Anime recommendations

[Rendakor]

I'm waiting for Steins;Gate 0 to be finished before I take the journey. There were some heartwrenching moments in the original that would have been awful if I'd had to wait a week or more to stew on.

[Rendakor]

FLCL Season 2 ended last night. It was alright. Nowhere near the quality of the original in terms of character depth, emotional impact, etc. but if you're a fan of the original it's probably worth watching. If you've never watched the original (BLASPHEMY!) this one isn't worth watching on it's own.

[Teleku]

Ok, honest question here.  How did you find any character depth or emotional impact from FLCL?  I mean, it was strangely amusing, but it was (IMO) just a lot of strange Japanese jibberish humor beautifully put onto screen.  I understand a lot of Anime out there is very much not for me, as I really didn't get the hype for this one either.  But still, like, it seemed like a shallow comedy action with little real depth or character development (and there is nothing wrong with that, plenty of good Anime follow that).

[Rendakor]

I'm honestly not sure where to begin. I'll start with Mamimi, who is probably the most complex character in the show: a partially homeless pyromaniac dropout with emotional transference issues. Pre-show, she was dating Tasuku, Naota's older brother who we never really see onscreen; when her elementary school burned down, Tasuku saved her from the fire and she fell in love. While dating, her nickname for him was Ta-kun/Takkun; he moves to America and finds a new girlfriend in episode 1, causing Mamimi to transfer the Takkun name along with her affections to Naota. After she and Naota have a falling out in episode 5, she transfers the Takkun mantle to the terminal core robot dog in episode 6. There's also a Takkun cat in there for a little while. Furthermore, her pyromania stems from her gaming habits, her inability to tell reality from fiction, and most strongly from her childhood memory of fire, love and salvation.

Then there's Ninamori, the class rep and apparent goodie goodie who actually cheated to ensure that the school play cast her and Naota opposite one another, a behavior that mimics her father's status as a corrupt politician. Commander Amarao is shown to be very similar to Naota, having encountered Haruko in the past and also fallen in love with her. As a single man* he appears to have never gotten over Haruko and comes off as creepy to Kitsurabami, foreshadowing a potential outcome for Naota after the series' conclusion given the similarities between Naota and the Commander: they both like sweet foods/dislike spicy food, they both have NO abilities and were used by Haruko to catch Atomsk, Amarao bought a scooter or kept Haruko's as a keepsake the same way Naota keeps her guitar in the finale, etc.

Naota's journey is a fairly standard coming-of-age, but it certainly has emotional moments. He begins the story sort of lost; he looked up to Tasuku as the only real mature adult in his life. His life rapidly spirals out of control with the events of the show (Haruko, robots coming out of heads, etc.) while trying to understand his own emotions. More than anything he's confused by Mamimi, and goes from annoyed indifference to schoolboy crush way too fast, culminating with probably my favorite moment in the entire series: "Don't call my brother! I'm the one who's here! I'm the one who's gonna save you! My name is Naota! Don't ever call me Takkun again!"

And this is all fairly surface stuff, without getting into the symbolism of the entire show as a metaphor for post-WWII Japan.

The second season doesn't seem to have any of that; I intend to give it at least one more viewing and watch all 6 episodes back to back in case I missed something, but even on my first viewing of the original I noticed much more depth.

*Season 2 spoiler:

[Fabricated]

Violet Evergarden is pretty good for being insanely schmaltzy. It's definitely beautifully animated.

[Hoax]

I thought FLCL was the best story/explanation of what puberty feels like / is like I've ever seen to this day.

[schild]

Violet Evergarden is pretty good for being insanely schmaltzy. It's definitely beautifully animated.

isn't that the lead from hunger games?

[Fabricated]

Violet Evergarden is pretty good for being insanely schmaltzy. It's definitely beautifully animated.

isn't that the lead from hunger games?

You made me look it up because the phonetics of the name in my head sounded just like it in my head when I tried to remember it. Katniss Everdeen.

[Hawkbit]

Castlevania season 2 just popped on Netflix. I'll have to suppress the urge to binge.

[Teleku]

Niiiiiiice

[Fabricated]

It's very good! Insanely obvious that Ennis wrote it though.

[Polysorbate80]

I hadn’t watched any of it before, watched both seasons in between wiring my basement bar/rec room for 7.1 surround. Enjoyed the Trevor/Sypha/Alucard interplay the most.  Second favorite bit was Godbrand’s voicework reminding me heavily of Brak 

[Fabricated]

Go check out The Promised Neverland, and go in completely blind. The entire premise is a big twist that's revealed in the first episode and not having it spoiled does wonders.

[Teleku]

Is this on Netflix or some other streaming service?

[Rendakor]

I just read all of the Erased (Boku dake ga Inai Machi) manga over the last two days; pretty good mystery story that doesn't lean as hard on it's premise as I was afraid it would. MC-san has the ability to relive certain moments in time, usually in order to save someone's life. When his mother is murdered and he is framed for it, he's sent back to his childhood to solve a string of kidnappings/murders that connect his past to his present. So, the premise is more "adult in a child's body trying to solve/prevent murders" than "lots of time-travel shenanigans." It all worked really well though, with a good twist about 2/3 of the way through and a very satisfying ending.

It's been adapted into an anime, a live-action movie, and a live action TV series, none of which I've seen yet.

[Hawkbit]

Not even really sure this is the appropriate place, but not sure where else to put it. I'm not really "into" anime. My kid is extremely into it; three walls floor to ceiling in her room are covered with posters and tapestries.

She was hit hard by the Kyoto Animation attack. I don't know what happened there, but it seems like such a devastating loss. She showed me A Silent Voice a year or two ago; knowing some of those artists are gone is hard to stomach.

[Trippy]

Holy shit, when I read the news this morning there was only one confirmed dead. Now the total is just unbelievable.

[Brolan]

Can anyone comment on how badly this affects the anime industry?  Was this one of the big name studios?

[schild]

Kyoto is a pretty big studio yea. Historically I don't think it effects anime in a meaningful way, it's not like Ghibli or something. But they had strings of bangers here and there. Pre-2013 they were absolute monsters. Since then it's been pretty mundane.

I'm morbidly looking forward to the guy who confessed giving his reasoning for the attack.

That said, the attack is insanely tragic. I'm not trying to discount them here.

Edit: To put it in perspective, between 2003 and 2013 they had FMP, Haruhi Suzumiya, Kanon, Clannad, Lucky Star, and K-On and all of their offshoots. Very few studios put out that much quality EVER let alone in one decade.

[Ceryse]

Another sad aspect to this is Kyoto Animation is actually one of the few ethical anime producers; they had their own school for aspiring artists, actually paid all employees a salary (not something standard in the industry -- it is actually somewhat disgusting how workers/contractors are treated in the industry -- which is why Netflix entering the field has generally been seen as a great thing by many). Kyoto Animation was actively trying to move the industry in a good direction in many areas in regards to worker conditions and even workflow (most voice actors only get prelim sketches and whatnot to work from; Kyoto Animation moved to having everything finished before bringing voice actors in, which got them a lot of praise from the voice acting industry in Japan).

Will this have a massive impact on the future of Anime? Eh, probably not. It will, however, drastically impact their own current projects.

I've heard this was actually the single large mass murder incident in Japan in the post-war era, which is interesting.

[Mandella]

Kyoto is a pretty big studio yea. Historically I don't think it effects anime in a meaningful way, it's not like Ghibli or something. But they had strings of bangers here and there. Pre-2013 they were absolute monsters. Since then it's been pretty mundane.

I'm morbidly looking forward to the guy who confessed giving his reasoning for the attack.

That said, the attack is insanely tragic. I'm not trying to discount them here.

Edit: To put it in perspective, between 2003 and 2013 they had FMP, Haruhi Suzumiya, Kanon, Clannad, Lucky Star, and K-On and all of their offshoots. Very few studios put out that much quality EVER let alone in one decade.

Yeah apparently they "stole his novel" according to early reports.

No idea if just the ravings of a mentally ill person or if they actually plagiarized something of his, but going by his murderous overreaction I would guess the former.

[Rendakor]

Finally got around to watching One Punch Man season 2; it was awful. Worse animation, a poor attempt at more serious story and world building, and a focus on basically everyone but Saitama that ends with zero closure and yet zero interest in a third season.

Also watched Violet Evergarden, which was actually really good. Imagine your typical child ubersoldier (Rei from Eva, Sousuke from Full Metal Panic, etc.), except this show is set post-war, with her trying to figure out how to fit into society. It's set in a WWI-analogue world, and if it doesn't make you cry at least once you're probably heartless. Easily the best anime I've seen in years.

[RhyssaFireheart]

One Punch Man S2 is currently building up on my DVR but I haven't started watching yet.  Now I'm not so sure.  I did something similar with Iron Blooded Orphans S2 - let it sit on my DVR for ages before finally admitting I wasn't going to watch it (one of the rare cases where knowing what was going to happen ahead of time really spoiled things for me).

I'm really enjoying all the shows Toonami has been showing.  Loved Fire Force enough that I went looking for the manga to read it.  Soul Eater was a favorite of mine and I enjoy the art.  The characters aren't drawn in too overly exaggerated fashion and I really like the style.  Been watching Food Wars!! with the husband, oddly enough.  The food porn/ecchi aspects of the show are kind of hilarious to us and I keep expecting him to stop watching with me but he hasn't so far.

[Rendakor]

I'd give it a pass. If a third season comes out (and doesn't suck), it might be worth suffering through.

How is Iron Blooded Orphans? I watched the first three episodes today (after finishing OPM) but it hasn't grabbed me yet. The human characters just aren't drawn well; they look worse than other recent Gundam shows and it's kind of off-putting.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I loved S1 of IBO, especially the art style (and that OP!).  Like I said above, I'd heard about what happened in S2 and it spoiled me enough that I didn't watch.  Just deleted the whole season off the DVR.  I will say I dislike the main female characters though - Kudelia comes off as a whiny rich brat to me and Atra is the dishrag girl next door sort. 

S2 spoilers

[satael]

All in all I ended up liking IBO as a Gundam anime but then again my taste in those is along the War in the Pocket/8th MS Team -line.

[Rendakor]

That spoiler does sound awful; I might just pass on it. My favorite Gundam series are 00 and SeeD (I know, I know).

[Hoax]

Food Wars is fantastic and anyone who can't watch it because they are too offended by fanservice is a luser.

IBO is at least a credible attempt at making a Gundam show unlike drek like 00 and gunpla build fighters.

S2 of 1PM, I get the hate but I was still just happy to see everyone. It may have reached the Attack on Titan level of anime, I'm here for the OP's and the 1-3 good fights and that alone is so much more gratifying than 90% of the stuff I watch anime or otherwise that I'm not gonna complain. We fleshed out King, in a roundabout way Tornado, etc. it could easily lead to an amazing as all hell S3, no chance I'd bet on that considering it felt like a half baked cash grab at times but... here's hoping.

[schild]

Yeah wife and I watched all of Food Wars together. Eagerly anticipating the rest of the bullshit.

Everyone should watch Yakitate Japan also.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Food Wars is fantastic and anyone who can't watch it because they are too offended by fanservice is a luser.

I'm just glad he's watching with me.  He is not an anime/cartoon watcher at all so this is something totally new for him.

S2 of 1PM, I get the hate but I was still just happy to see everyone. It may have reached the Attack on Titan level of anime, I'm here for the OP's and the 1-3 good fights and that alone is so much more gratifying than 90% of the stuff I watch anime or otherwise that I'm not gonna complain. We fleshed out King, in a roundabout way Tornado, etc. it could easily lead to an amazing as all hell S3, no chance I'd bet on that considering it felt like a half baked cash grab at times but... here's hoping.

Since the husband is still away until later this afternoon, I've been taking advantage of having the TV to myself and catching up on the DVR shows.  Decided to watch the 6 episodes of 1PM and liked it.  I'm not really seeing a change in animation from S1 though but it has been a while since I've seen it.  I actually kind of like the focus on other characters (re)acting around Saitama instead of him being the center.  I really hope the whole Garou storyline isn't a bust though.

[Fabricated]

Food Wars (the manga) is very good until it's last arc which is pretty bad. Everything up to that is great though.

[Rendakor]

I just finished watching Your Lie in April, which was a really good music-centric romance/drama that's also really sad.

[Hoax]

By now I'm sure anyone who likes Anime, who has Netflix (do people not have Netflix?) has seen this but just in case!

Go watch Dorohedoro, its a very incomplete thought of a season but its still well worth it and that's from someone who is utterly sick of these 11-15 ep seasons that don't conclude a damn thing these days. Kids. Lawns. Etc.

Its punk, its odd as fuck, its got loads of warm fuzzies, our hero is barely a hero and almost the least powerful person of the main characters which is a nice/odd change from all the isekai stuff being peddled in 2020. But overall it just felt like effort and love and thought went into the world and characterizations and its a fun little ball of strange. Highly recommend.

I also thought Gleipnir was worth watching but I sure as shit wouldn't tell any of you to watch it and I feel sort of bad for supporting another Big Order / Re:Zero / Future Diary (the only truly good show on this list?) type show. 

[Rendakor]

Future Diary was great until the ending went nuts.

[Fabricated]

Jujutsu Kaisen is pretty good if you're looking for another battle shonen.