Seto Kaiba Posted August 25 Posted August 25 Wistoria: Wand and Sword is hitting levels of padded that rival Dragon Ball Z at its worst. Yet it manages to be more infuriating because there aren't a bunch of bystanders filling airtime reacting to every little thing, it's just the protagonist who seems to need to stop for five to ten minutes EVERY TIME he's attacked to gasp, panic, and wonder aloud about the magic he's being attacked with. If you cut out the padding, the fights in this series could be over in ten to fifteen seconds. Honestly, considering the protagonist's gimmick is being superhumanly strong, this is basically just "Mashle but worse in every way". Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted August 26 Posted August 26 Watched episodes seven and eight of Code Geass: Roze of the Recapture... and I'm wondering how someone got this show green-light for production in this state. It's a mess. It's not a little mess either. I was unsurprised to see the series director, Ohashi Yoshimitsu, is normally a storyboard artist and illustrator rather than being involved in any kind of production lead role. The writer, Kimura Noboru, is responsible for some of Bandai Namco's worst mecha titles including Gundam AGE... and it shows. This is a story filled with exploitative fanservice, lazy plot twists, and unlikeable axe crazy characters whose actions don't seem to be connected to any actual outcomes in the plot. It's not the worst recent mecha title I've seen - that dubious honor still belongs to Tatsunoko Production's 2019 series The Price of Smiles - but it's definitely the worst thing that's come out under the Code Geass name and rivals some of the worst installments of Gundam. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted August 26 Posted August 26 Spice and Wolf was good again today. I never tire of that show. I am watching Dairugger XV but I am putting in hold for now. It is just getting too repetitive. Quote
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted August 29 Posted August 29 Tokidoki Bosotto Russia-go de Dereru Tonari no Alya-san is still my choice for Best Summer Anime 2024. Spice and Wolf has finally departed content previously animated, and this allows me to say something positive and maybe recommend it. Maougun Saikyou no Majutsushi wa Ningen datta - Meh, its nothing that hasn't been done before. Its not a bad series, the CGI is painful at points but overall it OK. Not good, just OK. Shinmai Ossan Boukensha, Saikyou Party ni Shinu hodo Kitaerarete Muteki ni Naru. It looks like its gonna wrap with a tournament arc, I have at least read the Manga ahead abit so I know what is coming next. Another meh title. Its not bad, but its not really good either. I have Given Oshi no Ko Season 2 enough time to develop a good head start so I will start watching it. Hopefully its as good as the first season was. Quote
Focslain Posted August 29 Posted August 29 1 hour ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said: I have Given Oshi no Ko Season 2 enough time to develop a good head start so I will start watching it. Hopefully its as good as the first season was. Oshi no Ko S2 seems to have been split into two arcs, the Aqua/Theater arc and the Ruby arc. It just got to the Ruby arc. First half focuses on Aqua and the theater group he is working with. So not as good as S1, but still interesting. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted August 29 Posted August 29 Ginmai Seikatsu if moving along. It is a slow show but well worth it. Quote
Duke Togo Posted August 30 Posted August 30 (edited) Finished the first season of Delicious in Dungeon. It was good. Watching Beastars, which is really good. Also, I finally watched all of Space Battleshio Yamato 2199, which I thought was really good. Currently watching 2202. Edited August 30 by Duke Togo Quote
Big s Posted August 30 Posted August 30 3 hours ago, Duke Togo said: Finished the first season of Delicious in Dungeon. My daughter loves the show and is trying really hard to convince me to finish it. I had watched the first episode and I thought it was really boring. It felt like watching a game tutorial crossed with cooking recipes for food that looks great, but doesn’t exist, so I ended up not only bored but extremely hungry. She tell me that most of the episodes are much better, but I don’t really know anyone else that’s seen it. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted August 30 Posted August 30 5 hours ago, Duke Togo said: Finished the first season of Delicious in Dungeon. It was good. Watching Beastars, which is really good. Also, I finally watched all of Space Battleshio Yamato 2199, which I thought was really good. Currently watching 2202. I am watching Delicious in Dungeon and I am half done and it is great. Yamato 2199 is one of my favorite animes period. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted September 1 Posted September 1 Wistoria: Wand and Sword has finally managed to have an entertaining episode... what a pity it's basically unrelated to the actual plot. Apparently what this painfully half-arsed "Harry Potter if Harry were a muggle with super-strength" fantasy series needed to inject some entertainment value into the proceedings was... [checks notes]... Spoiler ... for the bespectacled protagonist's only two friends to make him the focus of an aggressively hostile and competitive bisexual love triangle. [checks notes again] No, I didn't see that one coming either. The series has been blatantly telegraphing that Will's one female friend (Colette, the blatant Hermione expy) is into him, but when she finally manages to get a not-officially-a-date outing with him in the latest episode the proceedings are hijacked by Will's roommate (and only other friend) Rosty. After a morning of frustration as Rosty derails every date-like thing she tries, Colette confronts Will about it and asks if they're really just roommates. Not an unreasonable question, mind you, given that Will points out that they bathe together and that he for some reason felt compelled to tell her that... Spoiler ... Rosty's "package" is bigger than his. Will is apparently completely clueless and thinks Rosty is "just big into skinship" and doesn't realize Rosty is carrying a torch for him. When Colette and Rosty decide to have it out, they send Will to the smithy to have his sword examined and end up LOUDLY comparing relationship notes on Will in public... with an audience. They're practically about to come to blows over which one of them will be topping this show's femboy protagonist. 🤣 It really is a shame that they pivot away from that amusing little fight to more of the incredibly lackluster protagonist Will and his dealings with the school's top students (despite being basically the lowest ranked student). (That "Harry Potter if Harry were a muggle with super-strength" seems to be an emergent genre of low-effort fantasy anime is distressing in and of itself. It was funny when Mashle did it but that kind of thing is only really funny once.) Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 1 Posted September 1 Wow, I really enjoyed the last two episodes of Monogatari. I really liked Shinobu's backstory. Quote
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted September 12 Posted September 12 Caught the 30th Anniversary Screening for Ninja Scroll last night. AX Cinema nights keeps bringing me back to theatres. Good stuff. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 12 Posted September 12 (edited) Gimai Seikatsu is such a good show. I loved Akiko and her reaction when Yuuta called her mom. Edited September 15 by Hikaru Ichijo SL Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted September 14 Posted September 14 The Summer '24 simulcast season is in the home stretch... and it's been pretty darn uneventful. The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord's Army Was a Human ended the other day and in a fashion as unremarkable as everything else about the series. Spoiler Ike's mixture of Human and Demon forces successfully break the siege and rescue his commander and in the process showcase his various strategic innovations like the use of gunpowder. The Demon Lord then shows up in person to congratulate them on their win, and it ends with Ike receiving a letter from the retreating Human commander basically saying "I'll get you next time, worthy opponent!". Calling this series "dull as dishwater" might honestly be doing a disservice to dishwater... My Wife Has No Emotion also ended recently... and quite honestly it never once stopped being massively, MASSIVELY cringeworthy in every single respect. It didn't quite cross the line into being so appalling that I dropped it, but there's no entertainment value to be had here. Pseudo Harem had its penultimate episode yesterday, and if I had to describe it I'd say all 11 episodes thus far have been the TV equivalent of eating cotton candy. It's sweet and light, but ultimately insubstantial. It has a lot of cute and funny moments but its story had little-to-no feeling of direction or progression. It's not so much a story as just a string of incidents. Failure Frame has actually developed into a watchable series over the last six episodes. It's nowhere near the high bar set by its genre's major players (Overlord, KonoSuba, Re:Zero, and Yojo Senki) but it's head and shoulders above the low-effort isekai and isekai-adjacent shovelware infesting most of the broadcast schedule. Spoiler Once the series all but stopped focusing on Touka's classmates, it became a lot more tolerable. They're all unapologetically sh*tty people and the Goddess they're working for is clearly Evil Incarnate to the point that they're seriously telegraphing the Demon Lord not actually being evil at all. The story finally started going in some interesting directions once Touka started digging into his own trauma and the reflections of it that he saw in the frankly kind of awful fantasy world he's ended up in. He becomes a great deal more interesting and likeable once he starts letting his desire to prevent other people from suffering the way he did guide his actions. No Longer Allowed in Another World was initially kind of funny and audacious, but it hasn't really gone anywhere interesting with its running joke and the seven "Fallen Angels" (isekai'd folks) who embody the seven deadly sins are pretty flat characters so far. So much so that the protagonist even lampshades how uninteresting Gluttony's one is, being just a bored rich kid looking for stimulation. Ossan Newbie Adventurer's 10th episode has more or less closed the door on the possibility of the season going anywhere interesting, since both of the competitors who'd been built up as Final Boss-type opponents for the season were knocked out of their fighting contest already. It's fun, but it's a pretty mediocre 5.5 or 6/10 sort of story. Wistoria: Wand and Sword is back to just kind of being a trashfire. It's one of the most visually distinctive titles in the season lineup but its story is so painfully by-the-numbers that the audience doesn't feel smart for spotting the thread ahead of time. Spoiler The most recent episode introduced what seems to be the story's Big Bad, sabotaging a practical exam in the dungeons below the town so that the protagonist's newly formed ultra-elite group of the school's best mages falls into the deeper levels that are basically Instant Death. Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools dropped its penultimate episode today. Honestly, I'm inclined to wonder if this is just a REALLY badly done adaptation of the light novel and not simply a bland story. There are times where it starts to remind me a lot of Ascendance of a Bookworm, particularly when the protagonist has to learn about the many euphemisms the nobility use as her business starts catering not to regular civilains but to low ranking nobility. Other times, I just have to wonder if there's actually any conflict in the story at all. Spoiler After Dahlia settles the dissolution of her engagement and disentangles her business affairs from her ex-fiance's, her story doesn't really contain any challenges or conflicts to drive the development of her character. Everything she does seems to go perfectly and everyone around her seemingly bends over backwards to ensure she succeeds in whatever she attempts... to the extent that one of the senior guild administrators quits to become her personal gofer. Its weakest point might be how indistinct the visual designs are. The sameface is strong with this one. There's one moment in the latest episode where Dahlia's love interest is sitting in a meeting with the other knights and the person sitting to his left is an Identical Stranger with the exact same character design and uniform who can only be told apart because his hair has a slight blue tint. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 15 Posted September 15 (edited) Dang Shinobu Monogatari was great. I am glad Araragi-Hentai is back. I didn't say it Kanbaru did. Edited September 15 by Hikaru Ichijo SL Quote
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted September 17 Posted September 17 So Random nod to Macross in the latest episode of Megami no Cafe Terrace. Macross in the most unusual places I guess. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 17 Posted September 17 ATRI is a really good show. The Atri backstory was just great. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted September 21 Posted September 21 Crunchyroll announced their Fall 2024 simulcast lineup: https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/seasonal-lineup/2024/9/18/fall-2024-anime-crunchyroll The highlights thus far announced include: A new Dragon Ball series, Dragon Ball DAIMA. A long-overdue third season of Re:Zero, anime's attempt to weaponize depression. A second season of Shangri-La Frontier 365 Days to the Wedding A second season of As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World A fourth season of Blue Exorcist, continuing the previous season's re-railment back to the manga's plot. A second season of the Ruroni Kenshin reboot Seven titles in the lineup have yet to be announced at this time. The Summer 2024 simulcast season's slowly grinding to a halt... and it's still pretty darn unremarkable. Caught the final episode of Pseudo Harem today, and it remained as cute-but-insubstantial as ever right to the end. Failure Frame's penultimate episode kind of lost me again. It's a pretty standard isekai overpowered protagonist shenanigans with stakes so low an ant could use them as a limbo bar. Very excited for the Overlord movie that just came out... Overlord: the Sacred Kingdom. It fills in the two-volume gap in the anime's fourth season between the trip to dwarf country and the destruction of Re-Estize. The trailers looked pretty promising, quality-wise. Lately, I'm kind of wishing for a fourth season of Ascendance of a Bookworm. The English translation of the light novel's 33rd and final volume dropped a week or so ago, and I've started reading it over from the beginning. I definitely wish the anime extended past the end of volume five where things REALLY get nuts. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 22 Posted September 22 (edited) Dang, Shinobumonogatari was great on Saturday. Araragi can be such an idiot sometimes. I really like Hachikuji as a god and her flubbing his name never gets old.. Edited September 22 by Hikaru Ichijo SL Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted September 23 Posted September 23 Finished Code Geass: Roze of the Recapture tonight... and I gotta say this is one I would NOT recommend. It's a very lazy, very half-arsed sequel to Lelouch of the Rebellion that just kind of mindlessly repeats plot points from the original series. The writing remains pretty bad to the very end, and if anything the fight choreography gets significantly worse towards the end as most fights devolve into high speed circling each other. Its big twist is... ripping off Mobile Suit Gundam F91 and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny at the same time... the villain is basically Great Value Rau le Creuset and his master plan is the same on Iron Mask used in F91. When all's said and done, it's as beautifully animated as you'd expect a Bandai Namco Filmworks project to be... it's just boring as hell. None of the characters are developed, the mecha designs are all derivative and generic, the choreography's flat and lifeless, and by the end it just degenerates into a string of cameos by Lelouch of the Rebellion characters who seem to occupy every important position in the world outside of Hokkaido. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 23 Posted September 23 Great end to the 1st season of the new Spice and Wolf. A 2nd season is confirmed. Quote
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted September 24 Posted September 24 3 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said: Great end to the 1st season of the new Spice and Wolf. A 2nd season is confirmed. I am glad to hear they are announcing a 2nd season, hopefully more of the LN gets animated. And with that.. Summer Anime 2024 is quickly giving way to fall. Overall Summer season was pretty blah, a few worth watching but many just blase. 【OSHI NO KO】2nd Season - only about 4 episodes into S2, it has not grabbed me like S1.. not bad but not sure what I am watching at this point. Tokidoki Bosotto Russia-go de Dereru Tonari no Alya-san - Best of the Season, hands down. S2 coming.. huzzah Failure Frame - Aka edge lord, and an elf with booba. still going but meh. Gimai Seikatsu - aka tell me you wanna bang your step sibling, without telling me you wanna bang your step sibling. It escalated quickly and then turned boring pretty fast, it wasn't bad, but not really good either. Maougun Saikyou no Majutsushi wa Ningen datta - another very bland series for this season. I get the feeling that the Cheese CGI really hurt this series, and the fact that it was apparent very early that it wasn't gonna go anywhere at the end. Again not bad, mostly average and what Summer 2024 was all about apparently. Shinmai Ossan Boukensha, Saikyou Party ni Shinu hodo Kitaerarete Muteki ni Naru. This series had some good potential early on, and the whole 1 cour pacing really stung on this one. Not great by any means but one of the few I took an interest in and read further then where the Anime ended. If the anime interested in you at all, check out the manga it sets a better pace. Spicey Wolf.. *sigh* OK yeah I enjoyed it. Really though only the last 4 episodes really made my day. Everything else was already done, and in someways better already. Giji Harem - I liked it. It was pretty straight forward, it had some silliness and the Mrs liked it as well. Not gonna bring home any awards but it was entertaining. Megami no Cafe Terrace 2nd Season - I enjoyed the 1st season, 2nd season was much of the same...... EXCEPT.. they totally botched the end of S2. Where and how they ended it was probably the worst I have seen since Promised Neverland S2.. ok maybe not THAT bad. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 24 Posted September 24 No Longer Allowed in Another World ended it was ok.Nothing great. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted September 25 Posted September 25 This has been a pretty unremarkable season... Caught the final episodes of Ossan Newbie Adventurer, The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant, and No Longer Allowed in Another World today while home sick, and none of it was really... eh... impactful? Interesting? None of it was bad, it's just deep in "So OK it's average!" territory. It passes the time but it does not really entertain. My hopes are much higher for next season's lot. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 25 Posted September 25 Love Is Indivisible by Twins is over and it was lackluster at best. I feel this anime season was lackluster at best, Quote
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted September 27 Posted September 27 (edited) So I'm pretty far in on Oshi no Ko S2, ep 21 at this point. And in the course of 2 episodes they may have just killed the entire series for me. S1 was far superior to whatever this is, S2 is falling into the character over exposition trope that is treating the viewer as if they are idiots. There are still a few episodes to go, and they spent waaaaay too long on this play. However that is the least of its issues currently, when you remove the driving factor from an MC it makes them dull. Congrats. Edited September 27 by Stampeed Valkyrie Quote
Focslain Posted September 27 Posted September 27 (edited) 16 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said: So I'm pretty far in on Oshi no Ko S2, ep 21 at this point. And in the course of 2 episodes they may have just killed the entire series for me. S1 was far superior to whatever this is, S2 is falling into the character over exposition trope that is treating the viewer as if they are idiots. There are still a few episodes to go, and they spent waaaaay too long on this play. However that is the least of its issues currently, when you remove the driving factor from an MC it makes them dull. Congrats. Soooo about that... Spoiler S2 has kind of been a double rug pull. Aqua/Ruby's father is still alive. The guy shown to us is a red herring, in fact you'll see thier father shortly (he already appeared a few eps after the theater arc completes). The first half of S2 was Aqua focused and seems to be to give him pause as to what to do AFTER he completes his mission. He is not done yet. Hell even Akane figures out he got tricked, she doesn't tell him (yet), but she was quick on the ball. Also they are returning to the facility were they died, so that is going to be interesting. Edited September 27 by Focslain used old spoiler code Quote
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted September 27 Posted September 27 ok with that answer.. I am not clicking on the spoiler. I will be patient and see if it improves. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted September 27 Posted September 27 Reincarnated as a slime s3 ended and 4 was announced and a 2nd movie. Quote
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted October 1 Posted October 1 Just finished Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant. All episodes were only 12 min give or take. Not bad, pretty saccharin you'll need an insulin shot.. I think the only thing worth of note that I found weird was the age gap between the 2. In some scenes they really go out of their way to highlight the difference. Quote
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted October 2 Posted October 2 Dang that was a great start to ReZero season 3. Also it is 90min. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted October 5 Posted October 5 Well, the new simulcast season has officially started. So far, I've got seven titles bookmarked. The second season of As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World is probably the one I have the highest hopes for. I've also decided to give Let This Grieving Soul Retire, Mecha-Ude, 365 Days to the Wedding, Goodbye Dragon Life, Re:Zero S3, and I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History a try. Have you ever had one of those moments where you judge a book by its cover and then read it only to discover you were absolutely correct? That's what I'm having at about 4:16 into I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History's first episode. Isekai titles already suffer from a punishing lack of variety, and the otome game-based ones doubly so due to a lack of diversity in storytelling. This is definitely more towards the shovelware end of the isekai quality spectrum and it makes little secret of its copycatting My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!. The closest it seems to want to come to putting its own twist on it is having its protagonist want to become like the villainess in the game (and fail from earnestly trying too hard) instead of trying to avoid it (and succeeding too much). Kind of avoiding starting Re:Zero season three yet... that story has always been a little too dark even for me. I'm glad I'm not a shounen anime fan, because it sounds like those people are PISSED right now. My Hero Academia apparently ended recently with an incredibly unsatisfying end... Spoiler ... in which its protagonist Deku loses his powers, gets no credit for saving the world, and spends eight years being completely ignored by his friends and classmates after graduation as a result until Bakugo gifts him a powered suit so he can work as a hero again and be a teacher at UA. Now Jujutsu Kaisen is under fire for its own terrible conclusion, which has the mangaka being accused of both stalling and character shilling for the villain... Spoiler ... with "King of Curses" Sukuna going down like an absolute chump thanks to a character who the entire cast and audience believed was dead since way before the final story arc even started. Both titles are being branded as having "The Worst Ending Ever" right now... better hope Eiichiro Oda sticks the landing with the ending of One Piece in the not-too-distant future, or there might be riots. Quote
Duke Togo Posted October 5 Posted October 5 Dug the first episode of the new Ranma 1/2. Set in the 80s, so it's not been transposed into the 21st century. Quote
Beltane70 Posted October 6 Posted October 6 9 hours ago, Duke Togo said: Dug the first episode of the new Ranma 1/2. Set in the 80s, so it's not been transposed into the 21st century. They did the same with the new Urusei Yatsura as well. Quote
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted October 6 Posted October 6 So wrapped Oshi no Ko S2.. I'll take back some of what I said, but double down on other parts. S2 was not as strong as S1, they spent waaaaaaaay too much time on the so called "theatre arc". All the while every characters moves and motive being narrated to you the whole time... it really does treat the viewers like they are dumb. The twist during the final few episodes and the "passing" of the proverbial driving factor passing from Aqua to Ruby just doesn't click. Neither does the whole motivation that Aqua has just turning off like a light switch. TBH its hard to review this without spoilers. I assume there will be a S3 considering the ending credits, but TBH I don't think I much care at this point. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.