Bro do you even click tags?

#anime

#animeclub

A lot of anime is pure shit. Some of it is great. War is right - I would consider Madoka Magica to be one of the top two or three television series ever made, right up there with The Wire. From a writing perspective it is a technically exquisite Yngwie Malmstein guitar solo that attempts the impossible, plants the dismount and gives the judges double eagles and still gets a 10. Sitting down to watch it unbriefed (which is how you should watch it) is like grudgingly agreeing to sit through a My Little Pony marathon only to find yourself watching Lord of the Rings.

Netflix has Genesis Climber Mospeada on DVD. You might recognize it as the third cycle of Robotech but Robotech re-edited it heavily to hammer'n'tongs it into their existing Harmony Gold narrative. I think it's unique and interesting in that it posits a future in which a malevolent alien race takes over the Earth, the armed forces retreat to Mars, then they attempt to retake Earth some years later, fail miserably, and then we follow a band of guerillas as they try to find their pickup point while also discovering that most of humanity doesn't much mind oppressive alien domination. Also one of the fighter pilots is a transvestite lounge singer named Yellow Belmont because Japan.

Having done a preposterous amount of research on schizophrenia for a script, I can honestly say that Serial Experiments: Lain is the best attempt at portraying a schizophrenic's view of the world. A very smart, computer-savvy schizophrenic. The design is also fucking incredible. Watch it in Japanese; the dub is shit.

PsychoPass is pretty good. It's Gen Uruboshi, who also did Madoka Magica. It's a little less nuanced, a little more rushed, still worth watching.

Attack on Titan is shit. Don't bother.

We've covered a lot of these under #animeclub.