March Mania 2024: Toriyama Tribute
It's that time of year. The time of year I semi-arbitrarily decided to complete as many anime entries as possible within one single month. It used to be titled March Madness but I've changed that to be March Mania, since it's more fitting and I've never watch a single basketball anime during this time anyway.
Years ago, I decided I wanted to do something like this as an annual tradition & thanks to Malgraph (now defunct with it's spiritual successor graph.anime.plus filling the hole it left in my heart), I was able to determine what the best month was. See, I joined in August 2012 & the most activity I had in that year was October but the following October I didn't complete a single entry. But by complete accident, March of 2013 saw my most completed that year so come March of 2014, I decided to intentionally watch as much as possible. I've been doing it every year since then, and by 2018, March has mostly became the only time I dedicate to anime.
Every now and again, I have a theme in mind for March Mania. They don't always work out, my Miyazaki Movie Month only had me watch four of his movies. This year however, is in tribute to Akira Toriyama. Dragon Ball was the series of my childhood, and there's really no other artist that has influenced my life as much as Toriyama did with Dragon Ball. It's a common story, as Toryiama is without a doubt one of the most influential artists of all-time, but without Dragon Ball Z, there's probably no Terrestrious on MAL. I'm starting March Mania with only five days left in March, so I probably won't get much done, but I'm definitely watching all those Dragon Ball movies I never saw, and probably the Sand Land movie.
March Mania 2024: Toriyama Tribute
Boy (7/10)
Chiryokumaru (5/10)
Chokin Senshi Cashman (7/10)
Go! Go! Ackman (7/10)
Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies (5/10)
Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure (6/10)
Dragon Ball: The Path to Power (4/10)
Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle (6/10)
Dragon Ball Specials (6/10)
Fleeting Lullaby (2023) (3/10)
Kosuke and Rikimaru: Dragon of Konpei Island (7/10)
Kennosuke-sama (7/10)
One Piece: Episode of Merry - The Tale of One More Friend (6/10)
Pink: Water Thieves Rain Thieves (5/10)
Yami Shibai 11 (4/10)
Mean Rating: 5.7/10
Previous Years
My "About Me" will return to normal at some point after March ends.
All Comments (451) Comments
Feels like the Hunter x Hunter chapters came out such a long time ago now. But they were great and it did surprise me to get a big flashback at this point. I don’t think anyone would have guessed it. And I loved pretty much all of it. Love the way the troupe was created and seeing a completely different Chrollo. Pakunoda was one of my favourite parts of it and the reason that I teared up, pretty much for the reasons you say. Paku has always been one of my favourite members as I love her story in the Yorknew City arc. Her storyline was one of the reasons HxH became my favourite shounen way back when I first watched the anime. The 1999 anime has her meeting a bunch of cats in a alley shortly before dying and that’s a moment that stuck with me. It’s great that she’s not forgotten and still seems to be seen as one of the most important troupe members, even if she died so early on in the manga.
Really interesting to hear your thoughts about some of the music. Cool that you found some stuff that you like!
Blue Rev was everything I wanted and I did guess correctly that it would be one of the best albums of the year. I don’t know if I like it more than Antisocialites but they are definitely equal. Antisocialites has been my go-to album for such a long time that it’s difficult to compare at this point. The first three tracks on Blue Rev are excellent, with “After the Earthquake” being my favourite as well, definitely my most played song on the album. I also love “Velveteen” which would be my number two. The album did earn my number two spot for 2022 overall.
Magdalena Bay really is excellent. I got quite blown away by Mercurial World when it came out, and it is my album of the year 2021. I had already listened to their mixtapes and EPs and that point, but the album really is something else. “The Beginning” was probably my most played song that year as well.
I never fully listened to the deluxe version, I only checked out the new tracks. I never bother with deluxe versions or bonus tracks overall, especially not with albums that are actually well made as albums.
I have pretty much completed my music journey throughout the world. I did a total of 162 countries where I usually listened to a couple of albums per country. Some countries didn’t really have much available though so I just listened to whatever i found.
Music through the ages is another great way to discover music. I have an album of the year for every year starting from 1939. Got deeper into 40’s and 50’s music recently and it was a lot of fun.
I’ve never heard of Millennium. It seems to be a somewhat forgotten show because I didn’t find much when I searched. But it does look interesting. And I’m all for ambitious failures haha. Love me some weird stuff. Especially great when it happens in a TV series, which is one of my favourite things about Twin Peaks. So yeah, I’m gonna add that to my watchlist. But it feels as if I should probably watch the X-files first.
What else is new for me?
I've started playing Kirby and the Forgotten Land and really liking it. I haven't played much Kirby before but definitely will after this one. The feeling of finding new things to swallow/new powers reminds me a lot of the wonder of discovery I had playing Mario Odyssey. Also obviously just a really cute game which I like. Think I've probably played about half of it now.
And my next game will be Tears of the Kingdom which I'm obviously looking forward to a lot. I'm a bit worried it will be a bit too focused on the new powers and maybe a bit too similar to Breath of the Wild, but I have high hopes.
I also continued my re-read of the Dragon Ball manga which I took a big break on. I just finished the Saiyan arc and did do some writing in the chapter discussions if you're interested to read some of my thoughts.
Honestly when it comes to modern music I mostly listen to women for whatever reason.
I've been following wrestling, but just clips recently and yes been watching the Bloodline storyline quite a bit. What a turn around Roman has had huh? And loving what's been going on with Sami too. Honestly haven't watched much NJPW/Stardom in a while so I've missed out on the Mercedes/Kairi match will be sure to check it out when next I sub though.
Also Matt Healy is awesome. 1975 fan? lol
I have a way of reading Hunter x Hunter that I feel works well for me. I don’t actually bother if I don’t really keep up with all of the plots and characters when reading weekly, there’s always great moments even if I don’t understand everything. It’s always during my re-read in the volumes that I actually can keep up with everything and that’s where I can actually judge it.
The chapters have been pretty great and the latest chapter was amazing. Actually teared up on that, so I’d really recommend you check them out if you haven’t.
Before listing my opinions on music, let me just start by saying I listen to a lot of stuff. I constantly explore new music and I usually listen to a couple of new albums a week. There’s a lot of music that I don’t have time to revisit even if I like it.
I agree with your points on Taylor Swift’s singles. “Look What You Made Me Do” is another awful one, and definitely the worst on the album. And I also think “Anti-Hero” is the best song on Midnights, which does contradict the norm. I didn’t really care for Midnights though. It was decent but not much that stood out, so it’s not an album I will really revisit. Bit of a shame as I just got into her. Might put it on sometime for background noise, but I didn’t put any of the songs on my Taylor Swift playlist that have of my favourites. 6/10.
I had obviously heard “Somebody That I Used to Know” before, and that’s a great song. One of the better big hits of the 2010’s. So I decided to check out the Making Mirrors album. It had quite a lot of different stuff but I didn’t really feel it felt all that connected. I liked a lof of the sound of the album. It had a pretty fun Wall of Sound 70’s pop feel to it (“I Feel Better”, “In Your Light”) that I enjoyed but didn’t feel that original. Some other songs were more experimental (“State of the Art”, Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Watching You”) and almost felt a bit Damon Albarn (Gorillaz), but I wasn’t that into them. “Smoke and Mirrors” also had that feel and that one I enjoyed more. “Easy Way Out” was another stand out track. I didn’t feel anything on the album really came close to the big single though. 6/10.
One of the reasons I never bothered with any other album by The 1975 is that they are all very long. None of the songs I heard really made it feel worthwhile to have an album of that length. “Being Funny in a Foreign Language” was a lot shorter so that was another reason I decided to check it out other than the first singles. The album feels pretty consistent, flows well, has a good of amount of variety and doesn’t drag. But it didn’t really grip me that much and I probably won’t come back to it very often. The vocals and lyrics are pretty bland imo. There’s some nice melodies though, but it sometimes gets a bit too busy and annoying (“Looking for Somebody To Love” or “I’m In Love With You”). “Part of the Band” is still my favourite of the album, which is partly because it feels pretty scaled back. Also liking the lyrics on that one, even if they still verge on the edge of pretentiousness. “Happiness” is a great song of the more busier kind though. I’m not the biggest fan of this kind of Pop Rock as it’s a bit too “clean” for my taste. 7/10.
Cool that you like Disintegration as well! I like atmospheric music a lot, and The Cure is a band that excels at that while still having a great vocalist. It’s really great that Robert Smith still has such a good voice even as he’s gotten older as well.
One thing about music discussion online is that it’s usually very male-centric. Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell are two of the big female artist that men actually listen to so a lot of music is often compared to them. So I wouldn’t go too deep with the references that something sounds like either of them. Joni Mitchell started out with acoustic folk music but then added a lot of jazz influences. Her 90’s and later stuff is somewhat more similar to 50 Words of Snow I guess, as it features many longer songs with more piano. But I don’t listen much to that era of hers. Joni Mitchell was at her greatest in the 70’s.
And cool that you like Bob Dylan’s voice as well. He is one of my all time favourite singers but I can definitely see why that’s controversial. Blood on the Tracks is a great album. Bob Dylan is my by far most listened to artist, which has a lot to do with him having released so much and I enjoy and listen to most of it.
2022 turned out to be another big year for King Gizzard. Yeah, they released three full albums in October and one digital release of an album that came out earlier this year. So in total, that would be 4 or 5 albums in 2022. And three of them are excellent and some of their best works.
So as I said earlier, I listen to a lot of music. When I listen to new music I do that “actively”, meaning I don’t do anything else other than listen. But I also listen to a lot of my favourites, both that way and as I’m doing other things. I don’t usually listen that much that I get bored of something though. The things I repeat are things I won’t get sick of. Sometimes I don’t listen to something for a long while and then it’s great to revisit. My favourites are somethings I pretty much never really leave for a long time.
I also really like live music and I usually listen a lot to an artist before and after a show. Most concerts have ticket sales many months beforehand so that leaves quite some time to really get into the music. And then I usually move on to something else.
I tend to do a few listening projects sometimes. Like listening to a full discographies or explore a genre of music. This summer I started one of my biggest projects which is listening to music from every country in the world. I only got to do Europe but that was really so much fun. I would delve into a country’s music scene and history for a couple of days and then move on to the next country. I learned a lot and found a lot of great music. It was a bit like travelling and exploring different cultures, only I never left home. Some countries had a lot of great music and others were pretty shit. I try to not get stuck only listening to the same countries all the time (which mainly is USA, UK and Sweden for me) so that was one of the reasons I did it. It also increased my level of pretentiousness and nerdiness by quite a lot. I will definitely continue with the rest of the world when I get the time.
consider reading Gokurakugai Sanban-doori no Ken (the one-shot) it has Get Backers vibes to it.
I’m also not a fan of Chainsaw Man continuing in the same entry. I had to change my status from completed to dropped now. I don’t really understand when they split series and when they keep it as one. The only other time I’ve been bothered by this is the Pokémon Adventures manga, which I’ve read the first parts of. It’s divided similar to Jojo’s with a new story and characters every arc so it’s a bit annoying that I have to keep it in my dropped section. If I understand correctly, then MAL already breaks this rule with the Jojo manga, at least with the first couple of parts.
There are some reveals in One Piece that have been pretty cool. And it’s certainly is interesting that Oda is able to make references to something from many years past. I like how Oda is pretty consistent with his character designs and seemingly introduces major characters long before their bigger reveals. I love how Rayleigh is introduced early on in the flashback with Shanks and Buggy. And that Marco is just some guy sitting on the Whitebeard’s ship when Shanks visits. In other manga, those characters would have been implied to have appeared earlier, but in One Piece they actually are, so that’s cool. Compare that to Naruto for example when his other classmates are introduced in the chunin exam, and we saw nothing of them in the first arc, even if they probably where there, just slightly outside of every panel.
I don’t remember the Brook and Laboon reveal having much of an impact on me. It was neat.
Speaking of that, I’ve finished the 23rd tournament arc in Dragon Ball now. The whole Chi-Chi marriage plot made me think of Oda’s writing. The promise of marriage comes so early on and I really don’t think Toriyama planned that out at all. He probably wanted Goku to have a child and realised he needed a woman for that to happen, and so he probably just went looking for options. He must have been ecstatic when he realised Chi-Chi existed and that the marriage seed was already planted. That’s kinda how I imagine many of the reveals in One Piece happens as well, but much more frequent. And probably half of them have been actually thought out from the start. Still, thought it was a fun comparison.
Fun that Folklore is what got you into Taylor Swift as well. She’s always been a famous name for me but I never had any music connected to her. The only song I remember hearing previously is Never Ever Getting Back Together, which didn’t make me interested for more. But I’ve grown to appreciate pop music a lot more in recent years so that was a big reason I decided to check her out when Folklore got so hyped.
Album-wise, I still don’t care for her earliest ones. But I think both Red and 1989 are pretty great, if a bit uneven. I didn’t like Reputation. Lover was really really uneven, with some songs I love (Death By a Thousand Cuts, Cornelia Street, Cruel Summer) and some songs I hate (You Need to Calm Down and ME!). And then Folklore and Evermore are pretty much equal for me, but I prefer Folklore as a whole consistent album.
I can give you a top 5 songs just on the top of my head, but it probably changes from time to time.
5. Long Story Short
4. August
3. Willow
2. Style
1. All Too Well (the long version)
More pop-oriented than your favourites I think. I feel that’s probably where her strength lies. And yeah, only one from Folklore even if that’s her best album but I tend to listen differently to full albums and individual songs.
However, I wouldn’t call Taylor Swift close to being amongst my favourites. I listen to a lot of music and I enjoy a lot of music. I have a hard time to narrow it down whenever someone asks me what I actually listen to. My big three genres would be pop, rock and folk. But then there’s hundreds of sub-genres within that. And I enjoy a lot of music outside of those genres as well. I kinda identify myself as a punk rocker. That used to be my primary genre and I’m drawn to a lot of music that has a “punk attitude”, more so than the actual music genre.
One of my favourites though certainly is Kate Bush. My favourite way to listen to music is by albums and The Dreaming is my all time favourite album. So yeah, fun that you got into her as well. I’ve been listening to her for a long time, at least since before 2011 cause I remember when she released the albums from that year. It’s great that she’s getting a resurgence now and I hope more people check out more of her music and not just the one song. I have watched the first three seasons of Stranger Things and each season was worse than the previous one so not really rushing for the new one. Haven’t seen the scene with the song either so I don’t know how it’s used.
Most of Kate Bush’s discography is amazing. The first album is what got me into her and I played that one a lot of when I was younger, probably because it’s the most fun and jumpy out of them. Nowadays I mainly listen to her 80’s albums, with The Dreaming, Hounds of Love and The Sensual World being my favourites. The Dreaming especially is where I think Bush is most interesting vocally. The whole album finishing off with her doing donkey noises is just the greatest thing ever. That would be an example of the punk attitude I mentioned before, just an artist doing whatever they want to.
Patti Smith is another one of my favourites, Horses being my third favourite album. All of her first four albums are really great. Maybe not that interesting of a discography as most of it is very similar, but that also means all of it is good. So cool that you mentioned two mutual favourites straight away.
I don’t really know much of the other artists you mentioned. I know a few songs by Prince and I like those but haven't dived into him for real, but I will at some point. I’ve listened to the first album by The 1975 which I didn’t like and don’t remember anything from. I did like their “Me & You Together Song” though. And I have enjoyed the two new singles so I am going to check out the album when it comes out.
Reading through your favourites I was kinda expecting Bon Iver to pop up. Since you mentioned Exile and Renegade as some of your favourite Swift songs. And The 1975’s Part of the Band sounds very reminiscent of Bon Iver as well imo. Do you listen to them? I wouldn’t call them my favourites either but I like them, especially the 22, A Million album. If you haven’t listened to them and want to understand why I say they sound similar, then you should probably start with the i,i album.
I could ramble on forever about all the stuff I listen to. Since I mentioned some of my favourite albums, I should probably mention The Cure. Disintegration is my second favourite album of all time, so now you know my top 3 which would be a pretty good estimate of my taste.
Some of my older favourites are Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. All of them have fun discographies with lots of albums and lots of different styles and with varying quality.
And then some more recent favourites of the 2020’s:
Sufjan Stevens: probably in my top 5 overall, also has a really interesting discography to go through, with him constantly going between acoustic, chamber pop, electronic and christmas music. Released one of his best albums A Beginner’s Mind last year.
Phoebe Bridgers: Two great indie folk albums released. The Punisher album from 2020 especially is a modern classic.
Magdalena Bay: Released my favourite album of last year. Really fun electropop/synthpop.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: the band I like with the most constant releases, they constantly change their style and genre. Released 5 albums in 2017 for example. Their most recent album Omnium Gatherum is a mix of psychedelic rock, neo-psychedelia, metal and hip hop.
Alvvays: Their 2017 album Antisocialites is one of my all time favourites. And they’re coming back this year and their newest singles are great. Kinda jangle pop/shoegaze mix.
I haven’t watched any of Kenji Nakamura’s later work. But from what I understand, he’s gone more traditional and not as experimental. Ayakishi is an anthology series with three stand-alone stories and my rating partly is based on that I just don’t think they mix well. The first two stories are decent but doesn’t stand out either in story or animation. And then the third story is the Mononoke one, which to me is just in a completely different league. So Ayakishi as a complete work just feels like a bit of a drag when you could just watch one third of it for about the same amount of enjoyment. Mononoke features different stories that are completely standalone, and the Ayakishi story is just another one of those stories. It’s not required, but it’s more Mononoke so I do recommend it. And since it is the first story released, might as well start there.
I did look up Goodbye, Eri and read the first couple of pages but lost interest and wasn’t really into it at the time. The paneling was interesting but I don’t feel compelled to dive into more Fujimoto right now. Might return to it later.
Yeah, reading manga weekly can be a lot of fun. But as you say, it’s easy to lose interest that way, especially when reading multiple ones.
I do kinda agree about not liking the “chosen one” idea of Luffy. Or with any other character in the series. That’s connected to one of my biggest problems with One Piece which I guess pretty controversial is the world-building and storytelling. I guess determinism is a good way to put it. I really don’t like how Oda has to connect so many things. Like, everything introduced in the series has to be connected to something else. No character can be “just a guy”. Everyone must have a big flashback that explains everything about them, preferably a flashback that connects said character with other characters or plot points. I get the appeal of this kind of storytelling, but Oda’s world is so connected that it makes it feel small. It’s also what makes One Piece feel pretty samey, as people are always expecting a great big flashback whenever we encounter a new interesting character. This is one of those things that stops me from enjoying One Piece as much as a lot of people do.
I didn’t like the Sanji reveal and plotline for this reason. I think I have an easier time accepting Luffy now is just cause it’s played for comedy and the comedy is one of my favourite aspects of the series. But yeah, I totally get that the reveal wasn’t handled that well.
Switching to something completely different, I guess you’re a Taylor Swift fan? We have never discussed music before. I got into Taylor Swift with Folklore, so pretty recently and I do enjoy some stuff quite a lot. I very much enjoy musicians that change style and I love listening through a discography to see the progression, and Taylor Swift was pretty fun to do that with.