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The Spring 2019 Anime Preview Guide


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kotomikun



Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 4:50 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Once Bouida realizes that Nona really is alive, he treats her with decency

...besides the part where he tries to hide the (possible) fact that she's a toy from her, and then goes on to treat her like the mindless miniature magical-girlfriend that she is. I can't give him a whole lot of points for deciding not to undress her again; was that because she turned out to be alive, or because she turned out to have a rocket launcher?

Really, both characters are walking stereotypes, except for the girl being pocket-sized, so this show was only uncomfortably funny at best. Though I did get a laugh out of Lynzee calling it "thirsty Astro Boy."

Also, what is with all these romantic anime involving girls who need tutoring? Ao-chan, We Never Learn, Quintuplets last season, and I think there was another one. Is this going to displace the little-sister fetish? Or is that just wishful thinking?
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5459
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 6:25 pm Reply with quote
I betcha there's going to be a moment where there's a variation of "how can you love 'him' if you don't eat 'his' poop!" as the climax for SARAZANMAI. Twisted Evil

Man, if you're a fan of cute girls doing cool things and the like, this season is really dire since Bocchi feels like the only one worth checking out. Yeah, there's also Cinderella Nine, but considering they barely animated the baseball action, that's a miss for me.

The first episode of new Fruits Basket was fine though it was a definite retread of the other first episode in 2001 but prettier and less maniac tonal shifts. Fairy gone was ok, but the main cast feels like really stock archetypes of your somewhat naive female lead and her more experience buffed dude partner.

And it's funny to realize that more Attack on Titan S3 starts much later this month. One could watch those behind-the-scenes Youtube videos of Carole and Tuesday to indulge themselves until freakin' Netflix releases them which I imagine it will be months after Spring season is over. At least Kakegurui S2 is going to be release on June 13 which is about 3 months after it ended in Japan so hopefully I won't have to wait too long for the first cour.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 6:40 pm Reply with quote
I did some searching of lists of spring shows. It appears that Amazon has not licensed any new shows this season and is only continuing Dororo and Karakuri. Some of my favorite shows of the past few years have been carried by Amazon. Is the lack of any new series this season a sign of things to come at Amazon or just an aberration?
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lycopene





PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 6:48 pm Reply with quote
No new twin engine shows for them to pick up this season
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Ojamajo LimePie



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 762
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 7:12 pm Reply with quote
El Hermano wrote:
LossThief wrote:
My guy if this is how you read the most blatant metaphor for cunnilingus put to animation since Belladonna of Sadness I need you to go find your high school literature teacher and flick them on the forehead.


I'm not sure what you're trying to say... I'm just saying maybe a scene where two young naked girls lick a 8 inch shaft all over could be seen as something explicit.


They're saying that said "shaft" is a clitoris, and not a psuedo-penis. Yonic imagery, not phallic.

On the topic of Sarazanmai, it was everything I expected from Ikuhara and more. A totally kappativating first episode.
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 14 Dec 2012
Posts: 1380
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 7:48 pm Reply with quote
yuna49 wrote:
I did some searching of lists of spring shows. It appears that Amazon has not licensed any new shows this season and is only continuing Dororo and Karakuri. Some of my favorite shows of the past few years have been carried by Amazon. Is the lack of any new series this season a sign of things to come at Amazon or just an aberration?


Amazon's standing deals for global exclusivitiy with the Noitamina and Animeism TV blocks ended at the end of last year, so as of now they've no long guaranteed 3-4 shows per season. What's more, since their Anime Strike initiative died on the vine they've been pretty uninterested in grabbing titles outside of those deals - they've only gotten 5 titles outside of them since the start of 2018, and 3 were from their Twin Engine partnership.

So while it's possible they might grab some titles next season, I don't imagine they'll be picking up more than 1 or 2 per season going forward, and might not at all if they see suit to just run through the remainder of their Twin Engine shows.
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Chrono1000





PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:00 pm Reply with quote
The Helpful Fox Senko-san (4.5 out of 5) - This is the most adorable show of the season. Senko is cute, kind, and clever as a fox. The basic outline is similar to Dragon Maid but with fox girls and even the local convenience store was called VolpeMart. The episode has comedy to it but it is mostly a soothing anime and a good portion of the show is a nice motivational speech. In that sense the show is a great value since you can spend a $100 going to a motivational speech and and none of those speakers will be half as cute as Senko.

Wise Man's Grandchild (4 out of 5) - A fun isekai show and while the scene where Shin agreed to attend a magic high school made me laugh out loud the action scenes looked good. It somewhat surprised me that despite being set at a magic high school that Shin seems to have fallen for the shy blue haired girl in the very first episode and that it looks like it will be a standard romance. It doesn't look like the show will be pushing any boundaries but I will be happy as long as it is entertaining.

kotomikun wrote:
Quote:
Once Bouida realizes that Nona really is alive, he treats her with decency

...besides the part where he tries to hide the (possible) fact that she's a toy from her, and then goes on to treat her like the mindless miniature magical-girlfriend that she is. I can't give him a whole lot of points for deciding not to undress her again; was that because she turned out to be alive, or because she turned out to have a rocket launcher?

Amazing Stranger is definitely an otaku fantasy but based on the first episode Haruto seems like a nice guy and he thinks that Nona is some kind of AI toy and that she would be incredibly sad if she learned that she was a toy. There is the moral question of him lying about it but I haven't seen any indication that he had a bad motivation for doing it. Also Nona was trying to pretend to be a figure the very next day so I am guessing that in the manga she is not meant to be a genius.

yuna49 wrote:
I did some searching of lists of spring shows. It appears that Amazon has not licensed any new shows this season and is only continuing Dororo and Karakuri. Some of my favorite shows of the past few years have been carried by Amazon. Is the lack of any new series this season a sign of things to come at Amazon or just an aberration?

I am going to guess that after the Anime Strike channel went down in flames that Amazon has lost most of their interest in anime since it won't be an additional revenue stream. Amazon carried on with their previous anime licensing deals but after those ended they are becoming very selective on which shows they buy. Anime simulcasts cost a lot more than getting anime catalog shows so it wouldn't surprise me if they were to leave the simulcast market except for the occasional show that they finance.
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db999



Joined: 23 Dec 2017
Posts: 299
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:42 pm Reply with quote
Just finished watching the first episode of Sarazanmai and I loved it. I wasn't even sure if I was going to watch it, because of the butt stuff, but I just skipped through that stuff when it got too gross. I haven't really watched any of Ikuhara's work other than Sailor Moon S and the first 5 episodes of Utena, which I've been meaning to get back to. Ikuhara'a work has a reputation for being obtuse and hard to understand, so as one of my first experiences with his stuff, I don't think this series is really all that difficult to understand. I can take or leave the type of symbolism that he employs, and at least with this show and Utena, I think the narrative is straightforward enough that people can watch the series and understand what's going on without much of an issue. One thing that I think is getting lost in the shuffle with regards to this show is how funny it is. It has a really good sense of comedic timing, and so far the show doesn't take itself too seriously. This might actually be the first series of his that I follow all the way through. I'd honestly recommend trying the show if anyone's on the fence about it. This is definitely the type of show where you know by the end of the first episode if you want to watch the show or not.

I also watched Afterlost, which I thought was entertaining enough. I'm interested in seeing where the story goes, but if I do drop anything this season it will be this show.

Fairy gone was also pretty entertaining and is going to serve as my action fix for the season. There's nothing really new that the show does, but the story is executed well and the animation is pretty good.

I also really liked the new Fruits Basket. I find myself gravitating towards this type of series a lot more as I get older. I never watched the 2001 version and if what I've been hearing about the quality of the manga is true, then this series will end up being really good.
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Spastic Minnow
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Joined: 02 May 2006
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 11:46 pm Reply with quote
I'm surprised none of the shorts reviewers were familiar with the Joshei Kausei manga, as it's a Crunchyroll manga, I think it's somewhat popular, and it's an easy "read." But if they had, the reviews probably would reflect my thoughts. It's not going to really work well. A silent or "mime" comic is different than mime cartoon. Unless it's really simple (think Spy vs. Spy) it doesn't translate and comes off weird. And really, the Joshei Kausei girls do talk, it's just that the manga gets away with only focusing on the action and especially on expressions. But in the cartoon we're not looking at virtual snapshots, they're moving... and it's just weird that you don't hear them talk.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2242
PostPosted: Fri Apr 12, 2019 11:51 pm Reply with quote
El Hermano wrote:

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. A scene being a metaphor doesn't stop it from being fetish pandering. Saying a girl getting her toes sucked is a metaphor doesn't change the fact Ikuhara might be a kink who likes putting foot fetish scenes in his work. I'm just saying maybe a scene where two young naked girls lick a 8 inch shaft all over could be seen as something explicit. Or those shots of the girls laying naked and covered in sticky honey all over their bodies may be a bit titillating. Just putting that out there. Ikuhara is no stranger to fanservice or kinks.


Not to belabor the point, but that was basically YuriKuma’s whole thesis: that Japan/anime fetishizes yuri to a high degree for (intended) male audiences while simultaneously denying personhood to their real-life counterparts, i.e., lesbians. There’s an interview out there where Ikuhara himself admits he was guilty of shades of this for Utena.
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kotomikun



Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
PostPosted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 12:11 am Reply with quote
Chrono1000 wrote:
Amazing Stranger is definitely an otaku fantasy but based on the first episode Haruto seems like a nice guy

Well, it depends on what you mean by "nice." He's not a horrible evil megalomaniac who eats babies. But his overly-exuberant pride at rejecting real women so he can lust after anime girls exclusively kinda disqualified him from being called nice, in my mind.

Nona, meanwhile, is a different trope. Not literally an idiot, but sufficiently clueless and passive to go along with whatever her male partner wants (except groping). Together, they form the duo of generic-and-only-mildly-creepy guy and exotic-and-special-but-unintelligent girl. There are a million other examples of this, so clearly there's a market for it, but I've seen it more than enough times already.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 12:44 am Reply with quote
I accidentally came across the Nobunaga short and found it quite funny. While I understand people being "icked out" by a 14yr old matter of factly wanting to get to baby-making with a complete stranger, that happened in the misplaced time period so it didn't come across as anything other than logical. That Nobunaga isn't into that sort of thing made for some really funny moments but I'm not sure the show can continue being funny if that is all the show has for concept.
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Dragonsandphoenix



Joined: 21 Jan 2015
Posts: 82
Location: Malaysia
PostPosted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:34 am Reply with quote
El Hermano wrote:
LossThief wrote:
My guy if this is how you read the most blatant metaphor for cunnilingus put to animation since Belladonna of Sadness I need you to go find your high school literature teacher and flick them on the forehead.


I'm not sure what you're trying to say. A scene being a metaphor doesn't stop it from being fetish pandering. Saying a girl getting her toes sucked is a metaphor doesn't change the fact Ikuhara might be a kink who likes putting foot fetish scenes in his work. I'm just saying maybe a scene where two young naked girls lick a 8 inch shaft all over could be seen as something explicit. Or those shots of the girls laying naked and covered in sticky honey all over their bodies may be a bit titillating. Just putting that out there. Ikuhara is no stranger to fanservice or kinks.


I think you misremembered the metaphor. There wasn't any shaft licking scene as far as I remember. If you're talking about the gun, that was oddly phallic but the girls were mostly licking a lily covered in honey and nowhere in film history have I seen flowers used as a phallic symbol. One thing I love about Ikuhara's ~SYMBOLISM~ is that it can be enjoyed at face value and I am all for inserting more sapphic/yonic imagery into art which he's been doing since Utena so it isn't new.

In regards to his fanservice, this is subjective but Ikuhara is one of the few male directors who is able to include lesbianism in a way that I as a queer woman actually find erotic. I can't quite explain why. I think YuriKuma is important for critiquing the Class S genre which classifies romantic relationships between girls as inherently chaste and training ground for girls until they discover "true" sexuality (with a man). I don't know what themes Sarazanmai is going to explore yet but I'm totally on board.
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BodaciousSpacePirate
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Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 3017
PostPosted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:11 am Reply with quote
Dragonsandphoenix wrote:
I think YuriKuma is important for critiquing the Class S genre which classifies romantic relationships between girls as inherently chaste and training ground for girls until they discover "true" sexuality (with a man).


I agree, although as time goes on, I wonder whether YuriKuma Arashi's most lasting legacy will unfortunately end up being the demonization of the 20th century works of queer Japanese women who were often unable to produce mainstream depictions of romantic relationships between teenage girls through the lens of anything but Class S works.

Based on the limited amount of Class S from the 1910s and 20s that I've read, some of the earliest and most influential pre-WW2 Class S works included pretty decent depictions of early 20th-century relationships between young adult women. Even the stuff anime fans most strongly associate with late-20th century Class S media (Maria Watches Over Us and Dear Brother, for example) seem to still be fairly well-regarded for their (admittedly problematic) depictions of young adult lesbian experiences.

I worry that Lesbian Bear Storm has caused a lot of anime critics (especially Western critics who haven't seen these earlier works) to paint the whole genre with the same brush, and to condemn it all as male gaze-y.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5296
PostPosted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 3:35 am Reply with quote
I haven't seen Bungo Stray Dogs: Dead Apple, is it worth watching?
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