Anime Thread - 2012

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

Arcana Famiglia 1

Hey, look, it's more sexist, mediocre anime! Who'd have thought it... I saw from other reviews that people agreed that this is really generic battle stuff, and yes, I agree. That's what this is for sure. Each character has a general stereotype and power, several of them use swords even though it's set in the early 20th century, the girl's father is a jerk and has set up a tournament where she has to marry the winner (unless she's allowed to compete too, or someone wins who doesn't want her, or something)... and yes, she protests -- she's one of the better characters here -- but the setup sure is generic and sexist. Sure, given the setting some sexism is believable (annoying to have to watch, but believable), but are such generic characters and such an obvious battle-tournament setup? Not so sure about that one.

So yeah, I wouldn't guess about whether I'll be watching this one to the end, that's for sure. However, it's not terrible. Just blandly average, much like Campione, and a lot of other stuff this season too I'm sure. There were a few amusing bits in the episode, and it wasn't offensively bad, which is always good for anime, but it wasn't anything good, or especially interesting, either.

On the note of amusing, though...

Princess Carry? Sure looks like it to me!

I'm sorry, Mr. Generic Main Character-ish Guy, but this is the 20th century now, and swords are a bit outdated. Nobody outside of Japan cares about those things anymore. (What, this is anime? But it's set in Europe, in what looks like the 1920s most likely...

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You need to be watching Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita [Humanity Has Declined], ABF. It's by far the best show of the season after two episodes.

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I passed on it after reading the concept. So it's actually good?

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Uh, yeah, it's great. A blend of whimsical post-apocalypse and hilarious surreal humor. Incredibly fresh and funny, devoid of harem romance and dull slice of life trivialities. The first episode is a bit slow, but the final scene will absolutely hook you if the rest of the episode doesn't.

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So far this series is a great antidote for all of that too-serious anime out there.

So it's a great antidote to...uh...Muv-Luv Alternative? Kind of drawing a blank outside of that...

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Almost anything else this season feels either too serious, or not as relentlessly cheerful, as Dog Days S2... but for that list there there's also Sword Art Online of course. Though as I just said, other somewhat generic action/harem shows like Campione, etc. feel pretty serious compared to Dog Days'. These first two episodes have a very different tone from any of that stuff, and it's great.

[Great Rumbler]

Moyashimon Returns is too serious? Binbougami Ga is too serious? Humanity Has Declines is too serious? Joshiraku is too serious? Tari Tari is too serious? The Ambition of Oda Nobuna is too serious? Kokoro Connect is too serious? Yuru Yuri is too serious? Come on, guy, outside of Muv-Luv and Sword Art Online, just about EVERYTHING is light-hearted or at least not overly serious.

And you haven't watched Humanity Has Declined yet? Seriously, go watch it, it's easily the freshest, weirdest, and funniest show airing right now.

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Kokoro Connect ep. 2 had a fairly serious part, actually... are you watching it? I think it's one of the season's best shows. Also, Humanity Has Declined's concept certainly is serious, yes. As for Yuru Yuri, it's not serious at all, but it does have a bunch of "make fun of the characters" humor (see: invisible Akarin, etc); there's less of that in Dog Days, it's mostly positive. As for the rest of those, haven't watched them.

And also, animegaf is talking a lot about SAO, for whatever reason. I am certainly not watching it though.

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Also, Humanity Has Declined's concept certainly is serious, yes.

And in execution it's pretty much the exact opposite. WATCH IT. It's a really great show.

And you should also be watching Polar Bear Cafe, which is the best slice-of-life show since Aria.

Kokoro Connect ep. 2 had a fairly serious part, actually... are you watching it? I think it's one of the season's best shows.

Got no interest in it, my patience for high school doings is rather limited of late.

And also, animegaf is talking a lot about SAO, for whatever reason. I am certainly not watching it though.

It's a decent fantasy-action series, but treads ground already heavily covered by .hack's many iterations.

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It's not just highschool antics, though, the bodyswap thing gives it a unique character.

If they decide to really get serious with the bodyswap angle, I might get interested, otherwise I just don't care.

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What do you mean by serious?

[Great Rumbler]

In this case, AnoHana. It takes a bizarre, supernatural concept that easily could have been played for dumb laughs and treated it as the basis for a serious examination of the loss of childhood, learning to let go of those who have passed on, and coping with tragedy. If Kokoro Connect just wants to be high school goofiness with a supernatural/scifi angle, then I just do not care to spend my time on it.

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In this case, AnoHana. It takes a bizarre, supernatural concept that easily could have been played for dumb laughs and treated it as the basis for a serious examination of the loss of childhood, learning to let go of those who have passed on, and coping with tragedy. If Kokoro Connect just wants to be high school goofiness with a supernatural/scifi angle, then I just do not care to spend my time on it.

Um, I already said that Kokoro Connect isn't just vapid comedy. Did you forget that? It isn't Anohana serious (I mean, nobody's dead), but Kokoro Connect definitely has a serious side as well as a comedic one. The premise may seem silly, but the show takes it seriously. On that note...

Kokoro Connect 2 - While the first episode was just an intro, this one explains some of the reasons why the body-switching is happening, and starts getting into some of the issues that would come up if people did randomly swap bodies like that. I think this episode mixed the silly and serious elements of this show quite well. They really did a good job here with both -- there were some parts that were definitely amusing, and others that brought up some good questions. There was a bit too much about going to the bathroom, but well, it IS true that randomly swapping into someone of the other gender (who you know) and then they have to go to the bathroom would be an obvious issue. And it's not just played for laughs here or something, this show isn't like that.

So yeah, it was great seeing a bit more depth from the characters. Each one of the five has a different personality and interesting character. The group is made up of two guys and three girls, and they're each interesting in a different way. I guess this episode has a bit more of Taichi and Iori than the other three, though. Iori raises some good questions here. And Taichi... yeah, I can see why the girls don't really trust you. :p

The being responsible, whatever it is, takes over their teacher and says that it's all basically being done in the hopes that there'll be entertaining results. What a troll. Understandably, the five of them are not thrilled about this...


Sorry, Taichi, but you can probably figure out why they don't entirely trust you... though they do somewhat.


But are they really sure you'll stick to this? :)


Indeed, Iori. This show certainly raises that (metaphysical) issue.

So yes, this was a great episode, even better than the first one for sure. Kokoro Connect is a good, high quality show certainly worth the watch.

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I've fallen behind on Kokoro Connect, but from what I've heard it's very, very good. You should not be writing it off.

The only shows I am caught up on are Yuru Yuri S2, Dog Days S2, and Tanken Driland... and the subs for that last on are stuck on ep. 3 for the time being, unfortunately. Everything else, except for Kokoro Connect which I will certainly watch more, just doesn't seem good enough to actually follow...

Those three I am watching are good fun, though. :)

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You should dump all those shows and watch Polar Bear Cafe and Humanity Has Declined.

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Someday you'll watch Kokoro Connect and realize that you should have been watching it now.

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I've got better series than Kokoro Connect still sitting in my backlog, so...probably not! And I've been following Bamboo Dong's progress on ANN's The Stream, which has lead me thus far to believe that I haven't really missed a whole not by not watching it.

But I do know that you're missing out by not watching Space Brothers, Polar Bear Cafe, Natsuyuki Rendezvous, or Humanity Has Declined. Those are easily the top four shows currently airing

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I watched four or five episodes of Polar Bear Cafe, and yeah, it's very funny, amusing stuff.

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YOU NEVER MENTION IT SO HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW

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Reviews of episodes two and four are in this thread, though. I don't know why I never wrote anything for eps 1 or 3, odd... but those two are here. I guess you forgot, or never read them.

But yeah, I should watch some more of it.

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Ten Tokyo Warriors 1-3 - This is one of the worst animes I have ever watched, ever. Seriously, it's that bad. Tokyo Warriors is horrible, horribly dubbed (and in a bad way, not a bad-but-good way; this is bad-bad, not good-bad.), confusing, doesn't make any sense, and absolutely is not worth any of your time. The plot is very poorly explained, so I don't really know what's going on except that it seems to involve Sengoku warriors spirits returning in the modern day and a demon invasion of Tokyo by demons which are taking over peoples' bodies, but apart from that, I don't get it at all. Oh, and the main characters are of course some high school kids with special powers (as if it could be anyone else?). I guess there are supposed to be ten warriors as the title suggests, but I can only think of four or five that we've seen so far. Are there more later or something, or are some of the other characters warriors too? I have no idea. Then there's drama that makes no sense (some of the characters are complaining about ... something or other, don't ask me), but it really doesn't matter if it does or not in a series this atrociously terrible. (Miko girl is best, though. She's fairly tough, knows what she's doing, and wears pants too... there are no good characters in this series, but she's probably closest.)

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Joshiraku is great! Best anime comedy since Nichijou, certainly. Very funny show, I'm through ep. 5 so far.

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Went and watched all of Nichijou over the past week or so. The first episode really didn't do much for me back when I originally watched it, but getting somewhere comfortable and watching through the rest of it converted me to the side of really enjoying it.

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Yeah, it's a great, funny show.

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Girls und Panzer 1-2: Great series, I love it! It's got group-of-girls comedy stuff, it's got tanks, it's got girls in tanks learning how to control them, and it's got a very strange (and as of yet unexplained) setting, too. Yeah, this series is great, highly recommended. Just remember: Panzerkraft [the tank-battle sport popular in this world] is only for girls. All the boys will want girls who are good at panzerkraft! Not that this series has any actual male characters, so far it doesn't.

Ixion Saga DT 1-2: Amusingly bad generic fantasy series with guy pulled there from this world and some stupid humor. It's so bad it's almost good. Also, it has a crossdressing guy who looks pretty much exactly like a girl.

Chuunibou 1: KyoAni show. It's got their visual style and quality, and it's very moe, but it's average overall I would say. The concept's not too original, with a generic guy and crazy/weird girl, and it makes me think of a cross of Haruhi and various mangas (about how jr. high age kids have that "delusions of grandeur" thing referenced in this series' title). The main girl has eyepatch moe; I of course find damaged moe really quite disturbing, but at least she isn't actually missing an eye -- she just wears the eyepatch because of, well, see the "she's crazy" thing I mentioned earlier. So overall, the show is watchable and moe, but nothing amazing.

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I've watched at least one episode of pretty much everything, so here goes:

Psycho-Pass - Tries to hard to be dark and edgy, which makes it a bit ridiculous. Promising, at least, so there's plenty of reason to give it another episode or two.

Btooom! - Did you like Gantz? Then this is your "all humans are unlikable scum" series to watch.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure - 80's magnificence, a must watch for anime that claims to be an anime fan.

K - Lots of style, substance is a bit limited. Very nice animation and art, but there's a girl who is also a cat and she doesn't wear an clothes, so keep that in mind before you start watching.

Kamisama Kiss - It's Akitarou Daichi, which means it's just about a must-watch for me. That aside, it's a nice shojo series.

Girls und Panzer - Look, you know what you're going to get from the outset.

Ixion Saga DT - Our "hero" defeats one of the main villains in the first episode by kicking him directly in the junk with these crazy spiked shoes. That appears to be the show in a nutshell, and I'm okay with that.

Jormungand: Perfect Order - More of what was great about the first season, although the first episode forgoes action for a bit of building up to something bigger than what was in season 1.

Magi - Medieval Middle-Eastern fantasy, which is a nice change from the standard European-esque fair that most fantasy goes for. The adventure side is fun and looks promising, but it's held back a bit by some bizarre humor and SD character moments that feel really out of place.

Blast of Tempest - Too little information in the first half and too much in the second half. Lots of supernatural doings and one very nice action sequence. It's worth checking out.

Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb - It's season 4 of Hidamari Sketch, if you've watch it up through season 3 you know what you're going to get and you know whether you want to watch season 4 already.

Robotics;Notes - Not much going on in the first 2 episodes, but the near-future setting and the idea of kids living in a world where giant robots are becoming a normal thing is interesting. Overall, it's fun and reasonably well-made, just not particularly compelling just yet.

From the New World - Too vague and cute [cute as in trying to do something different just to be different] for its own good, it's still an interesting watch and I think it will eventually start coming together. The main problem so far is that none of the characters really stand out, so you just have this group of kids that you can't remember anything about.

My Little Monster - Decent shoujo romance series, but it doesn't really interest me enough to keep watching it when there's so many other good shows this season.

Chuunbiyo Demo Koi - Again, not a bad show but it's just not interesting enough for me to keep watching it during this particularly season. I might pick it up during a drier season, though.

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Gantz? Btoom is more Battle Royale, as in, it's in that genre of Battle Royale ripoffs. I haven't watched the anime, but the manga's average, I guess. You're right that it's definitely a "humans are scum" series, though...

Anyway, unless From the New World's better than I think it is (seems to be good, need to watch more), Girls und Panzer is, most likely, this season's best show. It's pretty good, lots of fun and reasonably high quality too. I've watched ep. 3 now; more girls-in-tanks action! Great stuff. Next time: the rest of that battle hinted at at the beginning of ep. 1.

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So yeah, I don't know about objective best, but the most fun and entertaining series this year, the ones I liked watching the most, were Bodacious Space Pirates and Girls und Panzer.

And on that note, yes, GuP is fantastic! I love it. Sure, it's got some things you can quibble about, but they're minor compared to the fun. The only real negative is that the last two episodes were delayed and won't air until March... argh! And ep. 10 leaves off with a cliffhanger, too!

The good news, though, is that it seems to be pretty successful, so we could well see not just two more episodes, but at least one more season too. That'd be great -- it deserves it.


As for other shows from the last season, about all I've watched is 2 or 3 eps of Ixion Saga DT (so excessively stupid, but it's entertainingly stupid at times, so I may watch more sometime), and 3 eps of Psycho-Pass (seems good, I will continue with this one). Oh right, and I stopped watching Chuunibyou after two episodes because it was so average. It's one of Kyoani's less interesting shows, I think. The best part were the delusion sections, but otherwise I didn't see anything there to keep me watching.

[Great Rumbler]

You should probably drop Psycho-Pass before you get to episode 11, ABF. I just know that you'll absolutely hate it.

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Darnit, you made me go and read up on what you were referring to... and yeah, that does sound like a "drop the series there" moment; sure, it sounds plausible given the characters, but I don't like that kind of thing...

I mean, I can take a limited amount of tragic-violent-depression stuff, sometimes, but most of the time I do prefer to avoid it... still though, it's not like I think "if there's anything awful that happens in a series I won't watch it", that's not true. But I do often avoid such things, particularly in animated/movie form (because that has more of an impact than, say, manga); that's why I didn't actually watch From the New World, even with how good it sounds, it's just so unrelentingly horrendously depressing... and yeah, that Psychgo-Pass one sounds like one of the cruler ones. Not quite "last couple episodes of Vampire Princess Miyu" cruel, but cruel. (But yes, I do like VPM; it's probably my favorite super-dark-and-depressing anime, provided that we're not counting Lain or Haibane Renmei as that, because they aren't on that level. But that ending of the series... so, so cruel!)

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The best of this season is Maoyu, Kotoura-san, and Minami-ke season 4.

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Maoyu I'm not too interested in (it's like the manga, right?), but I do have interest in Minami-ke... but I never finished the first season, actually, and haven't watched seasons 2 or 3 at all. Can I skip straight to this one?

[Great Rumbler]

Maoyu I'm not too interested in (it's like the manga, right?),

There's about five different mangas and I haven't read any of them.

Can I skip straight to this one?

It's slice of life, so that answer is obviously "Yes."

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Ai Mai Mi 1-3 - This series is weird, really really weird. It's another 3-minute series. This isn't one of the better ones; it's too bizarre for me to actually like it.

Imas Puchimas 18 to 22 - This 3-min anime I do like... funny stuff. Takane's messed up though, I didn't know she had issues like that... I mean, in how she treats the Puchimases.

Vividred Operation 2 - More poor navy ships getting blown up, more sailors dying pointlessly (and unseen, apart from their exploding ships) because they foolishly think that enemies are something for the military to deal with instead of flying schoolgirls, and... an evil girl makes an appearance too? Now who is that other girl, and hwy is she making the enemy come back to life... huh. Well, phase two of the fight starts next time. This series is really generic. Okay, but generic. (Also, if this world is so peaceful and all, as the setting claimed, why did they have a sizable navy to begin with... I guess they thought it might not stay that way.)

There's about five different mangas and I haven't read any of them.

Ah. Well, the basic concept of the series... I really dislike it. I mean, it's basically a statistics harem show about how war is good and peace is bad so keep the war going on forever because the effects of peace would be even worse!

... Yeah, no, I hate that message, and thus the franchise in general.

It's slice of life, so that answer is obviously "Yes."

True.

[Great Rumbler]

Ah. Well, the basic concept of the series... I really dislike it. I mean, it's basically a statistics harem show about how war is good and peace is bad so keep the war going on forever because the effects of peace would be even worse!

Uh...yeah, and that's the kind of thinking that the protagonists are fighting AGAINST.

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Unless the entire concept and beginning of the manga are all compete lies, I doubt that...


Senran Kagura 4-5 - Senran Kagura is great! I like it a lot. Best show of this kind in a while. The only real bad thing about it is that there's a week between episodes. :)


Saki Achiga-hen: Episode of Side-A 12 (last TV ep) and 13-14 (OVA eps 1-2) - Looking back to summer last year I made a few posts talking about what happens in ep. 12 of Saki Achiga-hen, but I failed to write up a review of that episode, which is the last episode of the original Achiga-hen run. But yeah, it was a great conclusion to the first match of the Side-A final. The action's heated, and Teru very impressively good (and scary). Poor Kuro... she finally managed to stop her streak at the end, but before that she, Toki, and the Shindouji girl all lost so, so many points. But I mostly wrote this for the two new episodes (from 2013), 13 and 14.

Saki Achiga-hen episodes 13-14 - These two episodes, the first two (monthly) episodes of what is now going to be four OVA episodes, go through the remaining four rounds of the match, at a pace of about one round per episode. This results in a sadly somewhat rushed pace again, but still, they're great episodes, as expected. These two cover rounds 2 and 3 of the match, and part of round 4. It's currently Arata's match then, though this episode doesn't really get to her much; it's mostly the other players, all trying to one-up eachother. Shindouji is mounting a VERY impressive comeback -- they fell very, very far behind by the end of round 3 ("it's all the government's fault", huh, round 3 sheep-hair girl? I think not. :) ), but their last two players are much better, and also of course are a Saki-style "yuri couple". These two have a bond (and some light bondage themes), so the first can set keys, and the second can get powered up in the rounds that the first set and then won in, or powered down in rounds where the first sets a key but then fails to win. The final round is sure to be exciting... I expect the results to be the expected ones, but Ritz has done a good job of making it exciting and bringing all four teams into legitimate contention near the end!

Oh yeah, and as for the third round, Sera/Ako... Good stuff there! Also, poor "fisher king" girl from Shiraitodai... she was supposed to be good, but got crushed, badly. The announcers were too kind...

There is a frequent complaint about Achiga-hen that I see that the actual Achiga girls don't get enough characterization. And generally, this is true; even the main character, Shizu, is mostly unknown, as far as her Mahjong playing style is concerned at least. Why is even Amae Koromo worried about how good she will be? It's this far into the series, and we still have no idea! This continues until the final chapter of the Achiga manga, where her powers are finally explained; expect that in anime ep. 16. It's a late reveal, but at least she has a good power. And we only learned more details about Arata's playstyle this episode. I know that she has the least amount of attention of the five main characters, but still... I wish that this series was longer, so there was more time to establish the main cast. As it is, as much or more time has been spent on some girls from other schools, most obviously Toki and Ryuuka, but also Teru, Awai, and the two bondage lesbians from Shindouji too. Of course having significant characterization for characters from every major team is a series staple and is to be expected, but at least in the main series the main characters have as much or more. In this series, the main character is the one that we might know the least about, powers-wise! I mean, it's sure to be interesting once we finally learn, but it does make it hard to avoid charges of it being contrived, when the series starts out with three of the five main characters not seeming to have any special abilities, and the other two only seeming to have average ones. I know that they have a great coach, who's able to see things in the other players that even the other coaches seem to miss, and that obviously helps, but it would be nice if it were a little clearer why Achiga actually deserves to be here, for reasons other than "because they need to for the story". Some of that's here, such as the hints about how good Shizu is, but is it enough? Debatable.

Despite that though, these are two great episodes. Saki's at its best when it's in intense mahjong action interspersed with yuri, and this match has both of those in spades. (And as for nopan, Saki's other distinguishing mark... uh, Hajime's summer costume makes an appearance in this episode. Enough said.) So yeah, great episodes, as expected! I'm very much looking forward to the last two. And Arata's cool.


Images, ep. 13:

Yuu dodges incoming fire!

And then strikes back, because she does great in this match.

Afterwards, Ako tries to get some of Yuu's luck to rub off on her...

Too bad, you're kidding?

Yuu would like it if that were your reason. She likes warmth.

Ep. 14:

http://www.abload.de/img/vlcsnap-2013-01-31-035pdbq.jpg
Hajime and Amae Koromo visit, and wake up, Saki on the morning of Achiga's match. Probably NSFW; that outfit of Hajime's probably should be linked only, not posted.

Shindouji's keymaking bondage lesbian girl has some cool animations when she does a good enough hit to get a key...

And there one is. After the above the sky goes blue, then this descends down. Sometimes huge keys are shown, but this one is small, and, well, key-sized. The last Shindouji girl can use the keys on the rounds they were gotten in, to get good combos that turn.

Go, Arata!

[Great Rumbler]

Unless the entire concept and beginning of the manga are all compete lies, I doubt that...

Look, the whole point of the manga is that winning the war isn't actually something that either side wants, because war is very profitable for those at the top, so they keep the war going as long as possible and reap great benefits from it. The Demon King believes that the only way to end the war once and for all is to create a situation where the human world and the demon world can be very prosperous even during peace time, which she accomplishes largely through advanced agricultural practices.

Yes, the manga admits that war is economically beneficial, but it's certainly not advocating war.

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On that note, another obvious issue with the franchise is where the Demon Queen gets all her information, anyway. What does she have, a time machine? Because if the demons all had the technology to get information like she has, they'd have won this war long ago.

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[Great Rumbler]

Gargantia, The Devil is a Part-Timer, Devil Survivor 2, and Attack on Titan are pretty good, that's probably about all I'll watch to completion from this season.