Anime Thigh Thread II

[Pendulous]

please be real

I need more adorable French town baristas in my life. Damn, 2020 for season 3 though. I guess it's hard to complain, we just got a movie.

[bals]

[Sj]

Chihayafuru 205 - fucking dropped

[BloodyAngel12]

I watched Danmachi and the spin off, i really need the film and season 2.

[bals]

attack on titan ep 46 wow that's such a cute face

[Pejo]

I watched Danmachi and the spin off, i really need the film and season 2.

The spin off made me sad I am still working my way through the LNs slowly but enjoying that more. I did enjoy the OVA

[Yunru]

R&M anime when?

[BloodyAngel12]

[Yunru]

Overlord ep 11: Yep goblin slayer totaly hates this episode. Watch it to learn more.

[bals]

overlord s3 ep11 that was some top kek cgi

[Sj]

The spin off made me sad I am still working my way through the LNs slowly but enjoying that more. I did enjoy the OVA

I enjoyed Sword Oratoria more than the original. Really don't like Bell.

[Artorius]

Sword Oratoria is better. Some people disliked Lefiya but sincerely speaking she did nothing wrong.
Also Aizu-tan is a billion times better than Hestia.

[Pejo]

Been watching Dragon Prince, ended up binging it in 2 days. Really enjoyed it though it having some janky animation.

For me, I liked the characters in Oratoria but in the anime, I couldn’t give a shit about any of them especially Lefiya. Her struggles were more annoying than anything, couldn’t find anything redeeming on her. At least with Bell, he delivered on the OP MC. I did like the episodes where it overlapped with Dan machi though

[BloodyAngel12]

I couldnt help but smile every time Loki jumped and they all dodged except for Lefiya.

Plus all the girls are so cute in Sword Oratoria.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I've been watching Rurouni Kenshin for the past couple weeks. I'm up to episode 41. I'm saving my review for when I finish the series. I don't know if it will be next week or in three weeks; if I only watch the canon episodes, then I only have 25 episodes left. I've watched every episode so far. The filler has been Pokemon episode quality: entertaining enough that I'll sit through it without reaching for phone to skip ahead, but I certainly wouldn't rewatch them, and I certainly wouldn't recommend them. That said, I forgot that there even was filler in Kenshin; for the first thirty episodes, I was thinking "huh, this show is fine", but in retrospect it was the filler screwing my view. Aside from the Raijuta arc, the show is actually very good. Thanks to @Skizzit for the headsup.

That said, there's two things I've come to talk about: the pacifist protagonist, and a feeling I've been getting from similar pre-2000's anime.

Martial pacifist protagonists are interesting... at least on paper. There's a reason why the connotation has a stigma attached to it: most of the time, "pacifism" in fiction is portrayed as suicidal defenselessness, whereby the character(s) allow these horrible things to be done to them without taking any preventative measures against them. If they die, then it was their own fault. If they survive, then it was because the author arranged events so that they would be saved or their problem resolved by outside forces without them having to do anything. It's like when a superhero leaves an ultra dangerous villain alive because "heroes don't kill", but the anti-hero sidekick or lancer goes behind his back and kills the villain because the villain really is too dangerous to be left alive. Authors, you're giving the audience two contradictory messages and that's cheating, and nothing turns me off more than a story that doesn't even know its own theme. It's even worse when the suicidal pacifism is attached to a region, which makes the character look like a zealous idiot (God will provide/Buddha teaches us to never retailate/etc). Religion of any sorts is already poorly represented in fiction (I can count the number of times I've seen done well on my two hands), and this falls straight into cliche writing 101.

This is one of the many reasons why I've gotten this deep into anime. We have creators are able to take as much time as they need to fully explore and develop an idea, a conversation, without having to break it up with obligatory studio enforced quotas or conforming to a strict schedule. Usually. The point is, I've been pleasantly surprised how this idea has been handled in anime, as we've gotten several anime that treat the idea of martial pacifism seriously without simplifying or generalizing it. It's all the more refreshing, considering how gung-ho Western stories are. It's nice to see for once, heroes who will fight to uphold their principles and to protect their family while also being able to restrain themselves when possible and attempt to engage the antagonists in dialogue.

Now, how this relates to Rurouni Kenshin: I've seen debates on various internet forums and Discords comparing Himura Kenshin to Vash the Stampede (from Trigun, which I finished a few months back) and which character is "better", and honestly I'm not seeing it. They are two completely different characters, with their overt martial pacifism, experienced history, and obfuscating stupidity being their only common traits. Rem instilled in Vash a very strong sense of morality to which Vash adheres to. When he was a in a tight spot, he did shoot people, but not to kill them; he shoot them because that was the decision that would best save the people he was trying to protect, and did his best to save the people he shot. (Trigun episode 21 spoilers) when it came down to it, Vash only killed when there was absolutely no other option whatsoever to save innocent people from dying. He's a true martial pacifist in the sense that he never tried to kill anyone to satiate his anger or for the sake of it; he valued everyone, including his enemies, because they were people with thoughts and friends and dreams like him. At the start of the story, Vash believes that it is the letter of the law (don't kill anyone) that he must adhere to, even if it meant his death, but by the end, he realizes that it is the spirit of the law he must follow and always has (don't hurt people).



Kenshin is a different character entirely. Kenshin chose to ruthlessly hunt down hundreds of people not to protect anyone around him, but to simply wither down the enemy's forces and to install a new government that might treat treat the people better (and to modernize Japan fast enough so that they won't be invaded and conquered). His reasons for picking up the sword was not rooted in any divine morality, but in a human ideology. When the war ends, and the Meji government turns out to be only slightly better than the previous Shogunate (the Meji abolished the class system and began modernizing the nation, but the core issues of human corruption and greed dictating the flow of resources still remained). Kenshin believes that, for all of the blood he spilled, he has in fact accomplished little more than simply perpetuating the wheel of history. During the story, Kenshin has the thought at the back of his mind that he could win the battle instantly and save everyone else if he just flipped his blade around. Has he faces off against increasingly dangerous opponents, Kenshin isn't so much "struggling" as he is looking for an answer to an unresolved question: wouldn't the best way to solve the fight be to just flip his blade around and kill the guy already?

Whereas Vash struggled with the idea of killing in the first place and mistakenly believes that killing would make him a murderer, Kenshin is fearful that his sakaba won't be enough, and that he'll have to flip the blade over and cut down his opponent to succeed.

My problem with Rurouni Kenshin is that - as good as the story was (it started getting HYPE at episode 28), it just fell into the trap of stupid martial pacifism. The latest story arc centers around the idea that "swords are killing weapons, therefore it's wrong to make them", with Kenshin agreeing with this assessment. This isn't just Kenshin's idea, but a message pushed by the narrative, which has also hit upon "merchants of death" earlier in the series. In a recent episode, Kenshin (with a regular sword and without a sakaba) is placed into a situation similar to Vash where the one and only option left is to either 1. kill the antagonist (because nothing less than killing momentum will displace the antagonist's trajectory) or 2. allow the antagonist to kill an innocent bystander. Kenshin unleashes his murderous side and "kills" the antagonist, with everyone briefly believing that Kenshin has killed the antagonist and that he has forsaken his vow to "never kill again". It is then revealed that the sword he had was actually a sakaba, and that the antagonist was only struck unconscious. The story then treats Kenshin as if he hasn't broken his vow... when we clearly just saw him go after this guy with murderous intent not thirty seconds ago. The show has explicitly associated Kenshin's "Battosai" persona with that of a ruthless killer, so when he "unleashes" to kill the antagonist, he isn't doing it because that's the required force to save the bystander; he's doing it because he's trying to kill the antagonist. Rather than feeling like "ah, Kenshin intercepted the villain to save the child but the villain died, that's too bad but we have to keep going", the show goes "Kenshin brutally murdered this guy but it's alright because he used a sakaba and the guy survived, no problem Kenshin isn't a murderer!" It made me scratch my head.

I know that this may seem like a lot for a single battle from a single episode, but I had to get this off of my chest.

============================================================================

Anyways, the other thing I was going to talk about is Rurouni Kenshin's great contemplative scenes, which I've found incredibly refreshing. I know I'm generalizing here, but the common trend I've seen in modern anime is that they tend to make their key scenes as dramatic as possible, be it with pounding action ostinatos, fluid animations, your face camera movement, and so forth. I don't know how true this is for older anime in general (I'm not on board the "older anime is better" bandwagon, because I'm certain sturgeons law applies just as much to that time period as it does today), but I've noticed that with Rose of Versailies, The Vision of Escaflowne, and Gundam War in the Pocket, these older prefer to treat their dramatic scenes with solemnity. You don't have overly dramatic deaths or long winded speeches. (Episode 31 spoilers) It's nice to see these people take a moment to reflect on their circumstances, and then calmly tell their loved ones what they are going to do. It's lowkey, and yet manages to remain incredibly emotional. It also allows the narrative to take a moment to breathe without having to resort to just comedic SoL scenes.

(Also, PS: those scenes (particularly the first) are stunning! Props to the background artists and the compositing, as the lighting is amazing here. The golden setting sun juxtaposed with the long black shadows and the blue sky and water makes for an incredibly atmospheric setting, and that's not to mention the choice of shots.)

That said, maybe it's not the time period these shows came from, but the genre they belong to, of which I am unable to describe besides a vague "mature drama" or "shoujo-esque", which I find just as laughable as you do, but I honestly have no other words for it. Seirei no Moribito has had a similar melancholic tone to the four shows listed above and treats its dramatic scenes in a similar fashion.

- - - Updated - - -

Ah, BobSamurai also touched upon this (the way the no kill vow is treated)

[Yunru]

Its true lol.

[Pendulous]

Finished a few shows recently. I haven't been good with the words lately, so these might be dull as hell:

Hyperdimension Neptunia: This show was fun when it was trying to be fun, and boring when it tried to be a magical girl show. I enjoyed the characters interacting, and the video game references, but the rest, eh. 6/10

Aokana Four Rhythm Across the Blue : So, the sport is kinda stupid. I understand the rules, but I don't get the logic behind playing tag in the air. Moving around in a 3D space doesn't really work with the stories and issues happening throughout. However, it was a fun show with some great characters, made better by an amazing dub cast. Adam Gibbs is always great playing the straight man, in this case the coach. Jill Harris plays good everything, but I was not expecting her to have such a squeaky adorable voice, something I'd expect Tia Ballard to play. I would probably never play the game this came from, but yet another sports show with an unusual sport that is enjoyable despite what you think of it. 7/10

Kiniro Mosaic: This comes across as a very generic "cute girls" slice of life show. Funny at times, but always just lighthearted and relaxing. But, it's made better by two characters being from England, which adds a bit of uniqueness to the character list, and provides some interesting humor. As what seems to be typical, the genki girl and the straight man (well, the closest to it), Karen and Ayayayaya, are my favorites. 7/10

Chihayafuru season 2: Pretty consistent with season 1. My main issue with the show as a whole is that it is 100% focused on karuta. No "casual school day" or off time, it's 100% full bore always talking about karuta. This doesn't change in season 2. It still manages to keep things interesting, and intense during matches. I think they could have sped up some parts though. Three episodes for one match is getting into Yu-Gi-Oh territory, and it feels boring eventually. The show seemed to take a step back in the barely-there romance department as well to focus even more on the matches. Damn near the entire season takes place at one tournament, and these are 25-episode seasons (24 if you don't count the recap episode). Despite all that, it's still a very good show with great...eh, well, great main characters. Don't care much about anybody outside Arata and the karuta club. The two new characters as well aren't very interesting. Maybe more romance in season 3, which is coming next year. Which is good because season 2 ends on a terrible note. Still an 8/10, a show that has that "I can't explain why it's so entertaining" factor, similar to Yuru Camp.

[Yunru]

[Skizzit]

Kiniro Mosaic: This comes across as a very generic "cute girls" slice of life show. Funny at times, but always just lighthearted and relaxing. But, it's made better by two characters being from England, which adds a bit of uniqueness to the character list, and provides some interesting humor. As what seems to be typical, the genki girl and the straight man (well, the closest to it), Karen and Ayayayaya, are my favorites. 7/10

Karen absolutely made that series for me. She is the best.

[BloodyAngel12]