[D'rek]

And like 8 million other fantasy books. The whole "warrior guy in the middle looking away from the camera at bigger thing looming on the horizon" layout has been done to death and Malazan definitely wasn't the first.

[QuickTidal]

A bunch of MACROSS content has been aded to Disney+ and so I've added it as my MACROSS knowledge is limited to MACROSS PLUS (which was a thing when I was getting into Anime in the 90s), and having watched Harmony Gold's massacre of the original series which was called ROBOTECH over here as a kid (which I loved, but I understand why it's hated)....the only place I can find SUPER DIMENSIONAL FORTRESS MACROSS is on Youtube, so I'm watching it there before I dive into the rest of the peripheral stuff that D+ has...and I forgot how 80's this series was even when it was only ROBOTECH....so great.

[Maark Abbott]

This season is mental.

I have close to FORTY seasonal shows if we include stuff running on from last season. And of those forty or so, only six are continuations from Autum 24.

[QuickTidal]

SDFM update. I'm 6 eps into the initial run...a few things stand out.

1. The casual misogyny in the show even though its Japan in 1982 is occasionally blatant. Add in that for no reason at all in episode 3 when Hikaru and Lynn Minmay are lost on Macross and they accidentally burst a water pipe...and Minmay decides to drop trow and have a shower in it....which...Japan, Japanning.

2. The animation goes super wonky sometimes and I was curious about it...so it turns out that Big West, who secured the ad rights to get SDFM onto the air, under Studio Nue who created it, wanted it to be done cheaply (they didn't realize they were going to have a smash hit on their hands; it jumped from a planned 24eps to 36 once they realized just how popular it was), so some of the animation duties were handed to Artland (who did a stelar job, and when SDFM looks the best...it's when they were the ones doing those scenes), and then secondarily to Tatsunoko who's work is fine, but not quite Artland....but reportedly Tatsunoko could not accomplish all the scenes they'd been given to animate in the timeframe given, so they farmed out a bunch of it to a third party subsidiary called AnimeFriend, who did an absolutely ratchet job of their scenes. So I'll be watching and I'll be like, "Oof, this is bad even for 1982" or a character will jitter in place for no reason at all, and then other times I'll be like "wow, this looks very good for 1982"....I now know that these are due to the Frankenstein production of the thing.

Content wise? It's great. I'm having a blast. It's nice to drop back into my Robotech Youth with the actual show that it was cobbled together from, and the 80'sness of it gives me the warm and fuzzies.

[LinearPhilosopher]

I tried getting into a a pair of newer anime

1) The Isekai Headhunter Anime. Good Premise, too bad the writing is poor and the other characters from what we've seen are just walking tropes.

2) The villainess ISekai. I mean at least this one had heart. I could see what they were going for. I might watch a bit more in the future but Idk if I can see myself watching this over...

3) Dr. Stone. Loved the premise. Loved the whole, soap is super important now as we don't have modern medicine. I just wish it wasn't dumb teenagers with dumb teenager reactions to everything.
NEW CASTLEVANIA BABY!!!!! Now here's some quality anime.

But that aside, I think i'm getting old as I just don't care for most new anime. I'm tired of seeing the same character across multiple shows, and the same character reactions over and over again.

Why does it feel 90% of anime is teenagers writing for teenagers.

[QuickTidal]

First episode of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX is on Prime.

I'm not going to lie, I checked it out SOLELY because it's Hideaki Anno and I like his "depressive, but upbeat" vibe in most of his work....but man, the hallmarks and tics of his EVA years is all OVER this....like the military command centre with big chairs occupied by what MAY as well be Misato, and Maya, the shadowed and mostly quiet guy in command standing by the window with hands clasped behind his back is just Gendo Ikari if he was younger and had teal hair and a goatee, the mechs launch off platforms eerily reminiscent of the launch platforms in NERV HQ, The pilot of the one Gundam (in what is basically an Eva plug suit design-wise), the Psychocomm connection between the lead and the Gundam is just AT Field stuff, Heck there is even a PenPen stand-in with whatever that little steel ball robot thing is...I just need the Mistao stand-in to me a beer-swilling, ramen-downing woman and it will be complete.

I'm not super complaining, it was a good opener ep...but man it's like he stepped out of Eva, and then stood right up against Eva to create this. LOL. Never change Anno....never change.

[QuickTidal]

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX episode 2 was a mindfuck, holy shit.

Amusingly, in the long history of GUNDAM shows, I've only ever seen the original Mobile Suit Gundam (which was what? 40eps?)...but it's enough since this whole episode is a flashback to 5 years previously, and shows that this show is an alternate timeline of the events during and after the One Year War in that original series...and this whole ass episode was a masterclass in hearkening back to the animation of that era, the mech designs, the character designs, the commercial splash logo screen, the score, everything...but it's there to show us that this is a different timeline...

Spoiler

In this timeline, Zeon wins the One Year War because antagonist of the original series Char Aznable, steals the RX-78-2 Gundam white Gundam instead of it being commandeered by the Federation's Amuro Ray....Char repaints the Gundam Red but then it disappears along with a large chunk of and asteroid space station called the Zeknova, and has not been seen since

So that ties us back into the beginning of the first episode where it's been 5 years, Char's original friend and co-solider Chalia Bull is commanding forces outside Side 7 colony base (where the main character lives) and sees the Red Gundam 5 years after his friend disappeared in it. It's being piloted now by a young mysterious boy named Shuji Ito.

The whole thing blew my mind really. Just a really interesting way to make a new Gundam show, but having it be an alternate reality to the original in a "What if Zeon won the war?"


Anyways, amazing animation and character so far...and the opening is a banger:

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Yesterday, 12:16 PM

[Tsundoku]

Watching Solo Leveling on Crunchyroll. On ep 4 and seems like fun so far. Very much a litrpg feel, but not to it's detriment.

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 16 April 2025 - 12:36 PM, said:

Watching Solo Leveling on Crunchyroll. On ep 4 and seems like fun so far. Very much a litrpg feel, but not to it's detriment.

I tried to get into it, but I wasn't vibing with it initially. I'll probably go back to I, it's pretty popular.

People rip on it for being Korean, but that's also not a determent to me.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Yesterday, 01:05 PM

[Tsundoku]

QuickTidal, on 16 April 2025 - 01:05 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 16 April 2025 - 12:36 PM, said:

Watching Solo Leveling on Crunchyroll. On ep 4 and seems like fun so far. Very much a litrpg feel, but not to it's detriment.

I tried to get into it, but I wasn't vibing with it initially. I'll probably go back to I, it's pretty popular.

People rip on it for being Korean, but that's also not a determent to me.

Why would people rip on it for being Korean?

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

We've just finished watching Frieren: Beyond Journey's End on Netflix.

Beautiful looking series and it has a very cosy vibe with occasional peril involving demons and magic. Super powerful elf mage outlives her former adventuring party of heroes and goes on a personal quest to learn more about them, picks up people connected to them along the way and side quests ensue.

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 16 April 2025 - 01:53 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 16 April 2025 - 01:05 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 16 April 2025 - 12:36 PM, said:

Watching Solo Leveling on Crunchyroll. On ep 4 and seems like fun so far. Very much a litrpg feel, but not to it's detriment.

I tried to get into it, but I wasn't vibing with it initially. I'll probably go back to I, it's pretty popular.

People rip on it for being Korean, but that's also not a determent to me.

Why would people rip on it for being Korean?

Because there are anime purists out there who think that only Japanese people should make anime. It's wild and stupid, but that's fandom for you.

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 16 April 2025 - 01:58 PM, said:

We've just finished watching Frieren: Beyond Journey's End on Netflix.

Beautiful looking series and it has a very cosy vibe with occasional peril involving demons and magic. Super powerful elf mage outlives her former adventuring party of heroes and goes on a personal quest to learn more about them, picks up people connected to them along the way and side quests ensue.

It's pretty much considered the best anime of the year. I found it quite slow, but that it was rewarding in the end. It's an emotional ride that's for sure.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

We're fairly new to anime - I don't suppose anyone who's seen it could recommend anything with a similar vibe to Frieren for us to try?