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

I just watched a trailer for Edgerunners and... what the actual FUCK did I just watch? Huh? What? How? Why? Was that... a remixed version of "Ode to joy"? Synced to two doom levels' worth of violence? And goddamn TRIGGER did this? I HAVE to watch that!

"

Rapchiks wrote:

To be honest, I didn't like anime before. My younger brother constantly urged me to watch at least something with him. For a year I refused, calling it nonsense. But one day I agreed. He was delighted and went to the site, turned on naruto and we started watching. I didn't think I'd say this, but from that moment I watched episode after episode every day until I watched the entire line, even naruto shipuden. I was in awe of this anime. And now every time something good comes out, he calls me, I buy snacks, Coca-Cola and we watch episodes together!

That sounds awesome! Need any recommendations by chance? I'm pretty sure we could give some.

Bit of catching up done.

Househusband s2 -- fun as ever. Surprising cameo and reference to a certain anime in which the cicadas make a lot of noise.

Chainsaw man s1 -- overrated tripe. Mappa by committee. Awesome OP and EDs, but the rest is weighed down by thin source and psycho-pass style aesthetic. Can't do Psycho-Pass aesthetic unless you have something meaningful to say. Chainsaw Man, aka Moody Smoking The Anime.

Kimetsu s2 -- Regret seeing the movie, to be honest. The series handled that arc better. Second arc far better animated, with MAH GIRL as the antag-of-the-arc, but still Kimetsu No yaiba which means far too many flashbacks in lieu of genuine foreshadowing which longer series can afford (Naruto was the fucking master of the long game).

Dress Up Darling -- Masterpiece of subversion. Amazed at the butt-hurt MAL reviews. Marin is an incredibly believable character, as anyone who's ever dated a cosplayer would know.

Bocchi the Rock -- Last Year's Wonder Egg Priority, except it was good the whole way.

Sword Art Online Progressive 1 -- Sword? Lots of them. Art? Sakuga Action Flex wall to wall, Kajiura Yuki doing half Fate, half Xenosaga style music. Online? For the most part. And unlike any Fate movie ever, it's completely accessible to newbies. Asuna is a far superior protag to Kirito. Looking forward to seeing second movie at the local cinema in a few weeks.

Next up: probably catch up on Honzuki. Watch s2 of Ragnarok next week. And wait for more Bastard!!

honourable mention: not unimpressed by a few clips from Orange's Trigun. But it's Orange; of course it looks good.

Trigun is fun, even if the story is kind of strange, especially if you read the manga. They are calling this the kids version, lets be frank, its trigun, there is no possible way for it not to be depressing xD

Last season:
I dropped chainsawman after the third episode, was too boring... or maybe i'm too old? Especially when you think about the god tier shows running last season. Mob owned as usual, to your eternity is still fun, boochi stole the show, the audience and all the booze, and maid wars was something different all together. Also galactic heroes is getting better and better.

this season continues to be stacked with (sometimes) obscure goodies:
Nier doesn't disappoint even if they go sometimes blow for blow with the game.
Kiseki is meh, still gonna watch it as a fan of the games of course.

Ooyukiumi no Kaina:
As a large of Fan of Blame! and knights of sidonia this is a must see title. The cg is not that good but story and vibe are awesome already. Currently feels like a more depressing naussicäa.

Hikari no Ou:
Another ending times story, strong fairy tales wipe(I talk about the real fairy tales, not the disney ones) but they already seem to be dealing with production issues. Hopefully they will pull through, because this is something interesting.

Farmland Saga: Yes please! one of best arcs in the story. And the best intro of an s2 i have seen in a long time.

On another note princess principals third movie is finally announced.

Galactic Heroes we're sitting on per season/movie chunk because we've already seen the original so at times it's less about the intrigue and more about seeing how differently IG is approaching it vs Xebec etc.

To Your Eternity lost us with the gladiator island shit. Like, lost us hard. Was great until then.

Nier Automata has been renamed to Far Automata thanks to Covid and A-1's rotating door style.

We'll wait for the season of Farmland Saga to end as well. At least Netflix are dropping it weekly but eh, we have enough to watch otherwise.

Last show I hard dropped remains Stone Ocean. I'm definitely an ex-Jojo's fan, which is nice because it means I get the references but don't feel the need to point them out.

I'm genuinely surprised that Mononogatari (careful, NOT part of the monogatari franchise. Very easy mistake to make) got an adaptation. Even more surprised that it appears to be a pretty well-made one at that. I like it. Then again, I already liked the source material and have always been a sucker for distinctive artstyles in anime, so it was more or less to be expected.

Also, Charan... if you're already catching up with stuff, I beg of you, do not forget 86 season 2 (or season 1 part 2? One of those). Please.

Finished 86 a while back -- pretty sure I posted about it. Not bad, not bad. I know it hit you hard, but neither the GF nor I were particularly moved. It was good.

Started LycoReco tonight. 3 eps in and I'm quite impressed. The show made me realise I have a certain...triangle of expectations for a great anime. A holy trinity of sorts.

1. Great production values
2. Great voice cast
3. Great story/characters

If a show has all 3, it is GREAT. If it has any combination of the 2, it's good. If it only has one, it's almost certainly a miss for me. I'll dwell on this some more to see if there are any exceptions, but I can't come up with any right now.

LycoReco is 1 and 3. The seiyuu for it are a bunch of nobodies for the most part, so clearly A-1 spent more on production than anything else. Which is good. Very good. And the core set of characters are really easy to watch -- no annoying tropers, no so-stupid-it-hurts behaviour. All very believable within the world presented. I don't think A-1 expected it to be a hit, else they'd have gotten a bigger cast.

Back to that trinity, some of my favourite anime don't hit all three. Apocrypha, and most of Fate, is 1 and 2. Kenshin is 2 and 3. Bastard!! is 2 and 3. Way of the Househusband is 2 and 3. OG LOGH is 2 and 3. I'm a Spider So What is 2 and 3. Sword Art Online is 1 and 2. Record of Grancrest War is 1 and 3. Hellsing Ultimate is 1 and 2. Gintama is 1 and 3. And so on.

What are some that hit all three then? Jujutsu Kaisen. New LOGH. Psycho Pass. Yona of the Dawn. Vinland Saga. Non-filler Naruto. Princess Connect. Bakemonogatari (post clean-up). FMA: Brotherhood. Eighty-Six. Kaguya-Sama.

And some that hit all three STILL miss with me. Attack on Titan. Kimetsu no Yaiba.

More importantly, here are some from the top 100 from MAL I consider to have only one of the holy trinity's angles: Fruits Basket (2), Kimi no na wa (1), Jojo's (2), Chainsaw Man (1).

And then there's Your Lie In April at 67 with NONE of them.

Not that my top 100 or MAL's would be all that similar, but it's an interesting way of looking at it. MOST of the top 100 have 2 of the 3.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Finished 86 a while back -- pretty sure I posted about it. Not bad, not bad. I know it hit you hard, but neither the GF nor I were particularly moved. It was good.

You did? Huh, I must have COMPLETELY missed that. Whoopsie. Yeah, it hit me decently hard, but mostly I thought it had an almost perfect ending. That buildup, the flashback, the music, the goddamn animation... it fit together perfectly imo.

Also, BLOODY HELL, Sawano can make a killer drop even in a slow and emotional song? I bet the dude could turn just about anything into an amazing piece of ost with a drop that hits like a truck.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

1. Great production values
2. Great voice cast
3. Great story/characters

If a show has all 3, it is GREAT. If it has any combination of the 2, it's good. If it only has one, it's almost certainly a miss for me. I'll dwell on this some more to see if there are any exceptions, but I can't come up with any right now.

Well, I know that the one I consider to be my favourite anime has all three. Made in Abyss. Also, I won't specify which part of it, everything Made in Abyss we got so far was nothing short of amazing imo. Sure, it's not a series you can recommend to just anybody, but that doesn't have anything to do with the quality.

Speaking of, have you seen the 2nd season? Either my memory is failing me right now or you didn't talk about it here. At least here.

hmm made in abyss s3 is already announced but without any timeframe. So it least it will come. maybe as an anime finish only *shudder*


I also never quite understood the hype about 86. the first cour was okay i a little bit teenagey. The second part was only pathos build on self sacrifice. I would have loved to see the main female lead from s1 flee from their kingdom a lot more than this. But yeah sawano can drop, but this nothing against his RE:creators work imo. Still a good OST through ;)

My favourite Sawano is probably Thunderbolt Fantasy. Urobuchi Gen brings out the best in him, and his vocal collabs with OG Anison Legend TMR aka Nishikawa Takanori -- 'His/Story' and 'Roll the Dice' are two of the best anison, period. For that matter, I think I prefer Sawano's vocal work over his instrumental: 'Binary' from LOGHDNT is a masterpiece worthy of the original series' powerful but understated OPs and EDs.

But this is like comparing one's favourite dishes at a top-end restaurant. Sawano, Kajiura, either Kanno, Iwashiro, Iwasaki, Yokoyama, etc...they're all good, and they're all amazing when given the right project.

Re Made In Abyss, we only did the first season and will likely redo that before the movie and s2. Related to that and the above, I probably mentioned in passing I 'met' Kevin Penkin once long ago. Specifically, I was Community Manager on a game he was slated to do the OST for, before he got big with MIA and Shield Hero, and coordinated an online Q and A between him and the community. That was the first and last time I did anything like that, but it was quite enjoyable. I knew he was going to get big after that, especially when that game project imploded and failed. He was too good for it.

I'm always hella impressed when non-Japanese make it in the anime scene. Be it global sakuga aces pulled in for special projects (or as emergency help, as with Wonder Egg Priority and Revue Starlight), multi-lingual seiyuu, anison singers, or composers -- we need more and more of this to get anime out of the niche where it's made specifically for and by the Japanese market. Not that I am ready to call any old adult-aimed animation 'anime' thank you very much Netflix (fuck off with that please), but I do think it's become enough of a 'style' that non-Japanese can make very excellent anime-style work. BUT I suppose then it becomes a matter of finding a convenient term for that: 'anime-style' and 'animesque' are just too clunky. I guess that's where Netflix just threw their hands in the air and were like fuck it, it's all anime now bitches. Enjoy your Donghua, your Frederator-produced CARTOONS FOR GROWN UPS, your crappy 80s remakes.