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TheMysteriousGX

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Speaking of, Episode 6: Kelpie/Rice Porridge/Kabayaki

We finally reach the aquatic 4th level: we meat one of Senshi's friends, see how Kabru and gang is getting along, and have a karaoke session!


Trigger makes these ladies even lovelier

EDIT: Couldn't get this out of my head, but this episode shouldn't've been a 3 chapter one. Kelpie and Porridge were really long chapters and not only did they gloss over Senshi's makeover, they just flat out cut some needed characterization and dialogue for Kabru and his crew. While it works fine for a contextless anime only viewer, I can only how that either that conversation is brought back in a flashback next episode or that the time-save was worth it down the line

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Piscian

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So Im watching Hazbin Hotel on Amazon. It got my eye as reddit is memeing it nonstop.

Im not sure what the fuck it is Im watching, but 5 episodes in Im certain to finish it. It definitely sets itself apart as having a clear uncompromised vision of what it wants to be. So many Rick & Morty/Family guy "edgy adult animation" has come out recently that have solid premise, but don't understand how to make grotesque comedy approachable. I think despite it very clearly not being for everybody I like what they are doing here. It feels authentic.

At first I was annoyed by the musical numbers, annoyed with them playing up the anti-disney princess aspect, but found myself disgustedly humming along to Poison and then Loser, baby.

Fair warning for those who start it, its a comedy, but Angels episode should come with a trigger ⚠. Its pretty dark.
 

Bob_McMillan

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When I was in college, instead of learning about electric field and optics, I was reading Solo Levelling in class. Physics ended up being my lowest subjects by far.

Anyway, the anime is finally here and I am thoroughly underwhelmed. It seems the first few episodes went viral for how dark and gory they were, but the latest episodes are just so middling. The gorgeous art the manhwa had is not present in the anime at all.

Oh well, maybe they're saving up budget for a finale or something.
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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EDIT: Couldn't get this out of my head, but this episode shouldn't've been a 3 chapter one. Kelpie and Porridge were really long chapters and not only did they gloss over Senshi's makeover, they just flat out cut some needed characterization and dialogue for Kabru and his crew. While it works fine for a contextless anime only viewer, I can only how that either that conversation is brought back in a flashback next episode or that the time-save was worth it down the line
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Piscian

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I finished Hazbin Hotel

giphy (48).gif


For those who are not following, the plot is that - Heaven comes down every year and kills (permanently) millions of souls in order to prevent hell from ever rising up. The princess of hell is a bit of a goof who firmly believes that souls can be saved and opens a kind of Hotel/rehab and tries to convince people to sign up so that Heaven has no need to go on these murder sprees. Hilarity ensues.

What sets hazbin Hotel apart is that it's narrative driven. This isn't a sitcom format, theres an actual progressing story that has some interesting twists and turns and goes in some pretty dark places. Part of the plot revolves around a pornstar who isn't in hell because they are evil, but because they just had some bad breaks and made bad choices. The first season ends with a big swing and sets up a second season. However, with that, I kinda see this only being maybe 3 seasons. I consider that a good thing.

 

meiam

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The Curse (2024)

Dramedy series starring comedian Nathan Fielder and Oscar nominee Emma Stone about a pair of extremely unlikable yuppies filming a reality show about environmentally friendly housing in a run down New Mexico neighbourhood. Created by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, one half of the pair of brothers that directed Uncut Gems.

The Curse is a show that's about half one of the most pointed pieces of satire on Biden era America anyone could make while it's still going on and about half someone else's injoke. See, even at its best, The Curse is a hard sell. It follows a married couple who are both individually comically toxic people trying, and consistently failing to, manage a television project, a philanthropic enterprise and their own unsalvageable marriage, using this premise to showcase some absolutely painful interactions between representations of the wealthy white upper middle class at its very worst and the workers, minorities and indigenous people who have to put up with their bullshit.

So it's a show about class and race and relationship dynamics and colonial heritage and environmentalism and gentrification and so many other mercilessly contemporary issues shown through the lense of a pair of characters whose inability to change, grow or reflect is their entire point. Nathan Fielder's Asher is spineless, passive-aggressive, co-dependent and socially inept. Emma Stone's Whitney is narcissistic, manipulative, sanctimonious and vindictive. What they share is their hypocrisy and their need for each other to affirm their value.

They live and sell their dreadful sustainable homes (tasteless monstrosities with reflective outer walls) tormenting their neighbourhood, their crew and each other, too self absorbed to learn anything from it. Much like in Uncut Gems, the direction does a fantastic job capturing tense social situations. Nathan Fielder does an impressive job playing a character who is genuinely a black hole of charm and charisma while Emma Stone does a pitch perfect job portraying the kind of person who seems pleasant and approachable for exactly as long as you don't get to know them better.

They are, very deliberately, characters without arcs (any lessons or experiences just sort of dissolve in a pool of oblivious self righteousness) and likewise, The Curse is a show without plot, as such. Things happen, but almost nothing exactly pays off or develops. For a while you might be fooled into thinking it's all building up to everything just collapsing around Whitney and Asher and it never quite does.

So, now you might be wondering what it all culminates in. And this is where The Curse takes kind of a left turn. Without wanting to give anything away, the show had some ambiguously magical realist elements throughout its entire run. The finale is where something unambiguously absurd and unexplainable happens that can only really be described as a non sequitur. Something that seems more like it should be an episode of Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories than a continuation of anything that came before.

There is this old truism that states that "there is a thin line between clever and stupid" and while I'm a guy who can respect some big swings I'm gonna be honest, The finale of The Curse landed firmly on the wrong side of that line for me. I usually embrace absurdity but sometimes something is just silly. I'm sure what happened is a metaphor for... something but I'm sorry, it wasn't thought provoking or funny enough to justify itself.

The Curse is a compelling, if hard to watch, show that ends on a gimmicky non sequitur that doesn't exactly make the rest of series worse, but also feels like a punchline to a joke that was either not set up at all or that I must have somehow missed. Maybe it went over my head, but I legitimately have no idea what the intention there was. And I feel that if I found out I'd probably be underwhelmed. But, like, most of what's leading up to that is pretty good.
Kinda interesting, as I've seen the add for the show and my though was always "how do you make that work for more than 2-3 episodes", but its in the wrong thread and you'll get better comment in the right one. :p
 

Bob_McMillan

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Episode 1 of Ninja Kamui on adult swim was pretty sweet. It has quite a lot of Cyberpunk vibes going on. The animation also feels a lot more old school, in a good way. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
 

BrawlMan

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Episode 1 of Ninja Kamui on adult swim was pretty sweet. It has quite a lot of Cyberpunk vibes going on. The animation also feels a lot more old school, in a good way. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
I have not touched Adult Swim since 2010/2011, so I am completely in the dark about this anime! It's been a long time since we've gotten an kick ass ninja anime. I want in, and I'll be watching this online.

 

meiam

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I finished Hazbin Hotel

View attachment 10660


For those who are not following, the plot is that - Heaven comes down every year and kills (permanently) millions of souls in order to prevent hell from ever rising up. The princess of hell is a bit of a goof who firmly believes that souls can be saved and opens a kind of Hotel/rehab and tries to convince people to sign up so that Heaven has no need to go on these murder sprees. Hilarity ensues.

What sets hazbin Hotel apart is that it's narrative driven. This isn't a sitcom format, theres an actual progressing story that has some interesting twists and turns and goes in some pretty dark places. Part of the plot revolves around a pornstar who isn't in hell because they are evil, but because they just had some bad breaks and made bad choices. The first season ends with a big swing and sets up a second season. However, with that, I kinda see this only being maybe 3 seasons. I consider that a good thing.

Was curious so I tried the first episode (pilot). I guess I can see it being good, but there's one important word that I never ran across whenever I saw anything about it: musical. I can't stand musical segment because they just waste time and have a generally pretty crappy song throw in. Worse it had two segments, quite long one at that.

Otherwise, I'm not quite sure what the draw is. This is about unrepentant demon (presumably soul from evil human) getting rehabilitated so that they don't get kill (permanently?) and I don't really see why I should care. Maybe if they stated getting into the rule of how soul get in hell in the first place (are talking judeo christian where mixing fabric is enough?) or some other system? But without that, I'm not even sure what's important, like will cutting drug really redeem someone soul?
 
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Dirty Hipsters

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I saw Nimona earlier. Beautiful movie. Netflix? Put this movie out on Blu-Ray already.
I watched it this weekend as well.

I'm not sure if the message I was supposed to get out of it was "people don't care about troubled kids until they kill themselves or someone else" but that's the message I got.
 
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Gordon_4

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I watched it this weekend as well.

I'm not sure if the message I was supposed to get out of it was "people don't care about troubled kids until they kill themselves or someone else" but that's the message I got.
Maybe not the intended message, but, it would be a bald faced lie to say its not an accurate one.
 
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thebobmaster

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I have so far watched the first 3 episodes of Frieren. That is a damn good anime, and a lot more thoughtful than I thought it would be. I expected an anime that was your basic dungeon crawler story, but this is so much better than that, with one of the best contemplations on an elven lifespan I've seen in media.
 

Piscian

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I have so far watched the first 3 episodes of Frieren. That is a damn good anime, and a lot more thoughtful than I thought it would be. I expected an anime that was your basic dungeon crawler story, but this is so much better than that, with one of the best contemplations on an elven lifespan I've seen in media.
I'm all caught up and I can confirm it just kinda keeps getting better, like I'm refreshing crunchyroll on fridays waiting for the latest episode.

Largely it really explores loss and time, but also just people. Early on you don't have a clear picture of the context of Frieren's supposed sentimentality, but as each episode develops you get a bit of a fuller picture. I don't want to spoil anything. It's a crazy show. I don't want to throw any Bebop analogies around yet, but it's certainly been my favorite anime in quite a few years.
 

meiam

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I have so far watched the first 3 episodes of Frieren. That is a damn good anime, and a lot more thoughtful than I thought it would be. I expected an anime that was your basic dungeon crawler story, but this is so much better than that, with one of the best contemplations on an elven lifespan I've seen in media.
I think its mostly a triumph of execution, very little in the story is that different from a stock fantasy setting (speaking of dungeon crawling, the current arc is just one long dungeon crawl) but its just very well executed and written, something that very few anime can say they have.
 
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Piscian

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Im barreling towards the end of Season 1 of GATE.

This is one if those narrow animes where whether or not its "good" is gonna be heavily in the eye of the beholder.

I adore the concept. The idea of a modern country essentially invading a medieval world. How that would work exactly, what would the fallout be.

It literally starts off with the JSDF essentially massacring the entire empires army in like 10 minutes. It was something like a 100k soldiers with swords against m240s and went exactly like youd expect.

This was actually in self-defense. It was hubris on the Empires part to just decide to attack these supposed invaders.

Theres a lot if little interesting bits in the show. At one point a few helos are sent to defend a castle against a horde of bandits and they immolate the army with spray of a mounted LMG in seconds. Instead of being happy the princess is fucking horrified, the equivalent of people in the 50s seeing the atomic bombs drop.

The economic and political ramifications are interesting as well because Japan now has access to an entire new unspoiled world of land and natural resources. If done right they could become one of the most powerful countries in the world, overnight.

When the show touches on that stuff is when its most engaging, however its handled pretty amateurishly as though the author really is punching above their weigh writing about politics & economics. Lotta dumb stuff happens thats a tad unrealistic.

More problematically, at least for me, is that its also a *sigh* harem anime where the protagonists are surrounded by cute elf girls and loli daemons.

Its at least minimally restrained and the their credit the protagonist lieutenant Itami really wants none of it and is a pretty likable guy who is a lazy reluctant hero.

Its all kinda moot though because the show is completely in limbo with no additional story or conclusion coming the near future.

That said Im enjoying what Im getting. Each episode builds on the previous like its going somewhere. It doesn't drag and even after finding out we may never see the end of it Im watching it anyway. 8/10.
 
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Its all kinda moot though because the show is completely in limbo with no additional story or conclusion coming the near future.
You pretty much have to read the web or light novel to know the actual ending. The anime got a second season, and that was it. I don't know how it concluded. GATE I have no interests, and the fan fics of it I've read are better than it.
 

Casual Shinji

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I watched a few episodes of Frieren, and while I do love the concept I think the execution is too dull. I understand that the whole vibe is supposed to be mellow and meloncholy, and I'm not asking for action and excitement or anything, but there's just a lack of passion to this show that prevents me from really sinking into it.

I also watched this video on Prison School. Not exactly anime, but a nice piece on the most prestige degenerate filth to ever come out of Japan.

 
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BrawlMan

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I watched a few episodes of Frieren, and while I do love the concept I think the execution is too dull. I understand that the whole vibe is supposed to be mellow and meloncholy, and I'm not asking for action and excitement or anything, but there's just a lack of passion to this show that prevents me from really sinking into it.

I also watched this video on Prison School. Not exactly anime, but a nice piece on the most prestige degenerate filth to ever come out of Japan.

Honestly, I find Devil's Blues, and its subject matter discussed, more interesting than whatever the hell is going on in Prison School. I tried to get into the anime once, but I got bored real quick and never looked back.

Ninja Kamui - Episode 4. Good episode for some great set up, but I hate the fact I'm going to have to wait every Saturday night. I know it's because this anime airs on adult_swim Saturdays, but honestly, I don't know why they bother to keep the block up, other than nostalgia, because most people get their anime from streaming services or just buy the physical versions, if and when available.