/ag/ - Anime General

[Thricegreat]

There hasn't been a place to talk about anime. Let's fix that.

What's your favourite animes of this season, or overall in general?

[Thricegreat]

I haven't written deeply about this anime anywhere, but one of my favourites is "ラブライブ！虹ヶ咲学園スクールアイドル同好会 (Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club)". And I think many of you would like this. Also don't worry. You don't need to watch previous Love Live! series to watch this.



Honestly I'm not that into idol animes. But why this series is different is that they are solo idols. That's why the group is a club. It's like the European Union.

So if you like personal websites, indie / doujin, &c., you would like this. I couldn't resist this series as a distributist.

Also the music there is genuinely good. Some seiyuus like Sashide Maria sing really well. Because they are like, wanted to become a musical actress but ended up becoming a seiyuu because of the unique voice.

[martinbitz]

Haven't really watched anime in a good while, mostly lost interest, but some of my favorites were: Treasure Island (you can watch it on YT lol), Tomorrow's Joe, Poltergeist Report, One Punch Man, Monster, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Hunter x Hunter, Gintama.

[Amlux]

I decided to do what I did for my other hobbies and open up public polls to export the duty of deciding what to watch next to my friends and followers. So I made polls about which anime and manga I should experience next. I'm pretty addicted to doing this. I think it's an amazing way to export the difficult decisions and it also makes me more excited for whatever comes next.

WHAT ANIME/DRAMA SHOULD I WATCH NEXT?

WHAT MANGA SHOULD I READ NEXT?

You might be surprised at some of the "essentials" I've never seen. But I kind of skipped that era of watching a bunch of the classix on Adult Swim and just went straight for reading about random ecchi series on old websites in the mid-2000s. Tell me what to watch now!

[Hans Sepp]

Yesterday, I was searching for CG art sets on DLsite.

I found that some AI works are priced at over $140. My impression was that $160 was enough to get a massive bundle.

What's shocking is that someone is willing to pay over $140 for AI-generated art, which is the same price or even higher than hand-drawn art by actual artists.

[Thricegreat]

Yesterday, I was searching for CG art sets on DLsite.

I found that some AI works are priced at over $140. My impression was that $160 was enough to get a massive bundle.

What's shocking is that someone is willing to pay over $140 for AI-generated art, which is the same price or even higher than hand-drawn art by actual artists.

AI-generated NFTs cost much few years ago. I think those are at least more useful than NFTs.

[via]

spoiler warning for happy sugar life

i am writing this just after finishing the anime last night. feelings surrounding it are bound to be subject to change. things that i dont mention either slipped my mind, am not bothered elaborating on, or never thought about - so i will just write about what is immediately relevant to me now rather than trying to make something comprehensive. it will be fragmented. (and after writing, came up surprisingly short!) i would love to hear what made it one of your favourites

Spoiler

despite all my searching for the repulsive and generally offensive, the ending still left me with a bitter taste. maybe i am weak for tragedies in stories with characters i start to actually like, maybe it was because the writing felt messy, but i think it mainly stems from its unresoluteness. the moment things felt like they were happening just for the sole reason of being an obstacle to satou, i threw away all qualms with plausibility and started to focus on what it was making me feel granted that the events that were taking place were all likely to happen (or atleast tried). with the exception of satou, shio, and a little of the auntie, the rest of the cast were pretty much faceless nonentities that offended my sensibilities every now and then. there were many circumstances where the set-up and punchline was obvious. they did work, and made me feel things. the problem i had was that they felt cheap.

when shouko mentioned she was looking for a prince, it became immediately clear what the writing was planning to do between her and asahi. i didnt like her character very much.

the fact that taiyou kept getting raped by older women inspite of his blossoming love for little girls (i am not sure it was purely restricted to shio) was a tiny bit of humour i appreciated.

the point you made about shio not being entirely pure became clear when her motive for staying with satou was established.
though i wonder if she was taking advantage of satou? i think this because of what she says in the end, and that she was the one who initiated the jump.

was satou truly content with such an ending? would she have gotten disillusioned with their happy sugar life in the future were they to survive and occupy far distant places? would their relationship truly have filled the emptiness in her heart, or is shio just a temporary palliative to a chronic emptiness? the lack of concrete answers for stuff like this always make me feel uneasy, but is not necessarily unpleasant. though i guess that is what makes them tragic and emotionally effective

[Thricegreat]

i would love to hear what made it one of your favourites :D

The general aesthetics was already good enough for me. But to add something, I have concluded that having a pet is unethical after watching it. Though normally having a pet doesn't include murderings like Satou.

with the exception of satou, shio, and a little of the auntie, the rest of the cast were pretty much faceless nonentities that offended my sensibilities every now and then. there were many circumstances where the set-up and punchline was obvious. they did work, and made me feel things. the problem i had was that they felt cheap.

I think it would be good to explain the meanings of the names for you.

Satou: Sugar
Shio: Salt
Asahi: Morning Sun
Taiyou: The Sun
Shouko: Evidence
Daichi: Grand Field, which is usually a name for a first son
Sumire: Violet
Yuuna: "Don't speak"

It was already quite predetermined by the names. They didn't hide at all. So it might not be good to criticise the obviousness.

These are my subjective interpretations:

Satou is like sugar. Sweet but harmful for health. Maybe fatal as in diabetes. Happy Sugar Life is Happy Satou Life.
Shio has a salty personality. Especially considering the last half of the anime.
They complement each other as salt & sugar.

I think why Asahi and Taiyou try to find Shio is because of the sea salt making process. One needs to evaporate sea water with the sun light to get salt.

Also Shouko has to go for Asahi and Taiyou. Evidences are lights. And plotwise it is easily inferable that it should be Asahi rather than Taiyou to become a true evidence. Her tragedy could be easily expected with her name.

Similar to that Asahi is the sun but not that bright yet. For Asahi to shine he needs Shouko. How they started to find about Satou was because of Taiyou's information. Maybe Taiyou's seeking of an innocent young girl is because young girls are sunny. Compared to older women closer to the moon. Maybe he getting raped by older women mean eclipses.

Daichi would be a first son. So he has a nice family and a good reputation. He likes sugar.

Sumire is a violet. Which symbolises love, devotion, sincerity. But at sometimes also death, memory, funerary rites.

The meaning of Yuuna is clear. A poor victim.

was satou truly content with such an ending? would she have gotten disillusioned with their happy sugar life in the future were they to survive and occupy far distant places? would their relationship truly have filled the emptiness in her heart, or is shio just a temporary palliative to a chronic emptiness? the lack of concrete answers for stuff like this always make me feel uneasy, but is not necessarily unpleasant. though i guess that is what makes them tragic and emotionally effective

Plotwise there can't be other options. If they go to far distant places, it would become another anime.

[via]

ahahaha we approach it from such astonishingly different world views.

whereas I treat the characters as though they are individuals that psychologically continue when the series ends, you seem to treat it more as a formal, symbolic object that can be worked with. crudely put, I seem to respond more to the psychological-emotional aspect, while you respond more to the formal-symbolic aspect. so me asking the questions about satou at the end would have probably been analogous to asking what happens to a chess piece after a match. this brings me immense joy. I wondered to myself, "how can such a person approach something like this in this way?" and about how what i could gleam from your personality and all the qualities I associated with it was an ideal i pursued in the past (a kind of finality; compact and declarative, little public display of inner emotional turmoil, etc.) but ultimately failed since it was in conflict with my natural disposition, and so gave it up in hopes of being more true to myself. especially when you started to link the symbols to natural phenomena. how wonderfully delightful and vast the world is. awareness of the symbolic destiny of each of the characters sobered me up a little (a point which i would like to elaborate on, but i'm a little dried up for the day (｡•́︿•̀｡)). I was reminded of when you mentioned that you liked to think in categories, and I feel that point emphasised here. thank you thricegreat (*ˊᗜˋ*)(*ˊᗜˋ*)

It was already quite predetermined by the names. They didn't hide at all. So it might not be good to criticise the obviousness.

the point of disagreement here might come from the fact that we are not addressing the problem by the same standard, so we talk past each other a little

[Thricegreat]

ahahaha we approach it from such astonishingly different world views.

whereas I treat the characters as though they are individuals that psychologically continue when the series ends, you seem to treat it more as a formal, symbolic object that can be worked with. crudely put, I seem to respond more to the psychological-emotional aspect, while you respond more to the formal-symbolic aspect. so me asking the questions about satou at the end would have probably been analogous to asking what happens to a chess piece after a match. this brings me immense joy. I wondered to myself, "how can such a person approach something like this in this way?" and about how what i could gleam from your personality and all the qualities I associated with it was an ideal i pursued in the past (a kind of finality; compact and declarative, little public display of inner emotional turmoil, etc.) but ultimately failed since it was in conflict with my natural disposition, and so gave it up in hopes of being more true to myself. especially when you started to link the symbols to natural phenomena. how wonderfully delightful and vast the world is. awareness of the symbolic destiny of each of the characters sobered me up a little (a point which i would like to elaborate on, but i'm a little dried up for the day (｡•́︿•̀｡)). I was reminded of when you mentioned that you liked to think in categories, and I feel that point emphasised here. thank you thricegreat (*ˊᗜˋ*)(*ˊᗜˋ*)

It was already quite predetermined by the names. They didn't hide at all. So it might not be good to criticise the obviousness.

the point of disagreement here might come from the fact that we are not addressing the problem by the same standard, so we talk past each other a little

I understand what you mean. But to supplement, I regard fiction astrologically rather than chess. I think each character has own personal feelings and motives. But they can't resist fate.

Each character is a planet. The fate is determined by which characters belonging to which houses with which astrological signs at a time. They can't resist the fate. Because that is what the author decides.