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

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It's this legendary VA's birthday
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so basically your average LN slop just with grafix and lot of whitespace?
A lot of Korean stuff tends to be more Cultivation, which is the opposite end of the Isekai Horseshoe theory where you understand the hidden truth of the world so good from that one time you meditated under a waterfall really hard and now you can fly around and shoot lasers and sex ladies real good instead of being a corporate drone doomed to die alone in an efficiency apartment. It somehow worse than Isekai because the Japanese are well into Post Isekai, where they are making responses to the concept of getting shit into a world and given super powers like "wouldn't it be funny if you were turned into a vending machine instead" or "what if instead of a generic fantasy world you were shit into a reverse-harem VN as the antagonist". Cultivation stuff that I've seen is just slavishly adherent to the formula.
 
While I normally would choose sub over dub, it really makes me wonder how overall anime dub quality managed to fall so far?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=r2sqdudEle4
I think things are getting better now tbh, Funimation dubbed most of the anime for a long time and really started phoning it in from the 2010's up until it got absorbed into crunchyroll. Maybe I just got more tolerant as I've aged but I've seen a few CR dubs that aren't half bad and the companies Netflix hires tend to do a pretty good job, Pluto's dub is among my favorites of all time.
 
I really need to watch that considering how much I enjoyed the 2006 version. A simple premise plus a wonderful soundtrack made for such a comfy series.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=cdSDJIU_bj4
Haven't checked out the original anime yet to see what differences there are. Maybe next day's off.

I will admit that the soundtrack isn't that prominent in the new series, but the opening track is great. Keeps with the comfy vibe of the series and is beautifully animated. Also, I wonder if the studio just said fuck it and used as many liquor brands they could get away with in their short run. Jim Bean, Glenfidditch, Campari, Suntory, Beefeater Gin, Smirnoff, Iceberg Vodka (seeing a Newfie vodka that isn't Crystal Head caught me off guard), Knob Creek, Maker's Mark and a shit ton more with their labels on full display.
 
Japanese are well into Post Isekai
I doubt it. That vending isekai is old by now, yet the isekai anime keep going. People are seemingly addicted to it. The villainess isekai seems to be more of the female standard for isekai and you can write a thesis on the implications.
Rewatching Bartender: Glass of God. I'm usually not a slice of life guy, but god I love this series. Fuck the retards who says it promotes drinking too.
Now you reminded me of Death Parade. The op was a banger, but I think it ended on a somewhat of a cliffhanger.
 
I doubt it. That vending isekai is old by now, yet the isekai anime keep going. People are seemingly addicted to it. The villainess isekai seems to be more of the female standard for isekai and you can write a thesis on the implications.
Nah, I meant "post" in the way it's used in music genres, where it's a genre that coexists with but is a response to something, like post-punk or post-rock.
 
Haven't checked out the original anime yet to see what differences there are. Maybe next day's off.
It's more episodic, with each episode being "this week's customer's issues cleared up by history of a cocktail." Edenhall is a more mysterious, almost mystical, place that feels like it only appears to those who need it. It's a bit like Mushishi in a way.
 
Watching the most recent episode of Solo Leveling S2, not looking for spoilers just a general sense of "does the writer know where he's going with this?" or should I brace for Attack on Titan disappointment.

The story has already used "Jinwoo helps C/B/A rank heroes in raids" and now is going to save the S-Ranks on Jeju, meaning he's now above S and I'm guessing there's a super small rank above S like this Thomas Andre they showed. But is this basically all the series can do now? It's an interesting premise but the problem with keeping heroes capped at a rank really limits the storytelling, which was surprising by how fast Jinwoo shot up to S-Rank in 20 episodes. To pivot to The System being bad or whatever also feels predictable and lazy, which is what makes me think of AoT's PATHS or whatever gayness that was.

One Punch Man was very cool in that Saitama doesn't save the S-Ranks, we see they can clearly handle the monsters, Saitama can just do it easier and quicker and that helps in bringing the other heroes character to the front. I doubt we're going to get that in Solo Leveling.
 
Japanese are well into Post Isekai
Anime wise, not yet
LN wise, kind of actually.
Out of the top 10 selling LNs from 2024, Slime was the only isekai when 5-10 years before at least half the list where isekai series.
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The popular isekai from prior years have either ended or the author "has health concerns" gotten lazy and has enough money to do nothing that maybe a new volumes comes out every 2-3 years, Even checking the monthly charts there only seems to be a handful nowadays
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Actually looking at the past few anime seasons, a good chunk of the new anime isekai are either manga or web manga and the few LN adaptations seem to be from series that where published before 2020 when isekai series where arguably at their height.
It'll probably be a few more years of studios of trying to find what mildly popular isekai series from almost a decade ago can we make into something unless a new one pops up and revives the genre
 
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you guys remember Karin: Chibi Vampire? Essentially some fluff ass 2000s romance story about some vampire crybaby chick who gets constant nosebleed from bland male guy who’s essentially Proto-Ryuji from Toradora (kinda ironic since there both made by J.C Staff) I found out about on some Future Diary manga ad by Tokyopop back at like 2018 and I watched the anime recently and overall…it’s just ok?

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I watched the anime first because some artist I used to follow was a fan of it. The anime was putting me to sleep, it really was mid like you said.

The thing is, though, the anime is nothing like the manga. This was rather common in the 2000s for anime adaptations to just not follow the manga's story after a point in time, and in Karin that was done almost right out of the gate, and they kept the school setting even though the school's more tertiary in the manga, so they added original characters (unless they were in the LN, it and the manga and the anime ran congruently). The relationship between Karin and Kenta ends up taking a backseat in the anime which is sad. They also don't focus too much on the Marker family, which again, is sad, and neither does Kenta's family situation get brought into focus, so character motivations don't make much sense in the long haul.

I promise you the manga is better. Check it out.
 
To pivot to The System being bad or whatever also feels predictable and lazy,
I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to say: don't worry, the twist isn't that The System is bad.
the twist is that there was no System.
One Punch Man was very cool in that Saitama doesn't save the S-Ranks, we see they can clearly handle the monsters, Saitama can just do it easier and quicker and that helps in bringing the other heroes character to the front. I doubt we're going to get that in Solo Leveling.
This, however, does become a bit of an issue.
If I'm remembering the WN right (only machine translation was out at the time, details are fuzzy) even the s-rank hunters are just footsoldiers in an ongoing finnokorean hyperwar and MC is getting promoted to general.

I remember being fairly satisfied with the mid-series shakeup. In terms of similar power fantasy schlock I'd rank it slightly below TBATE kicking its MC in the ribs and sticking him in a rat maze for 2 volumes. That was fun.
 
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I have to say the last Apothecary Diaries episode pretty much laid it thick about a certain character's identity. It is a good subversion of first impressions, assuming it's not some 5D chess act to fuck over the main heroine.

AD is a show that I don't know if I prefer would stay slice of life or do edgy court intrigue. Though the cast is too likable for the latter.
 
So I finished 20th CB and that ending was a letdown tbh. It was very similar to monster in that as well.
The fact that otcho just shot up the saucers, friend died, takasu gives up and the friend organization crumbled completely without revolution is incredibly underwhelming. In monster the village holdup felt the same, johan gets shot, the villagers just stop fighting each other and everything ends. It's less underwhelming cause the stakes are smaller than 20th CB but idk why. The takasu being impregnated by friend plotline goes literally nowhere, why was it there? Also God felt like a useless character after the second timeskip, 2015 onwards he does nothing except whine about the bowling shit. Yanbo manbo were also introduced in 2015 to sort of reconcile them. They should've been assholes to the end.
Urasawa I feel like is one of those authors who makes filler which is interesting but is still filler. It's good filler, I really like it but I feel like youre able to identify it as filler in hindsight, once you're done with the series. A lot of quite pointless philosophical filler which ends up meaning fuck all towards the end. I'll probably shift gears and read something else for now (finished monster and 20th CB back to back).
 
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