The Anime/Manga/Related Merchandise Thread

Man, seriously persevere with JoJo's. I know the animation style is a little weird, but it's well worth it for its ridiculousness.

Lot to watch and if I was going to watch something that long it be MHA instead.

Oh yeah, I'd recommend MHA over JoJo's, but all I'm saying is not to write it off on its art style as it's still one of the best shows around.

Speaking of animation I'd forgotten just how much better the animation was in DBZ vs Super. Especially the Buu saga. I mean just look at this exquisite fight between Goku and Kid Buu. The animation flows, the characters look dynamic in how they're drawn and how they move, and the sense of scale as Kid Buu's attacks literally start shattering the landscape lends a feeling of scale to the fight (also I lowkey love how absolutely insane Kid Buu is and behaves, chaos and madness incarnate indeed).

On top of that the actual action makes visual sense. I haven't seen all of Super, but I have (obviously) watched Jiren vs Goku, and while it was extremely visually pretty I found the action didn't make complete sense for the context of the fight (they'd banned ki based flight in the Tournament of Power correct?) A lot of the action only made sense if they were flying, which they supposedly weren't allowed to do. On top of that the sense of there still being some sort of martial arts wasn't present.

Compare that to even the opening section of Kid Buu vs Goku. There's a distinct sense to Goku's moves that he knows what he's doing, that he's applying his now-vast experience of martial arts to his attacks (and contrast it with the Gohan vs Dabura fight earlier in the arc, where you can see Gohan's attack patterns are actually predictable, not all that complex, and the same tactic is used over and over again because he's extremely rusty). This is solid and great action choreography. Goku with his veteran skills vs Kid Buu and his bizzare abilities and completely unconventional style.

This is why I'm so excited for the Super movie, they've gone back to that absolutely stunning style of movement rather than the plastic modern Toei style.

For what it's worth, as far as back as the second tournament arc in the original Dragon Ball they've established that these guys can jump really fucking high. Now, considering their level of strength is magnitudes beyond that in the ToP arc and it makes sense as to why they're up so high and stay there forever seemingly. Mind you, Toriyama forgets things so often that I'm ultimately not surprised that they basically threw the no flight rule out of the window, at least on a visual level.

I think it's old hat now to rag on Super for its animation quality as clearly on a whole it's leagues below the original two anime series. But, I do think the fight choreography is very creative in that it's not the usual flurry of punches, big punch, flinch, jump back, beam moves and repeat that plagues a lot of DBZ. There's some genuinely cool moments, like seeing how the lower tier fighters battle in the ToP arc, or nearly all of the Goku Black arc, or the Goku vs Kefla fight.

But you're not wrong about the Broly movie too - that looks the business.

Anichart have put up their Winter season listings for what's coming up (click to zoom, natch). Anything taking your fancies there?

Quick update

Nothing has changed much with Slime as only been one more episode but do like it

Started Zombie Land Saga which is different and fun

I also started Goblin Slayer, the first episode was let's say mature but I didn't think it was that shocking might be due to the fact I saw lots saying it was and I was ready for it but how people were talking I was thinking more like Pulp Fiction scene.

Does make me question why Goblin Slayer is shocking and Pulp Fiction wasn't (might have been at the time), you'd think live action would be more than an anime or because it's an anime people think it will be more friendly.

Anyway think Goblin Slayer is good so far, which means I'm all caught with those and just got Bunny Girl to watch more off.

As for winter much like this season, I'll wait to see what's meant to be good unless you know about something already.

Have you got to the chicken episode of Zombie Land Saga yet? Easily my favourite to date.

As for Goblin Slayer, I think it's because it's treated very seriously and it's happening to young women as opposed to that scene in Pulp Fiction where there's almost an air of absurdity to it all, much like most of Tarantino's works. One of the recent episodes of GS had my stomach turning again - this is a tough watch at points and I'm not going to be rating as highly as some, I reckon.

The last episode I watched them auditioning for a pharmaceutical company.

That was the rap episode, right? So you've a few to go until the chicken.

The rap was the one before

Double Post

As Netflix has picked up the rights to Neon Genesis Evangelion which I know is meant to be very good but from what I've heard over the past day after this news is it's been hard to watch in the west for awhile unless you buy a super expensive blu rays or are illegally downloading it, which is making this great news.

On Netflix, they've also announced the live-action Cowboy Bebop is coming next year with Watanabe on board is some way and a new Ultraman anime series.

I started watching Gridman which seems like it will right up my street as it has a VR Troopers, Power Ranger's vibes which sort of makes sense as I see it was a live action series back in the early '90s.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to watching Evangelion as it's obviously widely hyped as one of the best shows going, but the fact that it's not been on streaming platforms does sting a bit. Cheers, Netflix!

Evangelion is brilliant and weird as hell.

Hm... I'm not sure whether I just didn't get Evangelion when I watched it (I was 15), but I think it's better off as the historical context for a lot of the 'deeper' animes that came after, rather than on its own as a show. Maybe I need to watch it again to appreciate it, mind.

The thing with Evangelion is it's less a mecha series like it first bills itself and more a deconstruction of both that genre and the cliches of the medium in general, as well as a ruthless and very dark exploration of the human condition.

I wouldn't rewatch it personally. Definitely not unless it was the subbed version. But since this is Netflix it's just going to be the dub, and that's a hard pass for me with the knowledge I have now about the changes made for the dub regarding certain characters.

Netflix offers up language options galore though, so I'd be surprised if the original Japanese language track wasn't an option.

I'm still watching the same 4 shows and planning to come back to Bunny Girl

I saw Jay had a MAL, so this afternoon I've gone done one for myself with every anime I've ever seen (that I can remember) https://myanimelist.net/animelist/masofdas

I've fallen behind big style with my seasonal shows - a binge watch session looms for me, I think!

Aw nice! I've fired you a friend request on MAL. I wanted to see what you'd scored everything at though, that's the best bit of MAL!

I may go back and edit everything with some scores

I did update MAL which me and Jay differ a lot on Darling

I watched the most recent (well for me) of ZLS and it's so sad

And one of us is clearly correct in our opinion.

I'm still a bit behind on ZLS as I didn't start watching that until half way through the season as it was getting hyped up considerably. I've actually been spending today catching up with several shows that I fell behind by about four or five episodes.

Goblin Slayer: This is still a total tonal mess as it jumps from gritty and very dark to slice of life adventure fantasy. I'll stick with it, but it's probably going to be a 6 or a 7 from me unless the last few episodes blow me away.

Run with the Wind: Criminally underrated, this one. This is improving week on week and it's a must-watch in my eyes now from this season. It's just a really engaging sports anime with some brilliant character development. It's a 24 episode series, so it'll be continuing into the Winter Season - now's the time to jump on board!

Honda-San: I don't get a lot of the humour in this as the subject material is simply too foreign for me to engage with, but there was a great episode about nasty customers which I think would resonate with anyone who's worked in a customer-facing role before.

Ace Attorney S2: I'm currently catching up on this as I'm typing this - we're onto the Furio Tigre case now. And funnily enough, it's a low point of the series much like it was in its original game too! I've heard there's some anime original episodes coming up after this and those have actually been some of the best in the series so far, so I'm looking forward to that. Godot is still brilliant, mind you.

After that, it'll be Slime time and Bunny-Senpai and then I'll move onto the recent episodes of ZLS.

Seems all of Bunny Girl Senpai is out now, I'll have to start binge watching that. Does seem a lot of what I've been watching part from Slime comes to a end soon.

Just watched Cowboy Bebop The Movie, it's decent and I don't know if I've said before but I get real Kojima vibes from it.

Most anime outside of your long-running series tend to be only one season long. I think a fair few of my picks this season are two-season series though.

Why is that though?

Production costs and strains on the animation staff, I'd imagine. Quite a few two-season anime run into production issues as the series goes on - for example, AoT was meant to be a two-season anime this year but the studio were seemingly stretched very thin towards the end of the season and made the decision to delay the second half until Spring rather than compromise the quality of the show.

I'd guess the other reason is that the studio felt they could tell their story effectively in 12/13 episodes and didn't need to spin things out.