The Anime/Manga/Related Merchandise Thread

Your first three also make mine. I've heard good things about Chainsaw Man as well, so that'll get a cursory glance.

I've heard good things about Chainsaw Man, that I may sub for a bit to Crunchy then get sucked in to about 10 shows then watch none of them.

I watched the first episode of Chainsaw Man - very dark, very gory, but I'm very much interested to see more of it.

I have since watched the first episodes of The Eminence in Shadow and Blue Lock. No idea what to think about Eminence so far - it could end up being a generic isekai power fantasy show, but it's far too early to tell. Blue Lock is ridiculous but one I'm definitely sticking with - basically, 300 strikers are taken to a secret facility and will be whittled down to one who will become Japan's main striker in a bid to win the World Cup. It's like a much tamer Battle Royale with football, but it's still dripping with hilarious edge. I'd recommend checking out the first episode to see what I mean.

It's time for yet another round up of "what anime has Jay been watching and should you watch it too?"

Jujutsu Kaisen S2: Yes, you should watch it provided you liked S1! It's more JJK - cool fights, fun characters, great animation. I'm not a fan of hearing about the hellish conditions that the production has been suffering under at MAPPA, though.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: 100%. Easiest anime recommendation of the year. It's a fantasy story told from the perspective of an elven mage who was a part of the party of heroes who saved the world. Decades go by and she sees her former comrades grow old and pass before her eyes whilst she doesn't look a day older. It's about dealing with loss and learning to cherish the memories you have. It's gorgeously animated, written with real care and wonderfully melancholic. Unless it shits the bed altogether, it's a 10/10 for me.

Spy x Family S2: Yeah, it's more Spy x Family! It's easy to watch and regularly makes me laugh. A safe recommendation.

Helck: I guess I'd recommend this. The main character is this buff, jovial sort - think All Might and you've basically got it. He's come to the land of the demon folk to win a tournament to become their new king. The demon folk don't trust him, but he claims he wants to destroy all of humankind. If he's truthful and why the humans and demons are fighting is something that comes to light as the show advances. It's easygoing stuff and fairly light-hearted until the backstory is unveiled. I'm enjoying it, but it's a slow starter.

The Rising of the Shield Hero S3: Trash. I usually fall asleep watching it. It introduces a new character every episode and I don't care about any of them. It's got the worst isekai tropes you've seen in a show. Don't bother.

Goblin Slayer II: I guess, but with a trigger warning for the first episode of S1 for some really dark content. I think the first episode of the first season actually misrepresents the tone of the show as a whole as it's a fairly standard fantasy show about a dude who really wants to kill goblins otherwise. I guess it was necessary to highlight the consequences of letting the goblins live in this world, but yeah, it understandably will have turned many away from the show.

I also watched the Attack on Titan finale which was great as you'd expect. I've got Pluto on my watchlist on Netflix as I've heard great things about it. I'm also watching Scott Pilgrim as mentioned in the TV/Film thread as that technically counts as an anime, I suppose.

I've not watched any anime for ages, had AoT actually ended or is it Final Season Part III Birth by Sleep HD Remix still?

Was going to sub yo Netflix to watch Nocturne and Scott but £18, you're having a giraffe.

I'd second Jujutsu and SxF, both bangers. Do I watch Frieren based on that summary? I don't know that I'm in the mood to be miserable right now.

I'd ask why on earth you've been watching more of Shield Hero in that case - only, er, I actually got quite far into Demon Slayer despite continuing to find it aggressively mediocre. It was just easy to turn my brain off and let it run, y'know? Then it got to the flashy bloke with the harem of three underdressed buxom wives who re-introduces himself by slapping a girl on the backside, and I decided I'd finally had enough. I also tried and noped out of Tokyo Ghoul: went in knowing nothing about it, came out absolutely rolling my eyes at the end of (I think?) the first season. More pointless edge than a katana stabbed into the middle of Oxford Circus.

Bereft of other things to watch after catching up with Golden Kamuy (another banger) and Chainsaw Man (mmm... I'll give it another season), I've started on the epic that is One Piece. I really don't like Nami and Robin's artwork in later seasons, but Nami starts off looking alright and I figure I might be hooked by the time they inflate. Except as it turns out, I'm not a great fan of the artwork in general. Hmm.

masofdas wrote:

I've not watched any anime for ages, had AoT actually ended or is it Final Season Part III Birth by Sleep HD Remix still?

Yeah, it's totally wrapped up.

Balladeer wrote:

Do I watch Frieren based on that summary?  I don't know that I'm in the mood to be miserable right now.

I think I've misrepresented Frieren somewhat. It's not miserable at all - it's melancholic, sure, but never depressing. The crux of the story has Frieren travelling with proteges of her former comrades and by following in her previous party's footsteps she revisits memories of her first big journey. It's about her learning to form connections whilst she's got a chance to do so, not regretting that she missed the chance after her companions are gone.

Balladeer wrote:

I'd ask why on earth you've been watching more of Shield Hero in that case - only, er, I actually got quite far into Demon Slayer despite continuing to find it aggressively mediocre. It was just easy to turn my brain off and let it run, y'know?

That's a bingo.

Balladeer wrote:

Chainsaw Man (mmm...  I'll give it another season), I've started on the epic that is One Piece.

Chainsaw Man is going ramp up massively - I'm up to date with the manga and it's a rollercoaster from the next arc onwards. One Piece has always tempted me as I've heard it has some all time shounen moments, but... 1000+ episodes...

Okay that's a different sell of Frieren, and one I might be more on board with now that I've lost my "best" No Thoughts Head Empty anime.

1k episodes - filler is perfect for me, just let it run. The anime equivalent of a 100+h JRPG.

I can't watch 1000 episodes of anything, certainly not with subtitles, but I'm definitely gonna read it and stick with this time.

Balladeer wrote:

Okay that's a different sell of Frieren, and one I might be more on board with now that I've lost my "best" No Thoughts Head Empty anime.  

1k episodes - filler is perfect for me, just let it run.  The anime equivalent of a 100+h JRPG.

I'd highlight that I'd not consider Frieren a "No Thoughts Head Empty" anime - I think it's really engaging and beautifully animated too.

The longest show I've watched was probably one summer holiday back in high school where I watched all of the original Dragon Ball and DBZ back to back, but I don't think I've got the free time these days for that. It'd take me bloody years to catch up with a show like One Piece. I think the seasonal format is more palatable to me for big long running shounen shows - stuff like MHA where I'm able to watch a 20 minute episode once a week for a few months each year.

Oh yes, sorry - I just meant, a slot's opened up in my anime-watching for another show. I did watch the first episode of Frieren, it is lovely and I will stick with it. Better than Spy x Family assuming I'd like an entire adventure with Damian and his idiot pals.

My main problem is that a lot of the larger shonen shows are quite bad or quite old. I tried to get into Bleach and every battle is the characters monologuing for four minutes, then maybe a minute of fighting. Meanwhile I don't care about Naruto's classmates at all, and the less said about Black Clover the better...

Super chuffed you're enjoying Frieren so far!

Yeah, I can't even solidly recommend Dragon Ball - I love it, natch, but I do recognise nostalgia plays a big part there and it's tonally a bit all over the place (the OG series is a gag adventure show, Z is a battle shounen). I've heard good things about Hunter x Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho if you're looking for recommendations, but can't personally attest to their quality.

I've heard HxH is somewhat of a deconstruction of Shonen.

PlayStation just added a few anime things onto Core, which our

86 Eighty Six
Log Horizon
Radiant
To Your Destiny
Welcome to Demon School!

Any worth a watch, seeing they're "free" with Plus

Buskalilly wrote:

I've heard HxH is somewhat of a deconstruction of Shonen.

Interesting! I wonder whether if I'd approached it more from that angle, I'd have enjoyed it more. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it - but the dad being an awful awful person and it not feeling like that got called out enough, in what I watch anyway, and the really weird way the anime treats death (sometimes it gets the usual reverence of the genre, sometimes it just happens and everybody seems to move on and there are no consequences)... Anyway, I started it, enjoyed it decently, and then never finished it after finding out that it ends very early on in the manga (still incomplete) and the main villains get no comeuppance up to that point.

Never tried Yu Yu Hakusho, might have to be another one on the list.

masofdas wrote:

86 Eighty Six

This got some buzz when it was airing, so might be worth a watch! I've heard of Log Horizon but not a clue if it's any good. Can't help you with the others either, I'm afraid!

So Frieren, then: genuinely a belter. Making eyes at my Top TV Shows Of All Time list. (It's not hotly contested.) It has it all: lovable (and really competent!) characters, nice art, a cracking theme tune (the first one), good battles, a tournament because of anime loves that stuff, and a somewhat melancholic air despite it all. There's the odd sex or breasts joke that anime also loves and doesn't fit the mood of the show at all, but otherwise this is great stuff.

It's been a relatively rich last few months for me all round. Through Crunchyroll Freieren, MHA, Jujutsu, and Spy x Family; through Netflix Pluto, Delicious Dungeon maybe if that's any good, and Scott Pilgrim if that counts; and through other means (koff koff) Oshi No Ko, a whodunnit idol culture exposé that I enjoyed more than I should have done.

Oshi No Ko's characters are really popular with young girls I teach who I hope are not watching the actual anime . . .

It's the Demon Slayer gore all over again!

Only the show is, y'know. Actually good.

I'm glad the Frieren recommendation has gone down a treat, although I'd imagine you'd have stumbled on it anyway considering the praise it's been getting. It really is excellent though. I've got a couple of episodes to catch up with, but I really enjoyed in one of the more recent episodes having what appeared on the surface to be a sneaky power hungry old dude appear only for him to be a fairly respectful old lad who decided to cast the most powerful spell of PUNCH when he was too knackered to cast a spell. Brilliant.

I liked Oshi no Ko too. I think the episode around social media abuse was really well written. It's inspired by the real story of a wrestler called Hana Kimura who went on a reality show, made some perceived social faux pas (which was orchestrated by the editors and producers of the show), got mountains of abuse on social media and sadly killed herself. It's a really important story to put on screen, I think.

JJK and Spy x Family were excellent, but that wasn't a big surprise, I expected those to be great. I've got Pluto and Delicious in Dungeon bookmarked to watch soon, so I'll post some thoughts on them when I get around to that.

Mercy wants to see Delicious in Dungeon, and the concept sounds fun.

We rode the Kimetsu No Yaiba ride in USJ, it was pretty sick. Its a rollercoaster where you wear a VR headset, so they change it do different licenses once or twice a year. We were on the train from the movie and the characters were battling demons around us, along with some fun 3D effects. Good stuff.

We're going to the Jojo's Bizarre Adventures musical this coming Monday.

And I know nothing about the anime Mashle: Magic and Muscle, but almost every one of my classes this week has had kids singing and dancing to the opening.

I'd have thought you'd be straight on Mashle Buska!  Given that I've nearly caught up with Frieren (and yes the sneaky old bloke won me over a bit there), and that I've failed to get on board with One Piece (fnar fnar), I'm looking for something else to put into the void.  Might give that a shot.

EDIT: Oh hi Black Clover, didn't expect to see you here! Except Mash is much less objectionable than Asta.

Balladeer wrote:

I'd have thought you'd be straight on Mashle Buska!  

I'm not really an anime guy?

Oh. Huh. (looks at the three people in the Discord anime thread) Welp, the more I know.

I live in Japan and I'm dating an Anime weeb, so my exposure is above average, but I could list all the anime/ manga series I've finished pretty easily.
Pokémon, Digimon, Evangelion, Death Note, Attack on Titan, Jojo Parts 1 through 4, Dragonball, Uzumaki and Tomei. I've also seen Paprika and about half the Ghibli films.

I think that's it? Oh, I watched Godzilla's dreadful netflix films and fun Singular Point series but that's because I'm more of a Kaiju weeb than I am an anime one.