SO this is unusual: Hell Girl Fourth Twilight starts off as an actual new series of the show, in where it does more of the same of showcasing unrealistically terrible people being assholes for no reason and then they go to hell and get their comeuppance, but then episodes 7-onward are... reruns of episodes of the first season? Like, not similar, they're the exact same episodes, just copy-pasted.
WTF Studio Dean? I can understand filler, but just reruns? I'm so confused.
I mean the first seven episodes of the first season were fillers too.
However the first season goes for 26 episodes, this new one is only 12. So it's almost all fillers.
-snip-
My recommendation would be to steer clear of the list of popular stuff licensed for official translations.
I mean, you have to remember that a lot of anime is made for young audiences. That Japan has different mores as to how much violent and sexy content is appropriate for children/teens doesn't mean that the same underlying simplicity or lack of care isn't just as present as in western works aimed at the same demographics.
But! The Western lowest common denominator is pure otaku trash, kids and manchildren who genuinely want brainless garbage. That's what's going to sell, so that's what gets licensed and yammered about in reviews. Some good stuff will come with, but you'll hear about the popular stuff by word of mouth anyways. Most of the stuff made for older audiences either doesn't get official translations or doesn't get talked about much because the kids and perverts &c. don't care about it, meaning that it isn't profitable for reviewers to talk about.
It's like if you sat down and watched Cartoon Network for 24 hours. There'd be a few decent shows for kids, some good stuff for adults on late at night... but the bulk of it would be brainless shallow garbage, albeit with less T&A than anime.
Yeah, I've made this point a number of times with my manga sales comparisons. You have what's popular in Japan ...
then you have the stuff that's given prominence in the USA out of that. Stuff that's both
tasteful and highly popular in Japan is seen as "fringe" by the American fans, even to the point of misinterpreting best-selling series in Japan as "niche" and uplifting pervy harem mangas that aren't actually big sellers in Japan to the
literal top of the best-sellers chart in America.
Yeah, so a
big part of it is in fact the fan scene in the USA who highly distort what's out there. Much of the "creepy" shit almost every western Otaku at least seem to know about is basically unknown to almost all Japanese - EVEN ones you meet who like anime. I've met Japanese anime fans and they don't know a
fraction of the weird fringe shit from Japan we seem to all know about. It's basically as if the Japanese picked through all the weirdest fringe media in America - and there is weird shit out there, pile it all up along with all the Michael Bay and Adam Sandler movies, ignored everything else, then said "WTF America?"
So sure, it doesn't
have to be so, but the American anime scene has painted itself into a corner. I'm reminded of this quote from the people who localized Akira. At the time it was a big hit, and the company head said in an interview (paraphrasing) "Yeah, there's all this other cool stuff too - romance, sports, drama, etc et. stuff for adult men and women, we can localize all that too!". And while it's
sort of happened since simulcasts became a thing, that basically
never happened. The way anime was marketed, in the USA specifically, painted itself into this corner we are in.
BTW: How many of those people who scoff at anime eagerly tune into reality shows? Your hobby just appears childish in relation to the best possible media in the best possible world. If you look at the volume of content objectively, almost
all people are watching stuff that's much deeper on the trash pile. What I think is partly to blame here is "imposter syndrome" where people don't view themselves as "adults" so they second-guess the media they are ingesting as "not what adults watch". Well I got news for you. Average chick flicks are no deeper than e.g.
Nana anime/manga, Marvel Movies are no deeper than a good action anime.