I just finished 雲のように風のように | L35??
It’s free to watch on YouTube for a few more hours as celebration for its 30 years.
It was pretty nice, although you do feel the weight of the years.
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The past month I’ve finally started immersing in anime and so I’ve been binge rewatching some of my favorite anime. I started with Mushoku Tensei and the last few days I’ve been watching Vinland Saga. Knowing the some of the context beforehand really helps with comprehending what is being said and helps with picking up words, although at times it feels like I’m just pretending to understand what’s being said.
That being said, Vinland Saga suprisingly has a lot of simpler dialogue which I didn’t expect from a historical anime. I finally feel like I’m at a point where I know and can understand enough words to get the gist of most things. A lot of the times I’m still lost but I’ve grown comfortable with the ambiguity, although I still think I’d find it frustrating to miss important bits of dialogue hence why I’m still sticking to watching shows I’ve already watched before with Eng Subs.
I tried watching with Jap subtitles before but I felt like I wasn’t actively listening to what’s being said, so I bit the bullet and stopped caring about missing words. Even after watching anime where I could barely understand a thing (Jujutsu Kaisen), I find myself slowly comprehending a lot more near the end of said series. I had decided to not consume any japanese media with translations when I started learning, so definitely stoked to finally be able to enjoy some anime again.
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While it’s definitely hard for me, I understood it a lot better than when S1 was airing. Of course it’s only the 1st ep. I definitely had to pause to look stuff up a lot tho. I wouldn’t do that for most shows at this point (if it was that hard, I’d save for later, or just be fine missing stuff)
Plan to start soon:
Been on my manga list for ages
Seeing in theatres next week:
It even comes with a live director Q&A
Found a few related vids on YouTube:
- Preview (international trailer - way more interesting)
- https://youtu.be/mmVx5tP4v00?si=WIbk4LOyLvA-zMoN 音楽監督
- https://youtu.be/cT_cXsQ7z2I?si=Pi75gqG-2RI3xKOy - cast talk
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Just got back from きみの色 | L20?? - it was pretty solid and enjoyable. The bonds between the main trio were excellent (especially between the 2 female leads, there’s very heavy subtext), and it’s great how supportive they were of each other. I felt like the resolution of the central conflict was a bit anticlimactic, but not necessarily bad. One thing I really appreciated was that for a movie set largely in a Catholic school, it actually felt very Catholic (in comparison to say マリア様がみてる | L27 or 青い花 S1 | L24 where it feels like more of a background thing/plot device, a lot of the time). I particularly enjoyed the younger Sister character, and the way she navigated supporting these slightly off-the-path students, while still staying firmly true to the strict rules. The musical element was also very realistically done.
The director had very interesting answers in the Q&A, and incidentally answered a question that I’ve also been wondering from マリみて: which is whether it’s common for Catholic schools in Japan to have students with atheist or non-Catholic beliefs and interests, and for that to be accepted. The answer is yes, that’s typical. Despite that, “belief” was a central theme in the show, and something the director is generally very interested in, and this duality was part of why she chose the Catholic school setting
Finally finished, and what a show!!. Personally that’s the wildest anime I’ve watched, and it even had a mostly great (and often utterly horrifying) story. I’m really fascinated that 39 episodes came out of a 3 volume manga series. If nothing else, I would not be surprised to learn that the last 7 or so episodes were totally anime original. There’s some moments where it lost me, in terms of believability (even with a healthy amount of suspension of disbelief), but the drama & storytelling in general make up for it.
It’s quite over the top, surreal, melodramatic, etc. And it spins one complicated and fascinating web, between all the different characters and their relationships with each other. I think is is a solid, spoiler-free review of it. My biggest issue with it was the last 7 eps, which felt like someone told the director “ok let’s tie everything up, and retcon it all into a tidy, happy ending” (whether or not the show actually achieved this is another matter).
While I can’t speak to the influence of the anime itself, I do know that the mangaka Ikeda, Ryoko was very influential on shoujo manga in general, and is often associated with the (rather confusingly named) Year 24 Group.
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Thrilled to see that you enjoyed up enjoying it so much too! 
It’s really a gem
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Any other shoujo gems you’d recommend?
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Hmm the obvious choice would probably be the anime for ベルサイユのばら from the same mangaka. The setting and story is way different from おにいさまへ, but it has a lot of the same charm and is definitely a shoujo classic. The manga is one of my all time favorites and is better than the anime adaptation, but it’s still fun and worth watching!
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Also giving more thought to shoujo anime that involve weird relationships with a brother figure, check out Marmalade Boy!
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Definitely skip the filler episodes. There’s a super long anime only love triangle arc that is pointless and drags the anime down a lot. The manga itself is pretty snappy (although the middle volumes plot of doing a thing in secret to protect someone all while being a complete ass isn’t like, the healthiest relationship portrayal).
That said I’ve read the manga through twice and seen the anime (filler and all), so I do quite like the story.
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The manga is already on my list, and I’ll get around to it eventually. I started in on the おにいさまへ manga. A bit less than halfway through vol 1, and I’m really appreciating the anime so far (not a criticism of the manga per se)
So I’ve heard… that’s somewhere on my list as well
Good to know
Don’t worry, I’m definitely not expecting healthy relationship portrayals from 90s shoujo 
thx for the heads up tho
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New mystery (live action) series: 相続探偵 S1, probably based on a (finished) Kodansha manga series with the same name that is not yet in LN.
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Got through ep 1. Seems like it will be enjoyable so far. Very different than anything I’ve been watching lately, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes!
Was a pleasant surprise. Not the most amazing plot, but was more enjoyable than the last OVA, and didn’t have any of the obnoxious fanservice. Also was quite funny at times. Wrote a review here, and it’s kinda making me want to get back to the games a bit. Particularly since the language should be fairly easy for me now. (I probly won’t actually do that tho)
Got through ep 8 of ストロベリー・パニック S1 | L26 - it’s gotten less terrible, but still pretty underwhelming. Shizuma (silver-haired, predatory school idol) has stopped being predatory - since she has an actual love interest now. Instead there’s a different maliciously predatory character 
who shows up for an episode or two, and is about to rape one of the helpless characters (while the predator’s accomplice/roommate stands and watches), who then gets saved by her white horse-riding prince (yes she really rode in on a white horse ). Otherwise the interactions have been the normal (mostly) unrequited love, or the most milquetoast characters being awed by the already plain characters (like Nagisa), with some boring slice of life in btwn. I feel like the show can’t really decide what it wants to be so far, to its detriment… but it’s probably upgraded itself from a 2 to 3/5 for me so far.
アオのハコ S1 | L24 continues to be excellent, with some more development all around (still slow-paced)
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So I just finished up:
The premise is a bunch of girls get reanimated as zombies by the eccentric producer Kotaro Tatsumi (played by Mamoru Miyano, best known as Okabe, but I think Kotaro is even more over the top) who wants them to become idols to “save Saga”.
This is one of my undisputed favourite anime, and this time I watched it raw in Japanese (rather than my usual JP subs) and it went pretty well. I think I saw Kotaro a little differently now that I’m paying attention to the Japanese performance, in a way that makes the events of Revenge less surprising.
There’s a lot of strong episodes in this season - the highlight of season 1 is probably Episode 8. The B plot is the best trans rep in an anime that’s not about being trans. Seriously, why is it a zombie idol comedy that is ahead of the game here and the A plot (closure for Lily and her father) is great too. Though episodes 6, 7 and 9 are great too. Really that run in the middle of the season has a bunch of episodes that any one of which would be a reason to watch the series. It’s like, we’ve got you invested, we’ve got the premise set up, now it’s time for gloves off and unwrapping the feels cannon.
Anyway, I can’t watch season 1 and not watch Revenge also, so that’s next week’s watching material decided I guess. Will I understand anything in the サガ事変？ Guess I’ll find out.
After that, well, podcast time with Yuyu will probably continue and Shirobako didn’t win the WK anime club poll, so I’ll probably watch that on my own time. Also need to catch up on ダンジョン飯 since I ended up watching Zombie Land Saga instead. Finally 押しの子 is there on my to watch list, almost near the top but hasn’t quite hit the top spot yet.
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That sounds surprisingly interesting, on multiple levels (odd coming from me, who doesn’t care for zombie things).
Could you say more about the rep? So far my fav anime as that sorta thing goes are Ranma (tho it’s not 100% the same) & マリア様がみてる (which has a trans character in later seasons, and is probably as affirming as possible in the context of two gender-segregated high schools in 90s/00s Japan).
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One of the anime where the MC dies in like the first scene 
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One of the main cast of idols is a trans girl. It’s explained in a flashback scene, there’s a little bit of surprise from the other characters, but everyone is pretty accepting of her identity once it’s revealed.
Total Spoiler Version
So the episode focuses on Lily for both the A and B plots. The A plot is about the circumstances of her life and death before being reanimated as a zombie. Basically, her mother died when she was young, her father became a huge TV fan to fill the void. He used to really enjoy watching things with Lily especially, so Lily decided to try out acting and became a famous child actor (as Lily, since she was already female identifying at this stage). Her father still calls her Masao, but otherwise she seems pretty free to live as a girl.
Anyway, we’re treated to a view of their relationship over time, as Lily becomes a famous child star and her father slowly becomes a sports dad type, pushing her to focus on her career more and more, as we see Lily become more and more overworked and worn out.
This culminates in a scene where Lily is refusing to go to her audition, and has a big fight with her father and shuts herself in her room. While in her room she notices her first facial hair, and has a panic attack and dies of a heart attack.
So as Lily tells the story, she died of shock brought on by gender dysphoria related anxiety by the first sign of male puberty. But as the viewer, we’re clearly meant to draw the conclusion that the massive amount of overwork in her child actor career was at least contributory, and her father clearly comes to the same conclusion.
So then flash forward to “now” in the series, and her father has spotted a newspaper advert with a still of an idol performance she had done and spotted the similarity and goes to check it out. He goes to the idol groups signing and meets Lily face to face and is stunned to see his daughter that died 10 years ago, so Lily has to pretend not to recognise him, but the interaction is enough for her to see just how broken up he still is since Lily’s death.
Lily decides to write a song which is basically a goodbye to her father and a thank you for the good times to give them both closure.
There’s also a scene where the rest of the girls go to talk to the producer who had reanimated them as zombies to ask “did you know?” and his response basically is “Of course I knew, you hardly have a problem with LIly now, right?”, and everyone later basically reaffirms that Lily is Lily to everyone.
I think it was one of the first ones where Truck-kun had become a meme, so they had fun with it, but some of the recent isekais beat ZLS for “efficiency”. One of them had like a truck on screen for like 5s in a flashback to explain it lol.
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The best series of the current season for me are so far:
妃教育から逃げたい私 S1 - as the title suggests, a girl is to learn how to behave as the coming princess, but with time the prince finds someone else he is interested in, and she is free to do what she likes; or not? A comedy plus romance (I guess).
クラスの大嫌いな女子と結婚することになった。 S1 - two high schoolers are forced to marry by their families to save their corporation. They hate each other and from one day to the other they live together, even sleep in the same bed. Also a comedy plus romance (I guess).
SAKAMOTO DAYS S1 - a retired killer who meanwhile has family gets visitations by old acquaintances, friends and fiends, but he promised his wife to no longer kill anyone. An action comedy.
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That’s pretty amazing. I’ll have to add it to my list then
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Zombieland Saga is a good idol show in its own right, but where it shines is its over-the-top comedy. If that style works for you, there’s a good chance you’ll like it.
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So 50/50 I’ll love or hate it then 
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