Hi everybody! It is time for what I am sure is everybody’s favorite thread of the week, the weekly general thread! How have things been going for you with the winter season this past week? I have seen a lot of new faces in this community over tha past week (it’s anybody’s guess as to why), so if you have recently joined us, feel free to introduce yourself in this thread as well! If you are searching for something to say, here are some example discussion starters to inspire you:
- Is High Card about how to register for your medical marijuana card?
- I feel lied to by Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable! I was waiting in the snow for a train that was late the other day, and no gals started talking to me. Instead, I just got literal cold feet.
- I wonder if that little robot bird from Metallic Rouge was also running linux like its forebear, the Ingenuity copter?
As always, remember to be mindful of spoilers. If you want to know more about how to handle spoilers in this community, check the guide here (also linked in the sidebar).
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Winter season is fully in motion now. I think every show has had at least one episode at this point with many having 2. So, time to check in what I have been able to watch and some quick hot takes:
- The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic - Lots of fun to see the characters I like from the manga in anime form (especially Rose).
- Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable! - The first episode didn’t really do much for me, but it seems like the kind of story I would like more in manga form.
- Delicious in Dungeon - First episode was a bit shaky for me, but the second episode felt much more solid. Trigger is making Marcy the new reincarnation of Akko with all those reaction faces.
- Chained Soldier - Willing to give this some more time. Second episode did a good job of establishing Shushu’s character, willing to give some time for the other cast members as well.
- Gushing Over Magical Girls - Dropping this one as it is a bit too H for me.
- Metallic Rouge - First episode was mostly style over substance to create a bit of a splash, but I loved all the style it had, so I am looking forward to the substance.
- Tsukimichi Season 2 - First episode back had a bit of recap, but it’s nice to see it back again. Looking forward to the Rotsgard antics to come.
- 'Tis Time for Torture Princess - If you haven’t seen my post gushing over shokupan yet, check it out and then make some delicious shokupan for yourself.
- Villainess Level 99 - Loved the first episode. A lot of anime-only storytelling that was super appreciated and gave me a lot of confidence in this one going forward.
As a meta addendum to this anime post, I am glad to see some familiar faces from the ml community able to find their way over here. Surprisingly, my ml account has not been banned despite admins having gone back and deleted almost all my weekly discussion threads for the past two months. All because I linked to my spoiler guide in them.
Getting found on the fediverse can be hard, but the best thing to attract new users and have a more active community is to simply be more active yourself. Not too long ago, I posted about how I spent 11 years on reddit, and in that time only made 24 posts and mostly lurked. So, if I can decide to be active to make a better community, then so can you! I am really bummed about the whole ml situation, but I think it is also an opportunity to create a more positive and welcoming anime community on the fediverse.
Is Saikyou Tank worth watching?
It seems to have high viewing numbers, but I never see anyone talking about it.
It’s not on any of the /c or /r charts, so where are all the people who watch it?
I just took a quick glance through the discussion threads on reddit and it doesn’t really strike me as that interesting. A brief summary of what I was able to piece together (I put it behind spoiler tags, but I don’t think it will be that surprising if you read the synopsis):
Strongest Tank summary through ep. 3
MC is the tank for the hero’s party, but then the hero decides to kick him out for an evasion tank instead because it is more trendy (I also think the new tank is a hot girl rather than burly dude). Turns out that the MC was actually super OP and the hero is a huge jerk! MC decides to head to his hometown to see his sister (he is a huge siscon). He runs into some other adventurer on the way back to his hometown and they find out that he also has a super powerful offensive ability as well. The hero’s party proceeds to fall apart without Mr. Super Tank as a harem of old and new women form around the MC.
That is what I have been able to piece together up through episode 3 anyway. I am watching enough this season that I don’t think I have enough time to devote to it. Frankly, nothing really catches my attention from what I have gleaned. Additionally, screenshots I have seen from the threads show that the character models are nice, but there are some definite budget constraints when it comes to animating the environment/enemies.
I saw The Boy and the Heron in theaters a few days ago! I thought it was incredibly fun. A little bit slow at first with an awkward beat or two but a lot of the fantastic elements come pouring in after the first act. I found it a bit difficult to understand though.
More of my thoughts (spoilers):
It’s set during World War II but the images are nothing like Grave of the Fireflies or The Wind Rises. It’s a lot more abstract and it’s hard to draw direct relationships with what was on screen with the war. I think most people can point out some of the more absurdist themes however. The movie being magical realist helps. There’s a scene that talks about fabricating an ideal world versus living in the real world which might be the basis of its other themes on memory and existentialism. I don’t want to spoil so much.
and the warawara are so cute!
This is still be kind of a rant so bare with me. I’ve been reading SpyXFamily and was thinking of showing my partner the anime, even though she never watches anime. It was so wholesome that I felt like it was the kind of show she’d love (we watch a lot of Bob’s Burgers, Great North, Great British Bake Off, etc over and over, she also enjoys Ted Lasso).
But then I reached the chapter where Yuri had dinner with them and I reached a speed bump. I just finished the chapter where he helped Anya study and hit it again. She’d 100% find the character gross. His constant thinking of his sister when Anya read his mind, his crazed jealousy over her kissing her husband instead of saving a kiss for him, his dislike of a little girl, his obsession is too much for me reading the manga, and it’s probably worse when you have to hear it out loud in the anime. It’s not even funny to me, and it wouldn’t be for her, either. I’ve seen people defend it as being an anime trope but that doesn’t help when trying to get other people into the hobby or seeming weird if you’re new to it. (Same thing with lolicon or fan service in other anime.) Which is too bad because it’s otherwise a great show I think she’d love. She already complains about the “pedo tropes” of anime she’s heard of, so I don’t want to enforce her expectations of anime being all like that with characters like that. At least he doesn’t show up until a bit in.
Idk, I haven’t finished Haikyuu yet, I got up to the end of the Hulu seasons, but I’m hoping that will maybe work instead. It’s not too anime trope-y, at least none of the gross tropes, just a couple of OP main characters and a classic Shonen underdog, but that’s not an anime only thing. Everyone loves underdogs in sports stories.
I saw a good comment on Reddit by a user named NozakiMufasa that reflected my feelings well I’m just going to quote it here:
I’m speaking mainly as a bit of an older fan. But I’m so damn tired of anime having to be like this. Yall know what I’m talking about. Yall know its an open secret. It’s like no anime is allowed to be 100 percent wholesome or 100 percent just a slick well made show. So many anime throw in weird or taboo elements that are just so uneeded and unwarranted.
Spy x Family was a legit wholesome show. It felt less like a weird anime and moreso a genuinely good cartoon you could show the whole world. One you could show a family and it be an enjoyable watch. Anya, Loid, & Yor are genuinely sweet and well written characters and their hidden backgrounds gives off a feel of classic shows like I Dream of Genie or Bewitched.
But no. Anime has to be weird. Let’s make one of the characters love their sister. Fuck this. We were so damn close. An anime that was trying to be good.
If anyone has any other suggestions of wholesome anime I, an older Shonen fan and Cowboy Bebop and Trigun fan, and her, an anime newbie, would both enjoy without being too slice-of-life to bore me and not too weird anime tropes in it to freak her out, let me know. I’m going to keep reading SpyXFamily by myself, I guess, and just push through and endure the chapters with Yuri in it. Maybe one day, if his appearances are rare enough, I can show her the anime.
But then I reached the chapter where Yuri had dinner with them and I reached a speed bump. I just finished the chapter where he helped Anya study and hit it again. She’d 100% find the character gross.
In a similar notion of strange things in a overall good show: There’s an episode in season 2 that is surprisingly gory considering the show was fairly kid friendly up until that point.
Not that I mind but I definitely wouldn’t recommend the show for kids anymore.
I relate to this pretty hard. I am lucky enough that my wife is fairly tolerant of anime weirdness since she is an old school anime fan as well (though not as tolerant as I am). However, friends that have asked me for recommendations in the past have been turned off by things that hadn’t even phased as weird at the time. It has caused me to think about these kinds of things a bit differently. Like your partner, I am also a big fan of Bob’s Burgers, GBBO, and Ted Lasso, so here are a couple that come to my mind with what you have written in mind. I also marked the ones that I watched together with my wife and she liked them.
- Usagi Drop (wife approved) - A story about a salaryman that finds himself having to adopt a young girl after a death in the family. It deals with the realities of being a single parent in the harsh working culture of Japan as well as how to handle caring for and connecting with a newfound daughter. I wrote about this series in a recent clip post I made. This might be a bit of a controversial pick because the manga continues the story and it becomes less wholesome. However, as an anime-only, it is incredibly wholesome.
- Tonikaku Kawaii - This is a romance about two people that have what seems like a fated meeting and end up married quite suddenly. The show follows their daily lives as they figure out how to have a relationship. Despite the sudden marriage plot point, the romance is entirely wholesome and neither character ever regrets or second guesses the choice. It is mostly SOL, so it might end up a bit on the boring side, but incredibly wholesome.
- I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years - This is an isekai about a woman that is so overworked in her first life that she dies. She is reborn as an immortal witch and decides to live in a cottage in the countryside, killing slimes occasionally to provide enough income for her needs. Turns out that if you do that long enough, you become super strong. Super comfy fantasy story that isn’t too boring imo.
- Campfire Cooking - Another isekai that has a strong focus on cooking food. I really like cooking and do it a lot, so your experience with this show might differ. When I was watching this one as it aired, I ended up making a lot of Japanese food to eat (so many tonkatsu) because it always made me hungry. There is an overall plot, so it isn’t just a story about camping out and cooking, so it should hopefully not be too boring.
- Natsume’s Book of Friends (wife approved) - A story about a boy that is able to see yokai thanks to an ability he inherited from his grandmother. This series is mostly structured as a yokai-of-the-week series with each episode being a mostly self-contained story. There is an overall arc and cast of characters, but nothing too dramatic and very little anime weirdness that would turn people off. The only anime weirdness I can think of is humor around the partner yokai’s love of sake.
There are a couple others that I see recommended as wholesome quite often that I have not seen, so it might be worth checking others’ opinions first: Yuru Camp, A Place Further Than the Universe, Non Non Biyori, Flying Witch.
Good luck!
Thanks for relating. It’s hard to explain to people who know only anime fans. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable posting that in the Reddit anime community because people would’ve just told me to tell my partner to get over it or some thinks just the culture, but Lemmy felt nice enough that I felt comfortable to do so.
And apparently I came to the right place for suggestions. These all sound great! I can’t wait to watch them.
reddit is an enormous community, for better and for worse. I think a lot of people in that community have only ever known anime after it has had broad popularity and there have been forums (like reddit) in which like-minded people can talk about it. Glad to have you here and have fun!
Since your initial post, my brain did come up with another recommendation that doesn’t feature anime weirdness, but is not necessarily wholesome. This one is my-wife approved as well:
- Mushishi - This is an anthology cataloging the travels of a person named Ginko, who is something like a doctor. However, instead of treating people, he helps them deal with the effects of creatures that most people can’t see called mushi. The series is exceedingly melancholic, deliberate, and sometimes dark, but it is probably my favorite anime of all time. Also, it is the subject of my favorite anime video essay of all time.
Seasonal anime I’m watching:
- Dungeon Meshi: I liked the first two episodes, they’re well animated and Marcille is my favorite character. Netflix has wrong colors as usual, so I would recommend alternative sources.
- Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete: idk about this one, I’m not into bdsm and I doubt it will improve much. Censored audio with uncensored video is a weird choice.
- Metallic Rouge: I was a bit disappointed, the world feels generic but it’s too soon to judge.
- Sengoku Youko: I’ll trust Mizukami’s fans and watch a couple more episodes, but the first one was just an average shounen.
- Urusei Yatsura: it’s back and the new OP and ED are beautiful! I love the animation, the dumb characters, the 80s style. Imo underrated and underwatched.
- Yubisaki to Renren: the surprise of the season for me, it’s super cute and I’m glad to see a romance show with university students vs the usual high schoolers.
I’m also watching:
- Sousou no Frieren, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto and Undead Unluck continuing from the last season. Great shows, especially the first two.
- Taiho Shichauzo: simple episodic fun to turn off the brain. Natsumi is best girl. The first four episodes were distributed in OVA format and have much better animation.
- Turn A Gundam: I wanted to give Gundam a second chance after Suisei no Majo and was attracted by the unique artstyle and plot. I’m only at episode 11 and it’s already an incredible series. I’ll definitely watch 0078 and go in order after this one.
- Hoshikuzu Telepath: I dropped it last season but decided to finish it. An average CGDCT show with an introvert protagonist and rockets.
I’m new to Lemmy and subscribed to talk about anime, manga and foss. I’ve been a lurker on Reddit for ~5 years with very few posts and left after the whole API shitshow. I’ll try my best to be active and help grow the community!
Edit: I forgot Dosanko Gal wa Namaramenkoi which I decided to drop. I looks like the usual romcom formula with a self insert protagonist, a designated “winner” from the start and a harem. The animation is nothing special, slightly worse than average.
Netflix colors
Looking at a couple of them, it doesn’t seem too egregious, but as I was doing it I realized that my monitor is basically a hand-me-down that is ancient, so not sure if would be the best to compare small color differences. In fact, I know the colors are pretty bad since I always check any photos I retouch on my wife’s macbook to make sure that I didn’t push the colors too far in lightroom so that it looks like the picture came from Wonka’s factory. I wonder what causes something like this. Could it be that Netflix has to encode to a different format for their streaming platform?
Yubisaki to Renren
This one wasn’t on my radar at all before the season, but it seems to have gotten a lot of great reception. If the buzz sticks around a little bit, I might give it a shot. Like you, I am dropping Hokkaido Gals, so it could fill that slot.
I wonder what causes something like this. Could it be that Netflix has to encode to a different format for their streaming platform?
Netflix uses H264 with Main@L4 profile for their SDR streams. I don’t see anything weird in their encoding settings, so it’s probably some filter that causes a color shift. It isn’t a huge difference in this case, but definitely noticeable on my 200€ monitor.
Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon was horrible.
relevant XKCD
I have taken a look at the colors in DM and I don’t see a huge difference. (It’s there but it wouldn’t bother me) Maybe perhaps it is a difference in imagining objects. I imagine objects as 3d objects with movement without color. Maybe you imagine objects differently that make you bothered because of difference between what you perceive and what you remember.
Got around to watching Suzume this weekend. It was good. This movie feels very different from the previous movies, although it does retain some of the typical Makoto Shinkai romance quirks. Looked stunning of course, but there was a lot more (noticable) 3D than the previous movies. Not at all awful, but it definitely stood out. Story was pretty decent and the music was great, although I did kinda miss the Radwimps feel, but I understand why they went for something else.
Edit: seems like Radwimps was still really involved in the soundtrack. It felt really different (still great though) so I thought it was a different artist.
Seasonally I tried watching the following:
- Gushing over Magical Girls: that was not good, and not in a funny way. Gonna pass on this.
- Delicious in Dungeon: fun so far. Glad to see Netflix doing it weekly too instead of batches or completely at once. Will keep watching.
- Metallic Rouge: can’t really make a proper opinion, but it looked cool, so will keep watching for now.
- Hokkaido Gals: I like the manga, but not too sure about this. I don’t think the VA fits Fuyuki very well and the Tsubasa feels much more pathetic than in the manga. Will give it one more episode.
- Fluffy Paradise: wholesome and adorable. A good healing anime so far. I also find it interesting how isekai MCs seem to shift from loser high school boys to overworked employee. Or at least, sometimes it feels that way.
- I caught up to Apothecary’s Diary. Real good stuff. Love Maomao.
- 7th Timeloop. A fun start. Will probably continue. For some reason I love this kind of Villainness stuff.
- Unwanted Undead Adventurer. The manga is a fun read and this seems decent too. Will watch a view more eps to see if it’s worth continuing despite having read the manga.
- The Foolish Angel Dances With The Devil. Might give it one more ep, but will likely drop it.
- Burn The Witch 0.8. Was only a small special or OVA, but it was fun
- Continuing with Frieren of course.
Interestingly, this is a third of the amount of seasonal anime I watched last year haha. Seems like I’ll be watching more this year, if it continues like this.
When I watched suzume in theaters I remember reading somewhere that Director wanted to make different film but producers insisted on romance because it sells. I think romance elements where too forceful and it diminished the plot.
Shinkai was right (the producers didn’t watch Frozen 1)
That’s interesting if true, since Shinkai has always made romance
Think I might give 7th timeloop a try. I have been enjoying a recent plunge into Villainess/Otome manga, but I haven’t read that one. Also, I am planning on just switching over to the manga for Hokkaido Gals. I have heard good things about it in the past and, having rewatched a bit of the first episode when I was a bit more awake, it didn’t really improve that much for me.
I have been enjoying a recent plunge into Villainess/Otome manga
Yeah same. Don’t know why.
