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Dragon Ball Daima episode 1 Scheme.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II episode 2 Bullet line.

The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors 2nd Season episode 14 Centre.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XI:
Cannibal marathon: Man From Deep River, Eaten Alive, Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox (Films)

Urusei Yatsura episodes 68-70, 72-74, 76-77
 
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gō: Weekly Streaming Discussion Sub-Forum Killing Chapter, Episodes 18-24 (Complete)

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Everything is going to have to go under a spoiler tag now, I imagine the same will be true of Sotsu. I can see no way to discuss or even post many images from these episodes without massive spoilers. If you have watched Gō, feel free to continue. If you have not, please don't. Go watch the show instead, I have my nitpicks below but overall I think it's pretty damn good (and that second ED is fantastic).

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I will walk down to the end with you, if you will come all the way down with me

First of all thank you, writers of Gō, for having nearly everything make sense by the end, even though this story is obviously not yet complete and going to continue into Sotsu. Also in general for coming up with this beautiful, horrible concept. Endlessly repeating murder-suicide, all for love, is exactly the sort of thing I enjoy. This is my hole, it was made for me. But as someone who has now watched altogether too much Higurashi in a particularly short space of time, I do have thoughts, both positive and negative.

I get that the intention is to show that both Rika and Satoko are being quite selfish and inconsiderate towards one another, but I feel like that could have been achieved without making Rika so uncharacteristically oblivious to Satoko's feelings. The goldfish turds even point out how particularly insightful Rika is (and of course she is, she's lived for over a hundred years at this point) and yet she doesn't seem to notice how unhappy Satoko is, or why. Even when Satoko spells everything out for her clearly before committing suicide by Truck-kun (and I am glad to see she tried that, I think I would have been screaming at the screen if she hadn't) she still doesn't get it. I think this does a bit of a disservice to Rika's character as someone who is usually able to understand her friends (sometimes better than they can themselves) due to having spent a literal hundred years with them. While Rika's desire to get out of Hinamizawa and experience a new and different life is perfectly understandable after everything she's been through, it's hard to believe she wouldn't realize how unreasonable it is to say "My dream is to do this, with you," putting Satoko in a position where she can only make Rika happy by making herself miserable, because working her **** off in a stuffy private school with a bunch of stuck up ***** is clearly not Satoko's dream (I can't imagine why it would be anyone's, different strokes I guess).

To a lesser extent the same is true of Satoko, while I feel the show has done a fair job of showing that the power trip of being able to loop has definitely gone to her head and made her act in ways she surely wouldn't otherwise, it's still difficult to imagine her ever being as willingly cruel to Rika as she has been during some of these loops. But then Rika promising Satoko things wouldn't turn out the way they did the first time, only for them to be no different (after she once again spent several years of effort trusting that things would work out) was clearly pretty devastating for her. I think I'd probably go a bit strange as well if I had to go through my school years putting in serious effort a second time, or indeed a first.

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Welcome to life, daughter.

Something else I am quite enjoying is seeing how much more pragmatic Satoko is in her use of the loops than Rika. It's fair to say that unlike Rika, Satoko isn't having to worry about the power to loop waning and making every loop count (yet, I don't trust "Eua" at all, it feels like she told Satoko that Rika has to die before her in order to retain her memories just to cause the maximum amount of suffering to Rika and she forced Satoko into her first loop without giving her a choice in the matter) but I appreciate her "oh well, guess this loop's not gonna work out, time to die" attitude. Wheras Rika always considered the loops to be a game of chance where she had to work with whatever hand she was dealt, Satoko is viewing it as a game of skill she just has to find the right way to exploit and in an "ends justify the means" way, which does seem right for her.

One more thing I still don't understand and would really appreciate an answer to: The events of Episodes 18-20 must take place on the same timeline as the end of Kai where Rika finally broke out of her loop: So at what point between the 1st of July 1983 (the last date shown in Kai) and the 8th of June 1984 (the first date shown in Episode 18 of Gō) does Hanyu disappear, why does she disappear and why does nobody mention it or even seem aware Rika had an obvious otherworldly being as a friend? Everyone was there with her during the final showdown with Takano where it was fairly obviously revealed she wasn't human (it was even shown again in part at the beginning of Episode 18, with Hanyu in attendance, meaning it hasn't just been retconned). She was living in Satoko and Rika's house. If it was to do with her power fading away (possible theory: was that to do with the return of full-power and fully sadistic "Oyashiro-sama" in the form of "Eua"?) then Rika would surely have had to explain her disappearance to everyone, not least Satoko, and I can't see any particular reason for her to conceal the truth. And if Rika had just let Satoko know everything she'd been through at that point it might have avoided this entire situation. I suppose we wouldn't have gotten a show out of that though.

Edit: Is the UK equivalent of the American term "ass" really considered vulgar enough to be censored now? Those four stars make it look like I wrote something much worse, like the other thing I replaced with stars myself.
 
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It's a Wonderful Afterlife (REWATCH) - With Friend A, we both enjoyed it, I think this film is really underrated and fun :)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (English dubbed) - A lovely series, def one of my fave Gundams that I've seen so far, and I preferred it to 00 of the non-OVA Gundam series I have watched so far, though that one was let down slightly by it's middling English dub. But yeah this was pretty great, nice to see a yuri Gundam series as well 🥰

Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel Film II/2 - Lost Butterfly (English dubbed) - Tbh I'm not sure if the third one will be able to match or surpass this, I have so many emotions and feelings about it, it was amazing 😭 ❤️
 
Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement
Finished.
Particularly enjoyed her schemes to help folk out. Exciting big finish. Easy to binge.

Tsugo Tsugomomo
Completed
Nice action and fanservice.
Surprisingly, I didn't mind the non ending.
Doubt I'll see another season which is slightly frustrating.

Bofuri S1
Episodes 1-4
Sort of liking it but it's a bit too nice.
 
Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel Film III/3 - Spring Song (English dubbed) - Excellent finale to the trilogy, I hope there's another Kinoko Nasu anime this good in the future! :)

Mob Psycho 100 Season 3 Episodes 1-12 COMPLETE (English subbed) - I am glad I took the time to finish this series, I loved the UFO episode and Mob will always be one of my fave MCs :)

Now watching The Venture Bros S4 and Is the Order a Rabbit (English subbed) :)
 
Heroine - Anna Yanami 1.gif

Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines (Japanese audio) - Episodes 1-4
My Hero Academia: UA Heroes Battle (Japanese audio) - OVA
My Hero Academia Season 7 (Japanese audio) - Episodes 1-7
Tower of God Season 2 (Japanese audio) - Episodes 1-4
 
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Conflict episode 394 Will.

Blue Exorcist -Beyond the Snow Saga- episode 2 Trapped.

Blue Lock Vs. U-20 Japan episode 26 Crash.

Demon Lord Retry! R episode 3 Not like this.

Monogatari Series: OFF & Monster Season ONA 13 Foodstuffs.

My Hero Academia 7th Season episode 159 cling. (Complete. I have mixed thoughts on the overall final arc of the manga so this adaptation is only going to change that so much but I’ll stick with it to the end.) 3.5/5

Ooi! Tonbo 2nd Season episode 14 Visor.

Ranma 1/2 (2024) episode 2 Hunted down.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XII: The Toxic Avenger, The Toxic Avenger Part II (Films)

Urusei Yatsura episodes 79-83, 85-90
 
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Ep 1 of Natsume's Book of Friends Season 7
Ep 1 of Maou 2099
Ep 1 of The Do-Over Damsel Conquers The Dragon Emperor
Ep 2 of of Dandadan....dropped...its just god awful. Glad i never watched it at the cinema, as i would have asked for my money back.
 
Dan Da Dan ep2

Ninja Kamui ep2-3

Yeah. It’s undemanding enough that I might keep this up as something to stick on in the background while I’m working, but much as a ninja-themed Kawajiri throwback ought to be right up my alley, this is an almost comically bland series, and everything about it just feels slightly off somehow. I briefly wondered if I’d accidentally skipped an episode, given how suddenly it lurches from having the grizzled FBI agent (he’s about to retire you know) hunting the main character, to having them work together and sharing a moment of comic relief. It surprises me this wasn’t written by an American, it feels like an American show that wishes it was anime (remember Cannon Busters? Me neither.)

Credit where it’s due, I suppose I did not expect them to have an evil gay little person.
 
Dan Da Dan [English Audio] - Episode 2

Ranma 1/2 (2024) [English Audio] - Episode 2

Uzumaki [English Audio] - Episode 3
for what its worth, production for this episode is an improvement relatively but certainly not to the level of the first. The final one is next week and, based on previews and other comments, it'll be in line episode 2 and 3.
 
Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii ep1: I struggled with most of this first episode, which pitched itself as a spicy yakuza romance then provided a lukewarm school romance instead. And the animation is weak, with simplistic designs and unambitious staging; the former could have worked if the direction was more exciting but as-is it's all very plain. I kept going because the voice cast is ridiculously good and mercifully the story picked up right at the end of the episode, with an utterly stupid reveal which actually worked and made me want to watch more. It earns a second episode to convince me that it will be the right kind of ridiculous from now on. I like that the yakuza families are portrayed more toxically instead of the comedy yakuza we've had in so many other shows lately; silly gangsters are funny too but problematic romances are often more interesting to watch.

Mecha-Ude: Mechanical Arms ep1: An urban action/sci-fi romp which really wants to be a less horny Kill la Kill, even down to getting Sawano on board for the theme music. It also has elements of the Parasyte series, because our insecure, awkward hero ends up hosting a giant, transforming mechanical arm-thing, effectively (and also literally) painting a target on his back for other wielders of similar arms to hunt him. There's a lot of style (albeit heavily borrowing from Kill la Kill) and a lot of combat, and everyone is spiky-haired and dramatic, so there's a lot to like here if you're after an all-ages action show with a typically bonkers storyline. In my case there's no hook which makes me want to continue enough to displace something else from my shortlist for the season. Cool logo, though.

Kinoko Inu ep1: Why does this show have full-length episodes? There was only enough content in the first for a short, but for some reason they decided to make it a full series and just make everything happen at a quarter of its normal speed with huge gaps in between each brief exchange of dialogue. Everything was dragged out so much that by the end I was struggling not to laugh at the calculatedly sad music and repeated shots of sad mementos, which is unfortunate because the actual story is a sad tale of pet loss. We're introduced to an introverted author who has recently lost the beloved dog he'd bonded with right after he was orphaned as a child, at which point a strange 'mushroom dog' appears in his garden and gently forces him to work through some of his grief. It would probably be perfectly charming as a series of shorts but this is just too much; too much slow-paced scene-setting, too much strangeness and way too much schmaltz.

DEMON LORD 2099 ep1: This sounded like irredeemable rubbish from its description on Crunchyroll so I was pleasantly surprised when it was only mediocre instead. An immortal demon lord loses in the climactic battle against the hero of his generic fantasy world, and when he revives he finds the world has changed into a generic cyberpunk rendition of post-apocalyptic Tokyo. The lead is utterly insufferable and keeps monologuing and doing idiotic things, so I have a lot of sympathy for the minion he meets who has made a life for himself and doesn't want to work for a literal loser any more. Most of the characters in this show suck, with the only ray of light coming from a sassy hacker girl who is obviously going to come back again later. The hero is blatantly coming back again later too, so the immortal/mortal distinction which underpinned the first act is unlikely to be all that relevant going forwards. The setting shows an astonishing lack of imagination in some ways (why, in a world with such advanced technology, is everyone watching crummy-looking modern day VTubers on the big screens in the street? Are VTubers futuristic now?) and almost nothing that happens makes any sense, but somehow it's all such a mess that it sort of works in spite of itself. If you just want to rewatch the familiar story of a pompous demon lord in an unusual setting and have a love of black and neon, this isn't as bad as it could have been.

R
 
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