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This Week in Anime - Overlooked or Deservedly Forgotten?


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Gem-Bug



Joined: 10 Nov 2018
Posts: 1518
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 9:09 am Reply with quote
Disappointing how many good shows got shafted this season. End-of-season series reviews never hit the same way as weeklies.
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champeagle3



Joined: 20 Apr 2023
Posts: 67
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 9:14 am Reply with quote
Good to see Botan get more love. Additionally, I was one of the few that voted for the cozy alcoholism yuri anime to get weekly reviews... but alas.

Very much looking forward to how it wraps up and the season review for it.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 5372
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 9:29 am Reply with quote
You know, I've had the same though about what Amazon's approach to anime might be. They look for one or two titles that have a chance of bringing some prestige to the service, which they can easily get because money, and then anything else they land is whatever to them, just content to fill the platform. The prestige licenses get the treatment of good dubs at union studios. The rest would probably be sub-only if they didn't have data showing viewership benefits from having a dub at all, so they do one but are not going to spend more than absolutely needed to do it.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 5161
Location: New York
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 10:29 am Reply with quote
The fact that Fist of the North Star is still doing numbers with an awful dub is kind of telling. Namely, that it's a quality work despite a lot of factors against it.

But Prime Video, as of late, has been bizarrely cheap (following a mandate to cut costs) with all of its shows. Look at Eric Kripie apologizing for the last month that he lacked the budget to do a big finale for The Boys.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 3005
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 10:45 am Reply with quote
Beatdigga wrote:
The fact that Fist of the North Star is still doing numbers with an awful dub is kind of telling. Namely, that it's a quality work despite a lot of factors against it.


Yeah, from what I can tell the seeming general reaction from Fist of the North Star fans is that the new anime, as an adaptation of the original manga, is actually really damn good. The general mood, tone, & style of Fist is all there, so if what you want is an anime adaptation of Fist that doesn't have all of the filler & slower pacing of the OG Toei TV anime then this will certainly fit the bill.

I think it also shows that, to put it bluntly, people are willing to deal with lackluster visuals in an anime if essentially everything else about it (characters, plot, themes, music, etc.) are good. Yes, anime is a visual medium, but I do sometimes feel as though some people have become so focused on the visual aspect of anime over seemingly everything else, and they wind up missing out on shows that are still very good, despite the visuals being the weakest element. It's why I've never really gelled with the people who are obsessed with "sakuga", and why I don't like how the term "limited animation" has become a four-letter word to some fans, despite limited animation being an art style all its own that can deliver interesting visual tricks you wouldn't see elsewhere.

Does that necessarily apply to the current Fist anime? Probably not, but I do think it's interesting to see that people are willing to accept (or deal with, if you're the more cynical type) its animation/visual style because it seemingly delivers on being a true adaptation of the original manga.
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Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1778
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 10:52 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Yup, this is another Transperfect Mediadub, which is a very affordable South African studio that largely works in voice over rather than voice acting, which is likely why so many of their anime (including other Prime exclusives like Ninja vs. Gokudo and The Dinner Table Detective) sound like the performers are phonetically reciting the script rather than actually conveying the meaning express on the page

I find it so weird that Transperfect's English language branch seems to lack experience while its Neutral Spanish branches are composed of people with a lot more experience in dubbing, because all the anime dubbed at Transperfect Argentina for Amazon sounded fine, in fact, I watch the Fist of the North Star '26 anime dubbed into Neutral Spanish and it sounded decent, not to mention that some of the cast worked on a fan re-dub of the Fist of the North Star Toei movie a few years ago and some of the dub VAs even reprised their roles, including Kenshiro's current dub VA.
However, I haven't seen a lot of people talking about this new HnK anime, maybe because HnK is not that well known in Latin America, there was actually a dub for the original '80s anime, but it was done in a small studio in Tijuana, Mexico and it was never meant for Latin American audiences, it was actually only shown in the U.S., for some reason.
As I mentioned in other articles and news about Amazon, it seems they way they promote anime and how they're dubbed is pretty random, and it also depends on the region. For example, Nippon Sangoku's Neutral Spanish dub is made at Mexican studio and starred by VAs with tons of experience, and I just hope that The Ghost in the Shell gets the same treatment.
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LR.Skyrabbit



Joined: 19 Aug 2024
Posts: 28
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 10:57 am Reply with quote
Am I the only one who thinks the level of disgust and disappointment and "Think of the real artists!"-chanting served by this week's duo might be a little disproportionate to the AI-travesty on trial this time? If you removed the screenshots and the reddit link from the section denouncing Ribdiculousness episode 5 side B, I would have imagined something more like "The anime announced a bonus episode generated entirely by Sora and paywalled behind an NFT," rather than "The anime performed a live-action skit but ran it through the Microsoft PowerPoint crayon filter."
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2725
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 11:44 am Reply with quote
I've been enjoying Classroom of the Elite, Kill Blue, Killed Again Detective, and Second Cutest.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 19150
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 12:21 pm Reply with quote
LR.Skyrabbit wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks the level of disgust and disappointment and "Think of the real artists!"-chanting served by this week's duo might be a little disproportionate to the AI-travesty on trial this time?

Agreed here. The series has done so many vastly creative and expansive stylistic approaches that I can easily forgive it for one segment not working; its batting average is still very high. Plus, the most recent episode introduces overarching world-building (interdimensional reality-building?) and even hints of actual plot.
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Aerdra



Joined: 02 Feb 2022
Posts: 564
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 1:35 pm Reply with quote
There are so many shows airing this season (and every season in recent years) that even a column about overlooked shows overlooks most of the shows that were overlooked.
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Joe Mello



Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 2561
Location: Online Terminal
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 1:53 pm Reply with quote
Killed Again Detective really is doing an extended Sherlock Hound gag this season, yeah?

Key wrote:
LR.Skyrabbit wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks the level of disgust and disappointment and "Think of the real artists!"-chanting served by this week's duo might be a little disproportionate to the AI-travesty on trial this time?

Agreed here. The series has done so many vastly creative and expansive stylistic approaches that I can easily forgive it for one segment not working; its batting average is still very high. Plus, the most recent episode introduces overarching world-building (interdimensional reality-building?) and even hints of actual plot.

I think some level of consternation is warranted because even though all the signs point to it being a one-off, once AI is used even a single time, the benefit of the doubt is lost.
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EmeraldSaucer



Joined: 31 Jan 2025
Posts: 960
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 2:01 pm Reply with quote
Happy to see more love for Kirio, it magnificently walks a thin tonal tightrope like it's no big deal and has the low-key best OP of the season. Shame that its streaming service of choice doomed it to obscurity (not that a josei romantic dramady about a girl who would live off her crush's spit would ever do big numbers, but still)

That said, file Ghost Concert under deservedly forgotten. Besides looking generally ugly most of the time (a big offender of trying to use heavy compositing to mask sub-par drawings), the different aspects of the show like the ghosts of historical/folkloric figures and the genAI music dystopia mesh together like oil and water and I've seen few shows in recent memory as poorly structured on an episode-to-episode narrative level. Any Symphogear comparisons do a major disservice to Symphogear
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Terry Lang
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Joined: 10 Jan 2017
Posts: 91
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 3:25 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Am I the only one who thinks the level of disgust and disappointment and "Think of the real artists!"-chanting served by this week's duo might be a little disproportionate to the AI-travesty on trial this time?

Agree as well.

Energy was running out a bit at episode 6 for me. But I'm interested to see what they are going to do now that they are introducing plot.
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zztop



Joined: 28 Aug 2014
Posts: 715
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 5:29 pm Reply with quote
Terry Lang wrote:
Quote:
Am I the only one who thinks the level of disgust and disappointment and "Think of the real artists!"-chanting served by this week's duo might be a little disproportionate to the AI-travesty on trial this time?

Agree as well.

Energy was running out a bit at episode 6 for me. But I'm interested to see what they are going to do now that they are introducing plot.


One thing to note is that Ribdiculous' overall story is largely written like skit-type gag stories.

The author said they envisioned the (still ongoing) WN like a comedy sketch series where they write out short skit stories based on prompts and suggestions given by users. They also encourage pure feedback too so they don't run out of ideas for the skits.
https://mypage.syosetu.com/mypageblog/view/userid/1167196/blogkey/2579750/
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 2222
Location: australia
PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2026 6:05 pm Reply with quote
I've been following Ghost Concert and it's really... an odd one. It's a bit of a mess and constantly feels like I missed an episode or forgot some important detail.
But the songs are good, and the visuals for the songs are really nice. Episode 6 introduced some interesting elements, and episode 7 had some really fantastic animation.
I'm largely following it because I'm an Elements Garden fan but it feels like an anime that is hard to recommend, especially to people that haven't seen Symphogear...


I've been interested in watching the Ribdiculous anime, but hearing it possibly used AI makes me a little wary. It really is the idea of "if they used AI once who says they won't use it again" that hovers over stuff like this.
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