Let's talk anime.

Ego Man wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

LarryC is alive, everybody relax now.

Watched the first episode of the new Ghost in the Shell. Really liked the music. The animation is a bit jarring but not bad it just seems like it should be used for something like Dragon Quest. Story seems like a GitS story so far but I have no idea what is going on yet.

Finish watching this season. Major 17 year old look didn't match her voice or general attitude. This was kind of distracting through most of the season. The season is okay, note it isn't self contained and ends on a cliff hanger. I'm not completely sure I understand parts of the last four episodes.

Spoiler:

One kid is shot to death but is later seen as being alive. Was it a drea? Later his sister or cousin is shown to be shot to death as kid but she is alive in high school. Is she a ghost? Is she is just in the kids mind? Am I racist and think all Asians look alike and that is a completely different person? After all I can't tell the difference between Bruce Campbell and Naomi Campbell.

I'm not sure if someone is behind the post humans or if the post humans or are a natural evolution like mutants in marvel. Hmmm this might not have been explain yet though.

How does Batou fit inside those spider robots? Are they part Tardis? They are blue.

The last 4 episodes-

Spoiler:

the cousin who was shot in the past is in the post human’s head. He is the only one who can see her - see the part where he tries to escort her out of his classroom. They did lot of bouncing around the post human’s memories especially at the end where one of Section 9 gains access after his cyberbrain was hacked.

I just finished watching myself. To add on:

Spoiler:

I suspect we're going to find that the Airborn Troopers coming into the school where he got shot is part of his initial fever. It looks like Togusa was just "invited" to become part of the Post-Humans, so there's clearly still more going on here. This is especially true if we consider the boy's inspiration to be 1984, and whether the sustainable war means the Post-Humans are essentially going to take the role of Big Brother and the Party. I have a feeling the first season will have more answers once we get around to the second season.

No clue when we can expect a season two. Unlike works like High Score Girl and Little Witch Academia, this isn't a production that airs on TV first and then is released as an exclusive in the West. This is a Netflix exclusive worldwide, so we could be seeing season two in October or November, or we could be seeing it April of 2021.

Regardless, I got used to the visuals after the first episode or two. At first it was odd as they look a bit PS4-game (and in hindsight remind me of the Dragon Quest: Your Story animation), but by the second or third episode I'd gotten used to seeing it as it was. It's a continuation of the prior two Stand Alone Complex series, and in that regard it honestly felt real comfortable sinking back into. I've missed anime like this.

I love Bofuri. But looking at it from the viewpoint of a software professional, it's not just cute. Maple (and the others in her guild who do similar things but with different areas) are a cautionary tale about how MMO's need to up their testing game. The stuff she's accidentally boundary testing should have been caught before launch.

Spoiler:

(I mean, Heavens to Murgatroyd, gaining skills by eating your enemies.... There's no way anyone could have guess how THAT could go wrong)

I am enjoying the new Cyborg 009 series so far.
Their ship, the Dolphin 3 is pretty dang sweet!

momgamer wrote:

I love Bofuri. But looking at it from the viewpoint of a software professional, it's not just cute. Maple (and the others in her guild who do similar things but with different areas) are a cautionary tale about how MMO's need to up their testing game. The stuff she's accidentally boundary testing should have been caught before launch.

Spoiler:

(I mean, Heavens to Murgatroyd, gaining skills by eating your enemies.... There's no way anyone could have guess how THAT could go wrong)

Maple should definitely pursue a career in QA, finding bizarre edge cases is her superpower

fangblackbone wrote:

I am enjoying the new Cyborg 009 series so far.
Their ship, the Dolphin 3 is pretty dang sweet!

Where are you watching it?

I just finished watching Bofuri and man, even in the 'serious' battles it just gets ridiculous and hilarious in just the right way. Definitely has some cut corners that show up throughout, but the last 4-5 episodes really leaned in and sold their concept hard and it work perfectly for me. I was laughing out loud quite a bit.

I think the fact that I've hardly watched any new animes in the last few years and none have been comedic really helped. I actually said to myself recently that I wanted to find some funny new anime. My only issue now is the few that I have watched lately have mostly been set in/around MMO's. I'd like to get away from that for a while.

Another show that's a nice diversion from dark times is Snow White with the Red Hair. It's a solid, well-drawn and acted, quasi-medieval set show about competent people trying to do the right thing, with some light romantic comedy thrown into it. It's currently on rare sale on iTunes and part of Funimation's streaming platform.

My brother just watched that, actually. It's on Hulu as well, as many of Funimation's (non-DBZ) stuff is.

Coincidentally he's also watching Bofuri now, while I go through Death Note and am either going to do a (re)watch of Slayers, or of something like Black Lagoon.

ccesarano wrote:

My brother just watched that, actually. It's on Hulu as well, as many of Funimation's (non-DBZ) stuff is.

Coincidentally he's also watching Bofuri now, while I go through Death Note and am either going to do a (re)watch of Slayers, or of something like Black Lagoon.

Love Slayers, and would love a PS4 (or, I guess, PS5) game.

I was happy to discover that "Easy Breezy" was up on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Zjge...

Where are you watching it?

Netflix

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I think the fact that I've hardly watched any new animes in the last few years and none have been comedic really helped. I actually said to myself recently that I wanted to find some funny new anime. My only issue now is the few that I have watched lately have mostly been set in/around MMO's. I'd like to get away from that for a while.

I would recommend the anime Hinamatsuri. This 2018 series has a lot of heart, but also some seriously funny gags.
I'm not sure how many years you're been away from the genre, but I would also recommend Mob Psycho 100 (2016/2019) and Nanbaka (2016/2017).
Note: None of the above suggestions have anything to do with the isekai genre nor MMOs.

-

On the topic of comedies though, Princess Connect Re: Dive has been a pretty decent little fantasy (probably isekai) series so far this season. It helps that it is helmed by the folks responsible for Konosuba, but without the constant sarcasm and lechery. I'm also rather enjoying My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! This isekai and, undoubtedly, harem anime has had me cracking up since the premier episode. I also really enjoy the level of detail that goes into the clothing and architecture which makes each episode very visually pleasing.

Fair warning. Villainess is a fairly straight up shoujo harem show. Lots of pretty boys and girls chasing after our typically clueless heroine. She's not stupid, though. Villainess is one of those atypical shows where our heroine's knowledge of her past life is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Her preknowledge and perspective oftens blinds her to the obvious.

Let me add to the chorus: BOFURI is really fun. The tone is just exactly perfect; it takes itself seriously within the confines of the game world, but everyone involved knows it's not real real, so it stays purely entertaining. Getting killed can mean losing a match, but it doesn't mean losing the character, so the overall stakes are low. It's really amusing watching everyone interacting, both in peacetime and in combat.

It also looks like it would be a fun game. Sometimes, it feels a bit like watching a Twitch stream or maybe a webcast of a competitive game, and scratches that same itch pretty effectively.

There's no real death, nothing more than pixels for blood, and an engaging story. It's family-friendly, but not in a bad way. It's just lighthearted, and this graybeard thought it was time well spent.

edit: also, the animation is excellent. It's drawn with real skill, and while they use the occasional anime 'stupid face' thing, which I normally dislike, it's done with a light touch. And there are short vignettes in the show that are absolutely gorgeous, like when characters find a new area to explore. The visuals verge on amazing, at times.

Heard BOFURI mentioned so many times I had to watch it. It's funny and cute. Really pleasant watch. Also made the programmer laugh. This is why you have play testers people.

Tomorrow Studios is planning to start filming One Piece in South Africa by the end of the year.

Fellow pirate show, Black Sails, also filmed in South Africa. I suppose that's the go to place for this type of show.

The main cast for Cowboy Bebop was announced six months before production began, so we should get casting news for Luffy and other the straw hats any time now. I'm really curious to see how this surreal project pans out.

I do wish the text messaging part at the end of every Bofuri episode would go a little slower. The subtitles are sometimes up for a single frame.
Otherwise, super cute and I'm loving it. Spreading it out a bit so I can enjoy it for a while.

Taharka wrote:

I do wish the text messaging part at the end of every Bofuri episode would go a little slower. The subtitles are sometimes up for a single frame.
Otherwise, super cute and I'm loving it. Spreading it out a bit so I can enjoy it for a while.

Yeah, that bugged me too. I had to constantly pause to read them.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Another show that's a nice diversion from dark times is Snow White with the Red Hair. It's a solid, well-drawn and acted, quasi-medieval set show about competent people trying to do the right thing, with some light romantic comedy thrown into it. It's currently on rare sale on iTunes and part of Funimation's streaming platform.

Thanks for the recommendation! I'm really enjoying it so far.

Zac Bertschy of ANN died. What the hell. I think he was the only person I really checked in on once in awhile to get solid anime opinions.

F***

I go to animefeminist.com for that type of stuff

I've started back watching anime, and the last series I fully watched was Macross Frontier back in the day. Started watching again with Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, and I'm at episode 2 at the moment.

Djinn wrote:

Tomorrow Studios is planning to start filming One Piece in South Africa by the end of the year.

Fellow pirate show, Black Sails, also filmed in South Africa. I suppose that's the go to place for this type of show.

The main cast for Cowboy Bebop was announced six months before production began, so we should get casting news for Luffy and other the straw hats any time now. I'm really curious to see how this surreal project pans out.

It certainly has a beautiful coast.

Cross posting from the PlayStation 4 thread wrote:

If you have PlayStation Plus and enjoy anime keep an eye on your inbox. Today I received a code for two months of free Funimation premium access for subscribing to PS+.

And on a semi-related note, having a VRV subscription got me an email for a free month of HBO Max (They have the rights to stream Studio Ghibli movies in the US).

Dorohedoro on Netflix! It's interesting!

8th son is turning out to be interesting. The protagonist is your typical shonen OP protagonist. White collar. Got transported mysteriously.

But the twist is that the anime focuses on medieval politics and it turns out the protagonist doesn't appreciate it.

Yes, he can defeat a dragon and he gains a Barony from it. But now he's an unlanded noble at the lowest rung and the King is using him for convenience and the other nobles don't like it.

He has servant retainer applicants lining up. But he doesn't have an existing manor staff to take care of it so he has to set up what is basically a company, basically from scratch.

Every woman in his vicinity wants to wed him and have his kids, but he has to pay for all their upkeep and it'll bind him to political obligations. He even has concubines lining up. Except concubines and their siblings are generally a bunch of trouble and they're blatantly trying to get into his bed to get at his wallet.

None of this is viewed as underhanded, mercenary, or even bad. He's not used to it.

karmajay wrote:

Dorohedoro on Netflix! It's interesting!

It's super weird. I like it.

muttonchop wrote:
karmajay wrote:

Dorohedoro on Netflix! It's interesting!

It's super weird. I like it.

Oh goody I'm nearly done with my current show so I can start watching this soon. I didn't know it was on netflix.

What's the consensus on Gundam Unicorn? I feel like it's been talked about a number of times, but as someone who hasn't watched much Gundam I'm staring at the 67% score for me on Netflix and wonder why it's so low...

Tyrian wrote:
Taharka wrote:

I do wish the text messaging part at the end of every Bofuri episode would go a little slower. The subtitles are sometimes up for a single frame.
Otherwise, super cute and I'm loving it. Spreading it out a bit so I can enjoy it for a while.

Yeah, that bugged me too. I had to constantly pause to read them.

Same, it's nice to be engrossed in a modern anime... been stuck catching up on older ones. Watching One Piece right now nearing 500. I know there is a time skip in there coming up, but dang every time I try to get even a little bit of info, lots of big spoilers...

Also, I would gladly pay for a service that skipped the intro, recap, and end titles for me. At this point episodes are like 10 mins long.