I think much of the animation of attack on titans is to… pragmatical? it lacks a artistic feel. Like somebody drawing soldiers for a history book.
On the last season (the current one) I see something different, more dramatization.
Summary of anime for me:
I was watching Dr. Stone, but I will drop it. Seeing how they develop technology is amusing, but it isn’t strong enough for me to continue, in story or in what the anime brings here (music, animation, etc) although it may deserve a quick reading of the manga. It seems more suited for a casual reading.
Beastars, I have two episodes pending to watch. I guess that already says something about it. I’m not liking it as much as the first season. The MC err… unique personality is grating me and I’m not sure the plot is going anywhere. I also fear what end, if any, it’s going to have, because it seems there is an universal opinion of the manga ending badly?
Wonder Egg Priority is surely one of the best animes of the year. Great artistic flair, animation, action, direction and character driven drama. And a original story, it isn’t an adaption of anything.
https://youtu.be/OBYbkkYvNRQ
Jujutsu Kaisen is continuing to be a fine series. More action sakuga, although it never gets to wow me in the characterization or in tactics of the combat. Amusingly, I see how some elements are inspired from HxH, although the author isn’t as good as Togashi.
Attack on Titan is good, although as manga reader I know what it happens so I can’t judge it properly? The adaption feels fine but dunno, I think it’s missing a bit, it isn’t being as good as the source material deserves.
I hope you are finding interesting the direction is taking.
Neverland S2, I guess I will finish the season, but it’s being objectively worse than the first one. You can feel how the story is being rushed, and how the values and themes used in the first season are missing here.
In fact in the last 2 episodes were pure amateur time, with a heavy dose of breaking the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule.
Let’s see: A character appears and find the protagonist group after a good while, and instead of seeing what happened with him, he just tells his friends (and the audience) how he was captured in a lab, how he was freed thanks to a new character who turns to be an allied (convenient!), how said ally dies in the process (convenient x2 as he doesn’t have to present it!) and how in the course of the adventure he finds a vital mcguffin for the story in said lab that is going to solve everything (convenient x 3!).
Mushoku Tensei continues being Mushoku Tensei. A series able to do start or end an episode like 8, with a beautiful sequence of rain in the medieval town, and ending in an incredible suspense-dripping sequence, while also having in between both extremes this:
Really good new episode from Attack on Titans.
The quality made a come back. The episode had me in tears I think the whole show.
And another great Re:Zero episode!
Took the plunge on Pacific Rim: Black on Netflix. There has been zero buzz about this anywhere so was a bit leery, and … I guess that’s about right. It’s fine, but I’m a little disappointed that it went all Attack on Titan at then end. Really, they decided that would make for an interesting reveal?
well “copying what work” is a defacto popular strategy
I’m sad that they went in that direction instead of focusing on more giant robot vs. kaiju. There’s a bit of it, but the main high-powered action is front-loaded to the beginning since for the rest of it you have trainee-level and below what with it being all about kids.
Also, for all that it’s called “Pacific Rim: The Black” I don’t think they ever explained exactly what is “The Black” … although I guess there’s also a second season coming so they annoyingly might have decided to do the reveal there?
I watched the first couple of episodes and I’m more pessimistic than optimistic. It started out all right, with decent enough animation and appropriately silly and spectacular fights, but then it took a hard turn into teen/YA angst and got rid of all the goddamn jaegers and proper kaiju. Christ, in the second episode they really rub it in by having “kaiju” that are human scale. If I wanted kids being menaced by weird dogs I’d watch The Hunger Games. Hopefully we get back to jaeger on kaiju action soon, otherwise I’m bailing
I watched it through and agree with much of the above; nice animation, some fun fights, and a lot of stupid angst and unnecessary small kaiju thrown in. Fights between the big guys are still dotted throughout, but sparingly so.
This mirrors my own thoughts on Pacific Rim: Black too. I ended up bailing around episode 3 when it became obvious it was going to revel in its teen angst.
As an update on my anime journey:
Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood:
I did end up mildly enjoying this once the story picked up. It was consistently about a 6/10 for me. Some of the end battles were decent and they tied the story up nicely. I was never particularly invested in the brothers though. The Colonel (the flame alchemist) and his sidekick (Hawk?) were my favorites.
Full Metal Alchemist (2003)
I found this version to be inferior mostly due to the story which wasn’t as good. The homunculus were not as interesting or as well written and this definitely harmed the show. I would have abandoned it but I left it on in the background whilst I was doing something else. 4/10.
Gen:Lock
This was a decent watch with fun characters and a reasonably interesting story. The production values are really good with the voice acting being especially top notch. One complaint though is that the battles/action can sometimes be a bit generic. 7/10.
Currently watching: Demon Slayer
This is my favorite out of the ones listed. It moves along at a fair old clip and the fight scenes are awesome. I like that the brother has internal monologs during combat and the way the sister never talks but conveys her character through facial expressions and little grunts/noises. 8/10.
Next up: Made in Abyss
Is it this one?
A 26-episode anime television series adaptation produced by Ufotable aired in Japan from April to September 2019. A sequel film, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train , premiered in October 2020 and became the highest-grossing anime film and Japanese film of all time. A second season, will premiere in 2021.
Yes! :)
Apparently there is a movie too but it’s not been dubbed yet.
It sounds like Brad and Wheeljack weren’t as positive on it, which is why it didn’t make it on my radar. But one enthusiastic recommendation is enough for me.
I’m in the middle of watching it - around episode 15 I think and Zenitsu has just started getting more screen time. Reading those posts I can understand the complaints as his character is of a wildly different tone to the rest of the show (so far).
Even though I disparaged the Jobless Reincarnation Light Novel’s translation upthread, I’m hopelessly fucking addicted to it. Not only is the story of one being reincarnated in a fantasy world, it also later becomes my favorite subgenre of “students studying together at a school”. I’m on volume 9 now out of 24, and I can’t get enough. I do wish it was written better, but I can’t deny that I love the story even if I don’t care for the prose, and that the translation can be tough to read sometimes because of the awkwardness of translation.
I wonder how far into this story the anime will go? I’m way, way ahead of where the anime is now.
I watched Pacific Rim: Black too, until the part where the masked characters appear.
It seems a coproduction japanese-america and it shows. I just don’t like the “appeal” of westernized anime. His tones feel wrong for me.
You are so right about this. I’m sure they mean him to be a bit of comic relief but JFC how annoying can one character be? I’m having trouble continuing.
Maybe someone can do a super edit which cuts him out.
TBH, I don’t even want him cut out completely, because I really do like the theme of his backstory:
If you can’t do everything, do one thing really, really well.
Just like, only give him 10 seconds and one line per scene he’s in.
Well I just realized how easy it is to skip over his stuff on Netflix with those preview images, so I’ll report back on if watching 5-10 seconds at a time with him in order to get the gist of the situation ends up being enough to enjoy his story. :)
When I first heard Attack on Titan was delayed last week because of the Earthquake in such and such prefecture in Japan, I was thinking, no problem. But by now almost a week later, I can’t stop thinking about it, I’m so anxious to watch the next episode.
And you get two episodes in a row this Sunday!