Y’all should check out Anime Feminist
They have reviews for every show each season and they do occaisional podcast check ins. They just did their Winter wrap up. They break up the shows into Feminist Friendly, Harmless Fun, Problematic Fave, and Don’t Touch It. The reviews are really good and they occaisionally have some good articles along with weekly wrapups of anime related news from feminist sources. They recently linked out to an article about a project documenting the lives of biracial people in Japan.
I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this here, but I feel like it’s worth linking to since we have some people just getting into anime.
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It’s very powerful, in a way I wasn’t really prepared for. I think it’s the only shounen thingy I’ve seen, but I can imagine few compare. I mean, I cry at a lot of things, but I for sure cried a lot to Hunter x Hunter too, lol. The fucking power of friendship, I tell you.
Not to mention that it ran for that long and still looked so good all the way through. We are blessed to have it.
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I’ve always assumed it was a generic Naruto-esque shonen anime. Is it really that good? How much “anime bullshit” does it fall into (fanservice/sexism/etc)
To my knowledge, very little of it runs into the usual problems of shounen series. Most of the big players by the end are women, and the themes directly interrogate the macho assumptions of shounen anime while lauding the value of human compassion.
The first couple of seasons are pretty standard (very highly produced) shounen, but season 3 and onward are where the tone and overall gravitas become much heavier.
Outside of that one instance of crummy localization, I can’t really attach any caveats to my recommendation of the show. It’s stunningly good.
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Yeah Hunter X Hunter is really something special. The Chimera Ant arc is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in an anime, it is truly an incredible piece of storytelling.
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@TheCastleBuilder made this post a little while back and that’s what got me hooked on the Anime Feminist site! Love their write-ups and podcasts. The Kill la Kill watchalong was so cathartic!
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Since we’re here talking about Hunter x Hunter, I’d thought I’d share this tweet.
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Finished Run With the Wind! First of all, enjoyed it quite a bit, thanks for the reccomend, everyone.
For those not familiar, it’s an anime that is almost a subgenre and now that I think about it probably is one, that is, one that weaves a story around a specific subculture/sport/vocation/etc, in this case Running.
9 college students are persuaded to form a running team by a very charasmatic man (Haiji) who wants to enter the Hakone Eiden relay marathon (right away you get the idea of what a big deal this is in the running world).
Anyway it’s a very emotionally involved show that isn’t afraid to look at the idiosyncrasies of the racing world.
Even by the end I was scratching my chin at the idea that the very charismatic Haiji manipulated these other 9 men, who all are vulnerable and looking for something to fill a hole in their lives, in order to achieve his goal. But…it IS a positive experience for all of them.
Also there is no romance in this anime (who has time with all the running!) but a deep undercurrent between Haiji and Kakeru the entire series, to the point of Kakeru saying “I love…” and then trailing off at the end and you know you are supposed to think “he loves racing” BUT he totally loves Haiji I mean common.
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Hi friends. So I tried a while back to jump into some anime sort of unsuccessfully–I watched about 15 episodes of Death Note but my interest dwindled after the main character made himself forget that he was the killer and went to work with L–but the recent OME episode has me wanting to try again.
I’m definitely going to check out Death Parade. The serial nature of the show and the short run make it really appealing to me. Can anyone else suggest similarly short (or somewhat serialized) shows to check out for a newcomer? I do really dig the stuff that is more mystery/thriller and supernatural-oriented if that helps.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
Promised Neverland is a much longer series, but it’s very similar in tone and tense pacing. The recent anime adaptation has a stellar amount of production put into it.
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Looks intriguing! I only see 12 episodes on Hulu, which I’m definitely down for. Are there more somewhere else?
Toonami is airing the dub as of now. Only one episode shown so far.
I’d also toss out Sakurako’s Investigation, an episodic mystery series on Crunchyroll about an eccentric taxidermist lady who solves crimes. It’s notable because the production values are ridiculously high at times, and it has kind of a weird quiet and relaxed atmosphere to it.
If Death Note is your kick, I’d also say jump on JoJo part two. It’s not a mystery series by any means, but it has a similar structure where clever people constantly try and outsmart each other. Part two is where this gets cemented as a core feature of battles in the franchise, then it gets really central to part three with the introduction of stands. The first Egypt fight with a long range water stand is a great example of how much of these battles are based around figuring out information. Part four gets absolutely wacky at times, including an episode where Jouske has to outrun a nutrient sucking stand on a motorcycle while both figuring out where the stand user is hidden and how to get to him, all while slowing down means certain death. The entire episode creates really tense situations out of how to get gas without stopping, figuring out ways to buy time, and even avoiding hitting innocent people through one amazing sequence that shows just how versitile a stand with healing and fixing abilities really is.
Honestly most SJ manga from Death Note’s era took heavily from how JoJo fights were structured. Death Note simply applies this to loophole abuse and social manipulation instead of figuring out superpower functions.
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I believe they just wrapped on the first season.
One thing to note for newer anime fans who are used to the broadcast format of the 2000s era: the industry has more openly adopted the western season format, rather than the traditional “we’ve gotta have something on every single week, hell or high water”.
It does mean longer gaps for series (My Hero Academia fans are chomping at the bit due to there being nearly a year between seasons), but the production quality is considerably higher and you get far less filler or aggravatingly dragged-out pacing like One Piece’s anime.
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Yeah, a big thing for me is that I just can’t do the 100 episode (or really even, like, 40 episode) runs, especially with a kid on the way. I’ve heard great things about Fullmetal Alchemist, for instance, but then I look at the episode list and I’m like…ehhhhh.
Mushi-shi is, like, twenty or twenty-two episodes, about a kind of wise man who wanders from village to village helping to investigate mysteries involving spirit beings known as “mushi”. I strongly recommend it.
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This looks great, thanks!
So do people think I should push through on Death Note since I’m already halfway through? Do Big, Exciting Things occur in the end that are worth getting to?
I have a lot of fondness for that show because I liked it in high school when it was first airing, but I don’t know that I think it holds up.
The pacing gets extremely bad in the second season/half, and I thought that even when I liked the show.
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Not quite asking about what animes to watch but where do you go for anime reviews/crit? It is great to ask questions in this thread but anime is weird and can get fans that ummm…that don’t share the same values as me? Not sure where to go for the straight forward stuff.
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I’ve been reading Random Curiosity for a while https://randomc.net
a blog collective with different impressions of currently airing anime
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Doesn’t exist. Nobody is willing to pay for it except websites like ANN and Crunchyroll, and ANN has had a huge issue with its libertarian moron CEO who lets nazis basically do whatever they want on his forums as long as they only use more obscure versions of swears, while Crunchyroll only puts up positive content because they’re trying to advertise their shows.
I can at least suggest Nick Creamer’s blog, but that’s honestly all I know. Even Youtube is lacking in good anime criticism. The best I’ve seen is Eyepatch Wolf, and that’s not particularly great (he almost always focuses on popular works and rarely ever goes beyond positives, his talents are better used diving into stuff like why wrestling or techniques and styles of famous creators).
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