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Cells at Work wasn’t something I was interested in at first glance, but my son suggested. It’s quirky and fun.

Overall I rather liked Gate myself, but yeah, they managed to make the entire Japanese military into one giant Mary Sue.

Anime has that problem. Most shows are really bad at scaling power, and the protagonist ends up being "da best ting eva, mmk?"

Even Jojo had this problem by the end of Stardust crusaders, and that series usually does a pretty good job at managing its characters strengths and not resolving everything with an unsatisfying curbstomp.

Its ok to have your characters to be gak at something. Its why I like Konosuba so much; everyone in that show is incompetent, and succeed through sheer luck and a bit of dickery. Its great.

I did like how in gate they didn't have magic curb stomp everything and showed that conventional weapons can deal with dragons, with the larger specimens being particularly durable. The problem though is that they went with the other extreme and had conventional wreck everything, even though you'd think that a magical barrier would minimize casualties. It should have been an even fight.
However, it really screwed up the geopolitical aspect; there is no way that the global community would not brow beat Japan into allowing everyone to use the gate, and the UN would certainly get in on it.

Japan in the show makes a point of stating that if the resources beyond the gate are bountiful, it will become a Japan versus the world scenario. The other countries also want to go through the gate, but they are portrayed as less virtuous than the noble Japanese people who only do what is right and would never ever do horrible things.

*looks into camera* THE SDF IS EVERYBODY'S FRIEND. JAPAN IS FRIEND OF EVERYBODY.

You know you are in for a load of cringe when the men in green, accompanied by that orchestral score, do something noble and heroic without sustaining any real casualties of their own. One guy got an arrow in his arm and that's it really?

Throw in the horrible harem bs, characters with "punny" names (Princess Piña Co Lada, oh go feth yourself), just horrible. But a great recruitment tool for the SDF right?

As for Konosuba, it helps that Kazuma (Kazuma desu) only picks up the idiot ball whenever he doesn't need to worry about anything. When push comes to shove he will save the day (somewhat I guess), though sometimes at the cost of his own life.

 BrookM wrote:
Japan in the show makes a point of stating that if the resources beyond the gate are bountiful, it will become a Japan versus the world scenario. The other countries also want to go through the gate, but they are portrayed as less virtuous than the noble Japanese people who only do what is right and would never ever do horrible things.

Yeah, that was dumb. I guess the author really didn't want to think about Manchuria. Or Nanjing. Or Luzon. Or everything that the Imperial Japanese Army did, really.
For a military force that was obsessed with discipline, they sure did a gakky job in keeping their own officers in check.

 BrookM wrote:
Japan in the show makes a point of stating that if the resources beyond the gate are bountiful, it will become a Japan versus the world scenario. The other countries also want to go through the gate, but they are portrayed as less virtuous than the noble Japanese people who only do what is right and would never ever do horrible things.

I noticed that about Gate to, and it was pretty cringe worthy. Especially given the current political environment in Japan with all the WWII apologism going on.

I love pun names but I disappoint myself by never picking up on them until they’re pointed out. I guess it’s because I’m reading them and not hearing them spoken.

Joker Game is in my opinion a tad lot worse with portraying Japan during war, as it takes place during WWII, but skirts around all of the stuff Japan did during the war. They mention Manchuria as a colony or something IIRC but not what they were up to there or the why, I guess that was what the disclaimer at the start was for. Though they did get a kick out of pointing out how stupid the Japanese military was with its honour before reason mindset.

Absolutely laughable was when one of the operatives went undercover with the French resistance and was called Francois or something.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Anime has that problem. Most shows are really bad at scaling power, and the protagonist ends up being "da best ting eva, mmk?"

Even Jojo had this problem by the end of Stardust crusaders, and that series usually does a pretty good job at managing its characters strengths and not resolving everything with an unsatisfying curbstomp.

Its ok to have your characters to be gak at something. Its why I like Konosuba so much; everyone in that show is incompetent, and succeed through sheer luck and a bit of dickery. Its great.

I did like how in gate they didn't have magic curb stomp everything and showed that conventional weapons can deal with dragons, with the larger specimens being particularly durable. The problem though is that they went with the other extreme and had conventional wreck everything, even though you'd think that a magical barrier would minimize casualties. It should have been an even fight.
However, it really screwed up the geopolitical aspect; there is no way that the global community would not brow beat Japan into allowing everyone to use the gate, and the UN would certainly get in on it.

This is one of the things that I really like about Attack on Titan actually.

The protagonists always pay in blood for their victories. Nothing is ever accomplished by any one character going Super-Sayan, progress is only made with the help of others. Painful setbacks occur. Morale issues abound, people have to deeply question their actions. Hard choices have to be made, and people die when things don't go according to plan. New powers or abilities come only through traumatic experience.

The underlying story is hugely nonsensical, but they manage to keep the suspension of disbelief going fairly well by managing this sort of thing.

 Vaktathi wrote:
This is one of the things that I really like about Attack on Titan actually.

The protagonists always pay in blood for their victories. Nothing is ever accomplished by any one character going Super-Sayan, progress is only made with the help of others. Painful setbacks occur. Morale issues abound, people have to deeply question their actions. Hard choices have to be made, and people die when things don't go according to plan. New powers or abilities come only through traumatic experience.

The underlying story is hugely nonsensical, but they manage to keep the suspension of disbelief going fairly well by managing this sort of thing.

How many real victories did they actually have? I haven't read the manga but from the anime (and what I remember) it looks like most of their victories (until very recently) were more like "not as big losses" as they could have been.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Anime has that problem. Most shows are really bad at scaling power, and the protagonist ends up being "da best ting eva, mmk?"

Even Jojo had this problem by the end of Stardust crusaders, and that series usually does a pretty good job at managing its characters strengths and not resolving everything with an unsatisfying curbstomp.

Its ok to have your characters to be gak at something. Its why I like Konosuba so much; everyone in that show is incompetent, and succeed through sheer luck and a bit of dickery. Its great.

I did like how in gate they didn't have magic curb stomp everything and showed that conventional weapons can deal with dragons, with the larger specimens being particularly durable. The problem though is that they went with the other extreme and had conventional wreck everything, even though you'd think that a magical barrier would minimize casualties. It should have been an even fight.
However, it really screwed up the geopolitical aspect; there is no way that the global community would not brow beat Japan into allowing everyone to use the gate, and the UN would certainly get in on it.

This is one of the things that I really like about Attack on Titan actually.

The protagonists always pay in blood for their victories. Nothing is ever accomplished by any one character going Super-Sayan, progress is only made with the help of others. Painful setbacks occur. Morale issues abound, people have to deeply question their actions. Hard choices have to be made, and people die when things don't go according to plan. New powers or abilities come only through traumatic experience.

The underlying story is hugely nonsensical, but they manage to keep the suspension of disbelief going fairly well by managing this sort of thing.

Yeah, AoT is pretty good when it comes to that. I still don't like the Titan transformation gimmick, but at least Eren is so incompetent that it hardly gives the protagonists an advantage.
When Eren got eaten by that titan in the first season, I legit thought that he was dead for good, and that the rest of the series would be about Armin becoming a master tactician, both haunted and driven by the death of his friend, and after a grueling war finally leads humanity to victory.
But nope, Kaijuus.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mario wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
This is one of the things that I really like about Attack on Titan actually.

The protagonists always pay in blood for their victories. Nothing is ever accomplished by any one character going Super-Sayan, progress is only made with the help of others. Painful setbacks occur. Morale issues abound, people have to deeply question their actions. Hard choices have to be made, and people die when things don't go according to plan. New powers or abilities come only through traumatic experience.

The underlying story is hugely nonsensical, but they manage to keep the suspension of disbelief going fairly well by managing this sort of thing.

How many real victories did they actually have? I haven't read the manga but from the anime (and what I remember) it looks like most of their victories (until very recently) were more like "not as big losses" as they could have been.

In a situation as fethed up as the one they are in "not too many dead this time" is pretty much a victory.

My main problem with Attack on Titan is that so many side characters get added and eaten that I actually start to lose track of who is who. Part of it I think is that they've not gone with crazy hair/outfits as much for all characters; which is often done in anime to make the characters stand out apart more easily. So I regularly get a bit jumbled who is who (esp in the first season); esp as they can lose half the characters in one attack.

To me Attack on Titan is just boring shock value for the sake of shock value. The "twists" are all arse-pulls and nothing ever feels natural. No idea how much of that is adaptation decay however.

Mario wrote:[How many real victories did they actually have? I haven't read the manga but from the anime (and what I remember) it looks like most of their victories (until very recently) were more like "not as big losses" as they could have been.

This is also why I like the show so much, even after dramatic victories, the prize is typically survival, and little else

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Yeah, AoT is pretty good when it comes to that. I still don't like the Titan transformation gimmick, but at least Eren is so incompetent that it hardly gives the protagonists an advantage.
When Eren got eaten by that titan in the first season, I legit thought that he was dead for good, and that the rest of the series would be about Armin becoming a master tactician, both haunted and driven by the death of his friend, and after a grueling war finally leads humanity to victory.
But nope, Kaijuus.

Yeah, Eren is an emotionally imbalanced whiny teenager, and everyone else is fully aware of it (which is also nice for them to highlight, he's "the idiot" to half the cast) who's only worth anything when he gets his mopey schtick together for a few moments and channels his angst. That said, an Armin focused show could have been interesting too.

When Eren got eaten by that titan in the first season,

That’s right, that Did happen. How long does it take for a Titan to gain the sentience/powers of a Titan enabled person it eats?

Oh yeah......that did... shouldn't that have made that Titan a titan shifter?

Plotholes? In my crappy anime? It's more common than you think!

Well technically his spinal cord was never severed when that happened. He only lost his arm and leg, so the Titan never ate his spinal fluid. Which seems to be the catalyst.

Came damn close though.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well technically his spinal cord was never severed when that happened. He only lost his arm and leg, so the Titan never ate his spinal fluid. Which seems to be the catalyst.

Came damn close though.

^^^

Grey Templar beat me to it, they did manage to think about that particular loophole

Well let’s not get crazy. It could just be a coencidence that it covers its own plothole.

AOT seemed like the show to make it up as it goes along.

It's more that a core bit of the story hinges on the content of a certain basement and the childhood of several children now young adults; and the loss of most of their parents. Ergo there's a delibrate large gap in the story that mostly frustraits because AoT tends to move at glacial speed in terms of its overarching plot (mostly because it all hinges on going places the titans are and every at tempt at that ends with 80% of the then cast being killed)

Well, Goblin Slayer is definitely giving Berserk a run for its money.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well, Goblin Slayer is definitely giving Berserk a run for its money.

Wait, you mean the current Berserk adaptation? They didn't... use CG did they?

 SkavenLord wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well, Goblin Slayer is definitely giving Berserk a run for its money.

Wait, you mean the current Berserk adaptation? They didn't... use CG did they?

Lol no, not at all. I’m talking last few arcs of the first one. Almost troll cave levels of fethery.

Yeah, the manga starts off hard. I haven't seen it yet, but if its berserk levels then its doing a good job.
It gets lighter after that though, so its not quite berserk...well, except for that one time with that band of adventurers at the elf tree. And that other time when the goblins attacked a village. But other than that, lighter.

First episode was not bad, they actually managed to show off how horrible things are without outright showing it like in the manga. They also cut out the flashbacks of the adventurers, probably for brevity, but we could do without those IMHO.

I think the elf tree may be the next episode IIRC, so with the worst two out of the way the show can forge on to the arcs involving the other adventurers and maybe end the season with him hiring everybody else to protect the farm of Cow Girl.

Goblin Slayer is off to a good start.

Haven’t read much of the manga, but it seemed pretty darn faithful.

Would anyone recommend reading the AoT manga? I've started binge watching season one waiting for the next episode to come out.

I don't think the series holds up personally. BaconCatBug and Overread nailed my thoughts on the series, and honestly I think the Manga is even worse cause it meanders more than the Anime does.

I think the anime for once does the story better justice because action and "humanity feth yeah" are the story's only real redeeming virtues.