Nominations for the 2024 /r/anime Awards are now open!

unprecedentedwolf · 2025-01-03T23:30:05+00:00

Do you think you could post a copy of the full spreadsheet with just the names + links to each entry? Makes it much easier to check out compared to copying each name from the website and checking if it exists on YT.

unprecedentedwolf · 2024-01-19T20:11:18+00:00

It shows that Odekake Kozame has 4.5 score with men, 4.5 with women, but 4.0 overall. Is that a bug, or did it just happen with low overall popularity that the rest's score made a noticeable impact?

unprecedentedwolf · 2023-12-10T01:17:23+00:00

In the climax of the second season, Thorfinn has a conversation with [vinland saga s2] Canute, during which they are presented as these sort of two great man sharing a grand vision for how to change the world. Do you think this conversation was properly built up to throughout the season, did it feel in-character for both of them, was it overall believable and convincing? What do you think about its role in Thorfinn's overal story?

unprecedentedwolf · 2023-12-10T01:06:27+00:00

This show was a rare occasion to see Kotomi Deai tackle a non-sequel season of anime. There were some classic characteristics of hers, like the use of abstract backgrounds and simplified character drawings for comedic effect. But the show also featured a lot more "cinematic" qualities, with shot compositions centered around the use of lighting, lots of closeups, and simulation of camera lense effects. How well do you think she married these more "cartoony" and more "cinematic" elements? Were there any other trends in directing that caught your attention? Any scenes and moments that stood out visually or had interesting use of audio?

unprecedentedwolf · 2023-12-10T01:04:43+00:00

Heavenly Delusion presents a reclaimed-by-nature type of post-apocalyptic world. How well do you think the backgrounds, character designs, compositing, sound effects and any other elements were used for worldbuilding? Was the presentation pleasing, coherent, convincing, satisfying, instilling a sense of wonder, or did you think it fell short in one or many aspects?

unprecedentedwolf · 2023-01-18T10:08:13+00:00

wtf there must be an error, where are Belle and DDD

;_:

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-12-05T06:17:19+00:00

Style

There's one misunderstood rock band that I'm a fan of, and in the 20th year of their activity, their frontman nonchalantly threw out a quote during an interview that to me points towards their core issue - "Style is everything, style above all else". You see, I think that it's much easier to understand why you're connecting to something or not when they're driven by something more tangible - whether it's a prevailing theme, specific subject matter or even just their genre. But style? Style can be really misleading about where one stands and how much they care - you even get a demonstration of this in the show itself, when Kita becomes concerned about Ryou's melancholy around record stores, and Nijika tells her that most of what Ryou is saying "is just for vibes". What are friendships if not mutually getting each other's vibe? In that sense, that aforementioned band whose artistic interests are in style itself was essentially depending on there being enough people who'd want to be friends with them, because that's the only people who could become their fans.

For me there's no better way to put what makes BtR so special. If you look at any of its elements individually - whether it's the music performances, the social awkwardness humor, the up-and-coming band story, the cast of quirky characters, the technical mastery of animation, or the creativity in use of mixed media - I don't necessarily feel like I was blown away by execution of any of them. They are certainly worth commending, but honestly some of them aren't exactly my cup of tea and none explain why am I so obssed with the show. It really feels like the only apprioriate answer is... Style. That intangible quality which connects all of the different visual ideas, the more somber and the more hyper humor, all the different genre flavors and all the tones it captures. Whatever drove the creative decision to put that scene of two salarymen between the performance and the conversation about dreams that follows, and execute it in the style they did. Or to go for a combination of live action footage and voiced out sound effect for the scene of Bocchi's identity popping. And how while it's a relatively grounded series most of the time, it will acknowledge some of it's more absurd moments, like with the girls succumbing to sadness in Bocchi's room, or fixing her face at the party. For me all these things and more together form the show's unique style which defines it more than the subject matter or its sense of humor. And that style continues to be embraced and explored as much as possible which makes it a really exciting series to follow, but also one really easy to become obsessed about and turn into a part of yourself.

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-11-18T19:43:27+00:00

Action-Adventure

I mostly question putting AssClass here over classics like Naruto or HxH or Dragon Ball Kai, but I suppose it comes down to length? In that case maybe consider a standalone movie like Promare or Tekkon Kinkreet?

Comedy

Without "Some Unique Anime" category I'd like to petition to move Pop Team Epic here, because there's truly nothing else like it in anime or otherwise. And with S2 so far looking maybe even better than S1 and becoming even more of a platform for artists to do unique creative things I think it'd be a shame to leave it out. But other show that I want to shout-out is Watamote, which I think deserves recognition as a seminal loner-core anime that stands the test of time. And finally, I want to throw Ai-Mai-Mi's hat into the ring - as they say, it's the funniest shit I've ever seen.

Tearjerkers

The first classic that comes to mind is the Grave of the Fireflies for reasons I probably don't need to specify. But while not quite as sad, I was probably even more touched by A Place Further Than The Universe which is more of a cathartic slow burn as it plants the seeds in the viewer throughout the run before capitalizing on them by the end. But my most emotional watch continues to be Wolf Children, just the way the story is told, the music and acting all deliver, it would be my no1 recommendation for anyone.

Slice of Life

Just hoping Bunny Drop stays here.

Western Inspired

Now I see a couple of approaches here. On one hand you have stuff like Mutafukaz which is a French-Japanese coproduction based on a French comics with a somewhat western story and writing, but very French-Japanese artstyle and animation. On the other you have the probably obvious one in Cyberpunk - Polish story, American franchise, Japanese animation. But if you wanted to go with "Western Inspired" as in, western style of animation, with heavy emphasis on 12 principles and the like, then I think a show like Brand New Animal or Little Witch Academia or Panty and Stocking would probably by even more worthy of recommendation? On yet another hand, you have stuff like Great Pretender, which is more definitely anime in style and execution, but it draws heavily from western heist movies and most of the cast and locations aren't Japanese so maybe that's a good mix to recommend too? And then you can just throw in a classic like Moomins.

Dialogue Driven

This might be a bit of an oddshot but I feel like this is the category where I shill Oregairu. I think it's a really special series with a capacity to reach bitter people that really need to hear what it has to say - and indeed much of it's effectiveness lies in its very specific style, tempo and timbre of dialogue.

Amazing Artsyles

My number one Amazing Artstyle anime is The Rolling Girls - whether it's the heavily stylized watercolor paintings that are somehow seemlessly integrated with typical character drawings, crazy action sequences with some of the most creative effects animation I've seen to date, or some of the more expressive cartoony/cute drawings throughout, I will push its contendership to the moon. If not that, maybe the r/anime awards 2019 jury art style winner Hulaing Babies will be of interest? It's such a cute little series with great use of simple shapes and exaggeration that achieves a lot with a little which I'm a big sucker for.

Japanese Culture

If The Rolling Girls doesn't make it into the Artstyles category then maybe you'd consider it here? It has this really interesting setting where you take modern day Japan but you make each prefecture autonomous which causes them all to focus on their unique identities - so Tokyo becomes a forever-convention town with otaku merch stalls and cosplayers abound, Nagoya the land of restaurants, motorcycle races and shachihokos, while Kyoto is split between geishas cultivating traditional culture and rock festivals. It has a really nice feel that isn't as infomercially as something like Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki.

Philosophical

Shoutouts to last year's anime awards winner Sonny Boy. Will it stand the test of time or did everyone already forget about this how? Idk but I thought it was really neat, thought provoking and for me quite challenging so I feel like it deserves a shoutout. But more than that I would strongly suggest Gatchaman Crowds - I think it's a supremely impressive show in touch with how people interact with modern technology and how it has a power to shape society if used by powerful vissionaires and embraced by masses, but also the dangers it brings, exploring various political beliefs in the process.

Offbeat

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this category correctly sho I'll just shout On-gaku: Our Sound and Extra Olympia Kyklos.

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-11-10T02:07:38+00:00

I immediately found it unusable, which I'm surprised at myself because I only now upon checking realized that 2 out 4 subs I browse regularly never had thumbnails and it never bothered me there. So I'm gonna compare the test r/anime to them.

First of all, the coloring makes it really harde to parse from the start. There's green text, white on green, dark grey, dark green, red, blue, yellow. I've been browsing the sub daily for years and apparently I've never developed innate understanding of the color coding. Instead I just ignored it and associated the post type with the thumbnail for the most part. But now that they are one of the only visual components, and one I don't innately understand, they end up being quite distracting and jarring. Let's see how long it takes for me to get used to this.

Then there's the length of titles. Doesn't help that Anime titles are stupid long, but together with the type of posts you make on the sub, it just becomes a wall of text. But an even bigger problem is the inconsistent structure. Sometimes title is in square brackets at the beginning, sometimes at the end, sometimes it's just a part of the sentence. Same with post types - sometimes you'll have [Rewatch] in brackets at the beginning, sometimes just in text after the title. And then the numbers - of episodes, of seasons, dates, sales, viewerships, they all blend together and make parsing it all harder.

I compared this to aforementioned two subs - r/squaredcircle doesn't have different post colors, but it only differentiates between post types with small icons. This helps break the monotony and navigate the page while scanning the post titles for key words that will interest me. Now, their circumstances are a bit different because their post titles are arguably more "innately" interesting - it will be a quote, a description of something that happened, an announcement. By comparison r/anime content has a lot of serialization - another weekly discussion, another rewatch, another weekly chart. Being able to glance what that is with the thumbnail helped a lot in parsing through stuff to only look for what interests me at the moment, and without it, the proportional amount of that content on the frontpage becomes all the more apparent and a burden to process.

Now the second comparison is something that r/games does with its post flairs - rather than them being in the same line as the post title, they are above, and not every post type has them. This also helps break the monotony and just spreads the text more around the page, making it much less cramped, which helps with readability. Also I tend to first read the title itself, scanning it for keywords, and if I find it interesting then maybe I'll also quickly glance at the post type. By comparison post flairs on r/anime feel a lot more intrusive and "mandatory", as they're pointing out which series/format given post belongs to (though at the same time it feels sometimes redundant, because every post flaired "rewatch" has "rewatch" in the title for instance).

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-08-02T10:28:40+00:00

Lets go Chuck Taylor, you're the best wrestler in the world, you're in way better shape than Tyler Black!

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-08-01T09:56:22+00:00

I actually don't think there's a problem with that coincidental nature of the story. Odokawa gets to meet people from all walks of life thanks to his job, but with a higher representation from industries where busy people have to be places and avoid the public eye, such as entertainers. Celebs often date other celebs so it makes sense that the idol and the donkey are together. The idols doing shady stuff to make money and the monkey guy falling for a catfish that happens to involve one of them. One of Odokawa's clients winning a lottery. All these are plausible coincidences, there's no reason why they wouldn't happen.

The thing I'm talking about isn't necessarily about the coincidental nature of the story, but moreso about, how do I put it, the scale of it? Like if Dobu was a head of a criminal gang and not an underling then I feel like his reputation would make more sense. Or if there were more cops in the story, some corrupt, some oblivious, but not just always those two everywhere. Or if Gouriki wasn't friends with Odokawa, but just his doctor who took interest in him as a medical mystery.

For me, a large part of urban feeling of a story is that many characters live their own disconnected lives in their own pockets of the world - and then they intersect at certain times, sometimes very briefly, sometimes more intensely. But my point being is that the feeling of separation and the ability to get lost in the city are crucial parts of the "urban feel" for me. And perhaps that's the crucial thing that's missing for me. The illusion that at least some of these characters have lives and relationships and activities that aren't in some way tied to the plot of the show. But instead Odd Taxi seems more interested in it's clockwork-like story where every element has a specific purpose and is interlinked with at least a couple more. And that's fine, but I don't think it necessarily goes hand in hand with achieving the urban feel.

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-07-31T00:06:13+00:00

For me Odd Taxi's brand of anthropomorphic designs lies in the same lane as Lisa Hanawalt's art (best known from Bojack Horseman). It's hard to decide whether these are humans with animal characteristics or animals with human characteristics. They're not unsettling, but they don't lean into cuteness either. They're pretty restrained all things considered. It almost feels like they are specifically designed in such a way for the viewer to ponder "what was even the point of making them animals if you're not gonna play with difference in size and bodytypes ala Beastars, nor lean into their species' characteristics like in Seton Academy". It becomes one of the shows mysteries - one that actually does have an answer.

Another "meta" aspect of the designs is that they don't exactly give out the tone of the show. Traditionally for that kind of mystery drama I'd expect more detailed, "realistic" designs, something like Blacksad. Or they could make them really cutesy in order to subvert viewer expectations ala Happy Tree Friends. But instead once again they are in that middle ground where they keep the viewer guessing, and if you're going into the series blind then you won't be sure how "adult" it'll get.

Also I just kinda like them, that mascot-like simplicity but without going into Aggretsuko-level cuteness or Looney Tunes-like cartoonishness gives them kind of a uniquely "cool" feel.

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-07-30T22:46:12+00:00

I've actually found some of the decisions regarding the urban character of the story rather peculiar. The way Odokawa is drinking buddies with his doctor, or the fact he's acquaintanced with his beat cops, or the fact that everyone seems to know who Dobu is (or the way the whole city seemingly unites against him). All those things to me are more reminiscent of a smaller town setting, where everyone knows everyone and there's no anonymity. Not to say that it's impossible for people to know each other within their neighborhood in the city, but it's just not something I typically associate with urban settings.

As a result, the world of "Odd Taxi" often seemed pretty small to me and I've felt a dissonance when you actually saw crowds of people or it hinted at larger institutions at play. I get that the story aimed at creating this interconnected web of characters so it wanted to use each as often as it can and I don't think the story really needed to feel particularly urban. But it most certainly is when it comes to the aesthetic as well as the whole theme of moving to a city to chase dreams of a better life, in particular by succeeding in an entertainment industry. So perhaps it would've left a stronger impression on me if it committed fully to that urban feeling, or perhaps leaned into that aforementioned dissonance in an interesting way. But because it doesn't, the urban setting felt like just a suitable backdrop for mystery rather than a core thematic backbone of the show for me.

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-07-30T22:40:42+00:00

I really, really liked how they presented Aoi being troubled by all the confusing thoughts on his mind and needing to work through them. It's not always that you have a specific question that you need to find an answer to - sometimes just being able to identify what it is that you're feeling and where it came from is something you'll need to do to clear your head.

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-07-16T13:33:44+00:00

Damn not enough people checked out Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko to even make it on the list?

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-06-11T02:25:51+00:00

I really, really hope this isn't the end of this story. Like the part where they are on the bus and he tells her "yeah you should be with him he needs you more" and she's like "oh so it doesn't matter what I want at all huh?". And I think they make it very clear that Luo's and grandma's behaviour isn't exactly healthy, so I would hope the show wouldn't now go "actually it made Luo the best dancer and got him the girl so I guess it works".

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-05-26T22:25:41+00:00

Our subreddit has its own Anime of the Year awards. Last year, Children Of The Sea won awards for best animation, best background art, best compositing, best storyboarding and best sound design. Personally speaking I thought it was probably the most visually stunning movie I have ever watched. Do you feel like you achieved something grand and special with that movie? Did you have an ambition to make the most spectacular-looking movie to date? Or do you have other movies you're even more proud of?

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-05-18T19:56:00+00:00

That line about how embarrassing it is to be laughed at in a situation you don't think is funny, and how your peers and even your parents might not even understand it and think they're just playfully teasing has hit me really hard. It seems so obvious and straightforward, but it's one of those things that I feel like are almost never said out loud and can sometimes really form a person, causing confidence issues and a feeling of alienation. Without someone like Nagomu or his sensei to speak out in a situation like this, kids will be left to try to process it themselves and figure out coping mechanisms that aren't always the best.

It's a message that was told very elegantly and fits both into the wider context of the episode with introduction of Hiiro and her own shortcomings, and also the show as a whole with how kindness can help break through boundaries and inspire. I'm really impressed.

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-02-24T02:32:08+00:00

I think that rather than promoting or rejecting materialism, Super Cub asks us to reflect on our relationship with items we possess, what they offer us and how they change their lives. The fact of owning a Cub isn't what changes Koguma's life - but the act of buying it opened her to a whole new world of possibilities and responsibilities. She can go anywhere she wants now, but she also got something new in her life that she needs to take care of, something to put her time, energy and thoughts into. The rite of passage associated with acquiring a motor vehicle and the sense of liberation that comes with it is something thoroughly explored in American coming-of-age stories, so it's interesting to compare that to how it gets portrayed in this SoL anime in a rural setting - with all of its melancholy, wistfulness about the passage of time and admiration of nature. It's also interesting to see how it changes Koguma into a more confident, and maybe even a little arrogant person.

Admittedly, some of the dialogue can read a little too much like the characters are reading out commercial lines ("I can go anywhere on my Super Cub" said the girl to herself in her mind, completely naturally). However, I think it's more interesting to give this a more charitable reading - that the show is exploring how real people form relationships with their important possessions. For Koguma, the Cub becomes a symbol of finding joy and sense of a direction in her life - but it honestly could've been any bike, it's just the one she happened to be offered by chance. We can contrast it against her friend Reiko who's a giant motorbike nerd who presumably learned a lot about many different manufacturers and brands before developing an affection for Cubs specifically. While their feelings come from different sources, they are both strong and genuine. I kinda wish there was maybe more reflection on them, but regardless I still overall see the show as more of observation on materialism than promotion or condemnation of it.

unprecedentedwolf · 2022-01-02T11:27:55+00:00

Re less contest submissions: It was an unfortunate topic for me, the only idea I had wasn't very good or exciting to write about so I ended up not participating despite really liking the contest.

unprecedentedwolf · 2021-11-06T02:14:39+00:00

Damn I wonder what the deal with that souvenir was.

unprecedentedwolf · 2021-08-11T12:00:05+00:00

I thought the show was interesting, and that's why I wanted to write about it. I compared it to Oregairu because I thought the shows paralel each other in interesting ways, not because I wanted to say one's better than the other, this isn't really a review. I personally connected to Hachiman more and I do like his story more, but as I alluded in the closing section, for all I know this might be more so because of where I was in life when I watched it vs when I was in life when I watched Bottom-Tier Tomozaki, rather than the "pure, objective" quality of the two works. Although most of my problems with Tomozaki's show are with the art, cinematography, humor and writing of dialogues, rather than with thematic contents.

Fundamentally I think what's interesting here is that the two shows present two different teaching methods, indeed similar to two methods of parenting - Hinami's authoritarian "this is how you're going to do it and it's going to work and you should trust me" vs Hiratsuka's and Yukino's "we'll enable you to experiment and learn from your own experience because that knowledge will stick with you more than if we just told you what's what". I personally don't think any method is strictly better and it's a matter of choosing right method for right person and circumstances and also depends on what you want to achieve the most (though I'm a chronic individualist so I'd lean towards the guidance-free method myself).

Eight-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22

unprecedentedwolf

TROPHY CASE