Media Anime and Manga Thread MK3 - Beware Spoilers

Lemonade

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ok this is probably just me, but I'm pretty excited for full metal panic. Like 8 years ago or something I scoured the internet for the light novels and read through every volume of the terrible translations. Not particularly sure why, I'm not a particular fan of giant robot series, but I just had to finish this story.

Besides that, there's the matrix which could be interesting, tada koi which could turn out pretty cute, and I'm assuming no one mentioned lupin III because you are all watching it in silent agreement??????
 

Da Letter El

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I have joined RODAN as a member of the church of Lupin III. Part V has started off strong and has given the character that really makes the show go more than a passing glance so far.

"But DLE, where do I start with Lupin III? It's so old and there's so many episodes!"

Good question, hypothetical user. I jumped in to Part IV (the 2015 series that takes place in Italy/Monaco) with 0 background and found out very quickly I both didn't really need an introduction and the show doesn't really care too much about background. If you're really fretting about a background on how some of the main characters met up, there's always The Woman Called Fujiko Mine as a starting point (there are two "sequel" movies to this, too). Either will serve you well to be able to enjoy the new series; you can also just jump into Part V (the currently airing one) like I did with Part IV but I think Part IV started a bit better as an introduction...but you won't get lost.

Also holy FUCK what a season for sports anime, there's so many good lord. Megalo Box, Major 2nd, Captain Tsubasa...I'm so happy. Also, the horse girl sports idol anime is really dumb but isn't irredeemable trash yet, and Gurazeni could be...alright? Maybe? (Gurazeni is probably not going to be alright). YowaPeda is continuing and is so far pulling off day 2 of the interhigh better than how Grande Road handled it, and I'm not gonna watch Inazuma Eleven but I'm sure Martin and LightWolf are probably squeeing about it.
 
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RODAN

Banned deucer.
ive decided to take this season pretty slow in comparison to my usual high speed watch the fuck out of everything mindset.

heres what im watching: megalo box, mahou shoujo site, hinamatsuri, LUPIN III, and some chinese show about freaks

lupins the best, hinamatsuri is good.

mss =
 

Pilo

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Megalo Box is intentionally airing in SD to try and compliment the 90s aesthetic the show boasts and TMS just happened to 'accidentally' send streaming services an SD file. If that's not cool I don't know what is.

Episode 1 was kind of mediocre but Episode 2 had a lot more going on in it. In fact it actually got me to pick up Ashita no Joe which I'll also post on if it ends up being any good. Megalo Box is a serious AOTS contender though.
 

Soul Fly

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Captain Tsubasa remake is not as horrible as I thought. It looks like an aesthetic/visual update with the pacing fixed from the original one which dragged on forever. Which is perfectly fine. Timely update of a well loved classic.

Major 2nd is basically the Boruto to Major so I'm mixed about it given how iconic the original was, I hope its something new rather than a rehash of the OP character carrying weak teams against devilishly strong opponents. I hope they take it as an opportunity to develop Honda's story instead of just focusing on the kid.

BnHA new season is the same old as BnHA. Recap episode was unnecessary given how recent the old season was but eh okay... as long as they don't do further needless rubbish to slow down the pace. I did not sit through a slow-ass season 1 and a moderately okay-ish paced season 2 for nothing. I think we deserve some proper payoff and I'm hoping this is the season they finally up the ante.

Also keen to check out Steins;Gate 0 when I get the time.
 

Martin

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OK, I'm 76 episodes in and I've decided: Rurouni Kenshin is probably a better battle shounen than Hunter×Hunter overall, although they both definitely handle different things better than one another. It's a really close call though.
 

Epikhairz

Anything goes
OK, I'm 76 episodes in and I've decided: Rurouni Kenshin is probably a better battle shounen than Hunter×Hunter overall, although they both definitely handle different things better than one another. It's a really close call though.
damn for real? im watching HxH right now and it might be top 2 shonens ive ever seen tbh. meanwhile i heard that RK falls off big time after Kyoto arc and that the OVAs are way better.

btw for anyone itt whose already seen RK, if i want to get into it should i watch the show first or the OVAs?
 

Martin

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damn for real? im watching HxH right now and it might be top 2 shonens ive ever seen tbh. meanwhile i heard that RK falls off big time after Kyoto arc and that the OVAs are way better.

btw for anyone itt whose already seen RK, if i want to get into it should i watch the show first or the OVAs?
Rurouni Kenshin's christian arc (the one I just finished) is about as good as its Kyoto arc overall but spread out over the course of <1/3 the episode count. Probably the weakest aspect of Kenshin is its filler, and even then its filler all ranges from middling at worst (5–6/10) to 10/10 at best (most notably the train filler), and anything that is presented in arc form is 9/10 minimum–10/10 maximum, which is a pretty stark contrast with HxH which starts out with a 6/10 exam arc immediately followed by a 3–4/10 tournament (ladder?) arc.

The reason I'm calling HxH super close is just because of how much deeper its characterisation is and the fact it does more to explore its themes in depth while having three of the best arcs I've ever watched alongside its hugely underwhelming ones (auction arc, chinera snt arc and election arc) all while being totally fillerless. In terms of individual fights (i.e. not the hyper fleshed-out chimera ant war) Rurouni Kenshin is probably stronger despite its comparatively limited choreography, but that's much more contentious so I won't try to explain my stance on it.

Anyway, starting out with the series is very easy, and it starts right before Kenshin meets Kaoru for the first time, so I'd suggest doing that. I'm going to watch the OVAs afterwards so I can't say anything about the quality or structure of them, but yeah the series itself is very, very good so even if they are better it's not like you're wasting your time or anything.
 

Martin

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3 weeks into the season; expanding on other first impressions of stuff I've already posted about+adding other shows that I started:
  • Cutie Honey Universe: This show is giving me mixed vibes; on the one hand episode 2 was pretty good, on the other hand episodes 1 and 3 fall into a lot of the presentational traps of erotica despite being non-H; by this, I mean that it feels like its sex appeal is being tacked on artificially, which completely goes against the grain of what I've seen Cutie Honey do in Shin Cutie Honey and Re: Cutie Honey, where it always felt like an integral part of the package thanks to how it gets presented, and while there are definitely interesting/entertaining things going on in its writing (the big delinquent in ep 3 was funny as hell, and I really like what they're doing with Sister Jill in this one) it feels like it's inconsistently spread among its other elements. Past this it's proven to be inconsistent in quality from episode to episode, with episode 1 being awful, episode 2 being really enjoyable, and episode 3 sitting somewhere in the middle of the two. Gonna keep going because it's Cutie Honey but still kinda wish that it was better. Oh, also it's opening feels extremely "not Cutie Honey" even if you look past the fact it doesn't use the classic theme song; but it's half made up for by its ending song being :ok_hand:
  • Amanchu! ~Advance~: Episodes 2 and three were extremely good, so my uncertainty from ep 1 about this as a sequel's gone. Also it seems that there's another qualification for Teko to work towards so it's not like it even feels forced.
  • Hinamatsuri: This has continued to be very enjoyable; episode 3 wasn't as funny as the other two but I'd be hard-pressed to say I felt like my time watching it felt wasted. Probably not going to be AotY based on how high a bar YoriMoi set and the fact that this show is pretty definitively below said bar, but yeah still a strong contender for AotS alongside MEGALOBOX and Hisone to Maso-tan.
  • MEGALOBOX: Superb OST, its presentation and writing are still great; its ED fucking SLAPS and this show is hella enjoyable. Another AotS contender that we'll need to see how it progresses to make a decision about.
  • Hisone to Maso-tan: this show has a lot of charm and personality, managed to create one of the most compelling first impressions I've ever seen for its protagonist, and just everything about this show from its presentation to its sense of humour is just incredibly appealing. The third and final AotS contender.
  • My Hero Academia Season 3: It's more MHA so ofc it's gonna be entertaining. Not got anything really to say other than that it keeps doing the MHA thing of spending a large amount of its screen-time listing stuff out, but we've just got to a moment of tension so I'm looking forward to how that'll resolve itself.
  • SAO Alternative: I love the way that this show takes every opportunity it can to point out why the SEED engine (and Reki Kawahara's writing) sucks; also it seems that this is set after the events of GGO, as the BoB that Kirito and Sinon won was mentioned in this weeks episode; honestly this show is neither hugely good nor like something that I wouldn't recommend; it's just a bit of fun so yeah I'm gonna keep watching it as such.
  • S;G 0: The visual presentation of this is less stark and interesting than the presentation of the OG S;G, but honestly it's still pretty good all things considered. I feel like there's an OVA that I need to watch before this though so I'm gonna dig around to see if I can find that. I like the idea of the Amadeus program though and am interested to see how it develops upon that idea.
 
Martin there is a 9 minute OVA called episode 23b which introduces the timeline split from the original S;G, but it's not too hard to piece together what happens after watching the first episode of S;G 0.
 
K everything gotten pretty far in so quick impressions

Hisone to masotan: Slice of life about the Japanese military keeping a dragon that can transform into a plane, pretty fun series god tier ed

Mahou Shoujo site: Super edgy magical girl show but kyubey is a website admnit and the show has a terrible plot and hilariously over the top drama, excellent irony watch

Hina Matsuri: High ranking yakuza is forced to adopt ultra powerful telekentic psychopath girl, shenanigans ensue, very funny show had me laughing like a madman more than once

Megalo box: gritty world where the most popular sport is boxing with giant mechanical exo-arms, underdog boxer slowly crimes to challenge the top brass of society. Insanely good soundtrack and the fight scenes are hype as fuck, must watch.

Tada kun wa koi wo shinai: romantic?comedy/drama where random European girl and her minder get involved with the photography club of a Jap high school, this series is really boring imo, pretty much nothing bar some light drama has happened and we're four episodes in.

Wotaku ni moi wa muzukashii: An otaku girl after moving to a new company is asked out by her even nerdier childhood friend who happens to be working at the same company, cute and funny series. Has the cutest op of any show maybe ever. Also features an actual relationship rather than school puppy love so thats nice.

Comic girls: Four moe manga artist girls live in a dorm together, moe slice of life with lots of manga jokes and yuri undertones, watch if its your kind of trash

Shiyan pin jiating: Chinese cartoon. A family of was used as guinea pigs for experiments before their parents left for reasons. The youngest who is a child genius has to try to lead a normal life with his mutant older siblings featuring a tree girl, a girl with spider legs coming out of her spine and a brother that can shapeshift into a dog. Fairly unique plot and proving to be a very sweet series, I want a tree sister too.

Last period: I didnt actually pay attention when I watched this show but the name of the heroes in the shows are periods so you keep hearing them scream things like "I will be a great period" or "I shall follow the path of all periods" and its pretty dumb.

Piano no mori: A boy who is a self taught pianist vs a thoroughbred prodigy raised from the crib to be a pianist. The drama is pretty nice but the writing feels so dumb sometimes. If you like music I could recommend though.

Kakuriyo no yadomeshi: Young woman is taken into the spirit world by very hot demon man to repay a debt caused by her grandfather, refusing to marry hot demon man, she slowly appeases the spirit world with her good cooking. Obviously aimed towards woman but the show is pretty fun.

Golden Kamuy: absolute show of the season for me. In the wastelands of Hokkaido pre WW1, a former soldier in the Russo Japanese war hears a tale of a hidden gold stash stolen from a native Ainu village and the directions to the treasure can only be obtained from the tattooed maps on former criminals. The soldier teams up with an Ainu girl who descends from the village and explores Hokkaido catching criminals and fighting off others who want the stash. The show intersperses hype fight scenes and gore with insights into the colonial world of old Hokkaido and Ainu culture. Other than the cgied bears animation is pretty great too. Must watch.
 

vonFiedler

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It's been almost two months since I started trying to watch MAL's top 100 and I haven't said anything here because I haven't finished a single series on it. Not one. I figure at best I can give monthly updates.

I watched like 25 episodes of Gintama before realizing that it was just Excel Saga. And while I did choose to watch all of Excel Saga, I was younger, dumber, and it only lasted 25 episodes. Gintama is not generally funny. I thought the Train Samurai and the nabe pot episodes were good, but other than that... The characters are not that well designed. The show constantly teases that there's more serious stuff to the backstory, but you have to go about 10 filler episodes to get more. I'm at the point now where there are more story arcs, so maybe that will help? To be fair, I'm not yet watching the version of Gintama that is ranked #4 on MAL... just the one that's ranked #16. I'll be taking a break after I watch the first movie.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the Romance of the Three Kingdoms anime I've always wanted (and I was saying that long before the fucking imperial seal shows up). It's not much of an anime, being made on a $10 budget. All characters look alike and never move very much. But you're really here for the story, and the slow political war is everything people like out of Game of Thrones but without any stupidity. Sometimes things move way too fast between episodes, I assume because it's based on a series of books. In one episode a character plans a coup, and in the next episode we assume that it's already worked spectacularly. But still, the ending of the first season affected me more than Infinity War did. Very high recommendation. Hurts me to take a break from this one, but it's very long.

Hunter X Hunter is really the best battle shonen? It's not even a battle shonen yet. It's got probably the worst protagonist I've ever seen in one of these shows and a discount Sasuke. Leorio is obvious best character. I know this "gets better", but I can't think of a battle shonen that wasn't better at the point where I'm taking a break (end of exam arc), including One Piece. Somewhat watchable at least.

Starting 3-gatsu no Lion and Bakemonogatari soon.

Fate/Apocrypha was dumb. Sometimes it's brilliant, but then you remember all the times that it is stupid. Doesn't end on a decent note either.

I'm not surprised that Fate/Extra is its lowest rated Fate series. It's not an adaptation of an obscure (but amazing) PSP game. It's not a rewrite of it. It's a sequel masquerading as a rewrite. And even I don't understand it sometimes. I'll probably have to watch it again to unpack it all. And I would, because it's probably the next best Fate show to Fate/Zero. It's at least visually very brilliant. I like this Saber, but it's weird because she's basically just Illya.

People told me a lot of bad things about Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya, but I watched it anyway because the movie was so good. But nobody told me that the show was so boring. It was hard to care at all about the first 10 episodes, and it didn't answer any of the questions I had about the movie. Maybe it gets better?

Castlevania is not an anime. But it's pretty good as a proof of concept. Hard to get too excited over only four episodes. Looking forward to the next eight.

Devilman Crybaby is one of my favorite things I'm watching right now. It's certainly the best looking Newground animation I've ever seen. It feels like unrestrained artistic expression and Akira is one of the most likable characters ever. Hope my heart doesn't get much more broken over the final two episodes I have yet to see.

Any recommendations for stuff off the top 100? I'm watching three from it and one that peaks my interest off of it. I plan to watch Flip-Flappers and that one with the witch that blows things up that people say is actually funny.
 

Lemonade

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Monster, ghost in the shell stand alone complex, parasyte (kiseijuu). Since the list is by seasons so there are repeated series, I'm going to dip a bit lower. Haven't paid too much attention of what you've watched but Baccano, chihayafuru are both good. BTW going off this list https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php

I think enjoying Gintama requires you to be an actual weeb because of the supposed references. I mean the title itself is a pun(?) on testicles. Personally, I've tried reading Gintama many times but never made it very far.
 
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Martin

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Madoka Magica. Won't bother you with my write-up but it's an incredible show with fantastic characterization, stunning visuals, and an intricate plot. Same writer as Fate/Zero
Thank god he didn't call it a deconstruction
 

vonFiedler

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Thank god he didn't call it a deconstruction
Uh well it is.

I guess no one knows what I've seen, cause I've seen a lot of these recs or they are in MAL's top 100, but Parastye's a good one. I'll try to fit it in.

I know Gintama is a parody but that didn't stop me from liking Ouran High School Host Club.
 

Martin

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Double post but this week’s Amanchu was a 10/10, continuing the trend of Amanchu Advance being fucking brilliant. If it weren’t for it being a sequel I’d probably call it AotS for this early stage of the season
 

Pilo

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it's a darker take on the mahou shoujo genre compared to staples such as cardcaptor sakura, sailor moon, or princess tutu. this doesn't immediately make it a deconstruction

anyway, it's annoying when people praise madoka for being a supposed deconstruction instead of talking about the characters, the morals and questions the show makes you think about, the plot, the brilliant soundtrack, the bizarre yet interesting shaft witch designs
Agree with most of what was said here but I don't know if I'd call Princess Tutu traditional at least not in the same sense as CCS/Sailor Moon since it's a tragic magical girl show and pretty rebellious from a visual perspective compared to the aforementioned two as well.

Double post but this week’s Amanchu was a 10/10, continuing the trend of Amanchu Advance being fucking brilliant. If it weren’t for it being a sequel I’d probably call it AotS for this early stage of the season
Watch Aria if you're enjoying Amanchu. I haven't seen Amanchu myself but they're both written by Kozue Amano and I can say with confidence that Aria is fucking great.
 

vonFiedler

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I don't have the time today to argue extensively about a word but every video or article I saw about Madoka not being a deconstruction came right out of the gate that they just don't like the word being used so much, so hurrrgh, I know being subversive doesn't make something deconstructive, but trying so hard not to be a sheep doesn't make you not a sheep, just a sheep following a different sheep dog. I'm gonna go with the commonly accepted interpretation myself even though I think Madoka is only pretty decent. We simply live in an age where stories are pretty generally either constructionist or deconstructionist, and it's not even much of a compliment anymore as our fiction has become so supremely self-aware, and whether something is deconstructionist is also affected by trope cycles, so pretty soon fiction will only be deconstructive when it deconstructs self-awareness tropes. And then back again.

FYI this is deconstruction as I am using it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Literary_criticism
Not the contradictory Deconstruction / Not a Deconstruction pages on TV tropes.
 
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vonFiedler

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Oh yeah, there's also Persona 5, which I kind of doubt that I'll keep watching. It seems typical of a lot of long game adaptations in that it hits all the beats without having any time to really let any of the underlying feeling sink in. We'll see if it feels the same way after it gets out of the tutorial section.
 

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