August 16, 2023 • 48 mins
Let's talk about all the anime Dakota has seen so far in 2023. Check out our socials: https://switchclicks.carrd.co/ The Switch Clicks Podcast Intro Track: Dreams Are Pretty — Seoul June [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch: https://youtu.be/Y6sVyLLakhM Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/dreams-are-pretty #Anime
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So far in 2023, I've watched 23 anime.
(00:04):
And Tyler has decided to watch two, surprisingly.
This episode will be telling you about all 25 of them.
Time stamps are available for your viewing pleasure.
Welcome to the Switch Clicks Podcast, Episode 149.
My name is Dakota, and today I'm joined by Tyler.
Hello!
(00:26):
So we did this early this year for 2022.
But I figured I'm kind of craving talk about anime again, so we're kind of cutting it a little short for 2023.
There's not nearly as much to get through, because last year I had 42 anime to get through, and that was an hour long episode.
Probably won't break an hour this time.
(00:48):
There's no way we break an hour.
Unless I- who knows, my two might go for- maybe it's 30 minutes of me talking about the two things I watched.
Yeah, I know.
On my list, I have mostly seasonal anime from this year, and considering we're in the middle of the summer season,
(01:09):
some of these will be- I've only watched a few episodes, but everything I've watched is still good.
So, how do I want to get this started?
Maybe we'll go as early as possible.
Probably a good way to do it.
Actually, I am curious. When you're watching seasonal anime, are you just essentially bouncing from series to series,
or do you want to finish one, then finish another one, then go on that way?
(01:33):
I am bouncing between different series.
That would make sense.
So every week I get at least- I think each season I usually watch between 3 to 5 anime at a time,
and luckily they're usually spread out in the week.
Oh, yeah.
Concerning my current lifestyle, I just wait until Monday and I can watch like four different anime in a row.
(01:55):
Just get caught up.
Fair enough, yeah.
So it's pretty efficient.
At times, I do decide to watch the dub of a show, which we'll hear in the future,
so I do have to wait like a few weeks just to kind of get up to speed.
Might as well first thing, in the wintertime, kind of from 2022, but they had Vinland Saga Season 2.
(02:21):
This one you may have seen, it's about Vikings from England.
I definitely recognize it. I recognize the name.
I don't know how much I actually- I recognize the visuals a little bit, but probably mostly from Season 1, I have to imagine.
So Season 1 was animated by Wit, and they were going to do Season 2, but then MAPPA ended up taking over the animation production,
(02:48):
but all the animators went to MAPPA and then it kept its same art style, so that was really nice.
Oh, yeah.
People will always say that this is like a slow season, but no.
It's so much different than the first season, but it's equally as good, and on my list, I have it listed as a masterpiece.
(03:14):
Oh, wow.
It gives you such a different perspective on war, because in the first season, the main character, he's chopping up people as a kid.
He's murdering countless people.
And then the second season, I don't think he kills a single person, and it's all about reflecting on his past life, essentially.
(03:38):
Maybe war is bad.
Yeah.
Now that I put my head to it, now I'm thinking about it.
Hmm.
I do like things like that.
Yeah, the author does a really, really good job of not making it super black and white.
It's all gray. No one character is a good person.
(04:00):
Oh, I love that.
That's maybe up there as favorite trope in a TV show.
The problem is, there's a lot of those tropes, and they can be written super well or complete garbage.
It's a volatile choice.
What comes to my mind is something, if animated comes to my mind, is BoJack Horseman, which everyone's very morally gray or just genuinely a horrible person.
(04:30):
Or The Boys, which is also the same thing, either morally gray or a horrible person.
I just enjoy watching it.
Yeah. It also kind of puts a bit of dread into a person.
It's like, dang, this is too real.
Sometimes you need that perspective.
(04:51):
Fair enough.
Something that is black and white, mostly complete garbage, is Token of the Avengers.
I watched the whole first season. I thought it was pretty good.
The twists are really good, but everything in between is not great.
And then the more I think about it, it's complete garbage.
(05:12):
So once they announce the second season, I'm like, okay, I'll give it a shot.
I gave it three episodes. It's crap.
Okay.
And unfortunately, it's one of the most popular series.
I don't know if that's a hot take or not. Let me look at the consensus online.
7.69, that's pretty decent.
Out of 10?
(05:33):
Yeah, that's 10.
Relatively high.
Yeah, I can't stand the main character, and then everything happens because of the characters around him and not him.
And it's a time travel show. So that doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, I can see how that can... Especially, is the time travel done well or is it kind of clunky?
(05:57):
It's all right. It's basically...
If he handshakes with the girl that he likes, his brother, then he goes back in time.
His consciousness goes back in time.
And at a certain point, he'll get pulled back into present day and you'll see what happens, what his consequences went to.
(06:18):
But they had like two times that he did that and they were pretty good twists.
And then the end of the first season was really good.
But then he just goes back into it and it's not that fun.
Oh, that's a shame.
Yeah.
And then I think the manga just finished or something, but I've heard nobody talk about it.
(06:41):
Yeah, I've also... It's probably something I recognize visually, but most of the time on the internet, mostly Twitter, or I guess no.
I'm just out of my own pride. I'm going to keep calling it Twitter.
If an anime gets popular enough that it reaches me, then it's doing something right, I think.
(07:07):
Yeah.
Or it's really mainstream. One of the two.
But yeah, I don't think I've seen any of this before.
Probably not. It's not great animation, so you probably wouldn't even get it in your feed as like an inspiration tweet.
Probably the next thing is Attack on Titan. I'm going to do the same thing I did last time.
(07:31):
I can't say anything about it without giving spoilers, but still very good.
The finale is coming, I believe, this fall, the last episode.
That's what they say. Wait, didn't the last episode come out like last year as well?
Well, it's a bit complicated. They had the final season and then the final season part two.
Both were like a full 10, 12 episodes.
(07:54):
Then now they have Attack on Titan, the final season, the final chapters.
Earlier in their year, they had one 45-minute hour-long episode, and then they're going to have a final 45-minute hour-long episode.
Okay.
So if you break it down, it's Attack on Titan, the final season, the final chapter, part one, and then part two.
(08:19):
Then after that comes out, of course, we'll have part one. We'll have the epilogue.
To be fair, there is another manga in the same universe. I don't know if it's the same author, but it was pretty successful.
If they want to milk Attack on Titan more, they'll just make that.
(08:45):
Yeah. I mean, who knows? After part two comes out, they might decide they want to make Attack on Titan, the final season, the final chapter, the movie.
Yeah, exactly.
There might be some more.
I'm surprised they're not releasing this final thing in theaters, but I think the only reason they're not doing that is because of localization and costs to put in theaters.
(09:13):
Ah, fair enough.
But it would make so much money.
I'd have to imagine. It's definitely up there as like...
I think it is the most popular anime. It broke numbers when the second part of the final season came out.
I'd have to imagine it would definitely beat out the...
(09:35):
What's it called?
The Boy and the Hare and the... I imagine it will be a very good movie when it comes out, but yeah, it's definitely a more widespread audience.
I guess, speaking of movies, I have seen a handful of anime movies this year, mostly just on my own, just being curious of what there is outside of the world, but I did see Suzume in theaters from Makoto Shinkai.
(10:12):
Still amazing animation, still incredible.
It's the same guy that I showed you guys, the Garden of Words.
Yes.
That's the same producer.
And writer.
Maybe director?
Fair enough.
(10:33):
He's a lot of things.
Similar creative teams.
Yeah, exactly. And similar story. He has so far three movies where it follows two slightly teenage characters, usually in high school, and one of them has a power.
All three of them have the same story.
(10:55):
Fair enough. I mean, there's a lot you can do with that.
Yeah, it was kind of cool seeing Suzume right before I went to Japan, and I then did some digging, and I went to the locations that they had the animations in, so it was pretty sick.
Oh yes, I remember you planning that out. Yeah, that's very cool.
(11:20):
And I guess speaking of that too, I rewatched Your Name, and it still holds up, still one of the greatest soundtracks in any movie.
It fits super well for some reason, and I wanted to watch it on a big screen, because I never got to.
Oh, yeah. Fair enough.
(11:42):
I also kind of... I didn't rewatch anything. However, I know a little bit of an addendum as we're talking about stuff we've already watched.
Last time we were here, I just finished watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 6, Stone Ocean, and I said I enjoyed it a lot, which is still the point.
In fact, I think I've enjoyed it more. But I think I said that the openings of Part 6, especially, if I can remember the name, Heaven's Falling Down, I said it was kind of meh, especially considering it was the end of what they were doing with this main continuity of JoJo.
(12:25):
And I had to say I was so unbelievably wrong. I've taken time. I've made a severe and continuous lapse in judgment.
And no, it's very good. It's probably up there as top three JoJo intros, so I just needed to clear my name on the internet.
(12:49):
I guess, well, speaking of JoJo, I might as well get both of my things out of here. I watched the 1994, I believe, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders OVA.
And I have to say, it's adapting the exact same story as normal JoJo Part 3. So there's not a ton you can do with it, but it's such a weird series because it kind of cuts around and does its own thing with a lot of the stuff because they have, it's like seven episodes.
(13:28):
But we get to the end of it, me and my siblings, and it doesn't get to the end of the part. It gets up right up until they get to Egypt.
And then I think it swapped over studios, and I can't find the ending. I watched all the way up to there expecting to get to the end of the series.
(13:51):
But after the seven episodes, it was just handed off to a different studio, and I've been searching, but I can't find the last, I think it's like an additional seven episodes.
That's a little bit disappointing, but it's very cool. I love the look of 80s and 90s anime, and it's pretty much exactly what I was expecting.
(14:13):
I don't love part three, but this is nice because instead of being like, oh, I want to say like 40 episodes like the David Productions anime is, it's like 12.
So that's nice. But that's it. That's all I have to say about all my JoJo corner, I guess.
(14:34):
Does the animation hold up to today or?
Oh, yeah, no, it's still wonderful. I definitely say that the 20, I think it was 2013, the David Production one, like the modern day, it looks better.
It adapts the manga pan, like David Production pretty much uses the panels as storyboards.
(14:56):
So you get like a lot of, they kind of faithfully adapt a lot of like the janky artwork from the time in a way that's really cool,
where the 80s one is a little less, is more scared to do that.
So like where a goofy panel is replaced with like, kind of fixes up the posing, but it takes away a little bit of the charm.
But it still looks very, very good. It has like the kind of muted color palette you see a lot from that era of anime.
(15:26):
And it's like a fun time capsule.
Well, we're on to pretty much spring 2023. This is a pretty big heavy hitter.
There were great shows this season, but I also dropped a decent amount of them.
I think I started the season with, let's see, one, two, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight shows, and I dropped three of them.
(15:57):
The three that I dropped, let's, you know what, let's be positive first.
First, Demon Slayer season three.
It was alright. It has the same animation quality as the first few seasons.
And the story was not as good. The hype parts were not as good.
(16:22):
But also, I don't think anything's going to surpass the entertainment arc hype. That was mind blowing.
Yeah, fair enough. I know I remember you gushing last time.
So it might have I was very I was worried for not like for whatever reason.
(16:44):
I was like, oh, did it suck when you when you said it was OK?
But yeah, no. Imagine based on how much you were like exploding at the seams last time that this being alright is still like better than most of the things you watched or at least are about to talk about.
Yeah, like it probably has the best. I can't say that.
(17:05):
I was about to say best animation, but I think Heavenly Delusion has that beat.
So this OK, this show, I did not see it coming at all.
I decided to watch it because it has an interesting premise.
From from the start has an interesting premise.
(17:28):
Essentially, we got your following two characters in a post apocalyptic Japan and Japan is.
Japan has like these monsters running around that they can defeat these two characters. One has this like laser weapon gun.
The other can basically destroy the monster's heart if he touches it.
(17:51):
And, you know, that's kind of a trope of anime. These characters have a special ability to defeat the thing that the world fears.
That's normal.
But also at the same time, the story going on about some children in an orphanage that is like a fake orphanage.
And they're surrounded by a dome with a fake sky and a fake everything, essentially.
(18:13):
And now there's the mystery of what's going on. Who are these monsters? Who are the children? Why are the children hidden?
Stuff like that.
And I think the anime does a really, really nice job of weaving in a mystery.
But unfortunately, it's only given one season.
So and really like concluding those mysteries or at least like putting an end to some of them, they don't really do well.
(18:40):
But I think that's fair because I've heard the manga is very good.
And for some reason, they gave this anime like all the budget in the world and it looks like a movie level.
I have to say when like I've been clicking on the on like your anime list, I've been just looking at it.
And when I saw the poster for this and then you start talking about what the show is actually about, my jaw hit the floor.
(19:07):
The poster looks like a romantic comedy.
Yeah, but that's crazy.
If you click on my animal list, go to the listing and you click on the poster, you can see the alternate posters and it kind of explains it a bit better.
Oh, yeah. No, that that looks like a post apocalyptic show.
(19:28):
Yeah, it's super cool. They've not announced a second season.
Disney also bought the rights to stream the show in Japan.
So it's hard to say if it'll even get a second season if it won't get a second season next year or so.
I might just read the manga because it was that good.
Another thing in spring 2023 is Skip and Loafer, a amazing romcom.
(19:57):
And it's like not a cringy romcom.
I hate cringy romcoms to a point.
They can be cringe if they're wholesome, but this one is like it feels normal.
Like we're watching normal people in their everyday lives.
Essentially, the main character, she is a girl from the Japanese countryside and she decides she wants to be, I think, somebody in government.
(20:22):
So she goes to a Tokyo school and she gets to learn how kind of Tokyo works.
And Tokyo is basically a different beast compared to the countryside. And luckily, I got to see that firsthand.
So seeing it through a different person's perspective that they lived in Japan is super interesting because they had all the same experiences.
(20:46):
They're like, vending machines are everywhere. The train system is amazing.
Let's go to karaoke. Exact same experiences.
And it was so crazy. Did you watch this before, after, or I guess during your Japan trip?
This would have been during my Japan trip.
So I believe maybe the first four or five episodes would have released before I left.
(21:11):
And then I binge the rest when I got back.
Okay. So that's probably that's like perfect timing for like peak enjoyment of the show.
Yeah, it was perfect.
Yeah, fair enough. Both of the characters, both of the main leads, the guy and the girl are amazing.
They're not like it's never like a romantic thing between them.
It's not purely platonic, but it is basically platonic.
(21:36):
Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. And all the side characters are very good.
There's no one character that I hate or is like annoying.
Oh, that's actually kind of a rarity for something like this.
Yeah. Again, it feels like real people, which is crazy.
Yeah. Unfortunately, no second season confirmed. Might just read the manga as well.
(21:57):
What else do I have? Oh, we're at the oh, we're not.
Okay. Good thing again. Oh, she no co.
This show, when it first released, its first episode is one hour long, which is, wait, no, it was 90 minutes long.
Oh, no ads or anything. It was 90 minutes straight. It was incredible.
(22:21):
Unfortunately, the plot is the whole twist of the plot is kind of hard to describe without giving away the fun of the first episode.
But it's essentially about the idol industry and also other entertainment industries like reality TV shows, YouTube,
and the effects of the people that are in those positions versus either each other or the Internet.
(22:51):
And they do cover some interesting topics, and I think they do it very well.
And considering the author of this show's manga made Love is War, which is just a comedy romcom, is crazy.
He went to totally separate angles of two different genres, and he did them both very well.
(23:13):
Man's got range. Yeah, insane.
And then even recently, he said, Oh, I'm going to I know the ending of this manga.
And he's starting to work on his next one, which from the photo is just like a female character with a think of robotic arm and some like mystical being behind him.
(23:34):
If I can remember correctly, I'm not too sure. But it looks interesting. I probably won't read it, but it looks interesting.
I have to admit, like, manga is definitely harder to get into. Oh, yeah. So you have to really like something to actively read it.
All right. On to the bad stuff. I won't say bad. I just maybe not as interesting. Considering there was a show.
(23:55):
Complaining time. Okay. So first one that I have on my list as on hold, but no, that is I'm dropping it.
Is a spin off of Kono Suba. Kono Suba on its own is just a isekai joke anime.
And they do the comedy is very, very good. It basically jokes on the tropes of isekai and most other anime.
(24:23):
The main character, he knows full well what he's doing and why he's in that world.
It's very good. This is a spin off show of one of the characters and it was OK.
I watched the first episode. I couldn't really get into it. It was going a little fast.
(24:44):
And also, this is like not my favorite character ever. So it probably just wasn't for me, which is fine.
Luckily, there's a third season of Kono Suba around the corner. So this is probably one of the only ones like this.
It's been a while since I like actually recognized an anime. This is one of the other ones I actually recognize a character.
(25:06):
Next one is Insomniacs After School. So this is another romcom, but I also couldn't get into it.
It had to me, it had the same vibes as last year, Call of the Night, which was I don't know if you remember,
the super neon-y nighttime desktop background anime.
(25:28):
I think I might remember what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought this show was going to be.
I got three episodes in. It was moving a little too slow for my taste and I kind of knew where we were going to go.
So I just decided to drop it. Yeah, I don't think it was doing anything special other than, oh, it's in the nighttime and not the daytime.
Yeah. Yeah. It's I've watched a lot of middling things, but especially like TV shows.
(25:55):
It is. It's so much more painful to get through a mid TV show than it is a mid movie or a mid.
I said a third thing as if I had an idea of what I was going to say and I don't have one. So I get stopping there.
Speaking of mid, meet Marshall or I don't know, Magic and Muscles.
(26:22):
This show is mid and I don't use that lightly.
It's it's basically it's another kind of trope anime where, OK, you got Harry Potter and Hogwarts and the main character doesn't have magic.
So what does he do? He gets completely jacked and he games the system and goes to Hogwarts and he's just jacked.
(26:47):
He doesn't have any powers at all. Fair enough.
And it's a comedy anime. It's a little bit too like slapstick for me.
The first episode was rough. I just don't think it's my type of comedy.
So that's why I tried it. There was also a lot of hype for this show before it came out.
(27:08):
But I don't know. I haven't heard anybody say anything after the show came out.
I guess it maybe is just mid.
All right. We're on to summer 2023 where oh, no, we're not.
I am currently in the middle of watching Hell's Paradise, which is technically a spring 2023 show.
It's basically about a bunch of criminals are paired up with, I guess, executioners, you could say.
(27:38):
And they are sent to an island and they need to find basically the founder of youth.
And it's a battle royale. That's at this point. It's all right.
So far, I'm only halfway through its map. So the animation is amazing.
I'm just not very interested in the characters at all, but maybe it'll get better. I'm still working through it.
(28:00):
OK, now we're on summer 2023. Let's start with the bad thing.
And it's something that I think it would interest you purely for the animation and neither in a good way or a bad way.
All right. The girl I like forgot her glasses. OK, I need you to watch the first opening scene of this anime.
(28:23):
I will link it to you because I need you to watch it.
Fair enough. So the only reason I started this anime, because I was interested in the plot.
It was somewhat interesting. And then I realized they were from middle school.
So I immediately stopped because I'm uncomfortable.
That sounds terrifying. Yeah.
(28:47):
And the main dude, the main kid, he's obnoxious.
He cannot talk to a single human being without getting anime embarrassed. And it ticks me off.
I can't watch that. I need humans.
OK, the thumbnail for the video is not is scaring me, I have to say.
(29:10):
But yeah, you could probably watch the first, I don't know, probably first 30 seconds, maybe first minute.
Well, we're almost 30 seconds in and it's just walking thus far.
Pretty. Oh, wait, this is this show. I've seen this on. I've seen the clips.
Oh, no. This is the ugly one.
It's or this is this is the one where the storyboard artist or like the one of the animators must have like killed the storyboard artist's dog.
(29:44):
It's it was so normal.
And then they got the shots of his feet going into the camera lens.
Is this the one where he like walks up the stairs and the camera like spins around in circles?
Yeah, I think you skip to like a minute 50.
You'll get after the opening and it gets already an overhead shot as soon as you skip in.
(30:11):
Wow. Yeah, this is so mean.
Like, to be fair, it's impressive.
They're doing a good job.
There's no direction, though.
Yeah. Also, the backgrounds look very weird.
But they have characters moving and at different speeds.
(30:33):
Yeah. And he's touching the environments.
Oh, it's so rough. It's on it's on the scene.
It's so it's so hard.
I'm sorry for anybody listening to this, but you just need to go watch it.
It's so insane. Yeah, that that is awful.
His foot is in the camera, bro.
I actually paused it as soon as you said that.
(30:56):
But yeah, his foot was right there.
That is a nasty thing to animate.
And I feel so bad for anyone who had to endure that.
Is this how the whole show looks? Does the whole show look like this?
I don't know. Seven episodes are out. I'm going to go to the sixth episode.
OK, it looks kind of normal skipping halfway into the episode.
(31:20):
All their budget went to that first two minute scene.
And that does not look that does not look great at all.
Yeah, I have seen that technically because it went a little viral on Twitter.com.
Yeah, that is an that is just a not good storyboarding.
That's a awful thing to animate.
(31:44):
And it's like it kind of looks like if this was filmed in live action,
the entire thing would be shot on like a fisheye lens.
Yeah, which looks weird.
It's like the 80s music videos.
The guys go, oh, yeah, yeah.
So rough.
(32:05):
But yeah, that's I didn't know about anything going into it.
I watched the first episode. It blew my mind how weird it looked.
Yeah, I didn't know something could look that weird.
It's not it is not great.
And then, yeah, I get into it and it's not good.
The main character is annoying. The girl is annoying.
(32:26):
How do you forget your glasses if you wear them on a daily basis?
I don't understand. And that's what the plot revolves around.
Is it a romantic show?
It is. Between two middle schoolers.
Between middle school. Oh, oh, oh.
Mamma Mia, you know, that's that.
That's my response to that. That's that's rough.
(32:47):
Like, to be fair, there are shows that do, I guess,
junior high school or like first year high school romantic, like pretty good.
But it's just that the characters in this show are so obnoxiously bad.
It's I can't get through it. I mean, even like Moonrise Kingdom,
(33:08):
the Wes Anderson movie, like it a large majority of that
that movie is a romantic plot between two children.
Granted, it made me uncomfortable a little bit while I was watching it,
but it's nothing like it's it's all.
It's played in a way like it's it's very not not careful, but like it.
(33:36):
It knows how to do it without it becoming weird or awkward or bad.
So like it is possible to make something like that, but it is always a slippery slope.
Yeah, it's it's rough.
It is it is rough. Let's see if I can find a segue.
(34:00):
Yeah, on to good stuff now this season.
We're in the summertime, so I have not finished any of these shows because they are still running.
First one, speaking of a good romance, is Horimiya.
Horimiya, The Missing Pieces is a second season, technically, to Horimiya, the first season.
(34:21):
And it's just adapting pieces that they did not adapt in the first season from the manga.
So it has no linear plot to it for the second season.
It's just more Horimiya if you like the first one.
And I think Horimiya is peak adult romance, somewhat adult.
(34:43):
They're in high school, but it's like normal romance.
And it's so good. OK, fair enough. Yeah.
And then this is just more of the same, which I love. It's incredible.
This is a rare instance as well that I watch it in a dub because I just prefer the voice actors in dub.
They're actually very good.
Speaking of another thing that I'm waiting for the dub for is Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2.
(35:05):
Two seasons? I feel like this show's been out for like at least season one.
Season one has been out for I think three or five years maybe. Let me check.
Oh, it's been out for a while.
Adaptation prequel. Here we go.
(35:26):
It is from 2020, late 2020. So it has been out for three years.
OK. And there was 24 episodes in that season.
So you got it for half a year and it made quite the splash.
It's also probably one of the most popular anime in Japan and worldwide.
It's very rare that it gets that kind of press.
And then last year they had the Jujutsu Kaisen Zero movie.
(35:50):
So you might have seen stuff about that too.
And then Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 is here.
And they split the season kind of weirdly where the first five episodes are telling the story about Gojo,
the overpowered Sensei character.
And I am going to wait now just another week for all five of the first episodes being dubbed.
(36:19):
Then I'll binge all five. And then I think there's like two or three weeks until they release.
They start rolling again with the normal story.
And I'll watch that in sub because I do want to be caught up to that.
Yeah. And again, I'm not the biggest fan of Jujutsu Kaisen.
I thought the first season was all right.
The vibes of the show are incredible, though.
(36:43):
I'm not a big Shonen guy that had big fight scenes and overpowered main character and stuff like that.
I'm not big on that, but I think they do it pretty well.
And honestly, if I rewatch it now, I think I'll love it because I think Jujutsu Kaisen was one of the first shows I watched.
Let's do... Yeah, next one is Zom 100 Bucket List of the Dead.
(37:12):
I think I purely want to show you this one because A, animation, great.
It is from the same animation team as Komi Can't Communicate and the Pokemon series.
They are ex-employees of the company that animated those.
(37:33):
So they literally went out and said, hey, we're going to make our own show in our own studio and did that.
The fun thing about the story behind the show is in the show, the main character works for what you call a black company.
A black company in Japan is a company that basically works their employees to the bone and will not let them go home at all or just stuff like that.
(38:03):
It's a Japanese thing, so that's fine. Yep.
Like a salary man.
Yes, a salary man, a Japanese salary man.
And eventually the main character is like, okay, I hate doing this.
And then he wakes up and it's a zombie apocalypse. So he's like, cool, I don't have to go to work.
Okay.
And then basically he's living his life. He wants to finish his bucket list.
(38:27):
And of course he has a hundred things on his bucket list.
So far, animation is great.
And in the first episode, they show the building that the main character works in.
And that building is modeled almost exactly off of the actual studio's previous company.
(38:50):
Oh, wow.
So they just call them out.
That's kind of super.
That's kind of based. I'm going to be honest.
It is kind of based.
I also have to say, I realize looking at some of these posters, I'm like incredibly weak to the color combination of a bright yellow, pink and blue together.
(39:15):
Yeah.
Every time those three colors have popped up in this is happening, like in three posters, I'm like, oh, I actually might watch that.
This one, this one's catching my eye.
But I think I'm just weak to this color combination.
Well, luckily, if you do want to watch it, most of these zombies are based off that color.
So instead of them being like all grotesque and like bloody, they're like there's like rainbow splatters in them instead of blood splatters.
(39:40):
That's a fun creative decision.
As well as most of the action scenes are very well directed and any, how do I say this, any action movement is in these neon colors, which is super interesting as well.
Anytime there should be a blood splatter, there's usually multicolors.
If somebody's dying from a zombie, they'll be regular blood.
(40:04):
But if it's just like blood on the floor, then it'll be multicolored, which is really cool.
OK. Yeah, that's a very fun gimmick.
So far, the story is going exactly where I where I kind of want it to, which is interesting, but I have heard it gets a little bit slow past where they're going to adapt the manga.
(40:25):
So we'll see how it goes.
I don't know if you remember this from last time I talked about it, but Mushoku Tensei, jobless reincarnation.
Ooh, it is ringing a bell.
It's the isekai about the pervy nerd in a kid's body.
(40:47):
Oh, remember that?
Nope, not really.
OK, well, we did talk about it.
They finally have a second season.
It has peak world building.
It's like the best world building I've ever seen.
And then they just not ruin it, but it can really do without the pervy stuff.
(41:08):
And it is very heavy handed.
That's rough.
So far, it looks to be really good.
I think I'm on the fourth episode.
It's another one of the series that I'm watching in dub, mainly because I watched the original in dub and I because of the world building, I do want to follow what people are saying.
(41:31):
And I found that it's hard for me to follow a sub show.
Yeah, fair enough. That makes sense.
Let's see what we got next.
We'll do speedrun this time.
Next is Link Click.
This is actually a Chinese anime, Chinese show, technically not an anime, I guess, but whatever.
(41:54):
It's the second season to Link Click.
Basically about a duo, one guy can look into the past using photos and the other guy can travel through photos.
So what they do is they own an agent, a detective agency.
And if the victim has a photo from either at the time of the crime or any time previous to it, they can go into that and they have rules on what they do in the past because it does affect the future.
(42:30):
And they have to balance between kind of morale things if they want to save somebody in the moment or not.
But their main objective is just to get information.
I believe in like the first episode, there is a girl, she's part of the black company, and she needs to get some documents from her boss's computer to, I don't know, win a lawsuit in the future or something.
(42:56):
And then eventually it evolves to like, oh, the guy has to live in a kid's body for like a year or two to get some information about, I think it's like an earthquake or something.
How does a photo get you into it?
Don't ask.
Okay, okay.
Lovely.
I think they explain it a little bit better because recently they did put a dub out so you don't have to watch it in Chinese sub.
(43:22):
And I will admit it's a little bit hard to follow, but I assume in the dub it's a lot better.
But again, they have to they have to debate between saving the town from an earthquake or letting the kid that he's in just die because he's supposed to die.
Interesting.
So that's a lot better time travel than anything I've watched.
(43:47):
Yeah.
Um, I think I guess I got movies too.
I watched Goodbye Dongleaze, which I believe is a WIT Studio production.
It was a movie really only released at a, I think at a German showing of just like regular movies, licenses.
(44:13):
Oh, it's a madhouse production. I see.
It looked interesting.
It's about some kids that live outside of Tokyo and just about childhood.
It was pretty good.
It was emotional. It didn't really get me as much because I'm not too much of an outdoorsy person, but I'm sure anybody older than like 30 will be emotion to it.
(44:35):
Next is a Studio Ghibli film. Ghibli.
The Wind Rises basically about a dude.
And this is a true story about who made a plane.
I don't have the name of the plane here.
Oh, I do Mitsubishi A6M Zero Fighter aircraft in World War II.
I think I have heard about this.
(44:57):
Again, it's Studio Ghibli. You can't go wrong. It was amazing.
Yeah.
I got two more.
Rapid Fire.
This is an older one from 2015 called Anthem of the Heart.
If I can remember correctly, this is just a day in the life of some...
(45:25):
Ah, now I remember.
Okay, so the main character, she, when she was young, she was a chatterbox.
She kept talking and talking and talking until something happened and she said something she probably shouldn't have.
And I think something happened in her life that it was scarring to her.
So she ended up just not talking until late in high school when she was eventually cast in a play that she had to sing in.
(45:53):
And by the end of it, she sings.
It's very basic, heartwarming.
I think it was great.
There was a romantic angle in it that I didn't really like, but I think it's fine.
And the last one, what is this?
I...
(46:16):
This is basically the same plot.
It's called Sing a Bit of Harmony.
Essentially, there's a character, she is a robot.
And she is AI from the government, and she is put into this school as a test.
(46:37):
And the daughter of the scientist who makes this robot goes to that school and has to kind of oversee the AI in its everyday whatevers.
I don't remember the end to this.
I remember it being emotional, but not like, not like emotion emotional.
(47:00):
I know why it's emotional.
So it's like not, it didn't click with me.
I think it was alright.
I will say, the music, banger.
And I believe the English voice actor and the Japanese voice actor for at least the singing parts are the same.
(47:21):
So that's interesting.
That is all I have.
That's a lot to go through.
And considering we said it wasn't going to hit an hour, we're at 50 minutes.
I did look down at the time and go, oh, thank you for joining us in discussing 25 different anime from 2023.
We'd love if you could follow us on Twitter.
I'm calling it Twitter.
I don't care about this crap.
(47:43):
And threads, listen to future episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Join our community Discord server to continue today's discussion.
And we'll see you next time on the SwitchClicks Podcast.
So far in 2023, I've watched 23 anime.
(00:04):
And Tyler has decided to watch two, surprisingly.
This episode will be telling you about all 25 of them.
Time stamps are available for your viewing pleasure.
Welcome to the Switch Clicks Podcast, Episode 149.
My name is Dakota, and today I'm joined by Tyler.
Hello!
(00:26):
So we did this early this year for 2022.
But I figured I'm kind of craving talk about anime again, so we're kind of cutting it a little short for 2023.
There's not nearly as much to get through, because last year I had 42 anime to get through, and that was an hour long episode.
Probably won't break an hour this time.
(00:48):
There's no way we break an hour.
Unless I- who knows, my two might go for- maybe it's 30 minutes of me talking about the two things I watched.
Yeah, I know.
On my list, I have mostly seasonal anime from this year, and considering we're in the middle of the summer season,
(01:09):
some of these will be- I've only watched a few episodes, but everything I've watched is still good.
So, how do I want to get this started?
Maybe we'll go as early as possible.
Probably a good way to do it.
Actually, I am curious. When you're watching seasonal anime, are you just essentially bouncing from series to series,
or do you want to finish one, then finish another one, then go on that way?
(01:33):
I am bouncing between different series.
That would make sense.
So every week I get at least- I think each season I usually watch between 3 to 5 anime at a time,
and luckily they're usually spread out in the week.
Oh, yeah.
Concerning my current lifestyle, I just wait until Monday and I can watch like four different anime in a row.
(01:55):
Just get caught up.
Fair enough, yeah.
So it's pretty efficient.
At times, I do decide to watch the dub of a show, which we'll hear in the future,
so I do have to wait like a few weeks just to kind of get up to speed.
Might as well first thing, in the wintertime, kind of from 2022, but they had Vinland Saga Season 2.
(02:21):
This one you may have seen, it's about Vikings from England.
I definitely recognize it. I recognize the name.
I don't know how much I actually- I recognize the visuals a little bit, but probably mostly from Season 1, I have to imagine.
So Season 1 was animated by Wit, and they were going to do Season 2, but then MAPPA ended up taking over the animation production,
(02:48):
but all the animators went to MAPPA and then it kept its same art style, so that was really nice.
Oh, yeah.
People will always say that this is like a slow season, but no.
It's so much different than the first season, but it's equally as good, and on my list, I have it listed as a masterpiece.
(03:14):
Oh, wow.
It gives you such a different perspective on war, because in the first season, the main character, he's chopping up people as a kid.
He's murdering countless people.
And then the second season, I don't think he kills a single person, and it's all about reflecting on his past life, essentially.
(03:38):
Maybe war is bad.
Yeah.
Now that I put my head to it, now I'm thinking about it.
Hmm.
I do like things like that.
Yeah, the author does a really, really good job of not making it super black and white.
It's all gray. No one character is a good person.
(04:00):
Oh, I love that.
That's maybe up there as favorite trope in a TV show.
The problem is, there's a lot of those tropes, and they can be written super well or complete garbage.
It's a volatile choice.
What comes to my mind is something, if animated comes to my mind, is BoJack Horseman, which everyone's very morally gray or just genuinely a horrible person.
(04:30):
Or The Boys, which is also the same thing, either morally gray or a horrible person.
I just enjoy watching it.
Yeah. It also kind of puts a bit of dread into a person.
It's like, dang, this is too real.
Sometimes you need that perspective.
(04:51):
Fair enough.
Something that is black and white, mostly complete garbage, is Token of the Avengers.
I watched the whole first season. I thought it was pretty good.
The twists are really good, but everything in between is not great.
And then the more I think about it, it's complete garbage.
(05:12):
So once they announce the second season, I'm like, okay, I'll give it a shot.
I gave it three episodes. It's crap.
Okay.
And unfortunately, it's one of the most popular series.
I don't know if that's a hot take or not. Let me look at the consensus online.
7.69, that's pretty decent.
Out of 10?
(05:33):
Yeah, that's 10.
Relatively high.
Yeah, I can't stand the main character, and then everything happens because of the characters around him and not him.
And it's a time travel show. So that doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, I can see how that can... Especially, is the time travel done well or is it kind of clunky?
(05:57):
It's all right. It's basically...
If he handshakes with the girl that he likes, his brother, then he goes back in time.
His consciousness goes back in time.
And at a certain point, he'll get pulled back into present day and you'll see what happens, what his consequences went to.
(06:18):
But they had like two times that he did that and they were pretty good twists.
And then the end of the first season was really good.
But then he just goes back into it and it's not that fun.
Oh, that's a shame.
Yeah.
And then I think the manga just finished or something, but I've heard nobody talk about it.
(06:41):
Yeah, I've also... It's probably something I recognize visually, but most of the time on the internet, mostly Twitter, or I guess no.
I'm just out of my own pride. I'm going to keep calling it Twitter.
If an anime gets popular enough that it reaches me, then it's doing something right, I think.
(07:07):
Yeah.
Or it's really mainstream. One of the two.
But yeah, I don't think I've seen any of this before.
Probably not. It's not great animation, so you probably wouldn't even get it in your feed as like an inspiration tweet.
Probably the next thing is Attack on Titan. I'm going to do the same thing I did last time.
(07:31):
I can't say anything about it without giving spoilers, but still very good.
The finale is coming, I believe, this fall, the last episode.
That's what they say. Wait, didn't the last episode come out like last year as well?
Well, it's a bit complicated. They had the final season and then the final season part two.
Both were like a full 10, 12 episodes.
(07:54):
Then now they have Attack on Titan, the final season, the final chapters.
Earlier in their year, they had one 45-minute hour-long episode, and then they're going to have a final 45-minute hour-long episode.
Okay.
So if you break it down, it's Attack on Titan, the final season, the final chapter, part one, and then part two.
(08:19):
Then after that comes out, of course, we'll have part one. We'll have the epilogue.
To be fair, there is another manga in the same universe. I don't know if it's the same author, but it was pretty successful.
If they want to milk Attack on Titan more, they'll just make that.
(08:45):
Yeah. I mean, who knows? After part two comes out, they might decide they want to make Attack on Titan, the final season, the final chapter, the movie.
Yeah, exactly.
There might be some more.
I'm surprised they're not releasing this final thing in theaters, but I think the only reason they're not doing that is because of localization and costs to put in theaters.
(09:13):
Ah, fair enough.
But it would make so much money.
I'd have to imagine. It's definitely up there as like...
I think it is the most popular anime. It broke numbers when the second part of the final season came out.
I'd have to imagine it would definitely beat out the...
(09:35):
What's it called?
The Boy and the Hare and the... I imagine it will be a very good movie when it comes out, but yeah, it's definitely a more widespread audience.
I guess, speaking of movies, I have seen a handful of anime movies this year, mostly just on my own, just being curious of what there is outside of the world, but I did see Suzume in theaters from Makoto Shinkai.
(10:12):
Still amazing animation, still incredible.
It's the same guy that I showed you guys, the Garden of Words.
Yes.
That's the same producer.
And writer.
Maybe director?
Fair enough.
(10:33):
He's a lot of things.
Similar creative teams.
Yeah, exactly. And similar story. He has so far three movies where it follows two slightly teenage characters, usually in high school, and one of them has a power.
All three of them have the same story.
(10:55):
Fair enough. I mean, there's a lot you can do with that.
Yeah, it was kind of cool seeing Suzume right before I went to Japan, and I then did some digging, and I went to the locations that they had the animations in, so it was pretty sick.
Oh yes, I remember you planning that out. Yeah, that's very cool.
(11:20):
And I guess speaking of that too, I rewatched Your Name, and it still holds up, still one of the greatest soundtracks in any movie.
It fits super well for some reason, and I wanted to watch it on a big screen, because I never got to.
Oh, yeah. Fair enough.
(11:42):
I also kind of... I didn't rewatch anything. However, I know a little bit of an addendum as we're talking about stuff we've already watched.
Last time we were here, I just finished watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 6, Stone Ocean, and I said I enjoyed it a lot, which is still the point.
In fact, I think I've enjoyed it more. But I think I said that the openings of Part 6, especially, if I can remember the name, Heaven's Falling Down, I said it was kind of meh, especially considering it was the end of what they were doing with this main continuity of JoJo.
(12:25):
And I had to say I was so unbelievably wrong. I've taken time. I've made a severe and continuous lapse in judgment.
And no, it's very good. It's probably up there as top three JoJo intros, so I just needed to clear my name on the internet.
(12:49):
I guess, well, speaking of JoJo, I might as well get both of my things out of here. I watched the 1994, I believe, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders OVA.
And I have to say, it's adapting the exact same story as normal JoJo Part 3. So there's not a ton you can do with it, but it's such a weird series because it kind of cuts around and does its own thing with a lot of the stuff because they have, it's like seven episodes.
(13:28):
But we get to the end of it, me and my siblings, and it doesn't get to the end of the part. It gets up right up until they get to Egypt.
And then I think it swapped over studios, and I can't find the ending. I watched all the way up to there expecting to get to the end of the series.
(13:51):
But after the seven episodes, it was just handed off to a different studio, and I've been searching, but I can't find the last, I think it's like an additional seven episodes.
That's a little bit disappointing, but it's very cool. I love the look of 80s and 90s anime, and it's pretty much exactly what I was expecting.
(14:13):
I don't love part three, but this is nice because instead of being like, oh, I want to say like 40 episodes like the David Productions anime is, it's like 12.
So that's nice. But that's it. That's all I have to say about all my JoJo corner, I guess.
(14:34):
Does the animation hold up to today or?
Oh, yeah, no, it's still wonderful. I definitely say that the 20, I think it was 2013, the David Production one, like the modern day, it looks better.
It adapts the manga pan, like David Production pretty much uses the panels as storyboards.
(14:56):
So you get like a lot of, they kind of faithfully adapt a lot of like the janky artwork from the time in a way that's really cool,
where the 80s one is a little less, is more scared to do that.
So like where a goofy panel is replaced with like, kind of fixes up the posing, but it takes away a little bit of the charm.
But it still looks very, very good. It has like the kind of muted color palette you see a lot from that era of anime.
(15:26):
And it's like a fun time capsule.
Well, we're on to pretty much spring 2023. This is a pretty big heavy hitter.
There were great shows this season, but I also dropped a decent amount of them.
I think I started the season with, let's see, one, two, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight shows, and I dropped three of them.
(15:57):
The three that I dropped, let's, you know what, let's be positive first.
First, Demon Slayer season three.
It was alright. It has the same animation quality as the first few seasons.
And the story was not as good. The hype parts were not as good.
(16:22):
But also, I don't think anything's going to surpass the entertainment arc hype. That was mind blowing.
Yeah, fair enough. I know I remember you gushing last time.
So it might have I was very I was worried for not like for whatever reason.
(16:44):
I was like, oh, did it suck when you when you said it was OK?
But yeah, no. Imagine based on how much you were like exploding at the seams last time that this being alright is still like better than most of the things you watched or at least are about to talk about.
Yeah, like it probably has the best. I can't say that.
(17:05):
I was about to say best animation, but I think Heavenly Delusion has that beat.
So this OK, this show, I did not see it coming at all.
I decided to watch it because it has an interesting premise.
From from the start has an interesting premise.
(17:28):
Essentially, we got your following two characters in a post apocalyptic Japan and Japan is.
Japan has like these monsters running around that they can defeat these two characters. One has this like laser weapon gun.
The other can basically destroy the monster's heart if he touches it.
(17:51):
And, you know, that's kind of a trope of anime. These characters have a special ability to defeat the thing that the world fears.
That's normal.
But also at the same time, the story going on about some children in an orphanage that is like a fake orphanage.
And they're surrounded by a dome with a fake sky and a fake everything, essentially.
(18:13):
And now there's the mystery of what's going on. Who are these monsters? Who are the children? Why are the children hidden?
Stuff like that.
And I think the anime does a really, really nice job of weaving in a mystery.
But unfortunately, it's only given one season.
So and really like concluding those mysteries or at least like putting an end to some of them, they don't really do well.
(18:40):
But I think that's fair because I've heard the manga is very good.
And for some reason, they gave this anime like all the budget in the world and it looks like a movie level.
I have to say when like I've been clicking on the on like your anime list, I've been just looking at it.
And when I saw the poster for this and then you start talking about what the show is actually about, my jaw hit the floor.
(19:07):
The poster looks like a romantic comedy.
Yeah, but that's crazy.
If you click on my animal list, go to the listing and you click on the poster, you can see the alternate posters and it kind of explains it a bit better.
Oh, yeah. No, that that looks like a post apocalyptic show.
(19:28):
Yeah, it's super cool. They've not announced a second season.
Disney also bought the rights to stream the show in Japan.
So it's hard to say if it'll even get a second season if it won't get a second season next year or so.
I might just read the manga because it was that good.
Another thing in spring 2023 is Skip and Loafer, a amazing romcom.
(19:57):
And it's like not a cringy romcom.
I hate cringy romcoms to a point.
They can be cringe if they're wholesome, but this one is like it feels normal.
Like we're watching normal people in their everyday lives.
Essentially, the main character, she is a girl from the Japanese countryside and she decides she wants to be, I think, somebody in government.
(20:22):
So she goes to a Tokyo school and she gets to learn how kind of Tokyo works.
And Tokyo is basically a different beast compared to the countryside. And luckily, I got to see that firsthand.
So seeing it through a different person's perspective that they lived in Japan is super interesting because they had all the same experiences.
(20:46):
They're like, vending machines are everywhere. The train system is amazing.
Let's go to karaoke. Exact same experiences.
And it was so crazy. Did you watch this before, after, or I guess during your Japan trip?
This would have been during my Japan trip.
So I believe maybe the first four or five episodes would have released before I left.
(21:11):
And then I binge the rest when I got back.
Okay. So that's probably that's like perfect timing for like peak enjoyment of the show.
Yeah, it was perfect.
Yeah, fair enough. Both of the characters, both of the main leads, the guy and the girl are amazing.
They're not like it's never like a romantic thing between them.
It's not purely platonic, but it is basically platonic.
(21:36):
Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. And all the side characters are very good.
There's no one character that I hate or is like annoying.
Oh, that's actually kind of a rarity for something like this.
Yeah. Again, it feels like real people, which is crazy.
Yeah. Unfortunately, no second season confirmed. Might just read the manga as well.
(21:57):
What else do I have? Oh, we're at the oh, we're not.
Okay. Good thing again. Oh, she no co.
This show, when it first released, its first episode is one hour long, which is, wait, no, it was 90 minutes long.
Oh, no ads or anything. It was 90 minutes straight. It was incredible.
(22:21):
Unfortunately, the plot is the whole twist of the plot is kind of hard to describe without giving away the fun of the first episode.
But it's essentially about the idol industry and also other entertainment industries like reality TV shows, YouTube,
and the effects of the people that are in those positions versus either each other or the Internet.
(22:51):
And they do cover some interesting topics, and I think they do it very well.
And considering the author of this show's manga made Love is War, which is just a comedy romcom, is crazy.
He went to totally separate angles of two different genres, and he did them both very well.
(23:13):
Man's got range. Yeah, insane.
And then even recently, he said, Oh, I'm going to I know the ending of this manga.
And he's starting to work on his next one, which from the photo is just like a female character with a think of robotic arm and some like mystical being behind him.
(23:34):
If I can remember correctly, I'm not too sure. But it looks interesting. I probably won't read it, but it looks interesting.
I have to admit, like, manga is definitely harder to get into. Oh, yeah. So you have to really like something to actively read it.
All right. On to the bad stuff. I won't say bad. I just maybe not as interesting. Considering there was a show.
(23:55):
Complaining time. Okay. So first one that I have on my list as on hold, but no, that is I'm dropping it.
Is a spin off of Kono Suba. Kono Suba on its own is just a isekai joke anime.
And they do the comedy is very, very good. It basically jokes on the tropes of isekai and most other anime.
(24:23):
The main character, he knows full well what he's doing and why he's in that world.
It's very good. This is a spin off show of one of the characters and it was OK.
I watched the first episode. I couldn't really get into it. It was going a little fast.
(24:44):
And also, this is like not my favorite character ever. So it probably just wasn't for me, which is fine.
Luckily, there's a third season of Kono Suba around the corner. So this is probably one of the only ones like this.
It's been a while since I like actually recognized an anime. This is one of the other ones I actually recognize a character.
(25:06):
Next one is Insomniacs After School. So this is another romcom, but I also couldn't get into it.
It had to me, it had the same vibes as last year, Call of the Night, which was I don't know if you remember,
the super neon-y nighttime desktop background anime.
(25:28):
I think I might remember what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought this show was going to be.
I got three episodes in. It was moving a little too slow for my taste and I kind of knew where we were going to go.
So I just decided to drop it. Yeah, I don't think it was doing anything special other than, oh, it's in the nighttime and not the daytime.
Yeah. Yeah. It's I've watched a lot of middling things, but especially like TV shows.
(25:55):
It is. It's so much more painful to get through a mid TV show than it is a mid movie or a mid.
I said a third thing as if I had an idea of what I was going to say and I don't have one. So I get stopping there.
Speaking of mid, meet Marshall or I don't know, Magic and Muscles.
(26:22):
This show is mid and I don't use that lightly.
It's it's basically it's another kind of trope anime where, OK, you got Harry Potter and Hogwarts and the main character doesn't have magic.
So what does he do? He gets completely jacked and he games the system and goes to Hogwarts and he's just jacked.
(26:47):
He doesn't have any powers at all. Fair enough.
And it's a comedy anime. It's a little bit too like slapstick for me.
The first episode was rough. I just don't think it's my type of comedy.
So that's why I tried it. There was also a lot of hype for this show before it came out.
(27:08):
But I don't know. I haven't heard anybody say anything after the show came out.
I guess it maybe is just mid.
All right. We're on to summer 2023 where oh, no, we're not.
I am currently in the middle of watching Hell's Paradise, which is technically a spring 2023 show.
It's basically about a bunch of criminals are paired up with, I guess, executioners, you could say.
(27:38):
And they are sent to an island and they need to find basically the founder of youth.
And it's a battle royale. That's at this point. It's all right.
So far, I'm only halfway through its map. So the animation is amazing.
I'm just not very interested in the characters at all, but maybe it'll get better. I'm still working through it.
(28:00):
OK, now we're on summer 2023. Let's start with the bad thing.
And it's something that I think it would interest you purely for the animation and neither in a good way or a bad way.
All right. The girl I like forgot her glasses. OK, I need you to watch the first opening scene of this anime.
(28:23):
I will link it to you because I need you to watch it.
Fair enough. So the only reason I started this anime, because I was interested in the plot.
It was somewhat interesting. And then I realized they were from middle school.
So I immediately stopped because I'm uncomfortable.
That sounds terrifying. Yeah.
(28:47):
And the main dude, the main kid, he's obnoxious.
He cannot talk to a single human being without getting anime embarrassed. And it ticks me off.
I can't watch that. I need humans.
OK, the thumbnail for the video is not is scaring me, I have to say.
(29:10):
But yeah, you could probably watch the first, I don't know, probably first 30 seconds, maybe first minute.
Well, we're almost 30 seconds in and it's just walking thus far.
Pretty. Oh, wait, this is this show. I've seen this on. I've seen the clips.
Oh, no. This is the ugly one.
It's or this is this is the one where the storyboard artist or like the one of the animators must have like killed the storyboard artist's dog.
(29:44):
It's it was so normal.
And then they got the shots of his feet going into the camera lens.
Is this the one where he like walks up the stairs and the camera like spins around in circles?
Yeah, I think you skip to like a minute 50.
You'll get after the opening and it gets already an overhead shot as soon as you skip in.
(30:11):
Wow. Yeah, this is so mean.
Like, to be fair, it's impressive.
They're doing a good job.
There's no direction, though.
Yeah. Also, the backgrounds look very weird.
But they have characters moving and at different speeds.
(30:33):
Yeah. And he's touching the environments.
Oh, it's so rough. It's on it's on the scene.
It's so it's so hard.
I'm sorry for anybody listening to this, but you just need to go watch it.
It's so insane. Yeah, that that is awful.
His foot is in the camera, bro.
I actually paused it as soon as you said that.
(30:56):
But yeah, his foot was right there.
That is a nasty thing to animate.
And I feel so bad for anyone who had to endure that.
Is this how the whole show looks? Does the whole show look like this?
I don't know. Seven episodes are out. I'm going to go to the sixth episode.
OK, it looks kind of normal skipping halfway into the episode.
(31:20):
All their budget went to that first two minute scene.
And that does not look that does not look great at all.
Yeah, I have seen that technically because it went a little viral on Twitter.com.
Yeah, that is an that is just a not good storyboarding.
That's a awful thing to animate.
(31:44):
And it's like it kind of looks like if this was filmed in live action,
the entire thing would be shot on like a fisheye lens.
Yeah, which looks weird.
It's like the 80s music videos.
The guys go, oh, yeah, yeah.
So rough.
(32:05):
But yeah, that's I didn't know about anything going into it.
I watched the first episode. It blew my mind how weird it looked.
Yeah, I didn't know something could look that weird.
It's not it is not great.
And then, yeah, I get into it and it's not good.
The main character is annoying. The girl is annoying.
(32:26):
How do you forget your glasses if you wear them on a daily basis?
I don't understand. And that's what the plot revolves around.
Is it a romantic show?
It is. Between two middle schoolers.
Between middle school. Oh, oh, oh.
Mamma Mia, you know, that's that.
That's my response to that. That's that's rough.
(32:47):
Like, to be fair, there are shows that do, I guess,
junior high school or like first year high school romantic, like pretty good.
But it's just that the characters in this show are so obnoxiously bad.
It's I can't get through it. I mean, even like Moonrise Kingdom,
(33:08):
the Wes Anderson movie, like it a large majority of that
that movie is a romantic plot between two children.
Granted, it made me uncomfortable a little bit while I was watching it,
but it's nothing like it's it's all.
It's played in a way like it's it's very not not careful, but like it.
(33:36):
It knows how to do it without it becoming weird or awkward or bad.
So like it is possible to make something like that, but it is always a slippery slope.
Yeah, it's it's rough.
It is it is rough. Let's see if I can find a segue.
(34:00):
Yeah, on to good stuff now this season.
We're in the summertime, so I have not finished any of these shows because they are still running.
First one, speaking of a good romance, is Horimiya.
Horimiya, The Missing Pieces is a second season, technically, to Horimiya, the first season.
(34:21):
And it's just adapting pieces that they did not adapt in the first season from the manga.
So it has no linear plot to it for the second season.
It's just more Horimiya if you like the first one.
And I think Horimiya is peak adult romance, somewhat adult.
(34:43):
They're in high school, but it's like normal romance.
And it's so good. OK, fair enough. Yeah.
And then this is just more of the same, which I love. It's incredible.
This is a rare instance as well that I watch it in a dub because I just prefer the voice actors in dub.
They're actually very good.
Speaking of another thing that I'm waiting for the dub for is Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2.
(35:05):
Two seasons? I feel like this show's been out for like at least season one.
Season one has been out for I think three or five years maybe. Let me check.
Oh, it's been out for a while.
Adaptation prequel. Here we go.
(35:26):
It is from 2020, late 2020. So it has been out for three years.
OK. And there was 24 episodes in that season.
So you got it for half a year and it made quite the splash.
It's also probably one of the most popular anime in Japan and worldwide.
It's very rare that it gets that kind of press.
And then last year they had the Jujutsu Kaisen Zero movie.
(35:50):
So you might have seen stuff about that too.
And then Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 is here.
And they split the season kind of weirdly where the first five episodes are telling the story about Gojo,
the overpowered Sensei character.
And I am going to wait now just another week for all five of the first episodes being dubbed.
(36:19):
Then I'll binge all five. And then I think there's like two or three weeks until they release.
They start rolling again with the normal story.
And I'll watch that in sub because I do want to be caught up to that.
Yeah. And again, I'm not the biggest fan of Jujutsu Kaisen.
I thought the first season was all right.
The vibes of the show are incredible, though.
(36:43):
I'm not a big Shonen guy that had big fight scenes and overpowered main character and stuff like that.
I'm not big on that, but I think they do it pretty well.
And honestly, if I rewatch it now, I think I'll love it because I think Jujutsu Kaisen was one of the first shows I watched.
Let's do... Yeah, next one is Zom 100 Bucket List of the Dead.
(37:12):
I think I purely want to show you this one because A, animation, great.
It is from the same animation team as Komi Can't Communicate and the Pokemon series.
They are ex-employees of the company that animated those.
(37:33):
So they literally went out and said, hey, we're going to make our own show in our own studio and did that.
The fun thing about the story behind the show is in the show, the main character works for what you call a black company.
A black company in Japan is a company that basically works their employees to the bone and will not let them go home at all or just stuff like that.
(38:03):
It's a Japanese thing, so that's fine. Yep.
Like a salary man.
Yes, a salary man, a Japanese salary man.
And eventually the main character is like, okay, I hate doing this.
And then he wakes up and it's a zombie apocalypse. So he's like, cool, I don't have to go to work.
Okay.
And then basically he's living his life. He wants to finish his bucket list.
(38:27):
And of course he has a hundred things on his bucket list.
So far, animation is great.
And in the first episode, they show the building that the main character works in.
And that building is modeled almost exactly off of the actual studio's previous company.
(38:50):
Oh, wow.
So they just call them out.
That's kind of super.
That's kind of based. I'm going to be honest.
It is kind of based.
I also have to say, I realize looking at some of these posters, I'm like incredibly weak to the color combination of a bright yellow, pink and blue together.
(39:15):
Yeah.
Every time those three colors have popped up in this is happening, like in three posters, I'm like, oh, I actually might watch that.
This one, this one's catching my eye.
But I think I'm just weak to this color combination.
Well, luckily, if you do want to watch it, most of these zombies are based off that color.
So instead of them being like all grotesque and like bloody, they're like there's like rainbow splatters in them instead of blood splatters.
(39:40):
That's a fun creative decision.
As well as most of the action scenes are very well directed and any, how do I say this, any action movement is in these neon colors, which is super interesting as well.
Anytime there should be a blood splatter, there's usually multicolors.
If somebody's dying from a zombie, they'll be regular blood.
(40:04):
But if it's just like blood on the floor, then it'll be multicolored, which is really cool.
OK. Yeah, that's a very fun gimmick.
So far, the story is going exactly where I where I kind of want it to, which is interesting, but I have heard it gets a little bit slow past where they're going to adapt the manga.
(40:25):
So we'll see how it goes.
I don't know if you remember this from last time I talked about it, but Mushoku Tensei, jobless reincarnation.
Ooh, it is ringing a bell.
It's the isekai about the pervy nerd in a kid's body.
(40:47):
Oh, remember that?
Nope, not really.
OK, well, we did talk about it.
They finally have a second season.
It has peak world building.
It's like the best world building I've ever seen.
And then they just not ruin it, but it can really do without the pervy stuff.
(41:08):
And it is very heavy handed.
That's rough.
So far, it looks to be really good.
I think I'm on the fourth episode.
It's another one of the series that I'm watching in dub, mainly because I watched the original in dub and I because of the world building, I do want to follow what people are saying.
(41:31):
And I found that it's hard for me to follow a sub show.
Yeah, fair enough. That makes sense.
Let's see what we got next.
We'll do speedrun this time.
Next is Link Click.
This is actually a Chinese anime, Chinese show, technically not an anime, I guess, but whatever.
(41:54):
It's the second season to Link Click.
Basically about a duo, one guy can look into the past using photos and the other guy can travel through photos.
So what they do is they own an agent, a detective agency.
And if the victim has a photo from either at the time of the crime or any time previous to it, they can go into that and they have rules on what they do in the past because it does affect the future.
(42:30):
And they have to balance between kind of morale things if they want to save somebody in the moment or not.
But their main objective is just to get information.
I believe in like the first episode, there is a girl, she's part of the black company, and she needs to get some documents from her boss's computer to, I don't know, win a lawsuit in the future or something.
(42:56):
And then eventually it evolves to like, oh, the guy has to live in a kid's body for like a year or two to get some information about, I think it's like an earthquake or something.
How does a photo get you into it?
Don't ask.
Okay, okay.
Lovely.
I think they explain it a little bit better because recently they did put a dub out so you don't have to watch it in Chinese sub.
(43:22):
And I will admit it's a little bit hard to follow, but I assume in the dub it's a lot better.
But again, they have to they have to debate between saving the town from an earthquake or letting the kid that he's in just die because he's supposed to die.
Interesting.
So that's a lot better time travel than anything I've watched.
(43:47):
Yeah.
Um, I think I guess I got movies too.
I watched Goodbye Dongleaze, which I believe is a WIT Studio production.
It was a movie really only released at a, I think at a German showing of just like regular movies, licenses.
(44:13):
Oh, it's a madhouse production. I see.
It looked interesting.
It's about some kids that live outside of Tokyo and just about childhood.
It was pretty good.
It was emotional. It didn't really get me as much because I'm not too much of an outdoorsy person, but I'm sure anybody older than like 30 will be emotion to it.
(44:35):
Next is a Studio Ghibli film. Ghibli.
The Wind Rises basically about a dude.
And this is a true story about who made a plane.
I don't have the name of the plane here.
Oh, I do Mitsubishi A6M Zero Fighter aircraft in World War II.
I think I have heard about this.
(44:57):
Again, it's Studio Ghibli. You can't go wrong. It was amazing.
Yeah.
I got two more.
Rapid Fire.
This is an older one from 2015 called Anthem of the Heart.
If I can remember correctly, this is just a day in the life of some...
(45:25):
Ah, now I remember.
Okay, so the main character, she, when she was young, she was a chatterbox.
She kept talking and talking and talking until something happened and she said something she probably shouldn't have.
And I think something happened in her life that it was scarring to her.
So she ended up just not talking until late in high school when she was eventually cast in a play that she had to sing in.
(45:53):
And by the end of it, she sings.
It's very basic, heartwarming.
I think it was great.
There was a romantic angle in it that I didn't really like, but I think it's fine.
And the last one, what is this?
I...
(46:16):
This is basically the same plot.
It's called Sing a Bit of Harmony.
Essentially, there's a character, she is a robot.
And she is AI from the government, and she is put into this school as a test.
(46:37):
And the daughter of the scientist who makes this robot goes to that school and has to kind of oversee the AI in its everyday whatevers.
I don't remember the end to this.
I remember it being emotional, but not like, not like emotion emotional.
(47:00):
I know why it's emotional.
So it's like not, it didn't click with me.
I think it was alright.
I will say, the music, banger.
And I believe the English voice actor and the Japanese voice actor for at least the singing parts are the same.
(47:21):
So that's interesting.
That is all I have.
That's a lot to go through.
And considering we said it wasn't going to hit an hour, we're at 50 minutes.
I did look down at the time and go, oh, thank you for joining us in discussing 25 different anime from 2023.
We'd love if you could follow us on Twitter.
I'm calling it Twitter.
I don't care about this crap.
(47:43):
And threads, listen to future episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Join our community Discord server to continue today's discussion.
And we'll see you next time on the SwitchClicks Podcast.
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