Board 8 > post anime here and I will talk about them

(+) Yeah! (+)

I wouldn't consider DB one of my favorite anime/manga series anymore but damn, I have so much nostalgia and I do think it's legit good anyway

I agree that the buu saga kind of sucks though
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SeabassDebeste posted...

i think toriyama got sick of the emphasis on fighting and wanted to make it silly, like dragon ball used to be

but inevitably it went back to the Z style and the blending was bad

blending 'everything needs to be silly' with 'this galaxy killing threat needs to be more dangerous than the previous universe killing threat' was a big mistake

TexasZea posted...

I wouldn't consider DB one of my favorite anime/manga series anymore but damn, I have so much nostalgia and I do think it's legit good anyway

I agree that the buu saga kind of sucks though

I went into the manga ready to set aside nostalgia and thinking I would probably find the series to be average. it was a nice surprise to find that it's definitely pretty good in its own right.

also if you think the buu saga only 'kind of' sucks then there's no way we agree ;^]
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I watched Buy Saga as a kid so to me it's not that bad but it is definitely not as good as the other two.
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there'll be a short delay for Haikyuu

dragonball write up turned out a bit longer than I expected, and I know the Haikyuu one will be substantial as well. don't really have the time or energy to do it tonight.
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Man Boo arc is fine good fun. It's a total mess too but I think it was necessary to complete the Vegeta character arc.
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Haikyuu!!
@pjbasis



Much like Aku no Hana, I consider Haikyuu!! to be more or less in contention for among my favorite anime I've watched, possibly my favorite overall. Unlike Aku no Hana I can pretty confidently say this show should appeal to just about anyone, and I would recommend that literally every single person should watch it. Actually, if I had to imagine someone who could watch Haikyuu and not like it, I have to assume they'd be a pretty miserable person.

Every single aspect of this show has insanely high quality far beyond what I expect from typical anime. The characters are all top tier. The writing is all top tier. The directing is all top tier. The series does an amazing job of building hype for any event and it always delivers on that hype. The only time Haikyuu leaves me feeling disappointed is when it's over and I have no more episodes to watch. For the record, I don't think a love or even a knowledge of volleyball is essential to be able to enjoy this show going in. Yes, the show is about characters who play volleyball. But the story and characters are, by far, the most important factor that go into making this show great. The volleyball is something you can learn along the way. The show does a good job of explaining things as needed, and it does it without being pedantic.

Truly, with all of that said, it's hard to consider this show as anything other than a masterpiece.

Characters. The insane thing about this show is that I could pick probably any character from Haikyuu and do an entire full length write up just concerning that character. And I don't just mean 'main characters.' I don't even just mean 'characters from Karasuno.' I mean literally any character from the show. Just to pick someone random, Ikejiri, is an opponent on one of the teams they face in the first season. The guy who went to the same junior high as Daichi, if you don't remember him. He's in two episodes. I could literally write an essay about him. The show just does a phenomenal job of giving focus to so many of the people who step foot on the court.

Karasuno itself feels so much like a real team because of this factor. It's not just Kuroko passing to one guy who slam dunks every ball. The main team in this game you know all of the starting players, you know all of the second string players, hell, you know all of the guys who sit on the bench. By the time you're halfway through the first arc and the tournament starts proper you know all of the characters who sit in the bleachers and cheer for Karasuno. And when I say you know them I mean you really know them. They all feel like real, fully developed characters with multiple dimensions.

Writing. The writing in this show is so good. I mean it's largely character driven and so my praise for the characters reflects really well here. But even the way the meta plot is handled is really good for a sports series. They make it so every game played feels significant and has its own story. The team has its own overall story that slowly develops over time. The slow development of Karasuno from flightless birds to a champion level team is what this show is all about, and it's really, really good in that regard. They fail at times but you can see them always improving, and by the end all of the struggle will be worth it. The original writer of the manga really effectively uses the idea that characters reach their lowest point before starting a slow climb back to greatness.

Directing, ties directly into this because of how the anime handles things. In series like Monster I complained about how manga is superior to anime in some regards because of how you can fly through material. In Haikyuu, I feel this is one of those rare cases where it's the opposite. Granted, it goes without saying that it feels more awesome to see them execute plays in motion. That's obvious. But really the way the story develops over time is what makes it so important.
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You can have a character that fails at something and then spends an ENTIRE SEASON before coming back on the court and redeeming themselves. Yet somehow the wait just makes that payoff all the more worth it. In the third season there's a game that is the length of an entire movie. Yet this doesn't really make it feel like the pacing is too slow. It's actually quite the opposite. This is by far one of the top games in the series, among the top 3 for sure, and arguably the best game depending on who you ask. Making this into its own 'movie' really lends to the high amount of significance and the dramatic feel of it. I think if I was just reading the manga and blazed through the story at high speed I would miss this significance. Especially when the director of this show is so good at building tension, holding it, and then delivering in the most satisfying ways.

The way they change shots, transition between events, and shift around points of view is almost universally done in a great fashion. This allows them to effectively develop characters on and off the court -- a lot of development happens during the matches -- and yet it somehow never slows down the pace of the games for me. It's like one of the many write ups where I've said 'doing such and such doesn't work out because you have to strike a perfect balance.' Haikyuu is that show that manages to strike the perfect balance and execute the landing with style.
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I liked season 1 of haikyuu and then my anime watching really dropped off and then I never watched the other seasons

I will get to them at some point though
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I had a friend who was skeptical of the sports genre of anime, but he watched the shiratorizawa match with me and yeah. One of the most amazing stretches of 10 episodes ever.
Keeping up with the manga but I still can't wait for S4!

If you haven't read Slam Dunk though I would highly recommend it. Anime is incomplete and I can't speak to the quality of what's there either.
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Wait, Slam Dunk's manga overtook the anime? This whole time I thought it was over then
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I am somewhat interested in Slam Dunk but it doesn't help that basketball ranks pretty mediocre on my list of sports
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Simoun posted...

Wait, Slam Dunk's manga overtook the anime? This whole time I thought it was over then

lolllll noooooo

The part that's not in the anime is what boosts it from merely good to forever standing the test of time
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MariaTaylor posted...

I am somewhat interested in Slam Dunk but it doesn't help that basketball ranks pretty mediocre on my list of sports

MariaTaylor posted...

For the record, I don't think a love or even a knowledge of [sport] is essential to be able to enjoy this show going in.

You said it yourself!
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I mean keep in mind I said that specifically referring to Haikyuu because I personally consider it to be like a 1 in 200 anime that is truly perfect

it's not like I'd think that applies to every sports anime ever made

I guess it's true that the same statement might apply to Slam Dunk but I don't really find it likely enough to bet upon making it a high priority watch
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that's a p good sell on haikyuu, makes me wanna watch it! how many episodes?

i watched like an episode of slam dunk and it was really tough to get thorugh
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25 eps first season, 25 eps second season, third season is only 10 eps

definitely longer than most of the shows I would normally get into. it helped that I started watching it since the first season was airing. but even then it's an easy marathon show. once you get a few eps in I doubt you'll want to stop.
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To be clear I am only recommending the manga of Slam Dunk.

And if you don't mind some shilling, the aspects you mention for Haikyuu are basically the same beats slam dunk hits. Strong character development and a smaller but decent ensemble cast with likeable rivals. Despite the sport it has less in common with Kuroko for instance.
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Though if you want some real shilling Hunter X Hunter is about as perfect a story it gets imo.

(sans still being running and all)
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oh yeah kuroko is a perfect example of what NOT to do with basketball.

I'm sure Slam Dunk handles it better than Kuroko it's just a matter of whether it handles it as good as Haikyuu and if it has all the other aspects that make Haikyuu great.

anyway not saying I'm not interested in it. I was already interested in it and I may check it out. it's just not something that is high on my priority list. so basically I'd get to it 'eventually.'
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Love Live
@BK_Sheikah00



I think I watched like one episode of this anime, but I can't be entirely sure. The problem is that there's multiple of these idol shows and some of them are just idol knock off shows but I honestly couldn't even tell you what the difference is between this one and any other. So like if this was an A tier idol show or a C tier idol show I would have no idea. Anyway it looks somewhat familiar but there's a possibility I'm simply confusing it with some other show.

The whole idol thing doesn't work for me so I felt pretty comfortable dropping it after just one episode. Especially the cultural fixation with teenagers, specifically as objects with a target audience of adult males, is just not appealing to me at all.
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I think I am starting to get burned out on these, but I'm also super hyped on My Hero Academia so I feel like I'll have a lot to say about it. looking at the next few series they all seem like ones I have good impressions on too. so hopefully I can regain some momentum once I start going.
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no hero academia hype huh
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Meeeeeeeeee
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i haven't seen academia. it's one of the ones on netflix, though, right? or am i thinking of witch academia or something?
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SeabassDebeste posted...

i haven't seen academia. it's one of the ones on netflix, though, right? or am i thinking of witch academia or something?

little witch academia is on netflix

my hero academia is on crunchyroll and funimation
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My Hero Academia
@Icehawk



This show is actually pretty freaking awesome, and I enjoyed what I've read of the manga even more. I only got into the series very recently but I pretty much flew through it and even since then I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, rewatching scenes, getting caught up on the manga, discussing it in other topics, analyzing aspects of the series, etc. etc. etc. It just has this quality to it that caused me to get sucked in very quickly and become very into the series.

Funny enough it's far from being my favorite series. I only rated the seasons a 6 and a 7, so I wouldn't even say that this is a great show or anything. The manga is better and consistently better, to be fair. I'd probably give it an 8 overall. But once again it's not really the quality level of My Hero Academia that makes it enjoyable. Rather, the tone and the hype around it makes the viewer (or reader) simply hooked on the material itself. It's a bit hard to explain what I mean any better than that.

It's like, uh, you can get very excited at watching Wrestlemania but you know that Wrestling does not actually have well written storylines, good acting, or anything like that. The writing in My Hero Academia is pretty good so this isn't a perfect analogy but it might give a good idea of the type of feeling I'm describing.

I think the supporting cast of this series is very strong. I often get very invested in the story of the side characters more than I care about the main series. That being said there are some insanely HYPE battles involving the main characters. In particular, this upcoming season is going to feature a battle that should be absolutely insane in animated form. It's weird to say this, since I like the manga better, but I think watching the scenes animated adds a ton of enjoyment to them. Once again my feelings on this series seem to be super contradictory. I'm all over the place with this one.

Of the early story arcs I think Deku is just okay, All Might is kinda cool but I don't love him or anything. Bakugo is a character I hated when I first started with the series but he has grown on me. Weirdly enough it's not because of his development or anything. It's more like when I went back and looked at scenes again where he pissed me off the first time watching it, he just pissed me off less, and I can't really explain why. When I talked about this in a topic on another board someone mentioned that they thought Bakugo was actually hilarious and this kinda helped me come to terms with the fact that I found him to be pretty funny too. He shines the most in combat as well, so you tend to like him more as a character whenever he's involved in an awesome fight scene... even if he can be an annoying tool at other times.

For the upcoming material I won't post any spoilers but I actually think pretty much everything that hasn't happened yet is better than everything that has happened so far. Season 1 of the anime covers the most generic and predictable of all the materials. My Hero Academia actually does a decent job of setting up tropes and knocking them down, but this means that the early part of the series involves them just... setting up tropes. Which makes the show seem more predictable and generic than it really is. Season 2 does have a few great moments but I still feel like the later material is even better.

The League of Villains is really bland and not super interesting in season 1 or 2, but in the manga they turn into this group that actually kinda reminds me a bit of the Brotherhood of Dada from Doom Patrol and it's awesome. There's one scene in particular where they do "something" and then after there's one panel where the members of the group are drawn together in a way that makes them come across as really cool. It's one of the first times that I actually felt like Shigaraki was an awesome character.
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Sorry if that's vague, I just don't want to do a write up that is filled with spoiler bars. Anyway, I don't think we'll get there in season 3.

Iida was one of my favorite characters when I watched the anime but I feel like even in season 2 I started to get frustrated to how he was constantly relegated to the role of 3rd string joke character. This doesn't really ever improve. I dunno. He has his moments. He is a complex and interesting and cool character. But he is criminally underutilized in every single arc.

The weird thing about this series is that there are never any moments where I feel like I have a standout favorite character. This probably comes back entirely to the fact that while I do root for Deku and I like him, he's not the type that I could call my favorite. Since he's the one who gets to do the coolest stuff the most often I generally feel like the show has a strong supporting cast of other great characters while none of them ever take the spotlight enough for me to say they are my favorite.

One thing I will say about this anime is that I like the female characters almost across the board way better than any other battle shounen anime. Most battle shounen tend to ignore the female characters, have them be useless, or, at worst, have them be annoying. In this show all of the female characters are some combination of likable and competent. Maybe there's a few exceptions, I dunno. Uraraka, especially, is a standout character among the best in this show and really if you compare her to the female lead of any other battle shounen I've seen it's not even a competition.

Anyway I don't have much more to say on it than that right now. I've kinda already written a bunch of short essays about different characters and different moments from the show in other topics and I'm a bit too lazy to rehash all of those talking points again now. I'll just ultimately say this is a very enjoyable show and I'm super excited to watch along with season 3, in a way that I haven't been for an airing anime in quite some time.

(also I have a feeling my joke picture for this one may have gone over like a lead balloon but I refuse to change it now)
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MariaTaylor posted...

you can get very excited at watching Wrestlemania but you know that Wrestling does not actually have well written storylines, good acting, or anything like that.

*topic list*
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TexasZea posted...

SeabassDebeste posted...

i haven't seen academia. it's one of the ones on netflix, though, right? or am i thinking of witch academia or something?

little witch academia is on netflix

my hero academia is on crunchyroll and funimation

ok, so i literally know nothing about this show at all then!
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oh yeah I forgot to work this into the write up but the new opening is hype as fuck

as someone who basically knows everything that will happen this season it just looks like it's going to be amazingly well done. unless all the budget went into the OP animation and the actual show is going to have south park style paper cut outs.
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bumpo
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feeling lazy and unmotivated again today. I'll try to do a batch of write ups tomorrow but that might be the last ones.
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Tantei Opera Milky Holmes
@TexasZea



Milky Holmes is a pretty special show. I remember cracking up at the first season, at first starting off just marveling at how bad it is, and then at some point you're not sure how much of this is intentional and there's enough legitimately funny jokes mixed in that you start to have a serious appreciation for it. The second season definitely blurs the line even further where I felt like I was most often laughing WITH the show instead of AT the show.

Third season was a return to form with it being pretty poorly done, but at that point I was kinda burned out on the formula. Or maybe me being burned out it made it harder to enjoy the 'so bad it's good' humor. Either way, zea and I had been watching the show together up to that point, but we never finished the third season.

Working!!
@th3l3fty



A pretty funny show that I enjoyed the first two seasons of quite a bit. I watched them both while airing. Actually, at the time, I liked the original season enough that I even went out and bought the localized special edition just to support the official release! Anyway I feel like the show starts off on decent grounds and gradually builds up to something that is very consistently funny.

Buuuutttttt....

Here's the issue. The style of humor is good at first, but they begin to call back to the exact same jokes far too often. Also while the characters are all quirky and entertaining at first, there is so little actual development that every character suffers from being too static. I do love consistency, it's one of my most important qualities for a good work of art to have. The thing is, though, consistency is shown when elements of the story advance or characters develop and continue to behave in ways that logically follow their established traits. If the elements of the story don't change and the characters don't develop that's not really consistency. That's just... remaining stale, forever.

Anyway I didn't watch the third season while it was airing. I planned to eventually get around to it but one day I tried watching the first episode of the third season and I didn't find it funny at all. It's unlikely i'll ever motivate myself enough to give this another chance. I'm basically done with the series at this point. It was fun while it lasted, and now I'm no longer interested in the formula.

Girls un Panzer
@Hardcore_Adult



A pretty legitimately awesome anime that I need to get back to watching some more of. The story is broken up into neat like 2-3 episode arcs so it was very easy for me to finish short segments at a time. I do appreciate that a lot. At the same time it allows me to kinda shelve this anime without making as much progress as I should. A big part of my delay is that while the series was airing the last few episodes didn't come out at a normal pace and so I was really in no rush to get caught up, and then when I did the finale arc still wasn't complete anyway.

This is the type of show that I think is pretty easy to dismiss at a glance, but I would urge the potential haters that there is definitely more to Girls und Panzer than meets the eye. It comes across as your typical 'lets have cute girls do some random thing and appeal to otaku' anime and, in a sense, you can kinda say it does fall into that genre. But I think what sets this work above many others is they don't really disrespect the tankery aspect of the series. Like, they didn't just use tanks as a gimmick without understanding or caring about them. Basically if you think the idea of tank vs tank combat is cool, this will actually deliver on that aspect.

It's not like, for example, Milky Holmes where there is no actual detective work being done.
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I'm still hanging out for the movie. I have a watchlist that dates back to 2015 and that's not just anime.
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Hero Academia is hype as fuck and Season 3 is going to be amazing
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milky holmes might be the only time I watched an anime that looked bad (something I did way too much) and wound up enjoying

I liked working S2 more than S1. I watched a few episodes of S3 when it started and I don't even remember how much I liked it before stalling out on that anime season entirely... I'm not sure if I'll get back to it.
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do you think that is a reflection of you being burned out on anime at the time or could it be that working S3 is just lesser than the previous seasons? kinda interested to see if I'm the only one who felt that way.
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MariaTaylor posted...

do you think that is a reflection of you being burned out on anime at the time or could it be that working S3 is just lesser than the previous seasons? kinda interested to see if I'm the only one who felt that way.

I'm not really sure. definitely partially burnout at least. I don't remember many people on board 8 watching season 3 though for what it's worth.
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Oh yeah MHA is pretty great!

The most recent completed arc was fantastic, season 4 can't come soon enough!
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Let's talk go-to-foods while watching Anime and time of day.

I'll go first: Pretzel pieces. Late Night.
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