[ANIME] trying to enjoy MHA, after 110 episodes its starting to get interesting

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [ANIME] trying to enjoy MHA, after 110 episodes its starting to get interesting

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Orb Crabmelt: Jan 16, 2011; Nyorp.; Clapping Larry

HootTheOwl posted:

What series is this?

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou / Yokohama Shopping Log, a manga with fourteen volumes and two OVAs. An official localization was just announced (after the series concluded ~15 years ago).

quote:

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō (Japanese: ヨコハマ買い出し紀行)[a] is a Japanese science fiction manga series written and illustrated by Hitoshi Ashinano. It was serialized in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine from June 1994 to February 2006, with a concluding postscript episode in July 2006, and collected in 14 tankōbon volumes. Parts of the story were adapted as two original video animation (OVA) anime series of two episodes each, where the latter one is titled Quiet Country Cafe.

The series depicts the daily life of a robot who runs a coffee shop some time after the Earth's ecology has collapsed. It is noted for its spare pen-and-ink drawing style, as well as its calm, meticulously paced stories and engaging characters.[3] Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō won the 2007 Seiun Award for best science fiction comic.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō is set in a peaceful, post-cataclysmic world where mankind is in decline after an environmental disaster. Exactly what happened is never explained, but sea levels have risen significantly, inundating coastal cities such as Yokohama, Mount Fuji erupted in living memory, and climate change has occurred. With the seasons being less pronounced, the winters are milder and the summer isn't scorching anymore. The reduced human population has reverted to a simpler life, and the reader is told this is the twilight of the human age. One scene depicts an anti-aircraft missile being used in a firework display. Instead of raging against their fate, humans have quietly accepted it.[5][6]

Alpha Hatsuseno is an android ("robot person") who runs an out-of-the-way coffee shop, Caf� Alpha, on the lonely coast of the Miura Peninsula of Japan, while her human "owner" is on a trip of indefinite length.[7] Though she spends much of her time alone, Alpha is cheerful, gregarious, and�unlike the slowly declining humans�immortal.[6]

Most chapters of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō are self-contained slice-of-life episodes depicting Alpha in daily activities, either alone, with customers, or on occasional trips through the countryside or into Yokohama for supplies (whence the "shopping log" of the title came). Whole chapters are devoted to brewing coffee, taking photographs, or repairing a tiny model aircraft engine, sometimes with only a few lines of dialogue. Through Alpha's experiences, the author brings out the small wonders of everyday life and makes the reader aware of their passing: the aircraft engine runs out of fuel; her scooter breaks down; the rising ocean encroaches on her coffee shop; the neighborhood children she loves grow up and move away. In evoking a nostalgia for this loss, Ashinano follows the Japanese tradition of mono no aware (sadness for the transience of things).[8]

Though often self-contained, the stories have continuity�relationships grow and change, and seemingly insignificant details reappear later.[6][7] Ashinano explains few details of Alpha's world, leaving mysteries that engage the reader[9] as the series unfolds in a meandering progression, by turns funny, touching, and nostalgic.[10][11]

Fan translations have been available for quite a while. The first official (omnibus) volume will be available in August.

Orb Crabmelt has issued a correction as of 02:09 on Feb 19, 2022

# ? Feb 19, 2022 02:00

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 05:22

Orb Crabmelt: Jan 16, 2011; Nyorp.; Clapping Larry

Others have posted some tracks from the OVAs, this one is my favorite (though not available on YouTube, I think):

https://soundcloud.com/cafe-alpha/fuwa-fura

# ? Feb 19, 2022 02:20

TenementFunster: Feb 20, 2003; The Cooler King

sb hermit posted:

I thought in the first OVA, she dropped the gun in favor of a camera

correct, but the whole thing was weird. i get that the author was overcome by gun nerddom and *had* to stick an H&K P7 in the hands of japanese robot in 24th century or whatever just to describe it in loving detail, but please do not subvert the Chekov�s Gun trope

# ? Feb 19, 2022 03:00

Retromancer: Aug 21, 2007; Every time I see Goatse, I think of Maureen. That's the last thing I saw. Before I blacked out. The sight of that man's anus.

ok so a friend of mine told me I was missing out by not watching Isekai. I agreed to try out a couple shows that they recommended from the genre.

I watched the slime anime until partway into season 2 because I found the god mode protagonist really dull and how all conflicts just seem to conveniently work out in their favor, then the straw that broke the camels back was when they introduced the 500 year old demon lord in the body of a 12 year old with a super gross design.

now I�m watching the worlds greatest assassin gets reincarnated as an aristocrat and the whole show is just weirdly horny from the jump. like the characters are 7 and 10 years old and the show just seems to be going out of its way to have nude scenes.

is this pervasive through the whole genre or is it my bad luck that my friend keeps recommending pedo shows?

# ? Feb 19, 2022 23:34

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

theres a pedophile market demographic in japan which i personally believe is because of social atomization

isekai stuff appeals to alienated people and is written by them (most isekais start off as web novels) in general so it's far more prevalent in that genre.

# ? Feb 19, 2022 23:42

thotsky: Jun 7, 2005; hot to trot

Nah, pretty much. There's probably always been an undercurrent of that stuff in anime, but in the mid-2000s it became the dominant trend in the industry.

# ? Feb 19, 2022 23:44

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

It's the genre.

Transported to another world is a very old trope but the specific combination of them in the Isekai genre are relatively new.

# ? Feb 19, 2022 23:45

Retromancer: Aug 21, 2007; Every time I see Goatse, I think of Maureen. That's the last thing I saw. Before I blacked out. The sight of that man's anus.

I think I�m just going to stick to watching shows about young men screaming and punching/stabbing each other.

# ? Feb 19, 2022 23:48

MuffinsAndPie: May 20, 2015

There's also the weird amount of slavery that pops up in isekai, it's strange that it's not even a thing in most other anime genres

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:02

pillsburysoldier: Feb 11, 2008; Yo, peep that shit

Eureka from sci fi channel was a good isekai

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:05

an actual dog: Nov 18, 2014

"You need to watch more isekai" is the weirdest thing to say to someone Lol. I can see recommending the shows that are good but as a whole the genre is a like, "if you get it you get really into it but no one else understands" sort of thing Lol

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:10

Srice: Sep 11, 2011

Retromancer posted:

ok so a friend of mine told me I was missing out by not watching Isekai. I agreed to try out a couple shows that they recommended from the genre.

I watched the slime anime until partway into season 2 because I found the god mode protagonist really dull and how all conflicts just seem to conveniently work out in their favor, then the straw that broke the camels back was when they introduced the 500 year old demon lord in the body of a 12 year old with a super gross design.

now I�m watching the worlds greatest assassin gets reincarnated as an aristocrat and the whole show is just weirdly horny from the jump. like the characters are 7 and 10 years old and the show just seems to be going out of its way to have nude scenes.

is this pervasive through the whole genre or is it my bad luck that my friend keeps recommending pedo shows?

it's mainly a power fantasy genre and since a lot of them start as web novels there's nobody to hold them back when they wanna be, well, the bad kind of power fantasy

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:15

Gripweed: Nov 8, 2018; Women are wonderful animals, they should be making music and writing novels about having a complex relationship with your mother.

I've seen three quite good isekai

Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu
Restaurant to Another World
Gundam Build Divers Re Rise

All of them fully non problematic. But isekai fans don't talk about those for some reason

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:18

Srice: Sep 11, 2011

the only isekai I'm really into is saga of tanya the evil, and I am looking forward to season 2 later this year :cheerdoge:

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:30

Kit Walker: Jul 10, 2010; "The Man Who Cannot Deadlift"

Isekai is probably the genre with the lowest lows. There are some good shows but there are so many bad ones that are just so extremely dire they make the entire genre magnitudes worse by the association

Slime show is...okay. It's firmly in the middle of the road. As you said, there's no real conflict, and things generally just kind of work out for the protagonist. If you want a dumb show where the protagonist handily beats everyone and does OP magic nonsense to people constantly underestimating him, it's fine

If there's anything particularly interesting about the genre it's how wildly diverse it can be.

Like, among the good isekai, you have stuff like Ascendance of a Bookworm, in which a literature-nerd girl gets reincarnated into the body of a sickly child in a working class family in a lightly magical medieval-era world where books are extremely rare and are largely only available to the nobility. The show is largely about exploring the social dynamics of this world as well as the protagonist using her knowledge of future technology to develop things like shampoo to get a foothold in the mercantile world to get access to things she would need to be able to actually mass produce books at some point in the future

There's also My Next Life as a Villainess, in which the protagonist finds herself reincarnated in a world exactly like her favorite shoujo visual novel, except as the villainess who dies or gets exiled in every route, so she has to figure out how to avoid this fate befalling her

And there's The Devil is a Part-Timer, an excellent comedy and a rare reverse-isekai in which a demon lord finds himself trapped in the real world, and has to get a part-time job in fast food while he plots to amass enough magical power to break through the dimensions back to his own world

Two of the bigger titles are KonoSuba, which is a comedy and kind of a parody of the genre as a whole, and Re: Zero, which is kind of a deconstruction of the genre and has some pretty compelling writing

But, yeah, there are probably hundreds of isekai and the vast majority of them are worse than dogshit. Feel free to avoid the genre entirely if you're not feeling it

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:32

Good soup!: Nov 2, 2010

I still can't believe they turned the Dragon Quest 5 anime CGI poo poo into an Isekai lol so dumb

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:37

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Just watch Escaflowne.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:39

Srice: Sep 11, 2011

Good soup! posted:

I still can't believe they turned the Dragon Quest 5 anime CGI poo poo into an Isekai lol so dumb

I was kinda fine with that until the ending was changed to make the villain a guy who just HATES dragon quest and everything it stands for, I generally do not like when they write a villain who is opposed to a specific thing that the audience is guaranteed to be a fan of, always comes across as cheap to me!

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:42

Gripweed: Nov 8, 2018; Women are wonderful animals, they should be making music and writing novels about having a complex relationship with your mother.

Gundam Build Divers Re Rise was very good. It actually retroactively made Gundam Build Divers better.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:55

Casey Finnigan: Apr 30, 2009; Dumb ✔
So goddamn crazy ✔

there's an anime called Super Cub about how a girl gets a Honda Super Cub and her life ends up being just massively improved because she buys this reasonably low cost motorcycle

i was really surprised that it wasn't sponsored by Honda

# ? Feb 20, 2022 00:56

Relin: Oct 6, 2002; You have been a most worthy adversary, but in every game, there are winners and there are losers. And as you know, in this game, losers get robotizicized!

MonsieurChoc posted:

Just watch Escaflowne.

and now and then, here and there. and el hazard.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 01:14

Gripweed: Nov 8, 2018; Women are wonderful animals, they should be making music and writing novels about having a complex relationship with your mother.

Relin posted:

and now and then, here and there. and el hazard.

Oh drat, I just finished El Hazard. That was a series with some good elements.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 01:22

christmas boots: Oct 15, 2012; To these sing-alongs 🎤of siren 🧜🏻‍♀️songs
To oohs😮 to ahhs😱 to 👏big👏applause👏
With all of my 😡anger I scream🤬 and shout📢
🇺🇸America🦅, I love you 🥰but you're freaking 💦me 😳out; Biscuit Hider

the thing with the slime show is basically that the main character isn�t playing an rpg like everyone else. he�s playing a civ game

# ? Feb 20, 2022 02:14

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

I've heard lots of very good things about The Twelve Kingdoms.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 02:39

Gripweed: Nov 8, 2018; Women are wonderful animals, they should be making music and writing novels about having a complex relationship with your mother.

Gundam Build Divers Re Rise is provably good. Since the point of Gundam shows is to sell model kits of the robots, all the major robots from any Gundam series are shown in model kit form well before they appear in the show. Re Rise is the exception, because it had one important robot that showed up near the end as a surprise. The model kit for the surprise robot wasn't revealed until right after the episode aired. So some Gundam fans saw it first as the model kit, but some saw it first when it appeared in the show.

The reaction from the people who saw it first as a model kit was universally "That is the stupidest looking robot I have ever seen. That sucks so bad"

The reaction from the people who saw it first in the show was universally *through tears*"That is the best robot I have ever seen. I love it so much"

# ? Feb 20, 2022 03:00

net work error: Feb 26, 2011

Casey Finnigan posted:

there's an anime called Super Cub about how a girl gets a Honda Super Cub and her life ends up being just massively improved because she buys this reasonably low cost motorcycle

i was really surprised that it wasn't sponsored by Honda

It was a comfy show

# ? Feb 20, 2022 07:17

Pitch: Jun 16, 2005; しらんけど

Casey Finnigan posted:

there's an anime called Super Cub about how a girl gets a Honda Super Cub and her life ends up being just massively improved because she buys this reasonably low cost motorcycle

i was really surprised that it wasn't sponsored by Honda

Honda had already made another, unrelated anime about a high school girl riding a Super Cub in 2012.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 08:08

net work error: Feb 26, 2011

Pitch posted:

Honda had already made another, unrelated anime about a high school girl riding a Super Cub in 2012.

Kino's Journey ?

# ? Feb 20, 2022 08:45

tokin opposition: Apr 8, 2021; I don't jailbreak the androids, I set them free.

WATCH MARS EXPRESS (2023)

Pitch posted:

Honda had already made another, unrelated anime about a high school girl riding a Super Cub in 2012.

guess I'm buying a super cub thanks cspam

# ? Feb 20, 2022 09:05

sb hermit: Dec 13, 2016

My Next Life as a Villainess doesn't have the uncomfortable stuff that plagues most isekai but it might be hard for some people to get into because some of the humor plays off of known isekai tropes.

I've only watched the first season (haven't gotten around to the second) but it's fairly wholesome.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 10:10

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
(and can't post for 21 days!)

It's impressive how often My Next Life as a Villainess dips into dark & disturbing territory for a show that's mainly meant for girls. It definitely has a unique sense of self-awareness with how often murderous aristocratic intrigue pops up.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 11:54

wolfs: Jul 17, 2001; posted by squid gang

not an isekai but explicitly dragon quest rpg parody trope based show mahojin guru guru (2017) ticks all the boxes of an isekai but manages to be very charming and an easy watch

go watch that

# ? Feb 20, 2022 12:38

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
(and can't post for 21 days!)

I think it's a waste of time to look for "good isekai" like it's a genre to itself. If a show is good on its own merits you'll hear about it, without having to worry if it's isekai or not.

# ? Feb 20, 2022 12:42