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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!
Besides catching up with Vinland Saga, I decided to give Legend of the Galactic Heroes a shot per the recommendation of @Corin in this thread.
The first episode was confusing, to say the least. Frankly there were just way too many places/names dropped for a pilot episode, though maybe that's my fault for not starting with the movies. Coupled with unusually fast subtitles and the tendency to keep jumping from one character to another, while simultaneously referencing characters that didn't even have screen time, I found it basically impossible to follow what was happening. That said, I certainly was impressed with the scope of the anime, and I figured this was an exercise in perseverance. Surely by keeping with it for long enough, I though, I'll get a feeling for the different characters and settings.
Well, that's what I figured until I watched the after-credits preview for the next episode: Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Episode 102, Braving Danger to Bear Arms. Turns out my plex agent was confused by the naming scheme, interpreted
show_101asshow_s01e01, and decided to start me on one of the final episodes of the show. So while I may have inadvertently spoiled some chunk of the series, at least I can take solace in the fact that nothing made sense. Needless to say, I think I'll give the show another shot.Madoka Magica!
It feels like generic magical girls anime for 10-year old girls. If the intro (and more, but I won’t spoil) wasn’t done in kind of surrealistic way, I wouldn’t even watch it. But since it was recommended together with anime I really liked (Psycho Pass, Danganronpa, Kokoro Connect (don’t make fun of me) (maybe Code Geass?) ), I decided to watch it. And oh man, it was glorious.
Everything’s nice and everyone is happy, until the very end of third episode. By that time, I was hooked and had to force myself not to watch it all in two days. By the end of tenth episode, I was downloading soundtracks into my phone and searching for piano sheets.
It was the best anime I’ve seen (well, the last episode was a bit... weird), including even SAO or Death Note.
If you liked any of the above or just have a bit of free time, watch it. You won’t regret it
What did I like so much about this?
I liked when Asuna died (until she was resurrected).
I liked when Akane’s friend was killed and Akane couldn’t do anything about it.
Just from these, you can probably guess which kind of anime I like. I like when characters fall into despair and see their friends die. Madoka didn’t leave me waiting. And while there wasn’t any death such as in Psycho Pass, the things that happen are more than enough. And what’s best, they are not there just once. By not killing all characters in one episode, Madoka Magica actually extends this feeling to whole series. From slow start at the end of episode 3, this feeling grow and grows, faster and faster, until epic finale. This is the first Anime that could do more than invoke the feeling for ten minutes. Madoka manages to get the feeling, build it through the whole series, and gradually expand it until it explodes in grandiose finale.
Yeah, Madoka is my favorite anime because it is wound like a clock when it comes to pacing, and in tone hits the whole concept of young women fighting despair, succumbing to it and growing beyond it, kicking it out of the universe with the amount of confidence and power that Gurren Lagann wishes it had behind it.
The one thing that bothers me is that it kind of turned into Watchmen for Magical Girls in that it was so influential and genre breaking that every magical girl show after it had to at least acknowledge that it was in the room now, if not just give up and dance around while wearing it's skin, yelling about how pretentious and edgy it is. But I guess that's a pulp medium for you.
You may also want to look at the PMMM movies as well. The first two are recap movies, but the third, "Rebellion" is an entirely new story, but a controversial addition, to say the least.
Thank you for recommendation! I'll definitely have to check them out.
Mother's Basement released a video on Anohana, and it was on Netflix, and I really didn't want to start up a sad show, but I did, and I'm about five episodes in. Haven't cried like a baby yet, but I have to imagine it's coming.
EDIT: Yep.