General Anime/Manga Discussion 15: The Beach Episode

[deuterio12]

Darling in the FranXX 22

Spoiler

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Well plenty of Klaxossaurs alive after all and waging the war against the VRIM near Mars because why not.

Three 9s still kicking and seemingly willing to redeem themselves.

Meanwhile what's left of humanity trying to re-learn farming but seems like we're back to ecological message and the land's too barren after centuries of abuse to grow anything. The remants of VRIMs and Klaxossaurs crashing down from the heavens doesn't help much I would bet.

Although that raises the question of where exactly were they getting their food before. Maybe some high-tech farm-factories that got all blown up? But then somebody remembers that plants were growing just fine in their giant garden that did survive the battle.

New Nana's a b**** going all "Sorry, can't do anything useful without Papa's orders even after he revealed himself as an alien ready to wipe out humanity" luckily we got old Nana back.

Also 02 seems to be busy remote controling the titan mecha to pay attention to what's happening close to her while there's some nasty feedback to her own body when the biomachine gets harmed.

And of course the protagonist gonna rush after her in a conveniently left behind space ship. And the rest of the team's joining him. Except the to-be parents that are gonna stay behind. But really what do you hope to do, the FranXX weren't planned for space combat last time I checked you'll just get in the way-Ah wait this is a super robot show, of course the ground mecha is gonna work just fine in space.

Who wants to bet at least half of them will get killed?

[Kato]

Spoiler: Boku no Hero Academia manga

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So is it just me or are the characters that have been occurring as villains and such way more powerful than all the billboard heroes? Overhaul for example makes the whole list look like chumps and Shigaraki and Kuroroki and AFO of course and so on...all the villains that Midoriya has been engaged with lately seem to totally walk over such weaklings. The heroes being showcased right now look cool but like...Shigaraki would simply one-shot the Nomu for example. Same with all the heroes-in-training; Lemillion, Todoroki, even Bakugo show way more power than all the heroes we're seeing with very run-of-the-mill power and no way to challenge any of the villains that are actually occurring in this show. To say nothing of Eri. I wonder if it's intentional? The current Endeavor arc probably ends with Endeavor getting surprise help for cooling down and being able to barely take out the Nomu but even so, it feels like he's actually a "power hero" rather than "popularity hero" and regardless completely outclassed by an opponent All-Might handily defeated. And one that basically all the spotlight characters that are not billboard heroes. It feels like creator power creep or something; they have to keep challenging Midoriya & al. with truly dangerous-seeming enemies so they keep creating even more ridiculous quirks and make the actual "big heroes of the world" seem like nobodies.

We have a dedicated thread for MHA, I feel you'll get more responses there...


Also, can anyone tell me at what point I should start reading the Soul Eater manga if I've seen the anime already?

[Rynjin]

IIRC it diverges so early you may as well start at the start.

[gomipile]

I'm trying to remember the name out an anime I only saw part of one episode of:

In the scene I remember, two teams of high school girls are having some sort of competition on a beach. I think it was something like capture the flag or king of the hill. Anyway, at the climactic moment, the point of view character has an imagine spot where she imagines her team as a group of soldiers raising a flag in the same pose as the famous flag raising at Iwo Jima.

I only saw that bit once, a few years ago. My Google-fu is failing me in trying to search for it. It might have been on Toonami? I know it was on some cable TV network available in the USA.

[Doorhandle]

Spoiler: So Franxx is finished...

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...and the ending is relentlessly cheery in comparison to what I expected. In a weird way I was expecting more of the cast to die off or struggle, I guess. Still satisfied though...just not as much as I could be.

RIP the Nines. Did not expect to feel bad for them in the slightest, so their deaths were surprisingly touching.

I kind-of want a sequel series, picking up on the reincarnations,...and with VRIMS' return incoming.

Who wants to bet at least half of them will get killed?

Turns out that was a sucker's bet. :P

[MarylynCobb]

HI)
Glad to see you here!

[MarylynCobb]

How are you doing here?)

[Ibrinar]

Watched Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works Abridged Ep0. Once again it reminds me of my disappointment that rin with archer wasn't the MC and it was the inferior duo instead.

[LaZodiac]

Kubo Tite's new one shot, Burn The Witch, has arrived!

It's REALLY bad. Jesus.

Spoiler

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This will NEVER get picked up, but if it does I'm all in on ****ing SOUL SOCIETY WEST. It's gonna be awful.

[Rynjin]

What? How could any story starring La Femme Byakuya be bad?

Seriously though, add Kubo to the list of manga authors who create a new manga and just crib character designs from their older series.

[LaZodiac]

What? How could any story starring La Femme Byakuya be bad?

Seriously though, add Kubo to the list of manga authors who create a new manga and just crib character designs from their older series.

I mean that's cool and all. Like I thiink I said, the art is really good! It's super cool for the most part, the monster designs are rad.

Shame about the EVERYTHING else.

[Chromascope3D]

So, brand new season. Asobi Asobase is 9/10 so far, and I started watching Planet With on MB's recommendation, but that hasn't really grabbed me yet. Other than that there's not much else interesting to me yet (that's easily accessible).

[gomipile]

I've watched the first two episodes of Dropkick on My Devil!

It starts in a weird place in the story. Maybe equivalent to over 40 chapters into the manga? It relegates the premise and setup to a few seconds of introduction flashback in the first episode. The anime starts with about four or five characters beyond the main two. Those four or five characters got slowly introduced over the first thre tankōbon volumes in the manga, but they're all settled in as soon as the introduction is over, here. Apparently some anime-only viewers aren't having much trouble following though, since the format is extremely episodic and the characters are somewhat tropey.

I'm enjoying it, though so far it's not as good as the shows that got me interested in this sub-genre, like Excel Saga.

[BWR]

So, what I've seen so far and my impressions/predictions:

Asobi Asobase: three girls being funny at school. Not too bad, fun enough that I will bother to keep watching it. Doesn't seem like it will hit the heights of Mitsuboshi Colors or Lucky Star, and certainly not or Yuru Yuri, but it should be good for a laugh.

Dropkick on my devil: witch summons devil who tries repeatedly to kill her. Violent, bloody comedy. Somewhat amusing, but I gave up on the manga and I may give up on the anime.

Planet With: first impressions: meh. By the guy that did Spirit Circle and Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer - the former good if not great, and the latter boring enough that I dropped. I'll give it a couple more episodes. Initially sort of like a less interesting Punchline. I'll probably drop this one.

Aguu: Genius dolls. Some magicians kidnap talented people, turn them into miniatures which are implanted to grant people extraordinary skill. The protagonists have to go around and stop them. Slightly creepy, and interesting enough that I'll give it a few more episodes at least.

The Thousand Noble Musketeers. Future setting, guns are only possessed by the Evil Empire, so rebeles collect antiques and fight the good fight, taking names from historical figures. Boring and uninspired. Pass

Cells at work: anthropomorphized bodily processes. Generic character types and predictable, boring action. Dropped.

Island: claims to be a mystery and drama, is really primarily a generic harem with minimal comedy (and comedy is nearly always a prerequisite to make an entertaining harem). Probably will get dropped.

Master of Ragnarok - Blessing of the Einherjar: this is billed as strongly influenced by Norse mythology, but it's maddeningly dull and generic isekai harem. The closest you get to anything Norse is some of the names being OK. Hard pass.

Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san: confession time, ecchi harem comedies are about the closest thing I have to a guilty pleasure, and this is one of the better ones. Protagonist-kun is a step above most of his fellows in that he's actually attractive, competent and skilled in a wide variety of things, and generally nicer than "he waters the class plants"-type of way. Also, his Godfall quickly surpasses Yuuki Rito's in that it's the girls who are usually fall on him. I like the manga so this is an automatic win for me this season.

Chio-chan's School Road. Nerdy girl gets into the weirdest trouble on her way to school. Quite funny and another one of which I enjoy the manga. Tied with Yuna for the best show so far, barring Lupin.

Angels of Death: young girl wakes up in a creepy hospital-dungeon-thingy and has to avoid crazed killers. Interesting enough so far but it could end up going either way. Unless the quality takes a nosedive, I'll probably finish it.

How not to summon a demon lord: Blah blah isekai, blahddy 'I'm in my "bad guy" toon' blah.

Back Street Girls: yakuza thugs who screw up are given a choice: die or get a sex change and become idols. Disturbingly hilarious and an excellent example of humor that comes from rather horrible situations.


I doubt I'll give the other things a chance because I'm watching enough **** as it is, and the genres are ones that generally bore me to tears.
Lupin III part V continues to be everything I want from a Lupin show, and the uncontested highlight of the anime week.
Also slowly making my way through Galaxy Express 999, which is a mix of awesome, fun, strangely hard-hearted and exasperatingly wrong about science, even by soft SF standards.

[JCarter426]

I've watched the first two episodes of Dropkick on My Devil!

It starts in a weird place in the story. Maybe equivalent to over 40 chapters into the manga? It relegates the premise and setup to a few seconds of introduction flashback in the first episode. The anime starts with about four or five characters beyond the main two. Those four or five characters got slowly introduced over the first thre tankōbon volumes in the manga, but they're all settled in as soon as the introduction is over, here.

Oh, man, I thought something was wrong. I had to check if what I was watching was the first episode. Wow. Odd choice. I've mostly been able to follow along, but even after the initial confusion a few things threw me. Is this some sort of newfangled marketing scheme? You know our anime is just an ad for the manga, so we're not even going to let you see the first 40 chapters unless you buy the manga. Here is this out of context ad campaign for your enjoyment.

Asobi Asobase: three girls being funny at school. Not too bad, fun enough that I will bother to keep watching it. Doesn't seem like it will hit the heights of Mitsuboshi Colors or Lucky Star, and certainly not or Yuru Yuri, but it should be good for a laugh.

Didn't expect to like it, but it's been amusing so far. Needs more of Olivia's fake bad Japanese though.

Planet With: first impressions: meh. By the guy that did Spirit Circle and Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer - the former good if not great, and the latter boring enough that I dropped. I'll give it a couple more episodes. Initially sort of like a less interesting Punchline. I'll probably drop this one.

My impression is it's trying to throw in every anime trope and subvert them as quickly as possible, while trying to be weird for the sake of being weird. Could be good, could be just weird and pretentious. We'll see.

Cells at work: anthropomorphized bodily processes. Generic character types and predictable, boring action. Dropped.

This one almost lured me in to ruin my streak of avoiding anthropomorphisms. Every once in a while one of them sounds so absurd that I get curious, but I've managed to lock that curiosity down every time.

Island: claims to be a mystery and drama, is really primarily a generic harem with minimal comedy (and comedy is nearly always a prerequisite to make an entertaining harem). Probably will get dropped.

Agreed, would be a better harem comedy if it were trying to be a harem comedy. I know it's an adaptation of a dating game, but I'm still hoping it will turn out to be primarily a mystery and worth sticking with for the plot. But I expect not.

Chio-chan's School Road. Nerdy girl gets into the weirdest trouble on her way to school. Quite funny and another one of which I enjoy the manga. Tied with Yuna for the best show so far, barring Lupin.

My favorite so far by a lot.

[tensai_oni]

Excuse me, I was summoned to the thread because I sensed that someone considers Satoshi Mizukami's works anything but absolutely brilliant masterpieces. Surely I must have been imagining things though because that sounds too hard to believe.

[LaZodiac]

Gonna post about it here because I doubt anyone but me would even post in a thread about it.

Planet With is pretty great. It's got a bit of a slow start, and with only two episodes out I can't really make a perfect judgement on it, but after Biscuit Hammer and Spirit Circle I think I can safely say I'm into what he's putting down. Weird, inverted stories that go like normal ones except for that little bit of "ah, but then" in there.

[Chromascope3D]

Has anyone else here watched both Darling in the Franxx and also Ergo Proxy?

[Rynjin]

Watched the first episode of the Kaiji spinoff (side note: if y'all ain't watched Kaiji, go do that) and it started off rocky, but the last half was a laugh a minute. Hope it keeps it up.

[Prime32]

Oh, man, I thought something was wrong. I had to check if what I was watching was the first episode. Wow. Odd choice. I've mostly been able to follow along, but even after the initial confusion a few things threw me. Is this some sort of newfangled marketing scheme? You know our anime is just an ad for the manga, so we're not even going to let you see the first 40 chapters unless you buy the manga. Here is this out of context ad campaign for your enjoyment.

Accel World was weird about this.

First there was the light novel series (currently at 22 books). Then a manga adaptation started.

Then there was an anime which covered the first 4 books. After the anime ended, the manga reached the end of book 2... and reduced the next two books into a single chapter of flashbacks so it could skip ahead to book 5 (after which the manga also ended).

The anime never got a season 2 (largely because the staff were busy with Love Live), but it eventually got a movie titled "Infinite Burst" which was advertised as a sequel. The first half of the movie is a series of clips from the anime with a narrator explaining the events of books 1 and 2... and the second half is set after book 20, making the explanation useless.

Infinite Burst has received an English translation, but the translation of the books is only up to volume 14.

[Ibrinar]

Has anyone else here watched both Darling in the Franxx and also Ergo Proxy?

Haven't watched darling in the Franxx but still interested what the connection is.

[arimareiji]

Oh, man, I thought something was wrong. I had to check if what I was watching was the first episode. Wow. Odd choice. I've mostly been able to follow along, but even after the initial confusion a few things threw me. Is this some sort of newfangled marketing scheme? You know our anime is just an ad for the manga, so we're not even going to let you see the first 40 chapters unless you buy the manga. Here is this out of context ad campaign for your enjoyment.

Just wait 'til they get to the part where they repeat an episode eight times (in all but minor details), because without seeing it eight freaking times we're too dumb to empathize with how awful it would be to have lived through it hundreds of times.

[gomipile]

Just wait 'til they get to the part where they repeat an episode eight times (in all but minor details), because without seeing it eight freaking times we're too dumb to empathize with how awful it would be to have lived through it hundreds of times.

It's been nine years, you know. Isn't it time for sardonic comments to be replaced by light jokes about Endless Eight?

[JCarter426]

Accel World was weird about this.

First there was the light novel series (currently at 22 books). Then a manga adaptation started.

Then there was an anime which covered the first 4 books. After the anime ended, the manga reached the end of book 2... and reduced the next two books into a single chapter of flashbacks so it could skip ahead to book 5 (after which the manga also ended).

The anime never got a season 2 (largely because the staff were busy with Love Live), but it eventually got a movie titled "Infinite Burst" which was advertised as a sequel. The first half of the movie is a series of clips from the anime with a narrator explaining the events of books 1 and 2... and the second half is set after book 20, making the explanation useless.

Infinite Burst has received an English translation, but the translation of the books is only up to volume 14.

Skipping nearly 20 books is a disaster to be sure, but I'm used to that sort of thing. Starting 4 volumes in is a new one for me. I can think of some similar cases, like some OVAs that decided to adapt whatever or if a prequel series got an anime but the original work didn't... but still nowhere close to this.

Just wait 'til they get to the part where they repeat an episode eight times (in all but minor details), because without seeing it eight freaking times we're too dumb to empathize with how awful it would be to have lived through it hundreds of times.

It's been nine years, you know. Isn't it time for sardonic comments to be replaced by light jokes about Endless Eight?

I watched it all. I'm not bitter.

[Prime32]

Skipping nearly 20 books is a disaster to be sure, but I'm used to that sort of thing. Starting 4 volumes in is a new one for me. I can think of some similar cases, like some OVAs that decided to adapt whatever or if a prequel series got an anime but the original work didn't... but still nowhere close to this.

I mean, the manga skipping books 3-4 was partly justified by expecting the audience to have watched it in the anime already... and partly by the villain of that arc being so absolutely despicable (he's a sadistic bully who spends most of book 3 reducing the protagonists to tears) that I've seen people stop watching the anime because of him.

[arimareiji]

I mean, the manga skipping books 3-4 was partly justified by expecting the audience to have watched it in the anime already... and partly by the villain of that arc being so absolutely despicable (he's a sadistic bully who spends most of book 3 reducing the protagonists to tears) that I've seen people stop watching the anime because of him.

Personally, I'm concerned with any alterations to the story... but there are certainly times when it's for the better, particularly when something needs to be abridged. If they allude to those events without playing out the entire trauma, it sounds like it was for the better.

Changes are more often what get under my skin. The worst examples are usually when American companies decide to dumb stories down because they think that they're too nuanced, or too foreign. "Jelly donuts", anyone?* XD

* - More as an extreme/obvious/humorous example than a serious instance of story alteration.

[JCarter426]

The worst examples are usually when American companies decide to dumb stories down because they think that they're too nuanced, or too foreign.

What, you've never eaten popcorn balls?

[arimareiji]

What, you've never eaten popcorn balls?

Heh, onigiriphobia for the win.

My true favorite for ~story~ alteration is Mononoke-hime (at least the dub): Apparently they thought any reference to animism would get the movie boycotted by evangelical audiences (which might have been true).

So they removed any perception of animism... which was only the plot glue, so no harm right?

[Ossian77]

Hi folks

I just finished watching the Eng dub of Yamato / Star Blazer 2202, and it stops at episode 13 (ok, Earth + Gamilas Vs Gatlantians of the Comet just to be clear. SO many open plotlines.....). I think I might have been watching the short films, rather than the actual episodes, though the titles do match. Or maybe the ENG version stops at #13 and the OV goes on (the wiki page lists 18 episodes).

Extra info: last episode I watched was "The Terezart Landing Operation: Strike the Enemy Missile Fleet!"

What is the best way to continue watching this? I am super hooked up, as a fan of the original series I find this one is just fantastic.

Cheers

Ossian

[The Fury]

So I've been watching titles based on recommendations from friends and I finally got to Space Dandy... Seriously, why does Space Dandy not have the "beloved classic" status that titles like Cowboy Bebop*, Outlaw Star, Trigun and FLCL have? Not that it was without faults, but it's rare I see a series of any kind this creative and this funny!

(*as it turns out, this is not an unfair comparison because Space Dandy was evidently directed by the same guy behind Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.)