Board 8 > Anime & Manga Discussion Topic 184: Spring is Creepy for Magical Girls

(+) Yeah! (+)

pjbasis posted...

Did anyone watch the Saiki anime? Is it as funny as the manga?

I haven't read the manga, but the anime was great. Really fast-paced too, so it's not one of those slow adaptations.
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The Saiki anime is one where I would say better than the manga.
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Alright, so I managed to catch up on last week's VE episode.

The 2nd half of this ep was very very strong, up there with some of the best episodes KyoAni has ever put out. But once you reach such a climactic high, the question is always, how do you follow it up? If the show ended now, I would be satisfied, I got what I wanted out of it already. If the future eps are great, that's a bonus in my book. First half of the ep sadly, was nowhere near as strong, but it did help push through the impact of the 2nd half.

Checked out trailers for some other animated shows Netflix has to offer. Children of the Whales was being hyped strong in France and the trailer did look good. I'm willing to give AICO a shot as well. It may have taken them a few years, but Netflix are building up a very solid set of anime series to watch. They already have a number of big name older series, the new stuff looks interesting to watch, some is not great, but some is fun like Devilman. Not bad for a service I use mostly for film & British sitcoms.

Only thing that could be an issue, is that next season has a good number of shows that look good (at least by my tastes!), so with limited anime time, I might have to choose between what will be currently airing stuff and binge stuff.

But yeah, VE's ep has put me in a really good mood, so I'm up for watching more stuff later this week. I still say Saiki is the best show this season overall, but it didn't have an ep of this impact. I am now hoping to see some people cosplay as Violet this summer. French people should be able to pull that off.
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Violet Evergarden has been really uneven in terms of quality, in my opinion. It's been mostly amazing in the episodes where Violet plays a supporting character in someone else's story, but the ones more focused on her have been bad. I just don't think her character fits in the world and now that we're past the flashback episodes I doubt they're going to address this. The setting seems like an alternate WWI-era Europe for the most part, with Violet being literally the only thing that doesn't fit. They have standard technology except for her robot arms. They have standard armies except for this one random child soldier that Gilbert's brother... found? I mean, imagine WWI British soldiers finding some orphaned French boy and dragging them to the trenches and forcing them to fight. It's absurd. And Gilbert is the only person in this whole world who had a problem with it. I rolled my eyes when his superior said "just force the little girl to fight and then dispose of her after lol". It's so stupid, and that's sad because the show has proven capable of being poignant when they actually earn it. I enjoyed the second half of the latest episode too.
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https://anilist.co/anime/97873/IsekaiIzakayaKotoAitherianoIzakayaNobu

There's...there's a second, unrelated restaurant isekai show??
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Hopefully this one has more than just flat characters orgasming over food. I think there's legitimate potential in that concept if approached a certain way but god damn Restaurant to Another World was terrible.
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I think more food porn anime need to be like Toriko

except the part where the cook is the most OP in the history of anime
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Damn, almost all the Winter anime I'm interested in watching is 24 episodes. Ancient Magus's Bride is finishing up though, so I'll check that out. Maybe March Comes in Like a Lion too?
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isn't March Lion like 50 episodes
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closer to 40
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So I finished the first season of Space Dandy recently and started season 2, except I somehow managed to select the final episode instead of the first. Honestly thought it was just space dandy being space dandy and doing an in media res episode until like the end of the episode.

whoops
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Ancient Magus Bride episode 22

So I've really been liking recent episodes of this show. Well, I've been liking it a lot since the beginning anyways I guess, but...recently the show is just...it's not playing out in the way that I expected I guess? And that's refreshing because I don't get that feeling often from stories. I'm actually curious what other people think though, because recent developments aren't things I see as being universally popular.

Cartaphilus is turning into a really great villain imo (also something I don't get from anime a lot). It's weird because this guy has done--and is still doing--some completely unforgivable shit. Still, the upcoming episodes seem like they're going to be about "saving" him, which sounds bad on paper because being saved is something he decidedly does not deserve. But at the same time I feel like it works. It comes across not so much like saving another person, and more like I guess putting a rabid dog out of his misery, which is an interpretation I really like. (I'm not actually 100% sure if this will mean killing Cartaphilus but I think the feeling is somewhat similar either way.) The whole show's sort of been exploring similar ideas though--about what happens to people when they feel driven into a corner--and I really like the way they seem to be tying Cartaphilus into that as well. I do hope we get to see more of young Cartaphilus though, as I'm interested in seeing how he became the person he is in the present within the show.

Chise also fantastic, but that's been true since the beginning and I don't have much to say specifically about her.
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Finished Inuyashiki. Wow. I loved this show! One of my favorites of last year! If I'd actually watched this before the contest deadline Inuyashiki definitely would've been my pick for best male character, and I might've put it in a few other categories too. Felt kinda like Spider-Man? But with a sad old man as the protagonist rather than a sad teenager. I love Spider-Man, so the similarities were quite a good thing. I enjoyed the villain quite a bit too. The show did a good job of making him not feel completely one dimensional. It just felt like it knew how to make you care about all the characters. Even minor characters - the show wasn't afraid to spend a few minutes on a really minor character's life so that we'd get the full impact when their lives intersected with the MCs. I was really afraid they were going to mishandle Shion when they started focusing on her, but her parts were completely fantastic.

Most importantly, the show was emotional. I cried in several episodes. Emotional fiction is the best. If it makes me cry, nothing else really matters. The show did have some flaws - the CG was pretty bad, and there was an oddly long Inuyashiki-less section that felt like it should've had him, but those were minor in the end. I loved this show.
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On pyre's Ancient Magus comment

I very much agree with you. I've been enjoying the show the whole time, but these last few episodes have really elevated it. Before it was a show that was fairly safe and content, which I liked a whole lot and it was still a cool show, but this really does feel like a push to mix things up. And I super super dig it.

I read on the anime board for the episode people getting real mad like "IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE HER BEING IN HER OWN MEMORY AND HEARING STUFF HER MOM SAID WHILE SHE WAS ASLEEP AND THE POV DOESN'T MAKE SENSE" and it's just like, fuckin hell man.
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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

I read on the anime board for the episode people getting real mad

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Yea I know but still
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Now this....is quite the fucking figure.

Land of the Lustrous Spoilers

https://twitter.com/gsc_kahotan/status/973508051750723585?s=19
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Citrus dropped at 5

drill girl arc was really bad

and I'm gonna take a wild guess and say the papa rapes the imouto or the imouto wants to fuck the papa

I'm usually all in when it comes to wincest but Citrus doesn't exactly have the hottest art style and I've read far far too many doujin with better art
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Wow that's some kind of wild guess.
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Not that crazy considering how much the show loves rape
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I call it a pervert's intuition

can anyone confirm if that happens though because I'm never going to watch it
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if anyone wants step sibling wincest then they should check out Dome Kanojo

boy fucks girl at a group date, next day finds out the girl is his stepsister. surprise the stepsister also has an older sister working as a teacher at the school they go to.
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After episode 5 or 6 I think is when Citrus started going downhill in my opinion, so I'm gonna say you made the right choice.
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GranzonEx posted...

I call it a pervert's intuition

can anyone confirm if that happens though because I'm never going to watch it

Couldn't be further off.
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Citrus has steadily fallen off for me as well. I still like Yuzu but I think she deserves someone better than Mei so I'm finding it difficult to care about their interactions.
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end of episode 5 was when papa returned and stares at Mei with a "hey I'm back lets fuck" stare

felt to me like it's going to be another arc of Mei drama that could be easily resolved if she spoke her mind

too much eroge and hentai corrupting me I guess
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I dropped Citrus once I realized it was a disturbing power fantasy that rewarded it's characters for both assault and submission.
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Wait a power fantasy for who
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The author who penned a story about raping high school girls until they fall in love with you
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A power fantasy for all the lesbian schoolgirls making up 87% of it's userbase.
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tazzyboyishere posted...

The author who penned a story about raping high school girls until they fall in love with you

You know this was written by a woman, right?
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Women can't be lesbians irl according to mister LTM.
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So to be clear you're accusing the female writer of this story of wanting to rape schoolgirls into submission. Those are your words.
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LapisLazuli posted...

So to be clear you're accusing the female writer of this story of wanting to rape schoolgirls into submission. Those are your words.

that certainly seems like the message from what little I watched!
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OK wow.

Didn't know this was OT all of a sudden.
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I mean, it's possible she sees herself in the submissive role, which I guess isn't as bad, but still pretty warped. Mei consistently forces herself on Yuzu in the early parts of the story and is repaid by Yuzu falling madly in love with her. Regardless of the author's intention, it still presents a toxic relationship in a positive light.

Just replace Mei with a dude and it's a lot easier to see.
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tazzyboyishere posted...

I mean, it's possible she sees herself in the submissive role, which I guess isn't as bad, but still pretty warped. Mei consistently forces herself on Yuzu in the early parts of the story and is repaid by Yuzu falling madly in love with her. Regardless of the author's intention, it still presents a toxic relationship in a positive light.

Just replace Mei with a dude and it's a lot easier to see.

it's rape if it's a guy

but harmless lemon if it's a girl
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Thats so disengenuous. I never said the relationship in the show wasn't a problematic one.

The idea that the writer is some rapist pedophile because of it is just such a moronic statement that I'm stunned you're the one making it. Let's go arrest Kodaka because he wants to kill a bunch of kids, then?
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If the murder was presented in a positive light, and the act was glorified by rewarding main characters, all with no artistic merit, then I'd say the author is pretty messed up to write such stories about killing kids, yes.
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I can't speak for how the series goes later, but the scenes of assault are always presented as exceptionally negative, especially with the directing in the anime, and the relationship between the two more confused than anything.
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Yeah, in a bubble it's shown as a negative. But look at the long-term rewards that came out of it?

I was being facetious about the author, but Citrus is legitimately one of the most vile pieces of media I've ever seen. And the more I think about why I hate it, the more I despise it, and everyone who brought this thing into public eye.
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Well you're entitled to your opinion on that. Citrus doesn't even breach the top 50% on the "vile" scale for the media I've seen. Hell, it doesn't even do so specifically for romance anime/manga. Clearly you're set in your stance, though.
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I honestly wouldn't mind some light shed on how I'm wrong and Citrus is actually a healthy, progressive take on homosexual romance.
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I never said it was. In fact I've said the opposite.
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I think the fact that Citrus only lightly dips its toes in the pool of depravity and tries to pass it off as light lemon (hence the name Citrus) is ticking off Tazzy

I don't think he would mind if it was some rape fantasy hentai anime because at least that way he wouldn't have any high expectations going in
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GranzonEx posted...

I think the fact that Citrus only lightly dips its toes in the pool of depravity and tries to pass it off as light lemon (hence the name Citrus) is ticking off Tazzy

I don't think he would mind if it was some rape fantasy hentai anime because at least that way he wouldn't have any high expectations going in

This is actually probably the reason.

I also can't jerk to rape, so I would simply not watch that.
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GranzonEx posted...

I don't think he would mind if it was some rape fantasy hentai anime because at least that way he wouldn't have any high expectations going in

I would prefer it not be totally worthless garbage, thanks.

Though I guess it is to taz regardless.
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There are a lot of people, even among yuri fans, that don't like Citrus, and it's not like an anime-only thing either. People have been hating on it for years, for the reasons that got brought up here. Well except for what Granzon said, that was early on anyways and people weren't that dumb.

I do think their relationship gets better later on, but I doubt the anime will cover it.
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tazzyboyishere posted...

Yeah, in a bubble it's shown as a negative. But look at the long-term rewards that came out of it?

I was being facetious about the author, but Citrus is legitimately one of the most vile pieces of media I've ever seen. And the more I think about why I hate it, the more I despise it, and everyone who brought this thing into public eye.

I'm really looking forward to your anime ranking topic now just so I can understand how you can like Scum's Wish. That first paragraph was literally my argument for why I hated Scum's Wish.
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Well in Scum's Wish it's done by a villain and it's not meant to be seen as a positive, since the "reward" is basically a complete joke.

It also provides strong character growth for the main character, as she goes about various romances in a somewhat similar fashion (toxic and meaningless), but I think seeing that behavior used against her helped her become a stronger person in the end.

he write-ups aren't really going to go super in-depth, because I'm not going to talk about intricate thematic details for 80+ shows
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