Yeah I mean if you can’t watch folks eat onscreen Golden Kamuy sounds like medieval torture.
I can’t say I remember there being shipping of Asirpa and Sugimoto. His thing IIRC is he’s in love with his buddy’s wife.
I’m sure I wouldn’t put it past the risqué tone, but I feel like in general the manga does a tremendous job of never sexualizing Asirpa (what a sad sentence). But I dunno it’s been awhile, if you’ve watched more recently than 2022 that’s more recent than me.
It’s her grandmother that suggests it, maybe third or fourth episode. They make sure to get it in early so you can never forget the author thinks it’s a possibility. They could’ve just left that out!
Ah that tracks. If it was gonna be anywhere I would’ve guessed the Ainu stuff. Not acted on if that makes you feel better lol.
Anyway! Sakamoto Days looks like it’s gonna be done right.
Sakamoto condensed into anime could be real good
I’ve been on a Lupin kick lately and its kind of funny how I’ve been watching the different shows.
First I was just watching Pluto TV. They have a whole channel for Lupin and its fun to put it on in the background. In the past it’s always been Part 2 when I’ve caught it. Part 2 is the longest one by far and aired from 1977 to 1980. There is an extremely funny English Dub of a good portion of it and I think a lot of folks have probably seen this one in passing. I’ve been watching it in the background on and off for a super long time so its not exactly new to me. But lately the Pluto Channel has been showing Part 3 and a whole bunch of TV Specials. These are wacky and worth checking out!
I then got Crunchy Roll to watch The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. Great series from around 2012 or so. Definitely set the stage for Modern Lupin and has fantastic visuals and a darker tone. CR also has Parts 1-3 but I was curious about the other modern Lupin shows.
I found Part 4 just sitting on YouTube legally and watched it all there. I absolutely loved it. Nice 26 episode season from 2015. I started watching Part 5 on the same channel but they only had 3 episodes so…
I’m now watching Part 5 on Tubi, and all I have to do is sit through 1 political ad each episode. Part 5 is basically a continuation of 4 but with some unique things going on. They do different throwback episodes interspersed into the story that are based on the earlier parts and you can tell by the color of Lupin’s jacket.
'tis a golden age of watching Lupin on random services which I find amusing and enhance the experience.
I did a tower of god rewatch and just got to season 2 ep 1. Definitely feeling the different studio/worse art, and feeling the “who are these characters that I do not care about” and actively disliking the current main (the snaggletooth anime trope has been annoying for a long time but somehow his tooth disappearing and reappearing all the time is super distracting to me). Seeing as you’re likely further ahead than I, how are you finding it now?
I stopped after the first episode! The fans seem quite upset though FWIW.
I tried to look up some stuff about it and just saw a bunch of articles about how it’s great, all fans love it, and it fixes everything about season 1. so I have no idea what’s going on!
that is so cool. every time I see it come up on reddit or something people are so angry. what I will say is some people do say it’s just a slow part of the comic as well. I’ll probably knock it out when it’s done.
Has anybody here heard of Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night? I’ve been watching it and enjoying it quite a bit. Went out looking for it because I saw some pictures and clips on Twitter that one of the characters had a pride pin and a trans pin on their bag which was some explicit representation I was REALLY not expecting. Deals with creativity and collaboration as a young artist in a way I found really believable.
I actually finally started on it because it happened to be on Japanese Netflix while I was abroad and it was a great way to practice my Japanese. Unfortunately I am no longer in Japan and Netflix doesn’t have the distribution rights in Japan, so I decided to try out a VPN a friend recommended me to watch more… and then realized my parents cancelled their subscription. Guess it’s my own fault for bummin’ off their account.
Now I just need to figure out whether to get a Netflix sub and find out if my VPN will work OR get a Hidive sub and find out if they have a Japanese subtitles option…
Did anyone else enjoy the Escaflowne movie more than the television show? I couldn’t stand the writing/hamminess of the TV version, but I could appreciate the movies drive to not explain anything/not take itself too seriously and just go for it (i.e. condense everything as much as possible, only include the bare minimum to keep things moving). The villains were just as one dimensional and psychopathic as in the original, but you didn’t have to slog through 20+ episodes of them on top of terrible romance drama.
The thread just got bumped and caused me to see this comment. I don’t know anything about the shows you were actually asking about, but it made me think of possibly the only romantic anime to handle teenage love and all the confusions surrounding it in a way that was not terribly frustrating: His and Her Circumstances aka KareKano.
Directed by Hideaki Anno immediately following Neon Genesis Evangelion (and even re-using certain shots/motifs from End of Evangelion), the show follows two overachieving students who use their academic prowess to mask their interior selves. Whatever there is to say about Anno, the one thing that can’t be denied is that his directing style is incredibly distinct, and the show is filled with striking shots and amazing use of music and silence. Like in Eva, much of the action takes the form of internal monologues, which are delivered with great gusto, and accompanied by very creative animations that illustrate the character’s emotions.
The will-they-won’t-they is never an actual question, but simply a matter of the two characters getting to know each other and understanding the nature of their feelings. By the end of episode 4 I think they’ve already confessed and started going on dates. After that, the show focusses on issues related to their actual relationship, which are much more akin to actual adult miscommunication (about one’s feelings, for example), rather than comical wacky misunderstandings like “I confessed to her but she heard the wrong words or I was interrupted by an airhorn or w/e.” It’s more like, oh, we’re both busy and can’t see each other for a bit, and we’re both sad about it but trying not to make the other feel bad by being clingy, and so we don’t really know what to do.
The latter half of the show becomes a lot worse as new, far less inspired characters appear, but those first 8 episode or so are probably the greatest love-comedy in anime. I tried reading where the manga goes after the anime concludes abruptly mid-arc, but it gets into wild melodrama and the relationship that you actually care about gets pushed further and further into the margins, which is unfortunate but also kind of understandable considering the nature of serialized manga.
Anyway, I was just thinking of this show and re-watching a couple episodes recently so I wanted to write something about it.
I definitely disliked the movie but liked the TV show at the time, but recently tried to re-watch the TV show again and found I wasn’t 16 anymore, which was a bit of a barrier to enjoying some of it. I wonder if I watched the movie again now how I might feel. Hmm!
I watched a couple of episodes, but since i’m in Italy i can only watch it on a local streaming service with Italian subs. I liked the series, just haven’t had the time to start again. For some reason the design and mood reminded me a lot of Bocchi the Rock.
On Hidive, if i remember correctly from the brief time i had it, they only have Japanese with english subtitles.
fwiw I also felt this way about the series and I only got around to seeing it in my late 20s. I could very much feel like I was too old for it. I watched the movie a couple years ago and what I still remember is the animation and art so I’d say it has that going for it.
That might be the nail on the head - the TV show might only work if you’re a tween/teen, but as an adult it’s unwatchable (I’ve accepted this might be true for me with regards to most Gundam series too). Not that the movie is great for sure, just that it was more watchable for me as an adult than the TV show.
Kare Kano is a great recommendation. The way the series twists over time is so strange because they were having to throw in filler while waiting for the manga to progress while also contending with the fact that the mangaka was not a fan of the increased comedy elements they introduced.
I find the final two episodes really interesting (final two excluding 25 which I never watched as my friend told me it was just kind of a weird gay panic diversion story unrelated to any of the main cast) as you see kind of a push and pull between the showrunners’ style and the continued melodrama that the manga becomes. 24 almost feels like the TV ending of Evangelion where as 26 is a return to form as a very strict and serious adaptation before being cancelled altogether.
Makes me wanna rewatch it.
I’ve been thinking about watching this. I read some fan translations of the manga as it was releasing and enjoyed it as a person also grappling w/ Gender Stuff but I’ve seen a lot of mixed reactions to some of the choices later on and I’m not sure how I feel about it either.
Maybe I should see how the adaptation is though; I haven’t seen anything about it since the first episode dropped. It’s got some good interpersonal conflict and I don’t remember there being contrived misunderstandings.
I can’t say for sure if the choices are good or not, also never read the manga. I like that it is charming and funny, the main character deals with a lot of stuff but has friends that are extremely supporting and always there to lend a hand. And the chibis are super cute.
Escaflowne is a big blind spot - it also brings to mind another anime I’m not sure I’ll like as I age which is Eureka Seven. I’m perennially looking to rewatch it and cannot seem to get one off the ground