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Myth's Anime Thread

Mythopoet

Auror
Let's resurrect this thread because- holy crap, guys!- there are some seriously awesome fantasy anime this season.

*If you don't watch anime seasonally and don't know what I mean, in Japan anime airs on TV stations in 4 seasons which pretty much correspond to the seasons of the year. These seasons are also called "cours" by anime know-it-alls like me. Most anime shows these days air for 1 cour (12-13 episodes) or 2 cours (24-25 episodes). Very rarely shows air for a full year (50-52 episodes) or indefinitely (pretty much only One Piece at this point, Boruto might fall in this category). But since most shows only air for one season, there are lots of new shows to watch every season. And there are several places where new anime can be streamed online ("simulcasted") at the same time it is airing over in Japan.*

Fall 2017 introduced some of the best anime of the year:

The Ancient Magus' Bride: based on a popular manga series (which can also be purchased in English) about a young girl who has experienced neglect and abuse her whole life and after almost committing suicide, she allows herself to be sold on the magical black market. There she is purchased by a mage with a skull head who takes her on as his apprentice and future bride. When she goes to live with him she is immersed into a world of magic and wonder and learns that she herself has intense natural magic which has been the root of her misfortune but also allows her to experience a unique relationship with the faerie realm. The art and animation is stunning, the music is wonderful and the story and characters are full of unexpected depths. Highly recommend.

Land of the Lustrous: also based on a manga about a far, far future earth where all the humans are gone and all that remains are the humanoid Gems or Lustrous (depending on the translation). They live on a small island which is the only land left on the earth where everyday they have to defend themselves from the Moon People (or Lunarians) who attack on clear days, trying to capture the Gems and take them back to the moon. The story follows Phosphophyllite, the youngest and one of the least strong of the Gems (with a hardness of only 3.5) who is not strong enough to fight off the lunarians and not competent enough for any other job. Phos is unsatisfied with the life the gems lead and seeks change and to know the truth about their world. The anime is an all CGI production which is amazingly beautiful. The gems and their world are unique and compelling. Highly recommend.

Children of the Whale: yep, another manga series set in a unique fantasy world where a human society lives on a giant earth island that travels a sea of moving sand called the Mud Whale. It is a peaceful, contained place with no knowledge of the world outside the sea of sand. The people are divided into the Marked and the Unmarked. The Marked are those who have the ability to utilize thymia, a type of magic that also drastically shortens their lives. One day they come into contact with another floating island where there is a lone survivor of a massacre remaining. Bringing her back to the Mud Whale is the first step in the discovery of the truth of their world, and the war that the outside world has begun to wage on them. Again, beautiful art and animation. A thrilling story with lots of secrets to discover and many endearing characters. Highly recommend.

Blood, Blockade, Battlefront and Beyond: the second season of the adaptation of the manga Blood, Blockade Battlefront which I've mentioned before. The story is by the author of the well known manga/anime Trigun but is even more awesome if you can imagine it. This one takes place in "Hellsalem's Lot" which is the city that was built in place of New York City, after it disappeared in an incident that connected our world with the "Beyond" or "alterworld". Now the city is the home of dauntless humans as well as countless species of aliens and monsters from the alterworld living side by side. The survival rate of riding the subway is about 13% on a given day, but somehow people survive and thrive. Humanity is protected by the most dangerous threats by the organization known as Libra, full of humans with supernatural abilities, which strives to maintain balance between our world and the Beyond. Leonardo Watch, a young man who was given the "All-seeing Eyes of the Gods" by a mysterious creature from the Beyond, works for Libra while also trying to find out how and why he was given this ability at the expense of his sister's sight. There's nothing I can say to express the awesomeness of this anime. It is stylish and action packed and fleshes out its insane world and characters bit by bit while maintaining its thrills and mystery. Highly recommend.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
Okay, so I'm intrigued and in need of distraction. What is a good source for viewing these series. I believe I may have an account on Crunchyroll I could bring to life again, but would they be available there, or should I check out some other service?
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Okay, so I'm intrigued and in need of distraction. What is a good source for viewing these series. I believe I may have an account on Crunchyroll I could bring to life again, but would they be available there, or should I check out some other service?

Blood Blocade Battlefront (both seasons) and The Ancient Magus' Bride are on CR. Land of the Lustrous is on Amazon's anime channel (so you have to first have prime and then pay a sub for it). Children of the Whales is actually... not on anywhere legal atm. Netflix has it but they won't air it until sometime after it's finished simulcasting. Currently I'm watching it on a site called gogoanime. Technically you could watch all of these there for free. :sneaky:

The only anime I like are:
Digimon Adventure--Tri, Tamers, and Frontier, Clannad, Air, Kanon, Little Busters, and Chi’s Sweet Home.

I'm very picky.

Well, I can't help thinking that you're missing out on a lot. There's such a huge variety of anime and such a lot of really good ones.
 

Gryphos

Auror
I have been seeing a lot of Ancient Magus' Bride around lately, and I've been intrigued by it. Perhaps I will check it out soon.
 

Gryphos

Auror
I'm like 5 episodes into Ancient Magus' Bride, and it's pretty cool. I love the worldbuilding, the use of celtic myths etc. The character designs are all great (except Titania, whose design is pretty cringe-worthy for obvious reasons).

One thing is irking me, though...
The show keeps skirting around the fact that Chise is, you know, a fucking slave to Elias. A person he bought. And she's like 16, and this creepy fucking dude wants to marry her? Like, she show pays lip-service to actually addressing this major factor in their relationship, but never actually follows through with saying how truly f*cked up it is. And like, at no point so far has Chise mentioned whether or not she even wants to marry this creep. Does she have no choice in the matter? As it stands, Chise and Elias' relationship is incredibly creepy and disturbing, but the show keeps presenting it as sweet. F*ckin weird.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I'm like 5 episodes into Ancient Magus' Bride, and it's pretty cool. I love the worldbuilding, the use of celtic myths etc. The character designs are all great (except Titania, whose design is pretty cringe-worthy for obvious reasons).

One thing is irking me, though...
The show keeps skirting around the fact that Chise is, you know, a fucking slave to Elias. A person he bought. And she's like 16, and this creepy fucking dude wants to marry her? Like, she show pays lip-service to actually addressing this major factor in their relationship, but never actually follows through with saying how truly f*cked up it is. And like, at no point so far has Chise mentioned whether or not she even wants to marry this creep. Does she have no choice in the matter? As it stands, Chise and Elias' relationship is incredibly creepy and disturbing, but the show keeps presenting it as sweet. F*ckin weird.

Hmmm... well, I don't think the show is presenting it as sweet. The show deals with their relationship slowly and subtly. But the first episode tells you that Chise is messed up. She was going to kill herself, but instead ended up giving her consent to let herself be sold as a slave. That's important to remember. She's in this situation because she's old enough to give her consent and she did. That's obviously not normal, but she wasn't forced into it. We're not given her backstory yet, but little flashes of memory and the circumstances of her sale give us all we need to know that she's a very broken human being. Which means right off the bat that this is not a normal relationship and we shouldn't treat it as such.

Elias is not even human. His face is a skull which betrays no hint of emotion. We don't know what he's thinking or even what type of being he is or what he truly wants from Chise. He says she's to be his apprentice and bride, but at no point so far has he forced her into anything. He's treated her very well, giving her lots of freedom and choice. And she herself has made the choice to stay with him. But at no point is the relationship treated as "normal". Everyone Chise meets questions why she is with him and if this is what she wants. Angelica questions it. Renfred warns her about his motives. As do other characters you meet after episode 5. But Chise herself continually chooses to be with Elias.

My personal feeling is that this is a story of two people trying to become more human together. Chise, because she is broken to the point she gave up her human right to freedom, and Elias because he is an in-between being. He seems to try to act in human ways, but there are constant warnings that he is not human and not faerie either. He is a being that no one trusts. But then along comes Chise, who values her life so little that she gives him her trust freely. This is definitely a messed up relationship to begin with. And I think the point of the story is their journey together toward becoming more human in a healthy sense.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
One thing is irking me, though...
undefined
I've thought about this as well, and it feels like neither the story nor Chise are particularly interested in exploring that aspect of the relationship between Chise and her owner. It could be that it'll happen later, but for now it feels like the story wants to focus on other things. I try and not think too much about it and enjoy the other parts instead.
It does seem a pretty glaring oversight not to address it further though, so hopefully we'll see something more about it later on.

There were three prequel episodes (the ones with the library) that explained a lot of Chise's backstory. It's a bit messed up and she's had a pretty tough time ever since she was little. Being sold as a slave kind of seems like a natural continuation of that.
The way I see it the story is mainly about Chise trying to find her way into a life with a purpose, which is something she hasn't had before.
Elias feels like a pretty thin character, and I don't really feel a connection to him.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I think in Chise's view, she was ready to die, signed herself off into slavery, and is just grateful to have a home. I don't think she cares if she's a slave or not, and she's said a couple of times something to the effect of: Even if he's lying, she's with Elias "until he's done with her." The important thing here, she's committed, and she still doesn't trust him. It's a strange mindset, but I get it. She wants to enjoy the fantasy of what he's saying, and not question it because she doesn't want to see the lie, even though at least part of her believes that it is a lie.

Ohh, and I'm pretty sure it is a lie. Elias pretty much admits that he's on an arc of, "I have no emotion, and I'm saying what she wants to hear, and I'm slowly starting to feel the emotion behind the words that I'm saying." I think we're going to find that the idea that he wants to marry her is code for something like, "absorb your magic power into me," but that he won't go through with it because he's falling for her.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Latest episode of The Ancient Magus' Bride was super good. Got some glimpses of Elias' backstory, but which manage to make him even more mysterious than before. Also a bunch of amazing scenery, which is admittedly one of my favorite things about the series. That and the wonderful worldbuilding.
 
Something fantasy/romance, not that there's many of those.

Here's a list of the anime [and anime movies] I've seen already:
Inuyasha
Digimon Adventure
Digimon Tamers
Digimon Frontier
Clannad
Kanon
AIR
Angel Beats
Little Busters
Charlotte
AnoHana
Tales of the Abyss
a few episodes of Saiunkoku Monogatari and Hiiro no Kakera
Chi's Sweet Home
Spirited Away
Howl's Moving Castle
Castle in the Sky
Whisper of the Heart
Wolf Children
Forest of the Fireflies
5 Centimetres Per Second
Children Who Chase Lost Voices
Your Name
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Kamusami Kiss, and Noragami, are great romances with similar themes. Noragami is clearly for boys, and Kamusami Kiss for girls, but my wife and I loved both of them.
 
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