Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3878 Location: New York state. |
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Watching The Hero is Overpowered Yet Overly Cautious. Had impulse bought it back in December to keep my shelves stocked up, though now kind of regretting it. Seeing the first two episodes, getting the impression this series is going to be a one-trick pony with its main gimmick of the male protagonist having a paranoid level of cautiousness.
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 562 Location: North America |
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Gochūmon wa Usagi desu ka? (Is the Order a Rabbit?)
The girls are kawaii. The actions of the girls are kawaii. The bunnies are kawaii. The cafés are kawaii. The town is kawaii. Did I mention that this show is kawaii? |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6525 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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I finished The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye. Considering it's 18 years old, and a couple of clunky episodes aside, it's an attractive series. The highlight is a magicial sequence where the main character's young, would-be protégé witnesses "moonlight dragonflies" in the desert along side a wolf with unexpected intelligence. I'm sure it's a scene I'll come back to in the future.
Honoka is a, mostly, serious protagonist who's treated, mostly, respectfully by the script and animators. For a shonen series it's surprisingly and agreeably both thoughtful in its messaging and sparing its action sequences. To top it off, The Third has a welcome mid-noughties feel. Well, it did start in 2006. Rating: very good. 
Millie, Kamui the wolf, moonlight dragonflies and an ever-expanding universe. I finished Frieren and ranked it masterpiece with some misgivings. I never much liked the the Aura / demons arc, while the mage exam arc started off weakly. As with The Third, when series stray into simpler tournament-style or "let's settle things with some blood-letting and enjoy ourselves at the same time" action, my mind starts to wander. The sight of a smart-arse, crooked smile from an irredeemable villain about to enter combat is too often a sign of dull writing. You know, just before they get their comeuppance and die horribly. Happily, Frieren always recovered from these lapses to provide great character interactions and clever resolutions. The thoughtful ruminations on death and memory, while remaining positive and compelling, are rare in anime. 
Australia has the same bluray region code as the UK, which is turning out to be a stroke of luck. Crunchyroll Australia - the only local distributor left - has reduced it bluray output to a trickle. Their March pre-release list only had 3 new titles, one of which was Suzume on either dvd or limited edition only bluray. The latter was priced at AUS129.00. Oddly, they took the Suzume listings down after a day or so. I wonder if there was blow back. Anyway, a UK distributor, All the Anime, has been releasing older titles on bluray - a la Discotek - but in a higher quality package, with a hard cardboard box and booklet. Examples have included the Patlabor movies, Angelic Layer and Kids on the Slope. My old dvd copy of Patlabor 2 was atrociously produced, looking as if it were reproduced from a home videotape. My UK Patlabor 2 / Kids on the Slope order arrived this week (after a slight hiccough). Watching Patlabor 2 with decent quality was fantastic, until I got to its memorable just war / unjust peace scene with Captain Goto on a boat on a river passing by scenes of industrial decay. Something seemed off. I got out my old dvd and, sure enough, the bluray is a dubtitle release. Such a curse. The ambiguous and sinister Shigeki Arakawa's provocative argument to Goto doesn't always flow logically in the dub of the scene - I'll be kind and blame the difficulties of lip-syncing - and, at one point, the dub removes a heavily implied criticism of America's role in the Cold War. I'm disappointed, but I'll live with it. Another issue with the dub is the voice actors for Goto and Arakawa are age inappropriate. 
The bluray lacks the "making of" featuring director Mamoru Oshii segment found on the dvd, but makes up with a booklet with essays and interviews with the Japanese voice actors. With the improved release, I've upgraded its rating to very good. The visuals and action scenes are Oshii mesmerising - he's first and foremost a visual story teller - but I never found the illusory coup d'état plot convincing, and the verbal exposition and philosophising becomes tiresome. I've now start re-watching Kids on the Slope. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Over the past couple of years I haven't watched many anime that I really loved. So I decided to re-watch some of my old favorites to remember why I got obssessed with anime/manga in the first place. Re-watching those indeed made me remember.
Now, I am having the impression that anime over the last several years has lost a bit of the dramatic edge they historically had, although that might be because I am making a biased comparison of the best of previous eras with the regular stuff made today. Still, I now would place the years around 2010 as anime's peak in terms of production of great shows that really pushed the artistic boundaries of anime. Boundaries that the industry still hasn't surpassed, or maybe, it's just because I just like moe more than other genres and around 2010 was the time when moe was popular. Doctor Stone New World part 2 (2023) Dr. Stone is one of the most entertaining shounen jump based anime titles of recent years. I find the idea of reconstructing civilization from the apocalypse very entertaining by itself and this show executes it in a fresh although extremely stylized manner (well, it's anime afterall). 8/10 Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) I re-watched this for the 8th or 9th time, I still regard it as the best anime/manga I ever experienced. Better indeed than any of Miyazaki's works or the Ashita no Joe manga. It's great because it works very well across all dimensions: it is excellenty paced, with no wasted moment, and it's intensely metafictional, dramatic, moe, sadistic, and horrifying at the same time. It's the ultimate anime, executing many if not most of the tropes typical of Japanese animation while being very self aware of it. 10/10 Haibane Renmei (2002) This is another old favorites of mine, I watched it about 5-6 times already. While the art and animation were not at the cutting edge even by the standards of 2002, this show's sheer sense of earnestness and the depth of the characters make it an unique experience. It is proto-moe slice of life in a sense but also has a quite impacting sense of darkness, making it similar to Madoka in this sense. The soundtrack is also excellent and fits the show's style perfectly. However, I regard it as slightly weaker than Madoka because of it's more numerous flaws, specially in that it doesn't maintain the same degree of dramatic pacing. 10/10 Wonder Egg Priority (2021) It's a decent show, the animation is very good (watching this just alongside Haibane Renmei shows how animation technology has improved since Haibane Renmei's time) character designs are cute/pretty and the premise is fairly entertaining. However, when the show started to become very good, the writing fell apart and its "ending" basically sucked hard. It's a good example of a 6-7/10 "light horror" anime show. K-On! (2009) I watched this show about 3 times already and it's indeed the gold standard of moe slice of life. It's perfectly executed, with excellent animation, direction, and the character designs are the cutest ever without looking insect-like as the other moe anime of the late 2000s. Overall, one of the best anime shows ever made. It works well as a contrast to Madoka since Madoka is partly decontructing not just Mahou Shoujo but also the slice of life moe show. 10/10 Aria: the Origination (2008) No other piece of visual media exudes as much optimism and is as kawaii as Aria. The simple JRPG art style, the architecture and setting of Neo Venezia, and the intense colors fit the show's narrative perfectly. What I find the most impressive is how earnest it is, like a very uplifting version of Haibane Renmei. A classic indeed a very nice to watch before going to bed. 10/10 Frieren 1st season (2023-2024) It's a very nice show, excellently well animated and directed, I rate it as the second or third best anime show of the 2020s so far IMO (just after second season of Vinland Saga). But it's not among the best ever, as I re-watched my old favorites to remember how good anime could be and while Frieren is indeed excellently well made it lacks the dramatic intensity of Haibane Renmei, or the sheer moe intensity of K-On, the earnest optimistic outlook of Aria, so IMO it's not quite up there with the best of the best. Which is why I rate it as 9.5/10, not quite 10/10 but better than the 9/10 shows. |
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2459 |
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I'm currently going through the second season of Osomatsu-san and am pretty disappointed. I didn't think the first season was incredible or anything like that, but by God this second season managed to completely kill it for me. The cynical in me feels like the success of the first season was unexpected and they churned out a new one when they shouldn't have
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4609 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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They milked it way too much though. Even though they actually added some "story" in the last season (so far), I could barely make it through. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Clannad: Afterstory (2008)
It has been 10 years since I watched Clannad: Afterstory. It is, without a doubt, a masterpiece of its genre and one of the greatest anime ever. I usually never cry but rewatching Clannad: Afterstory after a decade made me cry more than I cried in the last decade, since the first time I watched it. Its a very effective tear jerker, perhaps the most effective tear jerker anime I have experienced out of the thousand anime titles I watched. KyoAni really nailed this romance/tragedy adaptation, as they basically "solved" the tear jerker genre, as I find it impossible to imagine something more hard hitting. 10/10 |
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Piglet the Grate
Posts: 562 Location: North America |
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For me it is Furuba/Fruits Basket, but maybe one has to have had a traumatic childhood due to bad family to really relate to it. |
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Piglet the Grate
Posts: 562 Location: North America |
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Sora to Umi no Aida (Between the Sky and Sea)
Why? Because the premise/world building is so ridiculous that I had to check it out (and I will watch almost anything with cute girls). Recommended to the very niche audience of fans of cute girls doing unintentionally ridiculous things and who can laugh at (not with) the program. |
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Itachi__Uchiha
 Posts: 5 Location: United States |
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I'm currently watching solo leveling
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I watched the old adaptation of Fruits Basket and I think it was made for a different audience than Clannad. |
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Piglet the Grate
Posts: 562 Location: North America |
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That is the anime that Natsuki Takaya (Fruits Basket mangaka) disliked so much that she insisted that no one who worked on it be allowed to work on the 2019-2021 remake. I was referring to the 2019-2021 Fruits Basket. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6525 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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I just had to do it.
Compare Japanese cast and staff I wonder if Natsuki Takaya has become accustomed to being ignored. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Been watching some good stuff.
Serial Experiments Lain (1998) An absolute classic. The first time I watched it, I didn't think it was that good but now, on a second watch a decade later, I have upgraded my evaluation of it. It is a mind-bending masterpiece in only 13 episodes of concise extremely efficient execution and impressive direction, indeed, a quite unique show that has no equivalent to it. 10/10 Clannad (2007) The first time, I had watched Clannad first and then Afterstory as Afterstory is the climax of Clannad, but now I had first decided only re-watching Clannad: Afterstory since I remembered the characters from Clannad, however, after having just re-watched Clannad: Afterstory and I decided to re-watch the first season as well.  Like Afterstory, this is KyoAni at its best and it has the same quality of execution, the difference is that Afterstory is the climax of the highschool romance that began in Clannad. With amazing art (the character designs are still the cutest ever) and animation, overall, it is clear to me Clannad remains the pinaccle of highschool romance/harem anime and so deserves the status of masterpiece. 10/10
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Cam0
 Posts: 4888 |
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Recently rewatched Re:zero. It's still one of my favourite shows ever. Subaru is such an unusual isekai protagonist and I honestly really like his goofy and nerdy way of speaking. In my rewatch I kinda noticed that the pacing (at least in the first season) was a bit faster than I remembered. Maybe a bit too fast in some places. Apparently the first season adapts a whopping 9 light novel volumes in 25 episodes which is nuts. Usually a light novel adaption averaging less 3 episodes per volume turns out to have disastrous pacing but somehow season 1 actually has pretty good pacing. I'm not sure if the light novels themselves are just really slowly paced or if the adaption is just so superb at choosing what content to focus on.
There's something really good about Re:zero's world building. There's a lot of interesting mysterious surrounding it's world and Re:zero is somehow really good at giving little breadcrumbs of info at a steady pace. I've also been playing the Re:zero The Prophecy of the Throne, a visual novel. Playing that is what made me wanna rewatch the anime. The visual novel isn't that good. It's like a lame what-if scenario on the third arc. There's a sixth royal candidate which causes the arc to play out very differently. There's one massive fundamental change in particular that makes the visual novel's version of the story arc much worse, but it's also plagued by slow pacing, much worse dialogue and it doesn't have the great animation and direction the anime has. Playing it made me doubt Re:zero's competency but once I started rewatching the anime I remembered how good it was. I guess I have to finish it somehow since I'm really close to the end but it's pretty lame. With Winter season over I got lots of shows I've been waiting to finish to watch now. I started off with Dangers in My Heart season 2. Having seen all of it, I've been seriously thinking that it might be my favourite anime romcom of all time. It just gives you those feels. Probably planning to watch Classroom of the Elite's 3rd season next. But there's some other stuff that have caught my interest like The Apothecary Diaries, Shangri-La, Solo Leveling and maybe Delicious in Dungeon. Maybe if I'm capable of restraining myself I might save the highly regarded Frieren for summer. It better be worth the wait. |
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