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Iaboo, Youaboo, Weallaboo for Anime!

yea my partner and i were gonna start itaden deities, but i heard the rumors and checked out the manga to see the extent, and about three chapters in i decided it wasn't for us (or maybe anyone). I'm not particularly sensitive to the content, I listen to sutcliffe jugend or watch explotation movies that handle it poorly, and I can understand the use as a plot device. It's rare that it ever really has good use as a plot device though, and the style and theming of the manga up to that point doesn't play towards it, and how its handled on its own isn't any better. Maybe it goes somewhere, the manga has a reputation of rising above it at some point i guess, but I don't think I trust it to be anything other than lazy about the statements it needs/wants to make.

e: it does seem like the show handles the nun's rape better than in the manga though. Not to any appreciable end maybe, and at best it is using the same lazy tricks directors have been doing for years to try to sterilize the content (I don't think it worked with Kubrick and I doubt it works here).
 
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R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
I’ve been blasting through the “Final” season of Attack on Titan. This series still hooks me like few other anime ever have, but the imagery and themes of this season are so damn charged that it skyrockets past the well worn “problematic“ and into “dangerously irresponsible” territory. How do you even talk about this show?
 
Aquatope of the White Sand is a show that is the most PA Works show to ever PA Works. Their output as a studio I find is very scattershot, but when it hits it hits. And so far I'm feeling pretty positive about this one based on what's come out so far. This might not be a Shirobako or an Eccentric Family level of instant classic, but it definitely seems like it'll at least be a good time on the level of Appare-Ranman or Sakura Quest. I also have mild hope that the yuri undertones will develop into something substantial, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Sonny Boy - it's anyone's guess how this one will go, but so far I'm enamored. At the very least, the craftsmanship on display in this show is just top notch and it oozes style. I've also got a lot of faith in the director - Shingo Natsume - who you guys might know for having directed shows in the past like ACCA, Season 1 of One Punch Man, Space Dandy, and is a master when it comes to key animation.

Both of these are anime-original productions, which I'm always inherently more interested in versus adaptations. Aquatope is slated for 24 episodes as well, so I'm very interested to see the arc of where this show goes.

I’ve been blasting through the “Final” season of Attack on Titan. This series still hooks me like few other anime ever have, but the imagery and themes of this season are so damn charged that it skyrockets past the well worn “problematic“ and into “dangerously irresponsible” territory. How do you even talk about this show?
I still mostly defend AoT for using Nazi/concentration camp imagery because the show/comic very much does so with the purpose of pointing out hey, these things are bad, and people who perpetuate violence like this and are fascists are bad people. And the world, especially nowadays, could use a reminder that Nazis are bad.

But oh man does this comic completely fumble the ending. Like, I know where the comic is coming from, and why it had the ending that it did, but there's just no defending how it goes down. For those with morbid curiosity but don't want to patronage this show/comic, I'll give a short synopsis:

Eren starts a conspiracy to overthrow the government. The show's/comic's POV almost completely pulls away from him and after a while makes it pretty explicit that he is the bad guy now. The rest of his friends from his unit all band together to fight back against his coup attempt, recognizing what Eren is doing is wrong, but it's too late/he did it 30 minutes ago, and Eren wakes up all the Titans inside the walls and commands them to commit genocide by stomping across the land and completely crushing everything on the planet. The remains of the Survey Corps band together with the former antagonists (the ones who killed Eren's hometown to begin with) and a multiethnic alliance to put an end to "The Rumbling" - which they do, but not before Eren manages to wipe out ~90% of the Earth's population first.

Most of the post-time-skip period, a large part of the mystery revolves around what is Eren even thinking and what could possibly lead him to break this bad. When he's on his deathbed after the climax of the comic, he explains himself to Armin that with his weird time-traveling powers, he saw no other way of doing things and was just compelled to follow his destiny, which also intentionally set things up so that his friends could be the saviors of humanity as a result. He laments that the perpetual cycle of human violence is inevitable but seems resigned in abdicating his free will. The last chapter shows the world rebuilding, and Armin showing concern and trepidation that this peace is only temporary, old grudges were not extinguished, and that someday war will return. But he and Mikasa give a heart felt thanks to Eren for sacrificing his life and doing horrible things, even if they know he was wrong.

And like, I get why the author did this. Lotta people out there are emotionally attached to the characters, Attack on Titan thrives on examining moral ambiguity, and he very famously said he revised his originally planned ending so that it would be 'less depressing' and wrote himself into a corner. But my guy. You turned Eren into Super Hitler. Nobody worth more than the shits they take is interested in humanizing Hitler and his inner struggles. And nobody should be thanking him for anything. I could give the show/comic reasonable doubt and excuses all the way up until the last two or three chapters, but the author shit the bed extra hard on the landing. Eren concludes the only way to end chronic human strife is genocide, and none of the principle characters can manage to tell him you're full of shit. Bad, ugly, miserable look there.

On the plus side, while this was coming out, I don't know if I read a single opinion that this ending was good, or that they didn't drop the ball. Most people in the moment recognized how shitty and bad this ending was, and it's become somewhat of a meme. Eren's the villain! There's no redeeming a genocidal monster! So while the author very clearly has very pessimistic views of humanity, I weirdly had some of my faith in humanity restored when most people I read rejected this bullshit.

Edit: I think the most infuriating part of the ending is that there was a very easy out to literally all of this. There's a plot device that's introduced at one point that implies that the King of the Titans can just manipulate the DNA of people with Titan-potential at will. Zeke's foiled plan is to activate that power himself and use it to sterilize all the Eldians so that their ethnicity dies out naturally and peacefully, putting an end to the threat of Titans forever. Eren forges an alliance with Zeke only to betray him at the last minute so that he could wield that power to get revenge against the world. But hey, here's a simple thought: why go to either of these extremes? Why not just disable the Titan powers all together? Then you're ending this threat, which is the source of strife/distrust to begin with. You don't need to genocide anyone! I thought for sure this was going to be the end game/revised ending, but instead the rumbling happened and I had to read multiple chapters of 100m Titans grotesquely crushing billions of people underfoot. Fuck this show/comic. It's going to be hilarious watching the response as anime-onlys finally get to the ending of the franchise. The sense of betrayal will be palpable. This botched ending is one of the biggest self-owns I've ever seen in a piece of media. It might be worse than the LOST ending or the Game of Thrones ending.
 
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But I did notice that it begins with the Noitamina anime block logo, which is a late night block that tends to skew adult. I mean, not everything in it has ecchi stuff, some it just demographically more mature, like Honey and Clover (man, this animation block’s been around for a while). So why did this VERY shonen-y show end up there. I mean, Hunter X Hunter is pretty violent at times but it still gets prime time.
noitaminA doesn't really mean what it used to. It started out as an "adult" programming block. But adult in the truest of sense, and not just cheap/lazy code for a bunch of juvenile violence and sex. Most of its shows were adaptations of praised literary works, and had Josei/Seinen sensibilities, and were more at home at arthouse theaters rather than other typical late night anime, and dealt with adult characters with adult issues. But after a certain point, the programming block's founder was either sacked or moved on to other things, and you started to get a lot more questionable content that stopped being so mature and wholesome, and started to be "mature" with air quotes.

I put the dividing line at Psycho-Pass in 2012. (I think you could make an argument that the dividing line was a few months earlier at Guilty Crown, but it's still mostly around the same time.) After that point, you started to get a lot more horny, male-gazey, problematic, juvenile shows, and the shows that felt at home with the origins of the programming block became more and more immature and male-oriented. Before Psycho-Pass, the horniest shows on noitaminA was shows like Tatami Galaxy and Moyashimon. That treated sexuality in a much more mature, matter-of-fact, facet of the human condition rather than its raison d'être and never really indulged in trying to create titilating imagery for the sake of arousal. And action/violence became much more common place. Post Psycho-Pass however, you have a growing preponderance of immature, teenage, horny, brain-dead power fantasies that instead of being gender neutral or female-oriented, are clearly just for a straight male audience only. Shows like Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend, or Punch Line, or Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress[/i], or Scum's Wish, or Inuyashiki, or The Promised Neverland. To the point where the block is now just indistinguishable from the rest of late-night seasonal anime.

There's still gems that make their way to the noitaminA programming block that felt at home in the original intent of the block like The Great Passage, or Wotakoi, or Sarazanmai, or even Millionare Detective. But long gone are the days where you knew every show was going to be entertaining and lacked problematic aspects. I used to watch every noitaminA show without fail for a decade, and now I don't bother unless the show just happens to be worth watching.
 

Purple

(She/Her)
Battle Game in 5 Seconds
He game kid learns his power is potentially amazing… but relies entirely on trickery.

I'm having a hard time parsing that sentence, but it sounds like this is the same basic premise as Erfworld, remember that? Odd webcomic? Don't make the mistake I did and look into whatever happened with that.

Oh, there were warning signs. This otherwise sensational intro has a top-heavy naked nun.


Oh damn, I didn't even have to look at the spoilers there. EVERYTHING about that intro just absolutely screams "The person or persons primarily responsible for this show absolutely hate women and are incapable of seeing them as anything other than objects to which awful things are to be done" to me, at a volume level approaching probable cause to start a criminal investigation.

I’ve been blasting through the “Final” season of Attack on Titan. This series still hooks me like few other anime ever have, but the imagery and themes of this season are so damn charged that it skyrockets past the well worn “problematic“ and into “dangerously irresponsible” territory. How do you even talk about this show?
With an article on the history of antisemitism open in the background?
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I'm having a hard time parsing that sentence, but it sounds like this is the same basic premise as Erfworld, remember that? Odd webcomic? Don't make the mistake I did and look into whatever happened with that.
No idea. Anyway, the main character's power her is to have any super-power other people THINKS he has. So if he can convince someone he has a certain power, he has it.
 
I decided to check the first two episodes of Itaden Deities, just so I could have some claim on it (and, to be honest, the styling is so striking I figured if I shut my mind off I could gloss over it.) I'll spoiler the actual talk though
So I've mentioned the manga, and the show does actually handle it better. In the manga the early assault scene (idk if there are additional ones) lingers for a bit, including a big overhead shot of the naked body, visually in pain and cringing. It's ugly, and looks drawn to be in hentai. The show cleans it up, has one scene (as i mentioned, it's similar to the assault in A Clockwork Orange, desensitized images with music), and then another just on her face without music and such. It's not graceful, but it's stomach-able. Or I think it would be if it wasn't so totally disconnected from the rest of the violence of the show. And the rest of the show is violent. It's played for laughs throughout everything. I think it's some weird representation of the itaden being immortal and exceptional or whatever, but there is such an incongruity in how it's all handled. If the spectacle of violence is ever-present and entertainment, then using sexual violence as a keyword for the "horrors of war" as every boneheaded online anime fan is defending it on, is cheaper and lazier than just including it for voyeurism. I don't know, as I said I'm not terribly sensitive to this, so I don't think I should be the one to judge it, but I also think it's just a bit tiring at this point for lazy and uninteresting "war is bad" narrative fulcrums

I also got back into To Your Eternity. Ending of the third episode is one of the best moments in TV i've seen in a while. I think i might just be in love with it, but it's also probably because I've seen very few shows actually handle subtlety with any sort of grace recently. It's kind of scary moving to each episode, because there is emotion dripping between the lines, but it's really just beautiful.


With an article on the history of antisemitism open in the background?
i dont think i'd wage anti-semitism claims against AoT, but it's mostly because the depth it takes on its symbolism is akin to a puddle. The problem with so much of their imagery is that it's set-dressing and shorthand rather than a specifically historical relation on its topics. I think the story is meant to be specifically existential, so it takes mismatching symbols from various events in history (the nazi allegory is easy to pinpoint, but it's not a clean 1 to 1 w/r/t the relation of marley and eldia). That's not to defend the show or author (who i know has a nationalist/imperial streak), and of course the poor handling opens the door for those readings, but I don't really read it that way myself.
 
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Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
It'd be pretty hard to out-shit the GoT show final season and ending, simply because it became increasingly clear over the years that the showrunners had no clue what to do without having copious original material to condense into a TV show as you watch plotlines and entire characters evaporate into smoke and cardboard stands. Like, they turned a multi-billion merchandising engine into a smoking wreck in the space of weeks to the point where retailers and advertisers were awkwardly changing the subject whenever someone mentioned the series to them.

"Oops, I'm gonna Hitler now"
is bad sure, but also feels oddly appropriate for how edgelordy I found the little bits of AoT I'd read over the years?
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I also got back into To Your Eternity. Ending of the third episode is one of the best moments in TV i've seen in a while. I think i might just be in love with it, but it's also probably because I've seen very few shows actually handle subtlety with any sort of grace recently. It's kind of scary moving to each episode, because there is emotion dripping between the lines, but it's really just beautiful.
To Your Eternity is one of the years best shows. I think its bold to slow build a "lead" character from quasi-sentience. There are arcs but it is almost analogous to an anthology early on due to the nature of how the lead fits in. You are in for a great ride, as the show has yet to dip in quality.

For a show with subtly and grace, I'm going to say Oddtaxi is also a fantastic show, a very low key mystery series that slowly ratchets up the tension without losing its humanity and humour.

I'm never going to stop talking about Oddtaxi.

So far, I need to say that Kageki Shoujo!! is starting to disappoint me. The first two episodes are fine, then the third episode goes DEEP into dark territory about a lead character living with a step father who is clearly a pedophile and her having to spend much of her youth trying to avoid him. I was like "This is dark but I'm still mulling over if they handled this incredibly harsh subject matter correctly. I think the intention is there but I have doubts on if they did it properly." The fourth episode confirmed this by having a misguided episode involving a well-intentioned stalker saving the day. Then a cliffhanger where we learn that one character is anorexic. I was not anticipating this to be the show that it is nor do I trust the show to handle it properly.
 
is bad sure, but also feels oddly appropriate for how edgelordy I found the little bits of AoT I'd read over the years?
It's not just "Oops, I'm gonna Hitler now" because Eren was thoroughly discredited and vilified and the road to that as you say, was a long time coming but it was specifically "Thank you Hitler, we love you!" that the comic closes on is what does it. It's just so bad and awful, that it makes you reconsider everything up to that point and makes you want to stop giving the show the benefit of the doubt that you previously may have been inclined to do. I'm really curious how MAPPA will handle the final arc of the story. Because if they don't change or edit things in some very acute ways, I feel relatively confident in saying they really will have a GoT situation on their hands.

Re: To Your Eternity - I still really like and adore this show and just about every aspect of it. It's masterful. But oh man, I stalled out on this one a few weeks ago, and I've had a hard time building up the motivation to go back. It's just so heavy and depressing that I have a hard time building up the motivation and the emotional buffer to sit through what I know is going to happen. And as bad as that sounds, it's honestly a credit to the show, actually. I only feel this way because it's an emotionally affecting show that hits in ways that few discrete pieces of media ever manage to do. I wouldn't feel this way if I didn't intensely care about the characters and the stories they're telling. It would be really easy for a show like this to feel cheap and emotionally manipulative, and disengage from disinterest and annoyance, but instead it strikes on all cylinders and hits the nail square on the head every time.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I wouldn't feel this way if I didn't intensely care about the characters and the stories they're telling.
Yeah, by Gugu's story, it is easy to see where things are going in the broadest terms (heck, the story going on now pretty much reveals how this one is going to end) and yet I think of all of them it was the ones when I was most engaged by the characters and still taken back by some of the turns (certainly didn't expect that he was turned into a human distillery). It doesn't treat Gugu's journey as a "well, we need to get him here" and invests us fully.

So far, this one is definitely in my top three shows of the year.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
using sexual violence as a keyword for the "horrors of war" as every boneheaded online anime fan is defending it on

I abhor this justification. I abhor it more than any other writing trope in existence.

Yes, it happens.

Yes, it happens because of the power differential.

Not every story about war has to include it. There are other themes. There are other ways to show dehumanization. There are other ways to make an antagonist monstrous. There are other ways to create sympathy and tragedy.

"Oh but it's realistic!"

This is a fantasy anime with immortal gods, with their own sets of morality and values. If you want to be "realistic" go write (and watch) shows about humans in "realistic" wartime and then actually deal with the consequences of that, as opposed to using it as tasteless garnish, my dude.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I mean, even worse, the second episode specifically puts it into "gag" territory (in the "humour" sense of the word, though elicited a reaction akin to its other meaning). This show goes well beyond the usual "well, I can compartmentalize this" that I do with older anime or anime that I find otherwise good but with problematic elements.

BTW, in a more feel good anime camp (one that can be enjoyed for basically all ages), the teen romance movie Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is on Netflix and its really enjoyable, a love story with a guy and a girl with some insecurities and the search for a missing record. Its a very sweet, low-stakes film with an 80s ultra-loud color scheme, which feels appropriate for a film set primarily in a mall.
 

Hilene

Loves "Friendly Girls"
(She/Her)
So far, I need to say that Kageki Shoujo!! is starting to disappoint me. The first two episodes are fine, then the third episode goes DEEP into dark territory about a lead character living with a step father who is clearly a pedophile and her having to spend much of her youth trying to avoid him. I was like "This is dark but I'm still mulling over if they handled this incredibly harsh subject matter correctly. I think the intention is there but I have doubts on if they did it properly." The fourth episode confirmed this by having a misguided episode involving a well-intentioned stalker saving the day. Then a cliffhanger where we learn that one character is anorexic. I was not anticipating this to be the show that it is nor do I trust the show to handle it properly.
I'm unhappy about the stalker. It'd be one thing if the previous two episodes didn't give him such a sinister tone. That said, given the kind of show that it is, I actually did expect that second spoiler to come up eventually. Like, I anticipated that the show was going to be a yuri story set against the backdrop of the ugliness and competition of the (young) acting world, which included things like the second. After all, the protagonist's stated goal is to be one of the 4 best actors in the entire company, a spot that would result in some pretty vicious infighting.

I got blindsided by the first spoiler, though. It says a lot about how that character acted going forward, but I don't know if they needed to go into quite that much detail...

Well, the fourth episode is on the docket for me tonight with my group watch, so I'll think about it more.


I abhor this justification. I abhor it more than any other writing trope in existence.

Yes, it happens.

Yes, it happens because of the power differential.

Not every story about war has to include it. There are other themes. There are other ways to show dehumanization. There are other ways to make an antagonist monstrous. There are other ways to create sympathy and tragedy.

"Oh but it's realistic!"

This is a fantasy anime with immortal gods, with their own sets of morality and values. If you want to be "realistic" go write (and watch) shows about humans in "realistic" wartime and then actually deal with the consequences of that, as opposed to using it as tasteless garnish, my dude.
A thing that comes to mind is that the kind of people who say it is "realistic" are probably saying a lot more about themselves then they think they are. Like, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it feels like saying THAT is a "natural" reaction is revealing a lot about how that person thinks about those around them.

But that said, I also think it's become "realistic" because it's a self-reinforcing theme. At some points it was probably done based on a thing that happened, and ever since it's been people who have only seen someone else use that theme, so it obviously must be "real". If the only exposure to the horrors of war you have is people using this one theme, then at some point is it unusual that you're gonna think that it's "realistic"?
 
More random anime thoughts:

My Next Life as a Villainess is still one of my favorite shows so far. They still find ways to make Catarina likeable. That fake out over the last two episodes was wonderful.

The Great Jahy Won't be Discouraged feels like a worse and hornier The Devil is a Part Timer. Will it get better than the first episode? I doubt it.

And Tsukimichi is one I don't hate or really like. It's an isekai that claims it's horrible to be in an isekai. And then goes on to give it's protagonist massive power and two large breasted companions. The story is hopefully going somewhere, because the first five episodes just kind of meander with things happening.
 

Hilene

Loves "Friendly Girls"
(She/Her)
I... don't think Tsukimichi's message is "It's horrible to be in an isekei". The protag gets a bonus from the god of his original world on his way out, but the god of the place he's going to was expecting his sisters instead and so just boots him to the middle of nowhere.

You're not wrong about it just kind of being there, though. I'm enjoying it, but it's basically That Time I Was Reincarnated As A Slime, but written much more as a male power fantasy.
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
Is there something significant in the decision to spell isekai "isekei"? This is not a word I've heard of.
 

q 3

here to eat fish and erase the universe
(they/them)
Isekei is when an entire visual kei band goes through a portal and saves a fantasy world with the power of their hair.
 
And Tsukimichi is one I don't hate or really like. It's an isekai that claims it's horrible to be in an isekai. And then goes on to give it's protagonist massive power and two large breasted companions. The story is hopefully going somewhere, because the first five episodes just kind of meander with things happening.
The "it sucks part" is that the guy just wants to be normal and is now trapped in this place he doesn't want to be in. And the big breasted companions are actually gross monsters hiding their true appearances and have awful personalities and boundary issues. But yeah, it's doing a bad job of living up to the conceit. I'd compare it more to KonoSuba in tenor and theme but not as ostentatious or scourge-y. It's just kinda flat and dull too.
 
So I went back and watched the first episode of Tsukimichi and it makes more sense. I am liking it a bit more since I'm not taking it so seriously, but that first episode is tonally a little weird and throws a bunch of info at you.

Night Head 2041 on the other hand does a very good job of setting up it's world in a quick and interesting manner. They use a news broadcast reminding citizens of the laws which lets the viewer know the rules of the world. It is a bit of an info dump, but it lasts only a minute or two as they also pan around the city to give you an idea of how things look. It's effective at setting the tone of what you are about to watch. And then things explode. I know this is a remake/something or other of a show called Night Head, but I have no connection to the previous material. Instead, I get sucked into watching the first three episodes because of the mysteries setup that I want to see resolved.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
Far too late to the party finishing Oddtaxi. The only upside to this A+ show going largely ignored is I didn’t run into any spoilers online before finishing. That final episode was nearly flawless. Even the last scene which felt like an entire set of steak knives being shot out of a cannon into my gut after such a wonderfully hopeful finale up to that point.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Yeah, Oddtaxi is so great. I can't imagine any other show unseating it for favourite of the year. I love that the ending definitely feels a surprise in terms of the tone of the last episode but somehow doesn't feel like a counter or a rejection of it.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
BTW, in a more feel good anime camp (one that can be enjoyed for basically all ages), the teen romance movie Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is on Netflix and its really enjoyable, a love story with a guy and a girl with some insecurities and the search for a missing record. Its a very sweet, low-stakes film with an 80s ultra-loud color scheme, which feels appropriate for a film set primarily in a mall.

Yeah, just watched it, really enjoyed it. It felt so much like summer feels to me, especially when I think back to them from my childhood - the beautiful, bright colors (I loved the way the movie looked so, so much), the slow pace, the low-stakes story, everyone being so totally decent and nice. It was cute and enjoyable. If you need some feel-good anime, give this one a try.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
The Bad: It's going to Netflix-Jail
How apropos.

Apparently it starts December.

And it says its a worldwide debut. So does that mean that it'll be released weekly and NOT be in Netflix jail? That would be nice.
 
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They're not saying yet. But considering standard Japanese production schedules, and the process Netflix goes through to dub and sub its anime, I think it's more likely that instead of what you're guessing, what's more likely is that they managed to create an exciting new level of Netflix-Jail where they managed to secure rights for the show in Japan so that even Japanese people have to deal with the Jail, and had the show pushed back from an October release into December so that they could release the entire first cour at once. Love to be wrong though.
 
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