Comment - FBXL Lotide

Comment on Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2026, Week 33]

This is such an underrated anime if we go off of its AniList rating.

Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. I haven’t watched an anime of such low production quality relative to how good the story is in a while. Pretty much all the recent anime with top-tier story got adaptations of corresponding quality, and I have gotten used to that level of standard.

So it was quite jarring for me to see the unexpected change in artstyle in episode 5, and back to the original style for the next episode. I think I got used to it though, or was too absorbed in the story, because subsequent inconsistencies weren’t as noticeable.

It is not just the inconsistent artstyle that’s an issue. The direction / writing / execution doesn’t feel quite perfect, though I can’t really put a finger on it. I am no anime connoisseur 😅

It is certainly not A1 studio at their best when you consider the rest of their portfolio. In their defence, this anime aired in 2012. Of course the studio is going to improve given time.

Earlier I said that this anime is underrated, but don’t get me wrong: its rating is 80% at the moment, so it’s not like the rating is low. It’s just that the story is so great that it felt much more than that.

If you refer to the top recommendations on its AniList page, you will see that it’s all peak: Made in Abyss, The Promised Neverland, and the likes. That should give you a clue as to the type and level of story it is.

Personally, without spoiling too much, it felt much more like a mix of [Attack on Titan] and The Summer Hikaru Died to me. Or the whole

anime title; mild? meta spoiler

Sword Art Online: Alicization

arc. I was surprised that I had to submit this recommendation given how on the nose this one is.

Other anime of underrated similarity include:

multiple anime titles; mild? meta spoiler

- Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet - DARLING in the FRANXX

Long story short, the plot of this anime is too good, or at the very least it’s right up my alley. It embodies the saying “History is written by the victors”.

I tend to weigh my enjoyment of the story way higher than other aspects of the anime, so this one defaults to a 10/10 for now. Definitely going into my Peak Politics list.

By the way, when I first saw the queerats, I thought that

From the New World spoiler

the authorities transformed the children into queerats.

Although my guess turned out to be wrong, it wasn’t too far off 😎 I gotta say, I like their twist better.

Also, to those who have watched it, or even better, those who have read the source material:

question regarding From the New World

When Mamoru was about to be done in by the Tainted Cat, how was he saved? We saw a portal sucking the cat in - how did it came about? Was someone responsible for creating the portal? If so, what was their motive?

WIP

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Unboxious@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

It has always bothered me when anime characters just wave while facing away from the others. Sure, perhaps it reduces animation effort, but it’s so unrealistic.

I actually had a Korean girl do this to me once when I was in college. Maybe it’s an east-asian thing? Not exactly a large sample size here though, so also maybe not.

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nyan@lemmy.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

question regarding From the New World

I always had the impression that it was the adults.

spoiler
I mean, it becomes pretty clear toward the end that the kids were under heavy surveillance, even if the adults didn’t usually interfere because they wanted to see what results going light on their conditioning would have. If the cat was trying to kill Mamoru because it saw him as not properly conditioned, the adults might have stopped it because that was what he was intended to be and having the cat kill him wasn’t useful.

A note about other versions/source material: The proper source material, which is a novel, has never been officially translated as far as I know. The manga, which I think is a separate adaptation of the novel, had a reputation for leaning too heavily into the “bonobos” aspect, if you know what I mean.

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- Endmaker@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  From the New World spoiler
  > the adults might have stopped it because that was what he was intended to be and having the cat kill him wasn’t useful
  
  This doesn’t make sense.
  
  From the New World spoiler
  During Saki’s court hearing - the one headed by the Board of Education - I thought it was made quite clear that they attempted to kill Mamoru. The cat should be acting on behalf of the BoE. The way the conversation went when Tomiko joined in, it sounded as though BoE failed in their murder attempt due to circumstances outside their control. So if the adults are responsible for saving Mamoru: 1. does that mean that the BoE changed their mind? or 2. were there opposing factions among the adults? Within BoE? Point 2 is certainly plausible. We have already seen the Ethics committee intervened to save Saki.
  
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  - nyan@lemmy.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It’s been, I think, four years since my last rewatch, so it’s hardly surprising that my memory is fuzzy. I made a quick check of Wikipedia in an attempt to restore some details to my sieve-like brain.
    
    spoiler
    Tomiko (or someone allied with her) seems like the most probable person to have dealt with the Tainted Cat, since she’s shown throughout not to want the children eliminated if possible. (Not that she could save Shun, but he was too obviously out of control, whille Mamoru seems to have been more of a borderline case.)
    
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e0qdk@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Out of curiosity, have you watched Shiki?

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- Endmaker@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Nope, why?
  
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  - e0qdk@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It has some similarities, and yeah, you might find it interesting.
    
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