Still boring.  It's a slog.  I don't know what this show could've done differently though. 

Spoiler space in case anyone cares but....








...she basically loses her family.  They don't die but she gets adopted by a noble.  In order for that to happen, she has to be dead to her family in name and position.  They can all still see each other but for all intents and purposes she's treated by them as any other noble and she has to treat them like a regular commoner family.  It's an interesting development.  I read spoilers a long time ago and knew this was coming.  The episode where this happens doesn't disappoint.  But everything leading up to this is mind-numbingly dull and bad. 


     tldr - stuff about the show and story I don't like


I hate it when shows have to have the moustache-twirling over-the-top me-so-evil villain.  I can't find any joy in someone like that getting their comeuppance.  For the most part, this show has terrible villains.  An attractive, seemingly nice person?  Probably a good guy or someone who does something bad but not, you know, too bad.  Some uggo or background tier person?  Le cackle HO HO HO Me Evil.

Like there's this one little girl character we're supposed to treat as a bad person but they made her way too cute.  The viewer knows by looking at her that she's not getting sentenced to death or whatever happened to the other baddies.  I think she was supposed to be a sort of morally grey baddie that's just trying to make a better life for herself.  But the beauty of a morally grey character (for ME, anyway) is not quite knowing where they will fall.  Will they become BAD bad?  Will they turn to good?  Will they die or lose in some silly or tragic way?  But we get the answers to these questions almost as soon as we meet this character so there's no fun in that.

Also, the concept of this show/story has strayed far, far from a normal, dowdy, adult bookworm from our world inhabiting the body of a chronically-ill little girl in fantasy land.  She used to wonder about her real family.  She used to grapple with the concept that the little girl she is DIED and she's in this girl's body now.  And this little girl's friends and family who loved her have no idea their loved one is dead.  Now the main character's just a child who's prone to minor fits of fatigue and had a previous life as an adult from another world but remembers nothing about it other than what a book is.  I know those sound the same but they aren't. 

I guess it could be argued that she's been in fantasy land so long in a child's body that she's a child now.  And that because her quality of life has improved, so has her health. Also, that she's grown to love her new family so it doesn't matter that their actual child's soul or whatever is dead.  But that's not the concept that drew me to the story.

The priest guy was so shocked when he found out she's from another world in the first season.  She was terrified when she realized she had the Devouring illness and poor people die from that in her new world.  Her father's co-worker was fascinated at the level of her intelligence.  Her body's childhood friend could tell something about her was off.  And she couldn't get used to being an adult but having the adults AND children talk down to her and treat her with kid gloves.  But in the current season it's like she's no different from any other super-SPESHUL smart and magical child who all the adults and other children (the good ones, anyway) listen to and obey.  I'm not even sure if she gets sick anymore.  I don't hate the character or anything, mind you.  But it's boring.  Benno, the merchant guy, is the only interesting character for me.  But he's also a minor character so does he even count?

Complaints aside, I wouldn't call this show garbage or anything like that.  Cute family is cute.  Quirky nobles are le quirky.  Magic is la shiny.  We need money and we print books.  But it's not that fun to watch until the end.  The first season was, like, a solid 8.5/10 at least.  Now it's like a 6/10 show.   

If this gets another season, that's supposedly when the plot really picks up again.  If so, I might give it a shot.  But part of me wonders if this show is viewed worthy (profitable?) enough to get a fourth season.

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

It was running on fumes last season/cour/whatever the heck these things are, and while I've downloaded this season I still haven't finished the previous and really feel no compunction to do so. Particularly when you have Kaguya-sama S3, Science Fell in Love s2, and Love After World Domination airing during the same period.

[B E C K]

Yeah, the drop was pretty steep from season 2 onwards.  To the point that I couldn't even tell you what happened in season 2.  I noticed in the episode I watched that the main character is getting increasingly cuter.  And it's like I'm supposed to watch and love it because she's soooo cute.  But it's like no one behind this show got the memo that being cute is not the same as being interesting or entertaining.

[B E C K]

I watched some of the new Bastard!! on Netflix--the episodes with Arshes Nei--and there's nothing for me here.  I won't go as far as to claim it's terrible or anything.  It feels soulless compared to the 90's OVA. 

The art and animation feels kinda lifeless.  Sometimes the proportions of the characters features is weird. The opening and closing music feels like something I'd find on one of those CD samplers from the 90's labels used to sell through Hot Topic. The voices are... well, I never thought the 90's OVA was some sort of masterpiece but the people that were bad were so bad they were good.  It made it feel nice and cheesy.  Why did they bring Wendee Lee back and make her Arshes?  She's not Arshes.   She wasn't even a good Yoko.  Why did they cast Ray Chase as Abigail when he would've made a kick-ass Gara?  Steven Blum brought so much charm into Gara in the 90's dub and they should've copied that here with a charisma-filled performance.

This whole thing is also padded as hell.  We can't have someone swing a sword without two or three other characters taking a minute to tell the stupid viewer what's happening.  In the eps I watched, Gara and his ninja were providing fucking commentary.  Jeez.  Or, uh, you know, let's take a minute or two for more titties or grabbing ass cheeks something.  Whatever.  I can't be arsed to care.  The OVA did always feel a tiny bit rushed but it also told a tight story in six episodes that this show couldn't even get through in thirteen.  (It reaches the end of episode five by episode THIRTEEN.) 

I'm sure the Castlevania crowd or whatever will love this shit.  I'm just gonna go rewatch the old one on YouTube.

[jonhammstein]

Yeah, I watched the first episode, it didn't exactly fill me with hope.

I can't speak to the English voices, though. As soon as I realized it had defaulted to the dub, I was like, "Oh no no no no no!" and furiously switched over to Japanese.

[B E C K]

Yeah, I actually swapped through both English and Japanese. The latter was the more tolerable audio track but it also wasn't anything notable to me either.

And I forgot to mention... Arshes Nei is lighter in this show. Perhaps she was always intended to be (because Japan's rarely consistent with dark-skinned characters) but she looked better darker, especially with the white outfit.

[jonhammstein]

Oh, are you going to watch Fate Grand Carnival? I saw the first episode, and even though I probably didn't understand half the jokes they were making, I recognized a bunch of characters simply because of how ubiquitous Fate is on the internet.

[jonhammstein]

I think in the past I may have said something about Dragon Ball Super making Dragon Ball GT look like high art, not unlike the St*r WarzzZZ sequels vs. prequels "phenomenon", but I must recant. Over the last few months I watched all of DBGT, and it really is just crap.

At every turn they're trying to split the difference between classic DB's goofy hijinks and Z's fate-of-the-world fisticuffs, and it all falls so fucking flat. And in the back half the animators could barely be asked to give a fuck.

Also, SS4 is fucking lame, always and forever. Christ.

[B E C K]

Oh, are you going to watch Fate Grand Carnival? I saw the first episode, and even though I probably didn't understand half the jokes they were making, I recognized a bunch of characters simply because of how ubiquitous Fate is on the internet.

I liked Carnival Phantasm (the superior spiritual predecessor to this show) but, even so, there were a lot of jokes I didn't get. Not enough to curb my enjoyment but a bit here and there flew over my head. Fate/Grand Carnival is just exponentially even less accessible for me. At least when I saw Carnival Phantasm ten years ago, I was pretty caught up on most of the material being spoofed. Not so much Tsukihime or Melty Blood but I knew enough about the Fate stuff. That's pretty impossible now unless you're a hardcore fan eating up the Fate/Grand Order gacha game and all of the other media shat out since, which has been a wildly mixed bag of bad (Fate Extra), childish and meh (Babylonia), and slog-fest (Camelot). While I did enjoy the first Fate/Grand Order, all of the blandest characters from that are actually what they expect to carry the franchise forward. Ew.

[jonhammstein]

Yeah, it'll probably end up being a little too "inside baseball" for me. It will be easy to skip, too, because there's already too much other stuff that's caught my eye this season:

Not to say I'll actually watch all of those, just that the first episode for each of them was intriguing enough to follow up on.

Also, I couldn't find a trailer for it, but CHIMIMO is adorable.

[jonhammstein]

Oh! Did you hear Trigger announced they'll be doing more Panty & Stocking? How wild is that?

[B E C K]

I didn't actually. That's cool.

[B E C K]

I watched Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko. I give it a B-.

It's not a waste of time. It starts off kinda weird. It's super fat-shamey with the lard-ass title character being goofy, stupid, desperate for love and constantly shoving food in her face. Like, yikes. It got to be too much at times.

The main character Kikuko, the daughter of Nikuko, kinda reminds me of Anna from the Marnie movie and that's not a good thing. I find her sorta obnoxious and I can't really put my finger on why. Maybe it's because she reminds me too much of Anna. I'm not sure. She does have moments of growth that don't make me dislike her as much as Anna. Her conflict with her friend and her interactions with her psuedo-crush at least give her something to work with. And, I mean, her mom IS embarrassing but when the movie wants to present Nikuko as having this huge loving heart, Kikuko just comes off as a stuck-up bitch when she's actively ashamed even though she has every right to be.

Some reviews I read talk about how the movie feels like three episodes of a tv show and it certainly felt that way to me. A strong, connecting through-plot would've really propped up this film. Something like Kikuko maybe believing Nikuko's going to make her move again and the fact that she's leaving her friends influences her interactions with them and with her mom.

There were some chuckle-worthy moments in this film. I did laugh a few times. I have to give props for that.

And I understand that "that's cringe" has practically become my tag-line lately but the ending of this movie was mega-cringe for me. I understand I'm coming from a place of great bias when I say this...



--- COURTESY SPOILER SPACE BECAUSE THIS IS AN ENDING SURPRISE BUT THIS SPOILER'S NOT A BIG DEAL ---



Kikuko and Nikuko being all loving and happy over Kikuko getting her first period is a "EW, NO" to me. But I've never liked periods, never saw them as a rite of passage, and never saw them as an big deal in any capacity other than the heavy ones being inconvenient as fuck. I don't even remember what happened when I first got one. I think I was around 11-12 years old and all "yo, I need some pads" and that was that. So I find the whole attitude of "u bleed so u is a womyn nao, ohhhh so magical, so speshul" to be Mighty Morphin' Power Cringe to the max.

[jonhammstein]

I forget, did we talk about Red on here? Because that's that movie's entire subject matter. I mean, it's explicitly in the title.