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Ok so Code Geass is about my favorite anime of all time. 

Steins;Gate though is a pretty close second, anime had me hooked. one of the few i watched in 1 sitting, along with SAO and Eureka 7 (that one i had a 4 hour nap for, but i got episode 1-42 in one back-to-back play)

Im currently watching love chunibyo and other delusions.

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  • 1 month later...

So it's basically the end of the anime season, and I've been watching three things:

A Place Farther than the Universe (Sora yori mo Tooi Basho) is done, last episode aired today.  It's about a bunch of high school girls going to Antarctica... and it's a lot better than that description sounds.  It's a phenomenal show.

I was worried this show was just going to run on "Cute Girls Doing Cute Things" appeal, but thankfully that wasn't the case.  The characters are great: memorable without feeling like one-note stereotypes, and they've got a lot of chemistry.  The show alternates between conveying a sense of pure joy of adventure, and some pretty well-done character drama for each of the four lead characters: it's simultaneously a very "feel good" sort of show and a bit of a tearjerker at moments. 

I think my only complaint (other than a single scene that bothers me for pedantic reasons[1]) is that I wish it were a bit longer.  It's probably good that the show left me wanting more, and not the reverse, but it did feel like it could have comfortably have supported another episode or two.

In any case, highly recommended.

---

Similarly, I'm realizing with dread how little of March Comes in Like a Lion is left.  With two, double-length seasons in fairly quick succession, and the slow pace at which I went, I started this show over a year ago, and have been watching fairly consistently ever since (with a "My Hero Academia"-sized hiatus in the middle).  It's going to be weird for me when this show is no longer airing, just out of force of habit, at this point.

But it's also just continuing to be really good.  It just recently had a 2-episode arc that was one of its best: the show's had a running joke about the shogi association trying to advertise a match between two of its older, more physically frail members (with the president jokingly suggesting they should include a heart rate and electrocardiogram monitor into the TV broadcast).

... but that joke transitioned into a pretty serious pair of episodes focusing on the older shogi player grappling with the burdens and expectations of being the oldest shogi player.  So, yeah, two old side-characters sitting down playing a board game turned out to be one of my favorite episodes of anime this season.    It helps if you've got really, good, visuals, to go with it.

It's a microcosm of what's great about the show: the mix of humor and drama, the metaphorical visuals to represent internal conflict, and the hidden depths in its side characters.  I'm going to really miss it when it's done.  (With no soon prospect of a season 3, either)

---

On the less positive side, Darling in the FranXX.  I've been saying "I'll post on it when I know how I feel about it", and frankly, I'm still waiting.

Part of the issue is that the show has just felt inconsistent to me: the first three or so episodes felt like over-the-top parody, to the point I thought this was going to be the next Kill La Kill, but then it transitions into a much more serious[2] focus on the relationship between the main character for about three more episodes, but then it transitions again and the last 5 episodes have focused on the overall dystopia and group dynamics.  And by "group dynamics", of course I mean "love triangles"[3].  

Re-reading that above paragraph, I really should hate this show.  It's gone from tasteless innuendo, to a romance between two characters with no chemistry, to the plot of a stereotypical YA novel.  But, despite all that, I find I'm still enjoying the show.  The side-characters are likable, the world-building is still interesting albeit stereotypical, and I think there's an (ever-diminishing) chance that this show might still go somewhere interesting.  

And the show's still getting pretty positive reception over on reddit[4], but even there it seems like everyone's just waiting for that episode, but we're almost halfway through this show, and it still all just feels like set-up. I mean, come on, it's the ham-handed sex metaphor show, there's got to be a climax in here eventually.

---

I'll be filling the Sora Yori-shaped hole in my schedule with Sound! Euphonium. I've seen it pretty highly recommended, and I think it fits the same "almost, but not quite CGDCT" genre as Sora Yori, and r/anime just started a rewatch.

A bit of a rocky start, I watched the first episode thought it was weird how dense the show was: it was a double-length episode, and they just dropped characters on you without really introducing them, which I thought was a really novel approach.  

I was just beginning to think this show was the high-school band anime equivalent of Malazan Book of the Fallen, when I realized that I actually watched the first episode of the second season.  (In my defense, Crunchyroll's UI kinda sucks on that front, and it was 3:30AM...)

---

[1] I don't care how nice the insert song is, or how good a character moment it is, you don't go out on the deck of a ship in the middle of a huge storm, much less leave the hatch open.  That's a great way to get lost at sea and/or sink the boat.  

[2] With the word "serious" here depending on however seriously you can take a show with Butt-based Mecha Controls.

[3] Spoiler up to the most recent episode, but someone made a relationship flowchart.  It's a pretty easy game of "spot the main character".

[4] ... though a lot of the reddit praise seems driven by the "02 best waifu ever" camp, seemingly because she's hot, pink-haired and gets naked in the first episode.  She might get some character development later, but so far she's mostly functioned as a Magical Girlfriend and/or Manic Pixie Dream Girl.  She's not even best girl in this show.

Edited by Retsam
lost a word
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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not big on anime anymore, but I Still love:

FullMetal Alchemist brotherhood

Cowboy Bebop

Vampire Hunter D and Vampire hunter D bloodlust

Solty Rei

Heroic Age

Outlaw Star

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  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, ShardBreaker said:

So I saw this thread and just wondering, does anyone know a good anime for a 14-16 year old? 

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (50ish episodes action)

Inuyasha  (176? episodes action adventure)

Eureka 7 (50 ep romance/action)

Fruit baskets (26? ep romance/slice of life)

Bleach (a lot of ep... action)

Clannad (23 ep, romance/slice of life)

Code Geass (54? ep, Mech/action/military, but i think this ones a MA but its not terrible either)

Zatch bell (150 ep, action. older anime but its awesome)

love chunibyo & other delusions (12 ep, slice of life/comedy/mild romance)

Air Gear (26 ep, action)

try those for now :D

Edited by Niteshado
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I've been watching Darling in the FranXX, though I am behind by a couple episodes. This is the third anime I've watched. The first two were DBZ (eh) and Death Note (didn't finish, but that's because I haven't had time). 

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I am wondering if we could all take a moment to appreciate one of my all time favorite anime (even though I always say the one I finished most recently is my favorite, this one is one of the most relaxing and funny anime I have seen in years) The Disastrous Life of Saiki K?

And to @ShardBreaker I would recommend A Certain Scientific Railgun or if you want to watch the whole of the franchise the boring way then start with A Certain Magical Index. I would recommend Railgun as a first to watch to get the dynamic of the world down then start Index if you want to experience the added elements. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

In a sense, Darling in the FranXX didn't let me down.  One of my main thoughts when starting this show was "if it's a trainwreck, I don't want to miss it", and the last few episodes have not let me down on that account in the slightest.  I don't think the ending was popular, even among the fans, and my skepticism gave way to disillusionment back at Episode 15.  

So as background, the show is set in a dystopian future where a group of teenagers fight giant robot dinosaurs via piloting waifu-shaped robots, via sexual metaphor butt controls.  Hiro[1], the erstwhile leader, no longer fits into the group because he has "performance issues" while trying to pilot the mech, until a naked pink haired demon chick shows up ("Zero Two"... but I'm just going to call a spade a spade and call her "Waifu"), declares Hiro to be her "darling", and invites him to "ride her mech" and the first 18 episodes or so are about the squad fighting robot dinosaurs and love triangles.  

And, y'know, I'm just going to put the entire ending plot in a massive spoiler tag.  In a sense it's safe to read because it's only going to spoil you for an anime that I really can't recommend watching... but I'm mostly writing this out of catharsis.  (Each paragraph basically corresponds to an episode, in terms of pacing)

Spoiler

Then, abruptly, aliens show up at the end of Episode 20 and then robot dinosaurs pull their own spaceships out of the ground and launch into space to fight the aliens.  The main character is abducted by the millions of year old loli dinosaur-human princess who becomes a bomb due to alien sabotage, but the main character is able to like... romance her into not blowing up or something.   Main character is reunited with Waifu, their mech gets a new name and a new form and they push back the aliens.  Then their mech blasts into space with the rest of the dinosaurs (did we mention their mechs were secretly robot dinosaurs this whole time?), leaving them behind.

The show becomes a farming simulator, where the dystopia has fallen apart (due to secretly being run by aliens) so the kids try farming, and making babies (also, someone punches the main character in the face... it's meant to be a bad moment, but I found it cathartic), and discover that a bunch of characters we thought were dead earlier actually are actually alive, and Waifu has gone catatonic and random cuts are mysteriously appearing on her body, and we find out that's because her spirit is actually in the mecha that launched into space which is now in a fight with the aliens and for some reason that's affecting her body, so the episode ends with the main character and all the other cast following her into space with the one robot dinosaur ship that's apparently been left behind specifically for that purpose.

They rendezvous with the main mech in Mars orbit, and the main character fights his way into the mech that she's possessing (with the help of some male, suicidal clones of Waifu), they declare their undying love and then the mech gets another name and another form, which is just a giant version of Waifu.  I don't mean "it's a robot shaped like her": literally the mech becomes human from the boobs up, and the rest of it looks like a wedding dress, (because this show has gone from unsubtle sex metaphor to unsubtle marriage metaphor).  Somehow nobody finds this surprising.  The aliens are defeated, but it's actually just their vanguard, not their main forces, but conveniently the moons of Mars somehow open an intergalactic portal leading to their part of the galaxy that conveniently only the main character and MechaWaifu can enter.  

... but only vaguely close to their home planet, because the last episode cuts back and forth between the Waifuzoid fighting their way to the alien's planet for 2 whole years while everyone else goes home and continues the farming simulator and enacts the most extreme "Babies Ever After" ending I've ever seen.  But when the two year old child looks at the stone statue of Waifu's body - which her body turned into when she fused with the mech - and says the word "Darling", the secondary cast correctly deduces that the Waifugelion must be fighting the climactic battle and losing, so they all join hands and yell at the sky for two days.  This works, the aliens are mostly defeated and the main characters die or something and the show ends with them being reincarnated hundreds of years later.  The end.

 

The summary is ridiculous, and it certainly wasn't a "it makes sense in context" thing for me: it's a pretty big shift that largely comes out of nowhere.  You can tell that they were sort of going for a story structure reminiscent of Gurren Laggan (also by Studio Trigger), but it just didn't work here: Gurren Laggan turns things up to twelve in its ending, but it did so in a way that felt like an extension of what came before, in a way that this doesn't.  It just feels as if the genre suddenly shifts at the end.  (For example, with the introduction of supernatural elements that weren't present up to this point)

And it's a shame, because I really think this could have been a good show.  (And I do know a lot of people enjoyed it)  I liked the side characters, the premise was interesting (if not hugely original), the "mecha as metaphor for relationship" is a schtick with potential and the production values were pretty high across the board.  

But the show's a bit too bipolar (perhaps as a result of the two studios behind it): a more crazy (Studio Trigger-esque) version with fast pacing and playing the innuendo and premise for laughs could have worked.  A more nuanced, drama-based version of the show could have worked.

Instead we got the worst of both worlds; the plot was ridiculous, but not in a self-aware way, and the drama raised some tough issues, but without the nuance to really handle them appropriately.  It couldn't decide if it wanted its central premise of "mecha as sex metaphor" to be an exploration of unbound teenage sexuality in a society that hasn't equipped them to deal with it properly... or if they just wanted to make "lol masturbation" jokes.

But if I'm being honest, even more than the tone and the ending, the big reason why the show didn't work for me is that I couldn't buy into the main characters relationship.  Their relationship is consistently presented as great and truly romantic, but I couldn't see it as anything other than glorification of an abusive and destructive relationship (a fairly rare example of female on male abuse).  A more nuanced story could have handled this relationship well and had real character growth leading towards an actually healthy relationship, and for a hot second (Episode 14) I thought they were actually going to do that, only to have the next episode go with the "no, it's okay because he's really obsessed with her".  No thanks.

I guess what I'm really saying is that after 18 episodes of foreplay, the climax was disappointing and I feel like I need to go take a shower now.

---

On a much more positive note, it seems like every season there's an unexpected gem; with Made in Abyss last summer, Houseki no Kuni in fall, A Place Further than the Universe in the winter season, and this season it was Hinamatsuri.  

It's a comedy/drama about girls with psychic powers that arrive unexpectedly on earth... the main character shows up in the bedroom of a Yakuza and convinces him to take care of him by threatening his pot collection.  It's a weird premise, but it really worked and managed to land both the comedy and drama sides really well.  (Like so many anime, though, it's an incomplete adaptation, with a pretty major sequel hook... hopefully there'll be a season 2)

---

The upcoming season looks pretty slow, though, so hopefully I'll get through some backlog.

---

[1] I'd complain about the stereotypical "Hiro" as name of the protagonist shtick, but the names are actually something I liked about the show.  Every character has a numerical code assigned by the society, but they've given themselves names, based on the numbers.  So Hiro is number 16, "1 = Hitotsu, 6 = Roku", hence "Hiro".  And there's a bit of a social structure with the lower numbers being ranked higher.  It's alluded to, but never directly stated, as far as I remember, that under this system Zero Two's name would be "0 = O, 2 = Ni" or "Oni", the horned demon that her character design references.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 06/07/2018 at 4:06 PM, Wander89 said:

I'm in the majority that thinks My Hero Academia is one of the best animes of this century. However, the world in Made in Abyss as fantastic.

I'm watching Made in Abyss right now. I was hooked from the start - the premise, music and beautiful atmosphere gave this anime the potential to be one of my favourites. The build up prior to descending in to the abyss was amazing; just incredibly suspenseful and well done. But sadly the show really suffers from a pacing problem IMO. It slowed down so much in the middle, and now I'm struggling to finish it! I will of course, because I've heard from multiple people that it gets better.

Other than this, I am waiting to start watching FMP: IV with my older brother. We're both die hard FMP fans, so we were over the moon when the new season was announced after 10+ years!

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  • 1 month later...

Been a while since I watched much anime, in teh past few years I'll rarely pick up a show.  but I happened on the Adult Swim/Toonamie produced follow ups to Fooly Cooly (aka FLCL to some) and I was curious if anyone had watched it/had any opinion on it?  I liked the original back when I first caught it staying up too late on summer nights, but the thought of a follow up leaves me both hopeful and pessimistic.

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17 hours ago, Dunkum said:

Been a while since I watched much anime, in teh past few years I'll rarely pick up a show.  but I happened on the Adult Swim/Toonamie produced follow ups to Fooly Cooly (aka FLCL to some) and I was curious if anyone had watched it/had any opinion on it?  I liked the original back when I first caught it staying up too late on summer nights, but the thought of a follow up leaves me both hopeful and pessimistic.

I watched the first episode of Progressive on a lark; but I've only got vague memories of the original and it was never a favorite of mine.  

In lieu of my own opinions, a few non-spoilery ones from reddit:

Quote

I really hope Alternative is better, because beyond The Pillows, Progressive was no better than a Matthew McConaughey Lincoln commercial

Quote

Overall it was alright. The Pillows still had awesome music.

Quote

[The last episode] was the most FLCL it felt but then again it didn't even start feeling similar to FLCL until episode 4. It felt like each episode had a piece of FLCL. Like each episode was attributed one and only one aspect of FLCL that we remember and never really having all those aspects together for a complete FLCL.

 

Quote

I liked this series but I didn't love it at all.  It felt like it was more interested in continuing the lore of the FLCL universe than adding onto any of its themes, which were the more interesting part of the original.

I'm not cherry picking, those are pretty much the top comments over on the reddit thread for the last episode.  It seems like a pretty solid consensus that it was fine but really didn't live up to the original.  

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1 hour ago, Retsam said:

I watched the first episode of Progressive on a lark; but I've only got vague memories of the original and it was never a favorite of mine.  

In lieu of my own opinions, a few non-spoilery ones from reddit:

 

I'm not cherry picking, those are pretty much the top comments over on the reddit thread for the last episode.  It seems like a pretty solid consensus that it was fine but really didn't live up to the original.  

I ended up watching through it (easy enough when it is only 6 episodes on a rainy sunday afternoon) and I gotta say those quotes roughly capture everythign I felt about it.  It was alright, but nowhere near the original.  which is unfortunaltely about what I expected.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been watching My Hero Academia, and I've found that Black Clover is scratching a Shonen Jump nostalgia itch I didnt realize I had (it feels like Naruto with floaty books, if Rock Lee were the Chosen-One).  Other than than Im really just waiting for new seasons of Food Wars to drop, and occasionally catch something new on Netflix or Hulu (Crunchyroll is too unreliable on the tech side to be worth it to me anymore). 

 

Oh, and I think Ill go ahead and classify The Dragon Prince as anime despite it's US origins, I LOVED that and cannot wait for another season.

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/6/2018 at 8:06 AM, Wander89 said:

I'm in the majority that thinks My Hero Academia is one of the best animes of this century.

I like hero academia and I'm currently caught up through season three, but I honestly don't see why some people believe it's the best. I think that the concept is pretty cool and the execution is good, but it doesn't draw me in like some other things I've watched, such as Bleach and Naruto.

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Violet Evergarden is a beautiful show that made me cry and think deep thoughts about the human condition and empathy.  Usually "terk jerker" media don't work on me, they feel emotionally manipulative and overly dramatic and I kind of check out.  For whatever reason though this show felt extremely authentic and thus hit me hard in the feels.

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14 hours ago, Briar King said:

Still going with Fate. On Stay Night S2 Ep 9. This watch is definitely taking me longer to complete then Zero did.

Funny story: back in '09 I was fresh out of college and I'd loved the music to the first Fate Stay Night so I had the soundtrack on my computer at work (and not much else, just had the one work mix).  IT needed to look at it and when I got the thing back it had an oddly worded note attached to it commenting on my taste in music.  That's when I decided to google FateStayNight and found out that before it was a wide-release anime and manga it was a Light Novel...a Hentai Light Novel.  Which in retrospect explains some of the most randomly awkward scenes in the first show. 

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