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Old 12-04-2016, 08:49 PM   #7351
big bad birtha
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What time is it? It's time for a new god damn anime season chart! What treats do we have this time? I just hope it's better than the current season. I tried to be optimistic, but I only really give a damn about Show by Rock.

Granblue Fantasy: I have no clue on the quality, but I want to watch it. I want to know why this is so damn popular. Since it is popular, A-1 will probably put in maximum budget.

Konosuba S2: Season 1 was awesome, so this will hopefully be as well. Also since S1 did well, DEEN should be putting more budget into this. Higurashi S2 proved they can do well if they give a damn.

Little Witch Academia: Hopefully the quality of the shorts will carry on in a full series. If it can, this should be a great show.

Nyanko Days: It looks cute, and that's all it needs! I won't bother if it's a 3 minute short. There's too many of those things nowadays.

Not much else, but something can surprise me.

On an unrelated note, I've read:

Boku no Hero Academia
I felt like reading the manga. I wanted to see what direction the story would end up taking. There's no real big surprises, but I do enjoy the overall development of the cast that the author feels "matters". Shame Tsuyu isn't one of them. It's entertaining enough, and because it's a manga, my biggest frustration from the anime is severely downgraded. Those overdramatic scenes aren't so bad when there isn't 5 minutes of boohooing and irritating triumphant music. There's still those frustrating fake-outs that end up making you think the heroes will never face any major consequences for their actions. It's still a fun read. Once again, the characters pull this manga pretty far.
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Old 12-05-2016, 07:28 AM   #7352
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Quote:
Originally Posted by big bad birtha View Post
Granblue Fantasy: I have no clue on the quality, but I want to watch it. I want to know why this is so damn popular. Since it is popular, A-1 will probably put in maximum budget.

It's sheep waifu time!

From what all I've seen, GranBlue Fantasy is to 2015/16 what Kantai Collection was to 2013/14. So it's no surprise then that it is following in its cousin's footsteps, getting its first-ever television anime adaptation in 2017, much like KanColle got its anime in 2015.

All I know is, the ero scene loves Draphs.

Quote:
Originally Posted by big bad birtha View Post
Little Witch Academia: Hopefully the quality of the shorts will carry on in a full series. If it can, this should be a great show.
I still need to watch the movie. (Not the original student project we all watched several years back, but the movie they announced afterwards.) Wasn't even aware we were getting a TV show. This is pretty great news but I have the same reservations as you.
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Old 12-08-2016, 10:46 PM   #7353
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Too many projects all at once ... T_T

Pokémon Sun put down for Katawa Shoujo ...
 Katawa Shoujo put down for Koe no Katachi ...
  Koe no Katachi put down for Barakamon ...
   Barakamon put down for a Toradora! reviewing ...

I got too much going on at once. Seriously.

BORKED
(link)

... But yeah, I am five episodes into Toradora!. So far, the show is a good solid 7/10 or 8/10. That's how I remember the early episodes being. "A solid if fairly typical school days anime." The knowledge of the promise of things picking up in the future has me excited.

If you've not seen Toradora! before, it's a personal favorite. Top 5 lister. It's about two high schoolers, a boy and a girl, who each have a crush on the other's best friend. They work together to try and get one another hooked up with their respective crushes. Highly recommend it. The story has a few bruises and the animation hasn't held up as much as I remembered it being beautiful, but the music is solid, the voice acting excellent, and the bulk of the story superb.
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Old 12-11-2016, 07:12 AM   #7354
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Toradora is excellent. Still remember the first time I watched it. Binged it over just about two days. Absolute roller coaster.
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Old 12-11-2016, 08:30 PM   #7355
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It's been years and I'm still pissed/butthurt over the ultimate ship. :X

...

Overlord

Read all the novel material. I feel empty inside. I feel like one of the friends who left Ainz behind and reading a "where are they now?" pamphlet summarizing where everyone went after YGGDRASIL shut down.
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Old 12-12-2016, 03:51 AM   #7356
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Speaking of overlord, when's the next volume to come out?

also, what is this granblue fantasy mabob? google shows it's another mobile rpg thing, but what's the appeal?
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Old 12-12-2016, 04:13 AM   #7357
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also, what is this granblue fantasy mabob? google shows it's another mobile rpg thing, but what's the appeal?
Speaking for the ero fanbase: Draphs (NSFW, don't click unless at home with privacy)

Speaking for the Square-Enix fanbase: "The game is notable for reuniting music composer Nobuo Uematsu and art director Hideo Minaba, who also worked on Final Fantasy VI (1994), Final Fantasy IX (2000), and Lost Odyssey (2007) together."

Speaking for general JRPG fans (though not necessarily Squeenix fanboys): I dunno. My understanding is that it's an above-average mobile game, but beyond that I really don't know.

Speaking for anyone else: I sorely doubt there is any. Take away the sex appeal, the Final Fantasy heritage, and any fun one might find in JRPGs and I don't know that you'd care two bits about it.

Every year or so, there's a property that the H-community buoys to the top. Yesteryear it was KanColle. This year it just so happens to be Granblue Fantasy. At least, that's my biased perspective on it.

EDIT: Sample gameplay in case you haven't seen it before. It's about what you'd expect. The general aesthetic of an SNES-era Final Fantasy but with the graphical capabilities of modern smartphones. If you like classic Final Fantasy games, then this is if nothing else a very pretty offering in that same vein. Now, as to the gameplay's fun factor and as to the story's quality, those I can't speak for. My loose (loose) understanding of the story is that the male protagonist is a young man named Gran (as in, Granblue Fantasy) and that he goes from race/kingdom to race/kingdom trying to ... I dunno, unite the realm, amass the ultimate army, something? Point is, he encounters male and female warriors from a number of different races.

Last edited by Talon87; 12-12-2016 at 04:30 AM.
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Old 12-12-2016, 09:02 AM   #7358
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Have you guys seen this?

Shelter

It's an anime music video created by Porter Robinson, Madeon & A-1 Pictures. It's so damn good and it has produced a ton of great fan art to boot.

Check it out and let me know what you think. I can't stop watching it (and subsequently crying).
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Old 12-12-2016, 04:14 PM   #7359
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Lil' Bluey

Quote:
Originally Posted by deoxys View Post
Have you guys seen this?

Shelter

It's an anime music video created by Porter Robinson, Madeon & A-1 Pictures. It's so damn good and it has produced a ton of great fan art to boot.

Check it out and let me know what you think. I can't stop watching it (and subsequently crying).
I've seen it and showed it to Talon. It's a sweet video. The song's been stuck in my head for quite a while now. My favorite remix is this one since it includes the pretty piano part at the end.
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Old 12-13-2016, 05:25 AM   #7360
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Do they actually play that on MTV or wherever? That would be pretty rockin. A lot better than the retarded attempts to market Hatsune Miku in the West.
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Old 12-13-2016, 12:34 PM   #7361
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Through Episode 17 of Toradora!. While the early volumes following Volume 1 are nothing particularly special to write home about, Volume 4[?]'s story arc with the swimming pool excepted (Episodes 07 and 08), things start to pick up once we reach the culture festival episodes (11 thru 13). The episodes that follow are perhaps the weakest/least exciting in the entire franchise (14 thru 16, the student council presidential election), but they are an incredibly important pivot for Yuyuko-sensei as she canonizes a couple of things here that will matter for the remainder of the story going forward. Namely: (gonna go ahead and say, don't click if you're a first-time viewer who hasn't finished the entire series yet)

Spoiler: show
● Kushieda is locked in/confirmed for having feelings for Ryuuji. At the end of the arc, in Episode 16, when Ami -- the in-universe Observer role player -- comments to Kushieda, "Have you quit feeling guilty?" and Kushieda reacts as she does, it locks in a lot of little things all at once:
  • Ami's been observing for weeks/months now, and has concluded that Kushieda does indeed like Ryuuji but wears a mask to conceal it
  • Ami's also concluded that Taiga likes Ryuuji
  • Ami's realized that the reason Kushieda doesn't make a move is because she also realizes that Taiga likes Ryuuji and she values her friendship with Taiga too much to "steal him away" from her
  • Ami is irritated that Kushieda doesn't make a move when a) Ryuuji likes Kushieda, b) Ryuuji is at risk of being stolen away by Taiga, and c) Taiga professes love for Kitamura. "If Taiga is going to throw away Ryuuji in favor of Kitamura, that's on her. What are you waiting for? Go snag 'im before it's too late."
Pretty much all of this will be confirmed in the series' final episodes, but until now we had little to base that revelation off of. Here, in the student council election arc, is where we get our first real evidence that Kushieda likes Ryuuji and is holding back on account of Tora x Dora.

● Kushieda is no longer a lesbian. That was something which I feel like you can see glimmers of in the early volumes, Volumes 1-5, Episodes 01-13. It's nothing concrete, but it's just the general vibes of:
  • she's super cute yet no boys seem to be chasing after her except for Ryuuji
  • despite being such a tomboy she doesn't appear to have any guy friends or hang with the guys; rather, she is always with girls
  • she flat out confesses to Ryuuji at the beach house that "I think I might like girls more than I do guys," to which Ryuuji awkwardly replies "I hope that's not the case" and which Kushieda just has to sort of awkwardly smile away because Ryuuji isn't taking the hint that she isn't interested in being more than friends with him because she's a lesbian, bro.
  • there are faint, f-a-i-n-t signs in the early writing that Yuyuko-sensei might have been setting up for a showdown between Ryuuji and Minori once Ryuuji admits to himself that he's fallen for Taiga. We still have some weird vestiges of this in the final product, e.g. how Minori formally approves their union , that would have made a lot more sense in an alternate version where Minori was actually a closeted lesbian who was friends with Taiga but wanted to be more than friends and was too scared to take the next step for fear that it would ruin their friendship.
Anyway, all of this is over and gone once we hit Episode 16. In the same moment that Yuyuko-sensei charts the path towards Kushieda canonically crushing on Ryuuji, she rules out that Kushieda could be a lesbian. And before you say, "Biiiiii? " like no one else had thought of that: there really isn't any evidence to support that going forward, and I'm not going to go down the "absence of evidence = " angle here since I'm not trying to disprove she's bi, just saying that I see evidence for the dismantling of a lesbian identity.

● Ryuuji is displaying some early subconscious signs of starting to fall for Taiga. Taiga, of course, has been showing them since Episode 02, blaring them since the end of Episode 08 ("RYUUJI IS MINE! DON'T TAKE HIM AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"). But Ryuuji hasn't really been giving us signs of something more than friendship until now; everything he's done for her, can be (and probably should be) interpreted as the acts of a caring friend. Episode 15, Ryuuji takes off his scarf and wraps it around Taiga. This is a pretty intimate thing to do, and while they are intimate (in the non-sexual sense) at this point in the story, still ... friends don't normally take off their scarves and wrap them around their other friends' necks when it's fairly ordinary winter weather. I dunno. This is so subtle and so singular an act that it can be easy to write off as just another friendship thing, but ... to me, it's one of the first striking examples of intimacy that goes beyond friendship between these two.

Volume 7, our Christmas arc, is where things are really going to start taking off, of course. If Vol.6 constitutes the physical location of the pivot point, Vol.7 is where you first start feeling and noticing its effects. In this first episode of the arc (Episode 17) alone, we've already witnessed: (again, gonna go ahead and say first-timers should stay away)

Spoiler: show
● more proof that Kushieda has a crush on Ryuuji
● more proof that she's agonizing over it (on account of her friendship with Taiga)
● more proof that Taiga subconsciously is deeply in love with Ryuuji even if consciously she hasn't become aware of it yet
● our first really solid proof that Ryuuji is starting to get confused by his feelings towards Taiga / is starting to realize he likes Taiga as more than a friend (he even notices it himself and remarks on it in his own head, but doesn't figure it out or think on it much further)

Even separate of all these things, the Christmas arc is our first truly great arc since the swimming pool episodes. My personal ranking for the volumes so far would probably be:

7 > 1 ? 4 > 5 > 3 ~= 6 > 2
or:
Christmas > Intro > Swimming Pool > Culture Fest > Meet Ami > Student Council Elections > More Intro
Not sure if I have the book volume numbers exactly right since I don't own all the books and can't find any chapter listings online for them (the manga, yes, but not the light novels), so roll with my numbers for now if I've made a mistake, o' knowledgeable reader.

Really looking forward to the next few episodes. Episode 19's final five or eight or however many minutes remains one of my favorite things in the history of anime. So good. So, so good.
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Old 12-17-2016, 12:09 PM   #7362
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あれ? What are these tears ...?

So I watched Episode 19. Great episode. I didn't cry at my favorite scene, but I didn't have to: it's still a phenomenal scene, probably a Top 5 in J.C. Staff's history. I've seen the scene so many times now over the years that I'm afraid its kneejerk potency is somewhat dulled unless the stars are aligned. But man ... what a scene! :') So good. So so good.

Spoiler: show

I really love what the creators (author Takemiya Yuyuko and animation studio J.C. Staff) do with Ryuuji's muffler. At the start of the episode, Yasuko applies some perfume to the back of Taiga's neck. She tells Taiga not to touch it too much, and that "by the time the party starts, it should mix with your natural smell to create a faint scent." The camera cuts to Ryuuji who we see has slightly red cheeks, no doubt from arousal. Thus a subtle seed is planted -- the connection between arousal and a significant other's body odor.

So then later in the episode, we have Taiga at her apartment. She's indoors where it's nice and warm. We can assume it's sufficiently warm because the girl is wearing a fairly thin dress that doesn't even cover her legs or shoulders. But as she sits on her recliner, she wraps around herself ... Ryuuji's muffler. And she doesn't have it wrapped around her neck -- it's wrapped around her nose and mouth, her hand holding it up so that she breathe it in. The implication is strong here -- in the same sense that a comfort blanket from early childhood might provide emotional relief, Taiga is subconsciously turning to Ryuuji's muffler (steeped in Ryuuji's aroma) for comfort.

The muffler later features at the critical moment of the episode, when Taiga begins to cry with the realization that she's going to lose Ryuuji to Minori and that she doesn't want that to happen. It's there on the floor, and Taiga bends over to pick it up and remarks about intending to return it to Ryuuji. Then she starts to cry. And our first visual cue that something is up are the teardrop marks left on the scarf as they fall from her face. The muffler serves as symbol here: in the same sense that she must part with the muffler despite wanting to hold onto it, she must part with Ryuuji despite wanting to stay by his side. In the act of going to part with the one, she is made to confront the parting with the other. The muffler serves as the trigger that gets Taiga to realize what it is that she wants -- or rather, whom.


The look of sheer, unbridled joy is one of the best, strongest, and most memorable things about this scene. We've never seen Taiga be quite so happy before, and there's nothing depraved or manic about it. It is sheer, unbridled bliss of the most loving and heartfelt kind. It's the sort of visual image Hallmark dreams of for their gift cards or TV specials.

In this moment, the viewer knows (as if he didn't know already ) -- Aisaka Taiga is deeply in love with Takasu Ryuuji. He is her everything.


Taiga's moment of realization is one of the most heart-wrenching and dramatic pieces in the genre's history. I'd be hard-pressed to find a scene of similar emotional weight and grand execution in any other high school romantic comedy anime. Looking back on it now, it is a shame that the scene is "so poorly animated" from a budget / technical perspective, because by golly is it wonderfully animated from a directorial perspective. How her face contorts and goes through that variety of wretched shapes. How she lunges out the front door like an animal, her back hunching over at one point as she literally scrabbles to regain her footing. The image of this strangely mature-looking / older-looking young woman running out the front door of the lobby (it's gotta be the dress and the hair!), how her hair is messy, how her feet are bare ...

I'm torn on Kugimiya Rie's performance here. On the one hand, I think that everything that comes after Taiga exits the lobby doors is kinda weak, to be perfectly honest , voice-acting wise. However, I think that everything that comes before Taiga passes through those lobby doors, everything from the muffler to her arrival on the sidewalk, is just eeeeeeexpertly voice acted. It's so good. It's so well done. (internal monologe) "The one next to Ryuuji ... won't be me. I ..." (and then spoken aloud) "... don't want that." And she just tears off to run and--

Oh, man. There it is. Watching this scene over and over again a handful of times over the past few days didn't do it, but writing about the scene just now, I've started to cry. :') It's just ... It's just such a good scene. ;~; Kugimiya Rie really knocks it out of the park with the delivery, and J.C. Staff does the same with the animation.

If ever there's a trend to re-visit past anime and to touch up their animation the same way that George Lucas has revisted Star Wars with his special editions, my only hope would be that they spruce up the animation of Taiga running out of the apartment. That's it. The victim of budgeting. They made the absolutely correct choice here (action/actual animation over pizazz/prettiness), but it and KugiRie's so-so "Ryuuji ;~;"s outside the apartment are the only two things holding this scene back.

They're not enough to hold it back from a 10 out of 10 though. This scene is easily one of my all-time favorites in any anime. It's just so good. It's a wonderful, wonderful delivery for the viewer who has long since by this point understood that Taiga subconsciously loves Ryuuji but either hasn't consciously realized it yet or else has but is pretending she doesn't.
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Old 12-17-2016, 09:47 PM   #7363
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I can't see Taiga as a woman. She's just a little kid to me.

Strange feels reading that my friend. Strange feels.
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Old 12-18-2016, 11:49 AM   #7364
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Through Episode 23 now of ToraDora. Discussion inside.

Spoiler: show

Episode 21 has another of the series' greatest scenes in it. The part where Ryuuji rescues Taiga and, in her hypothermia-induced stupor, she mistakes him for Kitamura and confesses that she is in love with Ryuuji. If the Christmas Eve scene (19) and the bridge scene (24) are constantly fighting for 1st and 2nd place, this scene probably comfortably secures 3rd place in my heart for Best Scenes in the series. It's just so good, so emotional, so wonderful to have.


Episode 23 provides another of the series' great climactic moments: everything coming crashing down around Taiga (and Ryuuji!) as her friends corner her to tell the truth about how she feels towards Ryuuji. It's such a great but at the same time horrifying scene. It reminds me of a lot of moments in my own life -- I have to think all humans have moments like these -- where you have plans for this light, happy Course A and then seemingly out of nowhere things derail and now you're suddenly on an enormous, heavy Course B that ruins your day/weekend.

Everything about this scene is well done. Taiga has carefully planned out that she will give Ryuuji his gift second to last while ostensibly saving "her crush" Kitamura for last, and the viewer can fully tell. The look on her face as she gives Ryuuji his gift. Her claim that she's saved the best chocolate for Kitamura when you just know in reality she gave Ryuuji the best.

How Minori tries to drag the truth out of Taiga. How Taiga resists, what exactly it is that she says ... I feel like I'm witnessing myself in Taiga, it hurts but at the same time it is so beautiful and human to watch unfold ...


Everything is coming to a head now in these final chapters and it's just so, so good. The payoff in Toradora! is so satisfying, the delivery so sublime. If the earlier volumes suggest a score of 7 or a generous 8 out of 10, it is here, in these final book volumes, where Toradora! achieves its score of 9 or 10 out of 10. For me, there can be no doubt: it's a solid 10. And we're not even done yet.
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Old 12-20-2016, 01:16 PM   #7365
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I completed Toradora! two days ago. Watched 24, then went ahead and got the OVA out of the way just for completion's sake (it's not bad, it's just no 24 or 25), and then saved 25 for last. As always, the final two episodes of this show were excellent.

When it comes to surprises, Toradora!'s a bit of a paradox. The show is often vaunted when it comes to Taiga's and Ryuuji's relationship. "You see it coming from miles away, from the end of Episode 02 at the absolute latest," people say, "and the rest of the show is just enjoying the ride. " But there's an equally important piece of Toradora! that I think people often miss until it's laid out before us in the final two episodes: Yuyuko's message about children conceived by accident. The final volume of the series, the final two episodes of the TV show, they make it a front and center issue. But until you get there, I don't think anyone is thinking of Toradora! in terms of abortion or the sanctity of life.

To say that Yasuko is the star of Toradora!, or that she's even the star of the final volume, I think goes a little too far. Clearly, the stars are Ryuuji and Taiga. The focus is on them, and this is their story. But Volume 10 / Episodes 24 and 25 really give Yasuko her due. She goes from being this bubbly supporting character in the wings to being "omg you were secretly a main character this entire time," sort of. It's fair to say that select parts of the finale are very much hers, are very much featuring Yasuko rather than highlighting Yasuko's role in Ryuuji's story.


Yasuko's story begins its acceleration as we see Ryuuji undecided on what he wants to do with his future. She nudges him in the direction of university, but Ryuuji doesn't want to make his mother suffer any more than he already has. In some ways he's driven by this love of his mother, and in others he's driven by his frustration with what he perceives as Yasuko's selfishness. This latter drive, it hits a crescendo in Episode 24 when Ryuuji snaps at his mother and accuses her of trying to live vicariously through him, wanting him to go to college because it was something she was not able to do. My words don't do it justice, you'll just have to watch the scene for yourself. Yuyuko-sensei expertly writes out Ryuuji's and Yasuko's thoughts and emotions. And we're treated with a devastated Yasuko (pictured above), caught between the heartbreak of her son's cruel words and the trauma of their ringing truth.

When our scene soon shifts to a quiet bridge, occupied alone by Taiga and Ryuuji, we expect to see more of the two lovebirds declaring their love for one another. And we do get that. But it's not the initial focus. Surprisingly, the scene's main initial focus is on Ryuuji's impact on Yasuko's life. After Taiga gets done complaining about her 1st world problems and how she feels like it'd be better for her parents if she wasn't there, Ryuuji piggybacks on this in a way that both catches off guard and horrifies Taiga and audiences alike. We bear witness to some real talk, and Ryuuji wonders aloud if his mother would have been better off had he never been born. After all, it's because she became a single mom at such a young age, he concludes, that she wound up as she did, a cabaret girl who dropped out of high school and didn't have the time or luxury to pursue higher learning. Taiga worries that Ryuuji is suicidal, she reacts a little too much, and we'll discuss the rest next post. But the point here is that, Ryuuji confronts the elephant in the room: "I ruined my mom's life."

It is a great irony, then, that Ryuuji is able to recognize how dearly his mother cares for him, and to use that love to great effect in getting her to show up at his grandparents' house after nearly two decades of separation. Yasuko hurries to her parents', worried sick that Ryuuji has fallen ill or worse, and ...


We get this. After 17 years of not seeing one another, the first words from Yasuko's mother are -- "You've raised Ryuuji-kun well." The validation of her choice. The affirmation from one parent, her parent, to another, that she has done a good job of raising her son. Again, I can't find the words to either describe this scene or to express in full what it means to me. It's a magical moment, and you just have to see it for yourself.
"Your papa went somewhere with another woman when I was pregnant with you. Everyone told me to abort you. But Yacchan really wanted to protect you. At the very least you, no matter what."
Hysteria about Japan's declining birthrate hadn't really taken off when Toradora! aired. I remember: because Toradora! was striking to me for being the only pro-life message out of Japan I had ever seen up until that point. (Excluding hentai, which more often than not is more focused on the fetishes of impregnation and pregnancy than it is on anything higher like the sanctity of life or the importance of repopulation.) Don't get me wrong: Japan's not a country of determined baby killers and abortion's never been the politicized topic there that it is here in the States. But when I was in college, and in the years shortly after that -- right around when Toradora! was being published -- Japan was famous (or infamous?) for its lax attitude towards abortion and birth control. The Japan Times writes in 2009 that abortion is "still [the] key birth control" and explores why contraception vs. abortion has been historically so different in Japan versus anywhere else in the developed world. While I'm hard-pressed to locate it right now, the number I remember from my college years is something like 25% of Japanese adult women report having undergone at least one abortion. (Not to be confused with miscarriage or contraception.) I can't find such a statistic now, but here's this for comparison:
"A 1995 study by the Population Council, an international nonprofit New York-based group, reported that only 1.1 percent of Japanese births are to unwed mothers, a figure that has been virtually unchanged for twenty-five years. In the United States, this figure is 30.1 percent." - http://factsanddetails.com/japan/cat...2/item599.html
Actually, that same source provides this statistic:
"At least one out of three Japanese women has had an abortion."
So there you go. While their source is no more backed up than my own, my source was teachers in school and the literature available to me at the time (2004-2007). If they're saying 33% and I'm remembering 25%, then I feel like the 25% quote is probably pretty accurate.

Keep in mind, this isn't saying that 25% of pregnant women have undergone an abortion -- rather, it's saying that 25% of women period have done so. The point being, abortion has historically been fairly common and has without a doubt been the recourse of many, many a teenage girl.

Thus, Yuyuko-sensei's message strikes me as particularly powerful. Here we have a lady author who is taking the unpopular position of pro-life, who is celebrating Yasuko's decision to keep Ryuuji rather than abort him and avoid winding up as a single mother 33 y.o. working at a cabaret. While in more recent years there has been a wave of Japanese writers attempting to persuade the populace that it's time to make kids and keep them -- the Usagi Drops and the Barakamons which seek to convince viewers that children are fucking adorable and must be experienced for oneself at all costs, for example -- Yuyuko-sensei wrote at a time when this hadn't quite yet become a popular opinion to express.

And for me, really, it isn't even about the politicization, so let's drop that angle now that we've explored it. For me, what really makes this scene so striking and so grand is how emotionally raw and refreshingly new it is. We don't see stories about abortion one way or another in anime usually, perhaps because it's a bit too uncomfortable to discuss, yet when Yuyuko-sensei does it in Toradora! ... maaaaaaan if it's not welcome. It's just so good. It's so emotional, so real, so exquisite ... I consider myself pro-choice (and I know many who would consider me to be radically so, as I even support infanticide in certain cases), but still, for me ... even for a man like me who is pro-choice, this pro-life message here is so dear and so heart-warming and so powerful. We know there is probably truth in Ryuuji's assessment that Yasuko would've had a better life had she aborted him. We know that as dumb as she is and as sexy as she is that she wouldn't necessarily have had to resort to a life of selling her flesh had she only been able to graduate from high school and get a fairly normal job somewhere else. Hell, she could've even married a man and settled down with kids and become a housewife. But despite Ryuuji's assessment, Yasuko believes in her choice. As she explains to Ryuuji, he was innocent in all of this. She could not justify terminating him when it was her mistake, her actions that brought her to this juncture. It's a remarkable emotional maturity she displays here, a selflessness that jives perfectly well with the mother we've known all series.

I could keep writing stream-of-consciousness style like this, but I feel like my thoughts are starting to get too scattered and too filamentous ... I'll bring us back to a core discussion of the finale, focusing on Taiga and Ryuuji, in the next post. But for now, I just want to say:
  • half the reason I love Toradora! so much is for Yasuko's parts in these final two episodes
  • for me, Toradora! is the quintessential pro-life anime
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Old 12-26-2016, 10:19 AM   #7366
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Haven't had opportunity to write up that second Toradora! post for the finale. Maybe later. Maybe never. orz I'd like to if I can. We'll see.

Actually haven't had much opportunity to make progress past Toradora! since last I wrote. Pokémon, I've played a bit but have stalled out in wanting to EV train ooooooooone guy during Story Mode and it being a bear. Anime, I have had next to zero opportunities to watch. Only thing I've managed to see is the JoJo finale and that was only due to the social pressures of having to have seen the episode so that a co-worker wouldn't spoil me and so that I could discuss it with AK2 when he called. And Katawa Shoujo, I haven't had a chance to play either. For much the same reasons as I haven't been able to watch any anime.

But manga ... manga I've made some progress since I last wrote.

Koe no Katachi: I had put this down in the early Chapter 50s, and polished it off around a week ago. It was good. Not 10/10 good, not 9/10 good, but it was good. Could've been better, but was (as is) already better in many ways than most new manga coming out these days.

Meina's Owl: I'd like to post about this in the thread proper, but about a week ago I came upon the second volume (after three long years of searching and waiting) and so I was finally able to finish the tale. It was good. That's all I'll say for now.

School Rumble: Equipped with my handy dandy laptop and motivated by my achievements with Koe no Katachi and Meina's Owl, I decided it was high time I revisited School Rumble and finally, finally, finished the series. I'm almost done with Volume 3 right now and I'm really loving the trip down Memory Lane. Sadly for me, School Rumble is d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y one of those manga series that heavily benefits from an anime adaptation. The color, motion, music, and voice acting all help to elevate the product. The core humor and romance is still present in the manga, though, so once I hit the never-made-it-to-TV waters I guess I can't be too ungrateful.
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Old 12-26-2016, 10:02 PM   #7367
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So I've accomplished something!

I'm almost through with Working!! season 1 after a surprise marathon two days ago. I am considering trying out the second/third seasons, along with Mitsudomoes second season. Working!! isn't as funny as Seitokai Yakuindomo to me, but the development makes it better overall.

Given my Overlord obsession, it was a pretty nice cameo to see Satoshi Hino as Yamada's brother. Everytime he appeared I kept hearing "DON'T YOU GIVE ME YOUR LOVE AND PASSION, BUM BUM BUM".

Also, because this topic has been rather languid lately, I made a deal with BBB that I'd like to offer to everyone else here too. It's called swap.

Like swapping white elephant gifts, you basically have the other person watch an anime you personally like but felt like no one would otherwise watch. In return, you watch an anime of their's that fits the same condition.

BBB offered me Classicaloid, and I offered him Overlord. I aim to give it a go after I clear out Working!!.
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Old 12-26-2016, 11:22 PM   #7368
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
I made a deal with BBB that I'd like to offer to everyone else here too. It's called swap.

Like swapping white elephant gifts, you basically have the other person watch an anime you personally like but felt like no one would otherwise watch. In return, you watch an anime of their's that fits the same condition.

BBB offered me Classicaloid, and I offered him Overlord.
Quote:
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BBB offered me Classicaloid, and I offered him Overlord.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
I offered him Overlord.
There wasn't a "Wait, what?" gif suitable enough to convey my exact emotion just now.

People have been talking about Overlord in this thread for weeks. Upwards of ten different people. Which for this thread, is a lot.

How on earth do you sell Overlord as "an anime you personally like but felt like no one else would watch" when you know, full well, that others have both watched and read it and that they liked it very much, even more than you did?
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Old 12-27-2016, 03:25 AM   #7369
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
There wasn't a "Wait, what?" gif suitable enough to convey my exact emotion just now.

People have been talking about Overlord in this thread for weeks. Upwards of ten different people. Which for this thread, is a lot.

How on earth do you sell Overlord as "an anime you personally like but felt like no one else would watch" when you know, full well, that others have both watched and read it and that they liked it very much, even more than you did?
I anticipated you would bring this up.

Either that or, "this topic has been rather languid lately" which may have been interpreted as a slight against your Toradora re-watch.

On that tangent:

Spoiler: show
...it wasn't intended to be (of course), but I didn't comment more just because I don't share the same enthusiasm for Toradora, specifically because of the Ryuuji/Minorin thing. Similarly, I've already pointed out that Koe no Katachi is irreparably sabotaged by Nishimiya being beautiful.


On the subject of swap,

While it's true Crys, Kuno, and VGM have also watched and enjoyed Overlord, BBB has expressed little interest. For this purpose, it doesn't matter if something is popular, it has to be something the person you are offering the anime to has otherwise passed up.

A lot of folks here have seen Bakuman. I will never watch it of my own volition due to my deep-rooted hatred of Shueisha, and Bakuman acting as a propaganda piece for that vile group. You would be able to get me to watch Bakuman via swap.
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Old 12-27-2016, 10:29 AM   #7370
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Lil' Bluey

I'd be up for a swap. With the fall season having wrapped up, I could maybe use a show to tide me over until the next one starts up. Hit me up with a recommendation?
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Old 12-27-2016, 10:22 PM   #7371
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I personally would like to give the idea some legitimacy first so things don't end up where one person watches a show and another reneges. So, I will tackle BBB's request before I take on another swap.

There's some details to work out, too, especially regarding length. For example, is a Gintama for One Piece swap fair? There's a lot of room to drop either show, and they're both super long...I would feel upholding the agreement would be too hard for both sides.

Since we are all well-acquainted I would also like to avoid deliberate trolling. While a part of me is sadistically curious of what Talon would say if forced to watch Lotte no Omocha! I wouldn't force that on him myself. It's too mean/cruel.
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Old 12-28-2016, 11:57 PM   #7372
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"What."

Through Volume 5 of School Rumble. Absolutely loving it for the most part. My tour illustrates how much more of an anime guy I am to a manga guy, how much I wish I was watching the show right now over reading the manga. But the manga has good points to it too, like how much more quickly you can read it over watching the show, or how much easier it is to sort of "rewind" or "fast forward" out of nowhere over how abrupt and noticeable it is to do so when watching video.

I'm on the eve of the athletic competition. At this point in the story, Eri crushing on Harima is essentially canon. She hasn't realized it yet though -- that will come with the end of the event! :3 A lot of the ammunition that sets up for Yakumo crushing on Harima has been introduced as well. I love these two both so much, and it is really vexing that only one of them can win. I haven't had to deal with this frustration since Sakurasou: in both stories, the author successfully sells you on two ships that conflict with one another.

Eri's my girl though. She steals every single scene she's in. And every scene she shares with Harima is just magic.
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Old 12-30-2016, 10:05 AM   #7373
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Classicaloid

I'm up to Episode 2 of this. It's fine. I don't hate it, nor do I love it, nor am I ambivalent. The main girl is cute even if she's something of a prick, and her physical attractiveness numbs the viewer toward her negatives. The classicaloids are fun freeloaders.

True classical music fans would probably find this an abomination. It takes the motifs of several classical pieces and blends it with synth and J-Pop. Only if you're partial to J-Pop to begin with would you find this cool. This is no G-Senjou no Maou.

Also, I find it hilarious that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has been reincarnated as a blue-eyed, pink-haired waifish schoolboy.

He also sports a ponytail, so you know that turns on his best bud Kyon (aka Ludovico "Technique" von Beethoven). Kyonthoven is as obsessed with gyoza as St. Bernardthoven was obsessed with turkey legs.

Did I mention main girl was cute? Cute girls really are a natural resource in Japan. Fudge Fukushima Dainichi I, the brightness in my heart from seeing cute girls could power a city block for 10,000 years!
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Old 12-31-2016, 08:15 PM   #7374
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I'm up to Episode 9 of Classicaloid!

This is a fairly inoffensive series. It makes me wonder why BBB picked this one to recommend, although I have a suspicion why - because I was pressuring him to make a swap, on the spot.

The main girl, Kanade, is indeed cute, but she's starting to grate on me. Once the honeymoon is over, this is how marriages break down, amidst relentless nagging.

There isn't really much of a plot and the characters have more or less regressed into caricatures. Well, "regress" might not be the right word...revealed themselves might fit better as a term.

Unfortunately I need to do training until midnight. But, I might be able to finish this bad boy off after that.
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Old 01-01-2017, 02:48 AM   #7375
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I didn't pick it. I answered "Try to think of a show, from 2015+, that you appreciated that you doubt others would either" without reading the "I'll give it a shot and IN EXCHANGE, I want you to watch Overlord".

I answered episode 1 of Classicaloid. I didn't even want to do the exchange. Honestly, I haven't even felt like watching anime lately. I have basically dropped all of last season's shows. I have several videogames that I want to play. Hell, I think I put down Classicaloid at around episode 8.

Despite that, to be true on the exchange pushed on me, I started:

Overlord
I'm two episodes into this. Despite being the whole "normal guy pushed into an MMO world", it has a really nice direction. Usually the guy just starts off as some jackass with some skill using his MMO skills to help himself in the world. In this, the guy is a leader of a large group, and is very powerful. The anime tries to make this show seem alot more edgy than it really is. The OP is just....ugh. This is pretty interesting so far. I'm hoping this won't take a direction where main guy acts on his appearance.
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