/ag/ - Anime General

[Hans Sepp]

Finished season 1 of Kodomo no jikan (there's more stuff in the torrent I downloaded at least), amazing stuff.

Seeing the lolicon eroticism giving way to and ultimately concluding in the genuine care for the children produced a sublime feeling. Instantly reminded of the claim that non Christian cultures sexualize what is sacred, the way the two sides were recognized as such yet not understood to be in conflict in the way we would see it here was a perfect communication/demonstration of such a starkly different worldview.

Curious if people have any thoughts and what ls most appreciated, perhaps this is just an adjacent sensation I would have gotten from watching any other lolicon thing, but I suspect not considering the schoolteacher theme

[Amlux]

Finished season 1 of Kodomo no jikan (there's more stuff in the torrent I downloaded at least), amazing stuff.

Seeing the lolicon eroticism giving way to and ultimately concluding in the genuine care for the children produced a sublime feeling. Instantly reminded of the claim that non Christian cultures sexualize what is sacred, the way the two sides were recognized as such yet not understood to be in conflict in the way we would see it here was a perfect communication/demonstration of such a starkly different worldview.

Curious if people have any thoughts and what ls most appreciated, perhaps this is just an adjacent sensation I would have gotten from watching any other lolicon thing, but I suspect not considering the schoolteacher theme

Haven't seen the anime but I read the manga and loved it. Lots of interesting exploration of early sexuality in ways that I've never seen addressed in another medium. One of the best examples of lolicon as "art" (as stupid of a distinction at that might be).

Fun fact: This manga was how I learned the term ブルセラ (burusera, used underwear seller).

[malformed_jill]

but I read the manga and loved it.

by far and away the best version, helps that it's actually complete (and i kinda don't like the anime artstyle that much anyways)
it's pretty funny too. as someone already very aware of a very retarded stigma, the parts of child sexuality didn't get talk to me as much (have been better mediums where they've been expressed, not fiction) moreso than the intricacies in childcare and child psychology.
early in the manga the characters talk about what clothes parents put their children in out of affection, and a line goes "The kids who wear the same clothes every day are the ones you really need to pay close attention to." actually more so insightful about social image than anything. i think the anime leaned a bit more into the fanservice part, which isn't bad really... just makes it a bit less serious than i already took it. if you just want straight loli porn i think naisho no jikan is actually official?
mimi is probably the most tolerable *ppai loli thanks to the more realistic precocious non-fanservice size and yet i'd still rather not look on her
also female mangaka

also also this panel aged very well

killmyself.jpg (238.8 KiB) Viewed 12413 times

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talking about manga to anime adaptations, anybody check out the adaptation of "Smoking Behind the Supermarket"? even as much as i hate smoking, i still like the way it's made out to be the basis for a rather silly bond between a cute flustered working man and a dual-personality retail worker.

...should have read the manga though.

mpv-shot0005.jpg (245.53 KiB) Viewed 12413 times

[kshmr]

talking about manga to anime adaptations, anybody check out the adaptation of "Smoking Behind the Supermarket"? even as much as i hate smoking, i still like the way it's made out to be the basis for a rather silly bond between a cute flustered working man and a dual-personality retail worker.

...should have read the manga though.
mpv-shot0005.jpg

I am watching it rn and already posted about it. Honestly, I find it really interesting.
The way normal interactions become somewhat dramatic reminds me of Bocchi the Rock.
btw I don't really hate smoking, I used to smoke until last year, then I somehow quit smoking as I got a girl.
I've heard that smoking hurts your skin too so in future I can't imagine myself getting back to smoking anytime

[Thricegreat]

What are those punches? ^^

[Amlux]

Just finished watching all of Ranma 1/2. It was one of the last series I wanted to view that I knew about as a kid and constantly looked up sites for, but was never able to access. I had a mistaken view of it and thought it would be a lot more serious/story-based than it was. It's too bad I couldn't watch it as a kid. I really would have loved it. Honestly, I still wasn't sick of it after 161 episodes and wished there was more, which is a glowing endorsement. Though at the same time I could tell that they were probably running thin on ideas and already had more than enough characters. So it was a perfect ending point.

[2hufriend]

Stuff I finished watching this year or so

Medalist (first season)
I didn't watch the entire second season because I loved the first season and binged on the manga instead
The manga is better than the anime, so I didn't need to watch the 2nd season.
The first season is a great entry although the Manga seems to level up in writing maturity somewhere between chapters 40 and 50 and I don't think the second season got that far.
I would have more to say about the Manga so I'll leave it at that. It's great, watch it. If I wanna talk about the Manga I'll do so in the other thread. The anime can be enjoyed more leisurely I'd say as adapts the most straight forward portion of the manga, and the changes that were made are mainly there for it to be easier to follow for a general audience. Also the drawings in the manga can be more exaggerated and the Anime standardizes things, this isn't necessarily better but It's probably better for the average person.

Dragon Ball (pre-Z)
Dragon Ball was what got me into manga in the first place. Specifically, my mom bought me the 2nd and the 3rd volumes when I was around 10 years old. My interest in manga flourished when I was around 13 and I started reading more mature stuff, older or more obscure classics like Lone Wolf and Cub, or Barefoot Gen.
I've made attempts to follow DBZ anime episodes with the English dub usually. But I could never commit, it just seemed impossible to get into.
And until now I never felt like it was necessary to watch the anime adaption of Pre-Z Dragon Ball. Which is like the first 16 volumes or so of the Manga, because I've already read those so many times.
Well, this decade ive been revisiting the Dragon Ball manga repeatedly. And every time I do, I either quit before Raditz lands on earth, or after the Frieza saga, because there's such a MASSIVE drop in quality here.
The first 16 volumes of Dragon Ball are just insanely good and after getting more into drawing I have a new repsect for Toriyama's draftmanship. He's a master of the medium.
I think once I really understood that It's not just nostalgia or personal taste and that Dragonball really was a work of a master, I got more interested in watching the adaption, so I did. And what can I say, it was a great way to enjoy the story all over again, but It's definitely not on the same level as the manga. I think hardcore fans of the manga could watch the anime but everyone else should just stick to the manga.

Shield hero (first season)
Again I dropped the second season, though this time it's because I got bored of the first season somewhere along the line, and finished it just to finish it.
Shield hero has a great start. The first few episodes are excellent and the first main arc is is really the main "point" to watch it. After that it becomes more generic, still mildly entertaining but nothing special. It's the first time I really watch an Isekai that plays it straight. (I love Konosuba, but c'mon.)
Basically, the first arc is about betrayal, and is a surprisingly good portrayal of a common way trauma manifests itself in males. You don't usually see that sort of thing, and that made me respect this. Once that main arc is over, it just kinda keeps going just to keep going.

Frieren (second season)
I really liked the first season of Frieren. It's a bit overrated but I can see why people put it in so high regard. It's a combination of recency bias, general audiences having milquetoast tastes and something "too good" means it'll fly over their heads, but if it's "flirting" with being too good then they might pick up on it. Normies are a bit strange like that. Basically, I think a lot of people think Frieren is deep, but it isn't. But it's very, very good at appearing as if it were deep, by utilizing a langauge of subtlety that's fit for normie consumption! It's not actually subtle, but it's charming. Also, the first season of the anime did this better than the manga does.
It's essentially just a mix of slice of life and action fantasy. It's also not very good at world building but it's good at world inhabiting building if that makes sense. Like, it's good at making you feel an appropriate closeness/distance from characters and getting a taste of what it's like for them to be a part of this world.
The second season didn't quite hit like the first, but it's still good.


Stuff I haven't yet finished in the past half year or so that I intend to finish


Slayers
It's a classic and I'm not sure it's exactly to my taste, but I love many things about it, Lina Inverse is a good protagonist and the artstyle is highly appealing. I hope to finish the first season and like it enough to continue.

Ping Pong Club
Really goofy old-school ecchi comedy with a group of boys that are silly, stupid and perverted in various ways getting into different hijinks. It has a different vibe from any other Comedy I've watched and so far I'm pretty into it. One of the characters is an American Gaijin and he has SERIOUS body odor lol. I love how unflattering his portrayal is, though he isnt' depicted as a bad person or anything (if anything, he's the one with the most common sense, he's just completely oblivious to how much he stands out)

Chocotto Sister
Classic Imouto anime. I've never seen anything that even comes close to being all about the appeal of the imouto as this. That said, it's a bit slow and feels a bit aimless. You watch it because you love Imoutos and Choco is a great imouto. It's almost criminal that animes like this and Ping Pong Club could get so many episodes and nowadays better animes usually only get half as many episodes.

Kill Me Baby
I find it a bit hard to engage with the humour in this, but I know it was quite popular in Japan. I don't wanna give up on it just yet.

Paniponi Dash
Tried watching it 15+ years ago, didn't really get it. Retrying now, need to spend more time with it, but I seem to vibe with it more today.

Tenmaku no Jaadugar
Doesn't seem that great, but it's something different and it caught my eye. It's airing right now, so we'll see. It's about a Muslim slave in Mongolia. It follows the trend of newer animes to have more mainstream appeal, which also strips it of charm or depth, but it's not bad.

I also dropped Dororo, I finished the manga, and I wanted to watch the anime in tandem, but the manga was better, the anime is a bit of a slog and loses a lot of the appeal points from the manga (which is far from Tezukas best work). The manga is much grittier but also far less serious, it's just how Tezuka does things, and you can tell what Tezuka was doing at the time was meant to resonate with mature audiences at the time when the samurai spirit of resilience was still resonating strongly with a postwar Japan. The adaption doesn't have any of that and has a completely different vibe to it. It's more serious, tries to be more grounded and realistic, but it sucked out all personality and ruined the character of Dororo for instance. It went for mainstream appeal, and todays mainstream appeal doesn't have strong emotions.

I've got Mushoku Tensei downloaded and ready to be watched, I got curious about it.

Regarding Kodomo no Jikan

I watched the Anime 15+ years ago, hated it. I really thought it was just awful! But, about 10 years later, I read the Manga, loved it. One of my favorites. This is probably the only time I saw such a difference in quality between the mediums. This also made me wonder, maybe I was too hard on the Anime back then. I should watch it again.

[2hufriend]

Ive watched around 40 episodes of Mushoku Tensei and I'm getting pretty close to catching up. It's not bad, but not that good either. I think it started out very good but then the writing just nosedived in quality and never recovered. I'm still watching it just cus I'm a weeb and I can still enjoy it even when the writing is weak, provided there's something else there, too.
Idiot plot is very common in anime, LNs, and even VNs, but I find it's less likely to appear in Manga. That said, Mushoku Tensei is a prime example of Idiot Plot, but what's interesting is that it doesn't start out like that. In the beginning, Things actually progress quite naturally, and the progression is not dependent on characters being retarded. Rather, you don't really know what is going to happen next or why. However, it doesn't take too long until you realize that the writer has cetain things they want to happen on a plot level, but they are unable to create a believable world or believable characters, so the characters become shallow actors that are only there to make the plot happen. That's what Mushoku Tensei unfortunately turns into. Clear, 100% idiot plot. Now, Idiot plot doesn't have to make a bad story. For example, I've always thought that Steins;Gate was a perfect example of idiot plot. But I love Steins;Gate. It's extremely well executed idiot plot, if that makes sense. Mushoku Tensei is also surprisingly good, if you watch it with your brain turned off and just accept that it's extremely shallow.
I've wanted to get through it quickly because I keep seeing spoilers for this show, so I've wanted to catch up to everyone else before I get spoiled even more. It's actually very frustrating because some of the things I've been spoiled on haven't happened yet even though I've watched so much.

[Thricegreat]

These two are good. ^^

[Thricegreat]

Since Cure Eclair's transformation & skill scenes were officially uploaded, I summarised that of every character too.

Cure Answer & Cure Mystique



3,6,9 are easy to understand. But I don't know why they use 11.



Cure Answer



Cure Mystique



Cure Arcana Shadow



This is one of best transformation scenes I have ever watched.



This skill video is not an official upload.

Cure Eclair



I like the ballet.