/otaku/ - Japan / Otaku / Anime

>>1545
I don't think the people who still give a shit about fansubs nowadays are going suddenly stop because a half-dead group starts slowsubbing again after a short burst of activity.

>>1546
It's not like I have a lack of things to do but it's noticeable when you're thinking 'hmm let's watch anime' and then you check and nothing's up again.

mfw I finish a rack of barbecue ribs

I thought the twist this episode was really obvious and I correctly guessed it pretty early on, but I actually ended up really liking the episode anyway.

The anime managed to keep me with it right until the end. Whenever it got close to overstaying its welcome, a good episode would pop up and keep me invested. In the end, all the good episodes are about introducing and recurring characters. Elaina on her own is boring. It's very funny, quite possibly in an unintended way, how the final episode addresses the issue of Elaina being a boring character. The way it's justified is such a massive cop-out I'm sure the author is wishing really hard for he himself to believe it.

I really wanted to look back at this anime and claim that, were the ordering of episodes different, it would give a better impression. However, considering every episode with just Elaina ends up being dark and bitter, there really is no leeway for a structure of a nice little travel episode with or without a character introduction, an episode of bumping into a recurring character and then the dark episode diluted inbetween (funny how the last of those episodes is the only one with a content warning). The cast is way too interconnected, both in screentime and relationships, to allow remixing the episode order and you'd run into the problem of making the world appear too small or give no room to miss a character. I don't know if the VN is this restrictive with its episodes but, if it isn't, they should have definitely picked other episodes.

It's weird. There's other anime around that's also more about the worldbuilding and the side cast, but this anime focuses on Elaina enough that the side characters don't feel like they truly belong to the focus of the story (considering it's about Elaina's travels. You don't expect her to keep running into everyone). I want to like it more than I do, but if I were asked about it, I'd have to give the kind of speech I'm giving now. Elaina doesn't have to be interesting. Elaina can run into darker corners of the world. But the structure! It's so thin!

>>1583
>VN
Meant LN, of course.
The music is nice as well. The main theme (not OP) has a travel-ish feel to it that I quite like.

Another criticism that I think strikes at the heart of my issues with Elaina – she doesn't feel like a witch. There's no supernatural or whimsical aura to her. She uses magic in a more utilitarian way. Like a tourist who is well familiar with the customs of the land. She blends in but you just know she doesn't belong. Fran-sensei feels like the quintessential fairytale witch, with a certain elegance, whimsy and charming simplicity that disguises an incredible power. Saya feels like an apprentice witch, using and exploring magic with varying results, surrounded by or stumbling upon curious magical contraptions. Sheila feels like a detective witch, using her powers to fix a problem. Nike feels like a lighthearted witch, with a way with words that persuades the people around her and a whimsy similar to Fran-sensei's but with a bigger selfish streak. The point is that there's something about them that not only makes you think of them as witches, but the things they themselves do are related with magic and being a witch. Why does Elaina need to be a witch? Learning how to fly is enough for 90% of what she does. It was justifiable at first as a plot device to justify her mother letting her out to travel at such a young age, but after that it serves no purpose. She shows glimpses of wisdom and can conjure up some witty dialogue, but there's no strength to her emotions, seemingly no weight to her actions.

Maybe I'm expecting too much. Maybe they shouldn't have skipped her training under Fran-sensei so we get a better feel of her as a character. Honestly, I forgot that she was writing with the intent of showing it only to her mother and thought all along that she was looking to write a book of journeys of her own. Was it conveyed properly? I believe I'd remember that kind of thing, because it explains a little better the logic behind her itinerary. I don't expect to be hand-held throughout the story but reminding your audience once or twice isn't that obnoxious, I think.

Well, it is what it is. Some nice episodes, some cute characters, nice music but I was expecting more. Perhaps that's the problem.

>>1511
>if you want live action slice of life there are tons of great asian dramas/movies.

That's interesting. Do you have a specific recommendation? Even if it's not Western, it would be quite interesting to compare an animated and a live action slice of life. I've heard it suggested that autistic people have an easier time empathizing with the exaggerated expressiveness of animated characters, and though I don't think I'm autistic I'm very curious how much of my attraction for anime lies in the simple fact that it's animated, and how much of it lies in some sort of fundamental difference in the themes present in anime vs more traditional media.

>>1517
Whoa, you're bringing back a part of my childhood I'd completely forgotten about. Little Bear is a great example! And I think you're really onto something with the idea that the "serial documentary" (I don't know what the actual genre term would be) fills that SoL/empathetic connection niche in the West. Another example I can think of of this (Bob Ross was a good one) is Mythbusters. People LOVE Mythbusters, and they don't just love it for the experiments; they love it for Jamie and Adam, their warm personalities, and the continuing lore and almost "friend simulator" quality of the show that goes far beyond the simple experiments.

As far as cartoons go, Western animation is almost always either aimed at kids or very crude comedy for adults (family guy, american dad, whatever they're all the same). I think the Bronie craze a few years ago speaks to the lack of diversity in cartoons in the West. I suspect that there are a lot of young adults/adults that really wanted that warm, drama free story of friendship, and unfortunately one of the only outlets for that was MLP. Obviously some people only jumped onboard for the meme, and the fandom is super cancerous, but I suspect there were a lot of people who were simply looking for a SoL.

>>1518
Stuff like Swing Girls, the Little Forest movies, and Eat Drink Man Woman probably aligns closely to your idea of SoL.

>>1512
Most slice of life manga and anime actually are primarily sitcoms or gag comedies. We just don't tend to think of them that way because of the difference in medium and themes. Slice of life is a narrative technique, not a genre per se, and even among iyashikei the series that puts that relaxing sort of voyeurism before everything else is relatively uncommon.

>>1509
The best western slice of life ever created is the star trek tng episode "data's day". Also the adult swim show "joe pera talks to you" is very different from typical slice of life stuff but evokes a similar feeling. Outside of that I don't know what else exists. I think the reason is that SOL anime air very late at night, to the point that if you're watching it, it's because you stayed up specifically to catch it. Therefore they can get away with the more niche brand of story telling / guarantee that the audience is not going to get bored and change the channel. In the west we don't have the same focus on niche TV audiences because TV makes money by trying to show you as many ads as it can, where as anime makes money by selling very expensive DVDs to a niche but hyper dedicated fan base. People in the west aren't used to DVDs being that expensive so that model doesn't work here.
Oh, another idea I just thought of is British panel quiz shows (the american equivalent is who's line is it anyway). They're comedy focused for sure, but they're generally not THAT funny, and especially a show like QI is more like banter than tryhard comedy. because the BBC is publicly funded they can't be seen giving too much money away as prizes, so who can you get on a quiz show and get away with not paying them a prize? well, comedians who don't play the game seriously and riff constantly. It's kind of like a let's play, where the focus is on the jokes and the game just serves as material. now that i think about it that's very different from SOL anime i'm just trying to think of "comfy" TV.

used to get stoned and watch little bear

>>1325
Looking at this picture really makes me think, when did anime become so shiny? Hair always was but I feel as if people's faces were never so ridiculously glossy.

>>1329
It's not something new. They got the character designer from TWGOK and Monogatari to do the designs for this season. He's known for this kind of thing.

>>1349
Ah the Monogatari guy
Monogatari was actually the one that I was thinking of the most when I thought of glossiness
Wonder what kind of style it is though, so weird. [s]Fuck snake.[/s]

I still don't understand why Mion was carrying around her gun before the Watanagashi even happened.

Rena, please take Satoko home!

>>1457
Did you just make that pic? Because it's damn good.

>>1458
No

>>1459
I'm telling you it's really good! You should have more confidence in your work.

It's pretty sad to see them bidding their farewell like this. I'm really surprised to see them go, it almost seemed like they were going keep putting out new releases for forever. Maybe I shouldn't have taken them for granted but that's hard to do with something like HorribleSubs and their level of consistency. That's one thing they did pretty well.

Here's Dao's closing words if anyone wants to read them.
https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sre2m4

>>1131
It's obviously one huge bait post, sushi. HS never subbed, they ripped all releases from Crunchyroll and friends.

>>1132
Yeah I know. I just expected them to expand a bit more on the final thoughts chapter, that's all. Maybe I just care more than I should.

>>1064
And nothing of value was lost

>>1429
Cute

I know Belldandy is perfect but I would certainly love to meet Skuld and get her to call me a dumb human.

>>1542
>>1543
I forgot bump limits were a thing and were wondering where the Keion talk went
Don't I look silly right now
You should make a new thread

>>1550
Yeah, it's easy to forget about it considering the speed of this board. I'm kinda attached to this thread, I've been here since its beginning and as far as I know sushigirl doesn't have an archive of the otaku board, so I went ahead and archived this thread myself just in case. I'll go ahead and make the new thread in a sec.

>>1553
>>1553
New thread!

>>1551
>so I went ahead and archived this thread
Here it is split into two.

gatta gotto choo choo, tetsumusu…

I forgot the second episode came out today.

>>1042
If you actually managed to learn Japanese I would love some tips. How long did it take you? I'm slowly making progress, but I feel like I've been studying forever and I'm still far from fluency. Was there anything that really turned the tide for you? Or if you're not that advanced yet then I would love a study partner.

>>1045
Looking at their past works, Kiyohiko Azuma was definitely aiming this manga to hit younger audiences. They really liked the SoL genre like in Azumanga Daioh and a lot of that leaks into Yotsubato!
>>1046
Oh man I remember that I started off as self learning with the help of some friends irl who were from Japan. Eventually I found out of of /djt/ back on 4chan's /a/ back when it was still allowed on there. Ankideck definitely helped me out and watching dramas and anime without subs as well. For me to actually get to 3rd grade level comprehension I'd say a good 2-3 years if you practice daily.
I highly recommend you get to kanji as soon as you finish your hiragana and katakana. If you want to be certified to work in Japan or just have it on paper that you know Japanese then pick up the genki textbooks and any JLPT test book. Hopefully my post wasn't too long and hope you continue learning Japanese fellow sushi! がんばれ！

>>1047
The weird thing is Kiyohiko's past work was basically only Azumanga. Looking at his Wiki page there was only one other manga (Wallaby) which only had one volume as far as I can tell. It's insane he's had a 20+ year career and only has three series because he's been working on Yotsuba for 80% of it.

相談してもらって、ありがとう!　2ー3年かかったこと聞くと安心させられました。一年反前から勉強し始めましたけど、毎日勉強することは一年間以下だけです。ANKIはめちゃ活用ことです。最近私も英語のSubtitlesを無くしてアニメを見ている。でも日本語のSubtitlesを付けることは分かり安くなると聞いましたんだから、日本語のSubtitlesを使っています。

I dunno if that's comprehensible, so I'll say it again: thanks for the advice! I feel better knowing it took 2-3 years to get to some sort of fluency. I'm like 1.75 years in, although I've only been studying daily for just under a year. Anki is a life saver. I've been doing a vocab deck with kanji since near the beginning which was the best decision I ever made. I also started watching anime with Japanese subs recently, although if it gets very dialogue heavy it's slow going.
I kinda wish I'd started with the Genki textbooks, but now I'm as far in as I am I don't want to shell out $60 for something I probably know half of.

>>1050
ノープロブレム！
僕も毎日に日本語を勉強しています！七年後、遂にJLPTのN4を取られる！Never stop practicing and learning!
I was going to be a Translator but became an Animator instead instead.

>>1050
He used to draw H-doujinshi too.

>>768
Cannot understand the appeal of centaurs

>>773
Thinking about it from a lewd perspective, there are some logistical problems aren't there?

>>777
They usually have the hole on the horse side so not really, you just have to be behind them every single time with no real way to change positions
I just don't see why it's appealing, lewd or otherwise. I guess if you're a military autist and saw the potential in having literally everyone be a horse archer by default, but even then.

So in the end the dragon ended up being best girl as always: pretty coloring, strong as hell, cute voice, is capable on commanding an entire city, scratch that…she built it herself, what's there not to like? Or so I would say but the mares give her some really strong competition, particularly THAT scene. Harpy the worst, if we're going for something younger the fish is better no matter if Ho-oh is a thing or not, or at least that's my opinion.

Honestly expected a subpar Monmusu no Nichijou but ended up being something completely different, really like it, and Sapphee is a top cutie there's no denying that. A snake is fine too I guess.

>>773
>>778
That last picture is for you, that's their appeal.

>>877
Ah yeah, and it was on a fluke that I discovered one of the horsies was voiced by M.A.O. Guess she has more range than I anticipated, yabai desu ne?