Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24249 |
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@ Errinundra: your rating of decent for Asobi Asobase reminds me once again of the Great Subjectivity Field that applies to humour. Meaning, of course, the phenomenon of two people watching the same comedy and one is rolling around on the ground, clutching their sides, tears of laughter running down their cheeks and the other person sits there, arms crossed, stone-faced. There tends to be more of a consensus over what constitutes great drama than what is funny or not. I rated Asobi Asobase as a masterpiece because it's one of the most hilarious anime I've ever come across. The Great Subjectivity Field, also known as ymmv. It does have ANN Encyclopedia's most misleading... or rather most non-useful, perhaps? - summary descriptions of all time:
Nothing in that summary is untrue, but my God talk about seriously underplaying material... sheesh. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1798 Location: South America |
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Asobi Asobase has indeed emerged as a masterpiece for the ages. One of the best cute girl comedy shows ever made IMO
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (2010) Now this is entertainment. Its also a quite unique anime that references the art style of 1990s Cartoon Network children's shows, but this show is anything but family friendly: I never watched an anime before where a main character claims to have reached a body count of 1000 with its associated sex scene. I also loved the Tokyo episode which had a realistic style that contrasted heavily with the style of the rest of the show, but when the main characters showed up on Tokyo they were drawn in the Cartoon Network style and the contrast was pretty interesting: like the movie Roger Rabbit (1988) but fully animated. 8/10 Humanity Has Declined (2012) This is like that Amazon Fallout TV show mixed with Aria. Loved the deep sarcasm of the main character and its artstyle. This was indeed a special show, one of the best anime I can remember from 2012 mainly thanks to its combination of absurdity with a certain sense of post apocalyptic death. 9/10 
Den-noh Coil (2007) I had watched its first 12 episodes nearly 10 years ago, so I decided to finish it by watching the last 14 episodes as I was too lazy to re-watch the first episodes.  Anyway, it was a good show in terms of quality of animation/art/execution but a kind of show that did not grab my interest as much as I would have expected (similar in this sense to the Apothecary Diaries). Still, this show was so well-made that I couldn't rate it below 7/10.
To Your Eternity (2021-2023) The first 40 episodes of this constituted a very good anime show. I found it a particularly entertaining viewing, something that is associated with a good shōnen manga (as shōnen manga is basically "let's try to draw down something that will surely catch the attention of the reader"). The art style was also very good and not overly "dollish", which is a problem of many 2020s anime. 8/10 Beyond the Boundary (2013) The quality of the art and animation of this anime represents KyoAni at its technical peak, so this is a show from 2013 that is still unsurpassed in those fields as of 2024. However, the writing sucked, so I didn't care about it. I have decided to give it a rating of 5/10 for the technical quality of the animation, the plot is basically your generic 90s urban fantasy manga. The Anthem of the Heart (2015) It was a super boring movie. Felt like I had watched the same kind of highschool plot before a hundred times and the art and animation were like "so 2010s mid-quality anime style." 4/10. MUSHI-SHI The Next Passage (2014) Since the first season aired in 2005 Mushishi has been often rated as one of the greatest anime ever made. I watched the second season, and it had its moments but I was also often bored. I also don't tend like episodic shows without an overarching plot very much: in this show Jinko is basically a observer representing the audience and each episode or pair of episodes is a self contained short story. Some of these were good, others, not so much. Overall 6/10. The Slime Diaries (2021) This is a great yashikei, this time set in the reborn as a slime cinematic universe.  While watching any of its now numerous seasons, I often find myself thinking that "this slime show is basically about a communist dictator who runs his country issuing absolute orders to his subjects like in North Korea but this time communism works, and the dictator is a Japanese salaryman that was reborn as a magic slime that takes the form of a little anime girl half of the time." Since I appreciate the slice of life elements of the slime anime a lot, getting a slime show that is 100% slice of life was a great deal. 8/10
Flying Witch (2016) I watched this after reading about it in this thread, I found it to be a a well made yashikei show but I found it a bit bland to be honest. It was not as entertaining as it could have been. Indeed, I found myself more entertained by slime diaries, being a yashikei with more seasoning. I like my anime more "animeish." 7/10 Maria Watches over Us (2004) Now, this is ART. It reminds me of Strawberry Panic, but actually this is the kind of show that Strawberry Panic tries to mimick and fails at doing. This is platonic yuri operating at the highest level of dramatic intensity that has perhaps ever been attained in fiction: a show where the audience can feel the sense of apocalyptic doom that is occurring in the head of main character as if the world is going to end if she gives her onesama a type of chocolate in a situation and manner that her onesama might turn to be even so slightly displeased with. Still, I rated it 9/10 because the animation is just like, really bad, to be honest. If it had KyoAni level of technical excellence it certainly would have been one of the greatest anime of all time. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24249 |
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I'm interrupting my cherished viewing of my Patlabor the TV series sets (finished up 8 out of 11 volumes) to do a quick rewatch of The Saga of Tanya the Evil. I saw it when it first streamed on Crunchy and now I'm watching my Blu-ray release. What prompted the rewatch is that I just finished the 4th volume of the light novel and it really whetted my appetite to once again see Tanya in the animated flesh and, even more importantly, hear Aoi Yuki's masterful performance of her voice. Who else could blend the sound of a 10-year-old girl with the weary cynicism of a middle-aged salaryman trying to secure a cushy position? I'll also rewatch the movie and Operation Desert Pasta.
By the way, a second season was announced back in June of 2021 and has not materialized as of yet. Dare I hope it sees the light of day in 2025? |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6592 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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The problem might be me. Here's my top 20 and bottom 20 genres on MAL by weighted average. 
Comedy is 9th from the bottom! I've never been all that enamoured of Japanese sketch comedy. Too me it relies too much on cruelty. Someone is usually being royally done over - Asobi Asobase is a perfect case in point. Compare with CGDCT @20 - they're also comedies but cruelty isn't a major source of the humour in these shows. Nevertheless, 4 of the 49 anime I've rated as Masterpiece here at ANN are classified as comedy on MAL: Bocchi the Rock!; Keep Your Hands of Eizouken!; The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Porco Rosso. Excellents include Mieruko-chan; The Night is Short, Walk on Girl; The Tatami Galaxy; Summer Wars; Skip Beat; Lovely★Complex; My Daddy Long Legs; Gunbuster; and The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Those 13 are very different form Asobi Asobase. I'm gratified to see mecha at the very bottom and Isekai 20th from the bottom. I'm intrigued space comes in at 14, yet science fiction comes in at 56. Perhaps mecha sci-fi is bringing it down. ***** Fate stay / night visual novel. Steam tells me I've played it for 10.1 hours and I'm up to the end of episode 3 of the original TV series. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10040 Location: Virginia |
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@Errinundra
I don't see The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya as a comedy. It is predominately supernatural or fantasy depending on how you differentiate the two. It has elements of comedy but it also has elements of drama, slice of life, CGDCT, love polygon, harem and likely others. The fact that it can be so many things to different people is probably why you have it rated so high. I think MAL is wrong on this one. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6592 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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^
To be honest, I agree with you. I'm also surprised Hyouge Mono, which is also many things, isn't included as a comedy. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24249 |
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@ Errinundra: the problem isn't you. You'd only be a problem if you were utterly humorless and didn't enjoy any kind of comedy at all, which is clearly not the case. No, the only "issue" here is that funny bones are highly subjective - I believe even more subjective than drama bones or music bones (although musical tastes don't tend to fall into the same levels of consensus as drama, either). You laugh at what you laugh at and that's that.
Oh and both you and Alan45 are crazy: Melancholy is most definitely a comedy with a capital C. Yes, it includes other genres but to me, at least, it is clear that much of the content is designed to elicit laughter (whether it succeeds in doing so is, of course, dependant on the Great Subjectivity Field). Remember that one of its major raison d'etres is to lovingly parody virtually all other genres in its own special way. Parody is a province of comedy. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3676 |
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I think the time from when I started and when I ended FS/N was about 5 years. I was constantly burning out in the middle of some tea party, which also served as the worst place to come back in (and then, at some point in each arc, I couldn't put it down and found myself shocked at what my clock said when I decided it was time for bed). Good luck! |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3981 |
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That's what made Takagi-san a really good show, the fact that her teasing of Nishikata was never mean-spirited and that Nishikata could have put an end to it if he could just realize that no matter what he tries, Takagi will always turn the tables on him.
I'd highly recommend giving the original manga try since it fleshes out its setting a lot more than the anime does since it only scratches the surface of the overall story. The manga really showcases Makoto's growth as a witch and explores a lot more of the aspects of the witching world. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10040 Location: Virginia |
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@Blood-
I guess I'm just going to have to disagree with you on this one. The only place I see parody was in the episode of movie making. The rest of the show was straight weirdness. With a comedy you expect some good feeling to prevail. I realize that "Melancholy" was just the title of the first novel, but it is a good description of the overall feel of the series. Haruhi is jaded beyond her years with a bad case of "is that all there is?" and everyone else is exhausted wondering "what fresh hell is coming next?" I would say mostly Supernatural Drama with elements of other themes. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24249 |
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The movie was just one example of parody. The whole concept of having a club that had an alien, an esper, a visitor from the future, etc, was part of the parodying of genres like SF and supernatural. Hell, the series even had it's own riff on mystery/detective shows. Kyon's inner monologues are just one long stream of sardonic observations. You are approaching the question from the standpoint that you personally don't find much in Melancholy that is funny. However, you have to look it from the standpoint of what the material's intentions are. To me, it is clear that much of the material is meant to be comedic... even if you personally didn't receive it that way.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10040 Location: Virginia |
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Blood- Wrote;
This is rather circular reasoning. If I don't receive something as comedic it is very unlikely that I will see the material as intended to be comedic. As usual, I read the source novels as well as watched the show. While there was some comedy over all I don't see an intent to be a comedic show. In order to be effective parody must be broad and brief. If it goes on it runs the risk of becoming what it is trying to parody. Parody that is too subtle is usually just confusing. Like I said, we just have to disagree on this one. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24249 |
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You are welcome to your thoroughly minority opinion. Based on discussions I've read about Melancholy, it is clear a majority of viewers understand that large chunks of the title are intended to be comedic. Whether those viewers actually find the comedy funny is of course a completely different topic. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10040 Location: Virginia |
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Of course I'm in the minority. I never once claimed to be normal.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24249 |
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I have to say all this Melancholy talk has put me in the mood for a rewatch of the anime... and actually reading the LNs for once... and actually reading the manga for once. So many pursuits, so little time...
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