As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
[Anime] and Ani-you and Manga too!
Lars
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
You know you watch it, here you can discuss it.
Looking for more stuff to watch? Spy x Family has new episodes every Saturday right now. Also surprisingly episodes have an English dub a week after the Japanese dub comes out. For some other recent stuff, try My Next Life as a Villainess or Kaguya-sama: Love is War.
Also watch Symphogear.
If you are interested, Zonugal also created AniMenagerie, a Discord group that gets together and watches Dubbed Anime on Monday nights at 6pm PST / 9pm EST and Subbed Anime on Saturday nights at the same time. Usually about 3 hours of anime each of those nights.
Also Zonugal:
Whippy on
+6
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
It was me, I was the first.
It's kind of like Bakemonogatari in that regard (though I at least finally broke through to Niseimonogatari last year after also a decade of trying to get somewhere with it)
Though that said, I do have a totally open weekend for once so I might just make some time to hide my phone, shut down my PC, crack open a beer, and watch like four episodes of Tatami Galaxy in a row because that's what powered me through the last couple heady anime in that vein I watched
I know I adore at least some of Science Saru and Masaaki Yuasa's output, Eizouken is one of the exceedingly few anime I've ever rated at 10/10 on MAL
or even if you don't watch the tatami galaxy, watch the night is short, walk on girl
Picking up from the last couple of posts in the previous thread, do watch Kamen Rider OOO. Just keep in mind that it follows a monster-of-the-two-weeks story format and quite a bit of that is filler. Also, avoid the tenth anniversary movie. Much like Zero-One's 01thers films, it's not great and will likely induce anger.
Honestly, I'd suggest watching Double, OOO and Fourze in that order. They're all good shows and their crossover films with each other are canon for the most part and are brought up in the currently running show at the time of the film's airing (outside of OOO's part in the Double/OOO film). And tying into this thread, it's a good idea to watch Double's series at least since the upcoming anime Fuuto Detectives takes place after it.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Sentai filmworks has licensed the Revue Starlight movie and is having a very limited theatrical run in the US!
Steam
Don't we have a tokusatsu thread?
I read too much manhwa. Here's some thoughts on them.
I'd say a significant number of the stuff I've read fits into at least one of the categories above (in some cases at least 3 or 4).
There's multiple official site sources out there to get them, but the most common ones are Webtoon.com (archive up to a certain date free, 50 cents per chapter roughly after that point, usually a month behind paid releases, give or take), Toomics (chapters are cheaper but you have to buy more of them), and Tapas (same as Toomics) - there's others out there, but those are the big three, I believe. Also, the latter two have adult content filters and you don't want to turn them off because boy howdy (I've since learned that pornography is apparently illegal in South Korea, but comics are not, so....there's a lot. If you go looking, just be aware because woof). Tappytoon is another with the same format as the latter couple.
Quick summary of stuff I'm reading/read and dropped, for those who might be interested, with tiers of personal takes:
Worth checking out without caveat
Tower of God - Ongoing, no end in sight, fucking long, but grand-daddy of 'em all. One of the few ones that doesn't really fit into any of the above categories necessarily, it's a fantasy thing. Main character finds himself at the entrance to a tower which....the history is long and complex and honestly finding out a lot about it is a lot of the journey, so not going to talk about it. It's well drawn, has some DEEP lore to explore, and excellent action. Its main problem at this point is, much like many long shonen, its cast is kinda too large and it's still adding things, and it's really fucking long already and the end isn't remotely in sight. 533 chapters and counting, and these chapters aren't short.
Viral Hit (How to Fight) - Should probably CW bullying/abuse/depictions of suicide on this, because it's got some pretty dark content in that direction at times, but the characterization of this is great. High school kid gets bullied by livestreamers on camera. Happens across a youtube channel where a person wearing a chicken head (just roll with it) teaches how amateurs can fight specific forms of martial arts. He then makes a channel demonstrating this stuff and getting revenge on bullies, in order to earn enough money to pay for his medical bills. The chapters of this are LOOOOOONG (like, 3-4x as long as most series' chapters, which are in turn far longer than regular manga chapters). It's funny and viscerally exciting in ways that few comics manage to be.
Anyway, this thing goes some places, and manages to still surprise me at this point. It's obviously ridiculous in what it does, but the techniques in question are like....just grounded enough to give it this veneer of plausibility which most fighting series tend not to have and I kinda love it. The scale seems to be spinning a bit out of control atm, so I kinda hope it wraps up soon (which given the authors' other series.....is definitely not guaranteed), but this is probably one of the things I'm most excited to read week-to-week. Korean comic is also coming up to its climax right now (pay buffer is 10 chapters and English translation is about 2 months behind the Korean one if memory serves), so this should be wrapping up shortly.
Omniscient Reader (Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint) - The one which is most an amalgamation of the stuff which has come prior, and honestly probably my favorite thing on this list....not from the comic, but because I jumped from the comic to read the web novel and I've seen where this thing will go over the next roughly 9 years if they tell the whole story. It starts out feeling like one of those derivative things which is an amalgamation of everything which came before and kinda....evolves into its own thing that has something to say about the nature of storytelling in an online world. Main character is the only person reading a webnovel which goes on for years, upon its completion the author thanks him, deletes the novel from the web, sends it to him, and then the events of the novel start happening. The main character of that novel is the one with broken powers (and is a person who goes back in time upon death, so he has foreknowledge the way these protagonists frequently do) (although that's not to say that the main character of THIS novel isn't also broken in his own way), but I think the most important thing that this series eschews relative to other series which deal with power fantasy bullcrap stuff is that the supporting cast not only doesn't become irrelevant, which is what is so common, but that the protagonist doesn't always win through his own efforts, but frequently does so via self-sacrifice for those other characters, who turn around and do the same to save him. (WHICH ITSELF IS A META-COMMENTARY ON THE CONCEPT OF ESCAPISM BUT I'M GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF). And it's not just me. ORV is already optioned for five live-action films, is the most read webnovel in Korean history by a wide margin, and apparently a game, TV series, and anime have also been announced? Shit's good.
The webtoon is also getting to the climax of stuff which is where the web novel grabbed me and refused to let go, leading to multiple nights where I was up until 3 or 4 am reading.
Villains are Destined to Die (Death Is The Only Ending For The Villainess) - Girl transported into Otome game, but with video game pop-ups, it's hard mode, and if she fails she's dead. The artwork is fantastic, and this is probably the only one of these sorts of stories that I've actually felt legit stress while reading. I've been enjoying it throughout and legitimately hope it continues to keep up its quality.
Worth looking into, but with caveat
Legend of the Northern Blade - Martial arts. Effectively a sect that prevented the mongols from invading China was betrayed from within, the leader's son was taught the martial arts via a secret means despite not seeming so, stuff happens and he's able to leave and go to take revenge on those who betrayed his father. The art style of this one is a lot less crisp than others, but it's god this fluid look that just OOZES style. There's some real bad-ass stuff in it (one of the recent chapters has one of the most metal things I've ever seen in a comic). Also you may recognize some memes from some of these things because I totally saw them flying around before I knew this comic existed.
Lookism - starts out as a kind-of comedy/slice of life analysis of how people are treated differently based off their looks and has evolved into a full on "gang fights of Seoul" series with little time for anything else. CW for fucking everything, this thing has such tonal whiplash it's kinda ridiculous. Overweight kid is bullied, convinces his mom to send him to another school so he can avoid it. When starting to go there, wakes up with a second body that is effectively "the perfect man". When one body sleeps the other awakes and vice versa. Lives a dual life with the pretty body being the one going to school, and analyzes how they're treated. Said perfect body also has like....perfect muscle memory and it's seriously becoming straight up "AND NOW HE'S TRYING TO UPTURN THE CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD. THIS GANG DOES THIS HEINOUS SHIT" stuff. And when I mean tonal whiplash I mean tonal whiplash. Like, if memory serves two back to back arcs are legit "the gang all goes to an amusement park and oh no there's some bullies from the countryside who don't like the pretty boys from the city, hijinks ensue!" and "now we find out how three of the characters' parents got involved with a dog worshipping cult when they were kids, kidnapped them and took them to the countryside and tried to feed them to dogs because they didn't want to start worshipping the dogs so they had to kill people to escape to the police." It's.....a lot. I started reading this because it's shared universe with Viral Hit (throwaway crossover stuff in both, nothing important....yet) and has the same author, and I enjoy it, but I....enjoyed it more when it was the campy slice of life critique analysis stuff, ya know?
Jungle Juice - Closest thing to a generic action shonen on this list, I'd say. MHA except it's an underground school and everyone has insect-themed powers. Protagonist is a dragonfly. It's entertaining for what it is and doesn't try to be anything else, so the caveat is "don't approach if you're not interested in typical shonen school battle shenanigans."
Latna Saga: Survival Story of a Sword King (Survival of a Sword King in a Fantasy World) - Isekai video game thing, guy gets glitched, he can't get past level 5 and thus can't get out of the tutorial level, but the glitch resets him to 1, he keeps increasing his stats, and enemies increase alongside him. He finally makes it into the other world as a low-level supremely overpowered character. Generic start, but the world is interesting in some of the conflict/problems there are, and this one does seem to have an actual point. Genuinely good humor, too.
Leviathan - Pacific Rim meets Waterworld meets Attack on Titan? Stuff happens, oceans flood the entire world, what remains of humans live on cities that are giant boats, and there are giant sea monsters that kill and eat people. Fantastic artwork, especially the action sequences. Iffy cheesecake outfit on one of the main characters for a really long time (it improves, but really?) Just really, really good artwork throughout, seriously. Main caveat to this one is the later chapters get really short by manhwa standards (but can you blame 'em with that art?) and given the monetization, it leaves ya feeling a bit lacking.
Nano Machine - not sure there's an official licensing for this yet? This premise is so stupid I started reading it to be amused but goddamn it it's actually proving to be genuinely entertaining. Medieval period, martial arts series where the bastard son of a ruler gets visited by his own descendant from the future and injected with AI nanomachines which cultivate his body, allowing him to properly enter a martial arts clinic school where the heads of various sects were planning on killing him, and instead he establishes himself there (presumably to....actually cause the future where his descendant can come back or something) while awakening/re-learning secret techniques from his ancestors. Like, as a premise it's dumb as shit but it leans into it so hard you take it at face value and it actually goes through with it. Also there's timeskips so this story isn't going to be just the school, looks like, and it's based off a webnovel (although there's a sequel web novel?) so at least that implies there's an ending in mind.
Skeleton Soldier Failed to Protect the Dungeon - Re:Zero with a summoned skeleton monster. Every time he dies he goes back to his summoning point, carrying forward his thoughts and improvements. There is a video game interface but it seems to be plot-relevent so we'll see where it goes. It's only in this tier instead of the top one because there's some weird shit that got dropped but may come back (motorcycle nun?), some very questionable transgender stuff (not sure if they're supposed to be, but....well, you know), and honestly it feels like there's so many balls in the air I'm sure some stuff is going to get dropped which is a bit disappointing. Still, very very great comic - a number of folks around here read this one.
SSS-Class Revival Hunter - CW suicide, lots of other trauma. Isekai-esque series (people get abilities, there's a tower, hunters, etc) where the protagonist ends up with an ability that sends him back a day when he dies. So he ends up killing himself hundreds of times to go back ten years to be able to try to fix/improve things. It deals some with the trauma of this, but not as much as it should honestly. It's just well written for what it is, which is why it's as high as it is. It's still relatively early on in its series, so I'd guess it'll get tired and aimless like what tends to happen to these things, but I'm enjoying it for now.
Overgeared - full on VR world series. This is honestly dumb as shit but it starts leaning more into humor later on and gets better for it. I read a good bit of the web novel for this one too (but there's SO MUCH and it gets kinda repetitive to where it's insane that there's any scaling left to go which is why I dropped it). Dude sucks shit at the game, but was unique in that he's actually treating NPCs as actual people which allowed him to stumble into the first legendary class in the game, which is a blacksmithing class (but also swordsmanship because shut up). This allows him to make better gear than anyone else in the game can attain, thus he becomes stronger, yaddah yaddah. This series is 100% a ripoff of The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. Like, wholesale. But I enjoy it more mostly because it deals at least a bit (read: a lot) more with a full cast of characters. Protagonist is a giant douche in the beginning, but he does improve a lot (and thankfully in the comic doesn't praise himself for improving a lot like he does in the novel). The comic is just now getting to some of the funniest shit that I remember from the novel, so I'm really enjoying this right now. This absolutely has no end in sight, even in the novel, so I'm sure I'll eventually get bored with it and stop bothering. But for now? Yeah, still enjoying.
The Archmage Returns After 4000 Years - What's this? A story that looks to have an actual end goal in mind from the outset, and actually moves towards it? BLASPHEMY. Anyway, in the world in question, humanity is ruled over by a deity-like being called Demigod. Some humans realize this and attempt to rebel. The strongest mage, who was the lynchpin of the lot and who was running the rebellion, gets defeated by Demigod and was sealed (presumably for eternity) to cause him to go mad from torment in hell. 4000 years later, a person hates themselves and their life, and sacrifices himself in such a way that it opens a portal to where said mage is suffering, offering his life and body to release him. It's the story of said guy rebuilding/re-releasing his power to confront Demigod once more. This one's got a solid supporting cast, an actual end goal, solid action, genuine stakes, the whole nine yards.
The Beginning After The End - Only here on a technicality because this is technically an American comic (I think) written from an American webnovel (I think?). It's one of the most played-straight "reincarnated into a different world after dying but remembering stuff" I've seen, and gets bonus points for actually having an adult mind not be interested in girls in school because he thinks they're too young for him and that the whole thing is awkward, weird, and creepy. It's completely by the numbers, but done very well. New season has started since the last time I wrote this and things have taken a turn for the grimdark (not bad, but just a real tonal shift). I've seen comments that have implied that it's gonna go further down this rabbit hole and that folks start liking it less, so that's honestly the caveat on this one right now - it's really, really good but it may drop off.
Lout of the Count's Family - Still new to this one so the boredom hasn't set in. Another "transported into novel" thing, male this time instead of female, but instead of being the villain or anything like that, he's literally just the jackass son of some noble that gets beaten up by the hero. He decides this is great, he's in a rich family and can live the high life, so he decides to get on the hero's good side so he can live in boring bliss (and then of course is thinking on problems that might crop up in the future which could interfere with his boredom so he has to move on to the NEXT thing and so on and so forth). It's pretty entertaining and harmless. It's junk food.
The Villainess Lives Again - Girl is evil mastermind behind her half-brother's ascension to emperor and then he goes to have her killed. She's rescued (of sorts) by a general who wants to try to save the empire, and knowing that she was the mastermind asks for her help, but she can't do anything. So she casts a spell killing herself and sending her consciousness back many years, where she decides to start manipulating things for said guy (without him knowing why) to stop her brother. Much better read when catching up than the day-by-day. It's quite well written, and honestly the most interesting bit is how she judges herself in everything she's done (including the past life) while others judge her based off what they witness, so she views herself both via imposter syndrome and ALSO via perceiving herself as stealing others' happiness and roles. There's some CW serious self-hatred being worked through here. Minor plot spoilers:
Pretty decent
Solo Leveling - Finished. First manhwa most people got exposed to because it was posted all over the place. Once more, our world but video game shit because (plot) reasons. Hunters go into gates and fight monsters to prevent them from escaping into our world, and to get magic resources. Low level person has something happen and he gets a second awakening as a very strong hunter, and his strength isn't fixed (hence, solo leveling). The early portion of this comic is really really good and then it kinda peters off. It continues to have amazing looking battles and whatnot, but when everyone else in the world ceases to be relevant, the stakes no longer feel like....anything. It's a shame. Still worth a read if you like power fantasy stuff, though.
Father, Unrivaled (Peerless Dad) - Martial arts series, no video game shit to be seen. Martial artist heads out into the world and by chance the first couple people he runs into are some of the strongest people in the world, gets his ass kicked, he assumes he's no good because he doesn't know they're that powerful, so he gets a job as a city guard to make money and raise his kids. It's wholesome and funny, but feels largely directionless. A lot of time passes in this one (the kids have gone from infants to teenagers). Some political stuff is happening now, but it feels a bit, well...aimless. It's spinning its wheels and needs to decide where it wants to go, because it splits its focus too much. Still enjoyable though.
Medical Return - Not officially licensed in English, I believe. Finished? Kinda? It's like in an epilogue. Surgeon dies and is sent back to when he was a student to relive his life. Because he has his knowledge as a surgeon already, he excels, things go great. It's a bit of a drama, and a power fantasy, but it's fun. It's basically done at this point and seems to be dragging out the ending and I'm not sure why.
Kill the Villainess - Mentioned above, won't go into further detail.
FFF-Class Trashero - This one is more an out-and-out parody. Magic world is taking high school students and putting them through a quest which, once they "graduate" with a proper grade, they're sent back to be good members of society. Main character is an awful person, and while he succeeds, he gets terrible grades so he has to do it again (after having already spent years in this world). He then starts meta-gaming and continues getting awful grades, so he decides to break the game. It's dumb as hell, and the main character is a jackass, but it's pretty funny.
A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special - Used to love this one, but it seems to have kinda lost something. I dunno. The original concept was neat but it seems to have drifted a lot from that. Fantasy world, there's some "shadow world" thing which was consuming it and people had to fight in dungeons to stop it, which were (in turn) based off their own history, and discovering what happened in order to clear things. Anyway, a small cadre of people survive the final thing, the boss (after being defeated) explodes, and the protag is sent back to his younger self with the knowledge of what's to come. He then has to manipulate things to improve people enough that they can survive/prevent things, without changing things so much that his future knowledge becomes useless. So then it becomes a harry potter esque magic school thing for a while (with your typical nobles vs peasants stuff) but it veers off to deal with like....rebels who are people he agrees with but he doesn't give a shit about the nobility stuff because getting everyone on the same side matters more, but it also seems to be completely forgetting the main thrust of what the story is? I dunno. I'm still reading this, but what the story seems like early on (when I mostly enjoyed it) and what it seems like now are just...not the same. Also the drawings from the light novels are better than the comic (I know, single drawings are a lot easier than comics, but whatever :P)
Her Summon - finished. In the recommendation list primarily for the artwork. This is honestly stunningly gorgeous - probably the best artwork in this list. Magic world summons otaku shut-in dude from Earth, which, due to the nature of our world, results in mundane objects he happens to have with him to have extreme powers (battery = lightning, etc). The main reason it's down this far is because this is the one which runs abreast of the loli/pedo stuff which manga/anime frequently do. Now, it is played in the direction of showing it as disgusting and lampshading the culture, but...well...it's there. Plot spoilers:
Again My Life - Not officially licensed in English, I believe. Finished. It's being made into a live action TV series, though. It's medical return except a lawyer who was murdered for trying to take down a corrupt politician gets sent back, and basically uses fore-knowledge to take down the pawns supporting said politician so he can take him down, too. It's a nice, satisfying, slow burn revenge story.
Worth a look if you're bored, maybe
Caught By the Villain - Transported into a fantasy series as a character whose brother ends up a subordinate of a person who has a failed usurpation of a kingdom and everyone involved in the rebellion is killed (along with their families). Her bright idea is to instill values in her brother which makes him not join up in the rebellion bit, which succeeds via getting him to fall in love with someone and elope.....leaving her to fulfill the draft scenario and act as a knight pretending to be her brother, so she gets caught up in all the stuff agian. So Mulan Isekai, kinda, coupled with the "protag" of the original novel being something of a sociopath, and the villain being one in another way. It's entertaining, but....well, you get the picture of how similar a lot of these things are. I read too fucking many.
The Golden-Haired Summoner - girl who hates studying is reincarnated as a kid into a world with magic, doesn't want to study, ends up having a knack for summoning magic, following her exploits. When she's a precocious little tyke it's entertaining, but as she's gotten older she hasn't matured (despite being YEARS older than her outward appearance) and she's so completely narcissistic that it's a little hard to read at times. It's entertaining - very much so to keep up with it - but she needs to mature like WOAH or I'll be dropping this soon.
The Lazy Lord Masters the Sword (Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble) - inherited will sort of thing. Some dude focuses on his swordsmanship (without working...somehow) for revenge, dies. His will is imbued into a layabout nobleman who basically stayed in bed constantly. Seems like...massive depression to where he couldn't get out of bed. Gets up, has the drive (and some of the skills) of the old dude, wants to do right by his family who'd taken care of him and make his way in the world, despite his reputation. It's a good spin on the whole "sudden power" thing because it's an obvious allegory for a person who views himself as useless picking himself up and trying to do right by those who love him.
The Villainess Turns the Hourglass - If reading, stop after season 2. I'd checked out the novel of this one at one point and it gets waaaaaay too revenge-porny. The comic ended up not as bad, at least so far, but we're getting into the "really?" shit now. Villainess character who is the daughter of a lady of the night (who was taken in by a noble) was provoked into acting out, yaddah, was actually bad, and ended up being executed. Gains power to reverse time, yaddah yaddah, memories, sets up revenge on the people who set her up. It's got some good stuff, but season 2 ends with her already having won, effectively, and season 3 is now ongoing and it's probably going to get to some stuff which is just....eeeeeeh.
The Boxer - Another finished one. Major CW for abuse/neglect/suicidal thoughts, etc. This was recommended by a person in these threads, actually, and while I like it quite a lot I don't think I like it quite as much as they did. Still a solid one. The story takes some turns so I won't get into too much detail, but the long and short of it is about a boxing manager finding a homeless kid who has crazy reaction times and taking over the boxing world with him. Lots of focus on boxing, making you hate the opponents, then seeing their background and making you like them (which is a thing a number of series do, but this one's very good at it). It's good, but it can go some dark places at times so it's hard to recommend whole-heartedly because of that. Also, minor late-series spoilers, but factors.
There's a spin-off which is ongoing which I'll admit I haven't read because the above bugged me.
Dungeon Reset - Isekai into a dungeon world thing, character gets the skill purify which is basically useless outside of specific circumstances, but ends up outside the world not dead when it's reset, and he ends up playing minecraft in the world, and then like....sim city, or tower defense, or what have you. It's silly. It's not too great, but this is a decent junk food isekai. Definitely has zero direction, though. That's honestly its main problem, which is the problem with most isekai - they have an idea for the "twist", and even when the twist is good, there's no end goal in sight to build towards, so nothing actually happens.
Heavenly Demon Reborn! (Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon) - Medieval world revenge story. Kid's master is betrayed, he gets killed too, and finds himself in the body of an acolyte of the demonic cult. With his previous knowledge, and drive, he advances quickly and uses the demonic cult to gain power so he can go back and get revenge on the people who murdered his master and himself. It's pretty good for what it is, it just doesn't seem to do anything unique.
Reincarnated as an Unruly Heir - Basically the previous but more comedy. Martial arts world, probably going to be the head of the orthodox factions, is assassinated, wakes up in the body of a lazy layabout demonic heir who has a reputation as a lazy lech. Trying to remain true to his previous self in the new body, a bit more comedic, and more politicking than action so far.
The World After the Fall - Not officially licensed yet, but the RAWs are on webtoon, so this probably will be too. Tower appears, people get summoned in, yaddah yaddah. Everyone trying to get up the tower perishes, but escapes via a portal stone thing, only protag is left, but he refuses to take the deal at the end of the tower because he doesn't trust the tower's practitioners, assuming there's another floor. Eventually breaks through. Is in a new world, seemingly overpowered. Honestly, I'm reading this mostly because it's the same authors as ORV. Artwork isn't the best, and the story isn't doing anything for me right now. I'm waiting for this to end up becoming a deconstruction the same way ORV did, but....thus far, nothing. It's still early, but I'm not finding it very interesting atm.
MEMORIZE - can't seem to find an official translation for the comic. I started looking at this one mostly because it's one of the grand-daddies of the isekai genre from web novels that everything else steals from (it started in 2012). It's not as good as a lot of others. Mostly here for apparent historical relevance. Think of this as the pulp fantasy equivalent of Isekai. It's what basically everything else is based off of, and it's unrefined. I'm enjoying it for what it is, though.
Crimson Karma - Finished series. Female assassin reincarnated into fantasy world, yaddah yaddah. Pretty by the numbers. Interesting mostly in that it's a reverse harem with female protagonist, and actually has a plot it follows to conclusion, but otherwise it's pretty rote. But you've got a finished series to look into, at least?
The Descent of the Demon Master - Very close to falling into the "things I was reading but stopped". Person was isekai'd into the past martial arts world, got to the peak of it, died there, and came back to his life a few years before he died the first time. It's the epitome of "I had an idea and have no idea what to do with it now." It's much, much more entertaining when it's dealing with slice of life romance stuff than the martial arts stuff.
The Advanced Player of the Tutorial Tower - Guy gets stuck in a tutorial tower, keeps trying to get out, gets ridiculously powerful, eventually gets out, shenanigans happen. This thing is 100% "let's take this thing from HERE and this thing from HERE and THIS thing from HERE" and mix them all together in a vat. It's....fine. Reading it all at once was fun but I find I couldn't give less of a shit about it as new chapters come out, honestly. There's some funny aspects of it, and one neat idea that might end up getting fully explored? (Earth itself is a floor in another tower that other people are trying to climb) but really this is a paint-by-numbers one of these.
The Druid of Seoul Station - Just started reading this recently, it seemed semi-okay, and then the recent chapters are borderline incoherent introducing new stuff (ZOMBIES) and trying and absolutely failing to have parallel storylines. Other worlds/dimensions connect to ours, creates a RPG mechanic system, yaddah yaddah. Protag was sent to a world no one else was, lived there for 1000 years and conquered it as a largely feral person, then ends up back in our world 10 years after he left, tries to make his way in the world. Copious amounts of stealing from other stuff (solo leveling, etc), it seems to have some potentially interesting stuff (there's another character who's a regressor which makes some of the time stuff potentially align in an interesting way, along with there being seeds implying some interesting stuff re: dungeons and worlds), but the haphazard writing makes it likely this will get put in the dropped pile, too.
Things I was reading but stopped because they got too repetitive and bored me but I might check out some time in the future when I get super bored
Tomb Raider King - "Dungeons appear in our world, powers based off historical yaddah yaddah." Main character is a smarmy asshole and is fun for a while, but this thing is just so goddamn long without any real variety. It's just the same thing over and over and over.
The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor - Too similar to Overgeared to bother following both - I fell off in the last season break. Might pick this up again, but it's the same core premise without the fun supporting cast and comedy. My wife read a lot of the web novel of this thing and enjoyed it but it apparently powerscales to the point of ridiculousness even by genre standards.
Dimensional Mercenary - No official English translation. Honestly probably the neatest "concept" of the dropped ones, it just suffered from lacking direction. Person can't find employment and is about to go destitute, gets an offer to effectively sell his soul to have a job where he's contracted to go in to other peoples' lives/worlds to solve their problems, getting paid on how well he did. It's much better handled than most of these things, the different settings have variety, there's a lot of "cutting the gordian knot" type scenarios. The most intriguing aspect is that it seems like the tasks he's taking on are from other people who sold their souls, so he might end up trapped in the same situation and needing to rebel against the supernatural beings running the whole system. Honestly, typing this out is making me want to give it another shot, the updates were just haphazard for a while and I fell off the wagon. Artwork also took a dive after some seasonal changes.
Volcanic Age - No official translation. I honestly don't even remember the premise of this one. It's a martial arts fighting thing. I honestly just stopped caring. I think there was something about a master being sent back trying to stop a war, but it got really racist at one point and I just stopped caring.
The Gamer - Actually the first one of these "RPG mechanics powers" things I ever read. It just doesn't seem to have any real internal consistency so I stopped reading it as much. I remember this one being MUCH more video-game based than others (like, explicitly. The fact that he can do things like video games is what's broken). It was stupid and entertaining, but it definitely felt like throwing darts at a wall to pick the next plotline. To put in perspective, most of the time, when I think about this it's wondering how obnoxiously dumb it's gotten.
Reborn as a Scholar - Some peak martial arts dude got killed via sacrifice of some hero person and reincarnated as a rich nobleman's son. He ends up being "good" because he had a family that loved him (and....you know....money) and is basically just making his way in the world with both the advantages of his new life and knowing martial arts from his previous one. I kinda ended up actively disliking the protagonist of this one for being so self-satisfied when everything got handed to him on a platter, effectively.
I was enjoying but have no idea what the hell happened to them
I'm sure there's more in here I legit don't remember/can't be bothered to care about, too, ones that I checked out and never bothered getting up-to-date with.
Anyway, yeah. Everyone should read Omniscient Reader. Its adaptation is top notch.
I stand by this position.
What if you called it a Japanimation club?
It's for the best. You might learn some of your students have Bad Anime Tastes and then you can never look at them the same. Or worse, they're shippers
But I think the thing that irritated me the most was the pronunciation mangling of non-Japanese words. Especially names. Like insisted on pronouncing their own as "ki-mu-ba-a-ri," which is not only godawful romanization, but just fucking painful in all ways. Every single fucking syllable individually and deliberately pronounced.
Honestly that was some damn good pronunciation and I could easily believe he's a fluent speaker mixing the languages for shits and giggles. Heard enough vtuber English lessons to get a handle on what someone unfamiliar with the language sounds like even if they have the words.
That'll do it!
The hotswapping of languages is one reason I really enjoy the vtuber Pikamee who'll flip back and forth as the mood fits her. Her English still has the Japanese accent but that just lends to the charm when she's screeching FAMILY FRIENDLY in between very English curse words
Decade is a ridiculous show with a plot that makes no sense, but I still loved it.
Also second OOO. Is a little big on the filler on the second half, but the endgame fully compensates for it and then some.
Double is a great show. I couldn't get pass Akiko being incredibly fucking annoying, but that's a me thing. Is a shame, but is what it is.
Fouze is also great, I enjoyed it from start to finish.
On Inoue, the deal is that he had been writing Toku for a long, long time and it became obvious with the issues with Faiz, Blade and Kabuto that he just lost the plot. (Specially with the Faiz novel that we do not speak about) Though the Jetman episode of Gokaiger (Super Sentai aniversary show where they fixed a lot of Decade's mistakes) that he wrote was good.
Remaining shows of that time, Kiva has, uh, some issues, but is mostly decent. Den-O is tiring if you don't like Japanese comedy and given that it had suit characters as protagonists, it was cheaper and easier to hire the VAs for those suit characters AND it sold a lot of merch. Result: There were what, NINE Den-O movies or so? Like, fuck, it took A LOT for Toei to stop doing Den-O movies.
People whine about the toys being louder and noiser each time, but kids fucking love that shit, every show that had toys that scream a lot sold merch like hotcakes, so there's more of them.
Another very good Kamen Rider, probably the best of the Heisei era is Gaim, it was written by Urobuchi (yes, that Urobuchi), so you know already what he does, he explained how writing a Toku show works. Since merch takes months of planning, and they want to release the merch on stores WITH the episode is featured on, what Toei does is handing the entire planned toy catalog to the writer, with the planned release dates and say "Write a story from that". Which is why every Rider show has the first upgrade on around episode 20 and the final form at episode 30 or more.
Finally, Wizard is...there.
this is my favorite, and also a fun Sega CD game. The theme music is incredible, too.
Today's chapter, like most chapters, was pretty great. This one was focused on the GCPD's first meetings with all the various Robins (including Stephanie as a Robin, as she should be).
Yes, we do.
It does seem that Inoue does better with Super Sentai then with Kamen Rider. Right now he's currently writing Avataro Sentai Donbrothers which like Gaim has some darker elements to it despite the visual goofiness of it. Like the fact that ANYONE can turn into a monster-of-the-week and if defeated by anyone other then the Donbrothers, they're permanently dead. Also...
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Not that I mind, but there's still a webcomic thread in this very board.
"Who?"
My bigger concern would be deciding on anime to show that would be appropriate within an official school setting.
And I simply do not want to cross-reference any prospective anime to see if they have rampant T&A, nudity, profanity, sexual assault, or showcase egregious violence.
Cause trust me, "The Japanese just have different cultural standards than us!" is not going to fly during a sit-down with an admin.
Having to fight against the teenager impulse to find the edgiest/most filled with T&A anime that they can find has some serious "stopping the ocean with your hands" energy. "But everybody else is watching Shield Hero!". Brrr.
All true, but if I make serious posts at this point people might think there's something wrong with me. More than the usual anyway.
That's a thing
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Also at least somewhat fluent in Italian based on the Dark Kitchen episodes
Pre pandemic he was doing youtube cooking shows from the level of a dad who wanted to improve his skills as a home cook, it was really charming
Though there seems to have been enough time for one of the pursuers to stop and roll their trousers up for some reason:
then:
Not sure if it's just me being picky, but I can't imagine it got drawn that way accidentally, either.
What's a webcomic?
Serious answer: I 100% did forget we had a webcomic thread. Though oddly my brain still categorizes webcomics and webtoons differently. Probably because I first encountered webtoons as the South Korean comics.