The State of Anime Today

[phil_]

Can't watch it until Monday since the wi-it's down and no one works on the weekend. Got Amanchu before being cut off; seeing Aria face faults actually be animated is novel and exciting.

[Solid Snake]

So after finally playing through two of the three routes in the visual novel Fate / Stay Night, which was pretty good but by no means great, I decided to try a couple episodes of the Fate / Zero anime.

Fate / Zero is ssssooooo good. The animation, the music, the characters, the adorbs yuri ship I immediately announce I'm the captain of, it's just, sssssooooo good.

[phil_]

Got to watch Sunshine today. It continues to be very silly, even with the sad bits.

Fate/Zero is neat, Kiritsugu is very fun to watch and a broken human being, I look forward to your reaction to the ending, Snake.

[Tev]

Season two of Food Wars is off to a very strong start. While I'm not as keen on the new intro music, the show itself has been pretty great so far.

[Sithdarth]

Re: Zero continues to be both super cheerful and amazingly dark at the same time. At the end of the last episode I kind of just sat in stunned silence for awhile.

[phil_]

So, what kind of show is Re: Zero? I see that it's yet another issekai story, but stunned silence sounds like they're doing something worth watching beyond "Ordinary Japanese boy suddenly has broken power in fantasy land + girls."

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by phil_

Got to watch Sunshine today. It continues to be very silly, even with the sad bits.

Fate/Zero is neat, Kiritsugu is very fun to watch and a broken human being, I look forward to your reaction to the ending, Snake.

Well, having played through the Fate / Stay Night VN, don't I already know how it's going to end?
...Wait, wait. Don't spoil it for me. Maybe there's a twiiiiiist.

Toshaka Rin is the bestest of the best and my newest Waifu, so I can't wait for the Unlimited Blade Works adaptation which I'm watching next.
As for Fate / Zero, Irisviel and Saber are so adorbz together, that better be a canon ship, she's so much better for her than Shirou could ever be.

Overall, I like Zero's cast a lot more than Stay Night's; having Masters actually try to accomplish shit independently of their Servants is a real plus here. However, there is a glaring deficiency of Rin's beautiful tsundere quips. Where is your wonderful wit, Rin?

Zero's Lancer is somehow an even better take on the noble Irish Lancer than Stay Night's was, I'm rooting for him even though his Master is shitty. Iksander is awesome and I want to be his lackey. It's sad to reflect upon how Waver is destined to die through his unwitting participation. =(

[Sithdarth]

So, what kind of show is Re: Zero? I see that it's yet another issekai story, but stunned silence sounds like they're doing something worth watching beyond "Ordinary Japanese boy suddenly has broken power in fantasy land + girls."

So to start I guess I should say that on a surface level everything is usually happy and cheerful but there is always some serious emotional undertones (though the start was a bit slow). There is a political intrigue thing going on about the succession to the throne but also a mass murdering cult and discrimination against one of the main characters due to appearance. There is also a lot of emotional character building moments both solo and between characters. The protagonist is very aware of his role and is occasionally pretty meta about the whole thing (and I'm a sucker for meta).

The protagonists power is in a sense overpowered but with serious drawbacks and while it gives him the opportunity to win he still has to rely heavily on strategy and reasoning. I've largely been unable to accurately predict what's going to happen next (except for the times where they poke fun at the genre but that's kind of the point when they do that) which is really nice. So far the series as been an emotional rollercoaster ride with ups and downs everywhere.

I recommend giving it a shot. It might take a few episodes to distinguish itself from the baseline of its genre but it accelerates pretty exponentially.

[Gregness]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

Re: Zero continues to be both super cheerful and amazingly dark at the same time. At the end of the last episode I kind of just sat in stunned silence for awhile.

Oh, holy shit yes. I mean, when Rem started dragging her broken almost-corpse to Subaru all I could think was a disbelieving 'Jesus Christ'.

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

So to start I guess I should say that on a surface level everything is usually happy and cheerful but there is always some serious emotional undertones (though the start was a bit slow). There is a political intrigue thing going on about the succession to the throne but also a mass murdering cult and discrimination against one of the main characters due to appearance. There is also a lot of emotional character building moments both solo and between characters. The protagonist is very aware of his role and is occasionally pretty meta about the whole thing (and I'm a sucker for meta).

The protagonists power is in a sense overpowered but with serious drawbacks and while it gives him the opportunity to win he still has to rely heavily on strategy and reasoning. I've largely been unable to accurately predict what's going to happen next (except for the times where they poke fun at the genre but that's kind of the point when they do that) which is really nice. So far the series as been an emotional rollercoaster ride with ups and downs everywhere.

I recommend giving it a shot. It might take a few episodes to distinguish itself from the baseline of its genre but it accelerates pretty exponentially.

If I can add something to this that hopefully isn't too spoilery, the last few episodes have been a pretty fucking brutal evisceration of the otaku self-insert MC you usually get in these shows.

[Sithdarth]

Originally Posted by Gregness

Oh, holy shit yes. I mean, when Rem started dragging her broken almost-corpse to Subaru all I could think was a disbelieving 'Jesus Christ'.

My first thought was creepy crazy priest dude was like being extra creepy but then she set him free and the reality was even more insane than what I'd imagined. For some reason what really slayed my was the special credits segment and I have no idea why. I guess it was just the cumulative impact of the rest of the episode.

If I can add something to this that hopefully isn't too spoilery, the last few episodes have been a pretty fucking brutal evisceration of the otaku self-insert MC you usually get in these shows.

I totally should have said that. I hope I did a decent job of describing how amazing this show is without giving too much away. I'm not sure I've ever had any form of entertainment invoke this much emotion from me.