Anime Nation

[dragontamer5788]

5 episodes in now. Cayna is growing on me as a character. Instead of your typical moe-blob, she's a flawed and immature character who has been suddenly thrust into a position of great power. This is a good thing and works very well with the comedy of the show (in contrast, someone like "Maple" from "Bofuri" might be a little bit of a Mary Sue). I'd say Maple from Bofuri was closer to what I was expecting of this show, but Cayna does seem to have more personality and a slight streak of "evil" in her. "Sally" from Bofuri is closer to how Cayna acts, though Cayna is more of a funny/comedic jerk / asshole kinda character.

So this really is somewhere in between Overlord and (of all things), Bofuri. I think I like this overall, and will most likely finish the season and keep watching Leadale each week.

This isn't quite comedy gold, but each episode has a good joke that puts a smile on my face. I'll bump up the rating to 7.5/10 or so, it certainly feels like an above average anime, though certainly not the best of its genre.

Finished Leadale. I think 7.5/10 is a good rating, now that I'm done with all the episodes. It had some cute parts, multiple characters managed to be memorable (Cerberwoof, Fairy, etc. etc.). Plenty of people will probably enjoy the show, but it won't be a top-tier anime by any stretch of the imagination. I think you can get a good feel of whether or not you'd like the show within the first episode, its quite consistent.

I've now moved onto "Ranking of Kings", which is a very solid show. 8.5/10 to 9/10 maybe. Ranking of Kings will easily be among the best of 2021 (yo, I'm still catching up to last season!). Oddtaxi probably hits a 9.5 for me (though I've talked to some of my friends and apparently they disagree, lol. But it really is a 9.5/10 for me and my tastes at least), and Oddtaxi probably is best of 2021.

Ranking of Kings is sliding into my #2 slot for 2021, dislodging Faraway Paladin to #3 (still a great show though).

And... Spring 2022 season is looking quite stacked. Overlord Season 4, Spy x Family, Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 3, Dragonball SuperHero Movie, Oddtaxi Movie, Isekai Quartet Movie, Ikkitousen (okay, maybe not this one, but glorious trash is still glorious).

 

[Mussels]

Throwing ranking of kings onto my list now, i'd passed it over as the description sounded dull

 

[dragontamer5788]

Throwing ranking of kings onto my list now, i'd passed it over as the description sounded dull

Ranking of Kings is largely the new "deconstruction" anime. Its a pretty obvious "bedridden king" -> 1st prince (Bojji main character) vs 2nd prince (Daida) succession crisis setup, and then shit hits the fan and nothing is how you'd expect it to be.

Its mostly only the setup of the show that breaks the mold though. I'm finding that the 2nd half of the show is instead leaning heavily into fight scenes (which are certainly cool and all), but less of the deconstruction that made the 1st half so good. I think this still will end up as #2 anime of 2021 for me, but I enjoyed the first 13 episodes a lot more than this 2nd half.

The main issue is that this world is so big, that I don't think they're going to cover it all by episode 24 or 26 (or whatever the 2nd season ends). There's very much a feeling of "One Piece" seeping in here. This is a big, big world but the story has largely only focused on the situation in one kingdom thus far. Given the size / scope of the story, its probably going to be a large-scale epic (and the Manga looks like its ongoing, so...). Much like how "The Grand Line" was brought up in the first few episodes of One Piece, but wasn't actually explored until like 500+ episodes later, I very easily can see "Ranking of Kings" falling into the same pattern here.

 

[Sound_Card]

Honestly, Hunter x Hunter has ruined Anime for me. It's so hard to watch anything else.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Honestly, Hunter x Hunter has ruined Anime for me. It's so hard to watch anything else.

Really?

All you gotta do is wait for the author to go on sabbatical again and suddenly you have months, maybe years of free time to watch other shows.

 

[CH33TAH]

Honestly, Hunter x Hunter has ruined Anime for me. It's so hard to watch anything else.

I see what you are saying. Hunter x Hunter and Fist of the North Star are my favorite.

 

[Mussels]

Ranking of Kings is largely the new "deconstruction" anime. Its a pretty obvious "bedridden king" -> 1st prince (Bojji main character) vs 2nd prince (Daida) succession crisis setup, and then shit hits the fan and nothing is how you'd expect it to be.

Its mostly only the setup of the show that breaks the mold though. I'm finding that the 2nd half of the show is instead leaning heavily into fight scenes (which are certainly cool and all), but less of the deconstruction that made the 1st half so good. I think this still will end up as #2 anime of 2021 for me, but I enjoyed the first 13 episodes a lot more than this 2nd half.

The main issue is that this world is so big, that I don't think they're going to cover it all by episode 24 or 26 (or whatever the 2nd season ends). There's very much a feeling of "One Piece" seeping in here. This is a big, big world but the story has largely only focused on the situation in one kingdom thus far. Given the size / scope of the story, its probably going to be a large-scale epic (and the Manga looks like its ongoing, so...). Much like how "The Grand Line" was brought up in the first few episodes of One Piece, but wasn't actually explored until like 500+ episodes later, I very easily can see "Ranking of Kings" falling into the same pattern here.

You're right. It's actually something new, and totally worth watching.

 

[dragontamer5788]

You're right. It's actually something new, and totally worth watching.

I've finished the 23 episode cour. Yeah... this is a hugely ambitious story. The size/scope of this world is already among the largest universes I've seen. If each of the threads brought up are given their own arc, this could easily be a well-made 100+ episode anime just to resolve what's already been brought up. (And not like, DBZ episodes or Naruto-filler style content. I mean like, dense, core-story related events).

Its good. But I think I was hoping for another short 24-ish episode anime and being done with the story. They're setting this one up for years of content.

----------

For a show of this size, its only fair to judge it on an arc-by-arc basis. (Ex: Naruto's Chunin Exam arc is among the best of all anime. But other arcs are mediocre to crap). I don't know what they'll call episodes#1 through #23 here, but... this was good. A very solid introduction to the world. Its got an "The Adventure Continues" style ending but that was blatantly obvious by like episode 16 or 17 when they were still "Expanding" the storyline universe / lore / history of the characters.

The arc's conclusion did feel like a proper closure to the most immediate conflict. Despite the ever-expanding world (all of which feels like a "natural" exploration of the world's lore), the anime never lost focus of the core conflict for the arc. Its clear that the author has thought very deeply about the motivations, reasoning, and history of each of the characters... the universe very much feels "alive".

Solid 9/10 from me, hitting #2 of 2021. I definitely have a preference for shorter stories that match my lesser amounts of focus. I certainly don't agree with all of the decisions the various characters have made, but the decisions made are "interesting", and allow the story to develop (which is arguably the more important part of storytelling)

Spoiler

Miranjo gets a conclusion, so things feel satisfying as she's basically the antagonist of the entire cour. But we got the whole Ousama issue going on... there's Kage's destroyed clan and the original kingdom he came from, we've got the "Crazy King of the Forest" and his madness (probably related to the vault?). There's the "Ranking of Kings" committee in general, implied to have a relationship with the gods as well. Miranjo is herself from a lost-line of sorcerers / wizards. And there's even the "wish-granting demon's" backstory to be explored still...

Even if a lot of these threads are handwaved away or left for side-anime (rather than main-line story), I'd expect Kage to have a training arc for himself and his shadow powers. For Kage (and probably Bojji at some point) to revisit Kage's original kingdom and resolve whatever madness that king had vs the Shadow Clan. Finally, Former-king Bosse is obviously a god-slayer, so the gods probably don't look very favorably upon Boss/Bojji/Daida's family line. Resolving the family's quarrel with the gods seems like where the show's ultimate destination will be. These events alone would probably need another 40ish episodes to resolve gracefully, even if all the other worldbuilding is left to some kind of side-story.

I think I've learned not to get my hopes too drawn into any particular anime, because so many of them get cancelled or otherwise forgotten about. But the shear amount of effort that went into this show demonstrates "confidence". Not only in the author's scope of the underlying lore, but also the shear effort the animators put into some fight scenes.

 

[Chomiq]

Lupin got meh mid season. I might rewatch EVA once again.

 

[kurosagi01]

Well..AOT final season has been renewed for part 3, damn they are really milking it out now.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Well..AOT final season has been renewed for part 3, damn they are really milking it out now.

I basically stopped watching AOT at the timeskip, roughly when they started calling it AOT "Final Season".

So this next arc will be the 3rd "final season" ?? So... I knew it'd take a lot of episodes to finish things after the new timeskip (more than the 13 episodes "AOT Final" kind of implied), but... now I'm worried that they're going the other way and "milking" the series, as you said. How's the pacing? Does it feel right? Or is it unnecessarily slow? (Or too fast?)

I mean, its an anime I watched over 40 episodes of. I'll probably finish it at some point, but... I guess I'm curious what people's feelings are on it so far...

 

[Mussels]

the time skip confused the shit out of me, it wasnt handled well imo

 

[xenosys]

I basically stopped watching AOT at the timeskip, roughly when they started calling it AOT "Final Season".

So this next arc will be the 3rd "final season" ?? So... I knew it'd take a lot of episodes to finish things after the new timeskip (more than the 13 episodes "AOT Final" kind of implied), but... now I'm worried that they're going the other way and "milking" the series, as you said. How's the pacing? Does it feel right? Or is it unnecessarily slow? (Or too fast?)

I mean, its an anime I watched over 40 episodes of. I'll probably finish it at some point, but... I guess I'm curious what people's feelings are on it so far...

The pacing is actually fine. They aren't milking it because they're still religiously following the source material, and there's no filler or unnecessary additions which are irrelevant to the overarching plot.

Before the Final Season, WiT Studios were adapting around 1.5 manga chapters per anime episode (89 chapters in 59 episodes). MAPPA, who are adapting the Final Season, are adapting at a rate of around 1.4 chapters per episode on average (40 chapters in 28 episodes so far). So it's practically the same pace. There's around 8 chapters left to adapt, so I don't think there'll be more than 6-7 episodes left of material at the very most, so it may be a mini-arc to end it in 2023.

It just feels dragged out because it's over 3 separate cours and one season instead of one continuous broadcast. It would have been better if MAPPA had just announced 18 months ago that it would be split into 3 parts from the outset. At least people would have known what to expect right off the bat.

The latest season is just under Season 3 Part 2 in terms of quality imo, which I regard at Attack on Titan's best material.

 

[kurosagi01]

Watched Patlabor the movie again,the visuals, sound effects and soundtrack is just awesome.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I got a HiDive subscription (aka: Sentai Filmwork's streaming service). There are a lot of B-tier animes on here, but a lot of B-tier stuff have interesting ideas and I find them worth watching.

The #1 thing people say is on HiDive is "Legend of the Galactic Heroes", some 1990s-era space-opera / epic. I'm probably going to start watching that. Its a ~100 episode anime but gotta start somewhere...

HiDive also has Fate/Stay (2006) and When They Cry (2006), in case anyone was wondering where those anime are.

--------

My first show I started on HiDive is a new show for this season: "I'm quitting Heroing", which looks cute but probably is going to be B-tier, lol. I'm getting a lot of "Maoyuu" vibes from it, which could be a good thing. There seems to be a large number of "Hero works with Demon Queen and figures out farming / logistics" kinda stories out there, but I somehow enjoy a lot of them. (Realist Hero from last year also falls into this category).

The only good "Protagonist works with Female-demon and end up talking about mundane issues" was "Spice and Wolf" however. Maoyuu, Realist Hero, and others just don't hold a candle to the original.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Spy x Family episode 1 was as good as I hoped. Feeling pretty hyped for this anime so far.

 

[NDown]

Spy x Family episode 1 was as good as I hoped. Feeling pretty hyped for this anime so far.

indeed, i've read the manga to the latest chapter but its still nice to see it getting animated

nice release schedule aswell, saturday night for me

 

[dragontamer5788]

Yo Boy Kongming! is way better than I could have possibly expected.

This is the sleeper hit this year. I'm calling it. In a season filled with strong anime, Yo Boy Kongming! is one of the strongest.

Romance of the Three Kingdom's "super genius", Zhuge Liang (aka: Kongming) is reborn in modern day Japan / Shibuya specifically. He meets a struggling singer (Eiko Tsukimi), and begins to use his "genius tactics" to help her become a rock star.

Made by P.A. Works, this studio is pretty well known for some other music anime (like Angel Beats). Seems to have a good balance of drama, comedy, music, and more. I'm quite excited by this hidden gem.

As a "music anime", it will largely be judged upon its music. Eiko Tsukimi (voiced by Kaede Hondo, also known for Sakura from Zombie Land Saga) had 3 abridged songs in the 1st episode, 2 of them in English 1 of them in Japanese. All pretty solid singing voices, giving the audience something to root for. You know Eiko got the talent to make it big, but her struggles are largely because she hasn't found an audience yet.

Zhuge Liang / Kongming needs a guide for the modern world and is further fascinated by Eiko's voice. Eiko Tsukimi needs a talented "tactician" to help the world see her talents. The pair clearly are made for each other, and its pretty hype to see them start working together.

-------

Despite only seeing 1 episode so far, I'm willing to bet that this is going to be one of the best animes this season!

I myself am a bit of a RotTK nerd. But the anime does a great job at concisely introducing Zhuge Liang. It also seems to give a quickie primer to some tactics Zhuge Liang was made famous over (Eiko Tsukimi's manager is a RotTK nerd, and constantly is asking Zhuge Liang about how things really happened 1800-years ago).

As a result, the anime manages to concisely summarize tactics, Zhuge Liang's history, and provide personality/backstory and use it to catapult the overall story forward. I really do like how this whole anime has been written so far.

--

Episode 2:

Spoiler

Holy shit, using the stone-maze stratagem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Sentinel_Maze) to trap people who go to the bathroom into wandering into Eiko Tsukimi's floor. Yeah, this is the reason why I'm gonna keep watching this show, lol. Zhuge Liang trapped an army in the Stone Sentinel Maze, he can trap a crowd to watch the singer of his choice.

Of course, it only worked because Eiko was a good enough singer to keep them entertained (when they were trapped on her floor). But seeing Zhuge Liang use his legendary strategies in a "modern world" is quite hilarious.

 

[robot zombie]

I haven't watched any anime in a while, but lately I've been falling asleep to Dragonball.

I don't know if I'm lucid dreaming or not but I swear goku slapped Bulma on the crotch when her panties just popped out full frontal, while she was sleeping. And then he took them off to check and they got left on the floor. Bulma never changed before leaving. And so, later she flashed Master Roshi with no panties on in exchange for the 3-star ball. So that happened. Honestly there is just a weird amount of emphasis on Goku figuring out girl and boy parts in the beginning. We got it the first time, the rest is something... different. That gag is sus as hell, man

She also likes to flick people off. A few characters enjoy that privledge on the show. I've gotta go back and watch the version that showed on Cartoon Network back in the day now. The amount of racy stuff and adult jokes in Dragonball is off the scale lol. How did they abridge this for western kid networks?

Was it always like this? I mostly remember the DBZ sagas growing up and if they were like this, I missed it for sure. It's so weird to me that it started off so goofy and pervy. But I guess quite a lot of stuff does when you get down to it. And it is for teenage boys. They really give em what they want with the jokes here though. It's pretty cringey if I'm honest

 

[dragontamer5788]

She also likes to flick people off. A few characters enjoy that privledge on the show. I've gotta go back and watch the version that showed on Cartoon Network back in the day now. The amount of racy stuff and adult jokes in Dragonball is off the scale lol. How did they abridge this for western kid networks?

Dragonball never came to American networks. It is well known (at least in anime circles) that "Dragonball" is quite racy and inappropriate for children. Panty shots, crotch-shots, peeing jokes, fan-service, etc. etc.

Do NOT confuse it for "Dragonball Z". Toryama toned it down severely as Dragonball Z was designed for more mainstream audiences. Dragonball Z leaves a little bit in there whenever Master Rochi is around, but Bulma ain't showing off her panties on a consistent basis.

 

[robot zombie]

Dragonball never came to American networks. It is well known that "Dragonball" is quite racy and inappropriate for children.

Do NOT confuse it for "Dragonball Z".

Oh, I know they are separate series, but I can swear I remember seeing bits of it on TV when I was a kid. It's really just interesting how they pivoted when it became more franchised, considering the popularity of the original in Japan. I guess they saw that as the time to grab a wider market.


HA! It did air in the US. I knew I saw young Goku as a kid. I remember seeing Outlaw Star around the same time. It was heavily edited, but Dragonball apparently did air on Toonami in 2001.

Dragonball on CN Debut Date Confirmed

Dragon Ball will debut on June 25th at 5:30pm On Cartoon Network, according to an Irwyn Press Release..

www.animenewsnetwork.com

Dragonball re-dub

Worth mentionning, yesterday Cartoon Network started the new broadcast of the original Dragonball TV series (When Goku was a child, not to be mixed up with "chibi-Goku" of DBGT), and tru to their word FUNimation did re-dub the series. Back when we originally reported on this it wasn't clear if...

www.animenewsnetwork.com

ANN was talking about it like it was happening then, anyway. And here, in 2006, they report a re-airing.

Dragon Ball Returns to U.S. Television on the FUNimation Channel

Anime phenomenon joins syndicated programming on November 13 with a six-hour Thanksgiving Day marathon on the CoLours TV Network Dragon Ball Returns to...

www.animenewsnetwork.com

Funny thing about the edits. If you trust the Toonami Wiki, Funimation didn't have a home release of the version cut for TV. So you got the kid-friendly one on Cartoon Network, and got the adult-friendly one at home, when you bought it for your kid. Oi!!!! Or I guess if you were one of those parents who actually checked the ratings then, you didn't buy it lol

 

[dragontamer5788]

HA! It did air in the US. I knew I saw young Goku as a kid. I remember seeing Outlaw Star around the same time. It was heavily edited, but Dragonball apparently did air on Toonami in 2001.

Wow. Erm... well, apparently I'm too old since I had no idea about that. I only knew about the 90s-era Dragonball Z stuff. Its kinda mind-boggling to me that Dragonball would come to American TV.

Well, the 00s were well known for extremely heavy-handed censorship to get more anime onto TV networks.

 

[robot zombie]

Wow. Erm... well, apparently I'm too old since I had no idea about that.

I only knew about the 90s-era Dragonball Z stuff.

That came first. I remember watching that before baseball practice in '98. I had just started coach-pitch, because I was 8. I didn't even have a concept of 'anime' yet I'm sure by then it had been airing for a while but I wouldn't have been on it yet.

The initial run of Dragonball was apparently cancelled for ratings. The Z series immortalized the franchise in the US. It's not hard to see why lol

Seeing Dragonball as an adult and reaaaallllyyy paying attention to it, with a childhood of mostly DBZ for a reference, it's just bizarre to see these characters this way.

 

[Mussels]

Wow. Erm... well, apparently I'm too old since I had no idea about that. I only knew about the 90s-era Dragonball Z stuff. Its kinda mind-boggling to me that Dragonball would come to American TV.

Well, the 00s were well known for extremely heavy-handed censorship to get more anime onto TV networks.

they edited the crap out of anime and aired some utter garbage back then... look what they did to macross, to make robotech

Then there's the heavily mocked stuff like changing guns to people pointing fingers and saying bang, cigarettes changed to lollipops (one piece) and so on

 

[dragontamer5788]

1-episode review.

From a singular review... I'd give it a 7/10, a solid score from me. Certainly a watchable show that largely suffers from an incredible season (Spy x Family, Ya Boy Kongming, Bookworm S3, etc. etc.). There's a lot of competition this season.

This "Love after World Domination" anime is a rom-com between "Red Gelato #1" and "The Death Queen". With a "Power Rangers" / Super Sentai feel, the 1st episode delivers mostly what's on the cover. Death Queen / Desumi is one of the leaders of the evil Gekko organization, but somehow Red and Her fell in love.

So the show seems to be the rom-com of the two trying to date while the rest of their teams are in the middle of that generic power-rangers/super sentai fight.

The animation seems stiff and cheap at times. But I think the core action sequence between Red Gelato vs Death Queen (which caused Red to fall in love) was actually quite well done.

Fanservice level review: Death Queen got some sexy/cute lingerie. Aside from the aggressive costume, nothing else seems to be going on (yet?), as the 1st episode largely focused on quite-innocent / wholesome hand holding (its still early in their dates after all!). Still, the aggressively cut costume, I have to imagine that this show is going to push some more fanservice in later episodes?

Genres: Fanservice (?? Predicted in future episodes), Romance, Comedy.