Anime for people who hate anime

Inspired by this exchange on the Evangelion thread:

while mourning my lack of fresh Eva content I've spent most of today trying to find other anime series that I don't find intensely grating on one level or another - after a bunch of false starts, Masaaki Yuasa's stuff seems pretty solidly up my alley

― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Sunday, September 13, 2015 1:48 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

who am I kidding I will totally rewatch it when 4.0 comes out, this franchise is built on (and fosters) masochism

― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Sunday, September 13, 2015 2:04 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

[...]

simon, have you seen either mushi-shi, serial experiments: lain or kino's journey? they aren't at all like eva tone-wise but pretty much free from most anime cliches and are v cerebral and emotionally engaging.

― hello, it me (clouds), Sunday, September 13, 2015 3:02 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ all 3 of those are excellent, especially Mushishi. Someone should make a anime recommendation site for people who hate anime

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Sunday, September 13, 2015 3:09 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have not but Lain is on my to-check-out consideration list. Currently watching Ping Pong, which feels oddly substantive given the subject matter? I've seen Bebop (eh) and FLCL (neat). Basically hated what I saw of Death Note, Future Diary, and a few others that aren't immediately coming to me.

― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Sunday, September 13, 2015 4:19 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the biggest problem is that all anime gets marketed essentially the same in english-speaking countries, as if "anime" were one monolithic genre -- so you get this phenomenon of the same people recommending in the same breath stuff made for teenage boys like death note also recommending more complex shows like steins;gate or the others i mentioned. it seems to me that the targeted demographic for these shows are quite distinct in japan, though i could be wrong.

― hello, it me (clouds), Sunday, September 13, 2015 5:00 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is exactly why i had a bad time whenever i went to an anime convention

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, September 13, 2015 7:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

anyway all of anno's pre-eva miyazaki-inspired series nadia is on hulu and i recommend it; it's very digressive but also very charming. another gentle, kinda perfect, nontraditional anime, by lain's character designer: haibane renmei

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, September 13, 2015 7:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

attending an anime convention sounds like my idea of hell!

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Sunday, September 13, 2015 8:54 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Coffee

welp that's Nichijou added to the queue

lol

paranoia agent

in 72 point bold red font

yeah that one

<3 nichijou

ghost hound. sorta like twin peaks x lain with an amazing dark ambient score.

i don't really like anime but i much enjoyed serial experiments: lain and texhnolyze

def rec all of yuasa's stuff, especially Ping Pong and my favorite, The Tatami Galaxy. funny (even if you don't really "get" anime humor) and manic and inspiring and brilliantly animated.

my other favorite ever is kids on the slope, a coming of age story from shinichiro watanabe ( cowboy bebop, samurai champloo ) about a love triangle between three jazz-obsessed teenagers in 1960s small town japan. the music sequences are incredible.

would recommend Wandering Son (Hourou Musuko), a show about a boy who likes to dress as a girl and a girl who likes to dress as a boy. Surprisingly thoughtful exploration of transsexualism and gender identity, a million miles away from how these subjects are usually handled in anime. Also has a beautiful watercolour art style.

paranoia agent

in 72 point bold red font

― Bouncy Castlevania (Will M.), Sunday, September 13, 2015 11:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that one

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, September 13, 2015 11:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

oh yeah, kids on the slope! I've only seen a few episodes but the premise kills me

kids on the slope is pretty good, otm about the music sequences

my rec is Redline, one movie that i might say is more intense and thrilling from start to finish than mad max

mad max fury road that is

fyi there's also this thread Animation Snob Thread (no Disney, no Pixar, no mainstream anime, mention Family Guy and you get kicked out a window), puppet films are allowed whihc i've had bookmarked forever

if strongo were still here he'd tell you to check out Mind game. he's not so I'm going to tell you to check out mind game.

Redline is really good in places but I don't think it has the momentum or overall quality of Fury Road. I felt the character development was unnecessary.

just finished Berserk which was enjoyable but it might be too "anime"

As to the question of the thread, it depends on what one hates about anime. I'm generally not a fan but I can deal with the things I don't like if there's enough other good things going on. But I can't pretend I haven't seen a lot of ecchi trash (a true guilty pleasure).
A lot of the better anime still has a lot of the things some people dislike about anime, like the drawing styles. I've always preferred far more textured animation and unusual expressive techniques.

The thing that impressed me about the Satoshi Kon stuff is how well the scenes are composed. Most of the anime I had seen was very sloppy and badly edited.
Paranoia Agent is actually my least favourite of his works. It's probably supposed to be confounding but I don't think it really carried off on the intrigue they built early on, I found a lot of it a tad boring and the animation quality drops in a few places.

Like I recommend in Animation Snob Thread, Keita Kurosaka is the least typical Japanese animator I know of but his work isn't easy to find. Angel's Egg is a lovely science fiction mood piece without much (any?) dialogue, with designs by Yoshitaka Amano.

Berserk (90s tv version) does an impressive job of telling the early best part of the comic saga despite clear time/budget constraints and even improving some parts of the story. Great soundtrack too.
The later film series version doesn't allow the story time to develope and breathe properly. It feels too much like a summary.

Satoshi Kon is definitely one of the go-to anime directors for people who aren't anime fans. Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers are all great movies in different ways. Paprika was a bit weak story-wise IMO, but is still worth a watch.

Paranoia Agent is pretty great too, although I think the series loses a lot of momentum once it abandons the initial set-up - those stand alone episodes in the middle are great, but the over-arching plot kinda gets lost.

I'll second the recommendations for Mushishi, Kino and Lain above, and add Haibane Renmei, which is intriguing and reflective in a similar way.

Planetes is a pretty solid sci-fi series with good characters and little in the way of anime cliches.

Haibane is excellent but I gotta disagree about Planetes, i watched the series after reading the manga and was super disappointed with the adaption, they really anime-ed it up by adding in lots of comedy sidekicks and useless drama. Don't even get me started about that last episode :(

haibane renmei is incidentally all on hulu plus

I liked Haibane Renmei too. I'll also throw Psycho Pass out there for anyone into Philip K Dick sort of themes. It's on Netflix for easy access.

thx for the many recs y'all, I need as much distraction as possible at present

Seconding Mind Game, and reposting from the Netflix thread to remind people that Studio 4C put up a batch of films a couple of weeks ago- Mind Game, Genius Party and Genius Party Beyond (which are both mixed, but each has a fairly lengthy short from respectively Masaaki Yuasa and Koji Morimoto that are among the best things either have ever done), and Princess Arete (which I haven't watched yet but is supposed to be a gentle, Ghibli-esque thing?).

I don't know how easy it is to get outside the kickstarter, but Yuasa's Kick-Heart is pretty fun. And the adaptation of Taiyo Matsumoto's Ping Pong is well worth your time- I love Michael Arias's Tekkonkinkreet movie, but Ping Pong is a much more faithful translation of Matsumoto's style to animation and it's gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcSuAhbtIFg

Crap, sorry, didn't see Ping Pong was already recommended twice >_<

Less than four minutes long, but this Ken Ishii video by Morimoto is kind of a classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6maVVFs0As

One last thing before I shut up about Morimoto:

NOISEMAN SOUND INSECT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOlYfHdpwU

Dumb qn from someone v.far outside but a lot of suggestions seem to be, say, post-PKD-ish ... is there much in the way of, IDK, George Eliot/Jane Austen-y stuff?

Josei anime would be the term, from a quick look at manga categories, I guess?

This was Google's first result, anyone want to comment on any of these? http://www.themarysue.com/josei-anime/

wow, that ping pong series looks amazing! excited to see it's on hulu.

From that Josei list:
Michiko & Hatchin stars two female characters but it's much closer to Black Lagoon/Tarantino territory, lots of action set pieces and stylish baddies. It's really well made but is twice as long as it needs to be tbh, towards the end you will be dreading yet another car chase. Which is rarely said about Jane Austen.
Princess Jellyfish is really good, lots of interesting characters although some can be a bit too one dimensional, particularly the one mentioned in the article.
A series that is currently airing called Snow White With The Red Hair caught me by surprise and might be the purest Josei show I've ever enjoyed. As you can guess from the title it has a fairytale like quality, with a commoner girl and a dashing young prince falling in love. What sets it apart though is the title character, a strong willed girl who feels like she's walked out of a Ghibli movie, you can't help but cheer her on.

etc, you might want to look into honey & clover (about a group of students at an art school), nana (about the friendship between two women, one a fashion student and one a rock musician), nodame cantabile (about the romantic relationship between a pianist and an aspiring conductor), his and her circumstances (the show hideaki anno made after evangelion, about the romantic relationship between two high school students), and revolutionary girl utena (hard to summarize?)

also, a lot of the shows mentioned itt originally aired as part of fuji tv's noitamina block, which is specifically dedicated to programming that appeals to ppl outside of the young male demographic. the noitamina lineup is a p good place to look for "mature" anime in a bunch of different genres

reporting back

PING PONG

Watched all of this one - the animation is obv incredible but what surprised me about it is the persistent and convincing bittersweetness, which helped offset how predictable many/most of the plot/character beats really are. Into it.

KIDS ON THE SLOPE

Also watched all of this, liked it less. The musical sequences are incredible and kept me going. As w/ many shows like this (regardless of genre) the relatively subtly homoerotic friendship >>>>>> the neverending tedium of the actual "romances." (Tho I admit that I have a problem w/ series wherein 100% of the long-running conflicts could be solved with one frank conversation.)

tried UTENA but it's just too mid-90s for me. a couple eps into MUSHI-SHI - animation's gorgeous, stories seem a bit intert? will keep trying.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-AHo-_XEV6E

Maybe most of you guys know all this stuff but its just a little video about the difficulties of making anime.

good timing on that as it frequently refers to Manglobe (Champloo, Michiko) who finally filed for bankruptcy the other day

Just finished watching Gosenzosama Banbanzai, a pretty bizarre and funny six-part OVA from the late 80s. It's one of Mamoru Oshii's more obscure efforts (like that odd "Twilight Q" short), about a girl who travels back in time to live with her ancestors. The whole thing is presented like a stage play, making it pretty unique.

I know Oshii made a big splash with Ghost in the Shell, but I actually think that was his last really good film (though I haven't seen his live action stuff, and discount Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, which he wrote but didn't direct).

so uh toonami is producing two new season of flcl

Nice!

brave new world

oops. didn't realize this was a 3 month revive

I've just started the new anime version of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, and it really defies description (although Merritt Kopas's phrase "Twink Peaks" is pretty apt, as long as you bear in mind that it also involves spectral combat and Gauguin-like color clashes): an escaped serial killer has just been fused into a living statue by a vengeful high school student after attempting to infiltrate the student's house as a malign spirit in rainwater, and this is two episodes in. Idk what kind of relation to anime the ideal viewer would have, but it's certainly distinctive.

Jojo is so batshit, i love it

Neo-Tokyo was really good

finishing up 'puella magi madoka magica' after reading that it rivals evangelion (it doesn't, but i still have a few eps left so maybe it will!)
it's on netflix with or without subs so check it out!

guess I don't need to watch that one then lol

if i've never seen a gundam series what is a good one to start with?

I liked the recent "Witch from Mercury" Gundam series, though it's a bit rushed toward the end--felt like another batch of episodes was planned and cancelled. It seemed designed for drawing in new fans to a degree: I had no prior knowledge of the franchise other than knowing "giant robots", and didn't find it difficult to follow.

downloading it now, thanks!

if you want to see how it began & get a handle on the main timeline watch the 3 compilation movies based on the original series Mobile Suit Gundam
if you can't handle the OG animation watch Gundam Seed, it's roughly the same but made 25 years later
if you want modern Gundam the recent series Witch From Mercury or Iron Blood Orphans are both good
if you want ridiculous melodrama nothing beats Gundam Wing
and if you want a show where Gundam designs based on ludicrous national sterotypes beat the crap out of each other there is G Gundam. the Netherlands one has a windmill on it!

https://i.imgur.com/PORcssR.jpeg

loool not the tequila gundam

thanks for the recs i'll check those out. i actually remember gundam seed way back in the day but i wasn't into anime yet apart from dumb dragonball z dub

everyone says "witch from mercury"
or "war in the pocket", sometimes people say that

ok they were def out of ideas for that jester gundam, could've at least given him a moustache

the Netherlands one has a windmill on it

omg take my money

Turn A Gundam is my favorite gundam series (and favorite mecha anime in general)

the original 1979 series is still a good watch too though! it holds up

gundam nerds will tell you to watch Turn A last because it represents a conclusion to the entire franchise, the trouble with that is you might never get to it and it's the best one

yeah that's what i've read in various places online (re: original series), it all sounds good which makes it harder to know which one to start with. i only get a short amount of time at the end of the day to watch this stuff, wish i had hours and hours to binge watch.

never even heard of Turn A, i'll see if nyaa has it!

Turn A is my fav too, but definitely not a starter one. don't leave it to the end tho!

the original 1979 series is still a good watch too though! it holds up

― ciderpress

the drama around tomino and the original ep 15 is kinda insane though

story i heard is that tomino when asked said it wasn't the off-model animation but he had an issue with someone who worked on the episode - he wouldn't say who, he just said "they know what they did"

ok mom

Some basic bitch choices from myself:

Frieren, mentioned somewhere above - Really loving this. The set up - Big Bad has been defeated, the villagers have celebrated the party, now what? - is such an obvious thing to do that I'm flabbergasted ithasn't been done before. It probably has! But this is a good take on it. Love Frieren's temporal disconnect with the humans, the party talking about how these past ten years shaped their lives and her basically just going "what? it was only ten years, what do you guys mean?". Also love the part where the cleric admits he has no idea if God exists or not, but that he believes there's a heaven because "it's just more conveninent if it exists". A little disappointed at the turn towards high fantasy because I had expected it to just continue in its meditative, peaceful way for the whole show but otoh it's pretty exciting stuff.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX movie - I've only seen the original series, and that cut to fit into movies, so was a little worried I wouldn't "get it", but actually the first 40 minutes of it were so much based on the stuff that I HAVE seen that I had no trouble following. I was getting a bit bored, though, despite the beautiful animation and vintage soundtrack, so it was a nice surprise when it switched gears to a cyberpunkish thing about undocumented migrants and underground gundam fighting rings. The Gundam fanboys behind me were not pleased. Online discourse seems to revolve mostly around arguing about the extent of Anno's involvement, which is a shame.

Frieren is indeed brilliant, though personally I wasn't crazy about the exam storyline in the last third or so. It felt kind of side-questy. I've heard the story gets back on track from manga readers, so looking forward to season two.

xp Anno's part is that first 40 minutes, the rest + the upcoming tv series version is directed by Tsurumaki (FLCL, Diebuster)

Yes that's the basics, but then the discourse goes into "Anno himself says this is mostly Tsurumaki's baby, doesn't make sense to view it as an Anno thing" vs "look he wrote the first 40 minutes, it's totally legitimate to see it as an Anno piece" and etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymwj0zcqnDw

fantastic AMV! particularly since cowboy bebop is so associated with Yoko Kanno for me. a lot of AMVs, it's very hard for me because i just don't relate to the music they're using at all.

hell we could do a whole thread of "AMVs for people who hate AMVs" probably :)

After playing this a few times I have discovered there are several different AMVs with it for different shows, seems to have been a Brazilian trend.

I never took a full dive into anime until the pandemic started. Before then I was big fan of cartoons and comic strips. I probably watched more animation TV shows than non-animated shows. I watched most of the Miyazaki movies and explored Lupin III a bit.

Pandemic hit and I watched the entire One Piece series (skipping the movies). Then I found my true love in cute girl anime comedies and binged watched mostly non-action anime ever since. Slice of life is great on its own but when I begin writing my manga I think I will try to have something for people that need drama and overarching plot to stay interested. Frankly, I want to put most of story building into the characters and not the plot.

But like any nerd I would love to share recommendations here.

never thought i would watch an AMV with Cartola, good job

Flopsy I would like to read your cute anime girl comedy recommendations

I kinda mixed two genres I like: Cute Girls Doing Cute Things and Comedy. Probably because when I think of writing manga that is what I will go for. Azumanga Daioh most perfectly fits the bill and is one of my top 5 animes for sure. The other 4 are Non-Non Biyori, K-On!, Yuru Camp (Laid Back Camp) and Hidamari Sketch. They have varying degrees of comedy. I probably could switch some out of my all-time Top 5 anime shows list but even if some other shows have been equally as good, they don't really fit together quite as nicely. After all, I had to branch out on shows to watch since *only* cute girls isn't exactly a huge genre and the bottom ranked shows are just as bad as any other.

For cute girl adventure/slice of life I recommend Girl's Last Tour and the lesser known So Ra No Wo To (Sound of the Sky).

Anime has quite a few good adventure and fantasy shows with or without cute girls. For example Dungeon Meshi (Delicious in Dungeon) is excellent.

Frieren wasn't quite as good as Delicious. Like Duane said a few posts back - the exam storyline wasn't so great. For me, I didn't like how they had to have so much explanation because tons of new stuff was shoved in all at once. That one short guy had to talk a lot to keep up with the pace... But what really started to lower my enjoyment for an otherwise great show was when the two main teens seemed to stop showing anything else that would make them more interesting.

I know and love all these shows haha, especially Sora no Woto which is so underrated and the pop art explosion of Hidamari (I really want to rewatch this now!)
must admit I couldn't get past the cooking aspect in Dungeon Meshi which sent me to sleep, should try again.
I recommend back Windy Tales which is slice of life about girls in a photography club with a really out there art style, and Yuyushiki which really captures the daft funny conversations you used to have with friends after school.

i watched Galaxy Angel for the first time last year and it turns out that's still an all-timer comedy despite its cultural footprint vanishing after the 00s

Yuyushiki is definitely one of the top shows of that genre. I'll watch Windy Tales next. I love when a show has a unique art style that isn't just a one off experiment in an episode.

deeper down the mpb amv rabbit hole

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqVwdOF9Vwo

omg

well, I guess this is the same feeling a 40-year old would have 20 years ago with those FLCL amvs with Speed King

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tHAtz0g4mE

last anime i watched was the 1997 OVA Eternal Family, which I knew nothing about and which apparently is by the guy behind Noiseman Sound Insect, which I guess makes sense. It's one of those things I watch and just say "Um, OK." That's a lot of what I watch. Somebody said I should watch "Too Many Losing Heroines!" so I put it on my to-watch list. Didn't actually watch it, but it's on my to-watch list.

All the Winter 2025 anime looked shitty so I didn't watch any of them. OK, Zenshuu looks OK. Apothecary Diaries Season 2, 100 Girlfriends Season 2. Then we're down to stuff like "knockoff Birdie Wing"... No, I'm not going to watch "Solo Leveling", my backlog is about a billion episodes long without my adding isekai to it unless it has something going for it other than sakuga.

Look at me, using anime nerd words, almost like I know what they mean.

only winter shows I watched were Apothecary Diaries S2 (excellent) and a couple episodes of Ameku MD (basically anime House MD)
Too Many Losing Heroines was surprisingly quite charming, worth a couple of episodes to see if you vibe with it
Spring watch - more Apothecary, really anticipating S2 of Shoshimin as I was kinda gobsmacked with the last couple episodes of S1, Lazarus could be mediocre but it's Watanabe directing with a soundtrack by Kawasi Washington & Floating Points so I have to watch, and I love the Kowloon Generic Romance manga (well, the first few volumes) but a bit worried how the anime will turn out. four shows, that's more than usual!

I continually enjoy Apothecary as a chill, thoughtful, beautiful and unique show. Dandadan was quite fun. Toilet-bound Hanako-kun S2 kept my interests up most of the time and I like the art style.

The shows with romance were less worth watching: Too Many Losing Heroines, Blue Box, Gigi Harem and Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian.

I feel like a degenerate after watching a few episodes of an echhi.

Ecchi

which ecchi? they can be so different. i finally watched food wars after hearing all the time about how great it was, even though the premise sounded pretty ick to me, and it's... surprisingly wholesome?

so ok i don't super get the stuff that goes viral

this week it's a pseudo-anime show called "PUNCH PUNCH FOREVER"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ndBoc6R8_A

and it just looks like early studio trigger? like "space patrol luluco" or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKbPXBfvbZY

am i missing something?

dialogue excerpts from Lupin III Part II, Episode 114, "The Secret of the First Supper" (first broadcast December 17, 1979):

FUJIKO: Do you remember ten years ago when that prominent supernatural researcher, Dr. Nesser, went missing?
JIGEN: Wasn't he the guy who figured out how to produce X-ray vision in people? Wait, so you mean..?
FUJIKO: Nesser spent the last ten years developing those eye drops Zenigata is using. That woman's name is Nova, and she's Nesser's sponsor.
LUPIN: Nova, huh? She's so hot.
FUJIKO: By the way, does this painting look familiar?
LUPIN: Yeah, Jesus's masterpiece. Grandpa left it behind.
FUJIKO: Right. Jesus made that 2,000 years ago. He painted it over a parchment that had the location of an inheritance he got from the Virgin Mary. When Judas, Christ's disciple, found out about it, he wanted he treasure for himself, so he stole the painting. Then, he sold out Jesus to the Roman authorities for 30 silver coins. But since Judas was never able to solve the secret, the painting went to his descendants, and eventually passed into myth. Then, at the start of the 19th century, after learning of the legend, a famous thief stole the painting from the home of Judas's descendant.
LUPIN: That was my grandpa, Lupin the First.
FUJIKO: After a scuffle between the two, the painting was torn in half. Ever since, Judas's descendant has had one half, and the other half has been here, in Lupin the First's hideout.
GOEMON: So that woman is Judas's descendant, after the other half of the painting?
FUJIKO: Yes. All of this was in an old diary I found in a study on the second floor.
JIGEN: Now that we know this, Lupin... We should steal the other half of the map from that woman and take Jesus's stuff for ourselves!

LATER:

LUPIN: So Jesus buried his inheritance under the stable where he was born. Hey, got anything?
GOEMON: A vase. Perhaps the inheritance is within?
LUPIN: What the?
FUJIKO: It's a baby bottle the Virgin Mary used to feed baby Jesus.
JIGEN: Friggin' crap. The inheritance is just this thing? A baby bottle?
FUJIKO: I guess for Jesus, this might be more valuable than any gemstone, seeing as it's the bottle used to raise him from a child.
LUPIN: I prefer Fujiko's mommy milkers to Jesus's baby bottle any day.

END EPISODE

lol, love the irreverence japanese media has for western religions (see also Shin Megami Tensei)
how about that fifth episode of CITY tho, hoo boy Kyoani still got it

city is amazing, i've watched most of kyoani's stuff so i know how high a level they're working on and yet i can still hardly believe something that looks like this exists as a real full-length tv anime and not, like, a short film. nichijou was already an all-timer and i think this one's outright better so far.

lol, love the irreverence japanese media has for western religions (see also Shin Megami Tensei)

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi)

i take it less as "irreverence" and more as "um, that's.. an interesting understanding you have"

i did actually have to do some reading on the history of breastfeeding. why would jesus need a baby bottle? even if jesus was a virgin birth, mary should theoretically still have been able to breastfeed him, no? it turns out though that there are documented baby bottles going back to 2000 years BCE, typically for, like, formula and stuff. i can't see why jesus would have needed one.

nah i'm more like... wait. so they know exactly where the stable jesus was born is located. and nobody really gives a shit, it's just, like, an empty stable that a gang of international thieves can waltz into and start digging in. i mean it's not like it's an ancient archaeological site. it's not like the _literal baby bottle used to feed the infant christ_ would have any value whatsoever. a painting _made by jesus christ_, similarly, no value, the only thing it's good for is you can use it to find some diamonds or something.

i mean maybe this made sense to people before indiana jones and the last crusade came out. idk.

i can't keep up with anime, or much of anything really. city sounds cool, tho!

btw did you know that Jesus is buried in Japan? https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/528/

i believe it

Those pilgrims going to Fatima or Lourdes every year lack ambition!

A bartender I know recommended the “Bartender: glass of god” series. Anyone seen it?

yes it's ok, like a collection of short stories based around the customers of a bar.
the confusing bit is - there was an 11 episode series from 2004, then a 12 episode series from 2024. I much preferred the writing in the 2004 show.