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While I don't think the author is communist or anything, 12 Kingdoms actually contains some stuff that is a bit surprising when I was rewatching it recently. A couple things that stood out to me: - The king of Hou and his wife are executed in an uprising in response to being terrible and executing people for things like stealing bread. The show's "voice of reason" character (the rat-man Rakushun) tells the daughter of said king that her parents basically had it coming and she shares in the guilt due to her willful ignorance. The man who executed the girl's mother in front of her is correctly portrayed as a virtuous citizen who cares for the well-being of his nation. - At one point the show (approvingly) mentions how every citizen in the 12 kingdoms is granted farmable land and a house. Granted the nations all have kings/queens, but that's because it's a metaphysical requirement in their world, and failure to create a prosperous nation results in the inevitable death of its (otherwise immortal) monarch. So there's an in-built mechanism preventing the long rule of lovely kings/queens.
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Jul 19, 2023 03:20
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galagazombie posted:I dunno Twelve Kingdoms always seemed to me a (unintended by the author) straight up horror show of a setting. What with all the face stealing, kidnapping, fruit people, and immortal monarchs ruling over (no matter how kindly a Japanese teenager) peasants who have immortality cruelly denied to them by a capricious and arbitrary God. I don't mind the stuff with the kings/queens since it's an actual metaphysical element of the setting that characters are forced to deal with, for both good and ill. And it actually seems to work well in most places, mainly due to those same metaphysics causing weather, crop yields, etc to be good when a ruler is good - we just get a disproportionate view into places where things are hosed up due to bad rulers or being temporarily without a ruler. Another upside is the fact that it is impossible for a nation to directly attack another nation, so wars are usually limited to internal ones, like the one we see in the latter parts of the anime. The fact that it causes problems isn't really a problem with the story, since it's not advocating the existence of immortal leaders elsewhere. I think the only real significant issue I have with the setting is that I don't understand why "the heavens" (through the Kirin, who have no control over it) sometimes choose obviously terrible rulers. Like when Keiki meets the previous Kei Queen, he's immediately like "this woman is obviously unsuitable to lead, but she has the ruler aura so guess I gotta do this..." Especially since it seems like they usually make good choices (or at least ones that start out good and only become terrible after many decades, if not centuries). But I was mainly just commenting on the fact that it's rare for stuff like the things I mentioned to pop up in more modern (like 90s onward) Japanese media, since there's usually just this background assumption of liberal democratic values (so something like "distributing the land to everyone instead of allowing it to be traded/rented for profit" is unusual). Same with outright executing a bad (but technically "legitimate") leader via rebellion. Normally I'd expect something like "the King getting himself killed through doing something bad/stupid" or "the King killing himself after being deposed." I doubt these things are connected to any coherent political ideology on the part of the author, but it's still interesting (particularly the land thing, since stuff like that is literally the cause of capitalist wars against communist nations IRL). Cerebral Bore posted:isn't this just mandate of heaven stuff? Basically yeah, but in a setting where it exists in a very literal sense. The story doesn't actually take a position on it being good or something that is desirable. Our world also exists in this setting, and the world of the 12 Kingdoms is generally treated as a worse place to be, with zero implications that our world would be better with the same system. It's just something people need to deal with in that world. Nations need to be concerned with things like "if the leader next door sucks or disappears, there will be a flood of refugees into my country due to poor crop yields and frequent monster attacks." Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 18:06 on Jul 23, 2023 |
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Jul 23, 2023 18:00
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Shinsekai Yori didn't do much for me. I think it may have if I had watched it earlier. It seems to rely heavily on someone finding its setting interesting/surprising. Also the stuff with the kids having relationships as young teens had kinda weird vibes. I think Haibane Renmei is a bit better with the mysterious setting (though it also deliberately keeps a lot of major mysteries unanswered). I like 12 Kingdoms mainly because its setting just defines the circumstances for its various short stories and collection of characters. The setting itself isn't exceptionally interesting, but it doesn't need to be since it isn't the main draw. As for how its setting is presented, I get the impression it's portrayed as "beautiful, but in a way the natural world is beautiful, where it can be terrible for individual entities living in it." The biggest problem with the setting is probably the lack of agency for people who either aren't Kings/Queens or don't have contact with Kings/Queens (since it's literally ordained by heaven and there's jack poo poo a person can do to improve their country other than attempt to influence their monarch and, in the absolute worse case, kill them - but this is undesirable since it guarantees years of suffering until the new monarch is selected). Fundamentally changing the political system is literally impossible, since the existence of a monarch is necessary. But this doesn't prevent stories from still taking place in that context (and in some ways it's more realistic, since it's not like normal people can influence much in the real world either).
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Jul 24, 2023 00:40
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pillsburysoldier posted:Penultimate ep of heavenly delusion loving sucks. So's the handling of those events in the last ep I've read up to the current (translated) manga chapters, and I still think that part was completely unnecessary. My interpretation is that it's some sort of hosed up way of cementing Kiruko's current female identity. I still think the manga overall is good, but that specific thing just kind of sucked. (I've only read the manga, but from other comments on the anime I'm pretty sure I know what you're referring to.)
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Jul 24, 2023 07:52
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I guess my feeling is that if a story relies on its message and/or plot twist above all else, they need to be something really interesting/compelling. I don't think that "our society is bad and the people we're oppressing are fundamentally just like us" is exceptionally. interesting as a message on its own. Either way, I don't even think SSY is even remotely bad (it's definitely a "higher-tier" anime and its "message" is good by anime standards) - I just don't think it's meaningfully better than something like 12 Kingdoms (and it first came up in that context, despite being a kind of bizarre comparison - if I were to compare SSY with something, it'd be a show like Haibane Renmei, or even another relatively "high brow" thing like Lain). 12 Kingdoms doesn't have anything exceptionally deep about its plot, but it's fun getting to know it's various characters and their stories. As a basic personal thing, I like how one of the main protagonist's "personal revelations" is simply "whether people are lovely to me doesn't need to control how I behave towards them." It's a very simple thing, but one that is still a meaningful personal development for the character in question. If the show has any specific thesis, it seems to be "even if the world sucks, you can still be kind to the people around you."
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Jul 25, 2023 06:58
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I like how the Baki characters have a 12-pack in their cheeks Also that one page with Dave the Raper is one of the funniest things I've seen in my entire life. It never fails to make me laugh. I can't find it when googling so someone please post it if they have it.
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Aug 11, 2023 13:15
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Someone needs to find the actual panel, but the quote of it : quote:Dave from Osaka Prefecture, age 35: "I myself am a raper... I know the challenge of raping. To put it simply... What I saw that day was not possible by the laws of human limits."
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Aug 24, 2023 22:04
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Stairmaster posted:that's not real you loving idiot This is the same manga that had a (very real) chapter talking about how Yujiro is such a man that all other men are effectively women in his presence, and he rapes some mountain climber, causing him to discover his "inner woman" and become obsessed with being manly to compensate. I've only read stuff from Baki-dou 2018, but I don't think it's strange that I assumed the panel people frequently referenced was real, given how bizarre this manga routinely is.
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Aug 27, 2023 23:38
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Apparently one of the student teachers my mom has been observing (as part of her part-time job with the local university after retiring) is a weeb. My mom has some of her students on Facebook and the guy posts pictures from JoJo, so at least he has good taste. edit: He also teaches Japanese. Apparently Japanese has become popular in our city (Memphis), which is interesting since when I took it back in high school my school was literally the only school that taught it (and my teacher wrote her own textbook, while I think classes are now using the standard Yookoso books).
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Sep 28, 2023 20:33
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:what’s incredible about One Piece is actually how little weird anime stuff is in it, despite Oda’s aesthetic tastes. it’s one of those mangas that people who don’t like anime end up being really into. This hasn't really been my experience. My friend and his girlfriend are pretty typical "western nerds who aren't particularly into or familiar with Japanese stuff," and the only shounen anime they care for is MHA (and I don't know of a single person who is "anime-averse" and reads any manga at all). My other friend who likes nerdier stuff is fundamentally turned off by any sort of "bombastic" (for lack of a better adjective) tone in anime (or Japanese stuff in general), which basically includes literally all shounen.
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Oct 5, 2023 22:32
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MonsieurChoc posted:Nobody but me rememebrs Escaflowne, where a girl goes to the secret second Moon where the Atlanteans hosed of. Escaflowne was the first subbed anime I watched. Before that I had only watched DBZ on TV and English dubbed episodes of Ranma 1/2 on RealPlayer in like 50p resolution. Some girl in my Japanese class in 9th grade lent me it on VHS. Still remember watching it in the living room. Remember basically nothing about the actual plot/characters, though. War and Pieces posted:Gundam wing glorifies suicide a bit too much for modern children. We dont need any more emos. I don't think I ever watched Gundam Wing on TV, but I do remember watching some Gundam Wing OVA (Endless Waltz I believe) on this super tiny TV in my bedroom with my girlfriend at the time who was a fan of the show. Similar to Escaflowne, remember nothing about it aside from this song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNSOcPjL-Gw Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 21:24 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 21:21
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Honest Thief posted:I like the little author notes in jjk where they admit one of gojo abilities was born out of their misunderstanding of mathematics with infinity This is actually valid, because of the 87th law of Jujutsu. As long as you truly believe that's how math works, the jujutsu will succeed.
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Oct 10, 2023 14:39
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Whirling posted:I read Shut Hell and it was a lot of fun, its very entertaining historical fiction about the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, although the need to always have a Japanese point-of-view character is quite absurd in this case; the writer has to do some very strange time travel poo poo where a dopey Japanese guy has to cohabit the body of the titular character (who is his past incarnation, I think?), and the result is that there's a few times where a much more interesting character has to take the backseat for a guy that is just kinda there. At least he's not a pervert I guess. I think the Shut Hell protagonist is fine, because both he and his modern-day love interest are basically just "echos" of the actual main characters, and a PoV for learning about them in a way that isn't just a direct narrative. I'm also a big sucker for that specific sort of romance (like "a romance that persists across time/reincarnations"), and the gender switching aspect makes it even more interesting. It's probably one of my favorite manga. edit: Also agree about women authors often/usually being much better. Dorohedoro (my #1 favorite manga), 7 Seeds, and Magi are also some of my favorites. Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 01:25 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 01:22
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Whirling posted:Eh I like Punpun but it feels like it was made largely because Asano was tired of being typecast as a guy who only makes feel-good slice of life stuff, so some things come off as trying too hard. Still, it beats Oshimi stuff, where people will go absolutely feral for no real reason other than to drive the plot forward. I like Inio Asano's stuff well enough, but his works tend to focus heavily on "the ennui of a certain sort of guy."
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Oct 19, 2023 11:14
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turn off the TV posted:the only good harem manga All "reverse-harems" are good
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Oct 22, 2023 23:22
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Gripweed posted:Dorohedoro is the most Halloween vibes manga ever. Entire society of people with masks even
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Oct 28, 2023 22:37
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bitmap posted:watching spyxfamily and it's extremely basic but am I to understand that yor is a murderer for a fascist state? and that state, dripping with nazi imagery and pursuing a fascist national mythology...is based on east germany? The politics of SpyXFamily are pretty incoherent/confusing (and probably best ignored), and the story doesn't seem to know how to deal with Yor's assassin work. IIRC the author has explicitly talked about how it's difficult to portray Yor's activities while keeping her sympathetic to the reader (since it's kind of hard to do a lot of murders while staying oblivious to the true nature of what you're doing). So we get a few scenes of her just effortlessly 1-shotting people, or killing people who are Really Bad, but no details beyond that. Because it's kind of hard to, say, kill someone begging for their life while maintaining the "airhead" persona. My best guess at the politics of the story is that the writing is coming from a perspective of "they just need to make peace." So at least it doesn't seem to be supporting a West Germany equivalent against an East Germany one.
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Nov 13, 2023 20:58
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Communist Thoughts posted:judging by the amount of doth protesting, i can only imagine how hosed up spyXfamily is One of the sure-fire ways of knowing something is bad, is if people disagree when I say it's bad
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Nov 14, 2023 22:05
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Gripweed posted:It seems like a relatively recent change that sometimes in gay manga when the guy gets feelings for another guy he’s like “does this mean I’m gay?” as opposed to “I’m a man, but I feel feelings towards another man? This makes no sense! What a strange a unique situation I find myself in!” I feel like this is partly a function of some manga with gay men being written by straight women, where part of the "fantasy" is the confusion of the characters not understanding their feelings. It kinda depends on the age of the characters, though. A teenager feeling that way is far more realistic than an adult.
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Nov 28, 2023 05:46
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Zatch Bell 2 is good and probably GotY despite not even being a game
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Dec 14, 2023 23:04
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:I'm gay vampire Barak Obama? If you like your dark master, you can keep it. I doubt that you are a vampire *or* Barack Obama. Hell, I bet you aren't even gay. A very dishonest post.
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Dec 19, 2023 19:07
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Instead of AoT, read Zatch Bell 2
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Dec 25, 2023 21:41
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Augus posted:I barely understand half the ability explanations in JJK tbqh They are very unclear, yeah. And the way their rules are applied isn't as clear and "logical" as in HxH. To take Hakari as an example, his power supposedly depends on taking a risk, but in practice he literally just always triggers the "infinite cursed energy + constant RCT" effect, so that's effectively what his ability actually is. I think the only JJK concept I understand well despite it sounding weird is "reversed cursed energy" (which I understand as "positive energy" which is why it heals you*). But all the stuff with domains is often confusing/unclear to me (and in a bad way where I'm pretty sure there are other ways to more easily explain the same stuff). I still enjoy JJK a lot, though. "HxH at home" is still a good thing for a manga to be. * but this is also kinda weird, because you'd imagine that it would have more applications than just self-healing - after all, it's literally just the flip-side of cursed energy
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Jan 2, 2024 04:10
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tokin opposition posted:MtF MtF isekai I like the isekai where this guy becomes The Cutest Girl and their stoic handsome friend is in denial about his attraction to her. Googled and it's called "Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan" IIRC the protagonist wasn't exactly trans on Earth, but ends up embracing becoming a woman after isekai-ing
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Jan 4, 2024 03:11
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Whirling posted:imagining Arthur Morgan riding atop the shoulders of a horse girl on the plains saying stuff like "woah, easy there girl, slow down." Mistakenly murdering pedestrians by running into them with the horse girl
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Jan 5, 2024 22:43
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KomradeX posted:It sucks, so much The thing that bugs me about Death Note's core "battle of minds" is that the only reason catching Light is even remotely possible is that he fucks up a bunch at the beginning and narrows the search down to "a kid in this specific part of Japan."
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Jan 17, 2024 05:50
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YaketySass posted:The second funniest part of Death Note is when L is like "I'm 95% sure it's him but I need it to be 100%" about the highest profile terrorist case on the planet. I think my biggest thematic issue in Death Note is that I get the impression the author thinks we (the readers) should find Light's perspective "compelling." Like "he has a point, but takes it too far." But IIRC the guy mostly just mass-murders petty criminals and rarely touches anyone with real power unless they're going after him.
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Jan 17, 2024 09:52
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Akumetsu rules but if you start examining it critically it shares the same politics as Juan Guaido. It's a genuinely comical series once you see what the main guy (or guys I guess) is doing his "kickass violence" for.
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Jan 17, 2024 23:24
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Buck Wildman posted:https://mangadex.org/title/c3c1f4b0-e274-4ebb-87f9-fd83f4f1c3eb/denjin-n?order=asc Huh, this is basically like Death Note (except the premise is more interesting to me so far). An L was even just introduced lol Edit: lmao, I got to a part where Trump, Putin, Xi, and Queen Elizabeth are at the idol concert Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 23:30 on Jan 27, 2024 |
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Jan 27, 2024 22:42
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Communist Thoughts posted:What's this from? The pesudo-L concept was kinda clever IMO. Like the thing where one of the twins is incapable of instinctively noticing patterns, which allows him to more clearly "see the truth of things" - like it's silly, but silly in a way that vaguely makes sense if you squint. The violence was definitely a bit too much at times. It was also a bit goofy that the main guy just happened to split off his conscience before the meeting (and that he didn't just split off more if he was willing to do that), but it was probably the most plausible way they could have dealt with someone who has such ridiculous powers. One other thing I'll grant that manga is that it's pretty good about ending in a timely manner. It never really feels either padded or like it was cancelled early.
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Jan 30, 2024 22:12
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edit: I totally called Hayashi being an accomplice. Though it wasn't exactly hard to predict, since I think she's the only obvious "character who keeps surviving" who never has any sort of PoV.Pener Kropoopkin posted:Yeah, that's why I want to see it. This is CSPAM. But I'll respect your boundaries. Off the top of my head, there are a bunch related to characters being "traps" that are completely incomprehensible to me (like it's obvious they're referencing something, but I have no idea what) Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 00:48 on Feb 2, 2024 |
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Feb 2, 2024 00:24
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I've decided that the monkey mountain manga is good, because (as far as I can tell from the latest chapter that is obviously very close to the end) it basically portrays the characters murdering pharma employees as being generally justified/sympathetic. To the extent that the manga may not approve of their actions, it obviously considers the pharma decision-makers the greater villains. Also it's very funny to me that one of the monkeys is a genuine monkey monster man and they're just like "yeah that one's real, no one knows what his deal is."
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Feb 2, 2024 01:55
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Buck Wildman posted:yeah sports anime is some serious fun because they're so drat intense about it that's a good idea I find that sports (or other competitive activities) manga/anime is generally pretty accurate to the experience of "doing a competitive activity in high school." When I did cello/symphony, it was commonly known who "the top people" were and where everyone stood in comparison to everyone else. You would see gradual improvements in both yourself and others. You would go to training camps and do performances (in sports this would just be matches) and stuff. I imagine it's even more true for sports, where you directly compete against people, instead of just seeing them perform and realizing they're better or worse than you. Real life as an adult isn't nearly as fun or interesting  It would own if you could just spend your entire life doing stuff like that.
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Feb 10, 2024 00:16
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Scarabrae posted:yes its called harem genre and you are supposed to ignore it exists On rare occasions you end up with things that have cool elements but are "infected" by the harem, like Re:Zero (I dislike pretty much all romance elements of that series - none of the pairings are good, including Rem). That's not very common, though; normally stuff with harems is just straight-up bad so it's not exactly a dilemma where it's "ruining something." Speaking of Re: Zero, I appreciate that it's one of the only isekai stories where the young protagonist actually thinks about their parents (who they had an actual relationship with) and acknowledges that they'll never see their family again. That's almost always missing from those stories in a way that is really bizarre. Communist Thoughts posted:Yeah ive been reading dandadan and it's pretty good, kinda the flcl to chainsaw man's evangelion, but it's also really turning into a harem kinda thing with the tiny kid protagonists This is another good example. I enjoy it in spite of that, but it still sucks that it's a thing.
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Feb 10, 2024 22:23
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I. M. Gei posted:I think it's weird how there's no isekais where the character is upset about getting world-swapped and wants nothing more than to go back to their own world. That's probably how I'd react in that situation. The reason itself is pretty easy to understand - the protagonist is a self-insert and you're not supposed to sweat the details. If they had a clearly defined Earth life, it'd be harder to treat them as a self-insert. But it does make the stories far worse. In Re:Zero it actually explains why the protagonist was mostly disconnected from his Earth life (he didn't even attend school in the months/years leading up to his isekai-ing), but he was close with his parents (who are both great and have distinct personalities that clearly influenced the protagonist's personality and behavior). I felt so bad for his parents at the end of that part. From their perspective their only child just disappeared forever.
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Feb 11, 2024 00:02
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Fenris owns, best DA character. DA2 also best DA game. Wish it could reasonably be played with a controller.
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Feb 15, 2024 04:38
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BornAPoorBlkChild posted:i see best girl karlach is nowhere to be found. I'm definitely Not Mad about this! honestly!1!1!1 Why would Karlach be in an image full of elves
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Feb 25, 2024 01:32
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1stGear posted:Are there any isekai's where instead of being the Chosen Hero with an elf harem, the protagonist gets reincarnated as some lovely peasant and gets to learn about life without central heating or plumbing or antibiotics The earliest parts of the Bookworm one are like this, though later much less so. "Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash" is one where the protagonist fights, but there are a bunch of other isekai-d people who are employed as a sort of militia (and have also lost their memories of their Earth life). They have no special powers or anything (and the protagonist is only of middling talent) and generally join the militia just because they have no idea how else to survive. It's a bit of an exception in terms of attempting a "realistic" depiction of "fantasy party-based combat."
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Mar 2, 2024 05:41
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tokin opposition posted:What's the most transgender anime I remember liking this manga (unfortunately the selection for anime is much smaller) - https://myanimelist.net/manga/118862/Kanojo_ni_Naritai_Kimi_to_Boku It's a pretty rare example of a manga with a transgirl who doesn't effortlessly pass
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Mar 2, 2024 07:27
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galagazombie posted:Grimgar was basically about a group of isekai teens who find out killing even a single goblin is a lot of hard traumatizing work that doesn’t really pay enough to cover equipment maintenance costs. Lots of time spent doing laundry by hand with their rapidly disintegrating sole set of clothes that they have no money to replace. They live in an uninsulated barn with no plumbing sleeping on straw. Maybe things change in the LN but the whole show is basically about them being trapped in a failure spiral. By like the fifth or sixth book they're more-or-less established as a party and generally above average. I forget if the second party member death occurs during the anime or not (I didn't actually watch most of the anime, just read some of the books some years back). The obnoxious Dark Knight guy is somewhat compelling as "a guy who is hosed up" and basically acts out inappropriately and drives people away for reasons that are likely tied to his past Earth life in some way. There's some plot elements that revolve around the characters having lost memories of their Earth lives, like this one thing where the protagonist recognizes some girl in another party who was his best friend in his past life, but he remembers no details. IIRC I think she dies or something without him ever figuring out their connection lol
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Mar 3, 2024 05:00
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