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I haven’t been watching new-to-me anime for a while. However, yesterday I clicked two random currently airing anime latest episodes on the home screen. Just to check the vibes and see what’s going on. Well…
First up was 'Dragon Ball Super: Beerus'.
First of all I was surprised by how high pitched the saiyan’s voices were. Very different than shounen I remember. They fought and did the “omg I can’t believe he’s so strong” shtick. The cliffhanger was very predictable even though I know nothing about the show 😅. It’s just incredibly boring. I can see why I dropped Dragon Ball when I tried to watch it a long time ago. Sorry Dragon Ball fans.
However, Dragon Ball is nothing compared to what I happened to have picked next.
'I'm dating a dark summoner' it is and the thumbnail didn't look anything special.
So dude has a girlfriend and she gets kidnapped by orcs and he imagines them gangbanging her and then he gets a stiffy. Tremendous.
Subsequently, I am no longer interested in “what’s going on”. To cleanse my soul and nurse my heart, I watched episode six of Gochiusa. True and art and culture packaged with the finest moe one can find. The warmth I need in my life. Lord be with those who venture into the abyss that is currently airing anime.
In the future if you’re actually curious about what’s current I’ve found the best way to figure out what’s worth watching is to check in on channels like Mothers Basement or Gigguk; a few weeks into each season they post roundups of what the best shows from the season are.
Unfortunately if you click on whatever is on the front of a website like Crunchyroll you’ll usually end up with some lowest common denominator isekai slop or some other equally uninteresting thing.
That said, this season is weirdly bad; the only really good shows I’ve found have been sequels.
Wait, you just jumped right into ep 4 of Dark Summoner? But … what about the plot?
Yea. Often first last episodes are not super representative. So I just jumped in to do a vibe check. I didn’t really judge based on plot. I can’t imagine a plot that would justify whatever the frick happens in Dark Summoner though 😅.
Just finished Heavenly Delusion yesterday. What a ride, and way to not answer any questions, really. It’s set up like a more ambitious Promised Neverland, which is awesome, but it just kinda drops off without really solving anything. At least with The Promised Neverland, the escape arc was mostly self-contained, so it’s fine to stop after one season.
Also, had a friend try to tell me to bring tissues to a TV series’ season finale. (Not Six Feet Under. I am very familiar with that one.) He was appalled that I didn’t cry. I had to remind him I watch anime, and anime doesn’t mess around when it comes to tear jerkers. You could go with Angel Beats!, Clannad, Anohana, Your Lie in April, or if you really wanna throw someone for a loop… Sword Art Online. Specifically the end of the second season. (And, I’m sure people here can name a ton of others.)
it just kinda drops off without really solving anything
IIRC there wasn’t enough source material at the time to create another season. Hopefully, it will get a continuation eventually, now that we have over 85 chapters of manga, because the first season was great.
I’ve got many TV series under my belt, but relatively few films, so in the last few days I’ve decided to catch up on some movies I’d missed.
Children of the Sea – it might be the best animated gibberish I’ve ever watched, when it comes to quality of production. The art is absolutely gorgeous, but the plot is chaotic, nonsensical, attempting to be deep, but ultimately ends up sounding like a teenager on weed trying to be profound, yet making no sense whatsoever. IMO it’s only worth watching for the visuals, or if you like to watch movies while being wasted. 4/10
Maquia – it starts with a wonderful concept, and the first half is very good, but in the second part the movie becomes extremely emotionally manipulative, and quite chaotic when trying to deliver on its premise. The film unnecessarily raises the stakes, and the elements introduced in this section hinder rather than help in conveying the point the authors intended to make. Overall, it wasn’t a bad film, but the second half caused my rating to drop from 9/10 to 7/10.
A Kite – it was a weird mix of stupid, laughable, and disgusting. Mostly stupid and disgusting. It’s certainly an experience one of its kind. Never again. I hope the director grew out of his rape fantasies, because Virgin Punk, despite sharing a lot of similarities, is pretty good so far. As for Kite – 2/10
Grave of the Fireflies – I admit that, objectively speaking, it was a good film. However, for some reason this particular style of directing doesn’t resonate with me, and I dislike the fact that Studio Ghibli casts folks from outside the professional voice-acting industry in their films. In my view, the voice acting, much like in Princess Mononoke, was the weakest aspect of the entire movie. I even had to take off my headphones a few times when Setsuko was crying again and again, because my head was starting to hurt. It seems to me that this was one of the factors that significantly contributed to my inability to become fully immersed in the story. This and Princess Mononoke are the only Ghibli movies I’ve seen so far, but if others have similar vibes to these, I might turn out pretty indifferent to studio Ghibli creations in general. 7/10
As for TV series, I decided to drop Overgeared after episode 4. But I watched it subbed, and after that I heard that English dub makes it much better, and oh boy, it really does. I rewatched it dubbed from the start, and it felt like a different show. English cast leans more into comedy, Grid’s VA is having so much fun, and even the dialogue is better (it has slight differences compared to Japanese subs). It lifted my rating from 5/10 to 8/10. It made me start wondering how many times I could have missed a fun dub like this, because I almost always default to watching subbed
