Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Might be the beginning of the end for Netflix then. I'm concerned though that all these different services popping up is going to destroy streaming in general. Part of the appeal of the service want no ads, watch when you want, as long as you want, on one platform. If people need to start signing up to 4, 5, 6, 10, 15 different services to watch what we used to watch on one or two... I think that's gonna ruin it.

For now I am glad that most anime is still on Crunchyroll, in fact ever since they teamed up directly with Funimation they have even more options. I'd hate to see that break up and spread among several different services.

@Heavyarms55 Funimation and Crunchyroll ended their partnership last year: https://help.crunchyroll.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018119512-W...

No kidding. I just watched the first episode of Wano and I couldn’t be more happy how it’s turning out. It looks so good; the colors, the characters actually look like they come straight from the manga not the abysmal stuff from before. The animation, which I don’t even value as high as other stuff, is also great. I hope they can keep this up, who is the one at the helm? And how can we keep him/her there till the end?

@Heavyarms55, I don't necessarily mind 12-13 episode seasons, but unless they know they're getting a second season, don't blatantly set up a sequel.

I also watched the Last Hope recently, and while I think it had an inferior premise & some absolutely hideous monster designs, since it was a 24-26 episode series (I believe two 12-13 episode seasons) it had the time to explore it's characters more deeply & have more "downtime" just to get to know them, so I cared about them more by series' end.

Here I want to share my fav anime those are : One punch man , attack on titans, Death note and fairy tail. Hope to find more people having interest in them https://mcdvoice.dev/

@gandreww0 I have not actually seen AOT but I love one punch man, death note and fairy tail

@RR529 That's kind of the thing though - many series do set up a sequel/leave off on cliffhangers because they are based on larger source material. I think the idea was to push people to support the show and buy the merchandise to make that second season happen. It's a defective system of throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. "Is it wrong to pick up girls in a Dungeon" was a great example that somehow did manage this, but it's second season - now airing - took 6 years and a spin off to happen. I could go through my reviews on Crunchyroll and name you a dozen other shows easily that I have watched, liked, and gotten frustrated by their lack of conclusion and unconfirmed second season.

Oh and yes, 12-13 episodes isn't inherently bad. I've seen some shows around that length that I really really loved.

@CanisWolfred Huh... well there's a memo I missed...

@Heavyarms55, yeah, I guess I was just spoiled growing up on Toonami & Adult Swim where they handpicked the popular series to air, so they were likely to be the success stories that were either complete, or at the very least had a number of seasons under their belt.

So in that sense, the reality that most shows are 12-13 episodes long and don't get a sequel is just a bit hard to come to grips with.

@RR529 I grew up with Toonami & Adult Swim too. But that was many years ago. I've spent longer watching season anime first from sketchy probably illegal streaming sites with fan-subs then on Crunchyroll and sometimes Netflix. And since studying Japanese and moving to Japan, I can almost comfortably watch anime without subtitles - unless it's really heavy on technical terms or outright technobabble.

tr;dr I watched the US stuff too growing up but spent longer since then watching seasonal anime.

To be fair, the fact that a lot of shows end on cliffhangers that never get resolved because they're based on ongoing source material is the number 1 reason why I gave up watching adaptations unless they were guaranteed successes that would try to adapt the whole series, or were based on source material I was already actively seeking out (which only happens rarely, but it does happen. See One Punch Man and Vinland Saga for examples). I'm tired of getting one or two seasons, and then being told to go read a book. They're two completely different experiences, and I vastly prefer the audio/visual experience anime brings to the table.

I grew up on Toonami as well, but the only thing that I feel needed to change with the times, was when I could watch when I wanted, not how long the stories were. This season's been an exception for me, since a lot of high-profile shows started up that have a really good chance of actually having an ending, but usually I've found more comfort watching older titles, or at least old-school inspired ones. I could try to watch a show like Attack on Titan or Demon Slayer, where they seem to rush through their plot beats to get the main events, but when I pop in a show like Space Runaway Ideon...it's just a much better experience for me. It takes the time to let the story breath, and gives the audience a chance to take in the characters, the setting, the music...it's no masterpiece, but it's definitely more my speed.

Good lord I dropped Demon Slayer like a rotten potato. They ruined that show with the introduction of Inosuke and Zenitsu! But I've like more of AoT than I haven't. Although I almost dropped it when they had like 27 separate subplots going at once for side characters I didn't care about. The more recent season really pulled me back in having shifted focus back to the main cast.

Though I understand your point about anime adaptations of ongoing source material. I'm too much a gluten for anime. If I skipped over all the anime based on ongoing source material I'd be cutting off like half or more of what I watch. I need my Sunday after 3-5 hour anime marathon gosh darn it!

I mean, I tend to watch anime in week-long marathons, yet it doesn't stop me from being picky about what I watch.

I don't mind a couple pieces of junk food alongside a few gourmet dishes. A show has to be pretty bad for me to abandon it or refuse to watch it outright. I have a habit of having 4-8 weekly anime that I am following. On average I actually really like maybe 2 of them, another 2-4 I consider decent time wasters and usually 1-2 "bad but entertaining".

I mean, you do you, but I still don't believe it's possible to run out of good-to-great shows to watch even at your stated pace. shrugs

Everyone's got different tastes. Looking at average ratings, I tend to be a lot more harsh than most folks. Lots of shows I only consider decent, other people love.

To be fair, I don't think I really "get" what the idea of a time waster. As in, like, I literally spent the last 2 hours reevaluating how I define the term and what generally comes to mind whenever it comes up in discussions. I understand that if you're enjoying a show, then I think that's all that really matters. I just happen to have a strict set of criteria on what I enjoy.

However, my mind tends to interpret "time-wasters" and "junkfood shows" as "I'm watching this to fill time and it could literally be anything, as long as lights are on screen and sounds are playing in the backround." Because I've been there, for real. I remember the hours I used to spend flipping through mind-numbing shows on TV just so I'd have something to watch, because I had effectively based my entire sense of self-worth on a square box in the living room. I remember how free I felt when I finally quit cold-turkey. I remember when I relapsed a year later, staying up late watching anything I could to numb my mind to the fact that I had to go to school in the morning...which I was usually too much of a zombie to handle, sometimes even passing out in the hallway.

My point is, I'm used to thinking of my hobbies as addictions I barely keep in check, so please forgive me when I hear you, and plenty of other anime fans, say that they spend a few hours every weekend watching shows you know aren't as good as something else you could be watching, and feel compelled to ask: "why are you wasting your time?" I've gotten so used have to justifying every episode I watch, as a part of my self-prescribed rehabilitation program, that I genuinely forgot it's not ingrained into the normal experience of watching anime.

@CanisWolfred "I'm watching this to fill time and it could literally be anything, as long as lights are on screen and sounds are playing in the backround." - In that sense, then no, I'm not just watching any time wasters. When I say time waster I just mean something I consider nothing special in terms of quality, but I still am entertained by.

Your point about "watching shows you know aren't as good as something else you could be watching" isn't something I consider accurate. Unless we count rewatching things I've already seen. I'm not going to consciously choose something else when there is something better I know I can and want to watch at that moment.

And as for hobbies being an addiction you can barely keep in check? That's cool. I sometimes wish I could have something that I can just slam for the entire day. But even my favorite things, shows, games, food, drinks, I burn out on if I over do it. It does happen every now and then when I get really into something that, suddenly 12 hours go by and I'm confused why I am so hungry, but that's pretty uncommon. For me.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, I guess that makes more sense, not every show belongs on a pedestal, if I'm understanding you correctly. I know I very rarely watch certain kinds of shows, but if I'm in a certain mood, I'll lap it up. I'm thinking something like Sgt. Frog or Arakawa Under The Bridge. They're not my favorite shows ever, but I had fun when I was willing to give them a chance.

I didn't bother qualifying what shows I generally go towards, since it didn't seem important, but I should mention that I do burn out on stuff, too, but that usually only happens after something reaches an unhealthy stage - when it becomes "just a habit," instead of something I'm doing for fun. In the case of anime, I only seek out shows with compelling narratives that I think will pay off in the end, or ones that present interesting characters and locations that I desire to learn about. It doesn't always have to be a rollercoaster ride, but it does have to present a continuous stream of information that fuels my obsession.

...which honestly, never felt like a lot to ask for, and still doesn't, but I'm surprised just how much gets cut out of the seasonal line-up pretty much by default based on that criteria. If a story doesn't seem guarateed to reach a conclusion, if it is episodic and therefore isn't continuous, if the only world it presents lacks imagination, or the characters don't have a goal worth following - then I can't maintain the type of momentum I'm used to. That's part of what I was getting at when I said I needed to "qualify every episode I watched": It's okay for me to binge a story that's building upon itself, because if I stop now, I could miss out or forget information that'll be important later on. It's not okay for me to spend 12 hours watching a story that never goes anywhere, with characters that never accomplish anything, just so I can have something to watch. That's just depressing.

TL;DR

The grass is always greener on the other side. I wish I could watch a "junkfood show" without it feeling like a compulsion.

@CanisWolfred You know, I was just thinking that exact quote this morning, like, word for word. "the grass is always greener on the other side".