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[aenri]

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Although the censorship of TERRAFORMARS did leave us with great gems such as:

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[i2amroy]

Right down to them having the same hair colors
-The Redhead
-The blonde
-The raven haired.

This might be partially due to the fact that there is a bit of a loose "color theory" to anime hair colors (and eye colors, though those often have a slightly different connotation, aimed more at the "inner character" than the outer one) based on older color traditions becoming tied to certain personality types over time. It's definitely not anything close to a standard, (I'm sure in reality the range goes all of the way from "totally follows color stereotypes" to "I just thought that color looked pretty on them"), but there is a bit of a tie between personality types and hair color. For example blonde haired characters are more often ditzy, blue-haired characters tend to more often be "ice queen"-esque emotionally limited characters, red hair tends to imply some sort of a fiery personality (often including the basic tsundere type as well), and so forth.

On a slightly different note, I recently noticed that the cop out of giving your characters the exact same shade for their eye color as their hair color is incredibly prevalent. I mean I knew that it was common, but I only recently realized just exactly how common it is.

[Reelya]

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Though the heavy-handed censorship in the anime was obviously unethical

This is actually the main reason why I was surprised at the news of a second season. Not only is it a damn weird premise, but the anime got censored to ludicrous degrees. I thought the general mood at the time was that folks shouldn't be supporting that sort of thing.

Only on some broadcasts. If you check wikipedia, a total 5 different networks in Japan carried the show. It was censored in some of them at the station's request due to timeslots or whatever. It's just known for having censorship in the West because Crunchyroll also got the censored version for the first (I think) 3 episodes before clearly negotiating to get the uncensored feed. Subbers hunted down the uncensored versions pretty early on, so it wasn't a "wait for the DVDs" type of complete censorship: you could easily hunt down the uncensored versions of eps 1-3 early on.

[Neonivek]

I have to ask...

Are "Super Elite Schools" in anime a parody of elite culture in Japan and hence why they are always, in essence, terrible schools?

Or do they just lack the self-awareness to question their own ultra-elite society and that maybe by giving into elitism they are creating a two tier society?

Baka No Test is probably the largest example I can think of... Yet the humor isn't meant to elicit "wow, this school is terrible" but more "Wow, what idiots the students are. LEARN JAPANESE!"

[Furtuka]

Eastern culture lacks the (in my opinion excessive) obsession with the Self-Made-Man that Western culture does, and so is much more accepting of the idea that some people are just better at doing things than others.

[Neonivek]

Eastern culture lacks the (in my opinion excessive) obsession with the Self-Made-Man that Western culture does, and so is much more accepting of the idea that some people are just better at doing things than others.

Yes but then you get this ultra-elite over-focus which is "Excessive" in the other direction.

With "Ultra-elite schools" which are over budgeted monstrosities that do absolutely nothing to educate their students, have no supporting programs, and are often quite abusive and arbitrary.

Now there are exceptions mind you. The first season of No Prince Sama (I forgot the name) the ultra-elite school actually felt like an ultra elite school deserving of the name. It was "Sink or swim" but meant to be that way, as the school was constructed to be a microcosm of the outside industry. Yeah it SUCKED but it was bad in a realistic way.

YET it still had private tutoring and other services to help. Even right down to getting you a mentor if need be.

OR HECK Ouran School which is ALSO ultra-elite but for the insanely rich... and YEAH that school is AMAZING! It actually uses its budget to help the students, right down to hiring only, specifically, the nicest dietitians.

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But then you get other Ultra-elite schools in anime which are just HORRIBLE POS schools that have a budget out the wazoo but you seriously wonder why anyone goes there.

Given they often
A) Don't teach: In fact a lot of them aren't even schools by traditional meaning... They are more extended "Reality show"
B) Kick students out like crazy (Why bother? no really why bother with these schools unless you aren't already a prodigy?)
C) Don't offer mentoring, tutoring, safe-study environment.
D) Let the students run wild and harass eachother as see fit.

[Reelya]

*M-Delta has honor of being Worst Macross Ever.

Basically it feels like they've injected some sci-fi-magical-girl / idol group thing into the Macross setting. Similar to AKB0048 which was also by Kawamori, and quite similar to Symphogear, which is a very successful series. That worked in Symphogear and AKB0048 since they're fairly parodic, but just feels idiotic when shoehorned into the Macross universe.

[Furtuka]

*GAH EDIT SPEED MUST WIPE POST SO IT CAN BE REWRITTEN TO RESPOND PROPERLY DARNIT REELYA WHY YOU ALWAYS DO THIS EVEN IF ADMITTEDLY I AM ALSO SUPER GUILTY OF IT AS WELL

[NullForceOmega]

Take your magical girl waifus and get the hell out of our serious war drama!

Edit:  In fact take Kawamori and get him the hell out of Macross as well.

[Neonivek]

Take your magical girl waifus and get the hell out of our serious war drama!

Edit:  In fact take Kawamori and get him the hell out of Macross as well.

Well Macross always had that element... the problem was that the "Magical girl Waifu" was meant to be an island of calm in a sea of chaos.

[Orange Wizard]

Today I've been binge-watching Tonari no Seki kun and it's adorable

[Neonivek]

I will also say that Japan's Ultra-elite society outside of anime has been closely self-examined.

Seriously outside of Anime their "Ultra-elite schools" do everything their anime counterparts don't do.

As well Japan's education system is built to help troubled students rise to the top and there are a lot of programs extended out to them.

The idea of a student who needs help to succeed or even excel isn't lost on their society... Just their anime.

Anime which always makes the counter of "You don't have to be an elite to be elite" is someone who... usually is an elite in a different way (Either by outright being an Elite but in disguise like Naruto. Or having supernatural willpower)... The only exception being Dangan Ronpa... But Dangan Ronpa has the distinction of being good.

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Which is why I still ask...

Are they serious?

or are these parodies/satires?

Because HEAVEN FORBID you have Dyslexia in an anime. You would probably get kicked right out of half the schools in anime for just having a learning disability.

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I remembered another "Elite School not done dumb" which was Yamino Pastichie

Which had a lot of classes and full access to their facilities in order to study... It did lack Tutoring (SORT OF)... but otherwise it was a ultra-elite school that functioned successfully as a school. It did grade you as a group BUT the anime actually brings it up and doesn't hide how bad the possibility of being the only competent member of an incompetent team for your "grades" (sort of grades. I have a feeling it is a pass fail)

[Furtuka]

*M-Delta has honor of being Worst Macross Ever.

Basically it feels like they've injected some sci-fi-magical-girl / idol group thing into the Macross setting. Similar to AKB0048 which was also by Kawamori, and quite similar to Symphogear, which is a very successful series. That worked in Symphogear and AKB0048 since they're fairly parodic, but just feels idiotic when shoehorned into the Macross universe.

Eh it doesn't seem quite so weird to me when taking into context all the background details of each of the previous series and the fact that every entry reflects the current state of the japanese music industry and overly sparkly Idol Groups are super in right now.

I mean to my understanding in-universe it's pretty much reviving the concepts of Sound Force combined with the Fold-Wave resonance stuff from Frontier, and Zero and after the events of the other shows it doesn't feel too far-fetched to me that people would try something like this eventually, while the magical girl effects are just a further development of various technologies seen throughout the rest of the franchise, particularly the holographic clothing from DYRL and Frontier.

That aside, it doesn't really bother me that much since Macross was never really all too serious as a whole anyways, even if it did tackle serious topics quite well. Even if the original was the perfect balance between serious and silly in both tone and content, that was something that can never really be replicated perfectly without a miracle and I'm fairly certain was done almost completely on accident at first until they decided to run with it, and the other entries have already branched away a ton, so I'm fine with not sticking too close to it.

Admittedly Delta is way more in your face about it than usual, but I'm not too troubled by it. It's bizarre, but that doesn't automatically make it bad. And personally I find the way Macross jumps between tones with the more serious entries and then stuff like this and 7 to be really fun in the end.

[itisnotlogical]

I finally got around to checking out Watamote, after seeing some dank maymays around the internet.

Holy shit I see my past self a lot in Tomoko. Hell, I see my present self too, except without Tomoko's optimism and weird, twisted confidence. It reminds me a lot of Daria (one of my most favorite western cartoons ever), except Tomoko is always questioning herself; to me, that seems much more relateable than Daria's dry smugness.

Please tell me that there's some sort of continuation, or the manga is still ongoing or whatever. I just finished the first episode and I'm already dreading to see it end.

[Orange Wizard]

Please tell me that there's some sort of continuation, or the manga is still ongoing or whatever. I just finished the first episode and I'm already dreading to see it end.

The manga's ongoing as far as I know.

It's pretty great. It's not often you get a character with, well, character, who also manages to be incredibly relatable for so many people.