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Summer 2019 Anime Discussion


Plk_Lesiak

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So, the Spring is more or less done, so I came here to reclaim my ownership of the seasonal threads! The summer will definitely be defined by the gameworld fantasy and isekais. Speaking of those, I'll probably watch:

* Dungeon S2, just because I saw the first one (quite underwhelming honestly) and I'm curious whether it can improve. Do something actually interesting. It has to, right...?

* Isekai Cheat Magician, because clear lead heroine and no harem tag (holy fuck, I have some low standards...).

* That Okaasan isekai because duh, how could I not?

* Arifureta because I kid myself that it might do the pariah protagonist a bit more consistently than Shield Hero.

* Kanata no Astra because I'm starved for sci-fi and it looks quite interesting.

Adding continuing Fruits Basket and Kimetsu no Yaiba it's quite a lot and I guess this season is horrible to anyone who's not the kind of trash eater that I am... But it looks fun from my perspective. :>

So, guys, what are your picks?

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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2 hours ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Interesting link.

Fixed. :>

Quote

Stop calling your tastes trash, as that's the same as calling mine so, except even worse!

Hmm, that'd be hard to do. Self-depreciation and watching isekai anime in mass feel so appropriate together. :nico: 

I also won't comment on the other part of your statement. ^^

@Mr Poltroon I guess I should still clarify one thing: when I say I have crappy taste, what I actually mean is that I have a taste for anime that I recognize are crappy. I would like to think I can somewhat discern between various levels of quality, but it's not always what determines my enjoyment while watching stuff. Not sure if this makes my statements less or more offensive. ^^

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
You managed to break the page with your post, so I fixed it. No need to thank me.
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12 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Interesting link.

Wait, is Fuwa secretly an isekai? :gasp:

Anyway, I will probably watch Kanata no Astra this season. I was interested in the manga for this for some time, though I never got to reading it, so, I guess, I might just watch the anime.

Nothing else really catches my attention, but I might pick up Fruits Basket later.

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2 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

I guess this season is horrible to anyone who's not the kind of trash eater that I am

Actually, in general I'd consider this season to be reasonably better than the previous one. At least potentially so.

I will definitely check out Vinland Saga and Cop Craft. The first is based on a highly acclaimed manga, has VIKINGS and is backed by a good team so you probably can't go wrong with it. The second is a bit more iffy. While most novel readers I know consider Cop Craft Gatoh Shoji's (Full Metal Panic, Amaburi) best work and I do quite like the premise, anime is made in a very weird studio by the staff I've never heard of. Trailers look decent enough and Gatoh is personally adapting the script (the last time I remember an original author personally writing the script for anime was SukaSuka and that one turned out great) so I'm staying positive but yeah, there's a number of ways for things to suddenly go south.

Otherwise, I may sometime watch

Spoiler

 

- that Waver fate spin-off because, well, I don't generally mind more fate and people say this novel is at least half-decent unlike Apocrypha. as a Narita fan I demand my Fate/strange Fake anime dang it

Enen no Shouboutai as it's from the Soul Eater mangaka (though I'd prefer if they just remade Soul Eater since its anime got barely watchable after going off the manga rails in the latter half). It honestly doesn't look too promising from the synopsis and can't say I am a fan of that superhero firefighters (?) idea but eh, I did like Soul Eater enough to try...

Kanata no Astra because why the heck not, I have the original manga in my plan-to-read for like 2 years already.

- Maidens since I'm still willing to give Okada a chance even after the horrible Maquia and suddenly it's not yuri.

- Sacred Beasts because from afar it kind of looks like a better version of Fairy Gone...?

And maybe Hensuki because it has been a while since I've watched a straightforward pervert comedy and how can one make a list without some obvious mindless trash in it :makina:

 

 

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Oh shit, I think I only watched a few weeks of the previous season. Hopefully this one manages to keep my attention. :P

Dr. Stone, Arifureta, and Accelerator are gonna be on my watch list for the time being. I'm especially looking forward to Dr. Stone since I've been riding on a hype train with the last 2 shounens I watched (Seven Deadly Sins and Hero Academia).

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/28/2019 at 4:32 PM, Dreamysyu said:

Anyway, I will probably watch Kanata no Astra this season. I was interested in the manga for this for some time, though I never got to reading it, so, I guess, I might just watch the anime.

So, watched the first episode. It's was actually pretty good, even better than I expected! :D Definitely going to continue watching it.

@Mr Poltroon, I think it's time to pin this thread.

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2 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

So, watched the first episode. It's was actually pretty good, even better than I expected! :D Definitely going to continue watching it.

@Mr Poltroon, I think it's time to pin this thread.

Your will is my command.

As for me, I will continue to see whatever looks most light-hearted this season.

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My thoughts so far: 

Arifureta- Interesting to me, pisses off the 'source material purists' like crazy, needs more episodes to decide.

Maou-sama, Retry- My go-to show for this season... I laughed repeatedly for the first two episodes, and I love the VA and character design choices for Kunai and Aku.

Cheat Magician- Worst type of junk isekai.  It reminds me of Smartphone and Hyakuren no Haou for the feeling of the first episode.

Uchimusume- This season's replacement for Senko-san as iyashikei godliness, if in a different direction.  Looking at Latina is like looking at my niece when she isn't being a demonic troublemaker.

Dr. Stone- Visual style is 'interesting' for certain values of interesting.  Actual experience of the first episode was excellent.  Kind of feels like it would be easy to mess up as a series, though.

Enen no Shouboutai- Reminds me of Ao no Exorcist in a bad way (since I consider that anime to be godawful)

Cop Craft- Feels familiar, looks like it could easily go into the crapper but also has kami-anime potential.  Along with Arifureta, one I'm waiting on later episodes to judge.

Kochoki- Young Nobunaga is... boring.  Sorry but Nogunaga's most interesting years were his early middle age, lol.

Sounan Desu Ka- So far a stable comedy anime, worth watching if you don't mind seeing girls eating bugs.

Kanata no Astra- Pushes all the wrong buttons with me, made me drop it after one episode.  I might watch it after it is done airing, but for now it is off my watch list.

Vinland Saga- Nice violent historical fantasy... probably is going to suck overall but be a fun ride for fans of superviolence.

Granbelm- Has sucky vibe.  No way I'm continuing this.  I hate innocent protagonists in action-y series.

Danmachi S2- Recap made me rewatch the original, can't wait for the actual episodes to show.  Will never forgive them for airing a recap first, lol. 

Lord El-Melloi- Waver just can't get a break, no matter how old he gets, eh?  Definitely watching, even if it turns out not to go anywhere.  It's a good window into the way Mages in the Nasuverse think so far.

Nakanohito Genome- Umm... probably will drop this.  I hate large-scale social media, and a set of death games for the sake of getting watchers is the kind of scummy crap that makes me want to spit.  No, I'm not a fan of Danganronpa, either.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Clephas said:

Cheat Magician- Worst type of junk isekai.  It reminds me of Smartphone and Hyakuren no Haou for the feeling of the first episode.

I'd say closer to Hyakuren and as weird as I feel saying that, this opening episode was way worse than Smartphone's. Awful animation, no humour, an annoying childhood friend character whose only personality trait seems to be that she's in love with the protagonist. Idiotic plot developments (we're average high-schoolers stranded in an alien world - let's become adventurers and fight deadly monsters, that's an obvious choice, isn't it?) and awful pacing, immediately nullifying the only source of tension. Like, Smartphone at least had the decency to introduce itself as a self-parody of sorts, this is way more unforgivable.

I wonder where it goes from here. :nico:

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*enters*

Friendly reminder that Hyakuren's anime is trash (really bad and rushed adaptation) but the LN is really good.

*leaves*

*re-enters*

Also I hope they won't adapt 5 volumes in 13 episodes like they did for DanMachi season 1, because starting vol 6 Danmachi gets really good and would be a shame to have them rush it.

*leaves again*

Edited by Riku
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17 minutes ago, Riku said:

*enters*

Friendly reminder that Hyakuren's anime is trash (really bad and rushed adaptation) but the LN is really good.

Holy fuck, really? That's kind of hard to believe with such awful characters and hyper-obnoxious harem... :o

Quote

*leaves*

*re-enters*

Also I hope they won't adapt 5 volumes in 13 episodes like they did for DanMachi season 1, because starting vol 6 Danmachi gets really good and would be a shame to have them rush it.

*leaves again*

Well, the first season kind of sucked and I don't think it was because of being rushed, there was just nothin interesting in it. It was solid, but so painfully standard and lazy writing-wise. I mean, WTF is that "you'll always win if you really want to" ability? It's the only series other than Smartphone that made an "Unbeatable Magic Protagonist Power" canon. :wahaha: But I was also hoping that the second one will introduce something fresh, so I hope you're right about the source material getting more interesting from this point on. :)

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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For Hyakuren: That's what happens when something is adapted badly and rushed. If you ever have the chance, try the LN. I won't say the LN is amazing with stellar characters, but most of the stuff people hold against it in the anime aren't present in the LN. (like you clearly see the author made his researches and all with everything explained carefully, answering most of the complaints people have against the anime)

For Danmachi: I agree the first 5 volumes are rather average. But after that it gets better and better, and more mature to accompany Bell's growth.
Also, his Argonaut skill isn't "you'll always win if you really want to", but the ability to charge his force in one attack. It's kinda OP, but really, from what I heard from people reading Sword Oratoria (I don't) many people have far stronger skills than that.

Edited by Riku
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4 hours ago, Clephas said:

Kanata no Astra- Pushes all the wrong buttons with me, made me drop it after one episode.  I might watch it after it is done airing, but for now it is off my watch list.

It's pretty much the opposite for me. I used to enjoy this type of space exploration stories back at elementary school age, and it's been a long time since I wanted to watch something similar to this. I don't like that the authors are relying a bit too much on common archetypes for the characters, but I doesn't really annoy me as much as it normally does for some reason.

And I also, watched about the half of the first episode of that Nobunaga anime. And, meh, seems pretty boring so far. Dropped.

1 hour ago, Riku said:

Also I hope they won't adapt 5 volumes in 13 episodes like they did for DanMachi season 1, because starting vol 6 Danmachi gets really good and would be a shame to have them rush it.

Hmmm. I wanted to skip the new season of Danmachi since I didn't really like the first season, but if it actually gets better after that, then maybe I will give this a try. Probably in the future though. Not exactly in the mood for it right now.

And also, since you read LNs, do you think that LN adaptations in general aren't very good? So far I haven't read any light novel that has an anime adaptation, but many of the stories seem pretty much impossible to adapt without cutting a lot of stuff, even if that stuff is exactly that makes the original story good.

(and  one  of these impossible to adapt stories is getting an adaptation next season, and it already looks like it's going to be rushed mess tbh).

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Well, my basic stance is that it's impossible to have a perfect adaptation, but you can have a good one depending on what's adapted and how.

Light Novels, as "light" as they are, are "novels" in the end. And what most of novels are made from? Narration. And you can't get narration across in anime.

Depending on the novel and the author, narration is far more important than others. For example, narration is pretty important in Hyakuren with all the explanations.

If you know Infinite Dendrogram, this novel has some amazingly well written info dumps in narration making the story so amazing, and everything will be lost in the anime adaptation coming up in a few months. Still, the novel having really good action scenes, anime will be liked, just that people won't know anything about its awesome world building you can only see in the narration.

Take another well known example about narration with SAO. People say Kirito is some emotioneless shit, but in fact, LN being 1st POV you see that Kirito isn't as emotioneless as people say. Also, being mostly action (and having a not rushed adaptation to add to that) made it the popular anime it became. (they still skipped content though, like in the second part in Alfheim Online)

Another one, let's take Konosuba. Most of Konosuba's comedy is in the dialogues and situations so it ended well. But Konosuba, like SAO, is a 1st POV narration, and having Scumzuma's (lol) thoughts is awesome, and impossible to reproduce in anime.

So yeah, once you remove the narration, you lose a great deal from the original in the first place. Then you also have rushed adaptations that remove even more things by skipping content. (for example, Hyakuren adapts 7/8 volumes in 12 episodes with anime original ending. 7/8 freaking volumes in ONLY 12 episodes. Shows you how rushed that was)

So yeah, in the end I would say that the best animes adaptating LNs are comedic ones, and action packed ones. Of course others can be good if the anime isn't rushed and carefully done, but in the end you'll always lose all the informations contened in the narration.

It's not something new anyway, just looking at novels and movies (for example Harry Potter, skipping contents in the 4th or its horrendous 6th movie) shows you that. Just that in LN to anime cases, it's worse because they don't get as much care and are mostly just made to promote the series. That and, while there are many LNs I love, I do agree that there are many shitty trash LNs too, and it doesn't help to have them adapted to anime too.

Hmm... I'm not a great writter when it comes to get what I think across, so I hope you understood what I mean. ^^'

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5 hours ago, Riku said:

Well, my basic stance is that it's impossible to have a perfect adaptation, but you can have a good one depending on what's adapted and how.

Classroom of the Elite comes to mind here. This is one of the last few school setting LN adaptions I decided to follow before I got completely sick of them, which is a good thing since I actually enjoyed this a fair bit. Back when it was airing, it got so much heat for going original that it was just downright ludicrous, and it was the only major complaints I saw coming out of it. I think it's exactly because this anime avoided the standard approach to adaptation that it was able to make something that was suitable for the medium. If it hadn't, it likely would've added itself to the pile of SoL LN anime trash that has been churned out time and time again. Instead, we got a controversial anime with enough substance to make it worth talking about two years later.

Classroom of the Elite isn't something I'd consider great by any stretch of the word (all it has going for it is exciting scenarios and a solid protagonist), but it was a damn fun watch! Kind of a shame people have to be so uptight about faithfulness. >.<

 

As for this season... I, uh, haven't started it yet. xD
I'll get around to watching something in a bit. Kinda disappointed that Accelerator isn't very highly rated (I'll still try it, though).

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Sorry to get it to you, but people are totally right about that one.

The thing, you see, is that they changed scenes from other characters to give them to another one. You might think it's nothing, but it actually is in the grand scheme of thing.

A few spoilers:

Spoiler

If you remember correctly, there is something about a guy from class D being accused of violence, right?

During this case, in the novel, Ichinose, from class B helps them and testifies for them.

Now, in the anime, instead of Ichinose, it's Horikita (the "heroine") who does that. Now, here is the problem: she's from class D too.

So, logically, contrary to someone neutral from class B, someone who is also from class D doesn't have a shred of credibility. (what they accuse Sakura, from class D too, and say she's just trying to help when she's freaking giving them photos)

Also removes a cool moment from Ichinose and one of the reasons for her to be interested in Ayanokouji, the protagonist.

 

Later in the anime there is a pool scene with her that shouldn't be with her. It's even more of controversy because she takes the place of the "true heroine" who went from sub-character to main character in the novel, but wasn't adapted in the anime. And because the fanbase loves her, they're pretty pissed about it. Even more so considering that removing/remplacing these scenes makes the possibilty of a second season near impossible, because of how important it actually is to the plot.

So in short, the anime director was an Horikita fan and the fanbase didn't like that because Horikita is a "false heroine", and you know that if you read the LN.

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I'm currently waiting for a few weeks to pass by, in order to throw the rule of three episodes in the general direction of several anime.

Fire Force looks promising, and I actually watched the first episode dubbed because why not. It was really well done, honestly, except for the voice of the MC as a kid and his mom. I had read some of the manga beforehand, and I know its from the author of Soul Eater, so this adaptation has a bit of a VIP pass.

Dr. Stone is in a similar situation, which is probably good. Because the initial episodes past the first are going to be (most probably) fairly boring, as they were in the manga before its author made a critical turn and saved it. So I'll wait a few weeks and then rush it.

Apart from this... I'm full of doubts. Dumbbell nan kill moteru could either be dumb fun or a gross whorefest of cheap fan service. While I'm a huge fan of the fit anime girls and back muscles, as we all are since Kabaneri, anime are too often prone towards the cheap products.

Let's see... I won't watch Danmachi, since everything I've seen from it (both the manga and anime) were just terribly bland. Vinland comes so well-recommended that I'll definitely have to check it out. There are a few ultra-trash isekais: Arifureta, Isekai Cheat, Maou-sama, Tsuujou... The first I know from the manga, so I'll save myself the horror of attempting to cut my own veins from the edge and embarrassment I feel from this show, and the others just sound like really bad, run of the mill isekais. Maybe I'm doing myself a disfavour by pilling them all together but, at this point, it's just so difficult to grant them an honest chance when it feels they are not even trying to make something interesting or good. I don't bemoan the isekai trend, but it truly is a sub-genre that tends to offer the worst of the worst (god I'm salty).

Uchi no Ko no Tame Naraba is one anime I'll also watch due to knowing it from the manga. Simple, dumb cuteness overload. @Mr Poltroon This is what you need to waaaaaatch.

Dunno, might give a chance to Kanata no Astra.

Aaaaaand, guess I'm glad Diamond no Ace II is still ongoing, and I still have all of Kimetsu no Yaiba to watch. However, JoJo Part 5 has almost ended, which has me super down.

PD: Just found out that not only there is no JoJo this week, but the final two episodes will air together in 2 weeks. :rubycry:

Edited by Jun Inoue
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31 minutes ago, Riku said:

Sorry to get it to you, but people are totally right about that one.

The thing, you see, is that they changed scenes from other characters to give them to another one. You might think it's nothing, but it actually is in the grand scheme of thing.

A few spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

If you remember correctly, there is something about a guy from class D being accused of violence, right?

During this case, in the novel, Ichinose, from class B helps them and testifies for them.

Now, in the anime, instead of Ichinose, it's Horikita (the "heroine") who does that. Now, here is the problem: she's from class D too.

So, logically, contrary to someone neutral from class B, someone who is also from class D doesn't have a shred of credibility. (what they accuse Sakura, from class D too, and say she's just trying to help when she's freaking giving them photos)

Also removes a cool moment from Ichinose and one of the reasons for her to be interested in Ayanokouji, the protagonist.

 

Later in the anime there is a pool scene with her that shouldn't be with her. It's even more of controversy because she takes the place of the "true heroine" who went from sub-character to main character in the novel, but wasn't adapted in the anime. And because the fanbase loves her, they're pretty pissed about it. Even more so considering that removing/remplacing these scenes makes the possibilty of a second season near impossible, because of how important it actually is to the plot.

So in short, the anime director was an Horikita fan and the fanbase didn't like that because Horikita is a "false heroine", and you know that if you read the LN.

The only thing I'm hearing from you is that the anime is not faithful to its source.

If you focus too much on the details, you lose sight of the big picture. Wouldn't the controversy alone be enough to drive conversation? And to top it all off, it was a solid anime, so the people who haven't read the LN (which should be the anime's main focus) will probably be more likely to read the source since it stands out among the heaps of trash these types of adaptions tend to be. I mean, seriously, is anyone gonna be drawn to that?

Yeah, I get it, the anime doesn't match up to the source. But would it have been any better had they kept the original story in tact? Frankly, I don't think either of us would've been happy with a faithful adaption, and to me that's better than just the LN readers being upset with it.

And you're right, it's not getting a sequel. But that's not a problem with the anime itself, it's a problem with what anime producers deliver on a regular basis. They set the standard for generic light novel adaptations that only serve to reflect what's already written, and that's what fans have come to expect. It wasn't like how it was in the 90s where an anime could deviate from 99% of the source material and hardly anyone would bat an eye at it. It might even be part of the reason we don't see very many originals anymore despite their superior storytelling.

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8 hours ago, Kenshin_sama said:

The only thing I'm hearing from you is that the anime is not faithful to its source.

If you focus too much on the details, you lose sight of the big picture. Wouldn't the controversy alone be enough to drive conversation? And to top it all off, it was a solid anime, so the people who haven't read the LN (which should be the anime's main focus) will probably be more likely to read the source since it stands out among the heaps of trash these types of adaptions tend to be. I mean, seriously, is anyone gonna be drawn to that?

Yeah, I get it, the anime doesn't match up to the source. But would it have been any better had they kept the original story in tact? Frankly, I don't think either of us would've been happy with a faithful adaption, and to me that's better than just the LN readers being upset with it.

And you're right, it's not getting a sequel. But that's not a problem with the anime itself, it's a problem with what anime producers deliver on a regular basis. They set the standard for generic light novel adaptations that only serve to reflect what's already written, and that's what fans have come to expect. It wasn't like how it was in the 90s where an anime could deviate from 99% of the source material and hardly anyone would bat an eye at it. It might even be part of the reason we don't see very many originals anymore despite their superior storytelling.

Yeah, the anime isn't bad, but because of the change (first one in my spoiler) it's contradicting itself.

Many fans of the series are from the anime and liked it, but everyone agree the first change makes no sense because of how illogical it is.

The rest is subjectivity, but that just show how much people love the "true main heroine". ^^

So basically, overall the adaptation was rather good. But the changes were weird even from an objective standpoint.

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Alright, so I'm caught up on a few shows now. Nothing really stands out to me right now, but I'm not disappointed.

The world of Dr. Stone is immediately captivating, and I like how well they're building tension in the second episode. That said, even though the world itself is interesting and the plot is engaging, the premise is beyond absurd, and the initial setup for this world the least sensible aspect of the series. I'm more than willing to forgive this flaw since everything else is spot on.

From what I understand, it seems the author is not too happy with the turnout of Arifureta, and neither are his fans. I haven't watched this series at all, and I don't think I will. I heard the production was rushed due to staff changes, and that's never a good indicator for an ongoing anime.

Fire Force is okay. Nothing really stands out to me except for David Production's excellent animation (especially with that juicy bit of cinematography in the first episode). It looks like it could be get interesting.

As for Accelerator, well, it's off to a good start so far. :) I'm always excited to see new extensions to the Index franchise, and so far they are handling this nicely. Direction feels kinda wonky, but nothing too off-putting (it's not as bad the UBW anime).

Oh god, Uchinoko is gonna be my kryptonite this season. It's sweetness piled on top of sweetness piled on top of sweetness. It's probably the most adorable anime I've ever watched, and I can't wait to see more of it. Latina is a precious little angel. The art is tasteful, the atmosphere is surprisingly organic, and all of the characters are pleasant. I hope the anime's able to keep this going for the long term.

 

Edit: I made a gif for Uchinoko. Haven't seen this anywhere else, and this is too cute to not make a gif out of.

Edited by Kenshin_sama
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2 hours ago, Kenshin_sama said:

That said, even though the world itself is interesting and the plot is engaging, the premise is beyond absurd, and the initial setup for this world the least sensible aspect of the series. I'm more than willing to forgive this flaw since everything else is spot on.

How so?

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Just now, Jun Inoue said:

How so?

It's more or less a nitpick. No one would be able to last 3700 years of conscious isolation without having more than a few screws loose. And I know this was probably not intentional, but I couldn't help but feel that being encased in stone for that length of time was a little vicious, and I couldn't help but pull up mental images of someone going through that kind of thing in real life, which sort of broke my immersion.

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16 hours ago, Kenshin_sama said:

It's more or less a nitpick. No one would be able to last 3700 years of conscious isolation without having more than a few screws loose. And I know this was probably not intentional, but I couldn't help but feel that being encased in stone for that length of time was a little vicious, and I couldn't help but pull up mental images of someone going through that kind of thing in real life, which sort of broke my immersion.

I mean, I would agree that it is a bit of a nitpick. If we get like this, basically 90% of all anime is just beyond ridiculous in its premise.

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