Lurker > Robazoid

I am also giving a free save

Oh, if it's just a potentially confusing intro, I think that's fine. I figured it'd be something with events from later in the series or something that'd make more sense if I watched it out of order.

The first episode of Baccano can't be any more confusing than trying to puzzle out what the writers of Highspeed Etoile are thinking, and I haven't dropped that!

MartinFF7 posted...

Actually that reminds me Roba, popular recommendation is to skip watching first ep of Baccano, and having watched it (and being super confused) I kind of echo that! For whenever you get up to it in your project.

Oh, thanks for the heads-up. Should I watch the episode at the end then or just skip it entirely?

I don't know why the Baccano episode should be skipped, but seeing this tip reminds me of Haruhi's episode order controversies. I remember seeing a lot of people, even those who favor chronological order, still recommend that people should start with the episode where they made that amateur movie. I never understood that idea myself. Chronological order all the way.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Speaking of music anime, this is why I made the topic rather than waiting for someone else with a better poll idea to do it! I finished a show and needed to post about it.

Dropout Idol Fruit Tart is an anime I saw on one of those random lists on the front page of Crunchyroll (Perfect in Pink, a list of shows with pink-haired girls). I've been in the mood for music anime lately and this looked like it could be a fun cute girls idol show. I usually enjoy those even at their most generic, like Music Girls or Shine Post.

Unfortunately, this anime was pretty lame. It tried to be a comedy more than anything but most of it was bland. Even the fanservice yuri-baiting jokes largely fell flat. Gags about girls comparing breast sizes are rarely funny, and I swear this anime did it seventy times in twelve episodes. I didn't hate Dropout Idol Fruit Tart but I'm genuinely struggling to think of anything else to say about it. There was essentially zero character development and it felt like it had no original ideas whatsoever. The actual music content was minimal, too. I guess I'll give it points for not using bad CGI during the dance sequences (which were super short and not very good either, but still). One of the girls also had a Canadian flag maple leaf on her shirt for some reason, that was kinda neat.

Thank you. Perfect end to the topic

UshiromiyaEva posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/ac280ae8.jpg

I would also like to add this image of Tonbo looking out from a deep sand trap to your collection of "the top half of girls faces" pictures. (I still don't know the context of the GBC one so maybe there's more connecting them than that, but I saw your image here and then later on saw the latest Tonbo episode where she did this and the similarity made me lol)

https://imgur.com/a/ZV1hqNH

I think most people prefer Yona between the two. They're actually fairly different anime in terms of tone and stuff, people just compare them because they came out around the same time and both are fantasy romances about girls with red hair. I just felt like Yona didn't go far enough, the whole anime felt like a prologue to the story I really wanted to see. It needed another season!

Snow White with the Red Hair is my jam though. Pretty much my ideal romance anime.

Maniac64 posted...

We started watching Snow White with Red Hair.

Thank you to whoever it was here who recommended it, we are really enjoying it so far.

That was me! One of my top 10 anime. Hope you keep enjoying it

Shinx and Pyroar are both fine, they just couldn't compete with a robot Delibird.

Los Platos Division
(33) Charizard/Garchomp v. Iron Jugulis/Meltan (9)
(34) Gallade/Absol v. Dustox/Bunnelby (8)
(18) Pyroar/Shinx v. Iron Bundle/Magneton (24)
(28) Braviary/Zangoose v. Stufful/Muk (14)

Star of the Day: Iron Bundle/Magneton
We have our second upset of the round! Both upsets so far have involved a Paradox Pokemon, but this time they're coming out on top. Well done, Iron Bundle/Magneton.

Dud of the Day: Charizard/Garchomp
I feel like these two should've done a lot better. They did worse than Gallade/Absol against what feels like weaker competition.

You just need to work your way up from bad to good! That's what I do, it makes the good ones stand out more by comparison. I'm excited for the new Jellyfish, but first I need to finish the latest episodes of meh stuff like Studio Angel and Kaiju.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Dragon Ball Z

Here's the room link, have fun everyone!

https://archipelago.gg/room/5b5CotYIQkSIeJ8JmXMffw

Seven episodes in, Highspeed Etoile continues to baffle me. I'm kind of glad I didn't drop it because it's almost entertaining, in its own way, to watch a story make the wrong decision every chance it gets. Spoilers if anyone cares (no one should care this anime sucks)

There have been several episodes now where I've thought, okay, this must be the race where Rin proves she isn't an absolute moron. This is the race where Rin does something impressive to justify everyone hyping her up! And then, without fail, she finds a way to fuck it up. What the hell kind of sports anime is this. Seven episodes in and she's accomplished absolutely nothing. The racing season is half over and it doesn't even feel like she's improving.

They should've made one of the other girls the main character. Sophia is cool, Youran is cool. Towa is at least cute. Kanata has spiky blue anime hair, gotta love that. But no, Rin has to be the main character even though she's terrible in every imaginable way.

What's even crazier is that this isn't even my least favorite anime of the season anymore. The latest episode of Oblivion Battery dragged it even lower somehow! Thank god for Tonbo, her golfing is the only saving grace for sports anime this season.

Current list. Cutoff is roughly 11 hours from now

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (A Link to the Past)
3- Reg (Super Mario 64)
4- Yuzu (Final Fantasy)
5- HBJDubs (Super Metroid)
6- JeffRaze (A Link to the Past)

Frieren

Watched two more episodes in Girls Band Cry, up to episode 5 (which is as far as SobsPlease has fansubbed, I guess they'll always be a week or more delayed). This is a show I want to love. The animation is great, the presentation of the story is great, and I really like Momoka and Subaru. I just can't stand Nina, though. It's like everything she does grates on me. Nothing else to say, just wanted to rant about that, lol.

Every girls band anime should have a Kasumi-type in the lead role.

List for the May 18th async so far

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (A Link to the Past)
3- Yuzu (Final Fantasy)

I started watching two more airing anime (which, counting the dropped Unnamed Memory, brings me to a total of 26 this season, sheesh). Not fully caught up in either, but I'll post some early thoughts.

-6 episodes into the new Spice and Wolf. It's really good! I like Holo a lot, she's got lots of personality. I can see why so many people love her. Lawrence is fine too. I was hoping for more small-scale trading than there's been so far, they've really only made one fur deal, but maybe the story will get there now that this first arc is done. Definitely not an all-time favorite, at least not yet, but I'm enjoying it. I'm not a huge fan of there being a stereotypical evil church, though. Really hoping that doesn't become a big dramatic thing.

-3 episodes into Go Go Loser Ranger, and, I dunno. This feels like it has a really interesting idea but it's being handled in a way that isn't appealing to me at all. The serious and comedic tones are clashing. I'm most interested in the idea of invaders being forced to go through the motions to prop up the public image of their enemies... but it's being done through what's essentially a literal goofy Saturday morning cartoon show. Children should be able to see through this. This whole "invasion" should've long since become a joke to the general public and not work as a publicity spectacle anymore. I want to get invested in the idea of an underdog using subterfuge to fight back against the "heroes", but I just can't take the setting seriously enough to actually care about anything yet.

I finally finished another anime that I started awhile ago, and oh boy did I ever hate it. It's a new entry in my bottom 10 of all time.

The Severing Crime Edge is about descendents of murderers who inherit the murder weapons and a lust for killing. They use these powers to try and kill a girl with long hair because anyone who kills her is granted a wish. The main dude inherits a pair of murderous scissors, but he has a hair fetish so he starts protecting the hair girl instead. The premise sounded kind of neat, there are lots of cool things a story can do with magical murder weapons. Little did I know that it would wind up being one of the worst anime ever.

I can forgive the hair fetish. I went in expecting the hair fetish. I wasn't expecting all the other fetishes. And I'm talking weird fetishes too, not just just the usual fanservice panty shots or whatever. If you ever wanted to see half-naked sisters poking each other with needles and licking the wounds with copious amounts of drool, this is the anime for you. Or if you want full nudity of a knife-wielding toddler. Or erotic asphyxiation with a noose. I could go on but I'm afraid Fandom will mod me for hornyposting if I type much more even though absolutely none of this is sexy. It's just awkward and creepy.

However, even if I ignore all of that and try to judge the anime on other merits, it's still one of the worst things I've ever seen. You'd think battles where the main dude has a pair of scissors would be interesting. I mean, scissors aren't exactly the ultimate weapon. You'd expect him to need to get creative in order to win. Nope! He has bullshit protagonist powers where he enters godmode sometimes and swish insta-cuts the enemy. No excitement. Nothing about this anime was remotely fun to watch. I hated everything and everyone.

Thievul/Mudsdale
Sandile/Kingambit
Primarina/Bewear
Houndstone/Dhelmise

Also, here's an image of 7th Time Loop dying (from the very beginning of the first episode, no spoilers)

https://imgur.com/gMYQLNS

I'm sad that 7th Time Loop could've kept going if I wasn't momentarily distracted and late to my final save. Still, it was a good run! I hope a few more people will check it out someday because it's really good.

And yes Martin, I'll be switching to Frieren.

7th Time Loop

Monogatari

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The ultimate sign of surrender to Bang Dream fever is that I might, one day, watch all those fake live stage performance movies.

I've been considering this too. At the very least, I might put them on someday as background noise while I'm doing something else, the music in BanG Dream is always good.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading your overall thoughts! I agree that S2 is the worst, but for different reasons (I didn't like the Tae plot). I'm glad you enjoyed the series.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

In just 2 episodes it made me fall in love with this group, even if Rui is noteabley flat, but she has a violen so I'll forgive her.

Yeah that's my problem with Rui. She doesn't do anything bad, she's just a huge buzzkill in an otherwise fun group. They gave her a great design, they gave her a cool violin... and then they made her the most boring character ever. Then again, I'm like 100 event stories behind in the mobile game, maybe she's lightened up a bit since then. Morfonica is great other than her, though! It's been awhile since I watched their OVA (and I'm sad its been removed from their Youtube channel), but I definitely remember it being creative with its visuals. Nanami is my favorite from Morfonica.

Anyway, I'll echo WhiteLens and agree that this recent BanG Dream watchthrough has been a pleasant surprise. MyGO went mainstream, hell even Mac watched it, but I didn't expect many people to go back to the earlier stuff, never mind enjoy it as much as you seem to have! I can't call it a perfect series, and I'm sure we have different opinions on some of the good/bad parts lol, but BanG Dream has a special place in my heart. Plus we agree that Poppin Dream was amazing and should've been longer.

Looking forward to any other thoughts you might have!

I'm still enjoying Tonari no Yokai-san, but I feel like it had the potential to be amazing and instead it has just been pretty good. There's been lots of focus on the fox lady and she isn't exactly my favorite character in the cast. I want more Jiro

With this turning into the BanG Dream Discussion Topic lately, I went ahead and finally watched the three movies (the two Episode of Roselia ones and Poppin' Dream).

The Roselia ones were fine. Lots of it was just retellings of events from the mobile game. It was still nice seeing it all animated though, and they turned it all into a cohesive narrative. There was lots of new content too. Roselia isn't my favorite band by any means, but they have a good story and a fun dynamic most of the time. These movies were fine.

Poppin' Dream was amazing, though! More Kasumi is never a bad thing, but this was Kasumi at her best! I laughed a lot at stuff like her passport misadventures or her fear of flying. Their performances at the end of the movie were the best ones of the series, too, at least in my opinion. Good stuff from RAS and Morfonica, too.

Morph
Cyclops
Psylocke
Gambit
Rogue

Ok, so I'll keep doing Kaguya/7th Time Loop with Martin. Thanks for being my trade partner for so long, Yankees!

That means both my trade partners are for Kaguya, so unfortunately I'll need to stop with one of you! Do either one of you want to try finding another trade partner first?

Haikyuu

If you want to become a TRUE BanG Dream fan, you should also watch the three seasons of shorts that they did! Garupa Pico is my favorite thing about the franchise, they're all so fun and frequently insane. It became a running joke in the fandom to keep track of how many people "died" during these videos. All three seasons (Garupa Pico, Ohmori, and Fever) are available on their Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi6JjODFVq31KIs7VzFU1XfybePhw6qKn

I can save now if anyone wants to trade for 7th Time Loop (I can't get Mushishi)

Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

It's tough picking stars and duds when each match is about the same!

Motostoke Division
(37) Growlithe/Tyrantrum v. Cetitan/Poltchageist (10)
(35) Sirfetch'd/Empoleon v. Toedscool/Floette (12)
(35) Xatu/Donphan v. Hitmontop/Cetoddle (12)
(27) Gogoat/Regice v. Chatot/Magnemite (20)

Star of the Day: Gogoat/Regice
These two looked like they were struggling early on, so it's impressive that they came back later in the match to win handily.

Dud of the Day: Growlithe/Tyrantrum
A popular gen 1 mon paired with a cool dinosaur, and they only did about as well as every other winner today. This match feels like it should've been more of a blowout!

7th Time Loop

Morph
Cyclops
Psylocke
Gambit
Rogue

WhiteLens posted...

So Hello Happy World have been my least favorite band both music and character-wise (aside from Misaki and Kanon, I like them both a lot)....but they serve their purpose well.

I'm usually not a huge fan of HHW originals, but there covers can be surprisingly good. Afterglow is still the best band for music imho.

But yeah, it's nice to have one group that's immune to drama (at least most of the time). Kokoro can leap out of a third-story window and then cartwheel the landing and that's all I need from them.

More unofficial results because no one asked me to stop and it's honestly kind of relaxing to scroll through doing this. I don't mind it, but I'll stop if someone better at picking stars/duds comes along.

Jubilife Division
(46) Ampharos/Snorlax v. Lickitung/Lillipup (3)
(41) Vulpix/Mismagius v. Farigiraf/Zacian (8)
(34) Aurorus/Vaporeon v. Rufflet/Toxapex (15)
(25) Seadra/Brambleghast v. Comfey/Archen (24)

Star of the Day: Comfey/Archen
These two came damn close to the upset! One vote could've made the difference.

Dud of the Day: Aurorus/Vaporeon
An Eeveelution should've done better than that, I think!

EDIT: Typo'd Aurorus/Vaporeon as 33 instead of 34, fixed

UshiromiyaEva posted...

OK....what are we doing here in episode 4. It's not like I need to be completely grounded in reality but this is taking me all the way the fuck out lol. It's like a whole different show.

It's the magic of Happy! Lucky! Smile! Yay!

I don't know who's doing results for round 2, hopefully I'm not stepping on any toes. I just wanted to see if the few I cared about won (they didn't, poor Noctowl). I didn't actually read most of the posts, I just went one match at a time and scrolled down counting. Because of that, I wouldn't claim that these are official. They're close enough though, especially since a lot of the matches were blowouts. I did notice that Chaeix wanted to change a vote on the first day but I didn't count that because the rules say changing votes isn't allowed. There's probably a better way to format these results but I couldn't think of it.

Cortondo Division
(36) Golisopod/Mimikyu v. Electrode/Tapu Lele (11)
(37) Sharpedo/Feraligatr v. Crawdaunt/Garbodor (10)
(25) Rayquaza/Coalossal v. Drapion/Boltund (21)
(27) Quaxly/Chi-Yu v. Wigglytuff/Blissey (20)

Cinnabar Division
(43) Gengar/Raikou v. Lairon/Hattrem (2)
(25) Cloyster/Fuecoco v. Hippowdon/Scorbunny (19)
(42) Suicune/Vileplume v. Nidoran/Deoxys (3)
(27) Miltank/Ogerpon v. Noctowl/Arctibax (18)

...Are we doing star of the day and dud of the day for this round? The entire right side has been duds so far.

I finally finished Fractale, which I got halfway through several months ago and then stopped watching for some reason. A lot of things about this confused me, and I'm sure taking such a long break in the middle didn't help. I remember being confused at the start too, though so maybe that's just how it was.

I was intrigued by the setting early on. Everyone lives under the control of a weird augmented reality system called Fractale. The main guy meets a girl who's on the run, and then he gets pulled along on an adventure to determine the fate of the world. That was a decent premise. I liked most of the characters too, a lot of them were fun but could be serious when the situation called for it. As for the actual story, though... I didn't get it. I didn't get why they needed Fractale. At one point they visited a futuristic city where anyone can do anything because reality itself is malleable. I suppose that's neat, but a lot of people acted like the world would literally end if it got shut down. Meanwhile there's a rebel group living just fine without it, they just have to farm crops and sew their own clothes and stuff. It kind of undercut the whole moral dilemma, in my opinion, when the Fractale side was cartoonishly evil and nothing super bad would happen if we got rid of them.

Other than that, I didn't like some of the more, uh, uncomfortable aspects the story ventured into. The way they handled one touchy topic in particular really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm talking about the faux-parental incest rape stuff with that creepy priest. I really could've done without that, especially since I'm not sure how it ties into the overarching themes, if it even does.

I guess my overall opinion of Fractale is that there was probably a good idea in there somewhere, but the specific ways it explored that idea were confusing and didn't appeal to me at all.

Bocchi didn't really land for me, so waiting for someone else to answer might be better. The few times she actually performed were pretty interesting. Lots of creative camera angles and good animation. The characters were all fine too. I just found the show to be pretty average overall.

On another note, I wanted to mention, the first episode of BanG Dream Season 1 is on their official channel on youtube (and only episode one, for some reason). You could watch it there and see if you even want to bother pirating the rest of S1. It's a completely different animation style than what they used in S2 and beyond. S1 is my favorite, but I know a lot of people skipped it and went straight to S2 so you could probably get away with doing that as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGFqLLCOkkM

Golisopod/Mimikyu
Crawdaunt/Garbodor
Drapion/Boltund
Wigglytuff/Blissey

I came down kind of hard on MyGO in this post, so let me preface it by saying that I'm glad most other people seem to like it. Anything that helps BanG Dream as a franchise is okay in my book.

Anyway, I also binged BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! and, as predicted, I didn't like it. I disliked it for a different reason than I expected though. I was afraid it would be too bleak and dramatic for my tastes. Instead I mostly just felt frustrated. They kept taking turns breaking down and running away, and then they'd delay the resolution for as long as possible before stumbling into the next problem. Watching them try to accomplish stuff felt like they were taking zero steps forward and two steps back... but then they'd manage to put out a good performance even though the story skipped all the practice and hard work that should've went into getting them there. That's the kind of stuff I find most interesting in music anime, so I'm sad MyGO didn't focus on it at all. It felt like every time it showed them in a practice studio, they'd find a reason not to practice.

I mentioned earlier that Rui from Morfonica was my least favorite BanG Dream franchise character. That position has now been taken by Rana. Ugh, she's so lame. She's just a pale imitation of Hina (instantly good at everything, finds other people interesting for odd reasons), except Rana added nothing to her group's dynamic. I did like Tomori, Taki, and Anon. Soyo was... well, I didn't hate her. I kinda hate that the franchise now has a Saya, a Sayo, and now a Soyo, but that's not her fault. At least I know there will never be a Soya because that's Tomoe's catchphrase when she's banging taiko drums. Anyway, there were parts of the story that were pretty interesting! It was a unique idea to have this new band forming in the shadow of another band that broke up. It's just too bad that I was mostly frustrated by the actual presentation of this idea.

For instance, they never explained why the hell Saki randomly quit the band at the start. I guess her dad is an alcoholic, but she's starting another band so clearly whatever problems she has aren't keeping her from music. She just didn't want to be with them anymore for some reason, but why? What changed? Why not use your words to explain it better so we can avoid a season of frustrating drama? And then there's Mutsumi, aka "being in a band wasn't fun, not even for a second... but sure Saki, I'll join your new band". It's hard to get excited for this new Ave Mujica band when I don't understand what their deal is. At least their aesthetic and presentation is cool.

The best part of MyGO was all the cameos from better parts of the franchise. Those few moments with Kasumi were like water in the desert. She was fun. I remember what fun is. Hey, there's Afterglow for a few seconds playing a real song and not more of Tomori's mumbled poetry. Hey, they're in Hazawa Coffee and getting served by Tsugumi! I love you, Tsugumi!