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Finished Edgerunners. 2077 was made for Imaishi in the worst way, except at least the game isn't so dire and has interesting characters. Rebecca deserved better.
BaseballNA 5
Uhhhhhhhhh that was... a tour de force? Randomly and inexplicably? It was like all the tides came together and just delivered a perfect cartoon episode with absurd animation, funny jokes, exact comic timing, Looney Tunes-esque hyperactivity, just the right amount of maudlin stupidity mixed with humour and wild cool shit happening. Bizarre.
Is there a rule that Trigger needs like at least one of these perfect gem-like episodes that don't super tie into the overplot per series?
BaseballNA 5
Uhhhhhhhhh that was... a tour de force? Randomly and inexplicably? It was like all the tides came together and just delivered a perfect cartoon episode with absurd animation, funny jokes, exact comic timing, Looney Tunes-esque hyperactivity, just the right amount of maudlin stupidity mixed with humour and wild cool shit happening. Bizarre.
Is there a rule that Trigger needs like at least one of these perfect gem-like episodes that don't super tie into the overplot per series?
BaseballNA 5
Uhhhhhhhhh that was... a tour de force? Randomly and inexplicably? It was like all the tides came together and just delivered a perfect cartoon episode with absurd animation, funny jokes, exact comic timing, Looney Tunes-esque hyperactivity, just the right amount of maudlin stupidity mixed with humour and wild cool shit happening. Bizarre.
Is there a rule that Trigger needs like at least one of these perfect gem-like episodes that don't super tie into the overplot per series?
So it's a game of survival of the fittest, with different universes fighting for their survival. One might call this...a tournament of power.
All this time, the children were killing people that are facing the same dilemma as them. There is no silver lining here, imo. It's just bleak and depressing. Sure, you fight for your loved ones but at what cost? The lives of countless other people. And if you don't fight, you'll be wiped out by another universe eventually. There is no hope, only despair. I doubt that the researchers will be able to void the contract that the children signed either.
So it's a game of survival of the fittest, with different universes fighting for their survival. One might call this...a tournament of power.
All this time, the children were killing people that are facing the same dilemma as them. There is no silver lining here, imo. It's just bleak and depressing. Sure, you fight for your loved ones but at what cost? The lives of countless other people. And if you don't fight, you'll be wiped out by another universe eventually. There is no hope, only despair. I doubt that the researchers will be able to void the contract that the children signed either.
They got 8 of the shows on my list this season and Crunchy has 7(one is still not acquired yet. Oh and there's a Netflix show but I'm not even sure it's this this season)
Urusei Yatsura is very much their Lupin grab of this year tho. I wonder if they'll fast track a dub for it
in some fun news my final RSA bday sale order finally shipped today! I'll have to do a new collection pic when it gets in.
Sans Nichijou because the restock has taken so long. So that's still on backorder. Which reminds me, wanted to start putting together a list of must haves for my collection I'd like to grab in the big RSA November sale since it's the last guaranteed good one. Maybe I'll finally nab Turn A.
The Villainess genre is big and has a lot of fun entries(like this one) so I welcome it. We're getting some of the non-Isekai ones next year(and the subset of Isekai ones, someone other than the villainess gets reincarnated and decides to help the villainess, on purpose or by accident. One of the ones in that group coming up is super gay too, Magical Revolution of the princess and the genius young lady(I may have mixed up the title a little), reincarnated as a princess with zero magical powers the MC decides to make magic tools instead and crashes into the annulment by accident, abducts the Villainess who's her brothers fiancé as her assistant and later reveals she surrendered her right to the throne because she doesn't want to get married, she'd rather have a women as a lover). Like Endo and Kobyashi's Tsundere Villainess commentary where a pair of broadcasting club members discover they can talk directly to a character in the Otome game they're playing and decide to save the villainess but there's no do overs.
Just wanted to say I'm over the moon to get more Bunny Girl Senpai - I watched it earlier this year and fell in love with the characters. I was four years too late to take part in much meaningful discussion, but I can't wait to indulge in the anticipation and excitement alongside the rest of the community.
I haven't posted here in months, but last time I did, I was half way through Spy x Family (do you write the x?). I really enjoyed the show overall, it was like a warm blanket I cuddled up with at the weekend. I think it loses a bit of steam and just kind of… ends, but I enjoyed it overall. Excited to see it continue.
On a whim and oblivious to the hype, I started watching Lycoris Recoil the other month, or maybe the start of this month, I can't remember. I'm watching the dub, so I'm a little behind most of you in here, but I love it so far. It's super snappy, with a really likeable duo at the core of the story. There's some nice action as well. Chisato has a really great energy about her. She's magnetic and very watchable. I'll shout out Lizzie Freeman, who voices her in the dub - she's awesome.
I'm casual anime fan who just kind of picks whatever they fancy, and luckily I keep striking gold - what's next?!
Oh totally, especially with them being aggressive with pickups. Half my fall list they picked up(8 shows!)
Edit
For that matter since I'm only missing 2 pieces of info, here's my fall list
Farmacist episode 12
How the fuck is that guy still alive? He's skeletor at this point. I was expecting more a fight, but Farma kicked his ass handily.
It's a shame the anime went over the events of the arc real fast. But to put it simply, he's basically not human anymore and is an evil spirit.
The arc goes rather quickly in the anime so you don't really see the urgency of mitigating the plague. The emphasis being the plague itself and not the bad guy is a good choice IMO. Farma is basically god-incarnate so there's no singular person that should actually pose a threat to him when he goes serious.
Just a terrible protagonist. I'm not saying that a protagonist has to be someone worth rooting for - after all, characters like Light Yagami exist - but damn, at least make your overpowered main characters interesting or compelling. He is the worst thing about this show. Given that he is the smartest guy ever, he just solves everything because he, with his omega-level big brain, set it all up in the first place. There is barely any intrigue or tension because nothing will stop Ayanokoji's plans from bearing fruit. Most anime featuring overpowered MCs have something to make up for what would otherwise be a fairly bland story, like for example the countless Isekai that use comedy. But there is nothing like that here. It's just...incredibly boring to follow the plot of this supposed mystery anime. There is no mystery. After all, Ayanokoji will deal with it. COTE tries to create mysteries but the viewer is given no tools or clues to figure said mysteries out.
In one episode of this season, Ayanokoji exploits the trauma of a bullying victim (Karuizawa) by threatening to rape her. Now, he wasn't actually going to go through with it, given that this was all part of his plan. And then she turns into one of his many pawns and actually falls in love with the person that exploited her trauma for his own machinations. It's just tasteless. Her trauma is sued as a plot device to get her into Ayanokoji's hands. Ayanokojis is slowly building his own harem.
The other characters are not worth talking about. The main antagonist is relatively bland but it was nice seeing him get wrecked in the penultimate episode. At least the opening was a banger.
DQ Dai 96
Popp got his moment to shine, but Merle, you're still too good for him
Also all caught up! Time to swap to catching up on Call of the Night I suppose. Thankfully it's not so many episodes I can't catch up before the weekend when I don't have another sub show till my master has no tail starts Friday and I have like 4 shows Saturday already XD. Oh wait only 3, Waiting for the dub on Uzaki double omega
i feel like at one point he actually said something pretty close to this, what a PoS of a MC lol i love hate watching this show
just to see how edgier they will make him
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - If you have not watched it all yet and plan on to, then I highly recommend skipping the rest of this post.
It's been a long time since I've posted my thoughts on anime in any sort of long form format since the old Animegaf days. I don't even really post here at all, especially not the seasonal anime threads. I don't recognize many of you and I'm sure you don't recognize me, but I hope you'll let me indulge myself and share some of my thoughts and feelings. I have this urge to write my thoughts out and I was too embarrassed to do so in any of the discord servers I'm in. I couldn't think of where else other than here. Sorry about that.
This isn't some kind of life-changing show or new classic like, say, Ping-Pong or similar monocle shows. The sort that inspire think pieces etc. The script and story honestly aren't anything special. Although, executed wonderfully by the voice actors and director. They aren't breaking new ground here or doing an interesting take on old ideas. All that said, the story and main character still had a particularly strong effect on me. For context: I'm an american latino guy who grew up in NYC. My mother died last year. Some asshole neighbor walked into her home uninvited and unmasked. He gave covid to my entire family. My mother already had lung problems from working as a hotel house cleaning maid for 30+ years. Inhaling all the fumes from those cleaning products that were her tools of the trade for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week did a number on her. She worked so hard trying her best to help me find success. Just like David's mother, Gloria.
Stealth Street Fighter V product placement.
There's nothing innovative or brave about killing off the main character's parents, especially mothers, in some tragic manner to instigate whatever journey the storyteller has in mind. But this time around it hit different for me. In many ways, my mother and my family were failed by the system. From our inability to get her a vaccine earlier to the absolute shitshow that it was getting her treated and having the doctors properly listen to her and what she wanted instead of just dismissing her and doing whatever they wanted. It's obviously not a 1-1 comparison to how the Night CIty trauma team just left Gloria to die in the middle of a highway because she couldn't afford care. To my still grieving mind it still felt similar. David going to some prestigious school and feeling like he didn't belong was exactly how i felt when i was still attending college/uni. I was supposed to be the first in my family to graduate with a degree. Instead I dropped out when it all became too much for me to handle and I didn't want to continue wasting my parent's hard earned money to just flunk out.
David aimlessly wandering around the city unable to process reality and his own grief. The bills that keep coming. The way the city keeps moving along and ticking along as normal: it all really resonated with me and my own experiences immediately after my mother's death. They honestly did an excellent job with that part. And man, they really did an amazing job making the city feel real and active. The backgrounds in general I thought were excellent throughout. The colors, the detail, etc. Really a big fan of the work Trigger did on bringing Night City to life. Really sort of it's own character in some ways.
David's search for a purpose, a place to belong — maybe you could even argue he was looking for "community" — again all really resonated with me because even now I don't know what my own "purpose" or "dream" is anymore. After dropping out, I bounced around a few different jobs and industries, but I finally realized I needed to stop fucking around when talking about finances with my parents and realizing if they didn't keep working they wouldn't be able to afford to keep living in the city. I began studying software engineering — first on my own using online resources and then in "bootcamps" — so I could make a big change and start providing for my parents for once. That became my dream. To make it; be successful enough that neither of them would have to worry about how or where to live. And, more importantly to me, wouldn't have to worry about how I was doing. Despite never being the best at STEM stuff in school, I was majoring in Media Studies with a minor in sociology (the classic) when I dropped out, for some reason I was actually doing not so bad at this software shit. I had just really started to find my footing in my new career as a SE when my mother died. Since then I've been feeling lost. I actually hate being a SE and the tech industry. The people, the work, the culture. But god damn do they pay well. My first job as some know-nothing shithead I was making more than my parents had ever made combined. What the fuck? Changing some fucking colors and moving some divs around a webpage is somehow more valuable than the back breaking work they put in for decades?? It still fucking boggles my mind after all this time.
It actually took me a comparatively long time to finish watching all of Edgerunners because of how emotional I'd get. The slick opening animation makes it pretty clear how the story is going to end lol. I knew it wasn't going to have any sort of happy ending. I'm sort of glad it doesn't though. There's only so much one person can do and David isn't actually special. Sometimes we're just lucky or unlucky.
The character designs really go hard in this show. David, Lucy, and Rebecca especially are standouts. Although David in the latter half of the show looks hilarious without clothes. Humongous body with his tiny baby face and young voice. On some shirtless Machio from Danberu shit lol. This probably shouldn't matter, but ya know? It was strangely meaningful to me to have a main character that looked not dissimilar to me when I was younger. Like, we both share the same skintone and it's for the same reasons and not because he's a dark elf or something lol. I don't know, but when I heard his surname was "Martinez" and his mother's name was "Gloria" it was just a weirdly cool "oh snap!" moment. Not often I see someone "like" me on a Japanese show.
My mother asked me before they put her under to let her die at home instead. She didn't think she'd recover after being intubated. And she always hated hospitals and doctors. I was naiive and selfish and thinking things would still turn out alright and convinced her it would all be okay, to listen to the doctors, and I'd see her when she woke up all better. Being intubated is a horrible thing. It warps your body. And even if you recover from whatever it is you have, the intubation leaves you permanently handicapped. Needing help breathing for the rest of your life. Or at least that's what a nurse explained to me afterwards. Don't let it happen to your loved ones if you can. I certainly plan on getting a do-not-resuscitate order written up for myself whenever I am able to. This song.... it really reminds me of my own feelings about this and the regret I still feel to this day.
After the direction and visuals* the strongest parts of the show are its action sequences. I wasn't at all expecting the amount of gore. It certainly feels like Trigger's animators had a lot of fun doing those scenes lol. I like how, despite the miserableness of the Night City, the show feels fun for the most part and it feels like the people working on it had fun themselves. All the scenes of the crew interacting with each other were always high points for me. They especially clearly loved working on Rebecca, the VA included.
* There's your pound of flesh so don't come after me, Sakuga Cartel.
Without a doubt episode 6, Girl on Fire, is the strongest one in the entire show. The directions, the acting, the art, etc. It was the Shohei Ohtani of the 10 episodes.
Again, this show isn't innovating or challenging it's audience in some meaningful way. What it is though, is extremely well done. A friend in a discord server said "Restrained Imaishi is Best Imaishi". I'm inclined to agree.
I imagine I also experienced this show differently than 99% of everyone else who watched because of all the aforementioned. It's interesting how the time and place you experience art affects your perception of it. If I saw this show 4 years ago I would have thought it was rad and some good popcorn material and immediately moved on after finishing up. Instead here I am, on an internet forum ostensibly for video game discussion sharing entirely too much about my grief and how I strongly relate to some fictional cartoon teenager having a Very Bad Time created for advertising a multi-million dollar video game.
Anyway, if you actually read all this: Thanks and sorry about that. Let me know if you'd like me to stick the other images in quotes if they're obnoxious in some way. Apologies if this thread wasn't the right place for this post. Just the act of writing all this out was really helpful for me, so I don't mind deleting it if it makes anyone uncomfortable.
But make sure you watch Birdie Wing and Lycoris Recoil, two shows about blondes dating their girlfriends.
. Apologies if this thread wasn't the right place for this post. Just the act of writing all this out was really helpful for me, so I don't mind deleting it if it makes anyone uncomfortable.
it was absolutely the right place to post it and a very interesting read. Thank you for sharing.
I can't recall if I remember you or not though. I suck with names in general ^^;
I have two episodes of Edgerunners left and while I always enjoy Imaishi's direction, I have a hard time getting past how shallow the characters and setting are. I don't really care about what is happening in the story, if I'm honest with myself. It was interesting when David was a rookie, but I feel nothing about this whole "now there's a timeskip and he's a grizzled badass" thing, or how forced his relationship with Lucy comes off as. That's not getting into the world feeling as generic cyberpunk as possible (which I say as someone who really likes cyberpunk) with most of the best of the genre's social commentary feeling whittled down.
BNA 5
Ah, this must be where the yuri vibes come in. I genuinely can't tell if this story is too fast or just very efficient. Stuff really could use more lingering. I do like that there is an actual connection between the two friends and I think at this point the sort of swap Nazuna is doing between personalities is meant to come off as creepy and weird, but so often stuff is just pointed at in like a quick line when it could use a little bit of room to breath. Still, a lot of the overall vibe is kind of Little Witchey if Akko wasn't such a huge shit early on in the story.
I do like that they contrast the 'Namazu calling Michiru out' bit with the wordless flashback to something more genuine, so that it's not as if the story implies that Namazu is 100% right - even if Michi is absolutely 100% jumping to conclusions about stuff.