Yeah, it's been a while and to be honest I haven't really been watching anime since mid 2021. I watched a couple great ones though, mostly from Kon Satoshi.
Have you seen any of his works?
The girl on my pfp is Marin Kitagawa, from My Dress-up Darling. It's a pretty solid ecchi-romance about cosplaying.
Bro, I respect/like your passion and love for shounen anime and I get that you are not amused about me kinda trashing TTGL.
TTGL doesn't have any depth to it so there are no underlying themes and the only theme that is repeated almost every 10 min is: "I believe in yourself like you believe in myself and then we can achieve everything". Its something like that I just cant remember Simons exact words and you are free to correct me.
What is there left to understand about the plot besides the obvious actions that you witness? Its the classic tale about a weak minded guy without power who develops the believe in himself along his journey to rescue the world/girl.Yes, there are a couple of little twists but nothing special.What lets TTGL shine the most are the over the top fights, the unique animation and the over the top style of the plot.
But writing wise it lacks depth and especially quality isn't this obvious? Dont come at me bro with the dialogue.Its dialogue is so simple and lacks depth that every demographic can understand everything perfectly the first watch.Its not where the anime puts its emphasize on at all.YOu just want to see depth in its dialogue/plot that's not there.I explained what I believe the main purpose is of this anime or where it most shines at.
You can ofc disagree with me and deliver arguments in detail with examples to underline your points but unless you do that im not going to change my mind.
If u are not able to see that, im not going to write a whole essay in detail why this anime is lacking in terms of quality in writing when you just ignore every critic I state.I like to participate in fruitful discussions but I dont want to waste my time.
Well whilst scrolling through my previous comments I just found out that I didn't reply to this comment beforehand (I somehow throught that I had beforehand but looks like I didn't lol) so I figured that I should about do that now. Really sorry for deciding to reply this late like after like almost a year of gap but I just thought I shouldn't leave a reply unanswered which I intended to answer in the first place and somehow ended up overlooking, so I hope you don't mind me replying this very late to your comment regarding TTGL.
Here basically my reply (spoilering it for some obvious reasons and its length):
Gurren Lagann's narrative is primarily based upon how the people/oppressed class in a tyrannical world express themselves against the oppression & discrimination they face. Looking the very premise of the show, the human race as representatives of the oppressed class in society have been entirely have been forced to live underground, more in the darkness of underground to the point where no one would even dare to try & look beyond what even lies beyond the surface of the ground by a superior oppresor (at first the big oppressor seemed to be Lordgenome, the spiral king, but in the 2nd half, we get to know the bigger picture that the Anti-Spirals were the true tyrannical oppresor to who actually enforced all the tyranny & darkness upon humanity & the whole spiral race and Lordganome did all that to make sure that the Anti-Spirals don't come to display their wrath). In a tyrannical world, after being oppressed by the superior/stronger ones for a long time, people pretty naturally just take the oppression as it is and cope with it without even opposing or try to revolt & express themselves against all that. Kamina, Simon's big brother is the one who firstives rise to the belief or rather speaking the initiative in people to try and go beyond the see what lies beyond the surface if the earth instead of lying under the darkness of underground as oppressed people forever. The very slogan of Gurren Lagann that is "my drill us the drill that'll pierce the heavens" is about expressing yourself against what has been imposed on you, against the strict limitations/restrictions that has been imposed on you by the oppressive superiors in a world that is full of tyranny & inequality, to try & go beyond all that, seeking liberalism against all the imposing oppression you're facing, to describe in short it's the theme of liberalism the show conveys via its various events & main lines. And after the big certain event in the show that is....
*Have to hide the rest of my explanation regarding this under a spoiler cuz it contains several spoilers regarding many event's in the show*
Kamina's death in episode 8, humanity is left without a leader who instilled the very belief in them to express themselves against the oppression & tyranny they've been facing for years. It's amidst this situation of crisis that Simon, his little bro's journey & development towards becoming the leader who'd inspire humanity to revolt, seek & attain liberty/freedom in the world full of tyranny/inequality. And I thought this development part of Simon was handled really well throughout the show since it tackled some good thee as well, theme like understanding the weight of responsibility and the importance to live up to it. It's about accepting loss and realizing that it is a part of life and moving on which could only exist if you got to have something to lose, meaning you experienced happiness. Kamina serves as a great example of this at first. He did as much as he could for as long as he could and made the most of it all, despite having experienced the loss of his father and having knowledge of his own mortality.
Now, remembering Kamina's very last words to Simon before dying:
"Believe in yourself. Not the me that believes in you. Not the you that believes in me. Believe in the you that believes in yourself"
This actually reflects very well enough on yet another strong theme that is self improvement, like coming to a realization of your flaws/limitations and bringing out a better self in yourself. There's a point in the show when Lagann shuts down on Simon when he's going berserk trying to emulate Kamina. However, it returns to him when he starts solving things his own way. Later when spiral power is brought up as a concept, it's described as the ability for beings to evolve. This is what the drill symbolizes and culminates in the famous speech if him at the end, in the climax of the show where Simon & his friends are fighting their main oppressor, the Anti Spirals (the whole battle against the Anti-Spirals was basically a portrayal of the everlasting conflicts between the oppressors & oppressed class in society, where the Anti-Spirals, the representative of the oppressor class in society repeatedly look down upon Simon and co. as Spiral races as an inferior class than them and pointing out their big limitations to them, but Simon and co. gradually answered those questions one by one, eventually pointing out that the actual limitations lie within the oppressors in society, a.k.a. the anti-spirals and not with the oppressed class like the spiral race):
“We evolve beyond the person that we were a minute before. Little by little we advance with each turn. That’s how a drill works!”
Now quoting some of the other dialogues that happened after the particular dialogue of Simon I already mentioned above, during that final fight Simon & co. had against the Anti-spirals (the main oppressor & antagonists of the show) which'd reflect upon some of the other aspects the show reflected upon:
Simon: "We evolve beyond the person we were a minute before! Little by little, we advance a bit further with each turn. That's how a drill works!!"
— Simon tells us the theme of the series right before the following:
Anti-Spiral: That is the path that leads to extinction. Why can't you see the pathetic limitation of the Spiral race?
Simon: No, that's YOUR limitation! You sit here, closed-off, locking away other lifeforms like some kind of king! That's nobody's limitation but your own!!
— Simon utterly rejects the Anti-Spiral's pessimistic philosophy.
Yoko: He's right! We humans used to have somebody much, much bigger than us! For his sake, we'll keep moving forward!
This whole conversation reflects story upon one thing regarding the relationship of the oppressor & the oppressed in a tyrannical society, that is, it's actually the oppressors, not the oppressed who actually limit themselves more. Pretty naturally, the oppressors are the ones who are constantly busy putting down the oppressed, they always have to make sure that the oppressed people always remain below them all the time, in the process if doing so, they always have to look down & down all the time which puts them in a limitation which'd prevent themselves from moving forward. One the other hand, oppressed people are constantly facing tyranny & oppression, due to that, they always have something for the sake of which they can more forward, in order to seek freedom & strive for liberty against the oppression they're constantly facing from their oppressors. Having to face something that put them down again & again means that the oppressed have a clear purpose for the sake which they can move forward, in order to try & overcome the stronger oppressor who have been constantly suppressing them and break free through all the limitations/tribulations imposed upon them. Basically, the oppressor people are the ones who are in a state of limitation because of having to constantly look down & suppress the ones they're imposing their tyranny upon whilst the oppressed people at least have the purpose of trying to overcome the oppression they are facing & seek freedom against all that, which means that they're in a position/situation where they have something to move forward for in life, unlike the oppressors. This very aspect regarding the relative situations of the oppressors & the oppressed people are in a tyrannical world was, IMO very strongly & beautifully conveyed through these dialogues during that final climax battle with the Anti-spirals.
Overall it basically these various interesting themes regarding oppressed people expressing themselves against tyranny in an world oppression & inequality, self improvement via realization of your own flaws & limitations, dealing with loss and the relative situations of the oppressors & the oppressed people in respect to the different positions they find themselves which shows an unique outlook on the concept of tyranny as a whole Gurren Lagann conveyed through its style, story & finally characterization like the show did throughout the show as a whole, is mainly the reason I found the show not only entertainment wise, but also theming & concept wise very subtle & sound as well, which is basically the reason why Gurren Lagann in one of my all-time favourites.
I would wanna explain the conflict between the anti-spirals & the spirals, in retrospect reflecting the everlasting conflict between the oppressors & the oppresed class in society evenmore elaborately by quoting some of the Anti-Spirals' quotes during the final climactic battle a bit more elaborately, & explain the perspective of the oppressed class more clearly, but I'm a little bit too tired to write any more so I'll leave it here for now. But if you do want me to elaborate more on that, I'll do it sometimes afterwards. That's all I can say for now.
I hope that I was able to answer/elaborate regarding the points you made in your reply regarding TTGL. Obviously, like I said at the end, there are several other viewpoints/points of critical assessments that can be made regarding the final battle (like specifically assessing the dialogues of the Anti-Spirals during the climactic battle and how that corresponds with the mindset of the oppressors of the real world, etc. etc.) which I didn't elaborate on in my reply above......so my reply isn't quite a complete assessment of all the points which I myself percieve about the show overall. I didn't bring up and elaborate about all the critical points I have in favour of the show in my mind above, only brought forth a few of them, but if you do reply further to my reply here, I'd gladly bring forth those points as well in context of whatever points you might bring up in your reply afterwards (obviously, assuming that you do reply to this). And once again, sorry for replying this much late, I know that it's not right to give a reply so late but like I said, I didn't want to leave a reply unanswered which I intended to answer back thenand somehow ended up forgetting.
Couldn't you tell me that when you were adult?!!? 😂
Yes somehow I also prefer blonde idk why...probably they are so attractive.
I think if someone doesn't have an unshakable character and she is mature enough to take care of fnf, I think she is the perfect waifu!! Like Akari from March comes in like a lion.
Well, I agree with you about the mature version of Shinobu is better than the loli version. The loli version was more generic, she didn't have that much character depth in my opinion. There are a bunch of lolis in Monogatari, or to be precise the total number of lolis might not exceed 3.
There's Ononoki, Hachikuji and Shinobu.
Ononoki is the best non-main character in Monogatari in my opinion. She is one the best support character who actually was there for support. Without her Araragi would have been in huge problems. She might be a bit similar to loli Shinobu but an emotionless version.
Hachikuji was a unique character. Her story is the most memorable one for me.
The mature version of Shinobu was a unique and charismatic character just like you said. She was like a princess or i'd say a queen. The absolutely best Monogatari arc is Kizumonogatari in my opinion. Shinobu was an antagonist there, right?
The artistic style of the 3rd movie got me shocked. I was totally amazed and into that way of storytelling.
Senjougahara was the ice queen of Monogatari. Her personality is a mix between a tsundere and kuudere I think, if that's even possible.
Her confessing in the beginning was unexpected but was a good decision. It makes Monogati a bit more unique too since almost in every romance stories the confession happens in the end or near the end of the story.
I don't know exactly what trades I value in waifus.
She has to be a tsundere for sure, I don't care about the shy and cute deredere waifus. Her hair has to be red / brown.
Has to have an iconic line / iconic look.
For example Noelle in Black Clover calls Asta as "Bakasta" almost in every episodes.
Senjougahara has way too many great lines. And my waifu, Itsuki from 5-toubun likes to eat a lot. That's the other thing I like in specific characters. Sometimes it makes the character funnier and sometimes not.
And last but not least she has to be caring.
My top 3 waifus right now (it has changed recently, I removed Hori) are Itsuki Nakano, Hitagi Senjougara, Rias Gremory.
JJK doesn't have a story and character depths, just like you said. I think in shounens like this they aren't that important. If it works without them then it's good.
Character depths and a good story is more important in neverending shounens. Imagine if Naruto didn't have a personality nor a good story.
JJK is just for entertaintment.
A lot of people compare JJK to Kimetsu no Yaiba. They say Kimetsu no Yaiba was better etc., but I think that one failed in stroytelling and character depths. They tried to hard and they ended up being totally annoying.
JJK doesn't take itself serious like Kimetsu no Yaiba. It has greatly animated fight scenes, a hot teacher who looks like Kakashi, a weird guy who ate fingers and got power and a guy who says "salmon, tuna" all the time etc.
I haven't seen One Punch Man but I think JJK wants to be like One Punch Man more than be similar to Kimetsu no Yaiba.
So far JJK is doing absolutely great. If there was a well written story the anime and manga would be a neverending story. Be honest, who need another neverending shounen.
Why is AOT not my favourite from this season? Because Wonder Egg Priority and Mushoku Tensei exists.
I hate isekais, I mean I really hate isekais, but Mushoku Tensei is doing everything in the right way.
Wonder Egg Priority made a huge mistake in the previous week. Having a recap episode in a 12 episoded anime was totally unnecessary. Still it's so freaking amazing. It has Monogatari vibes a bit.
I'm not a tsundere. Wait, that's what every tsundere would say...Hmm...then I might be a tsundere. One of my friend says that I'm a tsundere.
Idk, I just like tsundere characters the most. I definitely wouldn't unleash any hard typical tsundere stuff on you.
You might be right. I'd definitely be fine without you. I'm good all by myself tbh.
I like it when someone writes on my profile so your writing on my profile makes me happy. It's not like I want you to write me.
Idk why I became "popular" tbh. There were days when I got about 6-8 friend requests a day. Now that I'm not the most active user on MAL my popularity has decreased. University sucks.
Ohh, I'm so sorry. :(
Luckily I haven't got spoiled. If I got spoiled I'd be extemely mad. I have a strong feeling about who's gonna marry Futaro.
JJK is great to watch, it has top tear animation, the fights are good etc. The only weakness of JJK are the characters. They don't have enough character depth. You might be a bit confused about the next thing that I'm gonna say. AOT is not my favourite from this season anymore.
JJK and WEP and ofc the 5-toubun are better to watch imo.
AOT came out on Sunday and I watched it the next day. I have always watched AOT as soon as it came out.
Ughh I got into playing board games about 2 years ago when one of my friend invited me to play a random board games with him and our friends.
Ohh so you checked my profile. You were curious about me. Hmm interesting. Sorry, but I like Senjougahara.
Shinobu is just my 4th or 5th favourite Monogatari character.
I like Neko Hanekawa, Kanbaru and probably Hachikuji more. I'm not sure about Hachikuji.
I haven't finished Monogatari yet so that might be another reason why Shinobu isn't in my waifu list.
I should update that list because it sucks. There are so many better waifus who are not included in that but I like them more than most of those who are in that.
If you respond within 1 week, I'm good and not gonna throw tomatoes at you.
Yeah, I'm too kind. Luckily I'm not a tsundere so it's not really bothering me.
I'm sure I missed some comments from other friends and left them without response. :(
If you respond within 2 weeks I'm good. But if you exceed then I'm gonna take back the cake I baked for you.
Take care.
Unstable Unicorns was the one we played on my bday. And there's another game that's basically based on Game of Thrones but the story is realistic and it's about one part of our nation's history. I'd say it's a game for experts.
Do you play board games?
I haven't been watching many seasonals lately. I'm watching Horimiya (I started reading the manga too, beacause it's f*cking awesome), Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan and 5-toubun no Hanayome. That's basically all. I only find these interesting for me.
Though there's Wonder Egg Priority but I'm waiting for the end, so I'll watch it later.
Lately I've been reading mangas and talking with friends here.
I'm a trap...
I'm a male btw. It was a good day but it was tiring since I got a new board game which was kinda hard to play for the first time.
I like board games but it was on another level.
How have you been lately?
All Comments (145) Comments
Yeah, it's been a while and to be honest I haven't really been watching anime since mid 2021. I watched a couple great ones though, mostly from Kon Satoshi.
Have you seen any of his works?
The girl on my pfp is Marin Kitagawa, from My Dress-up Darling. It's a pretty solid ecchi-romance about cosplaying.
TTGL doesn't have any depth to it so there are no underlying themes and the only theme that is repeated almost every 10 min is: "I believe in yourself like you believe in myself and then we can achieve everything". Its something like that I just cant remember Simons exact words and you are free to correct me.
What is there left to understand about the plot besides the obvious actions that you witness? Its the classic tale about a weak minded guy without power who develops the believe in himself along his journey to rescue the world/girl.Yes, there are a couple of little twists but nothing special.What lets TTGL shine the most are the over the top fights, the unique animation and the over the top style of the plot.
But writing wise it lacks depth and especially quality isn't this obvious? Dont come at me bro with the dialogue.Its dialogue is so simple and lacks depth that every demographic can understand everything perfectly the first watch.Its not where the anime puts its emphasize on at all.YOu just want to see depth in its dialogue/plot that's not there.I explained what I believe the main purpose is of this anime or where it most shines at.
You can ofc disagree with me and deliver arguments in detail with examples to underline your points but unless you do that im not going to change my mind.
If u are not able to see that, im not going to write a whole essay in detail why this anime is lacking in terms of quality in writing when you just ignore every critic I state.I like to participate in fruitful discussions but I dont want to waste my time.
Well whilst scrolling through my previous comments I just found out that I didn't reply to this comment beforehand (I somehow throught that I had beforehand but looks like I didn't lol) so I figured that I should about do that now. Really sorry for deciding to reply this late like after like almost a year of gap but I just thought I shouldn't leave a reply unanswered which I intended to answer in the first place and somehow ended up overlooking, so I hope you don't mind me replying this very late to your comment regarding TTGL.
Here basically my reply (spoilering it for some obvious reasons and its length):
I hope that I was able to answer/elaborate regarding the points you made in your reply regarding TTGL. Obviously, like I said at the end, there are several other viewpoints/points of critical assessments that can be made regarding the final battle (like specifically assessing the dialogues of the Anti-Spirals during the climactic battle and how that corresponds with the mindset of the oppressors of the real world, etc. etc.) which I didn't elaborate on in my reply above......so my reply isn't quite a complete assessment of all the points which I myself percieve about the show overall. I didn't bring up and elaborate about all the critical points I have in favour of the show in my mind above, only brought forth a few of them, but if you do reply further to my reply here, I'd gladly bring forth those points as well in context of whatever points you might bring up in your reply afterwards (obviously, assuming that you do reply to this). And once again, sorry for replying this much late, I know that it's not right to give a reply so late but like I said, I didn't want to leave a reply unanswered which I intended to answer back thenand somehow ended up forgetting.
Yes somehow I also prefer blonde idk why...probably they are so attractive.
I think if someone doesn't have an unshakable character and she is mature enough to take care of fnf, I think she is the perfect waifu!! Like Akari from March comes in like a lion.
There's Ononoki, Hachikuji and Shinobu.
Ononoki is the best non-main character in Monogatari in my opinion. She is one the best support character who actually was there for support. Without her Araragi would have been in huge problems. She might be a bit similar to loli Shinobu but an emotionless version.
Hachikuji was a unique character. Her story is the most memorable one for me.
The mature version of Shinobu was a unique and charismatic character just like you said. She was like a princess or i'd say a queen. The absolutely best Monogatari arc is Kizumonogatari in my opinion. Shinobu was an antagonist there, right?
The artistic style of the 3rd movie got me shocked. I was totally amazed and into that way of storytelling.
Senjougahara was the ice queen of Monogatari. Her personality is a mix between a tsundere and kuudere I think, if that's even possible.
Her confessing in the beginning was unexpected but was a good decision. It makes Monogati a bit more unique too since almost in every romance stories the confession happens in the end or near the end of the story.
I don't know exactly what trades I value in waifus.
She has to be a tsundere for sure, I don't care about the shy and cute deredere waifus. Her hair has to be red / brown.
Has to have an iconic line / iconic look.
For example Noelle in Black Clover calls Asta as "Bakasta" almost in every episodes.
Senjougahara has way too many great lines. And my waifu, Itsuki from 5-toubun likes to eat a lot. That's the other thing I like in specific characters. Sometimes it makes the character funnier and sometimes not.
And last but not least she has to be caring.
My top 3 waifus right now (it has changed recently, I removed Hori) are Itsuki Nakano, Hitagi Senjougara, Rias Gremory.
JJK doesn't have a story and character depths, just like you said. I think in shounens like this they aren't that important. If it works without them then it's good.
Character depths and a good story is more important in neverending shounens. Imagine if Naruto didn't have a personality nor a good story.
JJK is just for entertaintment.
A lot of people compare JJK to Kimetsu no Yaiba. They say Kimetsu no Yaiba was better etc., but I think that one failed in stroytelling and character depths. They tried to hard and they ended up being totally annoying.
JJK doesn't take itself serious like Kimetsu no Yaiba. It has greatly animated fight scenes, a hot teacher who looks like Kakashi, a weird guy who ate fingers and got power and a guy who says "salmon, tuna" all the time etc.
I haven't seen One Punch Man but I think JJK wants to be like One Punch Man more than be similar to Kimetsu no Yaiba.
So far JJK is doing absolutely great. If there was a well written story the anime and manga would be a neverending story. Be honest, who need another neverending shounen.
Why is AOT not my favourite from this season? Because Wonder Egg Priority and Mushoku Tensei exists.
I hate isekais, I mean I really hate isekais, but Mushoku Tensei is doing everything in the right way.
Wonder Egg Priority made a huge mistake in the previous week. Having a recap episode in a 12 episoded anime was totally unnecessary. Still it's so freaking amazing. It has Monogatari vibes a bit.
Idk, I just like tsundere characters the most. I definitely wouldn't unleash any hard typical tsundere stuff on you.
You might be right. I'd definitely be fine without you. I'm good all by myself tbh.
I like it when someone writes on my profile so your writing on my profile makes me happy. It's not like I want you to write me.
Idk why I became "popular" tbh. There were days when I got about 6-8 friend requests a day. Now that I'm not the most active user on MAL my popularity has decreased. University sucks.
Ohh, I'm so sorry. :(
Luckily I haven't got spoiled. If I got spoiled I'd be extemely mad. I have a strong feeling about who's gonna marry Futaro.
JJK is great to watch, it has top tear animation, the fights are good etc. The only weakness of JJK are the characters. They don't have enough character depth. You might be a bit confused about the next thing that I'm gonna say. AOT is not my favourite from this season anymore.
JJK and WEP and ofc the 5-toubun are better to watch imo.
AOT came out on Sunday and I watched it the next day. I have always watched AOT as soon as it came out.
Ughh I got into playing board games about 2 years ago when one of my friend invited me to play a random board games with him and our friends.
Ohh so you checked my profile. You were curious about me. Hmm interesting. Sorry, but I like Senjougahara.
Shinobu is just my 4th or 5th favourite Monogatari character.
I like Neko Hanekawa, Kanbaru and probably Hachikuji more. I'm not sure about Hachikuji.
I haven't finished Monogatari yet so that might be another reason why Shinobu isn't in my waifu list.
I should update that list because it sucks. There are so many better waifus who are not included in that but I like them more than most of those who are in that.
If you respond within 1 week, I'm good and not gonna throw tomatoes at you.
I'm sure I missed some comments from other friends and left them without response. :(
If you respond within 2 weeks I'm good. But if you exceed then I'm gonna take back the cake I baked for you.
Take care.
Do you play board games?
I haven't been watching many seasonals lately. I'm watching Horimiya (I started reading the manga too, beacause it's f*cking awesome), Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan and 5-toubun no Hanayome. That's basically all. I only find these interesting for me.
Though there's Wonder Egg Priority but I'm waiting for the end, so I'll watch it later.
Lately I've been reading mangas and talking with friends here.
I'm a trap...
I'm a male btw. It was a good day but it was tiring since I got a new board game which was kinda hard to play for the first time.
I like board games but it was on another level.
How have you been lately?