Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

[Inafune Fanfiction]

This is very true. Anime made before 2012 and after 2012 might as well be two different genres, unless its something very popular made in the past, zoomers refuse to watch it. It's a shame because the early 2000s has probably the best streak of anime period. I've been going back to watch shows from the era and I never realized how stacked of a decade it was.

It also had the right balance of substance and fanservice. Unlike post 2012 garbage being almost exclusively unfunny walking packs of tits screeching at anything that moves and acting autistic for 12+ episodes. (Bocchi)

Why do so many nips want to draw nothing but hentai? Fuck if I know. Bugmen really must only exist to reproduce and die shortly after if anime is anything to go by.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I would say that the Robotics;Notes adaption is done decently well (Although nowhere near the level as SG).
I also really enjoyed the VN, which I believe is pretty underrated. DaSH is pretty good too but it's more like Love Chu Chu or MDE than true sequel, which I've seen put off a lot of people who went in with the expectation of it being a true continuation of the story.
Also all the Sci;Adv games are on sale on Steam right now if anyone is interested in picking them up.

It's annoying I watched the anime adaptions since I expected the VNs to never get translated. While Robotics Note was alright, Chaos Child adaption really dropped the ball.

 

[TheOtherSideofMakeBelieve]

Did anyone play the Steins;Gate dating sim? I know there was some nonsense around the translation due to Ruka.

It's not really a dating sim (ie no stats or relationship mechanics) but I've done about half the routes (Kurisu, Moeka, Faris for sure). I have the achievement for clearing Luka's route but not the achievement for seeing the ending so I'm not sure if I've finished his or not, I have basically no memory of it so maybe the Clear achievements are just from unlocking the route so I just got to the start but never went back and finished it (but for the other routes the Clear and Ending achievements all came 5-6 minutes apart and they're definitely longer than that so I'm not sure)

Kurisu and Moeka's routes are great. I don't remember much about Faris's route aside from all the girls (and Luka) getting maid uniforms while Okabe got a butler uniform that makes all the fujos start thirsting over him. I do think it was pretty entertaining but just not as memorable as Kurisu or Moeka's.

For Kurisu, the Future Gadget Lab all worked together to make a new invention called Darling, You Idiot!, a pair of bracelets that would shock its wearer's if their mental waves went too far out of sync (ie arguing) or if they moved too far apart. Holding hands immediately stops the shocks, and the only way to remove it is to have your brainwaves sync up. Lots of cute tsundere-on-tsundere action, as you might can imagine

Moeka is no longer a rounder and is instead Mr Braun's adopted daughter. She's pretty much the same minus the zealous fervor to satisfy FB (who doesn't exist in this worldine). Basically, as I mentioned above, she gets to be the trash princess best girl she was always meant to be. Her route revolves around working for a trashy zine that covers urban legends so she wants Okabe to help her research stories and fake them as necessary so she can get her stories done in time

Based on pictures I've seen I think Suzuha's route revolves around Idol shenanigans and Mayushii's involves a beach trip. Suzuha isn't trying to find an IBN 5100 or prevent WW3/SERN dystopia or anything like that, the future has just lost the ability to read floppy discs and other archaic media so she's recovering that.

No memory of Luka's as mentioned, and I said pretty much all I have to say about Faris's already. Definitely worth the sale price for Kurisu and Moeka's routes alone in my opinion, and I have no doubt I'll enjoy the ones that I haven't read yet when I get back to it as well

E: Based on my playtime I believe all of the routes are about 3-4 hours each, assuming I haven't done Luka's because I'm sure I would have remembered if I did, I'm at just under 15 hours for the three I've played through and there's a bit of a common route at the beginning as well. I think it's going to end up being nearly as much content as S;G and 0 were, which took me around 30 hours each to complete

 

[Safir]

Guys definitely hold a candle for waifus longer than women do, does anyone still give a shit about Gravitation? Hetailia? Maybe Ouran is still fondly remembered, but for the most part it seems like fujos are more fickle, Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey are some western examples.

I think it's the same underlying principle as with troons, women are more relationship-focused. Men are content to fantasize about their waifus. Women want to talk about their husbandos with other women and move along with the mainstream.

 

[MrJokerRager]

This was the music for the trailer over Fate Strange Fake.

 

[skykiii]

On a side note, Konata is another character who's still popular, yet you rarely see Haruhi, imagine the salt that would have caused in 2008 to know that lmao.

That's kind of whack too... a lot of the jokes in Lucky Star directly rely on you having watched Haruhi.

I actually read somewhere that in Japan, the Lucky Star manga has moved on and now barely ever even features the original four girls and their friends anymore, preferring instead to always be about a new group of girls who talk about random shit. Which is also just a surreal thought to have. It's like someone telling you that at one point Charlie Brown grew up and married Patty and now the comics star some other kids who happen to live in the same neighborhood. You just kinda get used to the idea that these are gonna be Conan-levels of stagnant and that these girls are gonna just be in highschool forever.

On that note, I thought of asking why Lupin and Conan aren't as big in America as they are in Japan, but as soon as I thought to ask, the answer became clear... because most westerners are happier with our own home-grown interpretations of those respective genres. It doesn't help that for both characters, their best parts tend to be from before a certain cut-off point. Detective Conan's best stories are the ones that have a vaguely horror atmosphere, but that's something the TV series largely dropped around the time the animation switched to digital, and honestly the only thing Lupin III: the First had going for it was the gimmick of being a CGI movie.

 

[Atatata]

Pretty sure neither became popular because they were too "adult" for kids but too "childish" for adults, they were in a grey area that western stations had no idea what to do with.

Anime made before 2012 and after 2012 might as well be two different genres,

Imo anime was the same pre2012. Bakemonogatari, Ladies versus Butlers, Is This a Zombie, TuLoveRu, Haruhi, Heaven's Property, Hetalia were all before 2012 and back then people were still complaining about how anime just wasn't the same anymore.

 

[Kujo Jotaro]

What's the preferred way to watch anime now? Is torrenting still the best option for quality, or is there a streaming site that's halfway decent. Haven't watched anime in like 2 years so I'm a bit out of the loop.

 

[TheOtherSideofMakeBelieve]

Torrenting has been my go-to for the last couple of years. For all the streaming sites I tried their players' had issues whenever a show would have any kind of filter over a scene, film grain, static, etc. Basically locking up and playing a single frame every 1-2 seconds (on a high end PC, with and without GPU acceleration enabled)

I used/paid for crunchyroll for a while but it was just always just an unusable hell of buffering if I wanted to use it during anything approaching what I assume to be peak hours (evenings/weekends) and I cancelled my sub when their fix was to just reduce the bitrate of their streams rather than upgrade their shit player/bandwidth/servers/whatever the bottleneck was.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I had the exact opposite experience personally. But that was years and years ago. I liked Lucky Star's art style, but I couldn't get into it past the first couple of episodes.

I guess I like Azumanga mostly because I adore its sister series, Yotsuba&!. Not that Azumanga wasn't a great series (it was in my opinion) but the latter resonated with me on a much deeper level.

But yeah, Azumanga has always been a cultural mainstay on the internet. You see Osaka and Chiyo-Chan's dad practically everywhere. And it manages to maintain that middle ground between being "old" but not "too old" and it helped popularized the Moe style that's so common and popular to this day.

It also has a slight bit of Yuri teasing between Sakaki and Kaorin which zoomers love to gobble up.

Lucky Star is a lot of fun, but Azumanga has more artistic quality, Azumanga gives you more genuine "feels" than Lucky Star.

Maybe that's a good thing. It would mean grubby youngsters won't sully the great story and characters of Maison Ikkoku.

Generally the stuff I've seen zoomers do with older series has been interesting, the real Woke Kool-Aid drinkers aren't watching this shit anyway, the more open minded ones are.

How exactly do you know the younger generation are getting into those shows you mentioned as opposed to say Code Geass, Fullmetal Alchemist, Inuyasha, One Piece, Bleach, etc?

Twitter basically, zoomers I've seen cosplaying, drawing fanart or using characters as avatars.

Zoomer gals love Revy, she manages to be an atypical, badass anime girl without it being lame but cool and still feels fresh.

Maria Holic is prime for tranny seething. God damn I miss 2000's Shaft, Madoka and Bakemonogatari killed the studio creatively.

That's exactly my point, like how Maria looks so feminine but still gives Kanako hives when touching her because NOT A REAL WOMAN LOL.

I'm honestly surprised it hasn't seen any sort of revival on /a/ or wherever for that reason.

I miss 2000s Shaft too, Maria Holic was kind of their last big hurrah, wasn't it?

This is very true. Anime made before 2012 and after 2012 might as well be two different genres, unless its something very popular made in the past, zoomers refuse to watch it. It's a shame because the early 2000s has probably the best streak of anime period. I've been going back to watch shows from the era and I never realized how stacked of a decade it was.

There's been good stuff I've seen since 2012, but nothing I would say was an all time classic.

I think the big hurdle with 2000s anime is a lot of it trapped in SD, 4:3 or doesn't remaster into HD as well, it takes a little know how to make them look acceptable.

For a whole generation of people 4:3 is probably enough of a put off.

But writing wise the anime from back then is better, there's just some technical datedness.

That's kind of whack too... a lot of the jokes in Lucky Star directly rely on you having watched Haruhi.

I actually read somewhere that in Japan, the Lucky Star manga has moved on and now barely ever even features the original four girls and their friends anymore, preferring instead to always be about a new group of girls who talk about random shit. Which is also just a surreal thought to have. It's like someone telling you that at one point Charlie Brown grew up and married Patty and now the comics star some other kids who happen to live in the same neighborhood. You just kinda get used to the idea that these are gonna be Conan-levels of stagnant and that these girls are gonna just be in highschool forever.

On that note, I thought of asking why Lupin and Conan aren't as big in America as they are in Japan, but as soon as I thought to ask, the answer became clear... because most westerners are happier with our own home-grown interpretations of those respective genres. It doesn't help that for both characters, their best parts tend to be from before a certain cut-off point. Detective Conan's best stories are the ones that have a vaguely horror atmosphere, but that's something the TV series largely dropped around the time the animation switched to digital, and honestly the only thing Lupin III: the First had going for it was the gimmick of being a CGI movie.

That's disappointing to hear, but is this pre or post hiatus?

They are making a spinoff manga with a thirty something Konata and what's crazy about that is for a while I've wondered what it would be like if you followed a series like LS or Azumanga with the girls as adults and sure enough, it's happening.

Pretty sure neither became popular because they were too "adult" for kids but too "childish" for adults, they were in a grey area that western stations had no idea what to do with.

Imo anime was the same pre2012. Bakemonogatari, Ladies versus Butlers, Is This a Zombie, TuLoveRu, Haruhi, Heaven's Property, Hetalia were all before 2012 and back then people were still complaining about how anime just wasn't the same anymore.

Conan in it's early seasons is a strange beast, the occasional panty shot or women in her underwear or surprising levels of blood, ya know, for kids!

I'd say the real divergence point is around 2008 and the great recession, less money to go around meant less creativity and this was true for all entertainment.

There's been good stuff that I've seen since then, but not much I'd say are all time classics (keep in my mind my knowledge drops off pretty hard after a point)

Maria Holic is in fact one of the last I've seen I'd consider an all time favorite.

 

[skykiii]

@Dom Cruise I don't recall Detective Conan having panty shots. Actually as many episodes as I've sat through, the anime seems positively puritanical about sex and nudity.

(blood, though, definitely used to happen a lot, and in DC fan circles this tends to be something brought up about how the older episodes used to be better).

I never knew Lucky Star went on hiatus at all, so I wouldn't be able to answer that question.

Pretty sure neither became popular because they were too "adult" for kids but too "childish" for adults, they were in a grey area that western stations had no idea what to do with.

I know Detective Conan suffered from this. Tonally, the show was more appropriate for Toonami, but because of the violence Cartoon Network opted instead to play it on Adult Swim, where it predictably failed because it clearly was not made for adults.

I tend to think Lupin's first big push (again on Adult Swim) failed because of the English dub. The voices were great.... but everyone hated how they tried to modernize the slang and make everyone sound vaguely retarded. I think it would've been better if they had just embraced that the show was made in the 1970s and kept everything period-accurate, where maybe it would've had some kitsch nostalgia appeal. (Then again, Adult Swim also once ran a bumper where they raged about how people get mad every time Lupin gets removed, but then nobody watches it when its on... so I guess Lupin did have some sort of cult success. Then again, so did Conan).

(All we need for it to come full circle is for Adult Swim to air the Lupin vs Conan crossover movies.... movies which I personally love, but from what I've heard, the respective fanbases have mixed feelings about.)

Imo anime was the same pre2012. Bakemonogatari, Ladies versus Butlers, Is This a Zombie, TuLoveRu, Haruhi, Heaven's Property, Hetalia were all before 2012 and back then people were still complaining about how anime just wasn't the same anymore.

I can confirm.... I was one of the complainers.

I mean you can find me saying this if you search my post history but honestly.... anime hasn't really been "good" since at least 2006 or so, and all the really great stuff is from before a Space Odyssey (in other words, before 2001).

My memory is I really loved anime from 1996 to about 1999 when I started to get bored of it, then got back into it briefly when Shonen Jump began publishing in the US... but this was also where I realized one of anime's big flaws (and incidentally sometimes when I say "anime" I mean both anime and manga).... the large amount of repetitive, samey shit.

To be honest this has always been a thing, but used to be easier to ignore when television wasn't literally airing ten anime with almost the exact same premise back to back.

"Today on Kitten Catchers, Smash Scratchum encounters a new rival! Will his quest to be a Kitten Master end here? It's an exciting battle today on Kitten Catchers!"

"Today on One Strong Person Beats People Up, Joey Strongman continues to fight in Generic Anime Tournament against his latest opponent, New Guy Invented Just for Merch! Tournament Arcs are boring and we all know it but we're also desperately hoping this gets turned into a fighting game, so bear with us as this tepid journey continues!"

I said this before too, but.... seriously I will never understand how there's an evergreen fanbase for shonen fighting shows when they all literally have the same characters and plot beats and themes over and over. You could literally replicate the experience of any given one by just loading up MUGEN, recording a series of matches, then making up a story about what happened before and after every fight.

 

[The tired cat]

I don't recall Detective Conan having panty shots. Actually as many episodes as I've sat through, the anime seems positively puritanical about sex and nudity.

There have been a few panty shots, I recall those actually appearing in the German dubbed version, and def had some nudity moments here and there.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

@Dom Cruise
I guess there was Arakawa Under the Bridge, which was a bit too out there for me, and Denpa Shoujo, which had the most ear rape yet memorable opening song I remember:

I wish they made the last season of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei.

 

[Vapewizard]

For once I wish a subber would actually put in less effort. This shit is annoying to read.

 

[skykiii]

There have been a few panty shots, I recall those actually appearing in the German dubbed version, and def had some nudity moments here and there.

I'm gonna have to rewatch the early episodes. Because my memory is that Detective Conan would tease it but never show it.

As for nudity I recall it happening in one ending theme but never in the actual show... and even that one ending theme shot was done in an "artistic" way.

 

[Johnny Eastwood cash]

princess mononoke is better then most environmentalist films I seen

 

[Involuntary Celebrity]

You reminded me of this and now I have an excuse to post it because it's literally the only thing related to Free! I know about and it still makes me laugh:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=GQdAr9Lb_cM

hey cool video. totally unrelated, but I just started watching Escaflowne

Spoiler

i can't wait for the inevitable showdown between this bitch's nose and gamera

 

[Dom Cruise]

@Dom Cruise I don't recall Detective Conan having panty shots. Actually as many episodes as I've sat through, the anime seems positively puritanical about sex and nudity.

(blood, though, definitely used to happen a lot, and in DC fan circles this tends to be something brought up about how the older episodes used to be better).

I vividly remember it watching it on Adult Swim even though this was close to 20 years ago and there was definitely female underwear, but only implied nudity.

I never knew Lucky Star went on hiatus at all, so I wouldn't be able to answer that question.

I haven't read the manga but iirc it went on hiatus in 2014 and only recently came back, but features the original girls again.

I know Detective Conan suffered from this. Tonally, the show was more appropriate for Toonami, but because of the violence Cartoon Network opted instead to play it on Adult Swim, where it predictably failed because it clearly was not made for adults.

This is one place where America sucks and Japan wins, Japan respects kids intelligence more and aren't afraid to have slightly more mature content, in America everything has got to be near squeaky clean.

There's no real reason a kid can't watch Detective Conan as is, but this is the country that gave us 4kids.

There's a lot of reasons why America is turning into Idiocracy and not respecting kids' intelligence more is one of them.

I tend to think Lupin's first big push (again on Adult Swim) failed because of the English dub. The voices were great.... but everyone hated how they tried to modernize the slang and make everyone sound vaguely retarded. I think it would've been better if they had just embraced that the show was made in the 1970s and kept everything period-accurate, where maybe it would've had some kitsch nostalgia appeal. (Then again, Adult Swim also once ran a bumper where they raged about how people get mad every time Lupin gets removed, but then nobody watches it when its on... so I guess Lupin did have some sort of cult success. Then again, so did Conan).

(All we need for it to come full circle is for Adult Swim to air the Lupin vs Conan crossover movies.... movies which I personally love, but from what I've heard, the respective fanbases have mixed feelings about.)

Us millennials have to shoulder some of the blame for doing what we tut tut at Zoomers for doing, turning down older anime because it "looks too dated"

I watched a little Lupin but was not a frequent viewer because that's how I felt, I favored stuff from 90s and 00s.

I think we were a little more open minded though because everything wa still SD.

I can confirm.... I was one of the complainers.

I mean you can find me saying this if you search my post history but honestly.... anime hasn't really been "good" since at least 2006 or so, and all the really great stuff is from before a Space Odyssey (in other words, before 2001).

2006 is not a bad year to pick, it was the year of Black Lagoon after all, but I'd say 2007 for Baccano alone was the last great year.

You're not entirely wrong about 2001 either, but I think there are some all time greats post 2001 (or during 2001), something was lost when TV abandoned cel animation though, it's true.

My memory is I really loved anime from 1996 to about 1999 when I started to get bored of it, then got back into it briefly when Shonen Jump began publishing in the US... but this was also where I realized one of anime's big flaws (and incidentally sometimes when I say "anime" I mean both anime and manga).... the large amount of repetitive, samey shit.

To be honest this has always been a thing, but used to be easier to ignore when television wasn't literally airing ten anime with almost the exact same premise back to back.

"Today on Kitten Catchers, Smash Scratchum encounters a new rival! Will his quest to be a Kitten Master end here? It's an exciting battle today on Kitten Catchers!"

"Today on One Strong Person Beats People Up, Joey Strongman continues to fight in Generic Anime Tournament against his latest opponent, New Guy Invented Just for Merch! Tournament Arcs are boring and we all know it but we're also desperately hoping this gets turned into a fighting game, so bear with us as this tepid journey continues!"

I said this before too, but.... seriously I will never understand how there's an evergreen fanbase for shonen fighting shows when they all literally have the same characters and plot beats and themes over and over. You could literally replicate the experience of any given one by just loading up MUGEN, recording a series of matches, then making up a story about what happened before and after every fight.

You're talking more about shonen tropes to be fair than anime in general.

@Dom Cruise
I guess there was Arakawa Under the Bridge, which was a bit too out there for me, and Denpa Shoujo, which had the most ear rape yet memorable opening song I remember:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=i6fwe3EFTRQ
I wish they made the last season of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei.

For sure, but it also would have been cool if Maria Holic got a third season too to finish with the manga.

princess mononoke is better then most environmentalist films I seen

Same with Pom Poko.

It's fucked up that only Japan gives us the message of "yes humans are out of lockstep with nature, but that doesn't make us all evil or nature flawless either", my jaw dropped when I saw Pom Poko, I had literally never seen a movie with environmentalist themes take that turn in the story.

 

[skykiii]

@Dom Cruise For some reason, there's never a "reply" button on your posts. It's weird (and likely a forum glitch)

Anyway....

...... Honestly, I don't think DC airing on Adult Swim was a US-vs-Japan thing, I think it was just Cartoon Network being retarded. Really, a lot of the stuff they were playing on Toonami was just as violent, perhaps more violent, than Conan. But for some reason Conan gave them cold feet.

The closest thing I recall to an "underwear shot" was a case (that wouldn't have aired on TV back then because AS only aired the first fifty episodes and this was wayyy later) where Conan had to check someone's laundry for a clue. I tend to think stuff like that doesn't count though.

I'm gonna double-check this elsewhere tho, cuz its sounding like a Mandela thing.

..... Yeah I was talking about general shonen tropes, but that's exactly what I mean.... that kind of thing started being EVERYWHERE and seemingly was the only kind of anime you could even find, to the point where if you didn't like it, you didn't like anime, period. I remember having to do digging to get away from that glut and remember what made this medium special in the first place.

.... I think I was more receptive to Lupin because at the time I specifically had an interest in 1970s anime, and like I said I was sick of how everything was just the same repackaged shonen series over and over so it was nice to see something that very thoroughly did not fit inside that category.

That said, if I ever in real life meet someone who says they refuse to watch something just because its in 4:3 or not HD, my response would be "do you refuse to read books, too?" (Which, they probably do)

.......... So the thing about Lucky Star is I find it..... how do I put this....

One of my IRL friends has (or had) a tradition of watching Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Summer Vacation almost every summer. It's not a great movie, but it reminds him of back when the Summer season used to be special because it was that magical time we got out of school (as opposed to adulthood where it's just "those three stupidly hot months.")

I had a similar feeling about Lucky Star, although not to the same degree (Lucky Star, after all, was not around during my childhood)... but it felt like it captured a very similar vibe: it reminded me of when I was a young nerd and when this stuff was all actually fun. What made it work is that Lucky Star felt like it was coming from a very genuine place, as opposed to most shows with nerd references which feel like they're shoehorning it in just to say "hey, remember that?"

Kinda like Scott Pilgrim, in a way, except Scott Pilgrim had a plot.

That said, I do find Lucky Star hard to watch on repeat visits.

 

[Atatata]

kind of thing started being EVERYWHERE and seemingly was the only kind of anime you could even find, to the point where if you didn't like it, you didn't like anime, period

Eh, personally I found that this was much more the case back in the 80s and 90s especially in the era of the mech boom where it was always a hot blooded brown haired and red color schemed teenager with killer sideburns and Silvester Stallone clones.

While there are definitely "defeat the elder team of evil gimmick bad guys then go on to defeat the superior team of evil gimmick bad guys" its not a new phenomenon.