Anime/Manga It's not like I want you to post in me or anything, b-baka.

[Lipstick Vogue]

Everything about the op is just great and it made me laugh every time. Ed and Al getting rekt whilst Winry gets dramatically knocked back by some wind just did it for me. https://youtu.be/2uq34TeWEdQ?t=48 Shame Yui didn't stay a pure maiden reeeeeeeee.

SZS had a really great selection of openings and even better endings. I know he's not a fantastic singer but we should have gotten more Kamiya endings.

 

[pkmin3033]

...I never watch EDs. Like, ever. My interest kinda goes the second it the main episode ends. xD

 

[Lipstick Vogue]

Are you trying to make me mad?

 

[pkmin3033]

Now if I was going to do that, I'd bring up Reco--nevermind.

I dunno, I only watch OPs because it's too much of a hassle to skip them each time...once I've seen it once, I generally don't want to see it again. An ED has to be pretty damn spectacular from the get-go for me to watch it...either that, or I just have to have the video open in the background with me not watching it.

I have a short attention span, OK? Especially where anime is concerned...it's been ages since I watched something good enough to silence my inner critic or actually keep me watching for the whole thing.

 

[machomuu]

I went through phases with EDs. As a kid I was really into long running shows and having grown up on Toonami, which didn't have official EDs (or OPs, for that matter), I was sort of conditioned to not watch 'em. Especially when I got to burning through Naruto.

Now I like 'em though, quite a bit. Granted, especially when I'm marathoning a show, I tend to watch them a lot less than openings (but generally enough to know what they sound like).

But honestly, that's a thread I'd love. Shows with EDs that are better than their OPs. Off the top of my head, Speed Grapher (which had EDs that were way prettier and a lot easier on the ears than they had any right to be), Danganronpa 3's Future side (which is fucking fantastic and horribly unappreciated, I don't think I could've skipped it if I tried), and Steins;Gate (which was literally just an hourglass reforming but fuck if it isn't good) come to mind.

 

[pkmin3033]

I would have liked Danganronpa's Future Arc more if it had actually tried to do something new with its characters instead of resorting to the game's formula...again. I'm getting a bit bored with the concept, and the conclusion was pretty damn unsatisfying. It was nice to see some characters again though. But the lack of Kotoko and the other Warriors of Hope was unforgiveable, and as for Monaca...what even.

EDs that are better than OPs...Code Geass' springs to mind, if only because I like Ali Project as a group and I just cannot stand that first OP. At all. Yes, I know it's a meme. I still hate it. Also, the hated Madoka, if only because the ED meant the show was finally over...and Kalafina performed it. On the subject of Kalafina, the few times that Manten was used as the ED in Fate/Zero would qualify too. Also, the first ED of Iron Blooded Orphans was amazing and much better than the OP...that was one of the few I actually let run each time.

As someone who skips EDs, though...not a whole lot of them for me.

 

[Lipstick Vogue]

Sometimes there's stuff after the endings, like massive things. Sometimes the endings are just great.

If you do ever get back into Naruto I found a lot of the endings far better than the openings, especially after it got deeper into the series.

There are a few cases where ALI Project songs work with series (Noir, desu, Geass) but I couldn't listen to them outside of anime. Meme aids group.

I think the I CONTINUE TO FIGHT op where Lelouch rode a white horse has to be the best from Geass.

 

[pkmin3033]

It's usually pretty obvious where that's the case, though - the remaining minutes on the video are longer. You just reminded me of Cross Ange's episode previews...those were fucking incredible. xD

I'm still on episode 18 at the moment...I've not dropped it, just not had the time. I'll make an effort to check out some of the EDs, though...maybe listening to them separately would be better for me.

...that's not the Orange Range one, is it? The vocals for that gave me a headache...they synthed it somehow and it just sounds so painful. I quite liked the animation for Geass' OPs all around though. But then, it's Sunrise. Kinda self-explanatory.

 

[machomuu]

Pretty much no one liked Future Side all that much, and in hindsight neither did I. Especially since it forgot that some of the charm of Danganronpa comes from liking the characters so...y'know...killing the characters you just introduced without giving them time to develop is kind of digging your own grave. Though I will say that it was fun following it weekly when there was a lot of theorycrafting going on and such, that was probably the most fun I had with the show.

Naruto I pretty much never watched the EDs for...at the time. Toonami conditioning. It took Bleach to work me out of that, ironically, and I did regret it after the fact because in general Naruto's always had pretty good OSTs, openings or otherwise.

 

[Lipstick Vogue]

Zabuza and Haku arc if I remember correctly, that was pretty rad and gay. After that it's one of the best tournament arcs you'll see, if you like that sort of thing. He basically copied the Hunter Exams but who cares.

Here's an ed from way later that has absolutely nothing to do with the series.

I think it was Orange Range. Awful but love it.

 

[pkmin3033]

Zabuza and Haku just died, yeah. I quite liked it, if only because they took the time to give both of them a little character development, which I wasn't expecting to see for what I assume are minor antagonists I'll never see again? I'd like to see Sakura do a little more - she was pretty damn useless in that fight - but otherwise I'm not hating it yet.

Tournament Arcs are fine with me...I grew up watching Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon, and I liked the World Martial Arts tournaments in Dragonball. You never know how they'll end because they're often key points for character growth, so they can be pretty damn good watches.

I'm a loooooong way off Shippuden...if I ever make it. I want to give it a chance, though. I should probably try Bleach at some point too...One Piece I've already tried and I loathed it. Not a fan of pirates.

 

[Lipstick Vogue]

Sorry to tell you this but Sakura has like 3 good moments in the entire series. Girls......struggle in Naruto.

That's a shame, Naruto and Bleach have their moments but One Piece is consistently good and often great. Fan edited [one pace] is a godsend.

 

[pkmin3033]

I suppose that's due to the target audience of the show? At least, I hope it is. Naruto seems like a very...stereotypical character. Even when I was a kid I was never overly fond of hot-blooded go-getter types, though. I'm actually most interested in Kakashi at the moment.

The art style of One Piece really puts me off for some reason...there's just something about it I really don't like. I was the same with Toriyama's art for years though, and I eventually warmed up to Dragonball Z...after I watched Dragonball, which was much better. Maybe when One Piece finishes I'll have changed my mind. I dunno.

 

[donavannj]

One Piece's art is pretty off-putting, but there's, at a minimum, a solid story there.

 

[Lipstick Vogue]

Design is so out there that it'll always split opinions. Anime doesn't do the manga justice. Considering OP is a weekly series the art is staggering imo.

 

[pkmin3033]

Are there many anime that do manga justice? Offhand, the only one I can think of that is generally well received without any complaints is Hellsing Ultimate...but I just haven't seen any, is all. I see a lot of complaints about adaptations not being faithful to the source material, or being poorly paced, etc...the only complaint I have is that the source material isn't finished >.>

 

[machomuu]

There are several I can think of. Jojo's most recent adaptation is pretty well liked simply because of how faithful it is to the manga, and pretty much everyone'll tell you to watch Yu Yu Hakusho vs. reading it. Well, not everyone, but you get the idea.

I really don't see the anime vs manga debate as much these days as I used to, though. I suppose I'd blame the influx of anime originals and LN adaptations rather than the debate being a moot point.

 

[pkmin3033]

I'm probably a little behind the times; I remember a lot of fans of Fullmetal Alchemist whining about Brotherhood's pacing, especially in the beginning, where it casually blazed through about half of the original anime, and I've often been told to read manga rather than watch the anime...Attack on Titan is a fairly recent example of that. Mostly because the first season is about 80% filler, and with the second being only 12 episodes...maybe it's a question of patience; anime comes out very slowly compared to manga, and that can take years to even go anywhere...which is why I don't read any of it.

Given the insane number of anime being adapted from LNs it isn't surprising people don't complain about that as often, though...now if only people could stop bashing dubs ._.

 

[kuzronk]

Cardcaptor Sakura is one of the few examples that did the manga well along with filler that doesn't feel out of place.

 

[machomuu]

Well, for the most part, people can't really riff on the LN adaptations for the same reason as manga adaptations because, generally, non-Japanese speakers don't consume LNs. This mostly has to do with the fact that officially LNs are generally translated after the show takes off, whereas manga generally comes over before the anime even has time to get an adaptation, depending on who's handling it. And even in the case when it's not (since the bulk of Western readers read digitally and for free), there just aren't as many people translating LNs as there are manga being translated, and the demand isn't as high.

All of this to say, the reason people don't have the same stigma against it in the case of LNs is because they haven't likely read the source material.

But as for dubs these days...Mm. These days I legitimately have a problem with the dubbing industry that I never had before, largely because it feels like it's regressed. The number of dubbing companies is around the same as it ever was, Companies and their voice actors rarely interact with the anime community, and line directors these days'll take the bare minimum at times. Couple that with the fact that some of last decades better VAs, like Liam o'Brien, Kari Wahlgren, and Travis Willingham have gone into hiding and the others are on strike and won't even touch the Japanese industry save for fulfilling prior contracts...sometimes (rip Laura Bailey my second love and Troy Baker everyone's favorite piece of dub man meat).

And I just...I dunno. We had a good thing going for a while. After the 90s, we got some amazing dubs in the way of Cowboy Bebop, Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, Baccano...it just seemed like during that time people were really excited about anime and nerd culture as a whole becoming this normal part of Western culture. We just kept moving forward. Now, save for Toonami, the only English voice acting that even remotely tries to push and promote itself is the abridged scene, which these days actually has a higher bar for quality and contains the voice actors that are excited about voice acting. And when anime studios contact them, it's generally just for side work.

\sigh

I dunno. It just feels like anime in the West is moving backwards.