Let's talk anime.

I told my brother today that even Gen Urobuchi, whose playbook consists of Nihilism and "Those who fight monsters etc.", has a brighter tone than the Dragon's Dogma anime.

Kinda says something.

New stuff i watched this week -

I've never watched all of Inuyasha but I watched the 1st ep of Yashahime:Princess Half-Demon and it was ok because I think it shows mostly the old crew vice the new one.

Dragon Quest:Adventure of Dai - I'll watch a few more but gives me a real younger crowd vibe

Iwakakeru - Sport Climbing Girls - I enjoyed it

I'm Standing on a Million Lives - good 1st episode and premise - hopefully the ending does not show how the show will progress

Spoiler:

By that I mean where the dude thinks he has to go it alone without the help of the girls

Jujutsu Kaisen - good action, fun characters

Burn the WItch - really just 3 eps? Cool world building and characters anyway

Mantid wrote:

[*]TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You - A bit of a strange Romcom (I mean, they are married the second time they meet), but it was cute and had a relaxing pacing. I'll probably enjoy it even if it continues like the first episode, but there is potential for it to become a sweet, charming, and heartwarming story.

Oh I read quite a bit of the scanlated manga of this under the title Fly Me to the Moon, had no idea it had gotten an anime adaption. The premise is pretty absurd and the whole thing is a bit of a tease (in a wholesome way), but it's cute and chill as heck.

Hey all, can I get some recommendations for anime?
I'm looking for cutesy stuff, set in a fantasy world, or with fantasy themes/characters. I've listed some stuff I've watched in the vein I mean below. Definitely no character deaths.
Thank you!

  • Bofuri
  • The Helpful Fox Senko San
  • Miss Kobyashi's Dragon Maid
  • Flying Witch
  • Wandering Witch (well, episode one seemed like what I want!)
  • Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (ditto)
  • Laid Back Camp (ok, no fantasy themes here, but I still like it)
  • Today's Menu for the Emiya Family
  • Didn't I say to make my abilities average in the next life?
Taharka wrote:

Hey all, can I get some recommendations for anime?
I'm looking for cutesy stuff, set in a fantasy world, or with fantasy themes/characters. I've listed some stuff I've watched in the vein I mean below. Definitely no character deaths.
Thank you!

  • Bofuri
  • The Helpful Fox Senko San
  • Miss Kobyashi's Dragon Maid
  • Flying Witch
  • Wandering Witch (well, episode one seemed like what I want!)
  • Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (ditto)
  • Laid Back Camp (ok, no fantasy themes here, but I still like it)
  • Today's Menu for the Emiya Family
  • Didn't I say to make my abilities average in the next life?

I liked Restaurant from Another World.

LarryC wrote:
Taharka wrote:

Hey all, can I get some recommendations for anime?
I'm looking for cutesy stuff, set in a fantasy world, or with fantasy themes/characters. I've listed some stuff I've watched in the vein I mean below. Definitely no character deaths.
Thank you!

  • Bofuri
  • The Helpful Fox Senko San
  • Miss Kobyashi's Dragon Maid
  • Flying Witch
  • Wandering Witch (well, episode one seemed like what I want!)
  • Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (ditto)
  • Laid Back Camp (ok, no fantasy themes here, but I still like it)
  • Today's Menu for the Emiya Family
  • Didn't I say to make my abilities average in the next life?

I liked Restaurant from Another World.

That's a good one! some other ones you might check out:

  • ENDRO!
  • Urara Meirochou
  • Interviews with Monster Girls
  • As Miss Beelzebub Likes it
  • Ms. vampire who lives in my neighborhood
  • Gabriel DropOut
  • Princess Connect! Re: Dive
  • The Demon Girl Next Door

Wonderful! I forgot that I actually had seen some of those (and you're spot on, they're great).
Will gladly take any more that you can think of!

Aria the Animation (and it's second and third seasons) is a really chill show that I think you'd enjoy. It's one of my personal favorites.

Taharka wrote:

I'm looking for cutesy stuff, set in a fantasy world, or with fantasy themes/characters. I've listed some stuff I've watched in the vein I mean below. Definitely no character deaths.

Iroduku: The World in Colors

Finished the last two episodes of Deca-Dence today. I agree with Malor in that it was a pretty perfect ending. There's one element that felt hand-waved away, but I'm willing to go with it.

Spoiler:

So the Hugin Mugin system is basically told they're scared of change, and just... relinquish control. And then once everyone wins, they... further relinquish control so as not to exist anymore, effectively? Felt rushed, but everything ended happily enough that I was fine with it.

It did make me reflect on the merits and detriments of shows being so short on average these days. While Deca-Dence has no wasted filler episodes, it also has very limited development to all but the core characters. Perhaps it's due to the way the show played out, but I can't help but think back to Macross and its 39 episode run. If you wanted, you could probably condense that episode down and tell the main plot within 13-24 episodes if you want. But even in the most "filler" of episodes you have character development, and therefore far more characters are able to carry far more presence and meaning, particularly in terms of theme.

I can't help but wonder if Deca-Dence could have been better by giving more space for the characters to develop as a whole, or if it's better to be as succinct as it is.

Regarding Deca-Dence:

Spoiler:

What I understood from the system revelations at the end wasn't that the system was an all-knowing evil system. When the system rep at the end said "Bugs have always been part of the system," it wasn't that they lost - though that was the natural kneejerk reaction. It was the final confirmation that they had won. Basically, bugs are how the system evolves. It's not a static system and apparently never was. The current extreme anti-bug state was a state evolved from previous states - but it could evolve out of it, too, and it apparently didn't start out that way.

Minato became the new sysad of the system, but it didn't mean that Munin reliquished control. It just changed sys-ads.

I can't help but wonder if Deca-Dence could have been better by giving more space for the characters to develop as a whole, or if it's better to be as succinct as it is.

I think it could probably have gone to about 20 episodes without overstaying its welcome. With 12 eps at 20 actual minutes per, that's only 4 total hours, which didn't leave a lot of room for nuance. It didn't feel rushed, but the bad guys were kind of a pencil sketch, and you're right about the ending not covering everything.

I have no idea how the anime market works, though; would a 20-ep season fit in their schedules? And everything's messed up with production schedules everywhere, yet another aspect of Hellscape:2020. Animating 200 minutes of video is a gigantic amount of work, particularly as well-drawn as it usually was, and maybe getting that much product out wasn't realistic.

Maybe they just figured it wouldn't make enough money to cover that much labor? I wonder if this is the anime version of the Minimum Viable Product?

Middcore wrote:

To close the book on the Dragon's Dogma discussion...

In conclusion this show is kind of f*ckin' dumb.

Yeap, this sums it up real well.

Spoiler:

Instead of pride, shouldn't it be wrath? It's bloody revenge after all.

Traditional instrumental of Demon Slayer's theme song:

Watched season 1 of Terra Formars and didn't really like it. Setting aside I couldn't decide if I was being trolled by racists the story was just bad. There was very little story to speak of. The show is pretty much giant bugs vs people with bug powers. No character arcs or development. Some people are in bad situations for no reason. Why should I care that one dude is getting cheated on. Oh she has sick kid but she was on screen for two minutes so why should i care. They just throw this messed up situation out for misery porn. None of it adds to the story .

I kinda... don't like the character of Elaina in Wandering Witch.
Episodes 3 and 4... she doesn't actually help anyone, which is such a change to episode 2. It's like the fact she's a witch with magic is utterly irrelevant for the most part, and she's just self-centered on her journey.
The show could be compared to Kino's Journey, but Kino always seemed to help people, even if it was on the way to helping herself.
I guess... I'm not sure why they didn't just do a vignette show without needing a framing device. Or made said framing device more likeable.

On the other hand, Sleepy Princess has become the show I look forward to most each week. I initially wondered how they could keep the gag going, but they've managed it, and I love how cute it is. I bet the show ends with the princess willingly staying in the demon castle.

Taharka wrote:

I kinda... don't like the character of Elaina in Wandering Witch.
Episodes 3 and 4... she doesn't actually help anyone, which is such a change to episode 2. It's like the fact she's a witch with magic is utterly irrelevant for the most part, and she's just self-centered on her journey.
The show could be compared to Kino's Journey, but Kino always seemed to help people, even if it was on the way to helping herself.
I guess... I'm not sure why they didn't just do a vignette show without needing a framing device. Or made said framing device more likeable.

Yeah, I kinda gave up after the third episode.

In the first episode there's this big effort to teach her humility and to not think of herself as better than other people, but every subsequent episode starts off with her monologuing about how she's the prettiest smartest specialest witch in the whole world.

At least in the second episode she did a few nice things, but then episode 3 is just vignettes of her encountering different f*cked up situations and basically just saying "wow that's f*cked up -- anyways I'm gonna bounce, good luck with your carnivorous plants or creepy master-slave power dynamic or whatever." Why am I supposed to like this character?

Yeah. That's a much better way of putting it.
I thought she would be a more sympathetic character, as you said, given the first episode.
But nope.
4th episode is just as bad... maybe a little better, but not much.

Redline is on Amazon Prime now.

Anime I'm watching this season & where plus a one sentence synopsis from Kotaku.

Crunchyroll / VRV:

  • I'm Standing on a Million Lives [Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Isekai-ish] "A high schooler and his buddies find themselves in a fantasy world where they are forced to go on quests to stay alive."
  • Jujutsu Kaisen [Genre: Action, Drama, Magic, Supernatural] "An athletic high school student picks the occult club over a sports team [and becomes host to a demon]."
  • Noblesse [Genre: Action, Supernatural] "After an 820-year slumber, a noble with special powers finds himself in a different and modern world."
  • Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You [Genre: Comedy, Romance] "A young man hopes to marry a young woman who saved his life."
  • Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon III [Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy] "The third season of an anime about a love-hungry young adventurer who befriends a goddess and joins her adventure-seeking crew."
  • Black Clover [Genre: Action, Fantasy] "A boy without magic, in a world of mages, strives to become the Wizard King."

Hulu:

  • By the Grace of the Gods [Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Isekai] "A man dies and is reborn in a magical world where he goes on adventures and has good fun."
  • The Day I Became a God [Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Slice of Life] "A student’s life changes forever when he meets a purple-haired girl who tells him the world is ending in thirty days."
  • Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World [Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Romance] "A knight finds himself smitten with a witch, with each belonging to rival, warring factions."

My two current favorites are Tonikawa & Our Last Crusade. I'm pretty happy with this season so far, only two continuations and a bunch of new series with potential. There is one other anime I haven't watched yet, but plan to, Akudama Drive which is available on Hulu and from one preview I've seen has been likened to Black Lagoon. I'll likely hop into it later today. There were also a few series exclusive to Funimation that I wanted to see but wont get to until I have the funds to subscribe again: Moriarty the Patriot, Talentless Nana, & King's Raid: Successors of the Will.

I'm actually watching and enjoying Wandering Witch right now. The contrast with Kino is interesting. Kino's Journey is a lot more fairy-tale-like and is boundlessly optimistic. Whereas Elaina doesn't waste time telling people that she expends a lot of effort in self-care, her world is a lot more predatory and realistic - it often isn't a good idea to involve yourself in things you don't really understand. The 3rd episode makes this point. The master of the son means well, but what he's doing will likely end in tragedy. If Elaina intervenes, what makes her any different? She doesn't know how that will end (likely with the girl being executed as an escaped slave) and she doesn't have the ability nor any intention of settling down to care for a slave girl she doesn't know.

Her reaction makes sense, it's just not something I enjoy watching. There's no interesting narrative there, it's just misery tourism.

I just finished the Netflix Original "Blood of Zeus". They call it anime, but it's very Western in feel. It's run by a pair of Greek American brothers (who were also involved in the movie "Immortals").

It captures the bloody, violent nature of the old classics like The Illiad and The Odyssey. The story is "original" in a sense that they wrote it and it's not one of the Classics, but it carries on all the traditional tropes. It's gory and full of jealousy and vengeance, with no veneer of pretty magical sparkles to leaven it.

Please understand, I consider that a feature in this case. So often we get the Disney-fied version of these stories, when if you read the originals they are full of all the brutality and awfulness humanity is heir to and that the Greek gods personify. They shy away from none of that, and in the process create some interesting characters.

Spoiler:

I was impressed with the depths they went to in the text, and they didn't dumb anything down. For example, I gave them extra points for including Hades bident straight up without explaining it and making it a key clue that you wouldn't get unless you were deeply familiar with the source stories (they do eventually explain, but it's a fait accompli by the time they do).

The art reminds me of old illustrations from books, and the music is heavy on the chorals. If I had to compare it to anything, I would say "Joseph King of Dreams" or "Prince of Egypt".

I'm not sure I'll watch it again any time soon, but I'm glad I did.

I got around to watching Akudama Drive and wow, three episodes in and I'm sold. The art direction for this series is soaked in neon colors and has some of the best transitions I've seen in an anime in a long time. I also enjoy that the episode titles match the names of American action/crime movies. Akudama Drive so far has played out like Oceans 11 meets Suicide Squad in that a group of criminals, with their own specialities, is gathered together for a job they can't refuse because they were tricked into wearing an exploding collar around each of their necks. There is a payoff however, if completed, they will each earn $1 billion.
I will mention that it is a series that is fairly violent and bloody.

Sony is reportedly close to buying Crunchyroll for just under a cool billion US dollareedoos

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Bus...

Note that Sony already owns Funimation...

Yeah, Sony has been making a huge push into anime since buying Funimation three years ago. Given the money they have been throwing into licenses, I'm not surprised they are making the push to devour their biggest competitor.

My Hero Academia Hero Rising movie is out to rent on vudu. Not a must watch.

Middcore wrote:

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny-girl Senpai has been an amazingly pleasant surprise. I thought it was just going to be some fanservice thing but no! That's just how they lure you into watching the first episode of what is actually a well-written magical realist romance.

The thing is that I just finished episode 3, which is roughly equivalent to the first light novel apparently, and if that had been the entire thing (done as a movie maybe) I would be totally satisfied but now I'm worried the rest of the show with other characters won't be as good.

Any issues with the middle of the show are forgiven in light of the final arc of the series and the movie we got to wrap it all up.

Why is the outro to JUJUTSU KAISEN So good?