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i havent been keeping up with my anime/manga (obviously i guess XD) but that's great news! i may actually get started on it.

i am mostly good. the weather lately has been a bit depressing. other than that, i guess just a bit burnt out on consuming/discussing anime and manga. i beat bloodborne twice and elden ring three times instead lol

I didn't really appreciate the setting of the show much at first but it grew on me over time. Something that always stood out to me was the unnatural white daytime sky that washes everything out with its intensity, though I didn't consider some diegetic reason it was like that until they get to the surface and the sky is blue. I certainly felt that way as well when Ichise returns to Lux.

Honestly, the fatalism thing is not something I thought about much during the show, since I felt from the beginning that whether it's true or not, you just have to reject it. I think the point in time that I'm interested in is sometime farther after the end of the show, but Ran is dead before she can see it or tell anyone about it. I think I maybe mentioned this already but I felt that Gabe and the Theonormals were in effect pretty similar, because they don't believe humanity's future can be altered, but in different senses. Is humanity itself done changing? or is the FUTURE unchangeable, though humanity may be quite different in the future? I think that's where they differ, as the Theonormals are concerned with mankind's "evolution." The only way to know if Ran's power is legitimate or not would be for them to test it and see if someone could just not do what she predicted, but that would be a bit silly to put in the show. I guess you have to take for granted that the Gabe have put their oracles to the test, in some sense, or else they wouldn't believe so strongly in them. Yet they are the only ones who remain passive with regard to fate. So ultimately I think you could frame it a number of ways, but it comes down to rejecting these immobilizing perspectives, and living as if there's some point to life even if there seems not to be one.

And I agree about Yoshii. Actually the idea that his actions don't have much impact on the events, but he's still included in the narrative makes him a rather interesting, elusive figure. I would say that part of what makes him misguided and, imo, somewhat objectionable, is that he is mostly reacting to his life among the Theonormals, and not really looking at the lives of people in Lux very closely. He isn't really interested in what's happening in Lux, but he is arrogant because he thinks he knows everything they need to know. He takes for granted that things need to be arbitrarily stirred up at whatever cost. In fact, aren't the people there already struggling to survive? He thinks he is doing what is needed to wake people up from complacency and routine, but it's not that the people there aren't "awake," it's that many of them are already living out of desperation. Whether they know about the surface or not wouldn't necessarily have some immediate relevance. No matter if they have been helplessly cast aside, manipulated, taken advantage of, the average person in Lux should be seen as a person with dignity, whose life is worth protecting. I think this is the perspective of the Oonishi/Ichise/Godfather camp, but they cannot beat back the selfishness and betrayal among the Organo.

Unfortunately I've not yet gotten back around to Taiyou, but I'm looking forward to finishing Sunny at some point. I did read Water though and found it surprisingly somewhat different from Nananan's later stuff. I still liked it though.

I'm not sure if I have anything very interesting to say about it, but I enjoyed it in the end. I often think back to the scene where Ichise and Doc enter the theater and watch the documentary about Lux, which is such an astonishing scene. I wouldn't say I enjoyed every moment of the series, but the final third or so was consistently very affecting.

Something I wonder about is how much Yoshii's character ended up impacting things in the end. He's sort of like a hint of what is to come later on with the Class in a narrative sense, but he also has nothing to do with them per se, and the pseudo-random chaos that he causes seems like it is inconsequential in light of the betrayal and collusion happening within Organo and the independent plans of Kano. Presumably Ran knows what he is going to do when she leads him into Lux, but I guess it's also just in her character not to resist or interfere with the fate she envisions even as she seems to be manipulating events herself. Despite how sickeningly perverse Kano and Yoshii are, the passivity of groups like Gabe and the Theonormals is in certain regards even more disturbing.

It actually also inspired me to watch some other Konaka series like Devilman Lady and Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, which have some problems, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed them as well. I realized through those works and Texhnolyze that Konaka is consistently writing about situations where humans want to believe there is some kind of solution to humanity's problems in the form of scientific/technological progress, but everything goes horribly wrong because the deficiency with humans is in alienating/violent power structures that keep being replicated, not general frailty or stupidity that will somehow be fixed with enhanced bodies or what have you. Of course rather than looking at themselves and admitting that they were barbaric for expelling a caste of humanity into a pit for experimentation, the Theonormals convince themselves that humans have just reached a dead end. I actually ended up getting into a bit of an argument on here about it with someone who seemed to want Konaka to be a bit more idealistic, but I sort of abandoned the discussion because the other person didn't seem to think Oonishi had enough moral or personal integrity, which I didn't feel like debating very much lol.

Yeah I watched sarazanmai. I thought it was some form of copaganda but it handled a bit subversively. I think it's more penguindrum than yurikuma since the big villain in this is capitalism. The reomabu spin off manga was nice to fill fluff void in my soul though

Hey did you hear about the news of Ikuhara changing first name to Bonsoir (Bonsoir Ikuhara)?. It was announced last night. A lot thought it was a coming out, an early april's fools, or just a comedic thing to match bonjour suzuki's name (who made music for yuri kuma arashi). Or a mix of three. As expected of Ikuni... Here's the ANN article or the actual statement on twitter

ah, what sorts of games, if you don't mind saying? i am typically more into strategy games, card games and things like that, but lately i've been playing apex legends since that's what my friends are more into lol. i don't really mind playing anything. i tend to get very competitive and invested in multiplayer games regardless of what kind of game it is.

i read some of sunny, which i liked, but i have paused currently. other than that i've seen adaptations of his works, like ping pong and tekkonkinkreet. as popular as those adaptations are i do sense that he's a bit underappreciated as a mangaka, perhaps mostly by younger fans or american fans or whatever. i've always intended to read more of his works. how is gogo monster?

his wife, saho tono, is also a mangaka, as well as an assistant on some of his manga like cats of the louvre and sunny. i'd really like to read some of her works too, but i don't believe theyve been translated, at least not into english.

Yeah I would say it's more like pink. It's not a very dramatic or confrontational work so far, it's pretty fun and lighthearted about a sort of naive young person I suppose.

Well, for much of the pandemic I was isolated from friends and family and not able to consistently work. Now I am working again, and though I'm still rather isolated in my current situation, I've been making efforts to get out of town to visit people. I've also been playing some online videogames since it's something I can do with my friends even when I can't see them, and they're all into that.

thanks for the tip. I think I saw it mentioned on one of the posts on their blog, for some reason I thought Water was actually already scanlated, but I guess it was just a few chapters of it that had been scanlated previously. I'm probably gonna try to read thru it soon. have you been keeping up with/liking tokyo girl's bravo?

also I had started to watch Texhnolyze some weeks ago, but it's been so hard for me to sit down and watch anime lately xD I have only been watching my 1-2 seasonal show eps a week, if that. I was enjoying it, but just can't get in that anime mood somehow.. the first few eps of Turn A Gundam were also really nice, but haven't been able to get back to that either.

You have the highest affinity with me I have seen on this website, 73.6%

Agreed. I probably need to know marvel lore to understand the plot

Hey unrelated, since you watch lots of movies have you watched eternals? If yes, what do you think? (my friend is trying to make me watch it)

I was too scared of facing anime?? Idk felt like a coward because I've been consuming dumb and cute stuff which are non anime so all of these intellectual discussions on MAL just made me feel small.

Thank you for the update! Honestly I dont even know what are the works that are translated (Helter Skelter, Tokyo Girls Bravo, River's Edge and..?)

!!! thankkkk youuuu!!!

omg.. that was the one i was most hoping to get to read of the rest of her stuff. i didnt know, thanks

Yeah, I essentially agree with everything you're saying here lol. It seems to be the prerogative of the industry itself that that's the role anime fills for consumers as well, though. I think an animator or writer or whatever has to be extremely lucky to end up in a position where they can make/work on an "auteur-ish" project. Style is flattened to something utilitarian and market driven rather than an expressive tool. Anime is just not a feasible way for an artist to express something, because it involves too much (invested) money and micro-management. I remember hearing that Lain only finally broke even in terms of profit recently... When studios cannot make things independently out of their own pockets it's no wonder things like that don't get made. Plus, while there seems to be a difference in mentality regarding production of films vs TV series, practically every anime is a part of a larger multi-media project or brand now, and in that sense it's the same shit with Netflix shows and Hollywood films and whatnot.

Most people who have some background or extracurricular interest in art, film, literature, etc. seem to have similar appreciation for the Dezakis and Satoshi Kons and whoever else, from what I've seen here. I even have some friends who like the silly stuff the industry churns out just as much, and just think of them as two totally different things that they enjoy equally, and I can understand that... But I feel like you. I can't help wondering why things are as they are, how people can be ok with it, and feeling a bit distressed lol. I have the sense that most people who are like that, "anime is just entertainment" types, they just don't even consume any fiction outside of the anime/popular manga/LN/videogame realm. They don't recognize "it's just entertainment" is just a perspective that can be taken, not a fact. The people who make anime don't have to feel that way, and some don't feel that way. So these fans don't recognize that there are different lenses to watch through where ambiguity and nuance are functional parts of the expression, or there can be a more poetic approach to direction and cinematography that the viewer might want to actively consider, and so on. When these approaches appear they're treated as extraneous and even threatening, because you can "entertain" someone without making things so complicated and mysterious. So why would you bother? Why sacrifice simplicity and fun to make a personal statement that I, the customer, don't even want to hear, or may not even be able to fully understand?

People seem to want their spare time to be filled with diversions that are frictionless and undemanding, so they just gorge on the same kind of content over and over. In the process they don't recognize how narrow their perspective becomes (or perhaps rather, that they never gave themselves an opportunity to expand their perspective), and they don't want to find out. If you say something about it you become a pseudo-intellectual or elitist or whatever and are written off. I think anime is thus made from the point of view that you should not do anything or reference some idea that viewers may not immediately understand, because when you do, the viewers do not become curious and want to figure it out. They don't wonder if they might understand it better if they took the time to learn about what they just saw, even just read something online. If they don't understand what they're seeing on the spot, they won't be entertained, they'll be bored or angry, so the product is a failure to them and they just move on. They'll even say stuff like "I understood it, it just wasn't good" or "they just used a bunch of ambiguous symbols to hide the fact that there's not really a deeper meaning," like it's some kind of trick and that's not just the actual way symbolism works. They say "art is subjective" but for something to actually be up to interpretation is not at all what they want. They expect a concrete answer, and "subjectivity" is just either "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." In a way, I think maybe for the people who got into anime because of things like Eva or GITS or whatever, even Ghibli, we've just been deceived (not necessarily purposely), and are now barking up the wrong tree, because anime is really just not like that for the most part.

I believe Turn A should be fine as a standalone, since it takes place centuries after anything you could call a prequel and doesn't really seem to reference the early stuff except in a very general way. I would guess that lots of people who watched it when it aired weren't directly familiar with Gundam, so that was probably under consideration too. I'll start watching it pretty soon so I can give a more definitive answer then.