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So, of all things, I found an old Quinton Reviews video that got me thinking.

Yeah, I know, a lolcow got me thinking, but seriously, give me a moment.

There was a spergfest awhile back where we went on about how anime used to be better and if I recall correctly most of that discussion focused on the artwork and visuals. Which yeah, is a part of it.... but that video (and more importantly, its comment section) brought up another point I found myself resonating with: That characters in the original Macross behaved like real people, whereas in later shows they behave like "types" or otherwise have a very "doing it because the script says so" feel.

(At least, that's what the comment section says/implies).

While I can't say whether this is true for the Macross sequels personally, I have felt it in other anime and franchises.

For example, Yu-Gi-Oh. One reason I was able to actually sit through the Toei Season and the first Duel Monsters (what I call "the Yugi and Joey era") is because for how silly the card game concept gets, its always grounded because the storylines are based in very human concerns that are easy to relate to and understand. Joey wants to find a sense of self worth and feels being good at a card game is the path to that. Yami wants to remember who he really is. It just so happens events have conspired that the vehicle towards their goals is being really good at a children's card game.... a card game which ironically wasn't even that important when the story began and whose relevance all but disappears during the final story arc.

Of the sequels, the closest to recapturing this was Card Games on Motorcycles (aka 5Ds)... and by episode twenty its pissed away that potential because by that point, the whole thing about Yusei wanting to get his friends out of the slums and also get back at Jack Atlas has been sidelined by the whole thing about everyone having magic tattoos. And he was like, the only character who had a real motive for anything... everyone else seems like they exist just to round out the cast. Like do we ever learn anything about the girl with the Rose Thorn Dragon? Or those two twins? I remember that one thief boy (I wanna say his name is Crow) is introduced just.... happening to be on a street where Yusei wanders and just wants to duel him.

(While I'm sperging... Jack Atlas himself makes no sense to me. The big thing is that he fucked over Yusei and co. in the past... but then in episode four he's nice and noble enough that he willingly returns the Stardust Dragon without a fight and allows Yusei to challenge him right then and there. Past that, he never again does anything dickish and seems to be instantly forgiven. Compare Kaiba in the original show and how despite arguably getting redeemed, it was clear there was always gonna be a subtle wall between him and everyone not named Mokuba).

..... and getting outside of franchises, I've said before that one of my favorite anime of all time is Ranma 1/2. And its a show that gets better as I experience more anime and realize how basically, a lot of other anime feel like they're just copying Ranma's homework.

Since this post is going kinda long, I'll use just one example: Every anime has that girl who will accuse people of being a pervert and then punch them into the sky. But Ranma is the only show I've seen that gives this an actual context--Akane Tendo legit faced years of what could be called harassment, so its no surprise she has a short fuse and an immediate distrust of all boys.

Any other anime that has a character like this usually fails to give it any sort of in-show context, making it read one of two ways: Either 1) the author has issues with women or (more likely) 2) it was just an anime trope they saw a lot growing up and they're just copying it without really understanding or thinking about it.

Moreover, Akane's behavior ends up having consequences, rather than being just a straight-up gag. That gives it a groundedness that, say, something like Love Hina lacks.
 
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skykiii said:
Of the sequels, the closest to recapturing this was Card Games on Motorcycles (aka 5Ds)... and by episode twenty its pissed away that potential because by that point, the whole thing about Yusei wanting to get his friends out of the slums and also get back at Jack Atlas has been sidelined by the whole thing about everyone having magic tattoos. And he was like, the only character who had a real motive for anything... everyone else seems like they exist just to round out the cast. Like do we ever learn anything about the girl with the Rose Thorn Dragon? Or those two twins? I remember that one thief boy (I wanna say his name is Crow) is introduced just.... happening to be on a street where Yusei wanders and just wants to duel him.
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Did you actually finish the show, or even the first arc? Because those magic tattoos are exactly why those slums are there to begin with. That's why Godwin lets Yusei get away with so much.

Of course there are problems with 5Ds like how Crow gets shoehorned into the main cast to the point we should have had more episodes with the twins or literally anyone but him. Or how the plot with Aki and the cult she was in got resolved way too quickly (the cult leader, Divine, was a great villain so I expected him to come back at any time, but...) so didn't do much for the rest of the show. I wonder if they had to leave it at that because it was considered too dark for the time slot? And then the plot in the second half felt like a rejected mecha anime/Super Robot Wars plot the writer shopped around for until he managed to get it reworked into a Yugioh script (wouldn't say it's bad though, and tied in nicely to the first half).
skykiii said:
(While I'm sperging... Jack Atlas himself makes no sense to me. The big thing is that he fucked over Yusei and co. in the past... but then in episode four he's nice and noble enough that he willingly returns the Stardust Dragon without a fight and allows Yusei to challenge him right then and there. Past that, he never again does anything dickish and seems to be instantly forgiven. Compare Kaiba in the original show and how despite arguably getting redeemed, it was clear there was always gonna be a subtle wall between him and everyone not named Mokuba).
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He's a dick for the first few dozen episodes until he gets his character development and even then he's still a very arrogant person.
 
Save the Loli said:
Did you actually finish the show, or even the first arc? Because those magic tattoos are exactly why those slums are there to begin with. That's why Godwin lets Yusei get away with so much.
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I got to the end of the tournament and a little bit past that and like.... just stopped caring.

Main thing I remember about Jack Atlas--besides him being oddly nice for being the Kaiba stand-in--was that an early episode tried hard to imply he was gonna end up with some girl who wore Dr. Insano glasses. Which I kinda thought Carly was adorbs, but it was also an example of the show's weird pacing and just seeming in a hurry to introduce everything...

(Ironically--considering this tangent was started by a video about Robotech--is something I dislike about Robotech's sequel attempts as well. They always try to introduce stuff like the love triangles immediately. Then you go back to the original show and see what a gradual buildup it all was and its just way more immersive).

(Going back to that, I also can't help thinking that if Robotech/Macross were made today, Rick would've ended up with Minmei instead of Lisa, because modern anime writers seem to only see male protagonists as stand-in-for-the-audience and not people in their own right, and most of the audience would obviously prefer the cute youngish one if modern anime is anything to go by. Is there an anime made in the last five years where the more mature girl winds up being the canon relationship?)
 
It looks like the WataMote (No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular) manga will be taking a health hiatus as the artist half of Nico Tanigawa has a suspected hernia in her neck or back, possibly a cervical herniated disc.

This is, of course, just as they were finally, finally getting to the autumn school festival after a year and a half of chapters where Tomoko Kuroki was filming a movie with her friends for the festival (with a lot of narrative detours along the way like the whole "Minami Redemption Arc").
 
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The Fair Lady said:
I'm also watching Stampede despite my initial negative impression and don't actually hate it. It seems to have a very mixed reception in general.
Having just reread the manga, it's evident that they're trying to borrow some of its darker elements and push them even further for max angst appeal. Vash is definitely more incompetent and I guess that could be intentional if they're trying to sell him as pitifully as possible in this adaptation. Monev being the kid was a bizarre choice and the way Wolfwood killed him was basically a lazy rehash of Zazie's death in the OG anime. If they include the whole hair darkening thing from Maximum, then the series is only going to get even more grimdark and I'm not sure how I feel about that. As I addressed before, I don't hate Stampede and am trying to respect that it's just a different adaptation, but it really does look like it's going down the darker and edgier route.
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I think what annoys me about Stampede is not only doesn't wanna roll up that angst to 11, but there's never any simple moment. Seriously, every scene it's just one gunfight after another, by the time we reach the episode with Livio, you're just so damn bored because you never have characters just talk or us learning more about them, it's just nonstop action. It feels like Studio Orange just wants to flex their animation skills.
 
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The tired cat said:
I think what annoys me about Stampede is not only doesn't wanna roll up that angst to 11, but there's never any simple moment. Seriously, every scene it's just one gunfight after another, by the time we reach the episode with Livio, you're just so damn bored because you never have characters just talk or us learning more about them, it's just nonstop action. It feels like Studio Orange just wants to flex their animation skills.
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So what you're saying is its like a stampede?
 
Considering new Trigun is like 12 episodes only, I'm not surprising they butcher original story and characterization a lot.
About the whole for zoomer audience and Marvel shit, I'm not sure the whole adding sad and trauma backstory for villains thingy is either from typical shounen stuffs or current days Maleficient, Cruella de Vil, Harley Quinn, Killmonger, Loki. But you know it's not like people watching this show because of Vash or anything, riiigggghhhhtt????
This probably also make Meryl and old man Robert has zero personality and serves as a more "taxi driver" or audience surrogate.
New Vash is pretty pathetic overall, it's hard to feel for him, doesn't really matter they try to portray him more compassionate and nicer comparing to his more violence and destructive twin. Siblings personality trope.

Also, I haven't seen anyone talking about how Nightow's work are not really fully faithful adapt, there will be some changes in anime and his manga. Same with Kekkai sensen/Blood blockage battlefront and now this he just let anime studio does whatever they like.
 
I almost read the original Trigun manga, but I recall it had a confusing re-release that had a different title... I forget exactly what that title was... but I could never tell if if was a re-release of the manga, some sort of director's cut, or a sequel.

Something similar happened when Death Note got its "Black Edition" manga. Like, what's the difference compared to just the regular manga?
 
There's the Trigun manga, which is relatively faithfully adapted by the original anime. I think it had six volumes. Not 100% sure on that because I bought the omnibus versions which I believe were three volumes each. That leads into Trigun Maximum. The first few volumes of that might be adapted by the anime, I forget exactly where the deviation occurs, but there is a massive deviation as the anime goes on like tended to happen fairly often back then.

I'm not the biggest fan of Maximum. Trigun was pretty well done and easy to read but I just couldn't keep up with what was going on when it came to Maximum. I'm not sure if that comes down to the translation, the art, or a mix of the two. A couple of years ago I saw one of the translators talking about how they had a lot of trouble with it as well. I never did end up finishing it.

I'm not sure if there was a re-release or anything. At the end of the Trigun omnibus volumes it said that eventually there would be Trigun Maximum omnibus releases so you wouldn't need to buy them again if you were buying the individual volumes as they released. I never did see Maximum omnibus volumes so I'm not sure if those ever actually happened
 
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sasazuka said:
It looks like the WataMote (No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular) manga will be taking a health hiatus as the artist half of Nico Tanigawa has a suspected hernia in her neck or back, possibly a cervical herniated disc.

This is, of course, just as they were finally, finally getting to the autumn school festival after a year and a half of chapters where Tomoko Kuroki was filming a movie with her friends for the festival (with a lot of narrative detours along the way like the whole "Minami Redemption Arc").
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WataMote is one of my favorite series where there were days I had to be on and off from it, since it was both funny and overwhelming at the same time while trying to portray the idea of social anxiety in the characters.

Either way, I hope the artist half gets better soon. Hernias in any part can hurt pretty badly, and if lucky, it could just be a mild inconvenience. If untreated, it could be the equivalent of a pancreas getting ready to burst.
 
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skykiii said:
Is there an anime made in the last five years where the more mature girl winds up being the canon relationship?
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Not sure if it's quite what you meant but there was one in 2018 called Wotakoi about two couples who are all mutual friends, work in the same office, and all still involved in cosplay/anime culture. The show portrays them working to juggle their relationships, their adult responsibilities, and their eccentric hobbies.
 
Gravityqueen4life said:

damn, had no idea this guy got so much hate. i knew "the day i became a god" was far from his best works but to get send death threads over it? people are savage!
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Dude didn't fight hard enough to keep Angel Beats! two-cour, and Charlotte was fucking shit that also needed to be 26 episodes. I still haven't seen The Day I Became a God, but I do not doubt he's better off just writing for visual novels and not anime. But it also revealed him as a hack, so fuck him.

(And I love CLANNAD btw.)
 
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