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2024, Week 40

Anime General Discussion Thread (And Meta Update) [2024, Week 40]

Previous Thread

Fall is here! A couple shows have already aired their first episodes and most of the rest are starting this week. I hope that everybody finds something fun to watch this season! In case you wanted to browse the airing shows, here is a list:

As always, remember to be mindful of spoilers. If you want to know more about how to handle spoilers in this community, check the guide here (also linked in the sidebar).

Meta Update

It's been a while since I last made a meta post, so I guess we are due. With the start of the Fall 2024 season, I was reminded that it was during the Fall 2023 season that I created this account and began posting to this community. So, it seems like an appropriate time to reflect and take stock of where things are.

Overall, I have been very pleased with the continued growth of the community. I remember starting out where it felt like it was just me and a couple others posting things that nobody else saw; yelling out into an empty void. So, it is always exciting to me when people are making posts and having conversations in the comments in which I was not involved at all. We have grown to be the most subscribed-to community on ani.social with far and away the most comments/discussion. Keep it up everybody!

An important part of this community, our resident bot @[email protected], has also been seen in a generally positive light (or at least I haven't gotten complaints). The very beginning of a season is always a little weird with the bot because the api it uses is being edited a lot as things like broadcast schedules or streaming links get sorted out in the first 1-2 weeks. So, please bear with her as she gets herself sorted out this season as well.

Something else I wanted to mention was the success of having some shows run their own discussion threads in a separate community. The first of these was [email protected] running their own discussion threads, followed by [email protected]. Thank you to both @[email protected] and @[email protected] for your contributions! Also, for those unaware, episode discussion threads for the upcoming Dan Da Dan are going to be run in [email protected] by @[email protected] this coming season. I hope you all check them out!

Finally, a hearty thank you to all of you users for the content you have and will hopefully continue to contribute to this community. I consider this community as one of the more successful and sustainable examples of community building in the fediverse. Here's hoping that I can write an update like this one come Fall 2025.

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8 comments

  • Hey so um wanted to post this somewhere and figure maybe I would put it is this general thread. I use crunchyroll as a dirty casual free user and well anyway there is this "commercial" that is an over 3min long gangsta style rap video with swearing and killing talk and such. On non adult content. Anyone else seeing this??? Did crunchroll do that or were they hacked. Its crazy. Also its an incredibly aweful one in terms of sing mary had a little lamb to the beat.

  • Hi newcomers! Welcome!! You might see me around in most/all of the discussion threads for a week or two because I'm the sort of unhinged person who watches everything to start off (it gets trimmed down FAST, lol). Since it seemed to work last time, I'm going to continue to not have rikka make posts for stuff I don't plan on continuing to watch, and instead review them in these threads.

    Even with my hectic summer, I managed to finish my shows before fall started, yay! Here's my thoughts:

    Alya Hides Her Feelings - 6/10

    What could have been a strong romance anime sort of devolved into one part harem comedy (why??) and one part student council drama (and no parts romance). I really just wanted them to have an almost kiss or some sort of progress, seriously. The student council stuff was sort of interesting, but it kind of overwhelmed the back half of the season. I guess if/when it gets a season 2 I'll see how I feel at the time. The two mains are really cute together, but I can't stand a romance in a holding pattern.

    Shoshimin - 10/10

    Absolutely incredible, start to finish. The character writing was amazing, the dumb little mysteries were a delight (the charlotte episode was a standout for me), and the big plotline at the end both felt like a culmination and delivered on the excellent mystery writing the series had built up so far, but on a larger scale. The leads parting ways could have ruined the season, but instead it felt natural and I'm excited to see what happens next. While I wait, I might have to finally go check out Hyouka.

    Twilight Out of Focus - 7/10

    A cute little anime with big ambitions, but falls a little short. I think it's cool that it tries to be so cinematic when the story revolves around the film club. The problem is that it's just so cheesy all of the time, lol. I enjoyed watching it (except the third couple, who I hate together), but I don't know that I could really recommend it. It's at least nice to have more gay anime that's not full of consent issues, though.

    Yatagarasu - 9/10

    How were more people not watching this one?? This was a fantastic show, with some shocking and (mostly) earned twists, that delivers a story better than its source material could. It nails both the little character moments and the broader mysteries, and hints toward future plotlines I'm very sad we may never see in anime form, if this is as unpopular as it looks. Seriously, go watch it if you like imperial court dramas.

    Bonus: Odd Taxi - 6/10

    My friends and I watched this together (one of us had seen it before and insisted), and after hearing many, many recommendations for it, I sort of expected to be more wowed by it. IDK, I wasn't ever really attached to any of the characters and it felt like the mysteries weren't really built up in a way where you'd have that satisfying "oh, if I'd paid more attention I could have figured that out!" moment. The most invested I ever got was the few episodes where I thought Kakihana was about to be killed, but they deprived me of even that small joy, lol. I also felt like some of the twists at the end - Odokawa's brain damage in particular - ultimately didn't really matter to the story and felt like a twist for twist's sake. But I think a biggest problems I had are that I'm both a slow reader and a hater of manzai-style comedy, so to me the dialogue was hard to follow and dull - I found out too late that the anime actually has a dub, which I think would have solved one of those problems, but I'm not sure if it would have fully fixed the show for me. I know a lot of people really like this show, and I'm glad y'all have something you really enjoy, but ultimately I don't think it's as good as people build it up to be.

    My friends and I are still working through their three picks for this season (otokonoko, dahlia, and elusive samurai) because we run a couple weeks late, but i expect high scores on two of those (sorry dahlia, lol) when we finally finish them.

  • Completed / caught up to two shows that entered my top favorites:

    Lycoris Recoil

    Take the reflexes of Spiderman, the moral compass of Batman / Kira Yamato and the pistol-handling skills of John Wick, put them in a cute, happy-go-lucky girl in a setting similar to Minority Report, and you'd get Chisato.

    She embodied so many of my favorite characters for the right reason, making me come to like her right away.

    Beyond the MC, I found many more resemblances to my other favorites.

    Majima is pretty much a one-man Celestial Being, though he played the antagonist here. I can see him joining force with Chisato in a sequel.

    The politics, as well as the manipulation of children into fighting / murdering others by adults is just like most Gundam series.

    In fact, it passed a number of my lax criteria for being a Gundam show, so I'm just going to consider it one. (As of current writing, it is top six on AniList's anime recommendation after watching Gundam: Witch from Mercury

    I hope it gets a sequel. The anime left multiple plotlines unresolved (intentionally, it seems): Majima survived, the authorities are still in charge and LilyBell was set-up to be the next antagonist.

    Speaking of LilyBell, I'm glad they exist. Some shows would just handwave away the fact that the entire cast is girls (or in some cases, guys) when there is no good reason for it to be so.

    Anyway, it is a 10 / 10 for me.

    Oshi no Ko

    I've been putting off watching this one, because I know that I would get emotionally invested and binge the whole show. I finally decided to bite the bullet and lost some sleep along the way; totally worth it.

    As others pointed out, the first episode is essentially a movie and was so impactful - so much so that I caved in and gave it a 10 / 10 from the outset (which I rarely do).

    The story, the drama, the plot twists and characters are all so well-written. Between this and Kaguya-sama, Akasaka Aka is a genius. And being meta, we have the anime studio and the rest of the team to thank for bringing this story to life.

    I was no stranger to the opening and ending songs (Idol and Mephisto) of Oshi no Ko even before watching it, but watching it gave me the context to appreciate the lyrics. These two songs are now part of my playlists. I don't find season 2's songs as memorable though.

    Thanks to my binge, I'm all caught-up, in time to catch the last episode of this season with everyone else. It also meant that Makeine got dethroned as my top anime of the season at the last minute.

    My only regret is that I started watching it before the source material is complete, which means I'm unable to binge the manga to completion.

  • I don't have too much to write about this week that I didn't include in the meta post above. I have been absolutely slammed with work, but I managed to catch up on a bit of backlog and watch the finales for a couple shows:

    • Dahlia in Bloom - This show ended up pretty disappointing after it is all said and done. I think there is a good story here, but the anime was just executed really poorly and paced very slowly.
    • Quality Assurance in Another World - Blitzed through my backlog on this show and enjoyed it, but the ending was...different. Is it ok to end a season on a cliffhanger with questionable prospects for a season 2? In any case, Nikola is absolutely the highlight of the show for me.
    • Dungeon People - Had a great time with this show and sad to see it go. Nothing special, just good vibes all around.
    • Love is Indivisible By Twins - After the season finale, things are just as messy as they have always been. I think this show has figured out how to make a perpetual drama device.
    • My Deer Friend Nokotan - Overall, I enjoyed this show, though I understand why many found it disappointing. I think, to a large degree, it was a victim of its own making. The trailer, marketing campaign, and OP for this show were so well done that it set expectations that the bulk of the show just couldn't live up to. I think it is an example of when viral marketing can backfire because the main product doesn't live up to the hype cycle.
    • Oshi no Ko - Still one more episode to go for this, but episode 12 was another fantastic episode for this season. This show killed it this season.

    I am going to try to catch up on Spice and Wolf while I wait for Fall shows to kick off, though I am not sure how far I will be able to get due to time constraints.

    Just as a side meta comment, during this past week I haven't been able to be as responsive to comments/posts as I have in the past. I think it is a good sign that there is enough activity in this community as well as [email protected] that my inbox can look like this after just a couple days:

    46 messages

    Keep it up everybody and I apologize if you feel like I have ignored you. I just haven't had the time recently.

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