2018Iz: A Year Further Than The Universe

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Iz 🌟 View member profile	15th December 2018, 11:38 AM Post #1
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	Greetings, everyone! Allow me to infest your great EOY forum with my favourite countdown that does not involve songs at all - my list of favourite anime of the year. In which I talk entertainingly (one hopes) about the shows that were Chinese cartoons that I've watched this year. Of course, this is all getting crossposted to my blog, but I also wish to record it to Buzzjack. Even if you've never heard of anything here, and you probably won't have aside from maybe a couple, I promise it's worth the most reading out of all of the things that you know nothing about. That was a weird sentence. for legal purposes I am contractually required to state that contrary to my earlier statement, there actually will be music involved in this countdown, I shall be examining and leaving links to all of the relevant anime music within the countdown, and, of more interest to you guys, I will attempt to at the end give a rundown of my favourite "normie" songs of the year. films, tv shows and games do exist but I don't think they will make an appearance. Let me sum those up real quick. Films: A Silent Voice, Zootopia, a few older films I saw for the first time like a couple of Tarantinos, some others throughout the year, I rarely go to the cinema and in fact don't think I did this year with the exception of Mamma Mia 2. The end. Mamma Mia 2 is my number 1 new film of 2018. Suck it. TV Shows that are non-weeb: Netflix has enabled me a bit here, I've done Orange Is The New Black, the whole thing, Brooklyn 99, which is very funny, watched Skins for the first time (British shock #1), properly watching Sherlock (British shock #2), Black Mirror S4 was great, very much looking forward to S5, watched The End Of The F**king World very quickly one time. Better Call Saul I have started and am very much enjoying. I hope that's sufficient evidence to prove I can be normal. And then there's the cartoons. Bojack Horseman was a REVELATION, probably my favourite new-to-me TV Show of the year, and Rick & Morty was also very solid with a ton of good episodes. Great shows, I recommend them all. Games: First half of the year, new obsession with The Binding Of Isaac plus continual Europa Universalis IV and occasional Crusader Kings II. Second half of the year, Hearthstone, and got tempted back to Runescape for the first time in a few years so that. Included is also random playing of my huge Steam Library, more notable minor faves include Civilization V & VI, Slay The Spire, Rocket League, and Cities:Skylines. Hearthstone takes the title of best new to me game of this year though, though I have to be careful not to spend money on it, it's been really fun getting into it proper competitively (well, not proper PROPER competitively) like. and that's the three most major non-music sections of entertainment done and dusted in one post, on to the interesting part


Iz 🌟 View member profile	15th December 2018, 11:45 AM Post #2
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	I have a fairly normal sized looking TWENTY-SIX shows to enter into my annual End Of Year. I'm no anime influencer or however they are called, I can't watch everything, but I do still watch a fair few. Standard rules apply, and I'll just go over a refresher of them. 1. The show can have been released in any year. So that's from original Dragonball and before to the latest episode of Pokemon. To give a 2018 feel to the countdown, any show from the most recent SIX anime seasons (Summer 2017 onwards), will have a separate counter for 2018 only. 2. It must have been my first time watching the show this year. No rewatches, or Haruhi would show up every other year or so. Not this year though. 3. I must have watched at least part of 2 episodes or more for it to qualify. This eliminates pilots that I wasn't interested enough to try more, or just forgot about. The fairly popular Cells At Work this year falls into the latter category. I watched the first episode and enjoyed it but never got around to continuing. I can't think right now if there was anything from the former, but it normally precludes me having to talk about something I saw 5 minutes of. While being consistent to my own rules. 4. I can't have covered it in a previous EOY... if what I covered in the previous EOY was a supermajority (60%+) of the show. This is so that if I finish something from last year (e.g. Fate/Apocrypha, check this link for my thoughts on the ending in that particular case), I don't talk about it again, but so I can continue talking about shows I have bouts of watching like Gintama and FMA: Brotherhood. 5. Tentacle Rating. A tongue-in-cheek rating that I do in the rundown that evaluates on a combination of how 'weird' (firstly) and 'culturally Japanese' (secondly) the show is. Tentacles are chosen as the embodiment of those two things combined. Basically a yardstick whereby 0/10 could be a normal Netflix show and 10/10 (or more) is the weirdest most anime thing you can think of. The reason for the Japanese part is largely to give shows that rely on Japanese pop culture knowledge or traditions being implied for the viewer a slightly higher rating as it's also more inaccessible to those not into anime but for different reasons. And onto the stage. Let's go with the worst of those that I managed to watch this year: The Bad 26. And You Thought There Is Never A Girl Online? (first 4 episodes) 'Life is suckware. I want to quit playing' Genre: Wish-fulfillment... MMO-flavoured Tentacle Rating: 7/10, it involves JRPGs, girls being interested in the main character, a few boobs here and there Why did I start watching this? A clear trash heap of blandness consigned to the anime bin of forgetting a few years ago, I think I was just bored on Crunchyroll and looking for something to watch, and the title, light novels being the Japanese homage to clickbait, reeled me in. Let's get to business. Blandy McBlandface at average Japanese highschool, in his second year (probably), who sits by the window second desk from the back (probably), I can't be arsed to go and verify, is a (conventionally attractive yet also featureless) nerd who plays MMOs in his spare time. He is in a guild/clan with two other guys and a girl, they have fun playing the game. Sort of, we don't really see anything meaningful to suggest that the game is anything other than an average shovelware MMO. In his real life, there are bland students in his school, including a cookie-cutter shy girl, cookie-cutter tsundere girl (angry on the outside until you get to know them), and a cookie-cutter student council president girl. All the archetypes at their most basic and low-effort. His gaming guild decide to have a meetup and wouldn't you know it, guess who are the three other members of the guild? Yes, that is unfortunately correct. In an online game, where they met randomly. Every character in the online game that we see goes to or works at the same school. That's not mere coincidence, that doesn't just break the suspension of disbelief, it suspends coincidence and disbelief from a taut cable wire and launches them into the atmosphere. So then they decide to form a gaming club to play the game. There is no real comment on the girls gender swapping from the game to real life (in fact, after the reveal, they mostly appear in the game as their female characters). And that was the final straw, the gender swap commentary was the only part I was interested in, and I just couldn't be bothered to continue. This story which was unremarkable in every aspect of its being was not worth my time. The only possible people who could enjoy this are teenage boys who can self-insert to the MC because of his lack of traits and like the idea of being friends with GIRL GAMERS. Gamers did this setup so much better in 2017. In four clear ways. Firstly, by not showing the games, the games are rarely interesting by themselves, as wish-fulfilment machines themselves they tend to suck away conflict and drama except in unusual circumstances like an SAO death-game, it's best to find an alternative avenue of drama, as Gamers did by focusing on romantic entanglements. Secondly, having a main character that while fairly blank, still had his own traits, in Gamers, he liked a certain type of game, was shy and uncertain and had differing relationships with the girls based on their personalities that it made them all feel more like real people. Thirdly, actually giving personalities to the characters overall, and crucially, having that second male character. That makes it feels like a story with a point, and not dreamland material. As well as someone interesting for the main guy to bounce off without the implicit assumption of romanticism. Finally, it was funny. This didn't crack a smile. Fortunately I found another show that scratched the MMO itch I was looking for further up. Best Episode: I refuse. Music: Nope. Characters: Okay, to be fair, the shy girl, Ako, was slightly entertaining because she seems to have a trauma where she believes the gaming world is real and all non-gaming 'normies' must die. I can relate to this feeling. And she's hopelessly in love with the main character (bad) and constantly calls him by his in-game name (slightly good). The rest... trash, dump, byebye. 25. Pop Team Epic 16th in 2018 'you are motherf*er' Genre: Skit anti-comedy Tentacle Rating: 5/10 if only because if you're into that sort of humour, then it does transcend borders, but obviously there are a lot of special Japanese references. Yes, I already wrote a polemic (and I'll continue calling it exactly that here) on this and what was said then still mostly applies, but let's repeat it a little. This trash of anti-humour nonsense snared me into watching it for a couple of episodes. It had a few interesting ideas here and there, a few good parodies, and spoofing Endless Eight for episode 8 by repeating it eight times on airing, but this wasn't enough. Pop Team Epic was a troll show that seemed to set out to annoy its audience from the get go by subverting expectations that didn't need to be subverted, and getting its non anti-joke humour from fourth wall breaking that was like taking a wrecking ball to said wall. I came to anime to get away from unfunny tryhard comedy, so this was a mistake. A poor Robot Chicken, which in itself is fairly unfunny. Good comedy breathes life into its situations, this... does not. Admittedly I never gave it much of a chance but after that awful first episode and the second doing very little to convince me that they had original ideas that I wouldn't expect, I was not there for it. Best Episode: na Music: uhh.... no Characters**: not even gonna start. The gimmick for the characters is that two deformed-looking anime girls that are voiced by different (I assume) celebrities each week, including male VAs. So each episode has a different feel, and each episode is released twice with two sets of voices. But there's no consistency to the characters either, not as far as I watched. And that does it for the bad series. Like with last year, I only watched a few episodes of them each, and there were only two. Mediocre up next.


Iz 🌟 View member profile	17th December 2018, 04:34 AM Post #3
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	The Mediocre 23. Kakegurui - Compulsive Gambler 15th in 2018 'but having such an excessive advantage is boring too, don't you think?' Genre: gambling high-school Tentacle Rating: 8/10. The faces make sure of that one, and the perverted nature that so many of the characters have, including audible moaning noises when they get aroused by gambling (yes really) really places this one under scrutiny of weirdness. Not to mention the character design is quite similar to your average smutty hentai are out there. Okay, imagine a school where many of the students are rich arseholes. Not too much of a stretch right? Now imagine that they have limitless access to their parents credit cards. Unusual, but I suppose possible. Now imagine that they do nothing with it but gamble in increasingly ridiculous high-stakes matches for it in order to perpetuate an invented social order within the school. Okay, given the ability of teenagers to attempt the unexpected, even when unexpected seems incredibly stupid, I suppose that is fairly realistic too. Anyway, here's Kakegurui, to remind you why that scenario is completely implausible. Kakegurui is set around a girl, Yumeko, entering this highschool, apparently because she gets incredible lady boners from gambling away fortunes of money and not a whole lot else. She's the main character. Now I have to stop it there, and say that while she is the main character, we don't really get inside her head. Most main characters in anime have a very common amount of internal thoughts, especially in a series like this where so much of the action must take place in the characters' heads, but Yumeko is so unusual because we spend time in every other character's head, but she remains a mysterious presence throughout. She's both kind of cool and endlessly infuriating through this, as she is the one driving the decisions, but you rarely get her commenting on why she does what she does, and it so often makes no sense. Unless you truly believe her one single motivation, that she just loves high-stakes gambling, the higher the better. It really does go high, far too high for me to care. At the levels they are talking about the average encounter goes like this: Yumeko : I bet ten thousand yen. Antagonist: Well, you are not taking this seriously enough, I bet a million yen! Yumeko : Just as I expected, you've shown your hand. I raise, I match, and I bet a billion yen that I hold the right cards to beat you. death poker face glares Not quite as inane as that but the point I'm getting is that the amounts mean nothing to our characters, so why should they mean anything to us? I found it so rare while watching the series that any of the over-explained, high-stakes, battle of wits and monologue 'fights' that I love so much in other series, meant anything to me in Kakegurui, and this meant it was a struggle to get through the episodes. Memorable and interesting moments were few and far between, one of the gamblers threatening death, the final act with all of the tarot cards, but I find myself having very little memory of this anime that was good. Music: I didn't like the OP. As in, really didn't like it. It's this sort of old-timey jazzpop number and I just found it annoying. So I skipped it. A real rarity in anime. Best Episode: Gambling Woman, the finale. Using a game of Tarot, it felt like much more of a contest than some of the other games, particularly as it wasn't just Yumeko playing and the supporting guy character had to play a pivotal role. Characters: Yumeko is a really weird one. She was both entertaining and boring, you never knew what she was thinking, which made her intriguing, then she'd go and do something stupid and you'd lose respect for her as a gambling genius. Possibly done to increase the thriller level but it makes her look wildly unpredictable. The rest of the characters mostly played to stereotypes, though I did enjoy the tsundere Mary for a good while. 23. The Ancient Magus' Bride 14th in 2018 Genre: Magical fantasy (set in Britain) Tentacle Rating: 3/10 - Despite the premise being that of an old man buying a young girl to be his future bride (in addition to all the magical stuff), it's surprisingly mostly rather heartwarming and free of any suspicious stuff. Plus it's set in Britain so it felt quite familiar to me. The Ancient Magus' Bride is a curious case. The big show of Fall 2017, I started watching it largely because of that, and the fact that it's a magic show set in Britain and like with Little Witch Academia, we're supposed to love those. Now this is a fair bit above Kakegurui in quality for me, but still quite low, because ultimately, I never found myself truly engaged with the main story and didn't get round to finishing it because I was bored of it. That's how these reviews are subjective and flawed, because it did garner plenty of praise, it just ended up not truly being my thing. What is it? Well, to explain away that Tentacle Rating bit that has got those not in the know a bit curious, the story is that young Chise, a Japanese orphan girl with no direction in life, kicked out by her unfeeling stepfamily and living homeless, decides to sell herself at an auction for the highest bidder. A dark-robed figure with an animal skull for a head promptly buys her, and everyone just nods and smiles at just how normal this is. He brings her all the way to Britain, to his country house, and then asks her to marry him. While also telling her that he's hundreds of years old. She is... sixteen. What follows isn't some sort of creepy bondage horror thing, no, it's quite normal. In societal ways, less so in fantastical ways. In societal ways, Chise lives with Elias, the skull guy, and his assortment of not-quite-human servants, including Ruth, a boy who shapeshifts into a dog, and Silky, a fairy housewife. She goes round exploring the British country village that (though this is modern day and there are scenes in London Paddington and modern London) is straight out of fairy-book 1870 or earlier. On the magical side, she meets up with a wide variety of woodland sprites, spirits, faeries, satyrs, taking some names from English oral tradition, like Oberon and Titania, as well as wizards and witches from the magical world, that hide among modern society. And they also travel to the Land Of Dragons a lot, which is located in Iceland but with a nice green grove for more magical wildlife to hide away. Where Little Witch Academia felt like Harry Potter, it was the schooling side. Ancient Magus takes the opposite direction, it's not the setting, but the world that feels very magical in a traditional English way - not just Potter, although partly that, but also our tradition of fairy tales and Shakespearian fey things like Midsummer Night's Dream. It's got a great atmosphere, and a good set of influences. The author did his research when making an anime that would feel truly traditionally English. It's just that the story within doesn't feel as essential to me, it's one of these masterfully lush settings a week with new characters and new magical beings and the slow sense of an overarching plot but not one that managed to hold my interest. Easily could be a great anime for someone who's watching it, but I never felt it. Music: Here we come to the first really great musical piece in this countdown. To add a musical feel to this countdown. I'll give the names of all of the ones worth mentioing, so you can look them up. Junna - Here is a wonderful emotional piece of J-Pop with just the right rises and falls and piano playing to make you tear up a little, and if you like this anime more than me, it'll be more than a little. Best Episode: Actually, the prequel, which has nothing to do with the main story and instead has Chise as a child finding a library in the centre of the forest with a strange curator who welcomes her in, but later comes under attack. It later becomes important for one arc of the story, but I thought the whole hour was really quite interesting, again a traditional fairytale about this magical place that someone is welcomed into and once they leave, they are told they can't go back to. Sold me on the rest of the series up to a point (although the bookends, which take place after about episode 8, sort of spoiled me on who some of the characters were). Characters: Ruth was the most interesting character to me as he had the most intriguing backstory, and who isn't interested in a shapeshifter? Some of the one-shots were quite good too, like Molly, the last King Of The Cats, a truly regal feline she was.


Last Dreamer View member profile	17th December 2018, 07:19 AM Post #4
With Kristina in heart Joined: 28 March 2017 Posts: 3,815 User: 28,104	QUOTE(Izzy Blizzard @ Dec 15 2018, 11:38 AM) films, tv shows and games do exist but I don't think they will make an appearance. Let me sum those up real quick. Possibly I'm wrong, but your Japanese cartoons list will not get any attention from other forum members. Good to see such great choices as Civilization, Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis in your best games selection. I prefer MTG : Arena over Heartstone. It's also free online card game, so you can try it too. This post has been edited by Good Old Days: 18th December 2018, 07:40 AM


Iz 🌟 View member profile	17th December 2018, 01:44 PM Post #5
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	QUOTE(Good Old Days @ Dec 17 2018, 07:19 AM) Possibly I'm wrong, but Japanese cartoons will not make an appearance too. ??? Bad translation from Russian I imagine, and if you're insulting my cute waifus, be off with ye. QUOTE(Good Old Days @ Dec 17 2018, 07:19 AM) Good to see such great choices as Civilization, Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis in your best games selection. I prefer MTG : Arena over Heartstone. It's also free online card game, so you can try it too. Well, at least there's that. They are some of the best games. MTG Arena I do want to try, I doubt it'll get me as good as Hearthstone has, the f2p model on Hearthstone seems like the best out of all of the online card games.


Last Dreamer View member profile	18th December 2018, 07:39 AM Post #6
With Kristina in heart Joined: 28 March 2017 Posts: 3,815 User: 28,104	Oops, my previous post was fixed. Correct version : QUOTE Possibly I'm wrong, but your Japanese cartoons list will not get any attention from other forum members. This post has been edited by Good Old Days: 18th December 2018, 07:40 AM


Cowboy Cody View member profile	18th December 2018, 08:26 AM Post #7
new hair, new tee, new Levii’s Jeans Joined: 24 October 2014 Posts: 39,315 User: 21,308	lmao that Never A Girl Online thing sounds like a guilty pleasure and a half but there has got to be something that does that exact theme better lol (also taking the time to shamelessly plug Darling In The Franxx bc that's strangely addicting)


J00prstar View member profile	18th December 2018, 07:43 PM Post #8
there's nothing straight about plump Elvis Pronouns: they/any Joined: 21 January 2016 Posts: 13,145 User: 22,895	As I've just started rewatching anime (albeit mainly with classic series) this is interesting to me! Tho I must say most of these so far are trending too much towards lighthearted for my taste! (not judging mind, totally your choice to watch whatever you're into!)


Iz 🌟 View member profile	19th December 2018, 02:22 PM Post #9
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	QUOTE(Good Old Days @ Dec 18 2018, 07:39 AM) Oops, my previous post was fixed. Correct version : not an issue. It's niche but there's a few on here, and anyway, even if there weren't any, this countdowns forum is the HAVEN of the unpopular and untouched. QUOTE(CodySleighBell-y @ Dec 18 2018, 08:26 AM) lmao that Never A Girl Online thing sounds like a guilty pleasure and a half but there has got to be something that does that exact theme better lol (also taking the time to shamelessly plug Darling In The Franxx bc that's strangely addicting) quite. It's not quite the same but the show in 19th has a lot of the same qualities as Girl Online but is overall just so much better (largely because the characters are proper adults). watch out for Darling In The Franxx. I have a lot to say about that when it turns up in this countdown. For better or worse, though it's not the best it's in my eyes unquestionably the show that defined anime in 2018. QUOTE(MÿrtleSnow @ Dec 18 2018, 07:43 PM) As I've just started rewatching anime (albeit mainly with classic series) this is interesting to me! Tho I must say most of these so far are trending too much towards lighthearted for my taste! (not judging mind, totally your choice to watch whatever you're into!) Excellent! I do have a few classic series in this countdown, well, a few from the early-mid 00s at least. One of these days I'm actually going to get around to watching NGE and that'll probably open the floodgates for me to go for other classics like Serial Experiments Lain or a Gundam and maybe even Legend Of The Galatic Heroes (?). And I think that's a fair asssessment. I tend to watch more comedy than drama as though darker shows are often my favourites, I don't watch too many heavy shows at one time and what's also true of my favourites is that they are often dramas that include a fair bit of comedy to break up the heavier moments themselves. Taking a look at my top 22, I'd say about a third at least, up to maybe a half depending on your definition, aren't lighthearted, certainly some thriller if not full horror in there, and there's one show very high up that is certainly very dark. So it may change 22. Elfen Lied 'when you are miserable you need someone who is even more miserable than you to make you feel good about yourself' Genre: mid-00s edgy anime (and also a bit of sci-fi as for what it really is) Tentacle Rating: 7.5/10, it got huge notoriety back in the day as an anime that really went all out on the gore, so much so that it appeared to be a series that everyone had seen - not so much the case now where it's barely mentioned. Elfen Lied feels like a quite liminal, ephemeral anime, representing a transition stage between the older, barer anime, and the new HD anime built to air in seasons. It could have only existed when it did and no later, as plots of super bad secret government science went somewhat out of fashion across all media not long after 2004 when this was released (with the exception of things like Stranger Things that try to go for the nostalgia direct), at least in the cartoonish unrealistic sense presented here, yet it embodies so many traits that would become common among mid-00s anime. This includes the building of a harem, the small-town like scale of something that could clearly be much bigger, and most notably for me, the very dark and looming colour palette. You think of a 90s anime, you think blue skies, and garish ones at that. The 00s has a large trend towards darker skies (possibly influenced by Serial Experiments Lain?), shadows from nearby hills and if it is sunny, a somewhat dulled texture. This is probably due to advances in shading and I've gone off track. Elfen Lied, an anime wreathed in shadow. A secret government base filled with people going about their daily lives, until the monster they are holding breaks loose and kills them all. How Doctor Who. Except the monster appears to be in the form of a naked pink-haired young woman, and she can kill from a distance, with no visual indication of how she is slicing people's heads off. Or why. Meanwhile, in rural beach+hilltown Japan, some guy has moved back to a village he used to live at, meets his childhood friend, who presents him with a big mansion he's now effectively the owner of, she has a huge crush on him, and the two of them start making friends with any random waif(u) they find off the street - like Nyu, a pink-haired girl who doesn't say a word except to mew sometimes. Shockingly, they get pulled into this government conspiracy as the search for the dangerous girl(?) continues, but mostly they, the guy and a ton of girls, have fun in this huge house and play happy families until the plot catches up to land more gore on the doorstep. I did watch the dub of Elfen Lied - only one available on Netflix, and as anime dubs, particularly the older ones, are prone to using exactly the same 4 voice actors, it sounded a little samey to other anime about the same age. I don't really mark it down for that though, I marked it down because the whole plot felt so basic. I am working on a theory that it does represent a very basic anime, being as I've already proclaimed it a starter point for 00s anime, that's not too much of a stretch. It's everything stereotypically anime in one, a harem, some moe, an edgy plot, some violence, and a story that hits the right notes but never goes too deep. That's mostly why I had to put it this low, because I've already seen nearly every part of this show before - albeit probably a lot of that through its descendants. Which is fine, because most of them bettered this. (and by the way, the title, which means in German 'Elfsong', is only the title because one of the songs in the story is also called Elfen Lied. Interesting title but means f*all in the actual story, sadly) Music: Lovely, lovely music. Lilium, the opening song, is this awesome, beautiful, church Latin type song. I never skipped it because of this, even though the opening visuals are quite slow with little going on. Adds a lot of weight to a story which doesn't really earn it otherwise. Best Episode: Hard to say, but I did get quite interested (finally) in the penultimate episode which did a fair few interesting reveals about characters I didn't expect to be that interesting. Characters: Lucy/Nyu is the most interesting character by far, with Nana not far behind. And both of these aren't normal people. Conclusion: normal people are deathly boring - as the rest of the protagonist party are pretty boring archetypes. The wildcard mercenary character I can particularly mark out as someone I didn't like, but that is probably because his voice actor sounded so strained. Dubs are bad, children. 21. Kokkoku** 14th in 2018 'don't stop, no turning back flashback' Genre: time shenanigans Tentacle Rating: 3/10, mostly a very normal and non-weird anime, there are a few moments with the monsters that are a little interesting but it's more creepy time trees than tentacles. Kokkoku was a fairly random seasonal anime that I largely picked up because of its great opening song, Flashback. Indeed that's probably the only reason why it's notable at all. The incredible catchiness of this song propelled the rest of the anime into stardom. The plot is... less unique. Well, I suppose that's a little bit unfair. There's a couple of interesting non-Flashback things about Kokkoku, firstly, its characters. Unlike many anime, which are centered around a group of friends, this one is centred around a family. Which I am surprised we don't see more of, given how traditional Japan sometimes is. Anyway, it's a family led by main girl Juri, a twenty-something who is out of work and desperately so. She lives with her father, her grandfather, her sister, brother and nephew. Her father is an unemployed layabout and not even trying to get back in the workforce, as is her brother, and her sister is a very busy mum. So the family isn't doing particularly great at the start of the story. Then her brother and nephew are kidnapped, and in response, her grandfather brings a magical stone out of hiding that allows them to stop time and move around in it. As you do. They go to rescue their family and find that the bad guys also have an ability to move around in stopped time. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game in this stasis as the environment of the stopped area becomes ever more hostile and we discover more about the state of Stasis. I'd have found it more interesting if the time-stopping ability wasn't just set to one adventure. The whole series takes place over this one situation which seems like a first episode first baddie situation. As more characters manage to find ways to bend the Stasis it seems more superfluous to the plot. The concept of stopping time is so big and overpowered I wanted to see it used more, with antagonists that countered how powerful of an ability it is each time with new situations. As it is, the series struggles to make the conflict interesting once the first conflict, that of the kidnapping has been resolved. I couldn't finish it because the rules of Stasis that came up to replace them weren't interesting and just added complexity to a situation I wished to move on from. Good character dynamics, but poor plot execution. Music: Miyavi vs Kenken - Flashback. That is it. Excellent song. The ending was fairly good also. This series was on point with the music. Best Episode: The first, because it was just really exciting and showed quite a bit of promise for a series that didn't really end up delivering. Characters: Juri and Gramps were a pretty cool leading duo, and Juri's dad was pretty good in how loathsome he looked and felt (for a guy on the side of good, ostensibly). The bad guys were pretty awful all around, sadly.


Iz 🌟 View member profile	20th December 2018, 02:07 AM Post #10
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	20. Tokyo Ghoul (Season 1) Genre: City thriller with cannibals Tentacle Rating: 1/10, it’s very popular for a reason, and that would be because despite the whole ghoul eating people thing, I don’t think it’s all that weird. This is fairly standard stuff for a thriller show. Tokyo Ghoul has been one of the more popular and more controversial anime in recent years. Much like Sword Art Online, it’s praised for having a decent if unspectacular first season and then derailing itself into what some people see as awfulness, but retaining huge popularity on the wide appeal of the premise. In SAO, it was being trapped in a video game, in Tokyo Ghoul, it’s the more natural thriller stuff of ‘what if you became a monster’? Ghouls, this series’ name for cannibals, as otherwise they look much like humans, prowl the streets of Tokyo and occasionally grab people to be eaten. As it turns out, this isn’t just one or two, it’s a whole network of cannibals operating in all of Tokyo’s districts. Somehow, normal life seems to go on just fine if you are a normal human like Ken Kaneki, until he survives a ghoul attack. While he is rescued, some of the ghoul’s organs are transferred into him and so when he comes to, he finds that he is a half-ghoul and must eat human flesh to survive – the taste of anything else becomes disgusting. Anything else, except coffee. In another victory for my ‘black coffee is supreme’ genre of TV shows, along with Star Trek Voyager, he is taken in by some friendly ghouls, who work in a coffee shop and pass themselves off as a form of le resistance by only eating compassionately killed, free-range human meat. Which reads: take the bodies from the suicide forest, because you might have heard that Japan is infamous for having one of those. Anyway, that’s only a minor plot point in the series, the real meat (har har) is from Kaneki coming up against more powerful, insane and evil ghouls, and also the story-relevant side of the long arm of the law, the ghoul hunters. And a lot of action including a fair few things I didn’t see coming and there goes season 1. Now I’ve heard that season 2 (Tokyo Ghoul √A) and season 3 (Tokyo Ghoul:re) get a lot worse, so I probably won’t continue seeing as I only found this one… okay. There’s character deaths, which because I watch so few edgy anime I’m pleased with having, there’s a decent story, but the plotholes kept building and I didn’t find too much unique or likeable among the characters (bar the very cute and smart Touka) to want to continue, and the villains were overall just different flavours of deranged. It just feels like a series that is popular for its interesting premise and reputation for edge but very shallow for it. Music: TK from Ling Tosite Sigure – Unravel which is bloody wonderful. LTS are good with me and their lead singer does great here, they also made the wonderful Psycho Pass OP and clearly have form with this kind of dark dystopic series. It’s very experimental breathy indie music (so not a typical OP at all) and it’s glorious. Glassy Sky is also rather wonderful but in a much calmer and emotional way. Best thing about this series was the music. Best Episode: Birdcage – for attempting to humanise one of the antagonists coming off of the back of the best fight scene in the series. It did it rather well. Characters: As mentioned, Touka was the main reason to watch and Ken wasn’t all that bad for a lead. Best villain was the Mado and Amon duo, who were quite bearable in comparison to the overthetop Tsukiyama. The Good 19. Recovery Of An MMO Junkie 13th in 2018 Genre: romantic comedy using an MMO as a shell Tentacle Rating: 2/10 – it’s a fairly normal romance story, except with adults who are horrendously socially inept and spend their free time playing video games… yeah that’s normal. Side note: The subtitle is Recommendation of the Wonderful Virtual World, which fits more with the plot, as it’s less about recovery from MMOs as how one MMO junkie uses her MMO to find happiness. So MMOs, those huge video games that demand large amounts of your free time just so you can advance a few levels are for children, because only children have that much free time, right? Or not, apparently. Because you can play with your friends in an MMO, several adults do this too (I’m one of them, although it’s sometimes less because I have friends to play with and sometimes more because I like setting myself huge goals in games like this). Some even quit their jobs over this. And, well, the job situation in Japan is such that I can see why someone would prefer the virtual world. It’s comforting. Anyway Morioko Morika (she has a funny name) is a thirty-something woman who has completely dropped out of the workforce. She’s in the enviable position of having enough savings to not need to work for at least the duration of the series, so when she dropped out of the corporate world, she went over to gaming and started searching for some meaning to her life, becoming a slob and shut-in. Still managing to look and sound reasonably attractive, but a slob. Which the anime portrays fairly well in its artstyle, she’s clearly a woman with decent natural beauty but she doesn’t take care of herself isn’t confident in her looks. And then I end up finding her normal, messy model more cute than when she does herself up later on. Anyway, she plays a guy online in her chosen MMO, met a girl called Lily, and a guy called Kanbe who help teach her the game, joins their guild, everything is lovely, yay. Except she doesn’t tell her guild, who are probably her closest friends at this point, that she’s a girl. She also ends up running into a guy who works at her old company, Yuta Sakurai, who’s half-British (you can tell because he’s blonde and ALL EUROPEANS IN ANIME ARE BLONDE AND MOST BUT NOT ALL BLONDE CHARACTERS IN ANIME ARE HALF-EUROPEAN SO THEY CAN BE BOTH ETHNICALLY AND VISUALLY DIVERSE AND ALSO ACCEPTABLY JAPANESE ENOUGH excuse me). And I mean actually run into each other, they collide on the street and she wakes up in hospital. What follows is a fairly predictable but heartwarming romance of two socially awkward adults getting to know each other and I really liked it. I related to both parties in a 1vs1 romantic comedy for the first time in I don’t know how long and I was really stoked to see each and every little interaction, especially Mori’s over-exaggerated worrying about how she comes across whenever she has to do human interaction, or Sakurai’s calm but concerned worrying at making further moves, it’s a romance plot I can believe in. And the backdrop of MMOs helps create a nice shell for the relationship. Yes, like with Girl Online there were coincidences about many people playing and meeting through one MMO living near each other, but I give it a much more leeway for two reasons. A) It’s a direct, focused romantic comedy that knows why it’s using the MMO as a story device to move its plot along rather than cheaply please the viewer and that makes the coincidence neat rather than annoying, B) there are a number of characters in the game that don’t appear in the real life sections, although naturally they become less important as the story shifts to the meat of the romantic comedy. It made the conceit of using an online game mean something, and I really appreciated that enough to enjoy going through it somewhat slowly recently. Music: Decent but unspectacular, romantic comedies don’t often make the best music. I enjoyed the ending (Yuuka Aisaka - Hikari Hikari) though for a little bit, it has a nice longing sound. Opening was fine and did have a few nice gaming sounds but was generic OP aside from that. Best Episode: Like A Maiden In Love. The fourth episode, it sets up all the dominos for the remainder of the series. The first three establish the situation, this puts forward the map of where the series is going and I love it for that. Characters: As has probably been made clear, the duo of Morioka and Sakurai is just wonderful and key to my enjoyment of this anime. The supporting cast were fine, but not very standout. All about the main two.


J00prstar View member profile	20th December 2018, 02:56 AM Post #11
there's nothing straight about plump Elvis Pronouns: they/any Joined: 21 January 2016 Posts: 13,145 User: 22,895	If you liked Elfen Lied you'll love NGE. Make sure and watch End Of Evangelion, the companion movie, too


Cowboy Cody View member profile	20th December 2018, 04:26 AM Post #12
new hair, new tee, new Levii’s Jeans Joined: 24 October 2014 Posts: 39,315 User: 21,308	why does that MMO junkie thing sound like a Netflix show begging to be made definitely checking that out


Iz 🌟 View member profile	20th December 2018, 01:01 PM Post #13
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	QUOTE(MÿrtleSnow @ Dec 20 2018, 02:56 AM) If you liked Elfen Lied you'll love NGE. Make sure and watch End Of Evangelion, the companion movie, too I feel like 2019 will be the year I finally watch it, if only because it's finally coming to Netflix and it'll be the first time it will have been on a legal streaming service in the West at all. It's easily one of the top classics I haven't watched and Elfen Lied gave me a nice hit of an older series very recently, so I wouldn't mind more. QUOTE(CodySleighBell-y @ Dec 20 2018, 04:26 AM) why does that MMO junkie thing sound like a Netflix show begging to be made definitely checking that out It sounds like it would translate to a Netflix adaptation better than 99% of anime, most of which are from what I hear awful (see: Mob Psycho 100, Death Note, and countless other live adaptations before Netflix started doing it). A nice simple romcom wouldn't be hard to mess up at all.


Brett-Butler View member profile	20th December 2018, 07:08 PM Post #14
Howdy, disco citizens Joined: 16 January 2010 Posts: 12,775 User: 10,455	Pop Team Epic did grate very early on, but it did have it's moments, especially the Hellshake Yano animation, which is one of the most impressive pieces of non-traditional animation that I've ever seen. The Ancient Magus' Bride started well, but it bored me by the end. Lovely scenery though. Tokyo Ghoul definitely had a much better 1st season than the lacklustre 2nd (so much so that I didn't even bother with the 3rd). The opening credits of the 2nd series are definitely worth watching, but you can leave the series itself. And I loved "MMO" junkie - Moriko is such an endearing protagonist that you just can't help but root for. That social awkwardness is just so relatable.


Iz 🌟 View member profile	26th December 2018, 01:19 AM Post #15
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	QUOTE(Brett-Butler @ Dec 20 2018, 07:08 PM) Pop Team Epic did grate very early on, but it did have it's moments, especially the Hellshake Yano animation, which is one of the most impressive pieces of non-traditional animation that I've ever seen. The Ancient Magus' Bride started well, but it bored me by the end. Lovely scenery though. Tokyo Ghoul definitely had a much better 1st season than the lacklustre 2nd (so much so that I didn't even bother with the 3rd). The opening credits of the 2nd series are definitely worth watching, but you can leave the series itself. And I loved "MMO" junkie - Moriko is such an endearing protagonist that you just can't help but root for. That social awkwardness is just so relatable. I keep saying I should look up the more impressive things that Pop Team Epic did.. Maybe I'll get around to that. Yeah, same feelings on Ancient Magus and Tokyo Ghoul, although I don't think I'll get as far as watching the second season of the latter. Definitely agree on MMO Junkie, was rooting for Moriko all the way. 18. Food Wars (Season 3 part 1) #11 in 2018 Genre: food cooking show, I’ve overused the food porn joke and it doesn’t really apply as much now Tentacle Rating: 7/10 – A downgrade from previous seasons, but still occasionally prone to its trademark orgasmic reactions from eating such good food Food Wars in the last two years has ranked in my top 15, as I continue watching a season behind everything. It’s a bit lower this year for a couple of reasons, while it’s still very enjoyable, the first half of season 3 didn’t convince me to watch the second half… yet, and I may be getting tired of the formula. This half-season, or arc, is built around Souma, the lead that the show’s actual title (Shokugeki No Souma) is named after, challenging the best of the best students at Totsuki Academy, this time a group known as the Elite Ten. The top ranks, and there’s no higher to go. This is both good, exciting, and a problem, as it demands that after we’ve seen the special dishes of the Elite Ten, that something new shows up, and it does, in Food Wars’ first true villain. He’s a certainly logical prospect, but I didn’t find myself too interested by him, and naturally the mid-season cliffhanger didn’t grab me. I’m sure as ever I will make sure to catch up with it next year. The rest, was great, battles of intricate food, from Szechuan spicy Chinese food at the school festival, to the food battles to save the clubs that come under threat later on in the season, it’s more of the same stuff that anyone who has seen the first two seasons will enjoy, mouth-watering dishes that you’ll want to try to imitate before realising that half of them are culinary impossibilities, battles that leave you wondering until the last second who has won because genuinely, the writers are excellent at misdirection, and a load of hype music. But much the same as previous seasons. Music: Said hype music was somewhat lower key this time. While each previous season, I knew the name of a soundtrack at least as well as the OP for sure, I don’t remember either this time. Having reminded myself of the OP it is very much hype. No Kibou No Uta but certainly well attributed. Best Episode: Shokugeki always comes with a memorable episode or two and this time I would like to award it to The Alchemist for a tense battle involving a battle of amazing looking chicken dishes (and the character dynamics on the two involved really make this one stand out). Characters: Same as last year really, Souma continues to be the star of the show, the other good side characters are mostly relegated to having a line an episode if their focus battle is in the past as the show continues introducing new characters to beat, which is partly why I’m feeling a little down on the series, but a few, like Hisako and Ryo, continued to get decent development and remain high on my faves. 17. Gintama (episode approx 27. to approx 51) Genre: wacky comedy that is anime’s Futurama Tentacle Rating: 8/10 – high once again, not really because it’s weird, well, it is, but not that weird, but because quite a few of the jokes require understanding of Japanese pop culture. Gintama ends up at a similar position to last year with me as I watch about the same number of episodes and yet still end up about 400 episodes behind the modern day series. Clearly I can’t spend so much time watching one single show. Incidentally, I watched 3 seasons of Brooklyn 99 this year and that was probably the most episodes of a single show I did watch this year - probably tied with Orange Is The New Black which has seasons of half the number but each episode is twice the length and I watched ALL of that. That aside: how will I ever finish Gintama? Well, it’s possible I don’t need to, and just have it ready as something I want to come back to – but then it’s also possible that another, flashier, younger and hotter anime comedy show that will appear further up has eclipsed this in my mind. Regardless, Gintama, the episodes of which I watched covered the conclusion of its first season in 2006-2007, remains something that when I go back to it, I enjoy it more and more. Now I am fully established on who the anime’s large cast of characters are – introduced very slowly throughout the first 20-30 episodes, seeing them back hits the right comedic notes and like the best comedic cartoon shows in the West (American Dad springs to mind), it occasionally turns its format on its head to create memorable and unique episodes. To recap if you don’t know, Gintama is a long-running comedy anime set in the 1800s where a group of aliens have appeared over Earth and modernised it, but not before forcing Japan to surrender and all the samurai to disband. Gintoki is one of the last of the samurai but despite being a handsome silver-haired man, he’s a standard comedy loser who can’t hold down a job. The many varied settings that he and his friends, a normal guy, an alien teenager, a huge white dog, their elderly and appearance-focused landlady, and many other characters who show up from time to time means it’s always time for something new, and I watched 20 or so great new episodes back towards the beginning of the year. Maybe I’ll watch 20 more soon. Music: Sadly nothing as good as ‘pray’ by Tommy heavenly6, which remains the best thing that Gintama has in its arsenal, but is only used for the first 20 or so episodes. Best Episode: ‘Make Characters So Anybody Can Tell Who They Are by Just Their Silhouettes’ – Coming after an episode that’s fairly high on drama, Kagura, the female lead, is believed to have departed from the cast. She heads back to the group bar where she overhears all the other female characters vie to be the group’s heroine – which provides great opportunity for jokes. A similarly amazing comedic premise of oneupmanship occurs in ‘Adults Only. We Wouldn’t Want Anyone Immature in Here’ with Shinpachi’s sister and a rival priestess. Ramen Shops With Long Menus Never Do Well was also excellent for plot purposes and for any fans of Katsura, like me. Characters: Gintoki continues to be incredible, as does Kagura. Shinpachi is still very fun even as the weakest of the main 3, his leadership of an idol fanclub is just one of the depraved things he does, and he’s allegedly the boring straight man. From side characters, I get endlessly amused whenever Katsura is on screen, and he gets most of the best plots too.


Iz 🌟 View member profile	26th December 2018, 01:26 AM Post #16
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	16. Highschool Of The Dead Genre: Ecchi (non-pornographic sex stuff) with some hint of ironic masterpiece going on there Tentacle Rating: 11/10. Anything with as many gratuitous boobs as this one gets a very high score, and makes a soft breaking of the rating scale because of just how infamous this anime is for its… admiration of the female form. Highschool Of The Dead is a show that sits on the dividing lines of many genres, horror, comedy, drama, but what it ultimately is showing what happens when a zombie apocalypse comes about and our view is centred on how it impacts a local high school. To its credit, it does the gritty stuff about how events unfold very effectively, and there is a lot of interesting stuff about characters dying, how the main cast survive the initial confusion at the school and then start planning their way to safety through the hordes of zombies… and then it goes and does this: It’s a strange show, and one I picked up on following a certain anime Youtuber’s (Mother’s Basement) impassioned recommendation of it as an unironic masterpiece. And while I don’t quite feel it’s as good as that, it’s certainly both a fun look at an anime zombie outbreak, (although it’s not the best show I’ve seen in that regard, School Live is better), and a good erm… parody of ridiculous ecchi shows because you get the feeling that there is some thought behind all the ridiculous boob physics and character models with big assets, there’s certainly a good level of dumb shit there but like, to sort of defend it, at least it’s not ashamed of its fanservice, and isn’t spending energy trying to hide it, instead spending its energy on making its characters legitimately stronger. They are interesting in their own way, I’ll cover that in that section. And also, if you are looking for a show where young people take up their own agency and break free of the boundaries surrounding them, then this is absolutely the one for you. Would have been even better as a teenager I imagine. fun fact: In 2015, this was one of 38 anime and manga banned by the Chinese Ministry of Culture. Good thing I finished it well before I arrived. Music: Speaking of teenagers, this OP is the most nostalgia-driven (the sound of the late 00s personified) piece of J-Pop that sounds like it came into being by way of My Chemical Romance or Pretty Reckless of all things. Naturally that means I love it. Best Episode: The first episode is by a long way the best. This is kind of natural in zombie stories, the things you want to see all happen in the first episode, the collapse of society, the zombies being a threat and grabbing randoms, the true feeling that anyone you could meet could be dead the next second, that’s what sells you on zombie series and the first episode of this, even if you don’t continue, is a highly recommendable whirlwind of stuff happening. One of the best zombie related episodes I can think of. Characters: There’s five. The best is the secondary male character. Hirano, and his existence immediately lets me rescue this from the trashcan, because he gets to be cool in just about as many ways as the main lead, but without being so obviously an idealised emotion-free shell – he’s not as attractive but he’s clever and has a gun specialty. The main lead, isn’t bad either, he anchors the story and shows signs of developing. Then there’s the girls. Rei, the female lead was okay, but the other two, Saeko and Saya were fantastic. Saeko is this effortlessly cool ninja girl, and Saya is a very smart girl who acts as the brains of the group, has a cool friendship with Hirano and so basically Saya and Hirano were the best and I… shipped them. This happens to me sometimes. 15. Violet Evergarden 10th in 2018 Genre: Emotional episodic stories Tentacle Rating: 0/10 – I think, though the setting, a fantasy world that is at a Victorian Steampunk level, Orient Express trains, steamboats and rifles, isn’t often seen in non-animated media, the general feel of the series is. And it was the face of anime on Netflix at the beginning of the year so that helps it. Violet Evergarden could be set in the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, but it isn’t, it's just another world that people might be more familiar with. This world has just recently finished suffering a huge war, and we focus on a child soldier, Violet, recovering from PTSD. Lost no longer having anyone to follow orders, and unaware of the fate of her commanding officer, the Major, and also wondering what the last words he said to her meant, she tries to settle back into civilian life. The job she takes is with the Postal Service, she becomes an ‘Auto Memory Doll’, which is effectively a special fancy term specific to this anime, for ghostwriter. She helps people who can’t find the words to say what they want to say write it down and send the result in letters to the recipient. What follows is a series of episodes that can mostly standalone, but show a steady progression of Violet sorting someone’s problems out and learning more about herself as she does so. She helps writers, scholars, princesses and her own co-workers. Each one does end up with a good emotional payoff, and once you get used to the idea of how the episodes work, they get even better. Atmospherically, this show is amazing. It looks absolutely gorgeous, it’s cutting-edge animation, I wouldn’t expect anything less from the great Kyoto Animation, and the whole aura is really calming but with this looming shadow of the previous war hanging over the series. At times it’s a little slow which is why it’s a little lower but it’s certainly very beautiful. Music: Not a whole lot, it’s of the pleasant kind which didn’t really stick for me. Best Episode: Easy, I wanted to draw attention to this one. There was one episode that really made me cry. “A Loved One Will Always Watch Over You”. It involves Violet visiting a family and writing with the mother, while the daughter wants to know what’s going on. I knew what was going to happen. I figured it out very easily from the situation. And yet, when the episode finished, my eyes were not dry at all and I felt profoundly affected. That single episode made the entire series worth it, even though it’s a standalone episode and can be watched with only a limited knowledge of what’s going on. Characters: Violet was okay but a bit emotionally flat, which was kind of the point but… Iris was the best of the other characters but it was the situations that resonated with me here mostly.


Iz 🌟 View member profile	29th December 2018, 04:00 AM Post #17
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	anime of 2018 here boys, well, one of them 14. Darling In The FranXX 9th in 2018 Genre: sci-fi, mechs, dystopia Tentacle Rating: 7/10. The unique cockpit positions will promote laughter, the FranXX mechas and the klaxosaurs are somewhat hard to explain if anyone caught you watching this, but it’s not higher because it manages to be accessible no matter what country you are from. If there was an anime that defined 2018, Darling In The FranXX was it. One of the most popular anime of the year and quite probably the most popular debuting anime, Darling was a popular highlight of the first two cours of the year and was dominating so much of the discussion. Certainly for the new generation getting into anime, Darling definitely helped them work through their issues of being alone yet wanting a relationship, wanting someone who cared about you, and would fight with you to defeat a nameless evil. Pretty basic stuff. It is oh so very aimed at teenagers, more than most mechs, I think, just because of this feeling of first love and immature love as well. Though that doesn’t mean it’s unenjoyable, I enjoyed it a lot. At first. I wrote a fair bit on the blog about the characters, and the ending of Darling In The FranXX, but here goes with explaining what it is. In an indeterminate future, the world is destroyed and has become a giant plain of lifeless mud, save for a few pods that contain humans roaming around the wastes in fortress cities called plantations. Much like Mortal Engines if you ever read that. What society there is, is divided between adult humans who live beneath the surface of the fortress cities, and teen soldiers who live on the surface and fight the threat to humanity, what looks like robot dinosaurs, known as klaxosaurs. These teen soldiers fight using a design of mech called a FranXX, which requires a male and female pilot. The female pilot connects with the machine itself and somewhat ‘becomes’ it, while the male pilot controls the movements while sitting in a position where he is inevitably staring right at her behind. No sexual undertones there. We follow the adventures of one experimental squad, Squad 13, who live together and fight together as one special super squad. They all have numbers and are named pretty much after those numbers (i.e. #15 is called Ichigo, which happens to be how you say fifteen in Japanese – it’s not a strict formula and they make use of other words for numbers, but that’s generally how it goes). Hiro (#16), whose name is entirely unironic and intentional, is one of squad 13, and he runs into this girl known as Zero Two, because she is number two. And she has horns and has become a total sex symbol for the entire anime industry this year. She’s managed to kill everyone she’s piloted with, but pulls him in to pilot her with a kiss and of course that means he, through the power of sheer will and love and main character luck, manages to survive a trip piloting with her. Zero Two pairs up with him, joins Hiro’s squad, and then we go from there seeing adventures of the squadmates take out klaxosaurs, then slowly learning more about the evils of the dystopic society whose system they are apart of and overthrowing them in a deadly coup… except it sadly doesn’t happen quite like that. I would say the best parts of this anime end at episode 16, some really good action, character teamwork and story. By this point, you will be hyped, yet here, I must also tell you to stop. Maybe up to episode 19 if you’re feeling generous, but beyond this, it was the most horrific trainwreck that led to me not caring about how the ending went at all. Which is really sad. Music: Excellent music. I would rank Mika Nakishima – Kiss Of Death, as perhaps my #1 OP of the year, and it gets used for both cours with slightly different opening images, which just makes it more exciting when it comes around each episode. Best Episode: Plenty in the early episodes, I’d point out Boys x Girls for a really fun early episodic story that highlights how good the show’s main cast of teenagers are, Triangle Bomb for showing how unrequited love should be dealt with, and Jian for bringing together the series’ first and best arc to a massive conclusion. Nothing after episode 19. Characters: If you aren’t a fan of Zero Two then you are soulless. If you are being cynical, you can say that her appeal is manufactured and that we are meant to like her, but that doesn’t stop me liking her because she is one of the most personable characters I can recall in recent anime, and they did a good job with her. I also really like Goku, Kokoro and Mitsuru among the rest of the team, each has a relatively strong arc and is much more complex than you might initially believe. 13. Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Rebellion (Season 1) Genre: sci-fi, mechs, dystopia Tentacle Rating: 4/10 – oh it’s certainly an ANIME anime, but in that way that you forgive those quirks because it’s clearly using inspiration from every form of media Same genre tags as Darling, but a wildly different setting, Code Geass is one of THE classic anime of the 00s, behind perhaps only Death Note in terms of limited, concise series. It aired the same time as Death Note and there are quite a few similarities in terms of the protagonists, not least because they both have unusual and memorable names that start with L. But back up, surely Code Geass isn’t a Death Note clone? How could it be so popular if it was? And of course, it isn’t, at all. Code Geass is… well, there’s a lot to unpack about its setting and I cannot explain it in simply one sentence. It involves Lelouch, the protagonist, who lives in Japan, leading a rebellion against the Holy Britannian Empire, a fictional superpower state made up of the Americas (and one presumes, Britain) that conquered Japan some years ago in 2010. The outline of this world, with only 3 extant countries, the HBE, Chinese Federation, and the European Union, looks almost identical to that of Nineteen Eighty-Four and as in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the story is set in an island that is part of the British-style empire of the three. That’s the first thing that jumps out at you, that this is an Orwellian setting pretty much literally, and it sets the tone for what follows. As a mecha anime, it pays homage to those that came before it, and for its futuristic plot device that becomes the clear unique thing about this anime, we turn to the titular Geass, a power that Lelouch gains after meeting a strange girl called C.C. that allows him to order anyone to do ONE thing that they will do without question. Lelouch also happens to be both a Britannian prince who is… out of favour with the court, partly because he and his sister were unfeelingly used as political pawns in the capture of Japan by Britannia, and as the story starts (set in 2017 which was the FAR FUTURE when this aired), he’s undercover in a prestigious Britannian international school in Japan as a nobleman’s son. Meanwhile his Japanese friend Suzaku is rising through the Britannian ranks as an ‘honorary Britannian’, while the Britannian military engages in clearing out the slums of Tokyo of poor Elevens (a name given to the Japanese to strip them of their national identity) because of course the British are laughably and racistly evil because why wouldn’t they be. This is fiction! Clearly, Code Geass is a well-designed world with a lot of depth to it, and many more characters that I haven’t mentioned, like the lovable and kind-hearted Princess Euphemia of Britannia who wants to ensure a better life for all Britannian subjects, or Kallen Stadtfeld, a student who is an undercover resistance fighter, or Diethard Reid, a Britannian reporter who seemingly joins the ensuing rebellion for the hell of it. There is a lot of wonderful political intrigue, and it matches that with fights and constant danger for one character or the other. I enjoyed the first season a huge amount, it got better as it went on, there were moments that really stopped me in my tracks, and any show that can do that is well worth recommending. I haven’t watched the second season yet, I started but felt burnt out after the end of season 1, so I will pick that up again at some point. Music: Contrasting. The first opening, Flow – Colors, has an incredibly memorable riff and is a great pop song. Unfortunately, this is followed up in the second half of season 1 by a song that is only average at best and worse, recycles the images used in the first opening but in a different order, as if the viewers wouldn’t notice. Meanwhile, the first ENDING song, Ali Project – Yūkyō Seishunka, somehow manages to be that rare ending that is more exciting than the opening and I would listen to that every time. One of the soundtrack songs, Madder Sky, stood out as a timeless classic also. A lot of good music, as befits a classic. Best Episode: There’s one episode near the end of Season 1 that is a clear winner in the episode stakes for me, as a huge point of no return is reached, unfortunately, the episode title itself gives too much away – so I would recommend not looking at the episode titles when watching this. If you’ve watched this, you will know which one I’m talking about, people either praise it as a highwater mark of the series or really dislike it for some reason. Characters: Lelouch is a typically great main character by being perfectly arrogant and intelligent. Not someone you’d get on with, but great to watch. Much like Light in Death Note, but Lelouch is actually a hero, an anti-hero, sure, but still the protagonist we’re rooting for. C.C, and her love for pizza, is surprisingly adorable given how unflappable she looks, and most of the cast have their quirks that make them enjoyable to watch whenever the action turns to focus on them.


Cowboy Cody View member profile	29th December 2018, 07:06 AM Post #18
new hair, new tee, new Levii’s Jeans Joined: 24 October 2014 Posts: 39,315 User: 21,308	YAS BISH . Also managed to get all caught up in Food Wars over the summer and then couldn’t wait to see what happens next so I looked up an electronic version of the manga - you will not be disappointed (maybe you will idk)


DalekTurret32 View member profile	29th December 2018, 11:37 AM Post #19
FIVE YEARS OF THE TURRET 15-20 Joined: 12 March 2015 Posts: 4,754 User: 21,666	Have you heard of a show called Seven Deadly Sins?


Iz 🌟 View member profile	1st January 2019, 06:00 AM Post #20
I'm a paragon so don't perceive me Joined: 3 February 2011 Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929	QUOTE(CodySleighBell-y @ Dec 29 2018, 07:06 AM) YAS BISH . Also managed to get all caught up in Food Wars over the summer and then couldn’t wait to see what happens next so I looked up an electronic version of the manga - you will not be disappointed (maybe you will idk) I will make sure to catch up on Food Wars at some point this year then. QUOTE(SantaDalek32 @ Dec 29 2018, 11:37 AM) Have you heard of a show called Seven Deadly Sins? yes. It's often recommended to me on Netflix. Never got around to watching it. however, I have an anime that has a relation to the Seven Deadly Sins just below: 12. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Genre: adventure Tentacle Rating: 1/10 - one of the most popular and beloved anime across the world ever, holder of the #1 spot on MyAnimeList, this is a very easy gateway anime. I briefly covered FMA:B in my last year post because I had started it and gotten about a third of the way through. Now, I have almost finished it. I've still got the last arc to go, but this will be the last time I write about it in one of these because I feel I understand the show a lot more than how I did at this point last year. So back where we were with Edward Elric, anime's #longhairdontcare repper and alchemist who broke one of the fundamental laws of alchemy and lost his arm and leg in the process, and his brother Al, a soul bound to a suit of armour as he lost his entire body. Where I got to at the end of last year, they were starting to stir up the beginnings of a conspiracy across their country (which is Victorian steampunk level, just with alchemists who can manipulate matter with relative ease patrolling the streets to), with murders in the military, and various people who suspiciously have the names of the Seven Deadly Sins showing up and causing havoc. They meet more and more interesting characters as they tour the world, and eventually they manage to come full circle, figure out what's going on and race to stop it. And that's where I'm at, I've got a few more episodes left but they are all the final arc, likely going to be a bunch of fights. I will get to them but I won't write about it next year. FMA:B is really enjoyable. What's weird is that though it is an arc-based series, I was normally happy watching one episode at once which is why it's taken me so long to get through it. The world is unique, there are a lot of characters (almost too many just 'tagging along' at times), the danger does feel real throughout and the goals that the brothers are aiming for seems like the sort of goal that you will not be sure of how they will reach it in the end. Music: Sadly, this section of episodes goes past the best OP, Yui's Again, but the other OPs are all good as well once you get used to them. Hologram stands out as a memorable one. Best Episode: I think the strongest overall episodes were in the beginning that I covered last year, now I have had most of the series to remind myself of it. Characters: Ling Yao is my favourite character by far, he has an infectious personality, and has his own unique reasons for coming along on the adventure that are hard to read. Ed, Al, and Roy Mustang are mostly very solid, and I must shoutout to General Olivier Armstrong, a fearsome operator, she is great to watch when she gets introduced, not least the relationship with her own brother. From the villains, Envy is fantastic to watch, such a slippery character and his default character model is... pretty. 11. Steins; Gate 0 8th in 2018 Genre: Time-travel in an alternate reality, don't get confused! Tentacle Rating: 4/10 - there are a few more otaku shoutouts throughout, plus this whole series doesn't even make sense if you don't know to watch the alternate ending to episode 23 of Steins;Gate. Steins;Gate 0 was released this year as a long-awaited sequel, or side-story, or franchise expansion, to Steins;Gate. Like with Steins;Gate, there is a lengthy visual novel it's based on, but this time, it follows up on the breakout hit of Steins;Gate. Ultimately it's not quite as good but is still enjoyable. It is something that you should absolutely not think about seeing before seeing Steins;Gate, because you will not have a clue what's going on. In fact, unless, you've just finished the original series very recently, you may not have a clue what's going on either. Let's see if we can unpack this plot mess, a mess that actually wasn't caused by time-travel for once, because there's precious little of that in Steins;Gate 0. Until later on. And unfortunately I can't really explain the plot without spoiling Steins;Gate at least a little. Hopefully you all know it's so good you've already seen it. Okay, let's try and explain. The problem is that Steins;Gate ended rather happily for all concerned, which is great if you are a fan of happy endings, not so good if you wanted to make a sequel. So the solution is that at one point near the end of the series, after one of Okabe's attempts to rescue Kurisu had failed, Mayuri let him give up (in the original series, she slapped him and told him to keep on going), and this takes us into a beta world line. In this universe, there are beta and alpha world lines - in beta ones, Kurisu dies but Mayuri lives, in alphas, the reverse - and Okabe must try to get to Steins;Gate, that rare world line where everything ends up happily. So we are now supposing that the happy ending from Steins;Gate didn't happen in this reality. So when we enter this beta world line, it is six months after the summer of 2010, in the winter, and Okabe has become depressed, chosen to live in black, and wants to be a normal member of society. As opposed to being the deranged but infectiously positive 'Hououin Kyouma, Mad Scientist (sunovabitch)'. Meanwhile everyone else just gets on with their lives as well, though Mayuri, Suzuha and Daru are still trying to keep the old lab warm. Okabe meets some of Kurisu's former colleagues, who have built a sentient AI, called Amadeus, who looks and sounds just like Kurisu and even has all of her memories and is kept on a phone. Slowly more and more elements show up from the dark future that all non-Steins;Gate lines are heading towards, forcing Okabe to eventually combat them. Ultimately, I did enjoy Steins;Gate 0, but I couldn't help but be constantly comparing it, somewhat unfavourably to the original. And that's the unfortunate thing about being a sequel like this. It was not as engaging, it was not as tightly written, the characters were not as enjoyable (no Kyouma until near the very end, are you kidding me?), the plot at times felt more concerned with giving shoutouts to the original. It was overall a fair bit darker than the original, what with actually showing the future, and I did enjoy how it came together at the end, but there were too many missteps and fooling around down plot side-alleys for me to rank this as high as I hoped I would be doing. Music: While not quite as life-giving as Hacking To The Gate, bringing back Itou Kanako to make Fatima was a great choice and I loved the OP for this almost as much as I did the original (particularly the heart-wrenching shot where Okabe goes to grab Kurisu and she disappears). Best Episode: Dual of Antinomy, an episode that stands out from the rest of the show as it involves a quick one-episode hop over to an alpha world line, meeting Kurisu (who there isn't enough of in this show), and involves heart-wrenching choices for both Kurisu and Okabe, and it's also one of the most direct call-backs to the original series, which sort of says how the unique parts of this series aren't as good. Characters: Sadly the characters aren't as good as they are in Steins;Gate, mainly because the main attraction of Steins;Gate, the alter-ego of Okabo, Houoin Kyouma, is not present for the majority of the show. However Daru and Suzuha have a really fun duo thing going on this time, and Mayushii is as cute as ever. Daru is probably my favourite though, he's so relatable and sweet to the girls (and him and Yuki getting closer was great to watch, especially with Suzuha trying to set them up). Mako was the best new addition.