Report Lypophrenia's Profile

In general if you want to experience great writing, I’d check out novels, plays, short stories, and poetry. That’s where all the great writers are. Next down the tier list is film. Then anime, TV, and video game writing is a step below that. Just a general rule.

I’m not sure. It kind of depends on what kind of writing you’re looking for. A complicated plot with tons of world building? An emotionally cathartic work with rich character drama and elaborate use of metaphor?

Here are some anime that are generally considered well written: Galactic Heroes, Lain, Texhnolyze, Utena, Rose of Versailles, Tatami Galaxy, Ping Pong, His and Her Circumstances

King's Game is definitely a BAD one. That was a rough year between King's Game and Magical Girl Site.

However, I only have one favorite bad anime. A show with SO many animation goofs, terrible writing decisions, hilarious dub moments, that it provides unrivaled entertainment. The absolute MASTERPIECE that is Mad Bull 34. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5V3h9urfVA

Sometimes I get overly obsessed with ratings and rankings, even though it has so many subjective factors. When you first watched it, what mood you were in, what you expected going in, who you watched it with, etc.

BTW, I'm also interested in making a list of my favorite terrible anime. I feel like most people on MAL aim to watch all the classics and miss out on watching hilariously bad anime. Have you seen this masterpiece OVA? It's only 45 minutes and its free on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wAVpcvIrQM

I don't believe Angel Beats has aged particularly well, but it's a nostalgic series for me that I watched during a period where I watched very few anime. It was one of the series that kept my interest in anime alive between 2007 and 2014 when I only watched about 6 new anime total. The others were Spice and Wolf, Baccano, and Higurashi.

My extended list isn't in any order. I will probably try put it in order once I reach 150. Angel Beats is probably closer to 70th if anything.

I haven’t heard about the remaster! That’s fucking awesome!

Both seasons have their pros and cons. I cover these in my review of part 2. I would say that overall I like both seasons a lot. Joe was a very easy inclusion in my extended favorites. My goal is to create a solid top 150 anime including movies, OVAs, and shorts. So far I’m just a few short and my current list has a couple place holders that will likely be replaced. For example, Tutu will likely knock off Great Teacher Onizuka.

Ikuhara was not involved in Maria Watches Over Us, just so you know. I'm just making a joke because he loves lesbians. He wrote and directed a show called "Yuri Bear Storm".

Not to mention that before Utena he helmed Sailor Moon S, which had the first openly lesbian couple in a TV anime.

Reading summary: “Maria watches Over Us” is a shoujo ai series about lesbian Catholic School Girls…”

Ikuhara: (Kicks open door) “Did someone summon me? I thought I heard someone say lesbian Catholic school girls!”

Clannad has always been loved here on MAL along with Berserk. Elfen Lied used to be rated higher certainly, but never as highly here on MAL as it is on ANN, the boomer anime site of questionable taste. Elfen Lied still has a solid 8.32 on ANN which is pretty amusing. ANN also really likes Makoto Shinkai stuff and some show called “Maria Watches Over Us” which I’ve never seen praised anywhere else.

I also love Berserk if the avatar wasn’t obvious. I’ve seen the first season of Clannad but never watched After Story. My best friend really enjoyed that one though.

Elfen Lied being limited to 13 episodes really created a lot of pacing issues, which impacted character development and also effected the execution of its heavy handed melodrama. Clunky, heavy handed melodrama that wants to hammer home a moral can actually work effectively, but execution has to be basically perfect. Then you have the bad humor and weird echii left over from the garbage manga, the limited animation budget, and the unfortunate amount of underage nudity!

In its perfect form, Elfen Lied would be a somber, psychological drama about a serial killer who at first believes their murders are justified but is gradually haunted by guilt. Then the serial killer finds themselves in a dilemma where the only relationship sustaining their humanity is their love interest, but they murdered the family or friend of that love interest, so if they confess their crime to alleviate the guilt, they ruin the only relationship they care about. Then the loved one immediately forgives the serial killer and the killer goes through a dramatic rebirth into a new person.

So the 1800s Christian melodrama Crime and Punishment is basically what Ultra Instinct Elfen Lied looks like.

I have a buddy who really loves Medaka, but that one never quite clicked with me personally.

G-Gundam is pretty disliked by Gundam fans because it goes completely against everything Gundam is supposed to stand for and is just dumb as hell. This is all completely true, but it also breathed fresh air into the Gundam franchise after ZZ and Victory Gundam had the franchise on the brink of death. G Gundam was actually very popular in Japan in its time. Despite being moronic, it's also a love letter to older giant robot anime with fantastic directing, art, soundtrack, etc. A lot of talent worked on that glorious trash including Hideaki Anno who did storyboarding and apparently ghost wrote some of it.

Elfen Lied is the anime that had the largest impact on me personally and is my all time favorite, although it has an absolute multitude of flaws. The manga is irredeemable garbage, but the anime took a trash manga with a bad studio and no budget and made something memorable. Mamoru Kanbe was rather Quixotic in his attempt to take a manga as bad as Elfen Lied and try make it into something beautiful, but you have to love him for it. Elfen Lied was never popular in Japan, but found a cult following in mostly Latin America and Eastern Europe during the 2000s. Today, the fandom is fairly small.