What anime are you watching now?

[Otaking66lives]

3 minutes ago, Animedragon said:

Bean Bandit and Rally Vincent. I'd forgotten about them, but now I vaguely remember watching this way back, good fun action show if I remember correctly.

Very good fun...and then Rally gets her own OVA series GunSmithCats.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Otaking66lives
Adding image

[Animedragon]

10 hours ago, Otaking66lives said:

Very good fun...and then Rally gets her own OVA series GunSmithCats.

Yes, and the Gunsmith Cats manga was rather more, shall we say "adult", than the anime version.

[Ohayotaku]

5 hours ago, Animedragon said:

Yes, and the Gunsmith Cats manga was rather more, shall we say "adult", than the anime version.

Particularly Goldie’s arc.  On a similar note, recently put Part 6 of Lupin III on hold to start watching The Woman Called Fujiko Mine  (at least the OP lets you know what to expect).

And watched the penultimate episode of 86 (Eighty-six). Well worth the nearly 3 month hiatus. Looking forward to the finale next weekend. Though it’s unlikely to wrap-up everything, there may even be another season announced.  From the episode title, sounds like the focus will be on Lena, who didn’t get much screentime in the 2nd cour/season.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Ohayotaku

[Otaking66lives]

Lost Universe

[Animedragon]

I watched a bit of 1990's retro Sci-Fi Cyperpunk today in form of Armitage III.
A four part OAV series with lots of action, some of it quite violent, but still as good a series as it was when I watched it way back.

It's always interesting to see what anime creators in the 1980's & 90's thought the world of the 21st Century would be like.

[efaardvark]

This evening I just started Majo no Tabitabi, aka Traveling Witch

 

6 hours ago, Animedragon said:

I watched a bit of 1990's retro Sci-Fi Cyperpunk today in form of Armitage III.
A four part OAV series with lots of action, some of it quite violent, but still as good a series as it was when I watched it way back.

It's always interesting to see what anime creators in the 1980's & 90's thought the world of the 21st Century would be like.

That era was a bit of a dry spell for me.  I like my SF "hard" and stuff like Akira and Neon Genesis.. isn't.  I'm not a big fan of the whole "gundam" thing from that era either, though I guess Patlabor was ok, and I do confess to being something of a Bubblegum Crisis fan at the time.  Otherwise I just couldn't get into any of it.  (I'm actually having a hard time even remembering any titles from early in that age.)  It wasn't until the late 90s and stuff like Ghost in the Shell that things started to get interesting again for me.  The late 90s also had stuff like Berserk and Cowboy Bebop and Trigun.  Not exactly my kind of SF, but good nevertheless.

[Animedragon]

3 hours ago, efaardvark said:

This evening I just started Majo no Tabitabi, aka Traveling Witch

 

That era was a bit of a dry spell for me.  I like my SF "hard" and stuff like Akira and Neon Genesis.. isn't.  I'm not a big fan of the whole "gundam" thing from that era either, though I guess Patlabor was ok, and I do confess to being something of a Bubblegum Crisis fan at the time.  Otherwise I just couldn't get into any of it.  (I'm actually having a hard time even remembering any titles from early in that age.)  It wasn't until the late 90s and stuff like Ghost in the Shell that things started to get interesting again for me.  The late 90s also had stuff like Berserk and Cowboy Bebop and Trigun.  Not exactly my kind of SF, but good nevertheless.

I think, almost, everyone was a Bubblegum Crisis fan I still like the series and still listen to my BGC soundtrack CDs. Patlabor was good at the time and I quite liked it, but I watched some of it a couple of months back and I don't think it has 'worn' as well as some other shows. I never got into Gundam, I was (and still am) a Macross fan. But like you I have a hard job remembering the shows from the 80s & 90s, I only remembered Armitage III because I saw the DVD at the back of the cupboard and thought I'd give it a watch.

Curiously while it was the Sci-Fi shows that really got me into anime I tend more towards the slice of life shows these days.

[Ohayotaku]

3 hours ago, Animedragon said:

Curiously while it was the Sci-Fi shows that really got me into anime I tend more towards the slice of life shows these days.

Sci-Fi was a pretty big influence in getting me into anime too. Star Blazers & Robotech were the 2 earliest series to really make an impact on me. That being said, I have yet to actually watch an entry in the Gundam franchise from start to finish (Iron Blooded Orphans was probably the closest I came). I have really been enjoying 86 though & consider it to be one of the better anime in recent years.

Nowadays I tend to be drawn to series with a fantasy(D&D) or supernatural/paranormal angle to them. Slice of Life/CGDCT & comedy series tend to be hit or miss with me. Sports & Idol along with BL are probably the genres with the least appeal for me.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Ohayotaku

[MediaConsumesMe]

7 hours ago, Ohayotaku said:

Sci-Fi was a pretty big influence in getting me into anime too.

Yeah, it was pretty similar with me. Without series like legend of the galactic heroes or Yamato 2199 I wouldn't have even realized how good anime could be. 

15 hours ago, efaardvark said:

That era was a bit of a dry spell for me.  I like my SF "hard" and stuff like Akira and Neon Genesis.. isn't.  I'm not a big fan of the whole "gundam" thing from that era either, though I guess Patlabor was ok.  Otherwise I just couldn't get into any of it.  (I'm actually having a hard time even remembering any titles from early in that age.)  It wasn't until the late 90s and stuff like Ghost in the Shell that things started to get interesting again for me.  The late 90s also had stuff like Berserk and Cowboy Bebop and Trigun.  Not exactly my kind of SF, but good nevertheless.

I've only been into anime for a short time now, however I too find 90s as sort of a soft barrier for me. Anything older is just not that interesting for some reason. I mean there has been a few 80s shows I liked, but I've most stuck to 90s+ for most of the Anime I sit down to watch. 

[Animedragon]

2 hours ago, MediaConsumesMe said:

Yeah, it was pretty similar with me. Without series like legend of the galactic heroes or Yamato 2199 I wouldn't have even realized how good anime could be. 

I've only been into anime for a short time now, however I too find 90s as sort of a soft barrier for me. Anything older is just not that interesting for some reason. I mean there has been a few 80s shows I liked, but I've most stuck to 90s+ for most of the Anime I sit down to watch. 

I think that in the 80's & 90's series were either a mecha series or a comedy series. Now, I realise that that is a pretty sweeping statement and there were a number of series that weren't mecha or comedy but it seems to me, thinking back at the series that the 80's & 90's series that were being released on VHS when I started watching anime in 1996 were either mecha or comedy.

The mecha examples that come most readily to my mind are Macross and Gunbuster. Evangelion broke the standard mold for mecha shows that the others seemed to follow, which was I think a major factor in its poplarity. The comedy series that come most readily to my mind are Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura.
These series are sort of like my anime watching history, and watching them now they all have a definite artwork style that's very different from later series.

I think that if I was starting out watching anime now I'd be looking to watch more recent series rather than those 80's & 90's series.

[MediaConsumesMe]

21 hours ago, Animedragon said:

I think that in the 80's & 90's series were either a mecha series or a comedy series. Now, I realise that that is a pretty sweeping statement and there were a number of series that weren't mecha or comedy but it seems to me, thinking back at the series that the 80's & 90's series that were being released on VHS when I started watching anime in 1996 were either mecha or comedy.

The mecha examples that come most readily to my mind are Macross and Gunbuster. Evangelion broke the standard mold for mecha shows that the others seemed to follow, which was I think a major factor in its poplarity. The comedy series that come most readily to my mind are Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura.
These series are sort of like my anime watching history, and watching them now they all have a definite artwork style that's very different from later series.

I think that if I was starting out watching anime now I'd be looking to watch more recent series rather than those 80's & 90's series.

See I've been able to watch stuff like Berserk, Eva. Those shows seem pretty timeless despite having that clearly 90's artstyle. However with the shows from the eighties I think it the general pacing differences of that era of Anime that bores me. Like Gundam for example, I've watched the first series and honestly it might have only been forty something episodes but it felt like an eternity of "next time..." stories. Nothing really happened, compare that to Monster or Full Metal which are longer shows, I just feel the pacing of those shows and the charatization is more my wave length. 

[efaardvark]

Checking out Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun, aka Low Tier Character Tomozaki-kun.  This one might have potential, at least based on what I've seen in the first episode.

[Otaking66lives]

eX-Driver

[peachtea]

Right now I'm watching Slam Dunk and plan to watch Life With An Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into A Total Fantasy Knockout next. 

[Ohayotaku]

18 hours ago, peachtea said:

Life With An Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into A Total Fantasy Knockout next. 

I’m currently watching that. It definitely has some funny moments scattered throughout.

I saw Jujutsu Kaisen 0 at the movies thursday night. Similar to Demon Slayer Mugen Train, I feel like the tv series is better. The movies are more about the visual/audio spectacle than anything. Wasn’t really a fan of the MC either. But found it amusing how the younger Maki had more of tsundere streak to her. And of course Gojo remains a smartass 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Ohayotaku

[Ohayotaku]

Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department. Concept wise a parody/satire of the Tokusatsu genre & the struggles of development/engineering in a corporate work culture. But it can be surprisingly heartfelt as well as funny, this week in particular. Seems to get better every week and my pleasant surprise (under rated) series of the season.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Ohayotaku

[efaardvark]

I was thinking about Miss Kuroitsu myself.  Haven't actually put it on my list however.  So much anime.  So little time.

[Soramee_]

Just finished the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya and yeah... this is and will always be a masterpiece. I haven't watch the disappearance of haruhi suzumiya already but i will soon. 

[efaardvark]

On 3/17/2022 at 12:41 PM, MediaConsumesMe said:

However with the shows from the eighties I think it the general pacing differences of that era of Anime that bores me. Like Gundam for example, I've watched the first series and honestly it might have only been forty something episodes but it felt like an eternity of "next time..." stories. Nothing really happened, compare that to Monster or Full Metal which are longer shows, I just feel the pacing of those shows and the charatization is more my wave length.

My 2 cents on that is that you have to understand that streaming didn't become a big option until the 90s.  Prior to that there weren't many options besides the network TV or video rentals.  Bandwidth for things like 'Net connections was expensive.  Even on TV many people were still dealing with just the 13 broadcast channels.  The WWW itself wasn't a thing until Tim Berners-Lee thought of the concept in 1989, and the first graphics-capable browser didn't exist until 1992ish.  Funimation didn't come along until 1994.  Netflix until 1997.  Crunchyroll in 2006.

Prior to all that things progressed much slower than they do today.  Imagine having to go to a physical library to look stuff up that everyone googles (after 1998) on their cellphone now.  If you wanted to watch something you had to first hear about it - typically from friends or something like a monthly magazine - then you had to go find it and rent it from someplace like blockbuster.  Network TV played what they wanted, when they wanted.  Viewers had no direct part in selecting what was shown.  Things like pay-per-view were still kind of expensive niche products on the "new" cable services.  Generally if the network happened to be showing something you liked when you had time to watch it then you were in luck.  If not, oh well.  Go read a book.  It was a much more laid-back time.  (Some people would use words like "boring" or "stifling", but you get the picture.)

Then in the late nineties / early noughties there was an incredible acceleration in everything.  Everything started happening on "internet time", which seemed to be about 50 times faster than normal time.  At least.  There was also an incredible expansion in options.  You could go to something like Funi or Netflix and find a huge selection available for watching on-demand.  Even network TV expanded to hundreds of channels, which of course had to be filled with some sort of programming.  That changed a lot.  Most people didn't have time for slow-paced anything, especially people who lived on "internet time".  There was also a lot more interest in exploring anything new and different.  New, single-topic cable channels like "adult swim" (2001) introduced anime to huge numbers of new fans.  That's when we started seeing things like Berserk and Ghost in the Shell.  I don't think that is a coincidence.

 

[peachtea]

On 3/19/2022 at 11:53 AM, Ohayotaku said:

I’m currently watching that. It definitely has some funny moments scattered throughout.

My only problem is that Slam Dunk has 101 episodes and I'm only on episode 25. It will be ages before I move on to A Total Fantasy Knockout. I'm watching Neon Genesis Evangelion between that so it doesn't help. 

[Ohayotaku]

34 minutes ago, peachtea said:

My only problem is that Slam Dunk has 101 episodes and I'm only on episode 25.

I’d signed up for Hulu at a discounted rate with the intention of making some progress on the original Inuyasha, but keep focusing on newer series instead  And once a series gets close to the 100 episode mark I struggle to keep interested.

[efaardvark]

Just finished Mushoku Tensei.  I have to admit that I didn't think much of this one at first.  In fact, I almost dropped it early on a number of times.  If it had kept going like that I no doubt would have.  Fortunately it got much better in the last few episodes and the ending made it not only worth watching but I actually think it turned out pretty good.  Might even be in the top three that I've seen this year.

[Otaking66lives]

K.O.R.

[peachtea]

On 3/20/2022 at 5:35 PM, Ohayotaku said:

I’d signed up for Hulu at a discounted rate with the intention of making some progress on the original Inuyasha, but keep focusing on newer series instead  And once a series gets close to the 100 episode mark I struggle to keep interested.

I'd be sad if that happened to me! Slam Dunk is an amazing anime so far, I can't picture losing interest but I'm not even near the halfway point of episode 50 yet. Hope it keeps up but I'm also dedicated, that should help! 

[Otaking66lives]

On 3/20/2022 at 6:35 PM, Ohayotaku said:

I’d signed up for Hulu at a discounted rate with the intention of making some progress on the original Inuyasha, but keep focusing on newer series instead  And once a series gets close to the 100 episode mark I struggle to keep interested.

That's my problem, too. I'm from the older otaku generation where the longest anime with few exceptions was 48-50 episodes long. Exceptions were Urusei Yatsura, K.O.R., Maison Ikkoku etc. So I have trouble maintaining interest into a longer anime...especially if the excess of episodes just happen to be FILLER!!!!!