Yurikuma Arashi (8 episodes in). From the creator of Utena and Penguindrum[1]; romance/drama with a lot of… weirdness. And bears. Has this repetitive structure where a lot of it calls back to itself; the first three episodes are slow but after that it becomes very gripping, with some really clever surprises that seem obvious in retrospect. Has just the right level of pretentiousness; lots of “what is love?” themes and a lot of what I’m told is metaphor but have no problem enjoying on the object level. Lots of fanservice but it usually manages to seem artistic about it.
[1] Though I’m not sure how much stock to put in that; I disliked Penguindrum, my friend liked it, and we both like Yurikuma Arashi.
Mushishi. A relaxing and atmospheric anime series consisting of episodic, folk-tale-esque stories set in a slightly mystical old Japan where a man travels the countryside dealing with problems caused by insect-like spirits. The stories are generally really tightly written and satisfying with an above-average level of rationality for the subject matter. Several times I felt that the story was going somewhere dumb, only to be pleasantly surprised by the actual outcome. Also quite unpredictable in the sense that good, bad, and ambiguous outcomes are all common.
Touches on horror tropes often but I didn’t find it scary (and I’m quite sensitive to horror). Also suitable for those who don’t like typical anime tropes—it’s quite serious and doesn’t feature boob-falling reaction-face type shenanigans.
Watched it with a group not so long ago. Started very well but it felt repetitive by the end of the first series; this is a very strictly episodic show, nothing is learnt or changes from episode to episode. And it’s often quite grim—not the scary kind of horror, but remorseless fate crushing humans who stray from the path. It became a running joke for us that characters we saw early on would die by the end of the episode.
Rational for the subject matter perhaps, but these are still fundamentally folktales; there is no logic to what constraints any given mushi will have, and so you can’t use reason to predict what will happen in a given episode (storytelling logic, and the idea that the ending is at absolute best going to be bittersweet, yield much more reliable predictions).
I see where you’re coming from and I usually wouldn’t particularly like this kind of show myself, but I found the execution here to be unusually strong, so for me the stories continued to feel fresh and smart despite the somewhat repetitive structure.
no attempt at a review because come on, I’m not that arrogant
Fortunately I am so I’ll do one in brief :P.
It’s a story about a rag-tag ship of space-bounty-hunters in a Used Future. Each of them has a non-trivial backstory that sees development over the course of the series. The animation, direction and dialogue are superb, feeling far more naturalistic and movie-like than the talking heads of typical anime. On the downside, most of the episodes are standalone and I personally wasn’t impressed with most of the plots, and while the characters are well-developed they were also lukewarm in terms of their personal appeal to me. Nonetheless it’s not surprising that it’s considered a classic.
(If you wanted a more positive review, should have been more arrogant!).
Finally got around to watching Tatami Galaxy. Found it a very pleasing take on the Groundhog Day closed timelike curve genre; a nice exploration of the idea that blaming external circumstances and even individual seemingly pivotal decisions is not enough to explain poor outcomes.
I didn’t like that; I felt it relied very heavily on authorial fiat for the conclusion, and the ultimate message seemed to be equivalent to wireheading.
It’s an anime about… making a game… that appears fully congruent with the contents of the anime...
In short, it seems to be a metacircular anime. It’s worth watching because of the way it plays with tropes, and the origin of those tropes; it’s marginally annoying in that many of the tropes it plays with are of the harem genre. There may be something more going on in the background, but I haven’t watched enough to tell. It may be especially interesting to people who have long experience with japanese animation.
The first episode is fully representative, so I’d recommend having a look if the above appeals.
TV and Movies (Animation) Thread
Yurikuma Arashi (8 episodes in). From the creator of Utena and Penguindrum[1]; romance/drama with a lot of… weirdness. And bears. Has this repetitive structure where a lot of it calls back to itself; the first three episodes are slow but after that it becomes very gripping, with some really clever surprises that seem obvious in retrospect. Has just the right level of pretentiousness; lots of “what is love?” themes and a lot of what I’m told is metaphor but have no problem enjoying on the object level. Lots of fanservice but it usually manages to seem artistic about it.
[1] Though I’m not sure how much stock to put in that; I disliked Penguindrum, my friend liked it, and we both like Yurikuma Arashi.
Mushishi. A relaxing and atmospheric anime series consisting of episodic, folk-tale-esque stories set in a slightly mystical old Japan where a man travels the countryside dealing with problems caused by insect-like spirits. The stories are generally really tightly written and satisfying with an above-average level of rationality for the subject matter. Several times I felt that the story was going somewhere dumb, only to be pleasantly surprised by the actual outcome. Also quite unpredictable in the sense that good, bad, and ambiguous outcomes are all common.
Touches on horror tropes often but I didn’t find it scary (and I’m quite sensitive to horror). Also suitable for those who don’t like typical anime tropes—it’s quite serious and doesn’t feature boob-falling reaction-face type shenanigans.
Watched it with a group not so long ago. Started very well but it felt repetitive by the end of the first series; this is a very strictly episodic show, nothing is learnt or changes from episode to episode. And it’s often quite grim—not the scary kind of horror, but remorseless fate crushing humans who stray from the path. It became a running joke for us that characters we saw early on would die by the end of the episode.
Rational for the subject matter perhaps, but these are still fundamentally folktales; there is no logic to what constraints any given mushi will have, and so you can’t use reason to predict what will happen in a given episode (storytelling logic, and the idea that the ending is at absolute best going to be bittersweet, yield much more reliable predictions).
I see where you’re coming from and I usually wouldn’t particularly like this kind of show myself, but I found the execution here to be unusually strong, so for me the stories continued to feel fresh and smart despite the somewhat repetitive structure.
Cowboy Bebop (no attempt at a review because come on, I’m not that arrogant)
Fortunately I am so I’ll do one in brief :P.
It’s a story about a rag-tag ship of space-bounty-hunters in a Used Future. Each of them has a non-trivial backstory that sees development over the course of the series. The animation, direction and dialogue are superb, feeling far more naturalistic and movie-like than the talking heads of typical anime. On the downside, most of the episodes are standalone and I personally wasn’t impressed with most of the plots, and while the characters are well-developed they were also lukewarm in terms of their personal appeal to me. Nonetheless it’s not surprising that it’s considered a classic.
(If you wanted a more positive review, should have been more arrogant!).
Finally got around to watching Tatami Galaxy. Found it a very pleasing take on the Groundhog Day closed timelike curve genre; a nice exploration of the idea that blaming external circumstances and even individual seemingly pivotal decisions is not enough to explain poor outcomes.
I didn’t like that; I felt it relied very heavily on authorial fiat for the conclusion, and the ultimate message seemed to be equivalent to wireheading.
Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata.
It’s an anime about… making a game… that appears fully congruent with the contents of the anime...
In short, it seems to be a metacircular anime. It’s worth watching because of the way it plays with tropes, and the origin of those tropes; it’s marginally annoying in that many of the tropes it plays with are of the harem genre. There may be something more going on in the background, but I haven’t watched enough to tell. It may be especially interesting to people who have long experience with japanese animation.
The first episode is fully representative, so I’d recommend having a look if the above appeals.