Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

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Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:59 am

Hi, Friday here, age 15 freshman highschool girl in the anime club i love naruto so much

This is shows, not movies, so no Sword of the Stranger, Vampire Hunter D, or Garden of Words.

You can blame Esper for this thread

10. Samurai Champloo



HEY GUYS DO YOU LIKE ANIME?!

DO YOU LIKE COWBOY BEBOP?!

want something else made by the same guy?

"Not unless its got sick beats Friday"

Well do I have the anime for you

Generic feisty-cute anime girl Fuu is waitressing at a Cafe when some dickhead Samurai come in and start fucking with her and then Mugen shows up and beats them up but also sets the place on fire and I forget how Jin gets involved but they end up pissing off the Magistrate whose kid they beat up in the Cafe and Fuu, having lost her job when the Cafe burned down, rescues them both so they can help her find "The Samurai Who Smells of Sunflowers" but they don't care about that and just want to settle their intense rivalry between them over who can kill the other one with a sword.

Uh. Nujabes on the soundtrack which is straight fire.

Mugen is Red Oni who fights with his HEART and ON THE FLY INVENTIVENESS and SEAT OF HIS PANTS. Jin is Blue Oni who fights with his MIND and DISCIPLINE AND TRAINING and PUSHES UP GLASSES WHEN THEY FALL DOWN HIS NOSE. Fuu is cute anime girl comic relief. They have mostly unrelated whacky adventures. The show goes back and forth between serious and silly, sometimes in the same episode, similar to Bebop in that way. It's great. The fight scenes are well done and well animated. The emotional stuff cuts deep. Then an episode about how an entire squad of Samurai got super high because they set a field of weed on fire as a distraction.

Then the best anime baseball episode, starring US, THE AMERICANS

In the end, Fuu finds her Sunflower Samurai and one of the best, if not -the best-, anime samurai swordfights in history happens.

Like Bebop? You'll like this.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby beatbandito » Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:01 am

Friday you have a listicle problem.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:11 am

9. Hi Score Girl



Hey kids do you like VIDEO GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMES?!?!?!?!

"no friday only the ones from the 90s and only the ones relating to the Japanese Arcade Boom of the 90s and only if it's also a really cute and funny and touching and sweet romantic comedy"

uh

well

uh

watch Hi Score Girl

I already blurbed about this show in the actual anime thread but I'll go into a little more detail here. This show is a love letter to the 90s arcade scene that the author obviously grew up with. Street Fighter 2 plays the starring role, but there's plenty more on display here. That would be enough to pique my interest but the attached rom-com is actually really well done. As a professional anime rom-com addict, I can say this is very good and makes my heart go doki doki.

There's not much more to say, really, it's a simple show with a lot of heart and cool videogame stuff. Darkstalkers! Tekken! Splatterhouse! The Main Character mains MagusGuile who shows up to give advice! Come on, what else do I need to say?
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:11 am

fuck you beat I can stop anytime i want
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:29 am

8. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid



A drunk lady named Kobayashi wanders into the woods and pulls a giant holy sword out of a dying dragon named Tohru and proceeds to rant drunkenly at her about maids and how awesome they are. Later, the Dragon is flying over Akihabara and sees some girls cosplaying for maid cafes and models her maid uniform after them instead of actual maid uniforms which pisses off Kobiyashi.

After Tohru moves in and starts doing the laundry with her spit, a kid dragon shows up and tries to murder Kobiyashi but can't because she forgot to charge her phone. Then an evil dragon obsessed with treasure and curses plays Dark Souls.

No, really.

Dragon Maid has some problems. It has a big tiddy dragon who gets summoned by a boy literally named "Shouta". This is not one to show the folks. But it's -mostly- wholesome and sweet. The premise is ridiculous but the writing and characters are so good that you quickly forget it and just enjoy the ride. Genuinely funny lesbian romcoms are so rare that I think this might be the only one? But it's also about family, and whether or not a nearly immortal being can really fall in love and live with a regular ol' human with back problems.

I gotta warn you, though. If you're the type who hates stupid anime sex tropes, especially the "funny" underage kind, stay far away. The show would probably be much higher on this list if not for those very real problems. It's a shame.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:52 am

7. Katanagatari



The question I always get when I talk about this show is "is this related to the Monogatari series?"

The answer is "No."

It's by the same guy, so you can expect the same style (lots and lots and lots of fast paced dialog) but it has nothing to do with that weird, hulking behemoth of a series with a million spin-offs. It's a self-contained story set in feudal japan.

The question I always get about anime in general is "what's a good hidden gem?"

The answer is "Katanagatari."

It might be -the- hidden gem of anime. It's actually mind blowingly, amazingly good. The only warning I'll give you is strap yourself down, boys, because words words words. The first 30 minutes of the first episode (each is about an hour long) is literally nothing but words.

The basic plot is simple: Boy's Father killed Girl's Dad, Girl seeks out Boy to recover 12 priceless artifact "swords", each with a special power, Boy Instantly falls in Love with Girl, Girl Slowly Falls in Love with Boy, Boy is actually the 13th "sword" made by the guy who made all the Swords.

None of that is a spoiler, it's all in the first 30 minutes.

Each episode is about their efforts to retrieve one of the Swords, usually culminating (but not always) in a boss fight against the wielder. The art style is unique and expressive, the dialog style is fast and furious, the action is sparse but when it happens, man, does it happen.

Looking for something different? Look no further. Looking for the actual best final episode in any anime, ever, full stop? Look no further. Looking for an anime that won't tear out your heart and step on it? Uh, look somewhere else actually

I really can't say much more than I have already! So much of the plot is a spoiler past that first 30 minutes. But seriously if you have given up on anime because it's "too samey" give this one a try. I really can't recommend this one enough. Sadly, it's literally impossible to watch unless you pirate it or pay like 400 fucking dollars for the box set or some shit, so I doubt any of you will, which is a shame because it'd be nice to know any one other person who has seen this.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:33 pm

6. Cowboy Bebop



Ah, Bebop. The Anime that you can bring home to your parents for a nice dinner and polite civilized discussion.

Champloo might have the sicker beats but Bebop's got the Jazzy Blues and Best Dog. Plus that episode where Ed and Ein go on a mushroom hunt while the rest of the crew gets high as fuck.

Uh. I think Watanabe might like getting high as fuck.

I haven't seen Space Dandy yet but it looks like a fucking acid trip so that tracks.

Anyway, Bebop is a fully realized sci-fi future that is neither Utopian or Dystopian, but real, gritty, and lived in. Except when it's being super silly, which it does less often than Champloo but still fairly often. A crew of Bounty Hunters tries to make money by hunting bounties and fails. There. That's the show.

One of the central themes of Bebop is "what is real/reality?" This is asked in several ways in several episodes over the course of the series, and even in the movie. It's just a dream. Wake up, Spike. Wake up . . .

The overarching plotline (which is vague and mysterious apart from "Vicious is a dick") isn't really as important as the exploration of the characters and the world in each episode. Faye's journey to find her home is compelling because it asks and answers an important question to all of us. "Can you go home?" "Sorry no"

The themes of Bebop are about comradeship, loyalty, family, love, hate, killer clowns, chess, old grudges, dogs that can hack computers, kung fu, shooting people in the face, ship to ship dogfighting, what happens when you leave something in the fridge for too long in space, hope, sadness, depression, hopelessness, sick spaceship designs no seriously they're like the most stylish ship designs in any sci-fi in fact the animation is just S tier in general, old men flying ww2 era planes, and Ein is the best character I will fight you.

In the end, though, I love Bebop for its heart. Underneath all the silly and the style and the fighting there beats one of the strongest and most realized emotional core for its characters. By the time you're finished with this series, Faye, Ed, Ein, Jet and Spike feel like your family. They're mismatched and rough but you love them all the more for it.

Vision thee, Expanse Bovine Wrangler.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Thu Feb 27, 2020 5:24 pm

5. My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected



Right, this is one of the weird ones.

I'm a sucker for romance and this is probably? the best romance anime I've seen.

Our main character, Hachiman Hikigaya, is a brilliant social recluse, by his "own choice" due to his extremely negative opinion about other people. He considers himself both above and below "normal" people, both because of his hatred for them and his hatred of self. He's really fucked up at the start of the show, actually, being both extremely arrogant and extremely depressed with no self-esteem at the same time somehow.

Due to circumstances, he finds himself forced to join a "community service" club with a girl, Yukino Yukinoshita, known as the "Ice Queen" of the school for her good looks, great grades, but rude and cold demeanor. She insists they solve "problems" that people have in order to improve the community at the school. Their first customer is Yui Yuigahama, a bright, cheerful, and thoroughly "normal" girl, the polar opposite of the two weirdos she comes to for help with her problem.

From this initial set up we get some of the best character development and insightful exploration of what makes people tick. Hachiman is self-sacrificing to the point it angers his new friends, always choosing to solve others social problems by carefully manipulating the situation into everyone hating him so as to help his client. He assumes this is better for everyone, as he is already an outcast. Yukino spends most of her time trying to understand other peoples and her own emotions (it's semi-implied she is on the spectrum) and Yui, the bright normal girl, turns out to be just a mask she wears because she likes to get along and make other people happy, even if she has to sacrifice her own desires.

Several of the "normal" and even bully characters eventually wind up asking the club for help with their own problems and get a good dose of character development themselves. Really, this show is about how everyone is fucked up in their own special way, but through understanding, friendship and love, can become better people and move beyond their problems.

Hachiman gets a harem eventually but his self-esteem is so low that he doesn't even notice it. The primary two girls won't admit their feelings to him (Yukino because she doesn't understand them, and Yui because she knows Yukino has feelings and won't stand in the way) but slowly but surely Hachiman realizes that he does want "something real" with another person after all.

There are two seasons out right now, and a third (and final) coming out in April this year. I'm pretty excited because the show actually develops and isn't just an endless stalemate of whacky hijinks while nobody actually has any emotional growth. If a shonen moves forward by villains being defeated and the hero powering up, a romance moves forward by its characters overcoming shortcomings and being better people.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Thu Feb 27, 2020 5:48 pm

4. Azumanga Daioh



Ah, Azumanga Daioh.

Hate slice of life shows? This is the one that started them all.

"Girls doing nothing" is a genre all its own now, but Azumanga still does it better than anything else (almost.)

What is there to say about Azumanga Daioh? It's funny, cute, completely lacking any gross fanservice bullshit, and makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside just thinking about it.

This is, I think, the first anime Esper showed me, and it set me on the path to weebdom. I had seen a few other animes on my own beforehand, but hadn't really been impressed (because, you know, most anime is fucking terrible) and this changed my mind about the art form. Since then I've been looking for something as good as Azumanga, and lo and behold I eventually found it. But that's a story for another post.

Azumanga stars, in order of worst to best, the following girls:

Tomo: worthless genki idiot girl

Yomi: Tomo's tsukkomi who only exists to tell her to shut the fuck up

Kagura: jock girl who doesn't show up till s2 and wants to be Sakaki's rival

Chiyo-chan: a grade school girl who is a genius so she goes to high school, exists to be tormented (most of all by her teacher's driving)

Kaori: technically not one of the main six but she shows up enough to be more than a minor character. Token lesbian and in love with Sakaki. Doomed to suffer eternally.

Osaka:



Sakaki: you may recognize her from my best waifu thread. Sakaki is tall and cool and mysterious, but actually that's all a lie and she's just a super shy girl who loves cute things and especially cats.

They go on adventures! Nothing happens.

Okay, I guess they go to Iriomote Island in one episode.

Highly recommended. One of the few animes you can show anyone, even someone who has no idea what the fuck anime is.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Esperath » Thu Feb 27, 2020 7:32 pm

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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Thu Feb 27, 2020 7:35 pm

I almost linked that scene instead of the beep beep beep beep beep shit but honestly i didn't want to spoil it for anyone who saw my post and decided to watch

but yeah
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Büge » Thu Feb 27, 2020 9:01 pm

Ahem, Friday

You forgot the teachers

What about Yukari and Kurosawa-sensei Nyamo
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Thu Feb 27, 2020 9:20 pm

yeah they're great too, they probably have more screentime than Kaori but as they are not lesbians in love with Sakaki, like me, I did not include them
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Fri Feb 28, 2020 12:06 pm

Alright, so, before we get into my top 3, lets do two things:

1. I was originally not going to rank my top three because they're all so close that it's impossible for me to pick an actual favorite. But then I thought FRIDAY YOU HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE DO THAT COP OUT SHIT so I got my friend to put a gun to my head and actually came up with reasons why X was better than Y and Y was better than Z. But we're talking razor thin margins here. All three of the upcoming animes are as close to perfect (in my opinion) as you can get. For what they are, obviously.

2. Let's list a few Honorable mentions which I like a lot, but for one reason or another, fall short of making the top ten. They'd be on my top twenty for sure, though. I won't go into as much "detail" about each, just a short blurb.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

<Pisa|Katto> curious to see if talking cat never forget makes the list
<Friday> it's an interesting case
<Friday> because it's both one of the best and one of the worst animes
<Pisa|Katto> what if you split S1 and S2
<Friday> well yeah s1 as a standalone is amazing
<Friday> A+ show
<Friday> especially because of how they showed it out of order
<Pisa|Katto> sounds like haruhi is going to get an honorable mention with a bunch of asterisks

As Esper predicted, Haruhi is a mixed bag. Season 1 is one of the best animes I've ever seen, and as a standalone would easily make top 5, maybe even edging out one of my top 3 for the top of the pile. But I can't ignore s2 and the worst decision in the history of anime, Endless Eight.

Yes, the infamous Endless Eight. For those of you who don't know, it's a time travel/loop/groundhog day plot only nobody remembers, except for Yuki who is duty bound to not interfere. Which is fine, but they fucking DO THE SAME EPISODE EIGHT TIMES.

That's right, eight times. Yes, it's redrawn with different clothes and slightly different camera angles, but it's the same fucking dialog and plot over and over and over. Absolutely insane choice and ruins the show, and any hope of a season 3. Luckily, the movie was pretty good.

Anyway, the show is about a talking cat. Never forget.

Kill La Kill

Sigh, Kill La Kill. How I love you and despise you.

Schoolgirl gets a super stripper suit and fights another schoolgirl with a super stripper suit and her army of loyal insane schoolkids with less powerful stripper suits. "But the nudity and fanservice is a plot point!" is all you will hear weebs say about this show. Despite the relentless, gratuitous bullshit, the show actually manages to be pretty fucking awesome. It's not for first timers, though. You need a thorough understanding of anime tropes in order to appreciate this one. Mako and Satsuki best.

Nichijou

More "girls doing nothing", but stretched to absurdity. The humor isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I for one think a school president having a 1v1 with a deer who wandered onto the grounds is fucking hilarious. Honestly, I could easily put this in the ten slot and move Champloo to Honorable Mentions.

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

"The Pet Girl of Sakurasou" refers to an autistic, brilliant artist girl who moves into a dorm called Sakurasou with a bunch of other brilliant (and some not-so-brilliant) weirdos. Starts off light and breezy and funny and gets super serious and emotional. Best girl isn't even into the MC. If you like seeing people with problems grow as characters without a big focus on romance and more just... life sucks but friendship makes it bearable, check it out.

Ouran High Host Club

Cute little reverse harem anime. Nothing too amazing but a good fun ride. Not enough reverse harem shows out there.

Stodgy girl who dresses as a boy wanders into a rich host club run by eccentric hot rich boys and breaks a vase worth 10million yen or whatever, is forced to join the host club (as a boy) to pay it off. Hijinks ensue. Despite being a reverse harem, really only two of the six boys fall for her hard. Ouran is like the older gentleman anime who smiles and is always polite to you.

Gurren Lagann

“Believe in yourself. Not in the you who believes in me. Not the me who believes in you. Believe in the you who believes in yourself.”

I don't really understand mecha anime or the people who love it. It holds zero appeal for me. Gurren Lagann transcends it's genre to become its own fucking genre alone in the stars. There will never be another character as good as Kamina. A weak middle act prevents this from being in my top ten, but the opening third and final third episodes are legendary.

KonoSuba



and now, on to the top 3.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Newbie » Fri Feb 28, 2020 3:25 pm

I have to ask myself, how much of my affection for the Endless Eight is genuine, and how much is just a stubborn refusal to alogn with the prevailing opinion? Do I actually like the arc, or do I just like inflicting it on people? I don't think I have an answer to these questions.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby beatbandito » Fri Feb 28, 2020 10:46 pm

We were talking about Haruhi in #FF the other day and found an interview where one of the directors admit they used the infinite eight to pad season two when they got a movie deal and wanted to save an arc for that.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Esperath » Sat Feb 29, 2020 3:46 am

beatbandito wrote:We were talking about Haruhi in #FF the other day and found an interview where one of the directors admit they used the infinite eight to pad season two when they got a movie deal and wanted to save an arc for that.


Which is sort of ridiculous since by 2006 (Season 1 airing) there were already eight light novels out. If you include Disappearance and everything else they had in Season 2, they had used 1-4 and parts of 5-6. They had another 2.5 light novels (3.5 by 2007) of material to work with for the 2009 S2 airing.

Snow Mountain Syndrome alone would have been a fine arc, and that was in Book 5 along with Endless Eight and Day of Sagiittarius.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Friday » Sat Feb 29, 2020 1:21 pm

3. One Punch Man



Man, there's a lot to talk about here. I'll try not to gush too much, because this show fucking rules.

Alright. Do you like Shonen? Do you dislike Shonen? Both? Either? One Punch Man is the show for you!

Our hero Saitama is an unassuming dude who kills everything he punches in one shot. This annoys him because it takes the fun out of fighting monsters. That's the basic plot, but it gets more complicated from there.

His protege, Genos, could be said to be the typical shonen protagonist in that he's cool, calm, has great hair, and loses a lot. After witnessing Saitama's immense strength, Genos insists on becoming his disciple (much to Saitama's initial chagrin) and eventually gets Saitama to tell him his secret on how he became so powerful.

Which of course turns out to be just an absurd work out routine.

One punch man gradually grows from just these two characters fighting random monsters to a whole colorful cast of heroes and villains, each with unique personalities and powers. The world is protected by a "Hero Association" and the heroes are ranked from C class up to S. The C ranks mostly fight regular crime, while the S classes are only for the big threats.

In addition to constantly poking fun at shonen tropes, OPM asks a very relevant question: "What is a hero?"

Is a hero someone who can drop a meteor on a monster? Who is more heroic, a telekinetic with goddess-like power, or a guy who rides a bike? Is power what makes a hero? Do you have to have power to -be- heroic? During the final arc, most of the heroes just fuck off as they feel they're not needed, while a certain someone does everything in his limited power to find and help survivors. Sure, he's not doing the big flashy fights against the monstrous villains, but who is the real hero here? All these super-powered assholes couldn't even be bothered to actually help save anyone. All they want is the flash, the glory. They're not interested in digging through the rubble. Even the powered heroes who stay and fight aren't interested in that. And despite the fact that everyone knows the guy helping people is the real hero, we also know that society values the big flash over the hard work. Heroism isn't one shotting an alien overlord, it's actually getting your hands dirty and really saving lives and helping people. It's never giving up even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Superbly drawn and animated, this show has some of the best fight scenes I've ever seen. Saitama can't be everywhere at once, so a lot of the other characters get a chance to shine against creative and villainous monsters. Eventually at the end, Saitama does encounter a "worthy" adversary, and the resulting half-episode long brawl is truly a sight to behold.

I haven't seen season 2 yet as I can't find it legally. I've heard it's a big step down, especially in animation quality due to a director and studio switch, which is a shame. If I'm going to be fair to Haruhi, I should probably move this show off my top 3 because of that, but well, I doubt anything could be as bad as e8 and plus I mean I haven't seen it yet, so. But be warned that s2 does not live up to the amazing first season.
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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby Mongrel » Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:21 pm

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Re: Weeb List, Starring Friday's 10 Favorite

Postby IGNORE ME » Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:24 pm

OPM was unfortunately one of those things for me where I read the manga/book first and the adaptation didn't quite nail the feel.

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