What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Just now, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Railgun T continues to amaze me it is so good.

TBH, I am enjoying this season as well.

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

39 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

TBH, I am enjoying this season as well.

 

I have a been fan of the Toaru series for a while now.  The way T is going it might be favorite,  Even though the Sister's arc in S was excellent.

[Sanity is Optional]

Railgun is great, it's a shame that Index isn't even nearly as good.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

14 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Railgun is great, it's a shame that Index isn't even nearly as good.

I'm on the flip side of this coin,   IMO Index was a better story,  except for the latest few seasons..   3rd Season was disaster.

Railgun,  on the other hand I never really liked.   This latest season however has done a good enough job to keep me interested in it.

Accelerator,  honestly should have never been a main character.. no real depth,  and the plot just went wacky.     It started well but ended IMO worse then Railgun.

 

[M'Kyuun]

I figured I'd give Aquarion a watch, since it was created by Kawamori, with some interesting mecha designs. The metaphysical pseudo-philosophy is piled on extra thick and kinda dilutes my enjoyment of the show. Moreover, the main characters are from different backgrounds with a bit of class prejudice thrown in to artificially create friction between people who need to be mentally bonded in order to make their individual flying machines transform and merge to become one of three different robot configurations depending on who takes the lead. Said friction is maintained despite the fact that the characters in question have put aside their differences and worked together flawlessly in some eps to defeat the enemy of that particualr ep. It just feels like that friction is being dragged out to me. Throw in some pseudo Greek god mythology, heavy reincarnation themes, the uber-wise commander trope, a weird sister fixated on her brother thing, a fair bit of fan service, including the orgasmic bonding experience everytime the robots merge, the telekinetic girl trope, etc, etc, and it's an ok watch. It's pretty, and the CG for the various mecha looks good. All the metaphilosophy mumbo-jumbo gets a little stale , esp when a lesson is taught and then that same situation crops up as the dilemma of the episode thus forcing the intrepid pilots to overcome their personal differences and recognize an application for said lesson to defeat the enemy. That's just about every episode- very formulaic. I'm about 10 eps in, and I think I'll finish it out, but the formulaic nature of it, along with the slathering of pseudo-philosophy, dampens it a bit for me.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2020-04-13/animator-eiichi-kuboyama-july-anime-season-seems-hopeless-at-this-rate/.158521

 

This doesn't sound to good.

[Seto Kaiba]

45 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2020-04-13/animator-eiichi-kuboyama-july-anime-season-seems-hopeless-at-this-rate/.158521

 

This doesn't sound to good.

Honestly?  With the amount of trash the industry is producing lately, a couple month breather to reevaluate their life choices sounds like exactly what the industry needs... and it'll give them a chance to get older shows back into the broadcast rotation and maybe make up some of the losses on those older shows from royalties.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

1 minute ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Honestly?  With the amount of trash the industry is producing lately, a couple month breather to reevaluate their life choices sounds like exactly what the industry needs... and it'll give them a chance to get older shows back into the broadcast rotation and maybe make up some of the losses on those older shows from royalties.

I guess you are right about the trash.  I was looking forward to Oregairu S3, Rezero S2, and SAO.  Railgun T got delayed 3 weeks already because of the virus.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

16 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Honestly?  With the amount of trash the industry is producing lately, a couple month breather to reevaluate their life choices sounds like exactly what the industry needs... and it'll give them a chance to get older shows back into the broadcast rotation and maybe make up some of the losses on those older shows from royalties.

meh,  I am not so sure I'd call it trash.     Different strokes for different folks.  

 

on a side note.

Apparently Netflix finally released the 2nd Season of High Score Girl for US viewers.  

On Ep3 currently.

 

[Dynaman]

I'd call the majority of it trash.  Then again the same goes for every year since the dawn of animated entertainment (and every other form too).  The only difference is modern trash doesn't appeal to me for the most part while trash from my preteen to early teen years does.  Late teens - I was an early curmudgeon...

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Nichijou just continues to tickle my funny bone.

[Focslain]

16 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Nichijou just continues to tickle my funny bone.

That series is frakking hilarious start to finish. Enjoy.

So I found a full playlist of Frontier subbed on youtube (not linking, you can find it yourself).

Started going thru the series proper a few eps at a time.

First impressions: Is it me, the video, or were the character animations always this cheap? Outside of the concerts and the cgi for the mecha/varja it seems really off. Especially in the nicely done backgrounds.

Writing of the triangle is better, even early it looks like there can be a relationship between either pairing. Unlike Delta where Mirage had zero chance since Freya won at first sight.

Also I'm guessing all the Macross MC use the Hikaru method of meeting women? ie saving them via a first time flying a valkyrie? 3 of 4 main series start this way. Will seriously lol if the next one does this too.

[JB0]

10 hours ago, Focslain said:

Also I'm guessing all the Macross MC use the Hikaru method of meeting women? ie saving them via a first time flying a valkyrie? 3 of 4 main series start this way. Will seriously lol if the next one does this too.

Frontier's jam-packed full of SDF homages. I loved the "pineapple" episode.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

I had a hard time with Frontier at first due to the change in art styles...  but it eventually grew on me.    

@JB0 is correct though,  there are nods to SDF everywhere.

 

Finished the 2nd Season of High Score Girl.   

Good stuff.

 

[Dynaman]

Nods?  Peoples head would nearly fall off to "nod" enough.  Not a bad thing mind you, other then the Panty Chase I really liked Frontier.

Netflix has a bunch of Anime and GitS on the way.  Looks like I'll have plenty to watch.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2020-04-17/food-wars-shokugeki-no-soma-anime-delays-new-episodes-due-to-covid-19/.158711

 

It just gets worse.

 

Now I read on Twitter Railgun T is also off for a while.

[Sanity is Optional]

As a manga reader for Shokugeki: this is an arc better off skipped.

[Seto Kaiba]

14 minutes ago, Sanity is Optional said:

As a manga reader for Shokugeki: this is an arc better off skipped.

Seconded... nothing of value is being lost.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

27 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Seconded... nothing of value is being lost.

Wow, that bad.

[Seto Kaiba]

33 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Wow, that bad.

Y'know how a series can have a solid ending that provides satisfying closure to the narrative while wrapping up all of the story's loose ends... and then just kind of forgets to stop?

That.  Big time.  Freighted with one of the lamest soap opera twists imaginable.

 

Spoiler

In short, the new chief antagonist of the never-should-have-been-made final story arc that takes place after the Very Definite Actual Ending of the manga's story happens to be Soma's evil adopted older brother who was never seen or heard from and whose existence was never mentioned, alluded to, or hinted at at any point prior to him revealing he's Joichiro's adopted son... while also being the secret foreign illegitimate son of the previous antagonist-in-chief, Erina's father Azami Nakiri.  

He comes out of freaking nowhere, somehow beats Joichiro despite having never attended Totsuki or anything like that, and is then revealed to be the head of a secret group of evil chefs called Le Cuisiner Noirs who engage in crimes like blackmail, intimidation, kidnapping, and even murder for no real clear reason other than to establish that these are a group of bad people who are also chefs for some reason and are trying to win a major world gourmet association tournament so that he can force Erina to marry him because it turns out the God Tongue is a curse or something.  He's pretty much a low-rent, non-flamboyant version of Dio Brando whose followers are every bit as flamboyant as Dio's stable of Stand users and the main conflict revolves around a metric ton of daddy issues and him having kidnapped Erina to save her from the God Tongue.  His plan makes marginally less sense than the logic of the Underpants Gnomes from South Park, and the whole thing just grinds to a screeching halt with an incredibly unsatisfying conclusion.  Even his amazing cooking skill is kind of lame... he's basically just a better version of "perfect trace" guy from the main story who can perfect trace other cooks skills just by holding their trademark tools.

It's tremendously stupid.  It's basically Soma vs. the Flamboyant Gourmet Cooking Yakuza.

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

30 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Y'know how a series can have a solid ending that provides satisfying closure to the narrative while wrapping up all of the story's loose ends... and then just kind of forgets to stop?

That.  Big time.  Freighted with one of the lamest soap opera twists imaginable.

 

  Hide contents

In short, the new chief antagonist of the never-should-have-been-made final story arc that takes place after the Very Definite Actual Ending of the manga's story happens to be Soma's evil adopted older brother who was never seen or heard from and whose existence was never mentioned, alluded to, or hinted at at any point prior to him revealing he's Joichiro's adopted son... while also being the secret foreign illegitimate son of the previous antagonist-in-chief, Erina's father Azami Nakiri.  

He comes out of freaking nowhere, somehow beats Joichiro despite having never attended Totsuki or anything like that, and is then revealed to be the head of a secret group of evil chefs called Le Cuisiner Noirs who engage in crimes like blackmail, intimidation, kidnapping, and even murder for no real clear reason other than to establish that these are a group of bad people who are also chefs for some reason and are trying to win a major world gourmet association tournament so that he can force Erina to marry him because it turns out the God Tongue is a curse or something.  He's pretty much a low-rent, non-flamboyant version of Dio Brando whose followers are every bit as flamboyant as Dio's stable of Stand users and the main conflict revolves around a metric ton of daddy issues and him having kidnapped Erina to save her from the God Tongue.  His plan makes marginally less sense than the logic of the Underpants Gnomes from South Park, and the whole thing just grinds to a screeching halt with an incredibly unsatisfying conclusion.  Even his amazing cooking skill is kind of lame... he's basically just a better version of "perfect trace" guy from the main story who can perfect trace other cooks skills just by holding their trademark tools.

It's tremendously stupid.  It's basically Soma vs. the Flamboyant Gourmet Cooking Yakuza.

 

Wow, that is just far worse than i ever could have expected and just a bit creepy. 

I love manga that end at the right moment. RE Life and Madam no ou to Vanadis are good ones.

Edited April 18, 2020 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Sanity is Optional]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

  Hide contents

In short, the new chief antagonist of the never-should-have-been-made final story arc that takes place after the Very Definite Actual Ending of the manga's story happens to be Soma's evil adopted older brother who was never seen or heard from and whose existence was never mentioned, alluded to, or hinted at at any point prior to him revealing he's Joichiro's adopted son... while also being the secret foreign illegitimate son of the previous antagonist-in-chief, Erina's father Azami Nakiri.  

He comes out of freaking nowhere, somehow beats Joichiro despite having never attended Totsuki or anything like that, and is then revealed to be the head of a secret group of evil chefs called Le Cuisiner Noirs who engage in crimes like blackmail, intimidation, kidnapping, and even murder for no real clear reason other than to establish that these are a group of bad people who are also chefs for some reason and are trying to win a major world gourmet association tournament so that he can force Erina to marry him because it turns out the God Tongue is a curse or something.  He's pretty much a low-rent, non-flamboyant version of Dio Brando whose followers are every bit as flamboyant as Dio's stable of Stand users and the main conflict revolves around a metric ton of daddy issues and him having kidnapped Erina to save her from the God Tongue.  His plan makes marginally less sense than the logic of the Underpants Gnomes from South Park, and the whole thing just grinds to a screeching halt with an incredibly unsatisfying conclusion.  Even his amazing cooking skill is kind of lame... he's basically just a better version of "perfect trace" guy from the main story who can perfect trace other cooks skills just by holding their trademark tools.

It's tremendously stupid.  It's basically Soma vs. the Flamboyant Gourmet Cooking Yakuza.

 

You forgot:

Spoiler

All the "special techniques" aside from Mr Perfect Trace 2.0 are all just based on cooking with weird tools. One of the mooks' thing is cooking with a chainsaw...

Behind the scenes, the cooking consultant the author had been using throughout the series was off on leave during this arc. The author decided to go it solo without any cooking consultant, so the special cooking "techniques" took a nose-dive directly into the Marianas-trench of absolute garbage.

[chyll2]

Also hated the Shokugeki's final arc

 

I ended up reading the tower of god .

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Behind the scenes, the cooking consultant the author had been using throughout the series was off on leave during this arc. The author decided to go it solo without any cooking consultant, so the special cooking "techniques" took a nose-dive directly into the Marianas-trench of absolute garbage.

Ah, was that the reason?  I was so put off by the radical change from actually-pretty-well-researched to total over-the-top nonsense that I never really bothered to look into why... I had just assumed there was some jumping, and that a shark was possibly involved.

I'm behind on the anime adaptation, so I'm rewatching season one right now to start fresh.  

[Marzan]

On 4/18/2020 at 4:32 AM, Sanity is Optional said:

You forgot:

  Reveal hidden contents

All the "special techniques" aside from Mr Perfect Trace 2.0 are all just based on cooking with weird tools. One of the mooks' thing is cooking with a chainsaw...

Behind the scenes, the cooking consultant the author had been using throughout the series was off on leave during this arc. The author decided to go it solo without any cooking consultant, so the special cooking "techniques" took a nose-dive directly into the Marianas-trench of absolute garbage.

That explains a lot. Having said that, the previous arc (with the dad) was also pretty poor. SnS started so strong and had a good middle, but just couldn't sustain it. And it's such a shame that

they did such a piss poor job fleshing out the characters and giving satisfying finales

At least we get some very beautiful character designs and the foodgazms.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Railgun T episode 12 was so good,  Who knows when 13 will air.

[Sanity is Optional]

4 hours ago, Marzan said:

At least we get some very beautiful character designs and the foodgazms.

Shokugeki no Soma puts the Porn in Food Porn.

[AN/ALQ128]

Watching Houkago Teibou Nisshi. Comfy show about fishing, same vibe as Yuru Camp and Yama no Susume. Makes me want to pick it up again, last time I went was almost a decade ago.

Unfortunate that they could only get 3 episodes done before COVID shut it down.

[Major Focker]

caught up to ep11 of Railgun T. not sure i want to watch 12 yet after reading what a cliffhanger it is. if not for the Sisters Arc in S, i think T would've already been my favorite of the Raildex franchise. let's see what the 2nd cour brings.

anyway, since ep10 bled into the ED, i realized i've been skipping it entirely (there were some very memorable BGMs in Raildex, but i wasn't a fan of the OPs and EDs) so i looked it up on Youtube for a proper listen this time. and it was great! 

it reminded me of Fuuka, but as i let Youtube continue to play on, i recognized another track by the same band. it was an OP from Gate, also a favorite of mine from back then. 

i ended up sound-tripping on Youtube for nearly 3 hours just clicking what caught my eye or letting it play on as i cooked. somehow in Youtube's algorithm it brought up long-time favorite Shiki no Uta (Samurai Champloo), an english version at that, and by the same artist  a decade later. it was ok, though the original japanese had a superior cadence owing to the more syllabic nature of the language. 

craving for the classic, i keyed in Shiki no Uta and let Youtube take me wherever. the likes of Daoko, Anly, Lisa, iri, kudasai, Mondo Grosso, Kavka, etc. popped up; all previously not on my radar. needless to say it made for a chill lo-fi Sunday dinner and then some. 

 

[Focslain]

So continued on my Frontier run, at episode 21. Seems the body count has started.

I was relieved when they didn't folker Ozma. All the flags were there. Also waiting for Luca to get it considering his sending enough flares to count as a fireworks show. Sad to see Michael go, but he was near going past his commitment fear and we can't have that right?

So either I'm getting used to the character designs or the animation is just getting better. Either way the story is pretty good. Just wish the concerts were better, but that is what the movies are for.

Also frak Galaxy. Seriously evil there.

On a lighter note, Took a look at Princess Connect: Redive. Liking the humor and considering the staff, this should be a fun ride.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

15 hours ago, Major Focker said:

caught up to ep11 of Railgun T. not sure i want to watch 12 yet after reading what a cliffhanger it is. if not for the Sisters Arc in S, i think T would've already been my favorite of the Raildex franchise. let's see what the 2nd cour brings.

anyway, since ep10 bled into the ED, i realized i've been skipping it entirely (there were some very memorable BGMs in Raildex, but i wasn't a fan of the OPs and EDs) so i looked it up on Youtube for a proper listen this time. and it was great! 

it reminded me of Fuuka, but as i let Youtube continue to play on, i recognized another track by the same band. it was an OP from Gate, also a favorite of mine from back then. 

i ended up sound-tripping on Youtube for nearly 3 hours just clicking what caught my eye or letting it play on as i cooked. somehow in Youtube's algorithm it brought up long-time favorite Shiki no Uta (Samurai Champloo), an english version at that, and by the same artist  a decade later. it was ok, though the original japanese had a superior cadence owing to the more syllabic nature of the language. 

craving for the classic, i keyed in Shiki no Uta and let Youtube take me wherever. the likes of Daoko, Anly, Lisa, iri, kudasai, Mondo Grosso, Kavka, etc. popped up; all previously not on my radar. needless to say it made for a chill lo-fi Sunday dinner and then some. 

 

I still love Railgun S Sisters arc a bit more than T.  I saw episode 12 and it was great, now the wait for 13, delayed by the virus again.  I love all the Railgun OPs, I have been a huge fripSide fan for a while now.

[Focslain]

Finished Frontier, I can see why it's considered the better Macross.

Personally still like the mecha and music of Delta more, but yeah, better story and better characters.

Now I that tracked down Zero and the later half of 7 I'll continue this journey to completion. 

[M'Kyuun]

Frontier was good on all levels, and the VF-25 has become one of my favorite valk designs. I couldn't get into Delta as much; the overall tone and dialogue seemed to target a younger audience compared to Frontier, and the plot didn't grab me as much.  As always, the valk designs were cool. I have rewatching Frontier and Delta on my to-do list, since I've only seen each once.

Zero was ok; the Sv-51 was the best thing to come out of that anime, as well as giving us a glimpse of a younger Roy Fokker, ever the big brother and lady's man.

I just watched 7 recently, and it took me a while to get into it. It took about 20 or so eps before I started coming around to liking Basara. I still think "Planet Dance' sucks, but I cottoned to a number of his other songs. The plot is decent- it checked all the Macross requisites: music, love triangle, alien invaders, and transforming jets. Compared to Macross Plus, its predecessor in the Macross Saga, the level of maturity overall is dialed down a little to appeal to kids, as this was a tv series. A lot of beautiful valk designs came out of this series, so for that, I'm grateful. I recommend watching Encore and The Galaxy's Calling Me, as well. Enjoyable side stories that impart some background.

[Focslain]

Well I found a youtube channel that has all of Macross on it. So going to use that resource while it's up.

This is mostly for completion sake as I have a feeling I'm starting to go either full depression and/or hipster mode. Another viewing when I'm in a better mode would be best, but not sure how long this source will be up.

[Marzan]

Just watched the first episode of Ghost in the Shell SAC 2045. As a longtime fan of the franchise I was excited.

Boy...the cgi was just...painful. The excruciatingly painful.