Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari, or The Rising of the Shield Hero finished its first season this week and thoroughly lived up to the excitement it garnered from me several weeks ago as the series was getting into gear! An easy 5/5 recommendation from me, it is easily one of the best anime in recent years. At least in terms of fantasy/action series. It also hits hard with great character development, conflicted heroes, and doesn't shy away from painful or difficult topics. It has stellar world building as well.
Season One ends on a massive cliff-hangar however and though from what I've read, with interviews of the staff, a season two is very likely, but remains totally unconfirmed.

On the other hand:

The Helpful Fox Senko-San ended this week as well. That was an alright feel good anime. But it was clearly geared toward a very specific audience. A fun but forgettable time waster.

Bokutachi ha bennkyo ga dekinai or We Never Learn (Don't understand why they went with that title, the Japanese means "We can't study") Also ended this week. It came out of no where for me. I went in expecting a generic time waster, but was utterly blown away by one of the best harem comedies I have ever seen! It easily has become my favorite harem to date! It never takes itself too seriously and presents a consistently funny and well paced show that unlike Shield Hero, has already been confirmed for a second season this October! I imagine a comedy harem takes less work than a major fantasy epic.

I'd totally check out Fire Force, once one or more of the half-dozen other shounen anime that have been asking me to dedicate over a decade of my life to following their stories finally ends. I'm already having enough difficulty finding time to watch other types of shows as it is...

I haven't watched their version, but according to IGN, Netflix botched up their dub of Evangelion. The four big complaints seem to be:

• They cheaped out and didn't license Fly me to the Moon for the ending credits, replacing it with a generic piano soundtrack (the first time the series has been without the song).
• The new voiceovers. They mention that it isn't bad in of itself, but it's a big disappointment for old fans, and they don't have a consistent way of pronouncing "NERV", jumping between two variants.
• It's a much more literal translation of the Japanese original, and as that didn't have any foul language, the Netflix version doesn't either (the complaint being that scenes don't have the emotional weight they're supposed to in English without them).
• Apparently they toned down the implied romantic feelings between Shinji and another male character, prompting accusations of "Gay Erasure" (again, this centers around some slight rewording in the new dub compared to the old one, as they didn't remove any scenes as far as I'm aware).

@RR529 - I mean, IMO, it was mostly just an unnecessary move, tbh. The origial voicework was fine, and the new performances and translation seemingly take away more than they add. Those would be minor annoyances if they didn't also fail to get the ending theme. That's where they really screwed up. That song added quite a bit thematically, and IMO, was as iconic to the franchise as Cruel Angel's Thesis. I mean, I was literally listening to it multiple times in the days leading up to its arrival, and I didn't even know it was coming out - it's just one of those things I think about when I think of "Neon Genesis Evangelion"...

A lot of internet controversies about things are honestly miserable, but one of the real joys I've had in recent months has been watching everyone bury this whole Eva Netflix debacle. I liked the 2 Rebuild movies I saw, but I've never been able to get into Eva otherwise. But I feel like I got a new found respect for it, and especially for the original English releases, after this.

It's like a perfect storm of needlessly literal translations, tone deaf (at best) changes and misunderstanding of Eva's significance. It's especially funny because it completely overshadowed all the super serious discussions about Eva coming back again, that people were worried about (a 2019 internet discussion on Eva does sound like an actual nightmare to be fair).

Slime did fizzle out for me, but that was largely because they got to around episode 17 or 18 and realized they still had roughly 25-30 episodes worth of content to cover in order to end where they wanted to end, and only had like 7 episodes left to do it. It was worse having read the Manga and knowing just how much content they cut and/flew through to get to that final story arc, which also still got rushed painfully and lost much of the impact. For Slime to have been properly paced and remained as good as it started, it needed at least another 15-20 episodes. And even then they'd probably have had to speed up some stuff, but it wouldn't have been the lightning pace we had in the final product.

@kkslider5552000 The problem with the Rebuild Movies for me is that they remain unfinished. It seems as though they failed to do well enough to prompt a proper conclusion for the re-imagining.

Uh, nope: https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2018/07/20-1/fourth-re...

The conclusion is out next year, the Netflix deal was part of the hype machine leading up to release, apparently.

If you want further proof, the first 10 minutes will be shown at Anime Expo and Japan Expo on July 6th: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-06-24/1st-10-minut...

It sure took a while sure, but to be perfectly fair: the director took a much needed break to keep from burning out, working on other things, like directing a Godzilla movie. He had spent a pretty big chunk of his career on Evangelion, after all, and too much is riding on the success of the conclusion that for them to rush it, or cancel it. I mean, Evangelion is one of the single most heavily merchandised franchises in the world, and the Rebuild movies have helped to keep that going.

@CanisWolfred Oh! Well that's good news for me then! I will look forward to it!

Okay, I'll admit, that actually looks a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be...

Like, I was expecting something on the level of Kuroko's Basketball, but with Firefighters - extreme Fire Fighting that still technically grounded in reality. This, though...I can get behind this...

@Tsurii Yeah, I'll try the first episode or two at least. I won't be able to keep up with it until after Fairy Tail finishes, though...

I've been watching Flip Flappers. It feels kinda like someone took Utena, actually gave it a high budget and went all-in on action, but then forgot to make it about something worth caring about. Probably has a bit of the more action side of magical girl too, but I've not seen many of those so I can't say.

I mean it is a lot of fun. I'm just not getting a lot out of it outside of that. I've also been watching Sazanmai, from the creator of Utena, which also is more about something.

@kkslider5552000 Oh yeah, I remember Flip Flappers existed. I couldn't tell you thing one about the plot, but I certainly remember watching some of it.

And I did watch the first episode of Fire Force, btw. It was available as a simuldub on Funimation, so I figured "what the heck". It certainly is off to great start, to ay the least. Great animation, got all the major setup points down, and I think I'm impressed enough to watch the second episode next week. In the meantime, I'm rushing through Fairy Tail to get caught up to the current arc. That way I won't have so many shounen anime on my plate, begging for my attention. Only other ones would be DB Super and finally finishing Magi if I can remember it exists.

I have to say, I had all but given up hope on a sequel to 2013s Danmachi "Is it wrong to pick up Girls in a Dungeon" but here we are, 6 years later and a new season is starting. I like that they gave us an episode 0 to recap the first season, because it has been quite a long time.

"Doctor Stone" came out of no where. I expected something really silly just by how absurd of a design the titular character looks (like, even by kids anime standards he looks ridiculous! Yugi from Yugioh would be like "Bro, calm down with that hairstyle" and even Goku from DBZ would laugh) But the show actually looks really interesting so far.

A new anime about a magic trick club in a school was an "instant drop" after one episode. Just seemed insanely low budget and quality.

A new anime about 4 girls on a deserted island was kinda funny but still felt low budget and bland.

Demon Slayer was going strong for a while but the last few episodes have had the introduction of new characters that are utter trash. As a rule I can't stand the over excited characters who scream every line. And Demon Slayer just introduced TWO of them. Gonna drop it if they remain so obnoxious.

^ In a few weeks I’ll be binge watching again. I left off at what I hope is near the end of wholecake island. I stopped watching at the end of December If I remember correctly. But that’s great to hear , though, I don’t think i’ve ever not enjoyed the beginning of any new arc. The whole set up and introductions of new plots is always enjoyable to me, but we’ll see I guess.

Godzilla 2: City on the Edge of Battle (Netflix original film) - sequel to Godzilla: Monster Planet that sees the remnents of humanity hoping to push back against Godzilla after they discover that the old Mechagodzilla project abandoned thousands of years prior may be salvagable. Has a message about not overly relying on technology and cold logic.

Violence - Mild: Just imagery of war machinery being destroyed and stuff like that. Notging gory.

Sex - None.

Language - Mild: Just your typical PG-13 type stuff.

How'd I like it? It was pretty decent, although I wish that they had kept around a Mechagodzilla in it's traditional form, albiet larger to combat Godzilla Earth. As is, it kinda plays out like the battle from the first movie, just on a larger scale.

Godzilla 3: the Planet Eater (Netflix original film) - The final entry in the trilogy that sees what's left of humanity falling into a cult that promises to destroy Godzilla by summoning their god, King Ghidora (of course this doesn't end up being the best idea). This one has a message about not overly relying on religion or the occult.

Violence - Medium: It's not particularly gory, but does have the most disturbing imagery out of all these films, including a scene that indicates a character was cooked alive just a dream though, a scene where peoples' bodies are being eaten alive by an etheral force (albiet with no gore), and a character's face, clothes, & hands are covered in blood after sustaining damage to their eye.

Sex - Mild: A female character strips down, although nothing is shown, and the scene is presented in a more poignant way.

Language - Mild: Again, just typical PG-13 stuff.

How'd I like it? Again, it was pretty decent, but I wouldn't put the film (or the entire trilogy) on my list of favorite anime movies. I still appreciate that they did something really new with the Godzilla IP, though, as there's nothing else in the Kaiju's long history quite like these films, and they're still worth a look if you're into anime or Godzilla. While he definitely had a sense of scale & power, I wasn't a huge fan of Ghidora's design here.

@kkslider5552000, @CanisWolfred, I knew Flip Flappers sounded familiar. Just looked it up and it was one of the few anime I watched a few years ago for the short time I was actually trying to keep up with the current seasons. I think it was pretty decent but don't remember much of it.

I tend to only watch 2 new anime per new season, and haven't decided on which ones yet. I'm certain Fire Force will be on Toonami someday, so that's off the list. Dr. Stone might as well, but I'd be more willing to watch it now. There's that space anime, there's some magical girl meets mecha anime and of course Vinland Saga. Hard to decide.

@kkslider5552000 I watched the magical girl mecha anime too. Seemed about exactly what you would expect from the description. What space anime are you talking about? I seem to have missed that one.

@Heavyarms55 Astra: Lost in Space. First episode was alright, for a space castaway story.

@CanisWolfred Don't know how I missed something like that. Maybe Crunchyroll doesn't have it. I'll have to double check later. Thanks for the tip!