Anime News Thread

[Skull]

Looks pretty cool, ngl.

[Mattias]

Neat. The Crunchyroll funded anime tend to have decent production values at least. Except Ex-Arm. Never forget Ex-Arm.

[Laserman]

Junichi Sato Reflects on Making Anime With Women, For Girls

[Laserman]

Interview: Mars Red Director Kouhei Hatano and Screenwriter Jun'ichi Fujisaku

You have a lot of experience writing for horror genre works, such as Blood+. However MARS RED feels very unique. What do you think makes it stand out as a vampire story?

FUJISAKU:There are two things:


In previous vampire stories, the “strength” of the characters was portrayed as a defining trait, but in MARS RED their “weaknesses” are shown first. I think the vampires are very unique in how they feel the pain of living in early modern society.

In Blood+, for instance, the character uses their blood to take down vampires. It was depicted as the only absolute weapon. However, MARS RED takes the classical route. Although it doesn't show them fearing the Christian cross, they can't swim, they burn in sunlight and they don't like the smell of garlic. Frankly speaking, they don't have any cool parts. If you screw up in the way you handle it, it becomes a comedy. But in MARS RED, I think those comedy elements are framed as pathos.

The creator pretty much said the same thing.

This story cannot work without episodes 1, 7, and 13.

This sentence is interesting. I need think back to episode 7 and now I'm looking forward to 13.

What do you think continues to draw audiences to vampire stories?


HATANO: Perhaps it's because they're beings that represent extremities that don't exist in us humans, on both ends of the scale. That aspect of them gets the imagination flowing in all sorts of ways, maybe.


FUJISAKU: I wouldn't have enough words to talk about the appeal of vampires. So to put it simply, it's how unbalanced they are: they have the element of immortality but possess weaknesses. They may be referred to as residents of the night, but that's because of their strong aesthetic elements such as the scent of depravity around them. Also, their appearances are human; for some reason we like to imagine them as attractive men and women, so I suppose that all sorts of stories can unfold.

[LegalLoliLover]

"The weakness of vampires is the strength of humans." I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. I'm too busy unloading my semi-automatic shotgun into that asshole with the big hat who's still using a crossbow.

[Laserman]

I feel like you misunderstood that.

[LegalLoliLover]

Probably. I just find it interesting that no matter how advanced human weaponry is, barring WMDs, which most organizations can't toss around willy-nilly without getting bankrupt faster than a bad play of X-Com, humans are forced to use archaic weapons against the supernatural. Meanwhile, a supernatural entity who has mastered modern weapons to kill humans is pretty OP.

[Toranth]

Only when people are silly.
Barring "Because I said so" levels of irrational magic, anything that can be hurt by a sword or crossbow can be hurt a lot more by a gun, explosive, or other modern weapon.

There are entire series with stories on the premise of modern monster hunting, and people have actually made some of the weapons described just to prove they work (or don't).

[LegalLoliLover]

No, a crossbow bolt seems to hurt more than a bullet, if it hits. As for explosives, that's what I was referring to when I was talking about WMDS, not just nukes, but again, unlike bullets, using explosives as your common consumable also "consumes" your wallet.

[Toranth]

A standard Renaissance-era crossbow had a range of 50-100 yards max, a velocity of 350 fps, and an impact energy of 50-100 Joules (depending on design, range, and bolt size). A modern crossbow can almost double that, pushing 200 Joules for heavy hunting crossbows. Not to mention the 10 seconds per shot firing rates (on the very low end).
A standard 9mm handgun using standard rounds has a maximum range of almost 2000 yards, velocity of 1000fps, and an impact energy of almost 500 Joules. And, of course, you can easily shoot multiple rounds per second.

As for explosives, stuff like dynamite is cheap and easy for constructing, mining, or semi-military organizations to get. Tannerite is practically sold over the counter. If for some reason you can't buy what you want, you can convert fertilizer and diesel or aluminum foil into explosives powerful enough to level buildings or take out lightly armored military vehicles. You can buy fertilizer by the ton - for about $250/ton in bulk. That's actually cheaper than bullets these days (lead is over $2000/ton).

Basically, any modern firearm or explosive can provide more energy to a target, more often, at much longer distances, and often cheaper, than any classical 'cold' weapon ever could.

Mars Red has its own modern vs classical sub-theme going, and although I haven't watched the last few episodes yet, it's pretty clear that 'modern' is winning out handily there. With nothing more than the traditional strengths or weaknesses of vampires, they simply do not stand a chance against the modern world.

[Laserman]

My Hero Academia Season 5 Anime Previews New 'Internship at Endeavor's Agency' Arc in Video

I know he's the number one hero now, but I feel like there was enough focus on him and his family too from before, so I don't know how to feel about this right after that.

My Hero Academia World Heroes' Mission Film's Trailer Reveals, Previews Asian Kung-Fu Generation's Theme Song

Man With a Mission and Asian Kung-Fu Generation, two amazing bands for the second half and the movie.

[LegalLoliLover]

A standard Renaissance-era crossbow had a range of 50-100 yards max, a velocity of 350 fps, and an impact energy of 50-100 Joules (depending on design, range, and bolt size). A modern crossbow can almost double that, pushing 200 Joules for heavy hunting crossbows. Not to mention the 10 seconds per shot firing rates (on the very low end).
A standard 9mm handgun using standard rounds has a maximum range of almost 2000 yards, velocity of 1000fps, and an impact energy of almost 500 Joules. And, of course, you can easily shoot multiple rounds per second.

As for explosives, stuff like dynamite is cheap and easy for constructing, mining, or semi-military organizations to get. Tannerite is practically sold over the counter. If for some reason you can't buy what you want, you can convert fertilizer and diesel or aluminum foil into explosives powerful enough to level buildings or take out lightly armored military vehicles. You can buy fertilizer by the ton - for about $250/ton in bulk. That's actually cheaper than bullets these days (lead is over $2000/ton).

Basically, any modern firearm or explosive can provide more energy to a target, more often, at much longer distances, and often cheaper, than any classical 'cold' weapon ever could.

Mars Red has its own modern vs classical sub-theme going, and although I haven't watched the last few episodes yet, it's pretty clear that 'modern' is winning out handily there. With nothing more than the traditional strengths or weaknesses of vampires, they simply do not stand a chance against the modern world.

Of course, those weapons exist, but they have their own weaknesses. In theory, a dragon's breath shotgun is powerful against vampires, but it fires slower than, say, a semi-automic SPAS-15 shotgun, which is good for killing humans. As for traditional vs. modern strengths, my whole point is that if they have functioning trigger fingers, there is no good reason why vampires cannot obtain those same "modern strengths"... Which is also why I consider Darren Shan vampires who cannot use guns to be even sillier than sparkly Twilight vampires.

[rxrx]

Magia Record is airing is second cour in 31st of July, then the third cour will come in the end of 2021. Guess they made good use of those money paid for the gatcha.

[bassgs435]

Or given the irregular dates, it's a single cour that SHAFT had to split to try and prevent production issues. Then, again Jahy is also starting late, so God only knows what's going on with those shows and why the late start

[Toranth]

The "Dragon's Breath" isn't a shotgun, it's a silly firework round some hobbyists came up with because it looks cool. You could fire one from any shotgun. Not to mention almost all modern shotguns are semi-automatic. Were you thinking of something like the AA-12 automatic shotgun? It shows up in a bunch of games.
But no military or even casual combat force would use something like "Dragon's Breath". There are real incendiary rounds that people could use if for some reason you decided it was a good idea to use small arms to try to set fire to a squishy bag of mostly water.

And yes - a human with modern weapons plus superpowers is going to be more dangerous than a human with just modern weapons.
But traditional vampires, as depicted in Mars Red and many other places, have major weaknesses - sunlight, silver, running water, holy items, daylight comas, native soil, etc, whatever your mythos holds. When humans start taking advantage of those - plus the numerical difference - the vamps get slaughtered.
The only time the reverse holds is when you have enough hand waving magic that no sword or crossbow will hurt a vampire either. Classic D&D vampires had the "Immune to damage from any weapon with less than +1 enchantment" which means they could shrug off even nukes. Most stories don't hold with that level, though - Mars Red certainly doesn't! Just look at how many vampires die to just being clubbed in this series. It almost makes you feel bad for them, they're so overmatched.

[rxrx]

Or given the irregular dates, it's a single cour that SHAFT had to split to try and prevent production issues. Then, again Jahy is also starting late, so God only knows what's going on with those shows and why the late start

Magia Record's first cour was pretty rushed since they made many fixes in the BD. If what I heard is true, Magia Record will have about 30+ episodes which means it has to be separated, though I think two might be better than three. We shall see.

[Laserman]

'86' Sci-Fi War Anime Season 2's Teaser Announces October Premiere
So that's a better a look at what they look like.

- - - Updated - - -

The Detective Is Already Dead Anime's 3rd Video Reveals More Cast, Opening Song

[Laserman]

Kakegurui Writer Homura Kawamoto's Isekai Revenge Manga Canceled After 1 Chapter
I've never seen this happen before.

[Mattias]

Okay, before I clicked the link I was laughing my ass off because "it was so bad it failed out the gate". Then I read the article and now I'm laughing my ass off at the editors who obviously didn't look at the thing once, and had to rely on reader comments to realize what the thing they were publishing was actually about. Seriously how did that pitch go? "Okay so I want to write a new manga" "sure what's it about? *puts in headphones* Ok, sounds good"

[bassgs435]

Yeah. And it wasn't even using the angle properly. Just the kind of villains you can find in edgier isekai/WN fantasy stories only they're blantant copies of other characters. There's no link to their personalities, just spite. And when the characters and names are so similar to existing works, it's just picking a fight and giving his enemies the tools to take him down
As an example, Louis Crawford is a rapist murderer in Cheat Slayer. He's a copy of Shin Walford (Kenja no Mago) Shin might be bland and generic, but he'd never murder and much less rape. It was copying isekai characters to try and dunk on isekai and it's fans, while not doing anything that much different from edgier stories. This was never gonna fly in Japan when something as innocent as the references in Henry Stickmin sends japanese streamers into a panic about wether such blatant referencing is legally OK