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.
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...
Delving back into the past again, I watched Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song last week, and it was amazing - easily one of the best series I've ever seen.
In one way, it reminded me of Frieren - it's a completely different setting and characters and pretty much everything, but like Frieren, it has no real weaknesses. Everything about it is high quality. It's an engaging story that doesn't pull any punches, the characters are well-developed and believable and all of the material aspects of it - art, sound, voices, music - are top-notch.
The thing that really grabbed my attention though is that basically every single episode had a jaw-dropping finale. Starting with the first episode, it just went along, unfolding the story and adding details and introducing new things and building the tension and then BAM! In the last minute or so, it pulled it all together into an amazing, shocking, unexpected twist. Then in the next episode, it did it again And again in the next, and again in the next, and so on.
And each episode started off so simply and straightforwardly that even after I figured out that that was what the series was doing, I'd still get lulled into complacency. And then BAM! - it'd do it to me again, and leave me shaking my head and muttering, "Holy shit... This series...."
And none of them were deus ex machinas or just there for shock value. They were all vital plot points and bits of background information and they all made sense in retrospect- they were just so cunningly revealed.
The ending was terrific too. Like the individual episodes, it was dramatic snd unexpected and surprising, but slso like the individual episodes, it fit.
I don't know why I don't hear more about this series, because it really was great, from start to finish.
I'm going to be keeping an eye on this one, but I'm going to be pleasantly surprised if it turns out really good.
So far it seems sort of derivative - kind of a cross between Hitoribocchi, Gabriel Dropout and YuruYuri, and it especially reminded me of Gabriel Dropout, since Yuu's sort of a cross between Vigne and Satania.
If the characters are handled well and the writing can stand out a bit, it might be a good one. But it's more likely it's going to be sort of meh. Here's hoping.
Oh, this is awesome.
It reminds me of Mitsuishi-san Is Being Weird This Year. There's something about deadpan surrealism mixed in with bumbling teen romance that's just *chef's kiss.
ETA: just read the chapter with his parents - that explains a lot. 😄
Ah... I knew I recognized the art style, but I couldn't place it. Then I got down to the comments and saw the mention of Kubo-san Won't Let Me Be Invisible, and it all came rushing back.
This should be good.
Single episodes:
Little Witch Academia - the original OVA. There isn't a single wasted frame - it's just 23 minutes of pure genius. (And as a matter of fact, I just rewatched it again last night).
Sword Art Online S01E04 - The Black Swordsman. The introduction of Silica and Pina and just a great, warm, funny, satisfying standalone episode, and particularly because it's sort of an antidote to S01E03, The Red-nosed Reindeer, which is arguably better, but so emotionally devastating.
YuruYuri S01E05 - When Akari and the Cicadas Cry. Kyouko drags Ayano to Comiket, Chitose discovers yuri doujins, and Chinatsu kisses Akari. Funny and cute even by YuruYuri's lofty standards.
86 Episode 23 - the last third of this episode is quite simply the most beautiful and touching thing I've ever seen, and it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.
Akudama Drive Episode 12 - It seems like it should be tragic, but it just kicks so much ass. " Serves you right."
Non Non Biyori S01E10 - We Watched the First Sunrise of the Year - I just love the dynamic between Kaede and Renge
Movies:
Spirited Away Duh. How could I not?
Ghost in the Shell (1995) Still the most concise visit to that universe. I like much of the rest of the franchise too, but that movie stands above them all.
The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi Just a great movie from start to finish. "John... Smith!"
Redline Buried under the stylish carnage and sensory overload is a satisfying tale of honor and redemption, and a surprisingly cute love story.
Series:
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Even after all these years and all these rewatches, it just grabs me by the throat and drags me along.
Kemurikusa - Low budget done right. Great mysterious setting, good characters and satisfying story.
FLCL - I especially like episode 1 and episide 3, but it's short enough and there are enough other good moments that I figure I might as well watch it all, so I do.
And a couple of recent additions: Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! and Make Heroine ga Oosugiru! Eizouken is an unabashed love letter to anime with wonderful characters, and Makeine is a great multi-genre whatever-it-is, and Anna in particular is a terrific character.
Obviously this is entirely up to the instance owner, but it seems to me that, if anything, all of this actually makes our position stronger.
Scanlation's always been a sort of gray area. It's technically piracy - that part's black and white - but the publishers have generally turned a blind eye to it, at least in cases in which there are and will be no licensed translations available. The publishers appeared to generally see it, and correctly, as free advertising (and in fact, scanlation is the ENTIRE reason that manga has gotten as popular as it has outside of Japan).
So the basic rule of thumb for more or less legitimate scanlation has always been that if the series isn't licensed, it's fair game, and if the publishers take exception anyway, all they have to do is say so and we'll immediately "cease and desist."
In one sense, this is just a massive version of what's happened to MD all along. They've gotten takedown requests from the start, and just immediately comply with them.
The things that are notable about this one are the scale of it, and the fact that many of the titles do not have and likely never will have official translations, so it seems to be entirely vindictive. The publishers aren't losing anything by allowing scanlations of titles that they'll never license anyway, so they're not protecting themselves from any nominal loss - they're just being dicks.
And that's undoubtedly what's rattled MD - it's not the fact of the takedowns, which have happened from the start but the seeming vindictiveness of them.
But their response has been to formally shift responsibility to the uploaders. They're saying not just tacitly but explicitly that anyone who uploads anything effectively claims to have the legal right to do so, so if they don't, that's their problem and not MD's.
Which actually removes us even further from any liability. From our position, the uploaders claimed to have the right to do so, and MD accepted their claim, and all we're doing is taking everyone else at their word.
For whatever that's worth.
One of the creepier manifestations of his profound mental illness.
As is always the case, all publishers need to do is look at the scanlation community to see how things will or will not work, since the scanlators are already doing, for free, what the publishers hope to do for profit. Whatever problems exist and whatever solutions there are to those problems, the scanlators have already discovered.
And if they would only do that, they would discover, for instance, that MTL, presented as a finished product on its own, is so blatantly crappy that it's essentislly universally derided, with the only split being between the people who might grudgingly tolerate it in a specific case and the people who reject it outright.
There's no need for the JAT to argue that case when vivid proof that they're right already exists in virtually every comment section of every machine translated manga.
But instead, the publishers consistently make choices that any halfway decent scanlator could tell them are going to fail to appeal to the fans, which choices then - surprise surprise - fail to appeal to the fans.
I could never really get into Steins;Gate, mostly because pretty much every time the MC opened his mouth, I wanted to punch him.
I'd say that the greatest sci-fi anime, mecha or not, is Cowboy Bebop. A pretty mundane answer, but it just is what it is.
My personal favorite is probably Kaiba. I'm also especially partial to Trigun (including Stampede), Ergo Proxy and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. And I feel like I shouldn't let this go without mentioning Now and Then, Here and There, Casshern Sins, Darker Than Black and Aria. And a couple of cheesy gems that aren't even close to the greatest that I just happen to like - Estab-Life and Photon: The Idiot Adventures.
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.