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Winter 2023: I Miss Gundam
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Dec 25, 2022 15:26
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 10:51 |
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Season wrap-up! Mob S3: There were good chunks of this one I wasn't that invested in but it nailed the moments that truly counted, giving us one hell of a finale. The inexplicable alien episode is one of my favourite eps of the whole show. It's good! Mob is good. C Danchi: The stilted writing, compromised animation and lack of japanese vocal track weren't issues for me, but the deeply meanspirited ending that completely derails its leads' characterization was a real dealbreaker. It's probably for the best that this one will vanish into obscurity. G-Witch: Technically still 1 ep to go but there’s also a whole-rear end ‘nother cour after that so it’ll be a while before I have a complete opinion on this anyway, so: For a while after the explosive opening episode I was pretty lukewarm on the show because it juggled a few too many conceits and didn’t seem to be able to execute any of them satisfyingly, and in particular the lead relationship suffered as a result. The cour’s 2nd half however has zeroed in a lot better on the aspects of the show I like, and today’s episode in particular was downright explosive once again. I don’t know if it’ll be like, one of my favourite Gundams, but it’s a pretty solid one at least and I'm excited for its remainder. Arknights: Well, it's about what I expected it to be, for better or for worse. There were a lot of good calls that elevated the material but also some odd ones I don't know how to feel about, particularly in the finale. Being a game fan I'm just happy to watch W do a dainty backflip, but taken on its own terms it's just a thoroughly 6/10 sad girl action show with really nice background art. Looking forward to season 2 where the game's story goes from "bad" to "kind of all over the place but generally decent with some real highlights". DIY: Regrettably, proof that an amazing art style alone does not a great anime make. It's not bad or anything, and I do think it has a lot to offer for people who vibe more with the Serufu/Purin relationship, but ultimately I just didn't get much out of it besides mild disappointment. Probably my biggest friction with it is that even though it's an anime original it plays out the cues of hobby kirara very straightforwardly, while the manga currently happening on the actual pages of kirara are doing way more interesting & playful things with the form. Bocchi the Rock!: Speaking of... Heaping more praise on BTR feels redundant at this point, but it really is an all-timer. Earnestly, probably the consistently funniest anime I've seen? I'm happy that it broke into mainstream popularity, it deserves it. Very much looking forward to the inevitable 2nd season. Also put Akiba Maid War on my to-watch list, since people seem to like that one a lot. Gonna be a long while before we get another season like this again.
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Dec 25, 2022 15:37
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wininter season 2023
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Dec 25, 2022 16:08
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Waffleman_ posted:Winter 2023: I Miss Gundam 
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Dec 25, 2022 16:11
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Bocchi was great, DIY was comfy, Akiba Maid War was insane fun, but there has not been enough mention of the villainess last boss show "Akuyaku Reijou nanode Last Boss wo Kattemimashita", which was very good.
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Dec 25, 2022 16:11
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Indiana_Krom posted:Bocchi was great, DIY was comfy, Akiba Maid War was insane fun, but there has not been enough mention of the villainess last boss show "Akuyaku Reijou nanode Last Boss wo Kattemimashita", which was very good. I think there's been too much mention of it actually.
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Dec 25, 2022 16:13
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wait they're doing a second season of that insanely cheap record of ragnarok anime adaptation?
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Dec 25, 2022 16:16
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The Colonel posted:wait they're doing a second season of that insanely cheap record of ragnarok anime adaptation? Gotta promote the manga! (Even though the adaptation was lovely, it did its job of getting people to check out/buy the manga, so it worked)
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Dec 25, 2022 16:25
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it's a Netflix thing so i assume its success is pretty detached from what actual fans think of it
Tales of Woe fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Dec 25, 2022 |
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Dec 25, 2022 16:26
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I'm confused about Ravens ending, it seemed pretty clear cut to me but I must've watched a different ending from other people  What's this about Gaojun getting possessed by the Owl? I thought they were hinting Shouxue was already a Raven when she bandaged Gaojun, not that the Owl left him extra scratches
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Dec 25, 2022 17:17
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PV for Season 2 of Birdie Wing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI2sXS-96SA
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Dec 25, 2022 17:34
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Sure looks like Birdie Wing
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Dec 25, 2022 17:36
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Terry van Feleday posted:
Yeah, this was my favorite single episode of any show this season. It was amazing. Akiba maid war was probably the show I liked the most overall this season though.
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Dec 25, 2022 18:39
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The pre-air of Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei was fun. It felt a lot like "what if Chisato from Lycoris Recoil was isekai-ed". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQPp6laLo0E
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Dec 25, 2022 18:49
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loseter season 2023
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Dec 25, 2022 18:56
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Tamba posted:The pre-air of Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei was fun. It felt a lot like "what if Chisato from Lycoris Recoil was isekai-ed". I'm looking forward to this and debating if i want the adaptation to do the first 2 books or get to the third cause the third really has some good bits Yuri Isekai to the rescue!
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Dec 25, 2022 19:36
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Julias posted:Gotta promote the manga! (Even though the adaptation was lovely, it did its job of getting people to check out/buy the manga, so it worked) I can tell you I resent it for the power level of the collab set in the vanguard tcg
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Dec 25, 2022 21:57
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Strange Quark posted:I can tell you I resent it for the power level of the collab set in the vanguard tcg Lol
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Dec 25, 2022 23:17
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More Than A Married Couple ending on probably its most what the gently caress is subtlety note for the whole season. Really hope it gets a second season, having read up to current.
chumbler fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 00:11
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I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards
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Dec 26, 2022 00:12
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chumbler posted:More Than A Married Couple ending on probably its most what the gently caress is subtlety note for the whole season. Really hope it gets a second season, having read up to current. More than any other anime this year I am desperate for season 2. This show exceeded my expectations and more. I was not expecting a finale so heartfelt but gently caress it, that's what I got. Like idk I adore this show, it probably wins Aots for me. Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 00:54
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All right, season in review ordered entirely by schedule: Housing Complex C: This was a weird yet intriguing show that ultimately couldn't quite cash its own checks. The buildup was interesting, take a weird setting that's slightly off, add a couple of hints around the side that something isn't quite right with some of these characters, garnish with enough details to establish this is a Cthulhu show and then slowly bring it to a boil. The initial pitch thrown out is something like Shadow over Innsmouth in the details and some of the oddities going on, except the backwater small town is Japanese instead of an Lovecraft country and the hostile locals are also just old Japanese codgers instead of fish people and isn't that interesting how easily that kind of fear and hatred can go on the other foot? There is something interesting there, inverting the lovely worldview of Lovecraft to make bigotry and xenophobia the actual malevolent force and drawing parallels between the stink HP got up to and the actually evil he was trying to portray. Unfortunately it doesn't completely stand up to scrutiny. I counted at least two flat-out continuity errors, the relative competence of the investigators fluctuates wildly, several actions make no sense within the framework of the series, and the mandatory dude who goes mad from the revelation is never really exposed to anything that should've made him go mad and the revelation he has is honestly not even that bad so I have no idea why what eventually happens to him actually happened to him. Also the out of nowhere bloodbath in the final episode. That tonal shift is really really REALLY loving jarring in a way that hugely detracts from the story. Looking back, yes there were a couple of hints that poo poo was going to go wrong, and even in that direction, it retroactively justifies a couple of seemingly unearned character scenes, but man alive was going out like a slasher movie an utter letdown. At the same time it had a decent cast, it was paced well, and the messaging around the final reveal actually kind of worked in a way I didn't expect. Ultimately I think I can get behind a series where the takeaway is that even Yog-Sothoth will tell you racism is bad, people are more alike than they are different, and seriously gently caress cultists. G-Witch: Hit me up in six months when the first season of this wraps, but until then I'll say I wasn't aware how much I wanted a Gundam series starring an autistic lesbian tanuki girl until Suletta stammered onto the scene. Management of a Novice Alchemist: I do wonder if the initial pitch of the series was for it to be an isekai as it has most of the hallmarks of an easy-going one of those: we've got a super talented protagonist who wants to live a quiet life, an easy-going story about running a store where the protagonist is rarely if ever meaningfully challenged, a cast of zany characters who hang around all the time, and a weird obsession with RPG setting minutia. It's not an amazing show by any stretch of the imagination especially since the aforementioned characters are quite thin indeed, but it was a fun thing to wake up to on Monday morning and I appreciated it. If nothing else anyone trying to chart the evolution of generic fantasy settings in Japanese media might want to make a note of it as this is one of those rare shows that doesn't crib wholesale from Dragon Quest. Nope, this is Atelier baby! Also, mild bonus points for not just having RPG stats. Chainsaw Man: It was alright. Reincarnated as a Sword: And speaking of shows that put RPG stats into the story... So yeah, we gots us some prime isekai here fellas. The main character's OP, he's written in the standard, self-aware, lampshade hanging, passively Japanese lionizing isekai protagonist style, the setting is thinly sketched and leans super heavily on carryover from JRPG's and JRPG gamepla mechanics, and there's a bit of skeeve in a way that I'm not happy about (I could have used a lot less of the elf lady begging to be called "mama"). Functionally there are three things Sword isekai actually did that set itself apart from the pack: firstly is the obvious main conceit where the title character is actually the weapon being used by the real protagonist and they have a fairly cute father and daughter dynamic between the two of them. Moving the narrator and isekai viewpoint person slightly to the side also allows for point the second: The main characters were more than once meaningfully challenged. The protagonists are not inherently the strongest dudes in the whole world, there are some people who outmatch them, some things that are beyond them, and some fights where they actually have to try and and work hard at to win. And in fact those are probably the best parts of the anime, when Fran and teacher are seriously fighting for their lives and the show puts some budget into having legit good fight scenes. Astoundingly, it turns out if you assign stakes to a fight it's more interesting, and if you make your characters have to overcome the odds to come out on top it makes their strength look more meaningful. Funny thing that. Oh and the third way the show set itself apart is that it loving hated slavery and relished in the death of slavers. You know your genre has problems with this is a noteworthy, standout detail. C'est la vie (in another world.) Do It Yourself!!: This was a fuzzy, heartwarming, feel-good anime all the way through. Soft and fluffy visuals, goofy fun characters, and a cheerful message encouraging gumption and self-direction. A vibing hang out anime all the way through. I mean there's also a theme about the merits of doing it yourself not necessarily being connected to the final project, that whole bit about how people have all sorts of different capabilities and different sides to them and you should let them surprise you, a protagonist who is very clearly neurodivergent, and a surprisingly subtle character arc on the part of 3D Purin who's the person who actually has the most growth over the course of the series. The slow reveal that the title character is legitimately a scatterbrained genius recasts a lot of what she says and does and significantly recolors the relationship between the leads. The show is still primarily interested in being a fun and relaxing experience, but it's not brainless. It's also not particularly interested in giving complete instructions on its projects because frankly I think the show cares more about the concept of DIY projects than the reality of them, but on the whole it aspires to be as chill as its protagonist, and frankly Yua Serufu is someone whose chillness is aspirational. My Master Has No Tail: Nearly every season of anime has a couple of solidly B-Tier shows like this one. My Master Has No Tail is a show that is neither amazing nor terrible. It does pretty much everything well but not much in it is actually great. I suspect, however, that some amount of this good but not greatness comes from the source material and the adaptation. This is an anime about Rakugo, a decent amount of screen time is comprised of people giving Rakugo performances, and many of those performances are meant to be done by genuine masters of the art form who we are told through narration are supposed to be giving absolutely spellbinding performances. And sadly the adaptation is not really up to the task of getting all that across. And it's not like they throw up their hands and gave up, the shows are stylized in a way to get them across well and I actually laughed more than once at the stories which tells me that someone somewhere did a good thing when a punchline can translate to a person so far removed from the source, but at the same time this isn't Bocchi the Rock and I kind of feel like it would've had to be to nail the highs they're trying to sell me... But it's not all bad news. They couldn't shoot the moon but I still think the show shot pretty darn high with many of performances, and while they never quite made the masters look truly masterful they did a decent job contrasting them with newbie protagonist and showing both her inexperience and the part of performance she's actually good at. And the show has some genuine standout moments of course, for instance the way the titular master defuses a bad situation by ad-libbing at a story absolutely nailed it, and a lot of the story in and around what it is to give a performance landed way better than the actual performances. The show did a really good job poignantly showing what motivates all these people to perform in a way that feels true. On the other hand the eleventh hour antagonist was complete poo poo that distracted from the interesting portion of the last arc and the series would've been better without him. So it goes. Spy X Family: Today on "the differences between anime and manga" we have why the back half of Spy X Family was much less exciting than the front half: pacing. Transferring between different media means that you have to pace yourself and your story differently, chapters in a manga are inherently going to be shorter and have a more reader directed pacing than the 21ish minutes of screen time a television anime must fill. If you change nothing you threaten boredom, and I struggled to get through some of these episodes because of how laboriously paced they were. I get that the show was choosing to adapt these stories pretty much one-to-one to their manga chapter counterparts and that's why they started doing to half episodes being put together, but still I do not remember the pacing being as bad in the first half. That may be because number of the first cour episodes had expansions and glosses here and there to fill out the running time. This part really didn't, some of the stories fit the running time well, but the ones that didn't felt really sluggish. I also suspect the decision to save the boat arc for the second season might also have resulted in some foot dragging, I honestly would've thought that story would have made for a good ending point and would have allowed for a little bit of tighter plotting to get there, but who knows. Bocchi The Rock: AOTS, in the running for AOTY. This show absolutely rocked, pun fully intended because one of the things it rocked at was rock. Just for starters it was one of the most impressive anime I have ever seen, it was superbly animated, flawlessly directed, endlessly creative, and ridiculous in all the best ways. The show changed animation styles and even animation MEDIUMS mid episode just to add more punch to their jokes. Then you take all that, this once in a blue moon animation exemplar and add an incredibly well written, fully realized, true to life, deeply and tragically relatable protagonist who is slowly and laboriously making progress as a person in the most tragic and hilarious way?  Bocchi the Rock both gets its title character, knows how to use her for humor, and has nothing but sympathy and understanding for her. We may laugh at her, but really we're laughing with her and cheering her on. It was a hard sell for me at the beginning because I honestly wasn't sure if the show would let her start to achieve and become more than a one-note character, but it did and I became incredibly invested in seeing her claw her way forward, step-by-step. I am absolutely glad I came back for the third episode, because this is a modern classic of the show and I want another season of it that's as good as this one. And like I said the music rocks also. The concerts in Bocchi were absolutely what My Master Has No Tail was trying for, except it hit it 1000%. Highest possible marks for you Bocchi.
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Dec 26, 2022 05:32
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I feel like Housing Complex C could have either used like two more episodes or to have compressed the first two episodes down into one because they both kinda served the same purpose.
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Dec 26, 2022 05:55
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Waffleman_ posted:I feel like Housing Complex C could have either used like two more episodes or to have compressed the first two episodes down into one because they both kinda served the same purpose. Very much so. I suspect the decision to run it for exactly four episodes because October had some unfortunate repercussions on the whole.
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Dec 26, 2022 07:38
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finished watching DIY. The constant use of random english by Jobko has gone from funny to incredibly annoying to very endearing there doesn't seem to be any hooks for an S2 which is very good. I would rather see a story that ends well than a netflix series that always tries to get the viewer to clamor for more
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Dec 26, 2022 08:47
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Mob had a few meh episodes this season but overall it still hit every note I was hoping for and ended perfectly. Uzaki was basically the same with at least 2 episodes I just bounced off of, but pulled itself back together for a great finish. Its actually pretty endearing watching these 2 dumdums dance around their feelings because it feels so... believable? Iruma felt slower this season, but I actually didnt mind since it meant I could put it on the backburner and binge it later on in chunks. Clara's family being a walking musical is one of the best gags the anime has managed to consistently pull off. Shows I found acceptable but never got around to finishing (but will at some future point): Maid Wars, Bocchi and Chainsaw Man. Shows that got the 3 episode trial and failed to capitalize: DIY, G-Witch, Reincarnated as a Sword Overall probably the season I gave the largest number of anime a shot at since Ive been posting here. A good season.
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Dec 26, 2022 17:49
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Just started watching Bocchi and this OP song is dope as hell. Between this, Bleach, Chainsaw Man, Mob, Spy X Family, and a few others I'm probably forgetting this has been a pretty good season for OP/ED fans. Might be a better year than 2021 which had some real good poo poo, but I'll need to double check.
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Dec 26, 2022 18:00
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i've only been watching gwitch and MHA gwitch has been fantastic MHA has not been
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Dec 26, 2022 18:58
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I do not understand the high schoolers pretending to be married anime. Like, okay, it's a pretty basic rom com. The two leads don't have much chemistry and very little character building, they mostly just flit from one comedy scene or 'sexy' scene to the next, and the love triangle gets dragged out into absurdity. Sure, fine. That's all business as usual. But how the hell is their fake marriage practice being graded? We see some kind of sensor in their apartment, presumably recording everything. But the scoreboard seems to respond to everything they do in real time?! What, is there an entire army of people constantly monitoring these kids (and presumably every high schooler in Japan) and giving them points every time they smooch? But neither of the main characters ever shows any shyness or embarrassment about being almost naked or nearly having sex in front of the camera. Do they just not give a poo poo, or is nobody actually watching them? Is it an automated system? Does it have a set of predefined sounds and behaviors it checks for? Is it a full-fledged AI model? Was this secretly a science fiction anime the whole time? What is going on here??? anyway best animes of the season were Bocchi and 4-nin wa Sorezore Uso wo Tsuku, sorry not sorry.
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Dec 29, 2022 13:49
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It deserved the have the tag line 'The shoujo with the dumbest possible premise' but A Couple of Cuckoo's stole that one.
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Dec 29, 2022 13:54
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Demographic genres are for chumps, but I'm pretty sure both of those ran in Shounen magazines. Shoujo doesn't mean "romcom."
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Dec 29, 2022 15:41
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Clarste posted:Demographic genres are for chumps, but I'm pretty sure both of those ran in Shounen magazines. Shoujo doesn't mean "romcom." I pissed that I can't find the one shot version I read that had this literally plastered on the front page because it was funny but it might have said romcom. I don't remember. And I know and don't care about the distinction. Although with both of these, I'd say they definitely aren't very shoujo. I wouldn't say it's marketed towards males, exactly, but they're stupid in a non typical way as a guy who reads a billion actual shoujos a day. Maybe they're adapted from light novels. More than a married couple definitely has light novel stupid energy.
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Dec 29, 2022 15:49
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Don't let marketers tell you what series are appropriate for your gender. Read whatever you like. I read both shoujo and shonen stuff (and their older version too, though I forget the terms for those)
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Dec 29, 2022 15:52
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Larry Parrish posted:I pissed that I can't find the one shot version I read that had this literally plastered on the front page because it was funny but it might have said romcom. I don't remember. And I know and don't care about the distinction. Nah, they're pretty much standard horny romcoms. Just... not shoujo. You can just google it.
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Dec 29, 2022 16:05
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Clarste posted:Demographic genres are for chumps, but I'm pretty sure both of those ran in Shounen magazines. Shoujo doesn't mean "romcom."
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Dec 29, 2022 16:07
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I don't look up which magazines ran what I read so unless the author mentions it or like there's a note in the back telling me to send feedback to Bestassu Friend I really don't have any well of telling other than a vague guess. Sometimes you can just tell by publisher but not every publisher runs their own magazine anymore so... And yeah I could Google but why would I? I don't give a poo poo what it was marketed as as a reader.
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Dec 29, 2022 16:11
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Probably a good idea if you're going to invoke the demographics in discussion, but only really then.
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Dec 29, 2022 16:17
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Verus posted:I do not understand the high schoolers pretending to be married anime. Like, okay, it's a pretty basic rom com. The two leads don't have much chemistry and very little character building, they mostly just flit from one comedy scene or 'sexy' scene to the next, and the love triangle gets dragged out into absurdity. Sure, fine. That's all business as usual. A wizard did it. I am really surprised that you think the leads had no chemistry though. imo they ended up better developed than most romcoms that end up getting airtime.
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Dec 29, 2022 16:39
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Larry Parrish posted:I don't look up which magazines ran what I read so unless the author mentions it or like there's a note in the back telling me to send feedback to Bestassu Friend I really don't have any well of telling other than a vague guess. Sometimes you can just tell by publisher but not every publisher runs their own magazine anymore so... Well, I guess your senses accurately determined that something was off about them compared to the other shoujo series you've read.
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Dec 29, 2022 16:45
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i dont give a poo poo what it was marketed as a reader, which is why i brought it up to discuss who they were marketed to
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Dec 29, 2022 16:52
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