:;()$&@"\The Anime Pub/:;()$&@"

https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2018/01/04/winter-2018-anime-preview/

It's going to be a crazy year.

And TIL from sakugablog: the reason Rakugo was so damn fucking good despite being a Deen animation was because a Shaft alumnus was behind it and by extension behind Deen's escape from F/SN2006's very long, very bad shadow.

Everyone's holding out for the Youjosenki announcement come the 8th, which may be season 2 (yay) or may be a cafe collab (ehh) or a pachinko game (FUUUUCK). Given Studio Nut has nothing else going on and Tanya was a huge hit, my money's on season 2.

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We just finished Tales of Zestiria The Cross. It's...okay. Ufotable level animation, unbalanced adaptation of two Tales of games and you can tell. They started with Berseria (the superior one imo) but then moved to Zestiria, which left us with a much more traditional set up. At any rate, it wasn't bad at all and the music is divine, being a collaboration between two legends: Motoi Sakuraba and Shiina Go.

My biggest gripe with Zestiria is the dragons. I never thought I'd say this but A-1 did a better CG/animation dragon with Gate than Ufotable's attempts in Zestiria. Maybe they were trying too hard to stay on-model for the games but they looked terrible. This was one case where Ufotable should have sucked it up and tried 2d.

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Just started Polar Bear's Cafe for something 'lighter' but god, that seiyuu list. Toshiyuki Morikawa (aka Sephiroth) doing Panda's Mama is hilarious. Araragi's seiyuu doing the tsukkomi penguin is great. And Takahiro Sakurai (aka Cloud, Oshino Meme, and so many others) as the ever-chill, pun-loving Shirokuma is tops. What a fun show.

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Will be doing the super-high production value Granblue Fantasy next. Friend of mine plays the game so we had a look at the first episode. Well, if you ever wanted to see a Tactics game animated, that'd be as close as it gets character-design wise.

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Showed the same friend a blend of Fate anime while he was here: Grand Order First Order, then first two eps of Apoc. He's actually played the FSN VN and the dungeon crawler fate/extra so his perspective is quite different to mine. GO didn't make him want to go play GO, but Apoc definitely piqued his interest by virtue of just how ballsy the premise is, the diversity of the Servants and the unrelenting commitment to action in the show. But I'm figuring Last Encore will be his cup of tea, given the Extra experience.

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...I'm probably going to shell out for the raw unsubbed Apoc blurays. I just *have* to see this show without the ghosting and pixelation and I don't have much confidence netflix are going to allow a cheaper western bluray release anytime soon...

Sounds like I should REALLY get into fate... but it's so. Freaking. Much. T-T

Granblue fantasy was ok imo. Nothing really new, but overall pretty solid. However, the soundtrack was pretty good iirc.
Also, bump of chicken opening. Can't really go wrong with those.

Suck it up and do the Fate thing. Start with Deen's FSN anime to get a base feel for the world (and arguably the most SoL stuff, which is actually important IMO), then do fate/zero because fate/zero is a masterpiece. Then UBW for Ufotable at their height, then Illya for some surprisingly good fights and story and skip the yuri if you want we sure did, THEN the type moon skit show Carnival Phantasm for the gut-bustingly funny parodies, THEN Apocrypha for the sakuga, music and awesome servant selection...THEN extra...

oh, and squeeze the amazing Heaven's Feel movies and the 'come play our gacha game' Grand Order one-shot in there. :P

I know fate is one of those things that we resist because it's just so big and hyped and the fanbase are completely insane and frequently dickwads...but it is genuinely that good.

Those who hate the deen anime will say go read/play the VN but that's a huge commitment given it never got an english release and so requires so...tricks to get it working. And being a VN, it has many endings and crap. I loved the Steins;gate VNs but they're MUCH more stable story-wise. I think Fate is something you can appreciate at an anime-only level.

The last series with that many different iterations and seasons I went through was the entirety of the monogatari franchise. And I hesitated for quite a while there. The problem is, once I start something, I know I can't stop unless I wanna risk forgetting it. And going through so much takes a lot of time.

Then again, I might have still a bit of time before most of my anticipated shows start this season... I might get one or two fate shows done in that time. Maybe. I don't know :/

Monogatari is a jigsaw puzzle and with just one piece missing you're fucked. And even with them all I'd argue you need several times through to get it all.

Fate is more like a grab bag of everything from cool historical interpretations of legend to slice of life fun to Shakespearean tragedy to epic action...but its nowhere near as cohesive as monogatari.

This is probably irrelevant to most of you, but one of the biggest changes to my anime viewing occurred this morning.

Anime Strike has been killed.

:) :) :) :) :)

That DEFINITELY is a good thing though. Since it's not a double paywall anymore, it'll be at least slightly more attractive to some people now.

...I just discovered the hole in my legal viewing block, now that Strike is gone and some notable titles are missing from Amazon Prime.

Hidive, Sentai's streaming service. They have Houseki no Kuni, Houzuki no Reitetsu, Just Because!, Made in Abyss...and of course they don't even have an app yet.

Fucking ADV leftovers. Also, this made me laugh out loud:

When asked by a fan on Facebook what the reason was for calling the company "Sentai", chief executive officer Matt Greenfield responded, "It's a multi-layered pun, mostly for the benefit of the Japanese. Although Sentai can be translated as Squadron, Regiment or Flotilla, it basically means a team or group assembled with specific training and equipment for a specific purpose. Plus, Sentai was formed to help keep the anime industry alive in the U.S., so the superhero aspect is a double-play on that that Americans can get."

Full of themselves much? They charge premium prices for bare-bones releases half the time...

Obligatory "Mahoutsukai no yome was fantastic" post.
Seriously though, they once again managed to strike the perfect balance between fascination and horror with the magical beings.
Also, for everyone elso who was wondering where the OVA (chise talking about something that happened in her past) fits in, it's in the last third of this episode (13).

Edit:

Finished Shirokuma. Probably the most wholesome anime I've ever enjoyed and yet far from simple or light. There's a lot of commentary on Japanese daily life and culture in there, lurking just under Shirokuma's puns and Penguin's strange love of rakugo...

Watched first ep of CCS: Clear Card Arc for the GFiancee. Seemed shiny enough, and she was good for more.

Added Slow Start and That One With The Really Long Name Universe To The Antarctica to weekly watching. Slow Start has a Bouncy Start that always puts me off just a bit but the rest was well animated and sweet and occasionally brilliant with the way it created its characters. The reallylongnameone is great. character design super reminiscent of Plastic Memories. Original premise, or at least a new spin on the 'getting out of your comfort zone' trope. Also, I did NOT pick Kanazawa for once.

But now we're between shows so I'm going to sneak Devilman Crybaby in there.

oh, and I'm sitting here listening to the FApoc OST rip, reading Fire and Fury and waiting for the GF to be ready to start Silver Soul. I'm beyond excited.