What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[Focslain]

48 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I got mine earlier this week.    Haven't had a chance to watch it yet.     I probably should have gotten in the Riding Bean one as well,  but that was my laziness.

I was debating on that one too, but funds at the time kept me from it. I believe either Crunchyroll or VRV Select has it for streaming though.

On 11/19/2019 at 2:06 PM, AN/ALQ128 said:

My Gunsmith Cats bluray set is on its way, I can hardly wait.

I've seen some screencaps from people who've already got their hands on theirs, and the quality is excellent.

It's a really good HD print. Watched it a while ago. Only issue is how short the series is, would love to see more of Rally and Mae's adventures.

[Seto Kaiba]

Finally drawing close to the end of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part V: Golden Wind.

This is surprisingly dark for a Jojo season.  Darker, perhaps, than all of them save perhaps Phantom Blood... and only then because Dio racked up such a huge body count as a vampire in 19th century England.  Passione is, if anything, even more unhinged than you'd expect a mafia full of Stand users to be.  It's started to feel like Jojo has begun to run out of ways to keep the whole concept of Stands fresh though.  The story's kind of forgotten about the consequences of using Gold Experience for healing that were elaborated upon early on, so as it ends up forced into the role of the party healer more and more it feels less and less distinct from Josuke's Crazy Diamond in Diamond is Unbreakable.  Gold Experience's power is so broken that Giorno's been hit with The Worf Effect several fights in a row so that other Bucciarati Squad members with less overpowered Stands can contribute at all (like Narancia's Aerosmith and Mista's Sex Pistols).  The only new concepts we've really gotten Stand-wise in this arc so far are the worn Stands like Ghiaccio's White Album and that horribly broken autonomous immortal Stand Notorious BIG, and so far those are one-shot villain Stands.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finished the Sister's arc in Railgun S and it still makes me cry.  The last 5 episodes are so depressing.  The ending makes me cry with happiness.

Edited November 22, 2019 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[AN/ALQ128]

On 11/21/2019 at 8:42 AM, Focslain said:

I was debating on that one too, but funds at the time kept me from it. I believe either Crunchyroll or VRV Select has it for streaming though.

It's a really good HD print. Watched it a while ago. Only issue is how short the series is, would love to see more of Rally and Mae's adventures.

Me too, its one of my favorite OVA's from the 90's, and the initial manga was great fun (Burst was just a fever dream). I was hoping Sonoda's new anime project would get enough money for a longer run time, but it only got enough for 5 minutes.

 

[Dynaman]

I'm still way back in time, just finishing up Season 1 of One Punch Man.  Good show.  I'm sticking to stuff I can get on Netflix for the most part.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World! is very silly but I like it.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well, my bizarre adventure through David Production's adaptation of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is almost at its end.

I'm ten episodes from the end of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part V: Vento Aureo, and it's been a hell of a wild ride.  

Spoiler

My guess would be that I'm headed into the final fight of the series soon.  The boss of Passione - Doppio's other self - is active for the first time since his attempt to kill Trish half the series ago and is on Sardinia with the members of team Bucciarati.  The big bads in Jojo always have time manipulation powers, so I doubt there's going to be a last second reveal of a bigger bad behind him.  The clearest sign I'm headed into the final stretch is Team Bucciarati made its first real contribution to the show's death toll with Abbaccio's defeat at the hands of the boss's Stand King Crimson.

I'm left to wonder if they're going to make anything of the earlier hints that something is off about Bucciarati, after Giorno made such a big deal out of Bucciarati's wounds not bleeding I was wondering if he'd become some kind of Stand zombie by using Sticky Fingers to bind his soul to his body after death or if it was something Giorno accidentally created with Gold Experience.  

I'm also wondering when the Stand Arrow's going to show up.  The OP makes a lot out of Giorno getting his hands on one, and the last one we saw was the one he confiscated from Polpo's Stand Black Sabbath.  Given that it's Giorno brandishing it for the OP, I'm guessing he's going to pull a Kira and get an 11th hour powerup for Gold Experience like Killer Queen got back in Diamond is Unbreakable.  

I'm not surprised Abbacchio was the first one of Bucciarati's team to die.  Moody Blues was a Stand with a lot of weirdly specific utility but not a lot of combat power, so he got relatively little exposure.  If it weren't for the fact that she's the boss's daughter and probably Giorno's love interest, I'd suspect Trish were next given that she's barely gotten to fight with Spice Girl and we're headed into the climax.  Narancia's Aerosmith and Mista's Sex Pistols are pretty limited offensive stands, I'd guess one or both of them will die in future episodes as well.

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finally returned to Symphogear XV and it is so good.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Seto Kaiba]

Rapidly closing in on the ending of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part V: Golden Wind... and holy sh*t there are a lot of reveals piling up on each other.

Spoiler

So it's outright confirmed Bruno Bucciarati is undead.  He's been undead ever since Giorno tried (and apparently failed) to heal the injuries he sustained from King Crimson back in the middle of the season, and has been keeping his slowly decaying body going on sheer heroic willpower.  I have to admit, that is some seriously hardcore sh*t there.  He told the reaper to bag it and is running on pure willpower while also keeping his demise from his team to avoid their morale collapsing.  If his gravestone doesn't say "The Hardest Man in Italy", then it's wrong.

Jean-Pierre Polnareff is back too.  I never liked his design much, but I hate what Golden Wind has done to his design.  I'm also really pissed that a genuine badass ballsy enough to go toe to toe with Dio Brando went down to a punk like Diavolo.  Seeing Silver Chariot get REKT by King Crimson was hard to watch, since the Stardust Crusaders were essentially the ultimate badasses of Jojo.  Polnareff getting his ass handed to him twice in one episode by Diavolo and dying felt like a slap in the face to someone who managed to beat the Stand using vampire Vanilla Ice.  Killing him off was just downright mean-spirited too, though it looks like he stabbed Silver Chariot with the stand arrow and now it's the T-1000 but in renaissance-era duds?

Possibly the biggest mindf*ck is that they came right out and explained the origin of Stands.  I always figured they were magic or psychic powers, but apparently they're a literal superpower bestowed by an alien virus?  WTF.  How does that even work now, given that Joseph, Jotaro, Jotaro's mom, and Josuke were never shot with a stand arrow but were still able to manifest a Stand after Dio was shot with one?  And Enya got the stand arrow from Diavolo/Doppio when he dug them up in Egypt?

 

[kajnrig]

36 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

questions

The correct answer is to just not ask in the first place.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am really enjoying Azur Lane.  I love Enterprise and Belfast.

[Focslain]

17 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I am really enjoying Azur Lane.  I love Enterprise and Belfast.

Going to hold off on Azur Lane and binge it later. Having a hard time keeping up with my personal series due to other projects and the holiday visits from the parents.

Still sad it seems that LoGH is not going to call the earth cultist terraist, but considering their actions later in the series it might be a little too on the nose. 

Going to hold off watching this week's episode until next week and finish the season in one shot.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finished Symphogear XV last night I am going to miss this show.  Iguchi Yuka is great this season. 

[hachi]

20 hours ago, Focslain said:

Going to hold off on Azur Lane and binge it later. Having a hard time keeping up with my personal series due to other projects and the holiday visits from the parents.

Still sad it seems that LoGH is not going to call the earth cultist terraist, but considering their actions later in the series it might be a little too on the nose. 

Going to hold off watching this week's episode until next week and finish the season in one shot.

So what do they call them?

[Marzan]

Just finished watching the Made in Abbyss compilation movies. Really good and I can definitely recommend them to anyone who hasn't watched the series. Cannot wait for the third one.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Sword Art Online - Alicization - War of Underworld is very enjoyable and I want to read the light novels even more now.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well, I've officially finished Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind... and the ending was a bit of a letdown.

Spoiler

While he was hardly my favorite from Stardust Crusaders, I'm still not entirely happy with how Jean-Pierre Polnareff was so easily defeated twice by Diavolo.  It's not like a time-based Stand is new to him.  Ending up as a disembodied soul inhabited a Stand-using turtle is kind of a weird fate too.

Golden Wind's ending really feels like it comes out of nowhere.  Silver Chariot gets stabbed with the Stand Arrow and turns into Silver Chariot Requiem, but unlike other Stands enhanced by the Stand Arrows its new power is totally unrelated to its original ones.  It can somehow manipulate souls and evolution, and starts randomly mutating people for reasons?  How Diavolo solves the problem is not even properly explained.  The whole body swap thing feels weird and out of place, which is a weird thing to be saying about a series like Jojo.  Golden Wind was so much more serious than the other installments, and this feels like something that ought to have been in Stardust Crusaders or Diamond is Unbreakable.  I wasn't wrong that Narancia was next on the chopping block, but he gets offed so casually and is almost immediately forgotten about that it's shocking after all Narancia's noise about Abbacchio's death on Sardinia.

Diavolo's fate is definitely an "And I must scream" moment... trapped in a sort of time loop, endlessly experiencing the many deaths of himself over and over again for eternity because Gold Experience Requiem is a semi-autonomous Stand and also a complete dick.  Giorno does a total Dio pose too when he does it, which is right up there with him using "Muda" for his punch rush and WRYYYYY-ing like his dear old dad.

It's freaking weird having the ending in the first half of the next-to-last episode and then randomly doing a flashback to before Giorno got involved.

 

One thing I will say is that David Production absolutely crushed it in terms of animation quality.  I had to replace my old LCD TV after it decided it wanted to pursue a more fulfilling career as a smoke machine, and it's a whole different show watching it on the QLED set I got to replace it.  Irresponsible levels of beautiful animation.

Not sure what I'm gonna watch next.  I still have Yojo Senki's movie to watch, and a bunch of other stuff.  I kinda wanna throw some of the OVAs I've been neglecting at it now that I've got a proper 4K set... like Lupin III: the Woman Named Fujiko Mine and maybe a rewatch of Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I started Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu I like both of them.  I was watching Bokura and Mayumi said her 1st sentence I said it is definitely Satou Rina.  During Suzumiya when Kyon talked I said it is Aizawa Yuichi from Kanon.  I am a huge Satou Rina fan.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I started Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu I like both of them.  I was watching Bokura and Mayumi said her 1st sentence I said it is definitely Satou Rina.  During Suzumiya when Kyon talked I said it is Aizawa Yuichi from Kanon.  I am a huge Satou Rina fan.

Bokura wa Minna Kawai-sou is pretty good stuff... sadly it's really short, though the ending isn't much different from how the manga ended.

(Sadly, the pun in the title doesn't translate well... kind of like the lolicon trio joke in Macross.)

Edited December 9, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[Focslain]

On 12/7/2019 at 5:51 AM, hachi said:

So what do they call them?

Earth Cultists.

At least so far. I'm going to do a double feature at the end of the week to finish this season since I know what is coming and like to see it in one shot.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu is so funny I am really enjoying it.  Is their any Kyoani show i do not like.

[AN/ALQ128]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgmsb1axQAs

The newest TV anime by Yuasa looks incredible, I can't wait.

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am surprised that final 2 episodes of Azur Lane are delayed to March.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Petrov27]

Babylon on Prime.... holy #$@#$ that last episode....

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Awesome, I love the fripSide opening song.

[hachi]

So it's already coming early next year huh. I've always like Scientific Railgun over Magical Index. Hope the quality is good.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am a huge Misaka Mikoto fan.  I am more  a Railgun fan that Index.

[Marzan]

On 12/8/2019 at 9:34 PM, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Sword Art Online - Alicization - War of Underworld is very enjoyable and I want to read the light novels even more now.

So far it's been the best SAO for me.. Something about not having superman Kirito take care of everything makes for a much more compelling story

[Seto Kaiba]

So... I've started to work my way through my anime backlog now that the winter holidays are upon us.

My first port of call was 2017's Saiyuki Reload BLAST.  I have to admit I was pretty surprised to see the series was only twelve episodes.  The first adaptation of Kazuya Minekura's manga (Gensomaden Saiyuki) had a fifty episode run, Saiyuki Reload got twenty-five, and Saiyuki Reload Gunlock got 26.  Except for a few weird moments of low quality (one of which ended up in the OP!) the animation quality is pretty good and the voice actors playing the Sanzo party knocked it out of the park as usual.  The self-aware humor gets a little old after a bit, thanks to Hakkai lampshading over and over how the yokai after the bounty on Sanzo seem to have all of two lines.  The backgrounds are lavishly detailed with appropriate style given that the Sanzo party is close to India, and the character drama's as good as ever including a few really outstanding and slightly painful-to-watch moments.  The one downside is that BLAST took three episodes for a flashback to the events of Saiyuki Gaiden... which feels unnecessary since the flashback was to the same events already flashed back to in the original Gensomaden Saiyuki series.  All that's really changed, except for some color schemes, was that the full rape-y subtext of Li Touten and Nataku's relationship isn't glossed over this time around.

[M'Kyuun]

I'm still slowly making my way through Macross 7. I'm up to ep 17, and while the main story about yet another group of humanoid aliens attacking our intrepid space colonists from Earth is alright, the attempt at rehashing Minmei vis a vis Basara is more annoying than entertaining. Moreover, I can't stand any of his songs, especially the utterly stupid "Planet Dance", which they play ad nauseum in just about every ep. Ep 17 introduces "Remember 16", which is the first Basara song I like in the series. I hope going forward, that becomes the prominent song, b/c the rest are just terrible. Mylene's "My friend" song is so much better, but they don't play it often.  Anyway, I get the sense her role is about to expand, so hopefully her songs will be more prevalent going forward. As an aside, I think it's funny how the 'concert hall' effect is used just about every time Basara or Mylene sings, even when they're singing acapella.   I also can't help but notice the lack of a harmonica player in Fire Bomber despite the fact that harmonica is played so prominently in the abhorrent "Planet Dance". 

I guess, after all the impressive music (Thanks Yoko Kanno) in Macross Plus, my expectations for the music in Macross 7 were somewhat high. I'm not taking the letdown well. Loving all the variable fighter action, though. I'm familiar with the majority of variable fighters from M7, so I fully expected to see VF-19s from the onset, since the YF-19 won the competition in Plus to replace the old VF-11. Seeing VF-11s going into battle as the main battle force, accompanied by the more elite VF-17s (which get their asses kicked with regularity as well) was a nice surprise. I like the VF-11, so it's nice to see them in action, even if it's only briefly before getting blown to smithereens. Given the prominence of the Fz-109 Elgarsolns as the main enemy mecha in M7, I'm surprised that no toys have ever been made, AFAIK, anyway. Experten's VF-14 garage kit is the closest thing, but still not quite the same as having a nice high end 1/60 scale toy. Anyway, I have to say I'm enjoying Macross 7 more than I thought I would, and more so than Delta, which just really didn't grab me.  The original SDF: M, Plus, and Frontier are my favorite entries so far in the series, but M7 is slowly shaping up to be an enjoyable interlude between Plus and Frontier, Basara notwithstanding.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I watched Seishun Buta Yarou wa Yumemiru Shoujo no Yume wo Minai and it was so good.

[Marzan]

Getting into a Xmas mood with old school Tokyo Godfathers.

Satoshi Kon...he was gone too soon.

[Bolt]

@M'Kyuun if this is your first time through M7 (sounds like it is). Then you're going thru the same growing pains many of us have 

But, eventually, You'll come out the other side loving it 

And then your eyes will clear , and you too will notice in all the Macross endeavors since M7 something interesting... it won't be long when you find yourself saying "Macross 7 did it!!" 

Edited December 24, 2019 by Bolt

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Macross 7...   umm yeah where to begin with that one.       This was the macross low point for me that was just replaced by Delta.     What I always thought was funny was how people would knock Macross 2,  but be gaga over Macross 7..    

 

I am still churning through anime I picked up cheaply last year..   Log Horizon...   8 episodes in and its not bad.

 

[M'Kyuun]

4 hours ago, Bolt said:

@M'Kyuun if this is your first time through M7 (sounds like it is). Then you're going thru the same growing pains many of us have 

But, eventually, You'll come out the other side loving it 

And then your eyes will clear , and you too will notice in all the Macross endeavors since M7 something interesting... it won't be long when you find yourself saying "Macross 7 did it!!" 

Yep, first time viewing it. I've long read the various criticisms, but you never really know until you experience it for yourself, as everyone's perceptions differ. That said, I don't hate it; in fact, now that I'm about 17 eps in and the main story, the Protodeviln attacking the M7 for 'spiritia', with untold peril ahead with the recent awakening of Sivil, I'm beginning to enjoy it on the whole. I get what Basara is trying to do, but it's just such a hamfisted copy of Minmei, at least as I see it right now (at this point, his motivation for doing so is unclear), and honestly it wouldn't even bother me, being such an integral part of Macross storytelling, if his songs weren't so insufferable. Hopefully that'll change. As I said, they just introduced "Remember Sixteen" in ep 17, and for once I liked a Basara song, so there's potential hope. For the sake of all that's good and righteous, I hope they sh!tcan "Planet Dance" in favor of "Remember 16" in future eps. 

As for valks being piloted by instruments. If I could make that eyeroll any more emphatic, I would.  I'll give it a modicum of credit for uniqueness, but otherwise, it's pretty lame.

Is it terrible of me to cheer every time Basara has to fire a missile, not just because it's the practical action to take, but also b/c it pisses him off to have to resort to it? Every time it happens, I feel like "F##k you, Basara, you stupid panzy-ass b*tch"! I love it when both Gamlin and Mylene point out how ineffectual his singing is, and how the Protodeviln just ignore him.  They purposely made him a mostly pointless protagonist, as if they wanted you to hate him, even if he does do some heroic stuff when he's on the ground. I'm guessing it's all a setup for him to become the hero he 'knows' he's meant to be, doing things his way. There are already hints that his terrible songs are going to cause an awakening, or a rejuvenation, of the captured humans under Protodeviln control. So, the writing's on the wall. Damn!  Gotta keep on slogging through to see what happens. I'm waiting for Mylene to come into her own, both as a singer and a fighter pilot. If I'm wrong, don't tell me.