Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion - January 17, 2026
This is a daily megathread for general chatter about anime. Have questions or need recommendations? Here to show off your merch? Want to talk about what you just watched.
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Not sure how to ask for a recommendation? Fill this out, or simply use it as a guideline, and other users will find it much easier to recommend you an anime!
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Commentaires
It was certainly an enjoyable enough episode but I feel like it was amongst the more average if not below average season openers, and had some issues with the writing that would have had people howling if it had been in a seasonal fantasy/isekai of lesser repute.
As for "cultish behaviour", you see it everywhere on this sub. On AQRADT, people already breathlessly pronounced Ikoku Nikki "10/10 AOTY" after the first episode.
EDIT:
Oh and I wish people were braver to go and post negative or critical comments in the episode threads! I do it all the time and have the minuses to prove it lol! Yeah, you will be buried very quickly as those are basically fan threads most of the time, but you can sometimes still reach people who had either similar criticisms or are brave enough to engage you in constructive discussion.
Though most of the time all you get is silent down votes and maybe a few angry flames.
If you poke around the existence of these crystals, their value, the fact that the others didn't know about it, the way it completely upends the entire power balance of the world, the immense fiscal value of the object, the way that it was introduced, handled and yet being carelessly used as a device to create the actual theme of the episode - the value of Stark, Stark recementing his role, and calling back to his place in the party... it's just mediocre writing craft.
> On AQRADT
This place is fairly free from cultish behavior, it usually comes down to whether or not anyone feels like ruining the mood by mounting a critique or not lol
And there's always an even chance that the Flavor-of-the-Season falls out of favor a third of the way through, and becomes the punching bag, and an additional option for it to slowly creep back into favor again.
That said, said cycle depends a bit on who's active here at any give n time. Different user mixes do change the balance a bit.
The Frieren episode discussion thread is a particularly notable not for just for the lack of critique but for the lack of much detail supporting the positivity towards the episode. At least Evan Call go their customary mention, as did the feet fanservice, but there was very little delving into the strengths of the episode.
Such sort of commentary is indeed often par for the course for very popular IPs, but not all of them feature that sort of content and Frieren itself used to attract much more involved engagement.
And I disagree with you on AQRADT, I feel this place gets seasonally very "cultish" about the darling series of the season. Not that I mind, since I quite like many of those series as well. I will drop the use of the term here though, since I feel it is a bit pejorative in the context of fans posting about stuff they love.
For a decent run, it was generally a bit tongue-in-cheek in the sense that people were genuinely positive about the series, but hamming it up / leaning into the mood / enjoying AQRADT in-jokes about the series rather than being slavishly committed to a position on the series.
In the past few months the commenter mix has changed a bit, and perhaps there are a few more taking the Flavor of the Month at face value and entirely literally as read, but I do feel like a lot of the Flavors of the Month haven't reached "whole thread status" and are really just sub-groups using *t*he *p*lace as somewhere to share their enthusiasm and love for the series, rather than a community/group activity.
> I really didn't get stuck on it
This isn't quite the point, although perhaps that's my fault for not being more explicit in my original comment.
As someone who regularly reads *all* the comments in discussion threads (fast reader with a weighted mouse scroll wheel lol) and reads a large number of the seasonal isekai/fantasy first and second episode threads (because I taste-test a lot), this sort of level of writing frequently gets torn to shreds when it is present in non-marquee series.
Thus it's not so much about "did it matter for the episode" but more "comparing this particular technical aspect in Series A with its reception for comparable elements in Series B,C, D etc, Series A is certainly receiving different treatment".
> I feel it is a bit pejorative in the context of fans posting about stuff they love.
I love reading fans posting about the stuff they love, but only when they actually about that love, rather than just meme-splaying, GOAT proclaiming and so forth.
That said, I don't have anything *against* that happening either; it's just part and parcel of what happens to many series when they become very popular.
I was just noting that it had happened to Ep 1 of S2 of Frieren... which I certainly enjoyed as an episode of seasonal anime.
People actually scroll with the mouse wheel?
I wonder if that's just Friday as I noticed that Wit studio one is similarly lacking in detail for praise but at least that was knives out for any negativity wrt featured content creator. I remember a forum I used to be on when it came to the weekend the discussion quality would shift and the more absurd threads would get created so might be a variant of that.
One of things about online discussions is early replies can determine the path of conversation. There's also heavy bias that who will be early respondents for a sequel ep discussion: Someone who is a fan of the show. That's also why score inflation happens for sequels (a survivors bias that it makes it hard to quantify and easy to dismiss production improvements e.g. Golden Kamuy, Bungo Stray Dogs and Symphogear).
As for cultish, legion and fandom are also terms and I'll [summon the words of Helen McCarthy from a Hayo Miyazaki doc review](https://blog.alltheanime.com/10-years-with-hayao-miyazaki/): *"challenge and deconstruction isn’t necessarily what they want to see."* [(unless it's Madoka or NGE, right...)/s](#punch) and so they've become that, I get a feeling people have stopped trying as they're burnt out from the thankless nature of it.
Some of this takes time and is about place as nowadays I'm now noticing criticism of the 2nd half of Frieren S1.
> very few comments of any substance at all
Is that a too early to tell direction of the show or a more of the same situation that doesn't give much material. Not starting off with a quadruple feature (when CR used to do free content, for about a year only eps 1-3 were free) this time probably doesn't help here and not sure one should expect every ep of anything to have landmark moments (e.g. dance scene in S1).
What do you guys think about romance anime having female lead and two guys chasing her like in orange ..sign of affection or so on..from my side I think love triangle where there female lead is the most shit things people can ever watch ....like male leads love triangle are good (blue box, your lie in april,so on..) but female leads types are the worst
> like male leads love triangle are good (blue box, your lie in april,so on..)
E: Funny you mention a show I found so bland, I couldn't even make it through the first episode. There are some male led triangles or harems I like such as Monogatari, Toradora or the only good season of Oregairu, but these two were far from it for me.
.and in kamisama kiss there was not that sort of thing like in orange or sign of affection where a silly girl just sideline the best lead by saying " sam , we can still be best friends"(500days of summer) ...well I was hoping guy's (male) comments on my views ..I wanna know why male audience watch these type of show ..
> where a silly girl just sideline the best lead
The irony of you saying this while championing Blue Box. I got tired of the inevitable main couple in noticeably less than 20 minutes, but I've seen a few clips of Hina and she... actually seems to be an enjoyable character.
> ...well I was hoping guy's (male) comments
Well, I'm not that, but I am fascinated by guys who have obvious double standards
Btw, you know who else is learning sign language for Yuki in Sign of Affection? That's right, it's Itsuomi. Childhood friend Oushi is in no way entitled to her just because he's been around for longer. You're making me talk up a main love interest I don't even like much in a show I found just okay. Good job.
[](#fish)
This all seems like some sort of personal issue you are dealing with...
EDIT:
Well, either troll or an Andrew Tate fan or some such, in which case I feel sorry for you.
Did you even watch the full season? [Blue Box] >!There was a whole arc about how he had to come to terms with how he really felt about Hina, that she was more than just his friend. The fact that he ultimately chose Chinatsu was the result of that journey!<.
Btw, please remember to use spoiler tags in your comments as needed.
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a prejudiced take of this calibre.
Although romance stories comprised of love triangles with male and female leads can generally be divided in shounen (boys) and shoujo (girls) series, meaning they got different target audiences, this doesn’t inherently mean anything for their quality.
Your statement is a rather big affront to the latter genre. [Nana](https://myanimelist.net/anime/877) and [Chihayafuru](https://myanimelist.net/anime/10800/Chihayafuru) are excellent anime for example, whereas there’s more than enough mediocre to outright terrible love triangle/harem shows with a male leads.
But would you then continue to argue that Chihayafuru is among the “worst” while Blue Box is “good” in contrast?
Taiki was so very clear about his feelings that it only [Blue Box S1] >!took him almost an entire anime season to reject Hina after she’d confessed!<. Yeah, he definitely wasn’t confused or anything…
But I don’t quite understand if your issue with female-led love triangles is predominantly with this girl being chased by two guys or you just don’t like the writing of many shoujo series.
That’s a double standard, you know.
Back in my days, guys got an army of girls following them around for their commendable job of standing in front of the camera a bit longer than everyone else. Fail that, they can give Truck-kun a kiss and go to the nearest world with slaves.
Now you're telling me they have to put in effort? Compete with other guys?! And potentially lose?!!!
Only Satan could come up with something this evil. [](#schemingsaten "this Satan to be specific")
Threatened them or particularly adorable animals with terrible, horrible, unbearable fates if they didn't sign on!
I assume it involves money.
I wonder what the easiest way would be to check to see how many of the accounts voting on the highest rated shows on MAL are bots. Almost certainly would take some kind of script or bit of its own, but would certainly be an interesting data set to examine.
I also just don’t get the point of doing this (bot farming) in the first place. I guess since MAL is a low stakes system that doesn’t really matter, it’s rife for cheating with no recourse, but that just makes it a digital Shopping Cart test and we’re failing it miserably.
I've seen people in various MAL forums post calculations about the "real rating" (ie. if everything on the Stats page was counted as opposed to what is shown on the series page) but I'm not sure how accurate those are.
Producers aren’t shy to the fact that MAL scores carry weight in terms of commercial success. The average person getting into anime is probably running through the top scored shows and the significance of that is huge in a lot of ways.
A scary number of the bots online in general these days come from marketing firms; this situation probably wouldn’t be much different.
I say “wouldn’t” because I don‘t follow MAL stuff closely enough to say whether or not I personally think this is the case, but if what you’re describing were to be true it would be my first inclination.
Do you remember when **Blue Archive** started airing, you'd see some very obvious account created 2 hours ago watched 4 anime (one of which was Blue Archive at a 10/10). Ultimately BA failed to become the greatest anime on MAL due to the content not being peak, limited official availability and the Ani-One Asia official subs were simply dreadful (IIRC "I'll revenge" was an actual line of dialogue, also they knew so little about the IP the player self-insert named Sensei was translated into Teacher).
In the [impossible to click tooltip](https://myanimelist.net/info.php?go=topanime) (footnote 1 next to score on a anime page in the left side) it does say:
> Scores given from illegitimate accounts created to sway votes are also not included in the scoring algorithm.
That says to me they're aware but won't publicly state what makes an account illegitimate or what percentage are (if I was buying the site it's what I'd want to know but I imagine any attempts to package demographic data will exclude the accounts flagged as illegitimate). I also noticed a recent TOS change might be trying to combat hit and runs of deleting account before they're banned and requesting full deletion as per privacy (though I think this is more wrt trolling as some communities get hit by that and can't even report it as the account is already deleted).
But if you want to see suspicious or odd usage of the site take a look at low triple-digit shows (e.g. **Elemon**). You see some rate/drop/ptw everything type accounts. One of them actually is an active community member (regularly posts ep discussions and DB related forum stuff) and I guess when your PTW is 20k+ you can't go back and the reason it was done has to stick (I could guess that if you browse by filtering out everything on your list of everything, if it isn't blank that means there's new DB additions).
Other databases aren't immune to illegitimate accounts as Anilist has people have watched **Osawaga! Super Baby** before 2025. Far as I can tell there were no public raws prior to then as indicated by Junichi Satou reacting to a time limited YT upload with a phrase like "I thought they'd never release this again. I had full creative freedom and they gave me a stern telling off for what I did to the Toei waves" (at the time a lot of shows added sfx or character voices but he included that for all the waves crashing in and ending with laughter). It was however fansubbed last Monday as [it was found on Japanese Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0FP54M4M7) (when searching in 2025 I didn't come across it so can not say if it was always there or not).
I have mixed feelings when I go to add a show to my PTW and find it already there.
If you want something else, you need to visit a different subreddit.
[](#mugiwait)
[](#thoughtful)
[](#foldedarms)
Anyone looking for a period piece female main character (and likely female PoV ie. "shoujosei") romance that for once has not skimped on the quality of the production, check this one out. Unsure whether its going to be a reverse harem, but I doubt it.
^(Still need to watch 100 Meters for a similar reason.)
Speaking about that short. Been watching some stuff from the [Japanese Animated Film Classics website](https://animation.filmarchives.jp/en/index.html) and have been really impressed by Yasuji Murata works. Man was animating with paper cutouts almost 100 years ago and it still looks [good](https://animation.filmarchives.jp/en/works/playen/86947) imo.
**Shows Hitman is watching:**
|Show|Tentative Score|Comments|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Frieren S2|9/10|As always, a relaxing watch with amazing music. May bump it a 10, but when I give out 10s, I only do so at the end of the season.|
|Does it Count if You Lose Your Innocence to an Android?|9/10|"I'm so horny" \~Kiwi. Sesbian lex overload, and Hitman loves yuri.|
|Oshi no Ko S3|9/10|We're back! With all the characters I enjoy and music to boot.|
|Shiboyugi|9/10|Amazing character design and use of different types of media to give a feeling of abstractness. Also has amazing music.|
|Roll Over and Die|8/10|Hitman and his yuri. It gives me a dark fantasy vibe like Dark Souls does.|
|'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess S2|7/10|I'm a foodie, and it's enjoyable.|
|Holy Grail of Eris|7/10|The only shoujo I remotely care about this season. Score might fluctuate depending on how I feel, but I do like the concept.|
**Hitman's dishonorable mentions:**
|Show|Comments|
|:-|:-|
|Tamon-kun|Before the first episode, the synopsis didn't interest me, but some CDFers enjoyed it so I was like "Fine." To be blunt, it was a complete waste of my time and dropped it halfway through Ep 1.|
|Invisible Man|I saw the first episode at NYCC, and personally, I find the invisible man so cursed to look at, I'm not bothering. Next show!|
|Mayonaka Tune|It's not even the animation that is my main problem, I just cannot stand the MC after 2 episodes. "But Hitman, he gets better!" Even if that's true, I decided that he's frustrating enough that I don't feel like continuing. Drop.|
|Rom-Com Childhood Friends|Not dropped yet but is in the danger zone. For every moment I like, there's 2 that I don't like. Basically feels like the fast food of anime.|
So far, a great season! Definitely an improvement from last one personally.
- Oshi No Ko, Shiboyugi: 100% expect them to be my top 2 this season.
- Android: "I'm so Kiwi" - Horny
- Roll Over and Die: Talked about it in the previous AQRADT or somewhere: My only concern is sidegirl... She does absolutely nothing for me, she's actively turning me off the anime. I really hope she gets better/their dynamics improves if/when it goes full yuri, OR it focuses less on that and more on main girl kicking ass, because her "Ooooh master am I really allowed to breathe air?" schtick got old 10 seconds in.
- What's funny to me is that I'm NOT a foodie (at all, I literally couldn't care less about food), but I love this. The avalanche of best girls (led by Tortura, My Beloved) helps for sure, but it's just overall good/fun!
- Tamon: Dropped halfway into 1st ep. (skimmed through the rest to confirmed it was just more of the same). Hate the dude, don't care about the girl, DESPISE the type of comedy.
- Invisible man: Dropped in the 2nd episode. It's by far my worst type of romance: "Sweet" is 90% of what they have going for them. It's like watching romantic paint dry. (Also, it would have been better if the woman was the invisible one - *Emi_Ibarazakiii's barely disguised fetish*)
- MC's not the best but (talked about it before) the fact that no one takes him seriously makes him tolerable. Unlike Chitose who acted the same AND people loved him for it. Plus, to me it's always about the girls (unless MC is as bad as Chitose/Rentagfdude).
- Romcom childhood friend: Tomboy, pls show up and save this.
[](#mugiwait)
Few things I have tagged: You hate Iyashikei (So do I), I think you're potentially an Ichika fan (So am I), other than that there's a bunch of horny shit like "Midriff enthusiast". I also have you tagged as Full Dive RPG fan (one of the 6 in r/anime), and a million other things!
[](#uwaa "yeah full dive rpg is goated.")
Sometimes, we disagree (like Takamine or 2.5D) with those two cases being because I don't like the MC.
FWIW 2.5D's MC gets so much better! (and I rarely say things like that).
(But I don't really care about MC anyway, I would've watched 50 episodes of this just to watch the Teacher watch paint dry)
[](#towel)
(I imagine you didn't watch enough to get to her)
**Stuff Hitman likes:**
* Yuri
* Video games (especially open world and JRPG)
* Comfy CGDCT
* Math
* Algorithms/CS theory
**Stuff Hitman doesn't like:**
* Insufferable male MCs (like the ones from RAG and IS)
* BL (I don't particularly care for the genre, but I have zero patience for the "war" where GL and BL fans vilify each other and play opportunist)
* Politics
> To be blunt, it was a complete waste of my time and dropped it halfway through Ep 1.
Oof. Now I on't even know wether I want to try to bring you onto polar opposites or not...
I should give Polar Opposites a shot.
Fast food is tasty. Just wait for the tomboy.
[](#aidoru)
Clearly this list needs more Kaya-chan. Who doesn't like kindergarteners being a ghostbuster?
Uncertain about Kaya-chan. Horror tends to go either way for me.
Sounds like you need to love Hayamin being crazy more.
And horror is always a mixed bag. But that's what makes it worth trying because sometimes there are interesting shows there.
Uma Musume: The Solo Leveling of sports anime, just hype and aura but with horse girls
City the Animation: A comedy just as funny as Solo leveling
Gachiakuta: What if Solo Leveling was trashy
Fragrant Flower: Solo Leveling of romance anime but with apologizing instead of fighting
Solo Leveling: Solo Leveling
It’s also one of the rare josei anime, so why should the number of them shrink?
Because I'm one of the only two people who said *something like that* I feel like I gotta respond, especially because I believe what's being said here is closer to the other's person point and I don't want people conflating *my* specific point of view with this
> why this one that actually uses animation for visual storytelling? The lines transitioning into sand and the people around Asa becoming featureless silhouettes wouldn’t work nearly as well in live action as animation.
I don't disagree at all. The reason *I* would like a live-action Ikoku Nikki is not about those types of moments, but about acting. It's hard for anime to draw characters emoting the same way people do so when I watch some scenes of the show I can't help but think "this would hit harder *to me* if a real person was doing it". Anime has an easier time with loud emotions, but the real subtle stuff is hard to pull off so even when a show has a good production like Ikoku Nikki I still can't help but imagine something *more*
> Of all the shows to pick on for that
The only reason I singled out Ikoku Nikki at the time was because somebody else brought up the subject, the reality is that I'm constantly thinking about anime I would prefer to watch in live-action for my point about acting above.
Like, Ikoku Nikki is not even close to the top of shows I would want to watch a live-action version. You know what my number #1 would? The Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which isn't even some insanely down to Earth work without anything fantastical, but it's a work that is mostly a about dozens of different guys sitting down discussing politics and tactics and neither of the anime adaptations do anything particularly interesting with this so give some real guys acting and there's a good chance I would find it more engaging.
> It’s also one of the rare josei anime, so why should the number of them shrink?
I don't believe Ikoku Nikki *should* be a live-action instead, both can exist (as they already do), that's why I said "one of the two people who said *something like that*" up above because I never said that specific phrase "should be live action *instead*", what I said, and I quote
> when I watch Ikoku Nikki I also think about *wanting to watch* a live-action adaptation instead
So my point was about what I want to watch, not what should exist. I'm actually quite pro having adaptations in different medium for basically all things that are interesting enough and you either pick and choose which ones appeal to you or engage with them all, as I like to do sometimes
[season 3 never](#holdme)
The anime overall was quite cute and comfy but that last episode was just another level, it really resonate with me much more than the rest of the show, amazing finale.
Though looking back, it is quite interesting that Dandadan's karma didn't transition from S1 -> S2.
I would be curious what Chainsaw Man's karma would be now. Though it is very possible the rest of part 1 would be movies. Maybe there could be an OVA between the two big arcs left in part if they were to do movies; we could see it.
But in the real world I wouldnt put it next to the actual big ones, anime dedicated communities are extremely misleading nowadays that anime became bigger than those bubbles
And hilariously beaten out by crossdress Übel cosplay.
I missed so much the past year
That was true not just for anime. I remember a time when nobody cared about episode ratings on imdb period. They were considered a joke and the highest rated shows were from Turkey lol.
I feel things shifted (or I noticed they had done so) sometime during Breaking Bad, especially S5. Everyone was talking about the episodes getting 9.7s,9.8s and 9.9s and Ozymandias being the highest rated episode ever and just like that imdb episode ratings were now a thing.
[](#mugiwait)
I was honestly thinking of saving my clip posts for Chained Soldier, but maybe I should reconsider posting some *forgotten* gems from years ago.
BTW, after reading so much praise I wanted to add it to watchlist but anime of this genre are too easy to fuck up so I'll wait until the end.
The animation, directing, soundtrack and voice acting performances convey the emotions of the story perfectly. Everything's dimmed, subdued, kinda melancholy. It feels like a hazy memory, with only fragments, and large gaps for our imagination to fill. There are almost never full conversations, or full scenes, and nothing ever happens in chronological order. It's discomforting in a way that I liked.
I've written several posts about all the fucked up scenes I adored in this show, and I don't feel the need to repeat myself. Suffice it to say, every fucked up thing a character does in this show, every time someone is seduced into doing something they shouldn't - straight into my veins please and thank you.
["Fake" relationships] >!This might be a hot take, but I don't think there's anything "fake" about the relationship that Mugi and Hanabi have at the start of the series. They physically and emotionally comfort each other, they seek out each other's company, they kiss and make out, and are willing to get deeply intimate with each other. Is this not love? Is this not what a relationship is? What do they think will be different when they find the "real thing" they so desire later in life? I'm willing to say that those scenes with the two of them on the rooftop, with Hanabi's head in Mugi's lap are the most romantic I've ever seen in anime.!<
[Continuing] >!Moving on to some of the other relationships. What is it that feels good to the characters in this series? It's when they're in the arms of another person. And of course that's the way it is. The warmth of another human being's body feels good. Extremely good. This is true when Mugi and Hanabi are doing it, when Mugi and Akane are doing it, when Akane and Fuckboy A/B/C/D are doing it. They all feel good doing it! And what's so scummy about feeling good? Is that such a crime?!<
["Real" relationships] >!What is it that makes a relationship "real?" In the first case, it is endless longing and admiration. You hold someone up to be perfect, almost divine, and ultimately beyond your reach. You start saying horrendous things that would make yearn for the sweet embrace of death, like "all things beautiful in this world exist to be compared to you" which isn't even an expression of your honest emotions, Mr. Kanai, it's a thing you read in a fucking book you had to read for college or something, you hack. What do Mugi and Hanabi get out of their "true" love? A fucking pit of despair and misery, that's what. And what is it that defines a true relationship? It's the following of proper rituals. The confession, the marriage proposal, denying yourself immediate pleasure, words, words, words, words, words yap yap yap yap. It's a contractual arrangement of mutual duties and responsibilities, strictly obeying the norms of society and the traditions laid down by your revered ancestors. That's what makes the Minagawa-Kanai pairing more "real" than any of the others we see in the series. But they never, ever, ever, display even a fraction of the intimacy and comfort that Hanabi and Mugi do at the start of the series.!<
In the end, I guess what scum truly desire is to be loved by others and to feel good. And if that is so, then count me in.
For those who might be out of the loop, Weilin Zhang is one of the most prominent animators of the past few years. He’s especially known for having [storyboarded and directed the opening of Tengoku Daimakyou](https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/243858) and for having created extraordinary sequences across many anime, including [this one on Boruto](https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/198945) when he was only 16 years old.
His post is interesting in the sense that he questions the place of commercial animation within the industry, as well as his own moral dilemmas around achieving independence and being able to create memorable works that don’t negatively impact society, while still aiming for standards worthy of his self-proclaimed “genius.”
At the same time, he tries not to feed into the machine by doing what many of his peers do, signing exclusive contracts with studios whose ethical values are questionable, and working on projects that, despite their undeniable quality, have a purpose or origin that doesn’t really bring any meaningful added value to society beyond pure entertainment.
He didn’t cite the best examples in my opinion, but if he mentions Uma Musume, I assume it’s because of the gacha aspect and what it symbolizes in terms of a form of capitalism that makes participation in such a project inherently negative.
Personally, I agree with some people who criticized his lack of tact in the first paragraph of his post : instead of denouncing the structural nature of a system that represses artists, keeps sanitizing the industry, and closes off spaces of expression, he ends up targeting the artists themselves, those who, out of comfort or greed, accept to sustain this system without developing a deeper awareness of the impact of their art and the choices they make.
That said, I can still understand his frustration at seeing many of his peers not being affected at all by these kinds of issues, which are at the very core of a personal relationship with one’s art, and who in a way devalue themselves by not even considering themselves artists, but rather workers.
Obviously, one important point to highlight is that even if his reasoning is fundamentally legitimate and understandable, I don’t think he fully realizes that he’s speaking from a position of privilege and that this perspective only applies to a very small portion of the landscape. He has immense talent and was able very early on to avoid the harshest parts of the system by working freelance from the US on high-profile productions, while in-house employees in Japan doing douga (in-betweens), production assistants, and animators working for subcontracting companies under miserable conditions simply don’t have the luxury of asking themselves these kinds of fundamental questions about the essence and impact of their art on society.
This is mainly prevented by a capitalist system that grinds individuals down. So I think his reflection is very relevant, but ultimately leads to a flawed conclusion, even if some of his points are completely valid. I won’t comment further on the part where he describes himself as the best animator of his generation, which was the main source of discourse in social media, since it’s not very interesting compared to the core of his argument.
>He didn’t cite the best examples in my opinion, but if he mentions Uma Musume, I assume it’s because of the gacha aspect and what it symbolizes in terms of a form of capitalism that makes participation in such a project inherently negative.
I mean he straight up said:
>Anime as a product is a gambling advertisement.
And for Uma Musume specifically that is even true in more than just one way. I don't get what his beef with CSm is though lol.
He raises some very good points but I don't quite see how him working on Fate is compatible with this grand statement.
> Let us quickly address the most straight forward solution. A simple career switch. This would be an obvious solution if it wasn't for the fact that I am the best animator of my generation and I'm unfortunately not dumb enough to be ignorant to the effect on the artform as a whole if I were to walk away from the inconveniently large amount of genius I was for some reason endowed with. I am comfortably aware that I represent Japanese animation to some extent now. I also love animation and it's hard for me to stand aside and watch my colleagues do everything in their ability to bastardize the potentials of this medium (I will not explain what I mean by this).
I mean, jesus. I would expect writing like this from someone who was still 16, but its just embarrassing from someone who is apparently now 25-26.
despite his assertions that he wants to leave the world a better place, he doesn't take action. the conclusion he should draw from his observations should be the need for animators to unionize or otherwise collectively establish & improve environments, but he's just uncritically looking down on others
of course unionizing is an extremely complex subject, especially in japan, but the very least zhang could do is leverage his platform as a microcelebrity to champion the types of work he does find worthwhile. works such as student film, indie anime (tho his credit he did work on WOLO), or tv shows that buck the trend etc.
instead he's clearly only interested in championing his own work, the merits of which are...? for his disdain towards animation as advertisement, one could very much consider his expression an advertisement of zhang himself, considering his work his him positively reframing his personal life
The fight was dope regardless though I have to admit. I'd love to gush about it in the episode thread but sadly those have been useless for an anime only and Fate first timer.
I stand with what I said for the 1st half of the ep, but to be fair, during the ep‘s 2nd half my mind was still circling around that fight choreo so there totally might be some details like you mentioned that I missed in that half animation wise.
> Fate first timer
I still think it’s okay to jump into this as your first Fate, but in today‘s ep I really got the impression that all the references and call backs to other Fates are starting to happen more and more often, such as [ep3]>!the flashback snippets from Waver when he saw the photo of Gilgamesh!<, which could result in Fate First Timers starting to feel like they are missing a bit too many pieces of the overall puzzle. Though currently we definitely aren’t at that point (yet?).
I've been going through Creamy Mami lately and in some capacity people do talk about it as it's an early example of magical girl anime revolving around idols, and it's an early example of a show that was created to promote other mediums of art, primarily that the main VA was an amateur idol at the time.
I kind of thought that would be it, but I'm 30 episodes in and it's genuinely hilarious at times and episodes 25 and 26 are super gripping in a way that I wouldn't expect for a show of it's era.
That's not to say that anime in 1983 couldn't be great, but I just didn't think that the magical girl genre had developed emotionally enough to put out something like this. Outside of one character that I despise I think it holds up exceptionally well.
I think I may watch Minky Momo after this as they're often compared, but I don't know if I have 110 episodes of magical girl anime back to back in me.
You have to see this through to the end. This is part of your training to surpass your own limits.
I remember when people always used to recommend Toradora, Spice & Wolf, and Clannad (and occasionally I would hear 'Lovely Complex' and 'Kaichou wa Maid-Sama' thrown pretty high in there too) as the go-to Romance anime. That's definitely why I checked out the series many years ago, at least.
I didn't know the kids hated violent Tsunderes *that* much now. At least, I don't think there's anything otherwise 'dating' the series that badly? It came out late enough in the 2000s that it has that modern digital look and character design style that I think newer anime fans can still tolerate. And I know I occasionally hear people complain about how older RomCom series really delay the main couple getting together, but I don't think 'Toradora' is really long enough for that to be a major complaint(?) compared to some modern Romance anime that get 2+ seasons and are still progressing onto the relationship.
This is coming from someone who isn’t even that big on romance media to begin with. I think Toradora is just a good show in general.
[](#azusalaugh)
[](#taigasigh)
I do suspect that this is actually the bulk of it. It seems to me that there's a trend, especially among newer/younger fans, of being _very_ outspoken against slapstick in general.
And it is not a shounen problem only, people have the same argumentd against "red flag" shoujo male leads too. I was surprised when I saw how many people thought Itsuomi from Sign of Affection was super problematic...
We are merely in another epoch of the eternal Rei vs Asuka debate.
[](#gendo-pls)
Itsuomi himself isn't problematic but the way he met Yuki was. Let's be honest - "Aww, you're so sweet/Hello, human resources" meme 100% works irl and Itsuomi wouldn't have got away with touching unfamiliar girl on the train so much if he wasn't so handsome.
Still love this show but can't deny that.
Plus I just think the premise is just done better by Lovely Complex, though I still enjoyed Toradora.
I haven't watched the anime, but I didn't care for the first volume of the light novel and dropped it there. Taiga's violence (and Ryuji's lack of standing up for himself) was the main reason because I just found it irritating. I don't think this is an old/new anime fan thing though because I've been watching anime since the 90s.
[](#nyanpasu)
I was commenting on how drastically the perception of the series has seemingly shifted from when I was getting into anime. I definitely think it has to be some sort of generational thing because the series was very well regarded during its time; and It's not like it's been left in the dust by modern innovations or anything like that - I still think it overall holds up pretty decently compared to most modern Romance anime.
It sort of has though. Back in the day, it was rare for a romance anime to adapt all the way to end. Nowadays, if a romcom is decently popular, there's a good chance it'll be adapted completely.
Besides being full on Yuri, what else can I expect from it?
also, [Watanare] >!just because they both accepted now doesn't mean there aren't going to be problems with the arrangement in the future, that's what the next novels are for!<
[Watanare] >!On top of this they already did have a little test of what the three of them together was like as a unit when Ajisai ran away.!<
The show really is Kanojo mo Kanojo tiers of trash in that regard, I was just too blind and in denial to notice it during S1.
KanoKano is awesome though.
This is the biggest badge of honor a show can get
Overally, I am just so, so happy that so many people WERE still surprised by this, because it is genuinely the yuri fandoms worst kept secret, they are SO bad about it.
Harem romcom antics (the fun and/or good kind), some fanservice, and [trigger warning + spoiler]>!at least one attempted sexual assault (treated more seriously than usual for the harem genre)!<
10/10, absolutely recommended.
[](#delighted)
(5000 more and this show will challenge Frieren!)
It's going to take some getting used to this whole waiting a week thing for this show. It's only been a week since I finished season 1 and I was already a bit lost trying to remember who was who and what was what. Can't imagine how much worse it must be for people who watched the first season years ago.
I'm excited for this season though. Is this going to be a complete adaptation? I forget if the manga is ongoing or over already...
In other news, now I only have Shiboyugi premiere left to watch (as far as first episodes go - several second and third episodes are out too ugh).
The rest of my backlog (Kaya chan, Demon's Daughter, Sentenced to be a Hero, Kimengumi) will probably not get picked up because I'm already well over the limit of shows I can handle. Unless I end up dropping something. But so far the only ones that I possibly might drop are Hanakimi and Cute Girl in Hero's Party - though they're not in grave danger yet. They're just the two I'm least excited about so far.
It tells me they don't know how to pull emotions/drama properly with what they got so they just invent some out of thin air.
Makes me roll my eyes so hard.
[Episode 4-5] >!I mean, wow, that whole 'fake boyfriend' idea sure came out of absolutely nowhere didn't it? Went nowhere either. Then we learn that there's a night club with hostesses or something at the school, but they're drinking fucking mineral water and they're literally just pretending it's champagne. Amazing. Incredible. Hilarious. Then the creep at the camera shop, just, I mean, incredible use of subtext and subtlety. And at the trial, Sakura could have just shown them the picture of her witnessing the events that happened, but why do that when you can show everyone the sexy bikini photos you took for some reason?!<
Also, I will say, Ayanokoji executes the whole sigma male fantasy really well. It's not the sort of thing I'm into, but it's not exactly difficult to see why certain kinds of young men would be drawn to his personality.
[Meta] >!Watari-kun ep 25!<
I have not seen *Edge of Tomorrow*. I tell myself that I will now go and see *Edge of Tomorrow*, but frankly I know myself enough to not make that promise. But I can say now that I have seen *All You Need is Kill* and honestly I’m satisfied enough with that.
*All You Need is Kill* is kind of a weird film. I don’t have the tail end of a three hour STEVEM video to tell me the circumstances of who gave them the go ahead to make this film, but I’m glad they did. It’s an interesting blend of Studio 4°C’s past and present, taking that classic 2000s style of the studio and blending everything they’ve (mostly) learned over the last decade and a half at banging away at their 3D work. From what I can gather, the film takes the interesting approach to depart from the original story by focusing on Rita’s perspective instead of Keiji’s and honestly it works pretty well. The early story takes a bit to get going, but once it clicks it’s all good things from there. The designs are maybe a little awkward in the downtime, but when the animation breaks for flashbacks and the like they more than make up for it with some really fun a creative sequences. The direction is solid with a good variety of shots and really fun backgrounds to punctuate its slower moments.
Maybe the only thing holding the film back is that CGI though, and even then it’s not by much. I watch too much of this stuff that I have an eye for it, and 4°C, to their credit, does blend it really well with the 2D segments to keep it subtle to those not looking for it. I do kind of yearn for some more juicy 2D animation, but maybe *ChaO* will release eventually and I can get my fix there. The upside to this though is that *All You Need is Kill* is able to run wild with its 3D camera and effects work. The action is some real tightly choreographed stuff that is able to make every impact land with just the right amount of force and has some really sweet sweeping shots to really sell those 3D backgrounds.
Overall, I really liked it. It’s a little light on that more out-there Studio 4°C 2D animation and the story is a bit on the basic side, but it’s a pretty solid take on the original story, with more hits than misses on how it departs from the original. The final act does kind of sneak up on you, but overall I had fun and you should go give the film a shot if you’re at all interested. It’s also really cool to have a global release with such a tight turn around from the Japanese release. I want more of this. I also want *ChaO*. Where the fuck is it at GKIDS?
7.5/10
Though come to think about it, the film has zero Tom Cruise and not enough of the scientist girl. So basically it’s unwatchable and everyone should be ashamed for working on it. 0/10. I want a refund /s
I say four should be the maximum.
[](#yuishrug)
SIMPLE.
You make it simple.
If your tournament or game or whatever it is has 193 rules or systems or wahtever, I guarantee you that no one remembers the first 3 by the time you're at the 10th.
We had a lot of that in Tower of God too, no one fucking knew what the 'roles' were or what they were even doing.
But that's on the author I suppose... If he fucks up that part (making it simple), then the only way out of it is a good visualization; Explaining with words doesn't always work (especially when it's unnecessarily confusing), so showing it in practice (just chibi stuff or wtv) can help a lot.
JJK *season fucking 1*.
The tournament arc did a good job sprinkling in exposition over the course of several episodes and they filled us in after the fact on what various factions were doing/what their goals were. It was not confusing and you still felt pretty engaged and invested in the fights regardless because on top of the larger plot there were \*checks notes\* personal stakes for the characters.
1. For the concept: only add as many rules as you absolutely need. If you just want the characters duking it out, you don't need 100 rules to do that.
2. Presentation: keep the expo dumping brief and establish the rules through the characters' actions.
This show was a hot mess, but you know what? Life is like that sometimes. Though not always great, this felt more real than many of the other love triangles we get. And I respect that.
Also, I will admit I giggled a bit harder than I probably should've when Ishihara's true cup size was censored by cow noises.
Opposite for me; 90% of my favorite romcoms are like that. I dropped almost every single 'early couple' romcoms.
(Also, I hope Unhinged_Girl won)
Also [Yokohama Shopping Log]>!who designed androids in a such a way that they exchange information by holding hands and touching tongues?!<
(Assuming that's a girl)
Imagine him watching that from the grave.
[](#azusalaugh)
(tagging u/Ocixo for the link)
> hitler did nothing wrong
>> neither did homura
*"Hitler did bad things too, but stealing a strawberry from a cake is just despicable..."*
[](#mugiwait)
I still don't really dislike Frieren because of that, but in a way yesterday's episode kinda pulled me back. It is such a Frieren episode to me to an almost comedic extent. Like they did the whole [Frieren s2e1]>!Flashback to the hero's party!< bit even. Not to say I hate discussing shows or anything, it's just such a weird feeling coming back to a show after so long and just mostly having been caught up in the discourse around the show in between.
Cause I feel like I see a lot of cool teaser images or promising teaser trailers, yet it never seems to manifest in as many really good series as I feel like it should. I’m curious to track how that actually plays out in practice.
I kinda thought about doing something similar once...
But then I didn't do it because it's too much work.
Thank god I'm lazy, otherwise I'd be so busy.
[](#bigthink)
Once you get in the habit its barely more work than having the thoughts. The key is to not make it feel like work. Don't require polish for notes and just write "meh" if that was your entire reaction to something.
Obsidian is the modern choice, but I use a [zim wiki](https://zim-wiki.org/index.html) on dropbox to get free, if janky, sync across multiple devices.
Anyways, great movie! Some parts in it looked absolutely gorgeous, and I quite liked the *different* artstyle it got.
[](#cinema)
Please be in better anime in the future.
[](#elsieqq)
[](#evilgrin)
I watched the first episode of Ikoku Nikki, and... I just don't see what got everyone in awe about it;
And I'm not talking about like, source readers who would be pleased about their beloved series getting a good adaptation so they're looking forward to the good stuff, but no, I'm talking about this episode in a vacuum, and people who seemed to think it was a masterpiece...
I'm not sure it's a masterpiece of what; The dialogues? Nothing particularly special about it.. The thoughts? Wasn't that deep. If it was the animation or directorial style or something like that, I get it, but if we're talking about the 'meat' of the episode, I don't know... Nothing really wowed me in there. I kept expecting a super emotional moment or something toward the end of the episode, but... Nothing.
There are shows that I don't like but I still understand why other people like them, but I don't really understand why people liked this episode so much. To me it was just a very average 'set up' to the story, with nothing special or amazing.
[](#yuishrug)
It's not that I thought the episode is a masterpiece by itself, I thought "we are having a great potential for really good series here".
Oh yeah if people said things like that I would not be puzzled, but that's why I said "in a vacuum", because people were saying this first episode itself was fantastic, and... I just didn't see that (even if the rest of the series does turn out to be fantastic).
>Seems you were expecting something punchy?
The way people were talking about it I expected it to be super emotional at least, but it didn't really hit me in the feels, and neither the dialogues nor the thoughts were anything special in my opinion. So yeah it really just felt like a 'set up' to me, and not anything special just yet.
Oh, maybe I'll give it a shot then. I've been avoiding it because the commentary had lead me to believe it'd be an emotional traumafest and I'm not in the mood of that.
It's not at all, at least so far. It's a very chill, somber and mature watch, but there's like a... bittersweet positivity? to the feeling I get watching it.
Yeah, that's not it. It's cathartic, but optimistic. The show I'd compare it to is Natsume's Book of Friends. It's a view of grief from the perspective that this, too, shall pass.
I still haven't given that a shot, even though it's been on my PTW for a long time thanks to your references to it. Not quite as long as Amagami SS has been waiting though lol
> It's cathartic, but optimistic.
I'll mentally tag it as such and cue it up should the mood strike. I feel a little pensiveness creeping around the corners at the moment, so perhaps it'll sit nicely with that.
[](#feelsgoodman)
It feels like a really good European drama mini-series I would watch on Netflix or something, you know?
There's something interesting in how there's no big emotional catharsis in a show about how there's often no big emotional catharsis when dealing with grief.
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