Let's talk anime.

Banana Fish finished up its run on Amazon and damn, what a top-tier show. Highly recommended.

Been really enjoying Tsurune on Crunchyroll. It's a slice-of-life about kyudo (zen archery) by the same people who did Free!

momgamer wrote:

Been really enjoying Tsurune on Crunchyroll. It's a slice-of-life about kyudo (zen archery) by the same people who did Free!

Me too. It got started later than other shows last season so i think some people forgot about it, but lately I’ve seen more mentions of it here and there.

Damn it SAO just when I was getting into your new show you do that s***.

karmajay wrote:

Damn it SAO just when I was getting into your new show you do that s***. :(

I have been complaining about that here since December. Of 2017.

I’m about to finish up High Score Girl and I could see people around these parts enjoying it. It aired in the summer in Japan but Netflix held onto it until recently for the West as they do.

It takes place in the early 90s and has a lot of actual game footage mixed in, particularly fighting games, particularly various versions Street Fighter II. The story is pretty standard romance fare in some ways but the gaming stuff is fun.

steinkrug wrote:

I’m about to finish up High Score Girl and I could see people around these parts enjoying it. It aired in the summer in Japan but Netflix held onto it until recently for the West as they do.

It takes place in the early 90s and has a lot of actual game footage mixed in, particularly fighting games, particularly various versions Street Fighter II. The story is pretty standard romance fare in some ways but the gaming stuff is fun.

I read quite a bit of the manga (scanlated). Took me a while to get past the character design style but I did end up enjoying it, although it made me sad once more I've never been able to get in to fighting games. I'm still not sure about the decision to have Akira never speak, although I admit that she was surprisingly well developed as a character in spite of that.

I completely forgot the anime was coming out... and apparently there's a 3-part OVA scheduled for March as well.

Yeah, having finished the 12 episodes, it ends without feeling resolved so the OVA must be the 3 more episodes they need to actually finish the story.

Ahh how I've missed Mob Psycho 100, I'm glad the second season is finally here. The first episode of which is quite good and I'm happy with the direction they've taken for it. The animation style has really grown on me too, I wouldn't mind seeing more series drawn similarly I think.
It's too bad the manga didn't get localized stateside sooner (Volume one just released in November), but I have the next several volumes on preorder.

I love the opening theme song to High Score Girl.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I love the opening theme song to High Score Girl.

Yeah I skip a lot of openings but I didn’t mind letting that one play.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I love the opening theme song to High Score Girl.

In a score from 1 to Databse, how much use are all my gimmicks? Should I check it out?

Log in, you damned one, and crush the won't you compromise.

So the anime adaptation of The Promised Neverland has started. I wonder how much they are planning on animating.

I loved the first arc of the manga but lost interest in it pretty quickly afterwards. Something I feel a little bad about since they allowed the story to continue in a new direction, rather than forcing it back to the status quo, something I frequently complain about in stories.

I wonder if I’ll find it more interesting in anime form.

Holy crap, that High Score Girl ending!

For those not watching, High School girl is a harem type but only two girls and one boy, in the vein of Love Hina. Basically, the protagonist is just a placeholder with a gimmick. The real characters are the two women.

And shots have been fired. Hidaka vs. Oono. I don't know who I want to win!

It's definitely a seinen for for-men series. You're supposed to like and grow attached to the true women protagonists, while the male lead is basically like the lead in Twilight - mildly interesting, but by far the least interesting character in the show.

Mob Psycho off to a good start for season 2.

First episodes or Dororo and Promised Neverland have me expecting good things.

I guess I got to watch High Score Girl now. I'm a sucker for things that seem extremely targeted towards me.

I kind of just gotta catch up to anime, period, I think.

There is a anime called Frame Girls. I checked out most of the first episode after seeing one of the models on sell and finding out there was anime.

I didn't hate the anime but it wasn't for me. The show is about the toys so it felt kind of like a commercial even more so than pokemon. A high school girl gets a special package with a frame girl inside. She is surprised by the frame girl's ability to walk and talk but not super surprised. She is like wow toys have come along way since she was kid. After awhile of minor stuff two more frame girls show up and they do battle. The battle takes place in a virtual space like that toy gundam show. I dropped it about there.

Kind of a oddball show that I'm not sure who it is aimed at. I watched a couple of reviews by ladies and dudes and was amused by the different tones. The ladies never said anything about all the panty shots and dudes talked about at every opportunity. Beside all the panty shots the show only had one other sexual innuendo. The frame girls have to charged using a plug in their backs. When she was plugged in it was like she was having a orgasm. The show seems to have to much objectification for girls at the same time being to feminine for boys.

Then there is Prison School which I also checked out. I gave this one a pass after watching the trailer. Then it showed up on multiple list of anime that went way to far, so I had to check it out. Is one of those wacky animes where weird things happen just to be odd. Like one guy never shows his face. There was a shower scene and you still couldn't see his face because his head was covered in shampoo. Another guy has a face to small for his head. One girl has command over crows for no reason. One guy refers to himself always as "yours truly". Then the show is filled with sex jokes, objectification, and three's companion situations. On a scale of 1 to 10 of raunchy it is at 100.

I actually really like prison school. I think I like it because it is a parody of all the other anime that takes things like panty shots seriously. Like every time the vice president talks to the president they always have a scene where the camera is between the vice presidents legs with the president framed between them. I'm sure you seen the same shot in Jame Bond movies. It is just so ridiculous and over the top it is funny.

So for me a no on Frame Girls and a go for Prison School.

Prison School is both parody and homage. In a sense, it's like the end of Evangelion, except all the time. It's not for nothing that all the male protagonists are depicted as such terrible people.

So on Sunday I gave three shows a try. Soul Eater, Hi Score Girl, and Baki. When it comes to first episodes, somehow Baki was the best despite being all exposition and setting the stage for the series. It seems to assume you know who the character of Baki is going in, which helps that I was able to watch Super Eyepatch Wolf's video on the series to get that background.

Neither Soul Eater nor Hi Score Girl left positive first impressions with their starting episodes, but "first episodes" are something anime tends to be pretty bad at. The reason I'm trying Soul Eater out is because my niece enjoys the show and cosplayed as the main girl when I took her to a convention held at the local community College. I wanted a better understanding of the stuff my niece is finding on her own, and... in the very first minute my thought was "So it's the violence of Parasyte but the set-up of Bleach?" Which is not really accurate to say. If I can say anything about the show it is the unique stylization of the world. Otherwise... I dunno? I'm not feeling the characters in the first episode, and it suddenly felt silly for me to be wringing my hands over fan-service content when my niece has discovered and loves a show where the male personification of a scythe jumps through a window and face-plants into the boobs of a bathing witch.

I'll keep going with it, but only so I can try and better understand something my niece likes and be able to ask her questions about it. It's funny, I was actually worried Bleach might be too fan-servicy with some of its hefty chested ladies walking around, but dang that witch in Soul Eater...

As for Hi Score Girl, I've since watched episodes two and three because I was more in the mood for something comfy. The first episode's greatest weakness for me was the inability for the protagonist to shut up. This is definitely a "tell despite showing" anime, which is no surprise since it's evidently based on a comic. It really frustrated me during that first episode, as well as the raw fan-gasming over old games. Yeah, I was a child of the SNES era, so some of this stuff makes me smile like a nostalgic idiot, but it's also annoying to feel like my nostalgia is being manipulated.

That said, episodes two and three are far better, and I think for reasons LarryC got into when he discussed the show. It's not so much about the main protagonist. It's his experience in getting closer to this girl who is very closed off, doesn't speak much (if at all), and effectively learning about her through her interactions with the protagonist. Naturally episode three goes and breaks status quo, but already I'm mentally making comparisons to the anime Gamers! and why this has, in three episodes, told a more effective love story.

That the kids are young enough that it has that sense of innocence to it helps.

I'll keep watching, and then I might rewatch Gamers! again so I can make a fresh comparison. Nevertheless, the boy's inability to shut up and the constant manipulation of nostalgia remains a problem through those three episodes, so I'm not about to give Hi Score Girl a Hi Score Grade. Thus far it's more like comparing a B paper to a C paper.

That all said, I should probably go and watch more of Golden Kamuy before I watch anything else. Oh, and why didn't nobody tell me Godzilla 3 was already out on Netflix?! I got all these e-mails for stupid Bird Box and other trash, and here the one thing I'm actually interested in I had to discover by surprise.

ccesarano wrote:

So on Sunday I gave three shows a try. Soul Eater, Hi Score Girl, and Baki. When it comes to first episodes, somehow Baki was the best despite being all exposition and setting the stage for the series. It seems to assume you know who the character of Baki is going in, which helps that I was able to watch Super Eyepatch Wolf's video on the series to get that background.

Neither Soul Eater nor Hi Score Girl left positive first impressions with their starting episodes, but "first episodes" are something anime tends to be pretty bad at. The reason I'm trying Soul Eater out is because my niece enjoys the show and cosplayed as the main girl when I took her to a convention held at the local community College. I wanted a better understanding of the stuff my niece is finding on her own, and... in the very first minute my thought was "So it's the violence of Parasyte but the set-up of Bleach?" Which is not really accurate to say. If I can say anything about the show it is the unique stylization of the world. Otherwise... I dunno? I'm not feeling the characters in the first episode, and it suddenly felt silly for me to be wringing my hands over fan-service content when my niece has discovered and loves a show where the male personification of a scythe jumps through a window and face-plants into the boobs of a bathing witch.

I'll keep going with it, but only so I can try and better understand something my niece likes and be able to ask her questions about it. It's funny, I was actually worried Bleach might be too fan-servicy with some of its hefty chested ladies walking around, but dang that witch in Soul Eater...

As for Hi Score Girl, I've since watched episodes two and three because I was more in the mood for something comfy. The first episode's greatest weakness for me was the inability for the protagonist to shut up. This is definitely a "tell despite showing" anime, which is no surprise since it's evidently based on a comic. It really frustrated me during that first episode, as well as the raw fan-gasming over old games. Yeah, I was a child of the SNES era, so some of this stuff makes me smile like a nostalgic idiot, but it's also annoying to feel like my nostalgia is being manipulated.

That said, episodes two and three are far better, and I think for reasons LarryC got into when he discussed the show. It's not so much about the main protagonist. It's his experience in getting closer to this girl who is very closed off, doesn't speak much (if at all), and effectively learning about her through her interactions with the protagonist. Naturally episode three goes and breaks status quo, but already I'm mentally making comparisons to the anime Gamers! and why this has, in three episodes, told a more effective love story.

That the kids are young enough that it has that sense of innocence to it helps.

I'll keep watching, and then I might rewatch Gamers! again so I can make a fresh comparison. Nevertheless, the boy's inability to shut up and the constant manipulation of nostalgia remains a problem through those three episodes, so I'm not about to give Hi Score Girl a Hi Score Grade. Thus far it's more like comparing a B paper to a C paper.

That all said, I should probably go and watch more of Golden Kamuy before I watch anything else. Oh, and why didn't nobody tell me Godzilla 3 was already out on Netflix?! I got all these e-mails for stupid Bird Box and other trash, and here the one thing I'm actually interested in I had to discover by surprise.

Honestly I'm not a huge fan of any of those series, but my favorite among them is Soul Eater, I feel it is a slow starting series, I almost gave up on it a few times until about episode 20, then for my tastes it got very interesting. Can't really say much beyond that because of spoilers, but there will be a shift in the tone of the series after that arc is finished IIRC. Whether or not you can make it that far is another matter. Then again I like a bit of madness in my anime.

Gamers! is a little more comedy. Hi Score Girl is a lot more romance. It's a romcom, basically. For a school romance, it moves the timeline hella fast. Like, the season ends way after they get to high school, and their high school year is itself, moving pretty fast.

Finally saw all of Violet Evergarden last night. Really great show!

ccesarano wrote:

This is definitely a "tell despite showing" anime, which is no surprise since it's evidently based on a comic.

Like, uh, ~90% of all anime?

Middcore wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

This is definitely a "tell despite showing" anime, which is no surprise since it's evidently based on a comic.

Like, uh, ~90% of all anime?

Nah.

At least 70% of modern anime is based on a light novel written by a 9th grader.

On that note, Reki Kawahara (Sword Art Online) recently discussed his changing view on the role of women in his stories. Yes, it has improved.

Keep in mind the original versions of Alicization (and all the major arcs before) were written sometime before 2002 (when he published them on the internet). He wasn't a 9th grader then, however: he was 28 years old.

Also, I was interested, so I looked it up. For new, full-length anime this season 16 (44%) are based on a manga, 4 (11%) are light novels, 6 (17%) are games, and 10 (28%) are anime originals.

Mantid wrote:

Also, I was interested, so I looked it up. For new, full-length anime this season 16 (44%) are based on a manga, 4 (11%) are light novels, 6 (17%) are games, and 10 (28%) are anime originals.

And 98% are about 9th graders.

TRIGGER has released a trailer for their anime flick Promare, which is directed by the guy behind Kill La Kill and I think Gurren Lagaan. Which is kind of obvious seeing as one person looks to be wearing a uniform right out of the former and the protagonist looks like he stepped right out of the latter.

I just glommed onto a bunch of negative feedback about Rise of the Shield Hero. It's mainly because of one of the main events in the introductory part of the story, in which the Shield Hero is targeted by a false rape accusation.

That's definitely there, and it's definitely false. But there is the idea that the story is pushing the idea that false rape accusations are common, and I don't know that that's fair. For one thing, in the story, when the woman makes a rape accusation against a very prestigious and legendary hero, everyone immediately believes her. No one believes the Shield Hero, despite his status, and he is summarily shunned and ostracized by virtually everyone. This is a noteworthy thing. Such an occurrence would be unnatural in our own societies, where rape is a very difficult thing to prosecute, and the author does later on justify exactly why this specific society is quick to side with the accuser (It's matrilineal).

But this isn't the only wrong done to Shield Hero Naofumi, and while he does bear a grudge against his accuser for it, he kind of bears a grudge against society in general after his ill treatment, and he is atypical enough of an anime hero that the story is interesting.

The thing about Naofumi is that while he started off naive and trusting, and then became cynical and angry, he's not very typical in either way. He does still hold on to his core values, so he's a bit, er, okay, a LOT of a tsundere in that fashion. After a while, he doesn't even protest his unfair reputation, and even promotes it himself - as a sort of self-destructive kind of despair. This kind of playing into accusations isn't only not unusual, it's also expected but atypical in these stories. In anime, a hero resists turning into a villain against all odds. Naofumi is surprisingly normal in that after he gets accused enough of something, he just gives up and goes along with it - at least as much as he can tolerate. He doesn't rape anyone (he's still not a bad guy), but he basically gives up even trying to appear not to be a pervert or a rapist. That's refreshingly normal.

And this isn't played up for cheap laughs, either. I've read ahead. Naofumi's deep grudges, shallow pettiness, and stubborn nature are real problems, both for him and his allies.

LarryC wrote:

That's definitely there, and it's definitely false. But there is the idea that the story is pushing the idea that false rape accusations are common, and I don't know that that's fair. For one thing, in the story, when the woman makes a rape accusation against a very prestigious and legendary hero, everyone immediately believes her. No one believes the Shield Hero, despite his status, and he is summarily shunned and ostracized by virtually everyone. This is a noteworthy thing. Such an occurrence would be unnatural in our own societies, where rape is a very difficult thing to prosecute, and the author does later on justify exactly why this specific society is quick to side with the accuser (It's matrilineal).

I haven't seen the show, but that could easily be seen as a rant against the #metoo movement, where people are beginning to believe the accusers over the rich, powerful, and influential people. See, this is what happens when you believe accusers and so forth.