Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

[Kari Kamiya]

Onikakushi is free. Also, the absolute achievement rate is a bad metric, you need to look at last achievement rate by first achievement rate. That number for Onikakushi isn't all that high either (30%), but the numbers for the paid chapters are higher (76, 82, 95 but it's short, 87, 88, 86, 74). The 6th chapter is where the first achievement rate jumps from 40% to 70%, which is probably related to sale patterns more than anything.

Yeah, figured. Maybe I just really shouldn't be all that surprised that the anime and manga have better exposure here. It's only been relatively recent that the sound novel has become more-widely available, but visual novels in general are more niche here. But one would think Higurashi fans would chomp at the bit for a chance to play through the original because it's such a fascinating look into the mind of paranoia.

I bought 1-7 on GOG before 8 was released, finished them all, and I'm not going to play 8. Two of the four tolerable characters got done dirty by subsequent chapters and the plot is a scam (there's no answer to 3). I'm gonna stick with whatever positive impressions (chiefly from 3 and 5) I still have.

That's a shame. I consider Massacre and Festival Accompanying to be the Curse Killing's answer arcs given just how crucial Curse Killing was to solving the mystery of the curse, even though it was the (true) ending of Atonement that laid out all the theories. Festival Accompanying is also needed to understand why Outbreak (an optional watch) was so fucked up.

I wonder if the Dice Killing chapter will get a proper release, though. It's not really needed for the full story, but it's still a fun look into that "what if" scenario of Hinamizawa succumbing to its dam fate. Though it's supposedly not as sad of a world as those where Keiichi never showed, which we haven't seen.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I've been trying to get into Visual Novels with stuff like Muv-Luv and Fruit of Grisaia.

It's just that they are so fricken long (50+ hours) that I tend to lose interest partway through.

I would recommend going into shorter VNs at first (like Song of Saya) or ones that are divided into parts (like Higurashi).

 

[Bender]

I would recommend going into shorter VNs at first (like Song of Saya)

That's just a cruel recommendation.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

That's just a cruel recommendation.

I think Saya is the quintessential example of a VN - Brutal, fascinating and uses the concept of multiple endings and the visual aspects quite well. You read a VN to get something that is impossible to find in regular books.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I've been trying to get into Visual Novels with stuff like Muv-Luv and Fruit of Grisaia.

It's just that they are so fricken long (50+ hours) that I tend to lose interest partway through.

I found the ultimate lazy solution for this. If you've got a TV with a USB, set it up to act as a monitor. Typically it will be bigger than your monitors. Then just lie in bed and use a wireless mouse and keyboard and treat it like a movie.

 

[Oh Shit I'm Sorry]

That latest chapter of Chainsasw Man in the family restaurant might be my favorite yet from the fantastic color cover page to the complete sheer insanity of the chapter itself. Fujimoto's morbid sense of humor, bizarre characters and generally fucking depressing story arcs make it weird that he's being published in weekly jump and not one of the more older audience targeted mags but I'm not complaining.

Went through and read a couple other Jump series I hadn't touched yet. Jujutsu Kaisen is great. Like CM it gets real fucking dark at bits and has a lot of completely off-kilter characters (Gojou definitely being my favorite). The latest arc has been the 40+ chapter long culmination of the villains plot with shit going down super hard and people (mostly innocent civilians) being slaughtered left and right and we finally got to watch Sukuna fuck shit up which he certainly made the most out of.

Platinum End is made by the Death Note crew and is different though I'd probably put it below the former (at least the first half before they made the poor decision to kill L). 12 humans who try to kill themselves in Tokyo are visited by angels who give them powers (depending on each angels rank) and told to compete for the throne of God. Most of it so far has been the MCs fight against one of the other chosen who wants to win by slaughtering the other candidates (including murdering a small child) and his willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals and after he's finally done in it turns into the remaining survivors trying to figure out who should be chosen. It definitely has its flaws like the MCs stupid hippy determination not to ever kill anyone while the bad guy runs around genociding innocents but on the flip side it ends with him and his waifu holding the bad guy down while their friend blasts him with an LMG at point blank range, tearing him to shreds and decapitating him so it was worth it for that. Not sure how much longer it has left, it feels like they've hit endgame and they're already on like volume 12 or 13 (chapters are all super long so there's only like 3 or 4 per).

 

[Truthboi]

Man, the new BnHA chapter really brought out the Deku haters.

What happened?

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

What happened?

Main baddie got a super massive power up to the point that all he has to do is touch the ground and he can dust an entire city and everyone in it, so Deku is going full on 100% to keep him in the air and take him out, including using his arms. People are saying he’s being reckless and wasting his power and someone else should have AFO, seeming ignoring the fact that he’s basically fighting a living unending nuke and Deku is doing it to keep everyone alive.

Also Bakugo did what Deku did in chapter 1, but there was no All Might to stop what followed this time. Explosion boy got multi-Arieth’d.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Almost finished with Onikakushi-hen, and now I'm hoping the new anime actually is going to go out of its way to animate the TIPS as like after credits scenes, or incorporate them into the main story. I legit forgot the Seventh Mart TIPS makes for some excellent psychological-horror fuel. They could go nuts with it, visually.

 

[Gar For Archer]

I finally got around to watching the Madoka Rebellion movie after spending the day marathoning the original series since I hadn't watched it since it aired. I'd heard the movie was dividing but I found it very good, maybe helped by my rewatch of the series making me enjoy Homura's character a lot more, which made me understand why she did certain things in Rebellion. No idea if I'm interested in any of the other Magica series besides if they end up doing anything more with the Madoka cast. I'm glad I ended up doing a rewatch, helped me appreciate the whole series a lot more than I previously did.

If anyone is looking to do a rewatch of the original series I highly recommend checking out Fancutfags release off nyaa as it pieces together the tv series with the first two recap movies. It features the nice animation of the movies while adding back some things that were cut from the TV series, apparently fixing the problem that the movies had where it felt like things were going way to fast while missing important details. They put a lot of work into the release, giving two different versions to pick from (TV vs. Movie Edition) with the ability to go into Marathon mode which skips things like openings and endings (unless it's important) along with the previews. Fair warning that you'll probably have to watch it through MPC-HC with the K-lite Mega Codec Pack for it to all work proper, had to switch from MPV to get it working smoothly. No idea how the experience would be for those new to the series, I watched the Movie Edition which was recommended for those that had already seen the series. They mention in the User Manual/FAQ that the TV Edition should be good for those that hadn't seen the series though:


I'll also take this chance to share my favorite Madoka amv, don't think it spoils anything major but I'll still give a warning just in case.

The Madoka movie is weird for me. The ending of a story is one of the most important parts for me, and I'm especially partial to bittersweet, ambiguous endings that don't go into too much detail about the characters get up to after the story ends; and as such I thought the original series' ending was pretty much perfect. It's one of those rare cases where the ending left me so completely satisfied with the story that I literally didn't WANT to see any more, because it would just be impossible to top it in a satisfying way. So from square zero a sequel movie was going to have to do a LOT to justify its existence to me. Being good in its own right isn't enough, it would have to be good enough to justify undoing the near-perfect anime ending and provide an even MORE satisfying conclusion to top it off.

At the end of the day, it just failed to do it for me. Probably my biggest gripe is that the inciting incident isn't really a logical progression from the ending of the anime. It's not like it actively contradicts or retcons anything, but the whole Homura being locked away in a near-death state for the sake of SCIENCE!!! thing just felt like a plot contrivance to justify the movie's plot rather than something you'd naturally expect to happen after the anime.

Ironically, if the movie were exactly the same but the anime had a worse ending I'd probably love the movie. But as-is, no matter how good it may be, it wasn't good enough (and didn't end in NEARLY a satisfying and conclusive enough way) to justify throwing away the 10/10 anime ending for. In my head I just treat it as a neat "what if?" scenario.

As a dumb analogy, it's like eating a really delicious, really filling meal that leaves you completely satisfied, and then the waiter comes and asks if you want dessert. If the dessert was merely pretty good, I'd just leave feeling overstuffed and not nearly as satisfied as I would've been had I just left after the meal itself. The dessert would need to be an absolute killer to make me think, "Yeah, I feel kinda blaoted right now, but it was well worth it because the dessert was just that good". For me, the movie was just a pretty decent slice of chocolate cake. If it had come after a much less satisfying meal, I probably would've enjoyed a hell of a lot more, but it just ended up left me feeling overstuffed in a situation where I wasn't really even hungry for more to begin with.

---

In unrelated news, I finally finished watching Darker than Black after a critical fail of accidentally watching eps 1-4 of season 2 followed by eps 5-8 of season 1, and overall I'd give it a solid 8/10. The second season is apparently incredibly divisive - and maybe it's because my accidental start prepped me for what was coming, maybe it was because I watched the OVA's first (and thus had a lot of otherwise confusing shit explained up front), but honestly I didn't mind it so much. The funniest part is that the way Hei's relationship with Suou develops, along with the ridiculous amounts of (seemingly) inexplicable ship-tease of Hei x Yin in the OVA's, plus the fact that his main goal throughout the first season is to find his lost sister, explains a lot about his behavior around women in season 1: dude's got a MAJOR fucking sister complex. Like seriously, just about every woman he interacts with in season 1, all of them fairly attractive, end up falling for him in some way, yet he seems completely oblivious to their blatantly obvious advances. But the second you trigger his "must protect imouto" instinct he's all over you.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Also am legit shocked no one else posted this because while we've all been locked up, Japan was still working on this, and it's moving now.

 

[TerminalTryHard]

Finished the first season of Fire Force, and I liked it more than I thought I would. Shinra was written really well I just wish he had more to work with, most of the supporting cast is really weak. I kept waiting for a side character episode where they break off and follow Arthur or Maki around instead of Shinra but it never happened. I think the captain of the 7th company got more development in the 3 or 4 episodes he was in then a lot of the main characters got.

I loved the way they try to justify all the weird powers people have with it just being pyrokinesis, like the guy who stop fucking time with it.

overall 7/10

 

[Moguro Fukuzou]

The Madoka movie is weird for me. The ending of a story is one of the most important parts for me, and I'm especially partial to bittersweet, ambiguous endings that don't go into too much detail about the characters get up to after the story ends; and as such I thought the original series' ending was pretty much perfect. It's one of those rare cases where the ending left me so completely satisfied with the story that I literally didn't WANT to see any more, because it would just be impossible to top it in a satisfying way. So from square zero a sequel movie was going to have to do a LOT to justify its existence to me. Being good in its own right isn't enough, it would have to be good enough to justify undoing the near-perfect anime ending and provide an even MORE satisfying conclusion to top it off.

At the end of the day, it just failed to do it for me. Probably my biggest gripe is that the inciting incident isn't really a logical progression from the ending of the anime. It's not like it actively contradicts or retcons anything, but the whole Homura being locked away in a near-death state for the sake of SCIENCE!!! thing just felt like a plot contrivance to justify the movie's plot rather than something you'd naturally expect to happen after the anime.

Ironically, if the movie were exactly the same but the anime had a worse ending I'd probably love the movie. But as-is, no matter how good it may be, it wasn't good enough (and didn't end in NEARLY a satisfying and conclusive enough way) to justify throwing away the 10/10 anime ending for. In my head I just treat it as a neat "what if?" scenario.

--

As a dumb analogy, it's like eating a really delicious, really filling meal that leaves you completely satisfied, and then the waiter comes and asks if you want dessert. If the dessert was merely pretty good, I'd just leave feeling overstuffed and not nearly as satisfied as I would've been had I just left after the meal itself. The dessert would need to be an absolute killer to make me think, "Yeah, I feel kinda blaoted right now, but it was well worth it because the dessert was just that good". For me, the movie was just a pretty decent slice of chocolate cake. If it had come after a much less satisfying meal, I probably would've enjoyed a hell of a lot more, but it just ended up left me feeling overstuffed in a situation where I wasn't really even hungry for more to begin with.

I'm going to preface this by saying I don't think I'm the best at describing things well.

Spoiler: Just going to slap this behind a spoiler because it is practically all spoilers

I honestly like Rebellion in the context of the original series ending because I felt it pointed out some of the faults with the original especially regarding Madoka's decision. While I could have been satisfied with the series end, I liked that Rebellion did touch on somethings I thought weren't addressed in the original. One of the biggest issues remaining for me from the original was that Homura's wish to protect Madoka was still unfulfilled and that's one of the focuses of Rebellion. There are two major scenes that I think are important in relation to this: the first being Homura locked away by kyubey and the second being her conversation with Madoka. For the first, kyubey explains that they've basically isolated Homura from the phenomenon that Madoka created "Law of Cycles" and allowed Homura to reach the state of just about to turn into a witch, by creating a barrier that lets things filter in they can observe and identify how the Law of Cycles works. They try to find out what things were brought in that they can't explain, determining it's the Kaname Madoka that they have no records of but Homura knows, and it's implied that once they can observe the source of the phenomenon they can eventually learn to control it and allow for the creation of witches. This greatly upsets Homura given what that means would happen to Madoka and she forcefully begins turning herself into a witch.

The second and I feel most important part is the discussion between Homura and Madoka in the flower field where Homura vents her anxieties that were caused by the ending of the original series. Homura ended up lonely and scared that she would slowly start to doubt the existence of the most important person to her, who had gone to a far away place where she could never meet her again. It's in this scene that Madoka reveals that she herself wouldn't want that to happen, going off to a far away place where she would never see those important to her again, because she also knows how much doing so would hurt those she cared about. After hearing Madoka's honest opinion Homura decides that she should have never have let that original ending happen and is used as justification for her later actions. Homura also sees her actions as evil for splitting Madoka and trapping her, but she believes that's the only way to allow Madoka to truly be happy as it's a world where she can stay with her friends and family without worry. It's also a world where all the other girls can live without suffering. It's a world that can be broken and it's implied that Madoka and Homura might eventually come into conflict about it, but it's what Homura herself believes to be the best outcome.

Personally, regarding Madoka's decision at the end of the original series I always saw it as a desire to be useful and believing that sacrificing herself was the only means of accomplishing this. She disregarded how much pain she would be putting herself through (as shown by the scarred hands that reach out to Homura in the movie) because she believed it didn't matter what happened to herself as long as others were saved, which plays into what is often her downfall in the various timelines. There's no way that Homura would allow Madoka to continuing taking on so many scars, even more so after believing that Madoka wouldn't want such a fate, so she decides to remove her from the source of it. She wanted to save Madoka much like in the original series and she believed that what she did was the best way to do it, even if it made her an evil demon in the eyes of others. I found that the original series was really missing the fallout that would occur from her self-sacrifice and that Kyubey would eventually figure out someway to try and bring back the witch system as it was the most energy efficient method. Sure, it was a fine ending but I felt the movie expanded on the underlying emotions and issues of the characters that wouldn't just be solved when credits rolled.

It's actually interesting to think about how the speech Madoka's mother gave to her regarding how to confront Sayaka can be played into Homura's actions in Rebellion:

It sucks, but you just can't expect a happy ending just by doing what's right all the time. Do you want to solve this even though it's not the nicest way to do it? All you have to do is make a mistake for her. Somebody has to be in the wrong to balance out her need to be in the right. Sometimes you realize that was actually the best choice in the end. Sometimes when you hit a dead end with no real alternatives, making a big mistake is an option.

TL; DR - To make a similar food analogy I felt that Rebellion was like a complementary wine served together with a nice meal. You don't need it to enjoy the already excellent meal but if you do it gives an added complexity to the taste that you didn't notice was missing from the dish until you took a sip.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Hell yeah.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Goddamn it, Toei.

 

[sasazuka]

Also am legit shocked no one else posted this because while we've all been locked up, Japan was still working on this, and it's moving now.

On one hand, the Gundam is cool, and I'm not one of those "why did they waste time and money building it?" people, but, on the other hand, it seems to be essentially just a giant animatronic and I'm not sure it can even walk under its own weight without that moving rig behind it helping it to stay upright.

 

[LightDragonman1]

I found the ultimate lazy solution for this. If you've got a TV with a USB, set it up to act as a monitor. Typically it will be bigger than your monitors. Then just lie in bed and use a wireless mouse and keyboard and treat it like a movie.

I'd do that, but can you imagine what would happen once I get to one of the, erm, H-scenes? I mean, I don't have a problem with them despite being a Christian (it's only when you get addicted to that sort of stuff that it becomes a problem), but both of my parents are strongly against that stuff regardless. Talk about awkward should they hear the noises coming from the speakers. XD

 

[Secret Asshole]

I'd do that, but can you imagine what would happen once I get to one of the, erm, H-scenes? I mean, I don't have a problem with them despite being a Christian (it's only when you get addicted to that sort of stuff that it becomes a problem), but both of my parents are strongly against that stuff regardless. Talk about awkward should they hear the noises coming from the speakers. XD

Headphones my friend, also once you get past the first Muv-Luv, there aren't really anymore hentai scenes. For Grishia, uh, yeah. Headphones. But Grishia is good. I really enjoyed its story.

 

[Trombonista]

Today is Umaru Doma's birthday!

 

[HexFag]

Today is Umaru Doma's birthday!