Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

I started watching Ben-To, that is a really funny show. I am only about 5 episodes in so far but I am looking forward to seeing the rest

Let me know how it goes, I keep forgetting to finish it. I did enjoy what I watched, though, I just...forgot.

On this week's Imagine-Nation they talked about Kanata-Kakeru.

It's a sports manga that centers around a girl (Kanata) who moves to the countryside from the city, and gets involved with her new school's running team. Unique for a sports manga (or so they say), it doesn't really focus on competition, but rather the relationship between boys & girls, with the sport as the theme. The mangaka used to run when he was younger, and that partially influenced the series (they went behind the scenes with him as he showed off how he achived his art style & stuff).

I've finished up with One Punch Man. I like how relaxed and calm the show felt even when baddies are causing lots of destruction. It really contrasts well with the last anime I watched, Kill la Kill.

I'll probably start watching Death Note soon. That show looks promising.

I finished it last night and enjoyed it. My Wife jumped in with me at about episode 5, but she enjoyed the series too. Now I got to find something else to watch lol

@DefHalan - Awesome, I'll definitely try to finish it again at some point. I think the problem was I had to watch it on Hulu or something at the time. I subscribe to Funi now, though, so I should have easy access to it.

Anyways, I went on a bit of an anime-watching binge last night, saw a little of Armored Trooper Votoms (at least enough to realize I've already watched the first two discs before, but that was long enough ago that I need to rewatch episodes 8-13 anyways), the first episode of When Supernatural Battles become Commonplace (which reminded me that I haven't finished Charlotte yet, which seems like the exact same concept, except I liked Charlotte's approach to the spontaneous powers more. Everyone's power in Charlotte sucked, whereas in SupCom, everyone is overpowered. It works with the theme of youthful delusions of grandeur, but that theme right there is what I like the least so far), and I watched the first episode of Digimon Adventure again (Tai is just a constant stream of bad one-liners). Lastly, I continued watching The Unlimited: Hyobu Kyosuke, which is ballin'. Except for the fact that Hyobu really is a lolicon...well, I guess he had to have some flaw. I mean, he is supposed to be the villain, even though it never looks like it. Even the loli thing didn't come out until he ran into the Japanese Professor Xavier and decided to redirect his advanced super-yacht full of misfit Espers all the way to the last place they should be, just so he could "see his queen again". Who is 12, and a living weapon specifically trained to stop guys like him (espers, not lolicons). At least I got a funny (albeit kinda creepy) line out of that episode:

Hyobu to one of The Children: "Hello, My Queen! Since I last saw you, you've grown even more beatiful!"
Girl: "Well, I'm in middle school now, Kyosuke"
Hyobu: "I see, well I better start treating you like an adult!" Breaks out the fire and the Darth Emperor force lightning

But it's a neat show otherwise. I mean, from what little I've seen of Zettai Karen Children, I find it very hard to believe that B.A.B.E.L. is supposed to be a group I should be routing for. Hyobu's group (PANDRA) keeps doing all kind of good things for the sake of Espers, many of which wind up helping normal people as well (Killing a dangerous mafioso, destroying human experimentation labs hidden under prison complexes, and saving a princess without killing anyone are all clearly the makings of an evil organization, right?). Meanwhile, BABEL is an organization designed to route out powerful espers that might become a threat to society, while employing a bunch of elementary school-age girls who are forced to seek out and apprehend their own people, just because they're exceptionally powerful espers, and I guess Not-Xavier-Sensei convinced the Japanese goverment that's it's better to brainwash them at a young age and use their talents to the normie's advantage, than to let someone that powerful go free and try to live a normal life.....I kept waiting for the point where the kids switched sides, but considering the alternative...I don't think that'll ever happen. Right now they need B.A.B.E.L. to help enforce the restraining order...

But that's why I'm watching a 12-episode spin-off featuring the characters worth caring about, and touching on important themes and ideas that just seemed to get glossed over in the main work.

Ok, so I finished watching through my anime (....again. Don't ask, lol), guess sometime soon I'll go sample some of this anime Tsurii wants me to look into. If I like it I'll just go grab the Bluray on Amazon soon. Maybe even now, i dunno...gotta make sure I have enough money for the rest of the month.

So, some major changes are coming to Funimation and Crunchyroll.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2016/09/08/crunchyroll-...
http://www.funimationnow.com/faq

These changes sound pretty good to me. Basically, Funimation will be handling all Dubs and to watch Dubs you can subscribe to FunimationNow for $5.99 a month. Crunchyroll will be streaming all Subs and their service prices haven't changed. (Someone else might be able to explain better/go into more detail)

I was gonna start watching Death Note, but that disappeared from the UK Netflix a couple of months back so there's no legitimate place for me to stream it. So that complicates things.

Still means I have to subscribe to both, though. But I already do that, so...

@CanisWolfred Well, it should be a little cheaper then, I think

...No, those were the same prices as last year. Unless they got rid of their package plans. Then it's actually more expensive, since I paid $60 for a full year ($5.99 per month = $72 for a full year).

How did you get such a deal on Funimation Dubs? I have been following it for about a year waiting for a sale, but gave up and signed up for the $7.99 pass for Dubs.

@crimsontadpoles That might not be such a bad thing. I only finished finished it recently after starting several years ago, and I thought it lost its initial spark relatively early on. It was never exactly a comedy, but at some point it seems to give up on any humour or wit altogether, and everything becomes a similar shade of grey. They keep bringing in new characters to do old character's jobs, and I found it more of a relief to get to the end of it than anything else.

It's got a sharp aesthetic, and the beginning feels really dynamic and nail-biting, and clever, but... I really feel it peters out and becomes so long-winded that the sense of suspense pretty much dies.

It burns its matches too fast, and then tries to relight the same stubs. Or rather, it probably burns them at the right speed and then probably should have just ended there and quit while it was ahead.

If you ever do decide to watch it, I'd watch until you get bored, read the rest of the plot on Wikipedia or somewhere, and then watch the final few episodes to finish off. And if you never get bored, then fantastic; you've just enjoyed a whole lot of not-boring television.

Or you could just space it out, take breaks, or just watch it once a day. It's easy to binge on Netflix, but sometimes you gotta savor each episode. I found Death Note a lot easier to watch nightly (albeit on Adult Swim, when I didn't have a choice) than when I tried to binge watch it the way I seemed to watch everything before 2014.

Black Friday.

Over the past couple of weeks I've rewatched Neon Genesis Evangelion, which I finished up tonight.

Still wierd as heck, but it's as good as always as well. The animation looks fantastic to this day (really like the look of Unit 01, too), and despite how cryptic and odd the storyline is, I like TRYING to figure it out (no matter how pointless it may be, lol). Still, I think I understand it a bit better after this most recent watch, maybe...

Oh, and I had forgotten how awesome the OP was (the song especially), so seeing that again was a plus.

@CanisWolfred It's very probably better off enjoyed in digestable little chunks. My problem was that I was watching it for the second time (having got about 1/3 though several years ago), and was really desperate for a conclusion, so I was a bit reckless with my watching habits. You're probably not in the best position to enjoy something while staring at the screen thinking, "just end already!".

Still, I remember enjoying the bits I'd enjoyed the first time I watched it, and feeling a bit iffy about the bits about the bits where I started to drift off, so I don't think all my issues were a result of over-binging.

I'm generally pretty good at spacing things out. With currently airing shows you're obviously limited to once a week, but even with older shows, it feels odd to watch more than two episodes in one go. But I was so desperate to have DN conclude - partly to wrap up a story I'd had incomplete in my head for years, and partly so I could move into something else - that I went about it in fist-fulls.

It's probably especially important to give DN some time, given the scale of time that the story eventually takes place over.

@RR529 It's really hard to understate just how important NGE was to the evolution of late-90s/early 2000s anime. The show itself, despite its inconsistencies, still burns with a unique and compelling creativity to this day. I watched it myself in the early 2000s via dubbed VHS tapes. Horrendously expensive: $25 a pop for two episodes on a tape back then. New anime fans really don't realize how nice they have it now with inexpensive season sets, multiple streaming services, etc.

Discovering the show as a preteen is one of my fondest memories as an anime fan.

Anyway, two questions:
1) Did you watch the alternate versions of episode 22-24 that added bonus footage to the episodes? A lot was added, in particular, to Arael's assault on Asuka's mind. It's quite chilling.
2) Have you seen the movies? In particular, End of Evangelion? If you haven't, I wholeheartedly recommend finding a way to watch it. The DVD release is pretty rare these days, but I bet you can probably find a way to download or stream it somewhere. To this day, it's one of the most disturbing and surreal films I've ever had the pleasure of watching.

@Ralizah, Not really sure if the episodes had any extra footage (the last time I fully watched through it was back when AS aired it, so years ago), and yes, I have watched EoE, though as weird as it was, I may try digging around to find a way to watch it again (the last time I watched it, I hadn't seen the series in awhile, so it'd probably be good for comprehension to try and watch it while the series is fresh in my mind).

@RR529 Are you watching it via old DVD set or the newer platinum set? I think the extra footage is included by default in the newer set.