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Very quick response before the finale about Floch:

Hello, it's been 1.5 years since I last responded... Obviously, it's not like I didn't have time, even with uni stuff... But I knew I couldn't remain consistent on discussions or watching/reading. My social life took a hit too lately but it's very much repairable. Needless to say, I'm "back" because SnK's anime is ending... I'll try to respond to your points raised here almost 1 year ago.

I had similar experiences before my first touch with Chainsaw Man. The hype was inconceivable. I decided to pick up the manga one night and binge read all of it (the so called Part 1). It was my first and only all nighter of 2022. I didn't rush it because it appealed to me but because I wanted to be done with it and lay this burden to rest. I had some issues about the handling of conflicts. Either they end suddenly (which I understand might be Fujimoto's style sometimes), or the story is relying on us to keep our hopes up for future reveal. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that it wants us to keep an eye out for missing puzzle pieces about the conflict. It just asks you to hope for future development and reveals. It doesn't require the viewer/reader to connect things himself, the story does it for him. It is a type of spoon-feeding but at the same time not. To summarize, it's Hope instead of Mystery. I guess I also feel this way because the results of these conflicts, in my opinion, were presented poorly. The pacing was all over the place when the twists' time came. They made sense but that's not enough. The presentation has to hit...It's true, the story picks up during and after the end of the adaptation we have so far and it's going to get better but for me, the manga didn't really click. I understood burdening the manga this way wasn't a good approach. When I was watching the anime, all the time I was like "Come on, prove me wrong". I made the same mistake. It's an unnecessary weight for the show to carry but I couldn't help it.. It doesn't help that I didn't care too much about Power or the other side cast. I was entirely focused on Denji, Aki and Makima. Obvious right? They're the 3 most important figures. But what I'm trying to say is exactly this. I focused only on main figures and not side ones, I wasn't invested in the world even after the reveals/twists, I didn't feel the need to research the story. I sometimes rely on stuff like this last one to determine how I'm going to rate something: Its subconscious impact. My expectations weren't met. MAPPA did a fine job, it showed its love for the series with the different endings and obviously a lot of good work was put into it.

What you said about Spy x Family, that it sidelined the dynamics of spy, assassin, psycho etc, I 100% agree with. In fact, even in the manga right now, I constantly keep feeling that this premise "wore off" and got sacrificed for some more gags. Sure, there are the good chapters but they seldom appear, for me at least. It's honestly a shame. All of a sudden I started to feel the weight of expectations. It was ok to make fun of people who had high expectations for their shows but now that I feel the same, I completely understand why this is happening...

About JJBA6... Pucci was ok I guess. Ending is fine and I don't think it had plot holes like most people claim, except maybe Jotaro's 5 second timestop. I haven't finished batch 3 yet but quality is surely rising. However, this change, I believe, lies in the evolution of the story while it's reaching its climax. I just had neutral feelings about batch 1 and 2 just like their manga counterpart. I guess part 6, to me, "just happened". It didn't provoke any important thoughts in me and my time reading it passed peacefully. From another perspective, maybe it's not so bad that thoughts weren't provoked. It's ok to turn your brain off and just read and enjoy to the highest possible level. A good counter measure to the weight of expectations.

I finished Edgerunners but in japanese... After what you said, I most likely am going to give the dub a shot. It seems to be quite rewatchable as well. Yeah, I agree with people who said it wasn't something with original ideas in it. The execution was good on the 1st half but not so much on the 2nd. However, It managed to thematically close well and there's not much you can do in the span of 10 episodes but I can't say that the potential was maximized either. Pacing was fine but besides maybe Lucy, I couldn't feel invested enough. A shame.

About Fate, watching Zero first was incredible... Or was it. I think my perfect score for it comes down to it being a fantastic stand-alone show. It was exactly what I was looking for at the time, a very high scene to impact ratio character focused show. A big wall of text I made for Kiritsugu managed to convince 3 of my siblings to watch and said they hated me because I spoiled the fun... I read that there were some "retcons" from urobuchi's part about saber's character but, as you said, since I haven't experienced the Fate route, saber didn't seem too different to me while I was watching ubw (I want tohsaka to marry me). The problem that I discovered through HF: Kirei. "problem", more like disappointment. Not because of the character, not because of writing but because I wished I experienced HF Kirei before zero kirei. I felt a slight detachment or a blurry transition from zero kirei to hf kirei. I really need to read the vn because he's my favorite character... I really wanted to dissect him... But for that I need to read the 60 hour HF route... Zero was compelling as a standalone kirei and although it contained most of what made him what he is on stay/night, it felt like "we've already been through this kirei, why are you going back to it?". Obviously, him reflecting on himself is a crucial part of conveying the ideas of his arc but it didn't feel that there was a distinction between then and now while watching spring song. It should've felt like he was adding or doubting older things of his perpective but there was a wall, sort of, which would stop him from going further. It was annoying. But that is "easily" fixed by investing time to the vn.

So Shingeki is coming to an end for you too finally... I'm happy that isayama stated that he had control of the script and made some changes from the manga. I'm so excited. He also announced an 18 page one-shot which from the looks of the drafts looks like Levi's childhood. I don't recommend looking up information for it at your part right now. Not until saturday at least... I just want the guy to finally achieve the peace of mind his anxiety robbed him of. Seeing him tear up at the NYC con 1 year ago(?) when people cheered him about the ending was moving to say the least. I wish to meet him in person one day.. The person to whom I owe so many things. It's cheesy to say but he is the only one I'm allowing myself to call teacher/sensei. The reasons why? I don't know... Probably because he came the closest to... AH, after all I really can't find a word. Let's have a great saturday and celebrate for this closure. I hope you'll find it as great as I did.

AOT a 10? typical

As you said, 10s are unique which is exactly why I feel the need to keep other shows away from that score and that includes reducing scores even below a 9. I'm being very picky and this is becoming more and more annoying by the day. However, for some reason, I don't seek to fix it, at the same time, it just feels right being like that. it's difficult to explain. And this difficulty derives from lack of experience regarding me. I might have 45 days worth of watchtime but I don't have as many entries as you, for example, someone with slightly less watchtime at the moment. I'm afraid of a high average score too so that's another layer of why I'm doing it like this.

For manga, my lack of experience drags me down even more. I hope, in the near future, that I'll have a stable rating system.. I love the term "honorary 10s" btw, brilliant. I think our views on 9s are more of the same but still, I don't have may shows there. Only End of Eva, some snk seasons, vinland s1 and neverland s1. For manga, only tg...

Boy, reverting tg:re to a 10 is sth i won't regret, that's for sure.

I forgot to emntion all this time but I find a different website for MAL to be more practical, it's called Anilist and you can choose a scale of rating: For example a ladder of 1-10, 1-100, 1-10 but with decimals etc I treally helped me over the last year since I use the 1-10 ladder with decimals and aided me in figuring it out some sort of "tier list" for the shows. As in, arranging them in order. It's a very pretty website too if you ask me, you have dark themes and whatnot, you can make a thread out of one's activity, you can put many more fav shows-characters for free in contrast with MAL, even fav studios, and it has its own "stats" section for every user, kinda like anime plus for MAL. I am mostly on AniList if I want to consult ratings and then whatever change I make, I round it up and copy it on MAL.

What i essentially meant by them not figuring out their dientities is if the respective holders of the identity discard it via a developement in the plot, for example, as in "there's no use for it anymore" type of way. Anya would know everything, who they were and who they became, especially as she grows up (if we ever see that but i think she will). It's only Loid and Yor who won't know each other's hidden identity. Now that I think about it, one of the show's themes is: façades are a way of maintaining temporary peace so it's those same façades who end up causing conflicts a bit later. Ignorance of the other side leads to ignorance of one's own self. With this in mind, it's fair to think that for genuine peace, the façades must drop (hinting at the reveal of Loid and Yor's true identities) but I think the author, Endou, will keep this conclusion to mind but will actually work in reverse when constructing the plot. For example, he might not show how to drop the façades but instead show what happens when you don't drop the façades And after he's done witht that, he'll take a neutral stance and try to build soemthing fo ti with the other themes. In any case, i don't think the ending's whole idea/theme can be this straightfroward just from the very first theme we're introduced to. He's a guy who has collected a lot of experience (working with Isayama, Fujimoto, ironically with Hell's paradise's author too, he's worked on blue lock which will get an anime adaptation soon etc) so I think he'll try something unique which we cannot predict just from the direction of the story now.

Speaking of Hell's Paradise, I actually know nothing of it and I'm with you on the same train of waiting for MAPPA's adaptation. The VS manga is ongoing, motnhly but sometimes Yukimura will go on hiatus for like a month or so (so missing just 1 or 2 chapters per hiatus) due to deadline or straight up need to research more ideas (since it's Historic, he might need to dig up some more info to include), he's a father of 3 kids too if I'm not mistaken so... Obviously nothing close to the infamous berserk, hxh, vagabond hiatuses. I say begin with the anime, watch s2 as it airs/or after there's not much differnece, and then decide whether you want to continue with the manga, since there's no way VS will end by the time s2 is over. It might go on for like 2 or 3 mroe years, maybe more. You most likely will want to continue with the Manga since s1 and s2 cover the two most highly regarded arcs of the series so far (and we may be in the final arc right now)

Look, in the long runs, if Kaguya's confession arc doesn't end in s3, w'll definitely have more content since there's no way they're dropping it on the climax. If it doesn end there, things get more complicated. Many manga readers report that after some chapters after the end of this arc, the show's quality deteriorates a bit but that's just internet opinions.

Yeah, I have heard some criticism for the animation of s2 of OPM but I don't really care since, in the instance I don't enjoy it there's always the manga and I've heard Murata is a great artist. If the story of s2 urges me to continue I most certainly will via the manga.

I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion on the rating system. I usually find myself needing to rate sth higher than I initiallly did but I feel that if I do, I'll "reduce" the impact the shows of that higher score had on me. And that's not only with 10s or 9s. I'm very picky with 8s too. So, in a way, I've forced myself to put aside my enjoyment of a specific show and sue other criteria to rate. Of course, sometimes, my enjoyment compliments the show's incredible structure and that's how I end up with 9s and 10s. Recently I had spy x family manga as a 9 but i reduced it to an 8 just because it simply didn't make sense to me that it was JUST 1 point below SnK, sth I consider a masterpiece. So I had to lower it. Same with OPM too, it's a 7 but i heavily enjoyed it and i'd digest sth like this every day if i could. It's like there's another side of me which wants to be brutal on ratings and only give space to a very special few. Even shows worth 8s rather than 9s or 10s. Lately, I've beeen wondering whether I want to find what I reject instead of what I accept as "special".

Yeah well a lot of people predict a "revelation" of every character's "hidden identity" on SxF, it's only natural. Something has to force them to accept each other like that if they want to be a family. I'd prefer if a whole arc was dedicated to dealing with the mental state of everyone after the revlation but I'd also dig them not finding each other's identities at all and living like that since that would nullify those identities' effects and all their feelings towards each other would be genuine. Of course that demands a lot of set-up if the author gets rid of the impact of their hidden idenitites. I mean, Anya is living proof. She knows their hidden identities but she gave them a full 100 points, didn't she? Yes, she's a child but I don't think such set-up will be wasted. I won't directly spoil the manga but I'mma say this: 3 down, one to go.

Estimating when Berserk will end, especially now entrusted in new hands, is near impossible I think. It depends how much info on his planning Miura shared with his assistants...

Yeah, vinland's core staff remained the same though, i think. Still MAPPA is going to die: SnK, JJK, Chainsaw, Hell's Paradise and now Vinland too? Sheesh... The vinland arc being adapted right now is amazing so the weight is even bigger now.

Oh, good luck with your internship (especially if it means watching more anime, jk)!

Yeah I just finished OPM too (not s2 yet). Literally when I finished s1, i could only think "I needed that". Like something about it was so necessary to me atm and don't quite know what exactly... Saitama is a legend, absolute animal. But we all know best "hero" is mumen rider, let's not kid ourselves.

Bang. I might've expected too much from bebop but you can always find something to enjoy on the shows you rate 7,6, or 5. I mean, obviously that's what the ratings mean (aka at least liking something about it) but when you think back on it and really identify what you like, I think that's worth more than any rating you give.

Actually the spy x family manga is alive and kicking, it's not over. I suppose it'll continue for another 2-3 years or so. Very bold prediciton but I think, due to what's happening, it'll contiue for that much time. The popularity it gained is insane. Everyone is a spy x family fan. Even if they say they are not, they are spy x family fans. Lmao Yor's va is amazing.

No, I'm happy for Berserk and its fans. I might not be the biggest fan but I do not hate it you know. I still like it and if anything, I'm curious to see how Miura's assistants continue it. I mean, the only points I didn't like is mid-way to end of FotME and Fantasia. The rest is great and the last chapters before Miura's passing were very enjoyable too so I am very much looking forward to the next ones.

Hey man, how are you doing? It's been some time but it's nice to catch up with you.

Speaking of catching up, I see we both have caught up on mob psycho 100. Personally, I like its direction with my fav character being Reigen and ofc my fav arc was he tackling the issue of beng found as a "fraud" even though we know Master Reigen isn't. Heh.

You've finished cowboy bebop too. Even though I wasn't such a big fan of its episodic style approach, I think it stuck the landing and finished gloriously. What are your thoughts?

Spy x Family is a hot topic now. Its author used to be an assistant of Isayama. Once I learnt that, I was pretty much looking forward to it. Once in, I coldn't resist to try the manga as well... Very good series and can't wait to see where it takes its mutiple "genres" it's carrying. Basically, it tries to do many things by taking risks with sometimes episodic and sometimes plot related chapters by it all feels like they should be this way. It's a weird imbalance that works.

Thanks man I'm beginning to get back into it watching anime again so I'm slowly getting a better anime affinity(eventually).

Thank you for sharing my opinion too!

I swear I've seen so many people these past few days say that Paths episodes were of no use to the story and was just for re-contextualization but I doubted that people could brush off the Eren-Zeke dynamic so easily... Adding to what you said, it's important that Zeke said that Eren couldn't have seen anything clearly via his memories since he didn't recognize Ymir at first and/or was surprised at reaching the paths. I'm saying this because you said that Eren realized he was the one behind the killing of the royal family on Grisha's mission to retake the founder. Eren didn't realize this in the cave but on the medal ceremony where he really unlocked his own future memories by unlocking more of Grisha's memories (important point here: Eren knows ONLY what was shown to Grisha via the Attack Titan. What Grisha knows is what Eren knows after he kissed Historia's hand). So at the cave, he just knew Grisha physcially murdered most of the royal family. After that he questions some crucial points about himself: Since he was replaceable (rod's goal to replace eren with historia when it comes to who has the founder), he started questioning how "special" he was. Up until then he made himself believe he was humanity's hope of victory, he even says that because of that, he didn't care he had a titan body even though he loathed titans with all his heart. Eren always had this desire to change something. Back in season 1 he said a very simple quote while being judged in the court "If those with power don't fight, the who will?" but the fact that he also took up this "role" pushed him down even more because the weight was that much bigger. He himself acknowledges this weight once he figures out he's got the special power after controlling titans and escaping from Reiner and Bert. But the reason why hates himself after that pont is because he lost trust in himself as he begged historia to eat him and save the rest of "humanity" as he became suicidal. Trust played an important role when Annie was chasing Levi squad with Eren at the forest. Eren decided to trust his comardes because as he said "I'm sorry...Why did I leave evryone behind to die? That's it... It's because I wanted.. Something new to rely on and to believe in. I am sick of being treated like a monster, so I believed in my comrades because it would just be easier that way..." This time, in the cave, he had to rely on himself and he did temporarily. Later, to defend against the rod reiss titan, he started beating himself up over how useless he was feeling because he saw a trio of children at that district they were supposed to defend. Here, in his words, by "beating that useless brat" inside of him he regained the strength to protect others from the same tragedy that happened to him because at that scene the parallels to the tragedy he experienced were not only obvious but necessary to understand Eren.

That's why he tries to cover his ass when Historia, in the latest episode, is critical of him exacting the same tragedy upon other people including the fact that won't know why they are being slaughtered, same as him ( as we saw from declaration of war, reiner was the main reason the tragedy occured to Eren). But heere's what I like most. Eren, deep down, genunely cared about what he said (even tho his main target was to cover himself and convince historia not to go through witht he 50 year plan). He genuinely cared about making no one else turn into a titan, let alone one of his friends (look no futher than the train scene were he swears he will not pass down his titans to any of his friends) and it's this argument which touched Historia the most because she herself believed that and Eren knew that would "weaken" her. His hatred for being bred and killed like livestock is emphasized on the meeting with Hizuru discussing Zeke's plans and influence on the island. Again, Eren tried to make others avoid the 50 year plan or at least buy time for his own plans but the complexity again is how he really does care about what he said too but that is overshadowed by a grander goal of his.

I wanted to add something more to the "trust" topic: Both times it was used , it had Levi force Eren to make a decision (even Levi has a panel dedicated to commenting this). Specifically, a decision that he would not regret later, that with the information he had at that time, it was the best he could have done. So, Eren has learned that trusting solely on his comrades didn't lead to a fully beneficial result. He realized he has to add a little bit of himself in the mix (and not take the easy way out as he himself commented as I stated above) and he managed to save his friends from the crumbling cave. Eren is using a mix of himself and others right now, with the rumbling even though from Marley onwards he was the one doing everything and forcing the survey corps to come to hsi rescue at Liberio or how he was controlling things from the inside back at Paradis to re-unite with Zeke. He even shouted at Hange for a possible alternative since they had run out of time by the time they returned to Paradis (willy's declaration brought the global alliance to paradis' door, which was Eren and Zekes plan after the declaration of war so they can crush a big chunk of all the world's forces witht the rumbling without them being able to escape). Eren wasn't really asking Hange for another road. He was already committed on his own path and he knew he could not change that because "even if what follows is what I wanted...everything is still ahead...". Eren isn't a puppet to his memories, his memories exist because Eren is who he is and try as he might, he cannot change himself and he accepted that. So, this scene was Eren off-loading guilt (followed by a scene with a similar goal of Eren saying "Fight" in the mirror in order to cope and push himself forward sine there was no going back, not now and not ever because Eren is who he is, sicne his birth-You'll see emphasis on these last 4-5 lines of mine on part and much more). So where does trust in his comrades fit here since Eren is doing everything by himself (as Hannes had quoted back in Season 2: "Eren always runs away from us and we're the ones chasing him")? I hope I can return to this once part 3 ends... It's hidden there... Don't worry, it's not a plot reveal but a thematical connection from this theme to Eren's character. It's inferred, that's why it's thematical.


Very sorry for these long texts with little to no structure and basically going up and down... Brainstorming and recalling eveyrthing at once with no prep before never was my strongest point...

Just to clear this shipbait thing. Yams never intended to make it shipbait, it's just that some people started shipping Eren and Historia over that one scene where they meet in the farm and basically that was the cherry on top for the destruction of the fandom followig the alliance chapters. Horrible. MAPPA reduced its impact by blending the chapter it happened in (130) with the emphasis on Eren and Mikasa's relationship from 123. But I really don't get why people care about ships so much they create theories about them and believing "there's no other road the story can go"....................... I mean, the fact that no anime only whose comments I've seen has stated anything related to Eren and Historia together (which leads to this "ship") speaks volumes of how loud a minority these people were.

Well I'd say it's more of a matter of consistency that MAPPA will be looking for in the apologizing scenes. Can they keep the rumbling's consistenct stable + something more which comes? It's that thing only.

I saw many people say that paths is "time travel" and it had little to no impact on the story. I have my own take but I'd like it if you told me yours first.

Hello,how are you doing? It's been a long time since I've answered here, indeed.

I agree, Part 2 really satisfied me. The only gripe I have has to do with the campfire scene. I believe the manga emphasizing on their expressions more made it more impactful than just staring at the starry sky a bunch of times but this is just a nitpick from my part. The fact that I have to nitpick to find problems is a good thing. Can't say I am surprised if the case for waiting another year is because their budget died again... And no, we haven't reached the part where Yams "apologized" for the staff working on the adaptation haha

I was doubting how a mix of chapters 123 and 130 would work in one episode but they absolutely did (Eren saying "everything was set in stone" not a long while after Mikasa said something similar proved to be a good transition). However, I still prefer their original arrangement (meaning not fitting both in one episode) due to how much easier it was to follow the alliance's motivations and thought process after the rumbling started all the way to them acquiring the flying boat. When I first read the manga, I really enjoyed theorizing about Eren's real thoughts and mindset between 123 and 130 since many points were raised by the alliance to figure out what Eren's thinking (Jean mentioned his mother's death or being pushed to the limit due to the lack of time which Hanji acknolwedged they failed to get, to name a few). Eren's monologue in 130 and something you'll see later, hit so good with their tones that you just felt that everything was coming together even though, in the past, it didn't seem like that. In my experience, I was shocked by how little of Eren I actually understood by the time 130 struck. Back then though, I was so gullible and puppet of the fandom's that I latched onto any "good" theory I found because such a chapter inspired a lot of theories, and I lost myself in this toxic atmosphere. But I still had this feeling of "everyting coming together" which was removed from the actual theories I was riding so you can say I had a connection to the "reality" of SnK. The final 4 chapters managed to revert me back to my "old" self and I could enjoy and appreciate the SnKmuch more again.

One thing I'm happy about though, is how MAPPA annihilated a possible "shipbait" which threw the manga fandom into the pits of hell and now there's no such thing among the anime only fanbase, or so I want to believe...

Thank you! I really appreciate it. Hope to talk to you soon.

I 100% agree. The focus shifted to Mikasa in the latest episodes, especially the last one. I'm sure she'll play a major role in the upcoming turn of events.

It sucks that we have to wait another year, that's all. I've been waiting for the final season since 2019 and I thought it would conclude the story once and for all, but it's taking too long to adapt the finale.

When it comes to the ending, I really want them to flesh it out more and make sure it gets the fixes it needs, if any. Praying it turns out fine. I think that AOE is very unlikely this far into the story. I don't see them changing the story 9 chapters before the ending.

I actually liked all of the OSTs, but I need to rewatch too and pay attention. This is one of the few episodes were I felt like the music and the scenes were in sync, but I'll have to watch the episode one more time to double check. I will let you know when I do.

I really loved the scouts in the suits, they looked great. They felt like they were different characters in that attire. It was like "Attack on Titan: Alternative Universe" kind of thing.

I don't see Linked Horizon coming back. They've been out of the two parts, why come back now? Whatever it is, MAPPA did not disappoint with their OPs and EDs, I like all 4 of them and I'm sure they'll make songs that are just as good for the final part.