#the rock man and the raven

[duskdragon39]

If you are so inclined. Trick or treat?

:O

For you, a trick:

The heart of the matter is this: a sense of place is a sense of perception. It's community and communication and history, bound up into physical location.

The problem with Avery Marsh is that. Well. When you excise someone's community, his ability to communicate, and half his history - how can you expect the location to make up the difference?

[yashley]

So sad. Do you think I do not understand the sorrow of responsibility?

[laughing-gunslinger]

“I’m a bishop so I only move diagonally!”

[sea-buns]

Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed Lapin and wished he had more time to grow and develop. But, I mean c'mon, Cumulous was a GIFT. I love me a stone-faced pastel man who has absolutely no problem casually killing things and sucking the life from them, who also weeps tears of joy when met with the objects he's sworn to protect. I would have loved for him to have the full season to grow his relationship with the family, just as much as I would have Lapin. We got two bangin characters that we absolutely did not deserve. That being said, PLEASE let Zac's character survive. It's only 6 episodes, man. If he didn't make this character with that thought in mind, I'll be shocked.

[skapediem]

buncha birdies i spent the better part of december drawing for my mums christmas present :o)

[utilitycaster]

The other fantastic Colin moment in the episode, other than his resignation as Deli's Skald, is how he undergoes pretty significant inconvenience, traveling something like six hours out of his way, to make up in a small way to the murder of the banana guy for no other reason than he was in the wrong place during a political assassination. Colin understands why his grandfather was murdered, even though he doesn't like it, but his father - who wasn't a good man at all - was killed for being the descendant of the wrong noble house despite being a child during his father's coup. Colin himself is at risk despite being born after his grandfather's death and never experiencing any of the privileges of nobility, only the liability. Pamela Rocks is politics - you wear a crown, you take your chances - but the banana man is murder. He's just some guy who was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and while Colin is most certainly not just some guy, he has the worst aspects of that banana man (poverty, lack of influence, fucked over entirely because of the political machinations of others he had no way to stop or even know about) and none of the good ones (the freedom of truly being just some guy, who won't be blackmailed or executed on the basis of blood ties alone). I really don't think he cares about Pamela Rocks' death, and maybe if the banana hadn't shown up Colin would still be at Deli's side, or at the very least not vehemently opposed to the FDA, but the banana did, so here we are.

[animebw]

There are still a couple more shows on my PTW list for this season that haven’t aired yet.

Why the fuck do I do this to myself.

Akiba Maid War: Watch this show I am begging you on my knees

Bibliophile Princess: The cinematic equivalent of crusty molasses. Dropped.

Blue Lock: Whoever came up with “Edgy death game but it’s actually a shonen sports anime“ is a goddamn genius.

Bocchi the Rock: Has the potential to be the best cute girls band show since K-On.

Chainsaw Man: I’m officially aboard this hype train let’s GOOOOOOOOOOO

Do It Yourself: It’s a damn good season for cute girls, what can I say?

I’m the Villainness, So I’m Taming the Final Boss: I feel like otome isekai genre is rapidly growing just as stale as its male counterpart, but this one might have some life to it.

Mob Psycho 100 Season 3: ONE AND ONLY OOOOOOONE

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury: GUNDAM UTENA GUNDAM UTENA GUNDAM UTENA GUNDAM UTENA GUNDAM UTENA

My Hero Academia Season 6: The fact there’s no movie announced this time gives me hope this season will rise to the top again. Fingers crossed!

My Master Has No Tail: Feels like the weakest parts of Eccentric Family and Rakugo Shinju combined. This one is next on the chopping block if it doesn’t pick up soon.

Pop Team Epic Season 2: I still don’t get the double voice actor gimmick tbh

Raven of the Inner Palace: Historical fantasy josei with courtroom politics and social commentary? You better believe I’m here for that.

Reincarnated as a Sword: Yeah, it’s the obligatory isekai, what do you want from me?

Spy x Family: Are you ready for more Anya faces? Because I sure am!

Urusei Yatsura: Just Lum Just Lum Just Lum Just Lum Just Lum Just Lum Just Lum Just Lum Just Lum Just Lum

Yama no Susume Season 4: Okay, but... this season isn’t gonna be all recap, right?

[venacoeurva]

Detected

[the-nwah-embassy]

My favorite shit is when you look up 'Dunmer' on the nexus, you'd expect some cool shit like racial overhauls or maybe more true-to-Morrowind architecture redos for Solstheim or the Gray Quarter or maybe just some basic acknowledgement of their deep and intricate lore like a Morag Tong nod or something, and instead you get a bunch of balloon-titted white girl 'Dunmer presets' for giant incel nerds to wack it to.

[zincbot]

okay the time jumps in the ravening war are legitimately insane. i need more stories formatted like this

[kelvingemstone]

a starstruck odyssey is for lovers

[arklayraven]

I desire to see Asmo in a cheerleader outfit for Fangol now.

[animeslushie]

Anime Slushie: the Fall 2022 Anime Season Taster!

Our most recent seasonal anime taster is up! We talked about this absurdly good season of anime, and a little on why we're not gonna cover RWBY anymore.

Things are still gonna remind us of RWBY, like the two dopes in that screenshot. The brainworms are forever.

Watch list below the break!

We watched:

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Chainsaw Man

Raven of the Inner Palace

Do It Yourself!!

My Master Has No Tail

Pop Team Epic Season 2

Bocchi the Rock!

Detective Conan: The Culprit Hanazawa

Urusei Yatsura

[animefeminist]

2022 Fall Three-Episode Check-In

We’re plagued with the best kind of problem: too much good anime to watch!

The team split up the three-episode reviews between staff volunteers, with one person putting together a short(ish) review on each series. Like we do with our check-in podcasts, we started from the bottom of our Premiere Digest list and worked our way up.

If we didn’t watch a show for at least three episodes, we skipped it, and we’ve used nice bold headers to help you quickly jump to the shows you’re interested in. We’ve also excluded shows that are continuing on in basically the same vein as our premiere review to conserve space.

Due to the extremely staggered release dates for this season, some shows have barely aired three episodes while others are close to halfway through their run. That means that write-ups are done with a bit more foreknowledge than usual. However, unless specifically noted, we will not be mentioning overt spoilers for anything beyond episode three.

We don’t have the time to keep up with everything, so please let us know about any gems we might be missing in the comments!

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[ridley-was-a-cat]

Fall 2022 Anime Roundup

Somehow yet another season has completed, and this one was a doozy. Not only were there multiple sequels to major franchises like Mob Psycho and My Hero Academia, we got a sequel to Bleach 10+ years after the last season ended. On top of that, there was the highly anticipated debut season of Chainsaw Man, and four adaptations of shoujosei works, which is more than we usually get in an entire year. There was just a ton of stuff on offer this season, and almost all of it was good.

Completed

Anime of the Season: Mob Psycho 100 III

In a season as packed as this one, choosing a favorite was no easy task, and I went back and forth between this and Raven of the Inner Palace. As good as they both were, I'm going to have to give this the edge for pairing its moving story about adolescent turbulence with an absolute spectacle of art and animation. I really can't say enough good things about how Mob steadfastly rejects violence or subjugation as displays of strength or power. The show never gets preachy about it, Mob just sees people's appeals to use his power in destructive ways as pointless and unappealing. ONE said that he set out to write something kind when he wrote Mob Psycho, and I have to say that he definitely succeeded in writing one of the best examples I've seen of positive, non-toxic masculinity. 9/10

First Runner Up: Raven of the Inner Palace

I didn't really know what to expect when I added this to my schedule for the season, and basically only watched it because it had a shoujo label, and I reflexively support shoujosei anime. What I ended up with was a fantastic drama that used one to two episode-long vignettes about various people and spirits around the imperial court to tell a larger story about who the main characters are, and how the events of the past affect them today. The slow development of the relationship between the Raven Consort and the Emperor was extremely satisfying to watch, as was seeing her learn to open up to the people around her. Many of the characters' backstories were tragic or traumatic, and the show handled them with the right amount of thoughtfulness. 9/10

Second Runner Up: Akiba Maid War

I nearly dropped this halfway through the first episode thinking that it was going to be just another P.A.Works original about humbling an idealistic young woman at her first job, and then a gang war broke out. A committed and affectionate parody of gangster movies with enough heart to avoid becoming a cheap joke. 8/10

Bocchi the Rock! - I didn't plan to watch this because the manga runs in one of those lolicon magazines that skeeve me out, but luckily the hype got to me, and I didn't miss out on this spectacularly animated and directed comedy about an introverted girl chasing her rock and roll dreams. 8/10

I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss - This tried to squeeze three light novel volumes into twelve episodes, making episodes 4, 8, and 12 into arc-concluding speed runs, but our villainess was so charmingly spunky and her demon lord boo was so damn fine that I was having too much fun to care about its flaws. 8/10

Spy x Family Part 2 - I kept waiting for the plot to kick back in before finally accepting that this series apparently is more of an episodic comedy than the first cour let on, but it's still plenty entertaining. 8/10

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - I liked, but didn't love, Bleach's original run, and this sequel retains many of the story writing traits I didn't care for, but the visuals got a major upgrade, everyone is smoking hot, and they played "Number One" at the end of the last episode, so I can't help but feel the hype. 8/10

Chainsaw Man - I can both see how skillfully directed and animated this was, and how the characters and story would be appealing to a lot of people, while also disliking the decision to mimic live-action movies, and acknowledging that this story full of misery is just not for me. 7/10

Do It Yourself!! - A cute girls doing cute things show that broke through my exhaustion with the genre by having an unusual activity like carpentry, and mixing it with distinctive character designs and lively animation. 7/10

The Little Lies We All Tell - The visuals for this didn't appeal to me so I didn't pick it up until the season was almost over, but it ended up being a really charming little comedy about four friends with bizarre secrets. 7/10

My Master Has No Tail - The rakugo performances left a little to be desired, but the character interactions in this light comedy about a tanuki taking up rakugo in Meiji era Osaka kept things entertaining. 7/10

Reincarnated as a Sword - If this wasn't a light novel adaptation, and it didn't have so much monologuing from the sword, blah visuals, or mediocre shot composition, this would make a pretty fun story despite the goofy sounding concept. 6/10

Bibliophile Princess - I've read the manga adaptation, so I was really looking forward to this, but some combination of poor animation, questionable story adaptation choices, and an annoying tendency to rehash the same conflict made this a bit of a slog to finish. 6/10

Ongoing

Golden Kamuy S4 - I'm definitely looking forward to watching this when it comes back from hiatus in the spring, as the action was really starting to get interesting, with our competing gangs of charismatic scoundrels about to get back on their bullshit. 8/10

IDOLiSH7 Third BEAT! Part 2 - This part continues with the corporate drama instigated by the extremely hateable villain, while completing Trigger's transformation from antagonist to loveable underdog, and giving some very satisfying character development moments. Looking forward to the concluding four episodes in February. 8/10

One Piece - While I'm definitely still enjoying myself, and this really is the best One Piece has looked during its run, I'm kind of ready to be done with Wano already. 8/10

Play It Cool, Guys - You've heard of cute girls doing cute things, now get ready for the new hotness: cute guys doing airhead things. Just pure, unadulterated fluff that brightens my day. 8/10

My Hero Academia S6 - On the one hand, this was kind of an exhausting anime season for seeing the good guys get the stuffing beat out of them, but on the other hand, seeing Mirko rip a monster's head off with her thighs was some peak content. 7/10

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun S3 - This season still has most of its charm, and I still love all the characters, but this contest arc is really dragging. 7/10

Dropped

The Eminence in Shadow - This was sold to me as a satirical take on power fantasy isekai, but it was playing all the tropes pretty straight, and the atrocious fanservice in episode 10 made me decide I had better things to do. 6/10

[englishmansdcc]

October Anime line-up...and what a line-up it is!

Tomorrow is the start of a new month...and with a new month comes a lot of new anime to various stream services. Our own @AliRaphael1 is excited for a lot of them, and talks about what she's looking forward to here! #Anime