General Anime/Manga Discussion 16: In Another Thread With My Smartphone

[Ibrinar]

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Good point that makes sense as weakness. Though alternative weakness: "Well we figured out there are multiple of us and we have guns too so we could probably just beat him. Honestly I am unclear why we ever let him take control of our groups."

[Emmerlaus]

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Good point that makes sense as weakness. Though alternative weakness: "Well we figured out there are multiple of us and we have guns too so we could probably just beat him. Honestly I am unclear why we ever let him take control of our groups."

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For the same reason they wanted Louis as there leader... Mostly to get political power in their little mafia world. But instead of earning the respect of his group, Melon just made them fear him. They were bond to betray him at some point.

With poison, they can pretend it was a rival group doing so OR at least make a setup to make look like their next leader to be vicious/not weak.

[BWR]

Watched season one of Amanchu, and it's now second on my favorite iyashikei, next to Yuru Camp. Very aesthetically pleasing, as it should. Great trio of main characters in Pikari, Teko, and the teacher. Can get very emotional at times, as well as good humor. All the things add together for just a super relaxing time. Surprisingly little diving for a show about diving, but the payoff was worth it.

You might want to try the Aria series by the same author. Same general slice of life thing, except with gondolieras on a terraformed Mars.

[Pendulous]

You might want to try the Aria series by the same author. Same general slice of life thing, except with gondolieras on a terraformed Mars.

They kick-started a dub, and I was gonna wait on that, but it's taking forever, it likely won't be streamed, and I don't want to give my life savings for one show. I've given up on it, and I'll just watch it when I get around to it. I've heard Amanchu makes some references to it, especially Futaba's middle school friends.

[Silfir]

I just saw Okko's Inn. Dang, that film is ridiculously good. I seriously didn't expect that. I have no idea why they decided to redo the material in the form of a single motion picture, but they struck gold with the staff. I thought the anime series was cute enough, but fell out of watching it after a while - it didn't feel like anything special. I can only imagine that significant parts of the original story were left out, leaving only all the parts necessary to make one seriously enthralling 90 minutes children's movie with a full, satisfying arc.

For comparison's sake, what sprung to mind was Kiki's Delivery Service. It's seriously that beautiful and heartwarming. You can come back and disagree with me to your heart's content after you've watched it.

[Aotrs Commander]

Watched the nextb three episodes of Children of th Whales

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Pretty much the whole thing was the fightin' going on, so not really much point talking about individual episodes.

The inflitration team, joined by Oni's mate Neda (whom I immediate said last week wat the end of the episode was a dead man walking) gets into the ship and finds minimal resistance.

Pink haired nutjob bounces around on the Mud Whale delighted in the chance for kill someone who might show fear and pain, because he's a nutcase. Which bringas me to the question of why is this guy not dead or imprision? We now know all these people have their emotions eaten by the eldritch horrors, except for apparently this guy who they just... Didn't?

Crazy olf Elder kills himself taking out two bad guys threatening children, and then as Suoh cradles him, Pink-Bangs cuts him off mid-death speech, because he's a [Richard]. And delightfully evil. Anyway, the bonkers vigilante captain shows up to stop him killing Suoh and you honestly get the impression he's doing out of duty rather than because he in any way cares.

Meanwhile, the little girl eldtritch horror daugher sits on a big fish (?) in the sand and does a little song and dance which makes spectal hands come out. Their apparent only affect at all is to make Suoh see a flashback of Pink-bang's bakstory. I was like "you CANNOT SERIOUSLY be trying to make this guy sympathetic?" But no, after the captin duffs him up and Suoh says "I see you were treated badly, you could come live with us," Pink-Bangs gets huffy about his mind being looked at (fair) and say, no, he wants to kill everyone on the Mud Whale because he likes to see people hurt. 'Kay, says the captain and straight up kicks the crap out of him, sticking one spike of wood in the thorat and a good nearly-disembowling slash. Pink-bangs then has a sudden and truely delightful moment of panic where he realsed he is about to freaking die and breaks like fragile glass. Suoh puersuades the captian not to kill him,b ut let him crawl off and that captain's like "eh, whatever." Pink-bangs crawls off desparate to live because he wants to murder everyone and then runs across some armed children. His immediate resposne is, seeing their fear, to haul himself to his feet and say he wants to play with them. the kids shoot him and he falls off a ledge and into the sands below head-first. NICE.

The dude who wanted to bang the previous mayor tries to get in on the fight but he's stoipped by one of the other character's who's on the verge of the bad stuff from being Old and Able To Use thymia. One of the enemy soldiers, dying, says how disgusting and revolting they are for having empotions and bickering (because THOSe aren't emotions at all, mate) and they break his face mask off to reveal he's young chap; the older chap skwers him anyway (and rightly so), because frack his age, he's an enemy fricking soldier out to masscre noncombats. Sorry, doesn't matter a flying rack about dimished capacity at this poiint, especially since frackers did to themselves.

Meanwhile, the inflitration team get almost to the Nos, leaving Miss Ginshu, Oni, Chakky, Neda and Random Extra Guy behind to cover their rear and the others head into the anti-magic field around the Nos. And then Lykos is like "this is way too easy!" Given that the team have been arsing about and getting over-confident "we made it this with no casualties!" It is of no surprise whatsoever when the boss pulls aside the curtai-thing and the large number of armed guards with guns mow them the frack down except for Lykos, who manages to get one of the girls out of the line of fire. (Which is PRECISELY the sort of stupid mistake my party avoided (mostly, silly technomancer) last night in our starfinder session...)

Despite the enemy ship captain and his number two having decided to kill Lukos earlier, number two doesn't and then Oni shows up and hold him at sword point. Chakky, who has come to see what all the gunfire was, joins Lykos and the head toewards the nos. The ship captain shows up and shoots Oni in the leg. Then he and number two take turns in gloating about how everyone sucks and the Fallena's demos (Oni) is a waste of space and how they're killing the Muid whale not because of the crimes of their ancestors, but because they don't live meaningful lives or some such nonsense and stab Oni in the leg and cut him and generally not shooting him in the head like they'd do if they actually were unemotional and not VERY CLERALY gloating and revelling. Neda shows up in a Big Damn Heroes moment and he and Oni carve the FRACK out of number two and half the minions, before mid-hero-speech Oni (who has two massive hole in his leg at this point) falls to his knees and Neda turns his back on the enemy captain. Who suddenly remembers "oh snap, I has a GUN!" Boo, Neda gets shot through the heart, then impaled by three spears. (Chakky and Lykos are just standing around like stuffed lettuces at this point.)

Unfortunately, seeing his best mate go down makes Oni sanp and he's like "frack you and you anti-magic field, I'mma use thymia now" and the captain realises just HOW MUCH he has fracked up, and what a really bad idea Lykos' bother's plan to shed blood where blood ought not to have been shed by tradition or whatever. Oni straight-up slaices all the guards apart, not even nothering with weapons. And then he starts slcing the Nos itself. And we see the little-girl-thing of this Nos get its head slcied in half and then SUDDEN ELDRITCH as some sort of plant-y-like things (ony with like eyeballs and fish - no, I swear) pop out and start fracking over the enemy ship.

We then have a WAAAAAY too logn farewell to Neda in Oni's head/slash/spirit-world whatevers; Lykos gets conked bny a falling rock, and as Chakky tries to get to them, the ship's eldtritch horror (or another one, I dunno, I can't tell, it's al a bit confusing) grabs him into a mindscape. She says "let's make a deal, give me all the emotions of the people on the mud whale, and I'll give this other ships magic shell. I'll take all your bad feels away, it'll be great honest," and Chakky is like "um, FRACK no, I need my pain." (Somewhere, Captain Kirk suddenly feels a desire to high-five someone.) And the eldtricth horror girl is like "okay then, have the thingy anyway," and Chakky and I are like "the frack" and it says "I wanns see what happens."

So the five survivors leg it off the collapsing ship. The captain, for some reason, apparently just wandered off to scream at his helmslady as the enmy ship collapses. For unfathomable reasons, all the enemy soldiers literally just proverbial lemming off the Mud Wahel's cliffs into the sand-sea because who even know at this point and the Day Is Saved.



Well, apart from leaning a bit much into the cliché and trying to be Deep and Meaningful and failing utterly (I was bored half-way into Neda's extended death thingy), there was a few cracking moments and I am still interested to see where it all ends.

[Pendulous]

All right, I caught up on Carole & Tuesday, now to wait for the second half to drop on Netflix. Overall I enjoyed it, but it's one of those "I can't really explain why". The characterization is light and very slow, given that the show is all about these two girls making it big. The story seems to exacerbate the issue by moving along very fast. I was still locked in each episode, despite the issues I found.

Finished up Amanchu. Heard there was this weird thing that happened in season 2 that made a lot of people down on it. And...wow, were they right. I'll put the rest in spoilers:

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The show ultimately follows Futaba as she grows and changes, and it has this great balance of relaxing comedy but with plenty of emotional moments to drive it along. Diving by itself is far from the point of the show, as it's more a character growth thing than a school club show at times.But season 2. It starts off just the same, and moves along well. But then they establish that Futaba can lucid dream, and they take that in really weird directions. A whole three-episode arc about an Inception/Peter Pan/whatever the hell else was super weird, made zero sense in the end with the teacher actually being Peter, and ultimately was just really not in the same vein as the rest of the show. After that, it goes back to exactly what it needs to be, and ends on a great note. I ended up still really enjoying it just as much, but episodes 7-9 are completely skippable.

I know every show has its shipping, but you cannot tell me these two girls aren't meant to be together. Pikari absolutely most definitely is in love with Futaba. Futaba probably is too but doesn't understand. The line that seemed to muddy everything was when she wished Kokoro good luck when she realized he was a boy. But that doesn't really matter, since Futaba just has to realize what her feelings mean. I know this all sounds silly and is just shipping fodder, but for people who have watched the show, they make it very clear that the show intends to put them together.

Edit: Kinda woulda liked to see more of Futaba's middle school friends. They got a couple moments in season 2, but that was it.

[gomipile]

I'm caught up on Machikado Mazoku, and I enjoy it, but... It's still really difficult for me to watch. Though, it's only partly because of my earlier complaint that a lot of the subtitles on a part of the screen where the color is white or light colors quite often.

My biggest complaints are

1: Sometimes the subtitles are totally absent. The characters are talking, and there's a descriptive non-dialogue subtitle at the bottom of the screen, but no dialogue subtitles for several seconds. Then when they pick up again, it's obvious they're in the current middle of a conversation and that the dialogue form the past few seconds just didn't get subtitles.

2: The subtitles fast because this can be a fast-paced comedy anime, but that's not number 2. I could handle fast paced subtitles by themselves. The problem is that combined with all the non-dialogue or overlapping dialogue subtitles with absolutely no spacing or formatting between different types of subtitle. There'll be subtitles for Japanese manga-style reaction words on the screen, signs in the background, and two characters talking over each other all simultaneously sometimes. And just that frame of subtitles might go away twice as fast as the subtitles in most other anime would because it has to make way for more dialogue, thanks to the fast pace talking.

I love the characters, the art style, and the story, but I have to pause and rewind several times per episode, and some of the dialogue I just never see because it wasn't put in by the subtitle people at HIDIVE or wherever.

The fact that I really like he show makes these faults absolutely infuriating. It makes me almost wish the show was bad so I could drop it and not have to put up with this to enjoy seeing the story animated.

Also, I have a friend I'd love to recommend this to, but he's just barely able to enjoy shows with slow paced subtitles, let alone normal comedy subtitles or gods forbid something like this garbage fire.

[BWR]

Finished up Amanchu. Heard there was this weird thing that happened in season 2 that made a lot of people down on it. And...wow, were they right. I'll put the rest in spoilers:

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But then they establish that Futaba can lucid dream, and they take that in really weird directions. A whole three-episode arc about an Inception/Peter Pan/whatever the hell else was super weird, made zero sense in the end with the teacher actually being Peter, and ultimately was just really not in the same vein as the rest of the show. After that, it goes back to exactly what it needs to be, and ends on a great note. I ended up still really enjoying it just as much, but episodes 7-9 are completely skippable.
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Agreed. Sadly, the author did something similar, though not quite as egregious, in Aria.

[Reddish Mage]

First episode of Are You Lost was a little better. Though a lot of it was backstory to explain how they got to the island in the first place. It's a weird juxtaposition, to have this potentially deadly situation of being trapped on an island, being treated more as a comedy. It's not necessarily bad, but it makes me wonder what direction it's gonna go in. Not complaining at all, but I was not expecting the gratuitous panty shots.

Is there really any reason to be surprised by that in anime at this point?

I find it odd that "Demon Lord, Retry" sounds exactly like How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, but without the hot elf girl.

This is also squarely in the most cliche trends of directly copying a previous popular anime with a new anime that repeats the same themes and even borrows key characters and concepts wholesale. Is the problem the name is too on the nose?

I've just noticed a new anime the other day, "To Love Ru" and that apparently its basis is "Urusai Yatsura" remixed, only its reliant on titilation and a few of the most common anime tropes. The original Rumiko Takahashi displayed pure willingness to be outrageous and borrow from every sort of cartoon genre and parody every Japanese trend (not just anime)....

For some reason no one is willing to do things the way she did them anymore.

Yeah, there's a lot of isekai this season. And while I've kinda enjoyed the trashier ones recently (Smartphone, Death March), even I'm a little disappointed by it. Arifureta is my dark horse for being the best one, though even I'm not intending to watch all of em.

I'm not sure its possible for anyone to watch ALL the new Isekai at this point. Also, I'm surprised you mention the two you did as the trashier ones while you had "How Not to Summon a Demon Lord" right here above. At least "Smartphone" displays a pure willingness to allow everyone to be happy and unchallenged by anything. Its Isekai taken to a logical extreme.

Fall is already looking like the season of sequels. My Hero Academia, Psycho-Pass, Radiant, Hi Score Girl (though thanks Netflix for waiting to stream their shows, this one doesn't count), Seven Deadly Sins (same), Food Wars, We Never Learn, Sounds of Life, Fairy Gone, Chihayafuru, and Granblue Fantasy. At least half of those I intend to watch, though I don't know if I wanna catch up with Radiant.

Please, is there any reason to watch Seven Deadly Sins anymore? You know you jumped the shark when your creative thing is bringing in a magic scouter but want us to take all the numbers you are spouting very seriously as you power up the characters in the middle of battle to previously unseen heights.

If you have that many anime you like getting a sequel I'd be thankful....so much anime only get a single season and usually just fall dead or is clearly cut short rather than wrapping things up nicely. I'm looking forward to MHA but I haven't seen most of the rest.

[John Cribati]

Is there really any reason to be surprised by that in anime at this point?

Surprised? No. Disappointed and annoyed? Sure.

[gomipile]

Surprised? No. Disappointed and annoyed? Sure.

At which part? The panty shots?

[John Cribati]

Yes, among other things. That's just my gripe with a lot of anime in general. If the anime in question isn't some kind of sex comedy, there's no reason for them.

Hell, one of the anime I'm followong right now is a sex comedy, and it's more reapectful to the bodies of its female characters than half the Shonen out there.

[gomipile]

Yes, among other things. That's just my gripe with a lot of anime in general. If the anime in question isn't some kind of sex comedy, there's no reason for them.

Hell, one of the anime I'm followong right now is a sex comedy, and it's more reapectful to the bodies of its female characters than half the Shonen out there.

Do you really believe that there is no reason for them? And even so, lots of stuff in fiction happens for no reason. If you took out all the stuff in fiction that is there for no particular reason, you'd be removing most of the setting, which is a small reason in itself to include each small "no reason" item.

Also, are you judging this from the perspective that the fiction is Japanese?

Hell, even from a Western third-wave sex-positive feminist view there really isn't an issue here. I do see a lot of criticisms like this come from the regressive, puritanical Dwork side of feminism, though.

/shrug

[John Cribati]

Well, the reason it's there is because the author wants them there, obviously. They're still generally superfluous to the goings-on and a waste of animation/drawing time.

And no, I'm not against sexytimes in general. I enjoy a good anime tiddy every now and again. I just would like to posit that there are appropriate times, places, and characters to be used for the showing-off of said anime tiddies.

[Lethologica]

Do you really believe that there is no reason for them? And even so, lots of stuff in fiction happens for no reason. If you took out all the stuff in fiction that is there for no particular reason, you'd be removing most of the setting, which is a small reason in itself to include each small "no reason" item.

Also, are you judging this from the perspective that the fiction is Japanese?

Hell, even from a Western third-wave sex-positive feminist view there really isn't an issue here. I do see a lot of criticisms like this come from the regressive, puritanical Dwork side of feminism, though.

/shrug

There's a difference between hating anything sexy and being put off by the clumsy, artless, gratuitous, pandering titillation which frequently intrudes on what is ostensibly entertainment, perhaps even storytelling, and assaults the eyes while passing itself off as sexy (or as 'empowering sex-positive feminism', a defense nearly as ridiculous as the original offense). It's much like the difference between hating men and {Scrubbed} pics.

[gomipile]

clumsy, artless, gratuitous, pandering titillation

This seems awfully subjective and doesn't seem to serve as a strong definition.

[Lethologica]

This seems awfully subjective and doesn't seem to serve as a strong definition.

Golly, welcome to arts and entertainment, where everything is subjective and yet people manage to negotiate subjectivity to arrive at meaningful statements. {Scrubbed}picks are only subjectively different from any other display of attraction, but I bet you can tell the difference there.

In the realm of the, er, less subjective, sex-positive feminism has little kind to say about Gratuitous Panty Shot #283895 - as opposed to, for example, the characters being portrayed as having sexual agency and/or positive attitudes towards sex...or even, say, shows which are explicit fanservice vehicles, like Keijo. Sex-positive feminism has no truck with the gatekeeping attitude of "you must put up with this many gratuitous panty shots to access interesting and entertaining stories in our medium, otherwise you're a puritanical regressive who doesn't understand Japanese culture like real anime fans do."

[Ibrinar]

Thanks Lethologica, the argumentation tactic annoyed me but I couldn't be bothered to engage.

As for pantyshots I don't think I even found them sexy when I started watching anime as a teen. But fanservice mostly annoys me when it leads to worse decisions for shot framing or stupid scenes/character interactions. I don't mind titillation in my media but if it isn't the main point of something I prefer it to not make the rest worse or at least be actually sexy.

[gomipile]

In the realm of the, er, less subjective, sex-positive feminism has little kind to say about Gratuitous Panty Shot #283895 - as opposed to, for example, the characters being portrayed as having sexual agency and/or positive attitudes towards sex...or even, say, shows which are explicit fanservice vehicles, like Keijo.

Even in a show like Keijo, the female characters have a lot of agency in general compared to a lot of eye candy characters in, say, Hollywood media.

I'll grant that this sort of thing checks a partial box on the list of criteria for objectification. But that by itself is neither good nor bad without other reinforcing factors, in and of itself.

If you're going with the additional Langton criteria, say, a verbally silent character isn't inherently objectified.

[Rodin]

Even in a show like Keijo, the female characters have a lot of agency in general compared to a lot of eye candy characters in, say, Hollywood media.

I'll grant that this sort of thing checks a partial box on the list of criteria for objectification. But that by itself is neither good nor bad without other reinforcing factors, in and of itself.

If you're going with the additional Langton criteria, say, a verbally silent character isn't inherently objectified.

Why is objectification/feminism the lynch-pin of your argument here when the only talk about objectification was in response to you bringing it up?

I (and many other people) don't like fanservice because we feel it makes the show worse by having no place in a non-pornographic show. The clueless guy stumbling in on a naked female companion ceases to be amusing after the 500th time it happens, random panty shots add nothing to the show other than padding out the run time, and we're not looking to get horny while watching a show about fighting monsters (or giant robots, or...). As mentioned above, fanservice absolutely has its place in a sex comedy or in a yuri show where the fanservice is why you're there in the first place.

If I want to watch porn, I'll watch porn. Having a load of panty shots and close-up zooms on busts in a broadcast TV show that's obviously never going to show anything explicit is a waste of my time and the effort of the makers of the show who could be spending that time doing something worthwhile.

And no, it's not just a criticism of Japanese media. I got plenty annoyed at Game of Thrones scenes that took place in a brothel purely so they could put a naked girl on screen while exposition was spouted.

It's got nothing to do with puritanical beliefs and everything to do with hating titillation at the expense of making good television.

To sum up:

Random sex scene: Bad.
Sex scene revealing that an affair is going on: Perfectly fine.

Most anime fanservice falls in the first category.

[Lethologica]

Even in a show like Keijo, the female characters have a lot of agency in general compared to a lot of eye candy characters in, say, Hollywood media.

I'll grant that this sort of thing checks a partial box on the list of criteria for objectification. But that by itself is neither good nor bad without other reinforcing factors, in and of itself.

If you're going with the additional Langton criteria, say, a verbally silent character isn't inherently objectified.

I presented Keijo as a positive, not negative, example. That aside, you are losing the thread of conversation with the attempted arguments in your reply. The issue is not the relative overall feminist bennies of anime and Hollywood; nor is it whether or not all panty shots are inherently objectifying.

[Rynjin]

Re: Thread:

I don't think you need to like it, but I think there's a factor of not understanding Japanese culture when it comes to bemoaning fanservice. You can not like it while being clear that it's your personal preference not to like it, not painting it with a brush as some sexist agenda in the industry.

Anime and manga are made for Japanese people, by Japanese people. Their appeal to the West isn't even an afterthought for most creators.

Japanese culture is dangerously sexually repressed, which leads by multiple conspiring factors to things like the abundance of fanservice. Either the author is doing it to titillate himself or his audience; getting or giving it somewhere when it's otherwise fairly difficult to get anywhere, or stigmatized both internally and externally to the point that the legal avenues aren't sought out. Almost everybody works themselves to literal death and have little to no lives outside of work; you work at work, you party exclusively with your coworkers after work, you crash at home (or more often under your desk at work), you start the cycle again, every day.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that every other panty shot in an anime stops someone, somewhere in Japan from killing themselves for just one more day. That sounds like it might be sarcastic, but I mean it completely seriously. In that light I think it being a thing that mildly annoys you can be overlooked.

Yeah, a lot of it is cynically driven, but so is any industry that provides a service that is nonetheless valuable.

[Ibrinar]

Started rewatching lovely complex, forgot most of the content. You know I appreciate that they recognize that the other two will probably become a couple and just give up on them as romantic interests so quickly, one thing I find annoying about quite a few (often romance) anime is how everything gets stretched out endlessly to milk it as long as possible. Anyway still liking the show.

[lord_khaine]

Random sex scene: Bad.
Sex scene revealing that an affair is going on: Perfectly fine.

Yeah. I do kinda agree with that from a personal point of view.
At the same time.

Anime and manga are made for Japanese people, by Japanese people. Their appeal to the West isn't even an afterthought for most creators.

Well yes alright this is also perfectly valid for the creator.

[gomipile]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to change the focus. I honestly thought the complaints were rooted in the attitudes that objectification theory tries to systematically describe.

[Silfir]

Started rewatching lovely complex, forgot most of the content. You know I appreciate that they recognize that the other two will probably become a couple and just give up on them as romantic interests so quickly, one thing I find annoying about quite a few (often romance) anime is how everything gets stretched out endlessly to milk it as long as possible. Anyway still liking the show.

I have to say I just like Nakahara Aya in general. She's just generally great at screwball romantic comedy. I like DameKoi even more than I like Lovely Complex, and I love Lovely Complex to bits.

Bit of a shame DameKoi got a live-action adaptation rather than an anime. It doesn't seem popular enough to get the Nodame Cantabile treatment and end up with both.

[Aotrs Commander]

Watched the last three episodes of Children of the Whales.

Yah. Not going to bother with a spoilered recap today, since there's no point. It was basically three episodes of set-up for the next arcs, which never happened (at least in the anime). Either they though there would be, else they were really bad at adaption, since they wasted all that time (like an episode and a half) on the villain's scheming for literally no pay-off.

So, while it was an okay watch, it's hindered by the fact it cuts off half-way through with an ending which is basically a nothing non-conclusion. Not one I'd ever revisit without actually an ending to put on it.

Shame. I'm sure the full story would have been better, but as I can only judge it on what's there...

Eh.

*shrugs*

But, hey, made it through the entire twelve episodes, which is much more than many of these others have.

[Ibrinar]

Anyone reading the putin isekai/ride on king? The fusion this chapter (12) was an amusing surprise. (It is surprisingly one of the best of the current isekai.)

[Silfir]

Putin Isekai is lovely and inventive, but is there really enough of it yet to make a definitive judgment? I imagine the premise can't carry it for an infinite length of time. There's only so many times you can do over-the-top stuff before people go "We get it, he's OP." Sometimes I find myself thinking that the art, the world building and the supporting cast could all stand on their own legs with a less ridiculous premise and still be great.

For me the top (isekai) spot is held by Ascendancy of a Bookworm. That has as much to do with personal preference as anything else. You don't often get a fantasy protagonist who literally has less physical strength and endurance than an average five-year-old girl and survives completely on their obscene powers of nerd. (And a loving and supportive family - that's not actually hers, since she's completely supplanted the previous inhabitant of her body. It has a surprisingly dark touch sometimes.)

Now, the better question is, why is everything isekai? And why are there like twenty different versions of the "I am the female villain of an otome game" premise, all of them pretending that "Aren't otome games really stupid, guys" is some really fresh material at this point?