Anime & Manga

Discuss works of media, like films, television programmes and novels.

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gotMLK7
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by gotMLK7 »

Finished Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun. The show is a comedy that pokes fun at a lot of shojo manga tropes through its socially incompetent male lead mangaka, and since my sis reads and watches a lot of shojo, this one hit a good spot for me. The comedy was great, if predictable at times, and the cast is a nice reversal of expectations for the shojo formula; all of the tropes you'd expect from boys (the handsome prince the women swoon over, the tough guy that intidimates everyone) are female characters and the tropes you'd expect from girls (the shy tsundere, the shojo author) are male characters. It's a concept that just becomes amusing when poked at like this. The characters are all generally likable, too, which helps. The dub by SentaiFilmworks is good, surprisingly so. I know I tend to find ways to like Sentai dubs even when they're awkward but this one's legitimately solid; the actors fit rather well for the characters, the audio levels don't seem off like they usually do, and there's a good sense of energy to the line delivery. The characters all sound a bit like dorks thanks to the cast, but I don't exactly count that against it. Juliet "JubyPhonic" Simmons knocks it out of the park as Chiyo, and props to Monica Rial for playing the masculine Kashima when she's famous for her ridiculously high pitched voice. The show sadly feels like it barely even ended, though, and a season 2 needs to happen to somewhat resolve at least ONE of the, what, three romances the show sets up. Even a show being satirical of shojo shares that same problem so many shojo anime have, I suppose. But regardless, if you're looking for a quick and fun comedy, you can't really go wrong with Nozaki-kun.
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by energizerspark »

happy piccolo day everyone
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by Hodou Okappa »

A fight from Naruto Shippuden 375

I posted about this to some of my friends a while ago, but it really stuck with me.

These are ~3 minutes of a 600+ episode series full of filler, terrible characters, cliche and/or convoluted plots, stalling, generic shonen speeches, the power of friendship, and all sorts of other garbage but this one short fight is beautifully animated and encapsulates everything valuable I used to see in the series back when I was a misguided teen. The scene requires absolutely no knowledge of any of the massive and inscrutable context surrounding it - it's a simple short story that tells you everything you need to know about those two characters and their relationship in the moment.

There's no denying that Naruto is terrible, but I guess that even some of the worst shows have moments of brilliance. Sometimes it's good to remember that even if a story is objectively flawed, it's possible that the people who enjoy it have legitimate reasons. Sure, maybe that kid likes Bleach because it's "edgy" and basically the only anime they've ever seen, but maybe they also like it because they remember the overwhelming tension of the first captain fights in Soul Society and hope vainly that the series will someday recapture those lofty moments. Maybe that person who likes Oreimo isn't just in it for the creepy incest teases, but sees a legitimate story about friendship among otaku and overcoming awkwardness hidden deep within all the garbage. Maybe Mahouka has a solid fan following among "would-otherwise-be" snobs because it's got good animation and uses its blatantly overpowered protagonist as a plot point to present something a little bit unique. There's nothing wrong with judging things based on their overall quality, of course, but it's nice to remember that if a story appeals to somebody, maybe it's not because they're "stupid" or "have bad taste," but because a popular story doesn't need to be perfect (or even decent) to hit something within you, and resonate with somebody on a deeper level.

Except SAO. Anyone who likes SAO is wrong and should feel bad.

(And before anyone worries about me, no, I am not watching/rewatching Naruto, nor do I have any plans to ever, ever do that. This was inspired by a Reddit post about Naruto's fight choreography.)
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by Sleuth »

Me After Last Tanaka-Kun Episode: "haha ok tanaka-kun, you're still fun, but im getting sick of the romance jokes by now. but im sure you'll still be fun next episode!"

Next Episode: *revolves around Valentine's Day*

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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by energizerspark »

I finished the first season of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Pretty good story what even is this madness 10/10
Spoiler : :
I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get over Speedwagon dying though
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by kwando1313 »

Finished off Love Live.

That was nice. Was good. Songs were good. Pretty decent as an SoL. Yay.

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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by NihilisticNinja »

Setsunasa ni wa namae wo tsukeyou ka... SNOW HALATION!

But no LL in general was great fun. Quite enjoyed both seasons and will watch the movie when the dub comes out.
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by kwando1313 »

I saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
HEY!
HEY!
HEY START, DASH!
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by gotMLK7 »

Finished Space Patrol Luluco, the Studio Triggeriest show to ever Studio Trigger out of Studio Trigger. That is the best way I can describe this show, honestly, it's just a culmination of all things Studio Trigger jammed into one show. Cameos from their other properties, simple animation that bursts into sakuga, a super fast pace, ridiculous stakes, Yoh Yoshinari, everything just screams Trigger from this show, including the show itself. And I loooooved it. It's a short series, at 13 episodes consisting of 7-8 minutes each, and it was just fun all around. The humor was great (Over Justice is a delight), the cameos are fun, the character design makes up for the simple animation, and the story, while rushed and played largely for laughs, is actually pretty fun. It's like playing Kill La Kill on fast forward with less creepy bits. I don't think I can really properly describe this show, except to just say that it's just fun. Watch the first episode, and if it seems your thing, it shouldn't take you long to binge the whole thing. It's got a lot of heart and a lot of self-aware humor, and if you're a fan of Trigger's work, it is an absolute must-watch.
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by Lind »

I give up on anime. At least for a little while.

The more I try to follow it the more disillusioned I get.
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by NihilisticNinja »

Finished the movie. Definitely a satisfying conclusion overall.

See you, Space Idols.
"With good friends by your side, anything is possible. If you really care for each other, it makes everyone stronger! Then you'll have the will to succeed! The world is filled with painful things, it's sad sometimes, and you won't be able to handle it by yourself. But just know: If there's someone that you love, you'll stay on the right path. And you won't ever give in! As long as you keep that person in your heart, you'll keep getting back up. Understand? That's why a Hero never loses!"
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by kwando1313 »

It feels weird to be done with Love Live, but it was quite a nice ending.

And now on to Sunshine wheeeeeeeeee
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by energizerspark »

well so far DBZ Kai is proving much more enjoyable than the original Z.
It's nice to have a story with actually reasonable pacing as opposed to "Goku runs down a road for 10 episodes and the story goes nowhere"
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by kwando1313 »

LLS actually had a p good start. Excited to see where they go from there.
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Re: Anime & Manga

Post by NihilisticNinja »

So, I think it's been a long while since I ranted about SAO. Let's do a little of that, shall we?
Spoiler : SAO II Arc 1 and Scream 1 Spoilers :
So, I don't think I've ever really thought about Death Gun as a character on a... narrative level before, at least not in depth. But got kind of mentioned looking at it from that angle and I realized that a totally different piece of entertainment on a totally different continent actually pulled a very similar trick waaay back in the 90s. So let's compare the reveal of who Ghostface (The killer) is in Scream with the reveal of the killers are in Gungale Online

Alright, I feel obligated to lay a bit of piping first. Since this is AAO I'll assume that the people reading this have at least a base idea what the twist of SAO II was, so I won't bother going over that, but I do think I need to kind of explain the premise of Scream.

Alright, so, Scream is a story of the teenager Sydney Prescott. She has a tragic backstory but we aren't focusing on the strict narrative of the movie so aside from mentioning it it's unimportant. What is important is that there's a killer called Ghostface running around (because the mask looks, well, like a ghost's face.) slashing people. And for a decent chunk of the movie, Sydney's boyfriend Billy becomes the number one suspect. He does some shady stuff and some evidence pops up that COULD be innocuous, but certainly looks incriminating. So he gets brought in for questioning. Meanwhile, the murders are continuing. Eventually they realize they don't have enough evidence to hold him and let Billy go. The whole Billy-suspect plot point then climaxes with him getting "killed" by Ghostface right in front of Sydney, letting her know for a fact that she had been wrong to doubt him.

Given that I put kill in quotation marks and I'm comparing this to the Death Gun reveal, probably pretty easy to see where this is going. It was Billy after all! He and his friend Stu were simply working together, each having their own motivation- Stu essentially being crazy and Billy wanting revenge due to Sydney's aforementioned tragic backstory.. They end up betraying eachother yadda yadda Sydney kills Billy and then there's two sequels.

Anyway, should be kinda clear how this is similar to Death Gun. In both cases we have a costumed killer. In both cases the killing has a kind of theme (Death Gun shoots, Ghostface has an affection with blades). In both cases we're subconsciously primed to think it's one person when the twist is that it's actually two. In both cases in one case the motive is more personal and the other is more just generally evil/psychotic/what-have-you. In both cases it turns out to be a character we knew prior working together with someone else. In both cases there's a situation where one of the characters we know can't be the killer because the OTHER killer appears way too quickly for him to change "Costumes", as it were. And so on. I don't think anybody ripped anybody off, it's just a funny coincidence that allows us to break down what I think are 3 key issues with the Death Gun twist.

1. Very Little Is Done With The Two-Is-One Gimmick

Scream's twist works so well because it was competently crafted to revolve around the gimmick. Because of the gimmick, Kevin Williamson can make Billy look ridiculously suspicious and still have him being the killer be the twist, because you make the evidence JUST not incriminating enough that he'll be dismissed as a red herring by the people who try to solve these kinds of movies. And then when killings that he couldn't have been committed by him happen and then he himself appears to be a victim, we dismiss him entirely and it's a shock when it turns out that our instincts were, in fact, right all along.

Death Gun gets nothing like that. The Two-is-one trick is needed for the killings but aside from that there is nothing done with it. The viewer isn't particularly tricked into thinking that it's impossible for Sinon's friend to be death gun- even though there is an instance where Death Gun couldn't have been him, and if the narrative emphasized that, and we had any other suspects, that could have been functional. But we don't, it isn't, and thus the twist barely matters. It has so little narrative weight. Instead of going "OH!" You go, "Ok. And?" And that's not the way you should do it.

And you can do two-is-one tricks in plenty of other ways that are fun and interesting, that I won't get into so I don't spoil MORE things, but suffice it to say that it isn't utilized in a compelling way in those senses either.

2. Both Killers are people we know.

This one is self-explanatory. It's a shock when one character we thought was innocent and trusted is the killer. If it's TWO, then you get an even greater shocked reaction. Billy was a main character and Stu was a colead that was present throughout the film, they're both characters that we probably feel like we got to know, so it can be shocking when they're revealed to be mentally unstable/vengeance seeking murderers. We only know one of the Death Gun duo prior to the reveal, and we barely even see him, and what we do see of him is honestly kinda creepy. So there is no shock there, and there can't be shock over a character we didn't even know exists.

3. The Characters Stay Consistent

This one doesn't so much have to do with the gimmick, but it does have to do with the nature of killer reveals. In good killer reveals, or villain reveals... they may be a bit more crazy/evil, now that the mask is off, but they are still undeniably the same person. Scream does this fine- Billy and Stu are clearly unstable now but they are still obviously THOSE characters. We're just seeing the little bits they were keeping hidden seep through. We didn't know one member of Death Gun prior to the reveal and the other's character takes a pretty sharp turn down Rapesville for no real reason other than Sinon needs to be rescued by Kirito so why not It was just terrible.

So yeah, 3 core reasons why from a purely narrative standpoint, the Death Gun twist was ill-conceived. Back to never thinking about SAO II again.
"With good friends by your side, anything is possible. If you really care for each other, it makes everyone stronger! Then you'll have the will to succeed! The world is filled with painful things, it's sad sometimes, and you won't be able to handle it by yourself. But just know: If there's someone that you love, you'll stay on the right path. And you won't ever give in! As long as you keep that person in your heart, you'll keep getting back up. Understand? That's why a Hero never loses!"
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