#Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu

[sethwindam]

Bocchi adventure 2 Battle (2001):

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group C Round 3: #C8 vs #C2

#C8: Government employee and his white cat boss

#C2: High social anxiety girl has to befriend her whole class

Details and poll under the cut!

*Text in green indicates that something has been changed.

#C8: White Cat Legend 2020 (Dali si Rizhi)

Summary:

Chen Shi, a young man from the countryside, journeys to the capital in search of his missing older brother, whose existence he only knew about upon his mother’s death. He knows neither the name nor face of his brother, and after finally arriving at the capital, he runs out of money as well. One thing led to another, and he finds himself employed at Dali Court, where he works for Vice Minister Li Bing, a large white cat.

On the other hand, Li Bing is of royal blood who was imprisoned because of his family’s treason. Now, he has to work in the government to atone for the crime.

At Dali Court, they review court cases from all over the country. But when an incident involving the esteemed ministers of the royal court breaks out, Dali Court is called to help, only to find themselves entangled in political threads and hit heads with an eccentric demon.

Li Bing is determined to get to the bottom of this, but how far can he go when he could regress into a real cat at any time when left unchecked?

Propaganda:

I’m tired of writing new propaganda every round, so I’m begging you to just trust me that it’s GREAT.

Intriguing plot? Check. Complex and interesting characters? Check. Comedy? Check. Drama? Check. 

The blend of comedy and drama is just so good. I started the show because I love cats and supernatural stuff. Who would’ve thought it would pull me into an abyss of despair of political intrigue. The cat demons turned out to be just the icing on the cake. 

We have all these different characters brought up in different ways that their ideas of what is Right conflict with each other. None of them are exactly Wrong or inherently Evil (well, except for maybe one guy), and this makes it so much more difficult to choose who to root for. You’d think everyone against the protagonists are the Enemies, but turns out even the protagonists are limited by their biases and unintentionally harm others. Even the two protagonists themselves get into arguments because of their different standpoints.

And I just love this because it makes them realistic, you know? The characters don’t always agree with their friends, and their enemies are not completely hostile either. It really all boils down to what they believe in. Sometimes their beliefs align with existing comrades, and sometimes they find it on the other side.

Production-wise, this show also gets a check on everything. As an adaptation, it’s amazing. The original manhua has quite a simple style—kind of like comic book drawings, and panels are all rectangles in one straight line. Storytelling is also simple and straight to the point. 

But the 2020 donghua? God, it went far and beyond that.  The animation team does not cut corners at all, which is a feat considering the show has a low budget from what I’ve heard. 

A short, simple scene in the manhua becomes an emotionally-devastating experience in the donghua. The animation choices, angles, music, and just everything else blend so well to deliver a STORY. This adaptation does not just copy frames from the source (like Blue Lock) or cut/reorder some of the scenes (like Horimiya and Sasaki to Miyano). White Cat Legend 2020 understands the material so well that it can creatively use the advantages of the animation medium to deliver an experience that exceeds even that of the source. Think Mob Pyscho 100 or One Punch Man s1 level of creativity. It even has mini stories at the end of the ending song. For s1, the mini stories are in stop-motion, while for s2 it’s formatted like a video game. You gotta appreciate the effort.

Please just vote for this show. It deserves to be in the Finals.

Trigger Warnings:

Cannibalism - There’s a cat demon who appears in human form, and he eats humans (it’s not shown explicitly, though).

Animal Cruelty or Death - said cat demon also eats animals raw (again, not explicitly)

Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore - There’s blood and fighting, and somebody also gets tortured in season 2. But again, nothing too graphic

#C2: Hitori Bocchi’s ○○ Lifestyle (HitoriBocchi no MaruMaru Seikatsu)

Summary:

Many of us know what it is like to transition to a new school with few to no friends in a new environment, going through the arduous process of getting to know people again. Bocchi Hitori knows this struggle all too well, having just graduated from elementary school and thrown into middle school. Unfortunately, she suffers from extreme social anxiety: she faints when overwhelmed, vomits when nervous, and draws up ridiculously convoluted plans to avoid social contact. It does not help that her only friend from elementary school, Kai Yawara, will not be attending the same middle school as Bocchi. However, wanting to help her, Kai severs ties with Bocchi and promises to reconcile with her when she befriends all of her classmates in her new middle school class.

Even though Bocchi has no faith in herself, she is determined to be friends with Kai again. Summoning all of her courage, Bocchi takes on the daunting challenge of making friends with her entire class, starting with the delinquent-looking girl sitting in front of her…

Propaganda:

This is a fun and lighthearted show. Watch it if you need something cute to chill out! The art is cute and colorful, the music lively, and the animation fine enough.

As it's adapted from a four-panel gag manga, the story is simple and focuses on the various characters. They all have pun-based names related to their main personality trait, so they're easy to remember if you know some basic Japanese (Hitori Bocchi means all alone, for example). The girls are all adorable and fun in their own quirky ways, and I loved seeing the heroine doing her utmost best to overcome her fears -and other challenges- to befriend them in the hope of fulfilling her promise. That's the power of the Do-Your-Best Fairy! They all care for each other (despite some teasing) and help Bocchi with her monumental task, never pulling her down for her struggles but gently pushing her in the back when needed.

But most importantly, Hitori Bocchi is a very relatable character. As someone suffering the same trouble, I related a lot with Bocchi, from her silliest worries to her escalating panic and weird schemes in an attempt to prevent anything wrong. Anxiety is faithfully represented, mixed with the right amount of laughing to how far Bocchi can get to avoid fearful situations in her very cute ways. It feels good to see a character like me in a such positive light! The struggles are real and acknowledged, and it’s really moving to see our heroine overcome them little by little in a very humanizing way.

This series has become one of my comfort materials, and I come back to it when I need hope and inspiration in everyday social interactions! If you need one last thing to be convinced, listen to that most adorable and silly song that will give you the Power of Motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoGwlNmZUQ 

Trigger Warnings: None.

When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.

Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how it’s presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form, where you can submit revisions for taglines, propaganda, trigger warnings, and/or video.

[ice1ettuce]

[jjs-brainrot]

Finally watched Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu (aka: Bocchi (2019)). Was genuinely a super sweet and hilarious show about an introverted girl with crippling social anxiety making friends.

I can honestly say it's in the top 2 of shows about a social anxiety wreck of a girl named Hitori Bocchi.

[radioradio]

Again, but with more Akarin.

[hickeycomory]

[HorribleSubs] Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu - 11 [720p].mkv_snapshot_12.54_[2019.06.19_18.26.38]

[jisatsu-draw]

hey Hitori!

[animefeminist]

Anime Feminist’s Seasonal Backlog: Overlooked Comedic Gems

Anime Feminist has been in operation since Fall 2016, which means seven years–a whopping 28 seasonal rotations. We’ve written about hundreds of shows, and recommended plenty of them, and as the years go on it’s easy for some of the smaller titles to get lost in the shuffle. That’s why we decided to try out a “backlog” series. People are getting into anime for the first time or coming back to it from a long time away all the time, after all!

When putting together this list, we placed the cutoff at the end of 2020, just to really let comparatively older titles shine. Plus, it leaves some options on the table if decide to circle back to this topic in a few years! We also didn’t include any titles that are already on our pinned recommendation lists.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[ehan281]

i can say this about Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu as well

I think Girls' Last Tour might be the only piece of media where I'm like "oh if you think the anime was good, just wait until you read the manga" but also simultaneously "oh if you think the manga was good, just wait until you watch the anime"

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group C Round 4: Hitori Bocchi’s ○○ Lifestyle vs Inuyashiki: Last Hero

#C2: Hitori Bocchi’s ○○ Lifestyle (HitoriBocchi no MaruMaru Seikatsu)

High social anxiety girl has to befriend her whole class

#C3: Inuyashiki: Last Hero

Old man turns into robot superhero

Details and poll under the cut!

#C2: Hitori Bocchi’s ○○ Lifestyle (HitoriBocchi no MaruMaru Seikatsu)

Summary:

Many of us know what it is like to transition to a new school with few to no friends in a new environment, going through the arduous process of getting to know people again. Bocchi Hitori knows this struggle all too well, having just graduated from elementary school and thrown into middle school. Unfortunately, she suffers from extreme social anxiety: she faints when overwhelmed, vomits when nervous, and draws up ridiculously convoluted plans to avoid social contact. It does not help that her only friend from elementary school, Kai Yawara, will not be attending the same middle school as Bocchi. However, wanting to help her, Kai severs ties with Bocchi and promises to reconcile with her when she befriends all of her classmates in her new middle school class.

Even though Bocchi has no faith in herself, she is determined to be friends with Kai again. Summoning all of her courage, Bocchi takes on the daunting challenge of making friends with her entire class, starting with the delinquent-looking girl sitting in front of her…

Propaganda:

This is a fun and lighthearted show. Watch it if you need something cute to chill out! The art is cute and colorful, the music lively, and the animation fine enough.

As it's adapted from a four-panel gag manga, the story is simple and focuses on the various characters. They all have pun-based names related to their main personality trait, so they're easy to remember if you know some basic Japanese (Hitori Bocchi means all alone, for example). The girls are all adorable and fun in their own quirky ways, and I loved seeing the heroine doing her utmost best to overcome her fears -and other challenges- to befriend them in the hope of fulfilling her promise. That's the power of the Do-Your-Best Fairy! They all care for each other (despite some teasing) and help Bocchi with her monumental task, never pulling her down for her struggles but gently pushing her in the back when needed.

But most importantly, Hitori Bocchi is a very relatable character. As someone suffering the same trouble, I related a lot with Bocchi, from her silliest worries to her escalating panic and weird schemes in an attempt to prevent anything wrong. Anxiety is faithfully represented, mixed with the right amount of laughing to how far Bocchi can get to avoid fearful situations in her very cute ways. It feels good to see a character like me in a such positive light! The struggles are real and acknowledged, and it’s really moving to see our heroine overcome them little by little in a very humanizing way.

This series has become one of my comfort materials, and I come back to it when I need hope and inspiration in everyday social interactions! If you need one last thing to be convinced, listen to that most adorable and silly song that will give you the Power of Motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoGwlNmZUQ 

Trigger Warnings: None.

#C3: Inuyashiki: Last Hero

Summary:

Ichirou Inuyashiki is a 58-year-old family man who is going through a difficult time in his life. Though his frequent back problems are painful, nothing hurts quite as much as the indifference and distaste that his wife and children have for him. Despite this, Ichirou still manages to find solace in Hanako, an abandoned Shiba Inu that he adopts into his home. However, his life takes a turn for the worse when a follow-up physical examination reveals that Ichirou has stomach cancer and only three months to live; though he tries to be strong, his family's disinterest causes an emotional breakdown. Running off into a nearby field, Ichirou embraces his dog and weeps—until he notices a strange figure standing before him.

Suddenly, a bright light appears and Ichirou is enveloped by smoke and dust. When he comes to, he discovers something is amiss—he has been reborn as a mechanized weapon wearing the skin of his former self. Though initially shocked, the compassionate Ichirou immediately uses his newfound powers to save a life, an act of kindness that fills him with happiness and newfound hope.

However, the origins of these strange powers remain unclear. Who was the mysterious figure at the site of the explosion, and are they as kind as Ichirou when it comes to using this dangerous gift?

Propaganda:

This show is nowadays remembered for referencing One Piece and its obvious CGI, but it’s so much more than that. Inuyashiki is a beautiful, dark, dramatic exploration of humanity, showcasing the brightest good that humans are capable of and the most horrific evil. It seriously explores both extremes, and it forces the audience to solemnly watch every step of the way.

It also has an AMAZINGLY badass OP and a beautifully sad ED, perfectly encapsulating the duality of the show itself.

Trigger Warnings: Animal Cruelty/Death, Flashing Lights, Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Rape/Non-Con, Suicide

When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.

Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how it’s presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form with your revisions, and I’ll consider adapting those changes.

New: Starting round 5, screenshots will be included in the poll post. You can submit screenshots through the form linked above, or through here, via ask or dm.

Guidelines in submitting screenshots:

No NSFW or spoilery images.

Pick some good images please. Don’t send any blurry or pixelated ones.

You may send up to 9 screenshots, but not all may be used.

[ehan281]

Your Daily Smile #2683

Do your best! 👈👈

[ahiijny]

tennis pro

[chamunda]

[coffinsandroses]