[TV] The What Anime Are You Watching Thread!

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Staff member
Bofuri
This is your typical shonen powerup type of anime...except there are zero stakes. It's the "sucked into a game world" cliche, only they aren't. They're actually just playing an MMO. The whole premise is weird. Somehow, the clueless protagonist Maple keeps stumbling onto powerups by sheer luck. Only...this is an MMO. You know, where you get like 5 moves you can make and like 30% of the people logged on can do exactly the same things. She keeps getting powers from quests ... that are right out in the open. Yet, no one else seems to get these powers despite the quest-givers being right out in the open. Kind of weird.
 
Bofuri
This is your typical shonen powerup type of anime...except there are zero stakes. It's the "sucked into a game world" cliche, only they aren't. They're actually just playing an MMO. The whole premise is weird. Somehow, the clueless protagonist Maple keeps stumbling onto powerups by sheer luck. Only...this is an MMO. You know, where you get like 5 moves you can make and like 30% of the people logged on can do exactly the same things. She keeps getting powers from quests ... that are right out in the open. Yet, no one else seems to get these powers despite the quest-givers being right out in the open. Kind of weird.
I love the fuck out of this show.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Bofuri
This is your typical shonen powerup type of anime...except there are zero stakes. It's the "sucked into a game world" cliche, only they aren't. They're actually just playing an MMO. The whole premise is weird. Somehow, the clueless protagonist Maple keeps stumbling onto powerups by sheer luck. Only...this is an MMO. You know, where you get like 5 moves you can make and like 30% of the people logged on can do exactly the same things. She keeps getting powers from quests ... that are right out in the open. Yet, no one else seems to get these powers despite the quest-givers being right out in the open. Kind of weird.
There are 0 stakes because it's really just a CGDCT anime. Everything is just a backdrop to the direct intravenous injection of saccharine.

But I'm holding off doing a full review until I finish the season.
 

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Staff member
Sorcerous Stabber Orphen

I actually really like this one. The story is appealing, there are decent jokes to keep things lighthearted, and I want to know where it's going. Out of all the simulcasts on Hulu currently, this is probably my favorite. There are some confusing story bits, though. Like:
If Childman allowed Azalie to switch minds with him, and the dragon was never actually out of control of anyone, then why did Childman burn up a bunch of people, including his own student?
Premise is that one of the most powerful student sorcerers at a magic academy rage quits after his classmate/sister (who is somehow both a once in a lifetime genius yet weaker than the protagonist?) accidentally turns herself into a mindless dragon because the rest of the academy wants to put the dragon down. It's 5 years later, and he's been living as a money-lender working with two "dwarves" (I'm not sure--are these supposed to be fantasy dwarves, or people with some form of dwarfism? In any case, they're beardless and look more like halflings or kids), when the dragon returns after going missing for 5 years. Hilarity ensues.
 

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Staff member
It's spelled with an "e" but yes he took the English word for orphan as his name after leaving the academy. All the students are orphans, because student life can be a little fatal.
 
I still like the idea of Harry Potter getting tired of dealing with his scar and deciding you know what? Maybe some other people should have scars, too. Especially that He-Who-Must-Be-Maimed guy.

--Patrick
 
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GasBandit

Staff member
Keep your hands off Eizouken!

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Genre: High School, Drama

Fanservice: Not-particularly-sexualized bathhouse episode with partial nudity

Premise: Three high school girls want to make anime, things don't always go as planned.

Tiny, awkward Asakusa is a bundle of insecurities and social inadequacy. She has trouble staying focused on tasks she's not passionate about, and gets lost in details to the detriment of the overall project. She is the "concept" girl of the group, always ingesting the world around her and reinventing it into fanciful stories, characters, and locations that all serve as inspiration for stories and art. She also serves as the project director, which is extremely difficult for her because her social insecurities make it difficult for her to talk to other people, much less give them direction - which really causes problems when they start to farm out background work to the art club. Without Kanamori to back her, she'd be a complete doormat. However, she IS able to connect with other people of inspired passion on a way that Kanamori can't (and even finds distasteful).

Mizusaki is a pampered rich girl who isn't used to not getting her way. When her parents forbid her from joining the anime club, she bands together with Asakusa and Kanamori to found the "film club" which is actually making anime on the sly. She is fixated on the craft of animation, and can be childish and unreasonable - for example, she wants to animate an entire project by hand on paper and celluloid for the artistic merit rather than use time-saving digital conveniences. Her insistence on artistry and technique for its own sake frequently puts the entire production behind schedule, causing compromises in other areas. However, as long as she's kept in check, she's an excellent artistic compliment to Asakusa, specializing in realistic humanoid and action sequence animation that Asakusa typically has trouble with.

Kanamori is a tall, lanky, toothy girl with an avaricious streak a mile wide, and serves as the group's "producer" role. She sees the passion of her two friends as a vehicle to financial gain, or rather a beast of burden that can be yoked. While she doesn't share the others' passion for anime, she does indulge and play along with their flights of fancy so that they don't become discouraged, and that shows she does really care about them - but she also is the firm voice of reality when she needs to be, and iron fist that focuses and keeps the film club's projects on track - without Kanamori, the two creative girls would go off on wild tangents and never complete anything at all, much less on time. She also has a ruthless streak, and isn't above using blackmail or other underhanded negotiating tactics to get what she wants (and the club needs). This leads to other students treating her as if she's a dangerous or intimidating yakuza member, but really she's the taskmaster and the sensible grounded one of the group.

There's no love interest story to distract from the meat of the plot, thankfully. There's lots of realistic portrayals of immature and awkward teenagers, but also smooth segues into Calvin-and-Hobbes-style flights of imaginative fancy. It also often reminds me of the earlier parts of "The Color of Money," being a story of balancing talent and enthusiasm with real-world demands, business, and street-smarts. Just like Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Paul Newman were part of a symbiotic relationship that furthered their collective goal, so are these three girls - and without each doing their respective part, the flaws of each would cause the entire house of cards to collapse. That's how this story about three severely flawed and immature girls managed to keep me interested in the exploits of characters I actually found to be rather annoying. Asakusa's meandering aimlessness, Mizusaki's obsession with artistic technique, and Kanamori's complete lack of creative passion each would fatally sink the efforts of the club if not counterbalanced by Asakusa's astonishing creativity, Mizusaki's proficiency and drive, and Kanamori's sharp acumen. This is what makes for truly compelling characters, even if you find them annoying - and keeps you watching to see if they can achieve their dream of making anime... despite the production value looking like it actually WAS produced by high school students.

Also, I think the title is really a mistranslation done by someone who doesn't grasp idioms of both Japanese and English origins. "Keep your hands off" is generally meant to ward off unwanted attention or affection, whereas it's a reference here to a line in the show that actually goes "Keep your hands off the student council," which is meant as a way of communicating how bad an idea it is to interact with them and thus draw attention. So, really, I think a more faithful localization of the title of this series should have been "Don't mess with the film club" (I have no idea why they chose not to translate eizouken in the actual title).

Boy, I sure had a lot to say about an anime I'm about to give a middling rating to, huh.

Verdict: 3/5. An interesting character study that sometimes gets a little bit too in love with itself. Definitely thought provoking, sometimes entertaining. I don't regret having watched it, but I'm not exactly sure I'd tell anyone to go out of their way to watch it either. But it definitely gets bonus points for the funky opening song.

 
If I wanted to describe Keep your hands off Eizouken!, it's basically a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things anime where the girls aren't moe blobs but are instead cute because they show realistic passion for their work and suffer for their art. Or to put it another way, it's about the actual girls you knew in high school having the means to put out anime.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Seton Academy

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Genre: Comedy, Romance, Harem, High School, Dangerously Furry

Fanservice: Constant and shameless

Premise: Did you watch Zootopia or Beastars and think "This is good, but I'd really rather watch something that my parents would be ashamed to walk in on me watching?" Well buddy, this is the show for you.

Jin and Hitomi are the only two human students at an academy mixing all kinds of animals together. Hitomi's a non-descript human female whose only defining characteristic is "nice" (well, and buxom, of course, since she's the love interest), and Jin would be your average non-descript protagonist MC except for one thing - he hates animals. Always has since he was little, having gotten beaten up by bear cubs when he tried to rescue a wolf pup from their bullying. As such, Jin is actually kind of a jerkass - but a jerkass with a heart of gold. He can't stand bullies, so he always ends up sticking up for the little guy, no matter the species.

Because Hitomi wants to start a school cooking club, Jin goes along with it to have a chance to spend time with her, as he is of course romantically fixated on the only human female in the school. Hitomi wants to make lots of friends from all walks of life, great and small. Hilarity ensues. Well, usually. Of course the wolf pup he rescued from bears as a little kid is also at the school and immediately takes an over-enthusiastic shine to him. Ravioli ravioli beware the horny wolf pup loli - and for pete's sake, get her some ritalin.

Some of the characters are a bit novel - the hyena with a bad case of gender dysphoria at least has a development arc, for one, and the star-crossed-lovers subplot between the b-character lion and impala is way more interesting than anything else going on with the main characters of the show - but overall this is a by-the-numbers, oversexed, way-too-genki, fanservice-laden, screamy-hyper-weeb anime.

Verdict - eminently skippable. 2.5/5. Much lower if there are any non-weebs in the audience, because this will probably fall completely flat with them, if not be downright repellent due to the bizarre sex jokes and plainly underaged characters literally in heat.
 
Hmm. Your description led me to believe there would be more than 33% of the girls in the poster doing that winky thing.

--Patrick
 
No bulli Ranka-chan.

This show gave us one of the better EDs of the season...


And ranking Monday shows, I enjoyed it a lot more than Pet.

Crush EVERYONE except Meimei.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Isekai Quartet Season 2

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Genre: Stuck in another world, crossover, comedy

Fanservice: None whatsoever

Premise: More of the same from Isekai Quartet S1.

The addition of the Shield Hero characters didn't shake things up as much as I had hoped. As with the previous, you should have seen at least 3 or 4 of the 5 series talked about (6 if you count the Cautious Hero cameo) if you want to actually enjoy the series, and how much you liked those shows individually will directly affect how much you like this one. All in all, it was OK. Not quite as great as S1, but hey, there wasn't much worth watching this season anyway.

Verdict: 3/5, +/- 1 depending on how much you like Kadokawa's other isekai series.
 
Been watching the Konosuba movie over and over.
Yunyun finally gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
TIL: Accidentally downloading a Bible Black fansub on Limewire is what actually first got Gigguk into anime.



I can relate. I think my first anime was Urotsukidoji.

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That might actually explain a lot...
 
An abandoned Akihabara. Anime and manga production delayed or curtailed entirely. The cause is... a virus.

We're living the Pastel Memories origin story. :Leyla:
 
I looked in the spring season lineup and there is nothing really interesting that catched my eye at the moment.

Except maybe "Ghost in the Shell" and "Brand New Animal"
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor

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Genre: Magic, High School, Action, Shonen

Fanservice: Beach episode, ridiculous female "uniforms" with below-the-hips skirts barely 6 inches long, fanservice still-frames your parents would be very disappointed to find you looking at.

Premise: Glenn Radars is a shiftless layabout who gets roped into being a substitute teacher at a magic academy. All his motivations seem to be self-serving and rooted in nothing more than a desire to return to life as a shut-in parasite. But despite himself, he actually starts giving a damn about his students, just in time for the ghosts of his past to come back and put them all in danger.

Man, that makes it sound a lot cooler than it actually is.

Basically this is 12 episodes of tired tropes and barely-comprehensible weebshit (as if the word-salad title wasn't confirmation enough). I watched the subbed version, and I'm kind of wondering how good the dubbed version is because the subtitles are of lower quality than most 90s fansubs. But I'm not interested enough to actually find out because it'd mean I have to watch this again, and frankly, it's just not very good.

It kind of reminds me of Wise Man's Grandchild, although at least this one doesn't make any pretensions to Isekai. All in all I feel like watching it was generally unfulfilling and I really wish there was more good Anime coming out this season, but I guess I just got spoiled by how many amazing shows have been coming out for the past couple years that knocked it out of the park. I mean, this isn't INSULTINGLY terrible, but I still would rather have not watched it.

Verdict: 2/5.
 
I blame Gigguk reacting to those uniforms for my watching that show. 12 episodes. One good moment. White Cat's squeak in the classroom.
 
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