5145

I’ve been watching Sagrada Reset on Amazon Prime Video. Liked the premise…a town where everyone has some kind of supernatural ability, some powerful, some fairly useless. Two kids team up to be able to reset time by a few days with their combined abilities.

There is a lot of talking in this one. Bunches of philosophical musings on meaning, motivations, human condition, love, etc. Reminds me of Monogatari in that way, though without the really weird art styles. If you’re looking for action, this is not the place.

What it does have is complicated, multi-layered intrigue as the various actors go around trying to outdo one another in bending the shape of events. A lot of it makes no sense right away, and you have to keep on watching to eventually figure out why things happened. Some of it never makes sense, at least as far as I can tell.

The characters are largely flat, vehicles for the various intrigues. There are few legit emotional moments, but a lot of time is spent analyzing motivations which (for me at least) tends to reduce a character to a sort of automaton following orders. The least believable part of the whole thing for me was the love triangle (yes, of course there’s a love triangle) between the main character Kei, his time-reset partner, and the girl who introduced them. In everything else, Kei has this superhuman ability to analyze motivations and events, but in this he’s oblivious until it blows all out of proportion.

For the most part, I enjoyed puzzling out what was going on with the plotline, and was able to put up with the clumsy characters. But I can only recommend this one if you’re specifically looking for that “big mystery/conspiracy slowly revealed” approach, because the other aspects of this show are mediocre at best.

5146

Thanks for the recommendation.

This part sounds right up my alley.

Now I just have to wait until the next time I subscribe to Prime Video. Hopefully I’ll still remember at that time.

5147

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken was the best show I’ve seen, all year. Crunchyroll has the whole season - subtitles only. I am grateful to this thread for pointing it out!

It takes you through Anime production from the ground up with an upbeat tone and very polished visuals. Throughout the show, they throw you into the creative process - literally! As the protagonists work through plotlines and characterization you are treated to an on-screen depiction of it with them as participants in the action. At the same time, you get an idea as to how the business side of the industry works - from finance, through customer negotiations and into manufacturing the final product.

Highly recommended!

5148

I haven’t posted here in several months. Let’s fix that.

From the current season, the interesting ones are:

Tower of God: ok, I’m conflicted with this series.
You see, it’s being a decent anime adaptation of a manwha, it has an interesting style, a mysterious setting and some cool concepts, right now I’d recommend watching it. However, you see, after watching the first ep I decided to try to read the manwha. I was on vacations in the middle of the quarantine, it’s free, and it’s a light read, so I quickly advancing through it…
that caused two problems, one, now I know what’s going to happen in the anime so things have less impact, obviously. And two, more importantly, I know later the story drops in quality substantially, in fact I already dropped the manwha. The anime itself is still a good far way point from when that happens, but knowing that, my interest in the entire thing dropped to zero. The story get super bloated, every arc is a freaking marathon even if it isn’t really important to the main story, fights gain more and more importance on it, and the quality of said fights also drop.

Nami yo Kiitekure :
Based on the manga by Hiroaki Samura (he switched from samurai stories to this!), it’s a slice of life/drama/comedy thing about a twenty-something waitress that finds a new job as radio broadcaster. It isn’t super deep or incredible or hilarious, but it’s just so different you want to continue.

Yesterday wo Utatte / Sing Yesterday for me :
Another manga adaptation, from another author I like, in this case Kei Toume, which usually does romance/drama stuff. In fact this is another one, and a good one.
Think lots of romance triangle (square?) between a group of people from 18 to 25 years old. Which sounds unexciting, but I’m not selling it correctly. Any drama/romance quality is depending entirely from its quality, and here it’s high. I’d say it’s the best show of the season, touching realistic themes of really finding one in adulthood, anxiety, and advancing in life, and the direction is being on point.

From the past season, the good ones were Dorohedoro (very good but it will need two more seasons as a minimum to finish the story) and Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! (very good overall, but to be honest it ended a bit more weakly, the last two episodes weren’t that interesting). But in addition of these two that surely you know already, I recommend Pet, a supernatural psychological thriller that is pretty original and with a great ending.

Mugen no Juunin / Blade of the Immortal ended well enough, there was a middle point in the series that was the lowest point, as you could notice how the story was being rushed and there was a lack of budget, but from there it went up, with the last two arcs being well adapted.

What else. Vinland Saga and Beastars were good, and I watched and older anime some months ago, Shigurui Death Frenzy, which was excellent.

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My daughter and I have seen the first four eps. After the last one, I turned to her and said “this is starting to feel like it’s going to be one long tournament arc after another”.

@Juan_Raigada watched #79 of LotGH today (1st part of the corridor battle). I’m really starting to get a feeling bad things are in the way.

5150

Yay, yes you are approaching the apex of the series, imho. Go a little further along and report back. Then we can talk.

5151

Are you talking about the newer series on Amazon Prime? I skimmed through it and thought it was pretty bad. It’s faithful to the manga, I guess, but so truncated and condensed that it’s more of a visual summary than anything.

And the art, ugh. Completely fails to capture the kineticism of the manga, which really is the whole (only) point.

5152

Yes, the series of Amazon Prime.

5153

I’m watching Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 right now and while at three episodes in I’m interested to see where it goes - Jesus fucking christ is this the most fucking awful visual downgrade imaginable. Look! Look at this clip from a show that is almost 20 years old now, and look at both how much better it looks and how it uses 3D to great effect:

5154

Okay, you’ve posted half of a comparison.

5155

I’m not crazy about the visual design either, but haven’t been too bothered by it either. I think it’s much preferrable to the CGI anime shows that try to ape a cell animated look but just come across as cheap and stiff looking.

5156

How’s the story for the new GiTS? I can live with the animation not being what I expect if the story is engaging.

5157

I think it’s been really good. The banter between the team members has been as good as ever, the tachikomas are the best and the sci-fi has been suitably crazy.

5158

Annnnd I just saw the preview for episode 82.

Btw, have you watched LotGH Gaiden?

5159

No, I probably should, though.

So, what do you think of the series so far? Bold move, eh?

5160

Oh, it’s been a blast. Hard to think of a show that does a better job of making large scale battles feel so epic.

It’s slow-moving, but I don’t mind that. I’ve probably said this before, but I only watch the show when working out. Long-form narrative series are great because it keeps me motivated to get on the elliptical. When I’m done, I will probably watch Gaiden next.

In other news:

5161

BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense
On Hulu + Funimation

Yes, it’s another virtual-MMO thing. But this one is very light and cheerful. A noob goes to play a new game. She doesn’t know what she is doing and puts all the stat points into VITALITY. She accidentally breaks the game. This is different that most of these MMO shows because she’s not a tryhard, she’s just running around having fun.

5162

I’m plowing through the second full season of Seven Deadly Sins on Netflix (and exploring options for watching S3 subbed after, since it ain’t hitting Netflix for 2+ months yet).

The first season was. . . almost great? The obnoxious perv trope behavior of the MC and general over-the-top fanservice shots were dumb, but there was some decent-ish fantasy worldbuilding that pulled in both some unexpected British mythology and generic D&D fodder in neat ways, and the action was a lot of big dumb fun (I can dig on shonen nonsense when I’m in the mood for TV comfort food, and a global pandemic certainly qualifies for that).

But guh, the second season really goes all the way up its own shonen ass, doesn’t it? I swear 2/3 of the dialogue in the first six episodes or so was just literally about power levels, like a terrible early-2000s DBZ roleplay chat room.

I should probably drop it for one of the better action-fantasy animes like Tower of God or That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, cuz that’s what I’m really craving, but ugh, when you’re like 40 episodes into a thing, there’s a certain element of inertia.

5163

I quit Bleach after just over 100 episodes. You’re ready, just do it.

I’ve come a long way since then on my anime journey, there’s no way I’d stick around so long now.

5164

Thanks all for the recommendations for Eizouken. What a perfectly charming, wonderful anime. The characterization was so good I actually thought it had to be autobiographical at first and looked it up.

I love the way Kanamori is drawn, it makes her seem more interesting. Actually just the whole art style just works so well somehow.