The Anime Thread

[Syt]

I quite liked the movie version.
The original anime.... I don't remember too much. The 5 minute vignette format doesn't do it for me generally. Saiki K is the only one I like.

Hetalia was also fun for a while.

[Josquius]

Hetalia was forever ruined by moving to Japan and meeting fujiyoshi.

[jimmy olsen]

I can't get past chapter 1.
The art is off putting.
But ja. It's crazy popular.

Same thing for me.

[Josquius]

The pick of this season gone - Ya Boy Kongming.

3 kingdoms general Kongming finds himself in modern Tokyo, where he meets a struggling musician and decides to become her tactician, applying romance of the 3 kingdoms strategms to the music scene.
It's fun.
And there aren't too many good music anime out there.
Worth a watch.

Also anyone else watched odd taxi? That was also fantastic.

[Josquius]

This thread has dropped to oblivion without Mono.
Still.
The current anime you should watch- Oshi no Ko. Saying much about it will be a spoiler. And if you're remotely open to anime watch it without spoilers. But it is just fantastic all round.  Kind of Perfect Blue vibes. Looks at various aspects of the Japanese entertainment industry from the POV of someone who isn't particularly interested in being part of it but reasons.
It took a lot of trustworthy sources saying it was worth watching to get me to give it a go as the blurb just didn't sound like my kind of thing. I don't like pop music and see idol culture as everything that is wrong with pop music. But the show agrees.

[viper37]

This thread has dropped to oblivion without Mono.

He left because we didn't support Xi Jinping, or he left because his public persona never really match his forum boasting and he disapeared never to be heard again?

[jimmy olsen]

This thread has dropped to oblivion without Mono.

He left because we didn't support Xi Jinping, or he left because his public persona never really match his forum boasting and he disapeared never to be heard again?

Did he really do much boasting?

[Josquius]

Iirc he went too over the line at one point cheering for protestors getting their heads smashed in and had a thread locked temporarily. Never banned.

[viper37]

Gundam Witch from Mercury.

Such a bizarre show.

It has high reviews, very high praise.  Promising a novel story, not a retelling of a another story, it got my curiosity piked.

Space lesbians.  Umh, ok.  Forced marriage.  Students fighting in mobile suit so they can determine who's gonna marry who.  Some weird love story.  A Gundam that isn't a Gundam but a very advanced mobile suit.  My guess is it will be destroyed later on the show and rebuilt as an even more powerful mobile suit


In short:  Teenage drama in a private school where they solve their disputes by duking it out in their Mobile Suits.  No signs yet of a giant arching conflict between Earth and its space colonies.  Not much in the terms of global politics, but lots of teenage angst.

Would be perfect for Mono.

[Jacob]

Iirc he went too over the line at one point cheering for protestors getting their heads smashed in and had a thread locked temporarily. Never banned.

That's right. He was gloating about a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators and I locked his thread for a few days. It was enough for him to stop posting.

[Jacob]

I've never really been an anime watcher beyond Miyazaki's work, but recently we've started watching One Piece with my boy. It was mainly "let's watch something together" thing, but I've been positively surprised by just how good it is.

Great characters, great writing, funny, with really good commentary on society and the human condition.

It's a bit of a commitment, with more than 1000 episodes at this point (we're in the mid 500s right now), but I've found it totally worth it.

Apparently it's one of the world's biggest selling entertainment properties, with more than 500 million units sold (rivalling Harry Potter).

[Syt]

I've watched Frieren on Crunchyroll/Amazon.

Really, really enjoyed it and understand all the praise being heaped on the show.

The setting is a fantasy world, very (J)RPG-like (with the weird mix of 18th century and medieval styles that Japanese like to do ... tbf, it's probably a similarly weird mish-mash of styles most of the times Western producers set something in Asian history ). Adventuring is a common profession, and you have different classes (mage, cleric, warrior, monk ...).

The show starts with the party of adventurers returning from their 10-year quest to defeat the Demon King, bringing peace to the lands. The group's leader is Himmel, revered throughout the land for his deeds, and his companions are Heiter (cleric), Eisen (dwarf warrior), and Frieren (Elven mage).

Afterwards, they part ways, with Frieren, the elven mage, brushing off the "mere ten years" they spent together, heading out to study more magic. She returns to her companions 50 years later, with Himmel dying of old age shortly after. At that point she realizes that the 10 year journey impacted her more than she expected and sets out on a journey to make up for lost time, trying to learn to make personal connections. Most of the show is set 28+ years after Himmel's death (and ca. 80 years after the original quest), but features many flashbacks.

What follows is a journey of coming to terms with the briefness of lives, the importance of making connections, realizing how every encounter you make touches both you and the other person's life, and developing more empathy. Of course there's fighting monsters etc., but it takes a distinct backseat (mostly) to the more personal development of the characters.

The art is quite beautiful, and the soundtrack, for the most part, has strong celtic vibes, reminding me mostly of Lord of the Rings Online. The intro songs are IMHO pretty bad, though.

The show has many "one off" episodes where Frieren and her companions travel ever further North, usually quite introspective. There's a bigger arc fighting demons in the first half of the season, and another about magical trials in the second half (which featured an old fashioned dungeon crawl that was maybe a bit drawn out, but had some fun bits - "Always explore the entire floor before progressing down" or "This looks like the main route, let's turn back and check the rest of the area" ).

Overall really good IMO, though with how heartfelt much of the show is, some of the sex jokes felt a bit out of place. Oh, and the gratuitous use of German for every single character and location name. It's not like in Legend of the Galactic Heroes which had an in-universe explanation, or sprinkled in here and there in other shows. Here, every place and character uses a semi-random German word. Character names like Frieren, Himmel, Heiter, Eisen, Fern, Stark, Draht, Übel, Draht, Flamme, Dünste, Blei, Lernen, Falsch, ... locations are city names like Äußerst, Strahl, Vorig, or geographic regions like Riegel Canyon, Kühl Region, Rohr Road, Offen Mountain Range, Alt Woods, Laub Hills, ... 

P.S.: Oh, and the goal of the journey is: Ende.

[Duque de Bragança]

Overall really good IMO, though with how heartfelt much of the show is, some of the sex jokes felt a bit out of place. Oh, and the gratuitous use of German for every single character and location name. It's not like in Legend of the Galactic Heroes which had an in-universe explanation, or sprinkled in here and there in other shows. Here, every place and character uses a semi-random German word. Character names like Frieren, Himmel, Heiter, Eisen, Fern, Stark, Draht, Übel, Draht, Flamme, Dünste, Blei, Lernen, Falsch, ... locations are city names like Äußerst, Strahl, Vorig, or geographic regions like Riegel Canyon, Kühl Region, Rohr Road, Offen Mountain Range, Alt Woods, Laub Hills, ... 

P.S.: Oh, and the goal of the journey is: Ende.

Spoilers!!!   

[Josquius]

Friren has gotten a lot of brilliant press lately. It is on my list of things to watch.

Main thing I've watched lately is the 3rd series of Mushoku Tensei. Its a very good show, really feels different to standard landfill Isekai.
Though this 3rd series...the entire first half's central plot point is the main character having erectile disfunction.
In a fantasy adventure anime.
But its entertaining nonetheless and is now getting into gear.

[Syt]

I'm generally disposed negatively towards isekai ... and it's so ubiquitous. Never liked "person from ordinary world travels to the past/future/fantasy realms/other dimensions" stories ever since I was a kid. When I was reading manga a lot in the late 90s, I loved fantasy ones - Berserk, Record of Lodoss War, Slayers, Bastard, ... Frieren made me realize how much I'm missing those

I should check out Bastard on Netflix. Supposedly it's a lot closer to the manga than the 90s anime. And how can you not love an anime where most characters are named for 70s/80s metal bands and musicians.