What are you reading/watching? AKA Anime/Manga General

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

Orihime always felt like she fit too much into the Hinata Hyuuga school of love interests, where her most prominent trait is how much she likes the protag, and any actual chance they had for character outside that got sidelined by their third appearance. Maybe she got more development by the end of the series, but by the end of Aizen where I dropped off, she hadn't really advanced past where she was by the time they were gearing up to save Rukia. She got more powers, sure, but she didn't really do much with them. They made such a deal about her healing being time fuckery, I was really hoping she'd be the one to beat Aizen by reseting him back to before he God Mode-ed, but nope, just punch him hard until Kisuke shows up.

I think that's actually a misconception more than anything else because while yes, one of her major character traits is having a huge crush on Ichigo, she was also established as someone who wanted to pay back her friends, especially Ichigo and Tatsuki, for being there for her when she needed it and wished to help in her own way. As the manga progressed, her character progression involves coming to terms with her lack of a killer instinct, accepting herself for who she is and finding her own ways to help. That, and the Hueco Mundo arc really shone a spotlight on her own self-sacrificing nature that mirrored Ichigo's, as she constantly attempted to sacrifice herself or get her friends to stop risking their lives for her sake. Also, that development stuck, since her trauma in Hueco Mundo definitely caused her to lose some of her sillier characteristics/become a bit more somber and reflective. Post-Aizen, she definitely contributes a lot more, and she's actually fairly vital for the final battle in Bleach along with Tsukishima of all people.

And if we're talking about Hinata, I think that she was always a more interesting love interest for Naruto because she was a more interesting character with many parallels to Naruto.

[Ideofago]

Orihime fucking sucks, she's boring and lame. Her tomboy friend is better, tomboy cat lady is better, tomboy samurai lady is better, tomboy soul society chief is better, tomboy soul society expat is better. I think I now know why Bleach's women are so good.

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Also, Hinata was fucking boring. It was either being too weak against her cousin or crushing on Naruto.

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

Yeah, I'm not gonna argue this point, but only because there are no winners here, only losers, and I don't want to repeat the old shipping/waifu wars of Bleach.

[Rafflesiac]

Orihime a cute

Hinata a great

life is good

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

Agreed, and that's the end of it for me.

[Ideofago]

Yeah, I'm not gonna argue this point, but only because there are no winners here, only losers, and I don't want to repeat the old shipping/waifu wars of Bleach.

Fair enough.

[Deathhappens]

Orihime a cute

Hinata a great

life is good

Okay but Rukia should've won because Renji fucking sucks

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NGL, the 'end of Bleach' shipping war threads were some of the best entertainment I've ever had the pleasure of receiving.

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

Reading the Can't Fear Your Own World Bleach novels, and I'll say, the main antagonist is basically Bleach Kirei and Izaya Orihara or whoever from Durarara! As for the novels themselves, the translated prose is meh, and I wonder if a better translator who hadn't just phoned it in would have done better and made the prose feel less clunky. The prose isabout as description-laden as most of Narita's prose has been as I've seen it, and he seemingly operates under the assumption that most readers have forgotten many of the details of events in Bleach, which might be accurate in a sense.

I do enjoy the pure fanservice of several factions who don't really have much panel-time together either duking it out or fighting together, and it does imperfectly make Aizen and Ginjou make more sense as villains. I hope Kubo revisits this material on his own and gives us his own spin. There's plenty I want him to keep, but I think there's quite a bit that can go as well.

[Laserman]

Blue Exorcist Volume 25:

Spoiler:

The mystery of the Blue Night is finally revealed. Satan was looking for a body, so he went to and from as many people on the planet as he could. He needed a strong vessel, so of course the strong holy people that fight demons would be the best fit. I thought it was retaliation for trying to go after them and Yuri, but, this makes sense. He wanted a body so badly. Until he finally possessed the Paladin at the time. And then went to Shiro himself. But fortunately Shiro's body heals fast because of the experiments, so when he want to cut his throat to stop Satan, it didn't kill him. Shemihaza showing up helped too, but man.

And apparently the only reason Satan hasn't done anything ever since then was because both Mephisto, Lucifer, and the other lords promised him that they would provide him a vessel. So he's just been waiting for that in Gehenna and the thought of that is scary.




It looks like Todo killed his whole family, besides the ones who died in the Blue Night besides his daughter. And then there's the group with that one man with Shiemi from the last volume with some lady that shared her name, what's going on with that. That was also the same night when Lucifer decided what he was going to do.


If things had been different, Yuri and Shiro would be raising Rin and Yukio together. That's what they wanted at the end. Shiro even confessed his love to Yuri, but she died because she didn't get proper treatment.


Shiro basically got stuck raising Rin and Yukio because of the promise he made.

I like how even as a little baby, Rin was strong. His white hair went away as the time passed by.
I know that Yukio said that Shiro knew that Satan would try to possess him, but the fact that he kept talking and taunting the man for 15 years makes it so much worse.


But after seeing all of that, Rin decided to use the key Mephisto gave him to see Shiro one last time, it was just heartbreaking. After that, he decided that he should live for the people to gave up everything to keep him alive. to go and meet with Yukio again.

Blue Exorcist Volume 26:

Spoiler:

Now back to present time, Yukio and Rin's reunion didn't go nearly well as I wanted it to. The two got into an actual fight with Yukio telling Rin to kill him so Satan can't come into their world. But Rin's obviously not going to do that, he wants Yukio to come with him, which Yukio doesn't want. He'd have to take to him back by force.

Spoiler:

With Satan protecting Yukio, Rin's even more powerful flames can't hurt him let alone most physical attacks. And he has actual combat training unlike Rin. And the new guns he has are pretty powerful. He was winning most of the time, but Rin's demon side took control of him again, he just started wailing on Yukio. Meanwhile, Shima and Konekomaru with the Koma Sword are just watching this happen and the Illuminati are using the ship's power supply to destroy Lightning's familiars.

Rin stops himself though and got the idea to burn Satan out of Yukio's eye. But it isn't until he gets the sword back that he manages to do it.
I don't know if it's actually fixed but, since he got it again and sheathed it, his powers and demon heart were sealed again.
But the ship they're on crashed from the fighting and now they're going to start to fight again.

I'm caught up with the manga now as far as the volumes go. Maybe, I'll reread Bleach too, or start reading D.Gray Man again from the beginning since the library I was reading it before at only had the manga up to volume 4.

I'm on episode 22 of Persona 5 the Animation and it's reminded me of just how not good the boss Shadow's designs are compared to Persona 3 and 4 besides like 2 of them. I did enjoy seeing Haru and Makoto when they were younger. I was also reminded of how late Haru shows up in the game since here it's episode 20 I think.

[RoydGolden]

Finished Deca-Dence. What a great show. Probably could've used an epilogue episode like UBW to flesh out how the world went on under the new system (I presume the robots aren't corporate wage-slaves anymore but they didn't really show us) but overall fun characters, a compelling sci-fi premise and vividly designed world made this one of the stand-out anime-originals of the season.

[Kamera]

Finally finished Kyousougiga. A bit trippy, but for an original anime with only 10 episodes, it's a hidden gem. Definitely a recommend.

[Rafflesiac]

Akane supremacy.

[Comun]

Akane supremacy.

Right answer, but only because "Ruby supremacy" is the only wrong answer here.

[Rafflesiac]

She's trying her best!

[Five_X]

I finally caught up on Oshi and I can agree, Akane a best

[Mattias]

So I caught the 3rd MHA movie in theatres tonight. (By the way, apparently the 3rd MHA is in theatres now. Who knew? I was looking for Eternals showtimes for tomorrow) Pretty standard MHA movie. 100% filler to never be referenced again (Although Melissa Shield from the 1st had a quick cameo), some really really good animation, and a movie exclusive character for Deku to show how cool heroes are. Basic jist is that there's a quickless supremacy group that's Trigger nerve gas bombing major cities, Deku stumbles across a clue and get a warrant out for him for mass murder on the the most "Oh yeah, tehers so much evidence but we can't actually show it to anyone" basis. I think that's the most I've seen people use guns in any shounen action show. Main villain's pretty straight forward from the get go. Final fights are all pretty good, though I do wish Deku and Shoto's didn't end the way they did. They were definitely pretty, but not exactly creative solutions. Also the movie had multiple instances of "Did the heroes just stright up murder that guy?". They were all shown being treated at the end, but some I refuse to believe they walked away from, I'm looking at you Bakugo.

I don't really know how to rank it compared to the other movies. The first was a good focused Deku story, while the second gave the whole class a time to shine, but the finale was a mess. This is more of a Bakugo/Deku/Todoroki story that keeps cutting away to others who are helping, but in the most generic way they can. It kind of rides the middle line between the two, and in doing so feels a bit less than the others.

7/10. A fun time, really good on the big screen, but nothing really standing apart.

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

Cool. Definitely be wasn't worth butchering MVA for, then.

[Mattias]

I still think that the way they did it made it flow better. Having the season end on a big climatic fight, rather than Endevour beating up some D-Tier and eating alone. The only problem with it was that they showed the League in Hawks parts, which should have just been complete shadows, like early Akatsuki.

[bassgs435]

Nah. The problem people have is not just the chronology. But that MVA didn't have enough episodes (as a result of the earlier parts of the season being slow paced and stretched on purpose , so as to not start MVA before the movie hits cinemas. Also the Ochako/Tsusyu filler made to connect the Endeavor arc to the movie itself) and could've been animated better coming from BONES if the staff could focus only in TV instead of TV + movies. As it goes on, repeating this, TV + movie format keeps taking it's toll both in the movie and in the TV show itself. None of the 2 products are as good as they could be

[Mattias]

. Also the Ochako/Tsusyu filler made to connect the Endeavor arc to the movie itself)

Oh right I forgot that happened. I always assumed that was more a "Everyone likes Tsu, so lets give her an episode", but it does make sense in hindsight. Like the one from the season before with the coast guard. That said I still much prefer it to the filler episode at the start of every season. The pointless "Here's everybody training and a reminder of what they can do" ones. Except for the one where it's just everyone goofing off at the pool, that was fun.