[Cause]

Season 2 of DanMachi or 'Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon' has started and I am really enjoying it.

The name of this makes me cringe, and I don't know if the source material is different but despite the name the Anime does not really seem to be about one guy somehow attracting everything with a pulse (I see you high school DxD). The fan service is minimal and though their is that aspect of the main character earning the affections of multiple female characters its kept low key and the main character instead of trying to have every woman in the story is only interested in one.

I just enjoy the story of a lone young level adventurer who wants to become a hero and so he goes into a dungeon every day to fight monsters and hone his skills. The anime is played as if the rules that governed RPGs were real. They fight monsters, gain experience and level up, monsters drop loot etc yet its not ridiculous. Killing a minotaur isn't worth 40 xp and you need 200 to level. Rather although characters do get levels etc it is mostly kept more analogue and natural. The story is simple but entertaining and I enjoy watching the main character overcome obstacles and grow.

[Maark Abbott]

Cause, on 29 July 2019 - 10:52 AM, said:

Season 2 of DanMachi or 'Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon' has started and I am really enjoying it.

The name of this makes me cringe, and I don't know if the source material is different but despite the name the Anime does not really seem to be about one guy somehow attracting everything with a pulse (I see you high school DxD). The fan service is minimal and though their is that aspect of the main character earning the affections of multiple female characters its kept low key and the main character instead of trying to have every woman in the story is only interested in one.

I just enjoy the story of a lone young level adventurer who wants to become a hero and so he goes into a dungeon every day to fight monsters and hone his skills. The anime is played as if the rules that governed RPGs were real. They fight monsters, gain experience and level up, monsters drop loot etc yet its not ridiculous. Killing a minotaur isn't worth 40 xp and you need 200 to level. Rather although characters do get levels etc it is mostly kept more analogue and natural. The story is simple but entertaining and I enjoy watching the main character overcome obstacles and grow.

The title stems from Bell's original reason for becoming an adventurer - his grandfather telling him that the best way to find a girl was to become a heroic adventurer (and of course his first foray into the dungeon proved this as folly). It's an enjoyable series. Although worth noting that levelling up only comes from performing worthy deeds - they can't just build up XP and ding, hence why Bell only got to level 2 after he went all out against a Minotaur during the Pass Parade segment.

Also, KyoAni digital data was backed up. So that's a nice positive to pull out of that whole mess.

[Cause]

Maark Abbott, on 30 July 2019 - 07:30 AM, said:

The title stems from Bell's original reason for becoming an adventurer - his grandfather telling him that the best way to find a girl was to become a heroic adventurer (and of course his first foray into the dungeon proved this as folly). It's an enjoyable series. Although worth noting that levelling up only comes from performing worthy deeds - they can't just build up XP and ding, hence why Bell only got to level 2 after he went all out against a Minotaur during the Pass Parade segment.

It amazes me when people casually drop references like this. If I hadn't rewatched season 1 before rewatching season 2 I would have no memory of the pass parade at all.

There is still a low key amount of (I cant recall the anime subgenre name) harem romance. The guys god, his love interest, his teammate, his local waitress all care or come to care or are obviously going to come to care for a him. I appreciate its low-key, background stuff and not the key focus of the plot.

This post has been edited by Cause: 30 July 2019 - 11:16 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Cause, on 30 July 2019 - 11:12 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 30 July 2019 - 07:30 AM, said:

The title stems from Bell's original reason for becoming an adventurer - his grandfather telling him that the best way to find a girl was to become a heroic adventurer (and of course his first foray into the dungeon proved this as folly). It's an enjoyable series. Although worth noting that levelling up only comes from performing worthy deeds - they can't just build up XP and ding, hence why Bell only got to level 2 after he went all out against a Minotaur during the Pass Parade segment.

It amazes me when people casually drop references like this. If I hadn't rewatched season 1 before rewatching season 2 I would have no memory of the pass parade at all.

There is still a low key amount of (I cant recall the anime subgenre name) harem romance. The guys god, his love interest, his teammate, his local waitress all care or come to care or are obviously going to come to care for a him. I appreciate its low-key, background stuff and not the key focus of the plot.

I have a considerable capacity for useless trivia. Incidentally the Pass Parade is why Takemikazuchi's Familia is working closely with Hestia now - it's penance. Self-imposed by Ouka (axe dude), I believe.

There was a subtext about him being unusual enough to attract notice, which I recall from S1 is due to him being half-god (his grandfather was Zeus I think?).

Unfortunately most anime fantasy has some element of harem involved. Chalk it up to Japan trying to get men interested in getting their lady folk knocked up, I'd say. Birth rate over there is pretty low.

[Cause]

Amazing. I remembered the general plot and who everyone was but I didn't remember names and I fact I forgot two important characters completly. On the other hand I did watch it back in 2015 in a weekend probably.

[Maark Abbott]

Cause, on 30 July 2019 - 07:08 PM, said:

Amazing. I remembered the general plot and who everyone was but I didn't remember names and I fact I forgot two important characters completly. On the other hand I did watch it back in 2015 in a weekend probably.

I watched season 1 in 2015 or 2016. Whichever year Re:Zero came out in because I watched it between episodes.

[Dolmen 2.0]

So...can we talk about CGI?

Because I'm gonna...


I got turned on to a show called Baki the Grappler, it's ok. I like aspects of it and hate other aspects of it, like most shounen battle manga it's a mixed bag. one thing I enjoy is the artistry behind depictions of force.
This is one area Baki excels. Every hit looks painful, every character has aura, presence, and nuances of danger conveyed masterfully through artistic forms of drawn animation.

I enjoyed it even if the story was meh.

Then I got redirected to Kengan Ashura, the manga. It was the best action comic I'd read all year. Chock-full of fun and spectacle, simple but effective. It's funny, it's epic, it's brutal, it's really dumb sometimes but also clever now and again in its own ways. The mangaka is extremely talented and every action page looked as gorgeous as it was extremely brutal...If you love martial arts this was a treat!

Then Netflix announced the anime.

Excited I jumped at the chance to watch it today...only to discover to my horror, that this show was CGI. Not just any CGI, but bad CGI. The facial expressions scream uncanny valley, the motions look jerky and puppet-like, the dialogue is forced, non-emotive, off-beat...It fails the manga so badly. tbh I wouldn't complain if I hadn't seen Baki first, but I did and really this makes no sense.

I can't really explain it but I am certain this decision has killed a potentially fantastic anime...and it's annoying!

What's going on here? is this shift to CGI being pushed by Netflix or is this a Japanese anime industry thing?

It's killing genres. I mean even the Godzilla movies, which were actually fairly decent, just don't 'work'. CGI makes sense in Sci-Fi or even paranormal genres like Aijin, but battle anime, emphasizing motion artistry really don't make sense in CGI. Some things look more convincing the less natural they seem and I can't understand why the industry can't understand this...

How many Berserk season 2s will it take?!

Make it stop.

please?

</Rant>

[Cause]

I think its dirt cheap. Not an expert but that's the only explanation. Instead of drawing 50 panels for 2 seconds of motion (though I think computers help here too) they have a designer mock up some character designs and backgrounds and than can use the PC to model movements and knock out whole episodes in days rather than weeks. It looks bad, has uncanny vibes, or worse doesn't even look remotely human and believable. I have stopped watching shows after just a few minutes of bad cgi so the only reasons I can think studios continue to use it is because its cheap.

[LinearPhilosopher]

Dolmen 2.0, on 01 August 2019 - 11:15 AM, said:

So...can we talk about CGI?

Because I'm gonna...


I got turned on to a show called Baki the Grappler, it's ok. I like aspects of it and hate other aspects of it, like most shounen battle manga it's a mixed bag. one thing I enjoy is the artistry behind depictions of force.
This is one area Baki excels. Every hit looks painful, every character has aura, presence, and nuances of danger conveyed masterfully through artistic forms of drawn animation.

I enjoyed it even if the story was meh.

Then I got redirected to Kengan Ashura, the manga. It was the best action comic I'd read all year. Chock-full of fun and spectacle, simple but effective. It's funny, it's epic, it's brutal, it's really dumb sometimes but also clever now and again in its own ways. The mangaka is extremely talented and every action page looked as gorgeous as it was extremely brutal...If you love martial arts this was a treat!

Then Netflix announced the anime.

Excited I jumped at the chance to watch it today...only to discover to my horror, that this show was CGI. Not just any CGI, but bad CGI. The facial expressions scream uncanny valley, the motions look jerky and puppet-like, the dialogue is forced, non-emotive, off-beat...It fails the manga so badly. tbh I wouldn't complain if I hadn't seen Baki first, but I did and really this makes no sense.

I can't really explain it but I am certain this decision has killed a potentially fantastic anime...and it's annoying!

What's going on here? is this shift to CGI being pushed by Netflix or is this a Japanese anime industry thing?

It's killing genres. I mean even the Godzilla movies, which were actually fairly decent, just don't 'work'. CGI makes sense in Sci-Fi or even paranormal genres like Aijin, but battle anime, emphasizing motion artistry really don't make sense in CGI. Some things look more convincing the less natural they seem and I can't understand why the industry can't understand this...

How many Berserk season 2s will it take?!

Make it stop.

please?

</Rant>

Ok so here's the thing. Bad animation looks bad. Now there's definitely an argument to be made that bad cgi is worse then bad normal animation, but remember 20 years ago when gonzo animation was a meme?

The difference though, is cgi is cheaper. So if you wanna just spit out anime, cgi is more cost effective. That being said the best results are when both are combined flawlessly. Old examples likes ghost in the Shell or more recently something like re creators.

That being said, before you write off cgi completely, I implore you to watch a few episodes of houseki no Kuni, it's a beautiful show and it's all cgi.

[D'rek]

I'm not even so sure that CGI is cheaper. There was a Canipa video and a couple other credible articles on the subject a while back that said on average it was the same or even more expensive. However, I think CGI might more reliably delivers on-schedule (in that Canipa video, he noted Polygon, one of the biggest CGI anime studios, has delivered shows entirely in advance even when they didn't need to). Wouldn't surprise me to find out that Netflix puts a higher priority on the show's animation being delivered on-time reliably than on the quality of the animation.

And LP makes a good point that there's plenty of bad-looking "traditional" animation, too, though it doesn't stick out as much as the bad CGI. Have there been *any* good-looking Netflix-commissioned anime, CGI or otherwise, aside from Devilman Crybaby?

LinearPhilosopher, on 06 August 2019 - 03:39 AM, said:

That being said, before you write off cgi completely, I implore you to watch a few episodes of houseki no Kuni, it's a beautiful show and it's all cgi.

I don't even think Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous) even looks that good. Far better than Berserk, sure, but it's still very obviously "TV quality" and it's benefitting a ton from how its characters and setting are different from the usual anime settings/characters so they don't have to actually look all that "anime style". There have been good-looking anime CGI movies though - Captain Harlock looked good (also not "anime style" at all), and the CGI Doraemon movie trailers from a couple years ago looked amazing though I haven't seen the actual movie (and much more keeping to "anime style", I think).

There's an old show from like 2011 or so called Etotama that seems to get talked about a lot for its CGI - the show had both traditionally animated and CGI sections which apparently blended together and kept a consistent look really well (judging from the clips on Youtube, I'd agree). Somehow almost a decade ago a studio figured out how to make not only good anime CGI, but CGI that actually matches the look and style of 2D anime, and yet we still have absolute crap like Berserk today. But the secret there was that Etotama was - for some weird reason - made by a company that usually makes video game cinematics and effects for live-action films, both of which pay far more so they have little or no incentive to work on another lower-budget TV anime. And that's the secret, I guess - other than a few higher budget anime movies like Doraemon (and maybe this new CG Lupin movie?) anime can't afford the good CGI studios and is stuck with Land of the Lustrous at best... or Berserk/Kengan Ashura at worst.

[Maark Abbott]

Ah, badly drawn anime has its own charm though. ImoImo was memetic gold for the shitty animation.

[Nicodimas]

As a huge bebop fan ( I have a tattoo!) saw this and this is now it is mine!!

Ever have those moments your happy your a nerd.. pretty freaking awesome.

No idea where in putting it , scale wise it’s huge! Soda added to show this.



(Jet ordered, Faye still being sculpted as a note)

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This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 08 August 2019 - 05:16 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Hey, those are pretty nice.

[Cause]

D, on 06 August 2019 - 05:25 AM, said:

And LP makes a good point that there's plenty of bad-looking "traditional" animation, too, though it doesn't stick out as much as the bad CGI. Have there been *any* good-looking Netflix-commissioned anime, CGI or otherwise, aside from Devilman Crybaby?

Do yourself a favour and watch the castlevania anime on Netflix. Its beautifully drawn, the sense of kinetic energy in the fight scenes is beautifully done and the Belmont fights like I imagine Cotillion/The Rope does. Also the plot is good and although I'm not a huge fan of the games I believe purists do approve of its closeness to the source material.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Okay in seeking some new action anime I have recently watched

One Punch Man - I enjoy it, its mildly amusing and by giving saitama an apprentice we can watch beautiful fights involving him before one punch man kills somebody in one fight so its not as boring as I first assumed it would be based on the first episode I watched and gave up on in the past.

Goblin Slayer -12 20 min episodes I knocked out in a night. The whole time I was thinking, this is okay but pretty boring. If I wasn't so tired that night I would have got up and done something else. I suspect based on some awkward scenes and jumps in character development that's its perhaps just poorly adapted and doesn't have the time to show everything.

Rise of the Shield Hero - I only saw 20 min last night before I fell asleep. Seems standard stuff. I know I said I enjoy Danmachi but this idea of real life RPGs in animes is becoming cliché. Is this any good? Some random googling reveals some people think its great and some people think its creepy as hell?

I see Neon Evangenesis is on Netflix, I tried watching episode 1. I forgot how depressing and annoying this show could be.

This post has been edited by Cause: 08 August 2019 - 08:13 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Isekai is a huge trend and tends to be very generic, so ROTSH is pretty much standard fare.

[D'rek]

Cause, on 08 August 2019 - 08:07 AM, said:

D, on 06 August 2019 - 05:25 AM, said:

And LP makes a good point that there's plenty of bad-looking "traditional" animation, too, though it doesn't stick out as much as the bad CGI. Have there been *any* good-looking Netflix-commissioned anime, CGI or otherwise, aside from Devilman Crybaby?

Do yourself a favour and watch the castlevania anime on Netflix. Its beautifully drawn, the sense of kinetic energy in the fight scenes is beautifully done and the Belmont fights like I imagine Cotillion/The Rope does. Also the plot is good and although I'm not a huge fan of the games I believe purists do approve of its closeness to the source material.

I watched it, and fair point that show (anime or not) had some good looking scenes. I found the plot very boring, mostly due to the villain, but the visuals were good.

[Dolmen 2.0]

D, on 08 August 2019 - 05:44 PM, said:

Cause, on 08 August 2019 - 08:07 AM, said:

D, on 06 August 2019 - 05:25 AM, said:

And LP makes a good point that there's plenty of bad-looking "traditional" animation, too, though it doesn't stick out as much as the bad CGI. Have there been *any* good-looking Netflix-commissioned anime, CGI or otherwise, aside from Devilman Crybaby?

Do yourself a favour and watch the castlevania anime on Netflix. Its beautifully drawn, the sense of kinetic energy in the fight scenes is beautifully done and the Belmont fights like I imagine Cotillion/The Rope does. Also the plot is good and although I'm not a huge fan of the games I believe purists do approve of its closeness to the source material.

I watched it, and fair point that show (anime or not) had some good looking scenes. I found the plot very boring, mostly due to the villain, but the visuals were good.

I found the support characters around the villain more interesting aswell.

I feel Season 3 will deliver a much more interesting antagonist dynamic although I worry we'll be seeing "him" return and that would spoil the second seasons best scene imho.


RE CGI, I think we are getting some well-considered use of the tool in modern anime, watching episode 5 of berserk made me realize how well they mesh media without losing story fidelity or animation quality.

Demon slayer battles being set in a generic dark, tree-covered environments still make an effort to make the setting look "believable" and merged together with the high pace hand-drawn animation cells.

I suppose Kengan Asura being a break in adaptation for its respective author needed that deadline advantage to capitalize on the Netflix wave. I just completed the manga and honestly it's a well-contained battle arc, very little potential to screw the narrative. Perhaps this ensured a quick and smooth adaptation.

I'm still sad it didn't get better treatment but I guess the only way to improve these things is for the studios involved to get rapid opportunity to practice and maybe learn efficiently from gaming studios.

[D'rek]

So, uh, today I'm thinking about the best scenes and episodes from the past couple years. A Place Further Than The Universe, Happy Sugar Life, Devilman Crybaby, and Promised Neverland had some emotion-wracking heavy hitters. Attack on Titan season 3 and Kekkai Sensen and Beyond had some visually unbelievable action scenes. Starlight Revue and My Hero Academia both had some big beautiful and emotion-laden action scenes, too.

I'm thinking about this because today's Kimetsu no Yaiba episode (episode 19) I think beats them all. I can't remember a single episode this good from at least the last few years.

I've been kinda sleeping on this show and not talking about it that much, even though its been pretty fun the whole way so far, has had a bunch of gorgeous animations earlier in the season, has some hilarious comedy, and does a pretty good job of avoiding the usual shonen tropes/setting/characters/etc. Today, though, was an absolutely jaw-dropping, tear-shedding, eyeball-gasming experience, and I can't shut up about it anymore.

Best episode of the last few years, and if you're not watching this you're now officially missing out. Remember the first time you watched the Gurren Lagann finale, and then imagine you never did - it's that sort of missing out.

[Maark Abbott]

That battle with the Spider Kizuki was excellent to begin with, but when

Spoiler

Monjiro activated and then Nezuko also gained her BDA

... Fuck me, I immediately went and got a beer after that. One of the best sequences in anime that I've seen in YEARS.

I think the most impactful anime for me lately was Your Lie. Which I watched last year when my Stepmother had her terminal diagnosis. Mistakes were made... And made bigly.

In the world of zany comedies, I've been watching Girls' Frontline: Healing, which is a series of shorts that MICA are running before the actual show comes out (the game's story is dark as all fuck and I expect full PTSD to ensue from the show proper) - it's pretty good for a quick chuckle, but I suppose you'd need to know the characters to get any mileage out of it.

This post has been edited by D'rek: 13 August 2019 - 03:57 AM

[D'rek]

Maark Abbott, on 12 August 2019 - 07:48 AM, said:

That battle with the Spider Kizuki was excellent to begin with, but when

Spoiler

Monjiro activated and then Nezuko also gained her BDA

... Fuck me, I immediately went and got a beer after that. One of the best sequences in anime that I've seen in YEARS.

A-fucking-men. I've rewatched that second half of the episode a good dozen times now, just can't get it out of my head.

Spoiler

I love the unexpectedness of it all - Tanjiro has several "well done but not enough" moments in the fight against Rui, I kept expecting it to go the way of "you did well, but you're not that far yet" by having Giyuu show up to help him finish it. That seems so plausible with Giyuu being hyped up in the first half of the episode, after all. But nope, they instead went for just building up such a great moment for Tanjiro (and Nezuko) instead, and having the obvious easy way out be there and not taken makes it all the better of a cathartic, incredible moment for the audience to have with him.

Likewise, the discipline of Nezuko not talking for 19 episodes, saving it all up for this.

Someone posted the manga chapters for comparison on reddit and it's amazing how much they added on top of the manga. The manga basically just has Tanjiro go straight from starting the dance to at Rui's neck, so the entire sequence of him charging through webs and jumping around the forest after Rui was all added. And holy hell rewatching that bit it just gets more and more visually impressive every time.

And goddamn the pink-orange explosion effects are so gorgeous. And the pace/directing on showing the big final hits twice from different angles is perfectly timed.

And the foreshadow/priming of the butterfly lady telling Zenitsu about your life flashing before your eyes as a form of problem solving is wonderfully subtle (something that was also changed from the manga, apparently, where it was just a narrator-text over the moment Tanjiro switches instead)

And the fucking music is so good.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm gonna go watch it again now