I was very fond of Hero Academia too. It didn't try to be particularly deep, complex or edgy, but it had a lot of heart and vibrancy. And some rather good scenes of people punching each other. It was like a big, comforting bowl of super-hero soup.
I liked Bungo Stray Dogs too. I'm not sure how much of that was due to simple pleasure of watching rangy, stylish people swan around in attractive coats, but it definitely had some memorable moments, and a nice collection of characters.
I have to admit, I also liked 'Sakamoto Desu Ga' far more than I should have done... It was like someone took the One Punch Man approach to 'perfect boys' anime. Sakamoto was just too perfect, and frequently broke the world with his untouchable class and elegance, in the most fantastical and stylish of ways. But then he always mended it, leaving it a sweeter and kinder place. God bless you Sakamoto.
Gah, all three were shows I was really looking forward to watching, but I got distracted. This season was apparently pretty great, so I'm kinda glad this Summer's pretty light in the anime department. Gives me plenty of time to catch up.
EDIT:
No, Seriously, I was looking forward to 13 series, and apparently 11 of them were pretty great. I'm still waiting to hear about And you thought there is never a girl online?, but so far, The Lost Village was the only dud (at least, it doesn't sound like I'd actually enjoy it). That's the best record I've ever head for the past 4 years of trying to keep up with Simulcasts...
@CanisWolfred I thought Berserk and D-Gray Man are sequels not reboots..? I'm asking because I initially wanted to check those out before someone told me not to because it's not an entirely new adaption.
Oh you're right, Berserk's starting immediately after the movie trilogy, instead of pulling a Dragon Ball Super and reeditting the movies. That's cool. Though now that means I gotta finish the Golden Age arc and possibly watch the movies first...
You're also right about D.Gray Man. Except that was a dumb idea, because the first adaption ended 8 years ago, after 103 episodes, with no movies or OVAs in between to get people up to speed. Heck, after all that time, old fans probably need a referesher...
@CanisWolfred I'm very cautious about strongly recommending anything as I think tastes in shows can be super personal (at least, I think my tastes are awkwardly narrow), but yeah, if you've got some time over the summer, I'd recommend at least checking them out.
Hero Academia and Sakamoto make it very clear what sort of shows they are from the first episode. In fact, you should probably be able to work out if you like Sakamoto within the first 10 seconds (though I'd recommend watching all of Episode 1). Hero Academia is Shounen through and through... and through, but I found it so charming I didn't mind at all. Sakamoto runs this weird line between being off-the-wall goofy and dorky, and elegantly sophisticated and classy. It's bizarre, but in a very imaginative and tongue-in-cheek way.
I felt that Stray Dogs took a little while to get going, but there's a delicacy and tenderness to it that I thought tied the shouty explosive sections together well. You might get a little tired of the main character's "I have self-worth issues, so I will do my best for my friends" trope, but the show generally does a good job of tempering its more earnest sections with lighter touches. It reminds me a little bit of Blood Blockade Battlefront, but more level-headed and grounded. BBB really goes for the 'otherworldly dystopia' theme very hard.
Another couple I've enjoyed veer into 'sports-anime' territory. I was reminded of one by talk of Tatami Galaxy (which might not be a good thing in your case), and that was Ping-Pong, which is very arthousey in style, but not completely up its own trumpet. And I also really like Haikyuu!!, which is definitely cut from the cloth of more modern sports-anime, but has quite a lot of subtlety and depth. It was recommended to me along with Kuroko's Basketball, but... I really didn't like Kuroko's Basketball. At all. Also, it makes volleyball look like the most badass thing on the planet, which is possibly an achievement in itself.
I don't know if anyone else is watching DBS, but I'm going to give my theory on "Goku Black" (I'll put it behind spoiler tags).
Whoever he really is, he's here to punish humanity for messing with time. They've recently built up the idea that time alteration/travel is against universal law, "Goku Black" stated humanity must be destroyed for "Justice", and he's in possession of a "Time Ring" (a tool that some sort of "time cop" might have).
I believe that it IS Goku's body, just someone else is occupying it. He clearly doesn't consider himself a Sayain, and his Potara earring maybe suggests a (failed?) fusion at some point in his past. This may even explain why Goku was never able to be revived & fight the Androids in Trunks' time.
You see, the history of Trunks' future has always bothered me. Yes, Piccolo died, and the Earth's Dragon Balls went with him. However, the Namekian Dragon Balls should still exist in that future, and can revive someone as many times as you want, as long as they didn't die of old age. There's no reason to assume Goku wouldn't have gone to King Kai's planet after succumbing to the heart virus (and the Z fighters assuredly would have, after falling to the Androids). It would have been a simple enough matter for King Kai to contact the Namekians, and have them use their Dragon Balls to ressurect Goku (and Vegeta) with the first wishes, and transport them to Earth with the final wish (heck, this process could theoretically be repeated as many times as necessary, as again the Namekian Dragon Balls don't have a revival limit, and the Androids have no idea where the planet is). They would have likely been revived years before Gohan fell, as well (so that makes 3 Super Sayains they would have had to fight at the same time).
However, if something had happened to Goku before the Androids showed up (or while he was getting ready for them), his no show may make sense.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Very sad...but very true. Oh well - not too hard to get used to the hiatus. It's a bit of a letdown but I'm able to just move on to other things for the time being. I love HxH (and during the past hiatus I did go back to it a few times here & there) but I'm fine with waiting - set your expectations low so that whenever it does come back it'll be great.
Anime watching: Mobile Suit Gundam, Lupin III, & Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable
Reading: The Golden Compass
Over the past 3-4 weeks I watched through an anime called the Slayers, since I know I've heard someone around here mention it before.
It does have a very fun cast, with great chemistry (especially once Amelia shows up), but overall I'm pretty mixed on it.
Again, I enjoyed the main cast, I liked the art style, and I LOVED the sound effects (due to the era in which it released, it used all the same energy/explosion sounds as DBZ), but the story never really hooked me. It felt too hectic at first (the main antagonist switched 3 times, and was ultimately defeated in the first 10 episodes). It didn't start building up more naturally until after that, and even though it picked up, it was still pretty generic. Also, while I liked the art style, I think the animation in general was aged enough that it dampened it a bit for me, personally (I'd be willing to give a new iteration a go, with the same art style, but with modern animation).
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
My summer anime list is Orange, The Morose Mononokean, Mob Psycho 100, New Game!, Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan, Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!, and the anime of the season, Bananya!
@RR529 I always viewed it as more of a comedy, really. It's got a story, but the characters and their antics always seemed like they were the focus. Kind of like Gintama, in a way.
As far as the animation goes, there are 5 seasons of Slayers, with the last two being a lot newer. I hear the writing went way downhill during those seasons, though.
Going with Masou Gakuen HxH, Berserk, Fate/kaleid, Shokugeki no Souma: Ni no Sara, and Rewrite. Going lite this season because I want to finish other shows that I have on-hold.
@RR529 I always viewed it as more of a comedy, really. It's got a story, but the characters and their antics always seemed like they were the focus. Kind of like Gintama, in a way.
As far as the animation goes, there are 5 seasons of Slayers, with the last two being a lot newer. I hear the writing went way downhill during those seasons, though.
Ah okay, I didn't know they made that much (they only had the one season where I go).
Also, yeah, it definitely was best when it was just the main cast goofing around without too much to worry about.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
To be fair, I think it might be jarring because Slayers is one of the rare anime (it feels like anyway) that wanted to have story arcs that weren't particularly connected to each other (barring certain plot points throughout a season) so it's certainly jarring compared to nearly every anime to come out since then. Season 3 IIRC has the closest of a focus of what you would look for in a story (though Season 2 is universally considered better than Season 1 regardless).
Weirdly my least favorite part of season 1 was the lighter episodes (later seasons were much funnier in those types of episodes imo). It's not the best paced series in season 1, the first arc begins in episode TWO and then the entire middle of the series has the lighter one-off stuff until things go to the next story arc. Usually you would start with the lighter stories before going too plot focused but I guess not here...
Well when you're stuck with a mediocre season, there's always the eternal backlog to work on. I can never go wrong with watching an old Gainax show. In fact, I'm planning on watching Nadia The Secret of Blue Water very soon, it's another classic I haven't gotten around to yet, but looks fantastic. I mean the concept was created by Hayao Miyazaki, and the show was directed by Hideaki Anno, like I said can't go wrong. (Still - I've heard the network forced them to add 12 episodes to what was supposed to be a 27 episode series, meaning they had to outsource them & they weren't directed by Anno. They sound absolutely horrible, and apparently right after they're over, the series treats it as if they didn't happen. Seems it really displeased Anno, so I will definitely be skipping those.)
On a side note, has anyone noticed the kind of weird/new things simulcasting has started this season? I have very little interest the show, but Crunchyroll seems to be experimenting with a series called RELIFE - basically they uploaded all 13 episodes at once, before it actually aired in Japan. It seems like they're emulating Netflix's style in that regard. The show's gotten a fair amount of attention so far too. Similarly, they put up the first episode of Orange a few days before it aired. I haven't heard of any other cases, but it seems like Crunchyroll is interested in pursuing a more direct route with their streaming - going from simulcasting to precasting lol. Aiming for the binge-watching appeal.
It kind of reminds me how big of a deal it was when Space Dandy aired dubbed in the US the night before the Japanse broadcast. It helped that Space Dandy's dub was awesome & the way to watch the series. Also how Funimation has started to simulcast dubs with a select few series every season. It's fascinating to watch how anime streaming is starting to slowly evolve.
^To be fair, Kamille deserved it pretty much every time. In fact, that was basically a "best Kamille moments" highlight reel, for the most part.
The Bright beatings are still hard to watch, though. I know they're trying to establish how corrupt the Gryps guys were, but it just came off as a cheap way to gain audience sympathy, since it was basically just him getting any sort of rough treatment, at least of their own staff, and he was getting disrespected even before he got those Gundams stolen. Though, I guess Bright was still a Feddy, and it was heavily implied that the Gryps Foundation were connected to the Zeons from the One-Year War somehow, so I guess they were supposed to be showing that don't see the Federation as "part of their group"...which makes more sense considering the rest of the plot, actually...
Cross Ange, though...as far as I can tell, it's "Woman in Science-Fantasy Prison: The Animation" for the most part...I kinda couldn't get past the first episode and had to stick to extensive summaries, though. It only got worse from there, as far as I could tell.
In fact, I think one of the bigger reasons why the newest Gundam is getting such high marks from me (well, aside from the fact that I do think it's genuinely good show with a strong emphasis on character development and motivations, on top of consistently reasonable story telling and pacing, let alone some great action scenes with genuine intensity and narrative weight), was the fact that it came out after a string of absolutely terribly written mecha and action shows from Sunrise - Basically everything they were putting out for 4 years (except for some movies, I guess) that weren't Comedies or Phi Brain, were filled to the brim with lazy writing: Recycled tropes and plot points blatantly cobbled together from better shows, "drama" that essentially equated to "shock the audience with excessive cruelty because how else are we supposed to elicit an emotion?!," coupled with cast after cast of characters that ranged from "Unrelatedable" to "Punchable" to "How Do You Function?!" in terms of characterization; and of course, whenever they try to do something to make the story stand out from the pack, they always settled for the nonsensical.
They were the latest set of Emperor's Clothes that a monolith in the animation industry kept gallivanting about in, of which Cross Ange was the Tiara. And Iron-Blooded Orphans was the pauper boy who finally asked, "why is the King naked?"
Oh great, they reintroduced those Fullbringers in the newest chapter of Bleach.
Should have seen it coming too. Of course the Fullbringer who can rewrite someone's past, is just the key needed to counter Ywach's ability to rewrite all possible futures. Ichigo's Zanpakuto was irreversibly broken because Ywach made it so there was no possible future where it would be fixed, so the Fullbringer made a new past for Ichigo, one where Ywach didn't alter the future.
It's definitely reaching it's end though. Ywach is the last villain still standing (well, Aizen's still around somewhere too. I doubt they're just going to forget about him), the last three chapter titles have had "The End" in them, and a few chapters ago, the front page said that "After over 10 years, Bleach is reaching it's conclusion! Only [blotted out] chapters remain!".
Currently Playing:
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PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
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