Any anime fans?

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I adore Free! Iwatobi Swim Club - I watched the first season a couple of years ago, but never felt the need to watch the second because I thought the first season wrapped up very nicely and I think it stands great on its own.

Anyway, I know what you're probably thinking - "Oh. She just likes half-naked bishounen."

Even though it's cliche to say this, I really do "watch it for the plot". I can relate really well to the character of Rin Matsuoka and how he always feels inferior to Haruka no matter how hard he tries, and how Rin's jealousy has driven a wedge between himself and Haruka.

I had a friendship/rivalry with very similar dynamics when I was around their age, so that's why I find the show so easy to relate to. Unfortunately it also makes it difficult to watch at times because of "the feels" it gives me.

@ IdahoRose
But the second season arguably has more plot than the first. It fills in a lot of things that were left unresolved, a main theme being on the need to move forward, especially in the case of Haru, but also Nagisa and Makoto, who each have character arcs that really did not happen in the first season of Free, plus more for Rin who has a healthier attitude. I encourage you to watch the second season.

If you have not watched a lot lately, an anime called Yuri on Ice might be a great thing to check out. It is not about 'yuri', the character is called that, and is a similarly good show with men in sports. Super popular, so you might have heard about it.

Mob Psycho 100 has some great plot about feeling inferior, as well as also kind of on the frame of mind one should have to be healthy with talented in something.

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is (largely) with men in a performance art known as Rakugo, And like the two above I think it has some male character fanservice, but generally again is a really well made show with the sort of plot similar to the above. Also one of the most highly rated recent shows.

And from the same production studio as Free was the recent Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, which is a case that you might think from the series name is something aimed just at men in a fetish way, but is more than that and was widely popular and perhaps the studio's biggest success in a while.

@Bradleigh

Thanks for recommending the 2nd season of Free. I really should watch that sometime.

I have watched several episodes of Yuri On Ice. However I have trouble finishing it, because similar to Free, I find the characters to be so relatable that it gives me "the feels". For example, seeing Yuri Katsuki lock himself in the bathroom and cry in the first episode made my heart ache for him.

I have also seen some episodes of Kobayashi's Dragon Maid but once again I haven't finished it. Kanna is definitely the most adorable anime character I have seen in long time, next to Rem from Re:Zero (which is yet another show that I started and haven't finished yet, though I did enjoy what I saw enough that I bought the series on Steam so obviously that's one that I plan to finish sometime).

... I'm really terrible at finishing anime, but I can't figure out why...

@Bradleigh

Yeah, I think I'm afraid of a good thing coming to an end too. I noticed that if I finish an anime series, I tend to lose interest in it, whereas if I never actually watch the ending, it stays "alive" in my mind. In other words, leaving a series unfinished keeps me inspired and provides fuel for my daydreams.

In more extreme cases, I'll only watch clips from the series or "best of [character name]" montages in order to keep the inspiration alive. I remember that when I was obsessed with Hellsing Ultimate and Trinity Blood, I would only watch particular scenes and would skip around on the DVDs to find them. They were always dialogue scenes starring my favorite characters, and if I knew a favorite character was going to die, I always avoided their death scenes.

Speaking of knowing about death scenes, it's never bothered me to read a wiki about a series and learning all the spoilers. As a matter of fact I prefer to spoil myself rather than actually watch it. It's just the act of watching an entire series from beginning to end that bothers me.

However I also feel very insecure about my way of enjoying anime, like I'm inferior to the fans who watch all the episodes. I always think that I don't have a right to call myself a fan because a "real fan" would be committed to seeing a series from beginning to end.

Bradleigh, what are your thoughts?

@ IdahoRose

Watching small snippets of the series I quite often do where in my case it is usually something I already watched, and usually the examples being things like Nichijou, Non Non Biyori, Daily Lives of High School Boys, D-Frag, and Kokkuri-san, which seem to be mostly comedies, which I kind of feel like they were dead to me (not in a bad way), but feel alive again when I remember them. I think that Kill la Kill was a specific one where the first time I was pretty against it, but watch bits now as a big fan, but in most ways I think that I need context for watching scenes.

But what I have been likely to do is read TV Tropes pages, especially when it becomes a case that continuing on would require reading a novel or manga, I kind of spoil myself on things, which I can kind of find a bit hard to resist for something likely to have a new season. I think that it was the case I read article on Hellsing a bit beforehand, but it was also the rare case that I bought all of the manga. There was a new series by the creator of Hellsing called Drifters, the tv show was a little small, but apparently feels open ended that it does not feel like the end and a bit of source material that you could probably read spoilers on. It has the author's same sense of being overly bombastic, and quirky sense of humour, for me personally I was kind of saying they exist in the same universe.

I will admit that I have been a bit of a purist in certain ways to watch series, but I think it was some podcasts I listened to about anime that had me think that it is personally fine for fans to enjoy something their way. I think the person was saying they had a tendency to do something like watch one episode of something, and then join the fandom without actually watching much more. I think that they can just as much be fans that if they were drawn to something, in my case I have kind of done it with a lot of horror stuff, things I might not really plan to watch but at least have me curious from the outside. Especially with games, where there is a case like I have not played a single Five Nights at Freddy's game, but I still consider myself a fan of the franchise, and the same with Undertale.

There was this podcast I watched recently which tried to explain why Haruhi Suzumiya was a big deal, and it was that it meant a specific thing at an earlier time which has come under threat of being kind of irrelevant, that people may look back and see the holes that it was not so good. But it was kind of how it meant at the time and connected in a way that is not just pure watching a show, that it can still be meaningful in however it was enjoyed. Or in general I kind of how myself personally I have a tendency to kind of look up fanfiction pairings on something like Google image, all the context might just be from those images, but things like design and implied characterisation can be enough for me to value them as their own thing.

@Bradleigh

Thanks for your input.

I had no idea you were a fan of videogames that you haven't played before... I'm the exact same way. Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Don't Starve have been two of my biggest special interests over the past 4 years, but I haven't really played much of either (I just go to the wikis for all my info, or listen to Daniel or Alexander's dialogue clips on Youtube).

Recently I've also gotten into Bendy and the Ink Machine - it's an episodic series that's still being released so not much info exists about it yet, but I really enjoy most of what I've learned so far. It's like Amnesia meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

I find it interesting how you like to look up pairings on Google Images and try to figure out the characters' personalities based on the fanart. I've done that before.

However, by far my absolute favorite pairings are crossover pairings. All you need to know is a little bit about the characters' personalities and it's not difficult to find a compatible match for them - especially if we're talking about anime characters, who tend to have simplified color schemes and stock personalities. And the best part is, since they're not canonically together, you can make up headcanons about the nature of their relationships.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent has been something of interest in how it has some Lovecraftian themes, a sort of horror I don't have a lot of firsthand experience with because the set up can be a bit draggy, or hey I really jump in games, but is the sort of thing I like reading up on. The themes of madness and dark secrets that can mess with the human mind, I kind of like reading/listening to summaries of the stories and extracting information. Some favourite recent channels on YouTube for myself look into highly symbolic or complex horror ARG online, and try and figure them out, of which I am not going out of my way to watch the original videos they are about (like how many Marble Hornets videos).

Bendy has been something so far I have come across from GTLive, the game theorist lets play channel. I mean, I enjoy their theorising of games and onto other media, so they are a way I like to vicariously experiencing new things.

Back on anime, perhaps a guilty pleasure is I kind of like looking up genderbend characters, whether it be select characters or all of them, and how it would effect the relationships. I do have a fair share of liking some crossovers, a non-anime example is I can see something like Elsa and Jack Frost, but when I discovered that I also learned that certain Elsa fandom can be really weird. But in my case with crossovers I think I go a little more in how good it would be for two similar characters to be friends. Just the concept can amuse me, like goofy Konosuba meets kind of grim Re:Zero.

@Bradleigh

Don't feel guilty about liking genderbends. That's one of my favorite themes too. I've mentally genderbended characters from pretty much all of my special interests. (Sometimes I attempt to draw them too but my art isn't very good...) I like to imagine that my favorite characters from all of my special interests live in one universe, and their genderbended counterparts live in a parallel universe to that one.

Kind of like Hetalia with all of its canon(!) parallel universes, or Undertale with its many fanon parallel universes. I even use similar naming conventions for my own parallel universes, using the name of my main universe and mashing it up with descriptors for the parallel universes - For example, in Hetalia the genderbended universe is Nyotalia, the cat universe is Nekotalia, etc. Or in Undertale there is Underswap (where their personalities are switched around), Underfell (the "darker and edgier" universe), etc, etc.

Sorry I kind of derailed the thread... Back to talking about anime.

There are a couple of anime series I have finished and still enjoy, mostly because they were left open-ended - Monster Musume and Diabolik Lovers. I know that they are both controversial in the anime community for different reasons (Monster Musume for being nothing but fanservice and Diabolik Lovers for romanticizing abusive relationships) but I personally enjoyed them both.

I have seen the first season of Diabolik Lovers twice - once subbed and once dubbed - and I enjoyed them almost equally (except Kanato's singing in the English dub is painful, while his singing in the Japanese version is actually quite beautiful).

I watched Monster Musume for the first time a couple of years ago and I plan on watching it again sometime in the near future, along with seeing Diabolik Lovers for the third time.

So... I guess it's a lie that I can't finish an entire anime series. I guess maybe it's just that my favorite genre is gimmicky harem and reverse harem series?

However, one gimmicky reverse harem series that I tried to enjoy but didn't was Brother's Conflict. It squicked me out even though I knew Ema wasn't blood related to her brothers. Maybe I just thought it was gross because I have a brother in real life or something. Kind of like how those "imouto" shows are supposedly geared towards guys who don't have a sister.

My favourite anime:

Digimon Adventure/Digimon Adventure Tri
Digimon Tamers
Digimon Frontier
Clannad
AIR
Kanon
Little Busters
Angel Beats
Saiunkoku Monogatari

I haven't watched Hiiro no Kakera. I hope it's good.

I only ever watch anime in Japanese. I've picked up quite a lot over the years [including the swear words, oops.]

@ IdahoRose
I kind of liked Monster Musume especially for how it showed the monster girls trying to live, that they had different difficulties due to their different nature, which is why I liked the fairly recent Interviews with Monster Girls, which amongst others felt like a good allegory for living with something like a disability. Although, on my side, the fanservice of Monster Musume did not hurt. Papi was my favourite, especially when she was just having fun.

I admit though, that I totally ran away from Diabolik Lovers because of the abusive stuff, maybe a false equivalence, but Amnesia was an experience with some things that I could not put myself up to for DL. It is not like I flat out avoid that certain brand of anime (not referring to sadism), I watched a show called Scarred Rider Xechs in entirely, and it was so not my thing I ended up incredibly angry, but there are others I liked. I at least found something like Dance with Devils to be largely tolerable despite I think similar themes.

I have some things to say about Brother's Conflict, the first being that despite any other thoughts of the series I kind of really like the OP song. In general though I thought it was super creepy that the majority of the brothers seemed to take automatically fall in love with their new step sister, and rather than build a proper relationship as a sibling, seemed to try and use their role as a brother to try and pressure her into certain things. The squirrel was the best character because he was pretty much right. I have siblings myself, and it is not like I am automatically against some "incest" shows, it is not something I automatically connect, but there are lines those shows shouldn't cross that they often do and become icky.

In general, I too am a sucker for a wacky harem or reverse harem series. I think they often just have fun with themselves. There is this particularly wack one this season called Love Tyrant.

@Bradleigh

I agree with you about Monster Musume, it was really interesting in the way that it depicted lifestyles of different monster girls. My favorite thing about Monster Musume - besides its unique premise and character designs - is the fact that, to my pleasant surprise, none of the girls felt like they had a stereotypical personality (for example there was no tsundere, no kuudere, no yandere, etc.) Not that I am against those tropes, but it was refreshing to see actual personalities develop in spite of the high amount of fanservice. (Which, if I'm being honest, I actually enjoyed quite a bit myself. When it comes to my love for anime characters, gender doesn't matter.) After thinking about it for quite a while, I have to say that Miia is my favorite. However Rachnera is a close second, which makes sense when you think about how much I like Diabolik Lovers.

I don't blame you for not being into Diabolik Lovers. It's definitely not everybody's cup of tea. It's interesting that you mentioned Amnesia and Dance with Devils. I heard they were similar to DL so I checked them out. I forgot to mention in earlier posts that I finished Amnesia too. I enjoyed it and plan to watch it again in the future. Funny enough, my favorite guy was the craziest guy (Ukyo).

Speaking of crazy characters, yet another anime that I finished and that I thoroughly enjoyed was Elfen Lied. It's probably my favorite anime of all time, and its theme of people being cruel towards those who are different to them arguably resonates more strongly today than it did at the time of its initial release. It definitely caused me to rethink how I view and treat other people, even though in general I have an almost complete lack of empathy.