This is a really cute show. It’s not particularly deep or complex, but it’s got punching and weird stuff going on. Much of the middle filler is probably best watched while you’re doing some minor chore that busies the hands, though. (more…)
Category: Anime
Pretty Cure Season One Part 2
Onward! (more…)
Pretty Cure Season One Part 3
Last time, didn’t the plot just resolve? I thought the plot just resolved. (more…)
Pretty Cure Season One Part 4
Onwards to the end! (more…)
Pretty Cure Max Heart Part 1
Second season go!
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Pretty Cure Max Heart Part 2
Last time, good opening! Then nothing happens. (more…)
Pretty Cure Max Heart Part 3
Last time, are the villains ever going to steal the heart fairies? (more…)
Pretty Cure Max Heart Part 4
Last time, is time passing? What is time? What is hurry? (more…)
Kuroshitsuji Movie, Allegiant Ch32-Ch33
Last time, why is Marcus not dead.
DAVID SUMMONS ME to his office the next day, and I am afraid that he remembers how I used him as a shield when I was backing away from the Weapons Lab, how I pointed a gun at his head and said I didn’t care if he lived or died.
FUCK IT WE ARE NOW GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE KUROSHITSUJI MOVIE
Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit
Instead of more of why comics are awful, let’s take a break this week and talk about Moribito, an anime I’m currently about 3/4ths through.
Boogiepop Phantom
As the new year comes, I’d like to talk about my absolute favorite anime of all time, which I watched in its entirety twenty times before I lost count.
It is no one else’s favorite anime, and I understand that, but you’re all wrong. (more…)
Quick Recommendations III
A bunch of unrelated good stuff I wanted to discuss but didn’t have much to say about.
Fullmetal Alchemist
Oh hey so I did a liveblog comparing the two Fullmetal Alchemist animes. You can read it over on Archive of Our Own because they will apparently let you post anything there.
For those not in the know, it’s common for anime adaptations of manga to be commissioned during the manga’s early run. Because manga is released much more slowly than anime episodes, these early animes often have to come up with their own plots and endings once they overtake what’s currently published.
Fullmetal Alchemist is rather infamous for taking major divergences from the source material, not just in content but in tone. It’s basically straight-up the showrunners’ AU fanfic. The manga proved popular enough to get a faithful adaptation commissioned when it was finished, and now there’s a lot of squabbling over which one is better. Usually, this consists of manga fans screaming that the original anime is objectively terrible and no one should ever watch it and original anime fans are dumb idiots with no taste. I rather strongly disagree, so I made this liveblog to see how the original anime holds up and examine the differences between the two.
I knew from the start that comparing them would be rather futile, as they’re so completely different it’s like comparing apples and oranges. That said, my god the new anime is terrible. I ended up bailing on it about a third of the way through because it was so terrible, but I don’t really care, because it’s terrible and I’m not wasting more hours of my life just to confirm that it’s terrible.
Anime QuickRecs
Some anime I like! Two old classics, and one newer one I saw recently.
Monster, and False Advertising
So I recently took a look at the anime Monster (commonly referred to as “Naoki Urasawa’s Monster” to help you distinguish it from the pages of porn you’ll get by searching “monster anime”). When I saw the pitch, it sounded right up my alley: a talented doctor sacrifices his career to save a young boy over a politician, but later discovers the boy has grown up to become a serial killer. Sounds like a deeply philosophical piece about personal responsibility and the value of human life, right? I’m all about that stuff.
Turns out, that’s not what it’s about in the slightest. What it’s actually about is an absurdly convoluted mystery about the serial killer, who was actually serial killing even as a kid because of a convoluted secret evil government conspiracy to make him into a supersoldier, but he was ~so awesome~ he killed everyone in the facility and struck out on his own, and also there’s another evil government conspiracy in there somewhere. I don’t know exactly, I stopped watching after 10 episodes.
Because that’s simply not what I signed on for. The real story is nothing at all like the prologue; the doctor character actually resigns from his job so he can investigate Villain Sue, and his doctor skills are reduced to a tangential quirk as we focus mainly on other characters doing their own investigations, all of whom are equally bland and uninteresting.
This all makes me think about the purpose of plot twists, and when they’re valid and when they feel cheap. This isn’t a bait-and-switch exactly; it’s not even just a twist for the sake of a twist. But it still feels dishonest. The real premise of the story isn’t what you’re sold in the beginning. If you had told me from the start that this would be a detective novel about a giant conspiracy, I would have been better able to judge whether it aligned with my interests and adjust my expectations going in. But that’s not what I was told the story would be about, so instead I’m just annoyed it won’t engage with the things I picked it up for.