Board 8 > Anime & Manga Discussion Topic 299: Girls Love Music

(+) Yeah! (+)

With the acceptance that my top chunk just going to be in an infinite never ending holy war with eachother than I can't rank, and having determined I will not be dropping anything else, I think I can finally get a good actual ranking for this season so far, for stuff I haven't dropped.

One noteable drop I'm going to mention here is Loser Ranger. The anime is quite good, but the combination of me just reading it and some questionable cuts and reorganizing has me letting this slip away. For the first 3 episodes it felt like these adjustments were a boon for the show as an adaptation, but they have started to get less and less understandable to the point where some beats of the show can actually be confusing to follow because they've cut stuff out, moved it forward, and recontextualized it as a flashback instead of just part of the linear narrative. Very odd. However I think for an anime only this is still a very strong one to watch.

ANYWAYS. Gonna include the 3 sequels this time.

GBC/Jellyfish/Euphonium
Konosuba
Wind Breaker
Spicey Wolf
Mushoku Tensei
Train to the End
Tonari no Yokai
Mysterious Disappearances
Kaiju No 8
Voice Actor Radio

I don't think there's a thing I need to say about the trifecta at the top that hasn't already been said over the last couple topics. I guess I talk about Euphonium less, but just a reminder that KyoAni is an absolutely incredible studio, even if I am not into a lot of the stuff they've done, and Eupho is the most impressively directed show of the season.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0252efad.jpg

Konosuba, what do you even talk about there, it's Konosuba. He's Kazuma. I don't think there's been more than 2 or 3 minutes of Aqua screentime total where she wasn't actively drinking or holding a bottle this season.

Wind Breaker is continuing to shock me. I should be annoyed that we're this far in and half of it has been what amounts to a single round tournament arc, but this really just feels.....classic? This is what it felt like watching a newly airing Shounen in high school. It wouldn't work nearly as well if the soundtrack wasn't a banger and the visuals weren't spectacular, but the combination of these is helping the admittedly simple emotional beat land harder. What if God of High School wasn't, you know, bad? Badabing.

Spicey Fox I've talked about plenty every Monday. Just hoping Passione can keep it up.

Mushoku Tensei is I'm a wierd spot here, I don't wanna be reactive because, while I've enjoyed this content, it's still been a far cry from S1. Now it appears it will be getting back to business next week, but that doesn't mean I can just suddenly give it a pass. I fully expect to see a big juno in my interest moving forward, but probably not in my ranking.

Train to the End is just doing drugs. Who needs cocaine? I have absolutely no stance on this show right now as far as overall narrative quality, but it's funny as fuck to watch and never not entertaining.

Yokai and Mysterious Disappearances, both similarly in a position where I don't have any particular comments at this time. Enjoyable shows, for sure. Yokai steam is winding down for me not because the show is getting worse, just because I have kinda gotten used to it at this point, so it's moved into a casual interest position.

I like Kaiju No 8, but after the first episode impressed me it's slid into just a standard Jump adaptation. Don't feel that energy it started out with, not pricing the music anymore, just a bit of a wheel spinner. Compared to something like Wind Breaker this is not standing out.

Voice Actor Radio......I just wanna see where this one goes, I don't think the anime is very well done. Not a disaster but the production ain't doing it for me. As I stated in the last I think the manga is actually really good, so I'll keep following that ans look forward to it getting laat wherever the anime gets to.

MacArrowny posted...

bro Liz and the Blue Bird is still less explicit than the S1 Kumiko Reina scene!

Less explicit but more accepted as legitimate!

Hey if we're doing mid-season rankings, you know I'm always up for that! Was particularly interested in your thoughts on Wind Breaker because it slid down in my ranking a lot with this tournament arc. I just haven't been able to get into it like I did with the earlier stuff.

My current ranking of the season is depressing because so many shows have slid so far down from where they started. The only one that's really improved is Salad Bowl, it just keeps getting better and better. Homeless knight lady is amazing, but even the parts with the princess Sara are getting way cuter and funnier. My top three favorites are mostly just staying consistently amazing, not really getting better but I guess they don't need to. While I'm not enjoying Laid-Back Camp S3 as much as prior seasons, it's still one of the top six balancing out the worse parts of the Spring season.

Tonari no Yokai-san I'm really hoping isn't going a certain direction, otherwise it'll fall super far in my ranking too. Spoilers for a potential plot point please don't have a romance between the centuries-old bird man and a literal child. They can't have a romance, not even when she's an adult someday, without it feeling like grooming. Why can't they just have a father/daughter dynamic, that would make so much more sense given the two characters. Train to the End of the World has gone so far off the lolrandom deep end that I kind of hate it now, with the latest episode being a perfect example of unfunny nonsense. Voice Actor Radio turned into really poorly written melodrama, the end of the last episode especially was one of the stupidest anime sequences I've ever seen. Astro Note and below are just really bad anime that anyone smarter than me would drop.

AMAZING
A Condition Called Love
Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night
Tonbo!
Laid-Back Camp S3
Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master
Mission: Yozakura Family

GREAT/GOOD
Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf
The Duke of Death and His Maid S3
A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
Whisper Me a Love Song
Girls Band Cry
As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill etc

FINE I GUESS
Tonari no Yokai-san
Wind Breaker
Mysterious Disappearances
Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included
Go Go Loser Ranger
Kaiju No. 8

BAD OR WORSE
Train to the End of the World
The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio
Astro Note
Gods' Games We Play
Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again
Highspeed Etoile
Oblivion Battery

DROPPED
Unnamed Memory

There were parts of this week's Train episode where I felt like I was watching Smiling Friends. I'm actually far more worried it will try to be a real show again soon, lol.

Was looking at Summer Season, and for the most part it's looking pretty dire outside of sequels, at least on a surface level without watching any PVs.

But then I saw the fucking deer girl anime is coming out and all is well.

https://youtu.be/LNvvEu-fJxE?si=mRDZEyR-Zqrope9u

Ghost in the Shell from Science Saru is 2026. Looks like this is an actual original manga adaptation.

https://x.com/AniTrendz/status/1794337624095862868?t=gu5DT_mcO085ALxZLv2kMA&s=19

More Ghost in the Shell is always welcome...provided they stop that weird 2045 CG look that is terrible.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Ghost in the Shell from Science Saru is 2026. Looks like this is an actual original manga adaptation.

https://x.com/AniTrendz/status/1794337624095862868?t=gu5DT_mcO085ALxZLv2kMA&s=19

Oh no the manga sucks. It's mostly extremely long philosophical monologues while nothing actually happens.

Summer anime eh. Isekai Suicide Squad, more Fairy Tail, Ririsa could be something maybe, Isekai Shikkaku sounds semi-interesting, Shoushimin Series sounds interesting, Make Heroine since short hair supremacy, Plus-Sized Elf and maybe other stuff if they get good word of mouth

MacArrowny posted...

Oh no the manga sucks. It's mostly extremely long philosophical monologues while nothing actually happens.

All I know about the GitS manga compared to the anime is oily lesbian threesomes.

absolutely elite song lyrics in this week's Whisper Me a Love Song. too good!

I'm sad no one else here is watching Yatagarasu (as far as I know) because it just keeps getting crazier with the court scheming. Now there's a murder mystery and I legit have no clue who the culprit might be because there are so many options and all of them would make sense. All I know is that something is going on behind the scenes. Even with the central conflict between the two princes, I'm still not 100% sure where either one of them stand in the grand scheme of things. But, like, in a good way, if that makes sense. There's lots of depth to these characters and the political situations.

I kind of regret watching it as it airs. I really want to binge it and see what happens next.

MacArrowny posted...

absolutely elite song lyrics in this week's Whisper Me a Love Song. too good!

Just saw this on my timeline and the song was really good!

Actually watching the scene be like

https://youtu.be/gCKhktcbfQM?si=SKUlAoRY1oHKUmow

Wow what an emotionally savage episode of Yokai.

Even the elementary school section had to get it's little pinch in.

Episode 1106 the Kuma flashback has begun

more like a sneak peak, doesn't it not fully happen until after all the non-Egghead stuff?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/daa84303.jpg

Remember that project I posted about a bit ago where I wanted to watch an anime from every season? I expanded it a bit further into the past and wanted to post it again, because why not. I downloaded Brigadoon for Summer 2000, so now the only gaps between 1999 and 2023 are the two 2018 seasons where I've already watched everything... I mean, I could watch Sanrio Boys or undrop Beatless, but I don't want to.

For 1998 to 1985, there was such little choice per season that I just tried to find one anime per year. The only gaps in that are 1991 and 1986. I'm considering Dragon Ball for 1986 but just not sure I want to commit to that whole series (doesn't help that the ideal version of DBZ, Kai, isn't available in Canada). As for 1991, the only real option is something called Dear Brother. Mac has watched that, even rated it 9/10, but the description is basically "a girl goes to a new school and gets bullied relentlessly". Even with the Girls Love tag on MAL, I just don't know if I want to watch that for 39 episodes. It sounds miserable. I'm sad that another anime called Reporter Blues apparently doesn't exist in English, that sounds more my style.

Anyway, here's the link again. I posted this too soon a few weeks ago given the sorry state of my backlog, but I'm finally going to start focusing on this project. I'm done 1/110 so far!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t_nYA59DR6AsZJvCk8l1AiuPRnF9jE0l6IWUqzAdatA/edit?usp=sharing

pjbasis posted...

more like a sneak peak, doesn't it not fully happen until after all the non-Egghead stuff?

Yeah, I was confused when it seemed to be starting. But then it switched back to other things.

I guess they just wanted to start the hype early.

https://youtu.be/GKvBR7tR-Kk?si=3Uf0Ua5-IyG0QwYi

Oshi no Ko let's gooooooo

https://noisypixel.net/japanese-band-zwei-announces-disbandment/

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a13cc47a.jpg

I listen to Inanna no Mita Yume, like, 4 times a week at least.

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

https://youtu.be/GKvBR7tR-Kk?si=3Uf0Ua5-IyG0QwYi

Oshi no Ko let's gooooooo

Now that's a fucking trailer.

Need to catch up on the show!

Robazoid posted...

"a girl goes to a new school and gets bullied relentlessly"

It's been ages since I watched the show, but as I recall, the bullying isn't exactly severe, and isn't the plot of the whole show, either.

Looking at 1991 and it's just so striking that so few shows used to air back then, and that half of them were Mecha.

Wow people are really fucking up in arms about that Whisper episode yesterday, huh? I've only seen the screenshot of them forgetting to put the drummer in the wideshot, and then the other clip with the good music, and yeah it was a mess, but people arguing about it being an all time worst manga adaptation contendor mess? Doesn't seem that extreme. I don't think you can make arguments like that unless an anime is actively deleting or ruining actual content, like Neverland S2.

Pretty funny that the mic stands just disappear sometimes though.

MacArrowny posted...

It's been ages since I watched the show, but as I recall, the bullying isn't exactly severe, and isn't the plot of the whole show, either.

Oh that's good to know, thanks! Dear Brother is on Tubi too, so not difficult to watch, maybe I'll just give it a try.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Looking at 1991 and it's just so striking that so few shows used to air back then, and that half of them were Mecha.

I wouldnt even mind the number of mecha shows, but most of them are also seemingly for literal children, lol

UshiromiyaEva posted...

and yeah it was a mess, but people arguing about it being an all time worst manga adaptation contendor mess?

Sheesh, these people don't watch the true junk. I can think of several messier adaptations. Unnamed Memory springs immediately to mind as a worse adaptation just from this season! Whisper is, at worst, just kinda low budget and lazy. None of its problems ruin the tone or the story.

hot take: Buchio is the worst character in Tonari no Youkai. him being depressed all the time is dreadfully dull

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Wow people are really fucking up in arms about that Whisper episode yesterday, huh?

twitter continues to be the worst

I think it's just that people tend to exaggerate when it's something they were really looking forward to or is popular in general. Sasakoi has a decently sized established fanbase, and it had a genuinely good first episode to raise expectations. Most viewers aren't going to be aware of what studios have bad reputations, much less one that's a newly formed subsidiary of an already bad studio, so they're both surprised and upset to see something they like cracking at the seems, especially in a genre that gets so little open representation in anime (despite all the surprise sapphic content of the season, those still aren't full blown Yuri tagged shows). Really, there's no way this is even that studio's worst production *this season*, I've seen clips of The New Gate, but that's hardly a comfort.

And stuff like Unnamed Memory and The New Gate don't get brought up in the conversation because nobody really cares, these aren't noteable properties, at least in the west. A bad adaptation to me doesn't necessarily even have to be an actual bad show. Stuff like Horimiya and Bokurano aren't bad shows, in fact I'd say they're pretty good shows, they're just horrid adaptations (and a show isn't bad just because it makes changes from the source material in general. That's how you get people pretending like FMA 2003 is suddenly a bad show because Brotherhood exists).

It takes something VERY special, something like Promised Neverland S2, to completely fail on literally all fronts and be despised by all with no legitimate defenders. The kind of thing that makes the director and the original author tell the studio to remove their name from the credits.

MacArrowny posted...

hot take: Buchio is the worst character in Tonari no Youkai. him being depressed all the time is dreadfully dull

twitter continues to be the worst

Buchio isn't bad, but I certainly care about his scenes the least. Frankly I'd rather see more of Kappa Girl lol.

And yeah as always, at least everyone seems to agree the song was a banger.

Robazoid posted...

I'm considering Dragon Ball for 1986 but just not sure I want to commit to that whole series

Do you actually want to watch all of Dragon Ball, even without this project? Because there are definitely other anime worth watching from 1986 that aren't such a massive timesink.

Xeybozn posted...

Do you actually want to watch all of Dragon Ball, even without this project? Because there are definitely other anime worth watching from 1986 that aren't such a massive timesink.

https://youtu.be/PAruaQmSxpo?si=sjZP-vNGZbYf5_WH

Do it for Mexico.

Oh wait I'm sorry. Do it for Jarret Reddick.

https://youtu.be/46rdXCKzuHs?si=aWb_hVkfOBkOmC8z

I wish Saint Seiya had a satisfying ending.

Xeybozn posted...

Do you actually want to watch all of Dragon Ball, even without this project? Because there are definitely other anime worth watching from 1986 that aren't such a massive timesink.

Dragon Ball is something I'd like to watch someday, but I'm in no rush. What else would you recommend? I considered Saint Seiya but I got too lazy to figure out the six different anime that came up when I searched for it on Crunchyroll. Other than that, Maison Ikkoku was the only one that caught my eye.

Robazoid posted...

The only gaps in that are 1991 and 1986. I'm considering Dragon Ball for 1986 but just not sure I want to commit to that whole series (doesn't help that the ideal version of DBZ, Kai, isn't available in Canada).

1979 - Mobile Suit Gundam
1985 - Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
1986 - Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ
1988 - Mobile Suit Gundam Char's Counterattack (Movie)
1989 - Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (OVA)
1991 - Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (Movie)
1991 - Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memories (OVA)
1993 - Mobile Suit Victory Gundam
1994 - Mobile Fighter G Gundam
1995 - Mobile Suit Gundam Wing
1996 - Mobile Suit Gundam: The 8th MS Team (OVA)
1996 - After War Gundam X
1999 - Turn A Gundam
2002 - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
2004 - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
2007 - Mobile Suit Gundam 00
2010 - Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (OVA)
2015 - Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-blooded Orphans

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing made it into my project because, as far as I can tell, it's in it's own timeline like Witch from Mercury. A lot of those are from the original timeline. It'd be neat to watch all the original Gundam stuff someday though

1994 - Mobile Fighter G Gundam
1996 - After War Gundam X
1999 - Turn A Gundam
2002 - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
2004 - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
2007 - Mobile Suit Gundam 00
2015 - Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-blooded Orphans

These are all standalone titles with the exception being the SEED + Destiny

There's a guy on the cat place that uploaded all of these in packs and labeled them by year if you ever want to follow along and watch them all

One day I need to watch Turn A.

I've never seen a second of it but I've watched the OP like 30 times lol.

https://youtu.be/nxtT-7fTO9o?si=9mzTcENje_LScHW-

TURN A.....GUNDAM....

Never say no to Dragon Ball

You can also just consider the first cour or something as 1986

Mobilezoid posted...

Oh that's good to know, thanks! Dear Brother is on Tubi too, so not difficult to watch, maybe I'll just give it a try.

Wait really? I'd been meaning to watch this show for ages but just assumed it wasn't available anywhere. Will have to look at this when my freetime is not taken up by Xenoblade and Trails

Robazoid posted...

Dragon Ball is something I'd like to watch someday, but I'm in no rush. What else would you recommend? I considered Saint Seiya but I got too lazy to figure out the six different anime that came up when I searched for it on Crunchyroll. Other than that, Maison Ikkoku was the only one that caught my eye.

I love Maison Ikkoku (probably my favorite romance anime), but mostly I was just worried you thought Dragon Ball was literally the only available series for 1986. It would suck to force yourself through a ~600 episode show and then find out there were other options.

AKHTUALLY

iirc, Turn A and X are supposed to be in the UC timeline too.They're just so late in it, and most of the records of what happened earlier are lost in-universe due to all the wars that they might as well be stand alone series. F91/Crossbone got rewritten in Super Robot Wars V to be a similar sort of "post apocalyptic" Gundam setup (for how little the game featured it). Well, I'm not sure about X since I haven't watched it, it could just be a retcon type thing that came later on for X, but I remember Tomino getting super mad that people couldn't immediately tell that G-Reco was set after Turn A despite there not being anything to suggest it plotwise.

For UC Gundam, there's a pretty clear through-line of

MSG -> Zeta -> ZZ -> Char's Counterattack

and I think that you probably need to see Char's Counterattack for Unicorn (and the things that tie into Unicorn) and the Hathaway movies (since it's an adaptation of a sequel of the AU novelization of Char's Counterattack) but for most of the other UC stuff you'd probably be fine watching it on its own.

(someone can correct me if I'm wrong, since I've pretty much only seen the original, 0080, Char's Counterattack, F91, and G-Reco out of UC Gundam, and I don't remember F91 very well)

Turn A's in every timeline, right? Since it's supposed to be like 10,000 years later.

Man I don't like thinking about G-Reco. Yoshida never got out on anything good ever again after E7....including more E7!

Mr_Crispy posted...

iirc, Turn A and X are supposed to be in the UC timeline too.They're just so late in it, and most of the records of what happened earlier are lost in-universe due to all the wars that they might as well be stand alone series. F91/Crossbone got rewritten in Super Robot Wars V to be a similar sort of "post apocalyptic" Gundam setup (for how little the game featured it). Well, I'm not sure about X since I haven't watched it, it could just be a retcon type thing that came later on for X, but I remember Tomino getting super mad that people couldn't immediately tell that G-Reco was set after Turn A despite there not being anything to suggest it plotwise.

This is correct.

MacArrowny posted...

Turn A's in every timeline, right? Since it's supposed to be like 10,000 years later.

Correct it's supposed to be the end of the UC timeline until G-Reco came out.

Mr_Crispy posted...

MSG -> Zeta -> ZZ -> Char's Counterattack

This is the foundation of the UC timeline, can immediately watch Unicorn after Char's Counterattack. You can watch any of the other UC OVA and movies after watching the above entries.

Happy Birthday Mrs. Soyo MyGO

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7a5f5f0a.jpg

Sakamoto Days anime announced!

The best Jump Shonen to come out between chainsaw man and kagurabachi

pjbasis posted...

Sakamoto Days anime announced!

The best Jump Shonen to come out between chainsaw man and kagurabachi

I'm pretty hyped. The manga goes hard when it hits its stride. I hope it gets at least 24 episodes to build up because the first few chapters are introductions and doesn't do the manga justice.

I think where I've settled on Train to Nowhere is that this is a very fun show to watch one time when you have no idea what's coming next, but it has negative rewatch value.

Wasn't a fan of all the exposition in this week's Train. All the stuff in the first half was ultra dull compared to how focused on fun the show usually is.