Board 8 > Anime & Manga Discussion Topic 293 - Beyond Topic's End

(+) Yeah! (+)

Anyway, I finished Sweet Reincarnation. Anime, in its desperation to find an isekai premise that hasn't been used yet, decided to explore... what if a skilled pastry chef was reincarnated in a fantasy world??? That's a boring idea and I wasn't expecting much, but this anime beat my expectations by at least not being terrible. It helped that the pastry chef was born as a kid to a minor noble in a barren land where not much could grow. Instead of twelve episodes about him baking treats, it was twelve episodes of political intrigue as he struggled to survive in the cutthroat world of royal politics. Oh, and sometimes he baked treats. It wasn't the focus at all. Don't get me wrong, Sweet Reincarnation was still thoroughly mediocre. It just wasn't as bad as it could've been! I liked some of the comedic moments, and the characters were all fine. The political intrigue with royals of varying powers was handled surprisingly well. Large parts of the show were just him trying to forge the proper connections to get access to basic ingredients like sugar and honey, which was interesting. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

So, Ascendance of a Bookworm mixed in with Snow White with Red Hair.

That sounds...very boring. It doesn't help that "starting off a kid" is the most basic an uninteresting thing you could do. I already had Parallel World Pharmacy, so I doubt I need this.

Pluto has a higher rating than almost all the shows in the poll and you still left it out!

Most of the reception I've seen to Sweet Reincarnation is people complaining it doesn't focus enough on baking.

I mean, Ascendance at least spends the first season doing all the bookmaking shit before adding in the lore and political intrigue.

MacArrowny posted...

Pluto has a higher rating than almost all the shows in the poll and you still left it out!

Isn't Pluto a spinoff/sequel to Astro Boy?

Oh right, I suppose it is. More of an alternate universe thing, I'd say, but yeah, it's not entirely original.

Truth is, I forgot to scroll down to check any shows that aren't listed under TV (New) on MAL. I guess I got lucky Pluto is technically a spinoff, but I probably missed something else from this year.

MacArrowny posted...

Most of the reception I've seen to Sweet Reincarnation is people complaining it doesn't focus enough on baking.

For me at least, I preferred the show it was over some other show where he bakes a different treat every episode. The worst parts were when he was like "here, try this candy apple" "wtf is an apple we call them bonkas"

Robazoid posted...

Truth is, I forgot to scroll down to check any shows that aren't listed under TV (New) on MAL.

Such integrity. His attorneys hate him.

Frieren is giving Oshi no Ko a run for its money in a way that I didn't really expect anything to be able to with it being a good adaptation.

Haven't started Apothecary Diaries yet.

I finished Last Exile. Stayed pretty good from beginning to end. It felt really weird that many of the characters were kinda off doing their own major missions and subplots, while the ending just...did its own thing? Sort of. Delphine fit in that terrible box of "mastermind villains that sit in chairs all day," though the last few episodes at least gave her some weird ass elitist vibes. Still though, the airship combat and especially the soundtrack were pretty damn impressive. The show was 20 years old, but held up well enough.

I am 2 "episodes" into Pluto (so like 5 or 6 episodes by length standards, technically this thing shapes up to be a 2 cour anime I suppose), and there is absolutely no question that this is anime of the year, even if I were to stop now. What a fucking beast.

Strife2 posted...

I finished Last Exile. Stayed pretty good from beginning to end. It felt really weird that many of the characters were kinda off doing their own major missions and subplots, while the ending just...did its own thing? Sort of. Delphine fit in that terrible box of "mastermind villains that sit in chairs all day," though the last few episodes at least gave her some weird ass elitist vibes. Still though, the airship combat and especially the soundtrack were pretty damn impressive. The show was 20 years old, but held up well enough.

It's amazing how one of the earliest major uses of CG in anime can still hold up so well. Gonzo sure used to be quite the studio.

The sequel series is a bit less....unique? But honestly it's still a very good show. A lot of people skip it because it lacks the aesthetic of the original, but in it's own it stands up well.

Frieren is much better than Oshi no Ko out of the options from the poll that I've seen. (Oshi no Ko still in like the "above average" tier or something)

Still been meaning to watch Heavenly Delusion and Apothecary Diaries which look very good.

Also a bit interested in Skip and Loafer and Insomniacs, but the others I'm pretty sure I would not like.

For the ones I've seen in the poll:

The Dangers in My Heart > Oshi no Ko > Skip and Loafer > Heavenly Delusion > Hell's Paradise (only read the manga) > Buddy Daddies = Insomniacs After School

Will check out Apothecary and Frieren once they finish. I've heard from source readers that Insomniacs was a pretty bad adaptation of a good manga, and I believe that.

For what I've seen in the poll, Insomniacs was easily my favorite. It's hard to imagine the manga somehow being even better than that!

Insomniacs > Frieren > Apothecary > Buddy

I'm only five episodes into Heavenly Delusion, but at the moment it would be second place. I plan to watch the other poll options soon, too.

On another note, I glanced back through MAL and didn't see anything I missed that should've made the poll. Just a few high-rated Chinese anime that were all second seasons. My poll is officially legit!

Hell's Paradise > Buddy Daddies > Skip and Loafer > Frieren

HP and BD the only one I watched to completion. Might check out Apothecary Diaries at some point, but there's no chance I try any of the others

Glad to hear Pluto is a good adaptation. That wasn't what I was expecting after what was presumably some development hell.

Need to get around to Dangers in my Heart and Heavenly Delusion, non-Crunchy stuff tends to fall off my radar if I'm not careful.

I can't speak to Plutos quality as an adaptation, but the show is very, very very good so far. If the manga is significantly better I would be amazed. I can't say whether anything has been changed though.

Also it's thankfully a very good dub, something that Netflix tends to go back and forth on with their exclusives.

I gotta say though, as a Fire Emblem fan it's really distracting that the USA in this is The United States of Thracia, lol.

Pluto is a very faithful adaptation.

KamikazePotato posted...

Glad to hear Pluto is a good adaptation. That wasn't what I was expecting after what was presumably some development hell.

I think it's more that they were working on it for 6 years rather than that it was in development hell, heh.

It's funny this came out around the same time that that Phoenix anime released on Disney/Hulu with absolutely no fanfare, and from what I can tell was received very poorly.

5 episode in on Pluto, still astounded. Definitely watching Monster after this.

God damn, Keith David is such a VA legend I swear.

He doesn't even have to try. He's Keith fucking David.

Pluto beated.

Whether it's anime of the year isn't really the question, that's just undeniable. I need to let it cool to see if it's slipping into my all time top 10.

Today I watched The Dangers in My Heart. Mac and I clearly have polar opposite opinions on romance anime! He ranked this one high but didn't like Insomniacs After School, whereas I loved Insomniacs but didn't like this anime at all.

I have absolutely no idea what either of the main characters saw in each other. Ichikawa started as an insufferably cringeworthy edgelord who wanted to murder everyone, but they dropped that aspect of his character almost immediately so I don't know why they even bothered. After that he was just the same old boring insecure dude this kind of romance anime always seems to have. Usually I would still like the girl, but Yamada was just a bundle of generic airhead and hungry girl traits. The entire supporting cast was lackluster at best or awful at worst (all those perv classmates loudly talking about jerking off to the girls, ugh). This anime just really wasn't for me, I disliked pretty much everything the whole way through. I could see where they tried to insert cute moments or emotional moments and it all just fell flat for me because I didn't like anyone at all.

Yamada benefits from being animated so well. She has all these quirky little movements and she does weird stuff.

Mostly I just found it to be really funny. Everyone in the show is extremely silly, including Ichikawa in the first couple episodes.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Whether it's anime of the year isn't really the question, that's just undeniable.

SHIBUYA CLEARSSSS

Naw son, no matter how good the season is, a middle of the series shounen anime arc isn't even going to be something up for my consideration even if I was watching it. And I KNOW how good this part was in the manga.

So much Shibuya hype. I was promised peak, and I'm still waiting

Watching the shonen anime hype cycle is really weird from an outsider's perspective. It's like the same thing every time. 2-3 seasons of love, then like clockwork, people turn on it as the cracks starts to show.

They're just the biggest things in the industry so even minority opinions get blown up.

Also there's a lot of shonen fans that play the team sports angle so if their not favorite underperforms or messes up somewhere they like to amp up the signal.

Gonna be something else to see what happened to JJK fans if JJK S3 goes full OPM S2.

It's probably going to happen to Chainsaw Man S2 as well, so I'll be right there with them.

don't put that into the air, Chainsaw man is their baby they said so!

Thank god I don't watch Shonen or sports titles. It sounds like they go on way too long and are usually exhausting to deal with.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Gonna be something else to see what happened to JJK fans if JJK S3 goes full OPM S2.

It's probably going to happen to Chainsaw Man S2 as well, so I'll be right there with them.

I do not think JC Staff will animated JJK or CSM.

Chainsaw Man was probably their baby until it underperformed lol

Also, JJK S3 and Chainsaw Man S2 could be animated on powerpoints and I'd enjoy that more than the current MAPPA crunch devouring its animators alive

AotY clearly between Invincible S2, Vox Machina S2 and Harley Quinn S4. I mean what else possibly competes.

Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 Part 2

A diamond from the crushed bodies and souls of countless MAPPA animators

I think JJK S3 has bigger problems than JC Staff...

Imagine if JJK S3 looks like shit on top of actually being shit.

At least the actual contents of OPM S2 were good.

Strife2 posted...

Thank god I don't watch Shonen or sports titles. It sounds like they go on way too long and are usually exhausting to deal with.

Man I often end sports titles wishing they went longer.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

At least the actual contents of OPM S2 were good.

Nah that season was almost entirely manga adaptation filler.

I mean it was still...fine....

Honestly I'm so fucking over One Punch Man lol. Nothing could make me read the manga anymore I don't think, the way they handle it's release schedule and rereleasing "patched" chapters offends me.

Will still catch up on the webcomic one of these days.

Was really excited to finally boot up Monster, and apparently Netflix only licensed the sub. Thanks Netflix.

So I guess it's time to find some other way to watch that.

I know this is the anime topic, but Monster is probably slightly better as a manga due to better pacing. Anime still a good adaptation but yeah.

Sub > Dub forever

Extremist opinion aside, sometimes Netflix subs are badly formatted (Komi especially was rough because Netflix sucked at showing written text) but I don't remember any problems with their subs for Monster.

I'm just not prepared to rapidly watch a 74 episode show subbed. I'm not 16 anymore.

Manga might be the way to go.

Dubs have advanced to the point where they're the better experience on average I think. Like unless you're a weeb, solid voice acting in your language is going to be more enjoyable than subs.

With that said, some stinker dubs still slip through every now and then. I tried watching Parasyte dubbed and it was brutal.

Netflix is a prime example of the dub still being able to go either way. And I know it's not Netflix the themselves dubbing all of these, but it's the easy way to compare.

Pluto dub is incredible. So you'd think the real high profile stuff would always get a good dub, right?

But their new Evangelion dub is total ass, the VAs are fine but the directing is unbearable, and the Eva subs are ass as well. So Eva as a whole is just a shitshow on Netflix.

Then you get stuff like Baki where it's a totally standard dub. Not amazing, not bad.

They came out swinging with a great dub for Devilman Crybaby, followed by AICO, a show where the dub was so horrendous, so unbelievably awful, that they erased the original dub from the platform and redid it.

KamikazePotato posted...

I know this is the anime topic

Check the topic title again :p

But yeah definitely feel free to go for the manga for Monster.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

followed by AICO, a show where the dub was so horrendous, so unbelievably awful, that they erased the original dub from the platform and redid it.

Oh I didn't hear about this. That's hilarious.