Anime, the eternal Jettokōsutā

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

Not enough hate there to feed on.

I get my fix of that in the political threads.

5 hours ago, majestic said:

I also lost it when they played Walk Like an Egyptian as the music for the closing credits. Laughed a good five minutes. Such an awesome idea.

It was an absolute power move. Stardust Crusaders really does step up in a lot of ways.

@InsaneCommander

I'm wondering if they will ever get to the basement. It's gone into political intrigue and guns now.

[Lexx]

I started watching Overlord season 2 and by god, it really IS incel anime. Season 1 felt much more normal in comparison. Now we have reptile sexytime and stuff like that ...

[InsaneCommander]

30 minutes ago, Lexx said:

I started watching Overlord season 2 and by god, it really IS incel anime. Season 1 felt much more normal in comparison. Now we have reptile sexytime and stuff like that ...

Plenty of celibates there. The Overlord, being a skeleton, is in fact an involuntary one.

Spoiler: the reptile scene is an exception. Don't expect more of that. And it was damaging enough for the elf kids.

[InsaneCommander]

Legend of Galactic Heroes 1-7 (the original series from the 80s/90s)

 

I was looking forward to this and I am not disappointed. This is a really good Sci-Fi. I will include some minor spoilers here and anything more serious I will hide.

The story takes place near the year 3600, with humanity divided into two nations: the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance. The Alliance was founded by fugitives from the empire that left 270 years before the events in the series.

The “rebels”, as the empire calls them, escaped to a system far away, in another arm of the galaxy, and since they restablished contact with the empire, they have been continuously at war, for 150 years. This is the map shown in the anime (no spoilers):

 

Spoiler

 

This one looks better, but I don't know if it is official. It does seem to be from before the remake:

Spoiler

 

The battles:

 

They are interesting and fast paced. They are heavily based on fleet formations and surprising the enemy. I’m not sure why they can surprise each other though, since there is no explanations about the FTL system, how far their sensors can see or the distances involved.

 

Bigger spoilers below:
 

Spoiler

 

You would expect that if you want to surround an enemy, you would be able to monitor his position and act accordingly, but that is not what happens.

 

Apparently some things will never change in this universe: there are plenty of arrogant leaders making stupid mistakes and dooming a lot of lives, not to mention that somebody still falls for a trojan horse.

 

The part with the snake formation seemed to make sense. They were basically trying to flank each other at the same time, but for some reason couldn’t simply turn 180 degrees and attack. So maybe it all depends on how fast the ships move/change direction and where they are pointing at. If this takes time, it would be better to run than to waste the time turning.

 

It is always refreshing to see battles between galactic empires involving thousands of ships, unlike just a few. Even Star Trek DS9 had only a few thousand when they gathered all they could for the Dominion war. That is strange for the scales involved.

 

Despite my mentioning Star Trek, the obvious inspiration here is Star Wars and they even have fortresses like the Death Star.

 

 

 

The characters:

 

There are a lot of characters here. And since most of them wear the same military uniforms, it is easy to confuse who is who sometimes. But they seem to be complex enough based on what I have seen so far.

 

 

Btw, the image above calls the empire “Reich” and I saw a non spoiler review implying that they may be like the nazi. But they don’t seem to be that bad, at least not for now. They are an authoritarian regime with the privileged nobility and everyone has german names, but they don’t appear to go beyond that.

 

They do have a bad taste for uniforms though, which looks a lot like the nazi:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

There is also an independent “City-State”, Phezzan, located in a very strategic position, one of the only two routes connecting the main powers. Their leader looks like a Bond villain and Lex Luthor. I’m sure he won’t cause any troubles. Nothing to see here.

Edited June 20, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[Bartimaeus]

On 6/19/2021 at 10:16 AM, majestic said:

I have no idea about Ranma 1/2 (although I'll take that as a semi-recommendation for the first season then), but I'm sure if you keep this up then Tomoyo will stalk and drag you out to the dumpster if you keep her from being able to film Sakura for much longer.

Ranma's more...inappropriate than I might like, but at the very least the inappropriateness is used for good and humorous effect. My brain's just been too foggy to appreciate Sakura right now, but I'll get back to it sooner or later. It's not like I wasn't still loving it the last episode I watched - honestly, I went through the same thing with Sailor Moon (and many other shows), I occasionally need breaks for one reason or another (whether because of real life stuff, different interests suddenly taking precedence, a temporary change of pace making it better when I come back to it, whatever).

I rather like Ranma so far, so you can consider it a sort of semi-recommendation until I watch more and figure out what the rest of the series is going to be like. Like I said, apparently the show was cancelled for being...like it is, and I like what it is right now, so that could be quite bad news for me, .

On 6/19/2021 at 11:01 AM, InsaneCommander said:

This looks gorgeous. I felt like watching it as soon as I saw this image. But then I saw the other image

Yeah, I was terribly disappointed too.

On 6/19/2021 at 10:16 AM, majestic said:

Have fun, assuming it's not for sad reasons

Spoiler

Unfortunately, that would not be a good assumption. Back home now at least, but my brain is even mushier than before after literally like 10 hours of driving in the past two days.

 

[majestic]

16 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Ranma's more...inappropriate than I might like, but at the very least the inappropriateness is used for good and humorous effect. My brain's just been too foggy to appreciate Sakura right now, but I'll get back to it sooner or later. It's not like I wasn't still loving it the last episode I watched - honestly, I went through the same thing with Sailor Moon (and many other shows), I occasionally need breaks for one reason or another (whether because of real life stuff, different interests suddenly taking precedence, a temporary change of pace making it better when I come back to it, whatever).

I rather like Ranma so far, so you can consider it a sort of semi-recommendation until I watch more and figure out what the rest of the series is going to be like. Like I said, apparently the show was cancelled for being...like it is, and I like what it is right now, so that could be quite bad news for me, .

Believe it or not (which might be hard to do with my history of what I watched), but the inappropriateness is the main reason I never tried Ranma 1/2. Mostly because it was my nerd-colleagues that watched the anime back when I was in school who watched the anime just because of that. I don't mind content like that, but there's a certain amount of idiotic behaviour in my nerd community that I can't stand, and that was a major part of it.

Spoiler

What I mean by that, Ranma 1/2 was the target of nerd locker room talk, and I already can't stand locker room talk, but even more so when it's us nerds doing it. Seriously, can't you act a little more dignified than the jock arseholes that made our lives living hells? Dignity, guys. Seriously.

So I dismissed the anime out of hand. Falsely so, perhaps.

Anyway, I was really joking, and I meant what I said. CCS, I think, overall benefits from a slower pace when watching, and the first 30 or so epsiode you blew through in record time anyway. Which I understand, it's great. When I look back at binging Steven Universe, I don't feel like doing so made me lose something. If anything, it enhanced the experience because the filler-style episode "holes" went away faster, instead of lasting days or weeks.

Cardcaptor Sakura, on the other hand, has a different focus. It's storyline is much simpler (but told in an equally great way), the whole setup is on a much different scale. I think, if I would have experienced the weekly release when it came out, I would appreciate it even more. Can't be sure, but that's what it feels like.  

17 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

Unfortunately, that would not be a good assumption. Back home now at least, but my brain is even mushier than before after literally like 10 hours of driving in the past two days.

 

 

Spoiler

I'm realy sorry to read that.  

Extended driving also turns my brain into mush, but I don't like driving in the first place and it takes an awful amount of concentration (and it's extra taxing with my not great eyesight - the glasses work, of course, but I'm constantly double checking and all that). 

 

Anyway, I watched the first episode of Eden. The backgrounds look good, but the movements are weird. Sara, the girl, ages up massively after the first 10 or so minutes by the way.

She ends up looking like this really quickly:

It's only marginally better, but hey... all the animation in this looks uncanny anway. The storyline seems to be a perfectly standard AI revolution. At least... humans are all gone from earth apparently, robots are still working at whatever tasks they were given and there's a cast of security robots trying to supress all knowledge of humans. The one thing I found mildly interesting was that there's apparently a sect of robots worshipping humans as their creators. They're persecuted by the security bots. 

There's also a counter on the sceen from time to time, counting down. I'm guessing that's humans left, but it went from reading 500 million to less than one million in the first episode. Doesn't look too good for them, if I'm right.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

On 6/19/2021 at 12:22 PM, Lexx said:

I started watching Overlord season 2 and by god, it really IS incel anime

And here I forgot incels were actually a thing.

5 minutes ago, majestic said:

She ends up looking like this really quickly:

CGI is probably one of the worst things to happen to animation, and arguably all media. Absolutely hideous and ages horribly.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

So I dismissed the anime out of hand. Falsely so, perhaps.

Understandable - I've made the same kinds of decisions on stuff because of not enjoying the discourse on it. Rarely, I change my mind and eventually own up to it because I then understand what they were talking about and realize the discourse wasn't nearly as stupid as I once thought; more often, when I change my mind I tell absolutely nobody precisely because I do not want to become a part of the discourse which is still utterly stupid, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Extended driving also turns my brain into mush, but I don't like driving in the first place and it takes an awful amount of concentration (and it's extra taxing with my not great eyesight - the glasses work, of course, but I'm constantly double checking and all that). 

Yeah, I have absolutely zero patience for driving, usually makes me want to curl up and die. It's also not great on me physically given my neck and shoulder issues. A real pro-tip from me to all of you is to never break your neck, because things will never go back to normal once you do, even years later.

[Amentep]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Understandable - I've made the same kinds of decisions on stuff because of not enjoying the discourse on it. Rarely, I change my mind and eventually own up to it because I then understand what they were talking about and realize the discourse wasn't nearly as stupid as I once thought; more often, when I change my mind I tell absolutely nobody precisely because I do not want to become a part of the discourse which is still utterly stupid, .

I've never read any of the A Song of Ice and Fire books because, when someone first mentioned their existence to me, their recommendation was (paraphrased, because its been too many years now) "You should totally read it, this guy is <rude word indicating carnal relations> his sister...he is so badass!"

I only read the Ranma stuff in manga, and it was pretty much a non-kids comedy manga to me.  Maybe a bit more stuff simply because of the set-up to the plot (with the body changing) than some others, I guess.  Can't really relate it to the anime because I didn't read it, but with the manga I figured Rumiko Takahashi was talented enough to walk whatever line there was and not fall over it.

[Bartimaeus]

3 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I've never read any of the A Song of Ice and Fire books because, when someone first mentioned their existence to me, their recommendation was (paraphrased, because its been too many years now) "You should totally read it, this guy is <rude word indicating carnal relations> his sister...he is so badass!"

I only read the Ranma stuff in manga, and it was pretty much a non-kids comedy manga to me.  Maybe a bit more stuff simply because of the set-up to the plot (with the body changing) than some others, I guess.  Can't really relate it to the anime because I didn't read it, but with the manga I figured Rumiko Takahashi was talented enough to walk whatever line there was and not fall over it.

Dear lord. ...Well, actually, that was pretty much my reaction to the series as well - the discourse around that series/shows was so freaking awful that it's difficult to see how it could ever appeal or work for me, and I definitely don't want to be a part of that hot mess of people talking about it. Realistically, I'm sure there's something to it that one could appreciate if I ever really sat down and read/watched it, but like...I gots better things to do that appeal to me a lot more anyways. Plus, everyone's mad at GRRM for never finishing the book series and everyone's mad at the show for the lousy last season (and really, the last few from what I heard would be more accurate), so screw it.

Non-kids comedy...interesting way to put it. I wouldn't necessarily call it that because of all the baggage associated with labelling something as a "comedy", but I get what you mean, and I think it makes sense.

@majestic Not really a spoiler on Ranma, but more a comment on a general character mannerism that I appreciate in it:

Spoiler

So Ranma's a boy and a girl, as I'm sure you know. I wasn't sure how this would be played, but it seems my general impression is that when he's a boy, he's a little more of your typical shonen protagonist - not completely, but more insensitive, prideful, willfully independent, stubborn, that sort of thing. When he's a girl, he mollifies a bit, becoming sweeter, more empathetic, more willing to work with others and go out of his way to help or comfort them. It's by no means a strict rule, but it seems to be the tendency I'm noticing. It makes a kind of sense, but it creates an interesting dynamic where his behavior and attitude about something can justifiably change a bit within a very short time as he changes back and forth between being a girl and a boy. And it seems like the writers are paying attention to this particular fact, because I have noticed a few times where he has inexplicably changed into a girl off-camera in order to better facilitate something happening in a particular fashion that may not necessarily have made as much sense if it happened while he were a boy. This is in contrast to something like Yu Yu Hakusho, where the protagonist is just a big dumb idiot all the time and constantly says all of the wrong things that make him utterly annoying and contemptible...but his actions hardly ever match up with his words, creating a a conflicting character clash where he is actually usually relatively heroic in his actions, but he's such an annoying prick through his words that it's difficult to care or give him any credit. Here, Ranma switching between being more stand-offish and a little more sweet or agreeable seems to be much better thought-out and well-presented than in something like Yu Yu Hakusho.

 

[majestic]

 

2 hours ago, Amentep said:

I've never read any of the A Song of Ice and Fire books because, when someone first mentioned their existence to me, their recommendation was (paraphrased, because its been too many years now) "You should totally read it, this guy is <rude word indicating carnal relations> his sister...he is so badass!"

You should really read A Song of Ice and Fire because there's also this guy who forces his wife to <rude word indicating carnal relations> his dog and cuts off this other guys's good sized <word for male genital>, he's a badass too!

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, I have absolutely zero patience for driving, usually makes me want to curl up and die. It's also not great on me physically given my neck and shoulder issues. A real pro-tip from me to all of you is to never break your neck, because things will never go back to normal once you do, even years later.

*quietly strikes breaking his neck from his bucket list*

Spoiler

Man, I know I repeat myself, but that just sucks.

 

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Understandable - I've made the same kinds of decisions on stuff because of not enjoying the discourse on it. Rarely, I change my mind and eventually own up to it because I then understand what they were talking about and realize the discourse wasn't nearly as stupid as I once thought; more often, when I change my mind I tell absolutely nobody precisely because I do not want to become a part of the discourse which is still utterly stupid, .

I know, I know, oh, oh, oh, as Patchface would say. Not that it snows up for me, but... erm, I mean, I often do that. I even already brought examples in one of these thread incarnations, like Half-Life 2. Halo is something else, even if I wouldn't have played it back when it came out on the first XBox and not have liked it from the start (what a major disappointment that was after the initial trailers where it still was developed as a PC game, before Microsoft bought Bungee), I'd just dismiss it out of hand for all the fanboys raving about its multiplayer.

Online multiplayer in a shooter, on a console. Sure. Now quietly go play somewhere else, peasant.

58 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Dear lord. ...Well, actually, that was pretty much my reaction to the series as well - the discourse around that series/shows was so freaking awful that it's difficult to see how it could ever appeal or work for me, and I definitely don't want to be a part of that hot mess of people talking about it. Realistically, I'm sure there's something to it that one could appreciate if I ever really sat down and read/watched it, but like...I gots better things to do that appeal to me a lot more anyways. Plus, everyone's mad at GRRM for never finishing the book series and everyone's mad at the show for the lousy last season (and really, the last few from what I heard would be more accurate), so screw it.

Non-kids comedy...interesting way to put it. I wouldn't necessarily call it that because of all the baggage associated with labelling something as a "comedy", but I get what you mean, and I think it makes sense.

I got lucky and read the books before stumbling into the online discourse... or rather, I read them before there was much discourse on them, it's hard to believe how long its really been.

There's an uneven split in the fandom, on the one hand you have the people GRRM himself sadly elevated to "homo invictus fandumbus" (I'm pretty sure that's accurate latin ) by making them the co-authors of his world building book A World of Ice and Fire. They were completely obnoxious in this religious fanatic in possession of the one true truth sort of way before GRRM reached down and granted them a place as lorekeepers at his side. I don't even want to know how they are today. The have gathered most of the fandumb unto themselves and drove everyone who disagreed into exile.

On the other hand you have a bunch of highly intelligent people in exile who refused to worship and grovel at the feet of Elio and Linda and wrote interesting and fun to read essays on a site that I used to lurk on, but has since become a little stale, with no new material put out for ten years now.

And... and that's not even talking about the sort of people that HBO's adaptation brought into the mix.

Then we do have a current oversaturation of grimdark settings that sort of tired to travel in the wake of Westeros' rise to mainstream popularity without knowing what made it so appealing in the first place. Even the showrunners didn't get it, when they started to make everything grimdark for the sake of being grimdark, hence the inclusion of rape everwhere.

The books themselves play with certain fantasy tropes and subverts them where it makes sense, plays them a bit straighter where it is required. It bears remembering that we're talking about a book series that started in 1996. I've seen people call Martin's writing style pedestrian, but that's... well, I'm not really a good judge on writing style in general, unless it's ridiculous like with all the ascended fanfiction that's so popular now. It doesn't take a literary genious to figure out that After Passion is terribly written.

He's good at worldbuilding and setup and payoff though. Even if you find yourself taken aback by a plot twist, you can go back and re-read the chapters before that and really begin to notice the little hints, the infamous Red Wedding being the most obvious of these (but certainly not the only ones).

58 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

@majestic Not really a spoiler on Ranma, but more a comment on a general character mannerism that I appreciate in it:

  Hide contents

So Ranma's a boy and a girl, as I'm sure you know. I wasn't sure how this would be played, but it seems my general impression is that when he's a boy, he's a little more of your typical shonen protagonist - not completely, but more insensitive, prideful, willfully independent, stubborn, that sort of thing. When he's a girl, he mollifies a bit, becoming sweeter, more empathetic, more willing to work with others and go out of his way to help or comfort them. It's by no means a strict rule, but it seems to be the tendency I'm noticing. It makes a kind of sense, but it creates an interesting dynamic where his behavior and attitude about something can justifiably change a bit within a very short time as he changes back and forth between being a girl and a boy. And it seems like the writers are paying attention to this particular fact, because I have noticed a few times where he has inexplicably changed into a girl off-camera in order to better facilitate something happening in a particular fashion that may not necessarily have made as much sense if it happened while he were a boy. This is in contrast to something like Yu Yu Hakusho, where the protagonist is just a big dumb idiot all the time and constantly says all of the wrong things that make him utterly annoying and contemptible...but his actions hardly ever match up with his words, creating a a conflicting character clash where he is actually usually relatively heroic in his actions, but he's such an annoying prick through his words that it's difficult to care or give him any credit. Here, Ranma switching between being more stand-offish and a little more sweet or agreeable seems to be much better thought-out and well-presented than in something like Yu Yu Hakusho.

 

Spoiler

That does sound bit like Ranma is walking collection of gender stereotypes. I guess it's too early to ask if it does anything interesting with the setup, after only a handful of episodes, seems like a good setup to shine a light on the stereotypes and have some fun with them.

Yu Yu Hakusho I can't say anything about, I haven't really watched it at all. I've seen an episode or two here and there, and probably not even a full one, but between KP dismissing it for having ridiculous martial arts tournament arcs and your criticism, I'm not at all inclined to try.

I think I'll stick to Robin Hood for all my shonen needs (which indeed there aren't many). At least that one has a little girl that can conjure up the apocalypse, or something like that. I don't remember much of the end there... and it is more coming-of-age than traditional shonen if I recall correctly. Sure there is Robin Hood's revenge angle, but that's part of the myth, kind of hard to not have it in there.

 

Oh, and by the way, this is the Violet Evergarden documentary I was talking about:

If you want you can click through it a bit, it features a brief history of Kyoto Animation, references some other material that I actually might check out, has some clips to show how the animation looks in motion and is generally fairly interesting in showcasing how the studio works.

Just in case you're still on the fence and haven't pushed it into the definite no pile yet. It's a hefty 48 minutes long though. It would probably be less of a time commitment to just try the first episode, but less than the first three episodes that it would take to give it a fair shake (in my not very humble opinion, the first two episode are extremely slow paced setup, and the third one has the first little payoff for Violet in it). Spoilers, obviously, but this doesn't... spoilers for this means even less than it does for other pieces of entertainment. It's way too low key and personal. Not that it isn't complex or subtle, nah, just... really just one instance where the journey really matters more than the destination.

Also...

Eden, episode 2:

Spoiler

Well turns out I was wrong. Doesn't look like an AI uprising any more, humanity is in cryo sleep trying to weather an environmental disaster, and the countdown is just the amount of time left until it runs of out energy. For some reason there's this EVIL ROBOT called ZERO who is working with some flying program window to supress any information about humans.

By the way, love the subtlety of the show. Look at Zero:

I'm SO EVUL. EVUUUUUUUUUUUL!

Yeah, so... oh boy, the only good thing I can say about this so far is... it's short, only having four episodes. Two to go.

The robot speech patterns are fun though, and I admit I chuckled at them putting Sara into the charger when she was hungry. Robo partents being hapless was actually fairly fun, but that lasted for a handful of minutes until Sara aged up.

Edited June 21, 2021 by majestic

[majestic]

Eden, episode 3:
 

Spoiler

 

The show wisely decided to kill off reprogram the only two funny characters on it, the parent-bots of Sara. In a a plot twist that surprises no one, the scientist in the flashbacks who has the same voice actor as the EVUL ROBOT ZERO and who already thought humanity is a problem turns out to transfer his brain into a robot body.

Didn't see that one coming. What a... wait for it, surprise. Legen... wait for it! ...dary. LEGENDARY.

(yes, this is a reference to Neil Patrick Harris being the voice actor for Zero in the English dub)

Seeing her parents reprogrammed causes Sara to go enrage, grab a metal rod and simply smash half of Zero's robot security force to bits. Then she just stops and lets Zero carry her off, but she's saved by her "uncle" bot from the refuge.

End of the episode has the timer run out.

 

If this has any point at all the show only has like 22 minutes of runtime left to make it.

Edited June 21, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

That does sound bit like Ranma is walking collection of gender stereotypes. I guess it's too early to ask if it does anything interesting with the setup, after only a handful of episodes, seems like a good setup to shine a light on the stereotypes and have some fun with them.

I think it plays off well with his counterpart, Akane...

Spoiler

...as both of their fathers arrange a marriage between her and him in like the first episode, which I assume will basically be a forever ongoing thing in this show. Akane is a tomboy who beats the snot out of all the boys and has a bit her own mean/stubborn streak to collide with her fiance, and whose sisters make fun of her and say maybe she'd be better off with another girl, which is why Ranma should theoretically be a good fit for her, given that he's half-girl, .

Overall, I'm pleased with the quality of dialogue and I like both Ranma and Akane and her sisters (who so far have had pretty big parts in the show, making this show more girl-centric than I expected, especially since Ranma himself actually plays into being a girl, albeit a different kind of one, quite a bit; it seems like Akane and her sisters are almost...trying to subtly teach Ranma how to be a little more girl/lady-like?, which is an interesting and natural angle for someone who was only recently cursed to be one) - it's been a lot better than any other shonen I've seen and has already had some gentler/sweeter moments that worked rather well...which is why I'm fearful that the show might go kaput after the first season if it apparently was a total failure and they needed to overhaul it to make it work, . Lot of funny parts and the shonen-ness of it all is rather minimum ten episodes in. I don't really know what Ranma, the character, what his angle is yet, though - in shonens like this, the protagonist always has some kind of retarded goal like BECOME THE STRONGEST or AVENGE MY FATHER or FULFILL MY DESTINY that consumes them and makes them so terrible, but so far, Ranma seems content to just goof around and let the male/female problem play out in an organic fashion. But I am only ten episodes in, so...

Also, pretty little fighting and what is there is often averted and/or humorous somehow and/or fairly short and sweet. The show, so far, is heavily character-driven more than anything else, which is of course exactly what I want and hoped for. Please don't ruin the show, second season...

 

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I'm SO EVUL. EVUUUUUUUUUUUL!

Pretty sure that's just robo-Sauron, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Just in case you're still on the fence and haven't pushed it into the definite no pile yet.

I haven't, but it's looow on the list of priorities, especially because the more I see of it, the more it seems to have that sort of...faux dramatic tone to it, where the content of the show should dictate that the tone be a little lighter and display a greater range, but instead it's always somewhere in between super serious and a sort of meandering wistfulness kind of feeling (which usually annoys the hell out of me anytime I see it happen, and which I ran into with a movie I tried out recently called The Place Promised in Our Early Days and gave up after being super annoyed for 20 minutes). The top priority right now is to actually finish Paranoia Agent, so I'm really kind of screwing up by watching anything else at all right now, and I've tried out a few other shows I haven't mentioned at all here (e.g. the Big O, which I dropped after a single episode when I realized it *super* was not for me; I'm always bamboozled by the inclusion of androids as a major part of a show/movie because I love the idea of them so much, and then it literally never works out how I want it to, ). So I really oughtta work on that before anything else.

Edited June 21, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[InsaneCommander]

I watched a few episodes of Ranma 1/2 decades ago. It was funny and I would watch it again, but it seems it has a lot of episodes, so I don't plan to do it anytime soon. After LOGH, Violet Evergarden and Jojo, I'll probably make another watch list with shorter animes.

[majestic]

Eden, episode 4.

Of course it comes down to a robot vs. robot showdown, with Sara and Zero each piloting a humongous mech. Because how else could this end?

Spoiler

In a nice and honestly not entirely expected move, Sara wins by reminding Zero - who was Doctor Fields before the transfer - of his wife and daughter, and the world they were trying to build. Zero ends up saving Sara's life at the expense of his own robot body (his mind is then transferred to the robo-dog that's been around, because that was his late daughter's last wish, for the robo-dog to have a voice).

He gives Sara the password to wake the cryo sleeping remnants of humanity up. Sara spens some time with the robots who were her parents at the end, making them do the same things that they did in the beginning when she was five years old.

The end.

The last ten minutes of this were actually great, but three and a half episodes of setup complete with the terrible animation this has is a tad too much to truly recommend this. It's not entirely bad, and there are some fun moments here and there.

I'm not sure if I should note "not about an AI uprising" as a net positive when it's just the other post-apocalyptic goto option with humanity in cryo suspension riding out an environmental disaster. Scientist losing faith in humanity and trying to end it isn't exactly original either.

Not that originality is truly needed if the pieces click together in a great way, which they just don't.

It's okay for a one time viewing, and fairly short, but there are better ways to spend your time for sure - many worse ones too, on the other hand. With a bit more breathing room and some better animation, this could have been really nice.

33 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I think it plays off well with his counterpart, Akane...

I'll just wait for you to reach the other anime, or second season, or whatever you can call a re-tooling of a cancelled show and decide then. It does sound fun, but at the moment I'd rather not start something with 161 episodes... if it ends up being bleh after the retooling, I'll OCD myself through 143 potentially terrible episodes.

35 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I haven't, but it's looow on the list of priorities, especially because the more I see of it, the more it seems to have that sort of...faux dramatic tone to it, where the content of the show should dictate that the tone be a little lighter and display a greater range, but instead it's always somewhere in between super serious and a sort of meandering wistfulness kind of feeling.

I can neither properly confirm or deny this. Not for a want of trying, but for a complete lack of a frame of reference to compare Violet Evergarden to. It definitely is more wistful and serious, but not all of it is bleak. It never came across as faux, but I'll freely admit to not being a good judge of this. Especially not in this case. Feels like it was made for me, to be honest.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

The top priority right now is to actually finish Paranoia Agent, so I'm really kind of screwing up by watching anything else at all right now, and I've tried out a few other shows I haven't mentioned at all here (e.g. the Big O, which I dropped after a single episode when I realized it *super* was not for me; I'm always bamboozled by the inclusion of androids as a major part of a show/movie because I love the idea of them so much, and then it literally never works out how I want it to, ). So I really oughtta work on that before anything else.

Hm, watching more of Satoshi Kon is also on my list... but that list grows ever longer, and I've watched nothing but anime recently. I think once everything dies down a little I'll go back to finishing Agents of SHIELD.

Biggest thing I need to resist right now is the urge to jump into the 110 episodes of Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which looks like it's an animated Star Wars - and probably exactly everything that I want to watch.

11 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

I watched a few episodes of Ranma 1/2 decades ago. It was funny and I would watch it again, but it seems it has a lot of episodes, so I don't plan to do it anytime soon. After LOGH, Violet Evergarden and Jojo, I'll probably make another watch list with shorter animes.

Violet Evergarden has 13 episodes, a shorter OVA, a feature film length OVA and a 140 minutes movie. It's shorter, I think. At least when compared to the 100+ episodes behemoths the other two in your list are.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So AoT s3 halfway, the titans were with us all along and the military gets political. The pacing seemed a little better but it still runs into moments where it drags on too long or sidetracks (arguably the arc itself is a sidetrack), and the big bad is a cgi monstrosity. I hope DIO as a giant monkey ends up being fun, but I think at least one titan is going to be cgi and it's going to suck.

I think next up with be logh or violent evergarden. 

19 minutes ago, majestic said:

It's shorter, I think. At least when compared to the 100+ episodes behemoths the other two in your list are.

But does it have gym gods, punch ghosts, and hilarious poses?

[InsaneCommander]

51 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

But does it have gym gods, punch ghosts, and hilarious poses?

I heard Jojo also has better anime girls.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

46 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

I heard Jojo also has better anime girls.

JoJo is one of the weirdest shows I have seen (even by anime standards) and also one of the best things I have ever seen. Really the only negatives are the cgi intros in the first two seasons and using the gym god aesthetics instead of drawing from Araki's later work (including exhibitions).

[ShadySands]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

everyone's mad at the show for the lousy last season (and really, the last few from what I heard would be more accurate), so screw it.

As someone who never read the books and can only judge the show on its own merits this is accurate.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

And here along with incels I managed to forget about GoT. What a cluster**** that was.

[majestic]

6 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

But does it have gym gods, punch ghosts, and hilarious poses?

That's pretty much a no, but what other show really does. No eye lasers either. Much less OH MY GOD as well, and of course absolutely zero JOESTAR-SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANs.

[Lexx]

I don't really understand what the issue with the last season of Attack on Titan is. Yeah, I also found it slow and dragging for the first few episodes, because it was all about characters who were new ... but this was necessary for the plot development. You needed to know these characters in order to feel anything about them in later episodes, once the perspective changes again.

Also while I didn't suspect the story to go the way it did ... I'm not mad about it. At least it's something new and not just more of the same old.

tl,dr - while not being my preferred plot continuation, I'm still ok with it.

[HoonDing]

Last 2000s anime i watched was Claymore

[Lexx]

By the way, I'm in Overlord season 3 now ... and jeez, it went from incel anime to really f'ing dark. Guess it's a pretty good metaphor(?) for how little we think about the moral consequences of the actions we do in video games. Like, we kill hundreds of people and don't care, because our goal is right behind them. Overlord is the same... he has no feelings towards the people he kills. And he suddenly kills a lot. At this point I'm not even sure why exactly he is doing that ... with his powers he could easily do lots of good in the world, but instead he does whatever. What's infuriating about it is that the other critters in the world have no way of fighting against him. They have no chance. There is seemingly nothing that can stop him from doing what he does.

[InsaneCommander]

 

6 hours ago, Lexx said:

I don't really understand what the issue with the last season of Attack on Titan is. Yeah, I also found it slow and dragging for the first few episodes, because it was all about characters who were new ... but this was necessary for the plot development. You needed to know these characters in order to feel anything about them in later episodes, once the perspective changes again.

I was fine with that but a little annoyed when it dragged again later. Still something necessary to get everyone in place for the action, though.

 

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

By the way, I'm in Overlord season 3 now ... and jeez, it went from incel anime to really f'ing dark. Guess it's a pretty good metaphor(?) for how little we think about the moral consequences of the actions we do in video games. Like, we kill hundreds of people and don't care, because our goal is right behind them. Overlord is the same... he has no feelings towards the people he kills. And he suddenly kills a lot. At this point I'm not even sure why exactly he is doing that ... with his powers he could easily do lots of good in the world, but instead he does whatever. What's infuriating about it is that the other critters in the world have no way of fighting against him. They have no chance. There is seemingly nothing that can stop him from doing what he does.

Yes, but with the exception that the characters here are self-aware. And he doesn't know if he is in a video game or if he was transported to another world like it happens in some animes. They could be real people suffering.

Spoiler for later episodes of season 3:

Spoiler

Killing the people who invaded the Tomb was particularly cruel. I confess I laughed when they went there, because it was a really bad idea and they were extremely arrogant. It was obvious they would regret it. But their fate was terrible.

Better to hide the spoilers again just in case

Spoiler

The lucky ones are killed. Others are eaten from inside by the ****roaches, just like it happened with that criminal taken by Mare in season 2. And there is the guy who was taken to the Tomb's torturer.

Some things not mentioned in the anime:

1- The torturer has some levels in classes like medic and priest. The victims will probably be healed and resurrected to be tortured again.

2- The two little sisters of that adventurer girl were later sold into slavery by their parents since the older daughter couldn't give them money anymore and they were broke.

3- The three elf slaves didn't choose to go inside the Tomb so they were spared and became Aura and Mare's maids. Not exactly a good situation since the twins don't like them.

 

As for  Ainz' behavior, they do offer some explanations: he became a Lich and no longers feels emotion in the same way. He is not impressed or disgusted by blood and when he has that strange effect suppressing his emotions like an aura. But there are moments when he does show some mercy, so he should understand what he is doing. Also:

Spoiler

Evileye is in love with Momon but he kind of promised to let Entoma kill her. That would be something sad to see, once she discovers the truth.

I don't think there will be a happy ending, but they do have one chance:

Spoiler

Get that magic item that could mind control Shalltear and use it again on her. She is actually stronger than Ainz, who only won their fight because he used multiple magic items. If he was attacked by surprise when he was alone, maybe he would die. Or maybe use it on Albedo's younger sister, that has not being mentioned in the anime yet. She is neutral (instead of evil) and easily the most powerful character:

Spoiler