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[Reelya]

So what new season shows are people finding the most worthwhile so far?

For me it's

Boku dake ga Inai Machi
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu
Hai to Gensou no Grimgar

[Furtuka]

Nah his full name is used all the time on the sites I've seen people discuss how horrible his stuff is. Putnam's talking about PerfectLionheart

[Putnam]

Nah his full name is used all the time on the sites I've seen people discuss how horrible his stuff is. Putnam's talking about PerfectLionheart

okay good

i try to err on caution when it comes to weird internet folk and i haven't looked too deep into discussion

[IronyOwl]

And the fights are pretty cool too. They feel more like desperate hobo knife fights with screaming, than they do your typical anime sword fighting.

Was gonna check it out, but there was only one episode and it was behind a registration wall so I lost interest. Started reading it instead, kind of slow so far. Also not sure about the thirty seconds of "wow we suck" followed by a flashback of how they came to suck. Maybe it was necessary to establish that no, these ragtag heroes will not be all awesome any second now, but I feel like just starting at the start and then not taking six days to get through everything might have been better.

I've already seen the big battle, though, which was neat.

Nah his full name is used all the time on the sites I've seen people discuss how horrible his stuff is. Putnam's talking about PerfectLionheart

okay good

i try to err on caution when it comes to weird internet folk and i haven't looked too deep into discussion

HOW DARE YOU IMPUGN MY WAIFU HIS WORKS ARE BRILLIANT YOU HAVE SHIT TASTE

[Flying Dice]

Chunin Exam Day is pretty much the poster-child for easily half to two-thirds of the bad fanfiction warning signs.

Hmm, Grimgar could be the Evangelion of MMO animes:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The goblins really want to survive, so it's like a deconstruction of the typical suicidal "monster" in a game. These goblins are more like what would happen if you and another human got into a desperate knife fight with biting and screaming that only ends when someone pins the other guy down and repeatedly facestabs them to death. Then all the heroes end up with PTSD. It's good stuff.

I guess I'm gonna have to watch that, then.

[JoshuaFH]

Sounds like this PLH guy and the author of Irregular at Magic HS would be great friends. They get together and co-author something.

[Furtuka]

Er no PLH is so bad that there's actually been some questionableness about his mental stability.

[Flying Dice]

Okay, Hai to Gensou no Grimgar.

As far as I'm concerned, there are two good ways to handle this sort of premise. One is exemplified by .hack and LMS, in which the story orients around an MMO and people who play it, without any of the melodramatics of "OMG WERE TRAPED IN GAME AN IF YOU DIE IN GAME YOU DIE IRL". The other is what we see in Log Horizon, and now in Grimgar, where the players are in a real world which shares mechanics and content with a game & general MMO parlance. So good on them there.

The first episode started strong, but I was honestly rather worried when the middle 50% was basically nonstop fanservice. It closed on neutral feelings for me. I'll admit that it amused me to no end that the leader of the Thieves Guild was essentially named Barbarian (yeah, the etymological roots of "Barbara" is the same barbarbar). The second episode opened extremely strongly, stayed good, and peaked again at a climax which I'm sure anyone who watched it will remember, and then descended very smoothly through a cathartic release of the built-up tension without removing the worry about longer-term concerns.

Also? The art is fucking fantastic. Pretty much everything that isn't a character or an object being directly interacted with by a character is in this really tasteful, vibrant watercolor-ish hand-painted aesthetic. I'm not sure if it's literally hand-painted or electronic, but it looks very good. I'd recommend it on the art alone, but the plot is at least a decent rendition of this idea, the characters are distinct and memorable, and the fanservice is both relatively limited (they did the stereotypical "lech peeks on girls in bath and gets laid the fuck out" scene without showing even a hint of female flesh!) and admittedly pretty sexy when it does come up. It goes both ways at least a little as well; the guys have a couple shirtless-in-boxers scenes in their bedroom.

But yeah, that opening scene of episode two? That's how good early character development in something like this should look. The climax and wind-down of the same episode? That's how you build and release short-term tension in the immediate conflict while not allowing the audience to forget the stormclouds on the horizon.

I give it a perfect 5/7.

[apiks]

I agree, Hai to Gensou no Grimgar is the dark horse of this season as far as I'm concerned. The art being painted mostly is just stunning. The character development is neat and realistic (barring the occasional anime tropes.)

I'm expecting more good things from this anime and it's only been two episodes.

[Trapezohedron]

Guess my faith in Grimgar wasn't totally misplaced, but I still fear for the endgame, it having minimal direction at best. Then again, you could perhaps say the same thing of Log Horizon.

In any case, I'll go watch EP2 of that dreadful PSO2 Anime soon. Will check back later.

[Reelya]

Well I can top that, I'm about to watch episode 2 of Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R, which I'm going to watch in morbid fascination.

The original OVA is a sailor moon/idol anime parody, but they've rebooted it as show that takes itself seriously and replaced the few entertaining elements (like how bitchy and untalented the main character was, i.e. the entire point) with a bucket list of whatever is "popular" such as highschool + idol concerts + power of friendship. The problem here is that there's no longer any consistent underlying theme to what this show is about, even compared to shows that are about nothing at all. I'd recommend the original OVA 100 times over this TV remake, at least the theme of the original show is comprehensible: childish, untalented and annoying idol becomes a magical girl.

[Neonivek]

I am sad to say this...

But Sailor Moon Crystal (the remake) is... unfortunately 100% accurate to the manga

Right down to having all the same continuity mistakes, issues, and stupidity the manga had without anything to smooth it over.

And yes I noticed that Sailormoon in Crystal is basically a Mary Sue... and Sailormoon in the original is the weak link.

While Ray in Sailormoon Crystal is beautiful (and that is her personality)... in the original she was abrasive, a leader, somewhat tortured, and responsible.
Lita in Crystal is Tall (and that is her personality)... In the original she was tough, romantic, industrious.
Amy in crystal is smart... In the original she was smart, kind, responsible, far seeing.

The thing is that the issue with Crystal isn't that it needed filler (though that would have been a fix) but rather that a lot of the personality traits I am referring to are shown over time in the manga (well... Ray is ALWAYS boring in Crystal) yet don't work in a tv show layout (The scouts are 1-dimensional in the first arc of crystal)... It shows exactly what happens when you are 100% honest to the source material. It needed to include those small moments that informed characters earlier.

Some stuff is preference... I don't like how suicidal Sailormoon gets whenever even the slightest roadblock hits her way.

---

Mind you this criticism is made with the knowledge that the second season of Crystal PROBABLY fixes everything.

I haven't seen it... but they are BOUND to have given all the sailor scouts rich full personalities!

[Reelya]

Wow, it's amazing how much they've switched the personalities in Nurse Witch Komugi-Chan.

Now, other people are inspired by Komugi's pure heart and drive to succeed. In the original she was a lazy backstabbing idiot, constantly getting threatened with being fired. Then later, Komugi was watching another idol perform and commented "I totally respect her". In the original, Komugi was a bitch, and would get jealous and back-stabby if things went well for the other idols. She's got shades of Pollyanna in the new version.

I mean, I can't see how they thought this was going to be more entertaining this way.

[Neonivek]

It is what I like to call Animeification

Play Valkyria Chronicles and then watch the Anime...

It will be VERY informative as to how they can just outright botch up a story.

[Tack]

Tch. Still having issues with Ore Monogotari.
Every romance anime I've watched, I've been able to back-to-back. This I can't.

Edit: Ok. It's probably because the female main is a completely washed-out character.
I could invest more emotionally in a china doll.
Literally rooting harder for the minor characters.

(Also amusingly, Nichijou is classed as Shonen.)