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

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
The other weebs in my online friend group are all abuzz over the Made in Abyss movie announcement. This group is decidedly against Skeevy Shit Happening To Kids, so I have to assume there's something worthwhile about the series, but what little I've seen of it makes my skin crawl and their only defense is "you're retarded if you can't see that MIA is high art". Not very compelling. I imagine this is how Nool feels about every anime rec he gets.

On a more positive note, I started watching Dan Da Dan recently. I wish it were running when I was the proper age for it. High schooler Slurms would've killed for a paranormal show with cute character interactions outside of The X-Files. Will definitely read the manga when I get around to it.
 
Slurms McCorgi said:
The other weebs in my online friend group are all abuzz over the Made in Abyss movie announcement. This group is decidedly against Skeevy Shit Happening To Kids, so I have to assume there's something worthwhile about the series, but what little I've seen of it makes my skin crawl and their only defense is "you're retarded if you can't see that MIA is high art". Not very compelling. I imagine this is how Nool feels about every anime rec he gets.
Click to expand...
It's pretty, well animated, and really really edgy. Given the example of stuff like Rezero, Shield Hero and Mushoku Tensei, that's all the normies need to enjoy something uncritically.
 
Trollblade69 said:
that's all the normies need to enjoy something uncritically
Click to expand...
Ironic considering that one of these acquaintances likes that popular opinion is turning against anime because "it'll keep the normies out". Like, bro, it isn't the 90's anymore. People will judge you for completely different reasons, and they won't just be the American Christians in your head. Are you sure you want them to lump you in with the MadThads of the world?
 
Last edited:
Slurms McCorgi said:
The other weebs in my online friend group are all abuzz over the Made in Abyss movie announcement. This group is decidedly against Skeevy Shit Happening To Kids, so I have to assume there's something worthwhile about the series, but what little I've seen of it makes my skin crawl and their only defense is "you're retarded if you can't see that MIA is high art". Not very compelling. I imagine this is how Nool feels about every anime rec he gets.
Click to expand...
Since I'm caught up with the manga, I can say MiA has gorgeous art, compelling characters, really cool action choreography, and some fantastic fantasy/Eldritch horror world-building, it's just real unfortunate the mangaka can't keep his fetishes out of it. Sometimes I wonder if that's more likely put in for the tankōban releases, though...
 
Slurms McCorgi said:
The other weebs in my online friend group are all abuzz over the Made in Abyss movie announcement. This group is decidedly against Skeevy Shit Happening To Kids, so I have to assume there's something worthwhile about the series, but what little I've seen of it makes my skin crawl and their only defense is "you're retarded if you can't see that MIA is high art". Not very compelling. I imagine this is how Nool feels about every anime rec he gets.
Click to expand...
It's anime Stalker/Roadside Picnic made edgier by making all the protagonists grade schoolers. Most people are there for the world building/lore regarding The Zone Abyss and not the child predator vibes. I'd suggest that if you wanted to get into it you should watch the recap movie instead of the first season because it compresses the scene with Riko almost losing her arm which was made harder to watch by how long the original series dwells on it.

You do have to be tolerant of edge though. If you've ever seen something like Future Diary or Elven Lied and thought "I wish this actually had a non-dogshit story and setting" then give it a shot.
 
Oddjob OTP said:
I'd suggest that if you wanted to get into it you should watch the recap movie instead of the first season because it compresses the scene with Riko almost losing her arm which was made harder to watch by how long the original series dwells on it.
Click to expand...
Stuff like that's edgy as hell, but it's only tangentially related to the pedoshit issue because Riko is a little girl. The issues that the show and author get shit for is stuff like all the times Riko and Reg get naked, or when the edge and pedoshit intersect. Like that time in season 2 where we're told a prepubescent girl had to be exiled to death because she was infertile.
 
Don't forget the constant edge in Season 2 that it ends up getting boring, as you inevitably get fed up with the endless misery and cannibalism (heh).
Worse, the manga updates at a glacial pace to the point it makes Berserk seem speedy.
 
Newcomer 42 said:
Don't forget the constant edge in Season 2 that it ends up getting boring, as you inevitably get fed up with the endless misery and cannibalism (heh).
Worse, the manga updates at a glacial pace to the point it makes Berserk seem speedy.
Click to expand...
I think it was like 2 or 3 episodes too long but I thought the full story of the village was pretty cool and was happy with it when it full revealed.
 
Oddjob OTP said:
I think it was like 2 or 3 episodes too long but I thought the full story of the village was pretty cool and was happy with it when it full revealed.
Click to expand...

Made in Abyss is a study in contradictions: while it is correct to say that exploring the Abyss is some kind of STALKER-lite experience, I do think people fail to notice how little the Abyss itself matters in the narrative. It's kind of a fuzzy feeling, but.... the author is of course hell-bent on inflicting humongous amount of melodramatic misery on his characters, at times so much it borders on self-parody (while the village is fun as a self-contained idea, the amount of edge and forced misery is hilarious). At the same time the mystery of the Abyss isn't explored as it should. I'm not up with the manga, thanks to the glacial update speed, but.... what about the culture that left the bodies on the earlier levels? What about the artifacts? How, when and why the Abyss is built like it is? We speed through exploration and discovery to reach the next point where we can melt&mutilate children while our protagonists cry their hearts out.

The fact that the Abyss is gorgeous in animation doesn't mean it's explored in the narrative or that it's well used as a narrative tool. It's like the pretty background of a French comic book, an excuse to show off the artistry of a lot of people, kneecapped by the author's fetishes and difficulties in building a satisfactory story.
 
For not to mention the rest of the world, that while not too important, it seems to be some sort of schizo steampunk universe that's sadly not even mentioned. And no, you're not missing much. The latest thing I remember from the manga is...

Children with limb prostheses that they remove for bathing, revealing their lack of limbs. Why?
Because edge.
 
RSU 1741 said:
Made in Abyss is a study in contradictions: while it is correct to say that exploring the Abyss is some kind of STALKER-lite experience, I do think people fail to notice how little the Abyss itself matters in the narrative. It's kind of a fuzzy feeling, but.... the author is of course hell-bent on inflicting humongous amount of melodramatic misery on his characters, at times so much it borders on self-parody (while the village is fun as a self-contained idea, the amount of edge and forced misery is hilarious). At the same time the mystery of the Abyss isn't explored as it should. I'm not up with the manga, thanks to the glacial update speed, but.... what about the culture that left the bodies on the earlier levels? What about the artifacts? How, when and why the Abyss is built like it is? We speed through exploration and discovery to reach the next point where we can melt&mutilate children while our protagonists cry their hearts out.

The fact that the Abyss is gorgeous in animation doesn't mean it's explored in the narrative or that it's well used as a narrative tool. It's like the pretty background of a French comic book, an excuse to show off the artistry of a lot of people, kneecapped by the author's fetishes and difficulties in building a satisfactory story.
Click to expand...
I don't remember it being this bad, besides the arc of Best Dad which is legitimate misery porn. The abyss is brutal but not in an unbelievable way, just a lot of real world dangers upsized so humans can be victims. The village was also surprisingly peaceful, I expected it to be way darker.
 
RSU 1741 said:
Made in Abyss is a study in contradictions: while it is correct to say that exploring the Abyss is some kind of STALKER-lite experience, I do think people fail to notice how little the Abyss itself matters in the narrative. It's kind of a fuzzy feeling, but.... the author is of course hell-bent on inflicting humongous amount of melodramatic misery on his characters, at times so much it borders on self-parody (while the village is fun as a self-contained idea, the amount of edge and forced misery is hilarious). At the same time the mystery of the Abyss isn't explored as it should. I'm not up with the manga, thanks to the glacial update speed, but.... what about the culture that left the bodies on the earlier levels? What about the artifacts? How, when and why the Abyss is built like it is? We speed through exploration and discovery to reach the next point where we can melt&mutilate children while our protagonists cry their hearts out.

The fact that the Abyss is gorgeous in animation doesn't mean it's explored in the narrative or that it's well used as a narrative tool. It's like the pretty background of a French comic book, an excuse to show off the artistry of a lot of people, kneecapped by the author's fetishes and difficulties in building a satisfactory story.
Click to expand...
To be fair, the Zone isn't really important to the narrative or explored in lore in Roadside Picnic either (not a Stalker expert so maybe that differs there). The Zone is just the place where people squabble over anomalies and the closest it ever gets to an explanation is someone's guess that it's just a bunch of garbage humanity can't understand left by aliens. It's just a setting to establish why the misery porn happens and why it's so strange and terrible when it isn't just the direct result of human action.

Made in Abyss is basically just all that, but with beautiful visual design and children in sus situations.
 
Anime is being used more and more to tell the truth about alphabets and rollercoasters

That alone makes it good by default
 
Lone MacReady II said:
Japan's favorite fast cheat into drama. Misery porn is bad enough, but misery porn that needs to use kids being brutalized to make up for an inability to make compelling drama that stands on its own is cringe. Never watched (Maiden Abyss), never will.
Click to expand...
Don't get me wrong, Grave of the Fireflies is fantastic. But I simply cannot help but think it also reels into that a little bit.
 
9m3Tn.webp
 
RSU 1741 said:
The fact that the Abyss is gorgeous in animation doesn't mean it's explored in the narrative or that it's well used as a narrative tool.
Click to expand...
Hilariously enough, the Abyss is more realized in animation than the manga itself in the early volumes. The anime team had to ask the mangaka about how such-and-such worked and looked and moved, and for more background/lore details because the mangaka admitted to speeding through because at the time, the manga wasn't popular and he figured he was going to get canceled sooner if not later. Nanachi and the anime literally saved the manga.

For better or worse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom