Anime?

[Zapper]

I've been watching Soul Eater NOT for the first time yesterday. I like the Soul Eater series and it only had 12 eps I could binge throughout the weekend so I figured "why not?"

Aside from perverted and p*do stuff concerning one of the characters (seriously, why are underage girls constantly sexualized in modern mainstream anime?!) it was a rather endearing storyline about three unlikely girls forming a friendship and developping platojic love for each other. There is not a lot of fighting and more school life coupled with a mystery plot.
The tone shifts all over the place but that was already the case in Soul Eater so I wasn't surprised. For anyone who wants to check it out, a bit of knowledge about the main series is needed but not a lot. Basically just look up who Maka and Soul are. The rest is explained.

Now onto the p*do stuff...

Spoiler

This was worse than in the main series for no reason at all. One of the protagonists is a 14 year old girl with really large breasts and she undresses while she sleepwalks. There is lots of pantyshots and she is put in skimpy outfits for the weirdest of reasons (school sports).
This serves no purpose at all and is just there for fanservice. Which also makes no sense since there are big-breasted characters in this series that are 18+ but the main focus is only on this 14 year old teen.

So if that angers you or makes you uncomfortable, that's my warning to you. Sadly nothing of that can be skipped as the fanservice is always interspliced with the story. I prefer crap like this to be condensed into one episode but pervs really make it difficult these days.

[Taffeta]

It's unfortunately so normalised in anime >< and possibly in areas of Japanese culture, but that's another subject for another thread probably not here.

I've seen the original Soul Eater, I know it deviates a lot from the manga but I looked up the manga and decided I liked the animation better. I'm only really in it for Franken Stein though...it's been a while but he was always the best character IMO. (Maka and Soul are fine and so are their crew but you know).

I've been rewatching Area no Kishi. It still has a mad premise and I still enjoy it. But its intro episodes do make Daiya look like a teddy bear's picnic in terms of trauma.

[Ponyfan]

I’ve been trying to get caught up on season 2 of fruits basket,I love that anime so much.

That’s one of my favorite series too.   I’m not very far in to Season 2 yet though.

I’m searching for another series to watch since I’ve finished Diamond no Ace (still need to watch the ovas though)

I’ve also gone back to Monthly Girls and Evol Love.

I will probably start Haikyuu or Free soon. 


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

Haikyuu and Free are less intense than Daiya

[Ponyfan]

Haikyuu and Free are less intense than Daiya

Furuya’s va also voices one of the main characters in Free? I wonder if I will hear Furyua in his Free character?

Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

Haikyuu and Free are less intense than Daiya

Furuya’s va also voices one of the main characters in Free? I wonder if I will hear Furyua in his Free character?

Ponyfan

Yeah, in Japanese, Haruka is voiced by Furuya's voice artist. Sometimes I hear Haru in Furuya, so I think you probably will
Although there is a dub for Free I think if you prefer it that way. I have a feeling it has all been dubbed on CR.

[Pokeyonekenobie]

Don't forget about RightStuf's annual sale!

[tikibirds]

I want to watch the sequel to Inuyasha but the net is so damn slow

[Zapper]

It's unfortunately so normalised in anime >< and possibly in areas of Japanese culture, but that's another subject for another thread probably not here.

I've seen the original Soul Eater, I know it deviates a lot from the manga but I looked up the manga and decided I liked the animation better. I'm only really in it for Franken Stein though...it's been a while but he was always the best character IMO. (Maka and Soul are fine and so are their crew but you know).

I've been rewatching Area no Kishi. It still has a mad premise and I still enjoy it. But its intro episodes do make Daiya look like a teddy bear's picnic in terms of trauma.

What baffled me was how the Soul Eater anime was not like that at all. It had pervy stuff happening but it was about grown adults and they didn't show the characters naked. It was always ~tastefully hidden. In NOT the perv stuff only happens to teen girls and we see their butts exposed for no reason (in the bath house). The style is also more moe. It's really lacking compared to SE.

[Taffeta]

It's always sad when a series descends into those areas to get people interested.

This is fortunately the anime thread so you don't have to hear my long rant about the lack of plot and increase in offensive fanservice scenes in the last arc of Bleach.

It's also sad when an otherwise perfectly good anime shows things like peeking on the girls as a rite of passage for young guys, or the idea that they can jump on a girl/coincidentally make contact with parts of her anatomy for 'humour'...

Not to mention the number of very unrealistic conversations about chest size that female anime characters seem to only have in series written by men...

...So yeah. It's definitely a problem.

And unfortunately a lot of real life high school girls in Japan experience negative behaviour, perhaps because it's so normalised in these kinds of tropes.

[Zapper]

It's always sad when a series descends into those areas to get people interested.

This is fortunately the anime thread so you don't have to hear my long rant about the lack of plot and increase in offensive fanservice scenes in the last arc of Bleach.

It's also sad when an otherwise perfectly good anime shows things like peeking on the girls as a rite of passage for young guys, or the idea that they can jump on a girl/coincidentally make contact with parts of her anatomy for 'humour'...

Not to mention the number of very unrealistic conversations about chest size that female anime characters seem to only have in series written by men...

...So yeah. It's definitely a problem.

And unfortunately a lot of real life high school girls in Japan experience negative behaviour, perhaps because it's so normalised in these kinds of tropes.

That is something that really annoys me. I loved watching Slayers as a teen and the main character (a 15-YO) constantly gets picked on for having tiny breasts, so when that happened to Maka in SE I frowned and made mental notes on how often it would happen. Luckily it disappeared a few eps into the show, just like the peeking on girls and the groping. It felt like the first few eps were stereotypical shounen/perv stuff to get new viewers into the show.
Later on only the designated fanservice character would have a bunch "haha, boobs" moments.

This stuff has some anime nerds warped. The ex of one of my friends was a Crunchyroll addict. As in "only hobby is watching each and every anime on Crunchyroll". He would even whine when he couldn't keep up his watch schedule.
This guy was also obsessed with Japanese women and convinced they were just like in anime. He went to Japan for half a year as an exchange student and didn't even like the food Turns out real Japan is not a cartoon, who would have thought?

[Ponyfan]

I didn’t like Fireworks. I’ve only watched it one time. One of the first scenes was

Spoiler

A bunch of high school boys staring at their female teacher’s chest and making comments about it.  In the next scene a boy starts annoying his teacher in front of the whole class, asking  her if she has a boyfriend and making fun of her chest size.

Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

It's also an issue I have with Area no Kishi. It's so counterintuitive. I mean...

Spoiler

It's a sports anime about a boy's football/soccer team but it has a subplot of the Japanese women's national team and the main female character (s?) playing in it and all the respect that gets.

And then at the same time when they have their 'camp', a bunch of the guys have this whole rite of passage snooping trek (which only a couple of characters object to). And one of the main male characters is constantly not only flirting with the main female character but trying to grab her and jump on her. Which is usually followed by him being assaulted but that's not the point. It's really not.

And then the coach of the Nadeshiko team changes and the guy in charge is basically just a pervert who talks down to all the girls and flirts with them and is generally the kind of guy you wouldn't want to work for or with, period. It's about as far from humour as you can get.

I like this series, even though it has some impossible elements in it, and is brutal in its concept. Just those hackneyed and unamusing tropes kind of trivialise the whole big deal aspect of the narrative, which is asking all kinds of questions

Spoiler

concerning organ transplantation, loss, adjustment, life and death

which are not remotely related to girls' underwear.

[Ponyfan]

I think there is also another scene in Fireworks

Spoiler

Where the same group of boys are taking bets and the winner gets to keep a picture one of the boys took of their female teacher with her underwear exposed.

@Taffeta

You've fully corrupted me to subbed anime.   I started to watch Free on Crunchyroll and it pulled up the dubbed version automatically.  When they started speaking in English I realized that was not the Japanese version I was wanting. 


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

I think there is also another scene in Fireworks

Spoiler

Where the same group of boys are taking bets and the winner gets to keep a picture one of the boys took of their female teacher with her underwear exposed.

@Taffeta

You've fully corrupted me to subbed anime.   I started to watch Free on Crunchyroll and it pulled up the dubbed version automatically.  When they started speaking in English I realized that was not the Japanese version I was wanting. 


Ponyfan

Another one bites the dust...

(But if you want to compare Haru to Furuya you kind of have to...xD)