Anime How about some slice of life comedy with a side of horror?

[Ghost_MH]

We're getting a Mieruko-chan anime this October...

 

 

That trailer is way more serious than it really should be, but I'm guessing they're trying to make it clear that there's some frightening imagery here. The series follows this highschool girl just trying to live a normal life that can see terrifying ghosts and demons all around her. We're talking full Junji Ito-style horror. That's really the entire hook. There's really nothing more to it. She spends her entire time doing her best to pretend she can't see them for fear that they'll start following her around if they know she can interact with them.

[Bacon]

Man, anime sucks. 

[Ghost_MH]

8 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Man, anime sucks. 

 

There's always at least one pretty great series running every season. Right now, that's probably Tokyo Revengers that started in the spring season.

 

I always say that there's something for everybody. My wife and I watch a good amount of anime, but my wife really can't stand a ton of the anime tropes that put a lot of people off on anime. As a result, some of her favorite recent series is stuff like InuYashiki, Jujutsu Kaisen, Way of the House Husband, and Mob Psycho 100. The most mainstream stuff she likes is like One Punch Man and Attack on Titan, though she has recently given in to her students' demands and started watching My Hero Academia.

 

There is a LOT of bad anime out there, though.

[Bacon]

I have watched over 300 individual anime series. Of course there are some good ones. But... anime sucks.

[Ghost_MH]

11 minutes ago, Bacon said:

I have watched over 300 individual anime series. Of course there are some good ones. But... anime sucks.

 

Ha, the big anime tropes suck, but it's a weird time for some right now. We're in this weird place where some of the really popular stuff can be both trope-defying stuff like Jujutsu Kaisen and stuff completely defined by anime tropes like Girlfriend, Girlfriend.

 

The upcoming anime I'm most looking forward to steps a bit outside the typical animebox, so this like Mieruko-chan, Chainsaw Man, and the second season of Vinland Saga.

 

I think peak anime trash was Dogeza a few years back. I'm not sure anime can get any worse than that. So you know, it's only up from here, right?

[Keyser_Soze]

What Bacon is trying to say is he's more of a fan of anime literature.

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

I have watched over 300 individual anime series. Of course there are some good ones. But... anime sucks.

 

Not any more or less than any other genre or medium.

[Bacon]

Red = Bad

Yellow = Meh

Green = Good

 

This is the difference between anime and "others". Bottom is anime of course. There is so much less meh or middle of the road anime. There is so much literal shit that actually makes it to "TV". You can turn on the tv, browse Netflix, browse a book store and you are far likely to just find a middle of the road option. But not anime. There is so much shit front and center is it unbelievable. It is worse than any other genre or medium by far. Anime is made even worse by so much of it literally being unfinished and will never be finished. Take the Anime, Spice & Wolf. It only covers the novels 1, 2, 3, and 5 (yes it skips 4). The anime is unfinished and there are loads of this. Shit that just covers part of a story. It isn't that it got canceled but it was just an ad to sell manga, or novels, or a video game. 

 

Anime is so fucking shit. 

[Ghost_MH]

43 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Red = Bad

Yellow = Meh

Green = Good

 

This is the difference between anime and "others". Bottom is anime of course. There is so much less meh or middle of the road anime. There is so much literal shit that actually makes it to "TV". You can turn on the tv, browse Netflix, browse a book store and you are far likely to just find a middle of the road option. But not anime. There is so much shit front and center is it unbelievable. It is worse than any other genre or medium by far. Anime is made even worse by so much of it literally being unfinished and will never be finished. Take the Anime, Spice & Wolf. It only covers the novels 1, 2, 3, and 5 (yes it skips 4). The anime is unfinished and there are loads of this. Shit that just covers part of a story. It isn't that it got canceled but it was just an ad to sell manga, or novels, or a video game. 

 

Anime is so fucking shit. 

 

This reminds me of a video I just watched over the weekend...

 

 

There's are some shitty expectations you need to know going into anime that's an adaptation of manga. Either it will never end, it'll end poorly, or you'll luck out and get a complete series. Even the lucky part is rare for longer series. There aren't many like Hajime no Ippo, Fruits Baskets, or Full Metal Alchemist out there. That is, series that got a second chance at life after poor planning or unfinished storylines.

 

An easy way to avoid that is sticking with anime that adapts complete series or original anime, if you don't have plans to pick up the manga. Even Bleach was cancelled without a real ending.

[Bacon]

Code Geass and Cowboy Bebop were the only green tiers she listed in the first 20 seconds or so. And Cowboy Bebop is teetering on yellow. 

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

Red = Bad

Yellow = Meh

Green = Good

 

This is the difference between anime and "others". Bottom is anime of course. There is so much less meh or middle of the road anime. There is so much literal shit that actually makes it to "TV". You can turn on the tv, browse Netflix, browse a book store and you are far likely to just find a middle of the road option. But not anime. There is so much shit front and center is it unbelievable. It is worse than any other genre or medium by far. Anime is made even worse by so much of it literally being unfinished and will never be finished. Take the Anime, Spice & Wolf. It only covers the novels 1, 2, 3, and 5 (yes it skips 4). The anime is unfinished and there are loads of this. Shit that just covers part of a story. It isn't that it got canceled but it was just an ad to sell manga, or novels, or a video game. 

 

Anime is so fucking shit. 

 

Not any moreso than any other genre or medium. There's good and there's bad. Most genres and mediums have lots of bad, anime isn't unique in this regard.

[Bacon]

It is. It has far more bad than anything else. You are wrong to think otherwise. It doesn't matter if both has lots of bad. That isn't the point. The point is that anime has far more bad. If you don't think so watch more anime. In the chance you have seen "plenty" of anime then you just can't tell what is good and what is bad. For most people, their favorite anime is probably trash. 

[Ghost_MH]

37 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Code Geass and Cowboy Bebop were the only green tiers she listed in the first 20 seconds or so. And Cowboy Bebop is teetering on yellow. 

 

Gurren Lagan is one of the best parody anime out there and Madoka Magica is wildly good, especially if you go in knowing nothing. However, I do also hold the very contrarian opinion that Evangelion gets a big meh from me. Sure, it was wildly influential, but as a narrative is kind of all over the place.

 

There is a lot of really bad anime out there. I'm not entirely sure that really differs all that much from like TV, in general. The vast majority of primetime television in the US is trash. Netflix releases new originals every week and 99% of that is trash not worth anyone's time. Random curiosity struck, it looks like the next Netflix original is a furry, blind date series, but with people that swear they aren't furries, called Sexy Beasts.

 

A lot of the most popular anime isn't that bad and some of it's actually pretty great. Demon Slayer is good. The manga is complete and the series and movies are doing crazy well, so that one has a very good reason to go to completion. One Piece is likely safe and it's also actually good. I mean, One Piece is the best selling comic/manga thing ever, so that's a plus if you're looking for stability.

[Greatoneshere]

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

It is. It has far more bad than anything else. You are wrong to think otherwise. It doesn't matter if both has lots of bad. That isn't the point. The point is that anime has far more bad. If you don't think so watch more anime. In the chance you have seen "plenty" of anime then you just can't tell what is good and what is bad. For most people, their favorite anime is probably trash. 

 

I mean, what is this statistically based on? I'm an enormous anime fan and have seen plenty of anime - in fact, that's how @Ghost_MH and I know each other from back when I first signed on to the IGN boards for the IGN Anime board in April 2001. 

 

There's plenty of terrible anime, I'm in agreement with you there. But I follow film and TV very closely beyond just anime and everything has it's fair share of shit. There's a difference between anime not being for you and anime being bad, generally speaking.

[heydude93]

 

4 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

What Bacon is trying to say is he's more of a fan of anime literature.

 

i'm not sure he 'd go for much manga either so far 

 

Question for anyone who knows a lot about anime: might be a dumb one, but other than Grave of the Fireflies, how slice-of-life does the medium actually get (as the term is often used when describing films: Dazed and Confused, Mid 90's, Boyhood, etc.)? Is this a western-centric question? Asking honestly, since I don't watch much of it and almost all of it I've been exposed to seemed about as far from reality as anything could possibly be, especially with how human relationships are portrayed. Most of it seems pretty stylized to say the least.

[heydude93]

3 hours ago, Bacon said:

Red = Bad

Yellow = Meh

Green = Good

 

This is the difference between anime and "others". Bottom is anime of course. There is so much less meh or middle of the road anime. There is so much literal shit that actually makes it to "TV". You can turn on the tv, browse Netflix, browse a book store and you are far likely to just find a middle of the road option. But not anime. There is so much shit front and center is it unbelievable. It is worse than any other genre or medium by far. Anime is made even worse by so much of it literally being unfinished and will never be finished. Take the Anime, Spice & Wolf. It only covers the novels 1, 2, 3, and 5 (yes it skips 4). The anime is unfinished and there are loads of this. Shit that just covers part of a story. It isn't that it got canceled but it was just an ad to sell manga, or novels, or a video game. 

 

Anime is so fucking shit. 

 

Ok this might be a hot take, but...everything you've said about anime ITT...how accurate do you feel it would be if applied to all videogames that are to any extent story-driven?

[Ghost_MH]

I should probably point out that I'm pretty picky when it comes to anime and REALLY don't have a lot of time these days. I read a million and one manga and manhwa series, but not that much anime. These are the only 2021 series I thought worth spending time on are Attack on Titan, Please Don't Bully Me Nagatoro, Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, Dr Stone, Tokyo Revengers, and Way of the House Husband.

[Bacon]

7 minutes ago, heydude93 said:

 

Ok this might be a hot take, but...everything you've said about anime ITT...how accurate do you feel it would be if applied to all videogames that are to any extent story-driven?

Huh? Most video games that aren't the equivalent of a garage band uploading their music to YouTube are totally fine. Like, I don't consider that shit real games. It is really hard to make a bad game that I label as a "real" game. Like, what do you exactly mean be story driven? I mean, if it is a visual novel then of course the story has to be good, but video games are games first right? I want to say more, but I need to know what you mean better. And I mean, I have never played a Walking-sim like fire forest or whatever. Never will either.

[Ghost_MH]

8 minutes ago, heydude93 said:

i'm not sure he 'd go for much manga either so far 

 

Question for anyone who knows a lot about anime: might be a dumb one, but other than Grave of the Fireflies, how slice-of-life does the medium actually get (as the term is often used when describing films: Dazed and Confused, Mid 90's, Boyhood, etc.)? Is this a western-centric question? Asking honestly, since I don't watch much of it and almost all of it I've been exposed to seemed about as far from reality as anything could possibly be, especially with how human relationships are portrayed. Most of it seems pretty stylized to say the least.

 

There are some pretty great, realistic slice of life series and movies out there. Shinichiro Watanabe did a pretty great job of this with stuff like Kids on the Slope and Carole and Tuesday. There's also Your Lie in April m Those all revolve around music and gave key amazing soundtracks. As far as movies go, I think A Silent Voice is pretty great. It's about a highschool kid trying to make amends to a deaf girl he bullied in middle school. You can also stay in Ghibli and go with The Wind Rises or Whisper of the Heart. 5 Centimeters Per Second is a modern classic. None of this stuff is as heartbreaking as Grave of the Fireflies, but also very little really is.

 

There isn't a whole ton of true to life anime like Grave of the Fireflies out there. Even the historical stuff like Vinland Saga and Kingdom is normally dialed to 11, anime-style.

[heydude93]

18 hours ago, Bacon said:

Huh? Most video games that aren't the equivalent of a garage band uploading their music to YouTube are totally fine. Like, I don't consider that shit real games. It is really hard to make a bad game that I label as a "real" game. Like, what do you exactly mean be story driven? I mean, if it is a visual novel then of course the story has to be good, but video games are games first right? I want to say more, but I need to know what you mean better. And I mean, I have never played a Walking-sim like fire forest or whatever. Never will either.

 

My bad, I specified story-driven for the sake of better comparing it to anime - a storytelling medium.  A game like Rocket League or Tetris serves a different purpose than a game like Uncharted or Final Fantasy, of course.

 

So when you say most anime is garbage I assume you mean because most anime stories prioritize empty-calorie escapism with minimal sociopolitical value over ones that are more emotionally impactful and insightful, and that this is less the case with other mediums. From what I remember, even Hayao Miyazaki more or less agrees with this, so it might be a fairly sound take. I'm just wondering...that ratio of good to bad...how much if at all would you say it changes when applied to all video game stories so far?

 

 

[heydude93]

12 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

There are some pretty great, realistic slice of life series and movies out there. Shinichiro Watanabe did a pretty great job of this with stuff like Kids on the Slope and Carole and Tuesday. There's also Your Lie in April m Those all revolve around music and gave key amazing soundtracks. As far as movies go, I think A Silent Voice is pretty great. It's about a highschool kid trying to make amends to a deaf girl he bullied in middle school. You can also stay in Ghibli and go with The Wind Rises or Whisper of the Heart. 5 Centimeters Per Second is a modern classic. None of this stuff is as heartbreaking as Grave of the Fireflies, but also very little really is.

 

There isn't a whole ton of true to life anime like Grave of the Fireflies out there. Even the historical stuff like Vinland Saga and Kingdom is normally dialed to 11, anime-style.

 

The Wind Rises is another one. At times it really did feel more like my understanding of what slice of life filmaking is, and the relationship between characters felt almost live action-esque at times. It was also a pretty challenging viewing for me. 

 

Haven't heard of the others you mentioned, but definitely interested in checking them out at some point to see if I'm off base with my take on the medium. I more or less agree with bacon -  most of it does nothing for me, but to be fair there's also a lot of it I haven't watched.

 

 

[Ghost_MH]

Just now, heydude93 said:

The Wind Rises is another one. At times it really did feel more like my understanding of what slice of life filmaking is, and the relationship between characters felt almost live action-esque at times. It was also a pretty challenging viewing for me. 

 

Haven't heard of the others you mentioned, but definitely interested in checking them out to see if I'm off base with my take on the medium. I more or less agree with bacon -  most of it does nothing for me, but to be fair there's also a lot of it I haven't watched.

 

Most anime does nothing for me, even the wildly popular stuff. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is super popular and I have no idea who this series is meant for. Nothing against anyone that likes it. It's just not for me. There's plenty of anime I've enjoyed in my life that others probably couldn't care for.

 

With foreign moneys and streaming coming in, there's a whole lot more ultra-niche stuff out there. It's no longer mostly anime that's airing on came and broadcast TV in Japan. That also means there's a WHOLE lot more...stuff...to sort through. I sometimes look at the simulcast section of Crunchyroll and think to myself "who tf is watching all of this?", but it's also all wildly varied. I can't really complain about how weird some of this stuff is, though. I spent a lot of highschool and college watching Adult Swim.

[Bacon]

Yeah, I think video game stories are pretty fine. Like, I don't really play many story driven games that don't also have good gameplay. RDR2 is an exception. Like, I have never played TLOU and overall, I think Naughty Dog games suck, including all the uncharted games. I play 1-3 and they sucked. I mean, games just have alright stories, but it is hard to just compare the story, because gameplay also impacts the story to a degree. I don't know, seems hard to really compare them. Like, give me some examples from games from around 2005-2010. As in just ask me my opinion on some games from that time period. 

 

And like, I was THE anime guy here on D1P. I am the reason why the anime tag is pink, or at least I think I was. When I started watching one piece there was over 500 episodes and binged watched all of that, minus filler, twice in a row. 

 

And I read a lot of manga. I even read literal porn just for the plot. I follow so much slice of life garbage. I have followed 300ish series. I say ish cuz it also lists oneshots. I really did make the switch from anime to manga and light novels. The last two anime I watched were that slime one, and I think Demon Slayer. I want to say there was another one but I can't remember. 

[heydude93]

22 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Most anime does nothing for me, even the wildly popular stuff. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is super popular and I have no idea who this series is meant for. Nothing against anyone that likes it. It's just not for me. There's plenty of anime I've enjoyed in my life that others probably couldn't care for.

 

With foreign moneys and streaming coming in, there's a whole lot more ultra-niche stuff out there. It's no longer mostly anime that's airing on came and broadcast TV in Japan. That also means there's a WHOLE lot more...stuff...to sort through. I sometimes look at the simulcast section of Crunchyroll and think to myself "who tf is watching all of this?", but it's also all wildly varied. I can't really complain about how weird some of this stuff is, though. I spent a lot of highschool and college watching Adult Swim.

 

Didn't know about most of that, sounds pretty interesting. Yeah, Cartoon Network and Syfy (Sci-Fi back then) were my introductions to the medium, obviously older stuff like Iria: Zerim the Animation, Green Legend Ran, DBZ, Cowboy Beebop, Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, Armitage, etc.  I was pretty into it at the time, but as I got older and more cynical I mostly just became a closeminded geriatric who only wants to watch Ghibli  with an occasional glance towards Kentaro Miura, Jinji Ito and a few more. Sometimes I feel like I'm missing out considering how influential the artform's becoming and how much its growing. Even if most of it's bad right now, gotta wonder sometimes how much longer that will be the case.

[Brian]

Elex is the anime of video games

[Bacon]

6 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Elex is the anime of video games

true

[Ghost_MH]

3 hours ago, heydude93 said:

Didn't know about most of that, sounds pretty interesting. Yeah, Cartoon Network and Syfy (Sci-Fi back then) were my introductions to the medium, obviously older stuff like Iria: Zerim the Animation, Green Legend Ran, DBZ, Cowboy Beebop, Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, Armitage, etc.  I was pretty into it at the time, but as I got older and more cynical I mostly just became a closeminded geriatric who only wants to watch Ghibli  with an occasional glance towards Kentaro Miura, Jinji Ito and a few more. Sometimes I feel like I'm missing out considering how influential the artform's becoming and how much its growing. Even if most of it's bad right now, gotta wonder sometimes how much longer that will be the case.

 

There was no golden age of anime, just like the was no golden age of American TV. There's just more of everything. With American TV; there's more limited series, more reality TV, more housewives, more procedural dramas, more sitcoms, and always a new Law and Order. Same goes for anime. There's just more. It's not any more or less entertaining. Just more of it.

 

The biggest change we've really seen outside of streaming money is a renewed appreciation for Korean manhwa. That's led to some great anime like Tower of God, Noblesse, and God of Highschool. There's also the pretty good, live action adaptation of Sweet Home. I'm honestly kind of shocked these really good stories have gone ignored by most of the rest of the world for so long.

[heydude93]

34 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Yeah, I think video game stories are pretty fine. Like, I don't really play many story driven games that don't also have good gameplay. RDR2 is an exception. Like, I have never played TLOU and overall, I think Naughty Dog games suck, including all the uncharted games. I play 1-3 and they sucked. I mean, games just have alright stories, but it is hard to just compare the story, because gameplay also impacts the story to a degree. I don't know, seems hard to really compare them. Like, give me some examples from games from around 2005-2010. As in just ask me my opinion on some games from that time period. 

 

And like, I was THE anime guy here on D1P. I am the reason why the anime tag is pink, or at least I think I was. When I started watching one piece there was over 500 episodes and binged watched all of that, minus filler, twice in a row. 

 

And I read a lot of manga. I even read literal porn just for the plot. I follow so much slice of life garbage. I have followed 300ish series. I say ish cuz it also lists oneshots. I really did make the switch from anime to manga and light novels. The last two anime I watched were that slime one, and I think Demon Slayer. I want to say there was another one but I can't remember. 

 

Interesting, from how you recount it it almost sounds like you weeb'd out there for for a while lol.  What made you lose taste for anime, if you don't mind my asking?

 

Agreed about Uncharted, though I liked the most recent two a lot more than the first three (though I remember thinking the writing in those was pretty good for the time). I grew up playing a lot of story games, but over time started feeling more and more about them the way you feel about anime now  

 

[heydude93]

9 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

There was no golden age of anime, just like the was no golden age of American TV. There's just more of everything. With American TV; there's more limited series, more reality TV, more housewives, more procedural dramas, more sitcoms, and always a new Law and Order. Same goes for anime. There's just more. It's not any more of less entertaining. Just more of it.

 

The biggest change we've really seen outside of streaming money is a renewed appreciation for Korean manhwa. That's led to some great anime like Tower of God, Noblesse, and God of Highschool. There's also the outer good live action adaptation of Sweet Home. I'm honestly like of shocked these really good stories have gone ignored by most of the rest of the world for so long.

 

Definitely true that there's more of variety of stuff to watch, play, etc now than ever. I do think the amount of good stuff (what I'm interested in seeing at least) does seem to increase over time in pretty much all mediums, but can't argue w/ you much beyond that.  ^_^

[Bacon]

1 minute ago, heydude93 said:

What made you lose taste for anime, if you don't mind my asking?

It all felt exactly the same. Like Marvel movies after Avengers. Like it all felt reskinned. Even new anime doesn't feel new. There are hundreds of demon slayers but they just lack the flashiness. 

[Ghost_MH]

3 hours ago, Bacon said:

It all felt exactly the same. Like Marvel movies after Avengers. Like it all felt reskinned. Even new anime doesn't feel new. There are hundreds of demon slayers but they just lack the flashiness. 

 

Eh, that's probably fair for the most popular of series, but I'm not really sure that's the case for a lot of stuff out there. I mean, even My Hero Academia strays pretty far from the most common shonen action tropes. I mean, it does that by borrowing heavily from American comics, so it's not really new to anyone immersed in American comics.

 

One Punch Man and Jujutsu Kaisen skewer shonen anime pretty well. When Chainsaw Man airs that will also be a pretty big departure from your typical shonen anime. I'm not even leaving the world of Shonen Jump.

 

There's a lot more anime these days and all of it is getting localized. There are some pretty good, short form comedy series like Way of the House Husband and Asobi Asobase. Don't assume anything about Asobi Asobase from screenshots or trailers. That series is like what would happen if a bunch of Adult Swim writers decided to get serious and write a shojo slice of life anime, but couldn't get away from including the occasional ass laser. Thinking about oddball comedies, I'd be remiss to not include Pop Team Epic or Aggretsuko. I mean, this kind of comedy isn't new. Cromartie High School is like twenty years old now and was just as weird as anything airing on Adult Swim back in the early aughts. Still, it would be wildly cynical to brush them all off as the same. That would be like swearing off stand up comedy because it's just different jokes by a different person.

 

I mean, not all of anime is screaming dudes refusing to discuss their emotions while they bleed out over grotesquely misshapen women straight out of the Rob Liefeld School of I've Never Seen a Woman in Real Life. There is a lot of stuff that isn't any of that.

 

I usually try to keep my anime threads around here limited to series that sort of buck anime conventions. Mieruko-chan is one of those. It presents itself an a shojo slice of life series, but there are just ask of these eldritch abominations just roaming about. These series interpretation of the grim reaper as a maniacal, bandaged axe murderer is so good. Even the gods in this one are wildly creepy. My biggest fear for the anime is that they'll tone things down.