What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[M'Kyuun]

Watched 7th and 8th seasons of RWBY last night (been a year or so since we last watched 7th season, so a nice reminder). My wife and I really enjoy this series; it's come a long way from that first season where non-essential people in the background were basically silhouettes and the level of graphics was pretty low. They leaned a little harder on anime-style humor more in those early seasons as well, but gradually the art and the story matured along with the characters. Seems like they're starting to wrap things up, and I have a feeling 9th season will be the last. Even so, it's been a fun ride.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Wow, what an emotional episode of Mushoku Tensei this week.  I knew what was going to happen and it still moved me.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Seto Kaiba]

Finished Ghost in the Shell: Arise today.

It's not bad... but Arise is weak tea compared to the likes of the Ghost in the Shell movie or Stand Alone Complex.  It's every bit as beautifully animated as you'd expect from a Ghost in the Shell title, but it's lacking on all fronts in the narrative.  It has neither the heavy cyberpunk atmosphere of the original Ghost in the Shell movie nor the lighthearted humanity of the Stand Alone Complex series, and it lacks the philosophizing about the nature of humanity, society, and the soul that underpinned both.  It's just a clumsily-executed prequel and origin story for Public Security Section 9.  Despite being an OVA with the longer per-episode runtime that entails, the story feels weirdly rushed and jumbled.  There's some decent worldbuilding involving Japan's participation in nuclear World War III and non-nuclear World War IV, but it all gets swept under the rug because it's only in service of a there-and-gone-again plot about a JSDF colonel being a defense industry war profiteer.

 

My Senpai is Annoying continues to be light, fluffy, slice of life shenanigans... but nevertheless quite enjoyable for it.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I started Hidan no Aria.  It seems strange to me.

[Seto Kaiba]

Finished Ghost in the Shell: Arise's Alternative Architecture and New Movie today.

For a watered down version of Ghost in the Shell, it finally started to feel like a worthy installment once I got to the "Pyrophoric Cult" story and the movie.

It's definitely weird having a version of the story where the Major's origin is actually known... she's always been a Multiple Choice Past sort of character, with various versions of the story going so far as to suggest NOTHING was known about her down to her age or pre-cyberization gender.  Especially having EVERYONE ELSE apparently know it too.  Not sure I care for the actual ending, since the villain of the piece gets off scott free and there are no real consequences for anyone involved in the Firestarter incident.

It got a little into Ghost in the Shell's traditional transhuman philosophizing near the end... not enough to have any significant thoughts, but enough to at least feel like it deserved the title.

 

My viewing group's gonna start Jojo's Bizarre Adventure VI: Stone Ocean later.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru is just a good show.  This weeks episode was great.

[pengbuzz]

Going to give Macross II a run; it's been a while and I'm feeling a bit nostalgic...

Then after that, thinking about Cowboy Bebop and then The BIg O...

Edited December 16, 2021 by pengbuzz

[JB0]

I'm in the middle of another King Of Braves GaoGaiGar rewatch. The Tokyo siege is starting right now. 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru is the next show I am watching.

[Seto Kaiba]

Finally got around to watching Lupin III: the First.

It definitely hits all the major plot beats of a typical Lupin III red jacket story.  The computer animation is even better than it looks in the trailer too, and it still manages to capture the slightly manic expressions the characters often had in conventional animation extremely well.  It could've been a little better if the plot had fewer leaps of logic (esp. regarding how Lupin the 1st was involved), but it was still a great movie.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Astarotte no Omocha! is very stupid.  The strange thing for me is that Satou Rina is voicing a 23 year old guy.

[Keith]

On 12/16/2021 at 2:12 AM, JB0 said:

I'm in the middle of another King Of Braves GaoGaiGar rewatch. The Tokyo siege is starting right now. 

I'm hoping Discotek pick's up the series & the Final OVA someday.

[JB0]

5 minutes ago, Keith said:

I'm hoping Discotek pick's up the series & the Final OVA someday.

Same.

I hadn't actually realized how very off-color the US DVDs are until I pulled them out recently.

Hooray for fansubs, right?

[Keith]

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

Same.

I hadn't actually realized how very off-color the US DVDs are until I pulled them out recently.

Hooray for fansubs, right?

Yeah, Bandai tried back then, but between tneir prices & QC issues (more Bandai Ent on the QC fails & Bandai/Honeamise that put out GGG at the price fails) they were doomed.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

So Ra No Wo To is the show i am starting tonight.  Yay, more Yuuki Aoi.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Finished Kaginado,  I'd recommend a pass on this one.    Much of the really funny gags were blink and you missed it during the OP narration,  and many of the same Key VN tropes just don't work well in this medium.    Isekai Quartet proved it could be done,  Kaginado just mucked everything up.

and oh Joy,  2nd season announced.  

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Stampeed Valkyrie

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

So Ra No Wo To is so good.  I saw the 1st 3 episodes and I was hooked,

[Seto Kaiba]

Komi Can't Communicate really is a well-done series.  It's a reasonably sensitive treatment of the subject of social anxiety, and still manages to be quite funny and cute.

It's especially nice to know this one's set for a second season next April.  

[Podtastic]

Stuck in Macross Delta again. Freya won't sing because who cares blah, blah.

Blah, blah feelings yadda yadda singing.

Someone tell me this picks up again. I find it annoying that the writers seem to expect me to care about the characters waffling on interminably about the most insipid trivia.

I am determined to finish this but damn its boring.🥱

Edited December 30, 2021 by Podtastic

[Focslain]

8 hours ago, Podtastic said:

Stuck in Macross Delta again. Freya won't sing because who cares blah, blah.

Blah, blah feelings yadda yadda singing.

Someone tell me this picks up again. I find it annoying that the writers seem to expect me to care about the characters waffling on interminably about the most insipid trivia.

I am determined to finish this but damn its boring.🥱

Nope, not really. It's why I point those interested in the series to the movie. It does in two hours what the series tries to do in thirteen. Also the character death is done better in the movie. 

[Seto Kaiba]

So... Tawawa on Monday.

An ONA, for a Twitter artist's series that could best be summed up as "cutesy art of life when your rack's bigger than your head".

Interestingly, it's more cutesy than fanservicey... making it actually kind of almost watchable instead of a cringeworthy exercise like Peter Grill or any of those other recent ONAs built on fanservicey stuff.

@BlackRose got all caught up on her rewatch of the first three Tenchi Muyo OVAs, so later we're going to start OVA4, 5, and then segue into Ai Tenchi Muyo and Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari to wrap up the Tenchi prime timeline.  With all the emphasis on the PG-13 harem shenanigans, you almost forget how BIG Kajishima made the setting.

 

 

  

8 hours ago, Podtastic said:

Someone tell me this picks up again.

It doesn't.

It just sort of limps lamely to a finish it stole from Macross Frontier.

Some absolute bangers on the soundtrack, but the writing is incredibly disappointing.

 

4 minutes ago, Focslain said:

Nope, not really. It's why I point those interested in the series to the movie. It does in two hours what the series tries to do in thirteen. Also the character death is done better in the movie. 

I'm not sure I'd say the death is even better done... he still dies, and it's still completely pointless and devoid of any emotional impact because of what an unlikeable prick he is, but it's done slightly differently so it briefly attempts to fake out the audience about his fate.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-12-30/the-genius-prince-guide-to-raising-a-nation-out-of-debt-anime-2nd-promo-video-previews-opening-theme/.181134

This look similar to Realist Hero. i intend to watch it. At the least the Ending song will be good.

[Seto Kaiba]

Started Tenchi Muyo! OVA 4... and woah is the change in animation style jarring compared to OVA 3.  I guess that's what a distance of 13 years gets you.  AIC brought in another studio, C2C, to help animate this one.  The color palette's a lot brighter than the previous installments, though it's a lot lower detail.  Feels kind of like Satelight's work, almost.

Going into it right from OVA 3 and GXP, it's super weird to think that the opening scene of everyone getting ready for breakfast constitutes a gathering of firepower exceeding that of most galactic governments.  Also Tokimi's still around for some reason, so that's a breakfast attended by four gods, a demigod, three princesses, a walking probabilistic anomaly, and a spaceship.  Looks like they decided to go back in time a bit to just before the wedding at the end of OVA 3 for some reason.

(I swear these shows need to start coming with a printed family tree so I can keep track of who the hell everyone is and what their relation is to Tenchi... they've had four characters from GXP dropped in already.)

EDIT: Good lord that is the worst CG compositing job I've seen since the early 2000s... Tenchi's little work truck is so poorly modeled it looks like a cardboard model with 2D graphics printed on each face someone's sliding around.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[Seto Kaiba]

Finished Tenchi Muyo! OVA 4.

This OVA is... well... it's basically two hour (4 episode) advertisement and exposition dump for Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari that has basically nothing to do with any of the characters in the main series.  It backtracks to before Tenchi's dad remarried at the end of OVA 3, goes into a lot of depth explaining that his second wife is from an alternate reality, the situation on Geminar, that she's an artificial human, etc. etc. before timeskipping ahead to the birth of Tenchi's half brother Kenshi (the protagonist of Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari) and an episode basically devoted to expositing on WHY he's such an unstoppable juggernaut compared to Geminar's natives despite being only like 15.

Kind of unnecessary, IMO... especially if you pay attention while watching the spinoff.

 

Started Let's Make a Mug Too over dinner.  

Seemed like it was going to be a cutesy sort of "let's exposit on this hobby" sort of series like a couple that've come out recently.  Got heavy FAST with the protagonist Himeno coming right out with telling her class her dad's business went bankrupt and her mom died.

[Seto Kaiba]

Finished season one of Let's Make a Mug Too.

It's not bad.  It's one of those weird half-length episode shows and each episode is paired with a 9 minute little segment where the four principal voice actresses go places related to the events of each episode.  That said, it's really clearly struggling to decide what kind of series it wants to be.  There's a lot of info dumping about the pottery-making hobby and an attempt at being a character drama, but it doesn't feel like the series really gives either side of it enough time to really develop.  There's apparently a second season as well.

[DewPoint]

I'm half way through season 2 at this point.  Fairy Tail filler remains Naruto levels of bad.  At least there aren't too many of them.  I may have to skip the 2 25 episode filler blocks coming up.  The story is just interesting enough to keep me going.  I'm mostly just watching that show for Erza at this point.  I just might make it to the end!

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei - Tsuioku-hen is out and I never seem to tire of this show.

[Seto Kaiba]

Most of the way through season two of Let's Make a Mug Too and I have to say the real charm of this series isn't the animation, it's the 9 minute .1-numbered episodes where the voice actors go and explore the locations visited in the series and try to do some of the activities seen in the series.

I have to admit, I am really warming up to this series entirely because of those 9 minute segments.  It's one thing to have a mildly edutainment-type TV anime.  It's quite another to actually Show Your Work by having the cast go and try it out for themselves.  It's especially entertaining seeing them discuss the things they've decided to make in their impromptu pottery class.  One opts to sculpt chopstick holders based on her family's pet dog.  Another decides to sculpt a really nice ass for some reason.  They seem to be having a lot of fun, and it's a surprisingly feel-good watch.

Like, I could take or leave the animated segments but the live-action bits involving the actual cast are quite charming.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am watching Nyan Koi next.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Seto Kaiba]

Started The Faraway Paladin.

Honestly, the first five episodes or so were quite well-executed... that they managed to present the situation in a relatively interesting and engaging manner despite it being another bloody isekai is a point in their favor for sure.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Started The Faraway Paladin.

Honestly, the first five episodes or so were quite well-executed... that they managed to present the situation in a relatively interesting and engaging manner despite it being another bloody isekai is a point in their favor for sure.

It was definitely one of the few series I followed through to completion.     But you hit upon one of my biggest issues with this series,   I think it takes till episode 7 or 8 before it really even starts.    Now  that they have a  second season announced it is not as bad,  but still 6 episodes of a 12 episode cour for a backstory?  

[Seto Kaiba]

33 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

It was definitely one of the few series I followed through to completion.     But you hit upon one of my biggest issues with this series,   I think it takes till episode 7 or 8 before it really even starts.    Now  that they have a  second season announced it is not as bad,  but still 6 episodes of a 12 episode cour for a backstory?  

IMO, that's the opposite of a problem. The start is so compelling who gives a toss about the remaining episodes.  They could have stopped it after episode 7 and it would've still been great.

[Scyla]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

IMO, that's the opposite of a problem. The start is so compelling who gives a toss about the remaining episodes.  They could have stopped it after episode 7 and it would've still been great.

I tend to agree. My interest in the show dwindled a fair bit after the setup was complete. After that it felt formulaic: wandering around doing good deeds, repeat. Still have two more episodes to watch so this can change.

I think the Isekai nature of the show doesn’t serve any purpose besides keep him going in the beginning but he could that impetus from somewhere else like the love for his foster parents. Whereas in Jobless Reincarnation the past life has a severe impact on Rudys character.

As I said I have two more episodes to watch so maybe this will change.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2022-01-04/ive-been-killing-slimes-for-300-years-and-maxed-out-my-level-tv-anime-gets-2nd-season/.181210

 

Another sequel.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2022-01-04/ive-been-killing-slimes-for-300-years-and-maxed-out-my-level-tv-anime-gets-2nd-season/.181210

 

Another sequel.

I'm not surprised... this one was cutesy and feel-good enough that it was at least inoffensive for an isekai series.

 

9 hours ago, Scyla said:

I tend to agree. My interest in the show dwindled a fair bit after the setup was complete. After that it felt formulaic: wandering around doing good deeds, repeat. Still have two more episodes to watch so this can change.

Now that I've finished the season, I definitely share your position on it.

First seven episodes?  Gorgeous.  Glamorous.  Tight, compelling storytelling with an unusual setup.

When you end your story's prologue with the protagonist repeatedly defeating a god - an actual, literal, cosmological deity rather than a powerful person with delusions of grandeur - anything they do afterwards is an anticlimax.  Come episode 7.5, Will has defeated the God of Undeath in single combat TWICE and he hasn't even left home yet to start on his hero's journey.  Going directly from that to spanking half-starved bandits and the odd wyvern?