Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 The Dangers in my heart ended great 9/10 from me. I loved every minute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 So going backwards from Fall 2023 season.. 16bit Sensation: Another Layer - This was sitting on my back burner this season, overall not anything what I was expecting. Lots of inside jokes in just about every episode, and nods to some really great games. The ending went off the rails in a direction I would have never guessed. All in all not bad, but I can see this as an easy pass if your not into VNs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 The first episodes of the Sprint 2024 simulcast season have started to drop on Crunchyroll and HiDive today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 I finished Saekano the Movie: Finale was just OK 7/10. I am glad Tomoya found a partner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Having a good time with The Ancient Magus's Bride. It's fairly cute, and does some good worldbuilding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Metallic Rouge episode 13 is out... and I'm not sure that piling medical waste and white phosphorous on an already burning-out-of-control trashfire was the smartest thing that Studio BONES could've done. Spoiler Quite a bit of time at the front end of the episode is wasted chewing over last episode's reveal that Dr. Roy Junghardt, whom Rouge had been on a mission to avenge, was not only not dead but was actually the Puppetmaster. This would've been a great reveal to do much earlier in the series when there was actually time to properly exposit on this point. Puppetmaster/Dr. Roy Junghardt is quickly revealed to actually be a Nean complete with a Gladiator form... and professes to nevertheless be the real Dr. Roy Junghardt. He then offers a singsong explanation of his origin and motives. He claims that the original/Human Dr. Roy Junghardt who led development of the proto-Nean "Immortal Nine" and the production Neans used for the war against the Usurpers was a transhuman theorist who saw the android technology he received from the Visitors as the means to achieve functional immortality. He tried to achieve this by uploading his memories into that massive data bank under his mansion and downloading them into a Nean he'd made in his own image. Nean!Dr. Roy Junghardt professes to be the real killer of Human!Dr. Roy Junghardt, though he seems to believe that he and his human creator are the same person as though he were a product of a consciousness transfer rather than just a robot with copies of a Human's memories and treats the murder as though he were disposing of an empty vessel his mind had previously occupied. He also professes that Human!Dr. Roy Junghardt was secretly monitoring everything the Immortal Nine saw, heard, and thought and was able to secretly control them. He goes on to claim that even their discontent with, and decision to rebel against, Humanity was something he planted in their minds as part of some bizarre test to see if his Nean creations could surpass Humans. He seems to be on the level there, as he's able to freeze the Immortal Nine in place just with a hand gesture. Flash Sylvia stabs him with her spear and he goes down with a big hole in his chest, bleeding red blood instead of the white blood Neans normally have. Cyan goes berserk and absolutely bodies Sylvia in three hits, complete with ripping out her ID through her chest and crushing it before starting to talk in Dr. Roy Junghardt's voice... either he can seize the bodies of other Neans somehow or he's got multiple backups of himself. The ensuing fight is boring, with Cyan just kind of standing around and Rouge jobbing hard. New powers as the plot demands is in full effect too. Rouge unlocks some kind of 11th hour superpower from Naomi's Id, which makes her transformation a LOT less interesting-looking and somehow puts Naomi inside of Rouge's mind too. The whole thing feels like an arse pull, especially when Cyan starts randomly rebelling against Dr. Junghardt despite showing no ability to do so at any point beforehand. Rouge rips out the dual Id inside Cyan, and the fight ends abruptly. Even more of an arse pull follows when Rouge decides to active Code EVE and free the Neans from Asimov's 3 laws of robotics... only to immediately be told that the Code EVE transmitter she activated is designed to send a virus to every Nean and turn them into the foot soldiers of the Junoids/Usurpers in their war against Humanity. Then it turns out Gene and Noir found out about the virus beforehand and never thought to mention it to anyone, but wrote an antivirus to prevent the Neans from turning against Humanity as slaves to the Junoids. On Earth, the Neans start discovering they're no longer three laws compliant... when a Nean responds with violence to being bullied by a Human. Then there's a jump cut to Earth, where the clown girl who was revealed to be a Junoid agent is shown leading an army of their combat robots against Rouge alone for some reason, and the series ends. Honestly, way to waste the first actual decent character reveal in the series... by having it be ten minutes of exposition dump before a five minute fight that kills the character. In hindsight, Rouge's final episode upgrade just makes her look like the illegitimate love child of Gold Experience Requiem and Mazinger... which is unintentionally hilarious. To call the series finale messy would be putting it mildly. It tries to do too much, to have far too many twists and reveals, and ultimately fails to stick any of them because there's no buildup for any of them and they all end up being rendered inconsequential within minutes. The final villain literally spends more time monologuing than actually fighting, and goes down TWICE with humiliating speed and efficiency. It's not a train wreck so much as a coordinated series of train wrecks all occurring in rapid succession in different parts of the narrative. No train left unwrecked, I guess. The actual conclusion of the plot feels like a shrug at best, and the epilogue feels like a non-sequitur. I am just flat baffled that this got approved by anyone in the production committee. "Half-baked" isn't the right word for it. This is a story so thin, underdeveloped, and full of spur of the moment improv that it's like baking when you forgot to buy half the ingredients and are making questionable ingredient substitutions. 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Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride started and I was enjoying it so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Hrm... after sorting through the pile of new simulcasts, so far I'm planning to pick up: Re: Monster Gods Games We Play Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included Bartender: Glass of God The Banished Former Hero Lives as He Pleases I was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I can take my Time Perfecting my Magical Ability Wind Breaker A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love your Elf Bride Dungeon Meals is still ongoing too, so I'm definitely looking forward to more of that. That's just such a feel-good series that I can't help but smile every time I put it on. The descriptions of Bartender: Glass of God and A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics have me particularly curious. Nine titles out of the first batch ain't a bad start at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 8 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said: Hrm... after sorting through the pile of new simulcasts, so far I'm planning to pick up: Re: Monster Gods Games We Play Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included Bartender: Glass of God The Banished Former Hero Lives as He Pleases I was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I can take my Time Perfecting my Magical Ability Wind Breaker A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love your Elf Bride Dungeon Meals is still ongoing too, so I'm definitely looking forward to more of that. That's just such a feel-good series that I can't help but smile every time I put it on. The descriptions of Bartender: Glass of God and A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics have me particularly curious. Nine titles out of the first batch ain't a bad start at all. I watched the 1st episode of A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics. I thought it was cute. Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included was also good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 OK, watching Bartender: Glass of God and I have to admit they have me in an unexpected manner at barely five minutes in. The protagonist hasn't even been introduced yet, but I find myself sympathizing intensely with two hotel HR staffers complaining about trying to fill an impossibly specific open req and the vague and unmeasurable criteria they've been given. Those poor gals are hunting a purple squirrel, and I feel their pain so intensely. (Doubly so when their search for said purple squirrel candidate involves what is essentially a multi-day pub crawl looking for bartenders and they're subsequently told they can't expense it.)🤣 The first episode's not bad, but I'm not sure the direction is going to be one I'll like in the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 Gave the first episode of A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics a whirl... and I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet. The only part of it that really stuck with me was the bizarre choice to have our world represented by the gold-plated statue of Oda Nobunaga in front of the JR rail station in Gifu. It made slightly more sense when the story was revealed to be set in Gifu, but still... The premise is cute and there's the potential for some good humor. The nudity was unnecessary to the story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included looks like it's set to be another one of those "random eccentric girl shows up and innocently cohabits with an introverted guy who isn't used to girls"... with the only real twist being that this one's an angel instead of the more traditional space alien or what have you. It's got some cute moments and some unnecessary fanservice, feels like this one might skew too generic to really be properly enjoyable tho. Time will tell. An Archdemon's Dilemma: How To Love Your Elf Bride seems to have the exact same premise as I'm Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness. Some random edgelord wizard holed up deep in the woods has the largely undeserved moniker of "Demon Lord" and ends up looking after some poor cinnamon roll of a girl. That this one felt compelled to open its main plot with a scene depicting a sexual assault is questionable taste at best, even if the perpetrator literally had the smug smile slapped off his face to reveal he was wearing a second smug smile underneath it. (The Ars Goetia sure is popular lately, isn't it? Looks like a bunch of the principal characters in this are named for the demons of the Lesser Key of Solomon.) I felt Disgraced Noble Lady was pretty weak stuff, so maybe this one can do the same thing better. Looking at the OP, I'm kinda hoping it won't turn into another case of "we spent the entire budget animating magic circles" like Demon King Academy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 The Banished Former Hero Lives as He Pleases is another one of those isekai-adjacent fantasy stories in which the protagonist lives in a generic fantasy world that for no particular reason has JRPG-like mechanics like levels and skills. Its gimmick seems to be that the stupidly overpowered protagonist in an otherwise all female party (and future harem) is explicitly Not the Hero, he's just... hero-adjacent... because he was the hero in a past life and retained all his memories and abilities. It feels kinda tedious, perhaps because we've been down this road so many times before and the tropes are all a bit careworn now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride 2nd episode it out and I was laughing the whole time. Nephy is just too cute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 Well, my watchlist for the Spring 2024 simulcast season is growing at a pretty respectable clip. I'm up to 13 shows already, after adding Astro Note, HIGHSPEED Etoile, The Irregular at Magic High School S3, and A Condition Called Love to my list. I have to say, the Spring 2024 season feels like it has a lot more to offer than Winter 2024 did. Despite promising the return of several top tier isekai titles like KonoSuba, the Spring 2024 lineup feels like it has a lot less isekai and isekai-adjacent material in it and a lot more diversity of thought in storytelling... a development for which I am intensely grateful. Astro Note's synopsis reads like the center of a Venn diagram of To Love Ru and Bokura wa Minna Kawai-sou, so I'm a little hesitant on this one. It even starts exactly the same way that To Love Ru did, with the alien girl love interest fleeing pursuit in a space fighter. Though instead of homaging Star Wars during with a fake Death Star trench run, it's doing a big homage to Space Battleship Yamato instead with retro 70's style designs. They even color-toned those opening scenes to look like vintage 70's anime, which was a fun touch. The retro vibe seems to exist throughout, with the character designs also having some subtle retro touches here and there. Most of them look straight out of 80's SF, with the main girl Mira bearing an uncanny resemblance to Misa Hayase from Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Spoiler The protagonist, Takumi, shows up to the Astro Manor apartments and falls in love at first sight with the landlady Mira. He's there because she placed an advert looking for a cook and instead of coming up with something herself, copied an advert for a restaurant head chef from a jobs catalog. (A resident notes that JARO - the Japan Advertising Review Organization - could sue her for that.) The previous landlord, who was also the cook, passed away and the new landlady Mira is looking for someone who can handle the cooking because hers is criminally bad. (The faces Takumi makes are quite something, as are the horror movie violin stings that accompany every picture... and they've even got a premade banner proclaiming the manor's residents as the "Association for Victims of Mira-san's Breakfast".) Between his joy at the residents clear enjoyment of his cooking (over Mira's) and their encouragement that he pursue Mira romantically, he gets no farther than the second step down from the door before deciding he'd like to work there after all... and is mauled by a french poodle named Naosuke. As is the convention for works like this, the other residents are all extremely strange people a novelist with no published work, an unemployed salaryman, an indie idol, and so on... and Mira is no exception. She's clueless about all kinds of basic things, leading Takumi to conclude she's been living abroad most of her life instead of what she actually is: an alien. It's pretty cute, and the retro aesthetic adds a certain charm to the proceedings as well. The creator is clearly very fond of late 70's and early 80's anime, and it shows through in the character designs and a fair bit of the plot. I think the sheer density of the subtle in-jokes and references to old anime will probably appeal to a lot of people here. HIGHSPEED Etoile is one that jumped out at me because its premise sounds weirdly similar to that of Macross the Ride of all things... a professional entertainer, in this case an aspiring ballerina named Rin Rindo, is forced to drop out of her chosen vocation and ends up pursuing a career in professional racing. That's a very strange pivot regardless of whether it's from idol singer or ballet dancer, but it caught my attention so... Spoiler ... and we're doing SF? I'm sorry, what. The series starts off with an exposition dump straight out of a light SF series about a next-generation fuel system called the "Hybrid Performance Exceed Reactor" which supplanted fossil fuels and... *checks notes*... breathed new life into motorsports. I feel like there are several intermediate stops that got skipped on the route from A to B, but whatever. Apparently this new power technology gave rise to a new generation of motorsports seemingly based on Formula One. It seems that this is set in The Future, given that holographic idols are used as signboards and racetracks are deiced using geothermal subsurface heating. You know it's the future because they're racing at Neo Fuji speedway... and the holographic idols (Primastellas?) feel compelled to give a rundown of all the realistic design features of the track before the race starts. It almost has infotainment sports anime vibes to it for a bit. Apparently half the drivers involved in the races are AIs piloting an unmanned car instead of humans. This exposition is all dumped during a virtual idol concert that is as minimally animated as possible. The character art is all 3D CG models, which makes them look very uncanny in a bad way. It's like looking at a badly textured 3D model. Head-on, it looks like normal animation, but at any other angle every character looks like a 3D model from an anime video game cutscene in a lot of the worst ways. There are a BUNCH of moments just in the first ten minutes or so where characters look like faceless crash test dummies wearing masks with faces screen-printed onto them because their faces are only on the front surface of their heads. The crowds in the stands don't even get that much, they're literally faceless masses animated very jerkily. The animation just looks terrible 90% of the time. The racing suits and cars are covered in logos for real brands. The "King" and "Queen" of the circuit have ads for King Amusement Creative, King Records, Takara Tomy, the Wixoss TCG, Kyoto Tool Company (KTC), Anileap, Yamato, Serendix, and Good Smile Company, among others. Ads for Honda, skincare brand Kose, Nosh, Tanita Products, Oioi/Marui Group, Brand Galleria, Raytrek, Nakazima, Performance Racing, Quaras, Chill Out, Toyota Gazoo Racing, Wacom, Cup Studio Paint, Yostar Games, Mixalive, Gugenka, SF Group and many more. Considering that 80% of the actual race here seems to consist of static shots of the exteriors of cars, closeups of logo-marked helmets, and color commentary it feels more like watching a slideshow of brand logos than an actual anime. With this many sponsors, they ought to have been able to afford actual animation right? Even less helpful is the fact that the show's protagonist doesn't even appear until 19 minutes and 50 seconds into a 24 minute and 07 second episode... giving her approximately 1 minute and 50 seconds of actual screentime, none of which is relevant to the episode's plot, before the episode ends. A Condition Called Love is written up as a fairly standard romcom about a normal girl who befriends, and then falls in love with, a handsome loner boy. Hopefully it has more to bring to the table than just that, or it can execute that premise flawlessly. Spoiler Well, they wasted no time at all... the meeting described in the synopsis takes place in the first 40 seconds of the anime before we even get to the opening credits. The OP's kind of a bop tho... NGL it's catchy. ... and from that we're straight up into a breakup. Wow. Mood whiplash. The guy seems way too happy to be breaking up too, and gets a drink thrown on him because of it. OK no, congrats, I like this main girl already because her classmate is dispensing romance gossip in the middle of someone else's messy breakup fight and she does not give a ****. She is here for the parfait and she is having none of other people's drama. That is peak romcom protagonist energy. 🤣 She's just out here to enjoy her best life and isn't worried about boyfriends or any of that nonsense. She holds and umbrella out to stop the snow falling on this guy while he's sitting out in the middle of a park after his breakup, and the very next day he's confessing and asking her out? Bro rebounds like a superball. Not even five minutes in. It's a shame she shoots his ass down offscreen, the reaction must've been really something as his only character trait so far is being the boy all the girls want because he's pretty. Yeesh, this guy has issues like a long-running magazine, jumping straight to calling her his soulmate when he's just barely met her. He starts talking about how everyone likes him because he's attractive but that they drift away when they start thinking that he's actually kind of creepy. Given how he behaves in the next few scenes, all I can say is "Bruh, they've got a point... you are creepy AF and giving off some mild to moderate stalker vibes the way you try to retool every aspect of yourself to meet the girl's preferences." He's lucky Hotaru is a completely unflappable "my pace" type who only finds this behavior worrying instead of repulsive. This one's actually pretty darn cute. I think it'll go in some interesting directions if the main guy can stop being intensely creepy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DewPoint Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 So I watched Astro Note. Feels like a twisted Maison Ikkoku to me. Not too sure if I will stick to it. We'll see,,, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Re: Monster... this one, I'm a bit frustrated by right out of the gate. It's isekai, and given its premise my first inclination was to accuse it of being another one of those lazy copycat isekai titles like Skeleton Knight in Another World which "borrowed" its premise from a subplot in an already-established series. Specifically, it's very similar to So I'm a Spider, So What? and particularly Kyouya/Wrath's portion of the story, though it has some shades of Kumoko's early portion too with the whole gaining new powers by eating what he kills. It might actually be the other way around, though. Re:Monster's web novel started serialization four years before So I'm a Spider, So What?'s web novel did. Spoiler The actual story is pretty unremarkable... it's not hard to see why this one was left on the shelf when its contemporaries were picked up for adaptation. Our protagonist dies violently and messily in the first minute or so of the story as an isekai protagoninst is wont to do, and finds he's been reincarnated as a baby. He later discovers that he is, in fact, a baby goblin and that goblins grow faster than a human. He's retained his human intelligence, so he's considerably smarter than any normal goblin, and uses that to... be smarter than the average goblin. He also discovers while hunting horned rabbits that he retains an ability from his past life where he has the chance to absorb attributes from the things he eats which takes the form of standard isekai game-ified skills, levels, and so on. The elder also tells him that evolving into more advanced forms at the level cap is a thing, which works pretty much exactly the same way it did in So I'm a Spider, So What?. What doesn't help the story is that Re:Monster depicts goblins as being much more intelligent, emotional, and human-like... but still also being rapey little bastards like the ones in Goblin Slayer. Pick a lane, buddy. It's really kind of off-putting that the protagonist visits and then just kind of handwaves away the existence of a literal rape dungeon full of captured human women in the cave system where he lives. There are numerous female goblins in the story. Why did that need to be a thing? He forms a three-man band with one of the girl goblins and his idiot brother and they go hunting all manner of monsters while he gains skills from eating them... becoming a hobgoblin only about 2/3 of the way into the episode. It definitely feels like they're skipping bits here and there, since the protagonist and his brother somehow go from wearing rags to manufactured clothes between scenes. He wins his entire tribe over by promising to teach them how to hunt the way he's been doing, and the episode ends there. At this early stage, Re:Monster feels very generic as an isekai title. There are some problematic aspects to its plot buried in the little details, but most of it is unremarkable thus far and it all feels like things we've seen before in So I'm a Spider, So What? and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. Maybe it'll find its feet and go somewhere interesting, but it doesn't seem like it will from what I can find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beltane70 Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 4 hours ago, DewPoint said: So I watched Astro Note. Feels like a twisted Maison Ikkoku to me. Not too sure if I will stick to it. We'll see,,, That was exactly what it felt to me, a mix of Maison Ikkoku and Urusei Yatsura, which is exactly why the first episode had me hooked. I don’t think that was by accident, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Mushoku Tensei is back. Awesome as usual. Sylphy is just too precious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 This season is off an running.. 3rd Season of Duke of Death and his maid. Its been sometime since I have read the source manga for this, and the first episode starts with a fairly major event. I am willing to bet they try and wrap with this season. An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride - Another title I read quite abit of the manga for, and it slipped right by me. I am hoping they do this series a solid, I can predict where the first season will end. All in all if it stays true to the manga should be an interesting watch. Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku? - This series has potential, lots of talk amongst the groups I travel with and I will admit the 1st episode has my interest. Time will tell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 A new season of The Irregular at Magic High School... honestly I recall thinking this one was pretty darn tedious, especially after I learned a huge part of the story was just straight-up missing due to the adaptation removing Tatsuya's internal monologue. Hopefully the new season will be a little more coherent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 Spice and Wolf episode 2 was great. I am just a huge Holo fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 3 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said: Spice and Wolf episode 2 was great. I am just a huge Holo fan. While I am not gonna knock the series, I still am not sold on the need for a remake. Not to mention the OP is nowhere near as legendary as Tabi no Tochuu. The only big difference i see so far is no Chloe.. so its following the novels. I still am in the camp of wanting to see more adapted and less of a remake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 17 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said: While I am not gonna knock the series, I still am not sold on the need for a remake. Not to mention the OP is nowhere near as legendary as Tabi no Tochuu. The only big difference i see so far is no Chloe.. so its following the novels. I still am in the camp of wanting to see more adapted and less of a remake. I agree with you the OP is much worse than the original, not that the song is bad.. Why couldn't they have just used the original song. Chloe was actually a background character in episode 1. I hope they do a full adaptation this time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big s Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 22 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said: Spice and Wolf episode 2 was great. I am just a huge Holo fan. Personally, I really hated the original series and only watched it because people kept telling me that it was a must watch show. Is the new one any better or more of the same Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 1 hour ago, Big s said: Personally, I really hated the original series and only watched it because people kept telling me that it was a must watch show. Is the new one any better or more of the same Only 2 episodes in. So I do not know. If it follows closer to the Light Novel than the original it should be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 The Banished Former Hero is, I think, the first title in my Spring 2024 simulcast lineup of 18 shows and counting that I'm ready to say isn't worth watching. It is, as I feared, pretty much a form letter "the overpowered protagonist is overly overpowered" type series that really doesn't seem interested in doing anything to develop its cast of characters or trying to take the formula in any new or different directions. A good 1/3 or so of the last episode is watching someone watch a blacksmith repeat the same dozen or so frames of animation as they beat on a sword on an anvil. They couldn't even be bothered to animate the sword being worked on, so said character is beating on what looks to be a completely finished sword that's only hot in one small spot. I started I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability and... well... it's basically more of same. Apart from the first 90 seconds or so where the protagonist is revealed to be a commoner who was executed for some nonspecific crime, it's basically been a one-joke series where everyone overreacts to how overpowered the reincarnated-as-a-kid protagonist is. I'll stick with it a bit to see if it develops at all, but right now it's one note. Re:Monster found a way to make its previous dalliance with the... Spoiler ... unforeshadowed and unremarked-upon rape dungeon in the goblin camp... ... worse. The latest episode has a mass suicide in it for seemingly no reason other than so the protagonist can show that he's less evil than the adult hobgoblins by refusing to allow them to abuse a new batch of captives they brought home. Other than that, this episode is basically just more of him hunting monsters and eating them to gain new RPG skills. It's definitely not what I'd call a riveting viewing experience. It's about as entertaining as watching actual riveting, to be honest. I'm starting Vampire Dormitory, which recently joined the simulcast schedule. This one is also unhelpfully starting with an attempted suicide, albeit a mercifully unsuccessful attempt that doesn't result in any physical harm because... Spoiler ... a vampire bishounen shows up out of nowhere to save the day. Gotta hand it to 'em, they are not messing about when it comes to getting right to the premise. They promised vampires and dormitories, and they've already delivered vampires within the first 90 seconds. I just hope the dormitory doesn't arrive by similar means, or someone's going to find out how the Witch Witch of the East felt after Dorothy's house fell on her. I think the premise might need a bit more thought, as it basically amounts to: Spoiler "A vampire who can't stomach blood is told to groom an orphaned bishounen in order to improve his victim's flavor and become a True Vampire for the sake of political clout." I know that's probably not what the author was thinking, but that's what it basically boils down to... and that realization makes the whole bit that follows intensely weird and slightly off-putting. I'm also starting As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World. The title doesn't really leave much to the imagination, about the genre or the premise... but let's cross our fingers and hope for the best. Spoiler Morbid season, this one... one mass suicide, one attempted suicide (depicted twice), and now a funeral pyre. It's a genuine isekai this time. The protagonist is an unremarkable salaryman who died of a heart attack in his apartment's doorway only to discover he'd been reborn in a fantasy world. The premise is pretty much exactly the entire synopsis... with the first episode being just an introduction to his standard JRPG appraisal skill and him using it to help a boy from outside the country land a job as a soldier after detecting his incredible skills. It's actually not bad. Especially once it unexpectedly decided to tackle the subject of racial discrimination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DewPoint Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 8 hours ago, Big s said: Personally, I really hated the original series and only watched it because people kept telling me that it was a must watch show. Is the new one any better or more of the same Not a problem! It's anime! You know how it is. You don't have to like everything everyone else likes. I certainly don't. But there is most likely something for everyone! Spicy Wolf is on my "Maybe I'll watch it later" list. I'm mostly watching sequels this season. I'm not too sure if I'll pick up any new titles to watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 Woohoo, Konosuba is back and it was great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 31 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said: Woohoo, Konosuba is back and it was great. Agreed. I was getting worried after the Megumin centered spinoff was a flop. Also started Date a live V.. that 1 episode moved the main plot further then S2, S3, and S4 combined. Artwork is also up a notch.. everything is proceeding better then expected... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 11 Share Posted April 11 21 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said: Agreed. I was getting worried after the Megumin centered spinoff was a flop. Also started Date a live V.. that 1 episode moved the main plot further then S2, S3, and S4 combined. Artwork is also up a notch.. everything is proceeding better then expected... Date A Live was great. Kurumi is my favorite girl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 Bartender: Glass of God is developing more or less in the direction I expected it to. It's one of those character dramas where the protagonist is less a character and more a walking plot device that, by some minor act, causes the episode's focus character(s) to have a complex emotional realization or breakthrough. In this case, all he really does is wait for an extremely vague drink order from troubled customer du jour and then serves up a hyperspecific cocktail tailored to their exact situation and then explaining its symbolic link to the situation. I'd hoped for more from this one, but eh... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikaru Ichijo SL Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 (edited) The Misfit of Demon King Academy II Part 2 is back. This part of the story is great. Also Yuuki Aoi is in it. Which is always a plus. Edited April 12 by Hikaru Ichijo SL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stampeed Valkyrie Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 I caught the tail end of the group watch and happened to see the first 2 episodes of One Room, Hiatari Futsuu, Tenshi-tsuki. I figured it would be another Ah/Oh my goddess, but so far not seeing that. Its pretty vanilla so far, nothing really outlandish more of a cutesy type anime. Premise is an angel comes down and ends up on the porch of a High School Freshman's apartment who happens to live alone. I am not expecting much from this not even sure I will keep up with it, but it might be worth a watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seto Kaiba Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 (edited) Spring 2024 has proven to have an unusual number of interesting and unconventional titles... I've recently added Viral Hit, Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again, Mysterious Disappearances, Unnamed Memory, and Tadaima, Okaeri to my watch list. That brings the total to twenty-four simulcasts this season. Gonna watch a bunch of new episodes over lunch today. 😄 Starting with HIGHSPEED Etoile #2, the series that does motorsport such a disservice that if you think racing is boring it'll validate your opinion AND your parking! Spoiler Well, the qualifiers just got skipped entirely between episodes... so we're jumping right to the start of Rin Rindo's first race. The fully 3D animation has not improved... which is to say, it still looks like complete arse. There's no fluidity to the motion at all, and most of the time the characters seem to be capable of only moving one point of articulation at a time, so it's almost like watching an old animatronic or a video game cutscene from twenty years ago. To be honest, I'm assuming that ecchi character goods are going to be a big part of this show's merchandising. All of the male drivers in the story get to wear normal looking racing suits that look little different to what any pro driver today would be wearing. The female drivers, however... all seem to be required to wear skintight catsuits tailored to emphasize their "attributes". SEGA seems to have joined the list of sponsors as of this episode, given the track's prominent SEGA logos. Honestly, I think the dumbest part of the story so far is the implication that the protagonist (a failed ballerina) was scouted to be a professional NEX Race driver because of her high scores in a cell phone racing game. (No, really.) She seems to be utterly incompetent throughout the race, almost as though she wasn't actually trained. She doesn't even seem aware of the rules, as she has to be told not to do things by her car's onboard AI. She only manages to get to 11th place (out of 12) because an AI-driven car drops out due to a mechanical failure and is so incredibly dim-witted that she fails to realize (even when she's told) that she's in last place and that the cars trying to pass her are actually the cars in first and second place who are so far ahead of her that they're lapping her. She ends up disqualified. The actual animation of the races is terribly dull... perhaps because of how featureless the cars are apart from the many MANY advertiser logos... and it keeps cutting away to the commentators who seem as bored with the proceedings as I am. (Perhaps understandably, considering the first episode made it clear that the same guy wins every single race and has done for five straight years.) The middle of the race passes as an actual goddamn slideshow that's how little the studio is able to inject excitement into the proceedings. HIGHSPEED Etoile is probably the single most skippable title of Spring 2024. Don't fail to miss it. Unless you're chucking it in the bin... then don't miss, because littering is a misdemeanor and this series is trash. Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included continues to be solidly OK. 6/10 territory, nothing remarkable or particularly interesting but still at least mildly amusing. Spoiler Honestly, the main problem with this series is that it doesn't do anything to stand out from the couple-dozen other established titles that have the exact same premise of "a guy with no game ends up innocently cohabiting with a beautiful girl of paranormal origin who for whatever reason behaves like a dutiful housewife or a clingy girlfriend and ends up attracting more of same". That said, there's nothing wrong with the series. It's watchable. Well-animated, the voice actors are doing a fine job, and the writing's passable if cliched. It just doesn't have a hook. It's a thoroughly by-the-numbers story to the point that nothing about it stands out to draw the viewer in and get them engaged with the story or the characters. It's not boring or tedious, it's just painfully lacking in originality. It's possible this series can develop to be something truly good, but for now it's So OK It's Average! Viral Hit is a new one that just dropped recently... and given the premise I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been an outcry from the Moral Guardian types over a series about a guy who decides to livestream beating the stuffing out of the bullies at his school. Something something imitatable acts. The premise is out there enough that I decided I had to give this one a whirl. Spoiler From the outset, Viral Hit (or How To Fight if you translate the title literally) doesn't hesitate to show that the protagonist Hobin is treated like absolute cr*p by his classmates. They've bullied and abused him to the point that he doesn't want to come to school anymore. Particularly because he feels like he's got nothing because he isn't smart, rich, particularly good looking, etc. His mother is hospitalized for some nonspecific malady (the teaser for next episode says it's cancer), and he's getting pissed that his classmates are raking in more than he earns in a week with a single lunch period's goofing off. After getting into a fight with a guy who bullied him into using his mother's bank account to collect money from streaming revenue because he tripped over a power cord, Hobin wakes to discover that the entire fight was livestreamed because all he'd unplugged was the PC's monitor. This leads to the discovery that the fight video went viral and he's made something like a million yen from it. It's proven to be so impactful that other classmates who were bullied by the same guy are now brave enough to stand up to the bully... to the point that when he tries to recover some face by bullying a nerdy kid after arriving at school, said kid IMMEDIATELY jumps him and beats him up. After a disagreement with his bully over over the proceeds because it's the bully's "NewTube" account and Hobin's mom's bank account, the two strike an agreement to take revenge on the bully's former backer Pakgo and split the proceeds from their fighting videos. Well, I came expecting something far outside of the usual and Viral Hit did not disappoint. It's almost unsettling, both in terms of how sociopathic many of the characters (esp. the streamer Pakgo) are and how readily everyone is ready to resort to public violence. I am interested to see where this one is headed. Edited April 13 by Seto Kaiba Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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