Watching one called Angel Beats with the wife right now, and we saw what looked like an Art-School reference in the third episode.

Was indeed a reference, the show's episodes and things within them reference bands ranging from Straightener to Bump to Hisako from btb. Pretty wild. The guy who made it also worked on the show "Little Busters" that some people were asking about a while back, so actually, can confirm now - that show was titled in reference to the pillows (was that confirmed before?).

Neats burreats. https://www29.atwiki.jp/angelbeats/sp/pages/108.html

[quote="Jomei"]Best thing airing right now is Boku dake ga Inai Machi. ("Erased" on CrunchyRoll)[/quote]
So I just watched this, and oh my god this series mentally seduced me into becoming absolutely convinced that I had to finish the entire season by the end of the day. It was that good. Pretty intense, and it was a little painful (and a bit relatable) to watch, but ultimately... wow. The premise of involuntary triggers was really interesting to me, and I was very impressed with how well-placed everything in the show was. Also, some of the most expressive anime artwork I've ever seen; really good.

I also recently finished Madoka (another series that successfully drove me to need to marathon it), which was really well-done. I even got to see the third movie (Rebellion), and it really made me appreciate the beauty of the universe they created. Gen Urobuchi can be a really thought-provoking writer.

Speaking of Urobuchi, I'll throw another vouch for Psycho Pass and its follow-ups (Psycho Pass 2, Psycho Pass: The Movie). They really throw you a steady stream of interesting ethical and cognitive questions. In a lot of ways, I think it explores a lot of the same themes Philip K. Dick liked to work with.

I really need to catch up on the Ghost in the Shell franchise, though. I've been told that Ghost in the Shell really dives into some interesting questions of identity that Psycho Pass touched on a bit, and I watched the remastered version of the original 1995 movie. The movie was really quite good, but I'm told that the Standalone Complex series is where it's at, so I'll have to get around to that...

Speaking of movies: Your Name, and Paprika. I saw Your Name earlier when it came out in (small, niche) theaters, and I saw Paprika at an anime film festival sometime earlier this year, and they were both incredible adventures through dangerous space-times. I guess I've been getting increasingly more into stories with spacetime-jumping themes (even outside of anime, e.g. Rick and Morty), so it makes sense that Paprika and Your Name would have pleased my brains. Paprika has got the deft, Inception-like "catch me if you can" level of deceit in its presentation, and Your Name is a really feel-good story with some light emotions-are-supernatural overtones.

Anyway, It's been a while since I've watched this much anime. I gotta admit, I feel like there's been quite a lot of surprisingly good anime surfacing to my attention recently. This is good; I like it.

(Also, Jomei, I think you and I might have some compatible tastes here... )

Heck yeah for boku dake ga inai machi/Erased. And heck yeah for Madoka plus the third film, fantastic story.

Recently we finished all three seasons of Bakuman., which is about friendships and manga and life. Highly recommend, 10/10 series. To put it into perspective, this is probably my current list of "super dank animangos" in no particular order (alphabetical lol). We've been binging series after series. Right now we just finished the first season of Natsume no Yuujinchou, which is shaping up to be quite awesome and could find its way onto this list. Just before this we checked the first season of Made In Abyss, which was incredible and should have more seasons to come.

Ano Hana
Bakuman.
Boku dake ga inai machi
Code Geass
Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works
Fate/Zero
Kaiji
Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko: Everything Flows
Madoka
Mirai Nikki
Monster
Mushishi
Noragami
One Punch Man
Ping-Pong
Psycho-Pass
Sakamichi No Apollon
Shokugeki no Soma
Space Dandy
Sword Art Online
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei
Yuri!! on Ice
Zankyou no Terror

Full weeb mode on entertainment lately lol.

Very good list. A lot of my favorites are up there.

Some would call SAO trash tier, but I think that it's got a lot of good aspects. For one thing, there are swords. And you also have art. They're online, which is pretty cool.

(But seriously, gorgeous art awesome battles pretty cool characters and a lot of the show's themes seem to be about "unconventional friendships/relationships" wrapped up in a bunch of fun/cool settings.)

Just saw Summer Wars and Redline recently. Summer Wars is super similar (in plot, setting, art style) to the "Digimon Adventure: Our War Game!" movie. Still enjoyable, though. Redline was like eating red velvet cheesecake for dinner: it was just a non-stop acid trip of gratuity. I gotta say, I was blown away, but I definitely felt like it was, uh, a lot to try to digest all at once. I'll probably enjoy it on repeat viewings, though.

[quote]Fate/Zero
Madoka
Psycho-Pass[/quote]
PSA: these were all written by the same writer, Gen Urobuchi. If you like the style of one or more of these, keep the rest of his stuff in mind. They all seem to be very well-done, in my experience.

[quote]Mirai Nikki
Mushishi
One Punch Man
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Zankyou no Terror[/quote]
These are also on my list of things I need to watch, as well. Recently, I learned of The Tatami Galaxy, since I've been enjoying spacetime-jumping character building stories recently: supposedly, it follows a college student who can rewind time and re-enact his experiences. Seems intriguing as fuck.

[quote]Ano Hana[/quote]
God, I tried to watch this for a few episodes, and the just constant sadness got too much to handle after a while. It almost felt, like, gratuitously sad, to me. It was weird.

I swear I must hate myself because I'm watching Dragonball Super, for I don't even know what reason because power levels and forms and abilities mean fuck all at anything anymore. It's really so bad but my childhood has me trapped.

Honestly one of the most entertaining things is watching the fanbase try to do so many mental leaps to describe the relative power levels of the people in the show nowadays.


Other than that, I've been watching Nichijou for massive overreactions and terrible Japanese puns. Does not disappoint, but definitely geared towards the shoujos.

[quote="Orochi"]Recently, I learned of The Tatami Galaxy, since I've been enjoying spacetime-jumping character building stories recently: supposedly, it follows a college student who can rewind time and re-enact his experiences. Seems intriguing as fuck.

[quote]Ano Hana[/quote]
God, I tried to watch this for a few episodes, and the just constant sadness got too much to handle after a while. It almost felt, like, gratuitously sad, to me. It was weird.[/quote]
Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei = Tatami Galaxy. That synopsis is definitely not accurate, but you may as well go with that for now. It reveals itself in layers, beautifully, such that you realize what it's really about/what he's experiencing more clearly as you go through, just as the protagonist does. An absolutely phenomenal viewing experience; It's on my list of things to go back to and re-watch over time.

Ano Hana is deffo for sadboys. It becomes hopeful, but it has to get through facing the sad shit that happened head-on first. Like with real trauma, how can you move on without doing so? Similarly, these characters never really came to terms with what happened. So they kind of have to muck about that sadness in order to heal and move on. To me, this was an incredible work of art, but I also lost some people in my life in the past few years.

@Blank: Tried Nichijou a while back and dropped it for too much shoujo-y/slice-of-life-without-sense-of-overarching-plotness, but those puns/zany Japanese jokes were super on point. Tried DBSuper out of nostalgia, had to give it up because the quality of the animation on the fights just feels underwhelming compared to DBZ (and it feels overly non-serious about itself, but not in a great self-aware B-film way to me).

[quote="Marekenshin"]Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei = Tatami Galaxy. That synopsis is definitely not accurate, but you may as well go with that for now. It reveals itself in layers, beautifully, such that you realize what it's really about/what he's experiencing more clearly as you go through, just as the protagonist does. An absolutely phenomenal viewing experience; It's on my list of things to go back to and re-watch over time.[/quote]
Yeah, I've watched about 4 episodes so far (it's incredibly dense, and takes a lot of energy to watch, haha), and I am finding that assessment very accurate. The art style is fantastic and beautifully dynamic, and whoa my god the premise that is unfolding is so subtly adept at intriguing my curiosity, and continuously challenging my understanding of what's going on at any given moment. It's definitely a masterfully-crafted work of art.

[quote="Marekenshin"]@Blank: Tried Nichijou a while back and dropped it for too much shoujo-y/slice-of-life-without-sense-of-overarching-plotness, but those puns/zany Japanese jokes were super on point.[/quote]
This is exactly how I felt about Nichijou. I think I got through a handful of episodes before it got overwhelming. I must acknowledge respect for its well-done artistic, surrealist style, though.

Watching Eureka Seven lately, which is basically an epic love letter to psychedelics as a source of growth and hope for humanity, but also as something that certain people fear to the point of inflicting great harm on the world to prevent a Second Summer of Love. Brilliantly constructed.

Has anyone watched Darling in the Franxx? Went in blind, and after a few episodes I'm pretty sure the entire show is a thinly-veiled allegory for anal sex. I know I could just google it, but that's really no fun. You guys have to see this shit. It's fucking batty.

Disclaimer: aside from the butt stuff the show is really terrible

That sounds like a "you guys should watch this because lols but I also don't really want to claim the credit for telling you to watch it so you can't say I ruined your life" that my boss does whenever he brings up The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorovsky.

Except about butt jokes instead of absurdism.

Haikyu!! is amazing and makes me wish I could be a Japanese boy attending school on a volleyball team.

Jujutsu Kaisen is another recent one that I've enjoyed.

Kuroko's Basketball is absolute garbage the first season imo, but it actually starts to become decent in the second season. But honestly, I may be harsh on this one just because Haikyuu is so good, it dunks on the competition

[quote="Blank"]Haikyu!! is amazing and makes me wish I could be a Japanese boy attending school on a volleyball team.

Jujutsu Kaisen is another recent one that I've enjoyed.

Kuroko's Basketball is absolute garbage the first season imo, but it actually starts to become decent in the second season. But honestly, I may be harsh on this one just because Haikyuu is so good, it dunks on the competition[/quote]

im a sucker for sports anime, haikyuu was sick through out.
Kuroko's basketball was on and off for me, alot of the time i felt like i was watching the show just to finish it but it couldve been because i was burnt out from anime at the time.
Jujutsu kaisen is one i liked alot, i feel like if you enjoyed that one, you would enjoy chainsaw man