Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread

It's time for a new general discussion thread! Hot takes, recommendations, questions, cautionary tales, all of it is welcome here.

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Getting into the Fall season and I have some initial thoughts on what I have been able to watch:
Orb: On the Movements of the Earth - Episode 3 completely blew me away. I don't want to give any spoilers, but this quickly rocketed up my favorites for the season after episode 3, which changed everything. I absolutely implore you to check out this series, and let it go through the third episode before judging it. This series really could have benefited from a long episode 1.
Dan Da Dan - After a completely bonkers episode 1, we get another bonkers episode 2. The most amazing thing about this anime is how seamlessly they integrate character moments into the insanity of what is happening on screen.
Loner Life Isekai - I didn't really remember the beginning of this story very well from when I read the manga. It's nothing special, but just kind of silly isekai fun.
Negative Positive Angler - A pretty good episode two. I am still sticking with this one, hoping that it is going somewhere meaningful.
365 Days to the Wedding - Really cute series that I have enjoyed so far. I hope that now that the premise is well established, that we can start actually seeing character development.
Villainess Who Goes Down in History - Yeah...this one is problematic...but it is also has lots of fun "villainess" moments. So, I have been torn on this one.
Appraisal Isekai Season 2 - Kind of forgot this section of the story a little bit. Hopefully they can keep the pace up as season 2 goes along.
Outside of the currently airing seasonals:
Trigun (1998) - Got up through episode 20. Once we made it past the halfway point, it feels like a whole different show. Suddenly there are things like flashbacks, character backstories, and drama. The whole first half of the show felt more like a goofy slice of life set in a sci-fi western. Not sure when I will get to finish the rest of the show, but looking forward to where we go from here.

So far, I've started:
Dandadan: pretty fun so far.
365 Days To The Wedding: fun premise and characters. Always appreciate shows with adults as MCs. I can only hope the premise of forcibly sending an employee to an overseas branch can't happen in real life though, but I wouldn't be surprised if it can.
Villainess Goes Down in History: not great so far. Prefer the manga.
Re:Zero: interesting start. Curious to see where it goes.
SAO Alternative GGO II: meh start. No reason to care yet.
Demon Lord 2099: cool setup, but there are a lot of ways this can go wrong, so still a bit on edge.
I've also caught up with the new Monogatari season. I love it, especially the latest arc.
Also still continuing 2.5D Seduction which is still fun.
I want to watch Magilumiere, but it's on Prime and I'm not too thrilled about giving Amazon money.
- forcibly sending an employee to an overseas branch
  It can happen, but probably not for a travel agency like in the show. Growing up, my dad worked as a civilian contractor for the US military, and we moved all the time. I went to >10 different schools before graduating high school. I was basically always the new kid. There was only one time though that we almost moved overseas. That got changed up only about a month or so before we had planned on leaving. So, instead of moving to Scotland, I got to enjoy Phoenix instead. Not sure that was a favorable trade.

Only watched a bit lately. Just keeping up with 3 so far:
Dandadan - Holy crap this is a ride. Like others said elsewhere, the first episode threw some major flags for me, but apparently that kind of thing is extremely rare, so I’m strapped in for the rest. Also that OP is #1 for the year imo.
Re:Zero S3 - That first 90 minute episode should have been more exciting, but I spent most of it trying to remember who everybody was or why I care about all these meetings and that somebody is being rude to somebody. The last 15 mins and the second episode finally got me hooked again.
Ranma 1/2 - Heavy nostalgia for me. I’m not convinced this is better than the OG anime so far. I really love the old style (even after watching several comparisons) and miss the old OP. I’ll probably finish it just for curiosity if nothing else.
- but I spent most of it trying to remember who everybody was or why I care
  Yeah, I was afraid of this happening to me too, so I rewatched season 2 before, which really helped.
- but I spent most of it trying to remember who everybody was or why I care about all these meetings and that somebody is being rude to somebody.
  Good that I'm not the only one who struggles with this in every new season of Re:Zero. The end also did it for me though, now I'm excited again.
- The Dan Da Dan OP is really something. Each season, I have an OP/ED thread where I listen to all of them for the season, but I have a hard time believing that I am going to be surprised by something to surpass Otonoke. Creepy Nuts always hits it seems.

I've got a couple more premiere reviews for the garbage pile:
- I remember watching a trailer for Tohai and almost wish I understood Mahjong because it looks so over the top edgy that I think it might loop back around to being funny.

My early tierlist (after 1-3 episodes)
S Tier
Raise wa Tanin ga Ii/Yakuza Fiance - Weird romcom in hardcore Yakuza society. A delightful surprise so far. Thanks @glilimith@lemmy.blahaj.zone for the recommendation!
Dan Da Dan
A Tier
Wajutsushi - The whole concept of the "Talker" as a character class is brilliant IMO, i.e. the guy shouting out commands and attack names to buff their allies. The standard fantasy world gets a nasty edge with betrayals, and other morally questionable decisions, which is the best feature so far.
Maou 2099 - This was a surprisingly good first episode with good world building, but I'm waiting to see how it develops.
Shangri-La Frontier - Ah, comfort food.
Re Zero - It's deja vu all over again.
B Tier
Acro Trip - Chrome/Kuroma the clueless yet deviously manipulative villain makes this work, but can it sustain a whole season?
Tower Of God - It's getting too confusing now, with too many characters and not enough screen time to define them, and where the important conflict and drama is.
Magilumiere - Workmanlike, like the dutiful office workers it portrays, but is it fun?
Blue Lock - Powerpoint manga panel action is fun, but the mood music seems a bit off this season.
MF Ghost - Watching little CG cars zipping around a CG track in virtual identical ways is boring. A much improved 2nd episode bumps this up to B Tier. This is by the same author as Initial D.
Trillion Game - I found some heart in the 2nd episode, so it's staying
Chi - Chikyuu no Undou ni Tsuite - Hard to watch. The problems are too true to life, when I want escapism.
Uzumaki - Junji Ito's manga art bought slavishly to the screen, for good or ill. Only 4 episodes.'
C Tier
SAO GGO2 - Decent production, but there's nothing at stake.
F Tier
Danmachi S5 - I didn't watch S1-S4, so I have no idea who's doing what.
Ranma 1/2 - Soulless remake. It might be more manga-accurate, but I am not amused.
- Sometimes I feel a bit silly rambling into the empty threads, but I'm glad that my little reviews are being useful to someone!
  P.S. If you only watched the first ep of Ranma before bouncing off, I'd suggest taking a peak at ep 2, where I think MAPPA tried a bit more to make the anime their own. I felt sort of similarly about ep 1 (like, "oh, it's just the manga but on screen"), but the ep 2 made a much better impression.
- Wajutsushi
  I have seen some people compare this one to The Eminence in Shadow. That makes me curious to check it out since I am a big TEIS fan. I just need to find the time...
  MF Ghost
  But how is the OST? Isn't that why people watch that show? For the Eurobeat?
  
  I think you're mixing up Wajutsushi / Talker with Nageki no Bourei / Grieving Soul, probably? There's a lot of adventuring party anime, lol.
  
  OP for MF Ghost sounds like was lifted right out of an Initial D game... The ED is a bit of a yawner for me though.
  Wajutsushi doesn't have that same meta feel like TEIS.
  After just 2 episodes, it's more like "appearances are deceiving" and "don't believe what anyone says, and doubly so for cute anime girls"

Last week, I have only been watching anime that are airing this season.
Just want to point out that Murai In Love is the unexpected hit of the season for me. I haven't laugh so hard from an anime in a while. If the story doesn't become dogshit towards the last few episodes, there's a pretty good chance this would be my top anime of the season and become one of my top favourites.

Is the episode discussions place still broken?
- Yeah, @glilimith@lemmy.blahaj.zone summed things up. When the bot over at !episode_discussion@ani.social broke for the Winter 2024 season, I was able to get @rikka@ani.social finished and making posts in this community by the time the Spring 2024 season got underway. So, we just ended up keeping posts in this community going forward.
  There are a group of users that don't want to see or partake in currently-airing episode discussions. So, that is why the rules are that all the episode discussions are made by the single bot account, making it easy for those people to simply block rikka and never see those posts.
- I believe the status is that the new bot (rikka) was set up here temporarily and then users decided it'd be better to keep discussions here than to try and migrate back. So technically yes, the episode discussion community is still broken, but the functionality is back, just over here instead.

Weekly ranking roundup:
Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Bleach: TYBW
Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Dan Da Dan
Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma and /u/Nooble5 for the Anime Trending chart.
Bleach is back on the AC chart for the season, so you know it is going to be competing for the top spot. There are few shows that AC likes more than Bleach (Dangers in My Heart is the only one I can think of). It was interesting to see the Oshi no Ko finale unable to top the reddit chart against some second episodes considering the drop in total karma most shows have for the second episode.

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