sleet01

This is a tough one… the first anime I saw was Space Battleship Yamato, imported into the US as Star Blazers, but outside of thinking that it was completely different from other cartoons I didn’t know anything else about it.

Eventually I caught some episodes of Harlock and saw that there was more than one show with this style, but didn’t realize they both came from an entirely different industry.

Through the next 5~6 years I came to recognize the “anime look” in various other media - many American cartoons farmed their intros out to TMS or Toei and it was obvious that there was something different going on - and Japan was constantly in the news as their economy (actually The Bubble) took off and big American businesses reacted to that “threat”.

Around this time I saw the Galaxy Express 999 movie on VHS, partly because it looked cool but mostly because I knew by then that Lieji Matsumoto was the artist behind Yamato and Harlock and wanted more of that.

So that might be the first anime I watched because I knew what it was. But “anime” wasn’t really in the vernacular then; it was still “Japanese cartoons”, or maybe “Japanimation”.

The first anime that I watched because I knew it was “anime” was probably Bubblegum Crisis: a friend’s brother got fansub tapes at the big local university and brought them back to share around over summer break.

He also brought Urotsukidoji, but that’s a story for another time…

Gonna watch this at lunch!

Casting Hishikawa Hana and then having her do her best Mao Mao impression has to be intentional, right?

I’d been aware of Jojo since the '90s, but I never got into it until accidentally watching just one episode: Battle Tendency #16, “The Birth of a Superbeing.”

I think Tokyo MX was running the first season again due to Stardust Crusaders starting up that April.

I was just channel hopping and happened to catch it right at the start, but I was hooked immediately.

After that I watched season one from the first episode, then re-watched it once Stardust Crusaders was done… and then re-watched it 2 more times.

We’re on our 5th re-watch right now and I can’t say for sure that there won’t be more after this -_-;

It’s fascinating to watch the love octagon around Seiroku getting filled in.

We blew through three or four other Reijou shows this season, now I’m chomping at the bit to see how this one turns out.

Oh, yeah, Sawako is the poster child, to my mind.

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Houzuki-sama… mostly.

Gotta love my b-list broken engagement anime

…is probably the title of the isekai version of this story, coming next spring from Cygames…

I guess 2026 is just the Year of the Gray-Haired Punch Girls…

• blows dust off classic Fellowes floppy disk caddy *

“Gimme some sugar, baby!”

Iirc the studio made it a point to stick close to some of the manga frames in certain places, for impact and to pay homage to the original art, so anytime they go black and white or extra-Art Noveau I just assume it’s that.

Seconding 08th MS Team and IGLOO for Gundam. Both look at the One Year War from the level of grunts, to the setting’s benefit (I think).

The only problem with watching LotGH is you end up getting unreasonably excited listening to classical music ever after.

I will personally endorse both of these series, both as a viewer and former military.

Watch Last Exile with zero prep, zero research - try to figure it out as you go.

Watch Golden Kamuy after watching Gintama, for, uh, historical background.

Anybody else think Coco drawing more straight lines might be a recipe for disaster?

WHO THE HELL IS “GAPACHO”?!?!

Journal With Witch is so good!

I’d also recommend A Place Further Than the Universe.

This was a really good one, and I think made stronger by the relatively small cast (for the most part).

Tartah seems perfectly adept with sigils so it’s strange he hasn’t used them himself, even with the eye thing…

That witch is like the stereotypical bad Texan:

“Where are you headed - Wizard Tower? Okay, I’ll need you to pull in to lane 4 and put your hat in park.”

Yeah, one thing Japanese SF really seems to like is time travel with protagonists so stupid you can’t believe they survive the whole story. Sometimes it’s endearing, sometimes it’s just draining - like Tokyo Revengers.

Why are they so fixated on messing with Coco?

Yeah, that’s the big mystery.

My guess is that they go around the country setting up honey traps that only kids with magic potential are drawn to, and then try to lure them to the brimmed side.

It also sounds like there might be some, uh, lingering resentment over the whole “purging of healers and unapproved magic users” thing, so I’m thinking revenge might be a motivator.

Wasn’t the point that Eyeball could mess with Coco’s ink anytime they wanted?

And that mixing blood with ink seemed to make the magic far more powerful, hence the explosion of light when Qifrey tried it?

Coco didn’t know anything about the paired bottles, she just thought magic ink did that.

And this seems to explain how Coco, already clearly shown not to be the most effective witch, was able to desertify an entire river.