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I love this manga already.
 
I thought that helped make the show a mess. The villains are a loathsome bunch and the setting is extremely bleak. I mean the villain faction is basically straight out of QAnon fantasies about the global elite are what with all the child sex trafficking and ignoring child slavery and all sorts of organized crime on the fringes. The heroes are people who strike a blow at that and are people you want to root for, since they're trying to end all the slavery, corruption, and oppression. To me, the "hubris" thing didn't really make sense (at least when it aired) because why just stop where they did? Why not just keep going and make a difference? I mean, it's what every other Gundam show does and this show sure loves to indulge in its Gundam tropes like having a blond guy with a red mobile suit who wears a mask and enjoys lolis and backstabbing his allies.

Basically, I never had the feeling that what Orga was doing was wrong because the show makes it abundantly clear that the villains and the society the characters are in are far, far worse than a bunch of upjumped child soldiers with delusions of grandeur. Other Gundam shows like G Gundam or Gundam 00 pull off the "what if the heroes are wrong and the villains are more right than they think far, far better. What's the show trying to say? "Hey, enjoy your friends and stop trying to change the world and getting involved with dangerous people because that will get them killed?" Maybe it does, but the show doesn't present it well. In basically every way it's following the usual playbook of Gundam tropes until it declares "what sort of idiot thinks a bunch of child soldiers, smugglers, and rebels following a blond-haired sociopath using a 200 year old mobile suit can overthrow the 200 year old world government with vastly greater resources?" and everyone dies.

Whatever message IBO had, it didn't present it well. And the epilogue (Sunrise-demanded IIRC because the ending was too bleak) just makes things cross over into the realm of stupid. It's too bad too, since it could've been an incredible tragedy. Maybe I'm wrong. I watched every episode on release after all, maybe it would flow better if I watched it straight through like I'd watch any older Gundam series.
Holy fuck, nigger, just use the regular spoiler tag if you're gonna spoiler your whole fucking post.

Also, I agree IBO never did any of the major things it does particularly well. If it did, I probably wouldn't have been able to guess the ending pretty accurately from just the start of season 2 before some of the bigger tonal shifts started happening. But all the signs that things were going to go wrong were pretty blatantly slapped in your face,

from the setup of all the actors looking for the best opportunity to take down Tekkadan – seriously, they made too many enemies who were blatantly shown to be enemies, or at the very least apathetic, to Tekkadan (AND their allies) for any of Orga's ambitions to work out, which leads me to my next example of Orga just sperging so goddamned hard on his "I WANT TO TAKE THE SHORTEST PATH POSSIBLE SO THAT TEKKADAN AND MARS CAN BE TAKEN CARE OF" bullshit, even despite being told by people smarter than he is outright "You might lose more than you gain doing this." Big surprise when he ends up gunned down in the street by some of those third party actors that he'd pissed off, along with all the other deaths they caused. Also, Dainsleifs. Warcrimes: The Railgun was pretty much the big demonstration of what Gjallarhorn could pull out of their ass and say "Fuck you" with when they're really tired of your shit. Tekkadan had no real defense against that. McGillis' gay ass, stupid ass defection faction had no real defense against that. And, speaking of, it was retarded and got appropriately dealt with as it should've that McGillis autistic grandmaster plan was "HURR DURR I'M GONNA PULL OUT AND PILOT THE GUDNAM BAEL AND EVERYBODY GONNA KNOW I'M THE TRUE LEADER OF GJALLARHORN CUZ THE OLD GODNAM HELPED FOUND GJALLARHORN IN THE BEGINNING SO EVERYBDOY GONNA HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY AUTHORITY WHEN I PILOT THIS GEDNAM." As soon as I saw that retarded shit, I immediately went "What's really stopping the biggest organized force in Gjallarhorn from looking at this blonde retard and going 'No, fuck you, you're fucking stupid,' and then pounding the shit out of his ass with Dainsleifs?" Which is basically what ended up happening, more or less, and I couldn't have been more pleased. Honestly, Tekkadan getting fucked to shit from there was just collateral because Orga was fucking stupid enough to throw his lot in with that idiot.

So, yeah, it was all pretty stupid, but the consequences for the stupidity were at least appropriate and that's why I have to give IBO some credit, even if it was written in such a way where our heroes were intentionally made stupid enough to bring the worst ending down upon themselves in spite of SOME (Fuck McGillis though, actual retard and not even a GOOD Char clone) of their more ennobling ambitions.
 
HURR DURR I'M GONNA PULL OUT AND PILOT THE GUDNAM BAEL AND EVERYBODY GONNA KNOW I'M THE TRUE LEADER OF GJALLARHORN CUZ THE OLD GODNAM HELPED FOUND GJALLARHORN IN THE BEGINNING SO EVERYBDOY GONNA HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY AUTHORITY WHEN I PILOT THIS GEDNAM." As soon as I saw that retarded shit, I immediately went "What's really stopping the biggest organized force in Gjallarhorn from looking at this blonde retard and going 'No, fuck you, you're fucking stupid,'
I'll be blunt, for the second season, I did like the fact despite losing his body little by little, Mika didn't lose his soul.

I liked McGillis as Montag, not as McGillis. Working with McGillis was a terrible idea from the start. Tekkadan when going by their own rules worked better.
 

Lyricist Akira Ito has passed away at age 80 from renal failure, after a lifetime writing the lyrics for some of Japan’s best-known jingles and anime openings. He wrote the words for the original Urusei Yatsura opening theme song “Lum’s Love Song,” as well as working on theme songs for such anime titles as Cutie Honey, Barefoot Gen 2, Muteki Robo Trider G7, Mashin Hero Wataru, Nanako SOS, and Stop! Hibari-kun.

Besides anime theme songs, he wrote jingles for companies like Hitachi, Meiji Iodine and Nippon Kodo. His Hitachi jingle “Hitachi no Ki” is especially recognizable in Japan.


(:_(What a talented songwriter
 
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I have thought about it, and I think ‘Tis Time for Torture, Princess may be one of the top 5 comedy mangas of all time, as well as being super heartwarming.

The thing that really sells me is that despite having what is basically the exact same setup for nearly 100 chapters at this point, the humor is still sharp, there’s still multiple subversions of expectation, and I still find myself laughing hysterically every chapter.

The cast of characters has increased and the setting and setup sometimes changes - but more than half of them follow the same basic formula and still manage to be excellent. So many comedy manga slowly expand and expand their scope (there’s the extremes like To Love Ru or Ranma or Hitman Reborn, but even stuff like Lucky Star and Azumanga Daioh ended on a completely different scope than they started) that having a series that can do such good work with a limited toolset while always being top notch really makes it a series worth looking at and taking notes from, imo.

Also, RIP Ito. Cutey Honey is one of the great theme songs.
 
Gotta say, 8 episodes into Higehiro (Hige o Soru. Soshite Joshi Kōsei o Hirou) it's turning out to be a really good anime. Wholesome as I had expected since watching the first episode, though it does have some hiccups. I recommend
 
Fuck it, gonna rewatch Berserk. Have enough animu on my plate as-is, but Berserk only took a few days to finish and even if reading the manga is faster, it was still a beautiful watch. Also the soundtrack is just so kino, I might as well revisit those glorious scenes.
Kevin T Collins is fantastic as Griffith. Watch the outtakes too because the guy can really sing
 
I made it through season 1 of Megalo Box mostly through not having anything better to watch that season but season 2 is actually pretty good. The other boxers actually have personality and Joe actually goes though character growth.
 
I just happened to look at Sentai Filmworks' website just to look at the retail prices (there's a sale going on but I'm not buying anything right now), and I legit can't believe Blu-Rays have gone up to 60/70 bucks on one-cour series. Two-cour can be up to a hundred bucks retail. How in the fuck? Is that the inflation rate kicking in, or is Sentai adopting Aniplex prices now?
 
I just happened to look at Sentai Filmworks' website just to look at the retail prices (there's a sale going on but I'm not buying anything right now), and I legit can't believe Blu-Rays have gone up to 60/70 bucks on one-cour series. Two-cour can be up to a hundred bucks retail. How in the fuck? Is that the inflation rate kicking in, or is Sentai adopting Aniplex prices now?
Sentai has always had a bit higher prices than funimation in my experience, with the exception of when they do their super sales that rival the Steam sales in terms of discounts.

I remember them to be about:
Funi: $50/cour
Sentai: $60/cour
Aniplex: $120/cour
PonyCanyon: $140-$160/cour

Aniplex has gotten a little bit better recently releasing series at $100 for the full season rather than 2 blu-rays with 6 episodes each at $60. Not to say that that is reasonable price. PonyCanyon doesn't license many series, but they refuse to release anything they do get outside of a collectors edition.
 
I thought that helped make the show a mess. The villains are a loathsome bunch and the setting is extremely bleak. I mean the villain faction is basically straight out of QAnon fantasies about the global elite are what with all the child sex trafficking and ignoring child slavery and all sorts of organized crime on the fringes. The heroes are people who strike a blow at that and are people you want to root for, since they're trying to end all the slavery, corruption, and oppression. To me, the "hubris" thing didn't really make sense (at least when it aired) because why just stop where they did? Why not just keep going and make a difference? I mean, it's what every other Gundam show does and this show sure loves to indulge in its Gundam tropes like having a blond guy with a red mobile suit who wears a mask and enjoys lolis and backstabbing his allies.

Basically, I never had the feeling that what Orga was doing was wrong because the show makes it abundantly clear that the villains and the society the characters are in are far, far worse than a bunch of upjumped child soldiers with delusions of grandeur. Other Gundam shows like G Gundam or Gundam 00 pull off the "what if the heroes are wrong and the villains are more right than they think far, far better. What's the show trying to say? "Hey, enjoy your friends and stop trying to change the world and getting involved with dangerous people because that will get them killed?" Maybe it does, but the show doesn't present it well. In basically every way it's following the usual playbook of Gundam tropes until it declares "what sort of idiot thinks a bunch of child soldiers, smugglers, and rebels following a blond-haired sociopath using a 200 year old mobile suit can overthrow the 200 year old world government with vastly greater resources?" and everyone dies.

Whatever message IBO had, it didn't present it well. And the epilogue (Sunrise-demanded IIRC because the ending was too bleak) just makes things cross over into the realm of stupid. It's too bad too, since it could've been an incredible tragedy. Maybe I'm wrong. I watched every episode on release after all, maybe it would flow better if I watched it straight through like I'd watch any older Gundam series.
Pair that up with some uncharacteristically eye-bleedingly bad animation from many of the franchise's regulars and you got a series that, imo, really should never have existed. Okada's a hack and it's no wonder the next few TV entries were just Build Fighters spin offs.
 
I just happened to look at Sentai Filmworks' website just to look at the retail prices (there's a sale going on but I'm not buying anything right now), and I legit can't believe Blu-Rays have gone up to 60/70 bucks on one-cour series. Two-cour can be up to a hundred bucks retail. How in the fuck? Is that the inflation rate kicking in, or is Sentai adopting Aniplex prices now?
I feel the same thing when looking at manga prices compared to how many books you can get. I'm trying to put in an order at the moment and just looking at the prices can be depressing, especially when I look at them compared to JPN copies.
 
I just happened to look at Sentai Filmworks' website just to look at the retail prices (there's a sale going on but I'm not buying anything right now), and I legit can't believe Blu-Rays have gone up to 60/70 bucks on one-cour series. Two-cour can be up to a hundred bucks retail. How in the fuck? Is that the inflation rate kicking in, or is Sentai adopting Aniplex prices now?

I don't think most people actually pay the MSRP for physical media at Sentai, they're just set high to make the discounts look more impressive.
 
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