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General Anime/Manga Thread


April

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Last one's been dead for ages, so here's a fresh thread to talk about anime, manga, and any other general weebery.
It seems like most anime discussion online nowadays is all about seasonal stuff, but the quality is usually sparse, and I can never keep up anyway.
So talk about your favorites! Your underrated gems! Anything you found recently that gets you hyped up!
Or talk about seasonal stuff anyway. Rant and rave, look for recommendations, anything you'd like

As a fun idea to start, how about a 3x3 of your all-time favorites?
Here's a link to make one automatically if you need it: https://anime-bingo.aikats.us/
Just uncheck "free space" and change the grid to whatever you like.

Here's mine:
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Beck - Samurai Champloo - Stein's Gate
Pokémon Special (Adventures) - Ping Pong the Animation - 3-gatsu no Lion
Hourou Musuko - Princess Jellyfish - Welcome to the NHK


I recently got around to watching Ping Pong after hearing about it for years, and was absolutely blown away.
Normally I don't even watch my favorites more than once a year at best, but I've watched it multiple times in the last few months alone.
All I have to do is hear the music and it instantly hypes me up to revisit it. Super bizarre for me, but I had no choice but to put it in the all-time favorites after that.

3-gatsu no Lion is also a relatively recent watch for me, and having only finished S1, I think it might be my #1 of all time.
Ranking isn't something I typically think about a lot (the 3x3 is unordered), but it's so intensely relatable and had me choking up or outright crying nearly every episode,
even at happier moments, just from the sincerity of all its emotional scenes. Doesn't hurt that it's also beautiful to look at. The color work, the backgrounds, the characters.
It's all so good I can't rave about it enough ;u;

 

I also wanna rave about Princess Jellyfish for a minute. Unlike the others, it's been a favorite of mine for a few years at this point, but it's regardless one that I think anybody who even remotely enjoys slice of life stories should check out. It sounds kind of weird and trope-y from online summaries, but it's absolutely anything but that. It's really funny and wholesome, the art is gorgeous, the plot is really cute and intense when it needs to be, and I love all the characters immensely. The creator, Akiko Higashimura, also made an autobiographical manga called Kakukaku Shikajika that was really sweet but emotional as all hell. She's by and far my favorite mangaka nowadays on the strength of those two alone.

Edited by Pichi
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Oh, I've never actually made a 3x3 before....I made 2 separate ones, one for anime and one for manga, and I took a couple liberties considering some of them are still currently publishing/not completed airing in entirety y; i put on single seasons, but in reality im counting the entire series as a whole

 

Spoiler

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haikyuu!! - space patrol luluco - anohana

yuru camp - k-on! - nichijou

full metal alchemist: brotherhood - fruits basket (2019) - 3gatsu no lion

i didn't actually finish watching 3gatsu (i watched the first season while it was airing, then had to wait once it was done), but something about it really hit home w me enough to make the list. and tho technically fruits basket is still 'ongoing', based on the quality of the remake and how i know the story will go, i can already assume its going to be an all time favorite based on my reaction to the first season of it (IE: crying every time i think about it)

 

hq!! is a bit of an outlier for me; i don't even really know what possessed me to watch a sports anime since i genuinely just don't care about any of them, but holy shit, what a keeper. everything else is pretty straightforward. if i had to pick a single favorite anime ever, it would be anohana.

 

Spoiler

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yotsubato - cardcaptor sakura (including the clear card arc) - azumanga daioh

fruits basket - yokohama kaidashi kikou - tsuredure children

tenju no kuni - gakkougurashi - made in abyss

4/9 are technically still publishing, but they're important enough to me to put em on there so fuck it y; the last spot (that made in abyss has taken) was actually more of a free space tbh, it was a toss-up between that and the promised neverland, so honorary mention to that too i guess lol.

 

if anyone is into very relaxing and beautiful manga, i cannot highly enough recommend tenju no kuni (Blissful Land). its art style is absolutely beautiful, the story is slow paced and enjoyable, and it has a very interesting setting of Tibet

 

 

 

 

 

as for current stuff, i'm currently watching hq!! s4, somali and the forest spirit, and asteroid in love flower; i plan on watching magia record too, but haven't gotten around to the first ep yet

 

thanks for the new thread, pichi!

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@winterberry oh dang that manga one is so nostalgic. at least the first half.
i didn't get into yotsuba until i started learning japanese, but it's really a gem
i didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't count stuff that isn't complete haha. like i'm totally comfortable doing that with Lion despite watching only S1 so far
although it helps that plenty of ppl have attested to the quality being maintained

anohana was cool. i watched it in like 2014 and definitely felt it at the time but i never really think about it nowadays.
kind of a trend for me, actually. so long as a story is good enough to get me invested, i tend to enjoy the ride and then dwell on it more critically with time, so it's not always easy to tell how much i can say i really love something right afterwards unless it's a 10/10. so i tend to be pretty selective in what i bother to watch at all just to avoid getting invested in middling stuff.
as a result of that, though, i find it hard sometimes to pick true favorites versus something i just think was very well made.
when i started thinking of my favorites more for these kinds of threads, i tried to instead look at what stuff still made me feel as strongly when revisiting (whether through rewatching or discussion or w/e else), how excited i was to share it with other ppl, etc.

Punpun is a great example of that because i read through it once but don't think I'll ever do that again even though i spent a long time thinking and talking about it afterwards. NHK is kind of like that, too, but the impact it had on me at the time was far beyond anything else, and i still listen to the soundtrack constantly to this day.
Ghost in the Shell SAC (both seasons) would probably be my #10 but i left it off in favor of something else because i don't have that strong personal connection to it. Just think it's really good objectively.

57 minutes ago, Tyranogre said:

I can't keep up with seasonal anime because I'm too busy with work, vidya, and other shit.

 

So instead, I look at whatever has the best waifus, wait for it to finish airing, buy the DVD at the next con I go to, and marathon it all at once whenever I have a free weekend.

interesting approach there
cute waifus are for fanart imo, not for suffering through whatever horrid trash they probably belong to
also drop your favs nerd

Edited by Pichi
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azumanga daioh is one of the first manga and anime i watched, and i distinctly remember my first experience w yotsuba 

 

bought issue 1 at a school book fair in middle school and recognized his art style immediately lol, i was so excited 

 

i watched azumanga so much i can still recite a LOT of the english dub from memory even now and its the only anime i have a full box set of, good times

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8 minutes ago, winterberry said:

azumanga daioh is one of the first manga and anime i watched, and i distinctly remember my first experience w yotsuba 

 

bought issue 1 at a school book fair in middle school and recognized his art style immediately lol, i was so excited 

 

i watched azumanga so much i can still recite a LOT of the english dub from memory even now and its the only anime i have a full box set of, good times

but can the dub really match HELLO EVERYNYAN

 

Edited by Pichi
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EfyUhJj.jpg

 



I have a real one on my hard drive somewhere at home, but it's probably outdated by now.

 

But for the sake of this thread:

 

*Haruhi Suzumiya (my gateway anime from my high school years that I will stan forever)

*Gurren Lagann

*K-On

*Clannad After Story

*Toradora

*Dragon Maid

*iDOLM@STER (765 pro only; Cinderella Girls is dildos)

*Chobits

*Ah My Goddess

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the quality is definitely better than in the past, but i think the pool of talent just isn't quite the same. japan's been doing it for way, way longer, after all.
it just generally feels like there's a higher level of skill, which i'd guess has to do with more competition since VA seems to have more prestige in Japan.
just a guess, though. hearing the same handful of voices in show after show back in the day was not so good.
there are also just some elements where english voice acting just clashes awfully when trying to match certain anime lines/mannerisms.
listen to mayushii english VA saying tutturu for a painful example. just off the top of my head
 

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Another factor is that Japan doesn't care whether voice acting is for vidya, anime, or western cartoons; to them, voice acting is voice acting.

 

Whereas in America, we have all these different licensing companies like Funimation, Aniplex, Sentai, etc., that each have access to different unions and talent pools.

 

For example, it's not that unusual for Yuri Lowenthal or Steve Blum to voice an American superhero cartoon, but you'll never hear someone like Tom Kenny voice a shonen anime protagonist.

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20 hours ago, Tyranogre said:

I think a lot of the modern bias against English dubs is a holdover from the olden days when there was a lot of censorship, characters being re-named for no reason, etc.

I think there is a lot of truth to this assertion.

 

Anecdotally, when I started watching, and I was watching with friends, there was a bit of a debate as to whether or not we would watch a show subbed or dubbed. Nowadays, when watching with a group, we always default to dubbed (assuming a dub is available). 

 

I do distinctly remember a time when it was notable that a dub was good and recommended accordingly. Now, a dub being good is less of a distinction. This isn't too say all old dubs are bad and all new dubs are good; only that they've gotten a whole lot better with time. 

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1 hour ago, Tyranogre said:

We should just build our own studio dedicated to producing Season 3s for every show that ends prematurely right when the light novels start to get good.

 

Haruhi, Spice and Wolf, Haganai, Chu2koi...

i imagine you'd drown in licensing hell before you even managed to make a single show

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Haven't been keeping up with a ton of manga lately, but the few I have been reading are laid out below:

 

Promised Neverland

Still reading, but it isn't nearly as captivating a sit used to be and the most recent arc is the weakest thus far.

 

Trail of Blood

This has been and continues to be a wild ride.  Still actively reading this one!

 

Seven Deadly Sins

Lost a lot of interest in the transition from the rather great Holy War Memories arc to the New Holy War Arc. Everything with the Demon King though has been so flat and uninteresting that I almost struggle with the fact that I was so into this one back when the Ten Commandments arc was just beginning.

 

 

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i've really been enjoying the promised neverland, but i think a lot of similar premises end up having the same problem. once your 'team'  (examples: 4 girls in school live!, harry/hermione/ron in harry potter, ray/emma/norman in TPN) leaves their safe space/prison/whatever, they will inevitably split up and there goes the main reason people were interested in the first place

 

i can't help but be disappointed whenever i read/watch stories like this, because of course the story has to go that way in order to expand itself and the world, but it still leaves me feeling a bit gutted, because not very many of them do it 'well'. y; 

 

 

 

 

that said, i'm still thoroughly enjoying TPN and think its great lol, tho i can see why ppl would be a bit put off by what's been goin' on story-wise 

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i went through all of the One Punch Man manga in like two days after hearing about the second season being shit quality
was just gonna watch via the anime since it's not the kinda thing i feel the need to keep up with but rip
King is my favorite. lol

it's sad to see a modern manga still have a bunch of tired stereotypes though

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3 hours ago, devilsKnife said:

 

  Hide contents

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I have a lot of favs so I did 4x4

 

I read a ton of manga too but my favs aren't as well figured out. I really like Hunter x Hunter, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Monster and One Piece

vvv good list
a lot on here i've been meaning to watch for ages lol
like texh, haibane renmei, utena
mushishi is great and the fanart for it is like a step above every other anime fanbase i swear

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