whiteflame

I'm just extremely hesitant with him regardless of behavior. I've been convinced that he was scum before and been proven wrong, so I'm honestly just completely unsure at this point. From anyone else, this behavior would be enough to get them lynched. From him... even with the lower involvement (and I'd say this is his lowest yet) and the fact that he posted yesterday that he knew we were actively VTLing him, I can't say that it's obvious. I still don't know how he'd behave as scum, but if this is it, then I'm having a hell of a time reading it cleanly.

The problem at this point is POE. We're running down the list, and right now, Wylted and Poly are the most townread people in this game. I townread you based on behavior and GP based on his attempt to get himself modkilled, plus the absence of the wincon in his post. That just leaves Bron and Evil, neither of whom I'm townreading. At best, Evil's null to me. It's at the point where I'm actively reconsidering my view on GP's claim and scrutinizing your posts just so that I can get someone else in there because I'm that uncertain about Evil.

If I'm reading it right, then we have a day and about 19 hours before the end of the DP, so I'm not concerned about it lapsing before we can get input from Luna. I'd just like to make sure that we don't lose sight of the goal here. Honestly, at this point, I'd be fine with lynching either Bron or Evil, though I'd prefer the former.

You do know that we can see when you were most recently on, right? We can tell that you're hopping on and not posting anything. Even for you, the lack of participation here is out of character, so while I don't know what you expect to gain by not posting, I can tell you that you only stand to lose by ignoring us.

Oh I agree, plot armor is a problem in One Piece. It's also a problem in Naruto. It's also a problem in Bleach. Basically, I haven't seen a long-running series where it isn't a problem.

Not here to debate this, but suffice it to say that I disagree, both with the characterization that One Piece characters are usually transparently good or evil and that there basically aren’t any transparently good or evil characters in Bleach or Naruto (I wouldn’t say Aizen and Zetsu are the only two examples).

To each their own when it comes to animation, though I personally like it quite a bit. However, based on your impression of the dynamics of the series, I can bet you haven’t seen much of it. Many characters challenge that good vs. evil dynamic, even if the central cast is seen as all good (which, by the by, is true of all these series).

Needless for me to say, since it made my top 10 list of anime, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is one of my favorite series. I'd probably give it a 9.5/10 personally, but it is peak anime and deserves attention.

In general (with a few exceptions as I get into series that link back to older series), I won't be covering series that come before 2016 unless there's a push for me to do so. Nonetheless, I encourage anyone to talk about their favorites in this forum. There are a lot of good, more classic anime out there that are worth giving attention to, and at some stage I might just list off some ratings for series that I've seen with some brief reviews just to cover those bases.

The question I gave him to ask was: "If your target was RB'd, would you have been informed that your action had failed?"

So, while Poly's answer doesn't directly address the issue, I think we can infer from his response that Pie would not inform him that his action had failed, i.e. he would have to have been RB'd himself or have targeted someone like the Ascetic to have his action fail. In other words, he could successfully redirect a failed action, which means you could have been subject to an RB and he would be given no indication. That makes sense to me, since he could potentially have targeted a Vanilla player and technically the Redirect would have been successful on them even though they did nothing.

This, on the other hand, did catch my eye. The extra emphasis on the justification seemed a little strange to me, and it could easily be something he was told to say as a basis for improving how good a fake claim looks. He certainly didn't need to do this, and it seems more defensive than was warranted.

I don't see how we can determine much of this from your Redirect, actually. Wylted couldn't have performed the NK, certainly, but Bron could. Even if the Watcher had gone through, it wouldn't tell us whether or not he performed the NK, but since the Watcher didn't work, we can't say anything about Bron beyond what he has told us. I'd say that my role and its connections with Wylted should give a strong indication that we are both town, but absent that, I could absolutely have executed the NK. You can target someone with a role and simultaneously NK a different target.

Right now, what your Redirect tells me is that we should be sussing Bron.

As I see it, the split is pretty clear: we either sus Bron because he did something that blocked your Watcher (I would have assumed Ascetic, and initially thought that Poly had Redirected you to GP when I saw that he posted his actions, but now that's off the table unless we assume yet another redirect was in play), or we assume that you were targeted by a fourth person who RB'd you. The question I'm hoping Poly will ask Pie should answer whether the latter is possible.

While I'd agree that they're probably both town, this series of events doesn't line up with what Wylted said happened. Wylted said that his role failed, meaning that he didn't see anyone visit anyone else. Besides that, what you redirected was the Watcher, which means that he watched who visited Bron, not who Bron visited (that would be a Tracker). If his role failed, it stands to reason that either Wylted was also RB'd or Bron has some role similar to Ascetic that prevents him from being the subject of roles like the Watcher. If it's the first, this would also mean that Wylted was the target of FOUR night actions (mine, Bron's, yours, and an unknown fourth party), and if it's the second, then that means we should be sussing Bron.

Also, why did you choose to redirect Wylted's night action, specifically? And why to Bron?

Yep, it’s confusing to me and I know exactly what happened that’s making him think this.

Also, how can you confirm his actions? He said he was RB’d. Are you saying that you still saw him visit his target and that it simply failed? What role did you use to determine this?

It’s also batshit insane and would put town in a terrible position. Seriously, even if you’re townreading me slightly, this has got to be the worst proposal I’ve seen. At this point, I’d actively consider any other lynch over yours.

Dude, I see you as town confirmed. You should be seeing me largely in the same light unless you think that role change is the result of me being scum. I don’t see how you came to that conclusion, and I definitely do not see how you could come to the conclusion that the best thing for us to do now is lynch you. You can present the numbers any way you want, but if you understand the PM you received, lynching you or me should be absolutely off the table.

Dude, you are still all over the place, but at least I now know what's going on. Your role did not change. You are still the Watcher and, clearly, you were RB'd. I'm Haos Saurus, and I would very much prefer that you don't say anything more about what happened that you interpreted as a role change. It would also be dumb as fuck to get yourself lynched over it. I would prefer not to elaborate myself because that would also be a big mistake. At least now I'm quite certain that you're town because you'd never do this as scum.

Alright, questions. First, you say your role failed and somehow changed. How did it change?

Second, while I can understand sussing Bron for having admitted to visiting you, I don't know why scum would admit to having visited you if they had RB'd or somehow modified your role.

Third, why are you sussing Luna? I'm not seeing any reasoning for that.

That’s fine, looks like Evil is going to make this an easy choice. Should start thinking about his scum partner, but we have time.

Actually, I think the strategy is working great. Rather have you around into the later parts of the game just to keep things moving, so if scum is second-guessing NKing you as a result, I'm all for it. Far as I'm concerned, it's a win-win - I'd rather not have any reason to scum read you for surviving, so the more you live into the late game, the better.

You got ahead of me here. Thanks for pointing this out. Especially after Oro said I was rather close with my guess, it's actually baffling that scum decided to kill him anyway. Makes me think either that scum is very inexperienced in picking targets or that the NK got redirected somehow. I realize that the latter circumstance would implicate me, but it's worth considering.

Alright, at least it's good to know that I townread Oro correctly following on the last DP. Needless to say, it didn't end well, but at least losing him wasn't completely in vain given that we now have a completely non-lethal DP and NP to work with (aside from the lynch, I presume).

As for who did it, there aren't any town confirmed players, but the closest we have is GP at this point. I'd also say that Poly's confirmation that he received a follow-up message with his role affiliation makes me, at least, believe that he is most likely town. Not sure how many others received their affiliation in a separate message, but I still very much doubt that scum would have received PMs without that information. How the rest of you see this will depend on whether you trust what I'm saying, as you could view Oro's confirmation after he said he received his affiliation in the initial PM as evidence that town did receive their affiliations. I'm not going to try and push this narrative too hard, but it leads me to slightly townread Poly.

That leaves four others, two of whom have either made no contribution to the these DPs (Bron's participated in the lynch on Supa, but did so with no explanation for his support) or made no contribution whatsoever despite promising to contribute (yeah, we noticed that, Evil, and noted that you were on at least once after stating that you would post). I can't say I've read any behaviors into their posts so far aside from disinterest or neglect, which are both anti-town, but both of them are virtually characteristic of their play at this point, and I'm having to recalibrate virtually every bit of behavioral analysis I've done with them before. The other two are trickier. I would say that both Wylted and Luna have been behaving like town in this game, but that doesn't get them off the hook. The fact that Luna is still alive after the first NP should give us pause because he is so often the target of the first or second NK, though that's certainly not confirmation of anything, and much as Wylted is behaving as he would as town, I'd say that that also characterized his play in the last game where he was scum. I don't think anyone should write me off, either, at least not yet. But now we have time to figure things out, and I'd suggest we use it.

So, right now, we have no claimed PRs aside from Supa's. I'll say that I have no results from the previous NP, but I'm hopeful that someone else does. In the meantime, because their lack of contribution is the most glaring factor in this DP, I'm going to be pushing for full claims from both Evil and Bron. Given that his participation was the lesser of the two, I'm starting with the former. Bron, you're welcome to get yours out of the way anytime.

A bit of an older series, aired in 2012, but it’s had two sequel seasons. Haven’t seen it but I’ve heard it’s good. Want to talk about what you liked in it?

Yeah, I probably consume more of the stuff than I should. Actually watched more since the start of 2018. I don't suspect anyone's going to actually want to watch all these series, and I suspect few people, if any, on the site will have consumed as many as I have. That being said, the goal here is mainly to give a timeline of sorts and some recommendations among those that came out over the years. You can decide how much you want to take from it, even if that's nothing.

Summer 2016
 
This was a pretty good summer for anime, but it did have one major outlier. Berserk is generally regarded as one of the best series of all time… in its 1997 iteration and its manga. Berserk 2016 overuses terrible 3D animation and sound effects to damage the reputation of the series as a whole, but it deserves a mention if only for how bad it was. On the other end of the spectrum, Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma (S2) also debuted this season, and though I haven't watched much of it, I know that the series has been praised for its visuals and tension despite it all coming from battles over who makes the best dishes rather than actual fights. They do look amazing, and the truly great ones produce such intense feelings in those that eat them that they can even blow off clothing. I know it's worth the watch.
 
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. (7.5/10)
Another great comedy anime, this one derives its humor chiefly from the main character (the titular Saiki K.) trying and failing to restrain his incredible psychic power to act like a normal human teenager. The other side of the humor is found with those who are close to him, particularly his parents and friends, all of whom are ridiculous characters in their own rights. The stakes get greater as the series goes on but remains grounded in the central concern of Saiki keeping his powers secret, and the comedy is consistently engaging. It’s full of caricatures and it can be a little one-note at times, but damn if it isn’t a fun ride.
 
Mob Psycho 100 (9/10)
Much as One Punch Man is better known, Mob Psycho 100 is the stronger series, in my opinion. Mob himself is an incredibly powerful psychic in middle school who has a poor self-image. He works for a con artist to destroy dangerous spirits and tries to improve himself physically and socially while running into a variety of opponents who view their own psychic power as proof of their own superiority. For a series with some incredibly well-animated psychic energy battles, so much of this series comes down to much more grounded issues of how power should be used and how one should perceive themselves based on their talents. It’s an incredible series that starts strong with this season.
 
Fall 2016
 
I didn’t watch anything this season, but there’s a lot I missed. Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans is one of the few Gundam series that have caught my eye, showcasing some of the grittiest and darkest elements I’ve seen in one of these series while executing well on the whole mecha genre. Yuri!!! On Ice became one of the biggest hits of the season with some beautiful ice skating and a beautiful romantic element between the two male leads. Drifters involves various historical figures being summoned to a fantasy world where they are used by magicians to save the world, which just sounds like a good time. Finally, for a more dramatic choice, March Comes in like a Lion involves a young shogi player and introvert who develops both as a player and socially as the show goes on. That last one, in particular, is one that’s been recommended to me multiple times.
 
Anime of the Year: A Silent Voice, hands down. Honorable mentions to KonoSuba and Mob Psycho 100, which both had incredible first seasons.

Anime and Manga in 2016
 
Manga
 
New Manga
 
Haven’t read Cells at Work, though I’ve heard it’s a great series in the vein of Osmosis Jones, effectively anthropomorphizing the cells of our bodies to depict what happens as we are challenged with disease and other issues. It’s gotten an anime adaptation and a spin-off, so clearly something worked.
 
Fire Force (7.5/10)
Hard to believe this is when Fire Force started. It’s a well-drawn series about what are effectively firefighters in a fantasy world facing off against the demonic results of human combustion. The heroes of the story fight by either manipulating fire or producing it themselves in a variety of creative ways. Still going strong today with an anime adaptation, this one is a solid Shonen series with some surprises. I think it meanders a bit in its storytelling, and I can’t say I’m as invested in the characters as I’d like to be, but it’s still a lot of fun. I’ll get to the anime in 2019.
 
The Promised Neverland (8/10)
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this series, particularly with both the manga and anime wrapped up. Still, I don’t think anyone should sleep on the manga. I won't spoil anything here (part of the fun is uncovering its central twist early in the story), but the series does an excellent job balancing mystery and horror, and it is at its best when it makes its characters think. I'm particularly fond of the dynamics between the main characters, and in its early stages, the story produces some of its best beats. I think this series does a lot of great stuff that is unique to the manga, and while later arcs flounder a bit, the early stages of the series are where the series is at its best. I’ll get to the anime in 2019.
 
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (5.5/10)
 
After Boruto’s dad’s series ended in 2014, this one kicks off after a substantial time skip, leaving our main cast as adults raising the next generation of ninjas. It’s a series that has had some time now, but has yet to pay off what it set up in its very first chapter, so there’s a lot of expectations about this follow-on to the ninja fighting juggernaut. However, I’d say that it doesn’t match up. Some of the fights, especially as depicted in the anime (haven’t seen all of it) are particularly amazing, but I find that it’s missing a lot of the heart and strong character moments of the original series. It doesn’t help that, having set up a very powerful set of characters in his father’s arc, it’s initially hard to see this as a meaningful follow-on, since they should just be able to solve everything that comes their way. Things change as the series goes on, but it takes a while to get somewhere interesting, and I wouldn’t say its arcs match up to the original series yet.
 
Finishing Manga
 
Several big ones finished this year. Toriko left the scene after 8 years, and though I didn’t catch much of it, the crossover between gourmet food preparation and physical combat was intriguing and had many fans. Assassination Classroom also finished off after 4 years, and both it and the anime series that spawned from it have been well-loved, though I’ll get to the specifics of that one in the winter anime.
 
Bleach (5.5/10)
The end of an era. 15 years after this member of the Big 3 started, its manga went out with a whimper. Bleach was an incredible series with a great premise of individuals fighting with swords that are imbued with incredible powers that only they can unleash. I don’t think the series ever matched its early arcs, but its later ambitions were cut short and the series ended in a rushed finale that left many of the elements the author built up in the lurch. It has an anime adaptation, though that remains unfinished at the moment (a circumstance that’s set to change towards the end of 2021, though I’m trepidatious about the result). I’d probably rate the anime a little higher, at least from what we’ve seen so far, filler arcs and all.
 
Anime Movies
 
I’m mostly going to avoid the big tentpoles and focus more on the outstanding movies produced this year that don’t fall under the usual headings. That being said, though I won’t review it, One Piece Film: Gold came out this year and features some pretty nice spectacle. If you haven’t seen the series, this won’t get you into it, but One Piece movies always use their budgets for some amazing sakuga and this is no exception.
 
Your Name (9/10)
Probably the most famous anime film in recent memory, Your Name does an incredible amount with a simple premise: a teenage boy and girl swap bodies some nights when they sleep and live out a full day in the other person’s body. The way that their relationship builds through such an invasive experience is beautiful to watch, the animation is gorgeous, and the direction the story takes is riveting. The movie deserves the attention it received.
 
A Silent Voice (9.5/10)
One of my favorite anime movies. It’s a grounded story that starts with a young man contemplating killing himself, turns back to mistakes he made when he was younger and bullied a deaf girl that was new to his class, and builds into him trying to make amends for what he did. There’s not an element of this movie I don’t love. Beautiful animation, sound design that evokes both the emotions of the characters and some aspects of their physical states, the dynamics between characters feels real and brutal, while simultaneously depicting vulnerability and caring in imaginative ways. It’s hard to watch in parts (it certainly made me cry), but absolutely worth your time.
 
Anime Series
 
Winter 2016
 
I didn’t watch much this season, but there’s a good bit to get back to. I’ve heard that Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash is a solid series of isekai where everyone starts without memories and forms a party in a dark fantasy world to survive and become volunteer soldiers. ERASED was and remains well-regarded for its story, covering some seriously dark ground with its time travel elements, though I’ve heard mixed feelings on the ending. Finally, Assassination Classroom is still very well regarded as a series about a class of delinquents who are given the task of killing their ultra-powerful, tentacled teacher before he ends the world. There are a lot of solid emotional stakes in this one.
 
KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World! (9/10)
I honestly have a hard time thinking of a better comedy anime, though another one on this list comes close. There are many isekai, some of them are great, but this one’s especially fun. Long story short, he dies in an easily preventable and laughable way and the god he meets after he dies lambasts him for it. She sends him on his way to his second life in a fantasy world and, out of frustration for her laughing at his expense, he demands that she accompany him. What follows is an adventure with a ludicrously bad team of heroes who range from useless to deranged to massively over-the-top, and everything they do is pure gold. If you want to laugh a lot, this is the series for you.
 
Spring 2016
 
This is the first season on my list where JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has appeared, and it’s worth a mention. I haven’t seen it, but I’m aware that JoJo’s has one of the stronger series when it comes to fights and power systems, particularly with the Stands that each character wields and the incredibly complex strategizing that comes with using them. I’ve heard great things about Bungo Stray Dogs as well, a series that involves a set of people with supernatural powers teaming up as part of the “Armed Detective Agency” to protect their city.
 
My Hero Academia (7/10)
Probably one of the better-known modern anime series, this one has a lot going for it. It’s a world where the vast majority of people have some random power called a Quirk, which has led some people to become heroes and some to become villains. Our main character doesn’t have a Quirk, but wants to become a hero anyway, despite being told that he cannot become one. Long story short (it’s spoiled very early on) this is his story of becoming a hero despite the odds. It’s not a particularly innovative story but does a lot with what it has and usually has some great fights. The first season was a solid start, if a bit paint-by-numbers, but it’s worth the watch.
 
Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World (8/10)
Another isekai, this one has two novel factors going for it. For one, the central mechanic employed by the main character is return by death or, to put it in the context of a video game, return to save point. If he dies, then he comes back without physical injury to a given point in time, retaining full memory of what happened while the world around him returns to its previous state. He is also not able to tell anyone of this ability, which complicates things. It’s also a series characterized by its dark fantasy elements. The main character dies. A lot. And he watches others die. A lot. The psychological turmoil he goes through is part of what makes the series, and while I can’t say I was as enthralled by the first season as many others have been (the main character was particularly frustrating to watch much of the time), I will say it was a great start to one of my favorite series in anime.

I feel like we haven’t really had a retrospective on recent anime on the site, really just an assorted set of picks that each of us likes.
 
So, I'm starting something new and ongoing - a series about each season of anime and manga as they're coming out. Rather than starting with the current season though, as I'd like to pace this out a bit, I'll be taking a step back a couple of years and focusing on the best of each season starting in 2016 and going through 2021, hopefully getting through a year of anime and manga each week. I’m up for doing earlier years and 2022 onward, but for now, my focus will be on the more recent past and present.
 
I’m not going to try to be exhaustive about what came out each season, but I will try to cover both what I saw and the basics of the series that I missed and either wish to return to at some point or just think warrant attention for one reason or another. I will provide a rating for each of the ones that I’ve seen/read (on a scale of 10, with a 5 being a weak but average series, a 10 being a basically perfect series, and a 0 having no redeeming qualities) and will include a best-of-year among the ones I watched at the bottom of each post.
 
If I didn’t cover something you liked from any of these seasons, you'd like to provide your own views on what I've covered, or if you just want to interject with something related to anime and manga, feel free to post. My hope is that we continue posting here as new anime come out to give thoughts, or, barring that, just have some further discussions of some recent favorites.

Well, if I’m dead as a result of this, then so be it. Guess we’ll have killed a town member either way, though I doubt that whole “GP didn’t unvote” reasoning will fly.

Seems to me like we’ve spent this game similarly to the last one so far: with town eating itself. Hope that changes soon.

Just to clarify the above, during the most crucial part of this DP. You were here through a lot of the early portion, and then showed up in the last hour after a day-long hiatus. And 7 hours after a lynch train started on you is not a rush, particularly when there's a clear time limit in play.

Dude, don't put this on us. You were entirely absent throughout most of this DP and gave no indication that you would return. You had a role you could confirm, but one that you apparently would have used to lynch GP, the only person in this game I would consider to be almost entirely town confirmed, so you would have wasted the lynch and confirmed yourself, which would have put us in the same position. Great.

Well, at least we know based on your claim that some of the claims came with the "You win with the Town" wincon up front. 

He's had almost 7 hours since you initially sussed him and hasn't been on in over 20 hours. It would be one thing if there had been some promise to be on before the end of the DP, but if he's not keeping track of when the DP is ending and aiming to be on at least a couple of hours before it does, then that's on him. Won't be good for the rest of us if he's town and a PR, but the decision still makes sense.

Yeah, I agree with basically everything you said in response to my previous post. I tend to overthink things, hence the WIFOM portion, but my logic, as you pointed out, is contained to point #2.

The cases against anyone are pretty weak this DP. As I see it, Supa’s taking a backseat (read: being almost completely absent) after putting down a vote on GP is lazy and his logic has been off-putting, if not entirely out of character for him. Both Evil and Bron (especially Evil, since he posted that he was reading, but has done nothing since) warrant more attention that we don’t have the time to give them, and I’d be willing to pursue both of them for claims during the next DP. That being said, I don’t see a better choice than Supa right now, even though I have a gut feeling that he’ll flip town. Unless he hops on and full claims soon, though, my perception of him won’t change. Like you said, a no lynch is not a preferable outcome to me, so I’ll just go for it.

Again, don’t really understand the logic. Not sure why I would specifically put myself out there to get confirmation when I could just avoid NKing you under the supposition that you were the Beloved Princess and wait for confirmation to come from hard claims later. I wouldn’t risk anything substantial by targeting others excepting the possibility that you had a substantial PR, which, at this stage, would characterize anyone among those who currently haven’t claimed. Again, this would just be poor strategy to show my hand as scum.