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polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup · 1 year

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hi!! you recommended vonnegut a while ago, and i just read slaughterhouse five and it was incredible and i was wondering which one of his books is your favorite/which one you would recommend next?? thank you!!

oh my GOD yes yes yes I am not a normal person about kurt vonnegut. I have three options for you with pitches as to why.

Mother Night is one of my favorites out of everything he ever wrote, and it’s definitely an excellent second book. He wrote in his foreword that it’s the only book he ever wrote that he knew what the meaning of it was. Whether that’s actually true and remained true, I don’t know, but the point he makes in it is one that’s pretty profound and I’ve heard shockingly little of in media.

The book follows a former high-ranking member of the Nazi party, who was a very successful propagandist for them, which distracted from the fact that he was also the most successful wartime spy for Allied forces. It’s also one of the less weird books he’s ever written? Kurt Vonnegut really leans into absurdism, and it’s more evident in some books than others. This sort of helps with the learning curve.

That being said, Cat’s Cradle is my favorite out of all of his books, and it’s also the second I ever read, after slaughterhouse five. It’s like, 20% more weird than slaughterhouse five? So if you vibed with some of the weirder aspects of it (think like, the alien zoo subplot) then I highly recommend Cat’s Cradle. I honestly can’t figure out how to give a synopsis of this one without revealing information best revealed in the book, but it’s a commentary on the post-WWII arms race and religion. It’s insanely good.

The thing about Kurt Vonnegut is that he has a lot of different recurring themes, and I feel like everyone takes away some kind of core message from his works. That being said, I feel like The Sirens of Titan most clearly and compellingly states Vonnegut’s core message in his works, and it’s definitely a must-read out of his books. It’s not my favorite but it’s definitely fighting it out for a place at the very top of the list. It follows the richest man in the world, who has the least purpose in it, at the center of an interplanetary war between Mars and Earth.

I will say that there’s only one book that I would say you probably shouldn’t read as your second book and that’s Breakfast of Champions. There’s two reasons for this.

First, Kurt Vonnegut’s books exist in a loosely interconnected universe. He’s somewhere between Marvel and Shakespeare in how he does it. It’s not like Marvel where it’s feeding into an overarching narrative, and you don’t need to read them in some kind of particular order to understand, but he’s not like Shakespeare just alluding to his own works in different plays in the sense that these books are explicitly existing within the same universe. You have specific places (Ilium, which you saw in Slaughterhouse Five, shows up a lot) and characters that recur throughout. The protagonist of Mother Night, for example, is briefly referenced in Slaughterhouse Five, etc. They’re used primarily as a vehicle for meta commentary and it’s honestly so well executed.

Kilgore Trout makes the most appearances across the disparate novels. He’s widely regarded as a character meant to be a stand-in for Vonnegut himself, and he plays his largest role in Breakfast of Champions. You also have characters in Breakfast of Champions that are taken directly from his other books, like with the minor role the protagonist of Bluebeard plays in BoC (Bluebeard is also a banger of a book worth reading but personally my least favorite of all his books). Again, you don’t need to read Vonnegut’s books in any official order to understand them, but Breakfast of Champions has the most cameos and greatest use of meta fiction in it, so the reading experience is just overall enhanced by having a little more grounding in his other works.

The second reason is it’s really fucking weird.

In a brilliant kind of way. It’s regarded to be one of his best works, and it deserves the reputation. But the techniques he uses in this are by far the most experimental, and while those experiments absolutely pay off, I usually recommend that people get used to his particular approach to absurdism before tackling Breakfast of Champions. I highly recommend this book if you like Vonnegut, but really spend time with him as an author before reading it and you’ll get so much more out of it.

#fun fact mother night directly influenced Matt’s arc in acts of contrition and why he hasn’t returned to Jack yet #Vonnegut is also just probably the biggest influence on me as a writer overall #non-linear narratives broke my brain #I can’t go back to the normal passage of time #Bluebeard legit is a good book because everything he writes is good #probably 76% of my hate comes from his use of exclamation points in it #but out of all of his books I liked it the least #there’s a lot of books of his that are literary masterpieces but just aren’t SHOWSTOPPERS #like player piano Galapagos jailbird are all works of art but they just are up against some real heavyweights #also his short stories are really cool and creative if you get a chance to check them out #I’d do a doctoral study of vonnegut given HALF a chance #like I never did a formal study of literature for any university path #but i feel like if the multiverse theory is true in another life I did go with that career path #and funneled it right into a dissertation on vonnegut #the postmodernism movement in general is one of my favorite literary movements #and for me at least vonnegut is the best of that movement #I really like experimentalism in writing and vonnegut really pushed the bounds of the medium #also if you sent me an ask and I haven’t replied to it yet you’re not being ignored #some of the responses are on the longer end and it’s been busy #everyone is getting a reply tho

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kitkatcadillac · 1 year

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like the beginning of dracula is so much. theres so much hilarity set so close to horror, but the absurdity has method and fjdj honestly is probably a bit of a different read today than it was when it was written

i mean honestly the scene where dracula doesnt show up in the mirror is a hair raising concept!!! if i didnt know about Vampires the way we know about them today and someone was clearly, CLEARLY setting just there above my shoulder, but i couldnt see them in my looking glass, i think, like... you know those moments where you recognize somethings really wrong but feels impossible, so suddenly your nerves make you feel like youre floating?

bur then immediately afterwards draculas solution to keep johnathan from having more certainty about this Genuinely Unsettling Detail is to just snatch the mirror out of his hand and chuck it full stop out the window. fucking yeet. begone foul bauble of vanity and may all your revelations begone with you. its so funny. its akin to a cat just slapping something it hates. fucking bye

or being suspicious theres no bell for any waitstaff, no sign at all that anyone else actually keeps the castle in one piece... realizing, again, that dracula is the coachman that came to intercept and pick him up, that dracula is the only one there keeping such a close eye and tabs on johnathan... that hes doing these things that are positively impossible for any human being to accomplish,

and yet part of that is this arguably very silly game of hats where dracula is running FRANTICALLY to put up this illusion of People, changing costumes sometimes, fixing rooms when johnathan goes to the bathroom, cooking these beautiful dinners. and johnathan comes back in one time to the room being addressed and the count has just RUSHED SO HARD to look as if hes been relaxing the whole time the mans """relaxing""" while """leisurely reading""" like an almanac or something fkdkf its so funny. its insane. its so much information to take in. its hilarious! its mortifying. youve been kidnapped and your kidnapper has done everything in his power to give you the illusion youre here completely of your own volition- and it works for a much longer time than it should, but how do you expect yourself to be the protagonist in a horror novel when youre just a guy??? you work in real estate. why you????

#skelly speaks #OOOUGH it is johnathans blatant and mundane humanity but also his everyday cleverness...#that makes him such a compelling protagonist i think #in so many stories im such an unapologetic supporter of the antagonist....#when the main character is a human and the antag is a monster of some kind #but johnathan is so wonderful and so fun to root for no matter how much i know whats going to happen #dracula is a fun story i fkn love dracula

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gone-series-orchid · 3 years

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I know you've said before that you think Caine and Drake are pretty one-dimensional (and I agree completely). I was wondering if there were any other villains that you wish had been explored more instead of giving those two more page time in later books. Or if there were any characters that you thought could have had villainous potential that were unexplored??

wow, interesting question! i think my main problem with caine and drake is that they’re just kind of blandly evil, one-dimensional like you said. i think, ideally, villains should feel like real people.

funnily enough, i think zil probably comes closest to embodying that in this series. he’s mean-spirited from the beginning, but it’s only under lance’s influence (from what i remember) that he becomes a real threat due to his gaining confidence. i think it would have been nice to see more of him in the series—he’s insecure in his role as leader of the human crew, which makes him fallible. he’s also kind of unnerved by lance’s neo-nazism. he’s arguably the most intelligent out of the crew aside from lance. he’s not sympathetic, per se, but he is compelling.

i would’ve liked to see him interact more directly with the protagonists—especially astrid, because i think she should get a chance to one-up him in some way after he was thinking creepy thoughts about her in hunger. also, i think astrid, being the smartie she is, would probably be most likely to try to persuade him to turn over a new leaf—she’s a normal, and a white, aryan-looking (gag) normal at that, which would probably satisfy lance, and she still has distinct power in the fayz. though zil could probably poke a hole in her argument by pointing out that she only really has that power because she’s sam’s girlfriend, which is true. anyway, they could have words about it.

i think zil is compelling because he has the potential to be redeemed. it’s a slight potential, because he’s already done some pretty evil things, but he’s not totally evil—he has to justify the violence he commits in order to accept it, which is more than caine or drake does. we never forget that, at the end of the day, he’s still an insecure, blustering twelve-year-old. he’s an anti-moof bigot, but he could change. i think lance, more than zil, represents total irredeemable evil. he represents what zil could descend into being. he’s the devil on his shoulder (astrid could potentially be the angel if she maybe switched tactics from lawful punishment to direct emotional manipulation).

i’m a sucker for human villains and natural disasters being the principal antagonists, which i think is why the first four books work so well? i think fear and light suffer from the gaiaphage taking control of the narrative, villain-wise, when i think it worked best when used sparingly. gaia is pure evil, nothing more. she’s fun to read about in her own way because she’s so villainously campy, but that’s kind of it. she’s not really interesting, imo.

i think the reason why i harp so much on the insufficient “humanity” of antagonists like caine and drake is because that’s the principal strength of books (lord of the flies, battle royale) in the “kids trapped in place and forced to survive” genre: what do the actions of the characters say about human nature? about society? about morality? in lord of the flies, the message conveyed is ultimately a bleak one: the kids all descend into savagery in one way or another, with the purest one of them all, simon (the jesus figure) being driven insane, and the intellectual (piggy) being murdered. the story is all about “the darkness in the human heart,” to paraphrase the last line of the book.

in battle royale, on the contrary, the message is ultimately one of hope. despite the characters living in a dystopian fascist society that sacrifices one class of students to a killing game, the main character shuya clings to the idea that he and his classmates can figure out an alternate way to survive the titular battle royale aside from murdering each other. his compassionate view of humanity is validated by the pov vignettes given to all his classmates. all of them are given distinct personalities; some are kind, like shuya and his allies noriko and shogo, and some are drake-esque sadists, while the majority fall somewhere in between (my personal favorite characters are the girls that team up with one another in order to protect themselves from possible sexual violence from the boys. they hole up in a lighthouse!). but all are tragic in the sense that they’re children thrust into an unfair and cruel situation. even then, though, the nobility of certain characters shines through.

for instance, there are two girls at the beginning of the game who are best friends and don’t want to kill anyone. they (foolishly or bravely) use a megaphone to call out to the other kids in hiding, asking if they can all band together. shuya and several other characters are tempted, but sadly the girls are both fatally shot soon after their announcement. they die in each other’s arms after affirming their friendship, tears in their eyes. shuya and several other kids are devastated by the girls’ deaths. while some more callous characters deride them as being stupid and naïve, the reader is ultimately meant to mourn their deaths and the lost potential of a class-wide alliance. they know that their enemy isn’t their classmates, but rather the fascist government that makes them kill each other in the first place.

anyway—tangent aside—i think those two aforementioned novels are really solid examples of the genre gone is in. gone has more of superhero vibe to it, given the focus on powers and mutations and paper-thin evil villains, but i almost think the way that’s executed almost detracts against the aforementioned “kids surviving, etc.” genre? like, that’s all about the messiness of morality and human nature and whatnot, and while superhero comics can weave that into their narratives (watchmen, the brat pack) those are usually deconstructions of the genre than straightforward examples of it. the superhero genre is usually morally black-and-white and really action-focused. this is why i think we get the strange tonal mixture of kids reacting realistically to the trauma of starving versus reacting fairly unrealistically when faced with brutal superpowered violence, such as when brianna decapitates drake like it’s nbd. or anything brianna does, really.

there’s a shift from the realistic to the unrealistic that’s fun, but tonally dissonant from each other. so there’s this sort of disconnect, at least for me. i sympathize greatly for astrid when she’s slapped by drake and forced to call little pete a slur, for instance, but how many times does drake or caine murder a kid in cold blood? at some point it gets...idk, old? as the violence gets more cartoony the less it interests me aside from morbid fascination, and there’s just so much of it. it gets desensitizing after a while. i think that’s why, even though i think it’s handled fairly believably in gone, i had a lot more trouble with the monster trilogy’s blend of absurdism (the animorphs-style mutations like dekka turning into a cat woman with medusa hair and another character turning into a praying mantis with super speed, etc.) vs. grimdark realism (ICE forcibly deports a character’s father, terrorist violence is a common theme, the san francisco bridge is destroyed, a baby boy is mutated into a giant fuzzy caterpillar and then gets blown up by the military—like this is budding dystopia-level dark and the narrative doesn’t seem to realize it). it just feels too heavy and too light at the same time. the contrast of tones does a disservice to both of them. idk what i’m saying let’s get back to your actual question lol

as for characters with villainous potential...hmmm. tbh i think astrid has villainous potential? i mean, i like the idea of her moral righteousness escalating in a way that makes her more morally gray. she’d have to probably latch onto more powerful kids in order to have any leverage over sam and the gang, given her powerlessness. maybe she could manipulate orc into being her bodyguard while she plots to usurp sam or something asgjsjk. i think she could be a powerful threat if she wanted to be! it’s fun to ponder. i heard of an au where she joins the human crew that i thought was sort of interesting!

what do you think, @goneseriesanalysis? any villains you wish had been dived into more, and/or characters with villainous potential you think would have been cool to explore?

#gone series #michael grant #the gone series #fayz

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diteach · 3 years

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2020 in review

I was tagged by @apeironaxiomaton to look back at 2020 and pretty much to try and not hate it so much! Thank you!!

Also I’m stealing the idea of putting everything under a cut, which I have never done in my life (and probably should start doing) bc it makes things neat as heck. Almost none of these are in a particular order.

Top 5 movies I saw this year:

Volevo Nascondermi by Giorgio Diritti - this movie is REALLY good AND I have good memories tied to the protagonist for Reasons I’m gonna cry bye (a shame that I’ve only watched this other excellent movie starring Elio Germano tonight bc it should be on this list)

Emma (2020)

The King’s Speech

Spirited Away or Porco Rosso - I had watched the first before and never the second so I think the fairer choice would be Porco Rosso but I’m not entirely convinced of it

The Wolf of Wall Street - look, I simply have a weak spot for stories that are so absurd they can be nothing but real (see “the other Elio Germano movie”)

Top 5 TV shows I watched this year:

Murdoch Mysteries - it will stay engraved in the first place of EVERY chart in saecula saeculorum and NO nothing can take its place I don’t care

Peaky Blinders

Alias Grace - which I was sure was a movie? I was so shocked to discover it isn’t like was it really six hours long what the

The Queen’s Gambit

Suburra: Blood on Rome - “The series was developed by Daniele Cesarano and Barbara Petronio for Netflix, making it its first Italian-language original television series.” I’ll be honest, some bits were a little bit hmm-inducing. Not the best tv series I’ve ever seen, but it managed to be fun and easy to watch. Suspenseful even!

Top 5 Songs:

So there’s a reason why Spotify said I’m an octogenarian this year and for as much as I complain about it... it’s right... Spotify’s right. And it will only get worse, I’m afraid. All the songs are from the same playlist which was my most listened to (and is the most interesting to share imo). I swear I have listened to other, newer things as well.

Shake That Thing by The Abe Lyman’s California Orchestra

Night Hawk Blues by The Coon-Sander’s Nighthawk Original Orchestra

Where the Sweet Forget-Me-Nots Remember by Merle Johnston and His Ceco Couriers (I’ve loved these flowers since I was a kid it was so nice to find a song with them in the title!!)

Dew Dew Dewey Day by Nat Shilkret

The Panic is On by Mezz Mezzrow And His Swing Band

Top 5 Books I Read This Year:

so this is embarrassing,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I “bought” an insane amount of books and read a grand total of...like...t w o. It was actually like four and some short stories (which I hated and are therefore banished from the good boy list) so I’m gonna list my silly little titles and make my silly little comments about them all. From “””””best””””” to “worst” we have:

The Adventures of a Modest Man by Robert W. Chambers - I literally cannot shut up about this book and, yes, it is the one tied to this illustration, about which I equally cannot shut up about. It’s so horrible that it makes a 360 and comes back as good, but not before hitting you with a cardboard tube for a laugh and subsequently stabbing you in the kidneys just because it can. I think we can confidently state that we are in the “I didn’t say it was good, I said I liked it” realm. I have so many questions about this book. Why was it written? Was it taking itself seriously? Was it commissioned by someone? Why is it so gay but only if you know that the author is a man? Maybe it’s a parody? Was it an experiment made by the author to test his own skill? I know jack about literature, unfortunately, so grain of salt here but it made me feel strong feels. Not that I could identify any of them if you asked, but they’re definitely there.

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot - I’m counting this in bc what is a book if not a patchwork of silly little paragraphs anyway so yes, we have a collection of poems. Not only do I know jack about literature; as a matter of fact, I know jack about poetry as well! All I’m gonna say is: I like cute things, I like cats, the poems were cute AND about cats. I really liked it! I often find myself going back and reading again specific parts just for the delight it is to read them out loud! I also may or may not have named the cats you can adopt in Stardew Valley after some of Eliot’s cats. The movie Cats (2019) did one good thing: making me read this.

How You Can Keep Fit by Rudolph Valentino - Yes, that is correct. A book on fitness written (in English!) by silent movie superstar Rodolfo Valentino. It is less than 100 pages on real, actual exercises that the reader can replicate in the comfort of their own house with little to no equipment. With a sprinkle of old timey manly manner of speaking, a few anecdotes from the author’s childhood in ye merry Italian countryside, a dusting of precious advice against ice-cream, and a dash of genuine intrigue for these newly discovered “vitamins” everyone is talking about. Overall a fascinating read that I treasure dearly! Valentino also wrote a book of poems, which I am absolutely thrilled to read this year.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway - Hmm.. I have mixed feelings about this one. Whenever the original language of a book is English, I instinctively want to read it in that language. Because I can! And because that way I get to read exactly what the author wrote. If it was another language, I’d get a translation, make peace with the fact that selling my soul to acquire perfect knowledge of all things is morally questionable, and call it a day. Problem: I’m a sucker for old books. And old books I did find indeed. There were three books by Hemingway for sale, very pretty, and for an almost symbolic price too so I bought them. They are Italian translations from the late 50s and my plan was to go through one in Italian, one in English, and after that, decide in which language to read the last one. I believe it was a mistake for me to start with Italian in Hemingway’s case. He’s known for having a very, VERY peculiar style that is integral to how the novels are perceived and I feel like I've robbed myself of literal peace of mind. For as much as I found the story interesting, I could not ignore the voice in the back of my head that kept wondering “was it necessary to render it like this?”. It did make me feel feels and think thoughts, but honestly? It was partially for the wrong reasons imo. It’s one of those books you should read at least once in your life, I guess, so I’m definitely glad I did it! Surprisingly, it captured me more than I expected and trapped me into its little world. I could clearly imagine the scenes in my head, which hadn’t happened in years! I’m really excited to move on to the next two books and finally be able to say if I appreciate his style or not.

Top 5 positive things that happened to me in 2020:

Visited Rome and took a stroll around on my own (sort of) for the first time in my life. I had never seen it at night :) Right after that I celebrated my birthday and got some cute gifts, including sweets that were sent all the way from Australia!!

Managed to buy my mom a gift, which is possibly the only real Accomplishment of 2020.

Took a bizarre trip this summer (I know, guilty) and fell in love with Slovenia

Discovering I like textile arts kinda gave me hope for myself and for the future. I say kinda for I dare not think concretely of anything too positive lest it should be prematurely taken from me. I shan’t elaborate. It is what it is.

Therapy!!!

The last few months of 2020 really hit me hard whereas in the beginning nothing was too bad so it was nice to see the list growing and growing! So many tiny good things happened and it’s worth to cling onto them. I’m tagging @sonicysuchillydog, @nurmilintunen, @alfonzone and anyone else who’d like to participate!! “Tell them I sent you” lol. Guys.............if you don’t feel like going thru your 2020 feel free to ignore bc......I get it............................

#mutuals #apeironaxiomaton #year review #yeah that book section is uhhhhhhhhhhhh #oof #i feel like this year the situation is finally going to change and i very much look forward to that #ive been trying to get myself to read more for ages and i feel that now whatever was stopping me has been partially removed/has gone away #there's LOTS of anya taylor-joy in this list hm #in case anyone cares yes i loved her in emma yes i hated her (and probably will hate in the upcoming season) in peaky blinders #and yes i was scared of her in the queens gambit #shes a good actress! i like her :)#there's also lots of old age and the smell of my grandma's house #not sure how to feel abt THAT #also incredibly lots of I T A L Y #my country and i are in an abusive relationship in which it keeps beating me but i keep going back for love #its complicated #i didn't think i had SO MUCH to say #im sorry guys as usual my posts get long and messy #edit: actually in the tv series thing there should also be the man in the high castle #i had (illegally lol) watched the first two seasons years ago and stopped bc i couldnt find the newer episodes #this year i watched it all over again and i have to say i enjoyed it much more than the first time!#i also already have the book so 👀👀👀 looking forward to that too 👀

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medea10 · 4 years

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Medea’s Top 20 Animes of the Decade

Hey all! Disappointed in some “best of” lists of this past decade? Well…prepared to be possibly disappointed some more because I’m doing one now! Here’s a top 20 list of my favorite animes that came out in the 2010’s. I seriously couldn’t do 10 this time due to how many awesome animes came out this decade. Unlike my anime superlative list, I’m going to be stricter here. Anything that aired in Japan before January 2010 is stricken from the list (which sucks because that means Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood & InuYasha: The Final Act are disqualified). And these are going to be MY favorites from this decade. Be aware that there will be popular animes I leave off the list due to my own personal opinions and the fact that some of them I have not watched yet. So I’m just going to tell you right now, don’t expect My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, or Demon Slayer on this list because I have not watched any of that shit! Let’s get cracking!

20. Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card (2018)

After nearly 20 years since the end of the first series, Cardcaptor Sakura returns with a sequel no one asked for and no one expected to come back. But it definitely brought back the nostalgia for those who grew up watching CCS. This story gives a continuation where Sakura is in middle school and ends up collecting a whole new set of mysterious cards. And the series is what you would expect with the cutesy feel whenever Sakura is with Li or it gets really intense when Sakura’s up against a really powerful card. While the ending leaves us on a bit of a cliffhanger with no continuation in sight, this series was one of the best reboots I’ve watched in recent years.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, & Hulu Coming soon to home video

19. The Rising of the Shield Hero (2019)

This is my first (modern) Isekai and I gotta say I really enjoyed the story. Unlike other anime characters that travel to another world, the main character Naofumi is not praised as a savior nor put on a golden pedestal. Quite the opposite, this guy has to fight for even a shred of respect from anybody. Because after watching past protagonists like Miaka Yuuki, Kagome, and Kirito, that trope gets boring. Despite many of these episodes making me physically ill as I watched Naofumi being shit on by the other heroes and everybody else, it was great to watch this struggle with Naofumi to become a great shield hero.

P.S. Myne is still a raging cunt!

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & FUNimation

18. My Love Story!! (2015)

One of the BEST rom-com animes out there! The story of a gentle giant boy named Takeo falling in love with a sweet, petite girl named Yamato and their story as a couple. Yeah, the big difference between this anime and a bunch of other anime rom-coms is that Takeo and Yamato reveal their love for each other in episode 4 in a 24 episode series! By anime standards, that’s unheard of because most love stories want to wait until the finale for something like that. This anime is just a cute story of watching Takeo and Yamato bloom with their budding relationship. Yeah, I admit some of the stories can be a little boring. Sometimes the beginnings of romances have a slow-start before we get to the good stuff. But even when they’re doing little things, they’re just so cute to watch.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, HI-DIVE & Hulu Available for home video

17. Durarara!! (2010, 2015-2016)

This story is a complete cluster-fuck, but I don’t care. The stories that come from this anime and the characters make this one of my favorites. Durarara follows the strange stories that happen around the town of Ikebukuro with a headless motorcycle rider, super-human strengthed men, an internet troll who loves to mess with humans, otakus, a mad scientist, a parasitic carrier, and gangs of different sorts. But if you would ask me what’s my favorite thing about Durarara (because there’s a lot of random things for anyone to choose), it would of course be any time Shizuo Heiwajima is on the screen. This guy is just pure rage in a bartender’s outfit. He’s able to casually pick up and throw a vending machine at a person, he can punch the clothes off a guy’s body, and even kick a mid-sized car down the street.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, Hulu & Netflix Available for home video

16. Daily Lives of High School Boys (2012)

If you’re looking for something random and hilarious to watch, look no further with this one. Each episode has random segments, mostly featuring three boys, Tadakuni, Hidenori, and Yoshitake in some of the most absurd moments ever showcased in an anime. Just to name a few fun moments; being caught experimenting with women’s underwear, finding a clever way to kill a hornet (indirect kiss), intellectual talk with a cute girl, using your jacket as a soccer ball replacement, and how to unzip your fly without using your hands! That last one still confounds me. But the show also expands to other characters around school and town. I know this series is severely random to have a coherent plot, but sometimes I prefer randomness. And that’ll continue with the next entry!

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll Available for home video

15. Nichijou (2011)

Yet another random segment anime (only this time with girls)! I know the official title is “My Ordinary Life”, but there is nothing ordinary about an anime where you have a six year old professor, a talking robot girl that was created by the six-year old professor, a talking black cat, high school girls capable of body-flipping police officers, a young boy who rides a goat to school, a high school girl capable of firing a bazooka, and a principal who fights a deer. That last one is just epic! If for no other reason to watch Nichijou, just watch the scene where the principal fights a deer! Much like Daily Lives of High School Boys, this series relies more on the random shenanigans of many of these characters (but mostly the main three girls, Mio, Yuuko, and Mai). It’s silly and fun! Check it out and give this anime a little love. Because there’s no way it’s getting a second season (Japan showed no love for this one)!

Available to watch on: FUNimation Available for home video

14. ERASED (2016)

I don’t care what manga readers say, this was a fine anime, you anal-rententive fuck-wipes (soooo not sorry for that statement)! This murder-mystery captured my attention when it first aired. The story is about a man named Satoru who has this ability to go backwards in time (usually a few seconds or minutes) to prevent a tragedy from occurring. But after an incident involving his mother, he ends up going all the way back to his ten-year old body in 1988 in order to prevent a tragedy from his childhood. This included saving his classmate, Kayo from her premature demise. It was a catchy time-leaping mystery that would enthrall me week after week…up to a certain point. Yeah, you can already guess who the culprit was early on. But all the suspense leading up to this was still a great tale.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & Hulu Available for home video

13. Panty & Stocking w/ Garterbelt (2010)

GAINAX, you wishy-washy, crazy-ass, can’t give a full conclusion to a story to save your life, leaving us on a decade-long cliffhanger bastards, YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN!

So this bizarre-ass anime is about two bitch-angels kicked out of Heaven, named Panty and Stocking. One likes to fuck men and the other gorges herself on sweets! In order to get back into Heaven, they must exterminate ghosts with the help of a black priest named Garterbelt, a fanboy named Briefs, and an Invader Zim knock-off named Chuck. And did I mention Panty and Stocking use their own lingere as weapons to take down ghosts? This story is balls-to-the-wall insane! And it gets crazier when you pop in the English dub! Dick jokes, fart jokes, and a whole lot of fucks! As any superhero show will do, this anime does stay to the villain of the episode trope with a few leeways here and there. This included a segment dedicated to the late Satoshi Kon and a music video. All of this leading to an ending NO ONE expected to happen leaving us on a cliffhanger that is now going on 10 years. Regardless, this absurdity in a thong is a treasure to behold. I would also advise not doing a drinking game whenever one of them says “Fuck”. You’d be dead by the end of the first episode!

Available to watch on: FUNimation Available for home video

12. Attack on Titan (2013, 2017-2019)

*singing incoherent Japanese*

YEAGER!!!

Get ready to get hooked on two of the catchiest opening themes of all time! I thought it was just about a young boy taking revenge on a race of titans for the death of his mother. No one expected there to be a twisted, messed-up origin to the titan race where the main character is connected to everything! That’s all my messy thoughts coming out after witnessing the climax portion. As for the rest of you, Eren Yeager’s world is turned upside-down when the town he lived in is demolished by titans. As a result, the entire town is demolished and left for dead and Eren watched as his mother is eaten by a titan. Eren ends up joining the Survey Corps along with his friends Armin and Mikasa to take down titans and prevent another town to suffer the same fate as Eren’s home.

Going into this anime, I SERIOUSLY thought this was going to be a comedy. You would too if you were going off of all the memes that emerged in 2013. But this anime takes a sharp left turn when Eren discovers a horrifying secret involving his own body. After that, this lead to more unbelievable discoveries involving people we all initially thought was the supporting cast. And this is as cryptic as I can be without delving into severe spoilers. The only way to get my meaning is if you watch this series. It’s just…WOW!

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, Hulu, & Toonami Some seasons are available for home video

11. Kill la Kill (2013-2014)

A girl with a giant pair of scissors picking a fight with the main bitch at school, all the while wearing a sailor suit that talks to you! That is the balls-to-the-wall insanity Studio Trigger gives you in a show like this. Ryuko Matoi enrolls in Honnouji Academy in search of the person who murdered her father. There, she comes face-to-face with the potential murderer, Satsuki Kiryuin. Satsuki rules over Honnouji as she has a special uniform capable of giving her super-human strength. But what Satsuki doesn’t know is that Ryuko is about to get a special uniform to give her that as well. A talking sailor uniform named Senketsu helps Ryuko in her journey of finding her father’s murderer. Yeah, this series goes all-out with the special powers brought on by certain clothing. Then again, it’s Japan and fanservice is a must in at least 75% of animes! I mean, there are moments where Senketsu gets skimpier on Ryuko, not leaving much to the imagination. As absurdly off the wall this anime was, I enjoyed every frame of it and it’s easily one of Studio Trigger’s best works.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & Netflix

10. Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma (2015-2019)

You’d think with my picky-ass, I would have never watched an anime about cooking (and if my family is reading this, close this page now and play a wholesome game of shutting your gobs). But Food Wars never fails to increase my appetite. Yukihira Soma ends up in Japan’s most elite cooking school (with a 10% graduation rate) where he finds himself up against Japan’s and even the world’s greatest up and coming chefs. And every now and then, he ends up having to go up against one of these chefs in a cook-off known as a Shokugeki. If it wasn’t for the food orgasms, I would easily tell my cooking-show obsessed family members to watch this. I know no normal person would ever strip off all their clothes and have a raging orgasm when eating delicious food. But hey, it’s Japan! Gotta stick in fanservice somewhere! With inventive ways to spice up a regular dish, I may one day broaden my taste-buds into more exotic food-stuffs. Just, keep the peanut-butter squid away from me.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, HI-DIVE, Hulu, & Toonami Some seasons are available for home video

09. Your Lie in April (2014-2015)

Grab your tissues, children. We follow Kousei Arima as he regains his ability and passion for playing the piano with the thanks of new-found friend Kaori. What can I say about an anime that’s so beautifully animated with likeable characters and music to die for? OHHH…I shouldn’t have said that last thing! Yeah, the main character Kousei goes through quite a bit in his life dealing with the aftermath of his mother’s death and having to relive seeing someone he cares about die the same way. There’s just so much you wish would happen with these characters and watch as it’s dashed away during a Chopin piece. OHHH…I did it again! Well folks, if you’re into tear-bait and classical music, definitely watch Your Lie in April!

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, Hulu, & Netflix

08. The Promised Neverland (2019)

One of the newest entries with one of the most shocking first episodes in recent history! I know in the past decade we got a lot of first episode hookers like Attack on Titan, but if you came in this blind-folded, get ready for a trip. We follow orphan children Emma, Ray, and Norman as they plan to escape their home before they become food for hungry demons. In a weird way, this anime is almost like the 2000 film Chicken Run. I know I’m not the first person to think that up, but yeah, gotta say it here. This was one of my favorite animes of this year and I was hooked week by week with what was going to happen next. It got so intense that immediately after the series ended, I picked up the manga to find out what happens next. And let me tell you, it gets more insane after the events of episode 12. But one thing that always astounded me was watching all of these kids plot an escape so elaborate when all of them range from ages 6-12.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, & Hulu

07. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid (2017)

What would you do if you opened the door one morning and found a dragon standing outside? Not just that but what would you do if you were living with more than one dragon and you now find yourself hanging around other dragons?! Kobayashi’s world changes for the better as she meets a dragon (named Tohru) that loves her so much that she would happily become her maid. And given the stigma for eons between humans and dragons, this series we see cute interactions with humans and dragons. Up to a point that it feels like all these characters are becoming family! There’s a dragon named Fafnir who finds humans horrible people, but ends up changing for the better when he finds himself hanging with a human that plays video games and creates manga. But I’m always so drawn to the relationship of Tohru and Kobayashi. Kobayashi was never really close to her family and when she moved away she mostly spends her nights drinking alone. But once Tohru and Kanna move in, it’s always a fun day with their cute shenanigans. It’s definitely brought Kobayashi out of her shell and gave her a family of dragons to live with.

And there’s this cute little dragon named Kanna! She’s so cute and adorable! Look at her nom at just everything she eats. She’s so adorable! Who’s a cute wittle dragon? Yes you are! Yes you are!

As a final note in this particular entry, I want to mention one particular member of the staff. Yasuhiro Takemoto! This man was the director for Miss Kobayashi, as well as many other animes from Kyoto Animation and I feel the need to thank this man for all the hard work he had done. I’m thankful for all of your work in the anime community and we miss you.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & Funimation Available for home video

06. Pokemon XY (2013-2016)

It might be cheating a bit to put a Pokemon series on this list since they’ve been around since 1997. But it’s not a continuous shot like Detective Conan and One Piece, so I’m counting the XY arc for this list. Even though this series didn’t show me my favorite character and it gave me a shipping that’s worse than Herpes (with a cult for that ship that’s on par with MAGA), this was one of the best arcs to the Pokemon series. And I was excited for this series when it first came out because with the introduction of Mega Evolution, I was hoping for Ash to delve into that. While Ash wasn’t the one using Mega Evolutions, we did see him grow more through a synchronization method with Greninja that brought about so much in terms of battling. Just to name a few awesome moments with these two, he took down an iceburg pokemon, went toe-to-toe with a champion, and even made it all the way to the finals of the Pokemon League. Now did he win that league? That’s not important! What is important is that these were some of the best moments this series had to offer.

But it wasn’t just Ash we followed, but an anime-only character introduced named Alain as we followed his journey to becoming stronger through Mega Evolution. It felt risky following a different person for 5 or more episodes (without mentioning Ash), but it was all worth it when we came to the climax of the series when Team Flare came from the shadows. Listen guys, I know Pokemon has given some disappointing seasons before (especially the arc prior to XY), but if there’s any season you should watch, it’s definitely this one.

Also, Rica Matsumoto sings this one song called XYZ. I don’t know if you all have heard this song, but I think you should. It’s so bad ass and always pops up in some of Ash’s best battles in this series…in the Japanese version! I love it so much that I always feel the need to bring up XYZ whenever I talk about this arc.

Available to watch on: Disney XD, Hulu, & Pokemon TV Available for home video

05. Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)

I will always be a sucker for magical girl animes. Especially since Sailor Moon was the very first anime I watched fully! But Madoka Magica was…different and edgier. The premise is that a cute, white animal asks you to form a contract with it so you can become a magical girl. Magical girls defeat witches that cause havoc! Better read the fine-print on the contract ladies, because what the little rat doesn’t tell you is that you eventually become a witch yourself and will end up dying a horrible death, thus repeating the cycle. This anime would always leave me in a state of awe when watching it, whether it was the shocking deaths or the clever animation used when a witch emerges. But when you’ve got Shaft Studios animating this, expect some trippy moments. I think it’s because episode 3 was a big turning point that many of us were caught off guard by what happened and were scared of what happens next. Although thanks to Madoka, many other magical girl animes are following down the same path and trying to make it edgier. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I gotta say Madoka has definitely set the bar on edgy magical girl shows.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, & Hulu Available for home video

04. Violet Evergarden (2018)

Prior to this anime’s release, Kyoto Animation had a reputation for putting out anime that was geared to the “moe” genre. But with recent releases of A Silent Voice, Miss Kobayashi, and Violet Evergarden, their style has evolved into something I can’t describe in just one sentence. This anime is just beautiful to look at. The animation is just stunning, look at it. Now, I was a bit turned-off by the main character of this series, Violet. First of all, she literally looks like Saber from the Fate series and has arms that rival Ed Elric of FMA. Secondly, her almost robotic personality really turned me off. But it wasn’t until later in the series where we watch her interact with the people she was helping in each episode that made me truly appreciate what she’s doing.

Violet was once used as a tool for war and would always obey her commanding officer. But once the war was over, she found herself as an “Auto Memories Doll” where she’s writing letters people want to send to someone. Many of these episodes, we watch her see the world outside of the war and hell she was put through in her past. Her words were able to bring people together, heal two fighting nations, bring a family closer together, give closure to a grieving family member, and so much more. Add to that, this series gave out one of the most heart-breaking episodes I’ve ever watched in anime. It made me ugly-cry and that rarely happens! Not just me, but litereally everyone who ever watched this episode, but also Violet herself. This episode (that’s episode 10) was like the first time where she felt actual human emotions for anyone other than the person she once loved. This episode felt like a turning point in how I felt about Violet as well as the show in general.

I feel I have to say a little more on this entry. This anime is without a doubt, the most beautifully animated anime of this entire decade (despite what OTHERS have to say). And it couldn’t have gotten that way without the talented folks at Kyoto Animation. I can’t express enough how much I’m blown away by this series. Only now when I think about it, I get horribly depresssed due to the recent tragedy that struck KyoAni. Only now, do I appreciate all the hard work to put this masterpiece into action. And I wish it didn’t take me until a tragedy to watch this anime. But I’m glad I was able to watch Violet Evergarden. And I wish for you all to take the time to do the same!

Available to watch on: Netflix

03. Assassination Classroom (2015-2016)

Stand. Bow. Kill your sensei! Middle school students being trained by professional assassins to take down a yellow-tentacled monster (who is also their teacher)! These students must assassinate their teacher within one year, otherwise the world will blow up. Now I had my reservations watching a cast this big! I mean, we’re watching an entire 28-person class try to shoot their teacher. Thankfully, I didn’t grow to be annoyed by the concept like with Negima. I loved nearly all of the students and remembered many of them. One of the biggest drawing points with me is that, all of these students were seen as the ones to give up on. They were in the lowest-level class where school, family, and society have just given up on these children. Being in a much similar situation in middle school, I can relate. That’s why when I saw someone like Koro-sensei teach these kids so much more in the world of academics, it made me happy to see these kids have someone to look up to. Many of these episodes were fun to watch. Koro-sensei is a laugh-riot sometimes when the class has to do an activity together. Add to that, one of the hardest to watch goodbyes in recent history. For a good laugh and a good cry, Assassination Classroom is the way to go.

Available to watch on: FUNimation & Hulu Available for home video

02. Yuri on Ice!!! (2016)

AAAAAAHHHHHHH! *random screeching noises*

Why yes I love this series! It is so beautiful. I wish to see more of this in the future. I would like for Viktor to have Yuri’s babies. Don’t at me! I didn’t expect this series to give the female viewers an actual loving relationship between two of the main male characters. But halfway into the series, we get the kiss that cemented the deal. So besides the gay relationship, we’ve also got a beautiful soundtrack, animation that’s stunningly gorgeous, a story about an underdog working his way to receive a gold medal with the help of his hot, Russian coach…God, I just love this anime!

I’m a sucker for a root for the underdog story. And Yuri Katsuki definitely fits that description! Before Viktor came along, he was coming off of a humiliating defeat at a previous competition where he came in dead-last. But throughout the series, we watch Viktor mold Yuri into something audience members have overlooked in this boy. Viktor taught Yuri what love really is in more ways than one. But Yuri isn’t a total zero-to-hero in a span of 12 episodes, but at times he does come damn-near close. Every week, I’m amazed at how much Studio MAPPA put so much effort into this. While the quality did take a slight dip in some of the final episodes, so much has happened before that I’m willing to let that go. Watch Yuri attempt at making history with Yuri on Ice.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll & FUNimation Available for home video

Before I get to my anime of the decade, how about I quickly do my TOP 10 ANIME MOVIES OF THE DECADE? No commentary, just announcing them quickly.

10. The Last: Naruto the Movie (2014)

09. When Marnie Was There (2014)

08. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (2018)

07. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (2013)

06. Kizumonogatari (2016-2017)

05. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (2010)

04. Pokemon: I Choose You (2017)

03. Your Name (2016)

02. A Silent Voice (2016)

01. Wolf Children (2012)

CLOSE CALLS FOR THE LISTS: Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail, Sailor Moon Crystal, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fate/Zero & Fate/stay night: UBW, Angel Beats, The Wind Rises, Parasyte, One Punch Man, Aggretsuko, Steins;Gate, Inu x Boku SS, and Dragon Ball Super.

And now, #1…oh, you should already know what it is by now. One of my favorite animes came back with the vengeance in 2019 that no other anime can touch it. Rightfully so! You know it, I know it, let’s get it over with! So say it with me now, three, two, one…

01. Fruits Basket: 1st Season (2019)

Thank you! Just…thank you! In a time where I hate reboots, this one was handled with the utmost care. What can I say about this anime that everyone else hasn’t said already? This anime is like warm soup on a cold day. The nice pick-me-up when you had a shitty day on the job! That beautiful rainbow you see after a rain shower!

Coming upon a family with a terrible secret, there’s much hesitation on who (if any) can be let in without being hurt. Tohru Honda accidentally learned of the Sohma family secret, where if one of them is hugged by someone of the opposite sex, they’re turned into an animal from the Chimese Zodiac. These people have had to live with this stigma their entire lives. Because of this, relationships are put in turmoil, obtaining friends was damn-near impossible, and everyone has to be on a constant state of worry in case their secret comes out. But Tohru loves and accepts everyone, no matter what. In many of these episodes, we see Tohru reach out to the members of the Sohma family to tell them that she sees the good in them and that they are loved. To reach out to the hurt, silent tiger, Kisa! To reach out to the mentally-scarred rat, Yuki! To reach out to the heart-broken dragon, Hatori! And to give a hug to Momiji…when his momma won’t!

All of these individual stories always gets to me! Even re-told, these stories have improved 100%! And in some cases like Ritsu’s story, done better than the original! I watched the original story God-knows how many times! But with the remake, I found myself re-watching random episodes in my off-time when I should be watching something else. I always have to go back to watching everything from this series. From the good and the sad! From the ultra-laughable moments, to the jaw-dropping moments! In a time where many of us yearn to be accepted for who we are, an anime like this feels absolutely necessary. I know it might be biased of me to pick something from this year and cheating a bit considering at the beginning of the decade I was heavily into the original series. Regardless, this is still my pick for Best Anime of the 2010’s.

Available to watch on: Crunchyroll, FUNimation, & Hulu

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leftear123-blog · 5 years

Text

Comedy Anime

Kekekekekekeke

Gugure! Kokkuri-san

Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life, Supernatural, Japanese Mythology

Episode #: 12

Summary: The protagonist is an elementary student girl Kohina Ichimatsu who lives alone. One day she summons a fox spirit named Kokkuri-san by a seance game with the same name. He was first intended to possess her, but instead, he decides to manage the household like her mother.

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.

Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan

Genres: Comedy, School Life, Supernatural, Short episodes

Episode #: 120

Summary: To the average person, psychic abilities might seem a blessing; for Kusuo Saiki, however, this couldn't be further from the truth. Gifted with a wide assortment of supernatural abilities ranging from telepathy to x-ray vision, he finds this so-called blessing to be nothing but a curse. As all the inconveniences his powers cause constantly pile up, all Kusuo aims for is an ordinary, hassle-free life—a life where ignorance is bliss.

Daily Lives of High School Boys

Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

Genres: Comedy, School, Slice of Life

Episdoe #: 12

Summary: Join Tadakuni, Hidenori and Yoshitake as they undergo the trials and tribulations of life in high school. Each episode presents the boys and their classmates in unique situations that you may or may not have faced in high school yourself! (Anime Planet)

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Genres: Comedy, School, Romance

Episode #: 12

Summary: Chiyo Sakura is a cheerful high school girl who has fallen head over heels for the oblivious Umetarou Nozaki. Much to Chiyo's confusion, when she confesses to her beloved Nozaki, he hands her an unfamiliar autograph. As it turns out, the stoic teenage boy is actually a respected shoujo mangaka, publishing under the pen name Sakiko Yumeno! A series of misunderstandings leads to Chiyo becoming one of Nozaki's manga assistants.

The Devil is a Part-Timer!

Hataraku Maou-sama!

Genres: Comedy, Romance, Supernatural

Episode #: 13

Summary: Striking fear into the hearts of mortals, the Demon Lord Satan begins to conquer the land of Ente Isla with his vast demon armies. However, while embarking on this brutal quest to take over the continent, his efforts are foiled by the hero Emilia, forcing Satan to make his swift retreat through a dimensional portal only to land in the human world. Along with his loyal general Alsiel, the demon finds himself stranded in modern-day Tokyo and vows to return and complete his subjugation of Ente Isla—that is, if they can find a way back!

Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto

Sakamoto desu ga?

Genres: Comedy, School, Slice of Life

Episode #: 12

Summary: Sophisticated, suave, sublime; all words which describe the exceedingly handsome and patently perfect Sakamoto. Though it is only his first day in high school, his attractiveness, intelligence, and charm already has the girls swooning and the guys fuming with jealousy. No one seems able to derail him, as all attempts at tripping him up are quickly foiled. His sangfroid is indomitable, his wits peerless. Will any of Sakamoto's classmates, or even teachers, be able to reach his level of excellence? Probably not, but they just might learn a thing or two trying.

Nichijou

Genres: Comedy, School, Slice of Life

Episode #: 26

Summary: Nichijou primarily focuses on the daily antics of a trio of childhood friends—high school girls Mio Naganohara, Yuuko Aioi and Mai Minakami—whose stories soon intertwine with the young genius Hakase Shinonome, her robot caretaker Nano, and their talking cat Sakamoto. With every passing day, the lives of these six, as well as of the many people around them, experience both the calms of normal life and the insanity of the absurd.

#gugure! kokkuri-san #the disastrous life of saiki k.#saiki kusou #daily lives of high school boys #gekkan shojo #the devil is a part timer #comedy #comedy anime #anime recommendation #anime #anime gif #sakamoto desu ga #nichijou

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lifeofnickripley · 5 years

Conversation

Favorite Manga/Anime

Kay, so If I'm gonna start posting stuff onto here, guess I gotta do some journaling kinda stuff.(It is a blog after all) Alrightly then, guess I'll start off with something relevant to the original content I will frequently post, Manga/Anime. There will be a lot that I love that aren't on here, but these are my personal favorites.(LONG BLOG I AM SORRY)

Top Anime:

Honorable mention - Amon - The Apocalypse of Devilman OVA - Kay so I'll be the first to admit, I'm a total edgelord.(one of my bands is a death metal band) and this one is GORY!! It's depressing, messed up, dark. It deviates from the Manga storyline but I always go back to it, plus that ending OST is amazing.

10.)Monster Musume - I probably should be extremely embarrassed about liking this one...but I'm not, it's amazing. Perverted? Yes. Weird? very. So much weird T&A action goin on that it's nauseating at times? oh my god yes. That being said, IT'S HILARIOUS!!!

9.) Pop Team Epic - Ever wondered what it's like in hell? This show. This show is literally meme hell, to the point where you lose brain cells if you watch it too long. It's great. I recommend it, after watching a decent chunk I wanted to scoop out my eyeballs and play tennis with them. That may sound like a bad thing, but trust me, it's an amazing feeling.

8.) My Hero Academia - Kay, so I'm not caught up on this one, buuuuut it's motivational as hell. I don't think I've ever rooted for a protagonist to win at something more than I've rooted for Deku. The popularity of the show speaks for itself but, damn, what an awesome underdog show.

7.) Jojo's Bizzare Adventure - SONO CHI NO SADAME!!! JOOOOOOOOOJOOOO!!! I still need to catch up on this one too but I love this wacky, music reference filled, insane show. I doubt I can really say much that hasn't been said already bout it. So on that note ORAORAORAORAORAORAORARARA

6.) Noir - Highly underrated anime. Bout two female assassins, one played by Monica Rial. Refreshingly dark and realistic, this awesome tale is set in France and is haunting, to the point of where I still come back to it after years and years of watching it. Quality anime that has slipped under most people's radar.

5.) Mirai Nikki - I said I was an Edgelord, right? Think this one cements that status. Home of the best Yandere in all of anime, I doubt I need to sing it's praises. Yuno Gasai is a well known character for a reason. Love this insane series.

4.) My Bride is a Mermaid - I'll admit, when I first saw this on Netflix and began watching it out of boredom, I didn't think I would like it. Matter of fact, I was sure I would hate it. I don't typically like cutesy things, edgelord here, I despise things that are cute and cuddly (Cept for cats). But HOOOOLY HELL this one was funny. Best part is? It doesn't rely on pervy imagery to be hilarious, it is humor at its purest. Comedy anime at its finest.

3.) Samurai Champloo - Sa-sa-sa-samurai champloo! Woooo where do I begin? Three misfits, Edo period Japan, Hip-hop related adventures, and badass fight secenes? Count me in! Made by the same people who made Cowboy Bebop, even has Steve Blum voicing Mugen, so you know it's good.

2.) Saikano - Kay so don't judge an anime by its art style. I repeat: NEVER judge an anime by its art style. This one is cheesy, yes, and the English Dub is horrible. THAT BEING SAID, it really does not go where you would expect it to go and one scene in particular had me shedding...manly...tears-It's sad, ok?! That character didn't deserve that death scene!!!

1.) Neon Genesis Evangelion - Ahhhhh yes. The creme de la creme of #toodeepforyou. Highly intellectual and artistic, this DIY amalgamation of a series hits many notes for me and came to me at a time where I needed it most. It's slow but if you allow yourself to be patient and analyze what is at first appearance a confusing, psychedelic nightmare, you'll find yourself in for a treat. Best part of the series for me? The movie End of Evangelion. You watch the series, you have to watch the movie. End of discussion.

Top Manga:

(BEEN AWHILE SINCE I'VE READ MANGA SO IT'S ONLY TOP 3)

3.)Inuyasha - The original Manga that got me into anime/manga. Rumiko Takahashi's work is very near and dear to my heart. I just remember the feeling of reading these for the first time in Middle School, I don't think I knew manga could be this cool when I firt started. The demons were legit terrifying, you couldn't help but root for Inuyasha and Kagome. Mindblowing stuff for an 11 year old.

2.)Berserk - Probably the one manga I still retroactively read. Dear god, it's excellent. The story, the fantastic art, superb writing and character development. There is a reason I want to get the Brand of the Sacrifice Tattooed on my neck. Guts is arguably one of the most sympathetic anti-heroes ever written. This is another series that really entered my life at the right time. No matter what terrible things happen to Guts. He lives on, he fights through his literal demons everyday. Above anything else, he carries on. Will forewarn anybody hoping to check it out though, extreme depictions of violence and sexual violence. Series is not for the faint of heart AT ALL.

1.)Ranma 1/2 - Ahhhh Ranma 1/2. My absolute favorite. Every time I sit down and read this manga, I find myself genuinely laughing from one of the panels. In my opinion, Rumiko Takahashi's best work. It is an absolute comedy masterpiece. Pure craziness and absurdity. 10/10.

#blog #manga #anime #favorites #neon genesis evangelion #berserk #ranma 1/2 #noir #my hero academia #jojo no kimyō na bōken #amon the apocalypse of devilman #saikano #samurai champloo #inuyasha #my bride is a mermaid #mirai nikki #pop team epic #monster musume

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junker-town · 4 years

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The most outlandish characters on ‘Tiger King’, ranked

The Netflix show has gifted us one of the most outrageous cast of characters imaginable.

WARNING: This post contains spoilers about the Netflix series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness.

Every few months, a docuseries gets dropped onto one of the numerous streaming services, quickly gains steam on social media, and becomes the next big thing that you have to watch.

Netflix’s newest series, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, is many things molded into one. Although it could easily be categorized into the true-crime documentary genre, it’s equal parts reality show and stranger-than-fiction biopic. It also happens to include one of the wildest and strangest casts of characters that has ever appeared in a series.

Although the story is centered around the antics of Joe Exotic — described on the show’s IMDB page as “an Oklahoma polygamist, country singer, and gun toter who houses a horde of lions, tigers, and bears in his roadside zoo and is accused of planning the killing of a local animal rights activist” — there’s a deep stable of other unique individuals who each have their own oddities that take this story to a new level.

Here are some of Tiger King’s biggest characters ranked by just how outrageous their actions are.

10. Rick Kirkham

Throughout the series, Kirkham is the closest thing there is to an all-knowing narrator. His role as a television producer of the web series Joe Exotic TV allowed him to take a front-row seat to the daily shenanigans of Joe Exotic and G.W. Zoo. That chapter of his life came to an abrupt close when the studio that housed his footage for the series was lost in a mysterious fire on the property that also claimed two reptile enclosures (including some that once belonged to Michael Jackson). He’s still one of the more subdued personalities despite his role as an authoritative driver of the narrative as he dons a cowboy hat while taking drags from cigarettes.

9. Barbara Fisher

One of the most revealing segments of the series came from an interview with Fisher, who detailed her stint as an “employee” at Bhagavan Antle’s T.I.G.E.R.S. (The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species) organization. Her most jaw-dropping revelations included the claim that in order to climb the ranks of Antle’s operation, one would have to enter into a sexual relationship with him. That accusation may or may not be true, but Fisher’s presence and storytelling add another layer to the intrigue of Antle’s persona. Her stint is short lived but does lack a bevy of intriguing nuggets of the story.

8. Joshua Dial

Dial’s presence in the latter half of the series is not without turmoil. As a young individual with aspirations of a career in politics, Dial served as Exotic’s campaign manager when Exotic was running for governor of Oklahoma. A self-described libertarian, Dial provides a voice of reason amongst the cast of characters that have warped reality. One of the more harrowing moments of the series is the footage that is shown of Dial’s reaction to Travis Maldonado’s accidental suicide in which Maldonado shot himself while trying to prove his weapon would not fire without its magazine, despite there being a bullet in the chamber. Dial understandably looked on awestruck in shock.

In a series in which it’s hard to find someone to root for, Dial’s short arc is one that deserves sympathy.

7. John Finlay

The teeth (or lack thereof) are haunting. The display of his tattoo-covered torso anytime he’s on camera is distracting. However, Finlay’s narration of some of the more personal aspects of Exotic’s life peel back the curtain on his boisterous persona. Finlay was Exotic’s partner for over a decade throughout the saga, although it’s unsure if the two were ever officially married before the joint ceremony with Exotic and Maldonado that the series shows. His trademark tattoo above his groin reading “Private Property of Joe Exotic” was just one of the many interesting quirks of their relationship. As Kirkham explains, “John Finlay came out and said ‘Look I got to tell you, I’m not really gay, I’ve been sleeping with the girl at the front desk.’”

Finlay ultimately ended his relationship with Exotic to continue his relationship with the aforementioned woman.

6. Travis Maldonado

Maldonado was Exotic’s third husband, and the second portrayed in the series. His relationship with Exotic was always one of dependence. As Dial describes it in an interview, “There are people out there who will look at a person who is in desperate, dire need of something. In Travis’ case, he was addicted to meth — and they take that need and they fulfill it, until they become the only person who can fulfill that need.”

In similar fashion to Finlay, Kirkham also proclaimed Maldonado was not gay. “”I told Joe at least three times that Travis was not gay, OK? Travis was banging every girl in the park,” Kirkham said to the producers of the series.

Nonetheless, Maldonado’s story is a sad, tragic one of someone battling personal demons.

5. Mario Tabraue

The mere fact Tabraue is the alleged inspiration for the Tony Montana character in Scarface plays only a minor role speaks to the overall insanity of the entire saga. His past as one of the most notorious drug dealers in Miami was a precursor to his introduction to the world of big cats. Early on in the series, the production crew attempts to enter his property only to be prevented by security. The crew is eventually able to obtain access, and Tabraue delivers one of the best lines of the entire series when he dons a monkey around his neck while saying “sometimes they say that I’m the prototype for Scarface.”

I’d watch an entire spinoff series focused solely on Tabraue. While not as extravagant or flamboyant as some of the other characters, Tabraue carries an aura of mystery that goes just beyond his affinity for big cats.

4. Jeff Lowe

If there’s one word that best sums up Lowe’s persona, it’s sleazy. His standard attire of ripped jeans, a bandana and a baseball hat are showing extreme levels of How Do You Do Fellow Kids. Lowe’s questionable backstory includes illegally carrying lion and tiger cubs in suitcases through hotels in Las Vegas, a description as a “swinger,” and a history of domestic abuse with his former wife. Lowe preys on Exotic’s hardships as mounting legal fees from an ongoing dispute with Carole and Howard Baskin quickly drain his finances and force him to sell the park to Lowe to keep it alive. Despite his involvement in the murder-fire-hire scheme that ultimately winds up being the downfall of Exotic, Lowe escapes unscathed by cooperating with federal agents to save his own skin.

Lowe’s actions are shady through and through.

3. Carole Baskin

The “Mother Teresa of Big Cats” is the perfect foil to Exotic’s bombastic lifestyle, but not without some question marks of her own. The biggest possible skeleton in her closet (or somewhere in her Big Cat Rescue sanctuary) is the strange disappearance of her first husband, Don Lewis. Did she feed him to a tiger? Is he in the property’s septic tank? Did he flee to Costa Rica only to never be heard from again? SO MUCH MYSTERY.

And, of course, there’s the entire, you know, fact her biggest adversary hatched a plot to have her murdered. Baskin is not perfect by any means. Is she the protagonist of the story? Is she an anti-hero? Her portrayal in Tiger King presents a mixed bag that leaves a complex assumption up to the viewers.

2. Bhagavan “Doc” Antle

My one hot take after watching this series was that I wish Antle was the main focus of the plot. There is SO much to unpack with him.

To start, his soul patch and ponytail combo is an absolute look. He looks exactly like what I would expect a guy that calls himself Bhagavan to look like. Even before the series aired, Antle was already regarded as one of the most well-known big cat enthusiasts as evidenced by his appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman.

His portrayal in Tiger King, however, is not a favorable one. It is alluded to repeatedly that he runs a cult-like organization, as mentioned above by Fisher. There is uncertainty surrounding the nature of his relationships with those who work as apprentices, and there is speculation in multiple interviews surrounding just how many wives he actually has. Many of his apprentices begin as teenage women, and Fisher’s remarks stated Antle would have them change their names to something more exotic (pun not intended) and would pick their outfits that were usually some sort of scantily clad big cat print based.

It remains unclear how much of Antle’s reputation is actually true, but there’s no denying the sheer force of his personality.

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1. Joe Exotic

As if anyone else was going to be in the top spot? The antics of Exotic that are shown in Tiger King could easily warrant their own detailed list, but here are some of the most outrageous ones from the series:

Running for president in 2016, then following it up by running for governor of Oklahoma in 2018 and earning 18.7 percent of the Libertarian vote

Literally any of his eccentric music videos from his country music catalogue. “Here Kitty Kitty” might be the most absurd of all of them

Performing a song at Maldonado’s funeral

His affinity for dynamite and blowing things up

GOING TO PRISON BECAUSE OF A MURDER-FOR-HIRE PLOT

There’s so much about Exotic’s entire aesthetic that is hard to put into words. Above all else, Exotic was a showman and an entertainer. As he spirals deeper and deeper into his complicated rivalry with Baskin, we see just how far he’s willing to go in order to preserve his life’s work. It’s fascinating to watch a man so consumed with being on top of his world and the resentment he feels towards those who oppose him that he loses his grip on reality before ultimately ending up in prison.

There are few real life stories and characters — if any — that can match Exotic’s larger-than-life saga.

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its-just-like-the-movies · 7 years

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The Killing of a Sacred Deer (17, C)

The absolute best thing I heard going into The Killing of a Sacred Deer was the specific, Ohio-based dread it possessed to one critic who knew that Yorgos Lanthimos had shot the film in Cincinnati. He also lives in Columbus, close enough that I could theoretically run into him at the Wex, and it was his comments I remembered as Lanthimos’s camera somehow made the architecture of the hospital Dr. Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) works at seem even sharper and more angular. Just as quickly, another review calling the film hollow sprung into mind, as we see Murphy and his anesthesiologist friend discuss watches, a conversation we see as the characters briskly walk towards us while the camera tracks away from them. Already the director’s style and mannered dialogue ring odd somehow, and not in the way he surely is hoping for. My friend Jack and I spent the film’s entire run time scouring for anything worthwhile it had to say and came up empty, which feels even more dismaying given how much we got out of The Lobster after one sitting, let alone multiple viewings. But the ideas here are buried under the inflexible stylization of its writer/director, some unplayable scenes, and a tenuous connection to the world at large that makes the unreality Lanthimos is going for seem out of place and poorly contextualized. Congratulations to Lanthimos for being able to sustain a truly unique tone, but it feels restrictive on a story that badly needs a reason for being.

We spend about half an hour - at the very least - with these characters before the plot itself kicks in, as the odd son of a dead patient of Steven’s says that his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) and his children Kim and Bob (Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic) will die unless Steven kills one of them himself, all as their bodies starting shutting down along the way. Until now, we’ve seen Steven as this boy Martin (Barry Keoghan) interacting with the closest thing to warmth the film or the cast can conjure up, only for the relationship to degrade once Martin begins following Steven and violating personal boundaries, acting even weirder while he does it. Wife and children are met with all of their bourgeois non-peculiarities, and no one is either given or seizes a chance to make any of the film’s protagonists something more than muted ciphers for ideas about Cruel Fate and Comeuppance and Righteous Vengeance that Cape Fear does with so much insanity and gusto. Worse than that, the film has a hard time clearing up or enunciating these ideas. If we can laud Sacred Deer for being somewhat unpredictable on a scene-by-scene even as the blueprint can only point us one way, we can criticize it for the way Anna is never ever, for no explained reason, afflicted by the strange malady that is killing her children and should frankly be killing her. Longer scenes veer into increasingly unplayable dialogue, and the lies and enigmas swirling around Steve in particular never grow the ironic resonance that Lanthimos wants. Declarations of loyalty and partnership from Anna, bickering among the children as to who will die, a continued insistence on Bob’s status as the favorite and additional prominence from being the first to fall ill, all seemed to point me fruitlessly in the direction that either mother or son will die, while Kim’s romance with Martin seems specifically to combat how little she’s really present in the family unit. I never thought she was going to die, because the film itself seems to think of her as an afterthought.

In terms of unplayable scenes, what would be worse: Telling your son about a horrific childhood sexual exploit with a sleeping relative? Having to jack off a colleague in close-up for information the film undermines as he tells it to you, even if it is true? A story about how people eat spaghetti while you’re wearing cheap boxers and covered in meat sauce? The many horrific stories and absurd statements that litter Sacred Deer have none of the firepower that they’re clearly meant to, and we are left watching the actors not so much struggle with these lines as watch them push them out without any seasoning or creativity beyond what this admittedly unusual tone has to offer us. Alicia Silverstone, cat-grinning and slurring her way through her only scene as Martin’s widowed mother, is the only performer who creates more than one mood or emotion at once while still attuning themselves to the film’s style while everyone else does the one thing that’s asked of them capably and with barely anything else to offer. Meanwhile, no one moves their facial muscles and struggles to maintain their American accents for more than ten words at a time. Raffey Cassidy’s stiff heaving of herself across the floor and somewhat emotive line readings kept me at her attention compared to her other scene partners. I spent whole scenes imagining the actors pitching their characters at a higher volume, trying to actually make them people until certain lines sank the scene completely. As I said earlier, no one else manages to rise their character above anything but a cipher to expound on ideas I don’t think Sacred Deer ever articulates, makes vital, or does anything remotely interesting with. Maybe finding a human person in this script is a futile effort, but why did only Silverstone seem to try?

It doesn’t help, I think, that the world of Killing of a Sacred Deer is so ill-defined in its relation to the world at large. The Lobster’s oppressive rules on coupling and outlandish locations helped create an atmosphere where Lanthimos’s style doesn’t just make sense but utterly thrive, and contextualizes the world so fully that trips to “the city” do nothing to dissipate the film’s tensions. Here we have nothing to go on in terms of where this is, what kind of reality we’re in. Yes, it’s one where a young boy can cast curses without any explanation, but he seems to be an outlier overall. What kind of world are we supposed to take this as, if our protagonists cannot count on anyone to believe their story? Maybe I’m being unimaginative to balk at this, but this is not the stilted camera of The Lobster, nor are our protagonists trapped against the frame like insects stabbed into a display with pin needles. The camera follows them and is followed by them, the world expansive and open even with the angular geometry of every building seeming so much sharper and confining than it would normally be. Instead of a relatively closed setting, we’re in an unnamed city, where this could happen to anyone, except the premise and execution are both too outlandish and too watery to have any gumption or blood or piss and vinegar to back up its convictions. I never cared much about Martin’s quest for vengeance, about Steve or any of his cursed family members. Nothing in Killing of a Sacred Deer is as funny as the incredibly awkward finale, where opera music blares at full volume while a surviving member of Steve’s absolutely drenches their fries in ketchup, without breaking eye contact with Martin, before the whole family just decides to not pay for their food and leave the diner rather than keep eating in the same building as that creepy fuck. The whole film feels like a hollow exercise for Lanthimos to flex his idiosyncratic style, and I wish there was anything for see in this except for how empty it ultimately is.

#my posts #my reviews #2017 #the killing of a sacred deer

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paulisweeabootrash · 6 years

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First Impression: Re:ZERO - Starting Life in Another World

It's time again for Paul is Weeaboo Trash!

Today's topic: Re:ZERO - Starting Life in Another World (2016)

Review based on 6 episodes. Or 5 if you count two two-part beginning, episodes "1A and 1B", as one.

The characters are plastered all over everything at conventions! It keeps getting casually mentioned in reviews of other shows! Rem is apparently everyone's waifu! And yet... I knew absolutely nothing about the actual details of this show. I think I might understand why after the first few episodes, because it seems like one of those things you can't really discuss properly without resorting to spoilers, so people evade mentioning them. Or maybe the things I'm calling "spoilers" seem so obvious to other people that they don't think they're worth mentioning. Or the spoilers may be “common knowledge” in the weeb community so people don’t think they’re worth explicitly describing. Whatever, I'm notoriously dense when it comes to picking up foreshadowing, and often "anticipate" different twists than the ones that end up happening. I'm the perfect rube for twists. I didn't know the twist of The Sixth Sense (a movie which, incidentally, I still haven't seen) until The Lonely Island mentioned it in a song nine years after the movie came out. You’ll see what I mean soon, hopefully, because I think enjoying this show is very dependent on the audience learning what’s going on along with the main character.

Anyway, my point is that all I had heard that this was an unusually good isekai, a genre which I have somehow avoided reviewing up to this point even though I've enjoyed some isekai quite a lot. The idea of being transported to another world has been around for a long time, even being a key feature in the archetypal “hero’s journey” story format. In its current anime incarnation, it tends to be set in medieval-flavored fantasy worlds and be very action-oriented, but there is some nice diversity out there in the scenarios and spins different works take on the general concept. It has even been inverted and descended into total absurdity. But there is a shadow over the genre: a shadow cast by unpleasant and overpowered characters and escalatingly-stupid writing. And it is that kind of world our, er, hero(?)... well, main character at least, Subaru, expects.

Subaru, you see, is a shut-in gamer who suddenly finds himself transported to another world while shopping. One moment, he's on a deserted city street at night in our world. The next, he is on a busy city street in daylight in — surprise — a medieval-flavored fantasy setting. And he is very familiar with what that means: he has been summoned here. Plucked from his mundane life, he must be a superpowered protagonist, about to find himself on a grand adventure!

Ha. Nope. Try as he may, it seems like the only power he has is above-average strength from working out (but no real skill at using that strength to fight). And he doesn't even have normal functioning here otherwise. He's illiterate in the local language, comes off as insane to everyone he meets, and almost immediately finds himself being beaten up by muggers he thought he could heroically take on by himself. Rescued and healed by a magical mystery woman and her cat-like familiar spirit, Puck, he knows right away: she is the superpowered protagonist, and beautiful to boot! She too has been robbed, and he will help her recover what was stolen! Ha. Nope. Subaru soon finds that his situation is far stranger than he expected.

See, Subaru and his new magical mystery companion search for the woman who robbed her of her item, described only as a jeweled insignia. On the way, he learns that she is a half-elf and her name is Satella, and that although he treats her like a stock tsundere, she both isn't one and doesn't understand why he expects her to act like this. And I appreciate this, personally, because realistically we should ask: what does he expect? They've known each other for only a few hours, after all! They track the thief, a professional named Felt, down to a bar in the outskirt slums of the city run by her fence, Old Man Rom, and Subaru enters to find it full of merchandise but no sign of people. Then he finds the corpses.

Because of how the first few episodes unfold, it will be necessary to go into some things you might want to leave as spoilers even though they happen so soon in, because there's really something to be gained here from being confused and surprised with Subaru, and maybe even seeing your own expectations contradicted along with his. If you don’t want spoilers but are intrigued by the summary so far, go skip ahead to the Weeb Ass Shit ratings and then watch the show.

If not, now we're going to finish episode 1A, and go onward from there, okay?

Okay.

Subaru and Satella are quickly killed by an unseen attacker, the same one who already dispatched Rom and Felt before they arrived. At this point, we remember that back in the very first scene of the episode, before Subaru was transported, the camera cut back and forth between Subaru shopping in a convenience store and a hand reaching out weakly as the voice of the person to which it belongs talks about saving someone. Because now we see that the hand was his, and he was reaching out for Satella.

And then he's back in the city, right where he first appeared. And apparently also right when he first appeared. Was it a dream? A premonition? He certainly thinks so, and wants to use this knowledge to help Satella. So he goes to Rom's bar, finds Rom alive and working, and tries to negotiate to barter for the stolen insignia. Felt shows up, as does Elsa, the woman who hired her to steal the insignia in the first place, who turns out to have been the one who killed him in his premonition. And she kills him again. And then he's back in the city, and the same time and place. Oh no. It's not a premonition, it's a Groundhog Day-style time loop.

After a third death and reset, he has learned three important things: first, that Satella's name is definitely not Satella. Second, that much to his relief, there is some sort of police force in this world, although so far the only part of it he has encountered is Reinhart, a single off-duty knight. Third, that this insignia is worth much more than Felt is being paid for it and has some significance he can't yet guess at. Oh, and also he has decided this loop must be his “power”, and has named it “return by death”.

That gets us up through episodes 1B and 2. After that, he makes (and survives this time, albeit just barely) a fourth attempt to recover the insignia from Felt, and to keep it and all of the people involved out of the hands of Felt's murderous employer. Emilia — who called herself Satella before as what now seems to have been a sort of off-color joke, due to her resemblance to the real Satella, whom we have yet to encounter but who is clearly Bad News — brings the wounded Subaru home with her. He wakes up to find himself fully healed and in a bed at Emilia's palace, attended to by maids who look like near mirror images of each other. Maids? Palace?!

Yes, it turns out that the country Subaru has been transported to, Lugnica, is undergoing a succession crisis, that Emilia (sponsored by the flamboyant Margrave Roswaal L. Mathers) is in line for the throne, and that the insignia is a sort of proof of her authority that she must possess to be eligible when the new ruler is decided. Subaru asks to work for her, and the twin maids Ram and Rem (aha, now we meet everyone’s waifu), struggle to teach him the basics he needs to survive here, like cooking and reading. At the end of an unspecified number of days of trying but failing to learn to work alongside them, Subaru speaks to Emilia alone, and they seem to be getting along very well. He very badly attempts to explain the concept of a date to her, and successfully asks her out on one, and goes to sleep happy... And he wakes up to find Ram and Rem waiting at the foot of his bed... just as they were when he woke up here the first day... Yes, it turns out that somehow he died in his sleep and has been “reset” again. But he has at least obtained a new "save point", as it were, with his power, and must now work out what happened to him this time — and how exactly his power works, since he went back multiple days this time.

You know what? I'm not even going to go onward in my summary into the sixth (fifth) episode. Those of you who have seen the show will notice that my summary is getting more and more cursory, but it's because I don't want to just recap the show for you, I want to provide enough overview so you know what kind of show it is. There is so much to enjoy and appreciate that I haven't gotten to. Here’s an assortment of highlights:

- Subaru's interactions with Emilia and Beatrice (the librarian who I didn't even get around to mentioning in the summary above) are particularly nice because he treats them with otaku-y genre-savviness and they respond not just with some moe twist on confusion but with actual annoyance.

- I find it interesting that we can't be sure whether nobody knows about his power yet or whether they just aren't letting on that they know (although it sounds like Beatrice might know something), even though it doesn't make that much sense to me that Subaru has not tried to explain it, or the fact that he's from another world, even though he has established that magic is downright common here.

- On that note, I love that it sounds like there may be a thought-out, maybe even "hard", magic system that the people of this world know as a normal and understandable part of their environment and not just ad hoc contrivances.

- And I love that Subaru hasn't adapted well to his power, unlike many fantasy characters who, upon obtaining magic, take to it seemingly instinctively. He behaves just as you might expect from someone who (1) has never experienced magic before and (2) has a power that is clearly horrifying to experience. He even has difficulty not talking about things that happened previous times through, constantly confusing people in ways that are sometimes dramatic and sometimes just plain funny.

Much to my surprise, this also seems to be one of the very few shows I can watch more than three episodes of in a row without getting restless and wanting to go do something else. Even shows I love, I can not usually binge watch. But Re:ZERO sets up and uses its cliffhangers excellently. Some shows have clear self-contained stories in each episode. Some seem like they try to end in a way that at least sets up the next part of the story, if not necessarily do so suspensefully, but they choose bad places to break up the ongoing story. Some shows end in ways that practically obligate you to keep watching because a single episode is so unsatisfying (and maybe they should've made a movie instead). But here, I both end each episode having watched a useful and well-paced unit of story and it leaves off with open questions that keep me interested in what will happen next.

I am looking forward to the political intrigue or succession war or both that will presumably happen because there's no way "will Emilia take the throne?" doesn't become at least a main plot line. I am looking forward to finding out why everyone loves Rem so much. I am looking forward to seeing if (and how) Subaru ever matures and adjusts to his situation, and what his relationship to Emilia ends up being once they really know each other. I’m just overall very excited and optimistic for the future of this show. And I will be very upset if it unravels.

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For scoring on this review, I'd like to try something a little different. I think I would like to add two things to supplement the Weeb Ass Shit scale, and I'll try this new approach for a few more reviews before deciding whether to keep it.

First, I was inspired by Yuri Reviews, which breaks ratings down much more specifically than the W/A/S, into Story, Characters, Animation, Sound, Yuri (of course), and Total Enjoyment, most of which would be merged incoherently into “Shit”. Keeping in mind that combining unrelated features was exactly my problem with the "Shit" scale in the first place, I will try breaking down my evaluation roughly into writing vs. everything else. That is, although I’ll still provide a single summary “Shit” score, I will try to explain it more thoroughly by having a category for things like characters, story, and translation (if egregious enough that even I, with almost no knowledge of Japanese, notice problems — I'm looking at you, Full Metal Panic!, with all your subtitles that keep trying to insist that "Teresa" is spelled "Teletha"), and another for character design, animation, sound, and anything else I feel like commenting on.

Second, given how "sexual content" can mean anything from risqué jokes to non-sexualized nudity to fanservice to depictions of sexual violence and there is no way in the W/A/S framework to evaluate other aspects prospective viewers should know (e.g., the surprise pivot from stylized violence to disturbing violence in R.O.D.), I will now provide "Content Notes" that, although not necessarily warnings in the "trigger warning" or "viewer discretion is advised" sense, highlight some things I think viewers should know about when deciding if this is appropriate for themselves or others.

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Deluxe W/A/S Scores: 4 / 3 / 2

Weeb: Although he announces what he means fairly explicitly, Subaru's dialogue and assumptions probably make more sense with some background knowledge on other isekai, especially the ones with bad reputations. The genre isn't totally unknown to Western audiences, especially in the English-speaking world, but it's more common to see it with magical artifacts or wishes being the triggers for the transportation, not just leaving it as a mysterious force or reincarnation. These are not well-known things to non-otaku American audiences.

Ass: Elsa’s costume is, er, quite revealing, and a few shots of Felt and Emilia are framed in fanservicey ways, but so far it's also hard to think of this show as titillating. There is some barely-covered male nudity later on, too, but in one scene and not explicit.

Shit (writing): The characters who we encounter more than once are mostly interesting and have some depth and motivation to them, except for the gang that repeatedly mugs Subaru in the iterations of the first day. The surprises surprised me, but as I said at the beginning, I'm dumb as a brick when it comes to twists. So I'm not sure whether that's good writing or me being oblivious.

Shit (other): It's well-above-average-looking in terms of consistency and detail, and the designs of characters and places just consistently appeal to me. I have a vaguely-formed idea I can't articulate that this seems very... well-framed, I think the word I'm looking for? I don't know cinematography, but I know what gets my attention and leaves an impression. I also want to bring special attention to a nice touch in the sound in episode 1B: when Subaru tells Felt, Rom, and Elsa that his occupation is "unemployed", the music pauses momentarily along with the action on-screen, emphasizing the other characters' awkward silence.

Content Notes: As might be expected in a show where the main character repeatedly dies, some of the violence crosses the line from stylized to unsettling and maybe even into disturbing.

#weeaboo trash #anime review #first impression review #re:zero

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smokeybrand · 6 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Up An Asshole

So Venom is better than it had any right to be. Also, it’s a f*cking quandary, man. Like, straight up, Venom is not a good film. It’s not. But, at the same time, it’s not terrible. It’s the oddest sh*t i’ve ever experienced. There is a lot of good here. In theory, this should have worked and it kind of does but not really. Full disclose, i am approaching this as a thoroughly versed in the language of Spider-Man and his mythos. I know a great deal about the Venom character. In fact, he’s my third favorite Marvel character. Spider-Man, Dr. Doom, Venom, Captain Marvel, and X-23. Top five, right there. I’m going to do my best to be as objective about this review as possible but, understand, i am wildly biased.

The Good

The performances in this thing were really f*cking good. It’s rare that i see a flick where every major character gives it their all like this. In a bad movie. That’s the thing about this; I don’t know if it’s really all that bad. Independently, the components are mediocre to terrible but together, with an added lift by how great the leads are in their respective roles, this thing gets elevated considerably. it’s schlock, don’t misunderstand, but it’s schlock handled with care, love, and reverence which makes it more? I dunno, man.

Tom Hardy does his thing as usual. I’ve seen a lot of reviews saying this is the worst he’s been since his last terrible performance but that’s not the case. I don’t think those people actually understand the character of Venom. I don’t think they get that he’s a dark reflection of Peter Parker so, yeah, he’s gonna be quick in an edgelord, try-hard, kind of way which is exactly what Hardy gives you. Dude is one hundred percent true to who Eddie Brock and Venom are as characters.

Michelle Williams as Brock’s Ex-fiance (Ex-Wife in the comics) Anne Weying was phenomenal. She’s everything i wanted Mary Jane or Gwen Stacey to be in Sony’s Spider-Outings. Madame is intelligent, strong, and a force all in her own right. Plus, i mean, but dat She Venom, tho!

Rhiz Ahmed does a fantastic job as Carlton Drake. Seriously, he does insidiously sinister Elon Musk brilliantly. There was a quiet danger to this cat that just seethed with every second he was on screen. This is a man who knows he can destroy a person with little more than a phone call. His metered, subtle, insanity is just f*cking breathtaking to watch. Drake, as the main antagonist, would have been spectacular if he maintained a kind of Kingpin-esque level, someone who is just out of reach of our protagonist, as Brock tried to find a way to topple his entire regime. Think Lex Luthor. Bring in Cassidy to play the part of The Joker but with more slaughter, and you’d have a rather compelling narrative to follow through a trilogy of films, i think. But Sony dumb and blew their load on this one movie so we’ll never get to see just how smarmy of a sociopath Rhiz could have crafted with Drake.

The adaption of Lethal Protector for film was pretty dope. I like the liberties they took with the characters while still hearkening back to the comic origins. I didn’t think Venom could work without Spider-Man but it kind of does. There is a lot here to unpack for a first attempt but, as a first attempt? it got a lot right. There is a solid foundation to build something better on and that bodes well for the future. Unless this thing doesn’t make any money. it might not make any money...

The Meh

Everything is cohesive, for the most part. The pacing here is brisk but competent. You get from one scene to the next, all in service toward head-biting and tongue-punching. It’s not the most smooth in it’s stride but it gets to where it needs to, even if it stumbles more of then than it should.

The script was ehh. You can tell someone had some ideas and they are very apparent but the execution just didn’t do it justice. I don’t know if it was the overall plot or the characters, themselves, or the corny dialogue but everything felt just under good. Not pitch enough for me to say it stinks but nowhere near good enough for me to praise it.

The fact that this flick is PG-13 is a goddamn disservice. Seriously, there is, apparently, 40 minutes of raw, violent, footage left on the cutting room floor. This movie probably needed that.

The tone of this flick is mad jarring. I feel like if it was hard R but kept that rather sarcastic, nonchalant, tone, it would have been a better film overall. Not quite like Deadpool but more like Kiss Kiss Bang. I think this film’s strength was when it was calling out the absurd nature of it’s own premise. Which brings me to my net point....

The direction in this film is... wrong. Like, it doesn’t fit the film, you know? Ruben Fleischer, the guy who did Zombieland, helms this and he does a decent job. Dude sucks at directing action but the interpersonal parts, the actual character dynamics, are spectacular in this film. I particularly enjoyed the weird love (?) triangle between Eddie, Anne, and Venom. While i was pleased with what Fleischer gave us, i can’t help but feel like this was the perfect vehicle for Shane Black. HIS version of Venom would have been spectacular.

The Bad

The plot holes in this thing are ludicrous. There are entire subplots just dropped. Main characters are killed off left and right. There are rules established, things inherent to the logic of the world that was created for Venom, that are just thrown out the goddamn window for plot convenience. It’s f*cking insane

Riot is a flaccid antagonist. I understand you don’t blow your load with Carnage in the first film, but really? Riot wasn’t even good in the comics. Dude was a red shirt symbiote. Seriously, he gets consumed and amalgamated, along with, like, three other ones, into a D-Class antihero called Hybrid. If i’m not mistaken, Scream, a female symbiote from the same lot, is the only on that doesn’t get fridged by the end of that Life Foundation arc. To make him the big bad was ridiculous.

That climax was sh*t. I literally didn’t know what the f*ck was going on. Nonsense looked like a f*cking Pollock painting with teeth.

This movie looks like sh*t. The CGI is poor, man. Almost unforgivably so. This thing cost 100 million to make and it looks like it cost a quarter of that. There’s been a lot of comparison to Upgrade but for the money, Upgrade is a FAR superior situation. I can’t say if it was a better film overall but it definitely did the whole takeover thing just as good as Venom, but for a fraction of the budget. Hell, f*cking Life is a better looking Venom movie and it only cost 70 mil!

Why are all of the goddamn symbiotes named human things? The host comes up with that name in the comic. What f*cking alien even understands the English word “Riot”?

The Verdict

Overall, Venom was entertaining. There are a TON of issues, man, but i don’t think it’s as bad as everyone is saying. This sh*t ain’t Shakespeare but it definitely isn’t Batman vs Superman either. There is a lot to like and a clear path toward something better. I think, in the hands of a better director who understand how to execute this type of film, we could have something fantastic. Still, for what we have, it’s pretty decent. I’d say give it a chance. It’s mad entertaining and watching Hardy do his thing is more than worth the price of admission.

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nazih-fares · 6 years

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After a successful port to the PlayStation 4 of the excellent Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami, recently reviewed on our site, the Yakuza franchise is back for its ultimate and final episode, supposed to put an end to the Kiryu Kazuma saga. Released back at the end of 2016 in Japan only, the game is finally available in the West thanks to SEGA, with numerous localization updates and changed for our region. Is this the final chapter the series deserve?

If you are reading this review, you are probably familiar with the Yakuza series. For the brave few who would like to start straight away with Yakuza 6, here’s a short summary of what happened so far. In the Yakuza games, you follow the adventures of probably the classiest and most badass of all yakuzas, named Kiryu Kazuma. When he does not kick ass and beat goons, Kiryu takes care of his adoptive niece, Haruka Sawamura. I will not dwell on her story, to avoid any major spoilers, but I will just say that numerous people wanted to see her dead throughout the series.

Yakuza 6 starts right where the 5th game ends. Kiryu is in a bad state and Haruka decides to leave her dream job of being a pop idol to return the orphanage she opened with our favorite Yakuza. Unfortunately, not everything goes as planned, with Kiryu sentenced to 3 years in prison for his actions as a yakuza. At the same time, stalkers start attacking Haruka and the orphanage where she is living a peaceful life, mainly because her choice to no longer be an Idol is much more difficult to assume, with heavy harassment in the media and on social networks. Haruka decides to flee the region to avoid bringing her problems to the orphanage. Three years later, when Kiryu is finally released from prison, he discovered that Haruka is in a coma after a car accident, and that she gave birth a year ago to a baby boy named Haruto.

This 6th episode of the Yakuza franchise is a heavy load of emotions. You’ll be dealing as mentioned with subjects as sensitive as that of young teen moms, but also a Kiryu that cannot relax, as he needs to fight against the Chinese mafias and Korean, while improvising his skills a newfound adoptive father to Haruto. If the storyline may seem absurd, it’s because it is, but that’s the beauty of the Yakuza franchise and their insane plots! Faithful to Japanese crime movie influences, with its effective dialogues, its controlled sets and a gameplay of a rare quality in video game productions, the story of Yakuza 6 is a beautifully rendered one. The Dragon Engine, specially built for this episode, does a great job at transcribing the emotions and details on each of the protagonist’s faces. However, I’m slightly disappointed by the rigidity of characters in some scenes, especially when you start comparing them to other Japanese productions that are close to lifelike such as the recent Final Fantasy XV.

The Yakuza series is not only famous for its storyline, but also for its fighting system that is inspired by street fighter games and other beat’em all. Kiryu will not hesitate if necessary to take on three or even ten opponents at the same time, with a facelift of its fighting system and camera features which were one of the weak points of the saga. Much less capricious than in the past, it now features the typical mixtures of quick and heavy attacks, with grabs and new contextual actions such as crushing an opponent’s head against a wall. Unlike previous versions, there is no loading time when you take part of a fight, a transition takes place naturally and instantaneously. Passers-by gathers around you and your opponents to create a makeshift street fighting arena. Chain the basics with the square button and finish your opponents with powerful shots by pressing the triangle button. The fighting is enjoyable and, although there is only one fighting style, it is rare to feel that Kiryu is overpowered in front of enemies. In addition, any object within range can be used to defend you whether it is a bike, a traffic cone or even a beggar sleeping in the street. While it’s definitely not the rigid battles of the previous games, there’s still a lack of fluidity at times where other games like Sleeping Dogs managed to shine.

Each end of a fight will give you experience points divided into different categories to assign as you see fit. This small RPG component is nice but anecdotal because all of your actions in the game give you experience points. Players are never short of experience points and I can maximize Kiryu’s skills a bit too easily (especially with the grinding system). That’s the thing because fighting, completing sidequests and activities, or even taking care of baby Haruto will gain you experience.

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On the front of side activities, few titles are as generous as Yakuza 6. The amount of sidequests available is simply breathtaking and the storyline behind them are sometimes hilarious but can be emotional as well. These quests involve things like managing a cat cafe (which I probably wasted too much of my time in), or just simply have fun in one of the Kamurocho arcades. The latter has a fine list of Arcade versions games such as Space Harrier, OutRun, Puyo Puyo and even Virtua Fighter 5 which are all playable as two players! For those wishing for something more “mature”, then you can always go out with hostesses saga, or even play a new minigame which is a live chat app with real women ready to get naughty.

Finally, how can I finish this review without speaking of the way Kabukicho and Hiroshima were reproduced in the game. Yakuza 6 is a beautiful love letter to Japan and all its peculiarities that make it a country as intriguing as it is charming. The sounds, conversations, billboards, bright neon and the architecture of buildings are just amazingly redone in the game. The environments are finally at its best and every little change is appreciated at its true value, offering much more freedom than previous episodes, and you will take a pleasure to get lost in the streets and alleys of these two cities, even if there’s rare invisible walls in some parts. The majority of stalls and shops are accessible without loading time, helping deeply with the immersion, and you can simply order food, or play a little bit and then resume the course of your core activities.

YAKUZA 6: The Song of Life was reviewed using a PlayStation 4 digital download code of the game provided by SEGA. The game was previously only available in Japan, released on the 8th of December 2016. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published (click here for more information about our review policy).

The most beautiful experience in the series, YAKUZA 6: The Song of Life is great way to close the Kiryu's story in style, with a fun and long adventure, full of content and side activities. Even if you didn't play the previous games, you shouldn't miss this goofy yet also mature and serious game. After a successful port to the PlayStation 4 of the excellent Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami…

#Action Adventure #Editor&039;s Choice #Featured #Open World #PlayStation Exclusive #Remastered #SEGA #Singleplayer #Toshihiro Nagoshi #Yakuza

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