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On the last day of Christmas, my true love gave me [anime]
Anzekay
Registered User, Moderator mod
Registered User, Moderator mod
It’s the holidays! Time to talk about holiday anime! And other anime too.
Also there’s a new AMV hell:
https://youtu.be/7_Yb8x-K74Y?si=-cVpBF5fc9FtFhFe
Also there’s a new AMV hell:
https://youtu.be/7_Yb8x-K74Y?si=-cVpBF5fc9FtFhFe Anzekay on
+6
Posts
Mine might be "No Need for Memories" from Tenchi Universe
Anyway, the two best amvs I've seen from the past year and a bit:
This episode is really really good tbh
Like, the shit in your premise has absolutely nothing to do with the things you're implying. It's just every stupid cheat power cliche thrown together completely haphazardly.
And there's only like six other shows exactly like it. I'm a Support Who Got Kicked Out Of The Party But Now I'm the Strongest. I'm a Behemoth That Looks like a Weak Cat But Am Actually the Strongest. I'm a Noble Whose Family is Failing But I'm The Strongest Wizard. I'm an Alchemist But Alchemist is the Strongest Job!? I'm Just a Guild Receptionist, But I'm the Strongest. Blaaaaaaaaaagh.
Every new isekai:
i was wrong and i should've known better, that was an astonishing amount of fanservice surrounding that kitten just in those 90 seconds
You do not need a cat isekai. Just watch Nights with a Cat, free on Youtube, just starting season 3 now (EN subs are on each vid).
I call that anime Cat Fucker and yes it means exactly what you think.
So I finished Season 7 and you can see how originally the creator wanted to make a Superman/Superboy story with Teen Titans, then we went to something like X-Men villains, then he decided he wanted the main character to be Spoder-Man, then he decided he wanted to do No Man's Land, then he decided he wanted a Kingdom Come, then he decided he wanted a Bruce Wayne fugitive/Back In Black story, and none of this matter because Deku sucks ass as a protagonist.
And what an absolute waste of Star and Stripe, that really just made me pause and wonder what the creator's smoking. Two episodes and way more relatable and enjoyable than Deku.
Helck is hella great though, surprise hit for being One Punch Man in fantasy world and the hero looking like He-Man but winning over everyone. My Deer Friend Nokotan was funny just beyond the memes, Spy Family was solid as always, I Parry Everything was a great idea that succeeded despite the animation just nodediving for two episodes but they worked around it.
You may be interested in checking out the MHA: Vigilantes anime that just got announced when it comes out. It's same world, prequel of sorts (some of the teacher characters and a few others show up while they're still active, but they're not the focus). It's got a much smaller cast and a much tighter focus. Much more "friendly neighborhood spider-man dealing with shit a bit outside his capabilities while dodging the cops" vibe than "saving the world" vibe, and the protagonist gets stronger by using his quirk in more inventive ways instead of "punch harder."
It never reaches the highest highs of MHA, but I'd say it's quality is more consistent and a higher average
Fuck it, gonna post my ramble about what may be my favorite isekai in any format (i got too deep into MTL and fell off, need to get back into it) It's an isekai, but I think it's an isekai which....better realizes what an isekai should be, if that makes sense?
Isekai are garbage, I know that, you know that. It's the junk food genre, but anymore really are more just kinda shorthand for one of two other things - either a) a harem series, or b) a power fantasy series. Being an isekai is just a thing which is used to gloss over why people know things they know, and also to provide a simple means of progression (typically via video game shit, including full-on interface). And then cherry on the top for either type is typically "oh, since you're being reincarnated in the other world (but not really because we'll send you over at your current age), we're also giving you this power....just because." This is rarely touched upon as a fucking thing, nor commented on in the world. It just kinda....is. Then we land on a bunch of other tropes (demon lord, hero, saintess, sword saint, villainess, etc, etc, etc) and they're all just the same thing with pieces slightly rearranged. It's junk food, they finish what they originally set out to in like two arcs and then they have to keep spinning wheels because the vehicle isn't the story, it's trying to sell merchandise of the various females that were found along the way. They're an idea, they do that one idea, and then there's nothing. They're skin-deep, and the isekai setting is a thin veneer over the aforementioned power fantasy, but like....it being an isekai isn't even necessary to the story.
Anyway, the series in question I've been enjoying is "Surviving the Game as a Barbarian." It starts out kinda-sorta relying upon the typical tropes, but ends up fleshing itself out enough that it feels like something.....much more realized? Base premise is what you might expect: Guy gets obsessed with a video game (in this case it's a pixel-based roguelike), ends up playing it and basically nothing else for a good decade. Finally beats it, and upon getting to the final boss's door, ends up finding himself transported into the world of the game as the race of the character he was playing, in this case a barbarian. The world operates on game logic (levels, stats, etc), but it's not something anyone is cognizant of in-world, at least in those terms, and no one can see status windows, etc: the novel and the comic show them, as shorthand for the reader, but it's not actually an in-world thing. While levels do provide some stats themselves, the primary way to get stats and abilities is instead via absorbing the essences of monsters: each level you are permits you to get one additional essence, so for people in world, they don't go "ooh, I leveled up," so much as feeling that their spirit has grown enough that they can store an additional essence. Beyond that, leveling is much more difficult than would be typical (you get one XP for killing the first of a monster of a given type, and then there's other certain accomplishments that also give you experience), so there's a finite level you can reach (10, if I'm not mistaken) which gives every bit of progression have some degree of feeling.
So the guy gets isekai'd into this world, and gets no additional advantages: no special powers, technically not even any knowledge which people in this world wouldn't have (he might just know a mathematical breakdown of stats as opposed to essence X increases your strength more than essence Y). If anything, his superpower could be that Barbarians are typically considered to be a "dumb" race (int is a dump stat), but because he has a human mind, he's more intelligent while still having the body's stats (and because barbarians are assumed to be dumb he can get away with cultural shit and take advantage of that). However, he is not the first person to have isekai'd into this world, and the people of this world are aware that it's a thing. See, you don't appear as a new person - you take over the body of a person who already existed and lived up to the point that they would first be entering the labyrinth. And because people who enter into those bodies typically think of this as a "game," they don't view the people there as people, but rather as NPCs - they tend to be essentially sociopathic, and because of that are viewed as "evil spirits" and are supposed to be executed on sight. So literally the first thing our player witnesses is another person beheaded simply for saying the name of the game.
And then of course, we get to the setting.
At some point in the past, a witch destroyed the entire world, leaving it all poisoned outside the walls of the city everyone is residing in. At that time, a labyrinth appeared along with the means to enter it, where, as you defeat enemies, they drop "magic stones" which they figured out a way to convert into consumable goods - food, etc. So instead of pseudo-medieval world that's weirdly chugging along with no sensible economy with monsters or whatever isekai bullshit, there's a bit of stakes and sense to this world where explorers are necessary in order to go into the labyrinth to get the materials to bring back out to make...well, everything, and get paid for doing so. But because it's a closed society with no place to grow, everyone needs to pay their annual taxes and are executed if they cannot do so. It's a deeply unforgiving world. Additionally, through the way the labyrinth is constructed, time flows differently there, where as you make it higher into the labyrinth, you get more days to explore, and then everyone from all floors return back to the city 24 hours after entering it, and the labyrinth only opens once per month.
So we're thrust into this, with a much more difficult setting (with the roguelike, etc), a character who literally has to disguise the fact that he is himself at all times or face execution, made to kill monsters in order to survive. The setting is also designed in such a way that there's a flow to the adventure, where since there's mandatory "breaks" where we end up back in the city to explore the world and the politics, it has a more interested, directed flow. And the initial story is based around "fuck, I need to survive", but as things progress, we get more and more information.
First spoiler marker: early manhwa (about 50 chapters)
Up through this point, it's a good, but not particularly *amazing* isekai, and sadly the artwork is already starting to suffer as many manhwa do. But this arc, and the stuff after it, is where shit really gets busted open. (This spoiler covers roughly to where the manhwa currently is)
But the rate of his growth in particular has attracted the attention of a secret police who are actively trying to find and kill evil spirits. He manages to avoid notice, but he also attracted the attention of an organization of evil spirits that exists and has managed to make a way for them to communicate anonymously with one another.
His current party keeps on keeping on and he eventually joins that group, and a few major things happen a) he meets one of the most powerful people in the world (who's also south korean because of course they are), b) that guy gives him entrance to a special room in the evil spirit gathering called the Round Table where there's one more layer of anonymity and they all wear masks, and take turns saying things which have to be truthful and also that at least half of those present don't know, determined via magic. This happens halfway through the month leading to the labyrinth. And this kinda BUSTS OPEN the entire worldbuilding.
Because it turns out that in addition to all of the above, there's an underground civilization not present in the game which consists mostly of criminals and evil spirits, but they're in an effective cold war, bordering on hot, with the world above. And through this evil spirit gathering, people in both can communicate with one another.
So now we've got three different layers of paranoia "can't let others know who I am" and also "figuring out who those people are," the survival aspect, and everything else. Additionally, it turns out that all these other people were from a "hacked" version of the game that increased essence and item drops, so they "beat" the game before him, but he's the only person who seems to have beaten the original game - the only real difference is that he has a slightly better innate understanding, but the point is that they weren't FORCED to completely min/max everything in order to win, so a lot of their "builds" end up being sub-optimal. It's a neat way to make the main guy.....eventually.....more "powered" without it just being "AND GODDESS SAYS HERE INSTANT DEATH"
And the story goes from there, and I'm not going to get into that, but the real piece that makes the whole thing work so much more is something that is built towards from the start, and I'll keep it as simple as possible, so don't feel afraid to click this spoiler, but it's the explanation for how the setting is just able to *work* so well.
There's lots of other examples of this whole thing, but there's a lot of other people who have agency in this world and are constantly trying to accomplish their own goals, and the world is in flux even absent the actions of the main character, which is super refreshing, but with the above it makes the point that there's actually a reason people were isekai'd, and more to the point there's a reason SPECIFIC people were, with a goal in mind, which is so much better thought out than 99% of these worlds end up having.
Also, isekais are cliche enough to have stuff with good twists on the formula, or where it's played mainly for laughs. (I can think of some isekais that run more into romance as a genre, which totally sidesteps the usual issues because it's entirely driven by character drama)
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Fun fact, you may have to be more specific, because there are multiple LNs titled a variation of "The Guild Receptionist Is Secretly Strong."
E:
Oops. The other one just had it announced. Not next season. Corrected.
I think the award for the dumbest isekai next season is either the show about a dude who gets isekai'd into a fantasy world without magic and figures out how to invent it by
Or the one titled "Useless Skill: Fruit Master - I Can Eat An Infinite Number of Skill Fruit (That's Supposed to Make You Die)-". Yes, that is the actual title, complete with parenthetical. It's only one of like 20 shows with paragraphs for titles next season.
"In a World Where Everyone is Level 99, Being Max Level Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be". (In episode 2, the protagonist figures out how to reset his levels for permanent buffs, something nobody else had figured out until now, and is punching dragons to death in episode 4.)
Thinking about it now, it's wild how in DQ3 it's literally canonical that you can do this and everybody knows it. I want an anime that does realistic world building about how society would function when infinite grinding exists.
I was referring to the one you mentioned upthread in your post about previewing next season, though it doesn't surprise me that there's multiple series about a guild Receptionist protagonist.
That said:
Takahashi Rie, of Megumin from KonoSuba fame, absolutely killing it at the comedy.
Fly Away Now~
Also: become as Santa.
I'd love to know how they're going to follow up on the original ending.
Also, the LotR anime was fantastic, highly recommended.
it never took its own plot very seriously
To the surprise of absolutely no one, it is really good!
Yeah, Season 2 is being broadcast next season and...
Sanda's by the same author as Beastars just for reference
Who is also the daughter of the mangaka behind Baki The Grappler.
She's also the author of this:
Chapter one has several characters freak out about something with a capture level of 5 and by the two thirds point I'm like oh
You sweet summer child
Capturing god level ingredients is useless without having someone able to turn them into actual food.
Though I wouldn't say he's totally powerless.
I'm prepared for the new Aquarion, and do not pray that it is good, but that the series continues to be an EXPERIENCE.
*checks the latest PV*
Yuuuuuup. Kawamori's back on the hard drugs again.
I thought mine was the only family with that tradition
For a couple blessed years, we moved to Nightmare Before Christmas, but then my sister had to have kids and apparently that's not appropriate.