Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 305
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Vinland Saga: Suggest finishing, partly because the anime does something I've rarely ever seen: after the first season is a (fun) orgy of violence and revenge and action, the second season is the opposite: character development, slow plot, and a message about how violence is bad.
My own suggestions/mini review list, loosely sorted in order of appeal to non-anime types, or people who have only watched one or two. Of course, it's always subjective. I don't quite agree that "anime is just a medium" because its highly-controlled production pipeline and limited set of studios creates some definite commonalities, but it's true there's a wide variety of genres.
Violet Evergarden, 9/10
THIS is really an excellent first or early anime. A woman used essentially as a special-ops child soldier is now a little older, and while the war continues, she decides to take up an unusual vocation: a typist in an era where few people know how to write (I guess), she also assists in helping people organize their thoughts to write letters. Often, these letters are emotionally charged, or offer some major catharsis; thus the show's episodes are organized roughly with a major letter per episode. Parallel to this, we should mention that the main character, the eponymous Violet Evergarden, has lost both of her arms, replaced with mechanical ones, which mirrors her emotional state, still dull and robotic from her war experiences. So we slowly get to see her open up over the course of the series. Sad and emotional at times, hopeful in others, this one is highly memorable and at times honestly you often forget it's an anime at all. Finished, a season and a movie or two.
Apothecary Diaries, 9/10
This show is great. A nice mix of mystery, cool setting, and like the previous, much fewer anime tropes than your usual fare, this one stands out. A fairly level-headed girl but with a strange obsession with poisons, raised as an apothecary by her adopted father (read: herbal-medicine doctor for the poor, in this case often a brothel) is kidnapped into a loosely-Chinese imperial palace as a servant there. And not the cool, plot kidnapping version either, she's literally just nabbed off the street and sold and has to come to terms with her new life. Which she does, and she's pretty smart and a good investigator even though it really isn't her interest, and she gets pulled into harem politics to some extent as first a food taster, and then other adventures especially for a powerful eunuch within the palace. Ongoing story with two seasons, but with some good closure.
Frieren: At Journey's End, 10/10
Now, I'm not sure whether this score, which reflects my anime of the decade designation, translates to the general public, but it's very enjoyable. A fantasy series that explores the idea of what a long-lived elf's life is actually like! Lord of the Rings plays a bit with this idea in a way, but doesn't fully commit and it's spun differently. There, the elves are kind of tired of life, but here, we ask the question: what might Legolas be feeling, going on an adventure with some others, when he knows that they are going to die and leave him behind again? LotR dodges this a bit by both killing much of the cast, and Gimli is also of a similar long life, but Frieren tackles this a bit more explicitly. She once went on a save-the-world trip, but as the mage of the party. Living for at least a thousand years however, she doesn't fully appreciate the impact this trip had on her, and experiences regret for not emotionally engaging more after her friends pass away. She uses this as impetus to start another journey back north again to the demon lands, retracing the save-the-world steps with a new group of people who grow on her. The world-building is great, the storytelling is on point, the vibes are excellent, it's just a great watch. Ongoing, one season completed.
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, 9/10
This one earns a rare distinction for carrying with it a strong piece of advice: try the first episode or two subbed and dubbed. A humor-first series, this one takes place in a super-elite high school, where the two highest-performing students (one old money, and one a scholarship student), on the student council together, are trying to get each other to admit a crush on the other. They play all sorts of mental gymnastics to make this work. The humor largely comes from the commentary/narrator, but the sub and dub both approach it differently (and the dub actually localizes many of the jokes, so they are funny but in a different way). The sub leans a bit more dry-humor, irony-focused, while the dub plays up the conflicts as being outrageous. At any rate, this one is just good fun and although the series starts out as a bit more like a series of connected skits, it eventually transitions a little more into a proper show with character arcs and plot and all that good stuff. Finished, three seasons, epilogue movie to come.
I don't really know how the below actually stack up but I felt like tossing them in too.
Angel Beats!, 8.5/10
Admittedly it has been a while since I watched this one, but it's good. Some nice emotional catharsis, but I don't know how much I can say without spoiling things too much. A guy wakes up all of the sudden in a sort of alternate-reality school, with a confusing 'war' between a group of kids within the school and the school student body president, who is a bit of a robot, with the drone-like other students as bystanders. Despite the presence of guns, this is a low-violence affair where the war is mostly a series of, well, pranks more or less? Despite the sort of confusing set-up, you get some good character moments, and this one is a tear-jerker at times.
Dandadan, 8.5/10
Visual flair. Panache. Dialing stuff up to 11. This anime is now in its second season and is ridiculous but fun. You probably only need to see a few minutes to get an idea about what this one's about, but for text purposes the classic hook is that a high schooler who believes in ghosts teams up with one who believes in aliens, and they're both right! He has his balls stolen by a spirit, and aliens try to kidnap her, and then they have some adventures trying to resolve that.
Code Geass, 8.5/10
This is kind of like the Ender's Game of anime in a way? The main character lives as a privileged elite in a dystopian Japan ruled by a world monarchy-autocracy, but decides to join a local Japanese rebellion. He's very much a 5D chess type of guy, takes on an alter-ego, and did I mention there's mechs for some reason? Most of the show is him outsmarting people, because in a similar kind of "hook" to the oft-recommended Death Note (which I personally don't like), he has the ability to brainwash-command anyone to do anything... but only once, ever, in their life. Which he obviously wants to keep a secret, but has to also be smart about using due to its one-time-use nature. Two seasons.
Does the world they live in suffer from medieval stasis? Or does she see how much humans can change in a few centuries?
Yes and no, actually a bit of hard question. Let me say this. Factually, world-building-wise, the world absolutely is not in medieval stasis.
In practice, the theme you allude to is not emphasized, with maybe one major exception. Most of the story and its themes are focused on Frieren's own characterization and experience and thus most of the world-building is more subtle and done in the background (exposition is rare). Frieren has only about three major formative periods of her 1000+ year life that we've seen details for. 1000 years ago we see some more rare flashbacks and people are dressed in Greek/Roman style clothing, so that has an implication there. However, we spend most of the time in the present with some semi-frequent flashbacks all within the last 70 years or so. We also see in the anime's current plot (28 22-minute episodes) mostly rural countryside, too, so it's hard to get a precise bead on tech development, though the source material not yet adapted eventually will show a more advanced nation. The visual vibe is maybe 1400s, we do see some pretty clean and well built out cities.
The one massive exception: tech advancement is not the focus because the show's 'tech' is magic, and magic advancement IS definitely a major theme, dealt with directly. Magic goes from restricted to humans (hoarded by elves and natural to demons, thus a major taboo) to humans leading major advances (even somewhat threatening the elves with their thousands of years of practice), and that comes up and will come up again.
More options
Context Copy link
I think the closest you see to this is a change in clothing trends from when the elf is young to present day. But I don't know how much you'd be able to tell apart clothing from 500AD and 1500AD (I certainly couldn't, aside from 'vaguely stereotypical ancient Greek' to 'vaguely stereotypical fantasy European').
But there is at least a little emphasis on "humans actually do change and grow relatively quickly". At one point the elf notes that it's impractical to get the magical equivalent to a license when the governments and organizations change so often.
More options
Context Copy link
Magic did change in a few centuries, as for mundane technology I don't recall anything specific.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I appreciate the detailed reviews!
Of the anime you note, I've sampled Frieren, Violet Evergarden and Dungeon Meshi. By which I mean I watched maybe 30 minutes of each before getting distracted and not finding the impetus to continue. That says more about me than it does about the show, and I'm open to giving them a proper go.
In the case of VG, is the movie a 1:1 reprise of the show? The former is what I had half-heartedly begun.
The VG movie (actually I lied there are actually two but one is more a side-story) is actually more of an epilogue of sorts, so I'd strongly recommend watching or trying the series first instead. IIRC the show starts to truly get going by the third episode (and if you're the impatient type you could honestly start there and be OK), but the most memorable and highest rated ones are a little back-loaded in the season.
I've tried a few episodes of Dungeon Meshi but it didn't really hook me, so I can't speak to the praise there.
However, with Frieren I'd say two episodes is the minimum to get a proper feel (concludes a bit of a mini-arc), although the story (such as it is) doesn't properly take shape until the fourth episode and we don't meet the last major companion travelling with Frieren until the fifth, so although I'd still consider it excellent it is very much a slow burn, contemplative kind of show. With that said, it makes the smaller pieces of action even more memorable, but they are still sparse. Somewhat famously, in episode seven or so, we find out that although the show doesn't have an actual big bad (the major plot after all is that she already helped save the world) there are still a few demons out and about that didn't get defeated along with their leader. These demons are worse than irredeemable (in fact they pretend to have emotions and feelings to disguise their true identity as pure predators of humanity) which at least in anime terms is a bit of a trope reversal.
None of that is to say that a certain minimum is required for most shows, but you know how it is, "will I like this" is a tricky question to answer anime or no. One of the only anime where I'd consider it truly mandatory is My Star (Oshi no Ko) where the first episode is a full hour or so on purpose, knowing that you need the full time for it to make sense (also a fun show, about the dark side of the entertainment/movie industry, saying more is a spoiler) because of said major spoiler that changes the course of the show entirely occurring at the end of it. I think Madoka Magica is classically the other, where episode 3 or so has a major twist, but I haven't seen it myself so I couldn't say.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link