Seconding the recommendation for Tutu. It was a great watch all the way through, exceptionally well done. I really wasn't expecting to enjoy a series with such a heavy ballet theme, but I was happy to be wrong. It would probably be my go-to recommendation for magical girl shows, especially if you're not sure if they're for you. It's anime original, only 26 episodes long, and it's a satisfying watch even for those who aren't fans of the genre.
The slime isekai has the same issue. The hero is reincarnated as a basic bitch early mob, but suddenly he's friends with a dragon who is essentially a god, and has super powers. It ruins any semblance of conflict with the whole "being a weak race" conundrum, and at that point they might as well just be a human because fact that they're some random "weak" race is just a gimmick so the show can say they're not the same as every other generic isekai.
I liked it in Konosuba where Kazuma needs to fight against a demon general whose a slime and goes "that would be easy" only to be told that slimes are op as shit. I'm pretty sure Kumoko even lampshades slime isekai when she picks up the analyze skill only for it to be garbage rather than the gamebreaker it was in slime (at least until it level up and then it's a completely mandatory skill to survive).
She's killing bandits and assassins. This would be like getting disgusted with, well... literally any JRPG in existence because you fight human enemies.
Non-reincarnated people don't seem to be particularly powerful. The old wizard from a couple episodes back was made out to be the one of the most powerful mages and yet wasn't very useful.
This only really applies to Ariel and she doesn't seem to be a normal spider that leveled up but rather a god-like 'mother of all spiders' type thing.
jrpg usually skim over the question whether you actually kill your enemies or just drive them away (since the implications for the former are disturbing). Kumoko can easily scare the humans off (maybe besides the assassins who are a danger to a specific person) and risk absolutely nothing.
Levels still seems to be a thing for non reincarnations and considering the abilities of the monsters in her cavern, it's a wonder how none of those monsters got out and genocided all of humanity by themselves.
Ariel is sort of justified, but Kumoko's mother is stronger than dragons and can fire anti matter beams. And the whole first strata is filled with spiders that are strong as dragons. Basically spiders are op as shit in the setting.
Off the top of my head, the characters actually killing their enemies is referenced in some of the 'Tales of' games. Yuri becoming a Punisher-esque vigilante is a subplot in Vesperia and even gets a nifty title and unique costume for it, for instance. Scaring off the bandits would just cause them to go terrorize people elsewhere or possibly try again later. The assassins, as you indicated, are part of a larger plot to kidnap the reincarnated children; I doubt they'd just give up.
Levels are a thing for non-reincarnated but as the old mage shows you'd need to spend most of your life just getting a few spells and abilities up to a decent level. As for the monsters not genociding humanity... well, yeah, that's a problem for both this and a lot of fiction with powerful, intelligent monsters.
Kumoko's mother kinda ties into my previous point -- non-reincarnated beings take don't advance super rapidly like the reincarnated ones do; Kumoko's mother seems to be extremely rare, I don't think we've seen any other regular spiders at her power level. Ariel seemed to take it as personal insult that Kumoko was feuding with the mother spider, which I took as an indication that the mother was possibly one of her oldest children that she had a special relationship with.
It is based on MMORPG, kill enemies and get exp. The anime is very clear about this, so I can't fathom why you thought the series was Undertale 2.0. Pacifist route is for SJW's, we want all genocide.
Knowing that Lesean Thomas is involved in Yasuke, im optimistic of it being alright. He worked on og boondocks, cannon busters was his idea, so this may be a breakout for him for his own series
Yeah, it's a bit weird. My dad last year willingly watched the first several episodes of Attack on Titan (subbed) out of boredom, though he hasn't gone back into finishing it. I'd probably wonder if I woke up in a parallel universe if I were to ever catch my mom watching an anime by herself (though I think technically she did with the Les Mis anime?).
Back when FMAB was on adult swim my old man and I actually watched all episodes together. Then again i remember it being a good show.
FMAB is just like the definition of a “pretty good anime”. It’s definitely above average, and there’s a lot of things I like about it, but there’s nothing about it that stands out above the crowd for me. Well, except the fact that it’s pretty tightly plotted and doesn’t totally shit the bed with the ending, but that’s more of a baseline that most anime fail to hit than something I would consider exceptional.
Yeah, my dad grew up watching Speed Racer on TV and some tokusatsu like Ultraman and Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, and as a young adult saw some of Robotech. It's probably why he's more open to anime than my mom is.
Fun fact: I remember when I was growing up, my father used to fall asleep while watching old TCM movies, and when he wasn’t looking I‘d switch the channel so he could then watch Neon Genesis Evangelion (the dubbed version).
My dad mentions watching johnny Sokko as well but that was about it.
Without mentioning a reddit list, what would you consider above tier anime for non anime folks? Let's say, after 2010
Satoshi Kon's anime. They're rather Western in feel despite being social commentary on Japanese culture, but that may be because he was a huge fan of cinema, especially arthouse films. Proof: Mom was able to follow Millennium Actress the best out of every anime she's watched. (Well, she watched Tokyo Godfathers, too, but I think she didn't follow it well because I have the subbed version.)
My mom will ask dumb questions, too.
Yuri kills very specific people at the top of the power structure though, not random mobs. And the game itself treats this as not necessarily the correct moral choice. And it's not unreasonable to argue that bandits could either return to being lawful, or won't likely to kill anyone (just rob them).
No, when you don't have stats as an actual thing in-world then it makes sense for monsters to still be limited by the risk of being swarmed and killed (ie, the spider in LoTR).
It could actually have been an interesting plot point if some of the reincarnated people viewed everyone else as an NPC and used it to justify their actions. But actually refering to the morality of killing people isn't unique to Undertale (who sucked not because of having a pacifist route, but having it be the only encouraged route and arguing you shouldn't protect yourself when attacked). Also I like Pacifist routes in stealth games...
He still kills people, often people who are just corrupt officials rather than murderers themselves, and it doesn't make him any less of a hero in the game. Then you have the entirety of Beseria wherein Violet makes it no secret that she's literally eating her opponents, even right up to the end where she's meant to be more heroic. I think you're putting way too much thought into a protagonist killing one-dimensional enemies that the story deems to be the bad guys. Do you like... give up on a game if you decapitate your enemy as a finisher or something?
They still have the armies of sentient races and their own natural predators that could swarm them in Kumoko, too. One of the former 'Heroes' was apparently able to gain enough power to attack Administrator D in another reality, so even if the non-reincarnated beings are generally much lower on the power scale they still have some tricks they can pull out. Again, though, I think this is like asking "Why don't the goblins in the final dungeon of Dragon Quest use their immense power to rule the world?"