Jun Inoue

I sort of half-thought about it before it, but that same video is what made me write that comment yesterday

Goblin Slayer surprised me positively. I had already perused the manga and knew what I was getting into but, anime being the kind of world it is, I wasn't sure whether they'd treat the issue maturely. (not) Ironically, most critics were wrong and the show was pretty conscious of the kind of stuff they were showing. The bad animation kinda drags the anime down, though. Mr Poltroon and ittaku have mentioned how it's a simple but entertaining good vs evil, to which I agree, but would also add that it explains an interesting story about "what happens with minor conflicts/problems when people are distracted with saving the world". Bunny Girl Senpai... is a tough sell. It's a good anime, but can't help but feel it's been overhyped and overestimated really hard. People have been praising it was the masterpiece of 2018, but the beginning felt kinda pseudo-intellectual to me, and some of the middle arcs were repetitive. Still good, though. Slime is a surprise, because I love the manga. But the anime... has felt lukewarm. Perhaps it is because I've already read the manga (up to date) a couple times and nothing felt new or surprising but, at the end of the day, everything was very cookie cutter. The stereotype isekai in practically all of its aspects. I guess the more "mature" MC marks a difference, but I'm not sure to which degree. JoJo is just amazing. Golden Wind reminds me yet again why I love this franchise so much. Watching a show that actually allows its protagonists to be smart and win fights with their initial power through strength and cunning is the best... and so rarely seen in anime. Juliet is entertaining but ultimately says nothing, does nothing. Another RomCom. Bloom Into You is a show I haven't been capable of even giving a chance to. Simply put, anime has scarred me when it comes to yuri. More often than not, it's lesbian porn for teens thinly covered with cheap drama and torrents of fanservice. Perhaps this show is different and I'm doing myself a disservice but, by this point, it's difficult to even consider watching this genre. Kaze Ga started really cool and, gosh darnit, I still haven't finished it. So I guess I'm hoping it hasn't gone to hell. Honda-san was really cool! Very simple slice of life comedy, but it did give me a few chuckles. Also, it was interesting to learn how Japanese bookstores work.

Are you a boy, a girl... or an attack helicopter!?

Indeed, I certainly hope the "skip" in Goblin Slayer's second episode was due to a narrative-based decision, and not fear to offend the public. When art gets compromised by that... it tends to end with crap for everyone.

I agree partway with your point. Kind of like how Rick & Morty's authors, when people were overanalysing everything, they just said "people, sometimes a joke is just a joke"; not literally everything needs to have deeper purpose. However, two comments on that. 1: My main beef with Akame ga Kill was not that characters died without powerful motifs or plot-shattering events, but rather that the show ended up becoming a deathfest where death no longer had much value, neither by meaning or by shock. There's such a thing as overdoing it, basically. In the end, I stopped getting attached to any characters at all, cuz it felt like the author would simply kill off whoever he felt would be most shocking and traumating. 2: In the case of Goblin Slayer, it's not so much overdoing it as it's being unnecessary. One thing is showing how monstrous goblins are, and the reality that in gritty fantasy (and kind of in human history?) women in the middle of violent conflicts gets abused and raped by "monsters" if they are caught in the middle of it. That was done in the first episode, and to the people crying that such things are gratuitous I say "you are buffoons who mistake gritty and dark with edgy and foolish". Those scenes were good to establish the world and plot. But repeating the rape-related scenes in subsequent episodes would be nonsense. The ultraviolence cannot be skipped because it's the pure resolution of the conflict between the GS and the goblins, it is by itself its own purpose. But showing more rape tells us nothing about the monsters, or the characters, or the world. It would be juvenile, and simply the author/team revelling on showing us guro porn. The dogma that you disagree with is less smth the anime fandom believes and more of a tenet in story writing. Absolutely every single scene in an anime has a purpose or meaning, even if that is "showing a girl's panties in an ecchi" or "establish that the characters are travelling by horse in an adventure". Goblin Slayer's ultraviolence sustains itself as its own mark of the house, but the rape "sub-plot" would simply fall short of any explanation other than "we want to arouse people with heavily-implied monster rape". At least, I believe (all of) this.

Well, there's a difference. Rape isn't dark, it's just messed up. Kind of like Lesiak said, the first episode already very clearly establishes the goblins and what kind of creatures they are. Constant repetition would simply be that, boring repetition. What characterizes the show is its violence, which it hasn't really hidden from the public. Death and gore for the sake of shock value is kind of what doomed shows like Akame ga Kill.

The manga is indeed more explicit. And the second episode of the anime omitted yet another party that went before GS to the old elven fortress and got destroyed (and raped) by the goblins. Not sure if it was to avoid kind of repeating the same thing they already did on the first episode, or that the team was scared so much rape would "doom" the show, but they did censor it.

Took a leap of faith and started Kishuku Gakkou no Juliet. Not too bad, honestly, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. When it comes to romantic anime, I'm more of a fan of the wholesome type of shows, and not the "are we really in love? Let's wait the entire show to see it not get resolved!" style. While in this case the love is technically apparent, its setting assures the viewer most scenes will end up as misunderstanding-style comedy and I'm not sure whether I trust the anime to advance its supposed main plot (I'm such a lil fuck when it comes to mistrusting anime, really). Hmmmm slight spoiler, so~

@Fred the Barber