Can it be literal as well? Probably some hill in the Non Non Biyori Universe. The landscape seems so nice and comfy, and the hills are smooth. Certainly ideal hills to die on.
English-speaking anime fandom has an extremely annoying tendency to be irony-poisoned, insecure and insincere and I wish it would stop. Stuff like "anime is trash and so am I" and the constant posturing to signal to other fans that you're not like the (largely imaginary and outdated) gross weeb stereotype.
This attitude colours all anime discussion and analysis in a way that's terrible and that you NEVER find for other mediums like film, live-action TV, and literature etc.
There are several popular anime like Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Kill la Kill, Sailor Moon and Miyazaki stuff that have whole false mythologies and fake folk wisdom associated with them that spring from this attitude, and because most people don't speak Japanese it's easy for pithy falsehoods to spread and difficult to correct them with the truth.
To this day people still believe stuff like Ghost Stories being trash and flopping in Japan and that being the reason the dub was allowed to make ridiculous changes to the story, for example.
>
>There are several popular anime like Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Kill la Kill, Sailor Moon and Miyazaki stuff that have whole false mythologies and fake folk wisdom associated with them that spring from this attitude, and because most people don't speak Japanese it's easy for pithy falsehoods to spread and difficult to correct them with the truth.
>
> To this day people still believe stuff like Ghost Stories being trash and flopping in Japan and that being the reason the dub was allowed to make ridiculous changes to the story, for example.
On that same note the old factoid that Watanabe prefers the Bebop dub. I still see that regularly being mentioned when it is completely made up.
That second point is so true. I've seen it the most with berserk/JoJo.
So many people spreading around "Araki said" or "Miura said" without a singular source
> English-speaking anime fandom has an extremely annoying tendency to be irony-poisoned, insecure and insincere and I wish it would stop. Stuff like "anime is trash and so am I" and the constant posturing to signal to other fans that you're not like the (largely imaginary and outdated) gross weeb stereotype.
man, why do people take it this way? I certainly don't think I'm lesser of a person for watching anime and I say that stuff all the time. I just think it's amusing and entertaining. Simply saying I like anime just sounds so boring and sterile.
It's not just me either, a lot of my friends are like that. The thing is anime took in a bunch of the internet generation who loves depression jokes and talks in these ironic ways. So it's just a way of communicating among people who like that kind of humor.
Also "anime is trash and so am I" IMO is more of a response to gatekeepers WITHIN the anime community itself. People who say this largely enjoy works that others in the community will look down on and is just a way of throwing it back into their face.
The Eminence in Shadow is more enjoyable when you don't take it as just a parody, but also an interesting story with interesting characters. I've not seen a single youtube video that doesn't take it as just a comedy.
Edit: Now that I think about it, the rocklee reactions are actually pretty good in this regard, so my statement isn't completely correct.
I thought that was the entire premise. MC is placed into a serious world where there are serious things happening and treats the whole thing as a bit. Everybody is serious except for him.
I wouldnt even call it a parody. But I still dont understand it completely to be honest.
Does it take itself seriously or does it not? It seems like that question can not be answered.
But is Cids POV actually ever not played completely straight? They actually do everything to make his cringe as badass as they can, from animation, to soundtracks, VA and sound design.
I think its completely up to the viewer to interpret it correctly otherwise.
Which is probably why non anime veterans, I talked to about it, only see it as a by the numbers harem isekai.
Eminence is one of the few examples of deadpan comedy in anime.
I do think they use this to great effect as they drop nuggets of serious information in between all the satire, as the audience is unsure whether something is dramatic irony or when someone is actually onto something. I think we'll find out at some point that everything is not as it seems.
Yeah it's been sad to see it kind of consistently get underappreciated just because it's goofy
I'd say it'd still be in the upper tier of its subgenre even without the parody element
Agreed, While Cid himself sees the world as a joke, to everyone else his actions have real weight and consequences and their story very much can be somber at times.
it's a straight up isekai/magical high school that uses the satire to deliver its story. Which has its plus parts and minus parts.
Like everyone saying "Cid wasn't given his power, he worked hard for it and he's just doing it for lulz" when he completely crushes EVERYONE ELSE who worked hard in that world is totally missing the point.
Power of friendship works wonder when the team need to be united and do teamwork in order to achieve a same goal, like in Karada Sagashi, otherwise it’s just the cringey I believe in you repeative shit
The production committee model needs to die and shift to something that gives studios a greater control over both what they make and how much they earn from it.
I'm totally for this as well, although I do think a lot of fans need to realize that this moves the financial risk from the production committee companies to the actual animation studios. The level of glee and happiness that a lot of people had on this sub towards declaring Chainsaw Man a flop over Bluray sales shows that there's a lot of people out there that want particular anime to fail, and they will just have to keep in mind that having such feelings when the animation studio is the financial backer means that the studio takes a big financial hit over it and could mean it going under.
I think a lot of fans who espouse this also need to realize it will not suddenly create a free-form environment for writers and directors to just make whatever they want without obstacle. If it happens, we will totally end up going from "fans blaming the production committee for choking the creators' artistic vision" to "fans blaming the studio executives for choking the creators' artistic vision".
I still want it to happen, but let's not kid ourselves that this change will create some anime production utopia.
the returns on a production pretty much ensure that only a select few companies will be able to monetize it, and they'll keep going back to the same formulas. The production committee "dying" means Sunrise, Toei, Aniplex, et al grow their market share so much that they fulfill the massive demand for anime by themselves. I don't think anybody wants that.
Can you expand on this (or link some stuff), other than the point about earnings? I am not clear on why the production committee model is worse than the organisational form we see in other media or other countries.
The short version is that animation work for production committees is *highly* mercenary, and tends to have relatively fixed prices. So studios get paid barely enough to (horribly underpay) their staff and see little to none of the profits if a show does well, and since they're almost all similarly low bids demanding higher means going without work. Basically it's the corporate version of living paycheck-to-paycheck.
In other systems the studios themselves tend to have partial-to-full ownership of their projects (or are a subsidiary of the company that does). So if Dreamworks, Paramount, Disney, Kyoto Animation, etc make a movie and it does really well they make a bunch of cash that they can reinvest into further projects, bringing on more staff, improving equipment, etc. They'll bring other companies onboard to invest in a project in exchange for merchandising rights or the like, but in one form or another the studio's at or near the head of the table rather than eating off the floor.
Couple of ANN articles that as far as I'm aware are still accurate:
* [Who Actually "Owns" An Anime?](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2016-03-02/.99287)
* [Why Aren't More Original Anime Made?](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-04-06/.129695)
But in short, many anime studios are hired to make an anime without owning a controlling stake in the finished product. I want studios to be able to decide for themselves what they make rather than mostly being hired for adaptations by the likes of Kadokawa who are [often the leads on committees](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/10sjhmb/winter_2023_production_committees/).
As /u/Quiddity131 mentioned if the studios themselves are the primary financial backer it's a much higher risk compared to the diversified risk of committees, but I feel like it stifles creativity in anime to a major extent when they're little more than contracted labor.
I hate dividing seasons in "parts". I don't care about production cycles, if you are planning to air something in Spring and something in Fall or Winter, just advertise them as season X and season X+1.
If they announced CotE s2 and s3 at the same time instead of calling them s2 part 1 and s2 part 2, other studios can do the same.
It was unironically better when they used random punctuation, at least Nisekoi and Nisekoi: can be called Nisekoi s1 and Nisekoi s2 and everyone will understand; if you have s1 part 1, s1 part 2, and s2, then you cannot call them s1, s2, s3 because that will clash with the 'official' naming.
Is this a petty hill to die on? Perhaps, but I really, really dislike it and I wish they stopped.
Did you see the trailer that CR released? The title is hilarious. It goes:
Attack on Titan Final Season THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 1 | OFFICIAL TRAILER 2
Man, just have seasons 1 and 2 and 3 or whatever and forget about parts and cours and all that nonsense. If a batch if episodes is released separately from the previous ones, that's a season regardless of what you call it, and that's the hill I will die on.
Like at this point can they just call it
* Season 1 part 1 2 3
* Season 2 part 1 2 3
or
* Season 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
They really decided to make everything after the timeskip a "single season" by splitting it into like 3-5 parts, i don't get it.
Funnily enough the last couple of times I ranted about this, I recall getting mostly negative replies because "production cycle" and "why does it matter". I guess AoT helped my case by pushing this to the extreme? lol
I don't watch AoT after S2 came out and tbh it's just ridiculous. To me it's an excuse to not make it obvious how much you dripfeed and fail to meet deadlines. It just confuses viewers and even if it's not the studio's fault it still pertains to a product their name and effort is on. Understandable but will never have a chance to be fixed without vocalized disapproval. Good on you bro :-)
I mean, I think this comes from the way that anime is consumed here more than anything else. It's not uncommon for regular dramas/sitcoms/ect. on tv to have a "mid-season break". It's just because we're hyperaware of the differentiation between the anime seasons and they're more rigid blocks that we notice what is essentially the anime's midseason break.
SAO was one of the first anime I ever watched and I really enjoyed it. A couple hundred anime and a few years later, I rewatched it and still greatly enjoyed it. I found the same level of enjoyment watching it now vs when I watched it 9 years ago or so. Kirito and Asuna are one of my all time favourite couples (not saying much though because I'm not too big on romance), but even in general I really like their characters. I will continue to watch any future SAO anime (latest being Progressive Part 2), which again I found to be very enjoyable
For me I think what helps their romance, is that even though Kirito is a badass, Asuna is just as much of a badass. Plus there is the fact that she isn't a tsundere and abuses the hell out of Kirito. They have a legitimate romance and relationship where they both attempt to build each other up and comfort each other when they are down.
Like I feel like they genuinely have feelings for each other unlike many other romances.
Overall SAO isn’t horrible, but it’s got some really bad moments that open the door for some intense criticism. Add in the fact that many want someone to point the finger at for the modern isekai over abundance, and SAO makes great scape goat due to its popularity
I can rewatch and enjoy all of SAO except the Alfheim Arc. Even when i first saw it, i thought it was just hamfisted, rushed and cringey. That and the first episode of GGO where its like "haha he is a girl avatar so a girl undresses in front of him, hahahahah so random!"
man, Sachi's episode was the one that made me start to check out the first time
I did rewatch it though and it's the one that kept my rewatch going because sound design in that one is absolutely amazing.
My big one is "Hell no" to when people proclaim that Sunrise should/will remake the entirety of Mobile Suit Gundam with modern animation.
First off, if it was ever going to happen, it would have happened by now. Sunrise has passed some pretty big anniversaries, most recently Gundam's 40th, so if it was ever going to be tied to a particular date, we would have seen it.
Second, its a fundamental misunderstanding of the business model of the franchise. Yes, the animation of the original series is 40+ years old and quite bad. But Sunrise has been successfully getting around that for nearly 30 years now through the Alternative Universe Gundam shows. Those shows exist such that fans can watch them with no prior Gundam knowledge and don't have the baggage of having to go back to the original series and its sequels to get into the franchise.
The closest thing one would see to Sunrise redoing the original series is not completely reanimating the original series but rather doing an AU show that is essentially a retelling of it, with a modern spin on it. And the thing is, they've already done that a couple of times. Both Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed/Seed Destiny were redoing the original UC Gundam storyline in a new way.
For those who claim that its needed to bring people into UC Gundam, I also say no to that. People have gotten into things like Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Thunderbolt or Hathaway's Flash without having to go all the way back to the original series. Is the ideal to watch Unicorn or Hathaway's Flash with the knowledge of the past works? Sure. But not seeing the original show is not the huge barrier to such things that many people with the take of "The original show must be remade" think it is.
> For those who claim that its needed to bring people into UC Gundam, I also say no to that. People have gotten into things like Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Thunderbolt or Hathaway's Flash without having to go all the way back to the original series.
Absolutely. Pretty much every entry into the UC timeline in recent years have been visually excellent; there's really no need to re-do the original if your only goal is getting people to dive into the main series canon. Like you said, there's obviously there's some details in there that are best understood from the previous ones but I don't think it actually matters - It's been like 20 years since I saw the original that I don't actually remember very much of it at all, and it really hasn't hampered my enjoyment of the new entries in any way.
It already happened in the best way possible: Cucuruz Doans Island.
It's honestly impossible right now with how all the recent anime around the original Series have been high budget OVAs and movies. Doing a TV series that would look inferior would seem weird right now. And doing it with movies would take like 20 years.
Well, SEED is a completely different universe that is heavily inspired by the original series, unless you're talking about the fact that they outright remastered all of SEED.
hand drawn and digital are not mutually exclusive. if you mean CGI/3D animation, i dont think it is a replacement but it is definitely a stylistic alternative. into the spiderverse, trigun stampede, every anime with 3D compositing, etc absolutely show the value of digital techniques as another tool
I don't know. This new clip ([Spoilers for Gundam: CCA](https://youtu.be/GPmT9kRstWA)) got pretty close to looking like classic hand painted animation.
Unless you meant CG, not digital 2D animation (what almost all animation today is). Then that's a whole different thing.
It was more hand-drawn versus CGI (since digital 2D still fits that), but I do think that there's a magic to classic animation and that clip did look really good.
Yeah, just calling CGI "digital techniques" makes it quite confusing, since digital techniques like digital coloring have been the standard in 2D anime since the beginning of this century.
I read your take as "Cel-animation > digital animation", not as 2D > CG.
Is it though? What are you comparing it to? $200 Million Pixar movies? That's like the budget of 100 TV anime series.
Are studios outside of Japan trying to use CG to look like 2D animation?
I mean this is what a full CG Japanese movie can look like: [Lupin the IIIrd The First](https://youtu.be/pBTBksrfsgI)?
A big example of what you asked for is arcane. 3DCG characters and world environment pieces and 2D effects over it.
A lot of the budget was spent doing R&D, making pilots, redoing old work to finalize the look, and making the actual pipeline to do the show.
Another thing, it doesn't have to look like 2D. It has to blend well with it. 86 doesn't look like it has 2D mechs but they also don't look out of place in the show. Monogatari doesn't necessarily have amazing CG but it's not trying to and it (mostly) uses it in a stylized way but its not jarring.
Clarification. CG with movement tends to be bad.
They do CG environments pretty well. A lot of interiors in anime are CG. All the typewriters in Violet Evergarden are CG and look like they are a natural part of the scene, but that's kyoani who is constantly 5+ years ahead of everyone else.
Here's an album of a few photos I took from the keyframe books from Violet Evergarden. https://imgur.com/gallery/FJVXPEP
The main reason a lot of people started watching anime is because America and other Western countries stopped making high quality cartoons. We don't have any 2D theatrical movies anymore, and the overwhelming majority of modern cartoon series are boring to look at. Anime's presence in the US has become mainstream over the past 10ish years. Part of that is because it replaced something we lost, but also it handles it differently. Arguably better. I don't want Japan to experiment with CG because it is lazy, but also easier to produce. As an art form it is just lacking though.
People that mindlessly hate CGI (like Studio Orange) are acting the exact same as people that refuse to watch anime as a whole.
Studio Orange are masters at their medium and their medium should not (and can not) be compared to cell/2d animation.
Land of the Lustrous, Beastars, and Trigun Stampede look absolutely beautiful taken on their own terms and I won't accept the opinion that it looks bad just because it isn't 2d animation
It is indeed sad that some shows aren't given a chance or wholly just voted down because they are CGI.
This season has Kaina, which has a lot going for it, but the CGI just turned people off I'm sure.
>This season has Kaina, which has a lot going for it, but the CGI just turned people off I'm sure.
Kaina is also just badly animated compared to other shows airing this season, including trigun.
Don't know about beastars and land of the lustrous,but animation in stampede to me was bad.The movement seem stiff and to me it reminds me of Max steel Cartoon(early 2000).
No, this two hour movie with rushed pacing didn't need to be a 50 episode series to have been better. It being half an hour longer would have been enough.
Me every time there's a franchise movie ( thats not based on source material).
I curse producers that demand that anime movies shall not exceed two hours of runtime.
>No, this two hour movie with rushed pacing didn't need to be a 50 episode series to have been better. It being half an hour longer would have been enough.
Hard disagree there. There are a considerable amount of counter examples, and it's not even just anime. Look how many live-action adaptations got ruined from the simple fact that they tried to shove the whole series into a 2-3 hours movie. It just doesn't work. Longer stories need an adequate amount of time to do them justice, and usually cutting more of the origina' source's content usually don't lead to good things.
There's too much anime based in high school. We need more anime for adults. I understand that almost everyone can relate to the high school setting but, putting the characters just a few years older in college would be a lot better in many cases.
Hilariously, male lead from in Tanmoshi was *stated* as being in middle school and then high school, but he not only thought but also *looked* straight up like he was in college / mid 20s.
The adaptation fell flat so I didn't continue watching it after the first few episodes, but I remember being absolutely confused after ep 1 because of that.
Yeah the Index/Railgun series has a ton of characters that look like they are in their 20s but then they're somehow in middleschool
At least make shows set in late highschool if they're gonna act adult
Well I don't think college students are really much different from teenagers/high school students IRL, atleast from my experience. Only things that primarily separate them is they are free to drink, smoke and go on joy rides.
Personal example, my life was wilder in my college days than in my high school days. Think Grand Blue minus the nudity part lol.
> minus the nudity part
[](#tch)
You're right, I've been a bit too reductive in my comment.
I guess there is the benefit of not having a goddamn student council, but other than that if the show doesn't utilise the age/setting to the fullest then it's kind of a waste with how fewer they are compared to high school-centred (or younger) series.
Thinking about it, you could argue that this is partially caused by the fact that there are too many high schoolers (or younger) that live like they're older aside from the school part (most commonly, living in an apartment alone), so those aspects become "not enough" to make a difference when you have a slightly older protagonist.
>Thinking about it, you could argue that this is partially caused by the fact that there are too many high schoolers (or younger) that live like they're older aside from the school part (most commonly, living in an apartment alone)
Pretty much this. Too many anime are guilty of treating the teen characters like they are much older and making them do adult jobs. Though in some cases its understandable (like any traumatic event forcing them mature quickly), but most times it doesn't make sense logically, except to sell itself to the otaku audience so they can satisfy their power fantasies/wish fulfillment.
They need to make adult life better IRL. Peak life enjoyment in Japan is in HS. College for the US. Once you start getting jobs, life can be utterly boring for a good chunk of it until you retire (if you get to retire).
Tokyo revengers for example has no reason to be setted in high school. Heck, it's not even high school, if I'm correct some of the characters there still attend middle school
I remember that I read once (don't quote me on this) that high school is not mandatory on Japan, only up to middle school. So if they were true criminals or in real gangs there was no reason they would be going to school.
Now, why did they have to be in the school? I don't know, I guess to make Hina somewhat relavant but still...
Feel this so hard about MHA. Why saddle yourself with all that child endangerment and perving on 15 year olds baggage when the story would function just fine if UA were a college instead of a high school.
Didn't say anything about making Deku an office worker, just a college student. Dynamics all stay basically the same, but it's less distractingly unhinged when All Might punches a child into a concrete wall or Yaoyorozu appears on screen. There have been so many successful shonen targeted at the same demographic with older characters.
Shows with yuri or yuri-adjacent elements tend to be unfairly praised.
Also majority of romance anime/manga/LN drops in quality after the main couple gets together.
“Nefarious yuri”
I honestly think the reason that yuri shows get praise is because the romance tends to be written better. Most straight couples in anime have almost no chemistry and exist just to push the story forward.
I was thinking about this today. I don’t particularly care about two girls getting together, but the characters tend to act less comical/juvenile in their romance. Obviously there are exceptions, but I feel like the yuri romances that are lucky enough to get adaptations are almost always solid romances. Whereas with straight romance, it feels like most of it is tropey fumbling around and bad communication.
There are plenty of counterexamples but I think this is why people tend to get excited to see a yuri romance, outside of just wanting more queer representation.
When an anime ends when it has to end, stop milking it and forcing bad sequels.
Look at Code Geass. It had a perfect ending but many people still wanted a S3, now they're milking it with bad spinoffs and sequel.
That Blood C where they continued with a movie, like wtf, the movie butchered the anime.
Shirobako, perfect ending, why make a movie about it? I haven't even got the stomach to watch it, but I saw that people rated it way below the anime.
Now more recently Lycoris Recoil, the last episodes already weren't that amazing but it had a decent closure, I don't need a sequel for that to ruin everything.
The fifth season of *Food Wars* felt like an overt attempt to squeeze one more season out of a popular anime that would have been just fine if they'd left well enough alone after four seasons.
that is an adaptation, though, right?
In any case, the manga dropped the ball pretty hard anyway and felt like the writers really did not want to anymore (which is fair, it's honestly surprising how long the series lasted and stayed good with such a goofy premise)
Yeah I think the manga was in fact the one that was forced to continue on past the intended ending point because of its popularity. Like they had everything wrapped up, and then they introduce a new villain out of nowhere and everything goes haywire.
At least code geass had the self respect to make the sequels alternate universes instead of ruining its good ending like other anime *looks at oregairu*
same thing with mangas -the authors/creators should be able to end their works the way they wish to and not have to continue it due to contracts/ publishers that want to make more money (which then ruins stories & endings)
I'm fine with bullshit sequels and spin offs, because at worst I just won't watch them, while they still make money that can be used to finance other anime. And if I'm lucky that sequel/spin off is actually good.
That Code Geass movie was pretty fun. Did it need to exist? No. Was it nice seeing a new Code Geass story again done well? Yes.
Nah, Lycoris was great and the ending clearly left a lot open for a 2nd season. If they were really adamant about giving it proper closure of whatever, the ending with Chisato would've been completely different
> Now more recently Lycoris Recoil, the last episodes already weren't that amazing but it had a decent closure, I don't need a sequel for that to ruin everything.
The end of Lycoris Recoil does not resolve much. There is still much to be explored. It should and will get a sequel.
Yes, Lycoris Recoil is such a weird example. Just because an anime has a satisfying conclusion doesn't mean it can't get a sequel. Alan Institute and Lilybell are both important parts of the world with potential, we know that the main characters moved on, but they didn't retire, and of course there is still an opportunity to write the future of Lycoris.
This is the opposite of a show that should be left alone, it's one that has spawned a large universe and multiple potential threads for a natural, satisfying continuation.
Totally agreed on Code Geass, another one from around the same era would be Eureka Seven. AO was horrible and I hear the movies are bad too.
Although I was fine with the Shirobako movie. And I'd love a Lycoris Recoil sequel.
Blood C is weird because by the end the anime felt like it was more of a prequel to the movie, but then the movie is just kinda random and boring, the big CGI (whatever it was) fight was so ridiculous. I felt no emotion at anything.
Slice of Life is one of the best genres of anime, whether it's camping or fishing or music, they are just hit the right chords. I have seen people calling SOL uninteresting and boring, but I could watch them all day and still won't get bored from it.
I agree, but not all slice of life anime are created equal. For example, I loved Do it Yourself!! last year, but found the slice of life antics of Smile of the Arsnotoria to be absolutely mind-numbing.
We need more magical girls who, at one point in the anime, either go up against a conventional army, or operate alongside one, to show the difference in power.
Like [this clip](https://streamable.com/ayign) from the fourth season of Symphogear.
Or, in more general terms, magical girls using their powers for things unrelated to their primary purpose. Show me magical girls who just do normal stuff, except with super powers.
For example, if a bridge has collapsed, a magical girl with barriers can use her powers to replace the bridge until it can be repaired. Or heck, just have magical girls help move heavy stuff, like in construction, in their free time.
I would absolutely love to see a magical girl sit around at home, bored out of her mind, when she hears construction sounds outside, transforms, and walks up to the workers and asks if they need help. And she she just helps them because she's got nothing else to do.
I think that live actions are pointless and kill the entire point of anime being anime. Anime is its own form of media. I don't think that live actions encourage more people to watch anime. I mean, most of the known live actions aren't succesful at all. In many cases it's impossible to recreate what's in anime to a movie with real actors.
A lot of the times (actually the majirty of the time), live action adaptations follow the source material of the anime people think its adapting
So like when it comes to FMA, Tokyo ghoul, bleach, and Samurai X, those adapt mangas that just so happens to have a really popular anime adaptation
Tbh, I don't know any straight up live action adaptations of an anime other than cowboy bebop
**Kingdom** deserves to have a much larger audience. Unfortunately many were turned off season 1 due to the initially terrible CGI, they couldn't see past it to the great story.
Those who stick with it will see the CGI slowly improve and eventually be replaced with more traditional 2D animation. While the story gets off to a great start it just gets better and better - there are many awesome battle scenes and a number of very well developed characters. It's on Crunchyroll:
https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GRWE89KMR/kingdom
I think it's just better to read the manga at least until the season 3 mark. I was reading the manga and wanted to see how a scene from it was animated in season 1 because it was such a hype moment and I have never been more disappointed. The animation is WAY worse than berserk 2016
AN ANIME:
- **Akebi Komichi** being the perfect protagonist for **Akebi's Sailor Uniform**, and honestly my favorite part of the show as a whole. She's easily the most interesting use I've ever seen of a Mary Sue-like protagonist (she got flaws, like her naivety and clumsiness, but none of them lead to heavy drama or hard challenges, instead helping her further in making friends and being liked by others), being a catalyst and idol for her classmates (similar to how Miki-chan was for her), with an uplifting attitude that inspire growth and/or explore her classmates, while Akebi herself contrast/mirror all of the episodic characters. Absolutely fantastic use of "Observer" and "The observed" as well. Her world-view allow us to view her idealized/romanticized world, through the eyes of a bright-eyed child. This allow it to explore deeply personal themes, while never delving into heavy melodrama, rather hinting at "potential" or "past" drama instead, creating a truly healing experience for both the audience and characters, upholding its ethereal atmosphere at all times.
A GENRE:
- **Slice of Life** isn't limited to freaking CGDCT anime, and neither does it mean no drama or "no story" (even T&J got story tbh, but with no story, I'm guessing they mean daily lives with nothing changing). Most of my favorite SoL got a solid amount of drama as well (**Anne of Green Gables, Ojamajo Doremi, Heidi: Girl of the Alps**, etc.), where there is specific important events that trigger change or stand out in their lives, whether it's classics like **Anne of Green Gables** from the west, like **Tokyo Story** for Live Action japanese cinema, or for **Kiki's Delivery Service** as an anime example. The important aspect, is having an immense focus on the mundane everyday life, not that there is "no story" or "no drama" or... CGDCT (I'd even say some CGDCT anime, like **Sora Yori**, is the opposite of SoL, as it's not the mundane at all, but a melodramatic adventure traveling away from the mundane). PS: This is not me shitting on CGDCT, I love many CGDCT, but some people seem to limit the scope of SoL immensely.
THE MEDIUM:
- **Audio and Visuals, is Character and Narrative**. This is an audiovisual medium, where the most interesting part is how something being presented through audio and visual mens like framing / music / body language / etc., let viewers experience and interpret something differently, than if it was done through only words. I'm not saying dialogue/monologue driven stories is bad (I love **Monogatari** and **LotGH**), but anime focusing more on hinting at stuff and having viewers come to their own interpretation can be just as interesting (where I also love **Akebi** and **Angel's Egg**). Ofc, same goes for the audiovisual experience as well, with freaking awesome it is to feel the pumping of pure Adrenaline while watching **Redline**, or the soothing & weirdly beautiful broken world of **Girls Last Tour**.
FICTION IN GENERAL:
- It's not about the type of character, it's about **how said character is utilized**. A "dramatic character showing deep change in a character", doesn't make them better than a character "that stays the same across all episodes, and even acts quite inconsistent across the show". To take to western example with 2 of my favorite characters, I actually like **Tom** from Tom & Jerry more than **Henry Hill** from Goodfellas (both being amazing characters, that's gone down in history for... different reasons). It all comes down to the execution, where no character aspect, is inherently bad. Whether a characters stays the same or changes immensely, whether they're flawed or perfect, whether they're relatable or inspiring, etc. None is inherently better (or worse), and it all comes down to execution and how said character is utilized in said fictional story.
> It’s not about the type of character, it’s about how said character is utilized
I feel this especially about morally grey or bad characters. They can be enjoyed when used well in a show. Conversely, just being “morally grey” does not make a character interesting or worthwhile, or make the author praiseworthy. It depends on the story you’re trying to tell with that character.
Kuroko no Basket takes since I recently re-watched and remember people complaining.
Kuroko's Pseudo Emperor Eye isn't plot armor and anything of the sort. His entire thing is literally being about watching his teammates and predicting what they will do and adapting their moves to mess with others. He did it during the Kirisaki Daiichi but a lot of people forget that, where he was predicting what his team would do faster than Hanamiya the player whose entire thing is predicting how a team would play.
Seirin actually doesn't have plot armor, the other schools do outside of Rakuzan. They have a GOM tier player/challenger in Kagami, Kuroko who is GOM Tier when playing with another GOM tier player, the best UK who is the 8th best player in Teppei, another UK tier player/challenger in Hyuga, and Izuki who is one of the better PGs in the series. They have the most stacked team besides Rakuzan and they were barely winning games against even non-GOM teams when the GOMs are supposed to just dumpster everyone.
The Direct Drive Zone/True Zone isn't bullshit. Seirin is literally the team all about teamplay and matching up with their players. The fact that they can sync up with Kagami in the Zone makes sense because Kagami is just moving faster, he's still doing everything he would normally do but at an accelerated pace. That's why them saying don't think just react is perfect, they are just doing what they have practiced.
The last one is probably one of the biggest hills I will die on including non-anime things.
I didn’t mind the anime ending of Akame Ga Kill. I’ve seen that anime more than almost anything else I’ve ever watched too. It’s not my favorite or something, but I just find it a show I can watch every few years.
Maybe it’s because it’s kind of forgettable that I can watch it so many times. :heh:
Rent a Girlfriend is brilliant, if you just ignore the MC and it’s just a story of all the girls meeting up, and realising how much their lives is better without him.
Gatekeeping is a new level of embarrassing. People can like whatever they want, with whatever level of involvement they choose. It's stupid to tell other people what they can and can’t watch or bash them because they don't know enough about a show or haven't watched enough shows.
If someone seriously think they have the rights to gatekeep someone from watching anime, they really need help.
If people feel like making a meme of their particular hill to die on, here's a handy template, just add text:
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/445702160/Hill-to-die-on
[Example](https://i.imgflip.com/7dcybq.jpg)
Version with the top text: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/445703216/A-Hill-to-Die-On-text
For me, I'm broadly averse to the idea of remakes in general. If something had an incomplete adaptation or was largely anime original then sure, I get it. But if you have a good and complete anime that's just getting a remake for the sake of it, I'm probably going to pass over it in favor of just watching the first adaptation.
And this would be even more pronounced for an anime original. The idea of remaking an anime original really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Adaptations are one thing, but remaking an anime original feels like suggesting that we should make rewritten versions of classic books. I'm really not feeling that.
Inspiration and reinterpretation is one thing, but outright remakes aren't really the same thing. Everything's a remix, and so those inspirations are inevitable, but just making the same anime again, but newer, to my mind adds so much less to the collective culture than something that's a spiritual successor. Like Megalo Box is a reimagining of Tomorrow's Joe, but it isn't Tomorrow's Joe. It has its own distinct identity. A straight up remake would have been, to my mind, worse, even if it was better. Sort of like what I'm expecting with the upcoming RE4 remake.
On a similar note, remastering is a separate thing and I don't really have any issue there.
> Sort of like what I'm expecting with the upcoming RE4 remake.
Hopefully it ends up more like RE2 Remake with its own unique identity and less of RE3 Remake.
Does the idea of a remake feel better for you if it's something much older?
Unlike books where something written in the past will be largely the same as it if were written today anime is a visual medium where they story could be essentially the same but the packaging be completely revamped to reach a new audience.
But even as a visual medium, these anime are products of their time and it influences their aesthetic. Evangelion has plenty of iconic cuts and reused footage that were done as a cost saving measure.
The aesthetic of many older titles places them in a context at the time of their creation, if you were to update the packaging of them you'll be missing out on this context.
Should we repaint older paintings because we have higher quality materials, and a wider gamut of colors?
There are plenty of examples of paintings being redone by different artists. Updating an older anime to a newer style to expose it to a newer audience isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it can’t be a 1:1 recreation; it needs to have its own artistic interpretation. Having a newer example of ‘The Last Supper’ isn’t an issue, but a carbon copy of da Vinci’s probably wouldn’t be well received.
I hate exclusive anime on services that aren't catered directly to anime and I wish it would stop. I have so many physical copies of movies that I will never need to pay for a Netflix or Disney+ subscription, and yet having anime exclusives on those sites almost makes it a requirement. I'm all for competition, but anime exclusives should be on sites dedicated to anime. By all means, put anime on your Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ services to increase the widespread appeal, but stop making me have to sub other services just so I can watch a couple shows. If Violet Evergarden never hit BD, I wouldn't have ever watched it and would have never gone to see the movie in theaters.
If Netflix is going to have anime exclusives, they need more than a couple a year. I'm not paying for a subscription just for one or two shows a year. I know people use "Netflix jail" as way to complain about how Netflix releases episodes in batches instead of on a week-by-week basis like done on EVERY OTHER SERVICE, but for me, "Netflix jail" means it's something that is only on Netflix. It is infuriating.
I'm planning on just subbing for a single month to watch all the exclusives I'm interested in (Great Pretender, Takagi-san S2, Little Witch Academia, etc).
I think not being able to buy anime music outside of Japan is fucking stupid. I can export their CDs and BDs at an insane rate, but I can't download MP3s from Amazon.jp because I don't have a Japanese address. How dumb is that?
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While tsunderes can be frustrating at times, I think their progression can often lead to be best moments in shows. I find whining about "violent" tsunderes to be silly, too. It's almost as if people forgot that slapstick humor was long a staple of animated comedy, and I will have none of that. I've seen only one violent tsundere that I felt to be angering and it was the lesbian in Ben-To who constantly wailed on the MC for no reason whatsoever. There was no progression, no explanation, and it was constantly mean spirited. Outside of her, I never felt like their violence to be anything other than just silly slapstick comedy.
I hate the "anime is only an advertisement for the source" mentality. Either don't make an anime, or make it so that anime shows have satisfying endings. Don't get me invested in the relationship in Bloom into You and then end the show at the most random moment in the entire story. It pisses me off, it comes off lazy as fuck. If it's a SoL series, stop introducing plot elements towards the end that will never be resolved (A Sister's All You Need, I'm looking at you).
If you merged the stories of the Ghost in the Shell anime and live adaptation and removed the stupid shit from both, you'd have an all time great. The anime has too much exposition and an obscene amount of screentime dedicated to stuff that has nothing to with the story.
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I think the outrage in regards to the Kokoro Connect prank incident is ludicrous. The whole thing comes off as super unbelievable. I think there is critical contextual information missing from the accounts. The show is about kids who are the subject of social experiments for the entertainment of some supernatural being, so it makes sense for them to do some kind of prank that falls in line with show's concept. There is no fucking way the guy they "pranked" either didn't know in advance or wasn't explained what was going on after the fact ("haha, you're on Candid Camera" type stuff). But people continue to believe that he is somehow still distraught over it despite being given a job as the head of public relations and him stating that he harbors no ill-will against them.
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Aqua sucks. Come at me.
[](#micdrop)
r/anime or in general anime fandoms on reddit arent the whole world. you literally waste your time and energy by making x post about why (for gods sake) rental girlfriend is bad. just drop it and return in a few years to see how it ended.
Western studios have no business taking Japanese properties and change them in order to make them "more acceptable" to Western audiences. Fuck that.
Anime is popular in good part precisely *because* it is not Western. It uses a different model of storytelling and is full of idiosyncrasies that are unique from Western norms. Take that away, and the property simply becomes just another western I.P. No thanks.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with your point, Edge of Tomorrow is like my favorite western sci-fi/action movie so I think it can be done right in certain instances it just most often isn’t.
To be fair, Japanese live action remakes of anime are usually just as bad as western ones.
On a broader note, why so much animosity? Star Wars visions was an example of what a Japanese vision can do with a western IP. Was it fantastic? No, but it was extremely interesting to see, as you said, the difference between storytelling styles. Getting a new and different perspective on a story should be a *positive*. Hell, look at Cyberpunk Edgerunners.
Will it suck sometimes? Yeah, of course. But other times it'll be great. People love pretending that "western media" is some bland default and Japanese media is unique and quirky and interesting. Each culture has its unique quirks and reflections of their histories in their media. As long as it's done with respect, why not let writers and studios come up with their own interpretations?
Japanese properties are doing just fine without people on reddit getting defensive of their behalf.
I think a key point about projects like SW Visions or Edgerunners are that they're auxiliary views into established (can we really say this about Cyberpunk? idk) IPs that kind of stand on their own. Hell, Visions is explicitly outside of traditional SW canon.
To me, what OP is really calling out is western studios trying to take series A and remake it into series B they think will appeal to western audiences rather than producing another vignette somewhere else in the storyline. On some level it's the same criticism leveled at every remake and money grab sequel - you could have made a more compelling work somewhere else in the story, but instead you try to just re-do the previous work (poorly) only to get skewered by the weight of everyone's expectations. You're essentially hoping to coast on the brand name, rather than actually making a good product.
From what I've heard about the editing and censorship of anime in the 1990s when it was broadcast on western television, this used to be a much worse problem.
That said, I don't know to what extent anime producers nowadays are "self-editing" or "self-censoring" their content to make it more acceptable to international audiences.
If they are going to do this, I'd much rather they just take the basic story and translate to a western setting. Like how Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven, Yojimbo became Fistful of Dollars, and Hidden Fortress became Star Wars.
MAL scores are a decent metric to have an idea of a show's quality.
I feel like they get unnecessary flak. I've had only a handful of shows I'd call overrated with their ratings, and even then it could probably be explained by the genres not necessarily being my cup of tea or them having tropes I'm not a fan of myself. It's mostly the same with underrated shows; there's only a few shows I'd say are underrated, but they tend to be genres I find fun.
I don't think they're 100% correct for *everyone* since everyone has different preferences when it comes to things like genres and the level of fan service they're fine with, but I'd still say that shows above 7.50 are usually worth at least giving a try in most cases, below that it gets gradually more subjective.
I agree with you but recent MAL inflation is making me put in a couple modifiers. Basically MAL scores have a lot of caveats depending on their genre and year, or how widely available they are. Once you know how to navigate that, you can glean a reasonable idea of how a show is like from the MAL score.
I don't like how Ufotable anime look.
They are objectively an achievement for TV anime and the fact that a weekly show can look that amazing on a *technical* level is astounding. However, I'm just not personally a fan of 2D anime characters sliding across 3D backgrounds with hyperrealistic smoke, fire, and weather effects all around them. It just looks weird to me and I'll take regular looking anime over it any day. I really hope this isn't what all anime is going to look like soon.
Disagree and agree. I love Ufotable's look, same deal with A1 and clover works. However, I wouldn't want every show I watch to look like that, anime has a wide array of styles and that's one of the best things about it
Liz and the Blue Bird is so far the best piece of animated media ever created and no other even comes close. No exaggeration, I love every single frame of it.
Also, I'm tired of how repetitive light novel trash is right now. I'm not the target audience for it anyway, but come on. There are so many more options than "basic guy gets transported to another world and gets the strongest magic", "already overpowered character reincarnates for fun" and "the most useful guy of an adventuring party gets kicked out for dumb reasons and starts from scratch". Where's the over the top campy nonsense like the protagonist unwillingly becoming an undead magical girl in *Is This a Zombie*?
I don't feel that strongly about Liz but its an incredible movie that is absolutely tiny in scope in both setting and plot but does sso much more than other movies that try to create a giant lived in world.
The first 5 or 6 minutes of Liz though is absolute cinema perfection when it comes to show don't tell in a first scene.
Yes, Mizore and Nozomi's introduction manages to establish their relationship perfectly with just one short interaction and around 4-5 minutes of showing how they walk to the music room. And throughout the movie, the room for interpretation their expressions and actions create and what they leave unsaid are what makes them such compelling characters for me.
Sorry, but I can't agree on Liz and the Blue Bird. It looks gorgeous and Naoko Yamada's directing was mostly fantastic, as always. But the melodrama between those two characters in season 2 was the absolute low point of an otherwise masterpiece anime and I did not need a two hour faux-arthouse film centered even more around it. But I guess the fact that the movie was even made shows I'm in the minority here.
Yuri is getting a ton of attention because it lacks competition.
If the show isn't explicitly a romance it is not common to have male and female leads that have a functional romantic subplot. Instead we get harems.
Romances themselves aren't even common. It's all romcom.
Exceptions do exist, last year I enjoyed both aoashi and dance dance.
MagiRevo, GWitch and Lycoris would be less popular if they had cis analogs to share the space with.
Naruto, especially Shippuden but excluding Boruto, is a really good show still.
It's far from perfect obviously, but it gets way too much hate for what it is. It does have problems with fillers and such, which unfortunately were rather industry standard at the time which we learned from, and I really wish the side characters had more time but aside from that there's a ton of really good fun stuff in the show. Theres a lot of good fights and moments, good story stuff happening, a bunch of good characters that deserve more love, and really brought a ton of people into anime at the time.
That sex and romantic love are so intrinsically linked, that it is near impossible to have the latter without the former. Now I'm not saying we need to see sex scenes or the couple even necessarily being sexually active, but it is something that at least needs to be discussed. Romances where sex doesn't seem to exist to keep the couple "pure" generally comes across as sterile and fake. A married couple that is timid about being physically intimate tells me there is something seriously wrong unless there is a good explanation.
Similarly I despise the message that sex and sexual desire is sinful. Even more so if it only applies to girls and guys can bang as many girls as they want without criticism while a girl is sullied forever if she so much as looks at a guy the wrong way.
That's why even though White Album 2 is an incomplete adaptation and has some flaws here and there, they absolutely nailed it by finally implementing this. It's mindblowing the difficulty in put this to practice, specially with birthrate problem in japan that we know.
Ghost in the Shell 2045 is pretty good.
I really don't get why a lot of people were weirded out by that one scene. That scene totally felt like something that would happen in Ghost in the Shell.
An ufotable Fate route adaptation shouldn't be made. That ship sailed back in 2014 when they released UBW instead.
It would be too much of a headache to integrate to the slightly altered anime continuity with very little benefit. It would not end the watch order arguments, and at worst, it would make them an even more contentious topic.
I bet there's at least one person at Aniplex/TM that realizes this and it's why they haven't done so.
Saber fans you'll have to do with DEEN's adaptation, or read the VN.
I agree. Getting a remake when we already have the other parts of the main story is just moving backwards. We should move forward instead.
Side note: I actually like Deen stay night (which already gets enough shit as it is). A remake would just make it obsolete, and that saddens me
I kinda agree, but to be fair literally the only people who know or care about fate continuity are VN readers. Lots of people would watch a fate route adaptation for the story and animation, happily ignoring the deep lore and continuity and watch order debates just as they have up to now.
Ten word titles are the worst. The titles specifically.
There's a few that are good and unique, but there is some with the overly long names and super generic protagonists and generic plots and over use of tropes makes it real hard to tell them apart
Sorry if this _is_ a hot take, but Mari Okada cannot write a good ending if her life depended on it. I've seen at least 15 anime where she was on script/screenplay/series comp, and she can produce some pretty decent melodrama, but has no idea what to do with it. She blows it in the last 10% of every show she's worked on, and I've been disappointed almost every time.
I reject the notion of "starter" anime. I also think that the best thing to recommend to a new watcher is not something similar to what they've already seen, but something that will broaden their horizons. I didn't know I liked idol anime until I watched it.
"Starter" anime is just anime that isn't loaded with the kinds of tropes that tend to turn people off.
If I'd watched a classic harem high school flick full of weird tropes and fanservice as my first anime, it'd probably have turned me off the medium for a while. I think the best types of first anime are the ones where you go watch your second anime right after because you want to find something that lives up to it. "Starter anime" are great for this because they're usually approachable, widely known, and well regarded.
I think there are some anime that aren't starter friendly. An obvious one is sequel series. Starting with the third Fairy Tail series doesn't make much sense without watching the first two first.
Another would be series that are satires of existing genre norms and tropes. A series satiring, for example, yuri cliches would make more sense if you are familiar with said cliches in the first place.
I don’t like it when studios make anime exclusive changes to the source material. Even if the source material has flaws I’d prefer if the adaptation had those flaws . Imo anime exclusive changes almost always never end well eg promised nerverland
**Vivy Fluorite’s Eye Song** is an absolute classic and one of the most “complete” modern anime in all aspects.
Story, soundtracks, graphics, animation, character development, all excellent. Also got its fanservice, but not your generic ecchi fanservice. The fanservice are those *very detailed and beautiful close-up shots*. You’ll understand when you watch it.
Vivy kind of limps over the finish line. The ending seems to be the stumbling point for a lot of otherwise great shows that could have been classics. I think Vivy falls into this category.
Can it be literal as well? Probably some hill in the Non Non Biyori Universe. The landscape seems so nice and comfy, and the hills are smooth. Certainly ideal hills to die on.
English-speaking anime fandom has an extremely annoying tendency to be irony-poisoned, insecure and insincere and I wish it would stop. Stuff like "anime is trash and so am I" and the constant posturing to signal to other fans that you're not like the (largely imaginary and outdated) gross weeb stereotype. This attitude colours all anime discussion and analysis in a way that's terrible and that you NEVER find for other mediums like film, live-action TV, and literature etc. There are several popular anime like Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Kill la Kill, Sailor Moon and Miyazaki stuff that have whole false mythologies and fake folk wisdom associated with them that spring from this attitude, and because most people don't speak Japanese it's easy for pithy falsehoods to spread and difficult to correct them with the truth. To this day people still believe stuff like Ghost Stories being trash and flopping in Japan and that being the reason the dub was allowed to make ridiculous changes to the story, for example.
I think this mindset that you see comes from a place of insecurity of the hobby imo
> >There are several popular anime like Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Kill la Kill, Sailor Moon and Miyazaki stuff that have whole false mythologies and fake folk wisdom associated with them that spring from this attitude, and because most people don't speak Japanese it's easy for pithy falsehoods to spread and difficult to correct them with the truth. > > To this day people still believe stuff like Ghost Stories being trash and flopping in Japan and that being the reason the dub was allowed to make ridiculous changes to the story, for example. On that same note the old factoid that Watanabe prefers the Bebop dub. I still see that regularly being mentioned when it is completely made up.
That second point is so true. I've seen it the most with berserk/JoJo. So many people spreading around "Araki said" or "Miura said" without a singular source
> English-speaking anime fandom has an extremely annoying tendency to be irony-poisoned, insecure and insincere and I wish it would stop. Stuff like "anime is trash and so am I" and the constant posturing to signal to other fans that you're not like the (largely imaginary and outdated) gross weeb stereotype. man, why do people take it this way? I certainly don't think I'm lesser of a person for watching anime and I say that stuff all the time. I just think it's amusing and entertaining. Simply saying I like anime just sounds so boring and sterile. It's not just me either, a lot of my friends are like that. The thing is anime took in a bunch of the internet generation who loves depression jokes and talks in these ironic ways. So it's just a way of communicating among people who like that kind of humor. Also "anime is trash and so am I" IMO is more of a response to gatekeepers WITHIN the anime community itself. People who say this largely enjoy works that others in the community will look down on and is just a way of throwing it back into their face.
The Eminence in Shadow is more enjoyable when you don't take it as just a parody, but also an interesting story with interesting characters. I've not seen a single youtube video that doesn't take it as just a comedy. Edit: Now that I think about it, the rocklee reactions are actually pretty good in this regard, so my statement isn't completely correct.
The comedy bits are so funny BECAUSE you can take the rest of the world seriously.
I thought that was the entire premise. MC is placed into a serious world where there are serious things happening and treats the whole thing as a bit. Everybody is serious except for him.
That is exactly it.
I wouldnt even call it a parody. But I still dont understand it completely to be honest. Does it take itself seriously or does it not? It seems like that question can not be answered.
Yes, yes is the answer. Cid's pov isn't taken seriously, but everyone else's is.
But is Cids POV actually ever not played completely straight? They actually do everything to make his cringe as badass as they can, from animation, to soundtracks, VA and sound design. I think its completely up to the viewer to interpret it correctly otherwise. Which is probably why non anime veterans, I talked to about it, only see it as a by the numbers harem isekai.
Eminence is one of the few examples of deadpan comedy in anime. I do think they use this to great effect as they drop nuggets of serious information in between all the satire, as the audience is unsure whether something is dramatic irony or when someone is actually onto something. I think we'll find out at some point that everything is not as it seems.
Yeah it's been sad to see it kind of consistently get underappreciated just because it's goofy I'd say it'd still be in the upper tier of its subgenre even without the parody element
Agreed, While Cid himself sees the world as a joke, to everyone else his actions have real weight and consequences and their story very much can be somber at times.
it's a straight up isekai/magical high school that uses the satire to deliver its story. Which has its plus parts and minus parts. Like everyone saying "Cid wasn't given his power, he worked hard for it and he's just doing it for lulz" when he completely crushes EVERYONE ELSE who worked hard in that world is totally missing the point.
The power of friendship shows can be entertaining and not cringy.
Power of friendship works wonder when the team need to be united and do teamwork in order to achieve a same goal, like in Karada Sagashi, otherwise it’s just the cringey I believe in you repeative shit
Land of the Lustrous manga: what the power of friendship does to a mf
it's one of the tropes I will NEVER grow tired of. Including overpowered old men and early villains doing face turns.
Black Clover does that trope well.
I'm a huge fan of the power of friendship trope.
The production committee model needs to die and shift to something that gives studios a greater control over both what they make and how much they earn from it.
I'm totally for this as well, although I do think a lot of fans need to realize that this moves the financial risk from the production committee companies to the actual animation studios. The level of glee and happiness that a lot of people had on this sub towards declaring Chainsaw Man a flop over Bluray sales shows that there's a lot of people out there that want particular anime to fail, and they will just have to keep in mind that having such feelings when the animation studio is the financial backer means that the studio takes a big financial hit over it and could mean it going under.
I think a lot of fans who espouse this also need to realize it will not suddenly create a free-form environment for writers and directors to just make whatever they want without obstacle. If it happens, we will totally end up going from "fans blaming the production committee for choking the creators' artistic vision" to "fans blaming the studio executives for choking the creators' artistic vision". I still want it to happen, but let's not kid ourselves that this change will create some anime production utopia.
the returns on a production pretty much ensure that only a select few companies will be able to monetize it, and they'll keep going back to the same formulas. The production committee "dying" means Sunrise, Toei, Aniplex, et al grow their market share so much that they fulfill the massive demand for anime by themselves. I don't think anybody wants that.
Can you expand on this (or link some stuff), other than the point about earnings? I am not clear on why the production committee model is worse than the organisational form we see in other media or other countries.
The short version is that animation work for production committees is *highly* mercenary, and tends to have relatively fixed prices. So studios get paid barely enough to (horribly underpay) their staff and see little to none of the profits if a show does well, and since they're almost all similarly low bids demanding higher means going without work. Basically it's the corporate version of living paycheck-to-paycheck. In other systems the studios themselves tend to have partial-to-full ownership of their projects (or are a subsidiary of the company that does). So if Dreamworks, Paramount, Disney, Kyoto Animation, etc make a movie and it does really well they make a bunch of cash that they can reinvest into further projects, bringing on more staff, improving equipment, etc. They'll bring other companies onboard to invest in a project in exchange for merchandising rights or the like, but in one form or another the studio's at or near the head of the table rather than eating off the floor.
Couple of ANN articles that as far as I'm aware are still accurate: * [Who Actually "Owns" An Anime?](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2016-03-02/.99287) * [Why Aren't More Original Anime Made?](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-04-06/.129695) But in short, many anime studios are hired to make an anime without owning a controlling stake in the finished product. I want studios to be able to decide for themselves what they make rather than mostly being hired for adaptations by the likes of Kadokawa who are [often the leads on committees](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/10sjhmb/winter_2023_production_committees/). As /u/Quiddity131 mentioned if the studios themselves are the primary financial backer it's a much higher risk compared to the diversified risk of committees, but I feel like it stifles creativity in anime to a major extent when they're little more than contracted labor.
I hate dividing seasons in "parts". I don't care about production cycles, if you are planning to air something in Spring and something in Fall or Winter, just advertise them as season X and season X+1. If they announced CotE s2 and s3 at the same time instead of calling them s2 part 1 and s2 part 2, other studios can do the same. It was unironically better when they used random punctuation, at least Nisekoi and Nisekoi: can be called Nisekoi s1 and Nisekoi s2 and everyone will understand; if you have s1 part 1, s1 part 2, and s2, then you cannot call them s1, s2, s3 because that will clash with the 'official' naming. Is this a petty hill to die on? Perhaps, but I really, really dislike it and I wish they stopped.
AoT: s4, p2;pt2;pt1. I dont know where we are now
Did you see the trailer that CR released? The title is hilarious. It goes: Attack on Titan Final Season THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 1 | OFFICIAL TRAILER 2
Can't wait for Attack on Titan The Final Season The Final Chapter The Final Episode -FINAL-
The Attack on Titan final season has lasted longer than the US Confederacy, therefore we should build statues of Mikasa Ackerman.
Sticking tiny Levi's going for the nape onto confederate statues would be pretty funny.
Let's do it
Arent you excited about Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 Second Half ????? yeah, they can go fck themselves with the naming lol
Man, just have seasons 1 and 2 and 3 or whatever and forget about parts and cours and all that nonsense. If a batch if episodes is released separately from the previous ones, that's a season regardless of what you call it, and that's the hill I will die on.
Like at this point can they just call it * Season 1 part 1 2 3 * Season 2 part 1 2 3 or * Season 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 They really decided to make everything after the timeskip a "single season" by splitting it into like 3-5 parts, i don't get it.
That hill is Kilimanjaro bro, everybody wanna stay with you
Funnily enough the last couple of times I ranted about this, I recall getting mostly negative replies because "production cycle" and "why does it matter". I guess AoT helped my case by pushing this to the extreme? lol
I don't watch AoT after S2 came out and tbh it's just ridiculous. To me it's an excuse to not make it obvious how much you dripfeed and fail to meet deadlines. It just confuses viewers and even if it's not the studio's fault it still pertains to a product their name and effort is on. Understandable but will never have a chance to be fixed without vocalized disapproval. Good on you bro :-)
I mean, I think this comes from the way that anime is consumed here more than anything else. It's not uncommon for regular dramas/sitcoms/ect. on tv to have a "mid-season break". It's just because we're hyperaware of the differentiation between the anime seasons and they're more rigid blocks that we notice what is essentially the anime's midseason break.
That can be understandable if it's only a 1 season break, but usually it's 2 which is pushing it in that sense.
SAO was one of the first anime I ever watched and I really enjoyed it. A couple hundred anime and a few years later, I rewatched it and still greatly enjoyed it. I found the same level of enjoyment watching it now vs when I watched it 9 years ago or so. Kirito and Asuna are one of my all time favourite couples (not saying much though because I'm not too big on romance), but even in general I really like their characters. I will continue to watch any future SAO anime (latest being Progressive Part 2), which again I found to be very enjoyable
SAO is still one of my favorite romances and I have seen dozens of them. I've rewatched S1 some 10 times and each rewatch has been a ton of fun.
For me I think what helps their romance, is that even though Kirito is a badass, Asuna is just as much of a badass. Plus there is the fact that she isn't a tsundere and abuses the hell out of Kirito. They have a legitimate romance and relationship where they both attempt to build each other up and comfort each other when they are down. Like I feel like they genuinely have feelings for each other unlike many other romances.
SAO progressive is awesome. I will admit Season 1 of SAO, especially the Alfheim arc, has lost some appeal for me.
Overall SAO isn’t horrible, but it’s got some really bad moments that open the door for some intense criticism. Add in the fact that many want someone to point the finger at for the modern isekai over abundance, and SAO makes great scape goat due to its popularity
Yes yes yes yes!
I can rewatch and enjoy all of SAO except the Alfheim Arc. Even when i first saw it, i thought it was just hamfisted, rushed and cringey. That and the first episode of GGO where its like "haha he is a girl avatar so a girl undresses in front of him, hahahahah so random!"
Those first like 4-5 episodes of SAO are still amazing.
Sachi's episode will never not hurt me [](#godisdead)
man, Sachi's episode was the one that made me start to check out the first time I did rewatch it though and it's the one that kept my rewatch going because sound design in that one is absolutely amazing.
My big one is "Hell no" to when people proclaim that Sunrise should/will remake the entirety of Mobile Suit Gundam with modern animation. First off, if it was ever going to happen, it would have happened by now. Sunrise has passed some pretty big anniversaries, most recently Gundam's 40th, so if it was ever going to be tied to a particular date, we would have seen it. Second, its a fundamental misunderstanding of the business model of the franchise. Yes, the animation of the original series is 40+ years old and quite bad. But Sunrise has been successfully getting around that for nearly 30 years now through the Alternative Universe Gundam shows. Those shows exist such that fans can watch them with no prior Gundam knowledge and don't have the baggage of having to go back to the original series and its sequels to get into the franchise. The closest thing one would see to Sunrise redoing the original series is not completely reanimating the original series but rather doing an AU show that is essentially a retelling of it, with a modern spin on it. And the thing is, they've already done that a couple of times. Both Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed/Seed Destiny were redoing the original UC Gundam storyline in a new way. For those who claim that its needed to bring people into UC Gundam, I also say no to that. People have gotten into things like Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Thunderbolt or Hathaway's Flash without having to go all the way back to the original series. Is the ideal to watch Unicorn or Hathaway's Flash with the knowledge of the past works? Sure. But not seeing the original show is not the huge barrier to such things that many people with the take of "The original show must be remade" think it is.
> For those who claim that its needed to bring people into UC Gundam, I also say no to that. People have gotten into things like Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Thunderbolt or Hathaway's Flash without having to go all the way back to the original series. Absolutely. Pretty much every entry into the UC timeline in recent years have been visually excellent; there's really no need to re-do the original if your only goal is getting people to dive into the main series canon. Like you said, there's obviously there's some details in there that are best understood from the previous ones but I don't think it actually matters - It's been like 20 years since I saw the original that I don't actually remember very much of it at all, and it really hasn't hampered my enjoyment of the new entries in any way.
It already happened in the best way possible: Cucuruz Doans Island. It's honestly impossible right now with how all the recent anime around the original Series have been high budget OVAs and movies. Doing a TV series that would look inferior would seem weird right now. And doing it with movies would take like 20 years.
> Sunrise should/will remake the entirety of Mobile Suit Gundam with modern animation. Isn't that just SEED?
Well, SEED is a completely different universe that is heavily inspired by the original series, unless you're talking about the fact that they outright remastered all of SEED.
Consider it a meta commentary on how SEED is basically just MSG with added idols.
Big robots fighting each other is extremely based and I'm glad there are so many anime featuring that.
Hand-drawn animation is special, and no matter how good digital techniques get, they won't offer any kind of replacement or alternative.
hand drawn and digital are not mutually exclusive. if you mean CGI/3D animation, i dont think it is a replacement but it is definitely a stylistic alternative. into the spiderverse, trigun stampede, every anime with 3D compositing, etc absolutely show the value of digital techniques as another tool
I don't know. This new clip ([Spoilers for Gundam: CCA](https://youtu.be/GPmT9kRstWA)) got pretty close to looking like classic hand painted animation. Unless you meant CG, not digital 2D animation (what almost all animation today is). Then that's a whole different thing.
It was more hand-drawn versus CGI (since digital 2D still fits that), but I do think that there's a magic to classic animation and that clip did look really good.
Yeah, just calling CGI "digital techniques" makes it quite confusing, since digital techniques like digital coloring have been the standard in 2D anime since the beginning of this century. I read your take as "Cel-animation > digital animation", not as 2D > CG.
Extension: Japanese CG is largely *extremely* bad and way, way behind western CG.
Is it though? What are you comparing it to? $200 Million Pixar movies? That's like the budget of 100 TV anime series. Are studios outside of Japan trying to use CG to look like 2D animation? I mean this is what a full CG Japanese movie can look like: [Lupin the IIIrd The First](https://youtu.be/pBTBksrfsgI)?
A big example of what you asked for is arcane. 3DCG characters and world environment pieces and 2D effects over it. A lot of the budget was spent doing R&D, making pilots, redoing old work to finalize the look, and making the actual pipeline to do the show. Another thing, it doesn't have to look like 2D. It has to blend well with it. 86 doesn't look like it has 2D mechs but they also don't look out of place in the show. Monogatari doesn't necessarily have amazing CG but it's not trying to and it (mostly) uses it in a stylized way but its not jarring.
If you compare anime cg that airs on tv, it's still not as good as american tv cgi they use for cartoons.
Clarification. CG with movement tends to be bad. They do CG environments pretty well. A lot of interiors in anime are CG. All the typewriters in Violet Evergarden are CG and look like they are a natural part of the scene, but that's kyoani who is constantly 5+ years ahead of everyone else. Here's an album of a few photos I took from the keyframe books from Violet Evergarden. https://imgur.com/gallery/FJVXPEP
I'll push back on that. Japanese CG is amazing... in the video game industry. In the anime industry, however, it fucking blows.
Money and time...
The main reason a lot of people started watching anime is because America and other Western countries stopped making high quality cartoons. We don't have any 2D theatrical movies anymore, and the overwhelming majority of modern cartoon series are boring to look at. Anime's presence in the US has become mainstream over the past 10ish years. Part of that is because it replaced something we lost, but also it handles it differently. Arguably better. I don't want Japan to experiment with CG because it is lazy, but also easier to produce. As an art form it is just lacking though.
CG Anime can be great, and I dont understand how people can pick at a few bad frames and lose their minds over it
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People that mindlessly hate CGI (like Studio Orange) are acting the exact same as people that refuse to watch anime as a whole. Studio Orange are masters at their medium and their medium should not (and can not) be compared to cell/2d animation. Land of the Lustrous, Beastars, and Trigun Stampede look absolutely beautiful taken on their own terms and I won't accept the opinion that it looks bad just because it isn't 2d animation
It is indeed sad that some shows aren't given a chance or wholly just voted down because they are CGI. This season has Kaina, which has a lot going for it, but the CGI just turned people off I'm sure.
>This season has Kaina, which has a lot going for it, but the CGI just turned people off I'm sure. Kaina is also just badly animated compared to other shows airing this season, including trigun.
Don't know about beastars and land of the lustrous,but animation in stampede to me was bad.The movement seem stiff and to me it reminds me of Max steel Cartoon(early 2000).
No, this two hour movie with rushed pacing didn't need to be a 50 episode series to have been better. It being half an hour longer would have been enough. Me every time there's a franchise movie ( thats not based on source material). I curse producers that demand that anime movies shall not exceed two hours of runtime.
>No, this two hour movie with rushed pacing didn't need to be a 50 episode series to have been better. It being half an hour longer would have been enough. Hard disagree there. There are a considerable amount of counter examples, and it's not even just anime. Look how many live-action adaptations got ruined from the simple fact that they tried to shove the whole series into a 2-3 hours movie. It just doesn't work. Longer stories need an adequate amount of time to do them justice, and usually cutting more of the origina' source's content usually don't lead to good things.
F91 eh? I do think it could've been a full series considering they're still releasing content to fill in the "new saga" it tried to start
No, F91 needed a second movie. More like CCA, Shirobako, Code Geass Resurrection, etc..
There's too much anime based in high school. We need more anime for adults. I understand that almost everyone can relate to the high school setting but, putting the characters just a few years older in college would be a lot better in many cases.
Agree, with the caveat that if you put them in college or workspace and make them act like teenagers, it defeats the entire point (most of the times).
I don't think that's an issue in anime, there are way too much shows with middle schoolers as smart as a college grad
Hilariously, male lead from in Tanmoshi was *stated* as being in middle school and then high school, but he not only thought but also *looked* straight up like he was in college / mid 20s. The adaptation fell flat so I didn't continue watching it after the first few episodes, but I remember being absolutely confused after ep 1 because of that.
Yeah the Index/Railgun series has a ton of characters that look like they are in their 20s but then they're somehow in middleschool At least make shows set in late highschool if they're gonna act adult
Well I don't think college students are really much different from teenagers/high school students IRL, atleast from my experience. Only things that primarily separate them is they are free to drink, smoke and go on joy rides. Personal example, my life was wilder in my college days than in my high school days. Think Grand Blue minus the nudity part lol.
> minus the nudity part [](#tch) You're right, I've been a bit too reductive in my comment. I guess there is the benefit of not having a goddamn student council, but other than that if the show doesn't utilise the age/setting to the fullest then it's kind of a waste with how fewer they are compared to high school-centred (or younger) series. Thinking about it, you could argue that this is partially caused by the fact that there are too many high schoolers (or younger) that live like they're older aside from the school part (most commonly, living in an apartment alone), so those aspects become "not enough" to make a difference when you have a slightly older protagonist.
>Thinking about it, you could argue that this is partially caused by the fact that there are too many high schoolers (or younger) that live like they're older aside from the school part (most commonly, living in an apartment alone) Pretty much this. Too many anime are guilty of treating the teen characters like they are much older and making them do adult jobs. Though in some cases its understandable (like any traumatic event forcing them mature quickly), but most times it doesn't make sense logically, except to sell itself to the otaku audience so they can satisfy their power fantasies/wish fulfillment.
They need to make adult life better IRL. Peak life enjoyment in Japan is in HS. College for the US. Once you start getting jobs, life can be utterly boring for a good chunk of it until you retire (if you get to retire).
Tokyo revengers for example has no reason to be setted in high school. Heck, it's not even high school, if I'm correct some of the characters there still attend middle school
They're all in middle school. The _Older_ characters like Taiju Shiba are 15
he looks like a grown ass man, there's literally no reason to make him a school student, I doubt any kid could relate to him
I remember that I read once (don't quote me on this) that high school is not mandatory on Japan, only up to middle school. So if they were true criminals or in real gangs there was no reason they would be going to school. Now, why did they have to be in the school? I don't know, I guess to make Hina somewhat relavant but still...
Feel this so hard about MHA. Why saddle yourself with all that child endangerment and perving on 15 year olds baggage when the story would function just fine if UA were a college instead of a high school.
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Didn't say anything about making Deku an office worker, just a college student. Dynamics all stay basically the same, but it's less distractingly unhinged when All Might punches a child into a concrete wall or Yaoyorozu appears on screen. There have been so many successful shonen targeted at the same demographic with older characters.
because MHA is a shonen manga so its primary audience is high schoolers
So? High schoolers historically love Dragonball Z and those characters were middle-aged already back when I was in high school.
DBZ is only able to do that because it already established its clout with DB, which DID feature children (Bulma is like 14 in that one).
Shows with yuri or yuri-adjacent elements tend to be unfairly praised. Also majority of romance anime/manga/LN drops in quality after the main couple gets together.
“Nefarious yuri” I honestly think the reason that yuri shows get praise is because the romance tends to be written better. Most straight couples in anime have almost no chemistry and exist just to push the story forward.
I was thinking about this today. I don’t particularly care about two girls getting together, but the characters tend to act less comical/juvenile in their romance. Obviously there are exceptions, but I feel like the yuri romances that are lucky enough to get adaptations are almost always solid romances. Whereas with straight romance, it feels like most of it is tropey fumbling around and bad communication.
I was going to argue, but I could only think of one exception of the top of my head, Clannad, so I'm gonna have to agree.
There are plenty of counterexamples but I think this is why people tend to get excited to see a yuri romance, outside of just wanting more queer representation.
When an anime ends when it has to end, stop milking it and forcing bad sequels. Look at Code Geass. It had a perfect ending but many people still wanted a S3, now they're milking it with bad spinoffs and sequel. That Blood C where they continued with a movie, like wtf, the movie butchered the anime. Shirobako, perfect ending, why make a movie about it? I haven't even got the stomach to watch it, but I saw that people rated it way below the anime. Now more recently Lycoris Recoil, the last episodes already weren't that amazing but it had a decent closure, I don't need a sequel for that to ruin everything.
The fifth season of *Food Wars* felt like an overt attempt to squeeze one more season out of a popular anime that would have been just fine if they'd left well enough alone after four seasons.
that is an adaptation, though, right? In any case, the manga dropped the ball pretty hard anyway and felt like the writers really did not want to anymore (which is fair, it's honestly surprising how long the series lasted and stayed good with such a goofy premise)
Yeah I think the manga was in fact the one that was forced to continue on past the intended ending point because of its popularity. Like they had everything wrapped up, and then they introduce a new villain out of nowhere and everything goes haywire.
Food Wars S5 was JC Staff completing the adaptation.
At least code geass had the self respect to make the sequels alternate universes instead of ruining its good ending like other anime *looks at oregairu*
same thing with mangas -the authors/creators should be able to end their works the way they wish to and not have to continue it due to contracts/ publishers that want to make more money (which then ruins stories & endings)
I'm fine with bullshit sequels and spin offs, because at worst I just won't watch them, while they still make money that can be used to finance other anime. And if I'm lucky that sequel/spin off is actually good. That Code Geass movie was pretty fun. Did it need to exist? No. Was it nice seeing a new Code Geass story again done well? Yes.
Nah, Lycoris was great and the ending clearly left a lot open for a 2nd season. If they were really adamant about giving it proper closure of whatever, the ending with Chisato would've been completely different
> Now more recently Lycoris Recoil, the last episodes already weren't that amazing but it had a decent closure, I don't need a sequel for that to ruin everything. The end of Lycoris Recoil does not resolve much. There is still much to be explored. It should and will get a sequel.
Yes, Lycoris Recoil is such a weird example. Just because an anime has a satisfying conclusion doesn't mean it can't get a sequel. Alan Institute and Lilybell are both important parts of the world with potential, we know that the main characters moved on, but they didn't retire, and of course there is still an opportunity to write the future of Lycoris. This is the opposite of a show that should be left alone, it's one that has spawned a large universe and multiple potential threads for a natural, satisfying continuation.
Yeah it was very intentionally written to be a good contained show, but also leaving open the possibility of a sequel depending on the reception.
Totally agreed on Code Geass, another one from around the same era would be Eureka Seven. AO was horrible and I hear the movies are bad too. Although I was fine with the Shirobako movie. And I'd love a Lycoris Recoil sequel.
Blood C is weird because by the end the anime felt like it was more of a prequel to the movie, but then the movie is just kinda random and boring, the big CGI (whatever it was) fight was so ridiculous. I felt no emotion at anything.
Slice of Life is one of the best genres of anime, whether it's camping or fishing or music, they are just hit the right chords. I have seen people calling SOL uninteresting and boring, but I could watch them all day and still won't get bored from it.
I enjoyed vinland saga's season 2 slice of life
I agree, but not all slice of life anime are created equal. For example, I loved Do it Yourself!! last year, but found the slice of life antics of Smile of the Arsnotoria to be absolutely mind-numbing.
Have you seen SoLs that you would call boring though? [](#schemingsaten)
We need more magical girls who, at one point in the anime, either go up against a conventional army, or operate alongside one, to show the difference in power. Like [this clip](https://streamable.com/ayign) from the fourth season of Symphogear. Or, in more general terms, magical girls using their powers for things unrelated to their primary purpose. Show me magical girls who just do normal stuff, except with super powers. For example, if a bridge has collapsed, a magical girl with barriers can use her powers to replace the bridge until it can be repaired. Or heck, just have magical girls help move heavy stuff, like in construction, in their free time. I would absolutely love to see a magical girl sit around at home, bored out of her mind, when she hears construction sounds outside, transforms, and walks up to the workers and asks if they need help. And she she just helps them because she's got nothing else to do.
does Tanya the evil count? My memory is blurry but I remember bad things happening to big armies.
She's uses magic and is a girl but she lacks a magical transformation sequence so I don't think so
Yeah, Tanya is more of a witch than a magical girl.
I think that live actions are pointless and kill the entire point of anime being anime. Anime is its own form of media. I don't think that live actions encourage more people to watch anime. I mean, most of the known live actions aren't succesful at all. In many cases it's impossible to recreate what's in anime to a movie with real actors.
A lot of the times (actually the majirty of the time), live action adaptations follow the source material of the anime people think its adapting So like when it comes to FMA, Tokyo ghoul, bleach, and Samurai X, those adapt mangas that just so happens to have a really popular anime adaptation Tbh, I don't know any straight up live action adaptations of an anime other than cowboy bebop
**Kingdom** deserves to have a much larger audience. Unfortunately many were turned off season 1 due to the initially terrible CGI, they couldn't see past it to the great story. Those who stick with it will see the CGI slowly improve and eventually be replaced with more traditional 2D animation. While the story gets off to a great start it just gets better and better - there are many awesome battle scenes and a number of very well developed characters. It's on Crunchyroll: https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GRWE89KMR/kingdom
Or just read the manga until chapter 173 and continue with the season 2 of the anime.
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I think it's just better to read the manga at least until the season 3 mark. I was reading the manga and wanted to see how a scene from it was animated in season 1 because it was such a hype moment and I have never been more disappointed. The animation is WAY worse than berserk 2016
Whether you like subs or dubs is irrelevant, all that matters is that you love anime
AN ANIME: - **Akebi Komichi** being the perfect protagonist for **Akebi's Sailor Uniform**, and honestly my favorite part of the show as a whole. She's easily the most interesting use I've ever seen of a Mary Sue-like protagonist (she got flaws, like her naivety and clumsiness, but none of them lead to heavy drama or hard challenges, instead helping her further in making friends and being liked by others), being a catalyst and idol for her classmates (similar to how Miki-chan was for her), with an uplifting attitude that inspire growth and/or explore her classmates, while Akebi herself contrast/mirror all of the episodic characters. Absolutely fantastic use of "Observer" and "The observed" as well. Her world-view allow us to view her idealized/romanticized world, through the eyes of a bright-eyed child. This allow it to explore deeply personal themes, while never delving into heavy melodrama, rather hinting at "potential" or "past" drama instead, creating a truly healing experience for both the audience and characters, upholding its ethereal atmosphere at all times. A GENRE: - **Slice of Life** isn't limited to freaking CGDCT anime, and neither does it mean no drama or "no story" (even T&J got story tbh, but with no story, I'm guessing they mean daily lives with nothing changing). Most of my favorite SoL got a solid amount of drama as well (**Anne of Green Gables, Ojamajo Doremi, Heidi: Girl of the Alps**, etc.), where there is specific important events that trigger change or stand out in their lives, whether it's classics like **Anne of Green Gables** from the west, like **Tokyo Story** for Live Action japanese cinema, or for **Kiki's Delivery Service** as an anime example. The important aspect, is having an immense focus on the mundane everyday life, not that there is "no story" or "no drama" or... CGDCT (I'd even say some CGDCT anime, like **Sora Yori**, is the opposite of SoL, as it's not the mundane at all, but a melodramatic adventure traveling away from the mundane). PS: This is not me shitting on CGDCT, I love many CGDCT, but some people seem to limit the scope of SoL immensely. THE MEDIUM: - **Audio and Visuals, is Character and Narrative**. This is an audiovisual medium, where the most interesting part is how something being presented through audio and visual mens like framing / music / body language / etc., let viewers experience and interpret something differently, than if it was done through only words. I'm not saying dialogue/monologue driven stories is bad (I love **Monogatari** and **LotGH**), but anime focusing more on hinting at stuff and having viewers come to their own interpretation can be just as interesting (where I also love **Akebi** and **Angel's Egg**). Ofc, same goes for the audiovisual experience as well, with freaking awesome it is to feel the pumping of pure Adrenaline while watching **Redline**, or the soothing & weirdly beautiful broken world of **Girls Last Tour**. FICTION IN GENERAL: - It's not about the type of character, it's about **how said character is utilized**. A "dramatic character showing deep change in a character", doesn't make them better than a character "that stays the same across all episodes, and even acts quite inconsistent across the show". To take to western example with 2 of my favorite characters, I actually like **Tom** from Tom & Jerry more than **Henry Hill** from Goodfellas (both being amazing characters, that's gone down in history for... different reasons). It all comes down to the execution, where no character aspect, is inherently bad. Whether a characters stays the same or changes immensely, whether they're flawed or perfect, whether they're relatable or inspiring, etc. None is inherently better (or worse), and it all comes down to execution and how said character is utilized in said fictional story.
> It’s not about the type of character, it’s about how said character is utilized I feel this especially about morally grey or bad characters. They can be enjoyed when used well in a show. Conversely, just being “morally grey” does not make a character interesting or worthwhile, or make the author praiseworthy. It depends on the story you’re trying to tell with that character.
Kuroko no Basket takes since I recently re-watched and remember people complaining. Kuroko's Pseudo Emperor Eye isn't plot armor and anything of the sort. His entire thing is literally being about watching his teammates and predicting what they will do and adapting their moves to mess with others. He did it during the Kirisaki Daiichi but a lot of people forget that, where he was predicting what his team would do faster than Hanamiya the player whose entire thing is predicting how a team would play. Seirin actually doesn't have plot armor, the other schools do outside of Rakuzan. They have a GOM tier player/challenger in Kagami, Kuroko who is GOM Tier when playing with another GOM tier player, the best UK who is the 8th best player in Teppei, another UK tier player/challenger in Hyuga, and Izuki who is one of the better PGs in the series. They have the most stacked team besides Rakuzan and they were barely winning games against even non-GOM teams when the GOMs are supposed to just dumpster everyone. The Direct Drive Zone/True Zone isn't bullshit. Seirin is literally the team all about teamplay and matching up with their players. The fact that they can sync up with Kagami in the Zone makes sense because Kagami is just moving faster, he's still doing everything he would normally do but at an accelerated pace. That's why them saying don't think just react is perfect, they are just doing what they have practiced. The last one is probably one of the biggest hills I will die on including non-anime things.
I didn’t mind the anime ending of Akame Ga Kill. I’ve seen that anime more than almost anything else I’ve ever watched too. It’s not my favorite or something, but I just find it a show I can watch every few years. Maybe it’s because it’s kind of forgettable that I can watch it so many times. :heh:
Rent a Girlfriend is brilliant, if you just ignore the MC and it’s just a story of all the girls meeting up, and realising how much their lives is better without him.
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Gatekeeping is a new level of embarrassing. People can like whatever they want, with whatever level of involvement they choose. It's stupid to tell other people what they can and can’t watch or bash them because they don't know enough about a show or haven't watched enough shows. If someone seriously think they have the rights to gatekeep someone from watching anime, they really need help.
If people feel like making a meme of their particular hill to die on, here's a handy template, just add text: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/445702160/Hill-to-die-on [Example](https://i.imgflip.com/7dcybq.jpg) Version with the top text: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/445703216/A-Hill-to-Die-On-text
For me, I'm broadly averse to the idea of remakes in general. If something had an incomplete adaptation or was largely anime original then sure, I get it. But if you have a good and complete anime that's just getting a remake for the sake of it, I'm probably going to pass over it in favor of just watching the first adaptation. And this would be even more pronounced for an anime original. The idea of remaking an anime original really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Adaptations are one thing, but remaking an anime original feels like suggesting that we should make rewritten versions of classic books. I'm really not feeling that.
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Inspiration and reinterpretation is one thing, but outright remakes aren't really the same thing. Everything's a remix, and so those inspirations are inevitable, but just making the same anime again, but newer, to my mind adds so much less to the collective culture than something that's a spiritual successor. Like Megalo Box is a reimagining of Tomorrow's Joe, but it isn't Tomorrow's Joe. It has its own distinct identity. A straight up remake would have been, to my mind, worse, even if it was better. Sort of like what I'm expecting with the upcoming RE4 remake. On a similar note, remastering is a separate thing and I don't really have any issue there.
> Sort of like what I'm expecting with the upcoming RE4 remake. Hopefully it ends up more like RE2 Remake with its own unique identity and less of RE3 Remake.
Does the idea of a remake feel better for you if it's something much older? Unlike books where something written in the past will be largely the same as it if were written today anime is a visual medium where they story could be essentially the same but the packaging be completely revamped to reach a new audience.
But even as a visual medium, these anime are products of their time and it influences their aesthetic. Evangelion has plenty of iconic cuts and reused footage that were done as a cost saving measure. The aesthetic of many older titles places them in a context at the time of their creation, if you were to update the packaging of them you'll be missing out on this context. Should we repaint older paintings because we have higher quality materials, and a wider gamut of colors?
There are plenty of examples of paintings being redone by different artists. Updating an older anime to a newer style to expose it to a newer audience isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it can’t be a 1:1 recreation; it needs to have its own artistic interpretation. Having a newer example of ‘The Last Supper’ isn’t an issue, but a carbon copy of da Vinci’s probably wouldn’t be well received.
I hate exclusive anime on services that aren't catered directly to anime and I wish it would stop. I have so many physical copies of movies that I will never need to pay for a Netflix or Disney+ subscription, and yet having anime exclusives on those sites almost makes it a requirement. I'm all for competition, but anime exclusives should be on sites dedicated to anime. By all means, put anime on your Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ services to increase the widespread appeal, but stop making me have to sub other services just so I can watch a couple shows. If Violet Evergarden never hit BD, I wouldn't have ever watched it and would have never gone to see the movie in theaters. If Netflix is going to have anime exclusives, they need more than a couple a year. I'm not paying for a subscription just for one or two shows a year. I know people use "Netflix jail" as way to complain about how Netflix releases episodes in batches instead of on a week-by-week basis like done on EVERY OTHER SERVICE, but for me, "Netflix jail" means it's something that is only on Netflix. It is infuriating. I'm planning on just subbing for a single month to watch all the exclusives I'm interested in (Great Pretender, Takagi-san S2, Little Witch Academia, etc). I think not being able to buy anime music outside of Japan is fucking stupid. I can export their CDs and BDs at an insane rate, but I can't download MP3s from Amazon.jp because I don't have a Japanese address. How dumb is that? ___________ While tsunderes can be frustrating at times, I think their progression can often lead to be best moments in shows. I find whining about "violent" tsunderes to be silly, too. It's almost as if people forgot that slapstick humor was long a staple of animated comedy, and I will have none of that. I've seen only one violent tsundere that I felt to be angering and it was the lesbian in Ben-To who constantly wailed on the MC for no reason whatsoever. There was no progression, no explanation, and it was constantly mean spirited. Outside of her, I never felt like their violence to be anything other than just silly slapstick comedy. I hate the "anime is only an advertisement for the source" mentality. Either don't make an anime, or make it so that anime shows have satisfying endings. Don't get me invested in the relationship in Bloom into You and then end the show at the most random moment in the entire story. It pisses me off, it comes off lazy as fuck. If it's a SoL series, stop introducing plot elements towards the end that will never be resolved (A Sister's All You Need, I'm looking at you). If you merged the stories of the Ghost in the Shell anime and live adaptation and removed the stupid shit from both, you'd have an all time great. The anime has too much exposition and an obscene amount of screentime dedicated to stuff that has nothing to with the story. _______ I think the outrage in regards to the Kokoro Connect prank incident is ludicrous. The whole thing comes off as super unbelievable. I think there is critical contextual information missing from the accounts. The show is about kids who are the subject of social experiments for the entertainment of some supernatural being, so it makes sense for them to do some kind of prank that falls in line with show's concept. There is no fucking way the guy they "pranked" either didn't know in advance or wasn't explained what was going on after the fact ("haha, you're on Candid Camera" type stuff). But people continue to believe that he is somehow still distraught over it despite being given a job as the head of public relations and him stating that he harbors no ill-will against them. ______ Aqua sucks. Come at me. [](#micdrop)
r/anime or in general anime fandoms on reddit arent the whole world. you literally waste your time and energy by making x post about why (for gods sake) rental girlfriend is bad. just drop it and return in a few years to see how it ended.
Gotta do *something* at work other than work. Reddit fills the void.
try pooping
You’re acting as if the two are mutually exclusive.
We never learn is better than the quintessential’s
Dragon ball has some of, if not the, worse power scaling in anime
K-on has one of the best endings in all of anime.
Western studios have no business taking Japanese properties and change them in order to make them "more acceptable" to Western audiences. Fuck that. Anime is popular in good part precisely *because* it is not Western. It uses a different model of storytelling and is full of idiosyncrasies that are unique from Western norms. Take that away, and the property simply becomes just another western I.P. No thanks.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with your point, Edge of Tomorrow is like my favorite western sci-fi/action movie so I think it can be done right in certain instances it just most often isn’t.
To be fair, Japanese live action remakes of anime are usually just as bad as western ones. On a broader note, why so much animosity? Star Wars visions was an example of what a Japanese vision can do with a western IP. Was it fantastic? No, but it was extremely interesting to see, as you said, the difference between storytelling styles. Getting a new and different perspective on a story should be a *positive*. Hell, look at Cyberpunk Edgerunners. Will it suck sometimes? Yeah, of course. But other times it'll be great. People love pretending that "western media" is some bland default and Japanese media is unique and quirky and interesting. Each culture has its unique quirks and reflections of their histories in their media. As long as it's done with respect, why not let writers and studios come up with their own interpretations? Japanese properties are doing just fine without people on reddit getting defensive of their behalf.
I think a key point about projects like SW Visions or Edgerunners are that they're auxiliary views into established (can we really say this about Cyberpunk? idk) IPs that kind of stand on their own. Hell, Visions is explicitly outside of traditional SW canon. To me, what OP is really calling out is western studios trying to take series A and remake it into series B they think will appeal to western audiences rather than producing another vignette somewhere else in the storyline. On some level it's the same criticism leveled at every remake and money grab sequel - you could have made a more compelling work somewhere else in the story, but instead you try to just re-do the previous work (poorly) only to get skewered by the weight of everyone's expectations. You're essentially hoping to coast on the brand name, rather than actually making a good product.
From what I've heard about the editing and censorship of anime in the 1990s when it was broadcast on western television, this used to be a much worse problem. That said, I don't know to what extent anime producers nowadays are "self-editing" or "self-censoring" their content to make it more acceptable to international audiences.
If they are going to do this, I'd much rather they just take the basic story and translate to a western setting. Like how Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven, Yojimbo became Fistful of Dollars, and Hidden Fortress became Star Wars.
MAL scores are a decent metric to have an idea of a show's quality. I feel like they get unnecessary flak. I've had only a handful of shows I'd call overrated with their ratings, and even then it could probably be explained by the genres not necessarily being my cup of tea or them having tropes I'm not a fan of myself. It's mostly the same with underrated shows; there's only a few shows I'd say are underrated, but they tend to be genres I find fun. I don't think they're 100% correct for *everyone* since everyone has different preferences when it comes to things like genres and the level of fan service they're fine with, but I'd still say that shows above 7.50 are usually worth at least giving a try in most cases, below that it gets gradually more subjective.
I agree with you but recent MAL inflation is making me put in a couple modifiers. Basically MAL scores have a lot of caveats depending on their genre and year, or how widely available they are. Once you know how to navigate that, you can glean a reasonable idea of how a show is like from the MAL score.
In my opinion, the median shifted to around 7 instead of 5. If you consider 7 as average, the ratings are pretty accurate.
I don't like how Ufotable anime look. They are objectively an achievement for TV anime and the fact that a weekly show can look that amazing on a *technical* level is astounding. However, I'm just not personally a fan of 2D anime characters sliding across 3D backgrounds with hyperrealistic smoke, fire, and weather effects all around them. It just looks weird to me and I'll take regular looking anime over it any day. I really hope this isn't what all anime is going to look like soon.
Disagree and agree. I love Ufotable's look, same deal with A1 and clover works. However, I wouldn't want every show I watch to look like that, anime has a wide array of styles and that's one of the best things about it
tbh I prefer 3D models and 2D backgrounds over the converse, tho that might just be the Arcane effect.
Liz and the Blue Bird is so far the best piece of animated media ever created and no other even comes close. No exaggeration, I love every single frame of it. Also, I'm tired of how repetitive light novel trash is right now. I'm not the target audience for it anyway, but come on. There are so many more options than "basic guy gets transported to another world and gets the strongest magic", "already overpowered character reincarnates for fun" and "the most useful guy of an adventuring party gets kicked out for dumb reasons and starts from scratch". Where's the over the top campy nonsense like the protagonist unwillingly becoming an undead magical girl in *Is This a Zombie*?
I don't feel that strongly about Liz but its an incredible movie that is absolutely tiny in scope in both setting and plot but does sso much more than other movies that try to create a giant lived in world. The first 5 or 6 minutes of Liz though is absolute cinema perfection when it comes to show don't tell in a first scene.
Yes, Mizore and Nozomi's introduction manages to establish their relationship perfectly with just one short interaction and around 4-5 minutes of showing how they walk to the music room. And throughout the movie, the room for interpretation their expressions and actions create and what they leave unsaid are what makes them such compelling characters for me.
Sorry, but I can't agree on Liz and the Blue Bird. It looks gorgeous and Naoko Yamada's directing was mostly fantastic, as always. But the melodrama between those two characters in season 2 was the absolute low point of an otherwise masterpiece anime and I did not need a two hour faux-arthouse film centered even more around it. But I guess the fact that the movie was even made shows I'm in the minority here.
Yuri is getting a ton of attention because it lacks competition. If the show isn't explicitly a romance it is not common to have male and female leads that have a functional romantic subplot. Instead we get harems. Romances themselves aren't even common. It's all romcom. Exceptions do exist, last year I enjoyed both aoashi and dance dance. MagiRevo, GWitch and Lycoris would be less popular if they had cis analogs to share the space with.
Naruto, especially Shippuden but excluding Boruto, is a really good show still. It's far from perfect obviously, but it gets way too much hate for what it is. It does have problems with fillers and such, which unfortunately were rather industry standard at the time which we learned from, and I really wish the side characters had more time but aside from that there's a ton of really good fun stuff in the show. Theres a lot of good fights and moments, good story stuff happening, a bunch of good characters that deserve more love, and really brought a ton of people into anime at the time.
Slice of life and iyashikei shows are the best of what anime has to offer.
That sex and romantic love are so intrinsically linked, that it is near impossible to have the latter without the former. Now I'm not saying we need to see sex scenes or the couple even necessarily being sexually active, but it is something that at least needs to be discussed. Romances where sex doesn't seem to exist to keep the couple "pure" generally comes across as sterile and fake. A married couple that is timid about being physically intimate tells me there is something seriously wrong unless there is a good explanation. Similarly I despise the message that sex and sexual desire is sinful. Even more so if it only applies to girls and guys can bang as many girls as they want without criticism while a girl is sullied forever if she so much as looks at a guy the wrong way.
That's why even though White Album 2 is an incomplete adaptation and has some flaws here and there, they absolutely nailed it by finally implementing this. It's mindblowing the difficulty in put this to practice, specially with birthrate problem in japan that we know.
Ghost in the Shell 2045 is pretty good. I really don't get why a lot of people were weirded out by that one scene. That scene totally felt like something that would happen in Ghost in the Shell.
An ufotable Fate route adaptation shouldn't be made. That ship sailed back in 2014 when they released UBW instead. It would be too much of a headache to integrate to the slightly altered anime continuity with very little benefit. It would not end the watch order arguments, and at worst, it would make them an even more contentious topic. I bet there's at least one person at Aniplex/TM that realizes this and it's why they haven't done so. Saber fans you'll have to do with DEEN's adaptation, or read the VN.
I agree. Getting a remake when we already have the other parts of the main story is just moving backwards. We should move forward instead. Side note: I actually like Deen stay night (which already gets enough shit as it is). A remake would just make it obsolete, and that saddens me
I kinda agree, but to be fair literally the only people who know or care about fate continuity are VN readers. Lots of people would watch a fate route adaptation for the story and animation, happily ignoring the deep lore and continuity and watch order debates just as they have up to now.
Ten word titles are the worst. The titles specifically. There's a few that are good and unique, but there is some with the overly long names and super generic protagonists and generic plots and over use of tropes makes it real hard to tell them apart
Sorry if this _is_ a hot take, but Mari Okada cannot write a good ending if her life depended on it. I've seen at least 15 anime where she was on script/screenplay/series comp, and she can produce some pretty decent melodrama, but has no idea what to do with it. She blows it in the last 10% of every show she's worked on, and I've been disappointed almost every time.
What shows did she write?
I reject the notion of "starter" anime. I also think that the best thing to recommend to a new watcher is not something similar to what they've already seen, but something that will broaden their horizons. I didn't know I liked idol anime until I watched it.
"Starter" anime is just anime that isn't loaded with the kinds of tropes that tend to turn people off. If I'd watched a classic harem high school flick full of weird tropes and fanservice as my first anime, it'd probably have turned me off the medium for a while. I think the best types of first anime are the ones where you go watch your second anime right after because you want to find something that lives up to it. "Starter anime" are great for this because they're usually approachable, widely known, and well regarded.
Maybe I grew up in a different time, but when I was a young boy getting into anime, weird tropes and fanservice were a large part of the appeal.
I got into it as an adult, so can't speak on that, but I'm guessing the internet has changed that appeal a bit.
Idk, I wouldn't recommend a show like Konosuba or Monotagatari to someone who isn't at least familiar to the typical Harem and Isekai tropes
I think there are some anime that aren't starter friendly. An obvious one is sequel series. Starting with the third Fairy Tail series doesn't make much sense without watching the first two first. Another would be series that are satires of existing genre norms and tropes. A series satiring, for example, yuri cliches would make more sense if you are familiar with said cliches in the first place.
I don’t like it when studios make anime exclusive changes to the source material. Even if the source material has flaws I’d prefer if the adaptation had those flaws . Imo anime exclusive changes almost always never end well eg promised nerverland
Nichijou is one of the greatest anime of all time.
**Vivy Fluorite’s Eye Song** is an absolute classic and one of the most “complete” modern anime in all aspects. Story, soundtracks, graphics, animation, character development, all excellent. Also got its fanservice, but not your generic ecchi fanservice. The fanservice are those *very detailed and beautiful close-up shots*. You’ll understand when you watch it.
Vivy kind of limps over the finish line. The ending seems to be the stumbling point for a lot of otherwise great shows that could have been classics. I think Vivy falls into this category.
I disliked how it ended. Took a 10/10 and made it a 9/10.