What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

55 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Giving the first episode a second try... I gave up in disgust around 15 minutes in on my first attempt.

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter is the kind of anime that people who find anime distasteful think all anime is like... a bunch of skeevy PG-13 fanservice wrapped in a paper thin excuse plot.

Sometimes, it really sucks to be a completionist.  I hate quitting a series before the end but this one is on course to join the list of shows I gave up on because my disgust outweighed my desire to see things through to the end. 

I feel the same way.  I have reached 9 or 10 episodes and wanted to quit but being so close i finished it anyway.

[TehPW]

On 1/21/2021 at 11:11 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Pretty sure the Eldian Empire in Attack on Titan makes the worst human rights of the Soviet Union look like a goddamn garden party by comparison.

 

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Based on the memories of the original founding titan holder, Ymir Fritz, the Eldians started out as a bloodthirsty barbarian tribe that engaged in slavery and mutilated its slaves physically as a matter of course... and went downhill from there.  Once Ymir obtained the Founding Titan, their repertoire expanded to mass genocide via titan and forcing their own people into cannibalism in their desperation to pass on titan powers after Ymir died.  If the Tybur family's account based on the memories obtained from their own titan is accurate, the Eldian Empire killed three times more people than the entire global population at the time of the show's final season.  (If the world population there is around the population of Earth c. the World Wars the way the rest of the setting appears to be comparable to, we're talking between six and seven BILLION dead.)

Then, of course, the Eldian deep state that secretly controls Marley has also been using titans in warfare against its neighbors for generations... adding to that death toll.  They also orchestrated turning Eldians who advocated for restoring the Eldian Empire into titans and used them to turn the last refuge of the Eldian Empire on Paradise island into a gulag with mindless titans as jailers.  Then there's millions more in casualties when the Marleyan titans break into the walls at the start of the series.

Basically, Marley is as close as it gets to being the "good guys" in the story despite being Nazis in everything but name because the Eldians are Complete Monsters with more of a death toll to their name than most fictional antagonists can claim outside of sci-fi.

 

Although this is not the first the Japanese have created an anime that is quazi Pro-Nazi, i was still shocked to even hear the suggestion of it in AonT. Is this part of the story revealed in the anime (especially the English Language version). Somehow i doubt such a story detail would get past American Censors...

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I feel the same way.  I have reached 9 or 10 episodes and wanted to quit but being so close i finished it anyway.

Made it to episode 3, with fairly frequent stops to wish ill on the original author, publisher, and animation studio.

At this point, I'd pay real money to go back in time and be a fly on the wall of Kodansha's offices when the editor Meguru Seto was working under asked them to explain why there's a voice in the protagonist's head telling him the easiest way to gain power is to sexually assault every woman around him.  It didn't get removed, so that must've been one fantastically good explanation.  Same goes for a minute or so earlier when he was sexually assaulted by his teacher.  Even Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knight didn't go that far into the realm of questionable content.

 

8 minutes ago, TehPW said:

Although this is not the first the Japanese have created an anime that is quazi Pro-Nazi, i was still shocked to even hear the suggestion of it in AonT. Is this part of the story revealed in the anime (especially the English Language version). Somehow i doubt such a story detail would get past American Censors...

I've not seen the English dub, but it's too bloody overt for anything short of total bowdlerization to hide it.

The TV anime did tone down some of the more graphic content, but Marley's Nazi-esque nature and the loathing reminiscent of the most vehement antisemitism that the Attack on Titan world has for the Eldian people is on full display.  We've already had the episode where Willy Tybur explains the true history of the world, touches on Eldian war crimes like the centuries of genocide that killed more than three times the modern world's total population, and calls for the world to declare a war of extermination against the last bastion of the Eldian Empire (Paradise).  For their part, the Eldians who launch a sneak attack on Marley stop just short of "sieg heil" while celebrating their victory... 

Spoiler

... but not for much longer.  If they're taking this all the way to the end, then...

Spoiler

... we'll get to see Eren and his friends orchestrate a successful coup that overthrows the military junta that's been ruling Paradise with Historia as a powerless figurehead since they overthrew the original Royal Government, and installs a more aggressively militant and overtly nationalistic military junta that seeks to establish a New Eldian Empire and ultimately backs Eren's plan to activate the Wall Titans and carry out a global genocide.  Eren ends up fuhrer in everything but name.

That should be the next story arc they adapt for the anime, actually, since they've wrapped up the surprise attack on Liberio.

After that, assuming they're taking this all the way to the end we'll see Eren and Zeke duke it out over control of the Founding Titan as they each pursue their own rival plans for genocide - Zeke seeking to use its power to forcibly sterilize all Eldians in the world, and Eren seeking the power to activate the Wall Titans and obliterate the world outside of Paradise - with a brief sideshow of what a pack of total bastards the ancient Eldians were and how they jumped right to genocide once they acquired the power of the Titans via the true history of Ymir and the origin of the Titans, before vaulting right into Eren destroying the world.

 

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I watched Katanagatari episode 7 last night and it was so sad.  I lost it, the curse of Clannad returns again.

Spoiler

Nanami dies and she shares a seiyuu with Nagisa, Nakahara Mai. 

 

[DewPoint]

I loved Katanagatari. I watched it as it aired. Imagine watching that show 1 episode a month for a year.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

28 minutes ago, DewPoint said:

I loved Katanagatari. I watched it as it aired. Imagine watching that show 1 episode a month for a year.

That sounds terrible having to wait that long.

[Keith]

Katanagatari was 100% worth the wait though.

[Podtastic]

On 2/8/2021 at 7:13 AM, TehPW said:

Somehow i doubt such a story detail would get past American Censors...

Who knows nowadays where right is wrong and wrong is right. History is no longer being taught properly, holocaust denial is a thing and communism/socialism is slithering into the open.

[Macrossnalds Worker]

Western World Gone Mad 

[Seto Kaiba]

On 2/8/2021 at 12:13 AM, TehPW said:

Somehow i doubt such a story detail would get past American Censors...

One of the beautiful things about the progress the anime distribution industry in the west has made over the last thirty-plus years is that distributors are largely no longer censoring or bowdlerizing the anime they license... with the occasional rare exception for shows marketed exclusively to small children (e.g. Pokemon).  That kind of thing was already on its way out when Macross II was being dubbed, since it was easier and cheaper to give the western viewers the same viewing experience as the original Japanese audience rather than indulging in costly (and often borderline xenophobic) editing practices to remove Japanese cultural references and the like.  Audiences demanded an authentic viewing experience, so censorship's scope shrank until the only real censorship going on was the stuff intended for broadcast to meet American broadcast content standards.  Being mostly direct-to-video, or now direct-to-streaming, anime is essentially exempt from that.

Attack on Titan might see some light censorship when it airs on network television, but since it's already late night block fodder it's likely to be done with an extremely light hand.  The gore would probably be considered more objectionable than the show's nationalistic themes on, say, [adult swim], since the Marleyans are not depicted as heroic or good... they're as evil as a nation of "Notzis" would be expected to be, even if the story rather unfortunately shows their bigotry towards Eldians is ultimately depicted as entirely justifiable.  (The show's saving grace being, I suppose, that there are no good guys... everyone is an evil douchebag.)

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Working has been very enjoyable to watch, it is one of the rare shows that I watch the opening,  I love that song.

[Keith]

51 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Working has been very enjoyable to watch, it is one of the rare shows that I watch the opening,  I love that song.

Did they ever do a 4th season?

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

2 hours ago, Keith said:

Did they ever do a 4th season?

Not that I can tell.

[Seto Kaiba]

Started So I'm a Spider, So What? today, and after the first episode all I can say is my expectations of it are NOT high.

This is basically just That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, but with humor more in line with God's Blessing on this Wonderful World.  The constant attempts at self-aware humor are not helping matters either.

EDIT: Finished all five currently-available episodes of So I'm a Spider, So What?, and my first impression was dead on.  Five episodes and counting of the main character (who is nameless) engaging in skill bookkeeping without really knowing or caring what's going on.  The only appreciable difference, apart from the protagonist being a spider instead of a slime, seems to be that the spider girl doesn't get the convenience of a start that lets her jump straight to a god-tier level of power right off the bat and has to work for it a little.  At least she's a bit more likeable than the slime guy, whose reactions mostly came off as a form of dull surprise thanks to not having a face most of the time.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I watched the 8th episode of Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu last night.  There is many Nintendo references in this episode.

[Macrossnalds Worker]

Ah, L-Gaim gets worse and worse. I love the mecha, I love the character designs and the story was fun at the start but it gets more and more convoluted as characters constantly change factions. Battles don't seem to mean much in the end, hero mecha can almost never be destroyed and it's just repetitive and tiresome. A supporting character actually got hit and killed last episode (Pamela) so I hold out hope, hopefully Tomino kills em all. Especially Daba, I really don't like that guy, it should be Kyao and Amu. Have 4 eps to go to the end of the show so I guess I'll persevere.. I wish this was as good as SPT Layzner, the last  great mecha show I watched. 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Yuru Camp s2 has been great.  Who would think camping make a good show.

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, Macrossnalds Worker said:

Ah, L-Gaim gets worse and worse. I love the mecha, I love the character designs and the story was fun at the start but it gets more and more convoluted as characters constantly change factions. Battles don't seem to mean much in the end, hero mecha can almost never be destroyed and it's just repetitive and tiresome. A supporting character actually got hit and killed last episode (Pamela) so I hold out hope, hopefully Tomino kills em all. Especially Daba, I really don't like that guy, it should be Kyao and Amu. Have 4 eps to go to the end of the show so I guess I'll persevere.. I wish this was as good as SPT Layzner, the last  great mecha show I watched. 

Tomino and Nagano had very different visions for Heavy Metal L-Gaim, and the result of their battling it out was definitely underwhelming as a series.

's why Mamoru Nagano declared a massive do-over and made Five Star Stories instead, to tell a more polished version of the story in a more expansive version of the setting.

[Macrossnalds Worker]

Yeah I've read that. I remember seeing the FSS movie in the '90s and it was cool but short and  I suppose the only way to get the whole FSS saga is to read the manga? I haven't paid attention to new releases for 20 years however. 

I think overall I prefer Takahashi to Tomino but I have a lot of shows to watch still. This show is points down for Tomino in my mind, it would have been cool to see Nagano's full vision. 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

My favorite voice actor returns.  I was watching katanagatari 11 last night and Yasuri Kazune appears.  He say one word, I say hey its Touma.  I love Abe Atsushi.

[Macrossnalds Worker]

Okay L-Gaim's last four eps are really cool. The animation improves a notch, the battles are satisfying and meaningful and people actually die. Daba's send off at the end reminds me of the Megaroad's in FB2012, it's not on par but looks really lush and fresh. While not the greatest show and veryt far from great at all in my opinion it was a satisfying end and I'm glad I stuck with it. Those LD boxes now have new respect on my shelf. 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Macrossnalds Worker

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Horimiya is my favorite new show of this seasin.

[Marzan]

This season has been a bit hit and miss for me. Two of the best things this season are Attack on Titan and Horimiya but being familiar with the source material [spoiler]

Quote

 

 

Spoiler

I'm a bit jaded with both. Horimiya didn't go anywhere after a very strong start and I never really enjoyed Attack on Titan after they reached the sea and the further they get , the less I enjoy it. If they were going to do the rumbling, they should have gone through with it instead of confusing everything with the "paths" and having asspull after asspull. It's one big mess by now. [/spoiler]

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Marzan

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finished Katanagatari last night and i didn't expected it to end that way.  But it was just a great show.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Just way too much this season to keep up.

I just watched up to ep 7 of Last Dungeon..   and meh.    It's not terrible but it's not actually that good either.   The whole selling point of this show is that the main character is OP to normies,  but weak around others from his village.   At first it's amusing but it's getting stale,  and with all the female characters going gaga over this guy its starting to get annoying.   I may end up dropping this in the next ep or 2.  

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I was watching Working season 2 and Yamadas' voice sounds so fiamilar.  It is Kyou from Clannad, This show is hilarious.

[Seto Kaiba]

... I was rewatching Kaguya-sama: Love is War a bit ago, and noticed something I didn't the first time.

Shirogane's dad is voiced by Takehito Koyasu.  The glorious booming voice of none other than Jojo's Dio Brando.

 

For now, I'm back to catching up on titles from previous seasons after a particularly trying day at work.  Starting with the OVA Goblin Slayer: Goblin's Crown.  It's not a compilation film, but it is doing quite a job of impersonating one given that the first 25 minutes of its 85 minute total runtime were wasted on a narrated recap of the events of the entire first season of the TV anime.  The rest of the OVA adapts Vol.5 of the light novel, the Goblin Paladin story arc.  I've heard that it's badly paced, and the parts I've seen so far definitely bear that out.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I just finished Rezero 45 today.  This season has been great.  Arai Satomi never fails to make me laugh.

[Marzan]

On 2/17/2021 at 3:59 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

... I was rewatching Kaguya-sama: Love is War a bit ago, and noticed something I didn't the first time.

Shirogane's dad is voiced by Takehito Koyasu.  The glorious booming voice of none other than Jojo's Dio Brando.

 

 

Papagane is a hilarious character and Koyasu does a perfect job bringing out his zaniness.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I just finished my weekly relaxation after watching this weeks Yuru Camp season 2 episode.

[Seto Kaiba]

On my third attempt, I'm about seventeen episodes deep into The Irregular at Magic High School.

As I recall being told last time I attempted it, the protagonist's inner monologue is basically plot-critical and wasn't included in this series.  The lack of that critical context is definitely an aspect of the TV anime that comes across even if you don't know it's not there.  Tatsuya reacts to absolutely everything with unnatural calm and his abilities are so over-the-top in practically every respect that the entire idea that he was assigned to the second-class program at his particular magical vocational school rings incredibly false.  This level of blatantly overpowered doesn't normally happen outside of isekai stories.  I just watched him one-shot a guy famed in-universe as a magical one-man army, and it's already been revealed he's actually a genius magical engineer hailed as the greatest of his craft.  Like come on guys, there's no drama or tension here when the protagonist is basically indestructible and nearly unstoppable.

[Focslain]

53 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Tatsuya reacts to absolutely everything with unnatural calm and his abilities are so over-the-top in practically every respect that the entire idea that he was assigned to the second-class program at his particular magical vocational school rings incredibly false. 

Well considering he cheated to lower his test scores... Yeah I can see that.

He does give an explanation in the LN but in the anime it's a throw away line during one of the basic tests. Mizuki notices that Tatsuya is trying too hard at the test (basically to hide his good) and he flinches at her notice. It's the same test they use to explain how some of the magic system works. 

Same goes with his engineering except that is when Azusa is looking at his custom CAD and slowly starts putting it together. It just doesn't click because it would be absurd that the great Silver would be a weed. 

It's not until the end of season one that some of the students call him out for hiding his abilities.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I decided to watch Tamako Market and Tamako love story next.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Focslain said:

Well considering he cheated to lower his test scores... Yeah I can see that.

He does give an explanation in the LN but in the anime it's a throw away line during one of the basic tests. Mizuki notices that Tatsuya is trying too hard at the test (basically to hide his good) and he flinches at her notice. It's the same test they use to explain how some of the magic system works. 

... yeah, that's just blatantly bad writing.

Thus far, there's been nothing in the story that would remotely justify Tatsuya arbitrarily deciding to make everyone underestimate his Mary Sue-tier powers even more than they'd be doing if he were passing himself off as a normal but capable Bloom.  

 

1 minute ago, Focslain said:

Same goes with his engineering except that is when Azusa is looking at his custom CAD and slowly starts putting it together. It just doesn't click because it would be absurd that the great Silver would be a weed. 

It's not until the end of season one that some of the students call him out for hiding his abilities.

Quite honestly, it's absolutely ridiculous that it'd take anywhere near that long for his classmates to notice.  

Arbitrary skepticism can be a useful storytelling tool if applied sparingly, but Tsutomu Sato has the entire rest of the cast lay it on with a f*cking backhoe.

It'd be one thing if he went out of his way to avoid displaying any unusual abilities or amazing proficiencies, but he makes only the most token effort to disguise his incredible prowess and he shows off his incredible repertoire of near-impossible advanced techniques at every turn and everyone still dismisses him as just another Weed.  The very first thing he does on campus is out himself as someone with incredible abilities when he reveals he can read the magic formulas of others while they're casting them.  He follows that up by revealing a pair of custom CADs by an incredibly reclusive master craftsman hailed as The Best Ever, and proceeds to one-shot one of the best fighters in the school in a formal duel that nearly baffles the upperclassmen in the more advanced Bloom course... all in the same day.  At that point, any pretense that he's a normal Weed is completely absurd.  That's BEFORE anyone found out he was a master engineer who could finetune CADs by hand to make competition-grade ones perform as well as military-grade custom equipment and started inventing spells on the fly the way he did in the competition.

[pengbuzz]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... yeah, that's just blatantly bad writing.

Thus far, there's been nothing in the story that would remotely justify Tatsuya arbitrarily deciding to make everyone underestimate his Mary Sue-tier powers even more than they'd be doing if he were passing himself off as a normal but capable Bloom.  

 

Quite honestly, it's absolutely ridiculous that it'd take anywhere near that long for his classmates to notice.  

Arbitrary skepticism can be a useful storytelling tool if applied sparingly, but Tsutomu Sato has the entire rest of the cast lay it on with a f*cking backhoe.

It'd be one thing if he went out of his way to avoid displaying any unusual abilities or amazing proficiencies, but he makes only the most token effort to disguise his incredible prowess and he shows off his incredible repertoire of near-impossible advanced techniques at every turn and everyone still dismisses him as just another Weed.  The very first thing he does on campus is out himself as someone with incredible abilities when he reveals he can read the magic formulas of others while they're casting them.  He follows that up by revealing a pair of custom CADs by an incredibly reclusive master craftsman hailed as The Best Ever, and proceeds to one-shot one of the best fighters in the school in a formal duel that nearly baffles the upperclassmen in the more advanced Bloom course... all in the same day.  At that point, any pretense that he's a normal Weed is completely absurd.  That's BEFORE anyone found out he was a master engineer who could finetune CADs by hand to make competition-grade ones perform as well as military-grade custom equipment and started inventing spells on the fly the way he did in the competition.

All they apparently need him to do now is part the Red Sea Sea of Japan, then walk on it.