The Anime Thread

Why are so many Opening Titles and End Credits for anime so gosh darn FUN!
Case in point:

And... not sure if having the English translation makes it more less bizarre

That reminds me, I need to watch the last three episodes of that show, Witch Craft Works.

The show itself has some fantastic animation and a story interesting enough to keep my attention. But their decision to use that upbeat, peppy ending theme with chibi versions of some of the witches in the show having medieval witch hunting/torture methods inflicted on them while singing? That's a level of weird/slightly dark humor that I can appreciate. LOL

Maybe they are trying to move away from tentacles

Season 2 biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch

Well, a couple of the shows I've watched finished up, so I guess it's micro-review time.

First, the Fuuka anime finished up, and while it was okay I think their decision to go a different direction than the manga ended up making the show a bit on the generic side. I can't say it was bad because I liked watching the story unfold, especially after they started diverging from the manga. Since I've always liked "what if?" kinds of stories (like the "What If?" and "Elseworlds" comics or some of Harry Turtledove's alternate history fiction), the changes in the anime really didn't bother me and I wanted to see how it turned out. But when I compare it to some of the story directions in the manga (maybe not stellar writing but I can respect some of the bolder choices they made)? It's just a little flat.

If I had to describe the show, I'd say that it's almost a way of saying "Sorry" to the fans who didn't like what happened to Fuuka in the manga and giving them a happy ending. It's an okay show but probably not one that's gonna end up in my collection.

Next, Seiren. It was (as far as I know of) an original work, but I'm pretty sure they used the same setting as the Amagami SS anime series and followed the same pattern as that show (following particular relationship paths like in a dating sim). Seeing them reuse the school setting and even make a reference to some stuff in the Amagami series was interesting, but like the episode reviewer on ANN said, they could get kinda weird with the relationship kinks and situations in the three stories they showed (4 episodes per story). It was an okay show and if you liked the Amagami series you'd probably like this one. What I'll be most curious about is to see if they try to go for a second season, because in the opening and some of the promo art they feature six girls but only told three of their stories.





Going from left to right, they told the stories of the first, second and sixth girls in that shot, for whatever that's worth.

Interviews with Monster Girls finished up too, and while it wasn't on the same "happy food" level as Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid it was definitely up there in my favorites for this season.

A lot of it had a "slice of life" vibe going for it, but it was interesting to see them dig into the setting and explore some of the ins-and-outs of the various demi-human ladies and hypothesize about them and their conditions/abilities. And while it wasn't deep or hit-you-over-the-head messaging, they did provide some nice food for thought on how we deal with others different from ourselves and how we might better deal with one another.

They really had a nice balance of humor and mild drama in their storytelling too. Hikari was always fun to watch as the little troublemaker of the group, and watching Machi and Sakie both develop crushes/romantic interest in Takahashi as the show went on was always entertaining. The last episode in particular hit a home run with Machi and Sakie's reactions at the pool.

Definitely a show I'd recommend.

Guess what got the dubbed treatment. Geez, that was quick

Funimation has kind of stepped up their game with that recently. Most shows they dubcast will be about three or four weeks behind the Japanese broadcast (latest dubbed episode of Miss Kobayashi is episode 9), but with some they get REALLY ambitious. They were aiming for same day/within hours dubs of the Japanese broadcast on the Akiba's Trip anime, and it looks like they're trying for something similar with the second season of My Hero Academia.

Thank you for posting this, will wait until they get released on DVD before watching the others (Kanna is sooo cute )

I can't help myself on that one. The show is great overall so I don't mind re-watching episodes, and the English dub casting was really well done. I'm really hoping they do some dub actor commentary tracks when they get around to releasing Miss Kobayashi outside Japan, I'd love to hear what the cast thought of the show and their characters.

With other shows I might catch an episode or two to see if I'll like the dub enough to pick up the show when it releases on video.

Very true. Thunderbolt was a surprise for me. I enjoyed it, plus the music was catchy

It was the same for me back about 15+ years ago with WinMX (or whatever that other file-sharing system was called), would use it to grab a single song from an artist, and, if liked it, would actually buy the full album legitimately

With Miss Kobayashi, saw a .gif on a game Discord and liked it, checked with local monkeys if they had the show but, for now, they only have the Manga and will be ordering that in a week or so, but seeing that episode makes me even more wanting to see the full thing, and not on UBoob

What does anyone know about Moldiver? Someone linked the first episode, and fastforwarded to near the end for the cross-dressing transformation, but was wondering what others think (thought) of it

Wow, now this brings back memories because I remember renting this during the Blockbuster Video heyday. Captain Tokyo FTW In all fairness, it's an okay short OVA anime but I wouldn't recommend it

Oh baby. A return to the UC timeline in a new Mobile Suit Gundam anime, Twilight Axis

Can't believe no one mentioned Eureka Seven Hi Evolution, I am hyped


While the CG animation isn't great, it's still BERSERK, and its this month Plus the BD release actually corrected the CG and also replaced it with 2D animation which still leave me wondering why they didn't do that to begin with

Seems to have a few episodes (at least 5), just liked the classic look and the gender swappage (he becomes she, and she becomes he), but, more importantly (POO), it looks fun and stupid, like a lot of the 80's and 90's anime and cartoons were

Some of those fun/stupid/weird OVAs I think are what hooked a lot of anime fans back then.

Two I can think of for me are Dragon Knight and Outlanders. Dragon Knight was your basic "swordsman has to save the girls from the evil Dragon Knights" story with a heavy comedic twist, including the swordsman being a perv who takes pictures of the girls he rescues with his instant camera. Yes, an instant camera in a sword-and-sorcery setting. LOL

Outlanders was another fun one, but I was a little disappointed when they re-released it with a new dub. The premise was a fun one (space princess falls in love with an Earth photographer who accidentally defeats her during her invasion of Earth) and it included a lot of the typical rom-com elements you'd see today.

The scene that left me a little disappointed was one of those rom-com moments. The princess had just gotten out of the bath and the photographer (of course being flustered and clumsy) ends up falling pretty much face first in her lap while they are arguing about their impending marriage. The first line out of the photographer when he looks where he is was great in the original dub I saw, namely because it was so unexpected, borderline rude and delivered in a hilarious matter-of-fact manner. And of course, he gets the snot beat out of him for saying it. When they redubbed it, they changed the line and while it still works and probably fit the original Japanese translation better, it wasn't nearly as funny.

Watched the first two episodes (while waiting for another game to finally end it's event, six hours late ), and it was great and stupid and fun, now going to have to find the time and track the remaining episodes down (one day, when get own machine, will have to start making a URL favourites list of shows like this )