4 minutes ago, majestic said:

What? I feel like people wanted me to watch Bleach two decades ago and I said that they should keep their filler-ridden shounen stuff until it is done and I can figure out if I really want to go anywhere near it, and it's still going? Or... getting new episodes?

Oh boy, that is one minefield I avoided. Phew!

You can always skip the fillers. The manga has been finished for some years now, but the anime never finished the last arc. Kubo has shown interest in going back to the world with new stories, so they probably restarted the anime in anticipation of that.

As far as the manga/anime goes, the first 2-3 arcs are bangers (and they are pretty self contained), it starts to drop off after.

15 minutes ago, majestic said:

What? I feel like people wanted me to watch Bleach two decades ago and I said that they should keep their filler-ridden shounen stuff until it is done and I can figure out if I really want to go anywhere near it, and it's still going? Or... getting new episodes?

Oh boy, that is one minefield I avoided. Phew!

The original anime started in 2004 and stopped in 2012 after 366 episodes. A new anime has started this year.

6 minutes ago, Sarex said:

You can always skip the fillers.

Yes, that is definitely a thing maj "I Have to Watch All Episodes of a Series Even If I Utterly Loathe It" estic would do, and certainly something you should confidently tell him when he's considering a show, . Not that there was any real possibility of him starting a several hundred episode shonen anyways, but...

Edited November 29, 20223 yr by Bartimaeus

On the bright side, just to post that picture in the Wrath thread, I started up the Violet Evergarden movie again and clicked through it. Nope, still don't like the way it ends. Also still think it's a blight on Violet's character arc, and cheapens her struggles (and the perfect way the show ended).

Still, it looks amazing for something made recently, and there's nary a fault to be found in structuring or writing, I mean, aside from adapting a really useless part of the source material. Also tried the English dub for a change, and, yeah, thanks, but no thanks. It's not the same without 2B voicing Violet.

"Gorth changed the title to Anime and Manga - fanservice, fanservice everywhere and not a character dramatization in sight!"

I'm disappointed. Sounds like @Gorth still needs the anime Ludovico.

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

Bleach anime has started up again. I want to watch that train wreck of a last arc again. The sad thing is that once Kubo got a break and rested from that serialization, he came back with some excellent stories. Do wonder when he is going to start up serialization again.

Huh. I remember dropping the anime after the filler arcs clogged it up but the manga was pretty good. Maybe he'll do a sequel with the hell stuff soon.

1 minute ago, Make a contract with KP said:

I'm disappointed. Sounds like @Gorth still needs the anime Ludovico.

Probably 😂

Give me a good suggestion and I might listen

 

1 minute ago, Gorth said:

Probably 😂

Give me a good suggestion and I might listen

 

It's time for you to finish what you've started and watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders.

2 minutes ago, Make a contract with KP said:

It's time for you to finish what you've started and watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders.

Done

6 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Done

Well that was easy. Fair warning, it's going to get weird. lali ho!

lmao, I completely misread and thought @Gorth was asking for anime recommendations. That's what I get for posting under the influence. Keep the title like it is though, that makes it all funnier.

Edited November 30, 20223 yr by Make a contract with KP

12 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yes, that is definitely a thing maj "I Have to Watch All Episodes of a Series Even If I Utterly Loathe It" estic would do, and certainly something you should confidently tell him when he's considering a show, . Not that there was any real possibility of him starting a several hundred episode shonen anyways, but...

The first 2-3 arcs are peak Shonen. There are a very few manga out there that come close. I can recommend anyone to watch the anime until the end of Soul Society arc. If nothing else the art in the manga is phenomenal, in a minimalist kind of way.

8 hours ago, Make a contract with KP said:

Huh. I remember dropping the anime after the filler arcs clogged it up but the manga was pretty good. Maybe he'll do a sequel with the hell stuff soon.

Which filler arc? 😄 As for the hell arc, I think he will wait for the anime to finish, or be close to finishing.

 

Edited November 30, 20223 yr by Sarex

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

The first 2-3 arcs are peak Shonen. There are a very few manga out there that come close. I can recommend anyone to watch the anime until the end of Soul Society arc. If nothing else the art in the manga is phenomenal, in a minimalist kind of way.

I know that I rag on everyone and everything way too much as it is, and it can be a really mean and trashy thing to do, especially for earnest recommendations from people who genuinely enjoy or even love what they're recommending. It must sometimes (or maybe even always!) seem that I am just being some combination of unnecessarily acerbic, contrarian, or simple hostile bastard that somehow literally everything you recommend invariably draws some kind of dire and terrible ire from me... I would just like to say that I don't mean to, I really honestly don't. I have not watched hardly anything of the show, but I have been frequently compared to Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory by others with regards to his ludicrous levels of intolerance and hatred for anything that even slightly deviates from exactly how he likes it: I am just the totally wrong person to recommend stuff to unless you have an excellent handle on exactly what I like and the particulars of why, and almost literally nobody does - sometimes not even myself.

With all of that said, let me just say is that many years ago when I was younger, I had a couple of close friends (including the aforementioned woman that recommended I Want to Eat Your Pancreas to me recently) that were super into both Bleach and One Piece, and so I had some amount of exposure to them. Those two are the animes/mangas that made me...not ever want to even look at the medium again. If they had instead been into other stuff, like maybe some lame and crappy shoujos, it's quite possible that I would have been something less than the full-on "DEUS VULT" that I have been with regards to anime up until very recently...but they weren't: here's another reminder that I truly believed that I wholly despised the entire medium until I randomly came across and tried Nausicaa and Sailor Moon, .

Edited November 30, 20223 yr by Bartimaeus

4 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I know that I rag on everyone and everything way too much as it is, and it can be a really mean and trashy thing to do, especially for earnest recommendations from people who genuinely enjoy or even love what they're recommending. It must sometimes (or maybe even always!) seem that I am just being some combination of unnecessarily acerbic, contrarian, or simple hostile bastard that somehow literally everything you recommend invariably draws some kind of dire and terrible ire from me... I would just like to say that I don't mean to, I really honestly don't. I have not watched hardly anything of the show, but I have been frequently compared to Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory by others with regards to his ludicrous levels of intolerance and hatred for anything that even slightly deviates from exactly how he likes it: I am just the totally wrong person to recommend stuff to unless you have an excellent handle on the exactly what I like and the particulars of why, and almost literally nobody does - sometimes not even myself.

With all of that said, let me just say is that many years ago when I was younger, I had a couple of close friends (including the aforementioned woman that recommended I Want to Eat Your Pancreas to me recently) that were super into both Bleach and One Piece, and so I had some amount of exposure to them. Those two are the animes/mangas that made me...not ever want to even look at the medium again. If they had instead been into other stuff, like maybe some lame and crappy shoujos, it's quite possible that I would have been something less than the full-on "DEUS VULT" with regards to anime that I have been up until very recently in my life...but they weren't: here's another reminder that I truly believed that I wholly despised the entire medium until I randomly came across and tried Nausicaa and Sailor Moon, .

I don't like One Piece either. As for Bleach, it depends a lot on which episodes/arc you watched, some are pretty terrible, not to mention the filters.

And to your credit, I have no clue what that would've been at the time (probably...starting around 2007 or so).

2 hours ago, Sarex said:

Which filler arc? 😄 As for the hell arc, I think he will wait for the anime to finish, or be close to finishing.

I don't think it was the Bount, but maybe the one after that. It was sometime after they had invaded the Hollow world and killed the bat guy. The manga was ahead and more interesting at that moment.

I hope he does end up doing the hell arc. That has some potential.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I know that I rag on everyone and everything way too much as it is, and it can be a really mean and trashy thing to do, especially for earnest recommendations from people who genuinely enjoy or even love what they're recommending. It must sometimes (or maybe even always!) seem that I am just being some combination of unnecessarily acerbic, contrarian, or simple hostile bastard that somehow literally everything you recommend invariably draws some kind of dire and terrible ire from me... I would just like to say that I don't mean to, I really honestly don't. I have not watched hardly anything of the show, but I have been frequently compared to Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory by others with regards to his ludicrous levels of intolerance and hatred for anything that even slightly deviates from exactly how he likes it: I am just the totally wrong person to recommend stuff to unless you have an excellent handle on exactly what I like and the particulars of why, and almost literally nobody does - sometimes not even myself.

With all of that said, let me just say is that many years ago when I was younger, I had a couple of close friends (including the aforementioned woman that recommended I Want to Eat Your Pancreas to me recently) that were super into both Bleach and One Piece, and so I had some amount of exposure to them. Those two are the animes/mangas that made me...not ever want to even look at the medium again. If they had instead been into other stuff, like maybe some lame and crappy shoujos, it's quite possible that I would have been something less than the full-on "DEUS VULT" that I have been with regards to anime up until very recently...but they weren't: here's another reminder that I truly believed that I wholly despised the entire medium until I randomly came across and tried Nausicaa and Sailor Moon, .

That is naughty of you. Take my recommendations seriously. Ba ba baby.

But really, I also gave anime the cold shoulder for a while because I didn't have access to the weirder and better stuff while the bigger series, like Bleach, had a lot of awful of filler that was terrible. The fact is that a lot of anything is terrible, just look at the TV series being released or some of the movies that are out. Top Gun: Maverick is 2 hours of US military propaganda with subplot about a man in a midlife crisis bolted on, now that's some garbage. Would be silly to drop movies after seeing that.

I think a problem is that anime is often seen less as a medium and more as a genre, which is often reinforced by how things are released and marketed. Outside of Japan at least, in the weebosphere is you will. A big problem is that the weirder series are stuff you have to go looking for while the trash takes center stage. The same applies to film or tv or games or anything really: Everything Everywhere All At Once is a film most of us here loved, but that mostly got heard because of word of mouth (very little advertising compared to a studio blockbuster but a ton of rave reviews from regular people). Compare this to Marvel Movie #9384 or Spielberg's boomer kitsch or Top Gun, you can't help but be inundated with them even if you have no intention of watching them.

Now I've lost the plot by getting mad at Top Gun again. What a ****ty movie.

Anyways Chainsaw Man 8. Denji has a hangover and Aki whips out his sword after eating ramen. What a great show.

Edited November 30, 20223 yr by Make a contract with KP

15 hours ago, Sarex said:

Bleach anime has started up again. I want to watch that train wreck of a last arc again. The sad thing is that once Kubo got a break and rested from that serialization, he came back with some excellent stories. Do wonder when he is going to start up serialization again.

should just hire a writer

kubo really only good at draw things look cool and come up with extreme chuuni name

Narutaru 11

The depressing episode starts with Akira’s father looking at her pictures when she was a child. “She was daddy’s girl”. “Did I do something wrong?” “What’s wrong with her?”

And her mother says: “You were too nice.”

The rest of the episode was all about bullying at school.

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

The rest of the episode was all about bullying at school.

It is going to get so much better than that. So, so much better!

11 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I know that I rag on everyone and everything way too much as it is, and it can be a really mean and trashy thing to do, especially for earnest recommendations from people who genuinely enjoy or even love what they're recommending. It must sometimes (or maybe even always!) seem that I am just being some combination of unnecessarily acerbic, contrarian, or simple hostile bastard that somehow literally everything you recommend invariably draws some kind of dire and terrible ire from me... I would just like to say that I don't mean to, I really honestly don't. I have not watched hardly anything of the show, but I have been frequently compared to Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory by others with regards to his ludicrous levels of intolerance and hatred for anything that even slightly deviates from exactly how he likes it: I am just the totally wrong person to recommend stuff to unless you have an excellent handle on exactly what I like and the particulars of why, and almost literally nobody does - sometimes not even myself.

You know, there's deliciously funny irony in the only recommendation from @Sarex that kind of worked for you (or which you did not hate, at least) being one made to me. Had a belly laugh reading your exchange here and thinking of that. Kinda made my day, so thanks.

Spoiler

My wife calls me Sheldon sometimes (read: often), wear it like a badge of honor.

edit:

21 hours ago, Make a contract with KP said:

One of these days I really have to get around to watching the Violet Evergarden movie. 

Maybe. I am uncertain, really. It's such a weird thing to not recommend a film that I really enjoyed watching and still can't... yeah. Odd, to say the least.

Edited November 30, 20223 yr by majestic

21 hours ago, Make a contract with KP said:

Well that was easy. Fair warning, it's going to get weird. lali ho!

lmao, I completely misread and thought @Gorth was asking for anime recommendations. That's what I get for posting under the influence. Keep the title like it is though, that makes it all funnier.

To be fair, that was how my post could be understood, because I accidentally left out the first part of the quoted post 😂

But reading your reply, I figured it would do nicely for both purposes 👍

1 minute ago, Gorth said:

To be fair, that was how my post could be understood, because I accidentally left out the first part of the quoted post 😂

But reading your reply, I figured it would do nicely for both purposes 👍

Lmao. We should aim for "I feel completely refreshed. Like I just put on fresh underwear on New Year's Day" next thread, if we can land it on New Year's Day.

Gainax. Mechs. Gunbuster, also known as Top o Nerae, also known as Aim for the Top. 1988.

I was originally going to have a poster here, but all of the posters for this show are terrible. Which, I have to be honest, doesn't exactly fill me with the utmost confidence about this show as I sit here writing this post after having only seen only the first 3 minutes of the show. So instead, you can watch that hilarious PS2 opening intro (which is actually pretty accurate to the show's real intro, but just...extremely terrible looking because it's in 3D PS2 graphics). Also, this, since I just saw it:

No, I don't know what it means either, but it sure is provocative. The first two minutes is the main character, Noriko, very matter of factly stating the apparent premise: she's very young and dearly loves her father, who is an accomplished space captain - now she's a teenager and he was just killed by invading aliens, and she's going to avenge him. Right! Well, that doesn't sound the most interesting to me, but let's see how this episode (there are a total of six) goes.

Spoiler

Huh. Well, our main character, Noriko, is an untalented klutz of a pilot, and she knows it, so instead of working hard to be able to avenge her father at the all girls mech/pilot school that she's failing at, she spends her time squeeing at attention from one of her fellow students that she has a crush on while trying to avoid negative attention from all the other girls. If it seems that I'm making her sound like she could be Usagi Tsukino, it's because she was acting a bit like Usagi Tsukino...for the first half of the episode.

But then she actually inexplicably gets selected to advance over the rest of the girls, and well, the rest of the girls besides her friend here don't take to it too kindly, so then some Mean Girls type stuff starts to go down. She tries to quit, but gets a pep talk from a crippled guy who served with her father who also happens to be the one responsible for picking who advances (hmm...how peculiar).

*cue Rocky training montage - no, really, that actually is pretty much exactly what happens*

For the rest of the episode, she's more like Shinji - still kind of weak and hesitant, but gets the job done by defeating the girl who wants to replace her. Right, now we're off to the more advanced training or whatever for the next episode: stuff happens quickly when you only have six episodes, I guess. Overall, it was actually...pretty good with a number of silly and funny moments (seeing giant mechs literally prance around being piloted by Mean Girls laughing at and taunting Noriko all the while was about enough to break my brain), even if it feels a bit too fast-paced. My only real complaint is...well, it's Gainax with a bunch of girls, so we do occasionally have NGE-like moments of mildly questionable fan service-y stuff that has a tendency to make me suspiciously narrow my eyes...which is admittedly much better and less distracting than the type of fan service you'd find in other shows, but still feels a little unnecessary. Bah humbug, Gainax.

Edited December 1, 20223 yr by Bartimaeus

On 11/30/2022 at 3:18 PM, Make a contract with KP said:

I hope he does end up doing the hell arc. That has some potential.

Seems he is announcing something tomorrow.

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Gainax. Mechs. Gunbuster, also known as Top o Nerae, also known as Aim for the Top. 1988.

I was originally going to have a poster here, but all of the posters for this show are terrible. Which, I have to be honest, doesn't exactly fill me with the utmost confidence about this show as I sit here writing this post after having only seen only the first 3 minutes of the show. So instead, you can watch that hilarious PS2 opening intro (which is actually pretty accurate to the show's real intro, but just...extremely terrible looking because it's in 3D PS2 graphics). Also, this, since I just saw it:

No, I don't know what it means either, but it sure is provocative. The first two minutes is the main character, Noriko, very matter of factly stating the apparent premise: she's very young and dearly loves her father, who is an accomplished space captain - now she's a teenager and he was just killed by invading aliens, and she's going to avenge him. Right! Well, that doesn't sound the most interesting to me, but let's see how this episode (there are a total of six) goes.

  Reveal hidden contents

Huh. Well, our main character, Noriko, is an untalented klutz of a pilot, and she knows it, so instead of working hard to be able to avenge her father at the all girls mech/pilot school that she's failing at, she spends her time squeeing at attention from one of her fellow students that she has a crush on while trying to avoid negative attention from all the other girls. If it seems that I'm making her sound like she could be Usagi Tsukino, it's because she was acting a bit like Usagi Tsukino...for the first half of the episode.

But then she actually inexplicably gets selected to advance over the rest of the girls, and well, the rest of the girls besides her friend here don't take to it too kindly, so then some Mean Girls type stuff starts to go down. She tries to quit, but gets a pep talk from a crippled guy who served with her father who also happens to be the one responsible for picking who advances (hmm...how peculiar).

*cue Rocky training montage - no, really, that actually is pretty much exactly what happens*

For the rest of the episode, she's more like Shinji - still kind of weak and hesitant, but gets the job done by defeating the girl who wants to replace her. Right, now we're off to the more advanced training or whatever for the next episode: stuff happens quickly when you only have six episodes, I guess. Overall, it was actually...pretty good with a number of silly and funny moments (seeing giant mechs literally prance around being piloted by Mean Girls laughing at and taunting Noriko all the while was about enough to break my brain), even if it feels a bit too fast-paced. My only real complaint is...well, it's Gainax with a bunch of girls, so we do occasionally have NGE-like moments of mildly questionable fan service-y stuff that has a tendency to make me suspiciously narrow my eyes...which is admittedly much better and less distracting than the type of fan service you'd find in other shows, but still feels a little unnecessary. Bah humbug, Gainax.

Is there any in-universe explanation for the mechs doing gymnastics and muscle building workouts?

8 minutes ago, majestic said:

Is there any in-universe explanation for the mechs doing gymnastics and muscle building workouts?

Yes...uh, kind of. Basically, the mechs are said to be actually quite difficult to control, so I guess it's all kind of muscle memory building exercises. Noriko talks about how she just can't seem to get the hang of using all of her limbs while also looking at the different screens to be able to control the stupid thing - she says that the girl she has a crush on just has a knack for it, but that girl actually tells Noriko that it's really just a lot of hard work and training to really get it down right. I also assume the gymnastics stuff is because they're all girls and...yeah, of course girls in mechs would be doing gymnastics and borderline cheerleading stuff, why wouldn't they?

Edited December 1, 20223 yr by Bartimaeus

Let me know if I should spoiler tag this stuff, but I don't see the reason. Nobody else is watching and it is Sailor Moon, where spoilers don't matter all too much. Or, like, at all.

Usagi thinks that Talks-With-Turtles is Tuxedo Mask, and she's nice to him and his turtle, so he invites her along to an amusement park. Usagi comes with Makoto and Rei, while Motoki brings the real Tuxedo Mask and some poor devil who ends up stuck with Rei who is so scared of her he just gets hiccups all the time. He says that always happens when he's close to girls, but no, I'm pretty sure he's just scared of her.

Who wouldn't be. This Rei looks like a psycho killer on a good day, much less on one where she gets duped into a triple date with Usagi without even knowing beforehand.

They're also renting row boats and while Hiccups and Talks-With-Turtles are trying their best to row, Makoto is just blazing past them. Mamoru is rightly impressed and asks if he should help, and she's like, yeah no, I got this. Yeah, that elicited laughter. Talks-With-Turtles sees turtles and is happy, Usagi is confused why Talks-With-Turtles isn't as exciting as Tuxedo Mask and generally, this is a pretty good episode.

The four get lost in a house of mirrors (that is mostly plastic because they could not afford mirrors) and trade places, and the set up is really cheesy and reminds me an awful lot of Seiya and Usagi in Stars... although there it was not a house of mirrors but a haunted hourse, of course. Anyway, #teamseiya now and forevermore. Rei sees a Youma and runs off, and of course she does, because otherwise this would not be Sailor Moon.

Poor hiccups blames himself. Poor guy. He gets possesed by the Youma and drains Rei's energy, which makes his turtle rise. I mean, the turtle backpack he's carrying, because Hiccups is a turtle lover too. I... wow. This is the worst joke in the history of all things Sailor Moon (Episode 7, at 16:40, if anyone wants to check, or maybe make a gif out of it...).

Usagi transforms in the house of mirrors because she thinks Mamoru can't see her transform, Makoto and Usagi pummel the Youma, Jadeite tries to fight them but Tuxedo Mask shows up. Usagi tells the girls she thought Motoki is Tuxedo Mask, Rei is really, really annoyed about being dragged into something this stupid because of Usagi's emotions, and Makoto defends Usagi, and the next episode is apparently about Makoto and Rei fighting, which in this context makes a whole lot more sense than Makoto and Minako going at each other in SuperS.

Minako was in the episode for two scenes and she's really weird.

I, uh, might not be entirely objective, but Makoto's actress kills the role. Usagi has the unenviable task of trying to be Usagi, which on and off works, Rei is... more manga Rei than anime Rei and Ami wasn't even in the episode because, uh, a second extra would have cost money?

 

Edited December 2, 20223 yr by majestic

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Minako was in the episode for two scenes and she's really weird.

Still makes me laugh how they characterized her in season 1 as like the epitome of responsibility and leadership...and then just rapidly transformed her into her off-the-walls wacky Sailor V self for season 2 and I somehow didn't notice the change. Wonder what version the TV adaptation gets.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Who wouldn't be. This Rei looks like a psycho killer on a good day, much less on one where she gets duped into a triple date with Usagi without even knowing beforehand.

Psycho killer Rei is the best version of Rei, though...and it's definitely not my inexplicable fondness for insane female characters in fiction speaking here.

JoJo Stone Ocean 25-26: Bohemian Rhapsody

Weather Report and Anasui fight Pinnochio, Snow White, and Vincent van Gogh.