#hapuriainen liveblogs

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What I like about this series is how all of the four girls get their own symbols in the ed, and the magical girl’s ones are cute at least.

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Eren: I’m going to suffer in this season aren’t I?

Levi: You suffer in every season, deal with it.

My plan to watch the first two seasons before the third one didn’t go too well and I’m still stuck at episode one, but I won’t let that stop me from following the new episodes as they come. I can catch up later.

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No matter how little I care overall, if you have someone putting on a magical girl cosplay I will momentarily wake up from my slumber. What is this, discount Suite Precure?

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I ended up picking an anime called Invaders of the Rokujyoma!?, whose premise already gave the impression that it would not be for me (it’s a seemingly plotless otaku harem anime), but I wanted to try something different and I had never seen a story with a magical girl from an angle like this so I gave it a go anyway. So far it has been a mistake, since even for a harem anime it’s pretty bad, mostly because it’s so tropey and generic. And unfortunately the magical girl is the worst of the girls, which is especially bad since they all suck in different ways (and MC-kun is exceptionally insufferable too). And even her outfit is boring.

At least it’s short and easy to watch...

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The author’s shipping preferences show up again. If I remember correctly there was plenty of material with Historia being super friendly with Annie in the earlier volumes too (it’s been a while since I read them) while any content with Historia and Ymir felt more like it was there just because you have to do something about it.

In this omnibus volume there is even a chapter that is about how Ymir breaks up her, uh, relationship with Historia for the most stupid and out of character reason ever and then she substitutes Historia with Annie since they’re both short and blonde. And while she does spend most of the chapter subconsciously treating Annie as Historia (growing increasingly delirious at it) and eventually she and Historia have a tacked on reunion at the end, the whole story feels like jokes about Annie and Ymir with Ymir and Historia’s relationship being more like an afterthought. Like I wouldn’t be surprised if making the topic of the chapter be shipping Historia with Ymir was an editor’s order since to me the narrative feels so uninterested in focusing on it.

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Good lord what a ridiculous dress. I must draw it!

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The actual chapter was quite a letdown but I’ll take what I can get, it’s been 84 years since we last got some proper interaction between Eren and Levi.

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S3 e1 thoughts

Since I still haven’t seen the first two seasons I don’t know if this is a thing in the anime as a whole, but man were the scenes rushed! It’s like they were just running through the bare minimum plot points required to set up future plot developments, and the scenes change frantically so we get to spend like a minute in one place and time and then it’s suddenly a different time of the day with different characters in a different part of the world, and that scene lasts for five lines and then we’re a new place again. The part where they experiment on Eren’s titan transformations and later sum up their results is one of my favourite parts of the story but now it was so rushed that I just didn’t care. 

And this is before getting to Eren and Historia’s conversation, which is even more one of my favourite parts of the entire series. In the manga the scene really has time to breathe, when the characters have been waiting alone for hours, dozing off and talking about dreams and in general it feels like an intimate conversation between two friends who know each other pretty well and is presented like an important scene you should remember. While in the anime it’s squeezed between other characters talking and walking around and is cut off when we need to hear new plot stuff from Hange and half the lines are missing. 

Obviously the rules for anime are different from how manga works so a 1:1 adaptation probably wouldn’t have worked at all, and I can see that it’s good for the show to get the ball rolling quickly to avoid boring people who only tune in for the anime, but I wish all the important scenes won’t feel this rushed. Like all the action looks amazing, the characters are on model and looked pretty, the colours are nice and the voice acting is great so there’s a lot to like, but I hope there will be more to like on the story side too or this experience will be a lot more shallow than I hoped.

The opening is alright. I don’t like the song as much as the three others, but at least it looks nice and using a different style for this season works because of the content. However I find that there was too much of Eren, Mikasa and Armin hanging out together especially considering that this part of the story doesn’t do much with their relationship. Maybe it’s there to remind that it’s an important thing for the series as a whole? Historia feels like an afterthought even though I find her one of the most important characters this season other than Eren and Levi. Mikasa smiling and looking like an actual kid for once and kid Levi are the highlights for me.

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In the name of God, Heaven and Hell; everything in between, every creature on Earth; by the far reaches of the Galaxy; by the inner rings on the Universe and… every Megaverse and the Ultraverse, let it be known. Let the word be known: I hate this translation.

Some things I could understand, like swapping a Japanese celebrity for an American one, but the godawful translation notes can’t have been in the original. Nor stuff like this that in the Japanese version would have been in volume 9 out of 11 (which according to release dates wasn’t delayed at all):

What I hate about translations like this is the smug attitude that the source material only exists for the translator to show off their unfunny jokes. On one hand I guess this doesn’t affect me that much here since I never cared for the actual story to begin with, but on the other hand translating isn’t a zero sum game where a bad work being sacrificed to a purposely terrible translation means that something else gets a better one. And I’m fairly sure I would like this series more if reading it wasn’t such so cringy due to the self-serving tone even if the character writing doesn’t exactly wow me.

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S3 ending thoughts

Overall very positive feelings, I’ve liked all the Linked Horizon SNK songs so far and this one is no exception. I don’t dislike the new OP but I was a little bummed that Linked Horizon wouldn’t make a return, since they make such a good combo with SNK and I’ve been so used to them that an SNK anime without their opening felt weird, but having them do the ending instead is a good solution and gives some change of pace.

I complained about the OP not having enough Historia, and the ED is here to rectify that. I guess it’s nothing new for an action show to have an explosive opening and then a calmer ending focusing on an important female character? Not that the opening is particularly explosive this time. Anyway giving Historia the spotlight was very welcome, and I especially liked the bit with Ymir (especially since she had such a beautiful genuine smile in it). And for reasons I don’t understand I really like Frieda so I was happy to see her too.

However as much as I like Eren to me the few seconds with him and Grisha felt very out of place since the ending was otherwise Historia’s show. I mean you can draw parallels between Eren and Historia but the ending didn’t really do anything with that. But at least little Eren holding hands with an adult is always cute to see, even if the events following the scene in question are less cute.

Then there’s SHINSOU WO SASAGEYO. Ugh, I did not need that, I was somewhat ambivalent on OP3 having the melodies from both previous openings in it since it felt a little like cheap pandering. But in the end I decided that I like being pandered to about this, and at least it’s in the C part (or whatever it’s called) so it’s not so in your face, but here it’s right there in every episode now. Come on Linked Horizon, I like your songs, you don’t need to try to sell them with “this references a thing you like so you should like this too!” The worst thing is how abruptly it cuts to the SHiNSOU WO SASAGEYO part, hopefully it’ll flow a bit more naturally in the full version.

Lastly the visuals. The sketchy art style is pretty to look at, and somehow gave a sad atmosphere, which emphasises Historia’s loneliness well. Also there was a decent amount of animation too so it wasn’t just panning still images like endings often sadly are.

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I don’t have any merch of the Titans themselves but I wanted to use the 3dmg somewhere, so I had to improvise.

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Episode 1 thoughts

What’s up with Eren’s dream? The anime makes it look like he had a really violent dream, and the bit about Mikasa’s hair was missing.

The VAs try, but I still can’t unhear an adult trying to sound like a ten-year-old. They’ll be older in the next episode right...?

With all the detail the anime makes Shiganshina look like a place where people actually live and not a cheap and empty movie set with perfectly even box houses. The difference between Shiganshina in chapter 1 and... whatever the name of the Marley city in the recent chapters is quite staggering so Isayama has definitely developed in this department, but reading the manga for the first time the blandness of the environment made it a lot more difficult to get into the world.

The curse of panning still shots appears! Sure this is an action series and putting all the effort into the 3dmg and otherwise important scenes is a good choice and making background person #24 move isn’t the best way to spend your resources, but man did the still shots remind me that I was watching a weekly anime. There’s a recap movie, did they manage to fix this in that?

So big scenes (Colossal Titan appearing, Carla’s death) worked super well, but the talking bits were pretty boring with characters just reciting bits I already know. Which was to be expected, watching an anime adaptation of a manga I’ve already read, but it still doesn’t make it less boring.

It turns out I really like the ending theme. I had seen it only two or three times and back then it didn’t really speak to me, but this time both the song and the visuals really worked. 

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It is time for me to finally watch the SNK anime

Season 3 draws closer and since it’s my favourite arc I want to watch it, but seeing the preceding episodes before it seems like a good idea.

Expectations:

quality voice acting

amazing music

usage of 3dmg looking epic in animated form

...except when time or money runs out and it looks really cheap instead

too slow pacing ruining intensive scenes

annoying and tropey character exaggeration

Eren being closer to what I thought I’d get (and hate) in the manga

a scene I liked in the manga got deleted! Grrr!

a new scene I really like and heartily welcome as a part of my personal SNK world.

the brown colour palette adds a lot of atmosphere

meanwhile something is always lost when you go from a rough manga art to clean anime art, which I find hurts a series like SNK where the world is rough and unclean.

scenery, props, new scenes and stuff like that add to the worldbuilding which I find has been severely lacking in the manga.

Now time will tell how this anime watching project will turn out since I only have two modes (one episode every 3 months or everything asap).

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While the manga art is perfectly serviceable, I really like the illustrations in the novel version. I find that the rough and unpolished art of the novel fits the the gloomy themes and world of snk incredibly well.

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He is finally here!

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Episode 2 thoughts

I've finally made it to episode 2 of my anime watching project. I still prefer manga as a medium, but the anime definitely adds to the experience in its own way.

What I like the most is that I feel I get a bit better picture of what the overall world within the walls is like in the anime. In the manga I've had serious trouble trying to figure out what the life that the characters are trying to protect is like, and while the anime doesn't spend that much time on it either I still really like seeing the mechanisms of the boats or Grisha operating a carriage.

The Armoured Titan certainly had more presence in the anime than in the manga, I remember that when I read the manga I didn't have a very good grasp on how the walls were laid out so I didn't even realise that there were two special titans who breached two different walls. So when I made it to the Clash of Titans arc I was super confused as to why anyone showed any interest in any other titan than the Colossal Titan.

I don't remember the scene where Mikasa punches Eren for badmouthing Armin from the manga. I wonder if it has any significance to the Ackerbond discussion (I mean the recent manga scene where Mikasa instinctively stops Armin from attacking Eren) or if it's just an anime-only thing that we're supposed to politely ignore.

With the episode ending at the military training opening ceremony Lipstick Mikasa makes her first appearance...  It looks really jarring when I've learned to know the characters as looking a lot more plain.