:;()$&@"\The Anime Pub/:;()$&@"

Hell no I'm not being unreasonable. Yuri on Ice is *way* bigger than Sangatsu. I'm merely pointing out that *good* sports anime goes deeper. Much deeper. YoI chooses to focus on one aspect, and that is love between men. Whether it's eros, agape or whatever, that is its chosen theme. And it never goes deeper than that. BUT it's relatively unexplored territory in 'wholesome' (read: non-yaoi) anime so that is really praiseworthy.

Your Lie In April, also a sports anime in its own way, chose to deal with a different theme (trauma resulting from loss) and handled it REALLY badly. Over 24 (I think) long, painful, forced episodes.

And maybe I'm reading a bit too deeply myself but I often wonder why one of the biggest tropes in sports anime is the protagonist *never* gets first place in the decisive event but is usually left in a place where it might be possible in the near future. Maybe it's so that they don't become the biggest threat in the show. Or to prevent their egos from swelling too much. Or to give viewers post-viewing hopes that the protagonist can improve even more. Or maybe it's that very Japanese idea that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, so they avoid having to hammer the protagonist down by never letting them be that nail. Maybe it's all of those. Either way, it sort of gets on my nerves because it's the most predictable element of sports anime. And I don't think Sangatsu is going to be any different.

Isn't the opposite equally boring though?

Don't most of the sports anime portray a protagonist that strives for the win and get's beaten down a few times before reaching his goal?

It's like an on/off switch, you can only go either way and sports usually places "competition" as it's front focus.
It's nice when they take the time to go into character depth in between the win/loses though. Which is why "drama" or a more mental approach goes so well with sports centered anime. Showing the mental fortitude or lack there-off is a big deal.

Not sure but i seem to have a different experience then you on the few sports related anime i've watched, usually they end up with the protagonist being top-dog after a struggle.

I wonder where we put soma in this little "put it all in boxes" thing, in sports or cooking?

I don't really see 3-gatsu as a sports anime but more as a drama for that mater. As a viewer that's more appealing to me, though it's definitely both.

Peace,

-Boem-

I think the last good sports anime we had (when leaving out cooking and shogi) was Ballroom e Youkoso. Which was really good. And again a series about a rather artistic sport that has openings that won't ever leave your head.

Dying to see ballroom. Fucking anime strike.

Chihayafuru was great. I tend to skip more obvious sports like basketball and volleyball although everyone was a bit of a slam dunk and captain tsubasa fan back in the day.

So hyped for a lot of series this season... Overlord II had a solid start, finally a bit more background about the world and more than just 2 factions. Also finally some people that noticed his arrival in the world.

Unfortunately (if I've done my research correctly and I fear that I did), we have to wait until the 10th for Violet Evergarden :(

Also, I discovered the Re:Creators OST again... that's some goooooood stuff :D

Netflix are...being very confusing. I'm just going to wait and see what happens regarding VE and Fate/Extra.

Deeply enjoyed reading https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2017/12/30/a-look-at-the-sakuga-and-animation-of-2017/. So many varied but informed opinions.

I REALLY want to see Houseki no Kuni but figure that may actually be worth the bluray wait.

"

JohnNamikaze wrote:

Sora yori mo Tooi Basho animated by Madhouse and Penguins....I am sold for it!

Story looks decent (at the very least it's unusual), animation is gorgeous, madhouse is madhouse and soundtrack seems pretty good... I'm in aswell :D

I'm gonna try to get rid of some of my plan to watch list at the moment... just finished Gatchaman crowds. Was a lot of fun, some delightfully crazy characters in there. Probably going to watch insight aswell soon.

Next up is mekakucity actors. So far lots of weird animation, only little parts of plot, focus spread over multiple characters and tons of head tilts. This show is just... shaft. No other way to describe it until now.

Maybe I'll manage to fit in youjo senki, hai to gensou no grimgar and tales of zestiria season 2 in my plans which I all just stopped watching at some point for no reason...

https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2018/01/04/winter-2018-anime-preview/

It's going to be a crazy year.

And TIL from sakugablog: the reason Rakugo was so damn fucking good despite being a Deen animation was because a Shaft alumnus was behind it and by extension behind Deen's escape from F/SN2006's very long, very bad shadow.

Everyone's holding out for the Youjosenki announcement come the 8th, which may be season 2 (yay) or may be a cafe collab (ehh) or a pachinko game (FUUUUCK). Given Studio Nut has nothing else going on and Tanya was a huge hit, my money's on season 2.

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We just finished Tales of Zestiria The Cross. It's...okay. Ufotable level animation, unbalanced adaptation of two Tales of games and you can tell. They started with Berseria (the superior one imo) but then moved to Zestiria, which left us with a much more traditional set up. At any rate, it wasn't bad at all and the music is divine, being a collaboration between two legends: Motoi Sakuraba and Shiina Go.

My biggest gripe with Zestiria is the dragons. I never thought I'd say this but A-1 did a better CG/animation dragon with Gate than Ufotable's attempts in Zestiria. Maybe they were trying too hard to stay on-model for the games but they looked terrible. This was one case where Ufotable should have sucked it up and tried 2d.

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Just started Polar Bear's Cafe for something 'lighter' but god, that seiyuu list. Toshiyuki Morikawa (aka Sephiroth) doing Panda's Mama is hilarious. Araragi's seiyuu doing the tsukkomi penguin is great. And Takahiro Sakurai (aka Cloud, Oshino Meme, and so many others) as the ever-chill, pun-loving Shirokuma is tops. What a fun show.

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Will be doing the super-high production value Granblue Fantasy next. Friend of mine plays the game so we had a look at the first episode. Well, if you ever wanted to see a Tactics game animated, that'd be as close as it gets character-design wise.

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Showed the same friend a blend of Fate anime while he was here: Grand Order First Order, then first two eps of Apoc. He's actually played the FSN VN and the dungeon crawler fate/extra so his perspective is quite different to mine. GO didn't make him want to go play GO, but Apoc definitely piqued his interest by virtue of just how ballsy the premise is, the diversity of the Servants and the unrelenting commitment to action in the show. But I'm figuring Last Encore will be his cup of tea, given the Extra experience.

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...I'm probably going to shell out for the raw unsubbed Apoc blurays. I just *have* to see this show without the ghosting and pixelation and I don't have much confidence netflix are going to allow a cheaper western bluray release anytime soon...