Media Anime and Manga Thread MK3 - Beware Spoilers

Winry

Super Graduate-Level Napper
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
recently hit 400 things completed on mal (1/2 of it is tv technically, 2/3 of rest is movies and 1/3 remaining is random stuff like OVAs/shorts/etc) and it's like ~100 days according to the list and idk how i feel about this :(

im watching Railgun. i've fallen for the Misaka Mikoto meme.

ALSO 2017 is almost over, so what is everyones AOTY? I know this season isn't over yet but its pretty late in it so its easy to tell if you like something or not. imo.

This year I only gave 2 shows a 9/10 - Made in Abyss and ACCA. And if I had to pick a favourite of the 2 it would be ACCA for sure, as it was a completely concise finished story. The aesthetic was killer, the show was slow and methodical and really made you think about a lot of stuff going on. it was very subtle political intrigue, and the way they handled it was super mature and interesting. most other shows would go for a loud bang but this one went for a slow burn. excellent show.
we had so many good things this year! can hardly just pick one :( have to see where fall ends though before picking, I want to see how mahoutsukai no yome, itsudatte 10 cm, and houseki no kuni end. it's so unfortunate that anime never turn out to be the whole story. I love watching way more than reading these types of things and I hate how they always end after only a story arc or two in. some of the stuff that aired would have been more enjoyable if they had kept going but alas :(

I really missed on out Made in Abyss; not sure why I didn't pick it up when it was airing. I have ACCA on my PTW but I guess I never got to that either.
 
Last edited:
Railgun is honestly a pretty solid fighting anime when it wants to be, which unfortunately isn't that often. I'd rather have a season 3 of it than Index anyways

Owarimonogatari followed by Konosuba s2 would be my best of 2017, but if I had to say something that's not a sequel...probably either Gamers or Made in Abyss. Gamers is a great comedy and Made in Abyss is a really cool adventure somewhat hampered by the fact that it feels so incomplete. But then again a continuation of some sort was announced a little bit ago so maybe that won't be so much of an issue in the future.
 

Da Letter El

Officially internet famous
is a Community Leader Alumnus
ACCA is my AOTY. Its vibe is so unique as like this chill pseudo-spy episodic adventure from zone to zone. The twists are pretty out there and the lead characters are simply fantastic.

I'm fairly sure I'd love Made in Abyss but I still haven't gotten around to it.

Welcome to the Ballroom is probably my 2nd favorite; it's a FANTASTIC sports anime, which there just aren't enough of. Episode 9 is quite possibly the best single episode of anime I've seen this year.

Also ngl Love Kome: We Love Rice is my 3rd favorite this year. It's so fucking stupid. I love it. Puns, puns everywhere.
 
Last edited:

Martin

A monoid in the category of endofunctors
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I haven’t live-watched many shows this year but I really enjoyed Recovery of an MMO Junkie and am also really enjoying Sangatsu season 2. The former is a perfect example of how to make a show with a low budget a lot better than a show with a large budget; the direction is so tight without it even relying on high frame rates or anything like that, and my god it’s OP (especially from episode 3 onwards) and ED are both fucking spectacular visually while having pretty catchy music behind them. As for the latter, honestly Sangatsu is probably a 3x3 show for me; superb direction, spectacular character writing, and it’s also a better sports anime than the majority of sports anime without falling back on action choreography like is the case with 80% of popular ones, given that Shogi is a sport and given that the show seems to follow pretty much follow the conventions of a solo-sport anime to a T, just in less conventional ways.

I don’t rlly think MiA is really close to being AotY just because I felt it was very underwhelming in places while being a kinda poor fit for anime as a medium—it’d be 500x better as a videogame than it is as an anime. That said, episode 10 was fucking spectacular, and I really loved its OST and art style and characters for the most part as well as it having one of the best worlds of a fantasy anime I’ve seen, although once again I really wish I could explore it rather than being given this pigoenholed spectator view of the world that the anime provides.

I’m gonna watch Gamers! in the next few days ‘cuz I’ve only heard extremely positive things about it. Same with ACCA and Welcome to the Ballroom, although they’re a little further down on my PTW.
 

Winry

Super Graduate-Level Napper
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I haven’t live-watched many shows this year but I really enjoyed Recovery of an MMO Junkie and am also really enjoying Sangatsu season 2. The former is a perfect example of how to make a show with a low budget a lot better than a show with a large budget; the direction is so tight without it even relying on high frame rates or anything like that, and my god it’s OP (especially from episode 3 onwards) and ED are both fucking spectacular visually while having pretty catchy music behind them. As for the latter, honestly Sangatsu is probably a 3x3 show for me; superb direction, spectacular character writing, and it’s also a better sports anime than the majority of sports anime without falling back on action choreography like is the case with 80% of popular ones, given that Shogi is a sport and given that the show seems to follow pretty much follow the conventions of a solo-sport anime to a T, just in less conventional ways.

I don’t rlly think MiA is really close to being AotY just because I felt it was very underwhelming in places while being a kinda poor fit for anime as a medium—it’d be 500x better as a videogame than it is as an anime. That said, episode 10 was fucking spectacular, and I really loved its OST and art style and characters for the most part as well as it having one of the best worlds of a fantasy anime I’ve seen, although once again I really wish I could explore it rather than being given this pigoenholed spectator view of the world that the anime provides.

I’m gonna watch Gamers! in the next few days ‘cuz I’ve only heard extremely positive things about it. Same with ACCA and Welcome to the Ballroom, although they’re a little further down on my PTW.
Honestly don’t know why I didn’t think of this before but I would totally love to see Made in Abyss as a video game. If you could freely explore each area and make your way down the abyss loosely following the story’s path that would be super cool!
 
ALSO 2017 is almost over, so what is everyones AOTY? I know this season isn't over yet but its pretty late in it so its easy to tell if you like something or not. imo.
honestly did not watch that much this year but 3-gatsu season 2 is shaping up to be a 10/10 for me so far, i've loved almost every episode in this first cour and i've heard the story arc being covered in the next cour is great, too. season 1 had some problems with tone early on and was occasionally a little too reliant on narration imo, but season 2 has been so high quality every episode.

three shows from 2017 that i did not have time to watch but am actually excited to binge watch when i get the time: tsuki ga kirei, made in abyss, houseki no kuni. have heard great things about all 3 (and a fair bit of criticism for each, which i'll keep in mind) so i'll be chiming in with my thoughts on those eventually.

other good stuff in 2017:
- rakugo season 2 from the beginning of the year was stellar, i may actually like it more than the first season which seems to be a pretty uncommon opinion
- tsurezure children was a fantastic little vignette-based SoL/romcom that was genuinely enjoyable and was short enough to not overstay its welcome (which i feel like it would have done quickly if it were much longer)
- maid dragon and gabriel dropout were both surprisingly decent comedies
- attack on titan s2 and hero academia s2 were both fairly enjoyable shounens
- kuzu no honkai was pure melodrama and was a blast to watch weekly
- kekkai sensen s2 is/was pure style and is also just really fun, which is a relief given all the drama re: the staff change
- owarimonogatari 2 was something that i think was supposed to be really, really good, but i also am nowhere near passionate enough about the monogatari series to properly appreciate it. sometime in 2018 i'll probably watch kizu and then rewatch most of the monogataris
- little witch academia, for all its flaws, had one of the most spectacular soundtracks i've heard in an anime in general, let alone this year
 

Martin

A monoid in the category of endofunctors
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I finished Gamers! the other day and I strongly recommend it. It’s extremely emtertaining, it’s cast is all really good, and it was all around just extremely funny. The way it plays everything up while still remaining believable is honestly what makes it such a great RomCom; after rejecting its synopsis at the end of episode 1, it very quickly makes a point of getting straight into the meat of what the genre is about: stupid people in love being even stupider than usual. The character writing is simple but very effective, with every character in the main set of five being built on top of one key concept and every single character’s stock being blown out of all proportion (person outwardly hiding insecurities and falling apart as a human being the moment she falls in love; shut-in MC who understands quite literally nothing about basic human interaction; near-identical female counterpart to the MC who, due to one isolated difference in ideology, becomes mortal enemies with the MC; ditsy girl who’s sole goal in life is to be with her boyfriend; cool dude who’s hiding his insecure past and is trying to turn the lives of his friends into a RomCom but is inadvertantly creating misunderstandings with every single one of his actions). The intent of doing this is to ensure that every character’s perspective is just different enough from the next to allow them to play up all of the scenarios the characters come up with in their head without the lack of overlap that comes as a result feeling unnatural and taking away from the hilarity of the situation. Every single one of the many ploys set up by every character being built on increasingly absurd misunderstandings of the scope of everythingthat’s going on, and all of this is pulled together by effective and impactful direction. It also allows for a love pentagon that is so complex that neither myself nor the characters in the story are really able to follow properly, taking a concept as hit-or-miss as a love [shape] and extracting as much humour out of it as physically possible.

Anyway, I won’t say anything else because this post is bad and convoluted. Watch the show.
 

Raidx

Banned deucer.
Atm I'm watching 3 anime (Magical Lyrical Nanoha A's, Highschool DXD and Initial D), but so far I've been focusing on DXD because I just love this anime. It's funny, interesting plot, and I'm sure I don't need to explain the last reason LOL. I've also started Keijo after being recommended to by a friend; interesting concept but honestly don't think I'll complete it.
 

Da Letter El

Officially internet famous
is a Community Leader Alumnus
I really liked episodes 1-3 -- the art style is pretty, the pace was nice, and you were getting some subtle hints about a world that nobody knew about. There were some bad scenes even in those episodes, but you could sort of gloss those over or explain them as character development a la the fairly long boob talk in ep 1. But episode 4 was stupidly overly hammy about the big event of that episode and directed terribly. It was sort of obvious from the get go what might happen there, but the way they handled the dialogue around it, as well as the like still frames as you get near the end of the episode made me audibly groan.

The animation takes sort of a dive from there, and the show plot and character-wise doesn't really reach the heights it did early on. It was perfectly fine as a watch, but not something I'd go out of my way to recommend.
 

Pilo

uses walther
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
i have been enjoying tatami galaxy (4 eps in). the dialogue moves at a mile a minute but the characters are uniquely interesting and the art style is killer. one of the best shows i've watched in a while to be sure.
 
This season feels really underwhelming. I don't even remember what is currently running besides ongoing stuff. I guess I will stick to Mahoujin Guru Guru
 

Martin

A monoid in the category of endofunctors
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I really liked episodes 1-3 -- the art style is pretty, the pace was nice, and you were getting some subtle hints about a world that nobody knew about. There were some bad scenes even in those episodes, but you could sort of gloss those over or explain them as character development a la the fairly long boob talk in ep 1. But episode 4 was stupidly overly hammy about the big event of that episode and directed terribly. It was sort of obvious from the get go what might happen there, but the way they handled the dialogue around it, as well as the like still frames as you get near the end of the episode made me audibly groan.

The animation takes sort of a dive from there, and the show plot and character-wise doesn't really reach the heights it did early on. It was perfectly fine as a watch, but not something I'd go out of my way to recommend.
I think that Merry (Mary in some subs) is the best part of the show, and she wasn’t introduced until episode 6 IIRC; she’s the only character who really gets properly developed during the show’s run, and while this does make sense to an extent considering one of the key things in the show is that the characters no nothing about their past (with the rest of the main cast having only just been dumped into the world) it just means that she ends up feeling substantially easier to sympathise with than the rest of the cast even though the others were handled as well as they were in the first handful of episodes. The redhead (Yume I think?) is still best girl tho.

Ur comments on its animation made me lol ‘cuz it reminded me of this gif:
 

Da Letter El

Officially internet famous
is a Community Leader Alumnus
I mean, it's admittedly hard to develop certain elements of characters when they have a memory that only goes back as far as they've been in the game.

Mary is obviously the most developed character, but it felt like the other characters sort of ground to a halt to let it happen.
 

Martin

A monoid in the category of endofunctors
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Ok I’ve been thinking about it a little more and, while I haven’t seen enough 2017 shows to really say with any sense of authority that it’s AotY, I honestly think that Tsuki ga Kirei stands head-and-shoulders above everything else I’ve watched to completion. The romance felt very realistic and very cute all around, and the similarly good character writing allowed me to seriously warm towards and relate to the main duo in the show very easily. It was excellently directed all the way through, to the point where I’d say it’s a serious contender for a top-three spot for the best directed shows out of what I’ve seen (and this is in a year which has been extremely strong wrt direction); the result of this is that the show was able to bring the most out of each scene to communicate character feelings far better than would be possible if the only indicators were the voice acting and the emotions displayed on each character’s face. From simple things like the way that characters were framed against barriers/other lines in the background/foreground* to a number of visual metaphors of varying subtlety sprinkled throughout,** each time I watched any given scene (I rewatched a few particularly good ones) I found myself noticing things that I hadn’t noticed before, all of which felt deliberate and effective in execution. And then there’s the other details like the extremely good character writing, the highly effective emotional curve of the series, the S-rank shorts that came after the credits of each episode etc. I found myself being unable to hold back a huge smile at multiple points when watching this; it was just incredibly heartwarming all around. If I had to pick any one show from 2017 that I’d say is a must-watch, it’d be this—although realistically there are a handful of other shows that I’d say are also must-watch, including Gamers! and Sangatsu S2 but not including Made in Abyss or The Ancient Magus’ Bride (why is the entire world is fawning over these two? They’re both annoyingly underwhelming).

Content of hide tags isn’t really spoilery, it’s just so that sentence flow isn’t interrupted above.
  • The way Kotarou and Akane’s conversation during the book shop scene at the end of episode 5 was framed and how it flowed and varied matching up to all the events of the conversation flawlessly.
  • The scene in the publisher’s office a few episodes later where the way the corners of the booth boxed the publisher and Kotarou separately all the way through the scene.
  • The tree between them when they’re on the bench at the school trip
etc.
  • Kotarou and Akane being visible through different windows at school, indicating that it feels like they’re in different worlds to each other when at school.
  • Akane’s friends being framed so that they literally are standing standing between Akane and Kotarou.
  • Akane standing on a stepping stone while Kotarou is on the shore, indicating the sense of isolation Akane feels due to something that I won’t spoil.
  • Chinatsu stepping out of the shadow and into the light (moving forwards and not letting events outside of race day affect her focus) while Akane stands unmoving within it, followed by a race where her sprint time relapses as opposed to moving forward.
etc.
 

Raidx

Banned deucer.
Just finished HS DXD a few days ago, pretty content with it (waiting for season 4). Was recommended by a friend to watch Eromanga Sensei (turns out she thought it was bad but told me it was good anyways to troll me .-.); honestly despite the weird plot, I kinda enjoy it. About 5 episodes into it atm but for now I'm focusing on the Nanoha series (currently on A's).
 

Martin

A monoid in the category of endofunctors
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
The colour palette on the new CCS is so bright. It’s rlly offputting when you’re used to the old art style.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top