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[Solifuge]

HELLO HELLO CHILDREN

As an entity that is not a usual acquaintance of this thread, I come with you with a unusual thing, behold, this one manga about a feeble girl who wrote a manga about herself and her experiences with lesbian prostitutes.

As someone who enjoys digging into people's heads _{in more ways than one} I have come to apreciate this thing. I feel you people might, as well, specially those odd people at the gender thread, since this manga has lots of gender and sexuality related brainstorming, with zero actual smut, which I find funny, and that some of you odd people might actualy be interested in.

This looks weird and interesting! Bookmark'd to check out soon. Thanks for the pointer!


After a few month's break, Anime Catch-Up Time proceeds apace. Currently viewing:

Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water:
Written in the early 90's, and apparently a collaboration between Gainax and Miyazaki (his hand is particularly evident in the character designs, vehicles, and countryside vistas). It's not wowed me with it's plot so far; a French boy-inventor testing his airship at the World's Fair meets up with a mysterious girl run away from the circus, who both are then pursued by some Team Rocket-ass gang while hijinks ensue. It's still a pretty fun romp through a Jules Verne style vision of the 1880s, complete with fantastic machines, a world plagued by Sea Monsters, and a generally Anti-War story as with Miyazaki's other work. I was surprised to find an anime featuring a dark-skinned girl as the co-lead; bonus points for building toward an interracial relationship, and for depicting the injustice and hardship that minority status can bring, without hammering the audience with a "Racism is dumb and bad" Aesop.

Little Witch Academia:
I know it's been mentioned already, but I'll add my take. The anime is every bit as beautiful and fun as the animated shorts, though it seems to be pacing itself for a longer series, with slower growth and character development on the part of the protagonist. In a lot of ways, it feels like Harry Potter reimagined as an anime. In others, it's a story about the tension between this crazy and magical world of the past, and the practical if drab and mundane world of the future; a girl gathers talented friends, and uses her naive optimism and complete disregard for rules and conventions to overcome her incompetence and bridge these two worlds, all while discovering herself and growing as a person. It's got a lot of charm, gorgeous animation and music, and an interesting cast of fun characters to get to know. I particularly like how Akko is foiled against an extremely popular, practical, rule-abiding, and competent rival Witch, who so far has solved so many of the problems the students and teachers face that she could easily be the main character herself, if she weren't so distant and pessimistic all the time.

Re:Zero
Just recently started this one, and rather enjoying it too. Another one of those "some loser is whisked away to a magical parallel world" things, but it does a bit to deconstruct the formula; the protag is the usual NEET, but he takes care of himself and maintains his fitness, has a willingness to work hard and do his best, and has plenty of sensible and realistic emotional reactions to the sudden trauma and hardship of being dropped into a dangerous fantasy world. I appreciate how he's just unceremoniously transported while walking home from a convenience store too, making his starting inventory some instant noodles, snack food, and his cell phone (which he makes pretty clever use of). Minor spoilers, but the whole "your superpower is Respawning, but you can never tell anyone" angle is pretty cool too; it makes for an interesting way to go about investigating and solving mysteries, creates some pretty cool tension between the alternate timelines and events he remembers but no one else does, and makes a good framing device for his character growth as he repeats situations after gradual self-improvement. On the flip-side, it's got some unfortunate Harem Anime tendencies, and really loves to depict some gory and horrifying death scenes; some of the later bits were almost too much for me, but I get kinda squeamish about broken bones and innards.

[itisnotlogical]

Finished Sakura Trick. It's not something I'd care to watch again but I'm glad I saw it. The concept (or at least what I thought the concept was) was alright, and the side characters were enjoyable enough to make up for the two leads being awfully bland.

Spoiler: Spoilery thoughts (click to show/hide)

Kaede and Yuzu not getting together was supremely disappointing. They had great chemistry. I wish they had been the leads.

Ending it on a Rei Ayanami "What is this human emotion you call love?" sort of revelation was the worst possible copout, and they dived into it head-first. The ending basically states "We've been best friends since we were little, have intense makeout sessions twice an episode, spend all our time together and go to great lengths to protect our relationship, but do we love eachother?" There's a moment in the final episode where it seems like Haruka is going to turn on Yuu and date Mitsuki, and the resolution is that Haruka literally doesn't understand the definition of romantic love so she didn't even know what that meant. Ech.

The ending had a lot of tone conflicts as well, where they still throw up the visual gags and kooky music as the conflict of the series is being resolved in a pretty heavy (relative to the series) scene.

Arguably, Mitsuki's the protagonist. At first she disapproves of Yuu's and Haruka's relationship, grows her own feelings for Haruka, and finally decides to live and let live. Character arc.

I enjoyed the series taken as a whole, it's just that all the flaws underlying the series (tone confusion, bland MCs) really came to a head in the last two episodes, on top of a lame ending.

[Reelya]

Spoiler: Spoilery thoughts (click to show/hide)

Kaede and Yuzu not getting together was supremely disappointing. They had great chemistry. I wish they had been the leads.

Well, it is from ongoing source material so I guess that can constrain the writers a fair bit. Even if they know they only have one shot as a season, the producers want this released while the manga is still popular so they don't want to wait for all the plot threads to be finished in the comic, hence there are going to be dangling plot threads left over. You never know, this might get a second season purely because there aren't many shows quite like it.

[Tack]

Re:Zero

Agreed on the 'darker than expected'. It was nearly unwatchable for me two-thirds through.

[Reelya]

I have a friend at college who's favorite anime is SAO, I had no problem at all recommending Re: Zero to him.

[Neonivek]

Ok it might sound silly... But I am starting to feel like my favorite Anime villain of all time is...

ODA NOBUNAGA!

He is just so overused it is actually started to feel awesome! You KNOW things are serious once he arrives.

Also Jesus seems to be a villain who shows up from time to time O_o

[Reelya]

You made me think of that slice of life anime where Jesus and Buddha are broke and living in a rundown 4.5 tatami mat apartment.

[Twinwolf]

Ok it might sound silly... But I am starting to feel like my favorite Anime villain of all time is...

ODA NOBUNAGA!

He is just so overused it is actually started to feel awesome! You KNOW things are serious once he arrives.

Also Jesus seems to be a villain who shows up from time to time O_o

Have you been watching Drifters?

[itisnotlogical]

I've never cared much about mecha anime, but I was looking for something to watch and saw that Robotech has a TV-MA rating according to Netflix.

That can't be right. What could possibly be in an 80's anime dub/adaptation/rebranding that warrants a rating like that? Color me intrigued, I'm watching it now.

[Neonivek]

Japanese Spiritualism question

What happens to a spirit, even a malevolent one, that is purified?

Anime is rather inconsistent as to what EXACTLY it does... There are basically three camps
1) It purifies the spirit of its malevolence
2) It utterly destroys the spirit
3) It does the first, but forces it to "heaven" (essentially 1 and 2)

Yokai Watch has probably some of the most hilarious exorcisms in all of anime. The Priest is looked down upon by spirits because he has no real spiritual energy and cannot even sense spirits... But he is actually an extremely potent exorcist even capable of exorcising spirits who specifically are resistant or immune to typical exorcisms.

But what happens to spirits who are being exorcised in that series is they are overcome by euphoria and forced into heaven.

---

It is just that... I find it a bit weird that exorcisms seem to work on all spirits O_o... I know that spirits in Japan tended to be more... Neutral and evil than anything else... But to my knowledge there were good ones.

Well ok Exorcism... but they also are called "Purification" and they are usually implied to be one and the same.

[itisnotlogical]

Okay, finished the first two episodes of Battletech. I can only imagine the blood and guts they left out, but it's not the hacked-up kiddie fodder I was expecting.

Now that mecha anime has piqued my interest (Evangelion doesn't count), is it okay to watch Iron Blooded Orphans if you don't know anything at all about Gundam?

[TempAcc]

HELLO HELLO AGAIN CHILDREN

As a continous consumer of odd media and overall fuckery, I have finally stumbled upon the korean wave of manga that has become all the rage as of lately. EVEN TO THE POINT OF FACEBOOK SPONSORED ADVERTISEMENT, WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE _{just two more years}

ANYWAY, there's this thing called Killing Stalking, the english name of a korean manga thing about a super gay disturbed stalker guy who is totally super creepy stalkery in love with this other guy with that one stupid korean haircut that every kpop dweeb has these days and that makes me wish north korea was an actual threat. Shenaningas ensue, and a bunch of really depraved stalkery things, JUST LIKE YOU GUYS ON A PROSPECTIVE DATE.

While the damn thing smells too much of korean drama and sports the average psycho cliches on its sleeve a bit too much for me to actualy truly enjoy it, the complete depravity of it makes it a decent object to massage that one part of my brain that ocasionaly needs to be fed, or else I might dress as santa and visit your kids at the oddest hours of the night.

SO GO READ IT AND TELL ME HOW MUCH YOU CAN RELATE TO IT SO I CAN EAT YOUREPORT YOU TO THE FBI

[Reelya]

Okay, finished the first two episodes of Battletech. I can only imagine the blood and guts they left out, but it's not the hacked-up kiddie fodder I was expecting.

Now that mecha anime has piqued my interest (Evangelion doesn't count), is it okay to watch Iron Blooded Orphans if you don't know anything at all about Gundam?

Sure, Iron Blooded Orphans is a standalone setting.

BTW Robotech never really had any blood and guts. You can watch Robotech or just watch the original Macross and Mospeada animes. Robotech is a weird Frankenstein creation made by splicing together 3+ unrelated anime series. The reason was because weekday syndication in the USA required a minimum of 65 episodes.

Probably better value to watch the originals unless you really want the dub. The sci-fi elements make more sense in Macross, although if you watch Robotech (eps 1-36) then you can still watch the other Macross related things later without too much issue.

[itisnotlogical]

I just skimmed a list of differences between the sources and Robotech, and it mentioned some violence being removed which seemed like a typical change to make. I'm curious to see what happens when the Macross footage ends and they start trying to use the other show's material to continue the Robotech story, but that'll have to wait for another time when I care more.

I'm liking Iron Blooded Orphans a lot, although I'll refrain from posting about it as I watch. I only heard of it because people here are always talking about the latest episode, and I'm way back at the beginning

[Reelya]

In Yamato, the crew blows up an enemy base at one point. In the dub, Star Blazers they include the scene, but they spliced in an extra shot of a fighter plane leaving the base, and then had a voice over claiming to the head baddies "It's ok we evacuated safely". So hooray, a huge base got disintergrated by a massive space cannon, luckily nobody was hurt, and they all managed to escape on a single fighter.