[TV] The What Anime Are You Watching Thread!
GasBandit
Staff member
GasBandit
Staff member
Wise Man's Grandchild
Genre: Stuck in another world, Fantasy, Action, Comedy
Fanservice: Boob fixation. Oppai Everywhere. Cleavage, beach episode, hot springs episode.
Premise: Truck-kun isekai's another Japanese dude into another world where he's OP AF. He goes to magic school and starts teaching a classroom full of stock characters how to be OP.
Basically this is "Prodigies Have it Easy" without the suck, and a dash of Harry Potter thrown in. It's ok. The characters are walking one-note tropes, it never really feels like the MC is in any actual danger, and frankly it's a stock-standard isekai. In fact, quite often the animation and artwork are sub-mediocre, and I'm getting the feeling that all these fantasy Animes of the past couple years are using the same stock art - because holy shit that video was right - every single fantasy town looks exactly the same.
Can you guess which of these comes from Konosuba, Shield Hero, and Wise Man's Grandchild?
The series' plot isn't anything too complex, the dialog is unremarkable, and in some parts (especially the villain's origin story) the pacing drags.. So the series leans pretty heavily on titillation and waifus. And boy oh boy do they have a waifu for everybody. You want a Loli? They got two. You want a "Great Value" brand Megumin? They got her too. You want a blue-haired no-other-distinguishing-characteristic-other-than-really-nice-girl-who-loves-the-protagonist? Check. You want buxom redheads? THEY'VE GOT THREE (four, if you count Grandma, who's got the body of a 25 year old). Welp, that was enough to get me to watch the whole thing, not that I'm proud of it.
There's some squandered potential, too. MC is OP because he remembers some basic scientific facts from his previous life and applies them to magic, but this gimmick is never really leveraged in a way that could have really given this series an interesting hook. Just throw in a science buzzword here and there and it's all good, right? What a waste. A real missed opportunity to turn what was a mediocre effort into something that could have been really noteworthy.
Verdict: 2.5/5. 2/5 if you don't have a ginger fixation. Not the most terrible thing I've watched, but for most people, entirely skippable.
Genre: Stuck in another world, Fantasy, Action, Comedy
Fanservice: Boob fixation. Oppai Everywhere. Cleavage, beach episode, hot springs episode.
Premise: Truck-kun isekai's another Japanese dude into another world where he's OP AF. He goes to magic school and starts teaching a classroom full of stock characters how to be OP.
Basically this is "Prodigies Have it Easy" without the suck, and a dash of Harry Potter thrown in. It's ok. The characters are walking one-note tropes, it never really feels like the MC is in any actual danger, and frankly it's a stock-standard isekai. In fact, quite often the animation and artwork are sub-mediocre, and I'm getting the feeling that all these fantasy Animes of the past couple years are using the same stock art - because holy shit that video was right - every single fantasy town looks exactly the same.
Can you guess which of these comes from Konosuba, Shield Hero, and Wise Man's Grandchild?
The series' plot isn't anything too complex, the dialog is unremarkable, and in some parts (especially the villain's origin story) the pacing drags.. So the series leans pretty heavily on titillation and waifus. And boy oh boy do they have a waifu for everybody. You want a Loli? They got two. You want a "Great Value" brand Megumin? They got her too. You want a blue-haired no-other-distinguishing-characteristic-other-than-really-nice-girl-who-loves-the-protagonist? Check. You want buxom redheads? THEY'VE GOT THREE (four, if you count Grandma, who's got the body of a 25 year old). Welp, that was enough to get me to watch the whole thing, not that I'm proud of it.
There's some squandered potential, too. MC is OP because he remembers some basic scientific facts from his previous life and applies them to magic, but this gimmick is never really leveraged in a way that could have really given this series an interesting hook. Just throw in a science buzzword here and there and it's all good, right? What a waste. A real missed opportunity to turn what was a mediocre effort into something that could have been really noteworthy.
Verdict: 2.5/5. 2/5 if you don't have a ginger fixation. Not the most terrible thing I've watched, but for most people, entirely skippable.
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I think you just described Christopher Stasheff's Warlock series.
I never really thought to think of it as Western Isekai, but now I'm never going to be able not to.
--Patrick
fade
Staff member
It does have the interesting plot point that the protagonist is reincarnated from our world (rather than being whisked away to another world as usual), and the only reason he's really good at magic compared to everyone else is that magic is based on visualizing physical processes. And since he remembers his previous life on modern-day earth, he understands basic science, making him really good at magic.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yeah, like I said, they kinda halfassedly implemented that, when really the same gimmick is done so much better in, say, Dr Stone.
I think my view of this series also might be colored by having first read "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality," which granted isn't an Anime (and is just fanfiction) but really sets the gold standard for "applying science to magic" fiction.
...
I haven’t read that fanfic, but Lyndon Hardy and Lawrence Watt-Evans (and Stasheff again) may want to speak to you.
Fun fact: I just discovered that Stasheff died a couple of years ago (July 2018). I did not know (or had forgotten) that.
—Patrick
fade
Staff member
Huh, you did say that. Weird. Totally missed it.
I....
Don't know how to feel about this.
GasBandit
Staff member
Re:Creators
Genre: Reverse-Isekai, Action, Drama
Fanservice: Shower scenes, Hot Springs episode, High end of PG-13ish
Premise: Anime characters get pulled into the real world, learn they and their worlds are fictional works, are varying degrees of upset about it, fight each other.
This show has an interesting hook, it's sort of a "Super Smash Brothers" for Anime titles, in that "for reasons" the main characters of various disparate anime works are thrust into a battle royale to determine the fate of the "real" world, and therefor their own. Because, if the real world is destroyed, there won't be anyone to write their stories, and thus they will cease to exist. And that's just what the primary antagonist wants to happen - oblivion. Others fight to defend the world, some (from the more dystopian or "humanity's last stand" worlds) fight to take their creators hostage and force them to write less horrifying things about their worlds. Some just think it's fun to fight. Everybody's got their own motivation and alliances form and dissolve almost from episode to episode. And caught in the middle are the "Creators," the writers and illustrators who brought these characters to life.
It's got a lot going for it. The concept of course is very intriguing, and the character designs are fairly decent, if a bit expyish. But really, that's what you want, isn't it? They couldn't "legally" have Shinji Ikari in an EVA unit so there's another reluctant-to-fight teenage boy in a giant robot that is clearly meant to fill that gap. So, yeah, every character is a walking trope, but if you ask me they needed to lean into that even harder, because they tried to straddle the lines between "this character is clearly meant to be this other character that we obviously couldn't use" and "this character is their own unique character who we somehow have to shoehorn in the lore and origin story for, along with the other dozen characters."
Unfortunately this makes it really start to drag in the middle for a while. The beginning is interesting, the middle is tedious, but fortunately it gets good at the end again.
Reverse-Isekai is always a fun concept, too. It's amusing to see the horrified reaction of the Magical Girl when her Pretty-pretty-magical-heartsplash attack causes actual damage to infrastructure and human bloodletting, because real physics now apply. It's hilarious to watch an Eroge love interest try to find a way to contribute when surrounded by street brawlers, knights, wizards, and mecha pilots. The effect is somewhat muted by virtue of most of the Anime characters coming from Japan-like settings (some of them are even able to spend the money they have in their pockets because the settings are close enough to reality), but discovering what story-physics apply, what real-physics apply, where the overlap is, and what the real world does to correct the inconsistencies makes for an interesting mental discussion.
Unfortunately, the "main character" real life person around who most of the story revolves is one of the least tolerable protagonists I've watched in a long time. His flaccid, wet-rag mopey bullshit nearly ruined the series for me. The best parts of this series are the ones he's not in.
So, the beginning is a 3, the middle is a 1.5, the ending is a 4, and let's just average it out and call it a 2.5, rounded down from 2.8 because the MC is such a drag and the Primary Antagonist is literally a Mary Sue with cheat mode powers.
Verdict: 2.5/5. Mostly entertaining for otaku, probably not interesting to casual anime fans.
Genre: Reverse-Isekai, Action, Drama
Fanservice: Shower scenes, Hot Springs episode, High end of PG-13ish
Premise: Anime characters get pulled into the real world, learn they and their worlds are fictional works, are varying degrees of upset about it, fight each other.
This show has an interesting hook, it's sort of a "Super Smash Brothers" for Anime titles, in that "for reasons" the main characters of various disparate anime works are thrust into a battle royale to determine the fate of the "real" world, and therefor their own. Because, if the real world is destroyed, there won't be anyone to write their stories, and thus they will cease to exist. And that's just what the primary antagonist wants to happen - oblivion. Others fight to defend the world, some (from the more dystopian or "humanity's last stand" worlds) fight to take their creators hostage and force them to write less horrifying things about their worlds. Some just think it's fun to fight. Everybody's got their own motivation and alliances form and dissolve almost from episode to episode. And caught in the middle are the "Creators," the writers and illustrators who brought these characters to life.
It's got a lot going for it. The concept of course is very intriguing, and the character designs are fairly decent, if a bit expyish. But really, that's what you want, isn't it? They couldn't "legally" have Shinji Ikari in an EVA unit so there's another reluctant-to-fight teenage boy in a giant robot that is clearly meant to fill that gap. So, yeah, every character is a walking trope, but if you ask me they needed to lean into that even harder, because they tried to straddle the lines between "this character is clearly meant to be this other character that we obviously couldn't use" and "this character is their own unique character who we somehow have to shoehorn in the lore and origin story for, along with the other dozen characters."
Unfortunately this makes it really start to drag in the middle for a while. The beginning is interesting, the middle is tedious, but fortunately it gets good at the end again.
Reverse-Isekai is always a fun concept, too. It's amusing to see the horrified reaction of the Magical Girl when her Pretty-pretty-magical-heartsplash attack causes actual damage to infrastructure and human bloodletting, because real physics now apply. It's hilarious to watch an Eroge love interest try to find a way to contribute when surrounded by street brawlers, knights, wizards, and mecha pilots. The effect is somewhat muted by virtue of most of the Anime characters coming from Japan-like settings (some of them are even able to spend the money they have in their pockets because the settings are close enough to reality), but discovering what story-physics apply, what real-physics apply, where the overlap is, and what the real world does to correct the inconsistencies makes for an interesting mental discussion.
Unfortunately, the "main character" real life person around who most of the story revolves is one of the least tolerable protagonists I've watched in a long time. His flaccid, wet-rag mopey bullshit nearly ruined the series for me. The best parts of this series are the ones he's not in.
So, the beginning is a 3, the middle is a 1.5, the ending is a 4, and let's just average it out and call it a 2.5, rounded down from 2.8 because the MC is such a drag and the Primary Antagonist is literally a Mary Sue with cheat mode powers.
Verdict: 2.5/5. Mostly entertaining for otaku, probably not interesting to casual anime fans.
How many threads would this prove useful in?
Don't think about it too card. The correct answer is ALL OF THEM.
@GasBandit have you gotten around to Carole & Tuesday yet? Because I mean, it has your theme song in it.
Not yet. Which song is supposedly my theme song? Because I was pretty sure it was "Gas Gas Gas" by Manuel, from Initial D
GasBandit
Staff member
I don't even think the movie has hit blu ray in Japanese yet, all I see for it on the pirate scene is camrips.
better than here were they have completely forsworn any physical release!
fade
Staff member
Here's an anime trope that never made sense to me: letting the bad guy go after beating him like it's all water under the bridge. Anime in general seems to be better at making the villain sympathetic, but come on. Dude just killed like 500 people in the previous scene. Now it's cool to just let him walk. It's common everywhere, but right now I'm watching Black Cat and they did it more than once. That dude murdered the entire UN, your girlfriend, and you motivated many of your allies with the 3 billion reward. But sure, just let him go for no reason.