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

[Gorth]

One episode to go of Hell's Paradise. It's Ok? Watchable, but if anyone asks me in 2024 what I watched in 2023, I might forget it when listing what I watched.

I think my main problem is I don't like the protagonist. It can be an issue when you start rooting for his opponents

 

Heavenly Delusion on the other hand... only 3 episodes in and it's complicated (I'll re-watch the the first three episodes before trying to summarize them)

I do like it so far though, so I'll keep watching it.

[uuuhhii]

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

One episode to go of Hell's Paradise. It's Ok? Watchable, but if anyone asks me in 2024 what I watched in 2023, I might forget it when listing what I watched.

I think my main problem is I don't like the protagonist. It can be an issue when you start rooting for his opponents

 

Heavenly Delusion on the other hand... only 3 episodes in and it's complicated (I'll re-watch the the first three episodes before trying to summarize them)

I do like it so far though, so I'll keep watching it.

that is one of the reason reading less and less light novel and manga

most main character are just pure garbage

[uuuhhii]

trying to watch kubo san this season

pretty boring

surprise to hear hanazawa

still so many familiar cv after so many years

[Lexx]

Watched Tear Along the Dotted Line and This World Can't Tear Me Down, both 6-part mini series. Honestly it was pretty great. Probably will rewatch it, though, because some parts were so fast, I had troubles following.

[Bartimaeus]

17 hours ago, Lexx said:

Watched Tear Along the Dotted Line and This World Can't Tear Me Down, both 6-part mini series. Honestly it was pretty great. Probably will rewatch it, though, because some parts were so fast, I had troubles following.

i watched the first episode

that was something

it was not bad, but it was something

kind of like if zero punctuation wrote a show, but with some interesting character writing

[Bartimaeus]

Whisper of the Heart (2022).

The basic premise is that Shizuki, our protagonist who was so driven and full of her dreams and ambitions of writing by the end of the original film, is now ten years older: she is a failure who cannot get anything she's written herself published, and she is being left behind by friends who are moving on with their personal and professional lives while she wilts away. She works as an editor at a podunk children's books publisher, in an uncaring industry that cannot really afford to approach writing in the way that she dreamed of when she was a child - she is even micro-managed into pushing the writers she's managing into directions she does not agree with, which only kills her even more. And her guy, Seiji, has been training to become a professional cellist in Italy...for ten damned years, and it has understandably taken its toll on both of them. It's a weird phenomenon to take a child's pure, hopeful, and beautiful perspective of their life and the world...and then flash forward ten years into the future where they've effectively been ground up into a fine paste - a nervous wreck that feels like they can't possibly accomplish anything with their life, that they're just...stuck at best, doing everything wrong at worst, and in the way of others. To a degree, it's kind of what happens to a lot of people in reality: sooner or later, most everyone gets eaten up one way or another by life, including and especially the wonderful, driven, and talented.

Okay, as for the movie itself. There are some pretty good ideas here, but it's such a hot mess. I'm just imagining how this might've been tackled if it were instead a Studio Ghibli-animated film made right after the first, and I think using the same core but cleaning and tightening it up, it would actually probably be great. But in 2022, in live-action, made by a mediocre director in what feels like a made-for-TV production, with all of its different ugly warts and awkward compromises...it's definitely less than. Still, the idea is there, just deeply buried.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[InsaneCommander]

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

49 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

 

Isekai has gone too far.

[Sarex]

That one got an anime? Probably the weirdest Isekai out there and it has a serious tone.

[Gorth]

FInished Hell's Paradise. It started promising and ended forgettable. Ah well, live and learn...

Now focusing instead on Heavenly Delusion. No opinion on it yet, as I only just started re-watching it from episode 1. As mentioned previously, I sort of watched the first 3 episodes, but it required a level of attention that made it go whoosh over my head, but was intriguing enough, that I suspect I'll like it, if I pay attention to what is going on.

[Lexx]

10 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

 

Spoiler

 

Still gonna watch, tho.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Lexx

[Sarex]

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

That one got an anime? Probably the weirdest Isekai out there and it has a serious tone.

Don't know why I said Isekai, when it isn't. Probably because most of the fantasy genre manga today is Isekai. Either way one of the weirdest manga, with weird humor, but still a serious tone. But it is good, it's just that I thought that it didn't have a big enough audience for an anime.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Sarex

[Bartimaeus]

Dark Cat (1991). What an incredibly bizarre little romance/horror OVA. I was half-expecting Miyu to make an appearance at some point just to put everyone out of their misery, especially what with the weird (although somewhat competently foreshadowed) twist...

Spoiler

...where the main character, the poor sickly and heart-broken girl who's just trying to do her best to hold on to her best friend that's been neglecting her while she's been stuck in the hospital, turned out to be the monster corrupting and killing everyone - twisted into a shinma demon by her desperate feelings of abandonment and jealousy. But unlike in Miyu, she's actually able to redeem herself, which was nice, because she really is a sweetheart just trying her best to shove down the negativity haunting her.

Within the demonic tome that the monster is holding, we shall now truly see the faces of evil.

Ah, yes, I can feel the dark power radiating. Turn your eyes to its guilty expression!

Definitely screams "I enjoy ripping apart and eating people" and not "I'm really tired and I hate always being stuck in the hospital where only exactly one of my friends ever bothers to even visit me", right? Yeah, that's what I thought too! Monster!

Happy Birthday Inochi Kagayaku Toki! (1999).

An hour and ten minutes long film that's basically an anti-bullying/suicide PSA for children. Kind of goes into the whole "cycle of abuse" with the main character's family and other students at school treating her horribly but eventually works its way around to explaining how they were victims themselves and trying to deal with it in something approaching a constructive manner...and with a good helping of trying to be kind to and patient with those less able than you. The "happy birthday" message in the title refers to a special needs child that has serious health issues that the main character befriends and appreciates in the face of the bullies. It has stretches that are very effective, but also stretches that aren't so much that feel less grounded and as though the film is treating the viewer like a child - probably because it's literally aimed at children, but it definitely feels like it would've been better off taking the more realistic and mature approach all the way through. I can't recommend it exactly, but it was an interesting novelty for covering some undercovered subjects.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[InsaneCommander]

On 7/8/2023 at 9:08 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Isekai has gone too far.

I would make a joke about the baker isekai this season, but they are also airing the Vending Machine one now, so it isn't even funny anymore.

Edited July 10, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

32 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

I would make a joke about the baker isekai this season, but they are also airing the Vending Machine one now, so it isn't even funny anymore.

I'm just going to stick with Uncle Dio and The Beasttamer who met a Catgirl From the Strongest Race.

[uuuhhii]

d gray man op are still pretty good

sad how manga turn into garbage

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

d gray man op are still pretty good

sad how manga turn into garbage

what is dead may never die

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

what is dead may never die

But rises again harder and stronger.

[Sarex]

7 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

sad how manga turn into garbage

Yeah... I think it's mostly due to the authors health.

[InsaneCommander]

On 7/11/2023 at 1:25 PM, majestic said:

But rises again harder and stronger.

So it seems. Spice and Wolf is back, after more than 10 years. It's a reboot, the story will start from the beginning.

Edit: it's actually 15 years later. After this, no one will give up on reviving an anime series.

Edited July 12, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[Lexx]

4 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

Spice and Wolf is back

Yay!!

4 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

It's a reboot, the story will start from the beginning.

Noooo.

 

[InsaneCommander]

Btw, good luck surpassing the original series' opening songs. They are among my favorite:

 

[InsaneCommander]

 

[Bartimaeus]

I don't know if there's a single thing in the entire universe that I hate more than anime.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

26 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I don't know if there's a single thing in the entire universe that I hate more than anime.

Henry Kissinger?

Edited July 14, 2023 by PK htiw klaw eriF