Recommended Anime/Manga?

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Udderdude
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Udderdude »

I don't mind the CG crowds as much if it means they have more budget for the real scenes .. let's face it, it's that or the entire show looks QUALITY as fuck.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BryanM »

I remember being briefly impressed half of the crowd at the start of Re:Creators was moving. Too bad the rest of the show wasn't as impressive..
Eek, the CGI Cafe in Time of Eve that ain't.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

This might be of interest to some...

I was asked to act as an external advisor to a doctoral student who is working on a thesis about JoJo's multi-medial source inspiration. The woman working on this project has access to Araki and his archive. Her principal supervisors include an expert on manga studies, one on contemporary fashion, and one on modern rock music (from a musical school). This should be interesting, but I wonder if the woman will actually write the dissertation in English. I am polishing up my poses, since Part V is also out.
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
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BryanM
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BryanM »

Been enjoying Gridman so far. It really reminds me of a 90's anime of how simple everything is. None of the fetish stuff, the zazz level is fairly low, the CGI is congruent with the scenes it's used in, no overwrought monologues that at their core have very little to say. I know it's just a basic Ultraman clone, but even that seems new and fresh considering the market these days.

Prize for worst CGI in stuff I've seen this year goes to the ominous gooey orb of doom in S3 of fantasy colonialism anime Overlord. It was supposed to be a climatic moment where you have to fully accept the protagonist really is Columbus. Instead you have close up shots that look like a plastic tarp is doing some energetic polygon clipping around the corpses. Madhouse, what were you thinking.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Udderdude »

BryanM wrote:Overlord
Why is anyone watching this? Honestly. Is it just for the "laugh at how bad it is" factor?

Golden Kamuy is doing pretty well, although I feel like some scenes were lacking in animation compared to the first season.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by MX7 »

I got pretty excited at the lack of non-diegetic sound in the first half of the first episode of Gridman. Kind of felt like a magical realist tokusatsu.

I rewatched Devilman Crybaby in two sittings after reading the original comic (published in chunky format by Seven Seas) and yes. Everything. Yes.

Edit - I've not seen anyone talk about Attack on Titan here which is surprising. Is it too mainstream? Regardless I've never seen something so batshit insane get such mainstream acceptance. It combines Yoshiki Tanaka-esque hyperensembles with the detached abjection of Shintaro Kago and the flumping narrative dumps of I don't know, Lost, and it's never less than really compelling.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BryanM »

Udderdude wrote:Why is anyone watching this?
Please indicate all the other fantasy colonialism anime that dedicates 95% of its screen time to the doomed natives.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

MX7: SnK also combines Norse mythology, inspiration from Watchmen as per author's own admission. One fact is that the author quickly moved away from the basic premise (titans bad! We good! Fight for humankind!) and developed the story in a manner that may not be entirely consistent with said initial premise. Please fill in here jokes about weeaboos, hikikkomori etc.

Anyway, please PM if you would like links on material on the subject.

....

Personally I like Overlord because it reminds me of the very cheesy dice-and-paper RPGs I played as a teenager, somewhere between WarHammer and Forgotten Realms. It does present the kind of stories one can end up playing when a party involves extremely powerful characters from long-term campaigns and the witty story-arcs told from the perspective of the vanquished, as BryanM points out. I admit that I played obscure games such as the Immortal set of D&D (AD&D), and at some point mass genocide becomes an option that allows players to explore the more complicated aspects of a game.

However, animation-wise...oh dear, is it really Madhouse?

Current alternatives are...Fairy Tail, another series with Kirito (which BryanM is watching but does not want to tell us!), and the one with the goblins. Anime studios simply do not understand fantasy (well, the Sword and Sorcery stock), which is a fairly lame genre to begin with.
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Hagane »

Shingeki no Kyojin started pretty decent for a shonen but got hit by the curse of popularity induced filler and lost me.

On fantasy, there's lots of great manga on the genre, but anime generally tends to focus on the absolutely terrible Isekai variant full of MMO tropes and "complete loser IRL ascends to alpha male status on MMO world". Dungeon Meshi has that RPG feel of a party that goes dungeon-crawling, but is actually genuinely good. And you learn monster recipes on the process. Will most likely do the anime transition sometime in the future due to its popularity.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Udderdude »

Really hope Dungeon Meshi gets an adaption at some point, as it's really great.
BryanM wrote:
Udderdude wrote:Why is anyone watching this?
Please indicate all the other fantasy colonialism anime that dedicates 95% of its screen time to the doomed natives.
Yeah, but isn't it just some "Stuck in an MMO" thing anyway? Not crying too many tears over those doomed NPCs.

I feel like there were a lot better fantasy anime back in the 80's and 90's, anyway. There was even a Wizardry OVA.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

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Randorama wrote:Personally I like Overlord because it reminds me of the very cheesy dice-and-paper RPGs I played as a teenager, somewhere between WarHammer and Forgotten Realms.
The author started writing it because all of his friends in his play group moved on..... which..... shouldn't be surprising since the entire thing screams that from the start.

The Unnecessary Fanservice Girl they stapled on the side of the thing (intending for it to boost profit, of course) always struck me to being similar to Unnecessary Mari in the Eva Rebuild films. Albedo never has anything to do, because Albedo doesn't really exist.
However, animation-wise...oh dear, is it really Madhouse?
It really seems like they put no effort into this one. One Punch Man is a masterpiece in comparison.

Not everyone can be Shaft, I guess.
Current alternatives are...Fairy Tail, another series with Kirito (which BryanM is watching but does not want to tell us!)
I read the comic sometime after it had been running a few years, so, lost interest around 10 years ago? I would cop to seeing the animation if I had, I've seen far worse things during that year I realized I hadn't actually watched any anime since I was a teenager and decided to run an experiment of going back and watching all the things regardless if I liked them or not.

I thought maybe it'd make me stronger, like this guy. But... no... you don't gain resistance to the poison, it just makes your body less able to tolerate it. Similar to how no sentient person should be able to tolerate Hollywood blockbusters after they're 25 years old.
Hagane wrote:Shingeki no Kyojin started pretty decent for a shonen but got hit by the curse of popularity induced filler and lost me.
Attack on Titan really had no plan for anywhere to go and definitely fell into Toriyama/Abrams style writing where you just make up shit as you go along. (You can't blame them for not planning ahead when 98% of what they write dies on the vine three months in anyway.)

It's too common. There's this horror manga about creepy talking flying goldfish that eat everybody. It's great. Then a few chapters later there's an edgelord killing the fish en massé with his mad combat skillz. Not what I signed up for. It's horrible.

The fundamental problem is that an author just runs out of things to say, and a story gets stretched out beyond its end. I've had far, far better luck with anthologies. You Will Hear the Voice of the Dead, Uzumaki, Overlord - the format is designed to throw shit at a wall and if you don't like this shit (and man do I not enjoy a 1v1 DIKU style fight arc), there's always some new shit coming up that you might like. Otherwise there's a built-in fragility of building a continuity tower based on changing things - chunks of the audience will jump off when they don't like the new features.

AoT is also responsible for things like The Promised Neverland. It was moderately interesting for awhile, until the illusion breaks and you realize it's just going to be another Dragon Ball.

I'm going to call this new trend "horror fraud". We've got 20 more years of it to look forward to.

(Also I should pay AoT one compliment here: The basement really did exist. My mind (and everyone elses') was blown, as rationality stated that it did not.)
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Hagane »

That happens with pretty much every successful manga. It is particularly bad with shonen since they are usually weekly serializations, so they run out of ideas even faster when the editors try to squeeze as much money out of them as they can. One of the many reasons why I don't bother with the demographic at all nowadays; even if it starts well it will get popular and editors will milk the manga to the death.

But it even happens with seinen too, like I am a Hero getting super popular and forcing the author to write ten volumes of pure filler and copy pasted faces until he burns out and rushes the worst non-ending I've ever seen.

It amazes me how Noda can keep up with Golden Kamuy, I think it's the only weekly I've read where I haven't thought "when does this damn arc end" at any point so far. Wonder how long that will last.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by theclaw »

Hagane wrote:That happens with pretty much every successful manga. It is particularly bad with shonen since they are usually weekly serializations, so they run out of ideas even faster when the editors try to squeeze as much money out of them as they can. One of the many reasons why I don't bother with the demographic at all nowadays; even if it starts well it will get popular and editors will milk the manga to the death.

But it even happens with seinen too, like I am a Hero getting super popular and forcing the author to write ten volumes of pure filler and copy pasted faces until he burns out and rushes the worst non-ending I've ever seen.

It amazes me how Noda can keep up with Golden Kamuy, I think it's the only weekly I've read where I haven't thought "when does this damn arc end" at any point so far. Wonder how long that will last.
The fan in me wants to like Inuyasha but... really when an author best known for comedy tries too hard to do shonen, it doesn't work that well in my experience. Just ask those who love Dragon Ball yet scoff at DBZ.

I can't help be curious how Takahashi convinced the "powers that be" to give her a break after decades of prolific serialization.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

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BryanM wrote:
Attack on Titan really had no plan for anywhere to go and definitely fell into Toriyama/Abrams style writing where you just make up shit as you go along. (You can't blame them for not planning ahead when 98% of what they write dies on the vine three months in anyway.)

It's too common. There's this horror manga about creepy talking flying goldfish that eat everybody. It's great. Then a few chapters later there's an edgelord killing the fish en massé with his mad combat skillz. Not what I signed up for. It's horrible.

The fundamental problem is that an author just runs out of things to say, and a story gets stretched out beyond its end. I've had far, far better luck with anthologies. You Will Hear the Voice of the Dead, Uzumaki, Overlord - the format is designed to throw shit at a wall and if you don't like this shit (and man do I not enjoy a 1v1 DIKU style fight arc), there's always some new shit coming up that you might like. Otherwise there's a built-in fragility of building a continuity tower based on changing things - chunks of the audience will jump off when they don't like the new features.
I can really appreciate material that knows where it is going, has a planned story to tell and sticks too it.

Speaking of Abrams though, I actually watched Alias as it was airing. I tried going back to it later and wonder how tf I even finished it in the first place.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by GaijinPunch »

Steamflogger Boss wrote: I tried going back to it later and wonder how tf I even finished it in the first place.
Jennifer Garner in those costumes.
RegalSin wrote:New PowerPuff Girls. They all have evil pornstart eyelashes.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

GaijinPunch wrote:
Steamflogger Boss wrote: I tried going back to it later and wonder how tf I even finished it in the first place.
Jennifer Garner in those costumes.
Ha, maybe. I was a lot younger then...
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

A certain type of manga tends to start from a basic catchy premise and a fully immersive setting: readers do not know why the protagonists are in such a dreadful world and how they are going to survive. The long-term plans are to flip the premise around or even from the inside-out. Fans who like the initial catchy premise ("humankind is under attack by the mysterious titans!", "The world will be destroyed by the Fukushoi!") will be alienated as soon as the plot goes beyond this premise.

The author can defend himself by simply stating that 20 years of serialization of X against Y will not sell in Japan (Spider-man and stuff like Marvel continuity never sold, there). Nevertheless, a simple observation is that a bit of planning, logic and coherence (unknown words in manga and anime circles, but also in Japanese culture in general) can create a well-thought and constantly engaging anime.

AoT was initially a 60-issues manga, but the overall arching plot (and big revelations) were the same. Those who do not like them would have hated the series anyway, but the "current version" has several parts that went from 1 issue to 6 or 7, randomly added ideas that damaged the internal coherence, etc.

Vinland Saga is another recent example that comes to my mind of a series in which lack of planning mangled an otherwise great work. Sometimes authors luck out and produce great works (Nausicaä), but Miyazaki himself admitted that he never planned beyond the second volume or something, and the plot twists were mostly ideas that he would have when he would get stuck with the plot, and would allow him to add another volume to the story. He also claimed that it is easy to come up with logical stories and illogical ones are harder to create, or something like that (and so on...).

GK was apparently a series planned from beginning to end with the big reveal/overarching plot in the background, and a given pace. A simple trick that Noda used was to have 24 prisoners and skins, so he could guarantee himself 5 years of stories. I also understand that he is not willing to change any details in the overall plan, irrespective of the external pressures.

There are probably tons of other similar examples, but sometimes it really boils down to authors having a plan and forcing editors to STFU when they come up with schemes to milk more money from the series. Eking out a living and creating polished works of art seem to be mutually exclusive goals, in manga and anime land.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Hagane »

Planning and what the author wants really have little to do with how a series unfolds. In manga, authors pitch an initial idea to the publishers, and if it sells the editors will handle it however they see it fit to maximize sales and the creator usually has very little say on that. If the editors think that doing X will maximize sales, the author will have to do X. Most well known case of this is Toriyama with Dragon Ball, which starts as a comedy adventure with some fighting and shifts to constantly fighting aliens when Piccolo appears since they figured out that would sell more, completely changing the tone of the series forever.

Vinland Saga became a masterpiece after such a change by the way. It initially started as a shonen centering around generic shonen protagonist, then on the second volume it moves to a seinen magazine and with that the focus shifts away from him towards much better written characters, and comes to him again when he stops being an one dimensional edgy cardboard. No mangling whatsoever by the way, Farmland Saga is the best part of the whole manga.

Authors can't really STFU editors, unless maybe if they are super successful well established ones. Let's not forget that manga/anime authors are literal slaves working all day to meet unreasonable deadlines and constantly being pushed to maximize sales by the publishers, fearing a cancellation if their manga isn't a resounding success. Noda also does what his editors say. Hell, the whole idea of Golden Kamuy is born from the suggestion of an editor, after Noda's previous ice hockey manga Supinamarada! was cancelled. That's how much influence those guys have in the industry.

Manga creation is similar to what Netflix does now; editors carefully study what works and what doesn't in their strictly segmented demographics, and try to add that to the ideas of the mangaka, and further adjust things according to consumer feedback. Here's a good interview with Golden Kamuy's managing editor and how he worked with Noda:

https://kamuycentral.wordpress.com/2017 ... -may-2016/

There are publications that are not so insane about things, like Harta (ex Fellows) which consistently produces excellent manga, but those tend to be monthly (or less in Harta's case, with ten issues a year) and they tend to sell less since they don't try to tick every single thing that works like the most commercial magazines do. If you want to sell, editor hell awaits.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

Hagane wrote:Planning and what the author wants really have little to do with how a series unfolds. In manga, authors pitch an initial idea to the publishers, and if it sells the editors will handle it however they see it fit to maximize sales and the creator usually has very little say on that. If the editors think that doing X will maximize sales, the author will have to do X. Most well known case of this is Toriyama with Dragon Ball, which starts as a comedy adventure with some fighting and shifts to constantly fighting aliens when Piccolo appears since they figured out that would sell more, completely changing the tone of the series forever.
Well, editors usually accept initial plans and are generally responsible on confirming/rejecting expansions, as well as giving input to authors. Whether and how (mostly how) the author implements the expansions is up to the author, and few authors can add material and/or shift the premise while keeping the original idea intact. Authors usually need to propose a general plan (1-, 3-, 5-years plan), and some magazines can require a partition into arcs, an initial decision for an ending, and so on. Some more below...
Vinland Saga became a masterpiece after such a change by the way. It initially started as a shonen centering around generic shonen protagonist, then on the second volume it moves to a seinen magazine and with that the focus shifts away from him towards much better written characters, and comes to him again when he stops being an one dimensional edgy cardboard. No mangling whatsoever by the way, Farmland Saga is the best part of the whole manga.
Agreed, but the series right now is going through a single battle that has lasted 24 (monthly) issues. The main party was supposed to go to Greece (a new arc?), but then the plot shifted to something that might look like a final arc (change of plans? Fans are tired? Author is tired? We need more battles to sell again?). It seems like there is some confusion as to where the story should go, and that the author is stalling for time. This does not detract from the fact that the final part of the first arc and the whole farmland part were sublime. Now, however, I am not so sure that editor and author know where the series is going.
Authors can't really STFU editors, unless maybe if they are super successful well established ones. Let's not forget that manga/anime authors are literal slaves working all day to meet unreasonable deadlines and constantly being pushed to maximize sales by the publishers, fearing a cancellation if their manga isn't a resounding success. Noda also does what his editors say. Hell, the whole idea of Golden Kamuy is born from the suggestion of an editor, after Noda's previous ice hockey manga Supinamarada! was cancelled. That's how much influence those guys have in the industry.

Manga creation is similar to what Netflix does now; editors carefully study what works and what doesn't in their strictly segmented demographics, and try to add that to the ideas of the mangaka, and further adjust things according to consumer feedback. Here's a good interview with Golden Kamuy's managing editor and how he worked with Noda:

https://kamuycentral.wordpress.com/2017 ... -may-2016/
I believe that this type of model was introduced in the early '70s in manga, and possibly Marvel comics were doing market research in the 60s.
It might be a "chicken and egg" discussion, though, since customer feedback must have become an important factor in "sales" many moons ago.

I also read the interview (a while ago...), but as far as I can tell, neither editor nor author have still gone (more or less) astray from the original plan and Noda's pitches (he proposed a few possible series: authors always do when a series is cancelled).

What the translation reports, in fact, is this:
the editor of GK, via translation wrote: I think an editor must together with the author aims for the taste that can be accepted by many. I’ve been working together with Noda-sensei since the beginning of his debut Supinamarada!, and after the serialization ended, he showed me name (manga scripts) of various themes, but the moment I read the script for Golden Kamuy, I thought “This is it!” Something fundamental was born between me and Noda-sensei.
There is then the whole process of preparing a (possible) pilot, a general plan, and sending these preliminary works for internal evaluations (editors and editor-in-chief plus other intermediate figures vote on which series should be green-lighted). Authors do not have much freedom, but editors also do not randomly decide sales-driven changes by themselves, since they could backfire (even editors are mortal...). Consumers (here, readers) tend to be conservative, and prefer a series that remains stable in terms of core premises, even though on the surface it might introduce new material every week (see e.g. any battle manga drivel by Shonen Jump). Interestingly, western fans show much more pathological attachment to the status quo, otherwise the various superheroes titles would have disappeared aeons ago.

I would add that as far as I know, adding filler (pardon, "changes to plans") to a series is a decision that requires also an editor-in-chief or at least someone higher in charge to accept it and then editors can offer an input on how to do so, and authors execute. If a series sells well but changes alienate the base and result in a drop of sales (or even worse, cancellation), responsibility should fall on the editor (in theory: I never read any detailed material on this topic).

Editors need also to understand what authors can and cannot do, in terms of authorial skills, so they cannot order the impossible. They could end up ghost-writing series, though, and I am pretty sure that there are cases that I am forgetting (say, Urasawa's? Doesn't he work with an editor who actually wrote most of his series?). I recall reading that this has become the norm in the Light Novels market.

Said this...suggestions on Harta manga to read? :wink:


EDIT:

Some references that I summarised above in a libertine manner are:

Condry, Ian. (2013). The soul of anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan's Media Success Story. XXX: Duke Press.
Gravett, Paul (2004). Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics. New York: Harper Design.
Schodt, Frederik L. (1996). Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press.

I am too lazy to chase other works I am (mis)quoting.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BryanM »

I do like blaming Saiki's dad for this. The translating teams' synopsis featuring this character is usually more entertaining than the series itself.

Examples:
Spoiler
It was a bright and sunny day when The Editor, after previously contemplating getting run over by a truck to escape his living nightmare of a job during his morning commute, clocked into his publishing company's building. Today, he had a meeting with a new potential writer who wished to make a new light novel for his company.

"Okay," said the Editor, looking at the unshaven man seated opposite him. "Let's hear your idea for a novel. Twenty words or less."

"All right," said the author, clearly having prepared for this editor's abrasive interviewing skills. "It's an isekai where - get this - the main character becomes an assassin. Crazy, right?"

The Editor would usually choke himself when hearing the "I" word, but now he gave pause. Sure, many series do the generic invincible hero, but not a lot do assassins. Conflicts where the MC must rely on stealth and wits alone, rather than overwhelming strength, could make for an interesting title. After all, how many LNs try to be like Metal Gear Solid and Dishonored instead of Dragon Quest?

Editor-San adjusted his glasses and slightly leaned forward. "Go on."

"Okay, so the main character and his whole class gets transported to another world by a king who needs them to defeat the demon lord. Thing is that everybody thinks that the most popular guy in class is the hero and they all act like assholes to the MC, who is the loner of the class, but secretly the MC is stronger than all of them combined! But he hides his skill screen from them during appraisal, so they don't know it. Anyway, it turns out the royals are secretly evil - it's a perfect twist, nobody will see it coming - and the MC decides to run off and gets a cute elf waifu to join his party while he goes to adventurer guilds and fight goblins and why are you sticking a shotgun in your mouth?"

Editor-San looked at the barrel lodged down his throat, his fingers at the trigger, then back at Author-Kun.

"Shorry. Forsh ov habit."
___

It was a cruel night when the Editor, after hours of hard work, finally went to his home. Dinner with his wife was quiet - not a usual quiet, but the disturbing quiet. The Editor was the first to speak.

"So, my company is making another manga adaptation of a light novel series. And they've put me in charge of editing it."

His wife beamed. "Well, isn't that great? I mean, who knows - you could get a real Sword Art Online on your ha-"

"It's an isekai series, but the twist is that the main character is always naked."

Ugly pause. The wife feigns a smile.

"That sounds like a... wonderful idea? I mean, clearly we'll see many unique plot threads and well-written charact-"

"I've seen it," spoke the Editor. "It's nothing but the same formulaic isekai my company has been posting for the last two years. The only difference is that the guy doesn't wear any clothing. That's it."

"But people will still buy it. And I'm sure people on MangaDex will still follow it just because it's an isekai. I mean, they're well-known for having horrible tas-"

The Editor, without a sound, raised his hand and struck his wife's face with a resounding slap. Sake spilled off of the counter onto the tatami mats - the mats paid for with that damned isekai money.

She was right, too. And the Editor knew it. But he hated knowing what he had become.
Really a good enough premise for a series in its own right.

Mass media is built for churn, it's just like daytime soaps. Only the fanatical have read literally every rendition of Spüder-Man. Otherwise it's just a flick to take the kids and grandkids to in the long term.

Even fresh (at the time, everything mildews with age) stuff can overstay its welcome. Fables and Kirkman's stuff went past the end, but the impetus might not have been simply profit, but also an urge to not let down their readers who stuck with them for a decade. In the old days Kirkman used to talk all the time about how he was going to whore Invincible out like a zombie when he was finished. But over the years his opinion on that idea flipped completely - Invincible was always a soft counter commentary against all the things that make superhero comics suck. Endless reboots, spinoffs, endless continuity that ain't that continuous - we already have Marvel and DC providing that.

The shittiest example of that might be from New X-Men, where the writer made X-Men interesting somehow. But then he brought Magneto back from the grave "because X-Men has to suck". Even the teenagers in the story were like "Magneto? Who cares. Old news." He didn't just bring him back for the narrative to shrug indifferently about it either - he killed off a new character that most everyone liked, quite a lot, to do it. The editors begged him not to, but the mad man did it anyway.
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Hagane »

Rando:

On Vinland, the only thing that annoys me from the current arc is the whole "look, Thorfinn will have to fight again, he can't possibly avoid fighting now" and of course he doesn't fight, because he doesn't want to and because Hild will drive a bolt through his skull if he does, so it's pretty pointless. Pretty solid thought IMO, despite this.

As for Harta, it's particular for focusing on fantasy and history, and for having lots of women doing seinen instead of the more usual female demographics. Flagship series are Otoyomegatari by Kaoru Mori, chill historical romance manga set in the Middle East with obsessive attention to research and rendering of clothing, and Dungeon Meshi by Ryoko Kui, a fantasy manga about a group of adventurers that loses an important member fighting a dragon and, penniless to buy equipment and food, resort to cooking monsters as they explore the dungeon when they meet a dwarven cook.

Both are great but since you were talking about fantasy stuff earlier, Meshi (also known as Delicious in Dungeon) is an excellent choice with little bullshit, solid characters and overall very unique feel in such an overcrowded genre. Also recommendable are her short story compilations (Ryuu no Kawaii Nanatsu no Ko, Hikidashi ni Terrarium and Ryuu no Gakkou wa Yama no Ue), also fantasy themed and with original approaches. Lovely clean artstyle, too.

Outside of those big two, you have

- Hakumei to Mikochi, that recently got an anime adaptation and is a slice of life about the everyday lives of two fairies in a forest full of interesting characters, be it fairies or talking animals. Amazingly manages to be very enrertaining despite having pretty much no conflict whatsoever. Simple character art and incredible backgrounds.

- Aoi Horus no Hitomi: fictionalized life of Hatshepsut, the woman Pharaoh. Probably not very historically strict since not much is known of the real person, but has all the political intrigue you could imagine from that setting, which is not that common in manga.Pleasant art, wonky English translation of a French translation.

- Hinamatsuri: comedy about an alien girl with super powers that comes to the Earth and is "adopted" by a Yakuza that puts those powers to use. Dad manga with a twist. Recently got an anime I didn't watch.

-Ookami no Kuchi: Wolfsmund: dark and gritty historical manga about the Swiss rebellion against the Habsburgs, made by an ex-assistant to Kaori Moru and Kentaro Miura. Lots of people die.

- Ran to Haiiro no Sekai: Beautiful looking fantasy/romance/slice of life manga. Worth it already by the imaginative and unique visuals. The author (Irie Akie) also has a cool compilation of short stories called Gunjou Gakusha, sometimes uneven but still visually beautiful.

Those are pretty good depending on what genres interest you.
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Sir Ilpalazzo
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Sir Ilpalazzo »

I actually think Attack on Titan has never been better than it has during the current story arc. It's totally not true that the author just made it up as he went along - looking at how things are turning out and reading earlier chapters with that in mind, he clearly planned out the direction the story was going from the beginning. (Though there was one arc that definitely ran a little too long in the manga, I suppose.)
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lilmanjs
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by lilmanjs »

Outlaw Star. Never seen this before, and I'm enjoying the hell out of this. Was this intended to be a throwback to the 80s anime style? I get that feeling heavily with this show, plus the humor is spot on as well.
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soprano1
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by soprano1 »

lilmanjs wrote:Outlaw Star. Never seen this before, and I'm enjoying the hell out of this. Was this intended to be a throwback to the 80s anime style? I get that feeling heavily with this show, plus the humor is spot on as well.
It's a great show, for sure. Fantastic OP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urdCzAOBJCE
ChurchOfSolipsism wrote:I'll make sure I'll download it illegally one day...
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lilmanjs
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by lilmanjs »

soprano1 wrote:
lilmanjs wrote:Outlaw Star. Never seen this before, and I'm enjoying the hell out of this. Was this intended to be a throwback to the 80s anime style? I get that feeling heavily with this show, plus the humor is spot on as well.
It's a great show, for sure. Fantastic OP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urdCzAOBJCE
I'm through the first 9 episodes of the show (which is disc one of the Blu Rays) and I just love how the ship's computer is such a jerk 9 times out of 10 to everyone.
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BrianC
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BrianC »

Outlaw Star is good stuff.
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Steamflogger Boss
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

BrianC wrote:Outlaw Star is good stuff.
Yeah, this.

Which reminds me I still need to upgrade to the BD and see how it looks.
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lilmanjs
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by lilmanjs »

Steamflogger Boss wrote:
BrianC wrote:Outlaw Star is good stuff.
Yeah, this.

Which reminds me I still need to upgrade to the BD and see how it looks.
Fantastic as hell! I can totally say it is worth having. I'm just watching this via the library, since they have it in their collection, but man does it look fantastic.
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BrianC
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BrianC »

I first watched in on Cartoon Network, but I later watched it unedited via Netflix DVD rental. I plan to get the Blu-ray, but Amazon is being stupid about getting it in stock. 1 to 2 months? really?
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Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Yeah that's dumb. It's in stock at Rightstuf but the price is too high for me right now given I already have the DVD set. I'll wait for another sale there.
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