Board 8 > Anime & Manga Discussion Topic 297: A Dream of Spring

(+) Yeah! (+)

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Congrats Deku on getting your arms back

The amount of fakeout final pages that were immediately backpedaled on during the literal years this final battle has been playing out in the manga is just embarrassing. When so many things don't stick, people assume every major event could be a fakeout. This didn't even last a single chapter.

Look Back trailer

https://youtu.be/gH6zVJVHEaM?si=9kAR53hWpqSKcq4J

Wooooh boy I am not ready for this.

Watched the first 2 episodes of Level 2 Chillin on my lunch break because I saw someone say it was "an anime that feels like it was made to spite Shield Hero".

And I definitely get what they mean, lol.

It's hardly cinema but it's enjoyable enough.

Also it's a party of one dude and like 5 girls and from what I have been told it contains absolutely no harem element whatsoever which is, uh....difficult to believe.

In addition to everything else I'm watching, I'm trying to catch up on sequel seasons in anime I've fallen behind on.

I finished the third season of Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun. I enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was as good as the first two seasons It essentially had one big arc rather than multiple shorter ones. It also spent a lot of time on the secondary characters in the Misfit class. I mean I like all of them too, but my favorites are Ameri (who barely got any focus) and Iruma himself, who didn't get his usual spotlight. There were entire episodes where he didn't show up at all. Still, I don't want to put S3 down too much! I still like the setting, and the story does a great job at mixing comedy into the various demonic school situations. Unlike the previous seasons, S3 also never got super serious. The few episodes where this show got dramatic were always the worst, so it was nice to have it be lighthearted and fun the whole way through. So S3 was a step down, but only slightly. I hope it gets another season in the future.

DBS is on hiatus right now. So, that being said......THIS month in Boruto Two Blue Vortex......*SPOILERS*

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e53c395d.jpg

He's baaaaaaaaaaaaack.....

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2024-04-18/yuri-on-ice-ice-adolescence-film-canceled/.209997?s=09

Not remotely surprising.

Went and read Higurashi Meguri manga, since it finished a couple months ago. It's basically a digest version of the Sotsu anime but with a completely different final arc....so, like, a big retcon I guess.

I like the ending of Sotsu because it's hilarious. It's so bad that it's one of the best endings ever because of it, watching that last episode is funny as fuck. However the new ending here is just 100%, unabashedly better than Sotsu, it is completely incomparable, it completely justifies the GouSotsu project. Sure, it erases the side goal of GouSotsu to make it an Umineko prequel, but really I could care less lol, that was wild in the moment when it was happening but it doesn't actually add anything.

Finally got around to some Spring stuff, watched the first couple eps of all of these (and 3 of Train):

Tonari no Youkai-san - This is pretty good stuff all around. Has potential, but I wish the episodes were more focused. Skipping between storylines doesn't work. Jiro is the best.

Laid Back Camp S3 - Still awesome. The lack of good slice of life shows in 2023 was really sad after 2022 had such a glut. Hopefully 2024 will have more on this level, but if it doesn't, at least we're getting one great season.

Train to the End of the World - I wish the girls were more interesting. It feels like they could get a lot more development to make them better characters. I wish they didn't have the scene at the start of S1 either; leaving the apocalypse without explanation would've been much more interesting than giving it a stupid one. This feels like it'll get better as it goes and the characters get developed more though.

The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio - Hated this and dropped it. Main two girls suck, and they're going for dumb idol stuff over focusing on their relationship. Knowing that the anime will have zero romance is a turn-off too. It also feels silly that they do nothing to disguise themselves and yet no one knows they're (or at least Yuhi is) famous voice actors/idols.

Disappointing start to the season for me.

I think the sporadic storytelling for Youkai is the right choice for these first few episodes to get a good cast introduction. I wouldn't mind if the show became a bit more focused moving forward, though, probably after the episode tomorrow.

I still can't get into Laid Back Camp. I tried watching S1 when it aired and tried a few times since then to go back to it, but I just don't care about these characters.

Train is 100% riding on the absurdity of the scenarios and absolutely top notch voice acting and delivery at the moment. Hina was great I'm her episode this week and I hope they continue to give each girl at least open story of their own.

Voice Actor Radio is low on my list, but definitely not in drop range (I've dropped a few shows as of yesterday so it's closer than before, though). I don't dislike the leads, but they're hardly original archetypes. Really just wanna see if it grabs me enough to check out the source material.

MacArrowny posted...

Finally got around to some Spring stuff, watched the first couple eps of all of these (and 3 of Train):

-I kind of agree with your Tonari thoughts. I'm enjoying it a lot, but I felt like it bounced around a bit too much and introduced too many characters too fast. Still a great anime imo. It might be less of a problem now that most characters have been introduced. They could start having longer stories too.

-Train, for me, has been kind of hit or miss. I actually disliked the third episode, I hate the trope where something is clearly wrong but no one notices except one character and they fail spectacularly at articulating it. I really hope the rest of the show isn't just more situations like that at each stop. Episode two was really good at least!

-Sad to see you disliking Voice Actor Radio so much. It isn't shaping up to be one of my favorites or anything, but I'm liking it well enough. The girls have a fun dynamic imo

I saw the first 3 episodes of Dorohedoro last night. Seems pretty decent so far

I don't think the anime lives up to the manga, but it's still very solid.

The wait for non machine GBC fansubs begins again for another week.

https://youtube.com/shorts/tkrDZlh1_0M?si=MRYeKAtotEjFuqtF

Which are the best GBC subs?

I'm super interested in Girls Band Cry but I'm going to wait until it's over so I can be sure the entire season has good fansubs. It'd suck if the groups stopped doing it halfway through.

Assuming you're looking at the cat site, RedditSubs was the best for episode 1 that I watched, but SobsPlease who is the "lead" subber just out their episode 1 out yesterday and I assume it's the best one now. Obviously 2 weeks is....too slow, but maybe they'll start working it fast now that they've gotten off the ground.

I think both Yofukashi and NoSobsPlease are fine for episode 2.

Only MTL subs are out for episode 3. Ignore all the "le meme" subs, they were only good for episode 1 because they were stolen from someone who did a forum translation of the episode (and the thief rushed so much that they forgot to take out some of the jokes the translator had left in the subs, "It's Joever!"), the rest of them are MTL.

Zero romance in a series like Voice Actor Radio is a big plus tbqh

I haven't yet looked into how long it takes the series to become a romance in the LN, it sounda like quite a bit last where a single cour run would go.

Unless they change it up in the anime of course.

The anti-localization crowd is currently pushing a narrative that the old fan translations of JoJo Golden Wind are better than the current official translations because they were more "accurate".

https://twitter.com/AdmiralAegis/status/1780820846648385670?t=4usaWuzNbRu-ABhL30aCuA&s=19

This misses several key points!

1 - The modern translations they are comparing it to are also fan translations, not official.

2 - The old Part 5 scans were translated from a Chinese fan translation.

3 - Those Golden Wind scans are so notoriously horrific that people thoughtPart 5 was the worst JoJo part for YEARS. And I read through them twice!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

- The old Part 5 scans were translated from a Chinese fan translation.

glad they acknowledge that a tl they like the sound of is better than one that's 100% accurate to the Japanese

It's irony at it's finest.

Was the Part 5 fan translation that bad? I only ever heard about Part 4 and Duwang.

The original Part 5 translation was definitely better than the original part 4 "translation", in that the people who did part 5 actually knew English. It's got lots of mistakes, though, as well as poor formatting and sentence structure. It reads like it was machine translated even though it wasn't. You could get by on it, but it was a terrible experience.

Part 4 used to be so poorly translated that it was impossible not to recognize.The quality of the scans themselves were equally nightmarish. Supposedly this was done by a single guy in China for his English class project, but that may just be a long standing rumor.

Arguably the Part 5 translations come out of this looking worse though, because people who read them may think they got a good enough experience and will just leave it at that. Part 4, on the other hand....nobody would ever say they got by just fine with Duwang, so they're more likely to have gone back and reread it again later.

In terms of the original translations, 4 got much better as it went along, after those first few miserable chapters/volumes. 5 was just blah throughout. There was something off about it.

It turns out the new golf anime, Tonbo, is getting slowly added to some random Youtube channel (I think legitimately? I dunno, it didn't seem like a pirate channel or anything). It's a week behind Amazon, but I don't have easy access to Prime Video anymore so it's good that I can watch it here.

Anyway, the first two episodes were actually really good! After Highspeed Etoile and Oblivion Battery both crashed and burned, it's nice to have a decent sports anime this season. A former golf pro, fleeing something from his past, moves to a rural island and meets a young girl who is surprisingly good at golf. So far, Tonbo is kind of a mixture of Birdie Wing (making ridiculously tricky shots despite limited clubs) and one of those "reluctant mentor" shows where a guy gets a kind of surrogate daughter. It looks like it'll be a cute and fun anime with occasional feels. After two episodes, it's already shaping up to be one of my favorites of the season.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f667de73.jpg

oh is that why the golf anime is getting review bombed lol. fair

anyway i guess i had a look at those two episodes now (as well as the third elsewhere) plus the interview content for it and i'm definitely a fan now. only of the show itself though, of course, not any of this nft stuff >_>

we started kaguya: love is war. it's cute and hilarious so far, but admittedly only an episode and a half in

Kojima approved.

https://twitter.com/Kojima_Hideo/status/1781667907950534807

SeabassDebeste posted...

we started kaguya: love is war. it's cute and hilarious so far, but admittedly only an episode and a half in

Dubbed or subbed?

Both are excellent, just curious.

Kaiju No 8 definitely going the Arcane route with this OP.

An anime OP collab between Yungblood and Imagine Dragons, what a world.

https://youtu.be/CFjI21M9wZs?si=9mSqfpj5Q7BI01Uu

Non-MTL subs out for GBC3, didn't notice any issue. This one says they'll have subs out 4-5 hours after airing from now on.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9a1b0b12.jpg

I know that the golf anime is part of some sort of NFT thing, but I don't care as long as the show itself is good! It's not like the story is about NFTs or anything. I don't think anyone on that island even owns a computer.

I know it's not effecting the show, uh for now at least, but the whole thing is still funny.

I am curious if the blockchain stuff is why the release is so weird. The first Prime exclusive simulcast in years, and then suddenly popping up in YouTube? I wonder if all the normal platforms said go screw yourself lol.

Very, very confident the Jellyfish is the best new series of the season. Today's episode was heavy, in ways I didn't expect, and even some very minor hints of subject matter that I would have never in a million years expected them to tackle even with the extremely modern setting. This is the Secret Sauce of Spring Season that came outta nowhere, SSSS Tier.

What certainly isn't is Whisper Me a Love Song. The second episode has absolutely none of the energy of the first, basically a slideshow adaptation other than a little bit towards the end. I was definitely worried this would happen with this studio given their track record, but I had my fingers crossed. Still, not enough to drop it yet.

Spy x Family movie beated

First half wholesome family ooting second half all the action

And Poop God

Is the movie going to get put on CR eventually? The only places showing it are like an hour away.

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Spy x Family movie beated

First half wholesome family ooting second half all the action

And Poop God

Yep, it was great.

I wanted to stop by and say that Tonari is great. Episode 3 was probably my favorite so far.

Very good anime! Buchio and Jiro are my two favs for sure.

Episode 3 was super good. I thought this plot point was going to be an overarching deal for the whole season, was surprised it came to a head here.

And for the last show of the day, you can really tell Kaiju No 8 is gonna be super popular because it's already got a ton of haters. "I was lied to by marketing about the show's concept!" said the people who didn't see a single trailer or ad, or read a single line of it's description. Bros thought they were getting Shounen Jump's Planetes.

MHA Recap #3 Ochaco and Todoroki

one more

Sound Euphonium busting out with it's most powerful villain yet.

A reasonable, normal girl.

Dragon Ball Kai is an official abridged version of DBZ that cuts out all the filler.

You probably wanna start with OG Dragon Ball first though.

UltimaterializerX posted...

I would like to watch Dragon Ball in honor of Toriyama, but Ive heard DBZ is some Americanized junk meant to increase run time, hence all the memes about recaps and such? And that theres a much better version of the show?

Is this true or should I just watch DBZ? And/or whats the best place to watch it legally? Attack on Titan was all on Hulu, which was nice.

Its all on crunchyroll now after our migrated from Funimation.

Not a fan of the English dubbed version that's on there. It's the redubbed version they did a few years later so its obviously missing the Bruce Faulkner music that was in the original Toonami versions and the replacement music is just bad.

The Japanese version is fine though with all the original Japanese music

There is Dragon Ball KAI which cuts the filler out of the Frieza and Cell sagas (Buu saga is mostly untouched) but I don't think it's streaming anywhere and the way they made it wide-screen was chopping up the original footage so you only see a portion of it.

I would recommend just watching it in Japanese on Crunchyroll and If you find the filler is too much just pull up a filler guide but hey just find what works best for you

UltimaterializerX posted...

I would like to watch Dragon Ball in honor of Toriyama, but Ive heard DBZ is some Americanized junk meant to increase run time, hence all the memes about recaps and such? And that theres a much better version of the show?

Is this true or should I just watch DBZ? And/or whats the best place to watch it legally? Attack on Titan was all on Hulu, which was nice.

Both Dragon Ball (subbed) and Dragon Ball Z Kai (dubbed) are on Hulu.

And as pj said, Kai is just Dragon Ball Z with filler removed.

Ranger Reject is just about the best adaptation a manga could ask for. It's criminal that this thing is stuck in Hulu jail.

Of course, I suppose it's possible that the reason it's so high quality is that they for Disney money? Don't know.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Dumb question I'm sure, but are they related? <_<

Lol fair question. Dragon Ball is the first series. It deals with kid Goku, and more of a gag comedy show where he goes on adventures finding the Dragon Balls and there's martial arts tournaments at the end with a bit more serious story.

Dragon Ball Z is the show most of the us grew up with in the 90s, and the show that made anime explode worldwide. I watched Z in the 90s and only very recently watched the first series. Z is less gag and more serious. So if you want to ask, you don't need to watch the original Dragon Ball to jump into Z since everything from the original is explained immediately.

You mean Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z?

Yes. Dragon Ball is the beginning story when Goku's a child. It predates DBZ and is a lot more lighthearted and comedy-focused than the action-focused that DBZ is.

In fact in Japan, the manga was all "Dragon Ball". The "Z" distinction only came with the anime.
But in the US, the English release of the manga still uses the "Dragon Ball Z" label when that part of the story happens and it resets the volume numbering.

A lot of people skip Dragon Ball entirely and start with Z but it's up to you on where to begin.

That said, it is a long ass endeavor to go through all of Dragon Ball regardless if how you go about it.

So the alternative, fastest way to go through Dragon Ball, and see the work that Akira Toriyama personally did, would be to get the Shonen Jump app (or use the website), and read through Dragon Ball. Of course you miss out on the animated fight scenes but you can always view the clips or pick and choose what episodes to watch online.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Dubbed or subbed?

Both are excellent, just curious.

dub. and yeah it's fantastic. narrator has me cracking up. reminds me of jane the virgin

The narrator is practically a different character in the dub (as is often the case with several anime), but both are equally as good for different reasons.