Let's talk anime.

So, the Demon Slayer movie is now the third highest grossing movie in the history of Japan. It's also within striking distance of the no. 1 film Spirited Away. Personally, I believe it's because the story is straight up canon pulled from the manga, but that's just the fanboy in me talking.

Just rewatched my Blu-ray copy of Paprika. I think it holds up really well as an exploration of reality vs dreams vs pop reality. It's still fascinating to me. I admit Tokyo Godfathers might be better, but Paprika will always be my favorite.

Interesting. I enjoyed Paprika but I preferred Perfect Blue over it. Of course, I've seen Perfect Blue multiple times now and Paprika only the once. Tokyo Godfathers, I just realized, is a perfect Christmas season movie, but also feels like it's a totally different style of movie. So while Paprika isn't a "thriller" like Perfect Blue is, they're both heavy on questioning what is and isn't real, and I prefer Perfect Blue in that regard. Tokyo Godfathers is a far different kind of story.

Hm. 'tis the season for a rewatch of them all, I think.

ccesarano wrote:

Hm. 'tis the season for a rewatch of them all, I think.

Yes!

Has there ever been an outro as good as JUJUTSU KAISEN?

karmajay wrote:

Has there ever been an outro as good as JUJUTSU KAISEN?

I usually skip outros but I watch that one every time

Eh, I'm not a fan. Too abstract for my tastes. It just looks like a kid who failed to colour within in the lines while drawing.

Well, it's going to happen: Sony is buying Crunchyroll.

I have mixed feelings. It'll be nice to have those series all on one service again, if the corporate overlords don't come up with some other scheme to milk fans (the other side of those feelings).

I mean, Disney owns the entirety of Fox film which includes but still keeps their properties on both Hulu and Disney+ separate because they can.

That's true, but the fanbase of Disney is a little bit larger than the anime community. I can't see them keeping two separate sites open under one company.

I am surprised that AT&T is selling Crunchyroll though. They seem desperate to prop up HBO Max, so I would have thought if anything they would have folded Funimation into HBO Max to add more content. I suppose they need this money to pay off all those lawsuits.

Alice in Borderland on Netflix seems to be amazing. Just started it. Not animated but it is anime AF.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Alice in Borderland on Netflix seems to be amazing. Just started it. Not animated but it is anime AF.

Gearbox should do a game based on the IP. Alice in Borderlands.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Alice in Borderland on Netflix seems to be amazing. Just started it. Not animated but it is anime AF.

Much further in. It's quite good but brutal like Battle Royale. Just got to an episode where they seem to handle a trans character way better than I've ever seen it in Japanese media. I don't think it's perfect, but hopefully it's a sign of better things to come, especially in Japanese games which have been... bad.

Watched One Piece Stampede which was one of the weaker One Piece movies. The story was pretty straight forward but the bad guys were one dimensional. One bad guy wanted to be the strongest in the land and the other wanted to start a new pirate era. That was their entire motivation .

One of the movies best aspects was also one of it worse aspects. They had everybody int this movie. Everyone from the anime and everyone from the manga. It is cool seeing your favorite minor character pop up but this also means no one is given a arch or much of a reason for showing up. Also people that are A level just disappear after showing their face for a few minutes. It doesn't really make sense for dudes that could easily handle the situation to just leave God Usopp is the only that had arc in the movie and it was a good arc.

Best thing about the movie was the animation that needed to be seen on the big screen. They went all out on the animation.

Also the current One Piece arc is terrible. Easily the worse arc of the series. Things gets interesting then they go and focus on something no one cares about. Kind of funny that I really like the outfits and was thinking of getting the full crew in their wano outfits but that would just remind me on how bad this arc is.

There is one major thing that kind of sums up this arc. During the last arc there was a month or two long story point on how to take out a big bad. That big bad shows up during this arc. They take the big bad out in a way that was impossible during the last arc. It is like if your bad guy was bullet proof but then latter you take him out with bullets. Did the writers not watch the last season.

Okay rant over.

I've continued watching Sleepy Princess in a Demon Castle and Wandering Witch.

Sleepy Princess continues to be a delight. It's not deep, but it's fun. They've managed to keep things interesting even though the premise is fairly simple. I will not be surprised if the series ends with the Princess ends up staying at the Demon Castle out of choice.

Wandering Witch continues to be hit or miss. A couple of episodes were better and involved Elaina actually helping out for mostly non-selfish reasons. Heck, in one vignette, she isn't involved at all and arrives after all the conflict has been resolved. But then it goes back to Elaina being extremely vain and generally a less likeable protagonist. For example, one episode starts with her arriving at a land where you can only tell the truth, so she tests it out by trying to say "I am not beautiful", which, of course, she can't. Another episode sees her wanting to kill people because they cut her hair. Not joking (she doesn't, but still). And naturally, at the end of the episode she uses her magic to re-attach her hair.
In terms of plot direction here, they're strongly hinting that Elaina's mother was the witch Nico that Elaina is modeling.

Anyway, I'm a few episodes behind on Wandering Witch, but all caught up on Sleepy Princess, so it's not hard to see which I prefer!

Late to the party, I finally watched seasons 1-3 of Attack on Titan. I had originally shied away from this because it looked a bit too gory, but once I got over that (took a couple of tries to get into the series), I was hooked. I really loved how the story gradually unfolds over time to reveal a very rich and complex world. The first two episodes of season 4 really get into that and I'm looking forward to see how this final season plays out! If you can get past the body horror, this is a really interesting series.

ZombieCoyote wrote:

Late to the party, I finally watched seasons 1-3 of Attack on Titan. I had originally shied away from this because it looked a bit too gory, but once I got over that (took a couple of tries to get into the series), I was hooked. I really loved how the story gradually unfolds over time to reveal a very rich and complex world. The first two episodes of season 4 really get into that and I'm looking forward to see how this final season plays out! If you can get past the body horror, this is a really interesting series.

I gathered that the body horror was one of the series' selling points. It does have a lot of other things going for it, so even if you don't like that, you could still enjoy it.

LarryC wrote:
ZombieCoyote wrote:

Late to the party, I finally watched seasons 1-3 of Attack on Titan. I had originally shied away from this because it looked a bit too gory, but once I got over that (took a couple of tries to get into the series), I was hooked. I really loved how the story gradually unfolds over time to reveal a very rich and complex world. The first two episodes of season 4 really get into that and I'm looking forward to see how this final season plays out! If you can get past the body horror, this is a really interesting series.

I gathered that the body horror was one of the series' selling points. It does have a lot of other things going for it, so even if you don't like that, you could still enjoy it.

I couldn’t get into it. But that’s my relationship with most anime. I thought the concept was interesting and unique. It did a lot of cool visual stuff with points of view of the “camera”.

I usually can’t get into a piece of fiction unless the writing is impeccably paced. That’s more a critique of myself than it is of the show.

Anime X-men and anime wolverine were both added to netflix.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Anime X-men and anime wolverine were both added to netflix.

I really enjoyed the stories and the look of the two series.

Maybe Sony buying Crunchyroll will somehow mean their Roku app won't keep logging me out every two days, grumble grumble

Yeah... I don't know...

https://www.inverse.com/entertainmen...

Interesting article on Akira, its history, its impact, and its relevance to our current times. It's also streaming for free on Tubi, whatever that is.

I'm a billion episodes behind in Naruto Next Generation on episode 142. The kids are in prison trying to protect someone passing info to leaf village. This is like fourth prison episode so far. Maybe it is a season long thing. I checked a few times to make sure it wasn't filler, it wasn't but feels like filler. Might have to find a new list, a doesn't completely suck episode list. Of coarse I could continue watching the series that aren't sucking for me.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Just rewatched my Blu-ray copy of Paprika. I think it holds up really well as an exploration of reality vs dreams vs pop reality. It's still fascinating to me. I admit Tokyo Godfathers might be better, but Paprika will always be my favorite.

ccesarano wrote:

Interesting. I enjoyed Paprika but I preferred Perfect Blue over it. Of course, I've seen Perfect Blue multiple times now and Paprika only the once. Tokyo Godfathers, I just realized, is a perfect Christmas season movie, but also feels like it's a totally different style of movie. So while Paprika isn't a "thriller" like Perfect Blue is, they're both heavy on questioning what is and isn't real, and I prefer Perfect Blue in that regard. Tokyo Godfathers is a far different kind of story.

Hm. 'tis the season for a rewatch of them all, I think.

Speaking of that...

It really is Kon's masterpiece. It was one of the last of his, if not the last, that I watched due to it not being weird enough of a premise. I should've known that it would be his best and one of the best I've ever seen.

I feel like we are getting all of last year's sequels this month...

The Promised Neverland 2
Dr Stone 2
Reincarnated as a Slime 2
Re:Zero 2 part 2
The Quintessential Quintuplets 2
Beast Stars 2
The Seven Deadly Sins 4
Cells at Work 2 AND Cells at Work BLACK
Log Horizon 3
Laid Back Camp 2
Non Non Biyori Nonstop 3
World Trigger 2 (Finally!)
Umamusume 2
Sorcerous Stabber Orphen 2
Show By Rock!! 4
Wixoss 4
True Cooking Master Boy 2 (I'm not sure I've heard of this one before)
Attack on Titan 3 part 2 (actually started 4 weeks ago)

It's Attack on Titan 4, actually.