What are you watching today?

Japanese Watching
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Was looking through @gilianfatih 's 朝ドラ | NHK Asadora (1989-2019) | Japanese list by gillianfaith | Natively and found some clearly Kansai-ben ones (わろてんか、べっぴんさん、あさが来た、ごちそうさん and a lot more).

Eps 1-6: very similar mold to カーネーション S1 | L29 and スカーレット S1 | L25 but set in Meiji Era. Overly strict father and gender roles, young お転婆娘 who wants to break out and do all the boy’s stuff (studying, sumo, math, etc). Unlike カーネーション their family situation isn’t really dire - so it’s much less tense than it could be. That said, this one started off with “whoa - that’s an age gap” (they never say his age, but she’s 10 and he’s at least 10-15 years older afaict)… the narrator even had to comment that that’s how stuff was back then. Anyway I just got to the end of. Anyway it just transitioned to her being an older teenager - so this is where things will start.

Ep 7-13: it’s held my interest pretty well. Both sisters are married now. Next week is called 新選組参上！So sounds like there will be some drama

The Kansai-ben is excellent and the writers were careful about regional differences between Kyoto and Osaka - which is always nice to see. I think it’s not so こてこて, though I still need to flip subs on sometimes for unfamiliar vocab or names. Difficulty is probably similar to スカーレット so far, and definitely easier than カーネーション

さよならララ S1 | L30?? isn’t even trying to be subtle about the yuri at this point. It’s maybe even a bit too on the nose, but not in a bad way. The deuteragonist (Mari) got a whole back story in ep 3 that was really cool. I love that she can be tough wthout being toxic, and I love the portrayal of Lara’s cluelessness on account of her not being from modern society

対ありでした、花君、君死ぬ、クレバテス、天幕のジャードゥーガル all had excellent episodes… my new fav expression I found (describing 対ありでした): “gokigenyou on the streets, hadouken in the sheets”

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I started watching 今際の国のアリス | L28 last week, started season 2 last weekend.

It’s a death game kind of series, I’ve had people who don’t know a word of Japanese recommend it to me so I decided to give it a go. It’s really good but obviously very gory.

It’s mostly action and thus really easy to follow along, but the explanations get difficult. I had to turn on secondary subtitles a few times. Most of the conversations outside of rules/puzzle explanations are a lot easier to follow. During the long and plentiful action scenes, dialogue is scarce.

There is some truly awful people in the series, including people who try to commit sexual assault, though it always gets interrupted before it actually happens. The scenes are still, intendedly so, very uncomfortable. I do think all and all it’s handled well. If you are a sensitive person you might want to click that spoiler to help determine if this series is for you.

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I’ve been keeping current with 本好きの下剋上S4 as it comes out, enjoying this season’s broadening of the setting.

I also started watching 終末ツーリングS1 on a bit of a whim when looking for options on Crunchyroll. I’m 2 episodes in and so far it’s basically Yuru Camp meets Girl’s Last Tour

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I started rewatching 中二病でも恋がしたい! | L28 today. It’s my fourth time watching, but first time without English subs. It’s one of my favorite anime (clearly), really funny but also with a good story. If you can overlook some dated physical / violence-based slapstick, I’d really recommend to anyone, but especially if you like rom-coms where there’s also personal drama and conflict.

I do generally recommend just the first season though, which is a standalone experience. The second season may as well be a non-canon fanfic as far as I’m concerned. As far as language goes, it’s pretty easy if you don’t mind ignoring all the chuunibyou nonsense words. If you try to understand those, good luck.

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I’m probably dropping あさが来た S1 | L28 . 15 eps in, and idk it’s just not really doing it for me

Otoh I’m giving まんぷく S1 | L25 a second try, and 5 eps in, not so bad. The kansai-ben has sounded less unnatural than the first two eps. I find it interesting that the MC is being paired with the 関東人. I wonder if his accent will adjust over the course of the show as well.

Watched a little bit of カーネーション S1 | L29 earlier as well, when NHK site was being laggy. It’s always a pleasure going back to it :smiley:

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Tried an ep of ラヴ上等 S1 | L31 - a ヤンキー dating show, bc one of my teachers recommended it. Good challenge from a listening comprehension perspective, but otherwise not my thing. If someone likes the whole “Throw 10 people into a house together for 2 weeks, and see if anyone forms a couple” format, they’ll probly enjoy it :woman_shrugging: I did appreciate that one of the people was ハーフ (French, Iranian, Japanese), and there were two who spoke Kansai-ben.

Seasonal thoughts:

I finally dropped my handful of stragglers from last season.

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The Natively summary includes the phrase “…11 singles butt heads…,” which I definitely read as “11 single buttheads” :rofl: I can’t see myself watching all of this, but I’d like to give one episode a go just to hear the language of these Yankii buttheads.

I finished season 1 of 氷の城壁. It was a good level for my listening comprehension, although I felt like it started to drag a bit in the final episodes. The main character had already broken out of her shell by that point, so I felt like the fundamental problem of the story had more or less been solved.

I watched only about half of サクラダリセット (前篇). I thought it would be a fun supernatural drama, but unfortunately I found it disappointing. Some of the character’s powers didn’t make sense, while others were transparent plot devices, and the character acting (particularly the “bad girl”) was a type that really gets under my skin. I can tolerate a certain amount of that in a silly comedy, but not in a movie that’s trying to be so serious.

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Finally finished my rewatch of 中二病でも恋がしたい! | L28 (first with only Japanese subs). For some reason, once again, I stagnated with only two episodes left and didn’t watch for a couple weeks. This was my fourth time watching, so some of the impact is gone for sure, but it’s still a great show.

I don’t really have any other anime on my radar right now, so maybe I’ll take a break for a bit.

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@demyride You might never see this considering how inactive you are on the forums but we watched NEEDY GIRL OVERDOSE S1 | L35 around the same time but our star ratings are diametrically opposite and now I am really curious to know what was your take on this… uh.. experimental anime

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It was pretty funny to see this pop up in my email, reminding me there were forums here. (I am primarily just a book/show logger.)
I will note that I am at a very low point in my life, in a strange dissociative state and have started to dabble in sociology/philosophy so that is very much something that influenced my rating.
(Sorry if this post gets incoherent, I haven’t written anything in ages.)

I think there’s just more to it then just being a satire of livestreaming culture and parasocial relationships (which gets wrapped up by the 2nd episode). Character backstories and how their actions/motivations are shaped are presented with various psychological, sociological and philosophical ideas (masking, individualism, conformity, self-sacrifice, survivalism etc.), as well as references to literature from Dostoevsky, Dazai and Miyazawa. I just find it interesting to see how all these different ideas and thinking from different points in time in human history are applied to characters of the modern era, and by extension, me, because I am also a character in our modern world. (sadly)

(I am reading a book now that looks at the commonalities between Soseki and Max Weber and how their ideas can be applicable in explaining why more and more people are worried about themselves and how they interface with modern society, so that’s what I mean by I’m biased and locked in lol)

The way everything seems presented like a incoherent wibbly wobbly mish-mash is analogous to dissociating and what being in a very, very, very low mental state feels like. (to me)

If I stripped the show of all the philosophical hoo-ha, then yeah I can’t lie, the story itself is extremely simple straightforward. #1 streamer vs #2 streamer group; they duke it out, #1 loses, self-destruction, self-discovery, and end message that yes, happiness is what you make of it. (which is very true)

So uh yeah, rambling aside, it is a niche taste kind of thing. If I was more sane, I would drop it to 3 stars. I also applaud that you find it pretentious and gave it a 2, because that means you are in a way better place than I am now, so I’m jealous. :sob:

シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン S1 | L44 is a show that I find similar to this, with the surrealism, avant garde detached imagery, though it obviously explores more on the philosophy of the reality and communication, and how it blurs with the advent of the internet at the time. (turns out an interconnected network has led to more isolation than ever before. also, it should not be L44 what the heck)

Again, sorry for my incoherent spiel, but yeah I just like it for the admittedly shallow exploration of the themes I briefly mentioned above, and the animation is pretty sick you can’t deny.

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Wow, the power of tagging a person! Very neat to see you here; thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts, demyride!

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Re. ラブ上等,

JOKE’S ON ME, it’s exactly my kind of trash TV and I blasted through season one already. I love these buttheads!!! (Well, except for a couple of them.) It’s fun to get a little peep into the lives of people who are so different from me, even if it’s a very produced-for-TV peep, and even that aspect is interesting, because it’s Japanese TV style. In the whole first season, there was but ONE small, chaste kiss! Even though half the participants work in nightlife business that we all know are only a half step away from the sex industry!! It’s fascinating.

And the fashion! When we hit the 卒業式, I was beside myself.

Especially | きぃーちゃん and おとさん

ラブ上等卒業式
ラブ上等卒業式828×552 216 KB

Intriguing! What’s the title?

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