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There's 60+ years of anime available to us and a whole lot of it is pretty drat good! This is the thread to talk about the anime you watched this year not made this year that really resonated with you, that you just plain enjoyed or hell if it pissed you off tell us about it!
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Dec 27, 2020 03:41
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i watched lots of older shows this year, and i'm even a few episodes into simoun right now Strawberry Panic: I had low-ish expectations for this show, expecting it to be a fairly mediocre and unexciting 2000s yuri anime. what i got was an insanely goofy and melodramatic show that, while its main couples were mostly kinda middling, has some incredible side characters and gags and a few episodes that are like, shockingly well animated and energetic. i wouldn't give it a huge rec but it brought me back into watching shows pretty actively for a bit  Maria-sama ga Miteru: i expected a lower energy show than strawberry panic with less explicit gay characters. i got a show that starts off kinda dry with a few weird gags that then features drama based around elephants and a girl with the deep secret of being buddhist. there's a part where they meet the students from a local boys' school and one of them is a big buff guy who shouts "MY FAVORITE FOOD IS PROTEIN". i don't think there are a lot of shows, where the expectations you get from cultural osmosis of it in other media is quite as surface level and does as little to prepare you for how incredibly over the top and ridiculous it actually is Kannazuki no Miko: the big weird beat of the show is a thing that's there but on the other hand it's also one of the most insane and over the top action shows i've ever watched, the core of the relationship between the two leads is genuinely kinda compelling in context and gives their resolution some cool weight, and the bad guy gang is really strong character-wise. i enjoyed it a fair bit for what it is Mai-HiME: there were a few things i really liked about this show but it made sure to test my patience a lot with a lot of things that loving sucked poo poo. the core romance is absolutely tedious and exhibits all the worst parts of the show's writing and the kendo guy is the worst loving gag character ever. there are a few really strong moments but largely it wastes a lot of time on the least engaging things. controversially i think the ending is actually pretty okay, the serious turn of the show had some of the best writing but it also dove in a lot of directions with the characters that honestly would've made it suck to just have everyone stay dead forever. all in all i'm constantly torn between acknowledging the parts i like but feeling like the entire rest of the show is one of the worst things i've watched on a personal level Princess Tutu: cool show. the first half is a bit slow but it sets up some really interesting stuff, and once it gets into the second half it figures out a lot of its own strengths in the narrative and character dynamics and becomes of the most engaging and well-written anime i've ever watched. i can totally get the love for it Dancouga Nova: did you know the martian successor nadesico guy wrote a 2007 mecha anime. its animation is pretty stiff and it was clearly being structured for a second season it didn't get so the back half basically just accelerates to the end as fast as it can, but for what it is it's a really uniquely weird and goofy mecha anime with a funny cast. it's kinda nice to have an intense super robot anime with a cool female lead who isn't really brought down by the writing in any way, and hell, there's a hot lonely bisexual mechanic lady who hits on her a couple times, so that's woke. i forgive obari for the mecha parts of dangaioh kinda sucking. killer op too El Cazador de la Bruja: has a very very wonky start, the first six or so episodes are the worst of the entire show by far and it never really shakes being kind of wonky and weirdly paced as an action show. but once the dynamic between nadie and ellis starts to develop more, it really hits its stride and the writing gets a lot more consistent. its weird pacing actually ends up giving it an oddly surreal and dreamlike feel and its sense of humor is earnestly weird and dumb in a way that's perfect for it Burst Angel: i thought this show would be way more fun than it was but instead i only watched like two episodes before realizing i hated it. rip Strike Witches: people make fun of the asses and it's sure got a lot of rear end. its drama is surprisingly decent being very based in its characters and their relationships, and i like that it's kinda legit about characters having feelings for each other. there's also some really inspired and beautiful visual direction and storyboarding, episode 6 is kind of a work of art in itself. i enjoyed it A Certain Scientific Railgun: the first half's pretty good, the back half's got some weird bits and the original villain kinda sucks but the payoff at the very end is decent at least. it's better overall than railgun s' original arc at least but i got a bit soured on the original stuff in both after a time. pretty good otherwise though Tatakae! Iczer-One: probably the most distinct of the iczers, the horror vibe of the first half is pretty unique and it's got lots of incredible design work, and the use of shadows in general is absolutely stunning. it's kinda interesting also that it's a 90s mecha ova that's very explicitly about a lesbian couple, even if the nature of the relationship is uh, a bit of a ride. the ending is really dull though and kinda sucks the weight out of the entire rest of it and doesn't even offer the most satisfying resolution to its own core relationship, it's worth watching i think but it could be a lot better written Higurashi When They Cry: so at the start of this year i read all of the higurashi vns. and then before the new higurashi anime started airing, i watched all of the 2006 adaptation of the vns. and all i'll say is that i do not think season 1 of the original higurashi anime is very good. its direction is very cheap, not just visually but in how it dumps a lot of the more endearing elements of its story and characters and plays a lot more on shock value and brutality, to the point that chapter 5 is basically gutted of its meaning and you come out of it taking the very wrong emotional message of what it is meant to convey. on the flipside, season 2's pretty good so there's lots of fun animation of ch8 at least. but if i had to recommend any way of experiencing the original higurashi to anyone these days it would be anything but this version. well... the movies are worse but who the gently caress's gonna watch those Akuma no Riddle: it rules. it's not exactly a deep story but, it's not really trying to be, and i think that's the core of why people get mad at its ending. it mostly just feels like a short manga introducing a fun cast of lesbian characters to draw doujins of, and it's great at doing that while having lots of memorable scenes in itself, and the anime is pretty well produced. very fun ride The Colonel fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Dec 27, 2020 |
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Dec 27, 2020 04:14
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Thanks to my toxx I watched a lot of older Gundam series. I really enjoyed Zeta, a lot more than I thought I would. For a slightly more modern Gundam, Thunderbolt movie 1 was a blast to watch. For non-Gundam stuff, the first two seasons of Haikyuu!! might be some of the best sports shounen I've ever seen.
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Dec 27, 2020 04:18
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I started playing a bit Mahjong so I watch some Akagi. Thats some good poo poo.
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Dec 27, 2020 04:21
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I rewatched Yu Yu Hakusho and it actually help up way better than I remembered. Tons of great animation and directing, especially during the Dark Tournament and Chapter Black arcs, with characters that have more depth to them than I realized as a kid. Getting to recognize and distinguish between different directorial and key animator styles, from Akiyuki Simbo's use of colors, shading, and special transitions, to Atsushi Wakabayashi's rubbery, off-model animation, gave me a lot to chew through and analyze in a way I never did when I was younger. As far as shows I've experienced for the first time, I also really enjoyed watching Planet With, Satoshi Mizukami's (of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer/Spirot Circle fame) first foray into Anime. And it worked very well. For a single cour series, it had rather tight pacing that was able to tell essentially two seasons in one, and was wrapped up in a nice story that asks about the nature of what true justice is, and revenge vs forgiveness. Not the deepest story, but memorable and unique enough that I'll remember it for years to come.
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Dec 27, 2020 04:28
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i also watched kashimashi: girl meets girl and it was somehow the most boring 2000s yuri anime i watched, not even just this year but ever. its premise is kinda neat and leads to a few interesting moments but it largely fails to go anywhere interesting with it as it progresses and its love triangle is extremely weak, with an ending turn so stupid that i mostly give it a pass because the last episode has a really funny gag that's one of the few times the character writing doesn't feel kind of stale. it's weird that something that plays with gender in the way it does could get really weird about it, but that the way it ends up actually getting weird about it is in how boring its exploration of it is and how unrelated it is to the core of the story
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Dec 27, 2020 04:39
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where is your list op!!
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Dec 27, 2020 11:13
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I shan't bother putting in any of the movies in this list as I've already described them in the movie thread, lists aren't THAT interesting anyway. who actually reads all these? be honest! Crest of the stars: got about halfway through this hoping for a good space show. got mediocre drama with a pro-eugenics bent. don't really care about that per se but it was boring Moonlight Mile: another sci fi show and the sort of thing i like. the real old school seinen sort of anime that doesn't get made any more where the mc's gently caress a different woman every episode, travel the world and kick rear end. or well, they start travelling the world and then get into the space program and it becomes a surprisingly hard sci fi look at (a fictional) space race as told through the lens of a pair of bro's. has a notably international cast for an anime. its main problem is that its 2 seasons only tell about a quarter of the story. the manga isn't looking like its ever going to get translated and they're certainly never going to make sequel seasons, so it will remain an unfinished story. it's also incredibly low budget but if you watch 00s seinen that should not be a problem for you Animation Runner Kuromi 2: if you've seen shirobako you've seen a better version of this Seizei Ganbare! Mahou Shoujo Kurumi: low budget magical girl parody, passable Hikari no Densetsu: classic type of girls sports anime, that has afaik been totally forgotten. and heck when was the last time you saw a girl sports anime actually made for the shoujo demographic anyway? its pretty good at what it does and the mc is very likeable but it didn't stick with me considering i barely remember anything of it Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru: very funny anime, with shaft at the top of their game. the manga however is even better. also rare in the sol genre that it actually manages to feel like a slice of life, you not only get to know the main characters pretty well, but by the end of the story you know pretty much everyone they know (which isn't just the usual classmates). also features a great ed. i recommend watching the anime first for the beautiful voice of Chiaki Omigawa and then starting at the beginning of the manga, just skipping what you've already seen. The iDOLM@STER: the legendary queen of idol series was my final old anime for the year. did not expect coming in that it would be a (at times rather sleazy) harem anime, but it was only better for it after the producer stopped being a useless little bitch. looks massively better visually then the other idol anime I've seen during the concerts, and is generally somewhat funny. all the drama episodes fall flat because the girls are so shallow though. the movie was the worst part in that regard. i have only seen the original 765 series so at some point i'll probably return to the franchise to watch more The amount seen this year is still less then when i was at my anime watching peak, but corona helped me a lot in watching more. 2 hours of travel time per day no longer existing adds up! no longer caring for the constraints of toxxes also helped me stick to my favourite genres: chad anime and moe
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Dec 27, 2020 14:14
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Ride Your Wave premiered in 2019, so I'm going to choose it on that technicality.
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Dec 27, 2020 15:57
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oh yeah some more i didn't fit into my first post Paniponi Dash!: one of the highest energy shaft comedies i've watched, not every joke is all that funny but the show moves at such a consistently fast pace with so many creative visual gags that every episode is still pretty enjoyable to watch. Detatoko Princess: classic 90s shinbou, it has a lot of the early hallmarks of his style you see in his later stuff, and it's just generally got a lot of cool style and animation. pretty funny overall, worth the three eps Rinne no Lagrange: one of my favorite mecha anime ever, it's style is bright and glowy and distinct, and season 1 basically spends half its run as a dopey sol comedy, which it's genuinely pretty good at being. season 2 shifts into being more of a full on mecha action show, but the cast maintain their personality from s1 so the way things play out is still pretty unique and interesting, and the ending is perfect. my only complaint is that it has a few jokes that are kinda mildly weird and uh. they spend half of one ep in season 2 on the worst joke in the entire show. like a kinda bafflingly overlong and uncomfortable one. i wish they did not do that cause it's the only thing bringing down what is otherwise one of my favorite mecha shows Megami Tengoku: weird two ep ova from the director of project a-ko, it's an adaptation of a fairly forgotten pc engine jrpg and it's got the sense of humor you'd expect from something from its director. it's honestly pretty good, the opening bit is kinda dull but once the villain crew appears it gets a lot of energy that lasts through the rest of the ova Tantei Shoujo Milky Holmes: not much to say about it that isn't immediately obvious really. it's the idol prime pripara director (probably better known here recently for directing the iruma-kun anime) without any kind of leash, free to make whatever kinds of insane episodic comedy she wants. if you're down for that, it's pretty good at that. kind of incredible to think it's the show bushiroad premiered with as a company but i guess they just didn't have the power to stop moriwaki makoto at the time Rakushou Hyperdoll: much older ova from the same director as milky holmes. first episode's a bit dull but it has some decent gags, the second episode is legitimately funny in a dopey way Aoi Umi no Tristia: two episode ova adaptation of what i can only assume to be an engineering-themed atelier clone with robots from 2000, it's one of the first things ufotable took on and so, predating their era of digital vfx hell clouding up every show they make, it's actually an extremely well-animated, nice looking ova with some cute gags. the mecha action stuff isn't amazing though, it's not awful but it's just not quite its strong suit, i'd have preferred if they focused on the characters cause their interactions are the best part. also, the girls are gay and the ed is one of the most unique i've ever seen, featuring relaxing music over jerky stop motion clay figures of the lead characters. unfortunately there's no upload of it on youtube so i'll have to link to the end of this dubious youtube upload of the second episode, gomen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7PivIvm4WE&t=1387s Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: weird, weird mish mash of a magical girl show, starts off very basic narratively but its style is super wild and surreal and it builds up into a huge sci-fi epic in a way you absolutely would not expect watching it blind. narratively it doesn't really tie itself together that well and it constantly has a massive clash of tone, but the relationship between nanoha and fate is pretty decent and it's what they largely focus on so it works fine enough Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's: not as wildly stylistic as the first season, but it makes up for it by being one of the best scripted magical girl anime i've ever watched. it dumps a lot of the weirder aspects of season 1, and manages to be an incredible character-driven magical girl story that in some ways places more focus on exploring the villains than it does on exploring the heroes, going for a similar setup to later seasons of symphogear but uh, making it land a bit better, by having the villains not literally slaughtering tons of innocent people, so their struggle and motivation is a lot easier to identify with. not that i dislike the villains in symphogear, but i think it could've learned a bit from the way nanoha a's holds back and creates weight and tension purely through their confrontations with each other without purposefully dragging huge body counts into the mix. they also go back and give some of the wonkier parts of s1 much better resolution, it's good stuff The Colonel fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Dec 27, 2020 |
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Dec 27, 2020 16:28
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Davincie posted:where is your list op!! I'm getting there! Also I read each and every post because I like to know what people think about anime  I burned out on my toxx this year but most of my toxx anime ended up being my favorites Shigurui - really bleak samurai drama that's dripping with moodiness. Entire minutes of nothing but tuvan throat singing background music and the sound of cicadas as insanely ugly men square off. Besides all the ultraviolence and incredible grimness it has a surprisingly complex view of masculinity and duty that doesn't offer any easy answers. I'll read the rest of the manga someday when I'm in the mood for it. Haruchika - this show really surprised me, it was very heartfelt and covered material you don't usually see in anime, with characters that have genuine handicaps, the plight of the old in Japan, and even an episode involving Agent Orange and the Vietnam war. I also enjoyed the dynamic between the leads, it seems rare to have a gay male lead in a series that isn't romance. Chika is also very entertaining as a character who is good at stuff but only stuff she doesn't want to do. If they made another season I'd watch it for sure. Galaxy Railways - An all-time great space show conceived as a sort of companion to Galaxy Express 999, one of my favorite series ever. It definitely lives up to that calling. Fun episodic space adventures with a good cast that are well developed and not caricatures and each episode having a strong thematic core. The soundtrack is by Nozomi Aoki, who did the original Galaxy Express 999 soundtrack as well as Fist of the North Star, and his bombastic orchestral style fits the retro tone perfectly. It's also a gorgeous show, lots of great animation and style. If you enjoy older anime and their sense of drama and adventure then you need to watch this show!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_yeFGGEvc Seirei no Moribito - it's well done mostly, sometimes it looks great but sometimes its style looks super off and weird. I can see why this is a critical darling, it has interesting worldbuilding, enjoyable characters and in the first half it has very good small scale episode plots like one where the child protagonist uses game theory to own some scammers. Great Kenji Kawai soundtrack of course. It sort of lost me in the main plotline and was just a little too obviously based on a YA novel. I'm also not a big worldbuilding head so it fell a bit flat there for me as well. I'm not really enthusiastic about it but if they made another I'd watch it. Then for non-toxx stuff Gasaraki - There's a lot of misinformation about this show! Lots of people talk up the Evangelion infuence but it isn't really seen until the very last episode. There are plot elements that are similar to Eva but, they're also plot elements that director Ryosuke Takahashi has been using since the 80s! I feel like Patlabor 2 is the bigger influence on the show, since it tackles similar themes. People also accuse this show of being pro-Japanese imperialism or nationalist, but that's not very fair either and I would say people who believe that are being too American-centric in their thinking. The nationalist figure in the show ends up being a dupe whose plans are half-realized and whose moral legacy is immediately tainted by opportunistic career politicians. Scenes where giant robots are deployed as riot police are staged like scenes from a horror movie and deliberately unsettling. Chinese immigrants are cracked down upon explicitly as a cynical move to generate unrest by wealthy elites, and the Chinese are among the only selfless characters in the show, their family and community ties being shown as stronger than the pull of money that dominates the lives of the Japanese characters. Of course, Takahashi doesn't spell any of this out for the viewer and leaves it to them to figure it out, so all of this goes over the head of the average mecha fan I guess. Anyway, this is a gorgeous show, one of the best looking tv anime I've ever seen. It has incredible sound design and a killer soundtrack. That said the cast is very bland, a lot of characters are just archetypes that Takahashi has used before instead of actual characters, and there's a reincarnation/Heian era plot that doesn't pull together in a satisfying way after a lot of really cool buildup. It also makes the one interesting character catatonic halfway through the show which is stupid. The robot battles are conceptually interesting but kind of the worst part of the show. Meisou-Ou Border - anime about two homeless guys who get recruited to shoot a fake yakuza documentary and end up embroiled in an actual yakuza turf war. It's both very funny but takes very bittersweet turns on occasion. My biggest complaint is that it's based on a really long seinen manga we'll never see translated fffuuuuU!!! Tenchi Muyo OVA - This is one of the earliest anime I ever saw although I only saw a few episodes of it. It's a gorgeous show in the first ova, lots of good physical gag animation that reminds me of loony tunes sometimes, very good space/scifi effects and lighting, good sound effects, a decent soundtrack, good jokes and beautiful backgrounds. The second ova looks good but the animation is a little less fluid and fun, and after a good start with some emotional episodes (there's a very wistful one about motherhood but also how babies are nightmares). Basically this show is good when it's just about hanging out with space aliens and not very good when it's about space opera dramatic stuff. The first ova had a conceptually interesting setting for the space opera part but the second didn't so it wasn't as good. Everyone says the ovas are all downhill after these so I'm not gonna watch them. I might check out the TV show and I'll probably check out the Space Police spinoff show since they were always entertaining in the show and it's directed by Nabeshin.
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Dec 27, 2020 18:30
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This was the year that I watched K-On for the first time. I don't know how but I had somehow got it in my head that that K-On was very serious show about girls trying to save their band club from closure, I don't know if I was thinking of another show or an amalgamation of several other shows but that wasn't a show I wanted to watch so I'd never seen K-On. This year it got pointed out that I was very wrong so I decided to watch and I'm very glad I did as it's a very good anime. I wish that a full version of Romeo and Juliet starring Mio and Ritsu existed.
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Dec 27, 2020 19:09
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Yuru Yuri = Season 1 to 3 I was doing a rewatch of 10's comedy anime like Non Non Biyori and Kinmoza when I realized I never watched this series. Really fun series though I think I prefer the third season which tones the silly nature down to allow actually relationship moments to breathe. Gurren Lagann DRILL THE HEAVENS! Gunbuster 2 I skipped this as I was just not into Gainax at the time and the first episode bounced off me. Finally gave it full watch and it's a more than worthy successor to the first series and superior in a lot of ways. Shin Koihime Musou Messy and Uneven show that couldn't quite shake it's H game roots, but thankfully ditched it's male lead to just go with a female cast. Had some episodes where I just groaned cause it was too heavy on the service but also had a few good and heartfelt episode that made me keep watching.
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Dec 27, 2020 21:25
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Prolly Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack you love to see it when insane auteurs are mostly let off the leash.
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Dec 27, 2020 21:40
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Diebuster and Pokemon Sun and Moon were the best and most consistently entertaining old things I checked out this year, but I also marathoned a few series I initially put off, like Made in Abyss. Eh, it was OK. There's a certain predictability to how it reaches for big emotional moments that left me resisting it when it tried to pull heartstrings or shock. If you've ever played a jrpg or watched any self-serious action anime aimed at teens, you know how Nanachi's backstory for instance is going to go within the first few seconds. Oh, another gruesome, tragic occurence. Ho hum Another thing that bugs me is the weird lack of any real character development. Plot details are revealed, friendships and macguffins are gained and lost, but aside from, what, growing even more in respectful awe for the abyss, Riko, Reg, et al are basically the same characters at the end of the latest movie that they were in the earliest beginnings of the show. I mostly enjoyed my time w it, the latest movie was real good, but nothing I formed any actual emotional connection to. Basically just happy to be caught up. Did From the New World over the summer and mostly loved it, tho it also has some weird issues that held it back from true greatness. The characters are vaguely drawn and very hard to attach to, and basically all the drama is plotplotplot so I never really cared about them as individuals are their assorted smaller dramas. Thankfully, the plot is tight, compelling and goes lots of different places. Classic, oldfashioned-feeling scifi concerned w big questions about society and responosbilty, w a bubbling aura of unease that skillfully builds into straight horror. Mostly great stuff, tho the ending had me all in my feelings. gently caress them kids, burn it all down, Squealer shoulda won. Viva la queerrat! Went and revisited all the post-Utena Ikuhara stuff(including the Utena movie) and it all still owns. In preperation for SAC 20whatever(which I wound up dropping halfway lol), I revisited both seasons of Ghost in the Shell. That first season still owns; thought-provoking, beautiful, action-packed, spooky, relevant; but I basically don't enjoy 2nd Gig at all anymore. Enjoying Onyx Equinox made me wanna give Cannon Busters another shot but god it's just terrible. Completely bereft of charm or heart in just about every regard beyond how the artists gleefully signpost their influences. Old(or oldish) movies that own: Animal Treasure Island, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, The Golden Bird, Patlabor 1, Urusei Yatsura: Only You, Macross Frontier: Wings of Goodbye Briefly started Rakugo Shinjuu and Sound Euphoniun but got distracted by other things. Maybe next year. Can't remember if it was this or last year I finally got to Land of the Lustrous but I have no praise to offer that hasn't been repeated a thousand times. EDIT: OHHHHHH for shame, forgetting to mention all the sweet Osamu Dezaki stuff I sought out this year. The Black Jack ovas. Adventure of Gamba. Golgo 13. *chef kiss* Coolest anime director ever. Pootybutt fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Dec 28, 2020 |
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Dec 28, 2020 07:30
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oh yeah, one more show i watched Natsu no Arashi has one of the best ops ever made but the show itself is fairly underwhelming and makes some weird or plain boring choices in spots. the first episode falls very flat, cutting forward to a future event with the cast to get you familiar with them all, but all of its jokes land totally flat if you aren't endeared towards them already so it just ends up being a waste of 24 minutes. it gets a lot better after that, and its visual direction and comedy is fairly strong for a b-list shaft anime, and some of the small touches in its writing are interesting, but its exploration of wwii japan is about as wishy washy as you might expect and i found a lot of the writing around kaja and jun pretty unsatisfying despite them honestly being much more conceptually interesting characters than the actual leads. kanako and yayoi's arc is decent enough though so the first season does end on an okay note, it just didn't leave me chomping at the bit to watch s2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx9z-gWrtYg i also also also watched Mangirl. they made a very poor decision in romanizing "mangal" as "mangirl". anyway besides that it's a pretty mediocre dogakobo short anime and the funniest joke is the part where the characters say they got an ova because the show just sold so well (it was one of the worst selling anime dogakobo has ever produced, like career-killing level) The Colonel fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Dec 29, 2020 |
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Dec 28, 2020 20:22
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I finally watched Princess Mononoke, and it's now my favorite anime movie, and possibly my favorite movie period. Beautiful, sombre, and it had genuinely great villains in a movie where arguably everyone was a villain. I watched Akira, which had amazing visuals and atmosphere throughout, even if the story became a bit too much "and then THIS happens!" towards the end. Watching it during the protests of the summer of 2020 was a surreal experience. I also watched The Twelve Kingdoms, and while the first arc was a bit dull the second arc had great payoff and the third arc was everything I wanted these "whisked away to another world"-type stories to be. The last six episodes were not as great, but given how fantastic an ending episode 39 serves as I don't feel cheated. Maybe I'll hunt down translations of the novels to get the complete story. Dennou Coil was great, and it's vision for augmented reality technology was a joy to see brought to life. It also had the single most bizarre episode of any anime I've ever watched (y'know, the beard episode), which left me both laughing and confused as to how the show could find its way back to the more grounded main storyline. But it did. Finally, Planetes had the best depiction of the beginnings of a space-faring civilization, even if the plot alternates from interesting to more episodic pieces that stall for time.
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Dec 28, 2020 21:39
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I finally watched Zeta Gundam and unsurprisingly it kicked rear end
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Dec 29, 2020 01:02
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Varinn posted:I finally watched Zeta Gundam and unsurprisingly it kicked rear end Same here.
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Dec 29, 2020 02:27
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More people should watch AKB0048. Idols fighting an evil government in space with lots of pretty songs. Also weird glowy aliens. Some of the Macross people helped make it as well.
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Dec 29, 2020 03:33
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I watched Your Lie in April. This was the wrong year to watch that.
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Dec 29, 2020 08:56
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Nichibros, Welcome to the NHK and Toradora! are the only ones I think qualify since I started a lot of older ones this year but those were the only 3 I actually finished. All 3 were amazing so I dont feel like I missed out on anything either.
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Dec 29, 2020 09:39
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Malsangoroth posted:I also watched The Twelve Kingdoms, and while the first arc was a bit dull the second arc had great payoff and the third arc was everything I wanted these "whisked away to another world"-type stories to be. The last six episodes were not as great, but given how fantastic an ending episode 39 serves as I don't feel cheated. Maybe I'll hunt down translations of the novels to get the complete story. I was initially going to post about how this series unfortunately stopped being updated, but apparently there was new content released in 2019, though as far as I'm aware there's no plans of an English translation. It's really a shame because it's one of my favorite fantasy settings and is perfectly suited to telling various stories about different characters in different places. One kind of interesting fact about the anime is that Sugimoto and Asano are not in the original LNs. I actually liked their addition in the anime, though - they served as kind of interesting alternative perspectives on "normal" people who end up coming to the 12 Kingdoms from our world (which you do see elsewhere, but generally don't receive as much focus otherwise).
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Dec 30, 2020 00:02
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I don't know if this counts but I saw Golden Kamuy for the first time this year, the first two seasons. I saw the third season that recently ended too. The level of historical detail, the comedy, and the rare setting made this a very unique treat. Likable cast, both protagonists and antagonists, and a fairly simple premise. No gods to conquer, no wars to win, just a bunch of factions hunting for some gold, with detailed explanations of Ainu native cuisine and lifestyle.
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Dec 30, 2020 01:50
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I have a few episodes left before I finish it, but Hyouge Mono was my watch of 2020. It’s a series that follows the life of a middling nobleman during Japan’s sengoku period, and it’s hard to really encapsulate what it’s “about” because it’s such a deep, multi-faceted work. It’s also a series whose thesis, the subject it’s primarily concerned with and even its genre, changes over time. There’s historical and political drama surrounding the assassination of Nobunaga and the succession struggles that followed. There’s a lot of meditation on the value of art and culture, and the way that these intersect (or don’t) with politics. It’s also a rich character study following the lives of this social circle, and you really get a deep sense of these people’s dreams, ambitions, shortcomings, fears, and so on. It’s a work that is entirely modern, in that the characters and events portrayed still resonate with the viewer; it’s pretty masterful at putting a modern audience right there in the historical context, humanizing and making familiar what is an age with very different values and concerns, and making clear how the struggles the characters face ring throughout time. The dialogue is masterful, even through translation. I believe the manga won a national best of the year award for that reason. My only disappointment is that it only looks average. The visual style is serviceable, characters are highly expressive and moments of humor are well served by the art, but it isn’t anything special. That matters a lot when so much of the work is centered around men vying after aesthetic perfection and coveting works of art. The creators try to set sublime pieces of craftsmanship out of the world of men by conspicuously rendering them in CG, but it doesn’t awe the viewer in the way that it needs to in order to fully communicate what it’s meant to. If it could manage this, it would be a perfect work.
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Jan 3, 2021 12:11
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a neat cape posted:I watched Your Lie in April.  Yeah, probably.I got through Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, Vinland Saga, Anohana, Magical Girl Raising Project, and Diebuster this year.
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Jan 3, 2021 13:19
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Anonymous Robot posted:I have a few episodes left before I finish it, but Hyouge Mono was my watch of 2020. It’s a series that follows the life of a middling nobleman during Japan’s sengoku period, and it’s hard to really encapsulate what it’s “about” because it’s such a deep, multi-faceted work. It’s also a series whose thesis, the subject it’s primarily concerned with and even its genre, changes over time. I agree completely. It's not quite perfect, but hell, one of the themes is that flaws are what make a piece of art unique. It's probably one of my all time favorites, flaws and all.
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Jan 5, 2021 05:18
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Man, a lot of people finally getting around to Diebuster this year. Always good to see. My sense of time is messed up with how the year went, and my big list of anime watched doesn't list when I watched them, so I can't remember everything I saw this year, and am kind of guessing for some of it. That said, might as well give it a go. Started the year by finishing VOTOMs and confirming that I'm not a big Takahashi guy, further cemented by watching the Layzner OVAs later on. I also had some rough Gundam experiences with G-Reco, Gunpla Builders, the Try OVA, and IGLOO, even if Zeta was good overall. On the less major mech anime side, I also saw the Zone of the Enders OVA and Orguss II, which were both pretty good, and Dinagiga, which was less terrible than I expected. There was also Do You Remember Love, Macross 2, and a ton of other mech anime, good and bad. (Also a ton of non-mech, but my list is not the most organized) I wrapped up the year with Denno Coil (fun, but the resolution felt rushed, and the main drama wasn't as solid as the one-off episodes in the middle.) and Nozaki-kun, so at least I ended on an entertaining note. For best, though... well, it's Eizouken's year, so it's only fitting Eizouken introduced me to my favorite older show for 2020 viewing. Future Boy Conan was very good. One of the best children's adventure cartoons, with amazing animation for a weekly broadcast. One of the oldest tv anime I've watched all through, but it aged beautifully. ...Just a shame for it that it's going up against Tatami Galaxy in the "I watched because of Eizouken" category. I haven't seen anything else like it (other than Night is Short, Walk on Girl, naturally.). It's fast paced, it's clever, it's funny, the art is amazing, it's not about high schoolers... It's one for my all time favorites list.
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Jan 5, 2021 07:05
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Hunter x Hunter (2011) which honestly I was way more invested in overall than any other particular show that actually came out in 2020. Which is not to say it was flawless experience; I was already more or less familiar with the arcs leading up to Chimera Ant from having the read the manga about 15 years ago, and many of the early arcs greatly tested my patience with Heaven's Arena and the Rescue Killua arc in particular being grueling. Chimera Ant itself has arguably the highest highs of the entire story but is dragged out so long it feels like a completely different show and not in a good way. But when it worked there really was nothing else like it. Yorknew remains a dramatic achievement for a Shounen arc with Togashi's penchant for compelling villains firing on all cylinders and the Chairman Selection being maybe the most affected I have ever been in a Shounen. I've dragged my feet on continuing further in the manga but probably will in time, not like the chapter backlog there is growing.
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Jan 5, 2021 16:18
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Revolutionary Girl Utena Still haven't gotten around to the movie, but man, what a show. A lot of metaphors and symbols probably went over my head, but there was a wild amount of heart and thought put into this entire show. Utena has some of the funniest filler episodes I've seen as well, which is great for a show as dramatic and moving as it is. gently caress power dynamics, homo for life.
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Jan 5, 2021 16:56
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The two best things I watched this year were Gunbuster (for the first time) and Only Yesterday (also for the first time). Gunbuster was rad. The art was great, the music was kickin. 10/10 would watch again. I'm glad HBO Max added all of the Studio Ghibli films in one spot so I could easily do a re-watch of all of them and see the ones that had been missing. Only Yesterday is a beautiful film and I hope that it gets more attention and love now that it's easily available. I've always preferred Isao's films to Hayao, and this one is no exception. It isn't for people who don't enjoy slice of life stuff, though. The back and forth between Taeko's childhood and her present life was a good frame story, although I'd say the childhood segments were on the whole more interesting and appealing.
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Jan 5, 2021 17:57
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFynCUzeS5M
Wark Say fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Jan 6, 2021 |
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Jan 6, 2021 00:35
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I didn't finish it in 2020 (though I intend to), but while Healin' Good was on break I decided to start watching the first one, Futari Wa Precure. For being the oldest one I'd actually say it beats the newer seasons in some aspects, with more of a focus on slowburn character development than toyetic stuff. It takes eight episodes for the pair to even call each-other by their first names. I especially liked that they weren't automatically great at fighting right away just because they transformed, with early fights having them sort of flailing around trying to survive.
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Jan 6, 2021 06:11
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I had no idea what I was watching in Pop Team Epic but I'm pretty sure i loved every moment of it.
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Jan 6, 2021 11:44
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Natsume Yuujinchou or Natsume's Book of Friends, long-running, mostly episodic series about a boy who can see yokai, and is trying to balance his normal life and being constantly dragged into yokai bullshit. Also his parents are dead and he's been bounced around homes of various relatives since he was a baby because everyone thinks he's crazy. Alternates between tragic, chill, wholesome and spooky, and does all of them well. Main plot hook is that he has inherited a notebook from his grandma with a bunch of yokai names bound in it, which gives him ability to command them, but he instead resolves to return all the names to their owners because he abhors having this sort of power.
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Jan 6, 2021 16:18
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I watched Paranoia Agent, Madoka Magica, Thunderbolt Fantasy, Little Witch Academia, Devilman Crybaby, Big Order, and much more but these stood out for me. All of it's great. Except... except for Big Order.
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Jan 6, 2021 16:40
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macabresca posted:I watched Paranoia Agent, Madoka Magica, Thunderbolt Fantasy, Little Witch Academia, Devilman Crybaby, Big Order, and much more but these stood out for me. 
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Jan 6, 2021 23:21
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Lots of stuff this year. AKB0048, Star Driver, Princess Tutu, Amagami SS, Nanoha StrikerS, World Conquest Zvezda Plot, Major 2nd, Saki: The Nationals, Big Windup, Fireworks, Cross Ange, Spice and Wolf, and Tokyo Godfathers, plus a handful of other things that I didn't come close to finishing. Major 2nd and Big Windup have been great, I wasn't expecting to get so into baseball anime. Cross Ange was the most fun watch all year, an astonishing rollercoaster ride that I had literally only ever heard described as an unwatchable trainwreck, evidently by people with no taste. Spice and Wolf is super comfy. Tutu was great, though I'm salty about some aspects of the ending. I don't think I could explain a single facet of Star Driver's plot if I tried. Fireworks, Amagami, and StrikerS were all extremely bad. I also rewatched Land of the Lustrous, Symphogear, Tatami Galaxy, Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens, Welcome to the NHK, Tsurezure Children, Princess Principal, Hinamatsuri, and Planetes, watching with friends. They were all just as great the second time around. Planetes especially blew me away on rewatch. esselfortium fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 00:43
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esselfortium posted:Lots of stuff this year. AKB0048, Star Driver, Princess Tutu, Amagami SS, Nanoha StrikerS, World Conquest Zvezda Plot, Major 2nd, Saki: The Nationals, Big Windup, Fireworks, Cross Ange, Spice and Wolf, and Tokyo Godfathers, plus a handful of other things that I didn't come close to finishing. Have you read the manga for Planetes? I tried to get into the show, but it just... didn't do it for me like the manga did. Curious how common that is.
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Jan 7, 2021 01:21
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chiasaur11 posted:Have you read the manga for Planetes? I haven't! I've heard it's pretty different?
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Jan 7, 2021 01:32
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