Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

@CanisWolfred I believe it was referring to your conversation with Heavyarms, I didn’t quite understand it. The only reason it’s definitely meant here was bc he mentioned Anime News Network and how the didn’t want this thread become like that site.

i mean i agree, i was there for the horrific "but what if video game had boobs?!?!" discussions, but i'm also not randomly paranoid and yelling about sjws like a deranged hobo shrugs

...at least last i checked i haven't

but speaking of anime, Kaguya-sama is really good, but I think it would have to almost TRY to not be just based on the premise alone. It has one of the best premises for a show, I swear. It's not a perfect comparison, but Death Note: The Romantic Comedy was how I saw it described in particular, which is also amazing (and also probably most of the fanfics :V)

@GyroZeppeli I still don't see how anything either @CanisWolfred or I said would be SJW or political. Seems like there was quite a bit of misunderstanding going on. Which is such a shame as all I wanted to do was talk about two recent anime that I absolutely love.

@Heavyarms55 I don’t see how it’s political either. Probably something only Tsurii knows.

Okay everyone, shut up about everything else and lets get back to being nerds! Anime: GO!

Any other Gundam fans on this site?

I’m not a Gundam fan, but I kinda wanna be? I just don’t know where to start because it seems like there’s so many different Gundam series, and then I just give up lol.

@lolwutTM The place I always encourage people to start is Gundam 00. Many different Gundam series exist on an interconnect storyline that makes an overall series comparable to Naruto or Dragon Ball in size. But Gundam 00 is one of a small sub-set of Gundam shows that exists entirely on its own, with no connections to other shows and is a comfortable 50 episodes + one movie. Despite it being 10 years old now, the animation quality holds up very well, and it has some awesome music. It's not the most brutal story, but it does cover some fairly dark topics at times.

If you did want to get into the main timeline/shared universe, I'd be happy to give you the "die-hard Gundam fan's suggested watching list".

@Heavyarms55 Oh wow, yikes. I didn’t realize they were all interconnected like that. Pretty cool, but also very daunting. I’ll definitely check out Gundam 00 then, since you say it’s more separate. I’m not sure if I have the time or energy to try getting into a massive series like that right now, but I’d certainly be interested in looking at your list if you’d be willing to share. Thanks for the help!

On another note, I’m gonna have to second @kkslider5552000 on Kaguya-sama. The first half episode 3 is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on television, I swear. I went out and bought volume 1 of the manga the very next day after I saw it.

You have summoned me?

Yes, huge fan of the franchise, the very reason I'm an anime fan, and the giant robot genre in general is my niche to the near exclusion of everything else. All other anime I watch is just there to hold me over until the my next mecha fix.

I've watched a few Gundam series, and I tend to enjoy them. My favorites are probably Mobile Fighter G Gundam (which isn't at all anything like the others) &, as Heavyarms55 mentioned, 00. Also quite liked Unicorn.

My favorite giant robot/mecha series are probably Eureka Seven & Neon Genesis Evangelion, though. More recent favorites would be Knights of Sidonia & KuroMakuro, though as neither has a definitive ending, I can't put them up with the former two.

Currently watching through the Last Hope on Netflix, which is a pretty decent watch. Most of the monsters are over designed CG monstrosities, though.

OMG Shield Hero was sooooo good this week! Slime was great as expected. Sword Art Online is kinda becoming Sword Bleach Online, Fairy Tail's final season is a roaring blast, and Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka is proving a pleasant surprise as well! Not to mention last season's amazing Goblin Slayer! Loads of fantastic anime recently!

But the only anime recently that has massively let me down is Toaru Majutsu no Index 3/ A Certain Magical Index 3. I utterly adored the first 2 seasons when they were new, and Railgun, the sister series, proved itself almost better than the series that spawned it. So I was ecstatic when season 3 of Index was finally announced! But my lord have they blown it! Some of the absolute worst pacing I have ever seen! No character development whatsoever as a result. They've pushed to introduce dozens of new characters but left themselves no time to show us anything about who they are, where their loyalties lie or why we should care. They are slamming through one story arc after another so fast they might as well skip animating it and just give us a powerpoint show summary! It's the frame of a story that I can tell should have been so good, but they are bum rushing through it so badly and it makes me that much more upset...

But that let down is offset because That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime and now Rise of the Shield Hero have proven themselves to be so good! Every week I am loving it! I'm also watching a few others, Girly Air Force is the anime equivalent of off-brand junk food, but a decent time waster. Quintessential Quintuplets is a quirky harem with lots of eye candy, and The Promised Neverland is proving to be a really interesting thriller.

I save all my weekly anime and then binge watch it on Crunchyroll every Sunday. Always a good time.

@lolwutTM If you were interested in the main timelime I would suggest watching them in this order, it's not the order the series were released but the in-universe timeline:

Mobile Suit Gundam, 8th MS Team, Gundam 0083, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack, Gundam Unicorn(the OVA version is better than the TV edit) and then Gundam Narrative(Gundam NT)

Optionally between 8th MS Team and 0083 there is Gundam War in the Pocket, which I personally don't like, but is actually fairly popular. Also Gundam F91 takes place after NT but hasn't aged well and might end up getting remade. Victory Gundam takes place in the same universe, but decades and decades later and has almost no connection beyond some references and tech.

@RR529 I quite liked Knights of Sidonia, and I hope it gets another season. It might actually make me come back to Netflix if it gets another season.

Shachiku Succubus no Hanashi Is a manga about a succubus, so one would expect it to be borderline porn. But instead it's one of the most wholesome things ever. An overworked, exhausted salaryman and an overworked exhausted succubus fall in love after doing the most PG things imaginable. It's super short - only 10 chapters to date and I read them all in like 20 minutes, but man, it's great! Look it up if you want a laugh!

I'm really digging the more grounded character designs of the new Fruits Basket series.

@Ralizah It looks decent... but good lord I hope they fire that translator for those subtitles! That was like 2008 fan-sub level bad. lol

@Heavyarms55 I don't trust Funimation's translations. Their dubs can be even worse, as with the infamous case where they added a reference to Gamergate to an episode of Prison School.

@Ralizah I understand how some companies try to do more than translate when they localize, but not only do some of their decisions come off as condescending, but for those people who actually do speak both languages watching it, laughable. But even that I can forgive to a degree. Inserting things that weren't in the source material - sickening. Personally I prefer a mostly direct translation, with liberties taken only with aspects of the Japanese that don't easily 1 to 1 translate. I know enough Japanese after living in Japan for 4 years that I can spot when they are just pulling crap out of their bums.

With the most recent season of anime coming to a close, and several very good titles finishing or going on hiatus, I think now is a good time to talk about this. I think it deserves a separate thread from the main anime post because this is about the industry, rather than specific shows.

It feels like more than ever before anime are being made, one season covering the first portion of a story and leaving everything largely unresolved. More and more anime are just stopping, with their stories unfinished and studios waiting to see what sells DVDs or merchandise to judge, which, if any, will get another season. Other studios are seeing the unlikelihood of a second season and throwing proper pacing out the window in a mad rush to get to a certain scene or exciting story point.

Another growing problem is how painfully standardized seasons are becoming. Anime seasons are divided like real seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter season, each being 12-13 episodes/weeks. About 3 months. A "one cour" anime is one season, occasionally you get 2 cours or 2 seasons, and very rarely you get an anime that airs for a full year(4 cours/seasons). (if there has been an anime that did 3 cours nonstop, I haven't seen or heard of it). This system is warping anime because it is forcing studios to build all their shows around this, usually resulting in rushed shows crammed into a single season. Or shows that don't finish because they only get that single season. Mega-anime in the vein of Dragon Ball, Detective Conan, Naruto and Fairy Tail with hundreds of episodes are a relic of the past. Boruto and Dragon Ball Super being the most recent but both can be seen as continuations, not new series.

As a long time and very big anime fan I will be the first to admit that the anime industry can create total garbage just as notably as it can deliver epic adventures, heart breaking tragedies and wondrous sci-fi/fantasy. But the trend I am talking about is warping the industry and taking shows that should have been much better and crippling them.

While this last season had several very good shows, it also had several more that were warped in the way I describe. It feels like this trend is getting worse and worse. I've lost track of how many anime I have seen in the last 5 years that just stop or were bum rushed so they could fit into a single season...

@Link-Hero Perfect Blue is the least disturbing out of any of the ones you listed there, IMO.

Anyways, I've actually been watching quite a bit of anime lately, so I guess it doesn't hurt to post some thoughts:

My Hero Academia - I almost forgot to get caught up on this, but I'm glad I finally did! This show is still exhilerating to watch, and I can hardly wait to see it continue!

Seven Deadly Sins - I watched up through season 3 on Netflix (season 2 was only 4 episodes, though, and it felt like filler. I think they were just the OVAs). This show is fun, albeit flawed. I love the characters (for the most part), but its sense of escalation is all off, and combine that with how little the powers of most characters are defined and how so many seem invulnerable or invincible, and the action is about as interesting as your average Super Friends episode, despite all the top-grade animation. The season also ended a bit anti-climacticly, IMO. Hopefully season 4 will see some improvement.

Mob Psycho 100 - Finally got around to watching this, and barreled through the first season. This was actually quite heart-warming, and of course the comedy was hilarious! I can hardly wait to season season 2, but I've been watching it dubbed, and not all of the dubbed episodes are available for streaming yet, so I guess I'll be patient just to ensure I have maximum enjoyment.

Dragon Ball Super - I finally got to some new content, and God was it worth it! The pacing got better, and in general it's nice not having to constantly complain about how "the movies did this same arc better!!!1" and just enjoy watching some iconic characters do their thing. I'm finally on the Future Trunks arc, and I couldn't be more excited to dive into it!

Jojo's Bizarre Adventures - Stardust Crusaders - They FINALLY made it to Egypt! I've been trying to trudge my way through this season for 4 freakin' years, and I FiNaLlY get to see them arrive at their destination!

...now if only I could remember why they needed to get to Egypt in the first place...

(and before the Jojo fans crusify me, this season took on a "monster of the day" formula that I can't stand in any show. It's a testament to its quality that I finished any episodes at all, let alone a full season. I just can't wait for this whole road trip business to be over and we can finally have some decent pacing again)

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection - I went to the theaters to watch this, and it was definitely worth it! It was great seeing the cast again, the plot fit the timeframe it had to work with well enough, and the action as as stellar as the franchise as always had. I did have a few quibles with the story (It's not airtight, simply put), but damn was it exhilerating to watch the whole way through!

...and now I find out that this was just phase 1 of a 10 years plan to flood the market with Code Geass related content...I'm not sure how I feel about that...

I still got one more movie to watch this week, but I guess that's enough for one post.

@Link-Hero That's the thing, though - I understand that. That's why it's less disturbing than, say, alien body horror that makes me want to vomit out my organs that comprises the latter portions of Made in Abyss. Or the unabashed torture porn that makes up much of Higurashi: When The Cry. Or the ungoddly horror that is high school.

I'm just saying, Perfect Blue, for all it's insanity, I can at least tell where it's coming from. That makes it much less disturbing in my eyes. It's easier to be afraid of that which I don't understand.