Ahh… that was probably my favorite episode yet. Eveeything came together so well.

And I’m still laughing at the opening gag.

VHS

That was a lot of the thing. There was such a limited number of anime released on VHS that all of us that were fans then tended to have seen the same things, so conversations naturally went to Akira and Vampire Hunter D and Bubblegum Crisis and Ninja Scroll and Hellsing and so on.

And as you note, another part of that was just seeing parts of series. Like I had a tape with the first four episodes of Trigun, so for years, that was all I knew of it. (Imagine the impact when I finally saw the rest - it’s mood whiplash enough when you watch it straight through).

Toonami opened things up and exposed a lot more people and provided a dependable way to watch a series all the way through, but it was still a relatively limited set of shows - Gundam Wing and Cowboy Bebop and Tenchi Muyo and so on.

And yeah - it’s a whole different world now. Now there are so many choices available any time that the biggest issue I face is option paralysis.

And on the topic of the VHS era of anime - a video I’ve always liked - a barrage of anime from that era, set to music: SR-71 - Let It Whip

It was a lot harder to watch anime back then

Why I’ll always have a soft spot for Gundam Wing and Tenchi Muyo and Vampire Hunter D snd Ninja Scroll and Trigun and Cowboy Bebop and…

Thanks for the heads up - I’ll check that out.

I watch older anime almost exclusively, but with manga, I’m following so many new series and adding new ones all the time that I generally don’t have the time and energy to read older ones. But I keep adding them to my TBR anyway…

I haven’t gotten to the third OP yet. I just started watching the second season the other day, and haven’t been able to give it my full attention yet, so have only seen four episodes. And yes - the OP is awful.

I delved way back into the past last week and watched Magic Knight Rayearth and thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure it’s a bit dated and silly in places, but it’s engaging and good looking and the story turns out to be quite a bit more than it initially seems.

And the OP is epic.

Pretty good all in all - seems to be mostly setting up the next episode.

Funny that when the conversation went from just a generic risk that Kanata was in danger to BL in particular, Akane panicked.

Currently binging Deca-Dence and thoroughly enjoying it. The basic set-up is fascinating, the world-building is very well done, and the two main characters have great chemistry, and both get satisfying character arcs.

At this point, I’m not surprised.

It actually struck me later that I was probably wrong - that, this series being what it is, the defied expectation was a sort of meta-joke and I was just too dumb to catch it. So… yeah.

I like your undies?

Somehow I don’t think that was the original joke…

It’s strange to wait so eagerly for a 3 1/2 minute episode that’s over so quick, but it’s worth it anyway.

I’m wondering if there’s something to Kurt wondering just who exactly Makina is.

The battle “remix” of Haijo-kun’s music was brilliant - that’s the kind of touch that makes me eager to see what Yohei Kameyama could do with a bigger budget and more run-time.

Chiharu’s thank you was perfect.

And Makina’s last line made me laugh out loud.

Now I have to wait a week for another 3 1/2 minutes…

Ahhh… Suzu finally got the focus I’ve been waiting for in the post-credits flashback. And Atori’s sadism is coming into focus too. And we got to meet the silver haired girl from the credits - I think that’s the entire cast now (though we didn’t get any Ru-chan this week).

Not bad all in all - it’s still not meeting its potential, but it’s closer.

And this stubbornly continues not quite living up to its potential.

It almost worked - Kitoraka is an intriguing addition to the cast, and like Ru-chan, she’s blithely confident that she can win Yuu’s affection, unaware that Yuu is exclusively Atorisexual. She’s also pretty sharp, like Suzu, so she figures out some of the nuances that the others don’t get, even regarding Atori.

But it’s still somehow not gelling - the characters aren’t meshing. There isn’t that comfortable breeziness you get in the best ensembles, like YuruYuri or Gabriel Dropout or K-On, when every character plays a part in the greater whole.

It’s not bad - it’s just not particularly good either, and the clock is ticking.

This still might come together. It feels like it has a fair amount of potential, but it just hasn’t quite found its groove yet.

Atori is slowly revealing herself to not just be a troll, but a bit of a sadist, which is keeping pace with Yuu’s growing masochism.

Ru’s entertaining in and of herself, but she hasn’t quite slotted into the ensemble yet.

Suzu needs some more character development. She’s the most aware of the lot of them, and there were hints early on that she has a long-time crush on Yuu, but that’s been about it.

Still giving it a chance…

Mmm… Relena Peacecraft was my first anime crush.

I’m still withholding judgment on this one. It hasn’t fully grabbed me yet, but it’s still promising.

Senpai is a surprisingly and amusingly determined troll, and Yuu is such a perfect target for her (reminiscent of Raphael and Satania in Gabriel Dropout). The dynamic between senpai and Suzu is interesting too, since they each seem to fully understand the other, while Yuu understands pretty much nothing about either one of them.

Yuu getting bullied by kindergartners was especially amusing.

Looking foward to getting to know Rura next episode - she might be the missing piece that’ll make this four girl ensemble complete.

And if nothing else, I do quite like the ED. - BAD SURPRISE

Huh. You might well be onto something there.

It seemed watching it almost as if they weren’t even trying to do any comic timing - instead, most of the dialogue was at the same slow, trudging pace. And that especially stood out to me because it’s clearly conveyed in the manga that one of the characters is sort of manic and talks much faster than the other one. And yeah - overall it just felt slow to me.

And I’m fairly sure there was less dialogue overall - that the monologues from the manga were shortened. Which would also fit in with low budget and dumb corner-cutting.

You’re right about the volume vs. time thing.

I still have a bunch that I already knoware good on my TBW (Violet Evergarden, Mushishi, Ping Pong: The Animation and Oshi no Ko just off the top of my head) and I have no doubt that there are that many more that I don’t know about and just haven’t stumbled across yet.

Still though, it surprises me every time I wander into something like Vivy not knowing what to expect, and come away that impressed.

I’m glad to hear that. I’d love for it to succeed, and I already love the manga, so my opinion of the adaptation is sort of irrelevant anyway.

Darn… that was disappointing.

I love the manga — it’s easily in my all-time top 10, and probably even top 5. And this adaptation just didn’t do it justice at all.

It’s obviously low budget, but that could’ve been okay, since there’s no action to speak of. The weirdest and most disappointing thing is that the manga actually has better comedic timing, and that seems like it shouldn’t even be possible.

The manga has to essentially imply the timing by using beat panels and gimmicks with the panel layout and such, and it consistently nails it - that’s one of the rhings I love about it. But I expected that, even as good as it is in the manga, it couldn’t help but be even better in an anime, since they can actually control the time between lines and get it exactly right.

And somehow they mostly failed. I don’t even know how they managed it, but the timing was awful, so a lot of the jokes fell flat.

I’ll keep watching it, if for no other reason than that they haven’t done any of my favorites yet (Wada at the crane game, Yamamoto’s story about the boob squeeze, Wada’s doppelganger, the reason they both sit on the same side of the table, Wada’s monologue about fighting off wildlife…) But I’m not very hopeful.

Oh well…