Music Banter - What Are You Watching Right Now?

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Spoiler for Paedantic Basterd continues to casually review anime.:

Stein's Gate: This would have been amazing if the characters weren't annoying as **** and the leading male wasn't a ginormous tool. The second half was great, but the first half was a slog to get through. 7/10, potential kinda wasted.

Soul Eater: I'm a fifth of the way in and I think I might dump this one. I'm not interested in episodic story-telling where the series-long arc is something vague like "get strong" or "defeat all the things". Also not a big fan of how the series treats its female characters. The women in this series tolerate too much casual sexual assault. I don't have the patience for that ****.

Black Bullet: 2/13 episodes. Again, the treatment of female characters borders on gross and there's a disturbing amount of casual pedophilia going on in the story. Furthermore, the exposition is clunky as ****: Instead of showing the viewer the past, two characters who both know what's going on stand around and go "hey remember all these important plot points that you and I both know but we have to say out loud because the audience doesn't know?" Thhhbbbppppt. EDIT: Also, the principle villain wants to destroy the world. Wtf is up with villains who want to destroy the world? ****ing WHY? You realize that if you destroy everything there's going to be nothing after that right? What kind of motivation IS that? JUST COMMIT SUICIDE IT'S MORE OR LESS THE SAME RESULT FOR YOU

Interestingly, all these series (and Death Note and Evangelion before this) treat their female characters horribly, so I'm beginning to think it's cultural and not just bad luck with the recommendations I've received. It's enough that I'm starting to think maybe we should just set fire to Japan?

What's the deal? It's not hard to write a good female character, and what's more, they're popular. See: Attack on Titan & Fullmetal Alchemist (either version). These are some of the biggest hits in anime and they don't rely on fanservice at any point.

I guess I just got lucky with three consecutive good-finds, cuz since then it's been a load of crap.

Maybe try Kino's Journey. It's not too long, and the female lead doesn't take no shit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paedantic Basterd (Post 1878733)

Spoiler for Paedantic Basterd continues to casually review anime.:

If you want to see just how misogynist Japan can be then check out some of their live action shows heavily featuring romance. They will tell you in absurd detail just how men and women should act with one another (spoiler: it's not equal opportunity). At a certain point it becomes morbidly fascinating.

Also check out Space Brothers. It's one long emotional manipulation, but it feels so warm and fuzzy and the story is so offbeat compared to just about any anime I've seen that it's a pretty singular experience. Just don't expect anything to happen quickly.

I'm only keeping up with the new HBO series The Deuce right now. Liking it so far, three episodes in, new one tonight. It's basically a mixture of Boogie Nights, The Wire, The Sopranos, and Vinyl, I couldn't ask for a better recipe. I'm still bummed that Vinyl was cancelled but this is a decent band-aid.

On a Whitest Kids U Know binge. This show was my **** when it came out.

The last surviving member of a tribe.

Currently watching Absentia because apparently I haven't seen most of Mike Flannagan's material. I'm fresh off of Gerald's Game and hard on its dick still, but the reason why I think that GG is his best movie is because the premise is set up a lot more naturally than any of his other films. The beginning of Absentia where they're putting forward necessary information in the most unnatural and forced way possible really helped me realize that.

More notes to follow. Maybe.