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Welcome to Otherside Picnic! What is it? A horror series with Yuri Undertones™ that is inspired by Strutgatskies' Roadside Picnic and Japanese urban legends/horror stories. In it, our two intrepid protagonists Sorawo and Toriko discover a mysterious world populated by horrific entities and make it their mission to explore it. Toriko does it to find her mentor Satsuki while Sorawo tags along The series is pretty fun and I have been enjoying the manga quite a bit. The story proceeds in a brisk pace and the horror elements are woven surprisingly well and naturally into the plot. Describing the series raises some eyebrows, but give it a shot. The monsters and the discussion of their origins are really well-done and fun to read through. The Manga If you're not a fan of LNs, the best way to get into the series is the manga. The manga is goddamned fantastic, and the artist absolutely nails the monster design. Not only that, the artist even uses the goddamned panel borders for effect, usually to indicate the mental effects of the Otherside creatures. So far, every single one of these border effects has been unique to a specific creature or Otherside phenomenon. Near as I can tell this is the artist's first work and he goddamn knocked it out of the park, especially given how focused the story is on mental strain. Chapter releases from this manga are some of the most anticipated releases this year for me, it's really great.   I highly recommend reading it, it's available on Mangadex. Other than the LN, this is the best way to enjoy the series and is kinda necessary to read through to enjoy the anime. The anime Right. The anime. I think I speak for most people when I say the anime is so-so. The people involved have solid chops but a few baffling decisions and a small budget end up hurting its quality.  The anime isn't bad, but I expect newcomers to the series will find it hard to follow. A lack of budget also forced the creators to cut down on the effects of some scares, which obviously hurts the product a lot. As well, the anime makes the strange decision to tone down the horror in favor of more comedy. It's kind of baffling, especially since this is still billed as a Thriller. I'd treat the anime as more of a companion to the LN/manga. If you enjoyed the story of those, give this a watch to see animated Sorawo and Toriko. Characters  Sorawo Kamikoshi: A 20 year old college student and urban explorer. She is shy and awkward, originally using the Otherside as a place to be away from other people before learning about its dangers. Gets a mad crush on Toriko almost immediately. Her right eye turns blue after an encounter with the Kunekune which lets her see, materialize and "layer" the Otherside phenomena.  Toriko Nishina: An outgoing college student who is the student of Satsuki. Unlike Sorawo, she's energetic and friendly to pretty much everyone she talks to. She is athletic and skilled with firearms. Gets called "beautiful" by Sorawo pretty much every other sentence. Her left hand became a transluscent blue after an encounter with the Kunekune which lets her grab and tear the illusory protections of the Otherside and its monsters  Satsuki Uruma: Toriko's missing mentor. Apparently has a great deal of experience with the Otherside.  Kozakura: Toriko's friend and apparent researcher of the Otherside. She pays the duo money for the strange things they bring back. Apparently very rich. Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Feb 11, 2021 |
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Feb 10, 2021 06:37
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 14:39 |
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Spiritus Nox posted:Pedant Notes: The source novels aren't LN's, for the record, they're classified simply as novels. My understanding is that the distinction, at least in this case, is one of target audience - adults moreso than teens - and the prestige of the publishing label. Also, rather than simply having "yuri undertones", Otherside Picnic is billed and described straight forwardly by author Iori Miyazawa as a yuri story - though it obviously isn't quite a straightforward romance along the lines of Bloom Into You or Citrus ofrthe like. Without giving too much away, suffice to say that later novels (especially beyond what the anime is likely to cover, natch) see Toriko and Sorawo's relationship Go Places to a greater and more specific extent you might expect from a more subtext-y sort of thing. I've only read the manga up until now but that's good to hear! I'm way too used to Japanese fiction awkwardly discussing romance instead of involving Romance. Spiritus Nox posted:Anyway I think the novels are cool and wind up using Sorawo and Toriko's adventures in the Otherside as an interesting vehicle for exploring how they cope (or how they sometimes fail to or choose not to cope) with past trauma through immersing themselves in a fantasy world and through engaging with the push and pull of their own feelings for each other, and the spooks are fun too. Yeah, prob my fav part was where Sorawo tells Kozakura about her family life, or lack thereof, and then just goes "you know, boring childhood stuff" while Kozakura just 
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Feb 10, 2021 19:09
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Spiritus Nox posted:And see, lol, the main reason some folks like me are a little frustrated is that I think that if you gave this material+this director the kind of supporting resources the WEP team obviously has then this show could totally trade blows with WEP IMO. It doesn't go *as* hard *as* fast as something like WEP is but I think the novels' best moments are at least in the same ballpark as what we've seen in WEP. It's still a nice little show even with the production wrinkles IMO, I just think the source material has a higher ceiling than the show's been able to reach so far. Yeah, that's it exactly. It feels like the studios who made this had no faith in its success so they gave it like half the resources that it needed. Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Feb 11, 2021 |
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Feb 11, 2021 06:19
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The third episode filler baffles me. There's so much content here, why?
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Feb 11, 2021 17:25
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Tamba posted:Yeah, those rifles they suddenly had? They originally got them from the soldiers, when they went back to rescue them Yeah those just kinda popped into existence didn't they? Christ the plotting in this show is such a mess
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Feb 16, 2021 17:18
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I've only read up until the translated portion of the manga but I had my doubts about Satsuki for a while now. I've been suspecting she was an Otherside creature who happened to stumble into our world. And yeah, agreed, this was one of the better episodes. What the gently caress, Sorawo. (Don't confirm or deny this if you know I wanna have it revealed to me)
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Mar 2, 2021 09:48
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drat you guys were right, they really are gonna make the rescue the finale. That's kind of a shame, it's a great story but it serves better as an intermediate arc, not as a climax. God this season's a loving mess.
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Mar 10, 2021 22:43
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 14:39 |
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I think the issues they had with this season and the show's general low-budget feel are going to create a mixed reaction for it. I feel like if I was a new viewer this show would be intriguing but not particularly memorable.
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Mar 23, 2021 17:28
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