What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[AN/ALQ128]

Found the Sento Yosei Shoujo Tasukete! Mave-chan OVA in my local japanese bookstore, purchased it just for curiosities sake. It was okay, the character designs were pretty nice to look at, and there was something nostalgic about that early 2000's digital anime look.

[Petrov27]

Goblin Slayer - liking it more than I thought I would 

Slime - pretty average but watchable

Golden Kamuy - love it - really great

Zombie Land - this did not look at all like something I would like, but gave it a shot and digging it so far

[frothymug]

Recently finished LoGH. Great series, a bit of a slow ending, but would otherwise recommend heartily.

Goblin Slayer is done. Nice epic battle to finish off the season. Looking forward to more!

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finished Irozuku I haven't had a final episode of a series make me cry so much since Clannad.

[Seto Kaiba]

I've just finished watching Ulysses: Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knight... and this show is GARBAGE.

"Train wreck" would not be a strong enough word for how badly this show ends.  The last couple episodes of this series are nearly incomprehensible gibberish.  The French army marches on Orleans to lift the siege, Jeanne gets another confrontation with Philip of Burgundy that ends in a draw when Montmorency tries to save Jeanne by activating the other half of his philosopher's stone to power himself up.  

Spoiler

Instead of killing him Fist of the North Star style like it did other people, it opens some kind of negative space wedgie out of which they get a sky full of cthuloid tentacle monster - which was quite random enough - followed by the ancient Sumerian god Enlil.  Why Enlil?  Why NOT Enlil?  It comes completely out of the blue and is pretty much unexplained except in some vague flashback about Astaroth helping humans rebel against the gods for... reasons?  So Enlil possesses Montmorency because why not, and traps his mind in flashbacks because the budget of this series took a f*cking nosedive.  Enlil starts trying to exterminate humanity for... reasons... I'm sure he had some, even if he doesn't share them with the audience... by way of a Zentradi-esque orbital bombardment from his fleet of spaceships because why not?  Jeanne plays tonsel hockey with a thirteen-foot Sumerian god to wake Montmorency up, which results in another sharp drop in animation quality and the voice actors sounding increasingly like they have pressing business somewhere else.  Jeanne and Montmorency proceed to one-shot Enlil by smacking him in the throat with a sword, a choice that results in the bottom falling out of the animation quality and a now fifty foot tall Enlil coming apart at the seams like an extra-large latex balloon while spouting dialog right out of a bad hentai OVA.

Somehow, nobody else on the battlefield seems to have found any of this the least bit odd, and the French Army proceeds to run the British clean off the battlefield offscreen while the British dispense some incredibly awkward expository dialog which borders on Suspiciously Specific Denial about how this totally won't be remembered as a great moment in French history.  An epilogue swiftly follows in which Montmorency, Jeanne, and La Hire are given medals, a gratuitous party scene ensues for all of fifteen seconds, and then newly appointed General Montmorency announces plans to march on Reims.  Everyone then gives Montmorency sh*t for his relationship with Jeanne because she's underage.  Cut to credits.

Basically, this show ends on a three episode long Big Lipped Alligator Moment with an exponential decline in animation quality.

It comes out of nowhere, it makes no sense, and it's forgotten almost immediately... it's so utterly bizarre that, if I didn't have to pay for it, I'd actually want to read the original source material just to see if there's any context that might make this gibberish make sense.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Chugging along on a rewatch of Eureka 7.   Currently on ep 20 out of 50.    I remember watching parts of this series back when it first came out and I dropped it.  

Also started back up with Index 3 again..  I think the creator of this series just wanted to toss in random English words,  and needed a reason..   the sheer number of random groups with English names is silly (School, Item, Member)    The plot is so far gone at this point,  I don't know who is on who's side and Accelerator is the only real redeeming character and that is stretching it.     Ultimately I may end up dropping this franchise,  which is a shame since this was one of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

2 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Chugging along on a rewatch of Eureka 7.   Currently on ep 20 out of 50.    I remember watching parts of this series back when it first came out and I dropped it.  

Also started back up with Index 3 again..  I think the creator of this series just wanted to toss in random English words,  and needed a reason..   the sheer number of random groups with English names is silly (School, Item, Member)    The plot is so far gone at this point,  I don't know who is on who's side and Accelerator is the only real redeeming character and that is stretching it.     Ultimately I may end up dropping this franchise,  which is a shame since this was one of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

The English in Index does start to get a bit silly after awhile,  Most of the characters powers are also in English.  Have you read the Light Novels because it is following it pretty closely.

[technoblue]

I started watching Asobi Asobase today. 

[Gerli]

Watching the anime of the ShieldBro, it's nice to see an Isekai were the MC is not an overpowered killing machine from the beginning.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Looking at the current season's offerings, it feels like slim pickings compared to the past couple...

Tatsunoko Production has a new series, The Price of Smiles, which looks mildly interesting... promotional images say mecha anime, but the description sounds more like romcom.

Kinema Citrus's The Rising of the Shield Hero also looks mildly interesting, though it feels like we're in for a slew of Goblin Slayer! copycats of which this is the first.

A-1 Pictures has a romcom Kaguya-sama: Love is War that also looks interesting, if only for the inherent comedic value in a plot built around a couple who flat out refuse to actually admit they like each other.

 

Anyone know if Domestic Girlfriend has been picked up for simulcast by anyone?

Edited January 4, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finished Rokka no Yuusha annd I thought what the hell did I waste the time for.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Just wrapped up Eureka 7..   I dropped this series when it first came out because the characters were annoying..    I gave it a go again since I got the blu-ray cheap and my initial observations still stand.    50 episodes was too long for this series and the amount of teen angst and drama really drags this down.    While overall I would give this series a 6.5/10 it is mediocre at best,  never understood the hype behind it.

Also finished Chivalry of a Failed Knight another title I picked up cheaply.     This probably had some good source material,   but the anime did not convey it very well.     It started with a fanservice scene right off the bat so you knew where this was going.   It spent more time on pointless fights early on,  and then totally blew the last and only fight  that I was looking forward to watching in the last episode.  Then explained it all away with anime magica or something.      I know I am being harsher then I should be since I picked this up cheap,   but it deserves the bargain bin treatment.   4/10

Next on my list is What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us?  and Rosario Vampire..    WorldEnd has my interest,  Rosario Vampire..  not at all.

Gonna take abit of a break first though Eureka 7 wiped me out.

 

[Focslain]

42 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Next on my list is What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us?  and Rosario Vampire..    WorldEnd has my interest,  Rosario Vampire..  not at all.

Rosario Vampire is a cross between High School DxD and Monster Musume, but with less fan service and lack luster story.

It's not terrible, just bland.

I binged the second season of Pandora and it was a little better then the first. Piano man was a more interesting villain then golden boy. 

Also finished Goblin Slayer, overall outside of the cringy first half of Ep 1 it was a good series. GS and the crew fighting off the goblin army near the end with actual tactics was epic. Major props for the unorthodox ways he dealt with the big bads.

Later I'm going to binge the last part of Zombieland Saga and Time I was reincarnated as a slime, just waiting for our monday group to finish them before I hit it. I started playing Pathfinder on Monday so I don't watch with them.

For thrusday since GS is over the plan is to do double eps of Seven Deadly Sins plus an ep of Unfortunate Events until something else catches the group interest.

Later I want to go through Bunny Senpie as well when I have the time.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Next on my list is What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us?  and Rosario Vampire..    WorldEnd has my interest,  Rosario Vampire..  not at all.

The original manga Rosario+Vampire is actually pretty good and gets surprisingly dark in the second half.

The anime does not do it even a tiny bit of justice... as it mostly plays down the actual story in favor of the harem comedy and fanservice that were prevalent early in the manga but got mostly phased out as the main story got rolling.  Unfortunately, the anime ends before it ever reaches the parts of the story where the manga really came into its own so it's mostly just really short skirts and cleavage.

 

1 hour ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Just wrapped up Eureka 7..   I dropped this series when it first came out because the characters were annoying..    I gave it a go again since I got the blu-ray cheap and my initial observations still stand.    50 episodes was too long for this series and the amount of teen angst and drama really drags this down.    While overall I would give this series a 6.5/10 it is mediocre at best,  never understood the hype behind it.

Like the series it was ripping off (Neon Genesis Evangelion), Eureka Seven really is criminally overrated.

Renton's so passive and whiny that it's surprisingly easy to cheer for Holland for beating the crap out of him, or the Beams's for attempting to make him stop being a whiny b*tch.

Even the mechanical designs are pretty ho-hum for the most part.

 

I'm going to take a whack at finishing Lupin III: the Italian Adventure, Conception, The Price of Smiles, and Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches.

[kajnrig]

People are freaking out:

 

 

 

 

[TehPW]

can someone explain Overlord (and why does it feel like that the Evil toons win in the end)? I understand that the skeleton Necro is/was a PC that remained logged in after the server shut down but he still seems like he's either Chaotic Evil (or Chaotic Neutral)…? I started watching random clips on YouTube (pity that Abridged only has 1 eps for Overlord) and I do like it... but it's rather... hmm.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, TehPW said:

can someone explain Overlord (and why does it feel like that the Evil toons win in the end)? I understand that the skeleton Necro is/was a PC that remained logged in after the server shut down but he still seems like he's either Chaotic Evil (or Chaotic Neutral)…?

Overlord lost a bit of context in the anime adaptation.

The main character was a salaryman in a crapsack future not dissimilar to Alien's where megacorporations basically run the Earth and have destroyed the environment, and his escape is a fully immersive cybernetic VR MMORPG called Yggdrasil.  He was a guild master for one of the game's most celebrated and featured guilds, Ainz Ooal Gown, which was famous for PKing with its "pay evil unto evil" mindset because it was founded to present a united front against cyberbullying of players who played heteromorphic (monster) characters.  They kind of took the monsters=evil mindset and said "then let me be evil" and architected their guildhall/dungeon around that premise, so all but one or two of the NPCs were card-carrying villains with terrible karma scores.

Once their guild headquarters, which was also the game's toughest dungeon the Great Tomb of Nazarick) is inexplicably sent to an alternate world when the servers were due to shut down, the only logged-in player in the dungeon (guildmaster Satoru Suzuki AKA Momonga) is stuck in the body of his undead (Overlord class) character.  Unfortunately, his undead body plays by the rules for the undead in this new world AND for the game... so not only is his state of mind influenced by his villainous karma score, his range of emotional responses is deadened or outright suppressed and it seems to get worse as time goes on to the extent that he worries that he's becoming his character.  Not being able to feel horror or sadness over killing people has him slowly sliding down that slippery slope towards authentic evil... and having his de facto court and headquarters packed full of heteromorph NPCs who'd been programmed by the various guild members to detest humans and engage in a variety of horrific behavior isn't helping.

 

 

(As to why they win... well, Momonga and the Nazarick NPCs are Level 100 in a world where the strongest warriors seldom top Level 20.  Previous Yggdrasil players who ended up in that world were literally worshipped as gods.)

Edited January 8, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[chyll2]

For this season, I unexpectedly watched a mecha show, Egao no Daika.

 

Also excited for Season 2 of Mob Psycho 100.

[JB0]

5 minutes ago, chyll2 said:

For this season, I unexpectedly watched a mecha show, Egao no Daika.

They still make those?!

[chyll2]

In a world of Isekai and Idols, I was surprised to see some Giant robot fighting. I don't know if it is any good though, first episode is nothing I have never seen before.

[JB0]

Ooooh, what if they made a cyberpunk mecha isekai.

 

"I awoke in another world and everything was neon-lit, then my dying grandfather gave me a giant robot with a huge sword, but I haven't cracked the startup password yet. and the aliens just attacked", or "RoboPass" for short.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, JB0 said:

They still make those?!

The Price of Smiles, which started airing last week, appears to be a mecha anime from no less than Tatsunoko Production.

 

1 hour ago, JB0 said:

Ooooh, what if they made a cyberpunk mecha isekai.

 

 "I awoke in another world and everything was neon-lit, then my dying grandfather gave me a giant robot with a huge sword, but I haven't cracked the startup password yet. and the aliens just attacked", or "RoboPass" for short.

"The password is 1-2-3-4-5?  That's the stupidest password I've ever heard!  It's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!"

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finished Clockwork Planet and I really liked it.  RyuZu is just so cute.  I also really like the theme song.

[TehPW]

22 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Overlord lost a bit of context in the anime adaptation.

The main character was a salaryman in a crapsack future not dissimilar to Alien's where megacorporations basically run the Earth and have destroyed the environment, and his escape is a fully immersive cybernetic VR MMORPG called Yggdrasil.  He was a guild master for one of the game's most celebrated and featured guilds, Ainz Ooal Gown, which was famous for PKing with its "pay evil unto evil" mindset because it was founded to present a united front against cyberbullying of players who played heteromorphic (monster) characters.  They kind of took the monsters=evil mindset and said "then let me be evil" and architected their guildhall/dungeon around that premise, so all but one or two of the NPCs were card-carrying villains with terrible karma scores.

Once their guild headquarters, which was also the game's toughest dungeon the Great Tomb of Nazarick) is inexplicably sent to an alternate world when the servers were due to shut down, the only logged-in player in the dungeon (guildmaster Satoru Suzuki AKA Momonga) is stuck in the body of his undead (Overlord class) character.  Unfortunately, his undead body plays by the rules for the undead in this new world AND for the game... so not only is his state of mind influenced by his villainous karma score, his range of emotional responses is deadened or outright suppressed and it seems to get worse as time goes on to the extent that he worries that he's becoming his character.  Not being able to feel horror or sadness over killing people has him slowly sliding down that slippery slope towards authentic evil... and having his de facto court and headquarters packed full of heteromorph NPCs who'd been programmed by the various guild members to detest humans and engage in a variety of horrific behavior isn't helping.

 

 

(As to why they win... well, Momonga and the Nazarick NPCs are Level 100 in a world where the strongest warriors seldom top Level 20.  Previous Yggdrasil players who ended up in that world were literally worshipped as gods.)

Oh... I didn't know anything about the PC's real world player (let alone the dystopian setting the individual was in). Was this series created in any attempt to piggyback on Ready Player One (since the premise of Overlord sounds a lot like RPO)?

[Dynaman]

Just watch "Mary and the Witch's Flower" and though it was decent it was definitely lacking something from the past works.

I've also been watching UC Gundam Unicorn.  I think I've gotten through the 3rd episode but the Angst is killing me.   

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

18 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I finished Clockwork Planet and I really liked it.  RyuZu is just so cute.  I also really like the theme song.

Honestly I think this was a poor anime adaptation of the source material.    But your not the first person to mention this,  I read the manga first and couldn't get past 2 episodes.   The people who enjoyed this were first time viewers for the most part.     The manga is good enough for me to recommend.. the anime... not so much.

 

I slogged my way through the first season of Rosario Vampire..   and meh.     I have read the source material for this series as well,  as @Seto Kaiba mentioned previously and enjoyed it.   The anime is a far cry from that at least as of the 1st season.

 

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, TehPW said:

Oh... I didn't know anything about the PC's real world player (let alone the dystopian setting the individual was in).

Fortunately, the personal circumstances of the Yggdrasil players behind the 41 Supreme Beings of the Great Tomb of Nazarick and the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown get less relevant as time goes on... but they're rather important early in the story, since the personalities of the Great Tomb of Nazarick's NPCs and their relationships tend to reflect the personality or psychological damage of the player who created them.  It's played for comedy with Aura and Shalltear and Aura and Mare, for drama between Demiurge and Sebas Tian, and for horrific implications with Demiurge on his own.

(Momonga's own creation, Pandora's Actor, has some fridge horror implications the anime skips over entirely... his military uniform, tendency to lapse into gratuitous German, and large ham tendencies are modeled on the elite members of a Neo-Nazi movement that started a war between European arcologies c.2118.  Momonga thought they were cool as a kid, but admits with the benefit of hindsight that the design choices he made for Pandora's Actor were in screamingly poor taste.)

 

14 hours ago, TehPW said:

Was this series created in any attempt to piggyback on Ready Player One (since the premise of Overlord sounds a lot like RPO)?

Nope.  Overlord was originally a web novel series that began serialization in 2010, over a year before Ready Player One was published (in August 2011).

The web novel was then adapted into a light novel and published in 2012, then a manga in 2014 and an anime in 2015.

Overlord, like Goblin Slayer, makes a LOT of references to Dungeons and Dragons.  Kugane Maruyama is generally more subtle about it though, with bland name versions of D&D's spells and metamagic feats (and at least one of Nazarick's Supreme Beings being a self-confessed RPG nut).  Goblin Slayer had a frankly gratuitous moment where the titular Slayer's party encounters what is obviously a Beholder, that speaks in Pokemon Speak with the syllables of the word "Beholder", but which they studiously refuse to call a Beholder because damnit that word is a registered trademark.

 

 

6 hours ago, Dynaman said:

I've also been watching UC Gundam Unicorn.  I think I've gotten through the 3rd episode but the Angst is killing me.   

It's Universal Century Gundam... the teenage angst is literally mandatory.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I slogged my way through the first season of Rosario Vampire..   and meh.     I have read the source material for this series as well,  as @Seto Kaiba mentioned previously and enjoyed it.   The anime is a far cry from that at least as of the 1st season.

TBH, the anime's second season, Rosario+Vampire Capu2 is no better... and might actually be worse.

It's VERY heavily dependent on fanservice and the harem angle.  It really feels like you see more of the bat they use as a fanservice censor for the panty shots than most of the characters.  (Weirdly, the OP has a disco dance theme...)

[Bolt]

Just finished watching the 3rd Godzilla installment. The Planet Eater. There were certain elements i did not care for. Such as the notion that advancing technologically eventually leads to our destruction..

Spoiler

Hence the Exif's god Gihdara. And how they (the Bilusaludo had to get religious with it. Oh well. Apparently that was their solution to destroying Godzilla, tho Gihdara would destroy the whole world too! Apparently Gihdara destroyed their home world. Confusing why they would want to do it again. The religious fanaticism card is an easy way to play it. And throws rhyme or reason out the door! To travel that far into space with humans, then come all the way back to Earth , just to destroy it (along with Godzilla of course) for some religious rapture...is some BS. The Bilusaludo are supposed to be more technically advanced and this is how they roll?? I guess this is their default maneuver when ever a phenomenon like Godzilla appears. But why even flee into space in the first place? Did they really need Haruo? BTW it was cool seeing MOTHRA intervene.

nevertheless , i did enjoy the series overall. And i like the animation style very much.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Bolt

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Honestly I think this was a poor anime adaptation of the source material.    But your not the first person to mention this,  I read the manga first and couldn't get past 2 episodes.   The people who enjoyed this were first time viewers for the most part.     The manga is good enough for me to recommend.. the anime... not so much.

 

I slogged my way through the first season of Rosario Vampire..   and meh.     I have read the source material for this series as well,  as @Seto Kaiba mentioned previously and enjoyed it.   The anime is a far cry from that at least as of the 1st season.

 

 

 

Oh reall,y I am planning to read the Light Novel one of these days.

[TehPW]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Fortunately, the personal circumstances of the Yggdrasil players behind the 41 Supreme Beings of the Great Tomb of Nazarick and the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown get less relevant as time goes on... but they're rather important early in the story, since the personalities of the Great Tomb of Nazarick's NPCs and their relationships tend to reflect the personality or psychological damage of the player who created them.  It's played for comedy with Aura and Shalltear and Aura and Mare, for drama between Demiurge and Sebas Tian, and for horrific implications with Demiurge on his own.

(Momonga's own creation, Pandora's Actor, has some fridge horror implications the anime skips over entirely... his military uniform, tendency to lapse into gratuitous German, and large ham tendencies are modeled on the elite members of a Neo-Nazi movement that started a war between European arcologies c.2118.  Momonga thought they were cool as a kid, but admits with the benefit of hindsight that the design choices he made for Pandora's Actor were in screamingly poor taste.)

 

Nope.  Overlord was originally a web novel series that began serialization in 2010, over a year before Ready Player One was published (in August 2011).

The web novel was then adapted into a light novel and published in 2012, then a manga in 2014 and an anime in 2015.

Overlord, like Goblin Slayer, makes a LOT of references to Dungeons and Dragons.  Kugane Maruyama is generally more subtle about it though, with bland name versions of D&D's spells and metamagic feats (and at least one of Nazarick's Supreme Beings being a self-confessed RPG nut).  Goblin Slayer had a frankly gratuitous moment where the titular Slayer's party encounters what is obviously a Beholder, that speaks in Pokemon Speak with the syllables of the word "Beholder", but which they studiously refuse to call a Beholder because damnit that word is a registered trademark.

 

You have to admit, in a lot of anime & manga in the past decade, Nazi-ism isn't as looked down upon as it once was (in fact, the only anime that I know that uses German militarism to good effect (minus the facist motifs) is Gundam and Yamato 2199/2202.

 

As for the D&D references, I disagree partially. Because the anime setting is a MMO, the inspiration that comes to mind is WoW, Final Fantasy and older MMO's (defunct or active) besides classic D&D (and by extension, DDO) for all those powers, skills & feats. The only thing that you don't see or referred, in Overlord, is references to actual skill checks and DC's (classic D&D references).

[kajnrig]

(EDIT: Sorry if my thoughts seem scattered. It's late and my mind is everywhere.)

Just watched Godzilla: The Planet Eater with the big brother. He's not as big a fan of the more out-there sci-fi ideas, so he hasn't been able to finish any of the movies. Unsurprisingly, he didn't enjoy this finale. Me, I found it all as thought-provoking as the previous two films. This trilogy deals in some mind-bending themes, and I'm not quite sure I totally wrapped my mind around them the first go-around, but it was certainly stimulating from start to finish.

9 hours ago, Bolt said:

Just finished watching the 3rd Godzilla installment. The Planet Eater. There were certain elements i did not care for. Such as the notion that advancing technologically eventually leads to our destruction..

The movie simplifying civilization down to its technology, and then claiming the resultant destruction from it as inevitable, does also gnaw at my nerves a bit, but not too much.

Quote

  Reveal hidden contents

Hence the Exif's god Gihdara. And how they (the Bilusaludo had to get religious with it. Oh well. Apparently that was their solution to destroying Godzilla, tho Gihdara would destroy the whole world too! Apparently Gihdara destroyed their home world. Confusing why they would want to do it again. The religious fanaticism card is an easy way to play it. And throws rhyme or reason out the door! To travel that far into space with humans, then come all the way back to Earth , just to destroy it (along with Godzilla of course) for some religious rapture...is some BS. The Bilusaludo are supposed to be more technically advanced and this is how they roll?? I guess this is their default maneuver when ever a phenomenon like Godzilla appears. But why even flee into space in the first place? Did they really need Haruo? BTW it was cool seeing MOTHRA intervene.

 

The Exif and Bilusaludo are two different alien races. The Exif mastered mathematics, and in the process calculated beyond time and perceived higher dimensions; in so doing, they manifested the higher-dimensional being, Ghidorah, on their home world, destroying the planet. The surviving Exif began "worshiping" Ghidorah and spread throughout the universe in order to "offer" planets to it to consume. I say "worship" in quotes because, as Metphies paraphrases, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. What seems like religious zeal to us is mathematical certainty to them.

The Bilusaludo were the ones providing the more "typical" sci-fi tech. You could say the Exif mastered "theoretical mathematics" and the Bilusaludo mastered "real-world mathematics," ie the math and science pertaining to the physical world. They lost their world to a black hole and offered to help kill Godzilla in exchange for refuge on Earth. In the second movie, the Bilusaludo were all in on killing Godzilla by way of fusing with the nanometal Mechagodzilla City, their plan ultimately thwarted by Haruo refusing to abandon his humanity to become part of a technological hive mind.

It's interesting that both alien species' solution to killing Godzilla involves ascending to their perception of a higher form of being. In the case of the Bilusaludo, it involves the aforementioned hive mind. In the case of the Exif, though, victory is much more abstract. In terms of physical, real-world effect, it boils down to destruction. Of the self, of Godzilla, of everything. But by way of consumption by an extra-dimensional being, and in that way becoming extra-dimensional yourself.

 

 

The movie runs thick with these thought experiments. They transform familiar Godzilla icons in really thought-provoking ways. Godhood is often associated with these kaiju, but for the first time, they exhibit truly god-like properties. Ghidorah entering the real world in impossible ways, as a shadow that cuts through people, as an illusion that tears apart a ship simply by warping reality around and within it; Mothra disrupting Haruo's Insight-induced hallucination and bringing him back to himself; and so on and so forth...

It feels almost too full of these ideas, such that it sometimes forgets that it's a movie.

The beginning of the Godzilla/Ghidorah fight runs long, too, when the movie doesn't really know what to do with the supporting cast, but needs to really hammer home how impossible this version of Ghidorah is. For what feels like a 15-minute span, you just hear the same group of people reiterating how the sensors aren't working, how what they're seeing shouldn't exist, how Godzilla isn't able to touch Ghidorah but Ghidorah can touch it, and so on... That part got REALLY tedious.

I was surprised he so willingly porked one of the twins. It doesn't happen for no reason, it's another thesis statement in this back and forth the movie is having with itself, but it was just completely surprising. With the comatose girlfriend and all, I assumed the movie would follow anime convention on the matter. But nope, he does the deed and there's remarkably no shame about it, and in the end the girl is super preggers and comatose girlfriend remains comatose.

Speaking of which, comatose girlfriend never wakes up, which also surprised me. The ending surprised me even more, though it does feel thematically appropriate.

This movie, man. It's a trip. I'm still not sure if I like it or not, but the director DEFINITELY left his indelible stamp on it.

Edited January 10, 2019 by kajnrig

[Lexomatic]

Aldnoah.Zero ("ΛLDNOΛH.ZERO") (2014 to 2015), on the recommendation of a panel at Philcon 2018, via Hulu. The most interesting part is young male protagonist Inaho "Nao" KAIZUKA, who has an almost Vulcan demeanor, and the talent to quickly spot the scientific principle in each enemy mecha attack and its inherent vulnerability.

Premise: During the Apollo missions (1972), humans find remnants of an ancient supercivilization on the moon, with a hypergate to Mars. A scientist is recognized by the techbase and given the heritable ability to activate its power supply ("aldnoah"); he declares himself emperor of Mars ("Vers") and attracts a bunch of people to be nobles in his newfangled feudal system. During subsequent hostilities with Earth (1999), the hypergate explodes, turning 30% of the Moon into an orbiting debris belt. There's mecha combat ("kataphraktos", from the Greek "armored", developed in English to "cataphract" to describe armored heavy cavalry used in antiquity); the Versians "orbital knights" have customs with special powers, and Earth has "real robot" squads.

So, we've got tropes from David Weber's Mutineer's Moon/Empire from the Ashes trilogy, Stargate Atlantis, and Cowboy Bebop, but not Neal Stephenson's Seveneves.

Weaknesses: The underdeveloped idea that a bunch of people decided to secede from Earth, and to form a feudal society. That they developed a distinct culture in a mere 40-ish years (1972 to 2013). The motivation that they're food-impoverished (chlorella and krill), despite having vast aldnoah energy supplies, and that they're facing population pressures, despite being separated from Earth for maybe two generations. The unanswered question of how many of their devices (Landing Castles and custom Kataphraktos) they inherited from the ancient Martians or engineered themselves. Between seasons 1 and 2, the three people who should be dead but, eh, they got better.

[Marzan]

On 1/4/2019 at 6:22 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Looking at the current season's offerings, it feels like slim pickings compared to the past couple...

Tatsunoko Production has a new series, The Price of Smiles, which looks mildly interesting... promotional images say mecha anime, but the description sounds more like romcom.

Kinema Citrus's The Rising of the Shield Hero also looks mildly interesting, though it feels like we're in for a slew of Goblin Slayer! copycats of which this is the first.

A-1 Pictures has a romcom Kaguya-sama: Love is War that also looks interesting, if only for the inherent comedic value in a plot built around a couple who flat out refuse to actually admit they like each other.

 

Anyone know if Domestic Girlfriend has been picked up for simulcast by anyone?

Kaguya-sama is absolutely the show I'm looking the most forward to. The manga is delightful with some hilarious characters. The mangaka has managed to keep it fresh and funny throughout. I really hope they don't mess up the adaptation.

So far this season I've enjoyed the first episodes of Dororo (adaptation of the Tezuka manga) and The Promised Neverland. Really solid starts to both of them.

Unsurprisingly, the worst show so far has been by Satelight. Girly Air Force was as bland and predictable as they come.

[Bolt]

11 hours ago, kajnrig said:

This movie, man. It's a trip. I'm still not sure if I like it or not, but the director DEFINITELY left his indelible stamp on it.

Agreed. Though, I will say I liked it, if only for being so thought provoking, as well as liking the animation. 

Good on you @kajnrig for taking the time to add more insight and summation concerning certain plot points. As I had said before, there were certain elements I did not care for. You addressed them.

[RavenHawk]

5 hours ago, Lexomatic said:

Aldnoah.Zero ("ΛLDNOΛH.ZERO") (2014 to 2015), on the recommendation of a panel at Philcon 2018, via Hulu. The most interesting part is young male protagonist Inaho "Nao" KAIZUKA, who has an almost Vulcan demeanor, and the talent to quickly spot the scientific principle in each enemy mecha attack and its inherent vulnerability.

Premise: During the Apollo missions (1972), humans find remnants of an ancient supercivilization on the moon, with a hypergate to Mars. A scientist is recognized by the techbase and given the heritable ability to activate its power supply ("aldnoah"); he declares himself emperor of Mars ("Vers") and attracts a bunch of people to be nobles in his newfangled feudal system. During subsequent hostilities with Earth (1999), the hypergate explodes, turning 30% of the Moon into an orbiting debris belt. There's mecha combat ("kataphraktos", from the Greek "armored", developed in English to "cataphract" to describe armored heavy cavalry used in antiquity); the Versians "orbital knights" have customs with special powers, and Earth has "real robot" squads.

So, we've got tropes from David Weber's Mutineer's Moon/Empire from the Ashes trilogy, Stargate Atlantis, and Cowboy Bebop, but not Neal Stephenson's Seveneves.

Weaknesses: The underdeveloped idea that a bunch of people decided to secede from Earth, and to form a feudal society. That they developed a distinct culture in a mere 40-ish years (1972 to 2013). The motivation that they're food-impoverished (chlorella and krill), despite having vast aldnoah energy supplies, and that they're facing population pressures, despite being separated from Earth for maybe two generations. The unanswered question of how many of their devices (Landing Castles and custom Kataphraktos) they inherited from the ancient Martians or engineered themselves. Between seasons 1 and 2, the three people who should be dead but, eh, they got better.

I thoroughly enjoyed Aldnoah.Zero, and kept it on my watch list on Netflix to rewatch it again (probably in a month or so).

First of all, I generally like these types of scifi shows. Second, I enjoy ones that are more "real" robot. What I really liked about it, though, is where the protagonist doesn't just have some special powers (arguably), but is a thinking person. The victories (whether realistic or not) or though thinking through the problem and trying to find design flaws or strategic advantages.