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Fuck it, anime thread

Started by The Mollusk, September 02, 2020, 07:00:21 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Spiteface

Quote from: Chedney Honks on February 26, 2021, 10:40:09 PM
Mate, Berserk 1997. Don't fuck about with this dogshit.

This. A thousand times this. It's awesome. Avoid the 2016 one like the plague, though.

Also, Berserk 1997 is one of the few anime where I actively prefer the english dub.

buzby

#151
So, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid then. A series of contrasts. On one hand, it looks lovely (as you would expect from Kyoto Animation), it's pretty funny, but most importantly at it's heart it's got positive messages about overcoming prejudice, acceptance and trust. The overall message of the show is quite heartwarming. It also has what amounts to basically a same sex couple with an adopted child at it's core.

On the other hand though, it has some really dubious loli/yuri bait and fanservice. The scenes of the effect Kanna's touch has on her friend from school just seem so out of place with the rest of the show (the Twister game and the inevitable hot springs OVA episode especially). Similarly any scene involving Lucoa and Shouta. It's a shame in Lucoa's case as despite her ludicrous character design when she is first introduced she's a wise ex-goddess who gives Tohru and Kobayashi advice on how to get along with each other and humans in general. Unfortunately after the first few episodes she just becomes fanservce and a 2-joke character - she's either being dragged away for being inappropriately dressed, or even worse, trying to force herself on a 10-year-old boy.

The other issue that rankled me was with Kobayashi herself - she has a maid fetish, but when she gets drunk this suddenly transforms into a Master/Servant fetish, wish results in her publically berating and humiliating Tohru by forcing her to strip, and then telling her to cover up her shame.

It seems a strange one as KyoAni are mostly known for more wholesome shows. I have only seen odd panels of the original manga, but apparently the anime has diverged pretty far from it (and it seems it would be pretty much unbroadcastable in it's original form). I get the feeling that they signed up the title and characters and wrote their own more wholesome storyline, then had to add some of the more lewd elements back in to keep the fans of the manga happy.

There is a second series due later in the year, but with the introduction of Iruru, another young dragon who takes the human form of a ''woman of small stature who behaves like a child' (Hmmmm...) with even more ridiculous design than Lucoa, who spends most of her time dressed in a crop top, g-string and stockings(, it's going to be a 'no' from me, Clive. The trailer was released at the end of last month and her appearance has caused a similar level of uproar to that of Uzaki-chan. However, in this case they haven't got the get-out clauses of the character being portrayed as college age or that there are real people with the same body type.

Random request; the first anime thing I ever experienced was a film I watched when I was about 13 round a mates...a young nurse who I remember reminded me of Tifa Lockhart (my phone just autocorrected that to Tina Lockjaw) was tending to an old bedridden gentleman, throughout the film the incapacitated old man becomes all robot like, with robotic arms and stuff protruding from his bed...I vaguely remember it gets more and more extreme as anime films are wont to do...the old man in bed breaking out of the hospital perhaps, possibly still comatose/incapacitated but also alive as a flailing mechanical nightmare....

I have every faith someone will know what I'm talking about

Wonderful Butternut

#153
Closest thing I can think of is Roujin Z, but my recollection is that he doesn't grow the robot arms himself, it's some sort of advanced robotic combined nurse and medical bed that's tested on him.

Consignia

Certainly sounds like Roujin Z to me. It's a satire but in a poorly remembered way it could easy seen as bizarre body horror.

Wonderful Butternut

Yeah, I think we got it.

Hi Tifa lookalike:



EDIT: Is that actual Nike product placement or did the artists just steal the logo?

letsgobrian

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on March 05, 2021, 10:41:28 PM
Yeah, I think we got it.

Hi Tifa lookalike:



EDIT: Is that actual Nike product placement or did the artists just steal the logo?

Probably placement. The character designer on the film, Hisashi Eguchi, does a lot of commercial art. Mainly because he can hit advertising deadlines, unlike his anime or manga ones.

Ah yeah that's the one! Just one of those things that's bugged me for a long time; it was significant in that it blew my mind as the first kind of anime/manga I ever saw. Wasnt too sure on how to search for it with the little I'd retained from it.

Dm me your bank details dude I'd like to PayPal you 3 quid as a way of thanks

Spiteface

This afternoon, I finally watched Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan on Netflix.

Always down for more JoJo stuff, but this was weird. No stand battles although Rohan uses Heaven's Door a few times. Some of the supporting cast from Diamond is Unbreakable show up (episode 1 has Koichi asking if Rohan can use Heaven's Door to make it so he can speak Italian for an upcoming trip to Italy, meaning presumably this takes place just before the events of Golden Wind).

I enjoyed it, because as I say, more JoJo.

buzby

#159
This load of old toot is probably going to be of interest to nobody, but I can't be arsed joining Reddit and I'd rather this was read by nobody than a load of arseholes from there.

Going back to Oregairu/My Teenage Romantic Comedy SNAFU Series 3 and it's pacing issues, I decided to read the last 5 volumes of the light novel (Vols 10-11 cover the series 2 from the 'Genuine' scene to the end, then Vols 12-14 cover series 3), as it was fans of the novels who were the primary complainers about the way the third series was adapted.

The novels are structured so the main chapters cover Hachiman's view of events and his inner monologue, and inbetween there are short preludes and interludes from other characters, either on their viewpoint of the same events Hachiman has described, or describing events where he is not present.The main chapters are extremely densely written, and as expected from Hachiman, who has spent most of hie teenage years at home reading, playing games and watching TV, they are peppered with historical, literary and pop culture references (the fan translations I read did an incredibly good job providing linked footnotes to explain these references - there are still no official translations for the last 3 volumes after over 2 years).

The first problem is the amount of material that needed to be covered. The first series covered Volumes 1-6 in 13 episodes and the second series covered Volumes 7-11 in 13 episodes. Given that, it's understandable that a lot of Hachiman's internal dialogue and most of the interlude material got cut (also, Series 1 concentrated on the more lighthearted 'club requests' material, only going into drama during the Cultural Festival)

I've previously mentioned that it was apparently Watari's intention was to end the story with Volume 12, but he was asked to extend the plot by his publishers, which resulted in 2 extra volumes. This left 3 volumes to adapt into 12 episodes for series 3, so it should have been much less of an issue than with previous series. However, by this time the story had reached the point of being dialogue-heavy relationship drama between the central trio, so despite there being less material to cover, the nature of what was there meant some care was needed to maintain the pace of the story and prevent any confusion.

The material in the additional two volumes definitely give off the air of padding (for instance,
Spoiler alert
a lot of the time Hachiman spends with Yui trying to fulfil her 'wishes'
[close]
), which no doubt caused some of the pacing issues in the adaptation. However, it's what they chose not to adapt, mainly most of the interlude sections (and there are a lot of them, especially in the final 2 volumes), which in my opinion made the progress of the story and character motivations appear disjointed, particularly in the case of Yukino, as almost all of her prelude/interlude material was cut (in contrast, almost all of Yui's interludes were kept in). I get what they were aiming at, trying to infer
Spoiler alert
Yukino's absence to the viewer as she withdraws from her friends
[close]
, but by removing her interludes the few times she does
Spoiler alert
interact with Hachiman
[close]
can lead to confusion over her motivation and mindset unless you are closely attuned to where the story is going.

Here are a few examples (spoilered, in case anyone interested enough to read this waffle has not seen the series):
Spoiler alert
After Hachiman approaches Hayama to get the Club President's Association support for his dummy prom (the intro to Episode 8) , there is an interlude where Hayama then reluctantly contacts Haruno to ask is she was the source of the 'codependency' term that Hachiman had used in their conversation. He agrees to meet her, and via his internal monologue we learn that Haruno has basically been emotionally torturing him (and he has also been torturing himself) ever since he failed to act to help Yukino during her bullying in middle school. He has been watching Hachiman and Yukino's slow progress from afar, and is actually hoping that Hachiman can be the one to 'save' her after he failed to act. Haruno is also hoping this too, but their progress is too slow for her liking, and Hayama says to himself that in order to prevent anyone hurting the thing she held most dear (i.e. Yukino), she would hurt her herself first and would never forgive anyone that hurt her. In Haruno's eyes, Hayama can never be absolved for his sin of failing to help Yukino, and she will forever make him suffer for it. This was partially adapted later in Episode 8, but Hayama's inner monologue was cut, which removed most of the scene's meaning.
[close]

Spoiler alert
After the Prom plan is approved and Yukino tells Hachiman the club (and by association their relationship) is at an end and to grant Yui's wish, there are a series of 3 preludes that describe a meeting between Yukino and Yui where Yukino confesses she is in love with Hachiman, but cannot act on her feelings (due to her fear of becoming reliant on him). Yui confesses that she too has feelings for him, and offers to take Yukino's feelings for him away so they can stay friends. This shows Yukino's insecurities and conflicted emotional state, and also portrays Yui as far more manipulative than she appears in the anime (this is a major difference in her character in the novels in general - Yui had attempted to so a similar thing at the end of series 2, but at that point Hachiman intervened). Again this scene was partially adapted as the end credits scene for Episode 8, but we only got part of the internal monologue from Yuis side and none of Yukino's, and them talking about their feelings for Hachiman was cut entirely.
[close]

Spoiler alert
During the Prom, where Hachiman and Yukino are talking over the radio link, there follows a pair of interludes from each of their perspectives where they separately compare their situation to Romeo and Juliet. Apart from demonstrating how they both think on the same wavelength, in Yukino's case, despite her last words to Hachiman being 'Let's bring this to an end', the internal monologue in her interlude shows she is still struggling with the decision to cut herself off from him, This then plays out in the scene where she chases after him when he leaves the prom afterparty and grabs onto his sleeve. In the anime, because the interlude was cut, this seemingly comes out of nowhere.
[close]
Spoiler alert

Outside of the interludes adding much needed context to what was shown in the adaptation, one of the biggest points of confusion I've seen people comment on in Series 3 is the sudden reappearance of the 'Dummy Prom' plan in episode 11. There is a section at the start of a chapter (after the interlude where Isshiki is interrogating his accomplices from the Gaming Club) in Volume 14 where Hachiman explains his motivation for relaunching the dummy prom - it's the only excuse he can think of to try and reconnect with Yukino, and in the process he is closing off any escape route for the both of them, forcing himself to finally act on his feelings for her.This was omitted in episode 11 and would have been helpful if it was there ,but that episode was packed with other important scenes so I guess something had to go (I might write another post about Episode 11 in particular, as despite the dodgy pacing of the rest of series 3, I think that episode is one of the best examples of enthralling dialogue-driven writing in any medium).
[close]

Consignia

Don't worry I read it.

I usually tend not worry about what fans of original works say about adaptations[nb]you'd be conviced that Fate/Stay Night was the pinacle of human literature rather than a porno game with an overwritten backstory[/nb]. I've noticed a tendecy to take umbrage with any minor creative license used in adaptations. From my position of not reading the light novels, and no intention to ever rectify that, I think it's clear though that Oregairu season 3 was streching a thin set of events. Things that were snappy in earlier seasons just dragged on here. I would never have guessed the melodrama around the prom would take the whole series at the begining.

I don't know how I'd recitfy it, but I'd prefered a more episodic approach with different people bringing problems to club which would cumulated thematically to the same ending. That wouldn't statify the novel readers though, I guess.

buzby

Thanks for wading through it.

I can sort of see the point of view of the fans of the novels, having now read some of them myself (it's interesting to see the characters in a much more fleshed out form, at least), but it's inevitable that stuff is going to need to be cut out to make it to TV. to be honest - there's no way Hachiman's reference-heavy internal monologue would work for TV, for example, I wonder how much of an influence the potential merchandising opportunities for the other female characters drove the adaptation process too (in the novels it's pretty clear that Hachiman only has (dead fish) eyes for Yukino, so the harem aspect definitely seems to have been played up for the anime).

Apparently Volume 14 was basically the same plot that Watari had initially proposed for Volume 12, so they might have been better going for an OVA or feature length finale based on that rather than making him pad it out to try and stretch enough material for a series. I guess that wasn't as financially attractive for his publisher or the production company though.

buzby

#162
A few more things I have watched:

Tamako Love Story - feature length spinoff from Tamako Market, which concentrates on the unrequited relationship between the central pair of Tamako and Mochizō. Very charming and looks lovely (as you would expect from KyoAni, and like the series it was directed by Naoko Yamada, who then went on to direct A Silent Voice) and also benefits from 100% less of the annoying talking bird Dera (if you fast forward through the unrelated short about him at the start, anyway). My only criticisms are that the plot is slighly thin, and it does the traditional romance anime thing with it's ending (one thing I was glad Oregairu avoided by having an 'epilogue' type episode at the end of ther series).

The Great Passage/Fune o Amu - an 11-episode adaptation of a novel of the same name about the production of a new Japanese discitonary. It centres around Mitsuya Majime, a young man with a love of words and books but who unfortunately has a crippling inability to express himself to others. Due to his Literature degree, he was recruited as a salesman by Genbu Publishing, but his attempts at interacting with customers are painful to watch. Nishioka, another young graduate who works in the dictionary editorial department (but who originally applied for a PR role), observes one of these disasterous interactions and later takes him aside to offer some advice. The chief editor of the dictionary department is having to retire to look after his ill wife, and Nishioka suggests he look up Majime in his up til then fruitless search for a successor. From there, the story then covers the 13-year odysssey to bring The Great Passage to publication, and how it effects Majime and the lives of the rest of the small editorial team. It's a really well told story and very charming with some great animation in to too, especially Majime's dream sequences and when we get to see how he visualises words.

Way back in the thread someone mentioned K-Anime. I recently came across a rather charming Korean-produced romance/drama series of 2-3 minute web shorts called A Day Before Us, produced by Korean studio Life Is Comic (LiCo). It centres around university friends Yeo Reum, Ha Eun, Wook, and Yeon Woo, and portrays the developing relationships between them. There are 3 series currently - series one focuses on the relationship between Ha Eun and Yeon Woo, the second series focuses on the slighly more dramatic relationship between Yeo Reum and Wook, and the third series is a prequel, covering Yeo Reum and Wook's time in high school. It has a nice line and watercolour art style, and because of the short episode length the plot development is pretty concise. It also has a very nice soundtrack, mostly consisting of songs that wre commissioned for the series. All episodes are on LiCo's Youtube channel and can easily be burned though through in a couple of hours.

Just to prove I haven't got completely the most boring taste in anime ever, after seeing clips of it in those 'Funniest anime moments' YT vids I gave B Gata H Kei/Yamada's First Time a go. Reading a synopsis makes it sound like standard ecchi/ero trash - Yamada is a sex-obsessed (but completely inexperienced) 15 year old girl is intent on sleeping with 100 men but wants to start with a virgin, and picks on the oblivious Kosuda, a boy from her class who she determines is a 'cherry boy', who she then pursues. The series basically covers Yamada's frustrated and foiled attempts to progress though the bases with Kosuda (neither of them having much of a clue what they should be doing), and despite her original intention of just using him as the first notch on her bedpost, she starts to develop feelings for him. Yes, there's inevitably lots of fanservice along the way (though not quite as much as you would probably expect, but it does ramp up towards the end of the series), but it's quite funny and there is a bit of substance to the story (it probably helped that the author of the 4-panel manga it was adapted from was a woman).

Finally, Those Snow White Notes, a new series that has just started (I think the first episode was broadcast this week) which looks promising. Setsu, a young shamisen player from rural Japan, loses his mentor and inspiration after the death of his grandfather and leaves home for Tokyo in order to find his own path. Suffering from culture shock after arriving in Roppongi, he accidentally gets into a fight with some ne'er-do-wells but is rescued by a young lady called Yuna, an aspiring model and actress who is working as a hostess on one of the bars while trying to get auditions. Her boyfriend is a singer in a rock band, and through this Setsu is gven a chance to play as a warm-up at one of their concerts. From there on, however, the story in the first episode does not play out as you would expect, so I'm quite looking forward to seeing where it's going. it also helps that I really like listening to the shamisen and the animation in general is well done, especially the scenes where he's playing (they reminded me a bit of Kono Oto Tomare, which it also shares some similarities with, story-wise) - it was directed by  Hiroaki Akagi, who also did Teasing Master Takagi-san, another favourite of mine.

Blumf

Just got through the first season of Ghost in the Shell : SAC_2045 (on Netflix)

My review: It doesn't deserve a thread of it's own, and I wish I could post this without bumping this thread. Dull, unimaginative, naff animation and direction.

Kankurette

Anyone into Jujutsu Kaisen?

letsgobrian

Quote from: Kankurette on June 10, 2021, 02:19:08 AM
Anyone into Jujutsu Kaisen?

I like the comic, couldn't get into the anime, despite it generally being a strong production. I think it was because of how they changed the pacing and positioning of cliff-hangers from the comic.

Really enjoyed the show that aired immediately after it though, With A Dog & A Cat, Every Day Is Fun. A tremendously paced 80 seconds of gags.

Consignia

Quote from: letsgobrian on June 10, 2021, 09:55:24 AM
Really enjoyed the show that aired immediately after it though, With A Dog & A Cat, Every Day Is Fun. A tremendously paced 80 seconds of gags.

Yeah, I really liked that. Not so much love in the wider community. Surprisingly touching in places too, if you've ever lost a pet.

letsgobrian

The show I've enjoyed the most this season has been Odd Taxi, a show about a middle aged walrus taxi driver embroiled in a plot involving a missing teenager, rival yakuza, an up and coming idol band, a down on their luck stand up comedy duo, and a college kid who desperately wants to go viral.

A tremendous package of acting, animation, music, writing and direction. It pulls such great narrative slight of hand tricks as it unfurls its mystery. Constantly occupies my thoughts like nothing since Twin Peaks season 3 has.

buzby

#168
Thanks to the thread bump, I'll update that Mashiro No Oto has deveoped into a great series - great characters, some decent family drama (thankfully it's totally avoided any romance or harem bullshit that it looked like t was setting up at one point)  and of course excellent shamisen performances. It did take a bit of a left turn from the 'rural kid wandering the city' setup of the couple of episodes into a more standard 'high school/music competiton' storyline which irked some people, but it didnt' bother me. The series has almost ended now - I've no idea if it will get a second one as I don't think it's done fantastically in Japan, but it would be a shame if it doesn't.

Another new series that I didn't mention in my last post but has turned out to be my favourite of the season has been Super Cub. Based on a light novel series that was commissioned by Honda in 2017 to commemorate the 100 millionth Super Cub motorbike being sold, it tells the tale of Koguma, a second-year high school student in the rural town of Hokuto in Yamanishi prefecture. She has only lived there for a year, and lives on her own in a sparsely furnished apartment, subsidised by a government stipend and school scholarship. At the start of the story, she describes herself as 'a girl who has nothing' - no parents, no family, no money, no hobbies, no friends and no plans for the future (the anime so far hasn't gone into why this is, but the light novel did in the first chapter). To save money, she rides an old 'granny bike' to school via a hilly route, and after being passed one day by someone on a Super Cub she decides to investigate how much one would cost.

On the way home from school she stops by a small motorcycle shop, and realises that they are well outside her meagre savings. Shino, the old man who runs the store, sees her and asks if she would be ok with a used one, and goes round the back and returns with an old green Super Cub with only 500km on the clock, which he offers to her for a stupidly low price (which he says is due to it having an unfortunate history, but he clearly feels sorry for her). She takes up his offer, and from there on her world gradually opens up via the connections she makes and places she visits through owning the Cub.

Yes, it does read like a Honda commercial (and they are one  of the backers of the anime), but it's such a simple story and the way it's told is very charming. It's a slow-paced, wholesome slice of life story in similar vein to Yuru Camp (it's even set in the same prefecture), with a very crisp art style, beautiful background plates, great use of colour (to start with, Koguma's world is very drab, but every time she has a  new experience or small thing that makes her happy, the colour saturation swells to make everything a little bit brighter) and a soundtrack that fills in for the sparse dialogue by using diegetic sound in an almost ASMR fashion, backed up with classical piano pieces when appropriate. Koguma herself is a very interesting character - her name translates as 'Bear Cub'  and that is very apt for her personality - her solitary environment has left her very reluctant to interact with people, but when they do break through her shell she has a very brusque, direct way of speaking (which is brought to life by voice actress Yomichi Yuki in her first role).

This series has also almost ended and again, it will be a shame if it doesn't get a second as there is plenty of source material left to adapt.

I've also watched a few older series too:
Ore Monogatari/My Love Story - a classic romcom series about the 'gentle giant'  first year high schooler Takeo, his lifelong friend the handsome but passive (and perceptive) Suna and the tiny Yamato, another high school freshman girl Takeo saves from a train molester. From that set up you would think it was standard love triangle ahoy, but the series subverts that almost immediately, and instead you get 24 episodes of very funny comedy and sweet innocent relationship fluff (with a small bit of drama along the way, just to liven things up). Probably deserved a second series so we could have seen how the story concluded in the manga, but it never happened.

Asobi Asobase - riotous comedy series featuring middle schoolers Haneko (clever but unhinged loudmouth from a rich family). Olivia (blonde-haired blue eyed daughter of American parents, who they never bothered to teach English) and Kasumi (a studious quiet loner with a secret passion for writing BL fiction) who though various reasons decide to set up the Pastimers Club in school where hijinks ensue. This is totally off the wall comedy with an interesting artstyle and voice acting that will either add to the fun or irritate the hell out of you (particularly Haneko when she goes off on one). Don't be put off by the opening, as it's basically a massive bait and switch parody of the 'cute girls doing cute things' genre. It's also the first time I've seen an anime directly reference Monty Python.

Itakiss - a romcom/drama adaptation of an old classic shoujo manga (the manga was first published in 1990) that sadly remained unfinished due to the author dying in a household accident while moving house with her husband. it's the story of Aihara Kotoko, a high school girl who while not gifted academically is nice and well meaning and has a very determined streak, who develops a crush on Naoki Irie, the school's 'super student' who is tall, good looking, intelligent (he's the top ranking student in the country) and good at sports. She finally plucks up the courage to confess to him, only for him reject her out of hand and not even read the letter she has written. Kotoko's father's shoddily-built house is then destroyed in a mild earthquake, and her father's friend offers them to stay at his house until theirs is rebuilt. As fate would have it, the father's friend is Irie's father....

So far so cliche, but the series is worth perservering with despite Irie acting like a typical shoujo manga dickhead protagonist and treating Kotoko terribly for large parts of at least the first half of the series. Kotoko's attempts to engineer situations where she gets together with Irie or make him jealous are fun (aided and abetted by Irie's scheming mother, who sees Kotoko as the daughter she always wanted) and towards the latter half of the seres after they have got together (not exactly  a spoiler) Irie has warmed up to Kotoko and acts less like a dick towards her. The main thing I liked about it was that it actually covers the progression of the relationship between them over the years via timeskips in the story (the manga ran for 10 years until the author's death) and it also gets a  proper ending (the scriptwriters consulted with the author's husband to get the plot outline for how she was going to conclude the story). The artstyle is also failthful to the original manga, meaning the characters retain their 90s style despite the series being animated in 2008.

Consignia

Quote from: buzby on June 11, 2021, 09:27:18 AM
Another new series that I didn't mention in my last post but has turned out to be my favourite of the season has been Super Cub. Based on a light novel series that was commissioned by Honda in 2017 to commemorate the 100 millionth Super Cub motorbike being sold, it tells the tale of Koguma, a second-year high school student in the rural town of Hokuto in Yamanishi prefecture. She has only lived there for a year, and lives on her own in a sparsely furnished apartment, subsidised by a government stipend and school scholarship. At the start of the story, she describes herself as 'a girl who has nothing' - no parents, no family, no money, no hobbies, no friends and no plans for the future (the anime so far hasn't gone into why this is, but the light novel did in the first chapter). To save money, she rides an old 'granny bike' to school via a hilly route, and after being passed one day by someone on a Super Cub she decides to investigate how much one would cost.

On the way home from school she stops by a small motorcycle shop, and realises that they are well outside her meagre savings. Shino, the old man who runs the store, sees her and asks if she would be ok with a used one, and goes round the back and returns with an old green Super Cub with only 500km on the clock, which he offers to her for a stupidly low price (which he says is due to it having an unfortunate history, but he clearly feels sorry for her). She takes up his offer, and from there on her world gradually opens up via the connections she makes and places she visits through owning the Cub.

Yes, it does read like a Honda commercial (and they are one  of the backers of the anime), but it's such a simple story and the way it's told is very charming. It's a slow-paced, wholesome slice of life story in similar vein to Yuru Camp (it's even set in the same prefecture), with a very crisp art style, great use of colour (to start with, Koguma's world is very drab, but every time she has a  new experience or small thing that makes her happy, the colour saturation swells to make everything a little bit brighter) and a soundtrack that fills in for the sparse dialogue by using didactic sound in an almost ASMR fashion, backed up with classical piano pieces when appropriate. Koguma herself is a very interesting character - her name translates as 'Bear Cub'  and that is very apt for her personality - her solitary environment has left her very reluctant to interact with people, but when they do break through her shell she has a very brusque, direct way of speaking (which is brought to life by voice actress Yomichi Yuki in her first role).

This series has also almost ended and again, it will be a shame if it doesn't get a second as there is plenty of source material left to adapt.


Yeah, I'm really enjoying Super Cub. It's so low key and subtle but tells a really touching emotional story. And hard sells that bloody motorbike. One of the things I really love is how Koguma isn't particualrly vocal, but you see tons of her emotions through her physical reactions. You wouldn't be able to get that if the animation wasn't good.

Also, big love to Asobi Asobase. Took me off guard with it's art style betraying it's slapstick comedy.

Kankurette

Asobi Asobase is hilarious, mainly for the faces that one girl makes.

My handle, incidentally, stems from when I was a Naruto fan. Awful though it is, I do have a soft spot for it.

Kenkun

I've been meaning to post about Super Cub for a few weeks now.  The slice-of-life genre is why I really love manga/anime; what other medium would have the most exciting incident of the episode be learning how to fill a petrol tank, or deciding to go to a supermarket instead of straight home? And for that episode to still be utterly enthralling.

I really like the dynamic between the girls, and how unsentimentally it treats their friendship. The cliched approach would be for them to be inseparable the moment they connected over the Cubs, but they remain weird and awkward after months of hanging out with each other; Reiko only concerned with what's cool, Koguma only with what is the cheapest option.

I have, inevitably, been looking at Cubs on eBay.


buzby

#172
Well, episode 11 of Super Cub has sure got a lot of people riled up, between people angry over Koguma's rescue methods and the yuri shippers getting nosebleeds over Koguma x Shii.

Both the light novels and manga are getting fan translated, but the manga is a lot further on (it's currently just ahead of the anime), so I went and had a look to see how the events of the episode were handled there. The anime adaptation appears to be using the manga as a storyboard, but is also adding in more of Koguma's internal monologues from the novels. Inevitably they are cutting stuff out from the manga for pacing - chapters that are largely inconsequential (but fill in some of the questions left unanswered by the anime, for example Koguma's past history), and in the parts thay have chosen to adapt they are cutting out some lines or changing events slightly that are having an effect on the storytelling. (it's a similar situation to what happened with the adaption of Oregairu S3 I went into at tedious length earlier in the thread).

The 'rescue' scene is an unfortunate example of this. In the manga version, Koguma
Spoiler alert
arrives at the scene of Shii's crash and helps her out of the ditch, She then considers phoning the emergency services but Shii assures her that she's ok and asks her not to as it will only worry her parents. Shii is more in shock and upset than in any physical danger, and she doesn't pass out so Koguma doesn't have to slap her. Later on when Reiko brings Shii's stuff to Koguma's apartment, she gives her phone back and tells her to phone her parents to let them know she's ok.
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The anime writers seem to have amped up the seriousness of Shii's condition, presumably to increase the dramatic potential, but then reverted to the original storyline which makes Koguma's actions seem more reckless.

It's a shame, as otherwise the anime version handled the scenes in Koguma's apartment a lot better. For one thing they toned down the fanservice elements from the manga, which are really unnecessary in a series like this (this is something the anime has changed for the better in general - the manga writer and artist unfortunately seem to have a thing for showing the girls, and Reiko in particular, nude or in their underwear at any available opportunity). They also added the bit with Reiko casually using up Koguma's precious boiled egg stock and the resulting frosty glare it earned her which she completely ignores, which is a nice detail of their relationship dynamic (which ties in to what Kenkun was saying above). It was also nice to see the detail that Koguma had written the date on the boiled eggs.

Here are a few examples of parts of the manga that have been cut out that fill in the blanks for previous episodes, or add a bit more to the worldbuilding of the story:

  • In the previous episode, Shii revealed that she was doing seasonal temp work in the post office to help fund her Italian takeover of the cafe. Koguma and Reiko were also doing temp work as couriers for patient test samples for a medical lab (which they got through the manager being a friend of the teacher Koguma got to know at the other school in her previous courier job). That was how they managed to afford to winterise their Cubs and buy their new cold weather gear (Reiko, despite having rich parents, is regularly short of money too, mostly because she impulse buys stuff and hoards Cub parts).
  • In the school festival episode, the aforementioned teacher says that her grandfather has an old Cub, and the girls have got her interested in it. There was a whole sidechapter in the manga of the teacher recommissioning the Cub under the instruction of her grandfather, and then taking it for a ride.
  • In the field trip episode, during Koguma's journey to meet her class at the hotel, she comes across a teenage boy who has a Cub with a flat rear tyre. He immediately comes off as a bit of a rich kid/poseur who is clueless on the practical aspects of riding a Cub. Koguma gets him to follow her to a nearby bike shop that she had passed, but it turns out they have no Cub tubes in stock. Koguma offers her spare tube, fits it for him after borrowing the shop's tools and then asks him for the 800 yen the tube cost her, which he is surprised at (the mechanic at the shop says that their labour for the job would have been 2000 yen alone). The boy then proceeds to try and hit on her, offering to take her out for dinner as thanks, and when he continues to persist despite her refusals and grabs her arm she kicks him in the shin and tells him to get lost.
  • As they got to know each other better, Koguma regularly began staying over at Reiko's cabin at weekends. Remember those blank-firing replica guns Reiko was entranced by in the trip to the secondhand shop? She ended up buying the revolver. They sleep in one sunday morning, and when Reiko is reluctant to get up, Koguma fires the gun in the air to shock her out of bed.

buzby

Oh, a couple of other mentions of shows this season that I dropped pretty quickly.

Koikomo - 28 year old lothario suddenly becomes innocently infatuated and relentlessly pursues a 17 year  high school girl against her will as she's the first female (I hesitate to use the word woman due to her age) to resist his advances, aided and abetted by his best friend, her best friend (who just so happens to be his sister), getting the girl's mother onside by dispalys of how rich and 'charming' he is and warning off the boy from her class who has a crush on her along the way. Gross and creepy 'romantic comedy' (though it's apparently fairly standard for josei age-gap stories, apart from the alleged comedy aspect). I got as far as the first episode of this and was repulsed but have been keeping tabs via the forums on how the story developed and it was exactly as expected (there was a massive backlash against it early on, with only the hardcore pervs holding on to the end). Also, depsite it being a josei story, most of the fans seem to be male, which doesn't surprise me. The english translation of the title is very fitting.

The other age-gap show of the season, Higehiro. a 25 year old single workaholic salaryman  while coming home drunk one night takes in a 17 year old runaway who has been trading her body for food and shelter. This looked like it was going to do something a bit different with the age gap genre, but I was getting bad vibes about half-way through despite the lead male saying he has no interest in kids and there being a budding relationship with his older senpai at work (who initially knocked him back in the first episode).
Spoiler alert
The final volume of the light novel was scheduled to be published just ahead of the end of the series so I decided to wait and see how it panned out before deciding whether to carry on (like I did with Horimiya after getting alarm bells from that before deciding to not bother finishing it). It's staying dropped. Massive copout timeskip ending with totally inexplicable actions from some of the central characters that felt like the writer was asked to do it under duress by his publisher or something to keep a particular demographic happy.
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What have I learned from this?
Spoiler alert
Don't expect any surprises in an age-gap story. they all end up creepy and/or sleazy, and Japan's fetishization of teenage girls is deplorable and shows little sign of changing
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MoreauVasz

Koikomo sounds like a Woody Allen film.

Can anyone remember which anime it was that had a bloke who was a mech pilot and he was forced to work with this gorgeous female mech pilot who had horns? I think it was more of a trad romance than a sci-fi show.

buzby

#175
Quote from: MoreauVasz on June 17, 2021, 11:46:13 AM
Koikomo sounds like a Woody Allen film.
It does, and like a Woody Allen film, it's not funny either. Even in the best case scenario, these age gap stories usually seem to end with the literary equivalent of a tabloid counting down the days to a page 3 girls' 16th birthday.
Quote
Can anyone remember which anime it was that had a bloke who was a mech pilot and he was forced to work with this gorgeous female mech pilot who had horns? I think it was more of a trad romance than a sci-fi show.
Darling In The Franxx - I may have mentioned it earlier. Mechs (the Franxx of the title) figihting aliens (the girl, called Zero Two, is a genetically-engineered human-alien hydrid, hence the horns). Mech battle story (heavily indebted to Gainax shows) with extremely melodramatic relationship drama bolted on, and quite a bit of thievery from Logan's Run and Zardoz of all things, I thought. Mainly remembered for the amount of times Zero Two says 'Darling' to her partner/co-pilot, the hilarously single entendre cockpit arrangement in the mechs (the male pilot is stood up with the female pilot on all fours with her legs apart immediately in front of him) and one of the most hated endings of any recent anime.

Kankurette

Ah yes, the one where the boys all have to pretend to fuck the girls in order to pilot their giant mecha and everyone hates Ichigo.

Kenkun

I was going to comment how ep 11 of Super Cub seemed to go uber-Super Cub - the thrilling rescue scene takes up the first 2 minutes, and then the remaining 20 minutes is spent pratting around drying clothes  and eating noodles.

Following on from my last post, I really felt Koguma and Reiko's friendship shone in this episode; they really feel totally comfortable with each other, despite their differences in personality.  It feels a much more nuanced friendship that what you see in pretty much any TV show, not just anime.

Thanks for the back story and additional details, Buzby.  From what you've said, I think I'll take a look at the manga, but it's a bit sad that there's so much fan service: the most baffling and alienating aspect of manga/anime.

Koguma's actions during the rescue were odd to say the least, and I guess this is partially due to the constraints of adaptation.  Although, on reflection, she's been forced to be so independent and isolated from such a young age, that it's maybe no surprise that she just did it all herself without contacting emergency services or Shii's parents.

I watched 3 or 4 episodes of Koikomo before having to give up.  Utterly bizare.  Even if you're fine with the age gap, his actions are so horrible and manipulative that it's just totally unpleasant to watch.  The "humour" seems to be purely that he's a good-looking Lothario and that he falls for someone who's really bland and not interested in him, but they really fail to squeeze even anything remotely amusing out of that dynamic, so it just becomes a grim account of grooming.

I've been watching Higehiro after reading the manga (which isn't as far along in the story).  By the end of Episode 11, it seems like they're subverting the expected manga/anime ending by having them realise that their relationship is familial not romantic, despite how confusing it may have been to live together and rely on each other.   I just hope that the anime doesn't end the same way that the light novels presumably do.

Consignia

I've really enjoyed Super Cub, but the latest... left a real sour taste in my mouth. I know the series has had a lot of ignoring the rules in the pursuit adventure. But Koguma's actions were possibly the worst actions in every single way for handling someone injured. Even to the point of not involving professionals deliberatly. It's all to show Koguma's journey as person but if there had been some at least concession that what was done was stupid, or the was a reason for them, then it would at least be more palatable. I genuinely thought
Spoiler alert
Shii might, or even should, have died
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.

buzby

#179
Quote from: Kenkun on June 18, 2021, 11:50:04 AM
Koguma's actions during the rescue were odd to say the least, and I guess this is partially due to the constraints of adaptation.  Although, on reflection, she's been forced to be so independent and isolated from such a young age, that it's maybe no surprise that she just did it all herself without contacting emergency services or Shii's parents.
Quote from: Consignia on June 18, 2021, 01:15:11 PM
I've really enjoyed Super Cub, but the latest... left a real sour taste in my mouth. I know the series has had a lot of ignoring the rules in the pursuit adventure. But Koguma's actions were possibly the worst actions in every single way for handling someone injured. Even to the point of not involving professionals deliberatly. It's all to show Koguma's journey as person but if there had been some at least concession that what was done was stupid, or the was a reason for them, then it would at least be more palatable. I genuinely thought
Spoiler alert
Shii might, or even should, have died
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.
It was a  bizarre choice by the anime scriptwriters to change Koguma's actions and omit a few key lines in that scene compared to how it was handled in the manga, which has led to pretty much everybody having a bad reaction to it. It's even more perplexing as I think the anime handled koguma's reaction to Shii's breakdown back at the apartment with a lot more subtlety that the manga did.

The author of the LN has presumably been getting grief over it too, despite what was shown apparently not being how it was written in the book, and put out a tweet saying that during the writing process he consulted with the police and ambulance services in the area to see what the response times would be, and that Koguma's apartment was only two minutes away from the track using her Cub. That would mean that Shii wasn't actually in the water that long, and for the manga (and presumably LN) version Koguma's decision to go there first and then see if any further help was required wasn't that bad a decision.

One thing I have noticed is in the following scenes where Shii tries to thank her Koguma keeps saying it wasn't me, it was the Super Cub. A lot of people are taking that at face value and interpreting it as a clunky advertising insert by the scriptwriters. I think it's something more than that, it's Koguma trying not to accept responsibility for someone else's life or wellbeing, which ties in to the difficulty she has relating to other people because of her background and situation. That all comes to a head later in the episode when she comes to the revelation that Shii had unknowingly been what had sparked that desire to want something more from her life.

Quote
I've been watching Higehiro after reading the manga (which isn't as far along in the story).  By the end of Episode 11, it seems like they're subverting the expected manga/anime ending by having them realise that their relationship is familial not romantic, despite how confusing it may have been to live together and rely on each other.   I just hope that the anime doesn't end the same way that the light novels presumably do.
From  my (albeit limited) experience of this genre and other shows where the ending has coincided with the source material coming to an end, don't get your hopes up. Japan laps this sort of thing up.

It's quite funny with this and Koikomo to see people who like these age-gap stories pull out the reasoning that if the older party waits until the younger one is of legal age to take the relationship further it's all OK and wholesome, which obviously conveniently ignores all the 'groundwork' that was put in by the older party prior to that point. The 'if she was 30 and he was 40 nobody would have a problem with it' defence usually gets trotted out too, which conveniently ignores that the younger party would have another half of their lifetime's worth of life experience to be comfortable with who they were by that age.

In other news, yesterday marked the next stage in the ongoing death spiral of Oregairu with the long-awaited annoucement of what Ketsu was going to be. The Shin continuation of the main story that was given away with the Series 3 BD/DVD volumes has not long come to an end, and was received poorly by everybody (outside Japan, at least) as a rehashing of previous relationship drama that was supposedly settled and reversal of character development from the end of the main novels, all in an effort to stoke up the harem coals (which were only introduced by the anime adaptation)  to keep the sales of dolls and body pillows of scantily clad schoolgirls going (oh and we've still got an OVA based on this to 'look forward' to).

Ketsu is apparently going to be a continuation of ANOTHER, the series 2 BD/DVD bonus chapters that was written as an 'alternate route' ending (this was long before the last 3 volumes of the story had been published). ANOTHER was literally tossed off (the author copy-pasted stuff from the volumes that existed up to that point, changed Yukino's name to Yui and then added a few extra scenes to paper over the gaps) that was liked by nobody, not even the hardcore Yui fans as it was an ending where Yukino gave up her feelings for Hachiman in deference to Yui and cuts herself off from them, Hachiman gives up on his desire for a genuine relationship and unenthusiaticaly ends up in a one-sided one with Yui by default. Apparently he's going to stretch 7 volumes out of this (he only got 3 more out of the main story after ANOTHER was published).

'Alternate Route' endings are the worst kind of harem shit fan pandering there is, and the author basically admitting he is creatively bankrupt. Leave them for pervs who play the VNs because they want the MC to end up with his teacher or sister.