Anime/manga megathread

So just finished reading Flowers Of Evil by Shuzo Oshimi and I have mixed feelings. I hesitant to say I enjoyed it, because I feel like it's not something that's meant to be enjoyed. It's fucked up and disturbing, but still relatable, though more in a figurative sense and less literal. A lot of the literary references (like the one the manga derives it's title from) seemed a bit forced and unrealistic, especially coming from the 14 year old protagonist.
I'd say it's like it tries to illicit the same emotions and touches on the same themes as Oyasumi PunPun, but the three main characters are much more depraved than any of those found in Oyasumi PunPun. It's the kind of story that leaves you feeling very empty inside and unfulfilled after reading it. The ending is about as happy as it could be all things considered, but I still wouldn't call it a happy ending. If anyone else has read it I'm interested in hearing other people's experiences & thoughts as I'm still trying to figure out exactly how it made me feel.

 

Just started Food Wars and I'm loving it. It's ridiculous

 

On episode 20 of Cowboy Bebop, gotta say, I expected much more out of this given how much people adore it; I assume that's largely from nostalgia glasses as really nothing has happened and there's no large over arching plot that I can see.

After this one, I'm planning on also going back to Outlaw Star as I haven't seen it since the original Toonami run, and then I'll research Trigun for the umpteenth time since that one is so god damn good.

 

I finally, finally got around to watching "Ergo Proxy."

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the storytelling got a little confused around the halfway mark, but overall the style of it and the general atmosphere was solid as hell, and the animation was great.

Got a few other cyberpunk anime's to watch next; Appleseed Alpha, GITS Standalone Complex (loved the movie, never watched the series), the three Mardock Scramble outings, and Evengelion (which, again, embarrassingly, I have never seen...).

 

started watching Food Wars and I love it. It's borderline ecchi at times but the attention to detail when it comes to the food and its prep is awesome, plus it's hilarious. It legit motivates me to get in the kitchen and try some variations of what characters make.

 

Anyone watching the Higurashi remake? I’m a big fan of the Studio DEEN one from back in the day, but I gotta say this one is very good as well. Much less confusing and with minimal filler, which is good cause I gotta wait a week for every episode and would be bummed if there were boring episodes of Keichi playing cards and shit with his friends for half the episode.

 

QFT. I couldn't get into that series at all. I didn't care about pretty much any of the characters aside from Ein and maybe Jet. The lack of a plot, as you mentioned, is a huge problem as well. I just couldn't... care about the show. I was contemplating even stopping watching it after maybe episode 10.

 

Yeah, I considered giving up every fourth episode or so; but kept hoping that the big hook was right around the corner; then I'd look foolish for stopping "right at the good part!" and know I was never going back to it.

But alas it never came.

Rewatched Trigun recently, much better and still probably my all time favoritr anime. One season and done, and some of the reveals still hit like a ton of bricks.

 

Hello again there.

Girlfriend and I recently watched Made in Abyss, including the Dawn of the Deep Soul movie. While I liked the show a whole lot, I felt quite disappointed by the last 4-5 episodes. I don't fully understand why the majority of people put this anime above so many others. The 4-5 different people that kept recommending it to me even told me NOT to catch ANY kind of spoilers for ANY part of the story; that I should go into it completely blind. To be honest, I wish I'd known what to expect a little bit.

What I loved:

• Amazing sense of adventure and exploration.
• Great art and character design.
• Conceptually fresh and brilliant.

What I hated:

• Gratuitous gore, suffering, crying, and yelling.
• Complete change in tone and personality after ~episode 9.
  
• Questionable potty humor and dick jokes in a cast of 12-year olds
• IT DOES NOT HAVE A FRIGGIN' ENDING YET.

I'll be more descriptive of what I didn't like, simply because I have a large sense of disappointment after having finished it.

I thought the adventure and exploration aspects of the first 9 episodes are pretty unparalleled, and I just wanted to keep watching more and learning about this world. It felt like a Zelda x Hunter x Hunter dream crossover. However, it quickly devolved into gratuitous pain, torture, and overly sexualized 12-year old humor. It frankly made me feel quite confused, as I didn't really know whether I should expect more adventures and shenanigans, or more deformed, juicy blobs of pain, suffering, and spilled guts with a side of incessant anime-screaming and crying. I liked that it kept heading into a progressively darker and more "real world" narrative, (where things go to shit because life is a bitch) but it really did feel like the show took it a bit too far in an effort to become justified fanservice. Towards the last few episodes it started to feel like an over-engineered trap to ensnare the viewer into watching what I thought was overly exaggerated themes of horror and visual gore.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate these themes (anime like Shigurui and Parasyte come to mind), but those anime knew what they wanted to be from the get-go. I also don't mind a change in tone, but it should at least keep a consistent personality, which Made in Abyss, unfortunately, did not.

Regarding the lack of a true ending to the overall story... usually the kind of glowing reviews I heard about this anime revolve around shows with fully fleshed out stories. It may have been naive of me to assume that I would be getting a complete story in just 13 episodes + a movie. (Which did little to advance the actual plot of the show.) It just frankly bothers me that I did not get anything satisfying out of the ending of the show. It was just the ending of the first season. I doubt I will want to watch anything from this series again until the story is complete. However, once it is, you can bet I will be watching.

The over-sexualized humor in a cast that is comprised of 90% 12-year olds was also kind of annoying/unsettling, though this is nothing new in anime. In fact, it's commonly accepted. However, from what I had been hearing about this show for the last 3 years (with, luckily, no spoilers), I was thinking this anime would be some sort of paradigm shift and would get rid of some of these old tropes that have made me veer away from anime as a whole. Alas, it did not.

This last point drives me into my main annoyance with this anime. It's not that I did not like it. It's more that I was expecting it to deliver SO MUCH more than it did. The entire internet, and every one of my anime-loving friends kept recommending it to me over the last 3 years as though it was the new Cowboy Bebop, and I just did NOT feel that way at all about it. It had the potential of being that for the first 6-7 episodes. It is such a beautiful, rich, and mysterious world, but it just decides "OH BUT I WANT OGRE AND SUFIERING IENASFJSA AIR3IRAFOA3A JA4ISAL3FASAF'A3 FA3S" and then it doesn't even end... not yet, anyway.

In any case, would I recommend this to someone? Heck yeah, but I'd definitely make sure to tell them what to expect.

Thanks for reading this far, if any of you do, and my apologies for this jumbled exposition of my thoughts.

 

And now we're watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

Now THAT is some gud shit

 

I'll echo your complaints about Made in Abyss. My other complaint is the pacing for the first 5 episodes or so is very slow, which made it hard to get into. Well that and the strange choice to animate monsters/creatures in a completely different way (that weird low rez/fuzzy vibe).

 

In the middle of several anime's atm. Will start watching season 2 of Fire Force soon. Also a few episodes in on Shiki, That Time I was Reincarnated as Slime, Demon Slayer Kimestu, and Black Butler. Also waiting for all episodes of RWBY Volume 8 to air so I can then binge watch the entire season.

 

I'm rewatching Gen1 Transformers (War for Cybertron is the dark, gritty reboot we didn't know we needed) for the first time in decades. It definitely shows it's age, but is still entertaining. I am also about halfway through SAO: Alicization War for Underworld. Just found Photon on Prime, so gonna hit that next.