Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Never watched the first season of kyoukai no rinne. But i liked the second season. Very solid series with likeable caracters and good chemistry between them. Really like sakuras gently cute aura. The poverty jokes didnt get old and overall the humour is good.

@crimsontadpoles @Tsurii Jojo is my favourite manga and anime, I liked the beginning because it felt so unique and different than other common shonen. To be honest, I prefer the first half of Phantom Blood than the second half and than Battle tendency. Battle tendency is good but it's not bizarre enough. Stardust crusaders, Diamond is unbreakable and Stone ocean are the best parts, it's with Stardust crusaders that the real fun begins. I think that Vento Aureo is disappointing because imo characters have not adequate motivations and the story itself is rather shallow and empty but I guess when one write so many different stories it's just normal that sometimes one of them is less good than the others. Still I like some of the characters from Vento Aureo, Giorno, Bucciarati and Abbacchio, and Abbacchio sub plot was very interesting and engaging

Glad to see someone else who enjoys Rinne. Just so you know, seasons 1 & 3 are just more of the same (though they progressively add more characters to get in on the shenanigans), as it doesn't have much of an overarching narrative (except for the vague goals of Rinne trying to escape poverty, and the secondary narrative of Rinne & Sakura's relationship, which advances & regressess based on what's needed for the comedy at any given time). But hey, if you like it enough be sure to check them out.

Most should do ya fine. Most of the OVAs and a couple movies would greatly benefit from prior knowledge, but it's hardly required for all but a few. Iron-Blooded Orphan would be a good place to start if you just want a self-contained story, as would Thunderbolt. Granted, neither encapsulate the usual tone of the series, and part of their appeal is that they're stylistically different from previous entries, but I doubt it'd have too much of an impact on your experience.

If you want to get into the whole of the franchise, I'll have to go to my usual standby: The original series, or at least the Movie Trilogy, which thus far are the only Gundam compilation movies I've encountered that are worth watching. It helps establish the basic tropes that the rest of the franchise pulls from for inspiration to varying degrees, and it's just a fun watch in its own right. Very detailed setting and good people pushed to the brink by the horrors war on both sides, without it feeling too heavy-handed or going to R-rated lengths just to shock people. It'll also give you the backround info for a lot of the side stories, including Thunderbolt and 08th MS Team, and I feel like it paints certain stories like Stardust Memories and War in the Pocket in a different light depending of if you're familiar with the events of 0079 and its direct sequels, Zeta Gundam and ZZ Gundam. Gundam Unicorn also benefits greatly if you've seen those three, plus Char's Counterattack, but really, you just need Char's Counterattack to get what's going on, because outside of fanservice and backround info, that movie is the only story it ever directly references.

Still, whichever ones you want to watch should still be fine, so long as they aren't direct sequels. And there aren't even a lot of those - I already named almost all of them. Here, I'll list the last remaining ones: Gundam SEED Distiny is the sequel to Gundam SEED, if not an outright retread. Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz and Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazers are, along with Char's Counterattack, the only movies that directly follow the storyline of their preceeding TV series. Gundam Bulid Fighters Try is the second season of Build Fighters, I don't know why they named it differently. And there's a couple obscure OVAs that are still mostly self-contained, but are still side-stories within their respective subseries: Gundam SEED Stargazer (takes place during SEED Destiny) and Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO 1 & 2, which are, along with the 7(!!!) other OVAs that take place within the UC Timeline, specifically during the events of the One-Year War. It's an anthology, though, and if I'm being honest, you could probably learn more about the UC setting from watching these OVAs than you would from watching the original Gundam series. I know I watched it soon after finishing 08th MS Team, and it really sold me.

...I hope I didn't scare you off with all of this like I did several others before you, but then again, I didn't have Iron-Blooded Orphans back then for me to go, "watch this great piece of standalone work!" in case they still don't want to dive into the enormous ocean that is the Gundam multiverse, of which IBO is a warm, luxurious lagoon within it.

So yeah, TL;DR - if IBO interests you, go with that. Thunderbolt is still ongoing, so I'm less likely to recommend that until it's finished. If you like them and want to dive into the rest of the franchise, I recommend going straight for the starting point, but it's also not that necessary, as IBO is one of the many "alternate universe" settings that they've been going with since G-Gundam, and even Victory Gundam and F91 before that were self-contained stories that take place long after the only long continuous story-thread had been tied neatly into a bow (and later double-notted by Unicorn Gundam, because hey, why not?). I don't believe it's nearly as intimidating as people seem to think it is. It's like being worried you won't enjoy Final Fantasy XV because you haven't played 1-14, including that mobile game based on Final Fantasy 7. You're not missing as much as you think you are, although I do still recommend trying the rest of the franchise at your own pace if you enjoy it. You just gotta start somewhere.

@RR529 Yeah im planning to watch the third season. Good to know it stays classy.

Just finished sansha sanyou. Its just another clone moemime that didnt moe me. Seriously the day ill enjoy shows of this caliber will be the day ill be someone like barry goodman. What i dont like about these shows is how cheap the protagonists often feel. All they seem to emanate is fluff and sugar without any substance. Im sure ive seen those girls with the same (aura) in other animes before, squeaking at each other and trying too hard to be kawai.

Id say it was a mediocre watch.

@CanisWolfred I'm glad you answered Tsurii's question cause I was wondering your thoughts on that too. Thanks for the useful information! I will try the movie trilogy sometime.

I always got turned off from IBO cause I don't like the character designs or the style, but I guess that's pretty superficial. I'll give that a chance too, someday.

@Jhena, if you finish with Rinne & want more, try out Ranma 1/2. It's an earlier series by the same mangaka (Rumiko Takahashi), and is pretty much the same thing, just with a martial arts theme instead of a ghost theme (you'll even recognize most of the faces, because it's sort of a trait of hers to reuse most of her character designs from series to series). Unlike Rinne, there is some nudity, but is mostly because the main character is cursed to become a girl every time he comes in contact with (cold) water, and he has no modesty.

You may also want to try out InuYasha (the series she did inbetween Ranma 1/2 & Rinne), but it's also the most serious of the bunch because it's an action/adventure rather than a comedy, however it does feature the same character archetypes as the other two shows. It can be tough to get into though (I think I'm really the only one around here who likes it, though it's probably one of my top 3 anime), as like it's comedic brethren it features an episodic structure at first that doesn't give away to a more traditional arc structure until quite aways in, and for some reason the anime studio made the male & female leads more combative in their relationship than they were in the manga (I think it was an attempt to give it a more Ranma esque comedic angle, but it doesn't always work due it's more serious nature, and makes the female lead come off unlikeable to a lot).

@RR529 Loved those two as a kid. They were both running in the child programm. Yeah i remember those nice pink boobies. And i think i had the most feelings for ranmas female form. How i miss to fall in love with animated girls -.- Also im a big fan of tsundere pairs and ranma was a feast in that regard like inuyasha.
Rinnes caracter designs reminded me of ranma. When they made those satan signs when being beaten i was almost sure it was the same mangaka. Now i know it thx.

I rewatched inuyasha a while ago and got burnt by it. Didnt know the anime was discontinued. To be honest the last episodes kinda felt too much of the same. And narakus smell almost made me angry xD. Still some ridiculously sad and beautiful love scenes, great atmo and music. True kagome felt a little bit too bossy sometimes and made inuyasha feel like a pitiful underdog. Best caracter is Inuyashas brother. He has such an awesome aura. I could fall in love with him. I can totally understand why you like it. Sadly except for some exceptions like homunculus, blame or punpun im not a big manga fan.

@Jhena, the InuYasha anime did get closure with InuYasha: the Final Act, if you don't know. It's a bit rushed since they crammed about 230 chapters worth of content into 26 episodes, but it's worth watching if you want a concrete ending.

@RR529 Ups^^ Thats nice. Not sure how i could overlook this though. First ill finish tanaka kun then ill watch the final act. Is there a reason they crammed it?

Finished space patrol luluco. Its a nice enough shortform best of trigger but it wasnt enough to convince me. I dont like shortform animes.

Got around to Ghost in the Shell: Arise recently (the first three parts anyhow, as that's what Netflix has, and while the first two are dual audio, part 3 was subs only...).

It's a prequel/reboot, and while each part is it's own independent story, it's tied together by the fact that the Section 9 team we all know & love is slowly coming together along the way. It's not as brilliant as the original film by any means, but I still found each part to be a good watch (Part 2: Ghost Whispers was my favorite, followed by Part 1: Ghost Pain, & Part 3: Ghost Tears) and would recommend it to both current fans of the series, and to newbies/fans of anime & sci-fi in general (after they watch the original film, of course). Hopefully Netflix gets part 4 of Arise and the 2015 film in soon to finish it out.

Honestly suprised I haven't heard any discussion of it here before, unless GitS is just too old of a franchise to these kids with their One Pieces, Attack on Titans, & One Punch Mans (just kidding... sort of).

^A lot of Ghost in the Shell fans on the anime forum I used to frequent weren't happy with the Arise films. I don't remember a whole lot of the discussion, though, since GitS is just...not something I've ever been into. I keep trying to watch the TV series, but it's just not that fun to watch, for the most part. Maybe I gotta start with the original film, though. I've never seen it the whole way through, because the cover had tits on it. Not exactly something you want to rent out of a library or purchase from a store where people might and have recognized you, lest I be derided for it 'till the end of time...

@Tsurii Maybe I'll let you know when/if the anime adaptation of the Seven Deadly Sins catches up to that point, then. While I started with the manga version, my general rule of thumb is to stick to the flashiest version of anything I can find, because I love visual experiences most of all.

@CanisWolfred, I'll freely admit I'm definitely a "casual fan" of the two TV series at most. While I'm sure they're great if you can get into them, as you said they can be slow, and at the time I didn't really have the commitment to watch them every week (back when AS was originally showing them) to keep up with what was going on (for that reason, my favorite episodes tend to be ones that aren't heavily involved in the main narrative).

However, I'm a big fan of the original film because in addition to the fact that it's animated beautifully, it's easier to commit to. It makes you think, but as a film (and a relatively short one at that), it's not a daunting task to rewatch it occasionally to try and get more out of it. That's also the sort of thing I appreciated about the Arise series as well. In addition to being a reboot (so no previous knowledge required), each entry is it's own story, making them easier to digest (that, and the Major being younger and more rash means that the series has a higher level of straight up action than previous GitS material). I'm still confused by some of the story in Part 1, but I think I mostly have things down as far as Parts 2&3 go.

@RR529 Sry i forgot to thank you for telling me about the last act. Thanks^^

Tanaka-kun is always listless: Oh yes thats my kind of cozy feel good anime. Tanaka reminds me of my old self. I was also a natural stonehead or maybe i still am. Just looking for peace. Theres nothing more satisfying in this world than that feeling of almost being asleep (sure sleeping is nice but i prefer to enjoy the stuff) and feel nothing more than the inner peace which can feel like pretty much anything. Feels like paradise and it should because its my mind.
Anyway i like him and together with ohta they would make for a very nice boys love couple and generally are pretty good characters. Its laid back, its nice, its humorous and the moe bullet girl is moe.

I think thats the last anime of the spring 2016 season i watched. Nice to end it with a charming anime.
Bakuon, im sakamoto, jojo, kuma miko, rinne, twin star exorcists and of course tanaka kun were my favourites. I could have forgotten some but who cares the season was decent.

Inuyasha: Worth watching if only to finish stuff i started watching when i was much younger. Its still an enjoyable series though. But it reminded me again of its dark tone. Seriously the series is too gloomy^^ I prefer the tone of rinne or ranma. Nice ending. It was a little bit like ff x(x2) just with reversed genders. Nice journey overall.

Oh, well now I'm just mildly disappointed.

EDIT: Wait, no, I meant the part about Melodias! C'mon, man, don't fake me out like that...

@Jhena, believe it or not, the InuYasha manga started out even more graphic than the anime (it had as much nudity as Ranma, and even had more gore. For example, early in the series they come across "Spider Head" demons, this is where InuYasha's human form is first revealed, and while the anime depicts them as ninjas with spider like abilities, in the manga they are actual spiders that walk around wearing decapitated heads that they're nesting in). It calmed down to the anime's level around chapter 150 or so (after the first fight with Kagura), but there was still the occasional instance where something was censored in the anime.

Just watched Boruto Ep.13 and it reminds me that I'm really starved for an epic fight in Naruto/Boruto. I enjoyed the episode but it really just shows how broken Naruto is. Nothing really felt like a threat considering how he's basically a walking God, and even stated he could handle it in one shot. The writers tried to justify his inability to solve the issue, but it's kind of a 'what the' point considering Naruto at the age of 17 and less was able to handle far worse enemies.

Anyways, I fully expect Boruto to pull out a Talk no Jutsu against the antag next ep. Let's see if he can surpass his father in this area.

@RR529 I believe you. Many years ago a friend of mine showed me the manga for this reason. Ugh spiders...

Active Raid S2: Really forgettable and boring special forces anime with a little bit of mechs. My mind was constantly wandering away and i only watched it for completions sake. Not a good summer 2016 start but it can only get better.

So I got around to watching Dragon Ball Z Battle of Gods, and I must say it was actually kind of impressive. I had only watched the adapted material in Dragon Ball Super, but it was interesting to see what elements carried over from the movie to the series and which were removed or changed.

Overall, the plot was way more concise (obviously due to the time constraint), but there are a few things I enjoyed seeing in Super, like Whis and Beerus' visits to some alien planets. It's also curious that they changed the setting of Bulma's party to a cruise ship in Super.

The ending fight between Goku and Beerus was one of the most energetic and dynamic fights I've seen in DBZ, and all of the movie's action action was very well animated (but of course that's to be expected as I assume BoG had a higher budget than Super and no episodes to spread the animation budget out). The rapid change in settings also helped the fight scene, as opposed to their boring battle being set simply in the space/sky (probably done to save budget). However, the 3D computer graphics mixed in with the 2D animation looked mostly awful. I really hate when 3D graphics are implemented into anime, I understand it's done to save budget but I've never seen it look good/natural (Season 2 of AoT is a good example of this imo). Still, all-in-all the movie itself looked great compared to Super. Overall I loved it, and I love Beerus and Whis even more now!

( @RR529 I don't know why but I like the way you bold certain words in your posts, hope you don't mind if I steal your thing lol)

Watched Halo: Legends earlier today on Netflix, and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit (the series seems to adapt well to anime, based on this).

It's an anthology film, split into 8 short stories (each animated by a different studio), all taking place in the Halo universe. The first two parts simply recount the backstory of the series as narrated by Cortana, while the other 6 are seperate short stories which are each artistically, narratively, & thematically different.