Anime and Manga - < To Be Continued I \ I /

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

4 hours ago, majestic said:

This is "I'm going to hang myself, see ya!" bad.

Well at least it isn't "I'm going to become the Joker" bad, but there's always next episode!

3 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

And that is why

  Hide contents

Kars can' return. He would kill all of the other villains.

Investigating and trying to find a murderer is also a good change.

 

Diamond is unbreakable 25-30

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Oh s***, he took the place of a guy who had a family.

 

Where is Joseph and his Hermit Purple? Didn’t he come to Morioh to find a villain? Stop babysitting.

 

Kira’s father died during Stardust Crusaders’ year. Again, some weird coincidences with the dates.

 

Rohan: “It’s the ****bag Josuke, the idiot Okuyasu and the moody Yukako.”

And why are the three of them together? I thought Josuke and Okuyasu didn’t want anything to do with that psycho.

 

Janken po boy attacks, but Stando baby saves the day.

 

Vampires, ghosts and now aliens. Or is it a Stando Dice?

 

The boy is spying on his parents? I hope it started because he suspected something is wrong and not because he was doing it before.

 

Highway Star: it was obvious that Josuke would heal him and beat him again.

 

Stando Catplant (!) can’t even move, but beats the villain!

 

 

Spoiler

Kira's dad hitchhiking on birds made me laugh more than it should.

I think the kid has been spying on his parents for a while. You may not be there yet but...

Spoiler

He says something like "Mom hasn't gotten naked in front of dad in a long time".

 

 

[Gorth]

Mieruko-chan 11 is out....

 

Miko has had some run ins with the temporary teacher in the past, being convinced that he's a notorious cat molester and therefore constantly surrounded by a swarm of dark, spiteful cat ghosts. She also arrived at the conclusion, it's the teacher and his entourage of angry cat spirits that is constantly draining her friend Hana of "life force" and make her ravenous all the time. She stalks him, confronts him, and finds out he's not a perpetrator, but a victim of an abusive mother, like a page torn out of Hitchc0cks "Psycho". She mentally abused him throughout his youth and punished him by killing kittens that he was trying to save. She keeps doing that now that she's passed on and Miko realised, the big, nasty ghost always following him is the ghost of his late mother. Ironically, it turns out later, that Zen (the teacher) thought Miko was the one killing all the cats in the neighbourhood. Realising her mistake, she makes use of her third (and last) "extra life", that she got from the shrine guardian and sics it on the evil ghost mother (by confronting her, revealing that she can see her), to free up the young man from her constantly making his life miserable, even from the afterlife.

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Diamond is Unbreakable 6-10

Stand con artists, Stand dolls, JoJo does Misery, and an Italian restaurant.

So last thing first, the pasta dish looks really good and is something I'm going to try making. I'll try not to punch it though.

Anyways 

Stand lock got beat with sounds lmao.

The Stand doll is pretty terrifying when you think about it, fortunately the user is too much of an **** to use it correctly.

Yukako's Stand hair seems very unsanitary. And I'm not sure how feeding Koichi words would help with his English scores. Well, JoJo doing a Yandere is fun at least. Better than Stalker Girl trying to feed Komi her sausage.

The Italian restaurant episode is one of my favorites and is the first time a benevolent stand user shows up. Okuyasu noises make me laugh much more than they should.

[Bartimaeus]

Ran and Myao, episode 9. Uh...although there's been some subtle changes in our two main characters over the course of the show, this one in particular had some more prominent character development...and there was almost no attempts at humor at all except for just a little bit at the very bookends of the episode, which is a pretty big departure from the rest of the series. It was not...a fun episode, but it was the best one.

Spoiler

Myao realizes that they're on their way through the town where her old best friend lives. Myao left years ago to go on an adventure while her best friend, or really her partner-in-crime, stayed home to help take care of her sick father with her overworked mother. There was a lovely little scene near the beginning of the episode where Myao goes on a bit of an ADHD monologue about this stuff to Ran while they're resting on a hill under a tree, and Ran tells her to please be quiet so she can sleep...so Myao naturally interprets it to mean "please monologue in a quieter voice", so she does exactly that. She eventually kind of trails off mid-sentence as she starts to get sleepy after saying the most important bits...and then Ran suddenly perks up to ask "well, then what?". End scene - so perfectly effective in showing that for as aloof as Ran can be, she obviously values Myao and their companionship. I think this episode in general solidified the show as being a keeper for me.

Episode 10:

All I wanna be...is someone who gets to see...a giant woman, a giant woman!

Spoiler

Daughter of a westerner visiting Japan on business is basically a nerd for Japan and wants to become Ran's apprentice. Only thing is...she's a bit of a dumb but insanely strong giantess. Good and pretty funny episode. Ran and Myao can't even say her name right - "Stephanie" is shortened to "Su-san", .

This show is unbecoming trash before my very eyes - the last few episodes have not been simply "stupid but enjoyable" like the show started out, but rather actually straight-up good, IMO. Myao and Ran are a great duo for this show. Now I'm starting to wish the show was longer...

 

16 hours ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

Well at least it isn't "I'm going to become the Joker" bad, but there's always next episode!

On the other hand, if @majestic became the (anime) Joker, maybe he could finally beat some well-deserved sense into the currently terrible anime industry that is doing this crap to him...start a movement, get some heads rolling, get some better shows, .

Edited December 13, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Vivid is the first time Nanoha is really terrible (outside of the minute and a half in episode 5 of the first season, from now on, just imagine I'm adding this every time I talk favorably about this anime), and I'm not even talking about the extended nude bathing scene and the sexual assault. That's just the icing on the cake, really. The quality drop is worse than in SuperS, because for all that's bad in SuperS, the episodes often have at least a couple of genuinely fun moments.

In SuperS, in the episodes where everyone isn't out of character - and that happens every now and then, after all - they're usually terrible because it's either the Amazon Trio that shows up, or Pegasus, or worse, both. In Vivid, nothing is good. Except the hilarious J-Pop Eurodance tune it plays every now and then. That's just mind-breakingly awesome because it makes me laugh like an idiot for no particular reason.

Technically the outro song is fine too, in a similar "stupid Japanese ska-pop" sense, because objectively that's... not really good.

Also, those credits look like they're from a harmless kid's show.

[Bartimaeus]

When did female Japanese popstars all start to sound a bit like chipmunks anyways? ...Or is it just anime songs where they all sound like that? I know that wasn't the case pre-2000...

Edited December 13, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

On the other hand, if @majestic became the (anime) Joker, maybe he could finally beat some well-deserved sense into the currently terrible anime industry that is doing this crap to him...start a movement, get some heads rolling, get some better shows, .

The (anime) Joker is Hisoka, a serial killer from a shonen show who gets turned on by fighting and wants to ****/kill two preteen boys when they get stronger. Unfortunately I am completely serious.

[Bartimaeus]

19 minutes ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

The (anime) Joker is Hisoka, a serial killer from a shonen show who gets turned on by fighting and wants to ****/kill two preteen boys when they get stronger. Unfortunately I am completely serious.

Shonen's not real, and it can't hurt me, .

[majestic]

35 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

When did female Japanese popstars all start to sound a bit like chipmunks anyways? ...Or is it just anime songs where they all sound like that? I know that wasn't the case pre-2000...

Beats me. The worst chipmunk is still that second K-On! opening.

But yeah, like I said, it's... not good. There's something really hilarious when you're watching it as the outro to one of the really terrible Vivid episodes, but that might just be me. You know, in the way Speed Racer broke your brain with that helicopter scene.

 

[Bartimaeus]

58 minutes ago, majestic said:

You know, in the way Speed Racer broke your brain with that helicopter scene.

This reminds me that I'm supposed to try K-On at some point.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Shonen's not real, and it can't hurt me, .

Something doesn't have to be real to hurt, otherwise that fictitious Stat Trek show wouldn't have caused the massive psychic damage it did.

[majestic]

24 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

This reminds me that I'm supposed to try K-On at some point.

Yeah, although, right now K-On! is in that Schrödinger's state of "might like" and "might hate" at the same time. Once you measure... uhm... not sure where I was going with this, but make sure to not let the first episode bother you too much.

[InsaneCommander]

21 hours ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

 

  Hide contents

I think the kid has been spying on his parents for a while. You may not be there yet but...

  Reveal hidden contents

He says something like "Mom hasn't gotten naked in front of dad in a long time".

 

 

 

Oh yes, he said that.

 

Spoiler

Considering how Stando powers sometimes relate to the user’s personality, imagine if this boy is hit by the arrow.

 

A few things I forgot to mention:

 

Spoiler

Janken po boy would be the most powerful Stando user. If he got Heaven’s door, he could force his adversaries to always choose paper, for example. And then he would accumulate lots of powers.

 

Why was Okuyasu so useless against Stando tower? The Hand is so underused. One possibility would be to pull the user to him by deleting space. Also, can he delete time? Maybe in both directions? Is Josuke the guy who saved young Josuke in the past?

 

And talking about Okuyasu, all the trouble being caused after Kira changed identity is his fault, since he fell for Kira’s father’s stupid trick and opened the photo.

 

Diamond is Unbreakable 31-34: July 15th

 

Spoiler

What a mess! If it was not for the smelling guy, all would be lost. Rohan was brilliant defeating Cheap Trick!

 

Did Jotaru just leave his fingerprints in the blood at the crime scene? Who cares, there are no bodies left...

 

[Bartimaeus]

Future Boy Conan, episodes 1-3. The BluRay is doing something goofy that's making it so the Japanese dub isn't easily playable, but the English dub seems...good-ish. The girl, Lana, has a kind of crappy voice...well, actually, her voice itself is fine, it's more the direction that's the issue. If you like lots of unnecessary mouth sounds and lines said way over-emotionally for no good reason, then you might like it, but I don't. The show itself is about what I expected so far, which is a classic boy's adventure feeling show (i.e. it's okay, but not particularly appealing to me), although the post-apocalyptic setting is a little in the vein of Nausicaa, which is a good thing. The physical feats that the boy can perform are way too ridiculous and the show basically deflates itself constantly as a result. Dude flies around like an NBA player that also happens to be a monkey. It's still a 70s anime, I suppose. Well, I basically have to watch the entire thing, so I guess I'll have to get used to everything...or die trying. I probably won't die.

P.S. Unless something really unexpected happens, I probably won't post much more or perhaps at all about Future Boy Conan - it's unlikely to be a show that is interesting to write about.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

Oooh, I forgot the Bluray for Future Boy Conan was to come out this month.  Will have to track down.  Will be trying to catch up on Cobra, so may be able to add Conan too.

[majestic]

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Well, I basically have to watch the entire thing, so I guess I'll have to get used to everything...or die trying. I probably won't die.

I guess I know the reason why it never got a dub here now. Doesn't sound like something really appealing. Let me know if it gets better, for now that goes to the back of the queue.

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, majestic said:

I guess I know the reason why it never got a dub here now. Doesn't sound like something really appealing. Let me know if it gets better, for now that goes to the back of the queue.

Don't get me wrong, if you're into the classic "young boy goes on a coming of age adventure", it seems very good, especially for something made in the 70s. From what I know of Amentep and the animes that he's watched, it seems almost certain that he'll enjoy it...but it is simply not particularly my cup of tea. The positive things I can say for it for personally me is that the art and level of detail is probably unparalleled for a show that came out during this time period, the first three episodes at least were serialized (i.e. totally narrative-driven and not episodic at all, which will presumably continue), I like the Nausicaa-esque post-apocalyptic setting, it has a suitably serious tone, characters aren't in any way contemptible, and there's really nothing bad about it... Nevertheless, it still feels like something that has the character and narrative stylistic trappings of being made in the late 70s, and everything is in service of a type of a story that I'm simply not that interested in (especially given that it's not quite totally grounded when it clearly feels like it should be - when I saw our protagonist hold on to the edge of what was effectively a cliff literally by his toes in a clearly absurd manner, I gave out a big sigh). In other words, as I said, it simply lacks appeal to specifically me. Amentep will almost certainly sing its praises for all the same reasons but with the helpful context of it actually appealing to him, .

Edited December 14, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Amentep will almost certainly sing its praises for all the same reasons but with the helpful context of it actually appealing to him, .

Hey! I might resemble those remarks...!  

[majestic]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I gave out a big sigh

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Vivid episode six begins with a full team transformation scene for a mock battle. It's a minute long, and... lots of sighs were had. The transformations were always semi-cringeworthy to be honest, but everything in Vivid is just worse. Like, everything.

To drive home the differences between the characters, Erio is the only one who has a sensibly short and unproblematic one, and that's probably because nobody wants to look at boy transformation scenes.

I reall don't want to watch this any more. 7 regular episodes (including the one that's paused right now) and something called episode "12.5" left.

Wonder if it helps if I just play Nanowar of Steel over the episode. Probably not, but at least it's funny. edit: Video probably not safe for work. Take care.

 

Well, let's see what sort of stupid they came up with for this one. Yaaay.

edit: The have a mock battle support system that assigns hit points to people and deducts them when they're getting hit. Reach 0 HP, you're out. Yeah, that qualifies as properly stupid. Sigh. Vivio is almost out, so she's at her support team member getting a pit stop. I mean, healing. What. Guys, it was kind of funny when the battles played out like a JRGP, but it's not fun at all when you really MAKE them a JRPG.

edit:

The award for the worst combat outfit ever goes to...

Last season's quiet and contemplative girl looking for a way to revive her mother.

With this season being so bad, one starts to wonder about the battle scripts. Why exactly did Nanoha not start this with her famous Ion Cannon attack that just took Einhart out of the mock fight in one blast?

I mean, sure, because her limit breaker bar has to fill up first, because game mechanics and balance, but what's the excuse in an anime?

edit: That took the entire episode. Dear god, that fight is going to continue in the next one. I think I have enough for today.

Edited December 14, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

You know, if you watched the show at 100x speed, you could be done with it in 5 minutes.

[majestic]

39 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

You know, if you watched the show at 100x speed, you could be done with it in 5 minutes.

This is your fault, I hope you can live with it. I started the next episode, to see how much of an accelerated speed I could watch while still reading the subtitles, and this Erio manages to bypass Fate's defense and damages her armor.

I'll just put that into spoiler tags... hey @Amentep feel free to remove the images. They're not nearly as bad as the ones last time, but they're embedded this time.

Spoiler

And by damages her armor I mean this:

Spoiler

 

I... honestly can't think of a funny caption here.

 

 

This is torture. The CIA should use this anime as torture instead of waterboarding. That'll break anyone in a manner of minutes.But! Make no mistake. It can get WORSE.

Spoiler

 

Tiddies I'd pay good money for!

 

So much worse...

edit:

On the bright side, 1.5 times the regular speed works, so that'll cut down the runtime a wee bit.

edit:

Also not sure what's worse, Fate's damaged "armor" or the fact that the second picture helpfully reads when and how they got knocked out of the fight. I can understand the former, the latter is just... I don't know. I think I'll just go drown my sorrows. Let's see. I have some bottled water and sugar free passion fruit flavored juice. That'll work.

Edited December 14, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

This is your fault, I hope you can live with it.

My prognostication concerned purely the original series, sir, and that prognostication's aim was true...with only one aberration. Don't make me remind you of all the other terrible sequels to things you've seen or played that you've been putting off because you blissfully don't remember that they exist at the moment, .

Nanoha: What more can one really say at this point? Oh, right:

I might like Takahata's films more, but I'll always be eternally grateful for Miyazaki's quip and recognition of the obvious here,

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

My prognostication concerned purely the original series, sir, and that prognostication's aim was true...with only one aberration. Don't make me remind you of all the other terrible sequels to things you've seen or played that you've been putting off because you blissfully don't remember that they exist at the moment, .

Oh, that's not what I meant, sorry. I was thinking about how I would not have watched this dumpster fire of an episode until tomorrow if you wouldn't have mentioned watching at higher speeds. Instead I thought "Hey, that's a good idea, let's check!" and was eventually greeted with... <insert YouTuber meme here>. My disposition would have been better after some sleep and some more time. 

I was joking, hence the .

Regardless of this season, the prognostication was pretty good. I enjoyed Nanoha up until that point, except for the first movie and that one particularily trashy piece from the first season. That's what makes this alle the more frustrating, because for instance Love Live! was just not good right from the start (although, Love Live!'s fanservice is never this awful), so when that terrible movie was up it didn't feel as much of a dropoff as this.

All in all, this really is like SuperS, except with more pointless nudity and even worse out of character moments. Doesn't help that I don't like the Nanoha characters as much as the Sailor Moon ones (what else, they're not even close), but I do like them, and  they sure didn't deserve this.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Nanoha: What more can one really say at this point? Oh, right:

There are like six episodes left to watch, so expect some more whinging. The other spin off series that's left was at least made by the original studio, even though I doubt it'll be as good as StrikerS.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Diamond is Unbreakable 11+12: Red Hot Chili Pepper.

God damn, this is great.

On 12/13/2021 at 7:49 PM, InsaneCommander said:

 

Oh yes, he said that.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Considering how Stando powers sometimes relate to the user’s personality, imagine if this boy is hit by the arrow.

 

A few things I forgot to mention:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Janken po boy would be the most powerful Stando user. If he got Heaven’s door, he could force his adversaries to always choose paper, for example. And then he would accumulate lots of powers.

 

Why was Okuyasu so useless against Stando tower? The Hand is so underused. One possibility would be to pull the user to him by deleting space. Also, can he delete time? Maybe in both directions? Is Josuke the guy who saved young Josuke in the past?

 

And talking about Okuyasu, all the trouble being caused after Kira changed identity is his fault, since he fell for Kira’s father’s stupid trick and opened the photo.

 

Diamond is Unbreakable 31-34: July 15th

 

  Reveal hidden contents

What a mess! If it was not for the smelling guy, all would be lost. Rohan was brilliant defeating Cheap Trick!

 

Did Jotaru just leave his fingerprints in the blood at the crime scene? Who cares, there are no bodies left...

 

Well

Red Hot Chili Pepper already spies on people, so maybe Hayato would get something like that.

The Hand is a really powerful stand, but Okuyasu is too dumb to really use it. I wish he would have got more episodes to use it tbh.

July 15th had three stands right? Cheap Trick, Super Fly, and the one that got hit so hard he turned into a book.

[Bartimaeus]

16 hours ago, majestic said:

Oh, that's not what I meant, sorry. I was thinking about how I would not have watched this dumpster fire of an episode until tomorrow if you wouldn't have mentioned watching at higher speeds. Instead I thought "Hey, that's a good idea, let's check!" and was eventually greeted with... <insert YouTuber meme here>. My disposition would have been better after some sleep and some more time. 

I was joking, hence the .

1.5x speed isn't even that fast. I had watch Devilman Crybaby at anywhere between 2x and 3x speed - boy, that was a trip. Yeah, I suggest that instead, .

16 hours ago, majestic said:

There are like six episodes left to watch, so expect some more whinging. The other spin off series that's left was at least made by the original studio, even though I doubt it'll be as good as StrikerS.

You, uh...you gonna go straight into that one after ViVid as well?

(e): Was looking at the soundtrack for Samurai Ran...no English titles, so I put it through Google translate real quick. Uh...can you identify a theme?

Spoiler

01. Carried by the Wind (TV On Air Edit)
02. Wind of a Journey
03. The Wind of Darkness
04. Quiet Wind
05. Ran's Wind
06. A Wind Rumored Somewhere
07. Unconscious Wind
08. A Threatening Wind
09. Surrounding Wind
10. Strong Wind
11. Myao's Wind
12. Evil Wind
13. A Terrible Wind That Hides the Moon
14. Great Wind
15. Tipsy Wind
16. The Wind of Tears at the Pass
17. The Wind That Is Falling into a Trap
18. What Kind of Wind
19. Gale
20. The Sword Is the Wind of Love
21. Dead Wind
22. The Battle Is the Wind of Fire
23. Swordsman's Wind
24. Rushing Wind Dance
25. Soft Wind
26. A Foolish Wind
27. Hoarse Wind
28. Enduring Tears from the Blizzard's Wind
29. A Lonely and Cursed Wind
30. Roaring Wind
31. Hairpin Wind
32. Brave Wind
33. The Wind of a Sword
34. Evening Wind
35. The Wind of Two Rumors
36. Carried by the Wind 2
37. Next Week's Look at the Wind
38. Carried by the Wind

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Bartimaeus