The State of Anime Today

[shiney]

Made In Abyss is pretty great.

[phil_]

Abyss does a good job of being just cutesy enough and just horrible enough that waiting for the other shoe to drop is a feeling of excited horror. If it leaned more in either way, it'd just feel kinda cynical, like "the world is awful and awful things happen and any kindness or joy is an aberration," kinda like Game of Thrones' central premise. As it is, you can get why people would be drawn to the Abyss the way the show presents it as a place of horror and opportunity. It's just too bad about having to register as a sex offender after you watch the first episode.

Galaxy Tylor is something I wouldn't watch if it were 30 seconds longer. You want 90's reboots, then Mahoujin Guru Guru is the way to go. It's the original story but sped up to, now that I think about it, roughly Avatar speeds in how much goes down in an episode. Some of the gags are a bit worn out (since they were good gags back then and thus have been repeated for twenty years), but it's still funny, Kukuri and Nike approach sneezing kitten levels of cuteness at times, and it has weird monsters so, you know, it speaks to me. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes cartoons. The subs suffer from terrible type-setting, but I can't hold that against it. I've seen worse, anyway. This season, even.

Said truly bad type-setting belongs to Action Heroine Cheer Fruits, which is about teenagers producing a live hero-show like you'd see on top of a department store or streamed on youtube. The animation and drawings are inconsistent, and the subs miss obvious jokes and sometimes get drawn outside the frame or waste screen space translating unimportant signs and banners. The translation just generally comes off as lacking effort or care. Still, more effort went into these subs than Fantasista Doll, which definitely deserved better. Bad subs and cheap production aside, the scenario is interesting, since it reminds me of my misspent youth following my friends around filming our own Camp Kill Yourself-style skate/fight/stunt videos; and there might be magic stuff happening but the show is so weird it might have just been a scene that they meant to cut but didn't. It's definitely interesting, and that counts for a lot with escapist TV.

I'm actually watching less anime this season; Splatoon's eating up a lot of cartoon time. Probably going to stop watching Vatican Miracle Investigators, as it is insufficiently delightful.

[RickZarber]

Oh hey, I can actually contribute to this thread for once. Despite the fact that I live with three other people who all watch way more anime than me, my tastes are pretty picky, so I don't usually have much interest in whatever they're watching. And when I do watch through something, I usually only see stuff years after the fact. But I'm watching a couple of things this current season, which is actually my very first time watching anything during broadcast since the second season of Haruhi almost ten years ago. (Take a wild guess why I might have been deterred...)

So, just from sitting in on a roommate's watch list, I'm now following Gamers!, Tsurezure Children, and Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e (which I've mostly just been referring to as, "the one that starts with a Y," because I can never fucking remember the title). The latter is definitely the one that I'm least into; more curious about, I guess. The other two are in the distinct category of Comedic Slice-of-Life Relationship Misunderstandings with Likeable Characters, which is far more my speed.

Anywho. ... Anime.

[phil_]

Rick, watch New Game!, then watch New Game!! Because I ain't watching any of those shows, and you'd like New Game. It's about making not-Tales of Etc, presented as if having a job isn't an offence to cultivating one's humanity (and everybody is a cute lady because the studio director isn't interested in dudes stealing away her talent). Alternatively, Aho Girl. It's about terrible children being terrible to each other.

[Tev]

I'm only about three or four episodes in to New Game!, but it has been absolutely adorable so far. I'm also about halfway through Assassination Classroom and it has been a really enjoyable watch.

[RickZarber]

I happened to walk in while a roommate was watching the latest episode of New Game!! and I'm kinda lukewarm on it. What I saw didn't seem all that interesting, but I won't dismiss it out of hand. Why does everyone look like a middle-schooler though? Roommate told me they were all high school grads and I was like. what.

[phil_]

Aoba (the one with twin-tails) is the only one working full-time for Eagle Jump who is a recent high-school graduate. The other main characters are in their twenties or older, though the studio head looks about the same age as her ancient cat. I guess the "why" is art style. I can get why you'd be lukewarm from one episode; it's one of those shows where the characters wheedle their way into your heart over time, and then you just enjoy watching them do stuff. The episode-by-episode plot stops mattering, though stuff does happen. It's just at the glacial pace of office work.