very late edition

Manga

The recommendation algorithm has insisted I read Denpa Kyoushi, probably since I like GTO… because it’s exactly like it, if it was made with the characteristic artstyle of the late 2000s and Onizuka was a weeb instead of delinquent.

Anime

Of the current seasonals, the only one that caught my attention so far is Red River, an adaptation of a 1995 shojo manga set in the Hittite Empire. It’s old school storytelling, with both a higher quality than a lot of the generic slop, as well as a higher amount of encounter of nowadays obsolete tropes when it comes to for example treatment of women.

I watched last season’s I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class after seeing Gigguk’s video I posted recently. It is indeed a pretty solid show. Generic school romcom, yes. But it does show the main characters slowly fall in love with each other, rather than culminate in a confession after doing the right moves. Add to it side plots that are not even direct obstacles to the main plot but flesh out the characters, and a pretty likeable cast, and you have something refreshingly good, in spite of being unoriginal.

I’ve been slowly going through Monogatari, and I have reached Owarimonogatari S2. For better or worse, Monogatari is truly unique and I’d like to see a discussion of it that isn’t filled with ancap-good. Considering the protagonist, that is unlikely. I guess there’s Animefeminist’s podcast episodes on it, but they are fairly early into the story.

Speaking of vile MCs and fanbases, Mushoku Tensei has one, possibly even worse than Araragi. And yet, it is one of the most highly acclaimed anime by mainstream weebs. Good for a pain-groupwatch though.

I finally reached the end of the Cell Saga in Dragon Ball Z. Mr. Satan, what a man.

I’ve also started Aura Battler Dunbine, and the start is much stronger than L-Gaim’s. Tomino at his first peak, I suppose (1st - the 80s 2nd - Turn A).

Audiobooks, since I discovered that’s a thing

Leon Trotsky’s “Fascism: What it is and how to fight it” - He makes a pretty good definition of fascism for the most part (A reactionary movement with a petty bourgeois base that gains popularity and members from the proletariat during crises by placing the blame for the misery on workers’ movement, and ends up supporting the normal bourgeoisie once it gains power, alienating its base), with the caveat of basically ignoring nationalism. The second part of the book is worse however. He assumes an armed proletariat ready to defend itself, but getting the wrong directives from Moscow. A lot of “I’d have done it better than Stalin”

Karl Marx’s 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte - I’m not done with the book yet, but the writing is fire. The consolidation of Bourgeois rule, while side-lining the other classes is interesting to hear about. I might have more thoughts when I’m finished with it though.

  • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    For starters, I released episode 1 of my fanime.

    By the end I had to leave 91 seconds of animation unfinished. I might go back and finish those bits, but for now I should prioritize other projects.

    Aside from that…

    Reading

    I’m still reading Moby Dick. Things are starting to pick up.

    As for manga:

    • I’m still reading Boku no Mura no Hanashi with my mom, a manga about the Sanrizuka struggle to prevent the construction of Narita Airport. It’s a good un.
    • I finished volume 1 of How Do We Relationship? and volume 3 of Sweat and Soap. Both very good romance titles.
    • I started reading volume 5 of Yotsuba&. I’m skipping volume 4 as I don’t own a physical copy.

    No progress on any of the other books I mentioned last month.

    With @AernaLingus@hexbear.net and Me Mum

    Aer and I finished The Idolmaster, plowed through Wasteful Days of High School Girls, and are currently watching Oreimo. Yes, the incest anime, but you’d be surprised at how much heart it actually has. Wasteful Days was also a pretty solid comedy. I don’t have much to say about Idolmaster, but it’s a good introduction to the idol genre.

    Mom and I are continuing Hunter x Hunter, Mono, Kodocha, Sailor Moon R, Ojamajo Doremi Sharp, Skull-Faced Bookseller Honda-san, the Furuhata Ninzaburo specials, and Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated. We saw a few more episodes of Lupin III Part 2 as well. It’s always a good un.

    The most notable development with my mom is that we finished Serial Experiments Lain and replaced it with Paranoia Agent. Lain is still a top-tier (very confusing) anime just like it was when I watched it by myself years ago. Paranoia Agent I saw episodes 1, 2 and 7 of when they were shown on Blorptube recently, but decided not to watch there as that would mean getting nothing out of the Satoshi Kon classic. Mom has really taken a liking to it. She loves a good mystery.

    Obama’s Elf

    After completing Ponsuka — a way better high school romcom anime than you’d expect from its rather long official title — I have fallen into the habit of actually following along on currently releasing anime for once. Namely, Kaiju Girl Caramelise, Sayonara Lara, and Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, although I’m one episode behind on the latter two. Fighting Games episode 1 had sort of a drawback in the amount of random blood, which I found offputting. SayoLara episode 1 was basically a top-notch short film based on the tale of the little mermaid; I’m looking forward to continuing it, but the standout of the three is actually Caramelise, a high school romcom about a socially awkward girl who turns into a Godzilla-esque kaiju when overcome with emotion (or more often turns into a sort of half-human half-kaiju creature). I like the themes and it’s a cute show overall. The Disneyland parody in the newest episode was a good bit.

    Otherwise, I’ve sometimes been watching Maison Ikkoku before bed. I’m past the midway point now, which means an OP/ED change to something a lot more cheerful than the previous one, and the start of a new story arc, which I won’t spoil, but will say that I wrote a post to this comm about, since I think its handling of pedophilia is interesting. I’m just a few episodes in, but truth be told I think I’m kind of experiencing Maison fatigue. And so I’ve been watching shows on Netflix more often lately:

    • Hilda season 2. It’s been YEARS since I last watched Hilda. It’s a REALLY good cartoon. You should watch it.
    • Carmen Sandiego (2019). I watched this dubbed in Norwegian. The voice acting is kinda cringey and some stuff gets lost in translation but it’s not too bad. The lore is silly — it’s a vehicle to teach geography to children, after all — but I still found the first episode pretty charming. I’m looking forward to continuing it.
    • Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. I saw the “first” episode (actually the second, according to Wikipedia) in two sittings, and I’m doing the same with the “second” (actually the sixth). The fact that I can’t finish an episode in one sitting is a sign that I’m not really drawn to it, which is a shame, because I know that a lot of cool people are very passionate fans of Miraculous and I do want to like it. I think my main complaint is how episodic it is. Like, Sailor Moon and Precure are also episodic, but they still had definitive “first episodes”, not just “episodes that happened to release first” and an attitude of “wanna know the plot? just listen to the theme song and figure it out.”
    • Johnny Test. I wasn’t going into it expecting to watch more than one episode, I was just checking it out because I remembered watching it as a kid, I remember how [whip crack] AWFUL [whip crack, whip crack] it is, and I was curious about the Norwegian dub. Could not finish even one episode of it. I am very amused by how Netflix calls it a “Netflix original”.
    • Wakfu and The Dragon Prince. I didn’t finish the first episodes of these, either. It was pretty late at night so I was being a bit rapid-fire, so if I’d sat through the full first episodes I might feel a bit differently, but they seemed kinda generic fantasy and the animation styles were sort of a turnoff for me. But maybe I’ll come back to them.
    • Community. Perhaps a bit unorthodox to mention a Seppolandic live action show in the anime thread, but I was surprised to find out that it had returned to Norwegian Netflix, so I of course had to jump right back in where I left off. It’s a good show!

    No progress on Avatar: The Last Airbender.

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      Others’ Blorps

      Garg has finished showing Magic Knight Rayearth and has moved onto something much more my style, namely Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card. I watched Clear Card by myself several years ago and I’ve enjoyed revisiting it.

      I stayed up to try Dirty Pair but wasn’t too impressed with it. Maybe I’d like it more if it wasn’t a live watch party, but I kinda doubt it. Golgo 13 was a very “sexy” (in the 1950s sense) movie, and that’s basically all I remember about it. Not very interesting. Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy was a movie I also didn’t get much out of, but that was a problem of me not paying full attention more than anything. It stood out to me how the dub says “Rupan” instead of “Lupin” to avoid the wrath of the estate of Maurice LeBlanc. The Fuma Conspiracy also had a really good song called “C’est la vie to iwanaide” that I’ve been listening to all the time lately.

      I rewatched Project A-Ko 2 and it’s still a fun movie. And although all the main characters are drawn fairly slim, I still appreciate how they aren’t drawn as skin and bones like so many other anime characters are. I also rewatched the last 10 minutes of Sailor Moon SuperS: The Movie, as well as Sailor Moon season 1’s last two episodes, and episode 40 of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (tokusatsu). Not much to say about them.

      Clara finished showing New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt so now we’ve moved on to She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. PanSto had a great finale, and She-Ra has been a good time as well. I first started watching She-Ra many years ago but sort of fell off it, but as a watch party two episodes at a time every Friday, yeah, I’m enjoying it and its big lesbian energy.

      Own Blorps

      I finished showing Uma Musume: Pretty Derby season 1. My final remarks are that it has good music and good character design, but that the story isn’t all there (not least because of the goddamn chikan jokes). The big problem with Uma Musume is that gacha games are, as a format and business model, very limited in the amount of characterization they can do, and this also applies to any official tie-in content for a gacha game, and the writing will suffer from this. On the other hand, leaving the characters blank slates to such a degree allows for fan content to fill in much of the gaps. And this, I think, is part of Uma Musume’s viral marketing: a lot of the fan content is very good because it doesn’t face the limitations of the original work. It’s still animal cruelty propaganda, though.

      Now that we’re done with Uma Musume, I’m gonna start showing Little Witch Academia starting next Saturday. I’m really looking forward to it. LWA was basically what got me into anime, and this time I’ll be watching it with Norwegian subs I ripped straight from Netflix. I’m also looking forward to rewatching The Boondocks on Blorp starting next Wednesday.

      After showing PONIES: The Anthology up to anthology 7, I spoke to Aer and we decided to drop showing the rest of the series. The jokes about slurs and references to chuddy YouTubers just left a bad taste in my mouth.

      I’m still showing The Owl House and Star vs. the Forces of Evil and having a blast with both. We’re getting pretty damn close to the end of The Owl House, though. Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want To Be A Magical Girl is an independent animatic series (just two episodes at present) in a similar style to TOH and SVTFOE, albeit with one more F-bomb. I’d seen it several times already but rewatching it on Blorptube was still a good time.

      I’m still showing Joshua Jones and Magic Heart and the Magical Warriors. The former remains genuinely good, the latter… is an interesting curiosity. We like watching it because it’s [Scorsese pose] Absolute Fanime.

      Aside from that, I’ve shown seven other fanime since last thread. From my most to least favorites, these are:

      • Weeb’s Guide to School. Very competent animation and great character design. Voice acting and audio mixing could use some work. Good bits but confusing plot.
      • Supernova ☆. Also very competent animation, this time with pretty good voice acting to boot, better audio mixing than Weeb’s Guide but still rough at times. Ended way too soon: the second episode wasn’t even completed beyond the eyecatch, which gave me an opportunity to edit in a broken video cassette gag.
      • Yin Yang. A lot of the animation, VA, and audio mix is questionably done, but that just makes the good parts stand out even more. I especially liked hearing the voice acting grow more confident with time, and I really respect how the episodes are actually in the 20~30 minute range like a proper TV anime. A lot of love went into this one, even though the plot is just like so many other fanime, kinda confusing. I really wish it had continued, though, it only stopped because the creator was doxxed. Really sad.
      • Tokyo Magic Star. The first episode or two or three are pretty rough around the edges, but the style and production quickly changes to be a lot more competent. That said, I was kinda losing interest by the end, as it seemed to become a melodrama lacking in visually interesting shots.
      • Large Bagel. Actually a pretty well-made short, but its sense of humor is pretty crass. It’s trying to be the next Nyan~ Neko Sugar Girls, and it is genuinely better than NNSG, but it’s also kinda less memeable for the fact that it’s trying to be.
      • Satan’sremoved*. This was Kisaka Toriama’s attempt at making an edgier, more adult fanime, and I remember thinking it was better than most “edgy, adult animation” from the West. This being said, I can only rank it so high.
      • Soothing Love. I don’t want to call it “bad” or any other term that might apply a value judgment to the creator, because God knows the creator tried. But it’s very low quality, it’s at times impossible to understand what the characters are saying, and it just isn’t that interesting.

      My own fanime I’m not ranking and didn’t ask others to rank due to the bias.

    • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Wasteful Days of High School Girls, and are currently watching Oreimo.

      Wasteful Days is peak. The manga is also worth reading imo.

      Oreimo… I have to admit, it is well written. But the author has an utter lack of taste. It’s a libertarian manifesto for anything goes anime, it’s pro incest, and the ending,

      spoiler

      including how all the other rivals such as Kuroneko (a surprisingly strong character tbh) are treated is a spectacular trainwreck.

      That show will stay with you forever, for better or worse lol.

  • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    Anime

    Princess Principal (and all the movies). Was surprised how much I enjoyed this tbh, the premise of “Cold War spy movie but it’s in steampunk London” just works. The third movie wasn’t very good because it was just kinda treading water, but otherwise they were all fun stories. The politics, especially of the movies, are comically bad, though.

    spoiler

    Charlotte thinks she can tear down the berlin london wall I guess by decree once she becomes queen, meanwhile Richard says “yeah hey we’re going to have to kill the nobility to do that or else they’ll kill you instead” and all Charlotte can do is frown and be annoyed that he is correct.

    A

    Super Crooks. It’s a great premise with horrible execution: super “villains” who doing a heist on the Justice League’s vault to steal some villain relics that the heroes took as trophies. Sadly there’s never a clever plan, and none of the characters are well written. I would almost recommend the first episode on its own for the extremely stupid scene where a kid discovers his electricity superpowers and decides to debut his powers at a public pool with predictable results. The whole time I’m just thinking “wait, surely someone will realize how bad an idea this is and they won’t do it” but it just never happens, and when you think it can’t get worse it just keeps escalating. D

    Serial Experiments Lain. I don’t get the hype. It’s always neat to see takes on the internet from the 90s but what is it even saying? That people adopt a persona online that’s different from in person? Sure, I guess that’s true, but if that’s it then it’s just a pretty slow-paced show with nothing much going on. I did enjoy the more abstract backgrounds typical to anime from the late 90s, and Lain’s look in particular is an interesting play on typical cutesy anime girl with big eyes. Something about the irises just makes her not look right. C

    Healer Girl. A surprisingly grounded slice of life about a world that’s 99.9% the real world, but also there’s magical singing that heals people. Nothing much to say, it’s a vehicle for some songs and some cute anime girls to do cute anime girl things. I’ve been enjoying it even if there’s not much going on, I think mostly because the worldbuilding is so reserved. Like yeah we have witches with magic but they’re mostly just treating pain, they’re licensed by the government, and are allowed to prescribe drugs. B

      • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        The main characters are believable, sure, but I don’t think they’re very satisfying. For instance, Johnny doesn’t have an arc. He’s a scumbag from episode 2 until the end, with the only difference being that now he’s rich. He’s also clearly taking advantage of Kasey’s abandonment issues. It’s set up for him to be reformed after the time-skip where he goes to jail again, but there’s really nothing that demonstrates he’s changed. He just isn’t put in situations where it would come up.

        Kasey, despite being the most powerful character in the show, has almost no agency and is ultimately just a trophy for Johnny.

        Carmine is revealed to be a fraud who never did anything on his own and makes up for it by… getting rich off of someone else’ work again.

        The side characters meanwhile are extremely flat. The wrestler brothers are just living jokes, with the follow-up that the bigger one is revealed to have a PhD in the end slides. Ghost, TK, and Forecast are all just there. Praetorian is I suppose a fairly realistic portrayal of a cop who got the job so he could murder people legally but has nothing else going on.

  • Better_with_Gender [she/her, pup/pup's]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    Manga

    I read through The Ghost In The Shell and The Ghost in The Shell - Human Error Processor. Overall they were decent reads but the latter volumes of the first book felt a bit too complicated to understand and likely need a read through again. My main issue with the first manga is that its very much Cyber Cops being brutal and wondering why nobody likes them, they are very oblivious and end up reactionary.

    This was really noticeable in Human Error Processor and took away a bit from reading. This was definitely toned down and adjusted in Mamoru Oshii’s film and along the Stand Alone Complex Series/OVA. Which arguably made them better and actually helped with the question of how cyborgs struggle with connecting with their humanity.

    Anime

    I haven’t really watched much other than on Blorp but I should at least get down my thoughts on Neon Genesis Evangelion.

    Disclaimer: Its just going to be the immediate notes I took down after finishing, I haven’t been able to re-watch and would rather not leave it in limbo.

    Spoilers for the show. The notes are very messy and blunt as well

    Episodes Rei 1 and 2 imply Shinji and Gendo are similar, only resolved in EoE where its shown both Shinji and Gendo hide themselves away from others due to self hatred (Shinji) or focus on the final goal (Gendo). Rei being described as not good as living, for most of the series she seems to be not shy but disinterested in social contact other than Gendo and Nerv. School is done because she is told to, everything is done because she is told to or possibly because she sees no reason not to do what she was told. Ignoring Gendo in EoE shows she does make her own decisions

    Ep 7 shows that Nerv had a bigger plan in the background that was more than simply defeating the Angels. Mostly hidden until the later episodes. Ep 9 made me question who Shinji is, trans possibly in one sense but also why does he carry on in Nerv despite constantly wanting to leave. He is scared, confused and angry but something inside is saying to just carry on, because leaving is worse than carrying on. Being around people who suck to be around is better than being alone.

    Ep 12, really shows this. despite potiental death of everyone and maybe themselves, Shinji and the rest refuse a will and successfully stop the Angel. When there is something bigger at state and you are capable of doing it, you will just end up doing it? Smells of the Evas, smells do remind me of the past and people, of events and memories. Its not weird,creepy or perverted necessarily in this context (ep14) that Shinji recognises Rei’s smell and vice versa. Hinting at a connection between the 2 even if they seem completely dis alike.

    Shinji and Gendo visiting Yui’s grave. Shinji wants to reconnect with his father and believes he has a bit. Gendo possibly wants to re-connect but knows he shouldn’t.

    Shinji’s overconfidence into ignorance annoyed me in ep16, it was a stupid move that well ending up being how that angel was defeated didn’t seem to make Shinji learn anything from his consciousness.

    The fourth pilot episodes were fucked up. Throwing a child with no experience to be a pilot, one with a connection to the other pilots, though I don’t really understand. Only for the test to fuck up because of course a full scale sync test is going to be perfectly fine ignoring the massive random variable of a new pilot. The only person who ‘takes responsibility’ is Gendo and by that I mean tells people to kill the Eva ignoring the pilot.

    Any rational person doesn’t want to do that but Gendo only cares about his future plans, hinting towards later in the show. then the dummy plug is used and its fucked up because a kill command means kill and completely destroy the Eva and its component, and nobody thinks to change the command to save the pilot.

    So yeah, Shinji is traumatised heavily, angry, freaked out but because he showed that through anger and direct threats he is the bad one according to Gendo and Nerv not opposing that makes them guilty as well. Obviously Shinji wants to leave a run but even still he ends up deciding not to after the angel catches up to him and something he is capable of doing means its something he should do. Asuka hating Shinji for leaving is not something I understand yet, possibly her pride in piloting and defeating means she hates people that don’t want to see the end?

    400% sync rating and becoming one with the Eva and meeting his mother didn’t do much. Nothing really changed afterwards with Shinji, he just carried on as what he was previously. He hates himself so much that any possible connection with another person or being just does nothing to himself, his only progression through life seems to be others throwing him to the next stage. But its extremely difficult to stop hating yourself in a extremely traumatic situation which is being a Eva pilot, to recover from trauma you need to be away from stress and around safe people who truly care for you and not just patching you up with words of comfort just for the next mission.

    Ep22, 23 and Asuka’s pride collapsing due to Shinji’s ‘victories’ over her. She pilots because thats the only thing in her life, for most of her life. When she is ends up piloting to defeat an Angel that ends up using fucked up pyschological attacks its messed up. Sending Rei to defeat the Angel works but breaks Asuka in a way that Gendo and Nerv do not understand or care to understand. Misato does recognise this but can’t act on it.

    Kaworu Nagisa. he shows up, connects with Shinji then ‘betrays?’ him then dies. This episode felt a bit ridiculous with the music and the fight scene in the shaft leading to Lilith. But it hints at who Rei is a bit But also that Shinji just is not able to connect with anyone without something happening to interrupt. either external factors or internal problems in himself

    Kaji, this guy felt very off. with how he interacts with Misato and Akagi. But with how he also places a firm barrier with Asuka’s massive interest in him. He interacts with Shinji were something, I guess he cares about Shinji in a older Male adult guidance figure way. Helped Shinji decide to pilot Eva in the 400% sync arc. He is working for the opponents of Nerv but I can’t necessarily say he is a bad guy.

    Hospital scene in ep25/EoE is just creepy I don’t really understand why he did that other than desparately needing personal vaildation by the one person he has been around the most. Did not realise watching first time he was masturbating. Only saw him shaking Asuka which is creepy, violent touching of an unconscious person is bad.

    The attack on Nerv is really creepy, the angels are defeated yet the fight is just about to start. But also shows how precious life is, everyone immediately goes to save the 3 children, sending Asuka out and finding Shinji. Misato dies preventing Shinji from being killed and gets him to the EVA, despite Shinji being incapable of doing anything due to shock

    Everyone seems rational so nobody seems truly awful (minus Gendo), but once you step back you realise just how fucked-up the situation is for the pilots, Nerv members and Gendo in that order of sympathy .How the end point of the Instrumentality project and all humans becoming one? Every decision made up till then, their logic in doing them falls apart because what you are doing is ending up in you. There is so much indifference from Nerv to Shinji and Asuka specifically. To the point of neglect and child abuse. They are children neglected in their early lives and need grabbed and told to pilot Evas where their lives depend on them succeeding all the time, then adults scream at them for being children who don’t meet adult expectations. Also Rei too but with how she was raised by Gendo and Nerv its a different form. Raising a child to be used in wtf happened in EoE is fucked up on possibly a irrational scale. Relying on children whoses mothers are part of the Evas they are piloting is messed up, regardless of that it helps with syncing with the Evas and defeating the Angels.

    Defeating the Angels is never the point of Neon Genesis Evangelion, its progress to a new stage/evolution of humanity in the show and for the viewers what being human means, how to understand and love yourself while also how refusing to connect fully with others hurts yourself and others.

    I can’t really say I like or dislike the characters in the show. I couldn’t really say form a connection with the cast. I definitely hated the actions that many characters do, with some characters most of their actions and decisions. But also they are people in a messed up world fighting to survive against an enemy that can destroy the world. Everyone is doing what they want to do or think best to do but also characters are highly stressed and fucking up because of that. Everyone is basing their decisions off their emotions, some more directly but others have planned it out.

    Gendo in the end wants to reconnect with Yui, and all the actions he does is for that.

    Shinji bases his actions from his self-hatred

    Asuka her pride

    Misato her revenge against the angels

    Kaji his relationship with Misato

    Akagi her relationships with her mother and Gendo?

    Rei, I don’t know. She seems to be following Gendo but there is something more.

    Overall it was a good show and I understand why its praised so heavily. Probably in the future I’m going to watch the Alternative films that were released afterwards. I understand those films have a different plot and introduce new characters.