Chatterbox - Anime & Manga

@Willbyr Cool. Anyways, I think I'm gonna skim some Inio Asano manga at a later time. The guy seems... Interesting

You’re in for a ride

I remember reading hardback Holograph

It’s uh, dark

Never forgot how they used butterflies

If I wanted to get into Junji Ito's work, which would be the most recommended point of entry considering I'm a giant chicken?

I don't recommend Ito's work if you're a giant chicken. That said, I think Uzumaki and Tomie are probably his best series. Gyo is pretty effective, but there's times I wish I could unread it and I like horror

Edited by Hylarn on Feb 26th 2019 at 5:07:46 AM

Uzumaki is probably his best single work, with Tomie close behind. If you're just getting started with him, I'd recommend Fragments of Horror as a primer.

@Hail Muffins For Junji Ito... You should try to read Enigma of Amigara Fault. I think it's also good for starters with Junji Ito's works.

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Feb 26th 2019 at 9:28:48 PM

I finished watch Ro Kyu Bu SS today. Overall, I thought it was pretty good overall. While it wasn't as good as the first season, I still liked it. It was nice watching the main characters again and the new character weren't bad either. I liked the fact that they got some development as the show went on. While I'm annoyed that the main characters didn't win again just like they didn't win in the first season, I was still pleased with how the show ended. I liked it.

Edited by pointless233 on Feb 28th 2019 at 10:15:12 AM

I've been reading In Another World, I'm Known As The Black Healer, an isekai aimed at a josei audience, with an otaku woman being pulled to a fantasy world and finding that she can do magic through a computer interface no native can see. It has almost 50 chapters, but I'm still trying to understand what appeal it is going for.

Is it wish fulfilment, as isekai are generally presumed to be? Doesn't feel like it. She is a powerful healer, but it is always emphasised how she needs help from the older, wiser natives. She is surrounded by pretty boys, but only two have any romantic subtext and it's a long time coming. She wears glamorous dresses and walks through marble halls, but they are drawn so sketchily I feel the artist doesn't care for them.

Is it an exploration of a world running on video game logic in the style of Log Horizon? A few interesting ideas are thrown about at the start, but once her powers are established they are barely mentioned.

Or is it a straightforward adventure about an everywoman falling into a strange world? It has too little conflict and tension to work as such. A sinister conspiracy is after her, but when they finally make a move, they are defeated in the next chapter and it's back to utterly mundane things. She ends up having a role in the world's cosmology, but it feels more like a piece of bureaucratic paper-filling delivered by long infodumps than anything majestic or awe-inspiring.

Mostly, it's just her going around healing people, meeting people, and failing to find answers. It feels like a premise in search of a plot. Can anyone make sense of what it's going for?

...Slice of Life recycled in Middle Earth?

That's not a bad premise to be honest. But I remember reading a few chapters of the same story and getting bored with it. Apparently I didn't miss much.

I'm currently wondering if her boyfriend is shaping up to be the villain with his destructive clinginess. It doesn't seem like there are any other obstacles left. But, like, I don't see the point of doing that? Story probably should have just ended already.

Edited by Arha on Mar 1st 2019 at 1:02:21 PM

This is a couple days late but it is an...... interesting bit of news.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2019-02-25/light-novel-about-sex-slave-cancelled-after-author-heated-tweets-against-illustrator/.143852

Another trashy light novel I Chose to Leave Because I Was Threatened with Expulsion from the Party Unless I Became the Sex Slave of the Female Hero got cancelled because the author threw a hissy fit on twitter & insulted the artist.

Its a good thing though because that series is the epitome of trash. Let me state the synopsis:

The story follows a 12-year-old boy named Rem who chooses to leave the party after the female hero orders him to be her sex slave. Rem returns to his hometown but is betrayed by those he thought he trusted. He wanders into a labyrinth and releases a girl named Alicia from a seal. However, after being released from the seal, Alicia calls Rem her "master," and the two form a sex slave contract.

Two red flags there, 12 year old boy & sex slave. Also what sparked the argument was artist stating he was bored drawing safe ero works so he wants to draw a rape manga which offended the writer.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 1st 2019 at 11:15:03 AM

Not quite sure how much it belongs in this topic, but does anyone listen to any interesting podcasts about anime and manga?

My benchmark is Lost in Translationmon which has an established Digimon fan explore the franchise with a newbie, so kinda looking for stuff in that vein

Been reading Tomo-chan Is A Girl. I like the cast apart from the male lead, who is just kind of unappealing as the story's designated love interest. Plus, he and Tomo really do feel too much like they're just friends.

Misuzu is easily the best character.

Edited by Arha on Mar 4th 2019 at 6:54:56 AM

I did it, I just finished watching Yosuga no Sora. Yeah, this was probably the closest thing to hentai that I've watched yet- I'm surprised they were allowed to air it on japanese TV. The art style was great, possibly my all-time favorite or at least close to it. The production quality was rock-solid, not quite as over-the-top impressive as CLANNAD or Angel Beats! but very consistent and professional, similar to Railgun although YNS leans in a bit of a more expressionist direction where Railgun has a more detached, formulaic look. The music was excellent, which seems to be standard for VN adaptations. The voice acting, on the other hand, struck me as largely average. The plot structure was weird with the branching chronology, and although the scriptwriters clearly tried very hard to cram four stories into 12 episodes, I felt like there was never really enough time to trace through the character development and plot details that could have been explored with a longer running time; in fact, if the entire show had been devoted to a single arc (presumably Akira's or Sora's, since those were more interesting than the others), it might have turned into a better anime in the end. The characters weren't particularly impressive, but for the most part managed to avoid falling into the lower levels of genericness. The whole thing with the double endings for each episode, while interesting, seemed really unnecessary (it doesn't help that I'm not a fan of chibification), and the extra time could probably have been better spent fleshing out the main stories. There were also, frankly, too many sex scenes and too much time spent on them, at least in the last couple of episodes where they seemed to be peppered around for no particular reason. All told, I'm glad to have watched this show, both for what it was in itself and for the sake of pushing out the boundaries of my anime experience, but it wasn't amazing and I think there are a number of fairly straightforward ways it could have been improved.

Next up is Outlaw Star. This is a bit of an older show, and the last of the three classic 1990s space westerns that I haven't yet watched (I've seen Trigun and Cowboy Bebop). I hear it's decent.

It was one of those shows that tried to follow Amagami SS’s format alongside Photo Kano and Seiren.

Only Amagami was considered successful with the format with 4 episodes for each character based on the VN and 2 anime original episodes each in its Anime Original sequel Amagami SS+

Edited by Memers on Mar 8th 2019 at 4:15:37 AM

Really interesting breakdown of how the perception of what "Anime" is has changed in the past three decades. Recommended.

One of the adverts that played before a screening of They Shall Not Grow Old (Peter Jackson WWI documentary) that I went to yesterday was for the Fate/stay night anime. Lots of audience overlap there I'm sure (I wonder what some of the older people in the audience thought when the screen suddenly started displaying garishly dressed, big-eyed cartoon characters shouting Japanese platitudes at each other accompanied by garish particle effects).

Edited by ComicX6 on Mar 8th 2019 at 8:22:23 AM

I'm currently watching two anime at the moment. Cat's Eye and Amagami SS. Amagami is a pretty nice romantic comedy. A decent MC and some cute and likable girls. I'm six episodes in at the moment.

Cat's Eye is a anime from the 80's. It's okay. I like the OP and ED. The three sisters are charismatic and the plot seems interesting. However, I'm not as into it as I could be. I'm just not really into older anime like some people (there are plenty of exceptions, though). I prefer anime from the 2000's onward. I'll try to keep watching but I'm considering dropping it.

Edited by pointless233 on Mar 9th 2019 at 6:10:37 AM

So, I decided to drop Cat's Eye. It's not a bad show but it's not keeping me interested. It has some nice music, though.

After that, I decided check out another anime. It's called Remi, Nobody's Girl. I finished the first episode several minutes ago. It was pretty good. The art style is very old-school but charming and I already like Remi as a character. I'm interested to see where it goes from here.

Also, I started rewatching Samurai Champloo this morning. I bought a Blu-ray packet yesterday from Wal-Mart that contained all 26 episodes of the series on three discs. I watched the first two episodes and it's still as good as I remember. The music is still good and the three main characters are still great.

This might be blasphemy, but while I liked Cowboy Bebop more overall, I thought Samurai Champloo's conclusion was more satisfying.

I've started reading the mangas of Interviews with Monster Girls and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and am really enjoying them so far.

Edited by Willbyr on Mar 10th 2019 at 8:18:03 AM

I need to read the Interviews with Monster Girls manga at some point.

The anime was extremely good and wholesome, but I've never gotten around to reading it.

I really wish there was a program like Taiga for manga chapters.

I always fall behind with manga because I just keep a text file with the chapter's I'm up to, so it takes just a bit more effort to figure out where I'm up to.

Yamakan (Lucky Star, Haruhi Suzumiya, Fractale, Wake Up Girls) files for bankruptcy

After the horrible things he’s done recently (including victim blaming an idol that was almost assaulted by a stalker fan), Karma is quite the bitch to him.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Mar 11th 2019 at 11:59:31 AM

Rest in Pepperonis for Yamakan

I just read a summary of a manhua adaptation of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer and it make my blood boil since it basically mix-up 2 character back story. First, the main character don't have a clan, he an orphan raise in a Wuxia sect, infact he the senior of that sect. Second, the one whose clan got massacre is not the main character, he as best the anti-hero and love rival for the main character. I mad because i know the story very well and i have watch most of it TV adaptation.