Anime and Manga - How do you Live? Edition

[Gorth]

5 hours ago, Gorgon said:

I watched season 1 of Frieren over the last two days. not bad.

About as Danish as a compliment gets...

[Sarex]

So that's it for Frieren as far as this season goes. They have more than enough chapters to do a similar run straight away and they pretty much confirmed that it will happen. No reason for it not to considering the popularity.

Edited March 22 by Sarex

[InsaneCommander]

Frieren 28

Time to see who else passed Serie’s test.

Too many screenshots, better do something like what @Gorth does.

There were many who passed, which caused Serie to apologise to Sense. Denken made it, because he still has some fire in him, even considering fighting Serie, for a moment. Ubel, in record time, not saying a single word (perhaps Serie is an Ubel armpit enthusiast too?). Land, who was actually sipping tea in his hometown, sending his clones to the exam.

 

Also succeeded Wirbel and Methode (who said Serie was cute). Ehre and Scharf failed.

 

Fern says they can bring guests to the celebration, but Serie forbids Frieren from coming back for the next 1000 years.

 

She waits outside with Stark and Lernen shows up, claiming he wants to be remembered, even if it means as the one who killed Frieren. She informs him that Serie will not forget him, despite being unable to tell her apprentices how she feels.

 

The group says their farewells and Fern reveals that she chose as her prize a spell to make clothes clean and spotless, which caused some disappointment in Serie, something that pleased Frieren.

 

Btw, am I the only one seeing this in Sarex's comment above?

Edited March 23 by InsaneCommander

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

49 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Frieren 28

Time to see who else passed Serie’s test.

Too many screenshots, better do something like what @Gorth does.

There were many who passed, which caused Serie to apologise to Sense. Denken made it, because he still has some fire in him, even considering fighting Serie, for a moment. Ubel, in record time, not saying a single word (perhaps Serie is an Ubel armpit enthusiast too?). Land, who was actually sipping tea in his hometown, sending his clones to the exam.

 

Also succeeded Wirbel and Methode (who said Serie was cute). Ehre and Scharf failed.

 

Fern says they can bring guests to the celebration, but Serie forbids Frieren from coming back for the next 1000 years.

 

She waits outside with Stark and Lernen shows up, claiming he wants to be remembered, even if it means as the one who killed Frieren. She informs him that Serie will not forget him, despite being unable to tell her apprentices how she feels.

 

The group says their farewells and Fern reveals that she chose as her prize a spell to make clothes clean and spotless, which caused some disappointment in Serie, something that pleased Frieren.

 

Btw, am I the only one seeing this in Sarex's comment above?

No I see it too. Maybe you have a doppelganger.

Edit: reacting to it doesn't seem to do anything 

Edited March 23 by PK htiw klaw eriF

[ShadySands]

Glitch in the matrix 

[Gorth]

7 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

Frieren 28

Saw it this morning. I know Himmel says "Tearful goodbyes aren't our style"... not sure that really worked

I'm not particularly emotional, but dang it I felt I had moist eyes like every third episode on average. Not because it was all sad, just because it was beautiful at times

[InsaneCommander]

@Gorth I'm watching "Moonlit Fantasy" and you'll probably like it. It's very similar to "That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime", with a guy going to another world and eventually founding his own nation with monsters.

He was taken by a goddess that thinks he is ugly, so he was cursed and can't speak the human language. Not to mention that every human in the new world is handsome/beautiful so people think he is not one of them.

[Gorth]

On 3/31/2024 at 2:56 AM, InsaneCommander said:

@Gorth I'm watching "Moonlit Fantasy" and you'll probably like it. It's very similar to "That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime", with a guy going to another world and eventually founding his own nation with monsters.

He was taken by a goddess that thinks he is ugly, so he was cursed and can't speak the human language. Not to mention that every human in the new world is handsome/beautiful so people think he is not one of them.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll check it out

Feeling sort of sad and empty with no more "Frieren Fridays" (and no word on a season two either at the time writing)

Otherwise just following Metallic Rouge (the latter not being a typo) which is up to episode 12. I did see that Tensei Nikki (that time I got reincarnated as a slime) has a third season on the way, so I do have a bit to look forward to (and possibly get disappointed in)

 

[InsaneCommander]

On 4/1/2024 at 3:06 AM, Gorth said:

Feeling sort of sad and empty with no more "Frieren Fridays" (and no word on a season two either at the time writing)

Otherwise just following Metallic Rouge (the latter not being a typo) which is up to episode 12. I did see that Tensei Nikki (that time I got reincarnated as a slime) has a third season on the way, so I do have a bit to look forward to (and possibly get disappointed in)

Tensei Slime returns next Friday. I guess we have "Slimy Fridays" now.

[Bartimaeus]

On the subject of Akira Toriyama, most of the Dragon Ball series has never released in real/quality HD, mostly due to consistent and wilful incompetence by Funimation/Toei Animation (and also some other companies from different regions, like Selecta Vision). A French studio has been releasing the original Dragon Ball (not Z) show on blu-ray, and it looks a bit different from previous releases...

Here's the kicker: it is an AI upscale from a DVD source, a model trained specifically and only on cel animation. If I hadn't been told that, I would've assumed this is a real (albeit flawed and too processed but still pretty decent) HD transfer. Now that I know it's an AI upscale, I'm pretty certain companies making real HD transfers of these old animated shows/movies is going to become largely a thing of the past - why go through the trouble of finding and re-scanning all your original materials, which is time-consuming and expensive, when you can just...do this, which looks alright, costs pennies, and takes practically no time/oversight in comparison?

Edited April 4 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Here's the kicker: it is an AI upscale from a DVD source, a model trained specifically and only on cel animation. If I hadn't been told that, I would've assumed this is a real (albeit flawed and too processed but still pretty decent) HD transfer. Now that I know it's an AI upscale, I'm pretty certain companies making real HD transfers of these old animated shows/movies is going to become largely a thing of the past - why go through the trouble of finding and re-scanning all your original materials, which is time-consuming and expensive, when you can just...do this, which looks alright, costs pennies, and takes practically no time/oversight in comparison?

There's one other thing, the AI models are only going to get better. Still waiting for a model that takes modern, icky digital coloring and makes it look like actual painted cels from the heyday of animation. Where's my "make K-On! look good" AI?

[Bartimaeus]

58 minutes ago, majestic said:

There's one other thing, the AI models are only going to get better. Still waiting for a model that takes modern, icky digital coloring and makes it look like actual painted cels from the heyday of animation. Where's my "make K-On! look good" AI?

Feel like that's not really going to be a thing, since the audience that fell in love with a show like K-On is obviously not going to want the animation that they already like to suddenly look look ye olde cels. So it's not something companies would be interested in trying to make/sell, and it's not something even fans would probably be very interested in making themselves. Though I'd be very curious to see what that would actually look like, especially given that there are obviously so many other art style differences as well - I'd imagine it'd be a rather bewildering hybrid. It's possible that the tools and training data could be made available for most anyone to use on anything someday, though...

In fact, I have already seen one fan-made AI upscale doing a similar thing as the above Dragon Ball images. Mickey's Christmas Carol (1992), compare the images at full size:

One of these is the official Disney blu-ray, one of these is a fan-made PAL DVD upscale. Unfortunately, the first column is the official Disney source. Yikes. I'd love to be able to apply this process to something like Steven Universe and see what results...

Edited April 4 by Bartimaeus

[Sarex]

Damn... That's not a small difference. Although it could be that disney's effort was just not well done.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

Damn... That's not a small difference. Although it could be that disney's effort was just not well done.

The Disney effort was a traditional (i.e. not AI-assisted) upscale with some additional filtering done to it to try to give the illusion of being digital, though they actually didn't go as far as they could have - for example, they didn't even jack up the bright/dark dynamics and completely wipe the darker sections of the image to a flat black, which is an all too common sin for upscales like this. Some people like the look of upscales such as this, they think it looks "cleaner", but they are (no offense to anybody here that does) complete tosspots that should not be allowed to give their opinions on anything film-related. Okay, that's probably a little harsh, but...actually, no, I think it's pretty well-deserved. The fan-made AI upscale, on the other hand, is a total lie that has all sorts of wrong/fabricated micro-details, but aesthetically speaking, it's certainly much softer and filmic while just being more pleasing to the eye in comparison.

Other shows I'd really like to see rendered with that upscaling method: Sailor Moon, Vampire Princess Miyu, Avatar: The Last Airbender, the 'lost' episode (16) of Neon Genesis...

[Bartimaeus]

Frieren, episode 1:

This episode did not make me want to claw out my eyes, chew off my tongue, cut off my ears, burn my nose hairs, tear out my spinal cord, or excavate my brain from my skull. So, that's an improvement over the last one...that gosh-awful food one. Though it also didn't do that much for me either...interesting concept, but I'm kind of lukewarm on it so far. Both Frieren and Fern have annoying voices/mannerisms, so that's not helping. If I hadn't noticed this was made by my guys Madhouse, I don't think I would have checked this out at all.

Edited April 5 by Bartimaeus

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Frieren, episode 1:

This episode did not make me want to claw out my eyes, chew off my tongue, cut off my ears, burn my nose hairs, tear out my spinal cord, or excavate my brain from my skull. So, that's an improvement over the last one...that gosh-awful food one. Though it also didn't do that much for me either...interesting concept, but I'm kind of lukewarm on it so far. Both Frieren and Fern have annoying voices/mannerisms, so that's not helping. If I hadn't noticed this was made by my guys Madhouse, I don't think I would have checked this out at all.

Just a suggestion, the first 4 episodes were released together as a "prologue" to kick the season off, introduce characters and the basics of the world. The story doesn't really start until episode 5 with a declared goal...

Edit: Just some amusing trivia, it took Madhouse 3 years to make the anime and in some instances elaborated considerably on the Manga, like the "eat your heart out Disney" dance sequence, which was a 1 minute long scene with custom written score and real dancers doing motion capture to be hand animated, was a single panel in the manga. A fight towards the end was two panels in the manga and Madhouse made it a 3 episode fight, seriously flexing in the animation and choreography department while doing so.

Edit2: I'm obviously biased as I liked the show very much, even if it took me a few episodes to get into it.

 

[majestic]

29 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Just a suggestion, the first 4 episodes were released together as a "prologue" to kick the season off, introduce characters and the basics of the world. The story doesn't really start until episode 5 with a declared goal...

Ah, yes. That...

 

Sorry, could not resist.

[Gorth]

8 minutes ago, majestic said:

Sorry, could not resist.

Makes you wonder how it ended up with the nick name, Side Quest - the Anime

[Bartimaeus]

Frieren, episode 2.

This show is so glacially slow, I have way too much time to ponder how dense Frieren is. Admittedly, 3 and half minutes of the 26 minutes runtime is used up by music that I immediately skip, but that just takes it down to 22 minutes, which is probably 11 minutes too many.

...You know, that gives me an idea.

Frieren, episode 3, double speed.

That's sort of better - closer to but still not quite a normal pace, anyways. Fern called Frieren "helplessly dense", which seems appropriate. Eh, this still isn't really working for me, though.

Frieren, episode 4, triple speed.

You know, these first four episodes have basically felt like the second coming of...uh, what was it called? Girls' Last Tour, I had to go look it up. There are things that I like about it, but it feels more like an "in theory" rather than an "in practice" kind of thing. Too slow of a pace combined with too much artificial writing/characters, I suppose. All the moments that are clearly supposed to be cute just seem...annoyingly manipulative in that very nu-anime fashion to me, so I'm just getting kind of grumpy instead.

Frieren, episode 5, light speed.

Yeah, okay, I think we're done here, this isn't working. It's not awful, it's not offensive, but I am just not getting anything out of this. But just in case...

Frieren, episode 25, LUDICROUS SPEED

Wait, who the hell are all these people? Oh, forget about it, the show still feels exactly the same anyways.

20 hours ago, Gorth said:

A fight towards the end was two panels in the manga and Madhouse made it a 3 episode fight, seriously flexing in the animation and choreography department while doing so.

I'm the type of person that vastly prefers the short and sweet fight of Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Vader in A New Hope, no matter how simple and goofy it may be, over what feels like the hour long and much more technically impressive fight of Anakin vs. Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith, so that wasn't necessarily the best way to try to appeal to me. Though it didn't really end up having anything to do with my issues with this show, so...

[Gorth]

37 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Frieren, episode 2.

This show is so glacially slow, I have way too much time to ponder how dense Frieren is. Admittedly, 3 and half minutes of the 26 minutes runtime is used up by music that I immediately skip, but that just takes it down to 22 minutes, which is probably 11 minutes too many.

...You know, that gives me an idea.

Frieren, episode 3, double speed.

That's sort of better - closer to but still not quite a normal pace, anyways. Fern called Frieren "helplessly dense", which seems appropriate. Eh, this still isn't really working for me, though.

Frieren, episode 4, triple speed.

You know, these first four episodes have basically felt like the second coming of...uh, what was it called? Girls' Last Tour, I had to go look it up. There are things that I like about it, but it feels more like an "in theory" rather than an "in practice" kind of thing. Too slow of a pace combined with too much artificial writing/characters, I suppose. All the moments that are clearly supposed to be cute just seem...annoyingly manipulative in that very nu-anime fashion to me, so I'm just getting kind of grumpy instead.

Frieren, episode 5, light speed.

Yeah, okay, I think we're done here, this isn't working. It's not awful, it's not offensive, but I am just not getting anything out of this. But just in case...

Frieren, episode 25, LUDICROUS SPEED

Wait, who the hell are all these people? Oh, forget about it, the show still feels exactly the same anyways.

I'm the type of person that vastly prefers the short and sweet fight of Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Vader in A New Hope, no matter how simple and goofy it may be, over what feels like the hour long and much more technically impressive fight of Anakin vs. Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith, so that wasn't necessarily the best way to try to appeal to me. Though it didn't really end up having anything to do with my issues with this show, so...

You gave it a try

[Lexx]

I didn't really liked Frieren in the beginning either because it felt so extremely slow. But after a while it grew on me and now I'm awaiting every new episode.

[uuuhhii]

would have thought long year of touhou age reference would give most in the community more resistance to sad story like this

 

 

[Sarex]

But it's not really a sad story.

[uuuhhii]

 

remember reading some 10 volume long fairytale based awful light novel decade ago

hope this is not adaptation of that

[InsaneCommander]

On 4/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, majestic said:

There's one other thing, the AI models are only going to get better. Still waiting for a model that takes modern, icky digital coloring and makes it look like actual painted cels from the heyday of animation. Where's my "make K-On! look good" AI?

I think they already got better:

Eventually you will be able to feed it a 5 year old child's painting and get a high definition image.