Weekly Anime Post 89

So a while back I came to the conclusion that I don't like manga as a format for stories. And then the other day I was wondering why Vinland Saga, CSM, and Heck's Paradise didn't resonate with me at all. And that's when it struck me: they are all manga adaptions. Manga, being half picture and half text rely heavily on symbolism. I'm talking about negative emotions and grief being depicted as corpses and monster clinging to the affected person. About hope and happiness being vast open fields with sunshine. Wolfs howling and birds flying among other cringe stuff like that. It also leans a lot on flashbacks and dream sequences. Where people come to have deep revelations about their life and their past. Some will hail this as the peak of story telling, often calling it "show don't tell" but I don't think that saying applies, as the "show" is often very heavy handed and impossible to miss.

Dream sequences especially is something I would say I actually hate. And it's not just in anime, this applies to TV and movies too. Neither do I care for poems, lyrics and flowery prose in general. For example, last year I watched The Leftovers. Very good show, but the highest rated episode "International Assassin" has a score of 9,6/10 on IMDb and I don't care for it at all. Most of the time dream sequences involve solving some weird nonsensical task where at the end it's reveled that it was actually a metaphor for the issue they facing in real life all along.

Now all of this only really applies to serious manga "soft seinen" , dealing with for the format, heavy topics like, violence bad, genocide bad, wanting to fondle lots of boobs good and other such worldly issues. Comedy manga works a lot better, allowing for fun visual gags, excessively expressive reaction faces and other humorous shenanigans.

Anyway, now you know why I can tolerate trash LN isekai but complain loudly about the most popular shonen manga of the season. Now, what do you guys think? Am I onto some big idea here or what?

To finish this of on a bit more positive note I'm gonna recommend Edomae Elf. It's a manga adaption and it's very slow, probably too slow to binge watch but also absolutely comfy. The elf is amazing and it's also a covert Nippon history lesson.