Anime and Manga disscussion

For the discussion of movies and TV shows not distributed by Toho.
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Rody
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by Rody »

Man, Perfect Blue is INTENSE. I watched it for the first time a year or two ago, and even though I was prepared, I wasn't really prepared.
I promptly bought it on Blu-ray to revisit, though. I reaaally need to see more Satoshi Kon content.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by Tyrant_Lizard_King »

Ok sad I'm only just now finding out Rooster Fighter exists. Just when I thought I'd seen it all.
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by Follinollante »

Just watched One Punch Man and started Spy x Family and My Hero Academia.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by Tyrant_Lizard_King »

I fucking love One Punch Man. I binged the whole thing in a couple weeks. Hyped for season 3. I know id really like My Hero Academia too if I could just find the time.
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by JAGzilla »

The first season of OPM was pretty good. A touch on the forgettable side, but fun and had its memorable moments. I never went back for S2, though. MHA is outstanding for what it is. Loaded down with great characters, top level action, and detailed world building. Spy x Family is smart and hilarious, just very well put together across the board.

I watched the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam today. All I'd seen of the franchise prior was two or three episodes of 8th MS Team several years ago. The original series instantly has my attention, but of course it's hard to judge any show from a single episode. I didn't like the fast, agile mecha in Evangelion, but the heavy, lumbering, semi-realistic Gundam and Zakus are much more my style.
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by JAGzilla »

I'm about twelve episodes into Gundam, and it's really good. I can definitely see why it spawned such a massive franchise and following. Exciting action, engaging characters and story, cool hard sci-fi setting, animation and art style that mostly still hold up well. Can't ask for much more.
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by JVM »

I have mixed feelings on Spy x Family, I love My Hero Academia, and I've been re watching a lot of the Detective Conan dub lately.
I used to be a lot more optimistic and outgoing, believe it or not. I used to actually be passionate about this stuff.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by HeiseiGodzilla117 »

Finding anime I enjoy seems to get more difficult over time. One Punch Man is pretty good. And I am a huge fan of MHA. But outside of that every show that I've tried to watch has just fallen flat for me. I thought I would really enjoy Demon Slayer, but it just kind of bores me. I think I'm going to need to dig into some of the older series that I haven't seen. If any of you guys have some recommendations you want to share, I'm open to checking them out.
Spirit Ghidorah 2010 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:54 pm Anno-san pleasures me more than Yamasaki-san.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by cloverfan98 »

Tyrant_Lizard_King wrote: Thu Jun 29, 2023 6:35 pm I fucking love One Punch Man. I binged the whole thing in a couple weeks. Hyped for season 3. I know id really like My Hero Academia too if I could just find the time.
OPM was.one of my gateway drugs for anime. As another fan I'd love to know, do you sometimes get the impression that Saitama is depressed? If not literally then metaphorically at least. It's hard for me to not feel like the final fight of season 1 feels like an analogy for depression, but I could be reaching. Also not a big dub guy but OPM's english dub is pretty fantastic, in fact the english VA for Saitama has pretty much become the default voice for the character in my head. I usually don't like dubs because the english cast feel far less emotional or invested, but thats absolutely perfect for Saitama considering his whole conflict is losing his emotions.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by mikelcho »

I hope I can mention this: one of my favorites is Mystery of the Necronomicon. A good Lovecraftian story.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

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https://twitter.com/WSJ_manga/status/17 ... 3650604126

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2 ... ix/.205618

https://www.polygon.com/24003522/one-pi ... ew-netflix

One Piece remake? Really? One Piece? The series that's still ongoing? That's getting a remake? One Piece?
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by Gigantis »

NSZ wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2023 7:53 am https://twitter.com/WSJ_manga/status/17 ... 3650604126

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2 ... ix/.205618

https://www.polygon.com/24003522/one-pi ... ew-netflix

One Piece remake? Really? One Piece? The series that's still ongoing? That's getting a remake? One Piece?
Hold on though.. This might be good. A TON of people online have trouble getting into One Piece because of the anime's massive length and being unable to keep up, and even watchers of the anime are complaining that it's suffering from serious pacing problems.

This means a ton of the old guard could be happy with a new take, and people who want to get into the franchise don't have to worry about keeping up with a thousand+ episode anime,
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by Angilasman »

Rody wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 5:33 pm Man, Perfect Blue is INTENSE. I watched it for the first time a year or two ago, and even though I was prepared, I wasn't really prepared.
I promptly bought it on Blu-ray to revisit, though. I reaaally need to see more Satoshi Kon content.
So thankful that GKIDS, Fathom, and whoever the other rights holders and licensors are have been putting the Kon films in theaters these last few years. I had the pleasure of seeing Tokyo Godfathers and Millennium Actress for the first time on the big screen, and I was able to see Perfect Blue a few months ago! Paprika will have a similar limited engagement screening in a couple of months.

Kon is the only anime director I like even more than Miyazaki. It's a tragedy he only had a decade making films before he got sick - but at least all four of those movies are stone cold classics!

... but where's that feature length documentary on Kon that cane out in Europe a year or two ago? I was hoping that would be licensed.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

Started JuJutsu Kaisen after a long deliberation. 10 episodes in and it's okay. Entertaining, well animated, and somewhat manages to avoid shonen tropes while also sort of embracing it. But really, it's just Naruto but better, down to having a WHITE HAIRED COOL SENSEI WITH MAGICAL EYE POWERS WHO CONCEALS HIS EYES. I do appreciate some of the monster designs. Thought it was another fad like Demon Slayer but everyone kept recommending it...
Spirit Ghidorah 2010 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:54 pm Anno-san pleasures me more than Yamasaki-san.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

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LSD Jellyfish wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2024 9:23 pm Started JuJutsu Kaisen after a long deliberation. 10 episodes in and it's okay. Entertaining, well animated, and somewhat manages to avoid shonen tropes while also sort of embracing it. But really, it's just Naruto but better, down to having a WHITE HAIRED COOL SENSEI WITH MAGICAL EYE POWERS WHO CONCEALS HIS EYES. I do appreciate some of the monster designs. Thought it was another fad like Demon Slayer but everyone kept recommending it...
And it only gets better from there.
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

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LSD Jellyfish wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2024 9:23 pm Started JuJutsu Kaisen after a long deliberation. 10 episodes in and it's okay. Entertaining, well animated, and somewhat manages to avoid shonen tropes while also sort of embracing it. But really, it's just Naruto but better, down to having a WHITE HAIRED COOL SENSEI WITH MAGICAL EYE POWERS WHO CONCEALS HIS EYES. I do appreciate some of the monster designs. Thought it was another fad like Demon Slayer but everyone kept recommending it...
ほら、頑張れ頑張れ。Season 1 is Kamata-kun. :pelops2: Good luck dodging spoilers from manga reading zoomers on social media.

And yeah, Gege Akutami is the most artistically skillful thief. All ur tropes are now theirs, but better. I'd say Gege draws more from Yoshihiro Togashi (Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter) and Bleach to a smaller degree, but you can definitely see what came from Naruto, too.

Having caught up on it entirely, I would say it is now my favorite shounen fighting content of all time, assuming the landing sticks this year. Big if, to be fair, as some of the recent choices have baffled and outraged fans. I've just enjoyed it so much that I trust them to take us somewhere interesting, even if it's not where I imagine or hope it will go.
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

I'm unaware of the discussions involving JuJutsu Kaisen. I completely avoided and knew nothing about the series until Jan 6th 2024. It gets a lot of praise from me on it's animation quality and style. However, I think it deserves more praise for what makes it stand out the most, it's structure and intriguing premise/theme. Keep in mind I'm basing everything I'm about to say as of the end of Season 2. It's only something you can fully see and appreciate when you look at it retroactively.

This has to be the first anime that I think has done morally gray this well in a long time, and it's done so with it's premise. This'll be long and spoil the entire series, so buckle in:
Spoiler:
After 2 seasons, I'm unsure if the protagonists are morally correct, and what the solution to it's inherent problem is.

It starts out very simple: Curses appear and they kill people. Curses bad, people who kill exorcise them are good. It's a very, very, standard affair/set up for a shonen battle anime. And for a bit, it seems just like that. Curses are worthless monsters that Itadori can discard and destroy with zero regret.

It then introduces, what would be the big reveal for many shows, within it's first few episodes, although it's unclear at that point: Jogo and Hanami, extremely intelligent curses/beings. At first, they're laughably evil, burning up an entire cafe with people inside, and Jogo is incredibly cocky when he fights superman Gojo. Then we get introduced to Mahito, and even worse and more filthy villain, one that is completely beyond redemption. Itadori and Nanami skillfully defeat him in an early encounter. But, the cracks are beginning to show; it's beginning to be emphasized in the narrative that humans form curses from their negativity and depravity. The curses aren't some sort of external horror, they're a manifestation of humanities darkness. Jogo begins to discuss this, using emotional hyperbolic words like "more natural", but it becomes clear through Junpei that the world of JuJutsu Kaisen is filled with horrible people, and even the "nice guy" like Junpei is just one tragedy away from becoming depraved. Okay, so clearly things are getting more complicated...but Mahito is a monster, and is a catalyst, so we as the audience still understand Mahito and the curses to be major antagonists. Itadori briefly considers if he's done anything wrong by killing the transfigured humans, who are mindless puppets of Mahito, but it brings up a big question about morality and what death even is within the world.

In between all this, there's a lot of little small moments and character stuff of people being shitty (racist village/stocks) and people being nice (Nanami and the bread lady). These moments might seem like small and pointless, but they're very important to the overall plot.

Then the Kyoto Exchange Event happens...which starts out as what would be a tournament arc, in fact it teases a tournament that thankfully never happens. Before Hanami appears, there's further graying of humanity: everyone is out to kill Itadori, and while in the moment they seem to be bad people, it's only because the story is mostly told from Itadori's perspective. The Elder/Principal of Kyoto seems like a twat, thanks to Gojo's opinion that he's bad and his stereotypical appearance as a harsh conservative geezer, but this, like many things, is subverted when he starts playing his guitar. It doesn't take up too much time, but in that moment, there's a rather great hint that things are not they appear, but it only becomes evident, when you like Gojo can see everything in it's full scope.

But then big bad Hanami attacks. A powerful curse, that is a manifestation of...nature? Huh? Nature can be evil? Hanami really is some advanced personification of nature? It's crying and upset...? Hanami is some scary incomprehensible demon, but simultaneously appears to have what some would label humanity. Hanami cares about Jogo, and despite it's outward appearance something complex is going on inside it. Todou and Itadori beat it, which is all well and good.

Then we get to the little arc with Fushiguro, and Itadori. That entire little arc seemed very underwhelming as a "season finale", and at the time I watched it was pretty bewildering. In retrospect, it's perfect. Depending on how you view it, it's the moment that Itadori and the others become really morally grey and the entire series gets turned on it's head AND/OR a big major victory for Itadori and co as a team. Fushiguro fights and defeats a strong curse, but that curse is once again it's a manifestation of all the evil energy surrounding a school.

Then there's the brothers vs. Itadori and Nobura, which at the time felt really strange. I was asking myself, "Who on earth are these chucklefucks? Where are the main villains? They don't look so strong, and why have they seemingly appeared out of nowhere, ruining the standard flow of Fushiguro vs. Special Cursed Spirit? Well, it furthers the hint of the Curses and Humans being reliant on one another and an extreme grey.

The brothers are both humans and curses, a strange combo that should completely turn the entirety of the world on it's head. The older brother actually offers to let the two of them go, if they don't interfere with their mission. Yet Itadori and Nobura treat them like curses nonetheless and are pretty much ready to slaughter them without a thought. There's a big fight, where Itadori and Nobura endure a lot of pain, and at some point they do need to kill the brothers. But then...one dies and the other gets sad and flees. Itadori runs after them in cold blood and kills the brother. It's portrayed as a heroic moment, but the curse/human hybrids were not monsters, at least compared to the other curses. A new hybrid is shown off: Choso, an elder brother who weeps for his siblings. It's not obvious in the moment, but Itadori murdered someone.

I can't give as big of a summary as I have from here on out, but basically everything from here on continues to blur the line. The entire first four episodes of Season 2 reinforce this. The main villains of that little arc aren't curses, they're humans. It's a weird religious group, an incredibly dangerous sorcerer (fushiguro's father), and a village who wants to torture little girls. The entire plot revolves around a human sacrifice, which like exorcisms, uses deceitful euphemisms to make things be more plateable for the people and the audience watching it.

It becomes apparent that Jogo, Hanami, and Dagon are some form of manifestation of nature and grudges. While not embracing or agreeing with their beliefs on humans, it's clear thematically something is different than them. Even Dagon, the worst and most animalistic of them, has some association with nature. Although still violent creatures they're not sadistic...unlike Mahito(?). But then these boundaries are further blurred. For example, I'm unsure if some of the villains briefly encounters (the guy with the tear miracles) is a curse or a curse wielding human.

That brings us to two characters that change the dynamic of their show based on their interactions with Itadori: Sukuna and Mahito.
Sukuna, whom at first viewers and curses might assume would side with curses, clearly does not care. Jogo and the rest of the villains spent an entire season basically aiding his resurrection and his reward...is a one sided curbstomp? Jogo was incredibly polite, and gave up complete autonomy to Sukuna but was wiped out rather quickly. When we see how powerful Sukuna is, and another being that is at least on a comparable power to Sukuna, it reflects that there are greater and worse forces than the simple Curse V Humans dynamic the show initially seems preoccupied with.

This culminates with a fight of Itadori vs. Mahito. I can't summarize it perfectly, but this is the "SEE YOU AND I ARE JUST THE SAME" trope if I've ever seen it. Mahito spends a good chunk of the series horribly murdering people mindlessly, without much thought. But, it's quickly revealed that Itadori has basically been doing the exact same thing with curses, and that we didn't think of it twice...initially. There's a lot of caveats here, but it actually gives Mahito's comments a lot of weight. This recognition and elimination of rationalization, is what gives Itadori the win in the "predator wolf" scene. PERFECT IMO. Peak animu.

Then there's Geto, who like that woman with the bone snake, actually realizes the inherent problem with the world. That really sold this as a story for me to be invested in.

Geto is also revealed to not be who he is (he's some ancient evil sorcerer), and part of this evil is making curse-human hyrbids. He's further blurring the line, and he has a few lines that make me hope he gets more developed.

Some other misc points:
-Pretty much all the sorcerers have really bad points and aren't "inherently good". I'd make the argument that if there was a "heart" of the series it would be Nanami, and it's more for the idea that he has a simple notion to live life without harming/bothering others. The leader of the Zenin clan? Drunkard. Mei-Mei? greedy (and possibly more depending on the age of Ui Ui). There's a lot of patriarchal/matriarchal stuff going on in the background, including clear notions of blood lines and inheritance. This adds to a lot of other points in the series.
-Series foreshadows things in great ways (see Fushiguro trying to summon Mahagora)
-

To sum up: JJK has a great cast of characters and conflicts that takes the time to question and develop characters in their universe beyond simple good v evil morality.
Sorry for the rambling. It's a lot to take in.
Spirit Ghidorah 2010 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:54 pm Anno-san pleasures me more than Yamasaki-san.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by Jomei »

I feel like the Hidden Inventory/Premature Death arc is maybe the best I've seen in this type of anime. It's so strangely and darkly beautiful and asks the most fundamental questions about humanity without settling on a comfortable answer.

And it's those questions and relationships left hanging there that provide the cracks in the Jujutsu world that lead to the incredible chaos of The Shibuya Incident. The bits that come back from earlier arcs are so brilliantly placed. It's amazing how many times
Spoiler:
Toji
made me practically spit my drink in surprise.
Spoiler:
  • the Gojo stab
    the Gojo kill
    the Geto curse manipulation counter + Bleach slashes
    the "iwakan" purple death :shingodzillapurple:
    the seance resurrection
    overtaking the seance technique and running wild
    bursting into Dagon's domain - I literally lol'd at this decision. so perfect. All the sorcerers seem completely fucked in this battle, and then the one murderous demon that could complicate things further just jumps in with a smile on his face
    targeting Megumi (and then Jogo showing up in the next instant)
    finally recognizing Megumi and becoming an hero after realizing that, whatever else he did wrong, in his last living moment, he did right one mistake and save his son from the Zenin clan
Phew! The man who broke through fate indeed.
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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

Jomei wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2024 4:51 pm I feel like the Hidden Inventory/Premature Death arc is maybe the best I've seen in this type of anime. It's so strangely and darkly beautiful and asks the most fundamental questions about humanity without settling on a comfortable answer.

And it's those questions and relationships left hanging there that provide the cracks in the Jujutsu world that lead to the incredible chaos of The Shibuya Incident. The bits that come back from earlier arcs are so brilliantly placed. It's amazing how many times
Spoiler:
Toji
made me practically spit my drink in surprise.
Other than tried and true classics, like Eva's opening, I think the Hidden Inventory/Premature Death OP is a contender for one of the best anime openings of all time. Just bright and beautiful, while hinting at darkness. The way that Gojo and Geto burst from a skyscraper with the dragon while enemies take them on is amazing. It also sort of conveys action and moments that the Inventory arc sort of skips over. Like we get more action of Gojo and Geto vs randos than in the actual episodes and shows some brief nice moments of all of them just being normal students. So it works as an opening as also as part of the arc, if that makes sense.

Agreed what you said about shocking moments.

I watched the movie, and I'm reading the manga. Movie was good, but I had no idea it would just be a different person that Gojo decided to take a pity too. It gave me a lot more context for Maki and Panda, and other characters and why they're part of the main cast. Honestly, the story behind the creation of the manga and anime, and how they all interlink is super crazy.
Last edited by LSD Jellyfish on Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Spirit Ghidorah 2010 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:54 pm Anno-san pleasures me more than Yamasaki-san.

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Re: Anime and Manga disscussion

Post by o.supreme »

Greetings,

Not sure if this is the right spot to ask. however... I was wondering if anyone has ordered from the Crunchyroll store since Rightstuf was absorbed into it? I liked ordering form RS, but as they were located in Iowa, sometimes orders would take a while to get to me. If Crunchyroll is in San Francisco, that is much closer to me, and hoping orders will arriver faster, but I'm not sure about CR customer service, or their turn time with online orders.
To all you dub preservationists, my friends, you have my eternal thanks 8-) . Never stop what you do, you are amazing!

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