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Fuck it, anime thread

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

Previous topic - Next topic

Sin Agog

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on September 02, 2020, 11:15:35 PM
There's already a nonce thread in General Bullshit lads, there's no need for two.

That one's about mild noncery.  This one's for the professionals.

Quote from: madhair60 on September 02, 2020, 11:09:10 PM
WHAT

Yeah...I probably should have mentioned that it has completely different characters.  Good ones, tho.  It's no K-Onned by the Bell: The New Class.  Well, maybe a little.



Caught the three Kizumonogatari movies this week.  God, so much more intense and richer than the series (although that did have quite an interesting scene involving a toothbrush. NSFW: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/ahyui4/nisemonogatari_toothbrush_scene/).  Amazing animation and, eventually, fight scenes- easily the best vampire anime thing I've seen.

The Mollusk



Had to share this amazing Eizouken/Venture Bros crossover piece by this artist. It came up on the VB subreddit last week and was how I found about about KYHOE in the first place. Now that I know the characters in this show, this art is an amazing parody.

Lemming

Spent a couple years watching almost nothing but anime, quickly realised I didn't really enjoy any of it except the comedy/"slice of life" stuff, but here's a list of shows I remember enjoying (some of them already mentioned, but whatever):

Azumanga Daioh - very funny and, I think, the originator of the "four or five girls with varying levels of personality disorder become friends at school, hilarity ensues" type of show. The manga is a lot funnier than the still-very-funny anime, though, so maybe just read that.

Nichijou - already mentioned obviously but it's great, probably the tightest and most consistent of all the shows in this post. The scene where they're trapped in an elevator still makes me laugh just thinking about it. HELP ISN'T COMING. SHE'S DEAD.

Yuru Yuri - the final one in the Big Three of the "schoolgirls talking shit" format. First two seasons are ace, third switched to a different studio and was a bit shittier, but those first two seasons are proper funny. Chinatsu is a great character because there's something properly fucking wrong with her, occasional moments of genuine psychopathy.

WataMote - very funny but, again, the manga is significantly funnier, mainly because IMO they tried to make Tomoko more sympathetic for the anime, which doesn't work as well because it's funnier when she's just a nasty piece of shit. Still good fun

That's the most of it. Other things that were alright were Ika Musume which is sporadically funny, Tonari no Seki-kun which was also sporadically funny (also stumbled across a pretty cool live action version of this one that's basically exactly the same show), Oruchuban Ebichu which is about a hamster who tries to give its owner sex advice... either you'll laugh or you won't. There's also Non Non Biyori which is like if Yuru Yuri had almost no jokes, K-On which is like if Non Non Biyori had even less jokes... running out now.

For some older "classic" shit, less comedy-focused, I liked Sailor Moon even though it's unbearably formulaic, Trigun even though Vash is a knobhead and the plot makes no sense, Dirty Pair which is variable in quality but mostly a lot of fun to watch, Galaxy Express 999 which is an unintentional comedy because it's so ridiculously over-the-top morose and cloying that it quickly becomes extremely funny, uhh... I also watched Rose of Versailles and remember quite liking it, but I'll be fucked if I can tell you anything about it. Cowboy Bebop was fine but very overrated, not really essential by any means. Fist of the North Star is hilariously shit, another unintentional comedy masterpiece.

madhair60

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on September 02, 2020, 11:15:35 PM
There's already a nonce thread in General Bullshit lads, there's no need for two.

Fuck off, you tiresome, predictable cunt

Sin Agog

Quote from: Lemming on September 03, 2020, 12:58:56 AM
Spent a couple years watching almost nothing but anime, quickly realised I didn't really enjoy any of it except the comedy/"slice of life" stuff, but here's a list of shows I remember enjoying (some of them already mentioned, but whatever):

Azumanga Daioh - very funny and, I think, the originator of the "four or five girls with varying levels of personality disorder become friends at school, hilarity ensues" type of show. The manga is a lot funnier than the still-very-funny anime, though, so maybe just read that.

Nichijou - already mentioned obviously but it's great, probably the tightest and most consistent of all the shows in this post. The scene where they're trapped in an elevator still makes me laugh just thinking about it. HELP ISN'T COMING. SHE'S DEAD.

Yuru Yuri - the final one in the Big Three of the "schoolgirls talking shit" format. First two seasons are ace, third switched to a different studio and was a bit shittier, but those first two seasons are proper funny. Chinatsu is a great character because there's something properly fucking wrong with her, occasional moments of genuine psychopathy.

WataMote - very funny but, again, the manga is significantly funnier, mainly because IMO they tried to make Tomoko more sympathetic for the anime, which doesn't work as well because it's funnier when she's just a nasty piece of shit. Still good fun

That's the most of it. Other things that were alright were Ika Musume which is sporadically funny, Tonari no Seki-kun which was also sporadically funny (also stumbled across a pretty cool live action version of this one that's basically exactly the same show), Oruchuban Ebichu which is about a hamster who tries to give its owner sex advice... either you'll laugh or you won't. There's also Non Non Biyori which is like if Yuru Yuri had almost no jokes, K-On which is like if Non Non Biyori had even less jokes... running out now.

For some older "classic" shit, less comedy-focused, I liked Sailor Moon even though it's unbearably formulaic, Trigun even though Vash is a knobhead and the plot makes no sense, Dirty Pair which is variable in quality but mostly a lot of fun to watch, Galaxy Express 999 which is an unintentional comedy because it's so ridiculously over-the-top morose and cloying that it quickly becomes extremely funny, uhh... I also watched Rose of Versailles and remember quite liking it, but I'll be fucked if I can tell you anything about it. Cowboy Bebop was fine but very overrated, not really essential by any means. Fist of the North Star is hilariously shit, another unintentional comedy masterpiece.

Another great Lemming write-up (not to downplay Consignia's post from earlier).  I wonder if I'm the only one who watched all those schoolgirls talking shit programs like they were Y the Last Man-style sci-fis and all the blokes you never, ever, see are either dead of a male genome-targeting virus, or kept in dingy underground internment camps.  You might spot one dude in the whole series- Ritsu's brother in K-On, maybe the side of a teacher's head in Daioh- but I bet they were only permitted to live because they're actually non-binary genderqueers.

(Uh, this might have sounded more incel than I intended).

The Mollusk

Would be quite keen to get into some of the classic stuff but even just looking at the amount of episodes some shows have is stupidly intimidating.

Like I was thinking of getting into Keroro Gunsau as it looks really good but there's fucking 358 bastard episodes. I worked out the time scale and that's 137 hours of telly. I think trying to make my way through something of that scale, especially when it's a fucking absurdist foreign language cartoon about an alien frog, would probably have some sort of negative impact on my mental health.

Consignia

Keroro gunsou is a gag series, so you don't need to watch all of it, you can just dip in and out when you want. I think there's at least one spin off as well.

I think it's all right. I've seen about 50 odd episodes of it, but I'm in no mind to bother with any more.

Sin Agog

Just saw that Eizouken has an Eizouken'd version of Future Boy Conan right in the beginning of its very first episode.  Can't see myself not loving this as FBC is one of the most transportive anime series ever made, and my fave thing Miyazaki ever did.  (Also, to answer the earlier question, the Lupin series that came before the movie, which 'zaki took over a few episodes into production, is worth a watch if you're into this Lupin geezer)

The Mollusk

Cheers Sin Agog. Will get Future Boy Conan bookmarked an' all.

Blasted through the first 7 episodes of Eizouken last night with complete ease, and will undoubtedly smash the rest out later this afternoon. It's fantastic. The relationship between the three leads is nothing short of riveting and every scene is a sheer delight. Episode 7, which focuses on the beauty of physical motion and how animation is one of the purest forms of tribute to that, might be my favourite one so far. I was really moved by it.

Probably not an unpopular opinion at all but Kanamori is my favourite character.

bgmnts

Is the general consenus that Cowboy Bebop is overrated? I fuckin' love it.

Thursday

I reckon there's a handful of episodes of Cowboy Bebop that are fucking brilliant, leagues ahead of anything else and the rest is mostly just quite good.

I'd also look into stuff by the same guy - Samurai Champloo and Terror in Resonance are on netflix. So is Carole & Tuesday not seen that though. (Kids on the Slope was ok)

Would strongly recommend Dorohedoro, and whilst I reserve the right to be a "Well it's not as good as the manga" cunt, it is very good.

Two Headed Sex Beast

Thanks for this thread, I got Crunchyroll but there's such a huge amount of stuff on there that I'm never sure where to start. This is going to be helpful for me!

Stuff I've been watching (you may already be well aware of these shows):

Attack on Titan: I'll just use the wiki description. "Set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by enormous walls due to the Titans, gigantic humanoid beings who devour humans seemingly without reason". The humans live in a strangely germanic society and use pretty nifty grappling hook/harpoon contraptions to swing about and fight the big twats trying to eat them. A 4th and final season should be coming this year.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: hard to describe this much-memed series. It starts off with family drama in the 19th century before pivoting to vampires, magical martial arts, and musical references (there's a character called Robert E. O. Speedwagon). I love it, it's ridiculous.

One Piece: I've just started the first series, it's a fun adventure about a Monkey D. Luffy who wants to be king of the pirates. It's light hearted but has surprisingly touching moments even in the first few episodes. But there's about 1500 episodes so I kind of wish I hadn't started now.

One Punch Man: A superhero whose power is that he can beat bad guys with one punch. It's pretty funny, poking fun at a lot of the tropes of the genre.

Consignia

Quote from: Thursday on September 03, 2020, 01:43:09 PM

I'd also look into stuff by the same guy - Samurai Champloo and Terror in Resonance are on netflix. So is Carole & Tuesday not seen that though. (Kids on the Slope was ok)

Kids on the slope and Carole and Tuesday are my favourite Watanabe series, and I don't really care for the rest. I feel in a bit of an outlier in that opinion.

Quote from: Thursday on September 03, 2020, 01:43:09 PM

Would strongly recommend Dorohedoro, and whilst I reserve the right to be a "Well it's not as good as the manga" cunt, it is very good.

Of course it's not as good. Is literally only a portion of the story. Still think it's excellent for what we got and hope that more gets produced.

Thursday

Oh sure, my understanding was more was coming. The thing is where I'm at with the manga isn't that much further than the series anyway.

Sin Agog

I like Carole & Tuesday.  When you think about it, it's like a Folktronica version of Bill & Ted (their songs will one day unite the planets).  Wouldn't usually be my type of music, but the duo's tunes usually keep me hooked, while everyone else's usually fucks me off in some way.  Might all be a bit soft-focused and...overly nice, but I'm looking forward to more eps.  Over The Slope was sweet, too; much better than that La La Land bloke's take on jazz. 

Nana and Love Live! are some other great music anime; the former had some particularly well-observed characters. Not 100% sure about Beck.  Remember it having a good vibe, but some of the worst Engrish of all time whenever it tried to depict a Westerner.

madhair60

Quote from: madhair60 on September 03, 2020, 11:21:07 AM
Fuck off, you tiresome, predictable cunt

Feel quite bad about this now

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Quote from: madhair60 on September 03, 2020, 02:47:15 PM
Feel quite bad about this now

You made me cry.

Nah, don't worry, I took it in good humour. You're quite right though, on all three counts.

Lemming

Quote from: Sin Agog on September 03, 2020, 12:03:16 PM
Another great Lemming write-up (not to downplay Consignia's post from earlier).  I wonder if I'm the only one who watched all those schoolgirls talking shit programs like they were Y the Last Man-style sci-fis and all the blokes you never, ever, see are either dead of a male genome-targeting virus, or kept in dingy underground internment camps.  You might spot one dude in the whole series- Ritsu's brother in K-On, maybe the side of a teacher's head in Daioh- but I bet they were only permitted to live because they're actually non-binary genderqueers.

(Uh, this might have sounded more incel than I intended).

I'm sure there were a bunch of male classmates in Azumanga Daioh (as well as that pedophile teacher who pretty much guarantees awkward, misjudged, laugh-free scenes whenever he's on screen), but I think there are indeed literally no male characters at all in Yuru Yuri, even in the background.

Since Yuru Yuri also
Spoiler alert
canonically takes place in a time loop controlled by Kyoko, if I remember right
[close]
, pretty much anything could be happening there. It's the far future and the Y-chromosome has died out and humans now appear female and reproduce asexually, it's an Escape From New York style containment area for female prisoners that covers a large part of suburban Tokyo, they're all androids (technically gynoids), etc. Possibilities are endless.

Quote from: bgmnts on September 03, 2020, 01:35:46 PM
Is the general consenus that Cowboy Bebop is overrated? I fuckin' love it.

Definitely wasn't the consensus a few years ago, unless there's been some revisionism since. I didn't dislike it but it seemed to be the definition of style over substance, which isn't a bad thing in itself but it always just felt weirdly fake-deep a lot of the time with nothing to back it up - which is a really oddly worded criticism, so I hope it makes sense.

I do fondly remember the Alien knockoff episode, the drug trip episode and the VHS/Betamax episode, but none of the rest stands out for me.

The Mollusk

Just finished Eizouken, loved it to bits. It almost got me crying a couple of times. I really hope we get more of this show but even if we don't, as a standalone thing those 12 episodes are spectacular.

Consignia

Yep. Can't recommend Eizouken enough. I'm not sure we'll get more, it was somewhat of a passion project for Yuasa and he's stepping back a bit at the moment.

Really don't know how you binge it though. I loved watching weekly, great end to the weekend when was on. Paced just right, with things like Asakusa telling the nature of the groups relationship to Mizusaki's parents leaving a warm fuzzy feel for the rest of the week.

There's a live action movie coming out, but I really can't see it capturing the magic of the animation.

The Mollusk

I was very swept up in the energy of it so I found it super easy to binge. I kept on wanting to see more and more of the dynamic between the three leads, it was a wonderful relationship.

I just watched the first episode of Ping Pong: The Animation and thought that was great as well. Beautifully animated, although I have to admit I really don't get on with the CGI. It can sort of be excused in Eizouken because it flips from style to style when depicting the real world or the storyboard or the imagination of Akasuke and Mizusaki (although I still find it grating in some scenes) but in Ping Pong right there in the first episode there are bits which function perfectly well all in the same animation style during a match, and then there will be like two or three shots with a CGI ball. I don't really get why that's necessary, it snaps me out of the magic somewhat.

letsgobrian

Quote from: The Mollusk on September 03, 2020, 12:56:14 PM
Would be quite keen to get into some of the classic stuff but even just looking at the amount of episodes some shows have is stupidly intimidating.

Like I was thinking of getting into Keroro Gunsau as it looks really good but there's fucking 358 bastard episodes. I worked out the time scale and that's 137 hours of telly. I think trying to make my way through something of that scale, especially when it's a fucking absurdist foreign language cartoon about an alien frog, would probably have some sort of negative impact on my mental health.

The first year, when it's mainly adaptations of the comic is the best. You can then p. much skip the second year and hop back on the arc when the replacement frogs show up. After that even the comic was diminishing returns.

samadriel

Always happy to see someone else pick up Keroro! I've only seen season 1, so I know that's pretty good, but that's all.

The Mollusk

Ha, I knew I'd seen that frog somewhere on this forum.

Consignia

The thing that's sticking very vividly in my mind is the end song which teaches you how to draw the main characters. Although, it's very much a "draw the rest of the fucking owl" vain.

Also, I think it was written by Japanese nationalist, and the original manga used a racist against Chinese term. They smoothed that in the TV show, but you can't get away from that fact it was there in the first place.

samadriel

What is it with the right and cartoons of frogs?

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Consignia on September 02, 2020, 11:06:26 PM
Night Is Short, Walk on Girl is worth a watch, as it's by the same writer/director[nb]Indeed the aforementioned Masaaki Yuasa
[/nb] combo, but with less super fast dialogue. It's very reminiscent of a youthful fevered drunken escapade of a night.

I really love NISWOG, as it probably should never be called, here's a tiny review: Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (2017) - Anime from the director of the amazing Mind Game, this is a far more down to earth piece but no less fun (which is quite the feat), a sort of One Crazy Night affair as it follows a guy and a gal out and about drinking, the friends they meet, the quest for a lost book, and an illegally staged musical. It's funny, fast, frenetic and other words beginning with f, and a film I love an awful lot. 8.7/10

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Thursday on September 03, 2020, 01:43:09 PM
Terror in Resonance

I can second that, especially as it's just one series of 11 episodes.


Quote from: Two Headed Sex Beast on September 03, 2020, 01:55:23 PM
Attack on Titan: I'll just use the wiki description. "Set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by enormous walls due to the Titans, gigantic humanoid beings who devour humans seemingly without reason". The humans live in a strangely germanic society and use pretty nifty grappling hook/harpoon contraptions to swing about and fight the big twats trying to eat them. A 4th and final season should be coming this year.

It's pretty good, and fairly unique even in the world of anime, BUT, like Black Lagoon, it tends to get very repetitive.


Two others I'll recommend that haven't been mentioned yet - Shigurui Death Frenzy and, one which I cannot recommend highly enough, Ajiin: Demi-Human.  Ajiin is right up there with Akira and Ghost In the Shell for me.

letsgobrian

Quote from: Consignia on September 04, 2020, 10:56:32 AM
The thing that's sticking very vividly in my mind is the end song which teaches you how to draw the main characters. Although, it's very much a "draw the rest of the fucking owl" vain.

Also, I think it was written by Japanese nationalist, and the original manga used a racist against Chinese term. They smoothed that in the TV show, but you can't get away from that fact it was there in the first place.

Couldn't find evidence for Mine Yoshizaki being a nationalist, beyond this using a slur dating back to the Sino-Japanese War. As it's used against the Japanese characters by the frogs rather than against Chinese characters, I'm willing to put it down to sloppy satire of Imperial Japan. Certainly there's less to worry about in the "is this guy a raging fascist?" stakes with Sgt. Frog than Attack on Titan.

For an anime assuredly about left-wing politics in Japan, I recommend Concrete Revolutio: Superhuman Phantasmagoria, Sho Aikawa & Seiji Mizushima's Watchmen/League of Extraordinary Gentlemen homage, but with Japanese superhero archetypes. It's both a metaphor for the failure of the New Left to achieve anything, and the feeling the creators had in the mid-70s when all their favourite shows ended due to the Oil Crisis making it too expensive to make rubber suited monsters.

Spiteface


In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law...? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least it is true that man has no control, even over his own will...


Last year, I watched Berserk. The awesome 1997 anime. Not the shit 2016 one.


It filled a dark fantasy void that I didn't know needed filling after Game of Thrones shat the bed. Plus that 90s anime aesthetic is totally my thing. Proper grimdark, which isn't a crime.

It's interesting, because the first episode pretty much tells you that things went sour really badly between Guts and Griffith, but then episode 2 starts you on a long flashback about that story that you almost forget this is ultimately doomed:

Talk about images that precede unfortunate events. The Eclipse made the Red Wedding look like My Little Pony in comparison.

I did start reading the manga on the plane home from Japan, with the first of the massive deluxe volumes, covering the entire "Black Swordsman" arc, and I feel like I should finish the Akira manga first, then I'll deep dive on Berserk.

My big discovery during Lockdown was JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, having devoured season 1 (Phantom Blood & Battle Tendency) and season 2 (Stardust Crusaders)

Plan is to get into Diamond is Unbreakable soon. Seen episodes 1 and 2 and it looks promising. I kinda appreciate the smaller setting after the globetrotting of Stardust Crusaders. And that Jotaro (season 2's "JoJo") is sticking around (He'll also be in the next anime season, I'm told).

I have seen the "Torture Dance" scene from Golden Wind out of context and it is, well... bizarre: