Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Binged watched all of the Star Wars Visions episodes this morning. Despite being the "safest" premises I think "The Duel" & "The Elder" were amongst my favorites, though I thought "Lop & Ocho" was excellent too, and "the Bride" & "the Ninth Jedi" were very solid. Elsewhere I found myself enjoying the one with the little robot boy (can't remember the name) more than I thought I would, "the Twins" was fun but perhaps a bit OTT considering the source material, and though I appreciate it for doing something different I wasn't big on "Tatooine Rhapsody". Also, while it deserves credit for the unexpected ending, the last one wasn't one of my faves (though I'll admit I wasn't big on it's art direction, so that could have played a part).

Still, overall it's very much worth a look.

Recently I’ve watched Code Geass Season 2, which was great. And the Evangelion Rebuild movies. I loved the second film especially, but I wasn’t as into where it went after that.

In the last couple of days I’ve binged Odd Taxi and I’d also highly recommend it. Best to go in blind and it doesn’t look that good, but then just start watching it.

Part 4 JoJo is something that needs to be experienced, nobody can tell you how good it is

Is there some sort of relatively new Japanese law that forbids anime from mentioning real world locations/historical events?

I've been watching Lupin the 3rd: a Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and recently watched an episode that used the Cuban revolution as the backdrop, and while it featured geographically correct maps (including clear shots at Cuba itself, plus highlighting the US & Soviet Union), as well as other real world references & institutions (such as the Doomsday Clock & United Nations), almost everything else was, very lazily, renamed.

• Cuba itself became Carib (although just a play on Caribbean, it's probably the most subtle change).
• Havana became Navaha.
• Fidel Castro himself was Philadel Kest.
• The USA was United States of Yamerica (although the continent of South America was unscathed).
• Even the Atlantic Ocean had to assume an alternate identity as the Atlantique Ocean.

What could possibly be the point of using real world events as a backdrop if you're ultimately going to pussyfoot around it in the least subtle way imaginable, unless they're technically not allowed to?

Heck, I already feel like more modern anime are foregoing the real world altogether in comparison to the older stuff, but now it also feels like when they do seem to take place in the real world they make lazy edits such as the above.

@RR529 I doubt it's a law, since there's still tons of games and manga that use Japan as a setting.

It took me a second to realize what that was but ah, of course.

I was one of the cool kids that watched the first season when it aired, go me. That rarely happens with anything. Though I haven't gotten around to the movie yet.

I watched Toradora last month. It's one of those series that's mostly just ok, but the most important thing the show is about, is great, so it turns out really well anyway.

AWESOME! There's gonna be a Scott Pilgrim anime.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/7/22872921/scott-pilgrim-anim...

Finally got around to watching Higurashi Sotsu. Currently midways through.

Anime:

Darling in the Franxx (Uncut/Dub) - Just started it this weekend & am already 6 episodes in. They haven't done much world building yet to explain what exactly is going on, but the character drama has been engaging & the action is very kinetic & fun.

Keijo!!!!!!! (Uncut/Dub) - Finished this up earlier in the week. Show that follows a group of girls as they train to go pro in a martial art where they can only use their breasts & butts. Unrepentantly silly & absolutely full of cheesecake (though it stops short of any real nudity), but a fun time if you're in the right mindset.

Yashahime: Princess Half Demon (Simulcast/Sub) - Only currently ongoing show I'm following, and season 2 has just started it's second half. Finally get to see InuYasha & Kagome outside of a flashback which was WAY overdue (especially since it's looking like this might be the last season), but it was worth it. Definitely can't shake the feeling that it's ultimately InuYasha's "GT" though (and one that seems ultimately more interested in appeasing the SessRin shipping niche...).

Manga:

InuYasha - About halfway through now I think. I've read it a couple times before through unofficial means, though I'm buying the official releases (digitally) and going through it again on my Fire tablet.

Triage X - Another one I've been buying on my tablet. Only one volume to go before I'm all caught up (don't think the series is complete yet, though I think it's getting close). A bit heavy on the fan service, but it's a genuinely interesting action series too.

I know some people who are really hyped for that one. I'm not one of them, since I watched 7 episodes of Planet With and didn't get the appeal.

I finished up Darling in the Franxx last night, and thought it was excellent.

Sure, I wasn't big on some of the robot designs at first (though they make a bit more sense once you get more into it) & it does that thing where in the last 4-5 episodes it completely upends itself & suddenly transforms into an intergalactic scale conflict, but the character relationships & background lore really elevated this one for me (and hey, the action was pretty great as well).

Between this and Gridman, Trigger has really been doing it for me as of late.

Oh man, I swear I read like this like a decade ago or longer? Is this still around?

So I've been slowly trying to catch up on a bunch of anime I missed over the last year or so, my first stop was to catch up fully on MHA. I don't understand why this show isn't better animated/directed given they have taken the decision to do this on a season by season basis, rather than try and churn out it out on a weekly basis. It certainly results in higher quality animation overall in comparison to those shows, but not to really any massive degree. There are much better animated shows around it.

I also thought this season was just a bit odd story wise. The thread title says no spoilers and I dunno what even counts as a spoiler so like, here are some tags with some thoughts: like spending a lot of time trying to create sympathy I guess for Endeavour just seemed really misguided to me. As did introducing what seems like a major new villain only to have them defeated in like one fight (and not even like a big grand fight, it was over fairly quickly). Like a lot of this just felt really slow and aimless, with some pretty mediocre animation and I was waiting for some big blow out battle with all of the budget behind it to explain what the purpose of this season was and it just never came.

I am also slowly working my way through Tokyo Revengers, people seem to be absolutely nuts for this but I just think it is mostly fine. It is decently animated, well performed with a "one more episode" kind of energy. But in typical anime fashion, it does sometimes feel like we've spent three episodes doing what could have been done in about 10 minutes and I don't feel like all that extra time spent has enhanced anything.

I am also watching Idaten, this is a... weird one. It is gorgeously animated and directed, although heavily stylised. It is pretty much all style, no substance, but it is nice to have these big battles back to back with very little filler to wade through in between. The issue for me is I really hate sex stuff in anime, I am sure there are examples where it is not weird, but every anime I've seen with this stuff it is always creepy, weird and usually pretty vile. Like the first episode literally ends with a contextless, out of nowhere, adds nothing, extended rape scene. Yikes. I kinda half thought about bouncing there because it was so repulsive, but I kept going and it is starting to take another dark turn and I dunno, I might end up dropping this.

I mean, it does air roughly half of every year at this point (barring pandemic delays), compared to shows that take like 2-3 years to make, so that honestly makes sense to me. If anything, I'm impressed the show consistently has held up as well as it has.

Sure, but you compare it to some of the shounen shows out there that are churned out on a weekly basis with no breaks (other than filler arcs when they catch up) and I wouldn't say that off season results in dramatically better quality production. I am sure it is better for the workers and I am all for that, just a shame the show isn't just sorta better as well.

While we are here, I also watched the first episode of the new Shenmue anime. I've never played a Shenmue game (or even know much about the franchise), but I am always up for a new action show. Honestly though the opening episode did not sell this to me at all, really janky, rushed storytelling and very inconsistent animation/direction. However, the action scenes were pretty good, albeit very brief. I might give it a couple more episodes to see how it lands.

I'd say MHA looks obviously and more consistently better than basically any long runner I've ever watched. Maybe its because I never got around to the most recent season, but I genuinely have no idea what you're even on about.

It does look better and more consistent, I already said that. Just not dramatically so. You look at all the style of like a Jujutsu Kaisen which is done in seasons, versus the mostly fairly bland looking MHA which looks way closer to your weekly shounen chrunathon.

I think that reflects more on how impressive JJK is then badly on MHA. And quite frankly, if JJK ends up on that annual schedule, it'll presumably run into some of the same issues (see also: Attack on Titan).

But to be fair, the standards of tv anime animation is wild nowadays. MHA was absolutely one of the best looking tv anime of the year during its first couple of seasons, but in the past 3 years there's been an unbelievable amount of anime that one-upped MHA at its best. I watched a mobile game adaptation a while ago that looked better than it. Why is a mobile game, let's be honest, advertisement better looking than a seasonal shonen series done by studio Bones? I dunno!

So I think its more that MHA has failed to live up to increasingly higher expectations. Along with other potential issues (I've heard people suggest the movie/s might've taken priority and caused some issues, I don't know anything about that).