Topic: Manga and Anime discussion

Hey Dragon Ball Abridged fans, they didn't do a Xmas special this year but last years is still a great watch

I'm currently reading the Kurusagi Corpse Delivery Service volume 2. It's great and the ideas for each story are clever and informative.

Probably the first manga I would recommend to none manga fans due to the content.

Not manga, but I'm almost done reading the Perfect Blue novel that Satoshi Kon based his masterpiece of an anime film on. It's not nearly as good as the movie, though: it's very much a standard thriller. As I understand it, what made it interesting at the time was the way it laser-focused on the gender dynamics of male fans fetishizing and putting on a pedestal female entertainers (in this case, pop idols), and how that go incredibly wrong. Which, in this era of internet witch-hunts and harassment campaigns is an incredibly timely subject. One thing I liked about the movie's treatment of this theme that's missing here is the way that it depicts technology's role in deepening this nastiness and obsession.

TL;DR The book isn't terrible and is probably historically significant in terms of the themes it touches on, but the film is absolutely the way to go when it comes to experiencing the story of Perfect Blue.

Anime-wise, I've got a variety of series going with different people. With my family, I'm watching the first season of Psycho-Pass (probably Urobutcher's weakest series, but I appreciate any science-fiction anime that's lacking in giant robots and tries to grapple with complex ideas); with one of my friends, I'm watching Happy Sugar Life (it's an absolute trainwreck, but I can't get enough) and the second season of Ace Attorney (we're both huge fans of the games, but the anime adaptation isn't great, unfortunately); with another friend, I just finished watching Princess Tutu (kind of a mess, but the show's heart is in the right place), and now we're currently watching Dance With Devils (a terrible but absolutely hysterical-for-all-the-wrong-reasons supernatural harem shoujo anime); and with my young nephew, I recently watched Aggretsuko (a funny but somewhat depressing satire of corporate working culture in Japan; the gimmick is that the main character, who is an adorable Sanrio animal mascot, uses death metal karaoke to relieve the stress that comes from dealing with backstabbing co-workers and an aggressively misogynistic boss).

I'm hoping to start cleaning up some of the shows I started recently but never finished.

@themcnoisy I've actually been eyeing that manga. As a massive Junji Ito and horror fan, how would you characterize the tone of the manga? I have the sense it's probably a mix of funny and macabre, which is a combo that can work really well, given the right execution.

@Ralizah It's good. Out of the 16 or so chapters I've read over the 2 volumes it touches on a loads of interesting subjects. UFOs, Parasites, Mummification, Ghosts etc. There is a lot of death and pictures of corpses but nothing you wouldn't have seen before. The set up is clever, a bunch of graduates have skills which are useless on their own come together and form a company to get money from the dead. Give it a read, best I've read in a long time. It's very funny bearing in mind the subject matter.

So uh...what happened to Funimation Now? It just lost virtually all its series. It looks like there's only around 80 to 85 series left on the service...

@TowaHerschel7 Never used the site but how much is missing?

@Areus There were over a thousand.

The Claymore manga was better than I had expected. Easy to become a fan of it.

Watched Dragon Ball Super: Broly last night. I put my full thoughts in the movie thread, but in short, as a big DBZ fan who has been lukewarm on the DBS TV anime, I thought it was excellent.

There are rumors that Sony's censorship is bleeding into Funimation, now that Sony owns the animation publisher. I wonder if this is why a ton of series inexplicably vanished from the Funimation Now service?

@TowaHerschel7 i looked into this it seems funimation is having some software problems and are looking into it.also I'am not sure if the censorship is company wide or just in the gaming division as i haven't heard anything about them censoring anime music and movies.

Recommend me some good romance in anime that came out in the last 5 years.

Not sure what you would consider a romance but Fushigi Yuugi has always been my favorite Anime (as noted by my user name).

@Zukato I can only recommend Ore Monogatari!! (My Love Story!!) since I don't watch a whole a lot of romance genre anime.

@Zukato, I quite enjoyed KuroMakuro, which is on Netflix here in the US. It's not strictly a romance series, but a mecha series where the romance between the two leads is a very core element, kinda like Eureka 7, which is older, but if you haven't seen it I urge you to (it's one of my favorite anime).

Added all the suggestions to my MAL account. Thanks, everyone. It's been a long time since I finished watching Eureka Seven (that one needs a re-watch). Loved everything about it back then.

Just watched Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan episode 48 definitely messes with my sense of humour.

Wow!

Finished up the Last Hope on Netflix a couple days ago.

What is it: A mecha (though it quickly becomes Super Robot) series that sees what's left of humanity surviving inside fortified defense cities after an accident at a new type of energy reactor causes Earth's biome to rapidly evolve, and now giant robots are humanity's best hope against the highly adaptive biological/mechanized creatures that have evolved into existence.

Content guide:

Violence - Mild. Some people get pretty bloody after their mech is badly damaged, and there's some bloody imagery with one of the character's backstory, but it's not a particularly gory show.

Sex - Mild. One female character has an improbably large chest, and (particularly early on) the camera will focus on it when she comes on screen (sometimes with some jiggle physics) for a few seconds, but that's it (and she even dresses pretty modestly).

Language - Mild. Typical PG-13 type offenses.

How'd I like it: I wasn't completely sold on it at first (a lot of the monsters are ugly & overdesigned, but that may make some sense given the lore), and they quickly introduced some Asian mysticism into the mix which I wasn't on board for (for a show about giant robots), but I actually grew to like the characters so I stuck with it. Also glad that it actually had a satisfying ending, which is more than I can say about some other Netflix anime (even ones I generally liked more).

Watched Godzilla: Monster Planet tonight on Netflix. I'd watched it before back when it first released, but as that's been over a year ago I decided to rewatch it as a refresher before watching the other two parts, which I've yet to watch, but plan to soon.

What is it: An anime film that centers on the efforts of humanity to try & reclaim Earth from Godzilla after they gave in to his aggressions years ago and fled into space. It's the first part in a three film trilogy.

Content guide:

Violence - Mild. The most shocking moment comes in an early part where you see blood spray on a wall after an unnamed character commits suicide, but that's far and away more extreme than anything else in the film. It's mostly just war machinery being destroyed otherwise, where you don't see the people inside.

Sex - None.

Language - Mild. Typical PG-13 type stuff.

How'd I like it: I remember not being too hot on it the last time I watched it, but for whatever reason it clicked with me more this go around, so I'm pretty excited for the other parts now.

So I wasn't even aware of this until today.

Not sure about the casting choices but John Cho's a pretty decent actor and I liked Mustafa Shakir as Bushmaster in Luke Cage. I read that Death Note was really bad so I'm hoping they don't mess up this one.