ReluctantlyZen

Hard disagree. Some examples from the past 5-ish years:

• Frieren
• Cyberpunk Edgerunners
• Apothecary Diaries
• Journal With Witch
• Chainsaw Man (the movie in particular)
• Witch From Mercury
• Apocalypse Hotel
• Dandadan
• Delicious in Dungeon
• Bocchi the Rock

There are many more and even more if we start counting the last 10 years.

Gifted Every Strength - Loathe

Oh for sure, but it’d be a shame to not watch such a classic imo. It ends unfinished, but it doesn’t leave with any cliffhangers or anything.

For spice & wolf, the original is still great too

I so wish for a new season of Land of the Lustrous. It’s so good

I don’t think that means Bocchi is a blueprint for anything.

As good as it is, I don’t see how Bocchi the Rock is a blueprint for girls band anime tbh. For one, it’s too recent to even tell and it’s not like there are newer girls band anime trying to follow Bocchi’s formula.

I also don’t think that it’s doing anything new to even function as a blueprint.

Same for AoT.

It has a similarish vibe, but it’s way more out there

I wanted to watch Reincarnated as a Sword S2 (aka Sword Dad), but when I started I realized I didn’t remember anything from S1. I watched some reviews and read some recaps but for so many things I just did not remember anything. Guess it’s time to rewatch S1.

Otherwise, Apothecary Diaries is getting into its stride again and I love it. Ramparts of Ice S2 is great too. I love how it’s more or less the opposite of You And I Are Polar Opposites in how the relationships work out.

Man, I did not like season 3 and its ending when it came out. The whole thing was so wishy-washy, convoluted and non-sensical at times. Such a shame, because I loved S1 and 2

I did watch, but dropped it. It was a bore and not too coherent.

For some reason I read “storytelling advantage” as “brain damage”

that the marriage bomb was meant as a “soft reset” to step over the whole mess with misunderstandings and lack of communications.

Absolutely

Maybe author will go back to wrap it up eventually but I’m won’t be holding my breath on that.

I hope not tbh, that entire thing was a mess and I wasn’t very invested in it because of that.

I do hope the mangaka can get things going again though, not as convoluted this time.

Ending the entire thing would be better though, but I get that the mangaka might not want that now that’s probably a pretty stable source of income. That’s the both the up- and downside of serialization I suppose.

I’ve started reading Hitoner. It’s a really fun manga about a human being an alien on a planet where pretty much every animal has gone through a similar evolution as humans have

I’m sad Taizuma never became a thing, but sometimes it just works out like that. Glad to see they’re still close though. It can still happen…

On another note, did the manga get axed or something? The latter half of the anime had been feeling like it was rushing and as far as I understand, it didn’t deviate much from the manga. I wouldn’t mind having more… Many romance anime/manga get drawn out, so I’m happy that’s not the case here, but the pace compared to S1 was insanely fast.

It’s been a neat season. I’ve watched/still watching:

• Clevatess S2: a bit of a downgrade unfortunately. It was flashback and exposition galore which made the pace extremely slow. It was still overall enjoyable. 1 more ep to go though.
• You and I Are Polar Opposites S2: still adorable, but it felt like it was rushing and skipping so much, especially in the 2nd half. Also still 1 ep to go.
• Though I Am An Inept Villainess: really fun. Reirin’s positive attitude is infectious.
• Draw This Then Die: a good, heartfelt anime about creating things and the driving force behind it.
• Jaadugar: a great historical anime in a setting and with cultures you rarely see in anime (or western media for that matter). The artstyle was also very unique and very refreshing. I hope for a 2nd season, because there’s still so much more to see. I did struggle a bit with how nonchalant it was about slavery, at times even almost positive. I guess, in that time period it was normal, but still.
• Kaiju Girl Caramelise: I just binged this one yesterday. It was good, but ending it there was mean. So much that’s left unsaid.

Netflix is notoriously bad at this. CR gets a bad rep, but compared to Netflix they’re a godsend.

CR’s new player can actually do this, but Chainsmoker Cat is not done by CR. This is on Netflix

Unexpected progress!

I’m not a fan of proprietary apps and DRM

That’s fair. I use Kobo mainly because they’re easy to remove the DRM from.

I simply prefer reading physical

Mostly same, but space is becoming a thing for me. Digital is easier for travel too.

Nah they won’t stop

My question was meant to be rhetorical

Whoops haha.

I’m curious how well physical releases work for manhwa.

It works pretty well. Obviously, it’s not a scroll, so they restructure how and where panels are placed. Everything’s still there, but it’s much more like a manga (or more like a comic, since the read order is how western comics are read) and tbh, I really prefer that over the vertical format. The vertical format makes it too easy to quickly scroll through.

I’d like to check that out some day.

If you’d like a cheaper way to check it out, you could buy the e-book versions on Kobo or something. They’re the same as the phyiscal, except, well, digital. If you need a rec, check out Villains Are Destined To Die.

They are more expensive than manga, but that’s because they are fully coloured

So now there’s no legal way to read this stuff anymore?

You compete with a sea of trash machine translations, how can you lose to that?

Point systems suck. They obscure how much you’re actually spending, to make you not notice the next reason: Being pretty damn expensive. 1 chapter. typically costs 450 ink (or 405 ink if you enable 1-tap spending, but same difference tbh given how you purchase ink). Using the minimum purchase amount of 1600 ink for 2,19 euro, that translates to rougly 63 eurocents.

By itself that doesn’t sound too expensive. But it piles up really quick. Reading only 9 chapters of something already costs more than the MangaPlus Deluxe subscription of 5,49 euro. Say you only follow 3 series that you pay for. Most release weekly. So that’s about 12 chapters a month. And you don’t even own it despite “buying” it (of course, they’ll say you’re buying ink, not manhwa).

So 12 chapters is 5400 or 4860 ink. Let’s use the latter. For that, you’ll have to buy the 5,49 euro tier. That nets you 5000 ink. You can only read those 12 chapters. So if you want to read anything else, you’ll have to spend 10,99 euro for the next tier.

Let’s say you find a new series you want to catch up with, say Villains Are Destined to die. This has 226 chapters so far. 1st 3 are free, the rest are pay or wait until free (available for 3 days). If you don’t want to wait, you can shell out 90.315 ink, which you have to get the 109,99 euro tier for. And again, all you own is the ink, not the chapters.

Now, that’s still not too expensive compared to the physical volumes (though more expensive than the e-books), but again, you own nothing, they’re obscuring how much you spend and it is much more expensive than something like MangaPlus.

Anyway, that was very long 😅

Netflix makes Crunchyroll look like a good platform by comparison

Agreed. Anytime I open Netflix I want to close it again. The UX is soooooo annoying

Gonna keep it to 1 per composer, otherwise this list would be full of Kajiura Yuki and Kensuke Ushio.

• Garden of Sinners: Kajiura Yuki’s magnum opus in my opinion. Great themes, awesome atmospherics. It wouldn’t be Garden of Sinners without her music.
• Attack on Titan s1-3 : Sawano’s magnum opus imo. The definition of hype soundtracks for me. Never fails to get me fired up during the show. It’s a shame that he was replaced for the Final Seasons.
• Liz and the Blue Bird: I dearly love this style of Kensuke Ushio combined with the amazing orchestral piece that the band plays. Kensuke brings such a fragile sound that works really well with the themes of the anime and then the orchestral piece ties the entire thing together. I can’t help but cry during the oboe solo.
• NieR Automata ver 1.1a: cheating a bit because I love the game’s soundtrack so much and they pretty much straight up used it here.
• Ghost in the Shell (1995): I don’t think it needs much explanation.
• Violet Evergarden: Evan Call’s use of wind instruments is incredible in this soundtrack. It works so well.

Honorable mentions:

• Monogatari series: soooo many amazing themes
• Chainsaw man Reze Arc soundtrack: Kensuke Ushio again. Mostly because of the pool scene. The rest is really good too though
• A Silent Voice: another Kensuke Ushio one. That one scene… Fuck dude
• Apothecary Diaries
• Terror in Resonance:
• Madoka Magica: Kajiura Yuki
• Fate series (ufotable run): Heaven’s Feel in particular. Incredible work by Kajiura Yuki again. My main issue with Zero and UBW soundtracks is that the theming isn’t that strong.
• Fate/Stay Night (Deen version): for all its faults, the soundtrack is actually quite good and is kinda why F/Z and F/UBW have gone down in my ranking for soundtracks due to the themes.
• Frieren: Another good Evan Call one, but Violet edges this one out because it has stronger themes imo.
• Land of the Lustrous: great arrangements. Using different arrangements for different groups isn’t necessarily new, but it’s executed brilliantly here.
• Clannad: the dango theme never fails to make me cry
• Cowboy Bepop
• Your Name
• Yuru Camp: I love the simple and relaxing guitar soundtrack

I do get the impression that GitS and it’s original source material is more interested in showing us cool set pieces and presenting philosophical arguments

Having only watched the 1st movie, I get that.

However, I’d say Akira only has the setpieces.

Experiencing it in the late 80’s/early 90’s might have left a very different impression.

I mean, a lot of the animation is still impressive today. And I guess it’s probably been a big influence for the cyberpunk aesthetic in anime and manga (if we ignore Bladerunner). But in terms of story-telling? I’m not sure what unique thing it was doing at the time. I see many reviews still praising its story and its message.

I guess the mangaka hit the reset switch lol

I watched the Akira 4K remaster in the theater yesterday. Also the 1st time I ever saw Akira (I know…).

And tbh, I don’t get why it’s so highly regarded. Like, the animation was sick (especially for the time), but the rest felt so underdeveloped. It also didn’t help that I couldn’t stand Kaneda and Tetsuo.