Firmly agree. Your Lie In April had some powerful moments, but if you really want to induce grief in the watcher, for me you have to display a lot more subtlety and delicacy in your storytelling. Not only was the plot intensely predictable, but in its emotional moments it tended to smash you in the head with a massive hammer, emblazoned with the words: 'THIS IS SAD.' In all caps.

And more generally I didn't feel like the writing or character interactions were anything special. In this respect, humour is vital, and Your Lie In April pretty much flops every time it tries to be comical.

 

Spoiler

Seriously. Death flags out the wazoo.

 

Yah I picked up the plot by Episode 2.

First slice of life/drama one I've watched, normally I've stayed near Code Geass and FMA:Brotherhood-esque stories. So I don't really have anything to compare it too, other than the fact I found it good.

Any ones like it you guys think are better?

 

In no particular order, here are some of the Drama/Comedy/Slice of life anime that I enjoyed more than Your Lie In April:

(synopsis taken from IMDB)

Little Busters - Riki was a child when his parents died, leaving him hopeless and depressed. What saved him was a group of four kids calling themselves the Little Busters. They took Riki out and played with him during his time of need. He really enjoyed being together with them, and his grief gradually faded away. Now in his second year of high school they still hang out, fight and live together, and enjoy their school life.

Clannad - A high school student who cares little about school or others meets a lonely girl who had to repeat a year while all her friends finished high school. He decides to hang out with her and soon meets more friendly students.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - On his first day of high school, Kyon meets an eccentric girl named Haruhi Suzumiya, who announces to the class that she is interested only in meeting aliens, time travelers, and espers. Discontent with the selection of afterschool clubs presented before her, she starts a new club called the SOS Brigade and enlists Kyon, a quiet bookworm named Yuki Nagato, a shy but beautiful junior named Mikuru Asahina, and a grinning and loyal transfer named Itsuki Koizumi. Each of them except Kyon is secretly part of one of the groups Haruhi desired to meet, and they all must keep close watch on her. If she ever grows dissatisfied with reality, she may unintentionally destroy the world.

Toradora - Ryuji Takasu lives in a falling down house with his mother, and although being a nice guy is cursed with the evil look of his father causing people to avoid him.Taiga Aisaka is a tiny,self centered and unexpectedly strong girl who lives in a new apartment next to Ryuji but has no idea how to take care of herself.Ryuji looks after her,cooking and cleaning for her and acting as her dog while they both attempt to help each other with their love life.

Angel Beats - Upon his death, Yuzuru Otonashi awakens into an afterlife high school where a group of student rebels, lead by Yuri Nakamura, take arms against a dispassionate adversary with supernatural powers whom they call Angel. Calling themselves Shinda Sekai Sensen (a.k.a. Afterlife Battlefront), they're in open rebellion against God for their crappy, unfulfilled and cruelly unfair lives (and against a projected reincarnated future as meager sea life, presumably barnacles or water fleas). Though no one can die since everyone's already dead, killings are nonetheless very painful experiences, with complete recovery to follow. The greatest fear in their struggle to maintain their humanity is obliteration (Angel's goal for them), from which there is no return.

Steins;Gate - Okabe Rintarou, an university student who refers to himself as Crazy Mad Scientist Hououin Kyouma and his lab's members work on a microwave device that can transfer messages to the past.

 

Depends on which aspects of the how you liked. For drama: Ano-Hana, Angel Beats, and Nana. For the slice of life stuff: Azumanag Daioh, Daily Lives of Highschool Boys, and Working/Servant x Service (these two are done by the same folks and are essentially the same show -- if you like one, chances are you'll like the other).

I am determined to (finally) watch this show, but it is the biggest fucking slog. I'm sitting at episode five right now, and the only thing keeping me going forward is a goal to finally watch this stupid show and see what all the fuss is about. It is an absolutely painful and thoroughly unenjoyable viewing experience.

 

The first few episodes are definitely the weakest. Once things start going crazy with all of the time-travel shenanigans and the consequences of it, the show becomes very good.

 

I do find it a tad overrated, but on the whole it's still a pretty good anime (and the movie is great too). As an anime watcher, we come to expect how the rest of the show will be based on the first few eps. Stein's Gate is a bit different in that it rapidly escalates from a comical slice of life to something quite intense. That contrast actually ends up working pretty damn well.

I definitely appreciated it a lot more at the end of the anime than I did while watching the first few episodes.

Spoiler

My main gripe with Stein's is that that tension is completely lost when we embark on a typical eroge set of routes around episode 16-20.

Wouldn't really say it was Slice of Life. Slice of Life generally have very little plot development beyond what's within an episode, and never change the status quo.

Here are my drama/romance pics:

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (Ano Hana). A beautifully constructed piece of fiction that explores how a group of childhood friends who have grown apart after a major trauma come together again and address all their own issues. Most people agree, this is amongst the highest level of "feels" you can get in anime.

Toradora is very much your typical anime love story and is full of cliches, but on the whole, it is probably done better than any of the anime romances like it.

Kokoro Connect seems very hit and miss. Basically a story about a group of high school kids going through various supernatural events relating to each other (eg, uncontrollable telepathy, body switching ,etc). I loved it, but many people found it very "meh". I feel the characters and the way they react to those drama situations are very different to what you see in normal anime, and their voice actors do an AMAZING job of bringing those personalities out.

Nodame Cantible has a typical anime love-comedy dynamic (in that, over the course of 3 seasons, very little progresses in terms of relationship), but this is done over the backdrop of a Music Conservatorium. Story follows a genius (tsundere) pianist aspiring to become a conductor, and a random, slothful, air headed (very talented) pianist with no real aspirations and their journeys with their musical careers (and each other). The romance never feel slow, because there's always other stuff happening in the forefront - music competitions and performances, putting together orchestras for events, etc. It's fun, it's addictive and another one of my favourites. Most of all, it's 46 episodes, so really allows you to get immersed.

 

My opinion on Toradora and Clannad can be found earlier in the thread, but to tl;dr them: Toradora is a romcom done right. Yes, it has many cliches, but it is the perfect example of how they can absolutely work. The best example of romcom that I have seen to date. Watch Toradora.
Clannad is a bit overrated, but it's not terrible. Ignore the last episode.
Steins Gate is overrated.

Another romcom that I recently watched is Lovely Complex, often shortened to lovecom. A full review will come when I'm finished with it (later today or tomorrow, maybe) but it's light-hearted, funny, over the top with the animation (in a good way) and surprisingly realistic. I suggest you watch lovecom if you're interested in romcoms.
Edit: premise of Lovely Complex is that in a pair of friends in which the girl is much, much taller than the boy, the girl starts developing feelings for the boy, and the show kicks off from there. More in my full review.

 

Might be a bit premature to post this but One Punch Man has been given the green-light for an anime adaptation set to start this Summer. I can barely hold in my excitement because Mad House Studios got the licensing rights.

I love just about every single anime Mad House has had their hands on so i know they're going to do this anime justice.

One Punch Man at first seems like its a simple satire poking fun at common tropes in shounen manga and little else but quickly proves its much more as you follow the story of a man who trained for strength, but unfortunately gained to much strength and the struggles that brings him.

 

Toradora is incredibly cliched, but it's done right. Think they go overboard in a few key dramatic moments but it's definitely an enjoyable watch with characters I really connected with. One of the best in its genre.

I haven't actually watched the anime but I know the School Rumble manga is really, really funny. Perhaps the adaptation is weaker but it's worth checking out.

Re: Steins;Gate - it's far from flawless (Jarik mentioned probably the biggest one since I quite enjoyed the early episodes, even though they weren't amazing), but by its end I absolutely loved it. Brilliant show, one of my favourite anime, and I would recommend everyone tries it - though I can easily see it not appealing to some, it's worth a watch. I enjoyed the gradual, dawning realisation there was some big shit going on, and the sudden tonal shift really hit me. More importantly, I really liked the interaction between Okabe and Kurisu. I just connected with the characters big time, which is obviously vital.

 

Right, so, as part of my recent romcom craze, here is my Lovely Complex review.

Obviously, huge spoilers.


Right, so this is Lovely Complex.


The story centers around Atsushi Otani and Koizumi Risa, two classmates and good friends who are renowned around the school as 'All-Hanshin Kyojin" (or something like that) due to their constant arguing and bantering, and their circle of friends. Risa is tall for her age, while Otani is rather short for his. The show follows their last two years of high school, and ends with their foray into the world beyond it.

The animation is well, nothing to write home about. It's not bad and I've definitely seen a lot worse, but it's not up to the quality of the likes of Toradora, Death Note, Naruto or other high end anime. It's good, but not amazing. As an aside, it rather reminded me of the early One Piece seasons.

One would think that is a bad thing, but it's really not. I think it works well with the style that lovecom goes for. Speaking of style, lovecom is distinctive for its animation, in that characters are often distorted/animated differently in ways regarding their emotions, conversations, etc for comedic effect. I'm not sure how to describe the technique, but all you need is to watch the first episode and you'll know what I mean. I think this style works well with the light show that is lovecom. However, others might not be of the same mind. If you see the first episode and don't like the style, then know that it doesn't change.

The show is rather light-hearted, in that there is no deeper source of conflict. No one dies, no one loses their house, no one's long lost thought-dead twin reappears to seek vengeance, or anything equally dramatic.
The main plot for majority of the show revolved around Koizumi's attempts to win over Otani in a romantic way(more on this later).
Some might not like this, but to me it's what made the show. It's a romcom, and it does have drama, but nothing eye-rolling like anime tends to do. All drama that pops up is resolved realistically and quickly. All those 'if only he/she got to tell him/her just this one thing' don't happen, because characters on this show do the realistic thing and talk about what's relevant.

As an extension of the above, what really made this show great to me was how smoothly things went. Not in the 'easy' way. I mean that the two protagonists felt like real people, and while anime behavior can't really be avoided, I was pleasantly surprised by how realistically everyone acted. Nothing felt forced. I could see everyone thinking and acting like that.

As for the characters, I liked Otani and Risa. They had real chemistry, and their (eventual) pairing did not feel forced. They had distinctive personalities, different yet similar in many ways and it is obvious how an attraction between them could (and did) develop.

On the other hand, the supporting cast was rather ... not quite bland. Forgettable? Not really given much development? Something along those lines.There is an argument to be made that shows some times take the supporting cast too far, but still, lovecom kind of fell flat there. It didn't bother me, since my interest lay firmly with Otani and Risa, but this could have been better.

Something that I put firmly on the 'Pros' side of the argument, is how the whole plot was handled. To expand on what I mentioned earlier, early on in the show Risa realizes that she has feelings for Atsushi (who is always referred to as Otani by everyone, me included), and for the middle part of it tries to win him over, while the last part is with them as a couple.

The show is interesting because the two of them had been good friends already, and Otani is caught completely off-guard by her feelings. It's classic drama, yes, but I loved how it was handled. Otani just did not see Risa that way. For the longest time he could not transition her from 'best friend' to 'girlfriend' in his mind. It avoided most (if not all) of the cliche drama pitfalls and kept drama to a minimum, while still keeping the situation like that. The show remains positive and uplifting, even when it seems that Risa's efforts are in vain.
For the amount of episodes where it seemed like Otani really could not see her that way, I enjoyed it a lot. Otani tried, he gave it a lot of thought, etc but he just could not see her that way. That's something that I honestly haven't seen before.
Eventually and over the course of a year and a half (or so) Otani does come around to loving her, but the transition is slow and very well handled.

Another good thing was that almost no episode felt filler-ish. The balance of slice-of-life shows is delicate, but lovecom nailed it. Each episode had its own charm, and none were of the 'unique arc that will have no further impact once complete' kind. Each led into the next, and the show progressed at a decent pace.

I guess the main negative is that while I enjoyed the show, there wasn't much impact to it. I mentioned previously that the lack of ridiculous drama was a positive. It is. Still, LoveCom never had me on the edge of my seat, never truly inspired strong emotion in me. Its realism, while refreshing, was a double edged sword. We watch the lives of two people over a period of two years, and by the end of it we are smiling, but there wasn't much that stuck out in such a way that I will remember it months/years from now.


tl;dr: LoveCom is a light-hearted, refreshingly realistic romcom with a distinctive style that will probably be hit or miss with most. Very entertaining show, but not groundbreaking. I rate it 7/10.



If you're a fan of slice-of-life and/or romcoms, watch Lovely Complex.

Edit: Apparently Lovely Complex also has a live action version, though I have no clue who is responsible for it. It is actually ... not very good, but that's because anime really does not work with actual people, definitely not the LoveCom style. Still, an interesting fact, a valiant effort, etc etc. It was watchable, if particularly cringeworthy when people tried to reenact stuff that only fits a cartoon setting.
The only live action that I have seen that actually worked was Death Note.

 

I second the Love Com recommendation. I think the light heartedness was and is a serious plus because it's so rare in anime to get a show like this. A couple that actually get together with no over blown ridiculous drama.

 

I didn't watch the last episodes yet, and I don't know if I am going to. Thus I am not sure if I should second the recommendation, but Republican already mentioned the problems, I have with the show.

I tend to compare light hearted romance like this with ToraDora. There are some similarities, both characters get together to help each other get the destined boyfriend/girlfriend but eventuall fall for each other. Here the girl starts to fall for the boy early on and confesses to him.

But compared to ToraDora it's repetitive and at times downright boring. The characters are stereotypical and flat, i.e. boy plays basketball and girl joins a group of girlfriends standing at the door watching their boyfriends playing. The art and animation aren't that great either.

All in all it is a nice timewaster, but if you don't want to waste too much time on anime, skip this.

 

Toradora is definitely a romcom/drama show, but I would not classify it as lighthearted. At least not in the way LoveCom is. Toradora takes its drama very seriously. LoveCom is much less dramatic and much more comedy/slice of life.


Edit: Nitpick, but I wouldn't call a ~1.50cm tall guy being basketball team captain 'stereotypical'. His drive to excel at basketball despite his height is a big part of Otani's characterization.

 

Tokyo Ghoul's second season has finished, and both seasons combined have made for an interesting show. It had the harshest breakdown of any character in an anime I've ever seen, absolutely relentless in destroying them before building them back up. It has some strong metaphors and messages about discrimination, tolerance, and how simply living makes someone into a monster without even realizing it. It had its weak moments, points in the show where style won over substance or the substance was so milquetoast that it was unpalatable, but the show recovered from those points well. The ending was particularly strong, easily one of the best final three episodes I've seen in an anime. I strongly recommend Tokyo Ghoul to anyone that hasn't watched it.

 

Asked the same question the Manga thread, but Anime works just as well for me.

I hear the whole 'Boy enrolls in all-girls school' thing is pretty common, but I haven't really met it beyond two examples.

So, any staples of this archetype that I should know about? Stuff that is good/decent/watchable?

 

Seitokai Yakuindomo is pretty good, mostly because it's more of a comedy than anything else.

Infinite Stratos is kind of an archetype of the harem wish-fulfillment genre (it's where a lot of the jokes about the density of harem MCs come from), so it's sort of worth watching for that reason. It's still pretty shitty though unless you're into harems - the plot is practically non-existent, and it's primary purpose is to give the animators an excuse to put the female characters in skimpy battle suits.

Those are the only two I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are more. It's kind of the perfect setup for a generic harem story, and those are a dime a dozen (but rarely any good).

 

Not really. Pretty much all of them are by the numbers harem plots with no characterization beyond the tropes of the genre.

 

I'd definitely say that s.1 was strong. It actually made me hunt down the manga and give it a read. The beginning of s.2 was also fairly good, but the pacing fucked itself over really bad mid-season. The final assault was a bit strange, but if you just kind of role with 'CCG Logic' then whatever.

I really wanted to like the last episode (and the non-canon conclusion that I have in my head), but a few things stylistically wrecked it for me. By the time we got to the end I was about ready to kill whoever handled lighting.

 

You don't think highschool dxd is an intensely thought provoking viewing experience?