Anime; the one thing that gets us closer to each other and brings us together.
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Castlevania > Demon Slayer (Kimetsu No Yaiba)
The only mildly warm part of this take is that Castlevania isn't really anime but western animation.
Demon Slayer has amazing visuals thanks to Ufotable, but outside of that the story and characters are as bland as, if not even worse than in any other painfully mediocre battle shonen to ever come out. If you look at shows as a whole instead of hyper-focusing on animation quality, pretty much anything with even mediocre writing will beat it.
Agreed. I personally can't watch any more Demon Slayer. It just was too stupid during the Entertainment District Arc.
That's on me though, since I've read through the manga and knew better. At least I get to sit back and watch all the fanboys getting pissed at the ending.
Yes, the first season felt good to watch but it quickly gets old. Just like Jujutsu Kaisen, there isn't a solid story or character growth to hold you to it.
These are two series I feel like I watch just for the sake of completion.
Rascal does not dream of ... franchise > Monogatari franchise
pretty much any slice of life > Yuru Camp
Full metal alchemist us by far the most over rated anime of all times, it's barely deserving of a 7/10, and I think that's being generous. I can probably give you 50 anime I've actually watched that are, as a whole better than it at all points
I personally didn't think it's bad, but I didn't like it enough to watch more than 20 episodes and I think I tried twice. Nothing hooked me I guess.
I agree. When I saw it was the highest rated of all time and a bunch of people I know recommended it I expected it to be some kind of masterpiece. It was just okay. I genuinely have no idea why people rate it that highly. I didn't start watching anime until 2019 so maybe I am just missing the nostalgia factor.
FMA:B is loved because it is just well-made, original source notwithstanding.
It is one of the rare cases in anime where a series gets a graceful, well-done ending. Its tone, storyline and pacing are complete, well-balanced and consistent in quality throughout.
Yeah this is basically my take. The fact that another poster didn't really connect with it and gave it a 7/10 is kind of the point, I've liked some anime and given them a 7/10 so if you don't like it and give it that score it's gotta be objectively pretty good. If you do connect with it, it's the complete package, a relationship I have more with AoT than FMA.
Based on my observations in MAL.
I don't know if it's that hot because it seems quite polarising, but the 4 episodes of FLCL I watched were the biggest waste of my time and I don't understand why anyone likes it, let alone rates it as a GOAT.
The argument is done to death, but watching dubbed anime is not a crime. Dubs will never be perfect because of the need to translate concepts that don't translate, and match lip flaps. But the trade off is being able to glance away from the screen and not completely lose track of a scene, and a more relaxed experience because you don't have to read. If that's the trade off you want to make, go for it, most dubs are pretty competent these days, it's not like the days of the DBZ "big green" dub.
My hot take is that some dubs are "too accurate" these days. One that irks me is characters calling siblings "sis" or "bro" because that's how it works in Japanese and they're trying to be faithful. No-one talks like that in English, they use the sibling's name. The dubs imo should take more liberties with the source material to make things feel more natural. They already do this with "itadakimasu" before character's eat, that gets translated into all sorts of "saying grace" or "let's eat" type phrases. Imagine translating that literally to "I humble receive [this food]" it'd be crazy. <\rant>.
What’s ironic to me is that in MOST situations, Japanese people tend to use the actual name of the person they talk to. I think it’s usually just family members that they don’t do that with (don’t quote me on that though).
Yeah that's pretty much it. Family members have titles like we use "mum" or "grandma", everyone else gets name + maybe an honourific, pronouns are rare.
They put the pronouns in when they translate to English so it doesn't sound like everyone's talking in third person, but don't do the reverse with sublings! Infuriating.
Exactly! It makes so much more sense if you translate it that way in one situation to also do it in the other!
Some of mine: Gintama doesn't deserve to top the rankings the way it does.
Bocchi the Rock is great, but not top 30 on MAL and AL great (and since people keep comparing them, not better than K-On either, although I do think it's unfair to compare the two as they're not the same type of anime).
Weathering With You is better than Your Name.
Not quite ranking, but I don't get the hype about Mushoku Tensei. It's an above average Isekai, but that's about it.
I don’t get the hype about Mushoku Tensei
For me it's the exceptional world-building and great character depth / authenticity. Great pacing, great visuals, and mostly very good directing further supporting it.
About Mushoku Tensei, the differentiating factor is that there is some visibly higher degree of effort involved in making it. The difference in art and animation quality is immediately noticeable (they take no "shortcuts" unlike all others), not to mention its deep world-building and how it treats none of its characters as black-or-white. At its core it is still just an above average isekai, but more importantly it's a high-effort endeavor throughout.
... it still could do without constantly bringing up sexual degeneracy though