Really interesting perspective on this issue. Out of curiosity at one point, I got my hands on the porygon episode and the flashing is certainly jarring. It didn't really bother me, but my wife said it gave her a headache (just a minor one, not a migraine fortunately). I had no idea that there was so much that came out of that incident. Really neat!
Wow, that sent me down a rabbit hole of searching. I am old enough to have messed around with lots of VHS tapes in my day, but I was still too young to know what was going wrong with the picture. Reading how Macrovision screwed up the picture through desyncing the scanning explains why some of the "non-authentic" tapes I got never played right for me.
Premieres sometime in 2025. The new PV is here. Check out the Crunchyroll article for more info. Synopsis of the source manga from AniList:
The setting is a baseball stadium! It's not only the players and spectators who gather there, but also beer vendors, announcers, security guards, and cheerleaders… They come together, work, laugh, and create human drama every day. It is like a town in miniature. Now, why don't you come and become a "resident" at the ballpark!?
Premieres January 2025. The new PV is here. Check out the AC article for additional information. Synopsis of the source manga from AniList:
One fateful day, all of humanity was petrified by a blinding flash of light. After several millennia, high schooler Taiju awakens and finds himself lost in a world of statues. However, he’s not alone! His science-loving friend Senku’s been up and running for a few months and he's got a grand plan in mind—to kickstart civilization with the power of science!
Yes! It's the kind of thing that you could only notice on a rewatch.
I try to keep the clips I choose to under two minutes. Sometimes I go a little over (like this), and other times I am way under. The real limit I try to stick to is <100MB to make it not too unreasonable for people on less than stellar connections. I usually just skipped over the clips people posted to the anime subreddit that are 5+ minutes long.
I had similar criticisms of AoT season 1 and dropped it. I might have to find time to pick it back up again sometime in the future.
Hearing a lot of good things about Orb
Give it three episodes and see what you think. The first three episodes provide a nice little arc and set things up for the future. Next to Dan Da Dan, Orb has been my favorite of the season.
Things make so much more sense now. It all kind of lines up with where the shifts happened. Thanks for the explanation! Those old days where anime would blaze ahead of the source material were sure interesting sometimes.
I do think the animation for the Anaak/Ran fight was a step up from some earlier low points, but that is a pretty low bar to clear. I wholeheartedly agree about the rules of these games though. I have stopped trying to keep track of the rules for these things since that team-building game earlier in the season. The rules always end up getting changed, people exploit some loophole, or they are just ignored entirely.
The second half of the episode (post fight) felt like three episodes in one it moved so fast. They literally only showed one panning shot of Endorsi before she was sneaking around again. Like, what is the point of even showing that party if nothing happened there. Then we conveniently have a group of major characters literally run into each other. For elite warriors, they seem to be pretty clumsy.
As for Lero Ro, I was waiting for him to show back up at some point. At the end of last season, he had quit his role of administrator because he knew something wasn't right with how that last test went down. He took Quant with him and decided to climb the tower to try to find answers. As an aside, what does climbing the tower mean to somebody that is already a ranker? Anyway, after this season got underway and we learned more about FUG, I figured he was going to be investigating them behind the scenes since they are the ones that organized Bam's apparent death in season 1. So, I am pretty excited to see him return.
Premieres January 11, 2025. The new PV is here. Check out the Crunchyroll article for more info. Synopsis from AniList:
When Sakamoto meets Aoi, the convenience store clerk, it’s love at first sight — and just like that, he retires.
Sakamoto gets married, has a daughter, opens a mom-and-pop store in a quiet town, and completely transforms … into a plus-size man. To ensure a peaceful life with his beloved family, the legendary ex–hit man bands together with comrades to face off against the looming threat of assassins.
For research into this subject, Anime Herald was fortunate enough to interview...prolific anime writer and critic Borealis Capps
Haha, I feel like you posting this article is a bit of a humblebrag.
Thanks for sharing though. I think that Dumbbells was a really fun show and I would love to see newer, better takes on a series like it, since I feel some of the things discussed in this article are totally fair. The one in particular that you brought up is how much the girls don't want to be too muscular, but rather just slim. This is something that is a recurring joke with Darkness in Konosuba as well. I mean, her role is to absorb damage for the party, muscles are kind of a prerequisite. That hangup of Darkness's never really made much sense to me.
I think it is interesting to compare Dumbbells to a series like Plus-Sized Elf. They both are ecchi as well as try to be educational, but they take things in very different directions (and not just the body-types). I eventually dropped the manga, but as it went, Plus-Sized Elf seemed to lean more into ecchi and less into education, probably because none of the characters hardly even tried to put those lessons into practice. Also, when the anime adaptation released, it was even more ecchi than the manga was.
Weekly ranking roundup:
Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma and /u/Nooble5 for the Anime Trending chart.
Lots of karma drops on the reddit chart this past week. I am glad to see Orb still gaining karma. Hopefully that is a sign that more people are picking up the series and catching up. It also doesn't surprise me that Villainess in History gained karma this past week as the episode was a lot between the antics of the heroine and the prince.
Some quick thoughts on what I watched this past week:
Non-seasonals:
The last thing I wanted to write about this week is that there is a new community for sharing anime videos, !avid@ani.social, founded by @kiri@ani.social. There have been a couple videos posted already, so make sure to check them out and contribute if you have anything you want to share. I have added a link to the community in the sidebar of this community as well. In an effort to help out, I will be crossposting at least the next several clips that I make for this community over there as well.
No date yet. Check out the ANN article for additional information. Synopsis of the source manga from AniList:
Setting up a tent, starting a fire, and eating noodles with Mt. Fuji in view...Rin and Nadeshiko absolutely love to camp! Enjoy their zest for travel and maybe even pick up a tip or two about roughing it in the great outdoors. You might just want to go camping yourself!
Premieres April, 2025. The new PV is here. Check out the ANN article for additional information. Synopsis for the first season from AniList:
When the Monster Army invaded Earth thirteen years ago, the Divine Dragon Rangers rose up to stop them! With the war raging on, these great heroes are mankind’s last hope!
...or are they?
In truth, the invaders were subjugated within a year, forced to continue to crank out a monster a week for the Rangers to crush in front of their adoring fans! But one monster has had enough. Something has to change! He’ll rebel against the might of the Dragon Rangers and destroy them all...from the inside!
Premieres April, 2025. The new PV is here. Check out the ANN article for additional information. Synopsis from AniList:
Life hasn't been kind to Zenos. He was born in the slums, and his dirt-poor background has denied him almost every opportunity. After an encounter with a healer, he throws himself into studying to become one and finally catches a break when an adventurer invites Zenos into his party. Zenos is thrilled—so thrilled, in fact, that he's willing to put up with his teammates treating him like garbage. They fail to appreciate his talents and ultimately kick him to the curb, claiming he's outlived his usefulness to them.
Now bereft of money and out of options, Zenos decides to put his self-taught skills to use elsewhere and opens an underground clinic. Word quickly spreads about the brilliant healer working incredible magic in the city's shadowy underbelly. Even the royal palace is taking notice...
Can Zenos buck the odds and carve out a life for himself in a world that's done nothing but spit in his face? And can he save the lives of the patients who wind up on his doorstep in the process?
Premieres sometime in 2025. Check out the ANN article for additional information. Synopsis of the source manga from AniList:
The most exquisite hotels in the world have certain standards: the finest food, the most sublime comfort, captivating entertainment, the latest weapons, reliable identity fabrication, and untraceable corpse disposal.
The name of this place where the people who have “forgotten their humanity” visit is “Hotel Inhumans.” The hitmen guests are welcomed by the concierges who never say "no."
Premieres January 2025. The new PV is here. The visual came from the official twitter feed. Check out the Crunchyroll article for additional information. Synopsis from AniList:
Tsukasa, whose dreams were crushed. Inori, left to fend for herself. These two share a dream...and their tenacity may be the only thing that sees them through. Their destination? The ice...on the world's stage!
~~Truck~~Bus-kun claiming victims back then too.
Thanks for sharing!