I didn’t realize Ranking of Kings was new enough that it was still airing its first season. D’oh! I ran out of English Dubbed episodes last night. I can still watch 7 more episodes right now if I’m willing to switch languages. On the other hand, the Japanese version is still airing the season too, so maybe I should just wait every week for the English dub.
Yeah I watched the first one and then said, ok, I’ll watch this when it’s done with this season
I’ve started Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai based on some glowing praise elsewhere and so far it’s quite good. It’s not really what the title or promo images make it sound like. It’s a pretty laid back story about kids dealing with “puberty syndrome”, which seems (and I’m just guessing here) to be externalized supernatural manifestations of teenage problems like internet bullying and, in the titular bunny girl’s case, becoming literally invisible. And the protagonist is mainly just trying to help, although there is some very dryly voiced flirting/teasing.
What I’ve gathered from what I’ve seen and read is that a lot fo light-novel based properties (that aren’t isekais) are kinda magical-realism coming of age stories. They’re kind of, basically the anime take on the themes of, like X-men. Not the racism ones, the other ones, the ones about hitting a certain age and your body sort of doing weird things and you kind of discovering another world that you now live in, but one that’s neither the world of your childhood or the world of adults. So, yeah, just about adolescence, more or less. Bunny Girl Senpai seems to make the subtext fairly explicit.
I mean, that’s the subtext of like, a huge amount of youth-oriented literature, so not exactly an insightful analysis I guess.
I very much enjoyed Rascal and even watched the OVA. It was good. I think I gave it 8/10. I may have written something up thread about it, dunno.
The OVA is like a nice long wrap up (probably could have been its own season? Can’t recall anymore) and I recommend it after you finish the episodes.
I’m working (slowly) on a Trigger/ Imaishi completionist run, so I went back and watched Gurren Lagann, which I’d seen bits of when it aired in the US, but never actually watched in its entirety.
At some point, I read a description of the Thomas Covenant series that described it as a retelling of the Ring Cycle, but with “inverted values”. Since then, that’s become one of my favorite ways to (dismissively) describe opposing works.
Having just watched Rebuild of Evangelion, it’s really hard not to read Gurren Lagann as “Evangelion with inverted values”. Based on a quick search, there’s plenty of youtube fodder comparing the two, and I don’t want to put too fine a point on it, because I don’t think that it’s a literal refutation. I’m also not an Eva scholar or anything, having only seen pieces of the original series and never having watched it front to back in its entirety. There’s going to be a lot of stylistic references, because that’s just Gainax house style. There’s going to be a lot of conversation between them because literally every anime after Eva (particularly mecha anime) is in conversation with Eva. So, like, it’s hardly surprising. But direct refutation isn’t really the point, generally. It’s more about how different authors in different eras approach the same kind of universal questions.
I will say that as much as the animation is wonderful, the music in GL is generally pretty mediocre / forgettable.
My next series is probably Darling In the Franxx, which I tried once and bounced off of, and is by all accounts pretty bad. So I’ll probably watch some other things first.
Gurren Lagann not having great music is a good observation. Probably just one of the factors that made me pretty much forget about the show after I was done watching it. And meanwhile Eva is seared into my mind forever.
I really need to rewatch Eva next time I get Netflix, and then watch the new movies on Prime.
Your priors on Darling In the Franxx are pretty spot on. I don’t think I’m a prude, but I don’t like anime where I’d have to explain the fan service type shit to my wife with some sort of “But honey, I’m just watching it for the STORY.” [1] The worst part is that it’s just so obvious, it’s sort of embarrassing that it’s not more subtle.
Spoilers: The whole mech thing is a metaphor for fucking, where to be subtle the control handles of the mech stick out of the woman’s ass who’s bent over doggie style with the male pilot behind her. Very subtle. Good thing they’re kids!
[1] My wife’s favorite anime is Death Note, so it’s not like she’s totally unfamiliar with the medium.
arrendek
5918
LOL I had to see for myself: https://twitter.com/giggukaz/status/954949656907141121
I switched over to Japanese on Ranking of Kings, but I really should wait for the English Dub. The voice actors for Kage and Queen Hilling in the English dub add soooooo much emotion and smart alekness. I’m sure the Japanese voice actors probably have this as well, but since I don’t know the language, I can’t pick that up.
I watched Revue Starlight, based on a very enthusiastic recommendation and also this tweet:
It’s interesting. Its contains a critique of show business in general, but specifically of the culture around the Takarazuka Revue, a theater organization in Japan.
There’s a lot to unpack, all wrapped in a shiny layer of schoolgirl idols. It’s like…Madoka meets The Idolmaster meets Utena. The “auditions” (battle sequences) are gorgeous, while I didn’t love the songs, theyre intricately tied into the themes of the show. It has just a little bit if Satoshi Kon steez on it, but the actual runtime leans heavily toward the schoolgirl idol side, so YMMV.
Ultimately, I don’t think it totally worked for me. There’s a big reveal at the end that just didn’t land for me at all, and I think the specific critique of Takarazuka Revue kind of muddies the more impact of a more general showbiz critique. (E.g. the magical girl transformation sequence is more interesting in the context of industrialized production of idols generally, vs. simply invoking the specific aesthetic of railroads). However it is important to know at least a little about the Takarazuka Revue before going in, as the lesbian subtexts of that culture are pretty important to understanding the relationships of the characters.
However, there’s enough there that I think it’s worth watching. I would recommend watching the first episode, just because you can see the aesthetic from the first audition, and there a kind of rug pull when the first battle comes. I watched it subbed, but I’ve heard the dub is decent, and it might be worth it because there’s a lot going on in the auditions, with pretty complex visuals, and multiple layers of audio as the songs and talking are overlaid and it’s very hard to follow all through subtitles.
I kind of hope my description was sufficiently confounding that somebody checks it out because I think it is interesting, even if I have some problems with it.
I think there was some convo here about different things being available on different services? Anyways, merger is complete: Funimation is dead going forward, it’s all Crunchyroll now.
Full list of titles moved so far:
Yesssss! There were a few recommendations in this thread that were only on Funimation. No more! Yay! I really hated the Funimation app.
Zylon
5923
Both Funimation and Crunchyroll’s web players suck in different ways, so… shrug.
I was looking to sign up for a premium account, but noted Crunchyroll doesn’t seem to offer use profiles (yet allows streaming on 1, 4 or 6 devices at once depending on the plan). Also, does anyone know if they’ll be inheriting Funimation’s collection of dubs or will those fall by the wayside? I know that’s sacrilegious for many, but my mind grows feeble with age ;)
The shows listed as being moved over include a number of dubs, so there’s no reason to think that most of them won’t make their way over. Crunchyoll has some dubs for select series anyways.
Thanks - good to know. Maybe they’ll add the profile feature one day, but from a quick google search it appears to have long been sought after and therefore I won’t expect any miracles.
Crunchyroll’s web UI has been redirecting to beta.crunchyroll.com for a while now, which is a new frontend for the web that’s kinda closer to an app than their old site/player. It’s possible that part of those changes will be things like account profiles, but it’s been a while now and not much has materialized, and from looking around there are actually a couple of menu options that used to be supported that aren’t anymore, so I have my doubts.
I’m still blown away by the valuation that Crunchyroll has because it seems like such a half assed operation. A lot of the valuation is probably in the contracts they own, but still, their tech is not billion-dollar-company tech.
They’re pretty much the main player in (English-speaking) anime and there’s a lot of anime nerds out there. But also a fuckload of tech companies are pretty reflexively overvalued seems like.
Even HIDIVE has profiles. They really need to get on that.
