I don’t think I made it through the first episode of Seven Deadly Sins.
Otagan
5166
So, this isn’t really a recommendation for either Tower of God or Slime (since I have heard things about the former that concern me despite enjoying it to-date, and have never watched the latter), but is just an anecdote about Sins.
I watched… checks notes …the first two seasons, the four-episode mini-season, the movie, and then made it exactly halfway through the third proper season. Then I dropped it hard and haven’t looked back. I was willing to put up with the bizarre obsession with quantifying power levels that comes completely out of nowhere. I was willing to put up with Meliodas’ shitty, unfunny behavior. However, the entire production budget gets absolutely gobsmacked when the series changes animation studios before the third season and the whole series basically just falls apart.
That said, if you’ve invested as much time as you have, the movie does make for a brief shot in the arm of much of what I liked about Sins. If you do decide to continue, I advise in the strongest terms not proceeding to S3. Very definitely not worth it.
Much obliged! That’s disappointing, yet also somehow relieving, to read.
Thraeg
5168
Likewise. When the protagonist molesting an unconscious girl was played for laughs, I just noped right on out of there. Sounds like I made the right choice.
Anyway, I actually did watch a little bit of anime last night for the first time in months! (I normally only watch it when eating a meal alone, which doesn’t really happen during lockdown). I just finished the first chapter of Final Fantasy XV and am trying to decide whether I like it enough to continue, so checked out the first two episodes of the prequel series, Brotherhood. I still haven’t made up my mind, but the episodes were pretty nicely done.
I had Future Diary on a list to try and finally got around to it. Boy, was it ever a dud for me. I gave it three episodes and I’m done. They set up the idea of this cutthroat competition, and immediately undercut it by forming a cooperative group. The main character is a spineless wuss - presumably he’ll grow at some point, but I’m not waiting around for that. They have way too much high-school romance in a supposedly stalker-crazy relationship. Definitely not for me.
I’ve started watching Fairy Gone (it’s on Hulu) and I’m really liking it through half a dozen episodes. Set a few years after a big war and with industrial-era tech that’s not too advanced yet…think 1920-30 timeframe. There are spirits called fairies that can be embedded in a human and be called out to fight, and the story follows agents that track down illegal fairy usage. Plenty of politics, trauma from the war, secret agendas, and of course fights between fairy soldiers. Reminds me a bit of Night Raid 1931.
Binged my way through all of Fairy Gone in the last few days. I think my initial comparison to Night Raid 1931 was off, it’s more like GITS:Stand Alone Complex. (The original, haven’t watched the new one.) You’ve got the semi-autonomous government agency, composed of war veterans, doing detective work that leads them to uncover political plots and world-threatening evil plans. There’s a fair amount of philosophizing over life, love, war, peace, etc. Even a little subplot involving mechanical soldiers that remind me of Tachikomas, though without the AI aspect. I laughed a little when they introduced the leader of the little crew as “Director 9” - supposed to be “Nein” but it just seemed like the perfect reference.
The art and voice acting is pretty good. With one exception - if you watch the dub be prepared for some terrible voice acting on the part of Director Nein. There’s some silliness in the fighting, as one might expect with a bunch of people running around with supernatural beings buried in their chests, but it’s not the main focus and I found it pretty easy to ignore the excesses.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it and would recommend to anyone who liked SAC, as long as you’re not completely opposed to the steampunk-ish setting.
Zylon
5172
What sort of savages do you take us for?
I appreciate your review. Any idea why the rating on MAL is so abysmally low?
Dunno, my best guess is that people are idiots. Glanced over a couple of the reviews and the gist seems to be “not dark enough, not enough fighting”. Which are two of the reasons I liked it.
[I deleted this post from the wrong thread and I’m trying to post it here but it won’t let me because I didn’t change it enough… this is an attempt to fix that…]
HOLY SHIT
“So, we have finished three episodes. I think we’re into [shooting] six; then John Cho tore his ACL, unfortunately. But I have to tell you I really like the show. It’s really fun,” Adelstein said. “And we have gone out of our way, because of all these anime movies that have come out and been accused of being whitewashed, we have really gone out of our way. We have the original composer, Yoko Kanno, doing music. The characters are all sort of multiethnic, and it’s a great cast. And the two episodes I have seen are so much fun. It’s really fun.”
[Fuck discourse]
The hell? Why is that not listed on her IMDb page? No wait, it’s Bear McCreary? I’m confused. No wait, this is for Bebop, duh, because Cho. Got it now, thanks.
I decided to try out Special 7 (via Hulu) despite its low reviews because a) it’s only a dozen episodes and b) it’s another special-police-unit investigation show, which I like. Sadly, the low reviews are deserved.
The world is sort of a low-tech Shadowrun, with hidden dragon magic and human-variant elves/dwarves/etc but little of the cyber decking runs and corporate oligarchy. There’s a halfway decent overarching plot chasing down terrorists trying to bring terrible magic back to the world. That’s the good part.
Everything else is not good. The characters are largely the worst kind of anime-stereotypes, the art is generic, they keep trying to throw jokes into what should be dramatic situations, and the action sequences are unimpressive. There’s even one of those half-way recap episodes that are a complete waste of time.
If you’re really desperate for a special-police-unit investigation show, you might be able to ignore Special 7’s flaws. Maybe.
rei
5179
Saw Weathering With You and while its not as good as Your Name, it was still fantastic I’d somewhat uncomplicated. The handgun subplot totally feels unearned and out of place though.
I just finished Last Man. It’s based off a French comic book and has cultists, demon hunting, boxing, organized crime, some humor, some silliness, a lot of sex, and a lot of murder. I liked it a lot. Its absolute best quality is that it moves quickly. Each episode is a mere 10 minutes long, and it avoids the usual anime trope of “art costs money so we will just slow things down to an absurd degree and carefully ration the content in order to meet the 25 minute mark without going over budget”. Instead each Last Man episode crams in some socialness, some investigation, some plot progress, and some action into each 10 minute chunk. The first fight is a good example; it takes about 3% of a Dragon Ball Z affray:
You can watch the whole series on VRV, though you’ll need to sign up for a free trial month and give them your credit card info to watch past episode 6.
I also watched Weathering with You the other day.
Some people says that usually Makoto Shinkai films are samey, as they usually share the same visual flair, narrative style, themes, etc. Despite that, I usually like them.
In this particular movie, the problem was not that Weathering with You was similar to other Shinkai movies, but it was similar to, dunno, 30 other movies/series/comics. It has a very typical trappings, in other words. Teenage romance? check.
Adults that are obstacles for the protagonists in some way? check.
A supernatural/fantasy twist to the story? check.
Police that pursuit the the protagonist for an indirect reason but the protagonists react running away complicating matters? check.
Protagonists getting separated, then a time skip, then getting reunited at the last minute? check.
Bratty main guy? check.
And well, etc. The only original thing was that they had to accept the new climate situation, in the end, not everything ends perfectly.
Beyond that, yeah the direction was proficient and the visuals great.
Trailer for final season of Attack on Titan
For anyone not reading the manga that trailer must be really weird.
Really enjoying Dorohedoro, excellent art style and setting too. I really didnt expect it from the lizard face guy on the netflix menu.
