Anime II: Back to Zero

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, IFR said:

AoT is anti-semitic and pro-imperialism in the same way that Fight Club (the book or movie) endorses anarchist militarism and Starship Troopers (the movie) is pro-facism.

[...]

It's pretty obvious that the author is not trying to suggest that genocide is good, Jews bad, and imperialism is a sound philosophy.

Yeah, I haven't found the author's own view on this, but I agree we're closer to satire than anything else.

I can't help but think of Warhammer 40,000, that is also misread in that way, with the alt-right loving it and some people on the left over-reacting (also missing the satirical dimension).

I found this opinion that sums it up well imho (but highly spoilery, so careful what you wish for):
 

Spoiler

[...] Isayama’s personal political opinions aside, as the series does not itself specifically speak to any of these issues, these criticisms routinely ignore how not only are the Eldian people portrayed as the heroes of the story, with their struggle against the Marleyans portrayed as a justified battle against their oppressors, but also that the xenophobia and fear that led to their horrific treatment is considered to be an atrocity both in-universe and by readers.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/12/01/attack-on-titan-faces-revived-accusations-of-being-anti-semitic-and-fascist-propaganda/

Imho (Rip again) one should indeed underline the fact that while turning proto-Jews into monsters is problematic, they are turned into monsters because of other peoples' greed and hatred. In the end, the entire story is also about how thinking of people as less-than-human ends up turning them into monsters, how hatred can be a self-fulfuilling prophecy.

It's an amazing work of fiction, but its message is not immediately obvious. In fact, it helps to know how mangas and animes are usually written to better understand AoT.

[karaddin]

For me the Japanese imperialism angle seemed like it had the potential to be a problem a few chapters post time skip, but completely dissipates by how the plot proceeds after that.

Spoiler

Basically the island empire having been unjustly oppressed then throws off it's shackles, attacks it's enemies and reclaims it's glory. This could be a concern up to Eren attacking Marley but completely falls apart after that.

That's emphatically not what the story was about.

@sifth yeah I tapped out a while after the time skip and waited till the manga finished before reading the rest. I did enjoy it once I had the rest to read all in one go, but it took some adjusting to what the story was rather than what I expected/had wanted it to be.

[Ran]

Vinland Saga continues to impress. Got misty eyed this episode.

[karaddin]

22 minutes ago, Ran said:

Vinland Saga continues to impress. Got misty eyed this episode.

I don't think I've seen a bad "review" of VS, and I just mean people discussing it not actually critics. It's definitely on my list of things to watch when I'm not trying to multi task - subtitles just don't work while playing a game as well haha.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, karaddin said:

I don't think I've seen a bad "review" of VS, and I just mean people discussing it not actually critics. It's definitely on my list of things to watch when I'm not trying to multi task - subtitles just don't work while playing a game as well haha.

The most negative thing I've seen is anime fans who want more of the S1 action complaining about the serious, action-less stuff, but to me it's really enriched the experience and raised my estimation of the cartoon a lot. 

Funnily enough, people asking for recommendations of what to watch that hits similar beats to Vinland Saga are being told to try Attack on Titan, so I may finally give that a try, assuming it's still on Netflix here.

[sifth]

23 minutes ago, Ran said:

The most negative thing I've seen is anime fans who want more of the S1 action complaining about the serious, action-less stuff, but to me it's really enriched the experience and raised my estimation of the cartoon a lot. 

Funnily enough, people asking for recommendations of what to watch that hits similar beats to Vinland Saga are being told to try Attack on Titan, so I may finally give that a try, assuming it's still on Netflix here.

Truth be told I found season 1 rather depressing. Not even in a fun Psycho Pass type of way. Maybe I’ll give season 2 a try. I’m still on the fence, since there’s only so much human misery I can take. 

[Toth]

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

It's never going to be for everyone, and I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong for not enjoying it, but I just don't think this is remotely a fair criticism. He's known how this ends since he started, he definitely gets caught up in the exciting new things he's creating in each arc and that's how the story bloats from 5 years to 30, but its not pointless, its not filler and once you're looking back at it from the other side all of those details enhance where the story is at rather than detracting from it in the way filler does.

Also the anime certainly has its rough moments in terms of pacing and if you're watching from a streaming service, which I assume you are if you're looking at it in terms of "seasons" you're going to also catch all the actual filler the anime inserts to avoid catching up to the manga and those are an entirely different story to what I was saying above with one exception. If you're ever inclined to give it another chance, try looking up the "One Pace" fan edit which cuts all the non-canon material and speeds up the pacing a lot. It's not perfect and it definitely has some issues with music matching, but at the very least its significantly shorter than the full anime lol.

Amusingly, just a few weeks ago I had a tiny flashback to our conversation when a few students after the lesson tried to pull out of my opinion on certain Anime they liked and One Piece was one of them. I gave them the same answer that I gave to you back then.

Well, I saw the Anime on TV because streaming wasn't a thing when I was a kid, so... I got the whole filler and pacing issues on top of endless reruns of the same episodes. This thoroughly soured me on the show. And until I finally hear that they finally found the bloody treasure I won't even consider giving it another try (hypocritical still has to catch up on the last 300 episodes of Detective Conan as well XD).

 

[Ran]

BTW, I see Netflix in Sweden, at least, has Monster, the anime based on Naoki Urasawa's manga. Excellent stuff, from what I recall when I first watched it years ago, and I see it's ranked in the top 100 anime on AniDB. (Amazed, but pleased, to see Legend of the Galactic Heroes is #1 there.)

[karaddin]

22 minutes ago, Toth said:

Amusingly, just a few weeks ago I had a tiny flashback to our conversation when a few students after the lesson tried to pull out of my opinion on certain Anime they liked and One Piece was one of them. I gave them the same answer that I gave to you back then.

Well, I saw the Anime on TV because streaming wasn't a thing when I was a kid, so... I got the whole filler and pacing issues on top of endless reruns of the same episodes. This thoroughly soured me on the show. And until I finally hear that they finally found the bloody treasure I won't even consider giving it another try (hypocritical still has to catch up on the last 300 episodes of Detective Conan as well XD).

 

Given how much there is to catch up on, you can at least decide it's safe once they find it in the manga lol. The anime will be there by the time you catch up.

It legitimately is ending "soon" now. Oda has said "5 more years" for over a decade, but the things that are happening now are clearly the lead in for the end, and I think it will indeed be done inside 5 years. No reason you can't wait till then though, not arguing you should take it on faith - just an optimistic prediction.

[IFR]

50 minutes ago, Ran said:

BTW, I see Netflix in Sweden, at least, has Monster, the anime based on Naoki Urasawa's manga. Excellent stuff, from what I recall when I first watched it years ago, and I see it's ranked in the top 100 anime on AniDB. (Amazed, but pleased, to see Legend of the Galactic Heroes is #1 there.)

Reading your posts, I think your tastes are largely in line with mine. I think I will give Vinland Saga a chance.

[KingintheNorth4]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Given how much there is to catch up on, you can at least decide it's safe once they find it in the manga lol. The anime will be there by the time you catch up.

It legitimately is ending "soon" now. Oda has said "5 more years" for over a decade, but the things that are happening now are clearly the lead in for the end, and I think it will indeed be done inside 5 years. No reason you can't wait till then though, not arguing you should take it on faith - just an optimistic prediction.

Oda has called the current saga the "Road to Laugh Tale Saga" so I believe it'll end in five years as well. 

[The Grey Wolf Strikes Back]

@IFR @karaddin @Rippounet

Thank you all for your explanations. Will try to catch up on the anime and judge it for myself.

@Ran

I'll admit the change to something more quiet and introspective was a surprise but I'm not against it either. Some of the writing and visuals this season blow S1 out of the water.

Its such an amazing show that having to wait a week for each new episode is honestly painful.

[Toth]

27 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Given how much there is to catch up on, you can at least decide it's safe once they find it in the manga lol. The anime will be there by the time you catch up.

Granted, I hadn't watched much Anime at all recently, so there is plenty of other stuff to catch up on. I'm also not really that interested in Shounen demographic shows either.

 

Looking at my last posts here, it's time for a recap of the last two years. Higurashi Gou/Sotsu unfortunately turned out to be a horrific shit show despite the underlining idea being decent. Very sad about it as it was set to tie together the entire When they Cry Franchise. It's especially frustrating because one girl I met through the Madoka Magica mobile game and with whom I watched the show with another board member from here together... cut off all contact specifically because the queer-bating of Sotsu and its complete erasure in a stupid spin-off manga infuriated her to the point that she doesn't want anything to do with the franchise anymore and somehow that also meant not wanting to talk with anyone who shared that fandom. Quite baffling, but also a testament to just how horrible it was.

The Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record finale was absolutely fantastic however. At least I liked it. She didn't either, also because one of her favourite characters got still her slightly OOC game ending even though just about everything was changed and vastly improved.

Last year I then went very main stream and watched SpyxFamily. Just an absolutely lovely feel-good Anime decent humor (even if you need very strong suspension of disbelief to stomach its zaniness). Still have to catch up on the second season though. Ended up buying a (stupidly overpriced) Lucky Bag at a convention.

Well... there is also one more Anime that I... kind of looked into. I explained the fallout of that in the History in Books thread over in the literature category. But yeah, looking for shits and giggles into what sounded like the most fucked up premise of last year's Anime season was quite the rabbit hole. I ended up watching a few episodes of that Harem Labyrinth Isekai thingy, expecting the absolute worst and finding... myself very conflicted. Because the story started out astonishingly honest about its protagonist being a rapist with an absurdly self-serving mindset who constantly justifies his horrific behavior by saying "That's normal here!" and "I'm still treating them nicely" while portraying his 'partner' be absolutely terrified of him. That combined with the implication that he's a bullied loner with crippling trust issues who ends up in a fantasy game world and is so thoroughly distrustful to the point of buying sex slaves and turn them into an adventuring party because the idea of talking to other adventurers and joining them doesn't even cross his mind. Unfortunately it never at all catches that it's a fantastic premise for a nasty deconstruction of that ever present Isekai genre and instead goes deep into the unfortunately expected other extreme of an absurdly unrepentant power fantasy, with the girls he rapes inexplicably falling in love with him. Yes, really. I abandoned it after a couple of episodes and skimming the manga, but had a few very nice in-depth discussions on Reddit with others who felt the same hope for a deconstruction and the same confusion about that hope being immediately crushed.

In the end I wondered whether I myself should just go out of my way and write an Isekai deconstruction with a "sympathetic" villain protagonist gaslighting himself into thinking he's a hero despite traumatizing his companions with his actions born from the idea that as an Isekai protagonist, but with that veil ripped away from him after a while and having to face the fucked up shit he did. Heck, I even ended up writing up a few pages of brainstorming about its setting...

[karaddin]

I dragged my heels on Spy x Family and it was amazing. Burst out laughing frequently and Anya might actually be the cutest thing ever.

[Toth]

7 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I dragged my heels on Spy x Family and it was amazing. Burst out laughing frequently and Anya might actually be the cutest thing ever.

Well, laughing out funny it wasn't to me, but still cute.

Not sure this stuff here was worth 20 bucks though: https://i.imgur.com/sQ4RWwC.jpg

[karaddin]

17 minutes ago, Toth said:

Well, laughing out funny it wasn't to me, but still cute.

Not sure this stuff here was worth 20 bucks though: https://i.imgur.com/sQ4RWwC.jpg

Absurdist humor really works for me and it's packed absolutely full of it, I think not realizing that is why I was reluctant

[sifth]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

BTW, I see Netflix in Sweden, at least, has Monster, the anime based on Naoki Urasawa's manga. Excellent stuff, from what I recall when I first watched it years ago, and I see it's ranked in the top 100 anime on AniDB. (Amazed, but pleased, to see Legend of the Galactic Heroes is #1 there.)

Now that series is amazing. Probably the closest anime in tone to AGoT's. Also the novels are really good as well.

[The Grey Wolf Strikes Back]

I loved Spy x Family! Damn right Anya's adorable! And I think you put into words why anime humor works for me in a way Marvel's quips almost never have. Its the OTP absurdity of it. Kind of reminds me of Tom & Jerry incidentally.

@sifth

Do you know where I can watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes and where I should start?

Edited May 27, 2023 by The Grey Wolf Strikes Back

[sifth]

18 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said:

 

@sifth

Do you know where I can watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes and where I should start?

The original was never licensed for streaming, as far as I remember. They had an American release of the Blu Rays a few years back. The first 4 seasons of the remake are on Crunchyroll though. The first 3 seasons of the remake are also on Blu Ray.

[Ran]

10 minutes ago, sifth said:

The original was never licensed for streaming, as far as I remember. They had an American release of the Blu Rays a few years back. The first 4 seasons of the remake are on Crunchyroll though. The first 3 seasons of the remake are also on Blu Ray.

Have you seen the remake? How does it compare to the original?