The (Absolute) State of Crunchyroll Original Anime

Crunchyroll Originals have a reputation for being awful. Which makes sense, some of them REALLY ARE. But are they all that bad? With the label basically dead, it's time we take a look look at the state of Crunchyroll Originals.
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Chapters:
0:00 More like SNORIGINALS. BOOM. GOTEM.
2:17 Visit Scenic Hidden GFuel Village
3:02 What's a Co-Production?
4:36 Gibiate and Ex-Arm, The Worst Anime Ever Made
6:22 So I'm a Spider, So What?
8:08 In/Spectre
9:40 Dr. Ramune Mysterious Disease Specialist
11:10 Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You
12:39 Tower of God
14:41 The God of Highschool
15:59 Noblesse
17:23 Adult Swim Collabs
18:37 Blade Runner: Black Lotus
20:30 Fena: Pirate Princess
21:54 Home-grown Originals
23:01 High Guardian Spice
27:58 FreakAngels
30:09 Onyx Equinox
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In the depths of his Mother's Basement, Geoff Thew creates videos analyzing the storytelling techniques of anime and video games. He has been named the number one Worst KZbin Anime Reviewer by The Top Tens.

[@mothersbasement]

Quick Correction: the human side content was in the original So I'm a Spider LNs, but was left out of the manga. Sorry, I should have double-checked that.

[@SpaceRodan]

Might want to pin this.

[@pigz250]

Wow the manga kinda sounds god teir they shouldve done the anime based on that

[@S-titik]

That's why i stick to Manga

[@RenaDeles]

As somebody who started out watching the anime, I really like the human side and how it kept switching back and forth. Especially how it played around with making it a mystery with the chronology. I'll say during seasons where I got horrible behind on stuff, my friend and I actually made the effort to stay current with spider And it got me interested enough as somebody who's been horrible about actually reading lately to buy the LN, When you think I would do that more often with the amount of LN adaptions I watch 🤷 I do think the anime wasn't perfect and it really could have used having it's cours split and a slightly slower pace but yeah It honestly was on the upper end of animes. I watched that year for me.

[@spideymenz5738]

Good on you for pinning this, but I’m still leaving a salty comment complaining about missinformation

[@MajoraZ]

As somebody who actually works with history and archeology channels on Mesoamerica videos, I'd like to point out that Onys Equinox is actually the most fantastically well researched and authentic I've ever seen that subject matter handled outside of indie productions. Not only does it feature cultures like the Zapotec and Totonac, not just the Aztec and Maya, and features their distinct cultural dress, architecture, and recognizes political and cultural differences in the setting, but there's a clear and deep understanding of what those cultural motifs mean: The designs of the underworld gates take from real life iconography of caves, pools, and mirrors in Mesoamerican art, because those were all viewed as underworld entrances throughout Mesoamerican societies. The first gate, fittingly, even appears inside a cenote (which are caves filled with waters, likewise associated with underworld entrances) and Izel is resceued from his attempted sucid by Yoatl, an agent of Tezcatlipoca, a god of, among other things, mirrors. This is absolute galaxy brain level symbolism, and it extends to so many other examples past that. Even Izel's character arc ties into very real themes from Aztec poetry, moral adages, and philosophy (and yes, we do have records of those things!): A key part of the Aztec worldview is that life and death were not just at odds, but also complementary: Creation myths had the gods sacrificing themselves or giving their blood or effort to create the world and humanity, which was cyclically created and destroyed (which is of course a plot point in the show). Sacrifice in those societies was repaying that debt and continuing the cosmic cycle of consumption, death, destruction, and birth, life, and creation. As such, the inherent transience of life and it's beauty BECAUSE of it's inherently temporary nature is a common theme in Aztec poetry, and in their ethics and moral adages, there's a recognition that life is inherently tricky, painful, and filled with hardship, but what one must do is accept this and do their best to live a self-sacrificing life (sometimes litterally) to help others. At the end of episode 1 and at the start of episode 2, Izel is in total rejection and denial of basically every concept I just explained, not caring about the rest of humanity and leaving them to their fate after the death of a loved one, and his arc is very much about getting past that state of mind. The show is not without some criticism, the pacing can be off and the animation iffy, but if you want something that handles a rarely-seen setting, handles it well, and has some gorgeous background art, amazing music (the lyrics of a lot of the music is even in Mesoamerican languages: The OP is Yucateca Maya, and the ED is in Nahuatl/Aztec, for example!), then I highly recommend it. As far as where one could learn about all the cultural stuff it does, I did a video once with Cartoon Universe on that, but it only covers the first few episodes. I'd love to do more in depth breakdowns of the whole show or each episode at some point!

[@lintwizardly5654]

God I'm loving that we've got a few of us scattered Onyx Equinox fans in the comments. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum where I knew nothing about the mythology or culture going in. But watching the show and promo material, I got the impression of a production team who intimately knew and authentically loved what they were working with. The way all of it's introduced felt very natural, the series use of color is gorgeous, and all those little details in the character designs and background art contribute to a setting that's better realized and more visually distinct than many typical fantasy anime. I agree the show's got some rough edges and issues that hold it back, but I think it's a real tragedy that we might not get a season 2 because of the lack of attention the show got.

[@sopapopp]

It sounds pretty cool, I kinda wanna watch it now but I don't have crunchyroll haha

[@abzu96]

I’m obsessed with Mesoamerican cultures and you just convinced me to watch this series. I was a bit worried that it was going to be “what cultures are going to be appropriated this time.” It seems like the writers did a fair amount of research before work on the animation.

[@sorcarto]

I was so incredibly hyped for Onyx Equinox, I was in love with the first few episodes and I was on cloud nine from watching such an authentic, well-crafted, and heartful representation of Mesoamerican cultures... but then Crunchy refused to subtitle it and I couldn't watch past episode 4. And no matter how many people begged for English or even Spanish subs, CR never responded or acknowledged the requests. I still haven't watched past that episode, and it's a shame, but the disdain for DAHOH audiences killed my interest rather definitively.

[@Crosshill]

i'll just watch it then thank you lol

[@vsGoliath96]

Okay, I'm going to be totally honest here. The fact that Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme are all herbs and not spices is literally the very first thing I noticed about High Guardian Spice and it bugged me the entire fucking time.

[@DeletedUser410]

While that may be true, they’re still bottled and placed in a SPICE rack with actual spices. So, maybe this isn’t Crunchyroll’s fault

[@tintillor]

@@DeletedUser410 No it's the fault of the creator who has no idea what Spices are.

[@DeletedUser410]

@@tintillor Again, they’re sold in spice racks, and usually in the same section as spices, whether technically correct or not. If anything, it’s the food industry at large that’s the issue here.

[@nevergonnagiveyouup1180]

@@DeletedUser410 Except. It took one google search for reassurance from the high guardian spice team- It’s all it took for me

[@SamuraiMujuru]

@LTNetjak it's definitely a reference to that song, but it predates Simon and Garfunkle by a good few centuries

[@aliince9372]

I'm sorry, but that delivery of "Christ, wo tif I'm apocal-pregnant?" means that the anime deserves at least a 7.5 out of 10. If someone were to ask me "Is this anime well made?" I'd have to answer "It seems very enjoyable."

[@lulu111_the_cool]

I also found it interesting so yeah solid 7 I would say. Something new

[@putent9623]

I'll start saying that Everytime I enjoy something I know is probably trash. Is god eater good? "It was very enjoyable".

[@richmcgee434]

Having read rather a lot more of his comics that I probably should have over the years, it certainly does sound like something Ellis would write - for better or worse..

[@Omniseed]

@@putent9623 God Eater and Muv Luv together

[@MsDarkspyro]

Where is that?

[@RinkameWolfs]

I completely agree with your assessment on “God Of Highschool”, but if it never came out, I would have never read the webtoon, or gotten as into Webtoons as I have, so, despite the fact that it isn’t that good, I’m personally glad it came out.

[@mothersbasement]

It's super good AMV fodder

[@putent9623]

Now that I know it's never getting anything more I'ma read the manwha and maybe get back into tower of god.

[@st.patrickstar3701]

@@mothersbasement and I’m good with that.

[@ofrutsra]

I really wanted to love that show, and I think I still enjoyed it more than most, but it REALLY was way too rushed. Still thought it was a damn fun time, and that ED is a treasure.

[@RinkameWolfs]

@@ofrutsra the OP is also a banger.

[@Doppelgamer211]

As a fan of the source material. I had only one problem with Tower of God: it ended with no season 2 announcement. Come ON! It ended right when the story started getting good. I just want anime onlies to experience the story of Jue Viole Grace

[@geo9771]

Agreed

[@LordMaximusUmulius]

Season 2 is when the real story begins!

[@rastko7261]

I read the manhwa about a year later after the anime finished and I was on board quite quickly. I already caught up with the most recent chapters and I have to starve myself waiting for more.

[@Psychomaniac14]

I may have put Tower of God forever on hold, but I agree with you 1000%

[@ejstephens7918]

I was so hype after Tower of God finished and Good of High School started strong thinking we'd get multiple seasons and more webtoons adaptations coming. Then it all fell apart... I highly doubt we're getting a season 2 for ToG and it really sucks cause after reading almost 200 chapters it's so clearly deserving of a proper anime adaptation. Moreso than the 15 isekais we get ever season

[@TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

"Ex-Arm might just be the worst anime ever made" "Might" didn't belong in the sentence, it IS.

[@SuperLeonBlade]

Please man, do yourself a favor and get a life.

[@nathanstewart4131]

@@SuperLeonBlade you could probably listen to yourself and not reply to something you've shown to not have interest in.

[@hommefataltaemin]

Nathan Stewart I think they’re saying such a thing because the account of the original commenter is a bot/one of those faking to be someone else

[@KDGamma]

@@hommefataltaemin actually the original commenter is someone who comments a lot in youtube videos, and when he says "get a life" I think they mean the the oc comments way too much.

[@defaulted9485]

No, it is MIGHT. Be grateful you don't even know "Mars of Destruction"

[@petsan97]

To quote Yahtzee Croshaw: "Bland is many times worse than Bad. The only reason we experience any kind of art is to make ourselves feel something, and even contempt and disgust are feelings. Thus the very worst thing any piece of art can do is not evoke much feeling at all." When I see X-arms, I think "Whoa, what a fascinating carcrash" When I see High Guardian Spice, I think "Whoa, I should go do my laundry"

[@5Chaor]

Yes. But remember that is an actual philosophical understanding what the nature of Art and how one should feel towards it and interpretive it. Unfortunately the vast majority of criticisms were done in bad faith, to take a side on the endless culture War.

[@r3dp9]

@@5Chaor I actually appreciate the people who gave reviews and recommendations based on the culture war, as it warned me to stay away from it. I don't care how good or bad the production value and execution of a series is. I pursue fictional entertainment to escape the culture war, not have it shoved in my face. I don't mind stuff like MLP because the wide variety of writers means that any given episode can take a wide variety of perspectives on a wide variety of issues. It's when an entire series is written by and for a single perspective on a narrow set of issues that I get annoyed. I realize that life is complicated, and that others have good reasons for having different opinions, but I'd rather explore a variety of opinions to broaden my horizons. A narrow view defeats the point of opening minds, as does demonizing the straw man. One of the great strengths of anime is that it has a set of relateable but foreign cultural and racial-ethnic issues. There's still racism, but it's against asian or western foreigners instead of blacks or hispanics. There's still a political divide between freedom and unity, but it's not dems vs reps. By reframing social issues in a foreign context said issues become much more palatable, as they don't draw one into the reality of their home country. This is one of the reasons Arcane did so well - it dealt with issues that resonated with the political and cultural climate of the target audience, but reframed everything in a way that didn't call out an arbitrary half of the audience as "evil bad guys."

[@5Chaor]

@@r3dp9 @RedPine 20 Yeah and that's my problem people like yourself you lack the ability to critically think about the media that you watch. All you care about is surface-level entertainment rather than then what the story is trying to say. The culture war if a made-up War by people by people trying to justify their own bigoted opinions. Its the mindset of people with brain rot working backwards from their own conclusions. Those conclusions mostly being it has minorities or lgbtq people in it therefore it's bad. Even your praise of anime 10 problems and Anime is pedestrian. Anime has done one-to-one comparisons about Japanese Society where was not subtle about it. Anime still does Rachel caricatures of other races, well there are exceptions it's still the norm there. There was an anime a. There was an anime from last year where the girls do black face ( and no I'm not mistaking for their fashion trend it was black face).

[@NStormRider]

@@5Chaor I disagree. Ultimately, when a show tries to sell its audience on the color of its creators, their sex lives, or their genitals, its a pretty good indicator that they are not in love with the story they are telling. The same holds true of the cast. That isn't to say that any of those factors ought to be a mark of criticism by themselves, either. Arcane is a good example. It has a diverse cast of characters by any metric. But love for its characters, setting, and plot overflows from it continuously. You could describe Vi as an impoverished possible lesbian woman who punches things, but that is a tremendously reductive way of describing her that misses the whole point. Same with describing Caitlyn as an Asian coded sniper, or Ekko as a black kid from the wrong side of town. Their demographics might matter occasionally, but they are ancillary to most of the show. And, further, Arcane pulls no punches (literally) with its characters. Every single important character is both flawed - in a real sense - and strong and dynamic. They are human throughout HGS might have hit an interesting dynamic. But the culture war criticism is valid: the show had nothing to offer at its conception, so it sought to paper that over with representation, ignoring that poor representation is not necessarily superior to its absence.

[@5Chaor]

@@NStormRider Except here's the thing, it didn't. All that happened is that there was a poorly made announcement trailer for going into what was going on the production value. It went quiet for 3 years and then a month later there was a trailer for it. In which the trailer didn't mention anything about sex lives or genitalia. So no the cultural narrative doesn't work when there are other shows that do the exact same thing but they don't get any pushback.( Kipo, Hilda, dragons prince. He'll mother's basement literally gave a llist similar to High Guardian spice) The only reason why Arcane for example didn't get that level of pushback is because no one's going to be insane enough to try to talk s*** about League of Legend characters with their dedicated fanbase. On top of that they had like you know all the money/time in the universe that make a good show, while HGS was working with like a third of a budget of a Cartoon Network show and cruch. The culture War narrative is always bs as because everything that they complain about even as you give examples can work and has worked. The people pushing it make reductive arguments, bad they've criticism, and ignore the plethora of other things I come out that do the everything that they say is bad but work. This narrative only works if you're the kind a person who is just spiteful while also being completely unaware of how industry works.

[@skeletor8951]

You know, I totally by chance due to life obligations, fell off of Fena... After episode 10. I'm eternally thankful I did, and I do not plan to go back. Was an easy 8/10 for me, just a shame it suddenly stopped airing and never finished.

[@ScrltFox]

I'm glad I'm not the only one! I'm like, "Oh yeah! Fena!" and as I watched the video it turned to "Oh no... Fena..." Guess I'll let that just be a happy memory with a mystery ending.

[@Faelocke]

Yeah, they really should finish Fena at some point. Maybe they'll make a Season 2 for The Promised Neverland as well.

[@pamoon_]

Fena Brotherhood when

[@duncanlutz3698]

Let's see here... I stopped watching with vice-versa: episode 9. One scene in particular. Fena hums that tune she was going through at the beginning of the series. While she doesn't know the lyrics, not-Sasuke does and they proceed to figure out the big mystery the party had been stumbling over for the last several episodes with 0 buildup and obscene amounts of moon-logic. That one scene as they blitz through so much bullshit with a straight face just utterly ruined all the good vibes I had been enjoying up to that moment. That's when I knew this show wasn't going to get a satisfying ending and I should bail right here and now. God. Damnit. I hate when creators put all their effort into a good beginning then just stumble into a shitty ending. I get it, as you have to hook audiences... but come on, guys. It just burns me entirely on creators to the point that I'd have never bothered watching Babylon if I had known ahead of time that this was the Kado author.

[@lintwizardly5654]

I cannot recommend Onyx Equinox enough. It was criminally under-marketed probably out of fear that the same crowd who trashed High Guardian spice for not being anime enough would get to it. And as a result it didn't get even a quarter of the attention it deserved. It's got some rough edges but the creature design, worldbuilding, and aesthetics are second to none. It combines an accessible introduction to an underrepresented mythology with cool dark fantasy twists and a classic hero's journey story.

[@alexanderlicentia5265]

Couldn't agree more, it came out right in the middle of my miniature Aztec mythology phase, and I loved all of it. From the character to the character design. Holy shit did the gods look fucking sick.

[@cnlbenmc]

This is entirely their fault; High Guardian Spice should NEVER have been made!

[@Vashy434]

@@cnlbenmc oh look one of the HGS haters.

[@edahiguajardo9015]

Totally agree, I loved this show

[@PhenomsServant4]

@@cnlbenmc A little overkill dont you think? Its a lousy show and CR shouldve never have been the one to greenlit but saying it should never have been made is a little harsh.

[@Spall23]

I didn’t hate the end of Fena Pirate Princess so much as that I hated that it ended at all. The ending was bad, mind you, but I don’t think I would’ve been satisfied even with a good ending. They laid a fantastic foundation for an adventure series, but unfortunately felt the need to rush the pace and skip on the entire adventure. It would be like if Luffy meets his gang in the third episode then finds the One Piece in episode 12.

[@xaoz2362]

So you're saying it's like they adapted Marineford in episode 6?

[@shadebug]

Tonikawa has to get extra points for leaving the entire plot as subtext and just pretending to be a dorky, romantic slice of life show. It not getting a second season that explains anything at all would be grade A trolling that we can all get behind

[@rossanderson5815]

I actually like it for it's slice of life. I hope it's not explained. I just saw it as random anime bullshit to get the meet cute then go from there.

[@RGC_animation]

Good news for us it has a second season now.

[@nicolasreinaldet732]

​@@RGC_animationAnd it also don't explain anything outright and leaves all the plot for subtext.

[@o76923]

For some perspective on the budget of High Guardian Spice, it may be 1/3rd the typical Cartoon Network 11 minute show (like Gumball or Chowder) but it's closer to 1/8th what a show like Steven Universe got per episode. The next level would be comparing it to the last season of Avatar (more than 14×) or the level beyond that would be a recent Family Guy episode at around $2 million per ep and we're into the realm of 35× the budget. So they had the budget of less than one cutaway gag on Family Guy per episode. Between the production of Spice and the production of Onyx, their whole studio unionized. Make of that what you will.

[@tree363]

Holy fuck those gags are expensive

[@12thLevelSithLord]

How does Family Guy have a budget that massive and still look so bad?

[@o76923]

@@12thLevelSithLord, it's still hand animated instead of using shapes, tweening, and CGI. It's just hella expensive to do that.

[@mrminecraftcubeable]

their union has a pretty bad reputation of money wasting tho

[@Cecilia-ky3uw]

Keep in mind that id prefer watching some anime, most of which have lower budgets, yet have a story or at least has decent enough visuals.

[@mellomanic6767]

Goeff I trust you a lot when it comes to anime but when you said Onyx Equinox was animated by the same team that did High Guardian Spice, I had to look it up myself to believe you. I watched all of HGS and desperately wanted to like it and was severely disappointed but that team genuinely improved so much after the show so that's given me a bit of hope for the future of similar projects from them

[@o76923]

One was their first show. The second was their first show after unionizing so they had more time per episode, higher wages, and clearly defined responsibilities. It really goes to show how much production staff benefits from not being treated like utter garbage.

[@shazzatulanam6680]

@@o76923 but it was a different team.

[@icarue993]

@@shazzatulanam6680 Atleast the same director. In their rant about HGS, they mention how better OE is compared to HGS.

[@aetherkid]

@@o76923 Union Strong!

[@daystars6479]

hgs is still sexist

[@1111anim]

I worked on Onyx Equinox, (my wife is the creator) and the creator of High Guardian Spice is a good friend. Thanks for touching on the budget, and on the horribly annoying subtitle situation! Both are very frustrating. Some day, hopefully soon, you'll hear a lot more about the production of these series. I've worked on several different animated series and CR is by FAR the wildest experience I've ever had and probably will ever have. Tons of love and creative talent went into both HGS and OE, and considering what they were able to achieve by basically rubbing two sticks together over wet newspaper, they deserve a lot more recognition than they get. Sadly what you said about "lack of vision and confidence in the project behind the scenes" is fairly accurate, save the "vision" part, as both creators had very clear visions and hopes for their series. Just look at Raye's student film, or Sofia's comics from 2008. Unfortunately, it's a lot more lucrative for CR to just license existing anime if you know what I mean. Great video dude, I appreciate it.

[@1111anim]

Also enjoyed "He has no special skills whatsoever and almost gets murdered every episode!" That's my boy!! 🤗

[@alexbrown8900]

I can only judge HGS and even if the intentions were good it cant safe this show. On every department its simply not good. I hope your peps do well in the future tho.

[@spaghetto9836]

Idk if this'll sound mean but, even though I believe love went into HGS, I don't think lots of creative talent went into it. It has jarring flaws but OE is superior without a doubt. Glad your wife is making her vision come true while entertaining others.

[@gemain609]

I fucking loved Onyx Equinox, kudos to your wife, yourself, and the rest of the team!

[@lilypadrocks872]

I really lov ur wife work and representing mesoamerican ( one of my favorite cultures) a deep, detailed story and worldbuilding, she also Inspired me to write my own native story

[@PerfectInzanity82]

My first thought when hearing the sample of FreakAngels was literally "That sounds like bad Warren Ellis dialog"... Well turns out it is bad Warren Ellis dialog...

[@beeaggro2593]

Oh yeah that is some hardcore Warren Ellis

[@colovick]

On so I'm a spider so what, the entire season is the prologue of the series and in the novels is a masterclass of grounding the protagonist in reality for the readers while fleshing out the world. Every single cut to the human group provides context to one or both of the spider scenes surrounding it and eventually works through the later obviously unreliable narration of Shun up to a crescendo of the 2 sides meeting, only to cut away and start the story proper in what you'd call season 2. The anime did a below average job incorporating this aspect into the show, taking away some of the best things to come from the human side of the story.

[@Vikushu]

As someone who hasn't read the light novels yet, this is exactly how I interpreted the human's side of the story while watching the anime. Their side adds some context that makes watching Kumoko's story that much more interesting. Kumoko's off-the-wall antics and monologues combined with Shun's grounded self-awareness is a serious contrast that, to me at least, makes the anime more fun to watch. It's like watching puzzle pieces fall into place. That said, I absolutely believe you when you when you say that piece of the adaptation is lackluster. Those pieces in the anime makes the pacing grind to a halt and you just want to get back to spider stuff.

[@lasgegas]

The novel did good job incorporating human stories with kumoko. The best part is when it all come together at the end. The novel also cover shiro character make her so mysterious that make us guess is it kumoko or not

[@sunlitsonata6853]

The anime just does a poor job in general with pacing it out; mainly because it had WAY too many characters without really giving context to any of them effectively. Like, completely missing how Kumoko goes from wallflower to genki girl, or much context for who most of the superfluous class characters were. Like, if the show didn’t occasionally tell me that the red haired girl was actually a guy, there’s almost nothing that suggested it.

[@Lykrast]

I'm mad about the season 1 ending cause to me it felt like "the part where it finally gets going and interesting and a real plot can happen!", but then it just... ends there... I hope they get a season 2 out to deliver on that and to validate what my sister told me (she read all the LN and loved it, I only saw the anime and was kinda disappointed).

[@logikx1325]

@@Lykrast This one is definitely one where you'd be better served giving up on the anime and reading the LN. I don't usually like the op protag subgenre of isekai....but in this one case, I let that slide because it is so well written (props also to the EN translator who did a fairly bang up job though I've only read the first book in EN). The anime really did a narrative diservice to any character who wasn't Kumoko so I have a feeling that even when the 2 groups meet up, it is not going to have the payoff it got in the LN.

[@masterstylez6960]

7:12 Minor correction. The S story line of Kumo Desu Ga (Shun's story) is actually in the early light novels. It's mostly there for setup and some extra world building but it does bog down the first few novels and I think it was absent in the manga adaptation iirc.

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

It is absent in the manga I forget if there was 1 chapter or .5 that might have included it but it’s pretty much completely absent.

[@zanecrawford1034]

I actually enjoyed the hopping back and forth, but I am also the kind of person who enjoyed space politics in the star wars prequels

[@xXMegaUltraNinjaXx]

I was thinking the same thing "Wait- you have to remember the bad chapters of the LN!" well until it becomes Sophia quest vs Shun quest but that's a conversation for later.

[@BlazingInferno00]

Also I heard the quality dipped so fast because they were outsourcing some of the work to another animation studio then that studio bailed on them leaving them with like half the animators they'd planned on. Anybody know if that's true?

[@LB-vf2hm]

The other reason that's worth pointing out is because the manga is actually worse off for it imo. It takes so long to start engaging with the world outside the dungeon and gives us so little context when it does that nothing really feels grounded.

[@karamasan1552]

Despite being 4 months late, I still wanted to say I think the "midness" of High Guardian Spice only adds to it being so hated. Yes, it is overhated because of the rampant culture war, however I think the reason it festered that argument so well is because... well like you said, it's the only remarkable thing about it. Handshakers and X-Arm are both a train that has gone so far off the rails it falls down into a bottomless pit and then erupts with a flashy explosion, HGS is at most a car bumping into a wall at 5 mph

[@timothymclean]

There are only two possible High Guardian Spice takes: "Despite the backlash, it's just pretty mid. Some stuff that shows promise, some stuff that's just bland." "OMG its th worst anime evur (for reasons that have nothing to do with any culture war bullshit I swear)!!!1!"

[@heyfell4301]

To be fair, while the show is really mid, it fails in a lot of aspects that are interesting to make fun of. I can't truly hate this show, all I can think is "this actually could've been at least kinda good, how did you mess it up this bad??"

[@fannynearfyi789]

16:34 "The pacing is off" Just let me tell you that as a 10+ years Noblesse's fan, and with more than 300 webcomic episode shorten to 10, there's more off than just the pacing...

[@itschickenscratch]

Crunchyroll is just looking for their Neo Yokio, but it's never gonna happen. You can't repeat perfection.

[@davidguthriemusic]

^this. Neo Yokio is like, one of the most under-rated works of genius I've ever seen (particularly Pink Christmas).

[@jgf4224]

A timeless and almost forgotten classic

[@juanjuri6127]

Crunchyroll doesn't deserve this big Toblerone.

[@gregjayonnaise8314]

Neo Yokio > The Godfather

[@remixchild]

Looking at neo yokio… I’m sorry you’re not the worst

[@SeriesShilling]

What made God of Highschool's adaptation so tragic was not only did they speed through all the set up materials for each fight, they also outright changed some of the fight outcomes and cut whole story beats

[@Rhaynebow]

I agree about HGS. It feels like a show that should have come out in the 2010s when the pastel fantasy kids shows were all the rage. It’s quite telling that the majority of those similar shows you listed were finished by the time HGS came out, so the target audience was already sucked dry. It was a cute, harmless show that was definitely overhated and shot itself in the foot with that horrid first trailer. But by far it’s biggest issue was coming out a decade too late.

[@nenmaster5218]

F Me, that Moon-Princess Anime made me cringe even when i tried to hard-ignore the Age-Gap-

[@zacyquack]

Idk about harmless. The main writer literally said “kill all men”, and the only good men in the show are trans men and extremely feminine ones. So that doesn’t set a good precedent for the children this show is supposed to be for.

[@zacyquack]

@Stephanie but they are trans instead. Which means the only men they like are trans men

[@zacyquack]

@Stephanie and how long were they on screen? 2 seconds? Yeah

[@reviewman]

@Stephanie honey, I’ve seen the show rosemary and sage Dad’s are barely above background characters and that’s because i can count each of there lines of dialogue on one hand. And are never seen again for the rest of the season.

[@catloaff]

For real, High Guardian Spice was extremely mid but the backlash made it seems like the absolute worst shitshow ever. Questionable art direction and clunky writing sure, but it's on par with those low budget early 00s European girls cartoons. Really doubt people would be making 2 hours HGS analysis video if the initial marketing wasn't horrible

[@zacyquack]

I mean the main writer is literally a misandrist who says “kill all men”, and also realised they don’t get enough money anymore, so started an onlyfans style thing on their Patreon. That somehow people still pay money to. Jesus f$cking Christ why are people so dumb.

[@zacyquack]

@Shoujo_Stephanie I mean it just cements the “cishet white men bad” belief that is already rampant in radical left communities, and probably got more people to move over to being radical. Also they don’t get enough money cuz probably nobody wants to hire them, because they suck.

[@zacyquack]

@Shoujo_Stephanie no, it’s man hating because literally every person who is evil, and states evil, is a straight cis white male. Even the evil females get a redemption. Plus again, the writing team had a big bias against men.

[@zacyquack]

@Shoujo_Stephanie Because i have a life, and I already answered all those questions in my previous response. If you are too dumb to read them, that's not my fault.

[@zacyquack]

@Shoujo_Stephanie the cishet white male characters that aren’t evil are Slime Boy, and people who show up for 2 seconds and are never seen again. Also I said about the villains. The female villains get redemption, the male villains do not. Therefore the men stay permanently villains.

[@TheRhodanist]

As an anime online consumer and with absolutely no expectations regarding possible source material, i think Tower of God/The God of High School/So I'm A Spider and Fena were all enjoyable shows imo.

[@MrGksarathy]

The God of High School was a godawful adaptation, and you are much better off reading the source material. It may take up to a week to binge, but it's worth every minute and every penny.

[@ade1174]

Fena was good until it pulled an Evangelion. That ending felt so out of place.

[@Christopher._M]

Tower of god was amazing in my opinion.

[@ImperiaGin]

@@Christopher._M love it

[@narayasuiryoku1397]

@@MrGksarathy a week ? What a weakling

[@daasnahk5058]

The biggest problem with Tower of God was that it was very similar to One Piece and the first season was only the prologue, now we have alot of set up with who knows when or if we'll ever get pay off for.

[@johnholland5419]

I dipped Tower of God during the video game arc, they were still introducing new rules and concepts and it had been hundreds of chapters. We'd gained and lost entirely parties of people from the main cast and there were still new mechanics being introduced, which makes it harder to gauge anything going on

[@LordMaximusUmulius]

@@johnholland5419 Video game arc? do you mean the hidden floor arc? that's possibly the best arc in the whole of ToG. It is held in high regard by the majority of the community. You missed a lot

[@LordMaximusUmulius]

ToG is unfortunately one of those stories where the real payoff is only after you have gone through a good chunk of the story (season 1 which is about 70 chapters), and even then season 2 starts a bit slow, but when it finally pays off, it pays off hard.

[@johnholland5419]

@@LordMaximusUmulius I was pretty early into the "we're now in a videogame" arc and the fact we were learning new rules and terms and mechanics of the world felt like getting 12 hours into a video game and the tutorial still going

[@deusex17kkfkdklsl19]

@@johnholland5419 more like for forshadowing when you reread you see that this arc is a mini tower and has the same system like outside of the tower . One first you can be bored but when reread this arc you see many crazy thing in this arc

[@Hugelag]

I normally avoid the Isekai genre because most of it's kinda samey, but So I'm a Spider, So What is one of the best spins of the genre I've ever seen. Instead of starting out as an overpowered warrior or badass with superpowers, She's reborn as a spider, surrounded by monsters that could kill her in nanoseconds and is literally seconds away from dying the moment she's born. It's amazing! Seeing a character grow in literally the hardest conditions possible is incredibly satisfying. It's like watching a Joktik eventually take Hydreigon. Plus the humor is top notch! Self-aware comedy done great. I can't remember the last time I had to look for episodes of a show on KZbin because I couldn't wait. It's the anime that got me back into anime. My only complaint is that it wasn't one of the anime Crunchyroll put on HBO Max, but that's more a complaint towards the higher-ups.

[@wolves600]

I enjoy lots of the generic troupes in isekai but so Im a spider so what is still my favourite one

[@TheSuperSushiMaster]

If you liked the anime, you should REALLY read the Light novel. It's much better paced, and the human parts actually make sense and contrast the spider parts in a more meaningful way.

[@censored1080]

@@TheSuperSushiMaster The Manga is also a really good read that has gotten the seal of approval by the original author.

[@nomdeplume9590]

@@censored1080 lmaooooooooooooo (edit: the manga literally cuts half the story and is the subject of regular ridicule by the community)

[@PSiOO2]

@@nomdeplume9590 manga cuts mostly the boring part, and while it is important to the plot and has its good moments, reading LN gave me immunity to overly convoluted storytelling. Do you remember that moment in LN when spidey found out the truth about the world and readers didn't get an explanation until way later? So many people dropped the story out of frustration and I didn't only because I got some of it spoiled to me. The author can torture people by telling stories that way.

[@brandonhughes4076]

Tonikawa will get really good in the future, it just drags it's feet a little when it comes to developing it's plot. Which normally would suck but it's cutesy slice of life hijinks actually has more than enough charm for it to be good enough to watch without the overarching story

[@TheEmolano]

It's already really good, a 9/10 for me, and I usually dislike romance anime

[@samshapira8295]

In defense of So I'm a Spider So What, I have to say that the Light Novel does a much better job with the human side. Yes, Kumoko's story is always more interesting, but the humans get a lot more depth. The human side is meant to contrast Kumoko's slow loss of her humanity and rise in power. Also, Shun's lack of personality is somewhat intentional. It's not on the same as Anos Voldigoad's criticism of power fantasy, but it's similar. Kumoko notes that Shun is one of the worst picks for a Hero due to how bland his personality is. And yes, the LN does have both Shun and Kumoko's story intersecting with each other in the beginning as a lot of other people have said. However, it does drop their storyline where the anime ended to put sole focus on the Demon storyline, which is so much better.

[@AscendtionArc]

Between the anime or manga, would you have a recommendation? I've been meaning to start one of them for a while.

[@samshapira8295]

@@AscendtionArc Light novel. manga fucks up a lot of the timeline. I know the timeline swapping can be irritating at times, but it's a lot better than what the Manga does. Anime is fine to watch as well, but I don't reccomend the manga unless you have read the light novels.

[@Busterman64]

As someone who only saw the anime...I don't mind the human side of the story. Maybe I'm more lenient when it comes to stuff like that, but I liked it for setting up certain things and I did like certain moments on the human side (stuff with Julius, the issue with the Teacher trying to save everyone, seeing certain things like the labyrinth from a different perspective, etc). Don't get me wrong...it has it's issues. Fights aren't as entertaining(or animated well) and some story bits are a bit too slow paced(even if the bits are supposed to build up the story more). But other than that I'm fine with the human side. I agree the human side isn't as good as Kumoko's stuff and understand why people don't like it as much, but I feel some people give it a little too much flack than it deserves(seen a few people absolutely loathe the human stuff...treating it like it's the worst thing ever or something...which has annoyed me more than anything issues in the show itself).

[@AcemanXD]

@@Busterman64 The light novel shows off the human side much better though; the guy who turned into a girl has so much more mental struggles that end up with her accepting her new life and ready to embrace her love of her old best friend.

[@Ritsu362]

Eh, almost all of the humans from Shuns side are really tropey and boring to read through. Their situations and backgrounds are interesting but the characters themselves are boring, predictable, and annoying. The number of interesting human characters, I can count them all in one hand. Whereas the monster side characters are much more interesting, personality wise and background wise. The reincarnations from the monsters side also crazier backstories and more interesting personality, making the novels centered around that group much more enjoyable to read than Shuns side

[@jbirzer]

I think I liked In/Spectre better than a lot of people. I get the annoyance at the focus on one plot, but I actually thought the plot idea was pretty clever, and the chemistry of the leads helped a lot.

[@lrose5522]

Personally I enjoyed it a lot too, but in the way where it's not really something I'd recommend to someone else. I think it's a particular sort of taste that it appeals to.

[@dokuganryu1565]

Agreed. It was fine but it really feels like there could've been a bit more to get into

[@7mpowerd]

Her and I loved it. It was fun and the nanase arc to us was slow but deep so well liked. We will be buying the disks

[@BiggBossChanel]

I think the characters are super good and the dynamics are great but the arc they had to adapt just didnt work out really well, I heard that the source material gets better arcs so maybe the upcoming sequel will deliver a better experience (if it actually comes out because the teaser is like a year old at this point lol)

[@erynflynn8467]

As a fan of the Monogatari series, In/Spectre was right up my alley. Although I feel that the Nanase arc went on waaaaay too long. Maybe if they hadn't started episodic I wouldn't have constantly been waiting for the next arc/story to begin. It was overall enjoyable top to bottom, but either better setting of expectations or shortening the arc would've helped the show a lot

[@helemikro8485]

Tower of God was so good it had me reading every chapter of the webtoon (~450-500 chapters at the time) in literally less than 2 weeks. Goated webtoon

[@akumasstorytime3910]

A few other webtoons were definitely more deserving of an anime adaptation. The lone necromancer, the gamer, And definitely Murim RPG Simulation are some examples.

[@SeppelSquirrel]

I'm still eagerly waiting for the I'm The Grim Reaper adaptation!

[@HydragonofDeath]

@@SeppelSquirrel Wait its getting one?

[@SeppelSquirrel]

@@HydragonofDeath God I wish

[@EclipseDoesArt]

Fun fact about Tonikawa: I’ve seen the manga at bookstores, and the title is translated as “Fly Me to the Moon” instead of “Over the Moon for You”! I personally like that title a little better, if only because I’m a big sucker for the namesake song •w• Just something cool I wanted to share ^w^

[@thegeekclub8810]

When you said the English anime didn’t have any subtitles because without the need to subtitle non-English dialogue they just didn’t bother, I nearly screamed out loud. This is such a consistent problem with just… everything that it gets so exhausting as a hearing-impaired person.

[@novelle.27]

this is an issue with all things on crunchyroll that have english audio unfortunately. no closed captioning :/

[@RetroNerdyGamer]

It's not even just crunchyroll. most anime don't have closed captions because they can't be fucking bothered to have 2 sub tracks- one for the japanese voices and one for the dub. it's really sad too because for the price we pay for anime sets (ESPECIALLY aniplex though im not sure if they have closed captions) there should really be effort for 2 sub tracks...

[@novelle.27]

@@RetroNerdyGamer Funimation has closed captioning for its dubs, which I enjoy (though I don’t watch dubs so much these days)

[@RetroNerdyGamer]

@@novelle.27 thats only on their site not in the boxsets

[@timothymclean]

@@RetroNerdyGamer Which makes it ridiculous that they're not in the DVDs. They have the data, they have it in a caption-friendly format, they just didn't add it to the disk.

[@AlexTenThousand]

I think the one that has left me with the biggest bitter aftertaste in my mouth is The God of High School, which had absolutely stunning animation, but a story that was compressed into just a few episodes, and which I was only able to enjoy when I read the web-manwha.

[@Chiefkid20]

When's that manwha resuming, by the way?

[@Celanez]

@@Chiefkid20 literally today actually

[@chiroh145]

@@Chiefkid20 It's been back for about 2 days

[@thomasedwards6641]

I hated they they cut some great character moments but they kept the wedding arc one of my least favourite arcs.

[@seapeajones]

The story was tuhraash though.

[@GrayVBoat]

Oh thank fuck, Onyx Equinox is good. I remember hearing about it a while ago and thinking, "hey, that looks neat!" Seeing it at the beginning of this video had me worried sick that it was gonna be listed as a trashfire. The world doesn't have enough fiction based on non Western-European cultures, and it would've sucked if one of those few pieces of unique content had come out terrible.

[@howardbaxter2514]

I haven’t watched it either, and I’m glad he rated it fairly well. Based on the art style and plot, it definitely feels appropriate for the culture it is covering.

[@mochafrappawhat]

I feel bad for HGS. Like the writing and characterization is wack, but it was set to fail from the start if they really did have such a low budget. Sucks too bc it had potential to be a fun lil fantasy show, but alas.

[@Shiirow]

it failed because their intention was never to make a good show, just to perpetuate "the message" like most western media these days. and if you disagree with them, you are simply sexist/racist/homophobic/misogynistic.

[@ZeldamateurLP]

Star Wars had a low budget for its time and turned out not just good, but revolutionized the world of cinema in general and special effects in particular. Of course, not every movie or show can be Star Wars, but what i'm trying to say is that a show's budget is not at all indicative of a product's final quality if the creators are actually passionate about what they're making. And a budget (or lack thereof) does most certainly not excuse writing or animation as piss-poor as High Guardian Spices. A finished show should be finished, especially considering how long it has been in production for. We are not judging potential, we are judging a goddamn product that costs real money to watch. So with all due respect, i think your pity is wasted on that show.

[@groenboys]

​@@ZeldamateurLP You are comparing a movie production from decades ago to an animated tv production from now. That is just a bad comparison to start with. The rest of your comment has nuggets of truth, but just because you are correct in dismissing one theory (that being that budget is equal to the quality of the product), that doesn't mean the complete opposite stance is correct by default. Like yes, talent, focus and passion are the most important factors to what makes art good, with budget being the vehicle to make that possible, but that doesn't mean that budget has no effect on quality at all. Budget dictates how much time you have on making the product, especially in the creative freedom and the refinement of ideas and scripts. That is because budget goes to the people that work on the project. The lesser the budget, the less they can work on a project. You can strecht that budget as thin as possible but there is still a limit (and if you expect people to work without pay, then, simply, fuck you). The lesser time people have on a project, the less time they are able to catch bad ideas or rewrite bad writing (and yes people get paid for rewrites). This is why a lot of low budget projects are doomed from the start because their first draft is flawed from the start and they can't go back to rethink the project because the noose of contractual obligations is above their heads. Yes, it is completely fair to criticize that first idea and the writing. Nothing is above criticism, especially High Guardian Spice, but pretending that budget had no effect on the quality of High Guardian Spice is pretty much saying that all the shortcomings of the show are completely and only the fault of the production team behind the show. With it coming out Crunchyroll delibaretely giving High Guardian Spice a low budget, I don't know how you can think that. So yes, I pity this show and especially the people behind it.

[@ZeldamateurLP]

@@groenboys "You are comparing a movie production from decades ago to an animated tv production from now. That is just a bad comparison to start with." Okay? Why? Filmmakers and animators in the 70s didn't exactly have it easier than nowadays. If anything, they had it much harder what with the limited technology at the time. Animations especially required a ton of effort since every single frame of animation had to be hand-drawn on paper, printed out on transparent cels, painted and then filmed with a camera. So the material expenses alone would have been significantly higher, nevermind the storyboard, background art or voice acting. Digital animation has simplified a lot of these processes quite significantly. But before you berate me again: Yes, even with the benefits of modern equipment, storyboarding is hard, drawing background art is hard, animation is hard. And certain things are still going to take all week, no matter how half you ass them. However, to come back to the Star Wars comparison, if you do some research, you will find that the production of Star Wars has a history not dissimilar to HGS, at least if you were to take what Raye Rodriguez claimed in his Twitter rant at face value. NO ONE at Fox had any faith in the project, Lucas and Kurtz had to BEG them to increase their budget from approx. 8 Million to abt. 10 Million. The script saw several rewrites, even while in production. Equipment constantly failed on them while filming in difficult locations. Creative differences and arguments arose within the team. Time constraints were getting tighter and tighter, compromises had to be made to get the project done by the already delayed release date. Yet when it finally came out, it shocked the world of movies and created a cultural phenomenon, simply because Lucas and his team were able to make due with what they had. That comparison is only inappropriate if 1) you`ve been ignoring the vast number of other successful low budget projects besides Star Wars (the Bakshi films spring to mind) and 2) you assume that the success of these projects hinged on the people involved being paid slave wages. The most notable difference for me is the lack of a creative vision for High Guardian Spice. At no point it feels like people sat down, crafted an imaginative world, wrote a story, thought of charcters to put in it and then thought about how these characters would develop along the way. I hate to bring this up because i desperately try to eschew my perspective on any media being muddled by modern day identity politics bullcrap, but in the case of HGS, there's really no way around it given that identity politcs were, at least prima facia, the only selling point of this show. Creatively, it seemed to have started from the first announcement. "So, you wanna make a show?" "Yes! We have a """diverse""" team of writers and """diverse""" production staff and our show is going to feature """diverse""" characters!" "...okay? But what's it about? What is the setting? What kind of artstyle do you want to use?" "Pfff, i dunno, just make a generic fantasy setting with animation like Steven Universe, kids love that shit!" I would honestly not be surprised if that was the exact reason Crunchyroll had no faith in the show in the first place. So no, i don't think the show would have been better if it had a higher budget because it would just have been a substantial amount of money being poured into fueling a fundamentally bad concept. Of course, that is not to say that minority representation in media can`t be successful. Even with limited resources for storyboarding, animating and voice acting, all of which you can cut a lot of corners on (and make no mistake, the corners in HGS are extremely cut), good writing and characters could have made up for a lot of this series' shortcomings. But then you know i wouldn't be writing this right now and several other people wouldn't have made video essays about it if that was the case. It feels like no one involved with the show cared about it beyond pushing their agendas, and that is very much reflected in the writing. I genuinely believe that there would not be as much malcontent towards this series as there is if they used their resources on some competent writers. Because contrary to what you might believe, any writer worth their salt knows how to write character interactions that don't feel like an elementary school stage play without having to rely on additional payments for rewrite after rewrite. However, i fully admit, i (and presumably many others) wouldn't be nearly as hung up about this series if it weren't for that abysmal first...i hesitate to call it a "trailer". Usually, when i watch something as bad as this, i think "Okay, that was shit" and move on. I don't know who decided to push this out, but the people in it are still very much responsible for the words coming out of their mouths. Sorry i have to bring up Star Wars again, but they were basically acting like they were gonna be the next George Lucas. "We're gonna revolutionize storytelling, we're gonna do things other studios have forgotten how to do, we put a lot of heart in this project, this will be quite unlike anything you've ever seen" except that they didn't have the creative vision and/or talent to back it up. Like seriously, Ex-Arms got a lot of shit for their marketing attitude, that they're "declaring war on all the sci-fi series in the world" and ultimately failed to deliver (and rightfully so), but this should get a pass somehow? So yeah, i think even this was still on them, because with that high-and-mighty attitude, they were poisoning the well from the get-go. If you make such bold claims, you better fucking deliver. Worse still, with these whole "budget issues" only being brought up after the show was released and recieved flak, it just comes off as the creators haphazardly trying to deflect blame instead of trying to overcome those hurdles with clever resource management. Like, i haven't watched Onyx Equinox as of now, but from what i've seen, it looks like an absolute banger. And that show allegedly had somehow less budget than HGS , "near 1/3 of a lot of western shows", according to the creators. Riddle me this, please. Them bringing up the "lack of union" in this context also just feels really petty to me (Independent filmmakers like Lucas could not rely on a union either). So i still stand by my statement that giving any form of pity to this show is a fruitless endeavour. But i have to agree with Mothers Basement on one thing, i've already wasted far more time on this show than it is worth, so this will be it. I'll just move on and strike it from my memory.

[@Great_Olaf5]

Okay, doing the hand seals due the ad-stop no jutsu was going above and beyond the call of duty and was truly hilarious. Hats off.

[@silverdust4197]

Jeff , Jeff . The rocket launcher comes up season two , wait a bit ok . 🤣

[@kokosan09]

agreed!!

[@kokepasu4583]

I really appreciate you highlighting how neurodivergent people rely on subtitles as well 🙏 I have audio processing problems, and without subs I miss half of what's happening.

[@TheValkyrieRising]

Same here. It was one of my biggest pain points with an original on another platform (Gen:Lock). They did not have closed captions or subtitles at all, but had one character that was basically impossible to understand without them for me. Lack of captions/subtitles is why I ended up not watching Onyx Equinox, sadly.

[@SinHurr]

I didn't even know "audio processing problems" were a real thing until recently. I always just thought my brain or ears sucked or were broken because I have to immediately re-parse basically every piece of conversation that isn't crystal clear and in isolation of all other conversation just to make sure I understood everything right. It's also why I don't listen to most music. 99% of lyrics sound like mushy gibberish. Female singers seem to come through better though, shout out to Taylor Swift, Casey Williams, and, shit is it Pink? I think it's Pink. The post-processing required is part of why I don't watch a lot of TV anymore... and also probably why I gravitated so heavily toward subbed anime, now that I think about it. Can ignore the _meaning_ of the audio and just extract the emotion and cadence to go with the subtitles. Hmm.

[@WalkmanWillWalkAllOverYou]

I'm Autistic and I didn't know about Audio Processing Problems until this Comments. So that explains why whenever I watch TV I need to have the Subtitles on, even when I can hear the Audio.

[@e-classanime390]

I really liked Tower of God. In fact almost everyone was singing it's praises while it was airing and shortly after. Then out of the blue it seems like everyone started pretending the show is trash. I honestly don't get it.

[@SlapstickGenius23]

Well that’s mostly because a lot of executive producers are really ruthless people and bad bosses. Not only are they so ruthless, their treatment of animators can be horrifying to a huge amount of society (and not just Animation fans in particular). A much better thing is that animators are more than just computing and pencilling guinea pigs in a factory line! It’s also partly because a majority of South Korean webtoons are obscure.

[@facundosilveira5535]

@@SlapstickGenius23 but how does that translate to "the show is bad" thou, if anything it is worse for the animators, like "you see this thing you worked so hard for? Yeah well it's trash, you worked so hard just to make trash", sounds like beating a dead horse to me

[@liben5052]

More likely everyone started reading the webtoon and lamenting how the anime made some character changes that affect the future storytelling. Webtoon readers from the get go weren't satisfied with how the anime depicted Bam but overall the anime was pretty solid

[@leolesley7973]

@@liben5052 As a get-go webtoon reader myself who has a pretty neutral stance on the anime, that was the case. The changes made in the anime were minor enough for people to tell newer readers "just watch the anime and then start reading at season two of the webtoon" but major enough to peeve a large amount of the fanbase.

[@sleepysera]

As a webtoon reader, I was fairly unhappy with it from the start. I'm one of those obnoxious people who aren't happy with an adaption unless it faithfully adapts pretty much everything with basically no changes at all, which is exactly why anime is such a great medium for me, because unlike the much more free-form Western movie/TV series adaptions of books, anime tend to follow their manga/LN source material to a T. So when ToG came out and it was like, KINDA following the source, but also changing things as it pleased, I dropped it with mild disappointment. Then, many months later, after it finished airing, I was forced to sit through the whole thing by a friend, and I went from quiet disappointment to vocal complaining, because now I had to see ALL of it, and it got worse the further in I got. The animation became sloppier, the soundtrack was a complete mess, and the changes to the writing and framing murdered entire characters. Don't even get me started on the forced product placement or whatever the fuck that whole chocolate bar bullshit was, where every gag and plot-relevant scene was replaced with the character in question stuffing themselves with that one particular chocolate bar >_> Rachel is sad? Better stuff herself with chocolate bars. The cast can't decide on something? Let them fight over a chocolate bar. Rak would have a scene here where he says something funny or interesting in the original? Just make him eat 100 chocolate bars, that's funny, right??? So while I didn't complain while it aired and just quietly walked away, now I'm very open about my strong dislike for the show.

[@valikoest7981]

To be fair: calling the show "high guardian herbs" would've just made it look like some kind of weed

[@Eragonnogare]

As a big fan of the Noblesse webtoon, the anime was both fun to watch and a huge disappointment. I mostly agree with the 6/10 rating, but it could have been so much more. Also, if you get a chance, I'd recommend going back and watching past those first 3 episodes, if just for episode 7 specifically, in which they do none of the deep emotional drama or high action high stakes battles, and just spend the whole episode relaxing and having fun with the entertaining cast of unique and interesting characters. That one episode is a blast. Also, the OVA is one of the worst pieces of anime I have ever viewed. The pacing of the anime itself was certainly iffy, but the OVA being used to start it was the single worst thing about it. The OVA wouldn't have been the first episode of the show, no no, it would have been *MINIMUM* the first 6 episodes, if not most of the entire first season. The OVA covered the entire first 100 chapters of the webtoon in thirty minutes. Let that sink in. That's literally over three chapters a minute. It was a true travesty. The whole premise would probably have made a bit more sense if the entirety of the introduction to the world and characters hadn't been butchered. Honestly, the crimes of that OVA and the legitimate merits of the original Webtoon could probably make a whole video of their own.

[@user-jt7kn8sc5d]

I couldn’t watch the Noblesse anime how could they do such an amazing Webtoon so dirty

[@carloscabrera4776]

Unpopular Opinion: I thought the beginning was pretty slow for my liking when it came to the WEBTOON, so I didn’t really mind all the stuff that was cut but I really didn’t like how the OVA was meant to be the real first episode of the anime, especially seeing the quality shift, it was a forgettable messing.

[@Eragonnogare]

@@carloscabrera4776 I mean, the beginning was a tad bit slow, but if that was why they paced thing how they did then they *SEVERELY* overcompensated. I could have understood *maybe* spending 4 episodes on the content covered in the OVA, and even that would have felt rushed.

[@AscendtionArc]

I was ecstatically exited to hear about the 1st OVA announcement, but after waiting for the series to progress, I never actually got around to watching it. When I get around to catching up with the source, I'll try and check out the adaptation.

[@thomasedwards6641]

I watched like 3 or 4 eps and wasn't a fan but when they ruined one of my favourite scenes when Rai fought the DA-5 I dropped without a second thought 3/10 for me.

[@bluknight99]

"Fena: Pirate Princess" is the ABSOLUTE definitive example of wasted potential. I have never been so sucked in by an anime - its visuals, music and overall production - only to have my heart broken when it reached the 'climax' of the story. The end was rushed, contrived and nonsensical. Pathetic.

[@garykelley9027]

Worse than Promised Neverland season 2?

[@jase276]

@@garykelley9027 It wasn't a slideshow and it was still somehow worse

[@jase276]

Fena was so reminiscent of OG anime from back in the day that were instant classics... And then we got that ending, ugh. guess we cant have it all

[@gabrielablum8033]

I haven’t been this upset about an anime till I watched that ending my heart was literally broken

[@somedamnfangirl]

Apparently, the director doesn't want to do another season. I would so love to ask him why he directed the first season the way he did, then.

[@sunlitsonata6853]

Honestly pleasantly surprised to see all the western cartoon recommendations in the High Guardian Spice segment, but it's nice to hear about you knowing about all those series.

[@thekenyonsquad5672]

honestly, It's nice to hear that the animators of high guardian spice learned from the experience and moved on to make something good.

[@thestarwolfgamer7394]

I appreciate how you separated Tonikawa. I love Tonikawa

[@BenJaMindReacts]

def in my top5 romance

[@keiichimorisato98]

Tonikawa is sweet!

[@SinHurr]

I would die on any hill for Tonikawa.

[@hommefataltaemin]

It’s so incredibly precious and fluffy

[@GGGG_3333]

I haven't even seen the show, but still have its opening as my ringtone. Is it really that good?

[@KimandKamJam]

To be fair ANY conversation around anime is filled to the brim with toxicity (ESPECIALLY ON TWITTER) that's why I do my best to avoid it like the plague

[@xLoLRaven]

Yeah, the show "So I'm a Spider, So What?" was pretty good. Some of the CGI looked a bit off, but not terribly so. And Tonikawa? It was just simply adorable. And Onyx Equinox? That actually looks pretty good, guess I'll be giving it a shot.

[@fireky3]

I think the worst part about high guardian spice is it came out and had to compete with the bread animation in mushoku tensei, and that bread had more frames than all of exarm

[@GamerSlyRatchet1]

I don't believe Onyx Equinox was dubbed in Spanish first. I remember hearing from the official post-game podcasts that the English cast is the original cast, but that showrunner Sofia Alexander personally chose the Spanish dub actors for Izel and Yaotl. Also, Yaotl's English voice actor also did the Spanish dub, which is wild since he sounds different in both.

[@edahiguajardo9015]

The Spanish dub it's so much better

[@Cesaryeyo]

I'm Mexican and was wondering what version to watch. I think I'll go with Spanish

[@1111anim]

They put a different treatment over Yaotl's voice when they were mixing the Spanish dub for some reason! I thought he was little harder to understand with that one, same with Mictlantecuhtli. Also, Sofia voices Nelli in both English and Spanish :>

[@edahiguajardo9015]

@@1111anim Wait, are you her wife?

[@1111anim]

@@edahiguajardo9015 yes! Sorry I was just lurking in the comments lol😭

[@bleachbleachBLEACHER]

Fena: Pirate Princess really just felt like it needed a second cour's worth of episodes to world build and interact with more characters before reaching its conclusion. Fena didn't feel like she had lived enough life to be asked to make the choice she was asked to make in its finale. In complete honesty, Pirate Princess feels like a show that would have absolutely thrived if only it had been produced in 2007.

[@deathbypigx3h]

I’ve rewatched the first season of Tower of God more times than pretty much any other anime that’s come out in the last 10 years. There’s something to the aesthetic and world that appeals to me. I feel like the rules of the world and the games that are played follow the sort of logic that happens in a dream, and I adore the way camaraderie builds amongst the participants. A lot of people complain about how vanilla and boring Bam is, but I think that’s what made the first season so amazing to me. Bam being a good-hearted, and somewhat naive protagonist, helps endear you to the tertiary characters who surround him as they interact with him. Is Forrest Gump a compelling character in his story? Not really, but the way the world reacts to such a capable, but well-meaning person when most everyone else is damaged or cynical is what engages me as a viewer. The same goes for Tower of God. I loved the art direction, I loved the music, I even loved the dub in a way that only a few other shows have been able to do for me so far. I sincerely hope the show continues and the following season(s) at least just match the craft and technique of the first season’s adaptation.

[@mrminecraftcubeable]

they skipped a lot of explanations, no wonder people got very confused they also cut a lot of character stuff

[@anthonyk240]

Spoilers for the anime viewers: The truth is that Bam needs to be good-hearted and naive so that that when he's shown to be Jue Viole in S2 all the more shocking and interesting(even though its kinda obvious early on)

[@thundercloud280_]

If Webtoon anime continues to be a thing, I would love to see Bastard get animated. I think that would be an anime of the year contender if done correctly. It could even help in raising the reputation of Crunchyroll originals as a whole.

[@17Hisagi99]

7:27 As someone who has read up to volume 10 of the spider, YES, SHUN'S SIDE IS PART OF THE NOVELS. There is even one volume that is close to 100% backstory from the human side. You may have confused yourself with the manga which cuts the hero side completely as far as i know. Shame, Shame on you for a thousand years! May this dishonour follow you to your grave! (Just to be clear, im not mad, i'm just making a joke).

[@vash3055]

Shun's side of the story in both media, is meant to build the world and contrast the unfair life Kumoko has in the dungeon. Also it foreshows Kumoko's future very well.

[@warpuppy4528]

I went into spider completely blind and just watched it as an anime, but I absolutely loved it.

[@Wishy.]

WYSI

[@seanfisher6904]

On the one hand, the mystery of what happened to Komuko during the human bits is intriguing, but the actual human plotline itself s BORING AF. I almost wish they had done it like the manga, where they leave the human bits as small bonus chapters. Ideally, they would have found a way to make Shun and co more interesting, or at least pace the episodes in such a way that their storyline doesn't take up too much space.

[@vash3055]

@@seanfisher6904 I disagree, I think it could be better, but is mostly good but needs better animation.

[@DonniedrakoE]

Honestly the WEBTOON anime’s were the biggest fumbled bags I’ve seen in the while. Tog was fine but holy shit compressing goh and noblesse hundreds of chapters into 13 episodes was ducking atrocious despite the beautiful animation and the limited news on all 3 hurts my soul considering I think most manwhas can basically compete with lots of top tier running.

[@toogud7918]

There are some great manwhas but saying most is a stretch. There are way too many op character gets reincarnated bullshit and the translations suck for most. I love most on webtoon but a lot of them aren’t even Korean

[@gupdoo3]

As a neurodivergent person who uses subtitles all the time thank you so much for mentioning us

[@SamGarcia]

Tonikawa changed my life with an anime characters that basically get married and actually have a real romance instead of 100 episodes of nothing will they wont they, so CRO is justified.

[@SinHurr]

I would die for Tonikawa.

[@matthewmuir8884]

Yeah. So many romance plots/subplots are pure garbage of will-they-won't-they, on-again-off-again, love-triangles, and other nonsense designed purely to string along audiences and never move anything forward. So I really enjoyed that Tonikawa basically took all those cliches, threw them in a dumpster immediately, set that dumpster on fire and said, "let's do a romance story that's actually interesting". It wasn't the first anime I saw that did that; _Record of Grancrest War_ had Theo and Siluca get together romantically in episode 9 of 24 and continued their romance for the rest of the show, with them getting married at the end, but I very much appreciate Tonikawa for having the characters get married in episode 1.

[@Wolf-xy7xp]

I’m glad someone else liked Onyx Equinox. That show is severely underrated and almost no one talks about it.

[@edahiguajardo9015]

My thoughts exactly, I loved the show

[@TwinBladeFury]

God of High School was enjoyable until, at a certain point, I realized I had absolutely no idea what was going on. And then MORE stuff started happening and I was even more confused. By the end when they finally beat the bad guy the only thing I felt was relief that it was finally over.

[@kaelthunderhoof5619]

Lmao at first they went from a Karate Kid tournament then suddenly amped into a Record of Ragnarok level of fighting in just a matter of episode. Like a bullet train.

[@DomSithe]

My problem with God of High school is episode 8 was "We're nearing the end of the tournament, will the heroes be able to work together to defeat the other team?" and episode 10 was "So america decided to nuke korea because the top tier mob boss there was trying to summon a super god to destroy everything but a local magician based around music makes the missles into mount rushmore to stop the summoning spell" and I was like... what? I might have the specific episodes wrong, but you get my point i assume.

[@sara_roka]

@@DomSithe Yeah and then the last 10 minutes of the show was like "Oh yeah and Monkey God, okay bye"

[@FoxGhost7]

It's a great action romp that should have taken 2 cours to tell the story instead of a breakneck pace that's leaves no room for story or understanding what's going on in the world. Still, the action is great.

[@SuperCaitball]

To be fair, assuming that a train's brake and throttle are separate (as they tend to be), if you did what Deku does to just the throttle, the ride would probably smooth out after a short while as momentum kicks in. Wouldn't be particularly fast, and the turns might rob some speed, but it would hardly be whiplash.

[@KamenRiderFeline]

I love Dr. Ramune: Mysterious disease specialist. It's basically like a mix of Morose Mononokean and Mushishi where mushi take form of food stuff instead of insect.

[@leohex8767]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Read the Spider light novels. SERIOUSLY! They are so good and they go into deeper characterization, given that a 3rd person perspective in the anime adaptation could never do. It's not bad, it's just. The Light Novel Is BETTER!

[@raitoiro]

Honestly that apply to basically any none comedy light novel. Aside from maybe Mushoku Tensei, even good adaptations are rarely even close to the quality of the LN.

[@zjawa5307]

Yeah, after reading the light novel waiting for further episodes I noticed quite a few changes. Especially in the last episode. It was really different from the original work.

[@hujimix]

The concept still sounds like a run of the mill isekai with an OP protagonists who's more engrosed in gathering skill points for her min max build with videogame mechanics. If I want to see a videogame like animation, I'd rather pick an actual videogame and make my very own build to grind.

[@harbingeroftragedy]

@@hujimix did you read it?

[@raitoiro]

@@hujimix Yeah that the problem with that adaptation it focus way to much on the MC grinding in the labyrinth when the series main appeals in the LN the story and characters.

[@ChristopherCricketWallace]

the entire anime industry is stretched beyond their capacity yet the animators still can't get paid enough for rent. :( Who's taking all of the money?!?!

[@PIKMINROCK1]

Anime Production Committees. Like how game publishers take all the money from game sales whereas developers only get their contracted fee with maybe a small portion of future sales

[@vxicepickxv]

It's the executives that "take the risk" by spending money while looking for ever increasing returns. Mind you the animators are also taking a risk because any failure will put them on the street too.

[@chedarheader7092]

It’s me, I took the money 😎

[@imensor4700]

8:58 Oh no hard disagree. This one was amazing. Great dialogue, great story. Watched the whole season and Im glad S2 will be coming soon.

[@destroyerblackdragon]

I'm glad it's getting a second season but the first was a bit too slow paced. It really dragged itself at the end.

[@lavanderrain9346]

Hopefully we get the whole story and not just the prologue of Tower of God someday cause the story's just superb

[@evi8823]

High guardian spice is really not a show meant to carry all of the discourse placed on its back. It's just... mediocre. But it looks different enough from the other mediocre anime (without actually being original) that it somehow stands out somewhat and gets heralded as the worst thing ever. Also the behind the scenes story of how it was made reads like horror story. ESPECIALLY the timeline. Good art has been made with low budget, but not if you only get a single week to fucking write it, which isn't very far off form how much time HGS writers got to write their episodes. It really puts the series into pespective when you realize that it's unlikely ANY of these episodes got to see a second draft. You'd think crunchyroll would have put some more effort into the first anime they announced as their original but nope.

[@SinHurr]

Right? Like I read a lot of the main show page comments before watching and then was completely disappointed in how wildly plain it was. Couple odds and ends of good messaging for the less gender conforming among the crowd, and there was a catgirl I guess which is usually a win, but otherwise I could have had a similar but better in every way experience just watching RWBY again.

[@evi8823]

@@SinHurr You're right. And, man, when RWBY is used as a positive example I comparison to your show, something has gone wrong. (there's things to like about RWBY, I will not deny that. It is just... such a mess)

[@ruffethereal1904]

@@evi8823 I credit that with unfortunate death of the author and the problems with who succeeded Monty, unfortunately. The original drafts and plans may not have been genius or just as terrible plot wise but the fights would have been funner.

[@CompSomAnichi]

I’m sorry what?? Not even a second draft?? What happened bts???

[@kingofthegundam7974]

@@ruffethereal1904 Monty worked together with his friends to make the series. It's unfortunate that he passed, but even when he was around there were many problems that he also contributed to, and in fact the series got better about most of them over time. The story and fights were more engaging afterwards.

[@stardustmorpho7751]

For me, High Guardian Spice just disappoints. I honestly think I could have loved it, but the writing, voice-acting, sound mixing, animation, and so much more is just disappointing. But one of the bigger parts that saddens me is that the people advertising for it and trying to promote it go on about the diversity and in the show they try and have a lot of diversity. However, with it being as bland and boring as it is, it's going to make people who think diversity is stupid feel even more justified in their defense. As a woman of color, I want more diversity in anime, but I want actual diversity, not pandering and being like "We have a gay, give us praise". I wish it could have had effort put into it, I wish it could have been more, but it just wasn't, so I feel it gets a 2/10 for disappointing me.

[@cravenlunatic1]

Same. I really wanted to like it, but god it was just so clunky and awkward about everything it was trying to do. I can re-watch kipo or dragon prince a few more times but it would've been nice to have something new.

[@Mirality]

I did _like_ HGS, but I agree that it has a lot of problems and is not very well made. Which is a pity. And yes, go watch Kipo and Dragon Prince.

[@TerminusTartaros]

I find that "we have diversity" line kinda funny if you consider that the main cast is 4 girls.

[@bilaljones3635]

My issue with this logic is that it assumes the anti-SJWs hatred is backed by rational thought and not reactionary emotion. The same people who complained about High Guardian Spice complained about the Netflix She-Ra reboot, complained about Steven Universe, complained about Black Panther, complained about Miles Morales (before Into the Spider verse became the greatest Spider man movie ever made), complained about Kamala Khan-Ms Marvel, complained about Legend of Korra, complained about NK Jemisin novels and they've never changed regardless of the actual quality of the media they're complaining. We have seen this time and time again: Creative project about diverse characters and/or made by diverse creators is announced, the loudest conservative reactionaries of the internet rally a mob in bitter protest and condemnation, the project comes out and it's either good, bad, or mid (which is fine, all art is either good, bad, or mid), and the cycle repeats itself w/ any reflection by the haters. At no point has one of these reactionaries said: "I was really hating when I heard about She-Ra and the fact that she was going to wear athletic shorts under her skirt but the show came out and I gotta say it's pretty good". Or, even: "I was acting like Brie Larson was the anti-christ but then I saw Captain Marvel and it was mid so it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be." No, they've never done that because it's not actually about the quality of the show to them. They just don't want "others" in their space and they see "diversity" as infiltration. That's it. We're not capable of changing their minds. Only they can choose to be less reactionary, bigoted losers.

[@Mirality]

@@bilaljones3635 All of that is true, but it's also true that the "diversity" was not well-handled in HGS. It definitely seemed like an explicit goal of the show was to actively cram "diversity" down peoples' throats rather than it being in service of the story or worldbuilding, and that naturally leads to people choking on it. It's been done a _lot_ better in other shows, like Kipo or RWBY.

[@boopdoop2471]

I feel like the only way to justify watching GOH is probably to read the manhwa, and then watch the fights as you get to them, that would probably be a cool experience in it's own right.

[@omnipotentmage]

26:31 Fun fact the budget of the entire show is equal to about one episode of Demon Slayer

[@Navelofman]

Even hearing about High Guardian Spice's production woes, I feel like it could have been okay if they had focused on one of the many aspects they tried and failed to pull off. They could have focused on the "Girls Get It Done" aspect with the four main girls, but we didn't get to know them any better at the end than we did at the start. They could have focused on the "Magic High School" and why one was needed, but that would require world-building, which we didn't get. They had a Climate-Change allegory baked into the main conflict, what with New Magic and the cover-up of the Blight coming from the same region; but it comes too late in the season to really say anything about it, they were banking on a second season to explain it. They wanted to have some representation with some gay and trans characters, but they are only side characters with no bearing on the overall plot. They introduced Snapdragon struggling with their gender identity, but again it comes too late in the show to really say anything about it. They could have made a whole show about that, and it would have been way more interesting.

[@o76923]

Given the budget, inexperience, and time crunch, I am shocked that it was merely mediocre.

[@corronchilejano]

I enjoyed High Guardian Spice. It does get better in the last episodes. It feels like they were getting down what they wanted to do in the very end, which is awful, because I'm sure we're not getting a season 2, and thus it'll stay that way.

[@tintillor]

Snapdragon was one of the few interesting characters, so they should have focused on him and maybe the blight.

[@Mcloganberry]

Honestly I fully understand the budget is a big reason why animation, writing, and voice acting were bad so I don’t blame the creator at all for those…but cmon they could’ve made the characters likable, nothing about them were endearing accept for one and they truly deserve to be in another show because the way they were written is way better then all the super bad and annoying characters of HGS

[@SilverZephyrFalcon]

If it ever gets a second season (not very likely, unfortunately), I could see it becoming a pretty decent show. There's a lot hinted at in the season we have that could be expanded on. I went in not knowing anything at all about the series and was enjoying it a lot, under the assumption that some things would get cleared up in a later season. Hearing how little they were paid for it just makes me furious, though. Honestly for what they were given they did a damn good job.

[@grayrook8637]

To be fair God of Highschool runs into those problems in the actual comic as well. Its all fights all the time for hundred and hundreds of chapters. They get more bombastic and escalated as time passes but the story is mostly non-existent. Maybe. I recently began reading Journey to the West (the original shounen) and literature Son Goku is the same as Jinwoo Son Goku so maybe there is something more to this than I thought, we will see.

[@zacharia4061]

naw you are correct the story is a hell of a fever dream with cool fights

[@trieule7158]

im sure the anime is used to promote webtoon that's all.

[@ironmaster6496]

I mean Baki and Kengan Ashura also are just fight with some kind of story theres yet they still managed to be good and have memorable characters

[@ill_luck]

I agree, the fights were just at such a high scale I kept reading because it was so entertaining. However during the final arc (last 200 chapters about) the story telling drastically improves. It legitimately became one of my favorite reads because of the final arc and I can’t wait to see the conclusion

[@RedRocket4000]

When they fail to know the President of the US would never go to the Pentagon for a briefing as he has an equal site under the White House I stoped watching if they can't even get the fact right. It's always been Military takes it's stuff to White House. And a secret threat to President would never shut down the Congress demanding something be done. Then they made it seam like the South Korean people would sit at home and not protest underage kids in a death or even high pain tourney. Don't base on real world unless your willing to research a tad.

[@TheBooBomber609]

I’d love to see you cover the Netflix original anime scene. There’s so many good ones like Castlevania, Great Pretender, Cannon Busters, Super Crooks, and Scissor Seven (which I know technically isn’t an anime but it’s still fantastic so sue me).

[@redpandamurphy]

Would BNA also be counted for that or is it more of a Netflix Collab with Trigger like Tonikawa?

[@crackedemerald4930]

26:58 is this a fucking kiriku and the witch lady (or whatever it's called, the one with the water sucking thing) reference?

[@tiofofiveloz]

Great video. As others mentioned already, the human side in the so i'm a spider story is incomplete in the anime. In the LN, that perspective provides contrast, character developments, info of the world, mistery, etc. Also, knowing that the staff had troubles in production, the pandemic, AND that this story is just so out of the ordinary, it's a miracle that we had a decent show. PS. The light novels are great.

[@plantinapot9169]

Also try the webnovels, there’s a debate about which is better

[@FlyToTheRain]

I really liked Fena even if I didn't love the ending, and I personally disagree that it was bad enough of a conclusion to average out the whole series to a six. I'd keep it at least a seven myself. As I got closer to the end of the series and more lore was exposed to us, I did start to wonder how they were going to wrap it all up without putting out more episodes, even another season. Kind of like this beautiful story deserved more time to be told than it got? Idk, similar vibes to the end of season one of Legend of Korra where they weren't sure if they were going to get more than the one short season, except crunchyroll knew Fena would have to be the length it was in completion. I would watch it again if I was in the mood for it or wanted to share it with a friend, and I would definitely be excited if there were ever more to come from its universe, though that's incredibly unlikely.

[@lookatmydab1482]

Yeah I really think the anime’s ending wasn’t bad enough to warrant it a six. I thought the wrap was pretty nice and even shed a few tears. Overall very short and fun adeventure 8/10z

[@philo2189]

@@lookatmydab1482 you just have bad taste in anime

[@mordo1191]

Glad to see other's opinions on Fena, I haven't seen a lot of people talk about it! I'm personally pretty tolerant and indecisive with anime so was wasn't really sure what to make of the ending. It mostly just left me with a feeling of "huh, that happened I guess" and I think I ended up giving it a 7/10

[@bringinthedope5929]

@@philo2189 ay taste varies as well as the taste for other opinions. lol. Even folks that fancy themselves as elite tend to also have guilty pleasure type shows they like. It is what it is.

[@Amaling]

@@lookatmydab1482 both not bad enough, and not a big enough share of the anime justify that. If we’re being mathematic about ratings here, only deducting 2/10 for the ending rather than 40% of the score makes a lot of sense.

[@grandthanatos]

There's Uzumaki in October. Is Shenmue the other original not out yet you mentioned? Or is there another one I haven't heard of yet?

[@c.cooper2877]

Finally managed to watch High Guardian Spice, and ... that is a good cartoon. Deserved better than it got, feel like the haters were arguing in bad faith. On the other hand, it is absolutely not an anime.

[@Henbot]

No, it doesn't have to be arguing in bad faith all the criticism. Was plenty doing so sure, but it also had piss poor story telling and clear budget shortcomings and animation production failings with perspective, stock images and characters walking through the environment.

[@Turtlewax63]

Tower of God does have some serious adaptation problems, a lot of characterization was cut or altered. To use One Piece as an example, imagine if "I want to live" didn't make it to the anime, to talk about how great some of what got cut was.

[@RedRocket4000]

Was a hit with most anime only got me to read it and KZbin reactor Sun Wu. Problem of being manga first you often will not like the anime thus I normally try to be anime first.

[@luthientinuviel3883]

I'm really sad about Fena. I really like most of the episodes and I think they could have gone for a few more seasons. The characters and plot had a lot of potential! However, they really rushed the ending and I'm so disapointed. I looked forward to every episode on Sundays but alas. I'm quite sad.

[@RedXlV]

Bad enough that the ending was rushed, but it was also just nonsensical.

[@ilikethis3203]

Fena and B the Beginnings have pretty much the same problems (I think they have the same director). In theory they're really well made shows with an interesting story, but they both uturn into stories about god and once you bring literal god into a story about cops and superhumans/ pirates and ninjas you've lost it.

[@blarg2429]

@@ilikethis3203 The real god was the superhuman ninja-pirate-cop we met along the way.

[@bthsr7113]

I actually saw that an episode of Onyx Equinox was on youtube a few years ago, and thought it looked promising. Never actually got around to watching it beyond the first scene (was probably a bit busy) but now that I've been reminded of it, I might go looking.

[@DarkFireBlade25]

fena's character writing was superb and the animation to express all of that was wonderful. i just wish it was a more thought out plot for how short it was. Music obviously was great because of Kajiura Yuki. Maybe some more days of story planning was in order because everything else was so well executed.

[@Blaze_1013]

Just an FYI on Spider, the human side of the story is very much part of the light novels. But that is also the part the series cut the absolute most from with the whole first volume of it not being adapted. As someone who picked up the first 5 volumes because I enjoyed the series so much trust me when I say it is important and also WAY better.

[@PIKMINROCK1]

I presume what happened was that a person or two in the production committee demanded that the anime get to the Elf Village arc since it appeared to be critical to the fanbase and no one wanted to stretch the anime to another cour so they were forced to rush the plot. Rushing material isn't particularly new to anime adaptation but I wish anime producers learn that proper pacing is more important than getting to the good part

[@Blaze_1013]

@@PIKMINROCK1 See, I don't know HOW much they were rushing. It sucks but all kinds of stuff gets left out of light novel adaptations and I think 5 volumes over a 2 cour season is pretty normal pace based on what I know of other series. You do also run into issues of natural stopping point and leaving off on a certain volume is just worse than others. It is a hard balancing act.

[@BigFootTheRealOne]

Just because it's part of the light novel doesn't mean we have to care about it.

[@PIKMINROCK1]

@@BigFootTheRealOne The idea was that the whole Elf Village battle was supposed to be a big climatic moment that the whole story pivots from. Without the proper world building, we get what we had in the anime where it simply makes little sense with a cast you don't particularly care for.

[@Blaze_1013]

@@BigFootTheRealOne I mean a lot of people don't especially care for the stuff with the rest of the class. But it is still very important for the story and acting like it isn't is still incorrect regardless of its quality.

[@TwoPairSA]

Fena Pirate Princess' ending isn't _quite_ Evangelion levels of "what the hell was that" but it really does try its best to get there.

[@colonelmustang854]

Considering one of the characters, Cody, is voiced by Casey Mongillo, aka Shinji in the Netflix dub of Eva, I find that rather appropriate.

[@DwillGame]

I just want tower of God and God of high school to come back for season 2.

[@crimsoncowboy7152]

fena never had any agency. she didn't escape by herself, she didn't even decide on her own journey, she just was told to go look for the origins of the glass cube thing by someone. the story cut out any sense of adventure by just cutting the journey between countries and also just basically gave her 10 invincible bodyguards and a nearly magic submarine ship that can take her anywhere anytime (very contrived imo). all while putting a very weird emphasis on her being a virgin, and alternating between goofy comedy scenes and darker scenes like that shopkeep ogling her and offering to buy her body in exchange for the glass shard he had. the mood whiplash was very disconcerting. plus they just stumbled across that glass shard coincidentally in the first place, and coincidentally the ninjas had a valuable item to trade for it. fena was always being dragged around and was barely a character in her own show

[@rowanatkinson3594]

I have a bit of an odd relationship with High Guardian Spice where the first three episodes are pretty mid but it makes some genuinely really daring and interesting choices with regards to how it deals with its trans characters around the halfway mark that I think are based on a lot of subtleties I don't think a lot of people who aren't terminally online trans people age 20-30 like myself are going to necissarily pick up on (having a character have a really strong affinity for mermaids is basically a gigantic flashing sign for anyone online and aware of the trans community in early 2019 but if you weren't around for that I can see not making the connection). I'm not sure I can call it above like a 6/10 overall but it's a show I have a colossal amount of respect and sympathy for, especially since I feel like it hit a natural ceiling for how comfortable a general audience tends to be about this sort of thing on a show like this at this time. I dunno the whole thing has this subtly tragic quality to it. Sometimes you don't just feel seen by a show but can see yourself maybe even writing it when you were younger, and the actual quality of the show isn't just immaterial when that happens but can even feel charming when it's a bit under par.

[@apparition9146]

I feel this. I would give it a slightly higher rating just because I really did enjoy most of the character driven parts of the show, even if the worldbuilding left a bit to be desired.

[@rowanatkinson3594]

@@apparition9146 Yeah. I mean perhaps it's a bit cheap to respect a show purely in the representation but like: of those shows that were named as alternatives, at best there was one semi-prominent (and really fun!) character in She-Ra that disappeared after a season, the rest are strong fan-canons or confirmed after the conclusion Dumbledore style, to my knowledge. The two trans characters are the best we've gotten in the medium in terms of having prominence and an interior life and I suspect they will be the best for a very, very long time. Television, western animation, books (genre, YA and literary) and even anime have sort of settled into these grooves that aren't looking like they'll rock the boat anytime soon outside more fringe stuff so this was a welcome surprise. Just a shame that it's looking really likely that the wrong lessons might be learned by it's reception.

[@timothymclean]

I would genuinely like to see an alternate-universe High Guardian Spice which got a decent budget and wasn't initially marketed as "This anime will piss off the alt-right, and hopefully that's enough to catch your interest!"

[@AdrianArmbruster]

Even if High Guardian Spice was well-advertised and well-made, it still runs into the 'why not watch The Owl House and Little Witch Academia twice?" problem. Like, it's an inferior good to things that have the basic premise, do it better, and are more easily available right now. edit: Ah, you beat me to the basic point later in the video.

[@Wizzanker]

I watched "So I'm a Spider" and I just skipped everything that didn't have the spider in it. 10/10, I regret nothing.

[@neverhave]

Oh my god when you showed the freakangels footage I recognized it instantly, I haven't thought about that comic in a decade. When I read it in middle school it fascinated and horrified me, I found it very gruesome and off-putting, but who doesn't love flooded steampunk london? Not surprised the dude behind it was some kind of criminal or that the adaption was crap, even back then I knew the writing was a mess. Definitely leaned hard on vulgarity and didn't give a shit about coherence. The original art style was also just, so awful, makes the anime look alright in comparison.

[@ShalimarX32]

Does the series make any of the characters likable? The anime makes you hate every single person on screen. Well except Luke's girlfriend, but that's more a pity than like...

[@Mr_Spaghetti]

As someone who only watches this channel for anything anime related besides actual anime, it’s very funny when he goes “I am *NOT* going to dive into that avocado ninja isekai drama, that shit is a sociopolitical MINEFIELD!” and i just nod my head as if I have a clue what he’s talking about

[@MarioSpivey]

The moment I saw HGS in the thumbnail I was filled with dread. Thankfully tho you were pretty fair with your coverage of the show even if you do think it's boring. Although of course this take attracted... that side of the Animation community to no suprise

[@DerpyLaron]

30:50 So Avatar but Sokka is the main charakter, depressed by being the only one left and he has a hard time as his only company is Azula who is stuck in a big cat. Got it.

[@putent9623]

That last one by the same team as high guardian spice is very impressive. Actually I'm going to watch it, I haven't watched any new anime in a hot minute, and I've been wondering what to watch, but the fact this equinox thing somehow is going to get me to watch it before demon slayer or MHA is very impressive.

[@andrewollmann304]

2:58 I’m just impressed that you did all those hand signs without messing up. How many takes did that uh.....take?

[@Xaveze]

As someone keeping up with Tower of God can attest, the story told in the anime is basically the prologue and only scratches the surface of how insanely good the webtoon gets.

[@PeeperSnail]

As someone who got into the light novels after watching Kumo Desu, let me tell you all thinking of watching the show or reading the LNs after watching the show, that the show did the human side very dirty. The human side in the show feels like waddling through molasses, and there’s a lot of content that got cut out from that side. When I read the light novels I was surprised because there’s a point where we flat out don’t focus on the human side for volumes. I MISSED the human side in the light novels, whereas I tended to skip the human side in the show.

[@madensmith7014]

They botched the animation for Shun's side but fr, no one liked Shun's side story even in the LN

[@PeeperSnail]

@@madensmith7014 I did, but not because of Shun. Yeah he's a nice guy and all but he's pretty bland. But one of my favorites, Fei, is on the human side, and the others like Katia and Oka are pretty fun to read about, too.

[@JomoOval]

I'm so glad you said that High Guardian Spice is not as bad as Ex-arm. it did not deserve to score lower than Ex-arm on MAL, and I've watched both all the way through. While i had fun with HGS, tho, i can admit that it's pretty bad

[@lmnop29]

I'm so glad you mentioned Onyx Equinox and liked it. 🥺 I really wish more people knew about it. As a person of Mexican descent, I also have a bias towards it but I genuinely hope it gets at least another season.

[@edahiguajardo9015]

It was great, I loved it

[@eduardopantoja9115]

I'm of Mexican decent as well but I feel more neutral about the show. The only problem I have is that the main protagonist is a bit on the annoying side and the ending is kinda ehhh. The show is alright

[@lmnop29]

@@eduardopantoja9115 I get that. It's definitely not perfect; there's issues with narrative pacing imo.

[@tdata545]

Man, amazing to see how this company has grown. I was there when it was an illegal anime streaming service. I was in my community college's computer lab stealing their wifi pirating some stuff on their connection, and saw someone watching it on their laptop, and asked them what it was. That was probably 2007/2008 which apparently would be a year or two after its formation. Remember the site owner going by the username Genji after Evangelion. You either die a hero, like Napster, or live long enough to become a villain, like Crunchyroll.

[@jasonbrose6743]

HGS clips make me feel like I'm having a stroke with how weird the dialogue is, Tower of God is Epic and I'm a fan, and some of the other BS I only like because I read the books or whatever. Seriously though, there are only a couple good gems and the rest are pretty bad. The spider one has good plot, deconstruction on why the world's physics are so screwed up, and character development but terrible animation, and again I can't stress enough how confusing the HGS dialogue is. Some of the dialogue makes *less* sense in context, which is actually an achievement.

[@LowTier4Life]

Fun fact: Tonikawa takes place in the same universe as Hayate the Combat butler (but an unknown amount of years after it's ending)