PokeNirvash

Actually, Boruto's dubbed at Studiopolis, and it's hardly a simuldub. The two he's talking about are Mob S2 and Shield Hero.

I had a feeling you'd come around to Reigen eventually. Oh good, that makes me even more excited. Actually, it's more that the human Welfin was based on was (adopted) brothers with the NGL's leader. Not sure if he's the King's reincarnation yet. In other news, I finally caught up with shows, so here are my one-line thoughts on them. MHA - I've got nothing as good as what's below, so just take the time to appreciate my new icon. SHIPPUDEN - I liked how the sudden lack of light saturation on the boat after Naruto was pushed out of the way of the pulley - plus the psychedelic art shift when he did - foreshadowed the whole filler being a dream. BORUTO - And the filler itself foreshadowed Boruto's own clones having a little strike of their own. SUPER - I don't know who I feel sorry for more, Yamcha for being snubbed out of consideration once again or Puar for being perved on by Roshi. (Though his/her bunny-girl getup look was kinda cute...) MOB - Reigen is the greatest, and Ritsu's kinda fun as an asshole. MEGALOBOX - Lo-fi hip-hop 4 lyfe. JOJO - I was expecting part of Jotaro's body to be in the process of melting, but not the pus explosions. CLOVER - Yami is the perfect audience surrogate for this show; he genuinely wants his subordinates to improve, but can't help but show annoyance and occasionally murderous intent whenever they retreat to their one-note running gags. HUNTER - Even with all the body horror in JoJo and after watching four Shivering Truth episodes in a row (minus a small break at the start of the third where I got my first internship offer), I still think those centipedes crawling around in Ikalgo's head are the most disturbing [as]-related thing I've seen in the past month. Well, excluding that Stain/Toga fanart I saw in the MHA discussion thread.

Well isn't that obnoxious.

Did someone say CGI from 2001?

I don't mind cults, just so long as I don't get involved with them. Thus, general indifference outside of interest in the Toole Show article. (I'm surprised no one in the comments for that brought up the Aum Shinrikyo incident forcing the removal of plot elements from Evangelion's second half.)

Evangelion was wrong, considering we should've all turned to Tang three to four years ago.

If the characters had chronic Hiraiface, then it's Infinite Ryvius. If not, then it beats the shit outta me.

Well they should change it to something that's actually comprehensible and accessible.

If we don't finally get TOM 6, I'm gonna riot.

...I can't read that.

His story, his rules.

What we need is a protagonist who is explicitly anti-rape. Someone like Naokuu Tanoshiba.

Nah, the site's death had nothing to do with that. Just a mix of laziness, school, and burnout. Ah well, at least I got over 30% of my selected items finished. (We can discuss the shows and ratings further through PM, if you like.)

Nah, I just wanted to differentiate it from the rest of the stuff. Yeah, I fell behind around November/December too. At least I managed to keep Tonegawa consistent.

Part 3: September through December All in all, 952 individual episodes, not counting various rewatches.

Part 2: May through August

Time for the now-annual listing of all the anime I've seen this year and my associated TV content ratings for them, hidden under a spoiler bar to avoid taking up too much space. Red designates shows watched for the MAL 2018 Anime Watching Challenged (which I failed, BTW). Part 1: January through April

Remember that time P.A. Works' studio got wrecked in Kuromukuro and then they posted an IRL bill of damages?

Magical Girl Ore will always live in my screensaver.

>not watching non-seasonal stuff to fill the gaps Caught up on more Toonami stuff today. Dragonball Super 91, Mob Psycho 100 7, and Megalobox 2.

Because sometimes, you gotta put in the minimum amount of effort. 9:00 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #1 - Boruto Uzumaki! - TV-PG 9:30 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #2 - The Hokage's Son! - TV-PG 10:00 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #3 - Metal Lee Goes Wild! - TV-PGL 10:30 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #4 - A Ninjutsu Battle of the Sexes! - TV-PG 11:00 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #5 - The Mysterious Transfer Student! - TV-PG 11:30 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #6 - The Final Lesson! - TV-PGL 12:00 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #7 - Love and Potato Chips! - TV-PGL 12:30 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #8 - The Dream's Revelation - TV-PG 1:00 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #9 - Proof of Oneself - TV-PG 1:30 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #10 - The Ghost Incident: The Investigation Begins! - TV-PG 2:00 - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations #11 - The Shadow of the Mastermind - TV-PG 2:30 - Pop Team Epic #6 - The 30th Cyber War - TV-14LV 3:00 - Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans #27 - In the Midst of Jealousy - TV-14 3:30 - Samurai Jack #14 - XIV - TV-Y7FV Tune in next week when we start two hours later with one hour less of material.

Good, terrible, an explanation's an explanation, let's leave it at that.

And here's my top 5, straight from ANN. 5. Doreiku the Animation - Now, I could have put any worthier anime here. Attack on Titan S3, FLCL Alternative, B: The Beginning... but I chose this because no one else was gonna vote for it (well, most weren't), so someone had to. Also because I honestly find it underrated. I'll admit that its production values were far from stellar and the premise of partaking in a game that allows you to enslave others was enough to make plenty steer clear before it came, and the fact that one of the SCM users was the ghost of another user's mother possessing her son's body in the form of a split personality was dumb enough to void any suspension of disbelief, but dammit, I liked it! I liked that everyone had their own reasons for using the SCM, both honest and otherwise. I liked that both before and after the SCM game, the characters were all connected in various ways. I liked all the crazy shit the show pulled once it hit the ground running with its plot. I liked how the scene at the start of episode 1 demonstrating an example of SCM usage wound up foreshadowing the surprise final boss. And I liked how it ended with little to no loose plot threads - less than FLCL Progressive, even! - and no stupid catches to piss off the handful of dedicated viewers left. It may not have been "good", but it was fun, which to me is as good as being "good". I'm confident that the ten or twenty other shows I didn't watch this season were better than this, but even so, Dorei-ku is one of the best seasonal anime I did choose to watch, and for that it has all the respect it previously lost when it failed to go "all BDSM all the time" like my inner deviant hoped it would. 9/10. 4. March Comes in Like a Lion 2nd Season - I'll be brief, since this was technically a 2017 show, but this season really improved on the first. Between many of the characters having grown on you so much that their annoying traits from season 1 were next to nothing and Rei's development in more ways than one (especially the social quadrant), SHAFT really knocked it out of the park with a show that was a pleasant watch, even with the not-so-feel-good subject matter. 9.5/10, And yes, the missing half-point is because I'm still sour about that time Smith-san and Yanagihara got all over Rei for his inadvertently making the annoying tics of his one-time shogi opponent of the week even more annoying. 3. Happy Sugar Life - A controversial yet intriguing premise. Characters that straddle the line between likeable and unlikable at any given moment. An atmosphere that exudes greater horror than works with a higher body count, or at least bear reliance on jump scares. Visual direction one wouldn't expect out of the freshman effort of an unknown studio. There's so much to love about this, no matter how much it tells you you shouldn't like it. For all of its possible flaws, which are already of little concern to me, Happy Sugar Life was a damn good series. It's telling that I quit watching Anime FMK before its inevitable (and announced!) end because I couldn't bear the knives it ultimately had to take thanks to Ben Creighton's poor tolerance for the delightfully disturbing. (Kirran's play-by-play rundown of episode 1 during the preview special was much preferable to Ben recapping the first two in his usual way in an increasingly sickeningly sarcastic tone.) It exists because it has to be seen, so no matter how much you want to quit watching, just watch it. 9.5/10. 2. Pop Team Epic - One of my most anticipated anime of the year, I actually held back from watching it the first week after finding out Popuko and Pipimi were gonna be voiced by guys. But once I got over that, sat down, and watched it, I never looked back. Hit or miss, Pop Team Epic is an unparalleled ride, from the expected absurdity of both the standard skits and the story portions to the craziness of the felt puppet musical shorts and muthafucking Bob Epic Team. And that's not even getting into its nonexistent sister series Hoshiiro Girldrop, the one anime I want made outside of my original 12-episode idea I "premiered" on my home message board this season. (Think Senran Kagura meets Serpico meets Without a Trace.) Safe to say, if [adult swim] premiered it to test the non-action waters six months after its premiere, you know it's good. 10/10, still thinking about Hellshake Yano. 1. Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues - The barrier to entry for this series (read: both seasons of Kaiji) is considerably high, but with or without, this series proves that even without the people Callum May said were responsible for its greatness, Madhouse still has it. I mean, what other spin-off anime would bring back most of the same crew, Korean outsourcers and all, with the original director occasionally on board in order to bring that vision to life? A FKMT spin-off is still FKMT, and Tonegawa adds a comic bent that while I'm sure would ruin Kaiji for a number of you, be it by either making Hyoudou more hilarious than monstrous or painting Kaiji himself as the unwitting villain, adds to the show's universe in a seamless manner and expands upon it in ways you wouldn't consider following the Ultimate Survivor himself. There's a lotta fun to be had about this show, between the misadventures of Tonegawa and his team of blacksuits and Ootsuki's one-day trips to savor the best Japanese food culture has to offer, sometimes at the expense of others, and Jay Kabira's energetic narration, laden with Engrish and English alike, only enhances each experience, enough to make you both miss Fumihiko Tachiki and consider Kabira a fitting replacement. I looked forward to this show every week, and I'm proud to say that it's my undeniable anime of the year (of what I watched). 11/10, based and Teiaipilled.

FUN FACT: This show was directed by the same guy that's in charge of Black Clover.

It should be clear by now that Tonegawa is my #1. I made a post over on ANN detailing my personal top 5. (I'm the one with the dancing Popuko icon.) But, for posterity's sake, as well as that of those who don't want to subject themselves to the ANN forum community, I'll post it here, but a little further down.