Topic: The TV Show Thread

@graymamba aww, but he looks like a prophylactic 😂

Weirdly the One Punch Man style reminds me of Final Space. And now i've slumped into my biannual depression about that show being cancelled and deleted from existence because of f***ing mergers and f***ing money men. There isn't even a UK physical release to track down 😭

Watched an English Dub trailer of AoT. It looks pretty cool, to be fair. Tonally would you say it is pretty viscerally emotional? Seems like it might be. Plenty of 'rage against the machine' so to speak.

@Ravix umm… not as emotional as I was hoping in all honesty. Though that will probably be different for other people. It’s certainly visceral in terms of its depiction of humanities plight… and dark as pitch in tone… but I have to be honest, I haven’t connected with it emotionally like I was expecting too. For me at least, it’s all about the mystery of what happened to make the world this way… and what machinations are still afoot.

@HallowMoonshadow thanks. Yeah, it seemed like this as I just watched a trailer and posed the question about tone. I should have tagged you in my last comment, but hadn't noticed your reply yet.

I honestly don't know what i'm looking for. I could list my western adult animation favourites, that might help. And they include stuff like Futurama, Final Space (😭) Rick & Morty. I have probably rewatched Archer 4 or 5 times as it's a good dumb chill, but it isn't as limited as i'm making it out to be there. And then Bojack Horseman for that real gut-punch style that it perfected. I like things with real heart, soul and character, black comedy, emotional storytelling. Sci-Fi is probably the biggest draw, but spy thrillers and real human(animal) drama are always good. I'm drawing a blank on any real fantasy anime or western animations. Maybe i'm just being stupid, but obviously fantasy is one of my go to genres in anything. Historical fiction too, so perhaps Samurai anime would be a good start.

@Ravix if you like Archer have you seen Frisky Dingo? If not, pretty sure that you’d love it!

@graymamba interesting, interesting. I've been watching the Hunger Games lately, so maybe more on that level of that kind of teen drama, emotionally? The trailer did give me slightly similar vibes, maybe just because it is fresh in my mind.

Have a look at my last comment to HallowMoonshadow and maybe you might have some further recommendations for stuff that would make more sense to check out before AoT.

Edit. You already have. And no, I don't think so. I think the name always made me ignore it, so I genuinely have no idea what it is. I'll look it up 😂

@Ravix I actually prefer Frisky Dingo… though I’m probably in the minority and there are far less seasons.

edit. And I may be opening myself up to scrutiny here but… I actually found myself connecting on an emotional level more with Hunger Games 😊… I frikkin love Katniss!

Hmmm I see @Ravix. I haven't watched a whole lot of Sci-fi or comedic anime to be honest. There's one sci-fi anime I really like but I don't think it's a good starting point?

I think Frieren: Beyond Journey's End might be a good choice if you want something in a high fantasy setting.

It's a slow paced anime that revolves around Frieren (An elf) who has just defeated the demon lord with her fellow party members Himmel the Hero (Human), Heiter the priest (Also human) and Eisen the dwarf.

She then spends 50 years doing her own thing in the wilderness before reuniting with her party members to view a meteor shower.

Absolutely nothing has changed for her (She's over a 1000 years old) but as you might well imagine the other party members (and society itself) have drastically changed in the meantime.

And well... She may come to the realisation that she's wasted her stupidly long life without making any real connections along the way.

And so she decides to go on a journey just like with her party all those years ago to find out just what she's been missing all this time and to be more human.

Being a bit vague with the plot but hopefully you get what it's all about. It's got more comedic moments in it then AoT but it's still rather... Grounded compared to most anime.

You might be interested in this too @graymamba?

@HallowMoonshadow yeah that does sound interesting… and that’s the first I’ve ever even heard of it! Cheers for the tag 🍻

Doing my part to help, but when it comes to Sci-fi anime, there two that immediately come to mind,
1) Cowboy Bebop
2) Outlaw Star

@graymamba no scrutiny here. I bought the Hunger Games set out of weird nostalgia for angsty teen stuff, but found it to be more brutal and dramatic than i'd maybe remembered and gave it credit for, at times.

I'm possibly more lost now than when I first pondered trying some of this anime out @HallowMoonshadow 😂 but yeah, it doesn't have to be comedy, it is just that the western animated stuff I watch and referenced tends to have that as a baseline, but they usually develop into much more than just comedy, or are actually comedy second to just being well written shows. Bojack is probably the prime example of that. It is a mental health focused drama more than anything, it is a comedy, yes, but the comedy is black as hell and comes from the reality of the themes, as well as Aaron Paul being an adorable dumb*** in it 😁

I guess the most important things are story, depth, characters and style. But I've already realised that there's more anime than I can shake a stick at. So I should probably just find some that are definitely similar to stuff I already like in the non-animated world.

I shall check a trailer for Frieren as it is fantasy 😄

So, you guys had me curious. I've never been big on anime; I'm very finicky on animation in general and rarely have I found anime that suits my tastes. Still, one Crunchyroll free trial sign-up later, I watched the first episode of Attack on Titan with my breakfast and I liked it (the show, that is, not the breakfast... well, I liked the breakfast too, but that revelation belongs in "The Breakfast Thread", not "The TV Show Thread")

The animation was gorgeous, the story was intriguing and the strawberry jam delicious - I'm definitely going to continue watching this. I watched with the English dub, but I will rewatch in Japanese later to see which I prefer. I'm a little bit of an "original language" purist, though not fanatical enough to dismiss dubs if they're available (though, only with games and animation - live action is another story entirely).

Well I'm glad the little anime 101 talk seems to have gone down well and that you enjoyed AoT too @FuriousMachine!

Glad Frieren sounds appealing to you @graymamba and hopefully you like it whenever you decide to give it a watch! It is on Netflix I believe so you don't have to waste some of your Crunchyroll trial if you're subbed to Flix.

🙃

But yes just saying you want to try to get into anime is a huge can of worms (It's basically the same as saying you wanna get into films. It's just too diverse) and I'm not that experienced myself to be honest.

I've only watched like... 30? 40? different series out of the billions there are so I'm not that much more knowledgeable then you

I chose Frieren as my first recommendation to you as it's relatively new, not too exaggerated/over the top, the high fantasy setting, has some of that emotional depth you want and should be a fairly good one to ease you into.

I'll happily give you and the others some more recommendations if you like as well from what I've seen~

@FuriousMachine from one Crunchyroll free trialee to another, hope you continue to enjoy 🍻

@HallowMoonshadow I may be exaggerating the "want to get into anime" bit. But I was definitely thinking - instead of re-watching animated stuff i've seen before multiple times - I might as well expand my horizons a bit. The same as I once did with gaming, to great effect. I still don't play a lot of games compared to some, but I certainly play a lot more top tier games that I might have ignored in the past.

I'll be getting Netflix again soon, so that is probably the best place to try some new stuff out. It is probably unwise to buy stuff on a whim, depsite my desire to own and consume more phsycial media and stream less 😄

@Ravix As for anime, I’ve mostly lost interest but the few Netflix shows I’ve watched have been good, and there’s quite a few of them racking up. Blue-eyed Samurai is probably my favorite so far, closely followed by Arcane. Also, K-Pop Demon Hunters (not anime, per se but anime adjacent?) I’ll admit to have enjoyed more than I should, based on my demographic 😂. But it’s got the Into the SpiderVerse vibes going for it if you liked that (and who didn’t?) Also The Cyberpunk one was ok. The Castlevania one was pretty good. The Tomb Raider one was poor and I only made it through 2 or 3 episodes. Can’t remember the others I’ve tried but there is quite a lot there for you.

Any Partridge fans watched the new series? I only just discovered there was a new series and watched it this week. I thought it was the best he has done with the character since the original 2 series of I'm Alan Partridge. I always thought it was never quite as good without Armando helping with the writing but very much enjoyed this.

Season 2 of Attack on Titan done and… still really good! Some really interesting and intriguing hints and reveals in the last 3 or 4 episodes. Probably won’t watch anymore over the weekend as I’ll be spending my time with the missus and family. Looking forward to starting season 3 next week though.

@BearsEatBeets The best thing about it is how absolutely relevant it is. Every bloody week there’s a reality show with some Love Islander talking about ‘men’s mental health’ or Joe Swash off Eastenders talking about being a dad. I feel like if Chris Morris was still involved then Partridge would have been involved in some sort of historic allegations by now though 😂

I was just reminded of:

Well worth a watch on channel 4's streaming service for fans of british comedy and cult horror flicks. Best time of year to watch it, too.

It's a show that I think will appeal to a lot of the regular members here. And the posters alone might be enough to tempt people to give it a watch

I've remembered why this is one of the best low key/underrated shows they ever put on uk television 😁 It takes about 1 minute to realise it is an absolute gem and a show that fully commits to a concept and understands what it is so perfectly. Basically when the titles roll it will grab you and hook you if you like cinema/horror/british character comedy.

First i've heard of this: A Scrubs revival. Potentially something that could actually work as the characters never acted their age anyway. And the cast was always a strong point.