It’s time for a new general discussion thread! Hot takes, recommendations, questions, cautionary tales, all of it is welcome here.
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So far, I’ve started:
- Dandadan: pretty fun so far.
- 365 Days To The Wedding: fun premise and characters. Always appreciate shows with adults as MCs. I can only hope the premise of forcibly sending an employee to an overseas branch can’t happen in real life though, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it can.
- Villainess Goes Down in History: not great so far. Prefer the manga.
- Re:Zero: interesting start. Curious to see where it goes.
- SAO Alternative GGO II: meh start. No reason to care yet.
- Demon Lord 2099: cool setup, but there are a lot of ways this can go wrong, so still a bit on edge.
I’ve also caught up with the new Monogatari season. I love it, especially the latest arc.
Also still continuing 2.5D Seduction which is still fun.
I want to watch Magilumiere, but it’s on Prime and I’m not too thrilled about giving Amazon money.
I’ve got a couple more premiere reviews for the garbage pile:
Haigakura
A perfectly serviceable action romp about
pokemongod trainers running around fighting things with their captured god buddies, but done in by its horrible budget. The central premise of the story is an art that lets you bind gods to your will using song and dance, but they appeared to not have the budget to give the main character a real song or dance to do, preferring panning stills and visual sound effects - like, what’s even the point of it being an anime if you’re going to cut those kinds of corners. In much better hands, it would have been decent, but as-is it was a 2/5.Tohai - Ura Rate Mahjong Tohai Roku
I will give this one some credit: they did not do the boring thing and spend most of the first episode trying to teach the audience mahjong. They instead assume that if you’ve shown up to watch the edgy mahjong anime you are already familiar with the game of mahjong. Now, I am not familiar with the game of mahjong, which made it feel a bit like watching an early Yu-Gi-Oh episode, where the rules are made up on the fly based on whatever would make the most dramatic twist - not a terrible experience, but not really engaging either. I’m also not typically big on edge, and the edginess here is really quite a lot (the first little arc centers a crime group who keep sex slaves and make CP). If the description of “edgy mahjong anime” perked your ears up, honestly, you’d probably have a good time with this (you’d almost certainly be able to follow it better than I did, lol). For me, though, it’s a 2/5.
I remember watching a trailer for Tohai and almost wish I understood Mahjong because it looks so over the top edgy that I think it might loop back around to being funny.
Only watched a bit lately. Just keeping up with 3 so far:
- Dandadan - Holy crap this is a ride. Like others said elsewhere, the first episode threw some major flags for me, but apparently that kind of thing is extremely rare, so I’m strapped in for the rest. Also that OP is #1 for the year imo.
- Re:Zero S3 - That first 90 minute episode should have been more exciting, but I spent most of it trying to remember who everybody was or why I care about all these meetings and that somebody is being rude to somebody. The last 15 mins and the second episode finally got me hooked again.
- Ranma 1/2 - Heavy nostalgia for me. I’m not convinced this is better than the OG anime so far. I really love the old style (even after watching several comparisons) and miss the old OP. I’ll probably finish it just for curiosity if nothing else.
but I spent most of it trying to remember who everybody was or why I care
Yeah, I was afraid of this happening to me too, so I rewatched season 2 before, which really helped.
but I spent most of it trying to remember who everybody was or why I care about all these meetings and that somebody is being rude to somebody.
Good that I’m not the only one who struggles with this in every new season of Re:Zero. The end also did it for me though, now I’m excited again.
The Dan Da Dan OP is really something. Each season, I have an OP/ED thread where I listen to all of them for the season, but I have a hard time believing that I am going to be surprised by something to surpass Otonoke. Creepy Nuts always hits it seems.
Getting into the Fall season and I have some initial thoughts on what I have been able to watch:
- Orb: On the Movements of the Earth - Episode 3 completely blew me away. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but this quickly rocketed up my favorites for the season after episode 3, which changed everything. I absolutely implore you to check out this series, and let it go through the third episode before judging it. This series really could have benefited from a long episode 1.
- Dan Da Dan - After a completely bonkers episode 1, we get another bonkers episode 2. The most amazing thing about this anime is how seamlessly they integrate character moments into the insanity of what is happening on screen.
- Loner Life Isekai - I didn’t really remember the beginning of this story very well from when I read the manga. It’s nothing special, but just kind of silly isekai fun.
- Negative Positive Angler - A pretty good episode two. I am still sticking with this one, hoping that it is going somewhere meaningful.
- 365 Days to the Wedding - Really cute series that I have enjoyed so far. I hope that now that the premise is well established, that we can start actually seeing character development.
- Villainess Who Goes Down in History - Yeah…this one is problematic…but it is also has lots of fun “villainess” moments. So, I have been torn on this one.
- Appraisal Isekai Season 2 - Kind of forgot this section of the story a little bit. Hopefully they can keep the pace up as season 2 goes along.
Outside of the currently airing seasonals:
- Trigun (1998) - Got up through episode 20. Once we made it past the halfway point, it feels like a whole different show. Suddenly there are things like flashbacks, character backstories, and drama. The whole first half of the show felt more like a goofy slice of life set in a sci-fi western. Not sure when I will get to finish the rest of the show, but looking forward to where we go from here.
Last week, I have only been watching anime that are airing this season.
Just want to point out that Murai In Love is the unexpected hit of the season for me. I haven’t laugh so hard from an anime in a while. If the story doesn’t become dogshit towards the last few episodes, there’s a pretty good chance this would be my top anime of the season and become one of my top favourites.
Weekly ranking roundup:
- Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Bleach: TYBW
- Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Dan Da Dan
Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma and /u/Nooble5 for the Anime Trending chart.
Bleach is back on the AC chart for the season, so you know it is going to be competing for the top spot. There are few shows that AC likes more than Bleach (Dangers in My Heart is the only one I can think of). It was interesting to see the Oshi no Ko finale unable to top the reddit chart against some second episodes considering the drop in total karma most shows have for the second episode.
