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What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.
If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!
Finished One Punch Man Season 2 earlier this week. I don't see why people are complaining about the animation quality. I mean it's not Toei levels of bad but at the same time nobody should have expected the same quality that Madhouse put into the first season. My problems with OPM Season 2 are the really slow pacing, the cliffhanger ending and the lack of any real climax to the monster association invasion.
I knew J C Staff couldn't top Saitama's battle with Boros at the end of Season 1, but S2 was lame overall, especially in its ending. Garou is a pretty bad villain and didn't feel like an actual threat, especially when he's killed no heroes throughout the season. The martial arts tournament should have been covered in just a single episode but instead dragged on over half the season. Then there's the Elder Centipede fight which also spanned several episodes too many. Season 1 had none of these pacing issues.
Now I can see why J C Staff have created so much anime, but nothing that even the most informed otaku has ever heard of. And that's because they don't create great series.
On a side note, having looked up Madhouse's history of anime, I now see why Beyblade's first season was incredible while V Force, G Revolution and every Beyblade anime series after sucked, and that's because Madhouse created the first season. They actually put effort into animating and choreographing battles in the series. In Madhouse's interpretation of Beyblade, you saw these spinning tops do awesome shit like dodge obstacles, perform jumping attacks on each other, conjure whirlwinds, do flaming charge attacks and performing flips off of ramps. Everything from V Force onwards involved boring CGI battles of beyblades clashing into each other and emitting special effects until one of them runs out of momentum. The new characters introduced in later seasons like Hilary and Daichi are also terribly written.
I finished up about all the premiers I'm interested in.
Also would like to see Maidens since Asobase was good a couple seasons back, and Vinland saga once I get around to prime stuff.
I'm at episode 5 of my Evangelion rewatch, and loving every minute of it. I disagree with the criticism regarding their lack of action and stiff animation. Evangelion's static nature clearly forced Hideaki Anno to rely a lot more on composition, and that's one of the main reasons that made it stand out.
Furthermore, Evangelion's beauty and melancholy are, in part, consequences of Hideaki's efforts to overcome technical limitations. Its reflexive rhythm is a fundamental part of its appeal. If Evangelion had a bigger budget, it might have been just another mecha anime.
Though I agree with Eva being much more compositionally-minded than your typical anime, I'm not sure saying it's because of limitation is fair. Eva is still beloved by the (spoilers probably here) sakuga community for a reason. It's really beautiful in the same way that other good looking anime is, one of the best animated TV anime of its day.
I'd describe it more as explosive...periods of stiffness that are released in these massive bursts of movement and life. When you dig into the details of the production, it's hard to chalk up a style that was there from the start as a reaction to limitations, but I guess that doesn't matter...it's brilliant regardless!
Yeah. Eva is kinda like grunge music in that regard.
I watched A Silent Voice this week-end, I liked it overall but didn't cared too much about some of the characters, they seemed a bit rushed sometimes (probably a problem with adapting the manga).