#it's fun because s2 will basically be a sequel? like the story is designed to function as a whole without S2 and any subsequent seasons

[remnantspod]

sitting down to record remnants, thinking about how the pieces come together, musing on the fact people are already going a bit feral and my favourites have not yet been introduced

[seanofbeankeep]

The Acolyte wasn’t perfect show but I enjoyed it more than most other SW stuff and watched til the end which (other than Andor and Mando) I haven’t done for the other star wars shows.

It had great potential to build on into season 2. Shame we won’t get that. Stuff like

- more action (the stunts and fights were soooo good. They should’ve released full clips online everywhere)

- less flashbacks

- it was about to explore the lore deeper

- no characters were safe tension

- continue to surprise me on character stories and plot points that I wouldn’t expect Disney to have

- I wanted to see how those character relationships changed

- giving the writers more episodes to work with because s1 was too tight imo

Few faults I felt in s1 was:

- I feel like the set design was great and beautiful, but didn’t fit with theme of the show if they wanted it to feel more dangerous and gritty (few scenes they nailed this but could’ve pushed it more or tried new look). As show was advertised as bloody. It looked like the Disney parks.

- Disney need to be less tame with gritty shows or fit it’s marketing. You can’t advertise a lightsaber with a blood streak and have a gore less show. Characters died but it was very clean vs how it was promoted to be otherwise. Audience expectations were all over the place. Tbf I am very biased horror fan with high expectations on what gritty and death is in media

- Flashbacks relied too heavily on the child actors (stop doing this to child actors SW).

- I think it tried to be too mysterious in the script early on when it didn’t need to be. Be obvious and let fans info dump lore your alluding to

- I enjoyed the characters and got their basic traits and motivations. But with cast this big it needed more episodes to give them breathing space for more depth and for audiences to connect with them more. Despite criticism the script was tight but they needed to trust the writers with more episodes. It was too tight

- this show should’ve been a binge watch by how it was written imo. Or the weekly episodes helped the lying grifters make weekly content dunking on it

Rant about SW fandom and corp stuff that let the show down

Everyone wanting it to copy Andor was insane (and feel like this show scrapped by getting s2 from Disney expectations despite fans loving it). You can’t have this everytime. It’s fun that SW can have range of genres and tones.

As someone who loves to pick apart what I like to watch, this show I held it in until now because this show was picked an apart to death. To the point where I saw stuff said that wasn’t in the show or was in past films etc. people purposely misquoting actors to stir up hate that resulted in racist harassment was awful. Dunking on Disney even when they get things good is too much of a grift now and had its own toxic fan thing.

I feel like the other shows flopping didn’t help get people watching this and the misinformation about the show online because conservatives declared war on Disney didn’t help either.

Disney pouring in too much money into productions, I’m guessing too many exec notes too and expecting them to be mega hits on season 1. Or to have baby yoda merch sales everytime. Not giving new writers or a writers room space to develop. I hope they get enough outcry they uncancel it to finish the story.

Man that blood streak poster really messed with expectations. Disney did this to some marvel shows like moon knight. Promised a darker, bloodier, grittier show. But when it’s out it feels very safe and toned down, then being rejected by this key adult audience. Since Disney still aware of their family image or wants to make it less r-rated because they think it gets less returns. They should have a ‘adult swim’ style branded app or channel if they want to get truly gritty and bloody with shows but not damage their family brand

I wouldn’t blame showrunners or actors avoiding SW since the sequels the fandom has gotten so toxic. Even if I didn’t like last two films the harassment and hate is insane. As Drizzt fan I recall hearing Salvatore got death threats for the books he wrote (that fans now say they enjoy) this has been a sour point for star wars for years the sludge venomous fans no one has really dealt with. People don’t seem to be well protected or there’s no way to push back against this toxicity and how much more racist, homophobic and misogynistic it is

[glitchlight]

castlevania s4 thoughts

this is basically a live tweet thread but I didn’t live tweet it because a) spoilers for something fairly fresh and b) [ASSHOLE]’s name is all over this, as he was apparently fired after his role had wrapped up anyways.

the tl;dr for s4 and the whole of the series imo is “Incompetent Writing Well Executed” because there are frankly juvenile editing and pacing mistakes everywhere but the animation, voicework, and design are often exceptional.

i also think it’s constructive for creators to develop a strong editorial eye and to be able to see what the flaws in other works are, and what works well, a lot of my thoughts are specifically tied into that, and also criticism since I basically watched it because I have friends modestly interested in finishing it but not wanting to touch it because of [ASSHOLE]. this contains modest spoilers but a lot of the later plot details i refer to only obliquely.

-boy it doesn't feel great seeing [ASSHOLE]'s name as the first name on the title card. I get giving people their due in writing but you could've had a slighly longer title card to elevate the people who worked on it aside from [ASSHOLE] so we can celebrate them. -you could teach the first half of the first ep as what not to do in setting up plot threads it's that blatantly obvious -lenore and hector are basically different characters from s3 because [ASSHOLE] needed to introduce more intrigue to Carmilla's court. -Women need trauma to be villains hack shit. -must we introduce a morally grey androgynous woman of color badass who doesn't care about the deaths of her allies -fly demon becomes a character just cause people liked his scene lol hack shit -isaac remains easily the best and most interesting character in the series (aside from the problematic elements of his character) -fantasy "i'm blocking your number" scene is funny -Vampire Lady Hot -THEY GENDER FLIPPED GRANT??? -boy the animation budget for episode 4 got slashed for no reason?? it looks way worse than the preceding material. -cool st. germain's back and the girl he's into is literally a voiceless random badass-- the fourth such one this season? [ASSHOLE] is a hack but come the fuck on. - I personally liked the implications St. Germain was from a different physical reality than ours or at least a different timeline (such as with the triangular notebook, which I know was a real thing but serves a different purpose as shorthand in a series when it passes without mention like that) but him being from europe still is boring. - the library dimension is fun but would be less jarring if it weren't so visibly 3D in a series that ostensibly aims to be 2D - Yet Another Nameless WoC Morally Grey Badass Facilitating White Male Plot huh. - I get that we're doing a "St. Germain is of the same as Dracula" plot here and that "in service of love people do terrible things" but it's undercut by how much I hate St. Germain as a character and don't give a shit about him. - also, furthermore, i just straight up hate narratives that have to tell you a villain's motivations in detail by giving them perspective. it's hack shit.   - the infinite corridor is a weird plot element that doesn't really add anything to this story beyond a fabled otherworld and some cool aesthetics. -god lenore you interupted hector last season saying "the real people are talking" and now you care about him?? [ASSHOLE] is an idiot. - this entire series of fights is rendered toothless by remembering alucard can literally control his sword with his mind and is just holding it for plot convienence. - this scene of sypha and trevor both, separately, doing what they do best is a good scene. i've been critical of a lot but this is a good scene. - we're triggering the endgame now? like right now? Carmilla's been in one scene. Like I know the prior seasons have been criticized for being too much set up but this is literally set up into climax already?? - well here's where the money from episode 4 went. - You spent all that time in season 3 setting up the sisterhood and then didn't make them the villains of season 4 huh. Fuck off. That's so fucking stupid. - AND HECTOR AND ISAAC?? YOU HAVE FOUR MORE EPISODES YOU ABSOLUTE CLOWN - I am Russian I am Soldier - Soldier boy having the same rant as carmilla we get it vampires are bad -stock-child-laughing-soundeffect.mp3 - "Of course I'm insane!" "The fuck what now?" is actually a kind of fun line. - [ASSHOLE]'s writing style isn't so much a puzzle box plot, one of many moving parts intricately sliding together, so much as heaps of mud being flung at the page from a half dozen different hands. It all sticks together but it does so messily and only with great violence. - this is just a kaiju -Where did this second vampire army even come from, who the fuck is Dorgon or whatever? Was this written for Carmilla's army then got changed because that would make way more sense than this rando -Boy I'm not comfortable with this slur being thrown around even if it's usage is complicated. -the inversion of the invasion in dracula's castle hall is a nice touch. - they did the op as fight music thing. - ah damn this guy has the same fight gimmick as a character i was gonna do dope though - Sypha continues to have the best fight scenes which makes up for her not having a character arc this season in [ASSHOLE]'s eyes. - That plot twist is okay I guess but it's very funny that he talks like that. And says Fucked Up. - I can't believe that after one of the biggest critiques of season 2 was that there were a bunch of vampire fights with nameless voiceless vampires who don't matter and you don't care about, it ends the exact same way. at least the fights are weirder and better than the kind of lifeless scene in S2. - This trope is so common but still works. - This ending is, par for the course in this adaptation of Castlevania, rather anti-climactic - You had to make the shoutout, and i bet you felt so clever [ASSHOLE] - Is that finale worth it in the end. like hell yeah good animation but fuckin didn’t make a lick of sense. - that bit of cleaning up got me to cry but only because i'm a tender-hearted idiot. - this ending is far too tidy (Hack shit) and the sequel hook is bullshit dumbfuckery. - FEET

[thejpfdude-blog]

The Upcoming Fall 2017 Shows I’ll Be Watching

WHAT? Yes, I’m back! Long time no see. I’ve been busy with school, so unfortunately I have a huge list of episodes to watch (that let’s be honest, I’ll probably never get to).

But yeah, hopefully I’ll be able to start writing TWiA posts again and start watching stuff on a weekly basis. To start that off, there’s this post: the annual “looking at what shows I’m watching this season post”.

A reminder of the usual thing I say in these posts:

I might watch some other shows that are good or drop some shows if they aren’t good, but that’s for the future.

Like always, I’m organizing these shows into three categories: Full Chance are shows I’m giving the whole season towards, Short Leash are shows I’m giving three or so episodes towards, and One Shot are shows I’m giving one episode towards. As we progress towards categories, expect less words for each anime as I lose interest in writing. Also a reminder that MAL links to the shows are on the titles for those interested.

Before we start, a general comment about next season: it’s honestly looking pretty bare for somebody like me who likes them slice-of-lifes/comedies/romances/moe shows. Other than the few shows I have on Full Chance, there’s nothing I have a shred of hope towards. Even some of the Full Chance shows are questionable to me to be honest. But hey, some shows could still be good, and I’ll go into more detail about that below. So with that let’s get started with this post, starting with...

Full Chance Shows

Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - The Animated Series: Well, I tried to watch the original show from 2003, but that was during my blue period. But apparently it’s okay, because this show’s actually a remake/sequel hybrid thing. What I got from the info given to me was that it will adapt some new content, but it’ll also remake some of the stories from the original series. So not a full-on sequel, but not also a full-on remake either. A little of both.

Oh I should probably say what this show is about. Well it’s kinda hard to describe. The best way I can put it is that it’s an adventure about a girl (who I thought was a guy) and her talking motorcycle traveling throughout the world, experiencing many distinct places. Sounds boring, right? But from the one episode I watched, it was actually super interesting. Now this show doesn’t offer much in terms of action, but it’s a nice relaxing watch that occasionally really makes you think. It’s also episodic, if that concerns you. I would definitely recommend watching this, or starting off with the original series. After all, you still have time to catch up.

Love Live! Sunshine!! S2: Who woulda thunk: not even six months ago, I shunned anything idol. But now, this is honestly tied with Shokugeki S3 as my most anticipated anime of the season.

I feel like I shouldn’t really describe this show: after all, if you don’t know what it’s about, you probably shouldn’t be watching anyway since it’s a second season of a spinoff series (though I honestly find the spinoff to be better than the original anime-wise). Just know it can be described in two words: SCHOOL and IDOLS.

I’m not expecting this show to be great - after all, I’ve never scored any Love Lives higher than a 6. But I’m still expecting some fun slice-of-lifey moments that’ll be even better now that we have the full cast of 9 members doing their thing. And honestly, that’s all I want in a show sometimes. I also honestly expect some more increased drama similar to how S2 of the original series contrasted with S1, but hopefully the slice-of-lifey moments make up for that. I’m also secretly hoping this isn’t the final season of the anime, but guess we’ll find out about that.

Mahoutsukai no Yome (The Ancient Magus’ Bride): So this show looks super interesting. Plot-wise it doesn’t really look like my type of show, but digging deeper it sounds pretty cool.

Basically the story is that we have our main girl Chise who has no hope in her life only to meet a magus who makes an offer to her to be his apprentice and his bride (wowzers).

Sounds pretty fantasy, which isn’t really my schtick. But apparently from sources, I’ve heard this show is actually quite the opposite: it’s more a darker fairytale-like slice-of-life with a evolving narrative, which I’m all about. Plus the PV was pretty hype, so that’s nice. There are prequel OVAs already out, but I haven’t had the time to watch them yet, and they aren’t too necessary to watch before watching the main series. Still, go watch them if you’re interested. I might do the same.

Osake wa Fuufu ni Natte kara: So this is one of the few times where I can say that I read the source material before the anime came out (hopefully I can say the same later when Kaguya Wants to Be Confessed To gets an anime...). The best way I can describe this show is Alcoholism: The Anime.

Well, not really, but it’s pretty much like that. The main character is a reserved office worker who likes drinking alcohol. Unfortunately she becomes cute when she does so (oh no the horror) so she only drinks the concoctions that her husband makes. Some cute stuff, and if the manga’s any indication it’ll be a nice short watch. Already confirmed to be a 5-minute short, which is good because honestly the manga doesn’t offer much other than an occasional “aw that’s cute I guess”. I’m not expecting much, because honestly the last few chapters were pretty eh for me. Plus I don’t know how well the manga’ll translate into anime. Well still somewhat excited for a nice little short.

Shokugeki no Soma S3: So, it has come. After season 2 my hype for this died down a little, and so I’m cautiously excited about this installment. All that I’ll say is that as long as the show is able to balance the intense food battles with the funny slice-of-life moments, it’ll be a pretty good bet to be a favorite of the season. Though I am a bit worried that manga readers say that this portion of the story is when the manga started getting a bit questionable, hence the lack of hype for the show from said audience. I’m not too confident on that front though - details and all that are a bit unclear because I didn’t want to go into too many spoilers. But anyway, excited for some more food porn.

Short Leash Shows

Animegataris: So the general gist of this show is that a new girl shows up and makes an anime research club in school, slowly getting more and more interested in the medium (boy I can relate). Though there is one thing that confuses me from the synopsis, and that’s this part: “while they stand against the student council's continuous efforts to disband their club, and they ignore the impending end of the world, they talk about anime...”. Uhh... yeah that seems like it was brushed under the rug... like what? That part makes this seem different from your typical high school show (a la Konobi). Interested to see what the whole deal is with that since nothing from the promotional images or the PV shows anything referencing that. Plus the fact that this is an anime original series means nobody knows what’s gonna happen. Though otherwise not too remarkable of a show, and I’m not expecting too much from this.

Blend S: Oh boy another CGDCT. My favorite. 

In all seriousness, I do like this genre, but I don’t know about this one... Basically at first glance it looks kinda like a GochiUsa style show, but it’s a bit different from that. Yes, there are cute girls working in a cafe. But this is a bit different: the girls working there play out a role: for instance, we have the main character playing the sadist role. There’s also the classics such as the tsundere, the imouto, and so on. A bit like a maid cafe actually. I think what’ll make or break this show for me is whether or not the girls keep up their roles outside of work, or if there’ll be times shown when they aren’t so... typecast. Sorta similar to one of my favorite YouTube channels out there, Cow Chop, where they obviously play out a role during their videos, but we can see times where they’re actually genuine in videos like the Behind The Scenes or their podcast. Other info is kinda limited since like Animegataris, this is an anime original show. So I guess we’ll see how it plays out.

Boku no Kanojo ga Majimesugiru Sho-bitch na Ken (My Girlfriend is a Faithful Virgin Bitch): Uhh I can explain. So I’ve been told this show is basically similar to Seitokai Yakuindomo where it’s Sex Jokes: The Anime. Basically a guy confesses to the most popular girl in school in desperation, and she accepts. Only this girl is pretty deadpan, and in an effort to be the perfect girlfriend she “optimizes” her behavior, usually too far on the sexual scale to the dismay of MC. Comedy ensues, and so on. I’ve read some snippets of the manga, and it’s your standard “person does random stupid thing and MC responds”, AKA the boke and tsukkomi routine. I’m not sure how well that’ll go considering I’ve seen complaints that it’s just endless gags, which the recent Aho Girl showed me I’m not really about. But hey I’ll give this show a chance, because who knows?

Just Because!: Why am I watching this? Just Because!

I’m so sorry.

Ok, with that out of the way this show looks decently interesting. Guy comes back to school as third year right as graduation approaches. Apparently this causes four students’ lives to change in some way. Sure.

Looks to be drama-y, based on the PV I saw, but I don’t know too much about this show otherwise. One thing I can say is that those uniforms are comfy as heck, and I’m all about that. Though I’m not all about the character designs: the faces look a bit questionable. But I’m sure I’ll get used to it. It’s not Koi to Uso levels of bad.

Konohana Kitan: Oh boy another CGDCT, but with wolf girls. Wow.

Okay well this time I’m not being sarcastic. I’m not about the wolf girls, cat girls, whatever girls trend. Basically it’s your standard new girl comes to work at place, and slowly gets along with others. But apparently according to the synopsis it’s through “her simple cuteness“. No I’m not lying, go see the MAL page.

Well might as well give it a shot I suppose.

One Shot Shows

Juuni Taisen: Normally I wouldn’t usually watch these types of shows, but a friend of mine convinced me to give at least one episode to this one. Sort of a battle royale where 12 people who share names with the Chinese zodiac members fight for one wish. One interesting thing to note is that this was written by Nisioisin, the same guy who wrote the Monogatari series. So from that it has some good potential.

Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau: At this point I’m kinda getting tired, so I’ll just say this is a fantasy show. The PV looked super interesting though, which is the biggest reason why I’m giving this at least one episode.

RoboMasters the Animated Series: College students + RoboMasters competition = anime? Sure why not.

And that’s all for this post! Not as many shows as last season, but I think there are some potentially good ones in this batch, plus maybe some more that I haven’t listed here. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next post!

[thejpfdude-blog]

The Upcoming Spring 2017 Shows I’ll Be Watching

Hello friends and welcome to the annual beginning-of-season post about the shows I’m watching for the season! Sorry for this being posted a few days into the season: stuff came up. But hopefully I should be in the clear for now, so hopefully there should be no more delays!

Anyway, a reminder of the usual thing I say in these posts:

I might watch some other shows that are good or drop some shows if they aren’t good, but that’s for the future.

Like last time, I’m organizing these shows into three categories: Full Chance are shows I’m giving the whole season towards, Short Leash are shows I’m giving three or so episodes towards, and One Shot are shows I’m giving one episode towards. As we progress towards categories, expect less words for each anime as I lose interest in writing like last time. Another reminder that MAL links to the shows are on the titles for those interested. So let’s start with…

Full Chance Shows:

Boku no Hero Academia 2nd Season: This season is the season of sequels: we have Attack on Titan S2, Saekano S2 (which I’ll talk about later in this post), and this show’s S2. If you don’t know about this show, it’s basically the classic superhero story with a bit of a twist, as almost everybody in the world has a superpower. However, our main protagonist doesn’t, but with the help of the power of friendship (among other things) he’s achieving his goal of being the greatest superhero. Now the first season was a bit disappointing after all of the hype I heard from manga readers, which taught me to never trust the source material readers. But now that all of the slow intro stuff is out of the way, I think this has the potential of being a PLUS ULTRA show. Going right into the action should be good, but hopefully not too much: some slice-of-life stuff is still fun. The first episode was good with this, so hopefully it continues through the season.

Nobunaga no Shinobi: Ise Kanegasaki-hen: The second season of the historical show about a shinobi (who is also a cute girl) helping Oda Nobunaga take control of historical Japan. I’ll admit, the last few episodes of this show’s first season were a bit eh compared to the first few. It also could have just been me getting tired of it too though. This is basically a continuation of the first season: I don’t really consider it separate considering the first season ended airing literally a few weeks ago. So more of the same really, but at the end of the day it’s an entertaining few minutes. Hopefully it continues to be so.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata ♭: Yet another second season, this time the continuation of a show about an otaku who gathers his friends to make a dating sim (uh, it’s better than it sounds). I am both excited and scared of this show. Excited because I really enjoyed the first season of this show, but scared because I have no idea where the show is going to go. I really hope it doesn’t do what it did with the last few episodes and go all fanservice, something I’m not about. I’m excited to see if they go further into the backstories of the characters, something I really liked during the first season. Overall though, cautiously optimistic.

Sakura Quest: In this show, the main character works with a group of people to help revitalize a country town in Japan. This show is the recipient of the “hype” award of the season for me, and that’s not really a good thing. On the one hand, this show is in the same “working” series that Shirobako is in, so it already has my attention. On the other hand, that series also has Hanasaku Iroha, a show I didn’t really like the first few episodes of. Well, it could go either way. So like Saekano S2, I’m cautiously optimistic about this show.

Tsuki ga Kirei: Basically a coming-of-age story of some sort with romance (maybe?) and shiny faces. Seriously, those are some shiny faces. Character design aside, it sounds interesting enough, and I’m about that romance. Complete with the fact that there isn’t a drama tag, and I’m sold. This has the potential to be a nice relaxing show. It could also be horribly bad. Such is life.

Short Leash Shows:

Alice to Zouroku: I actually have no idea what this show is about. Is it a sci-fi show about a girl escaping a lab-prison? Is it a slice-of-life about an old dude raising a young girl? Is it both? After watching the 44-minute first episode, I still don’t know. If it’s the former, I’m kinda skeptical. If it’s the latter, I’m down. I guess we’ll see what this show is really about in the next few episodes, which’ll determine whether I continue watching.

Hinako Note: A moe show about a girl who becomes a scarecrow for her neighbor’s fields. Yeah I know right? Well, the reason I’m watching this is because this is pretty much the only moe show of the season. Kinda disappointing, but I can’t really complain considering the moe overload last season. Kinda sad how that’s become my reason to watch shows...

One Shot Shows:

Eromanga-sensei: A show about a high schooler who writes light novels finding out that his sister is actually the illustrator for his LNs. Also rival arrives. Also apparently the spiritual successor to OreImo, also evidenced by the line “the new sibling romantic comedy”. Also very skeptical to watch this. Alas, I’ll give it an episode.

Fukumenkei Noise: A show about a girl who experienced two “goodbyes” (with promises!) and by the powers of shoujo, she meets them both again in high school. The PV of this kinda turned me off from the show, but I guess it could be decent, so I’ll give it one episode.

And that’s all for preview! This season doesn’t look too good, but it’s still way too early to tell. So until then, I’ll see you in the next post!