Anime and Manga - I won’t allow your bones to stay on this planet. I will banish your evil soul.

[Amentep]

On 11/13/2022 at 5:14 AM, majestic said:

First of all, the obligatory and necessary nitpick: Sailor Moon R begins with the Doom Tree filler arc, not with Chibi-Usa appearing. I hope this doesn't mean that this Erica Henderson character is following some episode guide that recommends dropping the filler episodes. Such things are great for animes like Bleach where there's filler arcs in the filler arcs to pad out filler seasons that are generally of much lower quality than episodes based on the manga because the manga writer is better than the show's writers. For Sailor Moon, that is not the case: not watching the Doom Tree arc will make you miss out on some of the funniest episodes in the series, not to mention some of the most heartwarming scenes.

Worse yet: skipping the Sailor Stars filler arc would make one miss out on the only well written story arc of the entire anime. It's not a coincidence that both filler arcs are significantly better in terms of storytelling than the rest of the anime for the simple reason of not being shackled to the confused mess the source material is, which by all accounts has become popular in spite of being a mess (and the reprints of the mangas contain a quasi-apology by the writer for the mess that it is, so this isn't just some generic internet hate). However that has happened will remain an eternal mystery to me.

Now, as for Chibi-Usa: I can say from personal experience that one's reaction to Chibi-Usa is also colored by life experiences and maturity. The first time I watched the anime, which was way back when it first aired, I hated Chibi-Usa with a passion, at least while she was around in R, which is to say, well, the entire time after she shows up. When she eventually comes back in the next season, she is a character that gets enough agency to be interesting even if you didn't like her initially.

The second time around I wondered why I reacted as badly to her presence. She's a child, and her interactions with Usagi show how much of a child Usagi still is too - which makes sense, with her being 14 at the time. Chibi-Usa acts in a (often incredibly) stupid manner all the time, but that is because she's a child running from a traumatic experience. More specifically, she's Usagi's child, after all, and it only makes sense for her to take after her mother. She eventually becomes the foil used to highlight Usagi's own character development, but she's a disruptive and foreign element that can feel out of place, and if it does, then that is quite bad for one's enjoyment of the series, especially when her actions threaten the characters you've come to love simply because she does not trust them, even though they clearly can be trusted (and it is obvious to literally everyone, even children, that Chibi-Usa is the child of Mamoru and Usagi, so stop being stupid Chibi-Usa and understand that, why don't you?).

Chibi-Usa is fine, outside of everything that happens in Sailor Moon SuperS, and the less is said about that, the better. Arguably it is an inverse case of her appearance in R, the greater one's life experience and maturity are, the creepier the contents of Sailor Moon SuperS become. Superficially, her romance with a horse can be seen as, well, romantic, and going by YouTube comments from clips, it often is. One can also see the Amazon Trio's acts of looking at the dreams of their victims as exactly that.

Or, well, one can see it for what it is. A season long metaphor for sexual assault and pedophilia, because that horse 'befriends' Chibi-Usa in much the same way a pedophile would groom a little girl, and the less is said about the Amazon Trio's actions the better. SuperS is basically what one gets as a studio when you ask your writers to revert the natural changes to your characters that happen over time back to their more or less super childish season one predispositions even when they don't want to and it makes no sense to do so. Since there are more people aware of Harry Potter these days, I suppose, one can use Harry as an example, imagine what would have happened if Warner Brothers had asked the filmmakers to go back to making films similar to the first Harry Potter movie - after HP & the Goblet of Fire. Granted, the result could not have been much worse than Order of the Phoenix, but let's not let that ruin the metaphor.

Little wonder that almost the entire creative team was replaced for the final season.

I still remember groaning so hard when Chibi-Usa shows up out of the blue after only a few episodes in S, but the way she integrates into the team and the series is much better in the third season. Like 25 years later it was so much easier to see this as intentional and making sense than it was back then. It's obvious for the viewers who Chibi-Usa is and that she should just tell everything to her parents, but it's not that obvious to her. Eh.

To be honest, I don't know if they're following a guide, or if Erica has explained to Dave the story so far and leapt in with it to get his impression.   Or even if she was watching it and he just wandered through and offered the criticism without having seen anything else. No real context given really.

On 11/13/2022 at 8:28 AM, Bartimaeus said:

@majestic I was wondering if you were going to give Amentep an earful for daring to post that, particularly without the context of having seen the show himself. Although I should admit that I almost nitpicked the same thing about the first ten or so episodes not even having Chibi-Usa...but the thing is, I did restrain myself. Luckily, I had you to pick up the slack, .

Personally, I saw the show as an adult first and didn't have an issue with Chibi-Usa and liked her outside of SuperS, but most everyone and everything is wrong in SuperS, so I'm not going to hold it against her personally even though she and her pegasus problem are definitely the absolute worst part of that season. So unless Scrappy Doo is actually magically much better as an adult (and that would be very difficult to believe), the comparison really just doesn't fit for me.

I see people with opinions on Sailor Moon...I just got to know what you guys think of those opinions.  

20 hours ago, majestic said:

Not giving Amentep an earful, but I'm not going to take to Twatter to twatter out a reply, so he gets it here.

Actually that semi cohesive pseudo-essay began as a one liner nitpicking about R not beginning with Chibi-Usa falling from the sky until I realized that she could potentially be watching the series with an episode guide that leaves out the filler, and everthing else just followed from there. Might as well just go and watch Crystal to have your brain melted like that.

I said it before, I can see getting a head start with the series by just watching episodes 1, 8, 10 and 13, but even that is questionable. Sure, it drops Usagi's most annoying early moments, but it also removes a few episodes that were just plain fun (like those completely mad furry glowy-eyed pet things).

But dropping all the good episodes in favor of getting to BRACK RADY early? Yeah, count me out. I'd rather watch Makoto tidy up Motoki's room and cook for Ali.

Luckily, I am only aware of Scrappy Doo by pop-cultural osmosis. Scooby Doo did air every now and then, but never the episodes with Scrappy, and I am certainly not going to subject myself to them just to figure out just how wrong the comparison really is. I'll take your word for it.

It sure is a curious position to be in, understanding both sides of an argument by personal experience. Chibi-Usa occupies a Schrödinger's space in my brain as I remember loathing her inclusion in the series (never mind hating her character), and actually enjoying her presence.

As an aside, Erica Henderson is an Eisner winning comic artist and animator, so not a completely random Twitterererer.  Even if it was a Tweetered Tweet on the Twittersphere of Twitterdom.

For my part, I finally picked back up SPEED RACER and watched the final episode of THE RACE AGAINST THE MAMMOTH CAR.  They only had one scene with the car broken up (when refueling), I really thought it was a more important thing from my childhood memories.  So either my memory cheats, or I've mix-mastered multiple episodes in my memory.  Some good Spritle and Chim-Chim action (maybe Hanna-Barbera should have looked at how they play against the heroes for Scrappy Doo ideas?).

[Bartimaeus]

5 minutes ago, Amentep said:

For my part, I finally picked back up SPEED RACER and watched the final episode of THE RACE AGAINST THE MAMMOTH CAR.  They only had one scene with the car broken up (when refueling), I really thought it was a more important thing from my childhood memories.  So either my memory cheats, or I've mix-mastered multiple episodes in my memory.  Some good Spritle and Chim-Chim action (maybe Hanna-Barbera should have looked at how they play against the heroes for Scrappy Doo ideas?).

I think you're overlooking something:

I demand more dumb Trixie faces!

[Amentep]

Others from this episode -

Trixie is shocked, Speed is angry.  Or determined.  Maybe both.

Neither Speed nor Trixie like being buzzed by a plane.

Derp.

[Malcador]

They look pretty buzzed at the end there.

[Amentep]

Yeah I started to title it "That weed be hittin' like..." but decided not to...

[majestic]

Narutaru:

This is sure going places.

Spoiler

Hiro is Shiina's friend. Hiro gets bullied at school by a group of other girls who demand that she gets 70% or lower on her next exam. Being a child of Asian Parents (tm), she instead elects to skip school and visit Shiina. They spend a nice evening with Akira and Shiina's father, and on the way home the bully group waits for Hiro and starts...

Spoiler

...raping her with a test tube as punishment, which is honestly something I could have done without. They actually planned on breaking it at some point by kicking her, but someone showed up and scared them off.

Well, I'm going to have a field day when the metaphorical school shooting starts in the aftermath of this particular fun episode.

edit:

Spoiler

Hiro summons a shadow demon that randomly decapitates people, tears one of the bullies in several little parts and forces worms down the throat of another (they forced her to swallow live worms) before breaking her apart by shoving a clawed finger up her... well, you get the idea.

Edited November 15, 2022 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

One more for the collection!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Spy x Family 19: The worst so far.

The only funny moments were Anya giving a kid a leaf she found in the street as a going away present (while everyone else was giving fancy ****) and Yor imagining Anya with the shocked face. Thankfully Franky wasn't there.

[majestic]

Narutaru, the anime is... incomplete. The adaptation only covers half the manga, apparently. Whether nobody watched that psyched out series or if the creators had misgivings about adapting the rest of the material which is apparently even worse than:

Spoiler

Seeing a demon claw up a 12 year old's private parts until she's ripped in half... who has been very strongly implied (read: it is all but shown directly) to have a sexual relationship with her creepy brother. No, things are entirely not messed up. Not at all!

is up in the air, as there are no real official statements from what I could see. I guess I have to read the manga (and deal with stupid fan translations, while there was a complete run of the manga in German it is simply not easily available, and the English version got canned after issue #6 of 12, which contains the above scene) if I want to know what will happen, on the other hand, I've already read that the ending of the manga is similar to what happens during The End of Evangelion, except Narutaru's ending is supposedly depressing (as opposed to the uplifting way that TEoE ended ).

Spoiler

Shiina goes full Agent Smith and terminates mankind after a series of increasingly depressing and terrifying events happen to kill off everyone she ever cared for, with only her daughter and someone else left as a new Adam and Eve.

Browsed through the first issues, it's incredible how faithful the anime adaptation is. Too bad it's such low quality animation, the sound effects really enhanced the atmosphere.

I also read that in France, the manga was marketed as shounen for a bit because the publisher thought it would be a fun school hijinks story with a cute little monster pet. Yeah. Guess how well that went.

Edited November 15, 2022 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

A mildly spoilery post I read about the series:

Spoiler

Doesn't seem to be my sort of thing from everything I've heard about it, really, .

Edited November 15, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[uuuhhii]

a lot of depressive galgame have plot like this

always feels self indulgent tragedy for tragedy sake

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

A mildly spoilery post I read about the series:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

The nitpicker in me wants to point out that Narutaru isn't guro, just because it contains violence and nudity (none of which is in any way erotic, very, very far from it). Hence anything that character says about it can be dismissed out of hand. Being less nice about it, it's probably someone who enjoyed Rebuild.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Doesn't seem to be my sort of thing from everything I've heard about it, really, .

That seems like a reasonable assessment.

[Malcador]

16 hours ago, majestic said:

Narutaru:

This is sure going places.

  Reveal hidden contents

Hiro is Shiina's friend. Hiro gets bullied at school by a group of other girls who demand that she gets 70% or lower on her next exam. Being a child of Asian Parents (tm), she instead elects to skip school and visit Shiina. They spend a nice evening with Akira and Shiina's father, and on the way home the bully group waits for Hiro and starts...

  Reveal hidden contents

...raping her with a test tube as punishment, which is honestly something I could have done without. They actually planned on breaking it at some point by kicking her, but someone showed up and scared them off.

Well, I'm going to have a field day when the metaphorical school shooting starts in the aftermath of this particular fun episode.

edit:

  Reveal hidden contents

Hiro summons a shadow demon that randomly decapitates people, tears one of the bullies in several little parts and forces worms down the throat of another (they forced her to swallow live worms) before breaking her apart by shoving a clawed finger up her... well, you get the idea.

W

That's a very strange sounding show

[majestic]

2 minutes ago, Malcador said:

That's a very strange sounding show

Not at all, I don't understand how you got that impression.

[Bartimaeus]

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

The nitpicker in me wants to point out that Narutaru isn't guro, just because it contains violence and nudity (none of which is in any way erotic, very, very far from it). Hence anything that character says about it can be dismissed out of hand. Being less nice about it, it's probably someone who enjoyed Rebuild.

That seems like a reasonable assessment.

I didn't think "guro" meant erotic, just gore/grotesque. I haven't actually typed "anime guro meaning" into Google, and I'm not going to, but that was my impression.

This particular poster, funnily, is actually...uh, believe it or not, literally the only person I know of from that website that has even a lick of sense: I remember them because of that stupid avatar, and because of the amount of times I've seen them comment on something that I've watched and I've thought "man, this guy really is the only other semi-sane person on this entire website", . Case in point, they have NGE as one of their highest rated shows but didn't even bother to watch the Rebuilds, or if they did, they did not rate them. They're also fans of various old shoujo series series like Ririka SOS, Sailor Moon, and Devilman Lady, so avatar notwithstanding, I can't complain too much about their judgement...

Edited November 15, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 minute ago, Bartimaeus said:

I didn't think "guro" meant erotic, just gore/grotesque. I haven't actually typed "anime guro meaning" into Google, and I'm not going to, but that was my impression.

The actual term for the genre is ero guro (エログロ) from shortened from erotic grotesque to erogro and mangled through Japanese pronunciation. Guro is just shorthand, but often mistaken to mean gore (but that would be goru, not guro). Guro as a word is part of a phenomenon where vaguely English sounding terms appear in other languages that are however not of English origin, or have vastly different meanings. Since I'm working from home today, I had to put "Home Office" in my calendar so people know I'm not at the office.

Sounds like it might be a term taken from English, but hey, it's not. Just like Handy for mobile phone, or a couple of other things.

Well, lesson over.

6 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

This particular poster, funnily, is actually...uh, believe it or not, literally the only person I know of from that website that has even a lick of sense: I remember them because of that stupid avatar, and because of the amount of times I've seen them comment on something that I've watched and I've thought "man, this guy really is the only other semi-sane person on this entire website", . Case in point, they have NGE as one of their highest rated shows but didn't even bother to watch the Rebuilds, or if they did, they did not rate them. They're also fans of various old shoujo series series like Ririka SOS, Sailor Moon, and Devilman Lady, so avatar notwithstanding, I can't complaint too much about their judgement...

Well, in that case, I stand corrected.

I'll just read the manga and re-asses then, but the anime part never gave off the feeling of being an NGE wannabe, outside of messed up people controlling starfish alien entities with half a will of their own. Well, putting it that way...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

6 hours ago, majestic said:

Narutaru, the anime is... incomplete. The adaptation only covers half the manga, apparently. Whether nobody watched that psyched out series or if the creators had misgivings about adapting the rest of the material which is apparently even worse than:

  Reveal hidden contents

Seeing a demon claw up a 12 year old's private parts until she's ripped in half... who has been very strongly implied (read: it is all but shown directly) to have a sexual relationship with her creepy brother. No, things are entirely not messed up. Not at all!

is up in the air, as there are no real official statements from what I could see. I guess I have to read the manga (and deal with stupid fan translations, while there was a complete run of the manga in German it is simply not easily available, and the English version got canned after issue #6 of 12, which contains the above scene) if I want to know what will happen, on the other hand, I've already read that the ending of the manga is similar to what happens during The End of Evangelion, except Narutaru's ending is supposedly depressing (as opposed to the uplifting way that TEoE ended ).

  Reveal hidden contents

Shiina goes full Agent Smith and terminates mankind after a series of increasingly depressing and terrifying events happen to kill off everyone she ever cared for, with only her daughter and someone else left as a new Adam and Eve.

Browsed through the first issues, it's incredible how faithful the anime adaptation is. Too bad it's such low quality animation, the sound effects really enhanced the atmosphere.

I also read that in France, the manga was marketed as shounen for a bit because the publisher thought it would be a fun school hijinks story with a cute little monster pet. Yeah. Guess how well that went.

That's unfortunate, but it's next on my list so let's see if it drives me to madness.

53 minutes ago, Malcador said:

That's a very strange sounding show

Nonsense, it's slice of life. Whomst amongst us has not summoned an entity from beyond reality and/or hell that wreaks havoc?

[Bartimaeus]

13 minutes ago, Make a contract with KP said:

Nonsense, it's slice of life. Whomst amongst us has not summoned an entity from beyond reality and/or hell that wreaks havoc?

I keep trying, but nobody's picking up the phone... I'm even willin' to sign over my soul and everything. Does anyone have any tips? ...Oh no, is it because I'm not a magical girl? Okay, if I just get an otherworldly entity to change me into...aw, crap: is this one of those "you have to be a magical girl to become a magical girl" situations? Life's such a crock of crap, I tells ya.

51 minutes ago, majestic said:

Well, in that case, I stand corrected.

Yeah, well, he also gave Maison Ikkoku a 9/10, so the guy's a moron. Or maybe just old. I guess there's a lot worse than liking 1986 shonens, particularly if you watched it when you were young-ish... He was talking purely about the manga, not the anime, so who knows - I guess you'll knows when/if you read the manga, .

Edited November 15, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

28 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, well, he also gave Maison Ikkoku a 9/10, so the guy's a moron. Or maybe just old. I guess there's a lot worse than liking 1986 shonens, particularly if you watched it when you were young-ish... He was talking purely about the manga, not the anime, so who knows - I guess you'll knows when/if you read the manga, .

12 issues with each between 150 and 200 pages, apparently. I am uncertain if that is a commitment I want to make right now. Plus a prologue issue with another 180 pages. Yay...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

41 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I keep trying, but nobody's picking up the phone... I'm even willin' to sign over my soul and everything. Does anyone have any tips?

There's your problem, the souls of would-be summoners are low tier. If you're willing to summon a creature from hell then it already has a strong claim on your soul while entities from beyond don't really care about such stuff. It's like trying to sell ice to an Alaskan or a hamburger to a vegan, respectively.

For the hell creature try sacrificing someone else's soul, while the thing from beyond will be satisfied with taking a look at the world through your eyes. Have fun.

[InsaneCommander]

17 hours ago, Make a contract with KP said:

Spy x Family 19: The worst so far.

The only funny moments were Anya giving a kid a leaf she found in the street as a going away present (while everyone else was giving fancy ****) and Yor imagining Anya with the shocked face. Thankfully Franky wasn't there.

Yor has a very fertile imagination:

 

8 hours ago, majestic said:

Narutaru, the anime is... incomplete. The adaptation only covers half the manga, apparently. Whether nobody watched that psyched out series or if the creators had misgivings about adapting the rest of the material which is apparently even worse than:

SPOILER

I shouldn't be reading the spoilers, since this is next on my list, but that reminded of a similar scene in Mushoku Tensei. As I mentioned here once, this anime is great in many aspects, but the protagonist is a total pervert and there are plenty of unnecessary situations.

Spoiler

No violence in the scene, but the reincarnated 40 year old, now in a 5-7 year old body, touches his 10-12 year old cousin between her legs.

 

[InsaneCommander]

Chainsaw Man 6

The party is trapped in the 8th floor. Aki and Himeno can't figure a way out. Arai is afraid, while Kobeni is freaking out.

Meanwhile, Denji takes a nap and Power eats all the food.

 

[Malcador]

Rewatching Ikki Tousen, to make all criticisms I have about other anime series to be hypocritical

[Bartimaeus]

19 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Ikki Tousen

Top tags...ecchi, action, martial arts. Poster shows lady doing a kick and showing off her lady bits. The user-submitted screenshots are all of...women in various stages of either undress, upshots, downshots, and/or "action" poses. Yes, I'm sure it's just a perfectly quality show with a perfectly wonderful fan following, . Now if you will excuse me, I have to get back to slitting my wrists...although in light of what I've just seen, maybe I should focus more on my eyes instead.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Suddenly, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS doesn't seem so bad, huh?