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bthump · 5 years

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watching jojo's bizarre adventure anime adaptation and seeing how much the anime team fixed araki (the mangaka)'s bad writing makes me rlly wish that if berserk gets a proper anime adaptation whoever does it will do the same with miura's writing (and some of his art too tbh). like for example for all their faults the berserk movies did improve casca's character. what are your wants for a potential full berserk anime adaptation? (also let's hope that this is the year we finally get one 🤞)

I never finished JJBA or watched the anime so idk, but I’m curious how much they changed. Like were there big changes to the plot, or was it mostly just little minor changes to smooth over some flaws?

ty for asking, and I apologize in advance for how long this got lol.

tbh I think my ideal, if not realistic, Berserk adaptation is one that just goes ‘fuck it’ and throws out most of the story lol. Starts with Black Swordsman, ends with Femto lowering his hand and letting Guts escape - well more specifically, on this panel:

Like that is a perfect final shot imho.

(Also I might mirror it with the opening shot. Like I wouldn’t open on Guts fucking an apostle lmao, I don’t actually dislike that opening but it doesn’t fit this theoretical adaption. So how about we open on a long shot of Black Swordsman Guts surrounded by the ghosts he’s fighting, that mimics this?)

Ooh I might also… I might stick the Lost Children arc in between Snake Man and Count Slug. Ugggh there are some logistical issues to untangle there, but I really, really want Jill/Rosine Guts/Griffith parallels, and I want ghosts taunting Guts about becoming a monster like his friend. Subtlety is for cowards. Oh except we wouldn’t’ve seen Femto yet so that wouldn’t work. Well, “like him” then instead of “like your friend.” There now it’s foreshadowing 2 ways.

the climax of the story is the moment of sacrifice because there’s no Eclipse rape, Casca dies shortly after Judeau, and Guts’ horror at being sacrificed by Griffith is the emotional low point. Potentially no gtsca either if I can figure out a way to incorporate Guts’ stupid dream speech somewhere else. Maybe it can be a flashback during the Wyald fight, which I’d keep incidentally, sans attempted rape, w/ Guts talking to Erica. Actually yeah that would be perfect and immediately tie Guts’ “dream” of fighting stronger and stronger enemies with fighting monsters lol, meaning I could bypass Guts’ post Eclipse war declaration that draws that comparison more explicitly.

Boom, Berserk is now a nice little self-contained tragic story about two dudes each becoming solitary monsters because they abandoned each other for abstract dreams, and threw aside the potential for true emotional healing (relationships) for shallow coping mechanisms (swords/dreams). Uhhh, also Puck is cut. Sorry Puck, ilu but you’re a ray of hope that ruins the vibe here.

And finally since this is my ideal adaptation, the subtext between Guts and Griffith is text. They don’t actually fuck or kiss, because that would avert the Eclipse, but… hm how do you make it clear that they want to fuck but are too repressed to do it and that’s what ruins everything? Okay well Griffith’s torture chamber monologue includes “love” a la the anime dub, and maybe “desire” or “need” to completely remove that ambiguity desperately maintained in the minds of straight people. And Guts… I don’t know that I can go textual lol. The only point in the story he can possibly recognize his own feelings is chapter 71.

Ooh I got it. Just include “at that time he shone before me as something beautiful, noble, and larger than life” after the Count’s backstory lmao. Do you really need more? Well, maybe “he shone before me as something larger than life - noble, and… beautiful.” Or just cut to the chase completely: “At that time, he shone before me as something beautiful, noble, and larger-than-life. I loved him.”

OKAY all that said I feel like this wasn’t really what you’re asking lol since you mentioned a complete adaption. So okay assuming there are no huge major changes to the content or structure of the story, here’s a (stupidly long, like only read this if you for some reason enjoy seeing me ramble for days about minute details lmao) list of some more minor things I’d want to change:

I’d start with the Black Swordsman arc and continue as the manga goes. Yes, in this one Guts still fucks an apostle. This is right before the credits, and it’s depicted as badass and cool. In fact, I might actually split the scene with the credits - start the opening sequence right after Guts blows her up, and resume on this shot with more of a sombre tone:

Like okay that would be pretty cheesy lol, but this is the Black Swordsman arc. It’s supposed to be a little campy, and really unsubtle, and this seems like a fun way of highlighting this little tonal shift.

Relatedly, I would not acknowledge the fact that most people watching already know where it’s going. I would maintain the integrity of the first arc in starting off with Guts as an apparent cool badass and then tearing that down, as well as keeping Griffith’s identity and Guts’ motivation a mystery in theory, and making the Count’s backstory the climax of this arc in a revelatory sense, rather than in an action sense.

To get more general, no fanservice for straight dudes. no one’s tits are randomly out, and when they are they’re drawn realistically and subject to the laws of gravity. casca’s clothes don’t get torn all the time, rosine’s got full moth fuzz coverage, farnese is wearing a shirt when guts takes her hostage and if we need self-flagellation (and tbh I wouldn’t necessarily cut it) it can be in a flashback, etc. Oh except Slan I guess. Her whole character is fanservice so w/e I’ll allow it.

not every woman is in love with and solely motivated by a dude. skip the queen’s completely unnecessary reveal that she was in love with julius, skip casca’s “I lived my life with the intent of sacrificing myself on my unrequited feelings for griffith” bullshit, skip sonia’s crush on neogriffith, skip tf out of schierke’s crush on guts, skip the random period of incest-y bdsm-y vibes in Farnese and Serpico’s backstory that adds nothing lol, skip the suggestions that Farnese is jealous of Casca’s history with Guts, etc

also most sexual assault scenes are cut. Casca is running for her life during the 100 man fight, not from attempted rapists. Wyald does not assault Casca, Farnese is not almost raped by a fucking horse, we chill out a bit on the sexual torture in every bg scene during the conviction arc jfc, Casca’s multiple assaults during that arc are cut, troll rape is cut, you get the point.

I’ll keep Adon’s shitty threats tho bc i feel like some violent misogyny is necessary if i’m not changing everything, but I’d completely lose the comic relief vibe he gets and make Casca’s fight with him properly epic and satisfying. The movie did this a bit better imo, but I’d really remove Adon’s whole boastful loser schtick. That might disappoint some fans, but idc Casca deserves to kill someone who is actually kind of a badass.

There’s a lot of bullshit around gtsca that I’m torn between wanting to cut, and instead wanting to just depict very negatively. Like would it be better if instead of Casca shyly asking Guts how she looks in a dress she just complained about the dress being uncomfortable, ie we completely cut that burgeoning “soft side” bs?

Or would it be better if she still asked him how she looks, then we call back to that moment when she gets awkward about her scars before sex, we keep Judeau musing on how she’s showing a soft side, we call back to that when he tells Guts to save her from leadership, we tie it all together when Guts asks Casca to leave with him, and bring it home by making it abundantly clear that Casca moving from being Griffith’s sword to Guts’ sword is not a positive change.

Like highlight everything negative about it - Guts being a huge dick, the ominous undertone when he invites her along (like cue the creepy cello music when they kiss right before we shift to monsters and behelits lol), all the parallels between him and Griffith wrt their dreams, Guts telling Casca to fuck off while he fights Wyald, maybe even add a moment where Casca actually reflects on how she’s left out of all the dream/equals bullshit and what that says about their priorities and how they see her. Might be a nice lead up to her telling Guts to leave to pursue his dream and be Griffith’s equal.

also maybe show that judeau is wrong about casca being better off away from the hawks? ugh there’s so much that would have to be reworked with her narrative. like if she still has to attempt suicide, again can we ditch the lead up about how it’s because she has an unrequited crush on griffith and just keep it about the fact that she hasn’t slept in a week and she’s on the run and her hawks keep dying and griffith is being tortured and she just stabbed guts and she’s had a very difficult year?

and like, maybe she leapt to accept Guts’ ‘come with me’ offer because she’s exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed, but are you kidding me? While Guts gets an entire narrative arc about abandoning his found family, Casca doesn’t even think about it for a moment before agreeing to ditch them? Can we maybe have some indication about how she feels about the Hawks as a family, maybe some reflection about why she would choose to leave, maybe some second thoughts about it after the Wyald fight when it becomes abundantly clear what her role would be while Guts pursues his dream, like god she’s such a pawn of the narrative, I hate it. Give her some real reasons for doing stuff!

ANYWAY moving on

like the movie, I’d give charlotte more agency in the sex scene w/ griffith, I liked her asking him to stay and moving his hand to her tit herself. I probably would not actually make griffith so out of it though - i enjoyed that in the movie but I don’t necessarily consider it in-character. The way he went from literally crying in the rain to smiling and making charming jokes as soon as Charlotte opened the window in the manga honestly makes perfect sense to me lol. Just uh, make Charlotte into it from the start because there’s zero reason for her not to be other than bad misogynistic cliches?

Also I feel like there’s a balance to be struck between depicting het sex as dude sticks his dick in, woman somehow has a good time a la the manga vs making guts and griffith competent at foreplay and oral a la the movies lol. Like maybe depict the sex scenes as the bad sex they are but Charlotte still feels closer to Griffith afterwards despite not coming from a dude fucking her while thinking about another dude and like, just keep Casca telling Guts he was obviously a virgin afterwards lol.

I guess we’re stuck with the Eclipse rape, but it happens mostly off screen and in close, telling but non-explicit details, like yk, big clawed hand holding a wrist, Casca’s eyes squeezed shut, Femto’s hand on the small of her back (I’m thinking a reversed call back to the wagon scene w/ that to suggest Femto’s motivation being a show of power tbqh). Some would be from Casca’s pov, with maybe one brief moment from Guts’ pov as he loses an eye or something. Keep the movie’s visual reference to Griffith saving her. No pornographic angles. No apostle rape prelude to it. Casca doesn’t have an orgasm. Femto doesn’t stare at Guts. It’s not about Guts at all for either of them, it’s about Femto taking Griffith’s fucked up relationship to sex and expressing it monstrously, and it’s about Casca being betrayed and symbolically negating the agency she fought for since Griffith threw her a sword. Guts’ reaction is horror and fear, not manly heroic outrage. He might still rip off his arm to attack Femto, but that would be because that’s always his reaction to whatever scares him, not for Casca’s sake. Might have to contextualize that with flashbacks to his childhood, or at the very least strong visual parallels to both his childhood and the Zodd + Wyald fights.

I want to cut the fetus, replace it with like a cronenburg-y fucked up dog-like demon in the Black Swordsman arc - not as a literal version of the Beast of Darkness, but just as a metaphor for how Guts’ inner darkness is twisting him into a pathetic asshole lol. But tbh cutting the fetus is a logistical nightmare because Casca needs magic protection during the Conviction arc. So idk. But NGriff doesn’t need it, and his narrative would be more engaging without that scapegoat. Fuck emotional ambiguity, I just want to drop the news that NGriff has feelings, and then not change anything else about his narrative. The themes of isolation and loneliness threaded throughout would just shine through lol it would be great.

I would emphasize the shit out of the Beast of Darkness/Femto parallels. Yeah Guts would still assault Casca in my adaption too. If the Eclipse rape happens, that has to happen because the point is that Guts’ inner darkness is the same. But like, I’d cut the page where beast of darkness guts bites her head off while raping her. Also I’d keep the visual parallel to the Eclipse rape (the v similarly depicted kisses) and add another from Casca’s point of view, or have her flashback then instead of just staying in Guts’ head.

as for the fallout, I’d give Guts a proper scene where he sees himself as a monster, like damn he got more of a self-reflective and telling reaction that time he accidentally killed a random kid, we should get something when he sexually assaults Casca. but overall I’d focus way more on Casca being afraid of him now rather than his mopey guilt. I would also… I mean god this should be addressed in the fact that Guts fucking wears the Berserk armour all the time lol. Like one second he’s all, “omg Flora can put a magic seal on my brand that’ll depower my magical evil jiminy cricket wolf and hopefully prevent me from raping and murdering Casca, that’s great!” and the next second he’s all, “omg magic armour I can wear that will enable me to kill everything with the side effect of superpowering my inner evil wolf and turning on my companions? sign me the fuck up I’m sure nothing bad could possibly happen with that.”

Like what I’m saying is I’d either make Guts a lot more reluctant to use the armour and take Skull Knight’s warnings seriously and genuinely reflect on the fact that mysterious magical children have to prevent him from murdering his friends over and over again, or I’d draw attention to this idiocy and fully commit to Guts as a dumbass hypocrite blithely walking down the path to more tragedy of his own making. and probably the latter based on where the story is likely to be headed lol.

in the lost children arc, I’d give Rosine’s mother more of a role as a good parent who Rosine has a loving relationship with, who tried and failed to stop her father’s abuse or something, because honestly I love the Peekaf story and I find Rosine’s regret at the end as she tries to fly home v powerful, but I hate the idea that she regrets sacrificing her abusive father so maybe this way I can split the difference.

and Jill’s ending where she goes home to endure abuse would be depicted much more darkly.

like straight up I’d depict Jill flying with Rosine as a truly beautiful moment, I would show that Jill has the potential to fulfill Rosine in a way her neverland kidnapping bullshit can’t and that yes, if Jill stayed with Rosine everything might actually work out and with Jill’s influence the whole land of the elves thing could be reworked into less of a nightmare and more of a haven lol. And Guts would absolutely be depicted as fully monstrous in comparison, ruining both these kids’ lives. Like, no ambiguity, no suggestion that Jill learned an important lesson about living with abuse lmao, no implication that Rosine brought her tragic end on herself by not being a good enough child abuse victim, just Guts sowing tragedy wherever he goes.

I have no idea how to deal with the conviction arc in general lol, specifically the ultra cynical tone the actual narrative seems to take. Like, the Black Swordsman arc was idealistic compared to the Conviction arc, they clash badly imo. Extremely badly. Like it’s a giant mess. It’s like

Black Swordsman Guts: fuck everyone who dies because they weren’t strong enough to deal with my existence. *turns and wipes away a tear* *lets a zombie kid stab him* *evokes pity from puck*Conviction Guts: fuck everyone who dies because they weren’t strong enough to deal with my existence. *poses with his sword in one hand and the rescued love interest in the other* *the crowd cheers* *luca nods sagely*

yk it’s just… awkward. It’s hard to mitigate through like, film choices yk, because a lot of it is due to the circumstances. Guts telling Puck innocent people are just ants under his feet is much different than Guts refusing to let the big bad kill Casca by telling him that tens of thousands of people can and should die because they pray too much lmao, no matter what music plays in the background. Guts’ attitude is the same, the narrative’s attitude is contradictory.

Maybe I could make Guts less of a dick and cut a lot of those cynical moments? Not really call attention to the fact that Guts is effectively sacrificing tens of thousands of refugees for Casca, or more accurately, for his own desire to feel like a hero since he isn’t even the one who saves Casca, he got distracted trying to fight the fake Godhand.

Or lol maybe I’ll just have Isidro point that out in like, a smug way. Maybe I’ll have NeoGriffith personally thank him for his contribution to his resurrection. I mean I really want to call this questionable shit into question, yk? Not to declare Guts wrong for wanting to save Casca, but to declare his cavalier idgaf attitude a big problem that has consequences. Which would actually tie in nicely with emphasizing Guts’ dumbassery in brushing off Skull Knight’s warnings about the armour and insisting it’s nbd. lol I really hope this is what Miura’s going for, just more subtlely.

Actually I wonder if I could get away with cutting Isidro out entirely. Anyone could’ve saved Casca there.

Oh I’d cut the hell out of a lot of Guts’ fight scenes in the MF arc, and if I could possibly get away with it I’d cut out everything on the beach after Skull Knight’s ominous warning. Like this might end up being the Griffith show for a while because Guts’ half is a fucking slog. And of course I’d cut the entire boat trip. They get on a boat, they get off a boat, the end.

Okay I need to stop somewhere. I’m ignoring a lot of later stuff because it’s so dependent on where the story’s going now that Casca is awake etc. Like eg the Moonlight Boy. Can I cut him? Give him a more ominous tone? Emphasize the saccharine tone he evokes for the sake of pulling the rug out from under the audience later? Will I be forced to make huge changes anyway because I can’t stand where the story ended up going? Idk it depends.

If I could tho I’d definitely cut Magnifico, Isidro, Ivalera, mermaid… like Farnese, Serpico, and Schierke are the only characters on Guts’ side who contribute to the story in a meaningful way. And without Isidro Puck could again too.

Oooh yk one thing that might be nice would be framing Farnese as the main protagonist of Guts’ half of the story during the MF arc. Just focus on her, show more stuff from her perspective, cut down a lot of fights but keep her digression back home, maybe give her some additional content that explores her character shift better, show her struggling more with her own inner darkness a bit when she first joins and give her some character beats as she slowly grows more comfortable with Casca, maybe put her backstory chapters in the first episode of a new season (a great season ender would be Guts walking away from the Hill of Swords js), etc.

lmao god I feel like I could keep going forever. sorry this is so meandering but ty for giving me the opportunity to go on and on about this. Is there anything you’d really like to change yourself?

#ask #a #b #Anonymous #anyway jsyk the part before the cut is kind of its own separate thing so if you click this and decide it's too long to read #there's always just the first part lol #theme: adaption #theme: critique #theme: opinion

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psycho-alchemist · 7 years

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why are you anti-yoi? (you can keep this private if you like!! i don't want to start any drama! im just genuinely curious because i don't know anything about the anime myself)

No problem, I don’t mind explaining! I expect some questions when I put it in my description. :) I’ll also include a tl;dr at the bottom if you don’t want to read this whole thing. :)

Whenever people see “anti y0i,” they assume it’s because I’m some homophobic asshole who is anti-V!ctuuri. And while I am an asshole and I do think that V//ic isn’t as nice and nurturing as the fandom makes him out to be, the ships are not my biggest issue with the show. I was as hyped as most people when y0i started airing. Ice skating is such a beautiful sport, so getting an anime for it was a pretty big deal! I was looking forward to learning about ice skating techniques and seeing some really fluid, gorgeous animation. Unfortunately, neither of those things happened.

My biggest issue with y0i is the fact that it sold itself as a sports anime, but really it was just a drama anime about ice skaters. That is, ice skating was not the focus of the show; it was on the back burner. We didn’t get to learn about the technicalities or difficulties of the sport; we didn’t even learn what all of those crazy jumps are called. We barely even see K//atsuki training, and the only times we do see him training are used to push him and V//ic together, not to show K//atsuki’s progress as an ice skater.

The real focus of the anime was the probably-gay-but-we’re-not-really-sure-since-it’s-not-fucking-canon relationship between V//ic and K//atsuki. I’m not going to get into the whole power dynamic thing right now–and the fact that the fandom loves to leave out the part where V//ic literally calls K//atsuki a fat pig–because again, my biggest issue (not my only issue, but definitely the biggest one) is that this anime was marketed and sold as a sports anime. I don’t care if they’re gay; that doesn’t matter to me.

y0i has lots of ice skating scenes to appeal to real-life ice skaters, but those scenes lack continuity and are pretty poorly animated. (Which is ironic since the baiting scenes were clearly animated with a lot of care.) They’re also extremely repetitive. We see K//atsuki perform the same routine at least three or four times, but because the anime skips all the in-between training sessions for bait scenes, we can’t really discern how K//atsuki has improved. The commentators tell us how he’s supposedly improved, but the anime doesn’t actually show us how he gets there.

Then there’s the end of the show. (This paragraph contains spoilers!) Now, I dropped y0i after ep 7 or 8 when it became abundantly clear that this was not an ice skating anime, so everything I know about the end of the show is hearsay. However, the basic gist is that K//atsuki (spoiler) wins 2nd place with an unbelievably high score, and the show (and fandom) would have you believe that he deserves it. But the problem is, based on what I saw for the first 67% of the show, K//atsuki isn’t the best (or 2nd best) skater in the competition. He’s good, sure, and he’s definitely improved a lot, but he is not the best. His routine is so successful at first because of shock value, but his routine lacks the personality that other skaters’ routines have, and skaters like JJ were doing better than him all along.

I heard that JJ had a mental breakdown sometime before his final performance and that’s why he did poorly, and while that is something that could happen, it was a reallllly convenient way to get him out of the way, since he was K//atsuki’s main competitor (aside from P//lisetsky, who ended up winning). tl;dr I don’t believe K//atsuki deserved to win 2nd place. He improved a lot, and I’m not refuting that, but he shouldn’t have won. And he wouldn’t have, if not for that fortunate coincidence. Most long-running sports anime/manga that care about the athletes’ development don’t let them win the big competition, because it stunts their growth. Obviously the staff didn’t really care about the ice skating though.

Aside from all of that, it bothers me a lot that the fandom tries to paint V//ic, K//atsuki and P//lisetsky as this happy family, like two dads and a son. V//ic is incredibly dismissive and unsupportive of P//lisetsky for most of the show, but cheering him on once promotes V//ic to dad status? He blatantly disregards P//lisetsky’s mistakes and doesn’t give P//lisetsky proper feedback on his performance–to the point where even P//lisetsky feels shunned–yet he’s a “father figure”? No thanks.

tl;dr:

very little technical detail about ice skating

very poorly animated ice skating scenes

repetitive routines (and reused frames) without any training scenes in between

no clear confirmation or delineation of the main ships

lots of bait with no clear confirmation or delineation

asspull ending that K//atsuki didn’t deserve

little character development in general

V//ic is worshipped by the fandom even though he has less personality than a leaf of lettuce

V//ic is also worshipped for being a super “supportive boyfriend and father figure” even though he literally calls K//atsuki a “pig” and doesn’t care about P//lisetsky’s growth as an ice skater

a pretty invasive and immature fandom (for the most part). In a perfect world, a show’s fandom shouldn’t affect someone’s opinion of the show–and usually it doesn’t–but unfortunately, it does in this case.

This turned into a kinda long thing, but hopefully it helps a little! If you still want to try it, that’s totally fine. It’s your decision. Even if you like it, it’s up to you! But this is my opinion on the show. I do feel pretty strongly about it, which is why I include “anti y0i” in my description. But I also include it because I always lose followers when I post anti y0i content, so it would probably be better for new followers to know ahead of time.

#ask p-a #anti yoi #anti yoi fandom #long post #anonymous

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apprenticemages · 6 years

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And so, the season ends… The fall picture from Yama no Susume is appropriate, as it’s both Fall (seasonally) and the Fall anime season is underway. (I think I’ve featured Yama no Susume as the head screenshot more than any other this season… but my love for the show is no secret.)

Anyhow, all the finale episodes are now in the can. Hit the jump and let’s chat about how they went! The shows that I am watching are in bold, shows my wife and I are watching together are in bold italics, and strikethrough marks dropped shows.

Attack on Titan 3 / Shingeki no Kyojin Ep 10 (Ep 47)

An odd bit of… Not quite filler (since it’s canon), but doesn’t advance the narrative much. For a season with such a strong sense of direction it just seemed off to pause and go on a bit of a tangent.

At any rate, despite nominally being about Kenny (criminally underused and now dead) Levi was actually the centerpiece of this ep. We know now a lot more about his background (and it isn’t pretty)… And he now has a Build-A-Titan kit in his possession. He’s about the last person I’d ever imagine would take advantage of such though. I wonder where it ends up.

Aldael at Aldael’s Attic wrote a wonderful piece last week – Dear Diary, an well done account of the last couple of episodes from Mikasa’s POV.

Cells at Work / Hataraku Saibou Eps 12-13 (Finale)

Wow – this is the Big One, something not easily solved by White Blood Cell going postal… Overall, handled well enough I guess. I felt something was vaguely wrong, and CactusMatt nailed it – it felt like they were stretching limited material to cover two episodes.

Seeing Red go all Serious Business was mildly surprising, but I guess she’s seen it all by this point. Despite being an airhead, she’s second to none when it comes to work ethic. Chio’s School Road / Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro Ep 12 (Finale) The perils of putting off writing – here we are a week later, and I can barely recall the episode (and not just because I’m a little fuzzy from insomnia and pain pills). Looking up the episode on Crunchy, now I remember why I don’t remember… A pair of forgettable and largely phoned in segments. Chio’s has been uneven all season, and it closes out with a whimper.

Encouragement of Climb 3 / Yama no Susume 3 Ep 13 (Finale)

What can I say? While not a perfect ending, it was the perfect end. (If that makes any kind of sense.) Last episode Aoi declared her eternal friendship, and this episode Hinata reciprocated. (As if the issue was ever in doubt.)

I think that’s all I want to say, risking saying too little rather than saying too much.

Grand Blue Dreaming Ep 11 – 12 (Finale) The season closes out with the conclusion of the Okinawa arc and the gang up to their usual shenanigans. I loved how they dealt with Azusa’s casual approach to sexuality in Ep 11 – simply presenting it as it is without preaching or playing it for laughs. In a series where practically everything else is played for laughs, that’s surprising and welcome.

Ah, and before I forget – the pool scene was played out to perfection and I laughed my butt off.

Hanebado! Eps 12-13 (Finale)

This is the Big One – Ayano v. Nagisa for none of the marbles (since they’re both advancing). But I get why both girls want to play the other, their respective feelings are abundantly clear.

The match was astoundingly well done in terms of animation, one of the few good things about the finale. Cheers for not cheaping out and blowing out Nagisa’s knee. I’m more conflicted about her win though, which came about because Ayano dropped her racquet. Nagisa was beating her at the mental game, and pulling a draw in the brute stamina competition… But it still just doesn’t feel right. (And I hate admitting that since Nagisa is Best Girl.)

Harukana Receive Ep 12 (Finale)

That was one tense game, wasn’t it? Though I never doubted the outcome, in the end the protagonists always win even if they’re newbies.

It was painful but realistic to watch Eclair struggle with their conflicting emotions. Angry and sad at the end of their dream, happy that their club would be represented at the Nationals, pride in their kohai‘s success. I have to hand it to them that in the end, they swallowed that bitter pill and put it behind them. This was really because Akari, the outsider, strongly supported both pairs and reminded them that at the end of the day they were all friends.

Writing these reviews – I found the parallels between the final matches in Hanebado and Harukana Receive to be interesting. The emphasis on stamina, the mental game, and of great interest – both victories were due as much to a mistake on the loser’s part as anything else.

My Hero Academia 3 / Boku no Hero Academia 3 Ep 24 (Ep 62) – Ep 25 (Ep 63) (Finale)

These two episodes… Felt kind of off. Not quite like an epilogue or a cliffhanger, but still feeling like a loose end. They had to run out the clock, and they had to work with what they had (from the manga), and left the season break at an odd place. Much of the material covered here doesn’t matter in the context of this season.

Music Girls / Ongaku Shoujo Ep 12 (Finale)

This is me pissed – in the final minute of the show, just after reinforcing that Hanako can’t sing… They put her on stage singing with the group. Ah well, they’d long since tossed aside the basic premise of the show anyhow.

=========

And there we have it! The Summer 2018 anime season is in the books!

Look forward to my season review later this week, and I should have my first Fall 2018 First Impressions up later today or sometime tomorrow.

What are your thoughts on the finales? Drop me a comment and let’s chat!

Summer 2018 – Week 12/13 Finales And so, the season ends... The fall picture from Yama no Susume is appropriate, as it's both Fall (seasonally) and the Fall anime season is underway.

#Attack on Titan #Cells at Work #Chios School Road #Encouragement of Climb #Grand Blue Dreaming #Hanebado #Harakuna Recieve #Music Girls #My Hero Academia

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