#niece watches maou sama

[olivieraa]

ok... they're a little bit moefied

but, since I seen their demon forms in the beginning and they looked good, I'm fine with this

nothing compares to what happened between Soul Eater and Soul Eater Not

[jomatto]

Weekly Reflection: 6/28-7/4

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July! My family didn’t do anything special since it’s in the middle of the week. I purposefully moved my car away from the neighbors so that I don’t have to worry about the fireworks fucking up my already fucked up paint job. I’m wondering if I’ll ever get a chance to redo my car exterior. Come on, AMEX, give me that 100k platinum offer already. I need an excuse to drop big money.

Exercise

I’m slowly making my way into top form. I’ve been exercising intermittently in the past week. If I can hold the pattern, this week will be the first in ages where I’ve completed a full set of workouts.

Since I’ve cut down on rice (and food in general), I’m really skinny at the moment and I’m starting to see some nice results because of it. Gotta kick up the protein intake (my ribs are showing) and keep up the activity levels.

Baptism

My niece was baptized over the weekend. Me and my brother drove down to San Diego for the occasion and we hit up a Souplantation afterwards. It was the first time I could remember ever going into a Souplantation and I don’t know if I’d ever want to go back. The best thing was the faux-pizza. Everything else was too raw for my taste.

Battlefield 1

I’m playing BF1 again with my friend after he came back from a trip to Seattle with his wife and family. I’ve still got it. I guess you can never really lose your skill. No matter how long of a break I take from the game, I can jump in and start wrecking fools in no time at all.

I’m sad I missed out on a chance to get in on the BFV alpha on PC but I guess I’ll just wait for the beta to come to consoles. I wonder if my skills are transferable. There’s always been a painful adjustment period in my experience.

Manga

I’ve read a shitton of manga. How much? Here’s the shortlist:

Kimetsu no Yaiba

Mokke

Futoku No Guild

Seichou Cheat de Nandemo Dekiru you ni Natta ga, Mushoku dake wa Yamerarenai you desu

Happiness

The Duke of Death and his Black Maid

NEET dakedo Hello Work ni Ittara Isekai ni Tsuretekareta

Koushaku Reijou no Tashinami

Jikkyou!! Izumi-kun no Koi Moyou

Hoshino, Me o Tsubutte

Tsuki ga Michibiku Isekai Douchuu

Goblin Slayer

Tachibanakan to Lie Angle

Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san

Cross Account

Makyou no Shanana

Kunoichi no Ichi

Takarakuji de 40-oku Atattandakedo Isekai ni Ijuu Suru

Shitei Bouryoku Shoujo Shiomi-chan 

Reincarnation no Kaben

Shingan no Yuusha

Isekai Ryouridou

Tonikaku Cawaii

Parallel Paradise

Shen Yi Di Nu

Kaifuku Jutsushi no Yarinaoshi

Tsuyokute New Saga

Saijaku Muhai no Shinsou Kiryuu

Ouji ga Watashi o Akiramenai!

After Transformation, Mine and Her Wild Fantasy

Hataraku Maou-sama! High School!

Please don’t bully me, Nagatoro

Kanojo no Kagi wo Akeru Houhou

Dad of Light

I watched Dad of Light from Netflix. It’s a heart-warming tale of a son who wants to connect with his estranged father through the MMO known as FFXIV. It’s supposedly based on a true story but we all know how true most “true” stories are so I’ll look at it as a highly embellished tale based on something that might’ve happened in real life.

I kinda wanna play FFXIV now. I’m certainly in no state to play it (time constraints) but I wouldn’t mind playing a month or two just to check it out. Maybe I can find some new friendos. It’ll be the first full-fledged MMO I’d ever dive into.

Little Glee Monster

I can't stop listening to Over by Little Glee Monster -- it’s the OP for Boruto. It’s just one of those songs I can listen to on repeat for hours and never get tired of it.

Lakers

Lebron James is a Laker. Now I’m not delusional enough to have championship aspirations for the upcoming season, but I think we’re definitely in contention next year. I’m looking forward to seeing how the team roster finally shakes out.

[olivieraa]

I love that if its not battle armour, she fights in outfits like this

not a mini-skirt and heels

[olivieraa]

I'm almost positive this is a woman and that makes me so happy

[olivieraa]

Not the best thing to be comparing it to since they're on completely different levels but I cant help it.

Ok so, when I finished Attack on Titan, I remember sitting there just like... staring at the window ahead of me and just thinking to myself "what can I possibly watch now that wont feel insanely mediocre in comparison?"

Truly. It was akin to a feeling of a breakup but with someone so perfect you think "well that's it, nobody can compare to that, no point in even looking"

Osomatsu was the best thing for me to get back to first. For various reasons. And it worked. It helped. It took my mind off of SnK, even if I kept thinking about it here and there. And then I watched 91 Days and Acca and was able to appreciate them for what they were, but SnK changed a lot for me. Because I had never seen it done before.

There's some that say otherwise and that someone with my viewpoint is wrong, but I really and truly felt like the creator of SnK had every second of that story planned. And I could pull up various moments in the show that made no sense when you watched them in s1, only to have that answered in s3 or s4, and its like, "ok if he didn't have that planned, and it was 10 years later that we saw the answer, why would it have been in s1 in the first place." I want to get into that in a different post. But lets just say, SnK is what the show Lost could have been. But they defo didn't know where they were going with that and pulled a damn plot out of a hat and an ending out of another hat and went along with it, and it is widely regarded as the show that could have been the greatest TV show ever made (and then Game of Thrones did the same thing lol).

While watching Maou-sama, I watched it the same way I watched 91 Days and Acca. I watched it for what it was. None of them are SnK. They're just animes. Fun animes. And they were my top rated. I'd given them all an 8 (Maou had a 9 but I brought it down).

But with Maou-- Like SnK, it also happened to feature something I'd never seen before. And that is that is it the most wasted potential I have ever seen.

I don't remember being this disappointed. This would have been the exact type of show in which you should have had your whole story planned out, just like SnK. Definitely not on the grand, epic scale. But you don't have to be of the same genre to put your all into your story. Your very best. Your goddamn heart.

Some animes go a little bit downhill. Some animes start off medicore and get better.

But to have the premise that Maou-sama did and go in such a route that turned it into the most basic, run of the mill, generic anime that could easily blend in with thousands of others... Absolutely crazy to me.

And everyone is in agreement on it. I felt this way and then looked at the comment sections and its very much accepted that the creator got to a point where he stopped giving a shit. And that's so sad.

I wish he'd just been like "here, I got this far. I gave it my all to a point, so please continue cause I actually don't know what to do from here on out" and just handed it to someone else.

But anyway. I watched Maou-sama 10 years ago.

S2 part 1 came out in 2022 and S2 part 2 came out in 2023 (idk why it wasn't just S2 and S3). The anime ended in the most basic manner.

So, instead of waiting for a S3, I'm gonna read the manga and finish it off, bc I'm so disappointed I really couldn't be bothered, and wanna get this outta the way so I dont have to look at it again. And there's only 10 chapters left (idk how they'll make a whole season outta that).

Oh what could have been.

[olivieraa]

I know I should always avoid comment sections, I only glance at them now, years ago I used to inspect the damn things

but anyway

yeah

this is accurate

[olivieraa]

ah yes, he fell on the boob

we're in stereotypical trope territory now

it was bound to happen

[olivieraa]

Ok, so I watched Maou-sama exactly 10 years ago. And I didn't liveblog it that much, I suppose it was probably bc I enjoyed it so much and didn't have much to report on.

However, this time around, I've changed the rating from a 9 to an 8. I rarely give animes a 9 (and esp a 10), and this time around the one thing I noticed is that the show had no direction.

Like they definitely prioritise the comedy over the action, which is perfectly fine. But this anime has a lot of potential, and if it wasn't 80% comedy and 20% action and more like... 70/30, like cleary keeping the comedy ahead, then it would've been defo more worthy of a 9/10.

I guess this time around I noticed that some episodes were kind of pointless. You get away with that in Osomatsu-san. It has no story. But in a show that supposedly does have a story, well... the plot should be brought up more often than it is. And so when an ep ends, even if you cracked a smile or a giggle, you're still kinda like, "is that it? what even happened?"

But I still love this show.

Now this came out in 2013. It took 9 years for a season 2. And I obviously wasn't around then. Season 2 is rated lower, and has a different studio, so, I guess I'll see if it lives up to season 1

[olivieraa]

Since I want to make like a list of common tropes and all that, here's one I want to break down.

I've been in many many MANY an internet argument, and one thing male anime fans always bring up (and its kind of the only one they can bring up), is when a male character is hit by a female character "for no reason".

It all depends on specifics, but nobody wants to look at it that way, and instead is just labelled as "inequality and that the reverse should be allowed" (I can give an endless list where the reverse happens but these dickwads out here acting like its rare. Its not. It happens.)

So this is a trope MALE. AUTHORS. put into their works. They created this. They made the choice to make this a common trope.

When a female character hits a male character, its usually a response. A response to something. For the most part. When a female character does it randomly, its generally comedic, meaning... it didn't actually happen. Its like when a Looney Toons character falls off a cliff and doesn't die. The male character does not have a bloody nose or a bruise 5 seconds later. He's absolutely fine. It basically didn't happen.

Now, I couldn't give a fuck about this trope, but there are times when I am fine with this trope. The main one being when the female characters are continuously and repeatedly sexualised in whatever the specific anime is. From the camera zooming up their bodies, to character traits and quirkiness making them fall down but their skirt is hitched up so we get an underwear shot, to close-up scenes of sweat trickling down their necks into their cleavage, to a mans hand or face always landing on their chest, to a towel dropping, its a really long list.

If a female character experiences these constantly in an anime, and its an anime that features a violent female character, well then, imo... it sort of evens out. But its highly dependent on the anime itself. Very situational.

To go back to this anime, what she did wasn't necessary, but I get why she did it. Sort of.

They're enemies, and she's trying not to see him as a nice person. She was raised to hate him, and knows exactly what kind of bad shit he has done (since he's literally Satan).

So when he does do something nice, she doesn't want to humanise him and say thank you, so she's like "ah nO FUCK YOU" and hits him despite him catching her from falling.

It wasn't justified, no. But she ends up hurting herself anyway

You could say he didn't deserve that, or you could say "uh that's mild compared to the fact that he's caused the death of millions and she's had to suffer greatly because of that so maybe he deserves even more than that??"

So yeah. I have this trope all over my anime liveblogs. And maybe I'll edit this post one day with a LIST, so I'll have them all in one spot.

[olivieraa]

so uh

I mean I had a feeling but

the subtitles I watched back when this was airing were definitely a little different to how its subbed now

2014 vs 2024

:|

[olivieraa]

Satan and his right hand man are shaming Lucifer for looking through a girls wallet

...

You guys have all KILLED people

[olivieraa]

Aaah, there's that Satanic charm aga--

*immediately falls off bike due to flat tire*

:/

[olivieraa]

This guy is supposed to be Satan.

[olivieraa]

also if I'd to guess, I'd say that one of the main things wrong with the anime that the audience that ends up watching it are not a fan of are the genres:

if they had added a "slice of life" genre to it, then people would know what they're going in for. slice of life generally does mean there's no plot, they're not particularly aiming to reach an end goal.

like I watched an ep where they worked at a beach shack, and now I'm watching an ep where they're farming, and the follow up to that is there are people stealing the crops!!!

like, in an anime about the devil coming to earth and gain his power back, but for now has to fit in with society so he works in McDonalds, to an anime that now looks like every other slice of life anime without being labelled as one, its gonna be a let down.

you might as well forget this guy is the devil himself. he's just a normal lad. and the girl who has to kill him, well, she taps into her powers more often but for really basic ass pointless fights.

also the genres for the manga are:

Romance

idk if that's implying the devil man and angel lady, cause we get I'd say about 0.5% of any romantic interactions between them. its more on the line of the schoolgirl having an unrequited crush on him, and that's it.

so idk what the manga is doing differently in the romantic aspect, but even THAT I'd take. EVEN. THAT. bc then something is happening.

s1, at least, had some magical

comedy

action

and some mildly implied romance moments

s2 was like, lets moeify the characters (listen idk why there was a stuido change, it happens sometimes)

and throw a plot device baby at them and have them all just be extremely normal and have it look like every other basic slice of life anime out there

the wasted potential saddens me greatly

such a unique concept and instead they go to theme parks and the beach and a farm and if I wanted that I'd look for that

y'know, I was truly wondering why season 2 was rated so low in comparison to s1, esp since people waited 10 years for a season 2, I thought "shouldn't people just be happy it GOT one?" and then the other half of me thought "ah maybe its not the same audience, and the original audience doesn't watch anime anymore, or they've grown up and its not to their taste"

this is season 1, and its a popular rating

the #69 is proof enough of how popular it is, bc that is literally out of 26000 animes.

but s2 was rated like this

to get technical, this season has a million less people rating it

but regardless, I dont think the rating would go any higher than a 7

and I get why.

this anime has so much going for it, so much potential, and its wasted. its directionless.

every ep feels sorta pointless and its like "did anything even happen? was the plot furthered by even an inch? a millimetre?"

honestly, makes me sad.

I'll most likely rate it a 7, bc there's animes with higher ratings than this anime and those ones dont deserve it at all (lookin at you DxD)

[olivieraa]

Holy Potter tho

[olivieraa]

:|