Gankutsuou / Monte Cristo anime definitely uses it as a stylistic choice. It kinda gives it a stained glass look, where each “panel” has its own complex 2D pattern.

In general though it’s kinda a middle ground where you get characters who wear textured clothing more interesting than a single color without requiring a ton of time and effort to create. I can’t really bring myself to complain about it when it would take 10x the effort to make it look 1.5x as good (though I do appreciate it when they DO take the time and effort to make animated textured clothing)

Like most Oshii movies imo, the Sky Crawlers was really boring. But, in a way I didn’t really mind; it was a good kind of boring, like 5 Centimeters Per Second or Christmas in January

What’s the one right center?

Excited for Mahou no Shimai Lulutto Lilly. The first anime-original Pierrot magical girl show since the 90s. It’ll also be a new entry in the mostly dead-ended evolutionary branch of magical girl shows that aren’t about fighting bad guys, but about being magical idols. In fact, this show looks SO similar to Mahou no Tenshi Creamy Mami that I’d almost call it a remake, based on the trailer. They even have the same familiars: a blue cat with pink eyes + a pink cat with blue eyes.

I would recommend Mushishi to anybody from age 5 to 105. I just finished rewatching it with my mom.
It’s kinda like Pokemon but instead of animals the “Pokemon” are usually fungi or diseases or natural phenomena. The series takes place from the point of view of a traveling doctor / scientist who uses his knowledge to help people.

While I do think it’s appropriate for any age group and I think I would have liked it as a kid, it might be scary or boring for a little kid.

The first episode is pretty uncharacteristic of the rest of the series, so if you check it out I’d recommend judging it based on episode 2.

I haven’t read it in a few months but I’ve generally kept up with the manga for the last four years. It’s mostly interesting in a meta way, where you see how long they can keep up the stupid premise.

There was an author interview that was translated and included in one chapter of the manga where the author revealed that although he had planned all 100 girlfriends from the beginning, some of the prospective characters had already started to overlap with existing ones and will have to be reworked. Is it really possible to write 100 good unique characters?

Practically, no. I think the manga falls off really hard after the 23rd girlfriend (currently it’s at #36).
I’m hoping that the 100th girlfriend is a girl who already has 99 boyfriends and I’m like 95% convinced that doing anything else would be sexism.

Long rant:

tl;dr, FMA 2003 is pretty good, too. It’s kinda misleading to call it non-canon when it was the original completed story. I’d also argue that the 2003 version had better production value in terms of visual style/animation. It’s definitely worth watching, at least.

Hmm, I’ve been reading the manga since it started and I’m not super confident in its quality. But I am pretty confident about Kyoani. I wonder who will direct it…

Attack on Titan opening?

FLCL is probably my overall favorite and I think this scene demonstrates a lot of its different styles with more silly and serious cuts. For just the best of the character animation, I think this scene is one of the best.

5 Centimeters Per Second is also one of my favorites and definitely my favorite of Shinkai Makoto’s stuff. People talk about visuals where “you could pause it on any frame and have a beautiful image” and I think that’s really true of this one. The honestly excessive use of really complex lighting gives it a really nice and unique vibe. The “ray racing on” of anime.

Kizumonogatari uses 2D animation on top of 3D backgrounds. Feels very unique, and on top of that, it’s just really tryhard good animation. Each of the three movies have their own strengths, too. 1 is the most aesthetically consistent, with the artstyle giving off a really specific and deliberate vibe. 2 is overall the best looking and includes the most diverse character animations. 3 has its iconic final fight and mixes up the artstyle for a really climactic moment.

The iDOLM@STER Movie: Kagayaki no Mukougawa e! has amazing quantity and quality of character animation, but the emphasis is honestly on quantity. Skip to any random scene in the movie (even outside of the performances)and chances are there’s an average of 4 moving characters on screen at any time. Really impressive, I kinda had my jaw dropped every time they do a wide cut of 20 characters, especially during the performances.

Quick bonus round: Kanon for the unique wintery aesthetic, Gunbuster for strong imagery, Evangelion also for strong imagery, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou for expressive animation, Omoide Poroporo for great style, Welcome to the NHK! for color design, You’re Under Arrest for great action cuts, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya for being overall beautiful in so many ways, Nichijou & CITY for style and animation, Soul Eater for the fight scenes, and I could maybe go on all day 😢 there’s so much good visuals in anime

edited to include more animation links

Endless Eight

Sports anime about things that can only vaguely be considered sports.

Hibike! Euphonium, Initial D, March comes in like a lion are more obvious ones but band anime like K-On!, Bocchi the Rock!, and Nana also have a similar appeal.
These all have some kind of competition or performance involved, so they are structurally similar to sports anime with character drama and training/practice leading up to a big climax that caps off both the drama and the training.

Maybe this genre isn’t so niche as these shows are all very popular, but I don’t often see people consider them to be similar in any way.

Good pick. I would say Haruhi Suzumiya, Gamers!, B-Gata H-Kei, and The Tatami Galaxy also fit this description.

There are 8 anime that made me cry, in order from ~2019 to 2024:

1. Sora yori mo Tooi Basho
2. Hibike! Euphonium 2
3. Mawaru Penguindrum
4. March comes in like a lion
5. Clannad: After Story
6. March comes in like a lion 2nd Season
7. Toradora!
8. Spirited Away

Highly recommend all of these

The tl;dr is “Yui x Ritsu”

The slightly longer story is that if you watch K-On! while really trying to overinterpret every interaction and assume more stuff is happening off-screen, a few romantic dynamics develop, with Yui x Ritsu being the most obvious.

The full story is 13+ charts and an 8 page writeup that I did as a personal project to justify this overinterpretation. I may post it somewhere if I ever decide to clean it up and make it presentable to the public eye, but there’s a lot in there. Ui x Nodoka. The Azusa->Yui->Ui and Jun->Mio->Azusa parallel. Yui-Mugi breakup arc. The Azusa human instrumentality arc.
My friends have called me schizophrenic for making these charts and while I don’t agree with their non-clinical use of the word “schizophrenic”, you should know that when I say “speculative / non-obvious” for K-On! in particular, it’s at about that level of extreme interpretation.

Cardcaptor Sakura, Princess Tutu, Toradora!, Maison Ikkoku, Chuunibyou, and Kare Kano are all contenders. If I can expand to speculative / non-obvious romance, then K-On!, Hidamari Sketch, Hibike! Euphonium, and Bocchi the Rock! are also up there.

Overall, the main couple from Cardcaptor Sakura may be my favorite, just extremely cute and well-paced. Miya & Yuno from Hidamari Sketch are also a really great couple.
Also, shoutouts to this guy who did an extreme overanalysis of how gay Hidamari Sketch is.

As someone who actually did learn Japanese through watching anime, it took me about 3 years. I started watching anime regularly in 2018 and when I was watching Hori-san to Miyamura-kun in 2021, the last two episodes had not been subtitled, so I watched them raw and mostly understood it.

A lot of people will say that it’s impossible to learn just via watching anime, but have not actually tried it. Yes, if you have subtitles on, it’s easy to let yourself totally ignore the Japanese. But it’s not impossible, and if you are focused, you can still learn even with subs turned on.

Later on, I started taking classes in Japanese at college and started learning a lot more. But just knowledge from watching anime was enough to pass an oral placement test and skip the first 2 semesters. If you are serious about learning Japanese, I recommend taking classes or studying it seriously online. There’s also better input resources than anime such as streamers or even conversation analysis audio for linguistics research.

But I am convinced that anime is still a very good tool because many people like anime and are already very motivated to watch it. This is a very big strength because the biggest obstacle to learning language is giving up. This, combined with Japanese’s very very simple grammar and verb conjugations actually makes it a very easy language to learn, imo.

Imo, pre-2012. I think you could also argue that 2018 or 2020/2021 is the start of the modem era of anime, or even 2006.

I don’t believe it actually bans “Pikachu” when spelled as 光宙 because ピカチュウ is actually a pretty reasonable reading, although maybe not the #1 most obvious one. Based on a random Japanese article I read about it (link), I really don’t think 光宙/Pikachu will be technically illegal, although all the English articles will say so because it’s click fodder.

The law bans: things that are not related to the kanji reading at all, things that add unexpected extra stuff on the end of the obvious reading, or things that mean the opposite of what the kanji means.

I don’t believe any of this applies to Pikachu, and the examples they cite are not really comparable.

あのーヒトデと交換していただけませんでしょうか？
Text: Ummm, could I trade it for a starfish? (Spoken very formally)
Not 100% sure what she is talking about, maybe the popsicle.
Maybe should be interpreted more like “could I have that [popsicle] in exchange for a starfish?”