Anime

(less screaming perhaps)

And yeah, they definitely did some cool shit with Ramiel in Rebuild, him toasting half a mountain with his laser beam was fucking awesome.

Oooh, who wrote that raid? That's uncanny

No idea, but it can't be a coincidence! (I have more to say on this fight one day but this isn't the thread)

Watched Rebuild 2.0.

-Mari is great (I miss "Point blank, shithead!" from the dub though)
-Almost no downtime between events, it's crazy
-The Dummy Plug scene is one of the most harrowing moments in Anime for me as pretentious/hyperbolic as that may sound, Shinji's screams at his Father to make it stop as he's forced (unknowingly) to watch his Eva tear apart another Eva knowing it is severely damaging the child inside. Here it's just kinda…there?
-Pretty much not remotely where the series was at this point, not complaining.

All new from here on for me.

Is there a tidy viewing order for the whole thing?

Not really "tidy"…

The best order, for my money, is to watch the TV series up to episode 20, then the director's cut episodes 21'-24', then End of Evangelion, and optionally ending with the TV series 25 and 26. (They're not essential for plot reasons, but they're an important part of the series as a whole, and will serve as a nice palette cleanser.)

It's very difficult for me to say how you'd get on with just the Rebuild movies; so much of my reaction to them is tied up in 15 years of history with the franchise. Personally I feel like they skip over a lot of character moments that are important to how relationships develop, seemingly on the assumption that you already know how it goes. It also changes plot points in varying ways that are more meaningful for knowing what's different.

Yeah, from what I've seen of the Rebuild movies so far they're very much focused on over coming the Angels rather than all the little (and larger, Alastors bang on regarding the dummy plug incident and how it contrasts with the same incident in the series) character moments.

The dummy plug thing is purely about subverting the narrative expectations of TV fans; I remember seeing 2.0 for the first time and my mind racing with possibilities, what might happen and what it would mean for Shinji's arc. It's pretty disappointing that the change doesn't really make all that much difference to the rest of the story.

Which is fundamentally my major problem with Rebuild: it tries to do things differently on an aesthetic or plot level, but fails to find any truly new paths for the characters or themes.

Thanks guys!

Have you guys seen this

Someone on RLLMUKs thread for Evangelion mentioned Thunderbirds but there's influences there from almost everything the Anderson's did (because Sylvia was just as important as Gerry). The Battle Stations music in particular is VERY Thunderbirds whilst Tokyo 3 is the city from Stingray.

So I avoid any spoilers for 3.0 and 3.0+1.0 I've now gone down a Supermarionation rabbit hole!

I hadn't seen that - it's fantastic! 🤯

Some images have come out ahead of Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop's release (on November 19th), and it… well. It doesn't look great.

I mean, it's tough to gauge tone from these; Lord knows the anime varied wildly from episode to episode in terms of the grit:comedy ratio, but I'd always assumed – and the general level of grime and low lighting in these does nothing to dispel the notion – that any American remake would lean into the gritty Spike vs. Vicious stuff more than Stray Dog Strut or Cowboy Funk, so this cheapness doesn't bode well for its ability to pull that off.

At least they've gotten rid of Faye's gold short shorts, though I do kinda miss the "pop" of the red shawl - that maroon leather jacket just isn't cutting it.

Maybe it'll look better in motion?

(There are more images at The Verge.

Spikes hair looks a little too well maintained too.

Has there ever been a good live action adaptation of an anime property? I think the older Death Notes (not the Netflix one) were half decent? Though I've never watched the anime to compare them

Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo sure was something!

Spoiler - click to show That 14 year timeskip just comes out of nowhere and dropkicks you in the face, although besides the very convenient timelocked Eva pilots I thought people would look a little older than they did. The first film was basically the same as the series, the second goes off the tracks and this almost feels like a different series from those films. like they just completely changed the story on a whim beforehand. It was a gorgeous looking film, I just wish I had any idea of what is going on at this point. Can Kaworu's hope of rebuilding still happen? Does Gendo just want the EoE style Instrumentality to happen? Are WILLE just going to fly through the sky endlessly on that ship for the rest of their lives? What are Asuka and Mari fighting for even? Guess I'll find out tonight or tomorrow….

Whatever else you want to say about 2021, the fact that it's given us both ODD TAXI and Sonny Boy will let me forgive it many, many sins.

Now seven episodes in, Sonny Boy has revealed its true conceit, throwing all the characters into full-on existential crises instead of just high school drama and sociopolitical disagreements heightened by the weirdness of their situation.

Main character Nagara seems to be the closest to Actually Dealing With His Problem at the moment, as others run away (some more literally than others), but Noriko could be headed in the opposite direction from progress after last week's revelation. Mizuho continues to be The Best.

The settings and concepts of the various This Worlds that the show visits continue to be excellent, underlining the character progression in a way that's clear but not overbearing.

Unlike with ODD TAXI's intricate puzzle, I'm never desperate for the next episode – I think I enjoy percolating on each installment almost as much as watching them – but it's a delight to realise that a new episode has dropped each week.

I really hope it manages a satisfying ending. Near as I can tell, this is the director's first time scripting a whole series, do it could go off the rails, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I am pleased to report that Sonny Boy has managed to stick the landing. I can't believe we got this and ODDTAXI in the same year.

Kageki Shojo!! also ended on a pretty positive note, although it doesn't feel finished (I don't know how much more manga there is to adapt) so it's hard to judge. It was a solid first season, even if some of the plotlines were dealt with a little too tidily. More sports anime about stuff that isn't a sport please, though.

This is the part of the season where I promise myself I'm going to get back to series left unfinished on my backlog (Onii-sama e, The Aquatope in White Sand, Hidamari Sketch, Higurashi, Fena), but I know I'll only chip away a couple of episodes before it all kicks off again and I'm watching eight new shows trying to figure out which ones are any good before dropping all but three of 'em.

Ranking of Kings has a title like a shonen battle anime and character designs like Steven Universe doing medieval fantasy, but it's probably the best thing this season*.

The main character, Bojji, is a tiny deaf-mute prince with seemingly boundless courage, empathy and resilience, trying to live up to the towering legacy of his literal giant father. His only friend is an orphaned shadow assassin who, the first time they meet, steals and eats the prince's clothes.

There's a hint of political maneuvering and magic in the OP, but so far it's mostly been about Bojji overcoming the ableist expectations of his court (and step-family), with a healthy dose of traumatic backstory that got me right in the feels.

Only four episodes in – so plenty of time for it to shit the bed yet – but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

*Heike Monogatari is stunning, but being based on a series of very famous (in Japan, anyway) historical events, there's a lot of assumed knowledge that's missing for a Western audience, even aside from the complicated structure of the 12th Century Japanese Imperial court.

If near-future scifi about augmented reality is your bag, the excellent mid-2000s series Den-noh Coil is on Netflix. It's a bit of a slow burn, and not all of its rules about the digital world make sense, but it's got a ton of fascinating ideas.

a forum i post on has an anime thread and some guy has just spent the day posting about this cool anime he saw
he has, scene for scene, described weekend at bernies

I'm now seven episodes into My Dress-Up Darling (a dreadful name, though the Japanese title – Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru, or "The dress-up doll falls in love" – isn't much better), which is 80% adorable rom-com anime and 20% sleazy rom-com anime. I'm mostly having fun with its characters, but it's got a really inconsistent approach to fanservice that makes very little sense. Often in these things it's somewhat handwaved as representing the point of view of someone in the scene (usually the audience stand-in main character), but this'll just throw in butt shots for no cinematically-supported reason.

I suspect it's just going to be a hallmark of Cloverworks shows from here on out; they've had moderate success in the past, but between this and the startlingly horny Akebi's Sailor Uniform – no-one will ever convince me that it is not simply a bunch of animators working through their very specific fetishes – they're definitely establishing themselves a brand.

Which is a shame, because their knack for small details of body language and facial expressions is second to none right now, and they have some absolutely stellar background artists. Their back catalogue is a mixed bag with some real gems (Horimiya, the first season of Promised Neverland), but generally aesthetically solid and they've got serious artistic chops.

Hopefully next season's Spy×Family will hold off on the ecchi (the manga is fairly light on it, but there's room to expand if the director decides to take that route), though they also have an embarassing-looking "girl ninja" show in the pipeline that looks set to carry the torch in any case.

Assuming, of course, that they don't work their staff to death before then. Some widely-reported scheduling disasters all but ruined Wonder Egg Priority in 2021 (I'm still mad), and they're stretching their resources thin with three weekly shows this season.

(In addition to Akebi and Dress-Up Darling, they're also producing Tokyo 24th Ward, which – based on the two episodes I've seen, anyway – is also pushing a lot of sakuga, and at a higher frame-rate than the other two, often noticeably-jerky, shows.)

he has, scene for scene, described weekend at bernies

Like… as a joke? Or is there some actual anime with the same plot?

I think it's a joke but the fact people keep asking that is part of what makes it great. Like it can't not be weekend at bernies. Everyone seems super enthusiastic as he's playing 'the name of it is on the tip of my brain' though.

Also worth mentioning: The Aquatope on White Sand from PA Works, one of the most consistent slice-of-life studios out there. They were behind two of my personal favourites in the genre – Hanasaku Iroha back in 2011, and all-timer Shirobako in 2014-15 – and even their mis-steps (cough Glasslip cough) have been pleasant enough.

Aquatope is a weird one, though. It seems, on the surface, to be a borderline-moe show about working in an aquarium, but there's that English subtitle on the title card – "the two girls met in the ruins of damaged dream" – and an unexpectedly melancholy ED that suggest something a bit deeper.

The plot in the first half concerns the main characters' efforts to save a failing aquarium in Okinawa; one is the granddaughter of the current owner, the other a runaway ex-pop idol and in the absence of other plans for their lives they throw themselves into saving this run-down aquarium.

The problems really come in the second half, though – where this could have been a story about the importance of small, family businesses who care about their impact on the environment, instead it turns into… an unsatisfying office drama?

I don't know what the message is anymore. I don't know what lessons the characters are supposed to be learning. They all seem pretty unhappy, but are sticking with it because… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm probably going to see it through – I've seen a few positive reviews that have me hoping for a satisfying conclusion – but at the moment it's feeling a bit rudderless.

This season is pretty uninspired, I have to say. I'm only watching two shows, and not even up to date every week.

Lycoris Recoil is a moe-adjacent show about cute girls who work in a cafe but also happen to be government assassins. The animation when they break out the John Wick gun action is spectacular, but it doesn't really have the thematic depth I was hoping for and seems destined to resolve in some contrived, meta-twist bullshit. The characters are a bunch of fun, so I'm gonna keep watching, but there's a big tonal gap between the various elements that the show just doesn't know how to bridge, and the pacing is a bit whack.

Yofukashi no Uta/Call of the Night is about a school dropout with insomnia who wants to be a vampire, but in order to be turned he needs to fall in love with one. The backgrounds in this are jaw-dropping; the colours alone almost worth the price of entry. It's also got tone-shift problems, though – it's at times very atmospheric, then breaks into slapstick and then ultra-horny vampire-bite close-ups. So far the characters have had some silly nighttime adventures but there's been little progress beyond expanding the supporting cast. It's a pretty chill watch, though, and doesn't pretend to be deeper than it is, which I kind of appreciate.

That said, I would be watching a third show except that I'm waiting for the dub to hit first (that's how I watched the first season and that's how I'll continue). Made in Abyss is back with a second season, which I think should more or less catch up to the manga (at least as far as it's been translated). I'm quite keen to get started on this and see if it's any more legible in animation than the often-messy manga panels, but so far I've resisted.

I am up to Episode 4 of Lycoris Recoil and I really enjoy it, for Chisato's Operator skills if nothing else, that 2 v 2 in Episode 3 was awesome.

Last show I actually finished was Spy x Family, that had some points thgat were a bitm eh buto therwise excellent and I really love Saori Hayame's voice. I would reccomend it to people who haven't watched anime before because absolutely no one can resist Anya's cuteness, and the premise is just too good.

Super Cub is right up my street.

It can basically be described as “school girl buys scooter and slowly explores the local area”… and not much else happens. It’s brilliant.

It captures that feeling of freedom so well, when you’ve just passed your driving test and realise that walking distance doesn’t matter any more.

LycoReco had maybe the most disappointing finale I've ever seen, deciding that secret teenage paramilitary death squads are good, actually. It's almost impressive how hard it works to retroactively avoid having any theme.

It's genuinely making me angry thinking about it.

I haven't caught up to LycoRyco yet, but I'm really enjoying it so I definitely will.

Spy x Family S2 dropped yesterday I believe and I didn't realise how much I missed it until today, they returned with probably the best episode the show has ever had imo. I wouldn't have guessed that a Dog that can tell the future is what would have made a good addition tothe show but now I can't wait to see where they take it.

Spy×Family still hasn't landed on Crunchyroll, so I've not seen how they handle the dog in the show yet. He's far and away my favourite in the manga, though.

(I'm still mad about LycoReco.)

We will discuss LycoReco in due time I think, though I might get something different from it then you but I'm only four episodes in. Just here for the Cute Girl John Wick shit so far though.

There's a new Gundam show this season, with the questionable subtitle The Witch from Mercury, but it's got a hell of an opening salvo. There's an optional 24-minute prologue (which is worth watching, because damn), and only one "real" episode so far, but it's a banger.

I finally cracked and downloaded it, it's Gundam so I didn't need much nudging but you can probably guess what part made me take the plunge. Ahhhh remember the time my Laptop broke mid watch of the OG Gundam series? I do….

Thoughts shortly…

And so I watched both, I really like it so far, I like both Suletta and Miorine (when I can remember how to spell her name) a lot. I hope the series manages to balance out the Gundam/'politics' stuff with what looks to be some good old 'School Days' fare. Also have to say, I wasn't going to let the series bait me but Suletta really said 'yeah same sex marriage is normal out here it's nbd' and now I'm like…it might stick???

Even if not, I'm sure i'm in for some solid Mobile Suit action if nothing else.

I'd been apprehensive going in, but have to admit that I'm pretty happy with that first episode of Chainsaw Man – the music was stellar, the animation looks crazy high-budget (fingers crossed they can keep that up), and the pacing was spot on.

No idea what a newcomer would make of it, though. It's not covering a lot of ground narratively, so I don't think anybody's gonna be lost, but it doesn't capture the full range of the manga's tone (and probably won't, at least until Power shows up), so I can see some people being turned off by the volume of gore without any of the levity that balances it out in the comic.

Though there's also a question of how well the manga's sense of humour will translate to animation. Comedy beats in anime (and manga) generally rely pretty heavily on chibi-style character transformations and significant departures in style, but CSM really doesn't do that, and lands its jokes with much more restraint (if you can believe it, from a series where the main character sprouts a chainsaw from his face) over the pacing and framing of reactions rather than splashy visuals.

Something specific to look forward to, I suppose!

I am going to watch it later, will give my thoughts at like 4am like usual.

Pretty fun episode, the sequence where he turns into Chainsaw Man for the first time felt very 'Doom Rip and Tear mode' music and all, looking forward to more of that. Not really much to comment on other than the hyper animation budget it seems to have, which felt like a full episode of sakuga.

Oh yeah, man that OP was weird, animation and content wise.

Akiba Maid War needs to be seen to be believed. Go in blind, if you can.

I watched all of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners in one go and I fucking loved it, I am probably going to get the game after I am done with Bayonetta 3, perhaps it is time. Short, concise, great action and has the throughline of the extremely poor main character being forced down a road of increasing cyberisation for your cyberpunk theming, amongst other stuff of course. Also everyone and their dog told me to watch the dub and not just because apparently the subs are pretty bad with the jargon/lingo apparently, I thought it was great regardless and honestly worth it for Rebcca's voice alone.

Again, if I had the time I would probably be downloading the game as we speak, much like many people apparently did. Whether it deserves it or not doesn't matter much, the fact that's even a thing is impressive and speaks volumes to how much people liked this.

Akiba Maid War needs to be seen to be believed. Go in blind, if you can.

Somehow I'd missed that this is made by P.A.Works, which makes its existence all the more bewildering.

I'm a big fan of the Chainsaw Man manga, but the anime, for the first seven episodes, wasn't really all that exciting.

Partly because I've read the comic a half dozen times, but also because – despite the incredible work MAPPA are turning in every week – it didn't really feel like it really did anything with the source material.

Episode eight is a freight train through that mentality.

The cold open is a multi-minute flex of animation prowess, a near-wordless character study. The climax of the episode is a fight that's completely unlike anything we've seen in the show before, both in the stakes and the combatants. It's a brutal, nasty affair, stripped of the power fantasy that's been a hallmark of Denji's fights.

I don't know if it's better than the manga chapters it's based on – I honestly think it might be – but there's no doubt that this episode has justified the adaptation.

I'm still enjoying Chainsaw Man so far , not seen the latest episode but it feels like the story has been mostly warming up to the Gun Devil stuff so far so I'm sure things will hit the fan soon.

Gundam took a disturbing turn eh? Starting to seriously wonder how far Prospera is willing to go to pull off whatever she's up to

I started Bocchi the Rock and now I will binge the entire series that is currently out as soon as I get home because I absolutely love it. Hard to explain why I was hooked so fast but it's not hard to see why people are rooting for Bocchi as a character.

Gundam took a disturbing turn eh?

I could do with a bit more in the "moral dilemmas" department (or character interactions) rather than the Young Enterprise company stuff that's happening right now. I'm sure it'll be important in retrospect, but it's a bit slow and boring watching week to week.

Well Prospera is definitely lying to Suletta about Aerial and she is extremely 'sus' in general as the kids would say (ignoring the fact that I use words like that all the time >_>). So I think she's your best bet there. Also your boy Guel with the rapid redemption arc!

I started Bocchi the Rock and now I will binge the entire series that is currently out as soon as I get home because I absolutely love it.

I don't have social anxiety anywhere near as bad as Bocchi but damn this anime sure took shots at me anyway. Watching Bocchi fight her social anxiety and manage to serve someone a drink is like when you see a picture of a cute puppy that just learned to climb the stairs for the first time or something, muchos rapid clapping tbh

Also I dunno how much the music is going to play into it but it's also about a band, so that's a thing that I think I'm quite into actually, hope it ends better than the last anime I watched about a band!

Gundam took a disturbing turn eh?

Well, this was a bit of a prescient comment. Make sure you watch past the end credits on the final episode – I wasn't expecting that.

Spoiler - click to showI'm not entirely sold on the character beat, though. Miorine and Suletta's relationship hasn't been a sufficiently central focus of the series for it to fully land, for me. Episode 11 did quite a bit of heavy lifting to drag the characters into the right place (narratively if not emotionally), but it was a bit forced and a more organic evolution would have laid the groundwork for this much better.

Spoiler - click to showI do appreciate the return to the more Prologue-adjacent tone for this episode as a whole, though – and there's a definite parallel between Suletta's post-credits behaviour and Ericht's E0 "fireworks" which raises some more questions about what, or who, exactly Aerial is and how it affects the pilot.

Interested to see where it goes from here, but I'm still a little disappointed it didn't engage (ha) with the Suletta/Miorine relationship more.

I am still in shock and processing what happened, I think Miorine's face is going to stay with me for a long time, I hope they don't resolve this in one episode like they usually do. :p

Spoiler - click to showI'm a little biased but I've always felt they were getting loser as the series goes on so (shown by stuff like Miorine letting Suletta look after her Tomatos) but man, the whiplash of Episode 11 and the reconciliation between Miorine and Suletta to Miorine looking horrified and disgusted and calling Suletta a murder in this episode is pretty vicious whiplash (I hope they don't resolve this in the next episode like usual…). This whole episode basically pulled the rug out from under us after a whole season of fairly seasonal reassuring school drama but now we've got murders and patricide and potential clones, season 2 looking to be like a more traditionally Fucked Up Gundam series.

Spoiler - click to showWhere are you sitting on the 'Eri is Aerial, Suletta is a clone' theory these days? Because there is definitely something going on there, Prospera practically cares about Aerial more than Suletta and she even calls it her 'daughter'. Might be a red herring or the internet is reading too much into it, but ultimately, why even introduce the idea of cloning in this universe? What is even Aerial'sdeal because it's giving me real Evangelion vibes lately!

EDIT - Also please get back to Bocchi it's fucking amazing T_T

New season!

The Fire Hunter's first episode knocked my socks off. There's a couple of exposition-heavy voiceovers to impart information that could probably have been revealed more organically, but that's a small complaint about a show this confident and unique.

It looks gorgeous, and I'm getting very strong Studio Ghibli and Shin Sekai Yori vibes from its setting. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed all season that it keeps this quality up.

Catching up on previous seasons, I finally watched the last few episodes of Akiba Maid War, which is just great. It asks for a lot of buy-in with its premise – what if maid cafés were yakuza gangs? – but 100% commits to the bit, with all the high emotion and dramatic bloodshed of a classic crime movie, but one where everyone's wearing a brightly-coloured, animal-themed maid costume.

This is gonna f–kin ruin me and I cannot wait.

Coming to the end of the season, there's only one show I could wholeheartedly recommend - Frieren is tremendous, with a totally unique (in my experience) premise that it uses as a springboard to one of the best fantasy stories of recent memory. It's funny, melancholy and perfectly paced, and it looks gorgeous.

That said, if you can get past its batshit otaku-bait premise on paper, [Oshi no Ko] is definitely worth a look. "A pop star's doctor and fan is murdered and reincarnated as her child" is a frankly exhausting setup that turned me off the manga in no time, but once it's laid out its pieces by the end of the first, 90-minute, episode (it's okay, the others are a more standard 24!) it dives into a pointed examination, and savage takedown, of various parts of the Japanese entertainment industry, from pop idols to reality TV. (Also its OP is a stone-cold, genre-hopping banger.)

I started reading Frieren and liked it, I need to find some time to continue doing so at some point but life has spiralled out of control and I'm developing an N64 fixation apparently. The only anime I want to watch right now is I'm In Love With the Villainess, it sounds like a great adapation for how cheap it looks and they really nailed the key scenes (including The Big One) and the source material is excellent…but I'm really not in the mood for it right now . also Bocchi the Rock again because they released an album of songs from the show and some from theb and IN th show and they are back to back bangers, it really is one of the best anime series of all time. Other than that I keep buying Yuri and not reading them, help…

I'm In Love With the Villainess … sounds like a great adapation for how cheap it looks

For my money, it's better than the source material (I haven't finished it yet, though).

Being an external observer helps tone down some of Rae's mania and helps sell the quieter moments, and a lot of the humour works much better as a visual gag than it did on the page.

The pacing and exposition feel more organic as well, especially around magic.

I think it would look less cheap if it wasn't so committed to the bright, primary colour scheme, but it does help it stand out from the gritty isekai crowd.

Rae gets super annoying sometimes in the later parts of the book so that sounds pretty great, also I'm sure we're all here for Claire (and Dorothea, who hopefully still has amazing fight scenes…) anyway so as long as she's done well in happy. Probably my favourite isekai, which isn't exactly glowing praise but there we are.