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!

also finished the 3rd part of Mob Psycho and just... wow. Into my top 5 that goes.

"the woman called fujiko mine" is 13 episodes! is 13 episodes a miniseries these days?

have i mentioned "vatican miracle examiners" on ilx? the last thing i saw was the first arc of "vatican miracle examiners". geoff thew made a video about it but he had to take it down because it was entitled "Impregnated with Hitler's WHAT?!?!" and if you say "Hitler" you get demonetized. It's like we used to say in the '90s: If you can't say "fuck", you can't say "fuck the government", and if you can't say "Hitler", you can't say "Impregnated with Hitler's WHAT?!?!" I'm genuinely, truly, incredibly fucking mad about this. OK I understand that a lot of the stuff I said in my shitposting days was Problematic, but this thing where you get Demonetized if you talk about anything at all controversial... like we're not all fucking fascist edgelords! Some of us just want to talk about shitty bishounen anime!

If "Vatican Miracle Examiners" is controversial, well, I don't see why it should be any more controversial than the Roman Catholic Church. I'm just going to give away the plot of the first arc here because no matter how incoherent and slapdash I am when talking about it, it's not going to come off any more nonsensical or random than the show itself. So there are, in fact, real Vatican Miracle Examiners, I'm told. I don't know anything more about it than that. I'm not sure this anime is an accurate representation of the profession. For one, I'm not sure actual Vatican Medical Examiners are cute bishounen. (For anyone who doesn't know what "bishounen" are, they're cute young androgynous boys beloved by many, many, girls and women. Not just girls and women, but a lot of them.) Bishounen stuff can get kind of weird at some point, but we're not even in yaoi territory here. These are PRIESTS for God's sake. They're not going to go around doing sexy things with each other. Except in the doujin.

OK I need to stop using anime jargon here. The point is these two priests are summoned to the Vatican office of their head and are told "So a young Sister in South America wrote us a letter saying she's pregnant with Jesus and she's totally a virgin." To which the priests say, "Wait, isn't that fundamentally opposed to basic Roman Catholic theology?" And their boss says "Kind of, yeah, but I mean, she is a sister and all, that's why we want you to investigate it."

Also they have half of a tally counter which says "RICH". Many Bothans died to obtain that half of the tally counter. The bishounen with the monocle immediately concludes that the other half must say "GLORY" and that's a phrase commonly used in pacts with the devil. I mean it's not something I've ever heard about, but I admit to not being as much of an expert in making pacts with the devil as I'd like to be.

So they fly down to South America. Actually it looks more like Mexico City, but whatever. It's not a terribly accurate map.

Anyway they make it to this church and things are a little bit weird. Their cab driver says "Yeah, my crazy grandpa, he says that when he was a kid there was a UFO landing around here. That would be sometime around the spring of 1945." Also it turns out this Church they're going to, the Church of San Rosario, was founded in 1945. Everybody involved goes on to pretend like this information is in no way relevant for the next three episodes.

Anyway it turns out they also run an orphange populated mostly by bishounen. I mean there are girls there too but they don't get any lines or character names or anything like that. This is a pretty faithful representation of Catholicism so I give them authenticity points for that one. I don't think actual orphanages let their male wards grow their hair that long, though.

So anyway they meet the people running the clergy and they're like, yeah, we kinda didn't want to tell you since saying you're pregnant with Jesus is kind of heretical, but since you're here, you might as well talk to you. They do a little hymenvestigating, and are like, yep, that's a hymen, and it's definitely not a reconstructed hymen, she was born with that. I mean she could have been artificially inseminated, but look, she seems basically honest, we're gonna trust her on this one. They don't mention it specifically, but it _would_ be against the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, and she _is_ a member of the clergy. Which is kind of one of the weirder parts of Catholic ethics for me, they're in favor of being fruitful and multiply but IVF causes eggs to die, which is sinful. Basically I have a personal axe to grind on this. I'm infertile because my Catholic health insurance wouldn't pay to have my sperm cryopreserved, and it pisses me off.

Anyway, as far as the investigation goes... it feels like they want to get it over with and move on to more interesting miracles. Oh also the Sister in question has stigmata. So they take a blood test. See, she's got AB- blood, and they figure if the blood from the stigmata is also AB-, it's hers. Because that's how genetics works. Anyway they're like, yeah, it's AB-, it's definitely hers, but that doesn't mean anything. People spontaneously develop stigmata all the time. I mean it could be selection bias. I bet if you're a Vatican Miracle Examiner you run into a lot of people with stigmata. Also one of them asks his secret hacker friend Lauren to investigate the church's finances, you know, just in case there are any financial irregularities about this vast opulent church with a fully staffed hospital but no patients.

Oh, also, they run across a creepy lady swaddling a baby with four eyes. That's probably nothing, though. Looks like they can wrap this case...

Wait it looks like somebody just got murdered in some kind of Satanic ritual. And now the stupid Vatican wants them to investigate _that_ for some reason. This is totally unfair! Whatever an occult ritual murder may be, it's certainly not a miracle. Couldn't they just, like, call the cops, or something?

No. No cops. The Vatican takes care of its own.

Unfortunately I find this decision to also be pretty consistent with the way the Catholic Church does things. Anyway, these two bishounen are stuck with this murder investigation, so they talk to the security guard who found the body. He says it's probably those stupid orphans, always going around with their occult rituals!

Anyway the next morning they go to morning Mass and the statue of the Virgin Mary starts weeping. Sigh. OK. At least this resembles a miracle if you look closely enough at it.

I mean it's not. They do a chemical analysis on it and it's not human tears at all! It's just holy water! There's nothing miraculous at all about a statue of the Virgin Mary crying holy water. What? Wait, hold on, there's more. OK, OK, here's the deal. What happened was the guy who was ritually murdered in the Church, whoever did it bludgeoned them over the head with the 30 foot statue of the Virgin Mary. Then, to cover up their tracks, they put a big rock by the body, and then they dragged the statue out to the fountain of holy water outside, meticulously washed the entire statue, and then dragged it back into the church. See, they fucked up though, because what they didn't realize was that even though the statue LOOKED dry, it actually wasn't, and when they lit the candles for Mass the water came out of the statue and it looked like tears! All of which is completely and totally scientifically plausible. Anyway it turns out that the statue is also totally riddled with blood still, because you can't just beat someone bloody with a statue and wash out all the blood with water, not even holy water. But other than that it was a perfect plan and totally would have convinced the investigators that the priest with a suspiciously German name was killed in an occult ritual using a rock, rather than using a giant 30 foot statue of the Virgin Mary, as _actually_ happened. See, this is smart, because if the miracle examiners had believed the priest was killed with a rock, they... uh... um...

Oh, wait, a couple more people have been murdered. The sexy nun and the priest who was pretty clearly shtupping her were _also_ murdered in occult rituals. At this point they decide to actually call the police - so much for realism - but damn the luck, there's inclement weather keeping the police from coming to investigate. Oh also one of the particularly pretty orphans has started manifesting stigmata and started making messianic claims. These poor investigators are dealing with a really unreasonable workload here. It's not even the first time it's happened. Turns out it happened before. The guard and one of the priests saw the whole thing. Mario was levitating in mid-air and bleeding from the palms. Sigh. OK, the stigmata clearly aren't an actual miracle. We've already established that people develop stigmata all the fucking time. Levitating, on the other hand, isn't a routine event. They try to ask the orphan what was up with the whole levitation thing, but he's just like, sorry bros, I was in an ecstatic religious trance, can't remember a thing.

Oh, also, the first time he levitated, there was a runic cross written in blood behind the altar. At this point the investigators are like, wait, why didn't you tell us one of your students started developing stigmata while levitating and a runic cross written in blood behind him? And the priest is like, I mean, we didn't want to bother you with it. It's not like he was pregnant with the son of God or anything. Probably it would be considered a miracle if he was. I don't think this story is set in the Omegaverse. Anyway, they were like, look, you told us that if we have problems that aren't related to put in separate tickets. We just hadn't gotten around to putting in the Jira ticket on the levitating student yet.

And they're like, look, there have been three ritual murders here in the last 24 hours. Also, security guard guy, wait, didn't you say something about the students conducting occult rituals? Sorry, that didn't seem like it would possibly be related to an occult ritual murder back when we first talked, but now that we think about it, maybe that's worth following up on. But the head priest is like, look, we're sorry, we hired a Protestant as security guard as an act of charity, please don't take him seriously. Yes, the students are conducting occult rituals, it's a phase they're going through. Boys will be boys. Again, this is kind of truth in television. Catholics just aren't as concerned about demon-summoning rituals as American Evangelicals are. This is another one of those instances where I'm on Team RC. Just because you and your friends are trying to use a Walouija board as an ad hoc career guidance counselor doesn't mean you're suddenly going to start committing Satanic ritual murders.

Anyway the investigators use the Magic Lemon Juice to reveal the blood runes and the footprints on the floor, which belong to an adult and a student. No other footprints. Nobody else has walked around in that church. But oh, wait! There are other footprints, right by where the German priest was ritually murdered! And they're the SAME SHOE SIZE as the adult footprints by the blood runes! That can only mean one thing: The adult who painted blood runes on the church wall is the same person who murdered Father Klaus (strikethrough)Barbie(/strikethrough)!

There's only one thing for it: To have their intrepid hacker look into the medical history of the security guard. They feel like there's something funny about him. It's probably just that he's a Protestant, but they want to be totally sure. Oh, somebody else gets killed! And right before he dies, he says "The beast 666 has awakened", and invokes the name of the founder of the Church of San Rosario!

Anyway it turns out that the Church keeps the office of their founder locked and inaccessible and nobody, not even Vatican Miracle Examiners, are allowed to go in. The Vatican Miracle Examiners, of course, are undeterred by this, and pick the lock with a coathanger. No, I'm not going to make any tasteless jokes about that. The results of patriarchal oppression are fucking horrific and I don't really feel like making some "edgy" quip. Anyway they break in and it's fine, turns out it's just got the founder's mummified corpse in there. I mean it's a holy relic! Of course they're going to preserve it and venerate it. You know, maybe the founder's remains will do something miraculous or something and then they could call in some Vatican Miracle Examiners.

Oh also the Spear of Destiny, which has been stolen from the British Museum, seems to be in the founder's office. Huh. That's weird. Stil, I mean, it's not like the British have a greater claim to it than the One True Catholic and Apostolic Church. Oh, hold on, wait, there's also a copy of the Devil's Bible sitting around! Apparently there's such a thing as a "Devil's Bible", which is "a bible not written by man, but by the Devil". Saying that the Bible was written by "man" is kinda shaky theology there, but you know what, we'll go with it. It's written in Enochian script. The ink smells good. I'm just literally typing the subtitles at you here, this is all the context we get. Also "Enochian script" is apparently a Norse rune cipher? Or something? Oh and they found the other half of the tally counter, and it says not "GLORY" but "HEIN". THAT'S IT! Whoever created the tally counter was French, and the original message was "Huh, rich!" They must be talking about French cooking!

...or it just could be a German name. Time to check with Lauren, who pops up on video chat, and it turns out he's a guy! I, um. Kind of missed this reveal because he's an androgynous long-haired bishounen, like basically every other character here. I mean it's a shocking reveal for sure, I never would've guessed that a leet computer hacker might actually be a _guy_. There's no reason for this conversation to happen over video chat, just like there's no reason Lauren's gender makes the slightest bit of difference. Admittedly there's not much in the way of reason for anything that happens in this arc, but at this point things are starting to get particularly random.

In the meantime one of the other orphans has been possessed by a demon! OK, great, it's not enough for these two to be miracle investigators, they also have to investigate occult murders and I guess they exorcising demons now. The power of Christ compels you, the power of Christ compels you, oh fuck it let's just hit him over the head with a bible. Looks like the orphan wasn't possessed by a demon after all! He was just administered an overdose of crystal meth. By Father Klaus who was, well, CW doing exactly the sort of thing you would expect a Catholic priest to be doing to a young boy and keeping him addicted to drugs so he wouldn't tell anybody. Well, shit, I guess it wasn't unfair of the Vatican to ask them to investigate the ritual murder of Father Klaus as a miracle after all. I mean, of course they're not actually going to _tell_ the Vatican that one of their priests was perpetrating CSA. They're like, hey, why don't we just tell them that the kid was possessed by a demon and we exorcised him? We don't need to tell them about all that other awful stuff.

The good news is that this is the most depressingly realistic thing that happens in this whole arc and the rest of the arc is wall-to-wall batshit crazy. First off, it turns out the security guard wasn't just Protestant, he had a severe head injury which meant that he couldn't see people unless they were moving. Mario wasn't _actually_ levitating, the security guard just _thought_ he was. Mario was actually being strangled! And that's why the stigmata happened, he was just scared because he was being strangled to death. It turns out it's a really common medical condition, at least according to these Vatican Miracle Examiners. I didn't know there were so many different possible causes of stigmata before watching this show. It's been really educational.

Anyway, obviously whoever was strangling him was standing stock still, which is why the security guard couldn't see him. I mean yeah the head of San Rosario said he was levitating too and he didn't have any kind of head injury, so he was obviously just fuckin' lying. Which makes perfect sense. I mean, you know, if you're involved in a drug smuggling ring sending slush funds to the Vatican, the perfect way to cover it up is to tell the Vatican Miracle Examiners that any unusual events that might be happening in your church are actually miracles. They'll definitely accept what you're saying unconditionally and not, like, examine any miraculous claims you might make.

Here's another hot tip: If you happen to be running an underground Nazi experiment to clone Hitler, you should definitely let the women who was impregnated with Hitler's sperm, who has gone crazy from the experience and who also happens to be the daughter of the church's founder, wander around the church grounds at will carrying a rag doll two-headed baby around with her. That's not going to arouse any suspicions whatsoever. Certainly the Vatican Miracle Examiners who have come to investigate reports of a miraculous pregnancy aren't going to find her of any interest whatever. There's no way they would want to talk to her and hear their story at any point. Besides, even on the off chance she did tell them about what they did, you can always tell them she's crazy. I mean, she's a woman! What self-respecting member of the Catholic clergy would listen to a _woman_?

OK that's depressingly realistic again, but not _as_ depressingly realistic as the last thing.

Anyway it turns out, turns out "Heinrich" actually refers to Heinrich Mueller, the head of the Gestapo, whose body was never found after World War II. There's not really anybody else it could be, just like there's only one person in the world with a blood type of AB-. See, funny thing, it turns out there's a secret drug smuggling operation going on at the Church of San Rosario. They're selling meth and funneling the money through an elaborate insider trading scheme to the Vatican using a secret cover organization cunningly named "The Heinrich Foundation". This is because Heinrich Mueller is the true founder of the Church, smuggled on an enormous Nazi blimp called the Rusberg (because if you're going to smuggle Nazis into South America, obviously the most discreet way to do it is on a GIANT FUCKING NAZI BLIMP) along with Hitler's corpse, as part of a secret occult plan to create a clone of Hitler, along with an entire community full of Hitler Youth, indoctrinated with drugs and mind control to worship Hitler as their new God. They did this by using the Devil's Bible, which is written in a runic cypher which, when deciphered, provides detailed instructions for the revival of the Nazi Master Race. See, it turns out the key to the cypher in the Devil's Bible is in the runic Ouija board the orphans keep playing around with, because if you want to keep something a secret, just give it to some kids and tell them to do some occult rituals or something with it. The Vatican Miracle Examiners will never connect it to the actual occult ritual murders going on.

And I mean, there's not any reason to think there would be a problem. Their first attempt at cloning Hitler _seemed_ to be doing fine at first. It turned out, though, that the clone of Hitler wasn't, well, he wasn't being very Hitler-y, no matter how much they drugged and brainwashed him. So they decided to try again with the Sister who first reported the that she was pregnant with God's love child to the Vatican Miracle Hotline. Except that when they did that, the first clone of Hitler got super jealous and was like "What, am I not Hitler enough?" and started murdering the other priests and writing runic Nazi crosses (not swastikas, regular crosses just with runes with cryptoquotes from Mein Kampf) in blood behind the altar.

Which, you know, put a certain amount of pressure on the masterminds of the drug trafficking mind control Hitler clone plan. Like, on one hand, they look at him and are like "That's our Hitler!" On the other hand, they didn't think that a brainwashed megalomaniacal would-be world conqueror would want to, like, kill them, or anything.

Well, it looks bad for our miracle examiners, because once they find the clone of Hitler he wants to kill them with an axe and either has miraculous Nazi powers or just fights like an anime character. The brainwashed army of Hitler youth are also following his commands to destroy them. There's only one thing for the Miracle Examiners: To throw holy water at clone-Hitler. Clone-Hitler of course laughs at this. "Holy water cannot hurt YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH MY EYES THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING" and he gets so enraged he blows up the flask of holy water with his axe and sets him on fire and then the Nazi blimp with all the drugs on it blows up and the cult programming over the orphans is broken.

So there you are! Miracle, right? WRONG! See, haha, it turns out miracle examiners were pulling the ol' "sulfuric acid in place of holy water" switcheroo! Ha ha, that one's a classic. As for the blimp, ok yes blimps are notoriously flammable but in this case it didn't have anything to do with the sulfuric acid or the well-documented vulnerability of blimps to flame. See, remember the sexy nun and the guy who was having sex with her who got ritually murdered right after the pedophile priest? It turns out they weren't shtupping at all! They were undercover spies for a secret Zionist organization hunting down ex-Nazis. We find this out because being immolated by sulfuric acid didn't actually kill clone-Hitler and he comes back like Crocomire in Super Metroid but fortunately one of the other priests is a secret Zionist agent and saves them. On consideration I'm also not going to make a glib quip about Zionism, because you know what? It's just not that fucking funny.

Anyway everything turns out OK in the end. Well, hold on, wait, that Sister who made the original report is still pregnant with Hitler's clone-baby. Except, they conclude, this isn't actually a problem? I mean, it's not like evil is genetically inherited. Like Jesus pretty much says as much in at least one of the Gospels. Even if it was, which it isn't, I mean, just fuckin' baptize the kid. If it gets rid of original sin it oughta get rid of any sin that might be accrued as a result of being the clone of Hitler. As long as they don't, like, drug and brainwash the kid into thinking he's going to be the Dark Messiah who will bring on the Thousand-Year-Reich, he'll probably be fine. Again, this is actually a Good Take, something that's totally consistent with Catholic theology and something I personally believe as well.

So yeah. No problems. Our bishounen Miracle Examiners return to the Vatican and tell them, well, some things. Like, "Hey, so, uh, we found out that all of the Church's funds come from a Nazi front organization and are the profits of drug smuggling and insider trading." Oh, cool, their boss says, we totally definitely will do a full investigation. And the archbishop in charge? We are _not_ going to promote him to Cardinal until we're done with that investigation. Then one of the investigators says "Archbishop, have you ever run into something that made you... like... question your faith?" And their boss the Archbishop is like "Oh yeah, definitely, it's totally normal to question your faith when you find out that the entire church you've devoted yourself to was funded by a Nazi pedophile drug smuggling cult dedicated to reincarnating Hitler. It's in dark times like these that I hear the small still voice of God the most keenly. I will pray for you." And the Vatican Miracle Examiners say to each other, gee, the Archbishop is right. Faith is not an easy road to follow. Let's be strong and devoted in our faith!

OK I guess there's one last "depressingly accurate" bit. Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway I'm OK with the depressing bits because I was raised Catholic and even though I'm not a practicing Catholic right now I am still deeply committed to being miserable. Hopefully I didn't bum any of the rest of you 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!