I recently managed to get a physical copy of Evangelion. Most of the discs work, so I’m watching through the series now for the first time. The only disc that didn’t work when I tested them is the one that has something called “Evangelion:Death(True)2” and the End of Evangelion movie plus some bonus content – this is an AACS issue rather than physical damage so there’s hope that I can watch it eventually, just… not now.

I was told that the ending theme has been changed. The copy I have has an instrumental piano piece instead of the various “Fly Me To The Moon” versions on animethemes. It’s not clear to me what the title of the ending piece on my copy is, and the version on my discs isn’t listed there.

I was expecting some weird stuff from this show, naturally – the later parts of it are infamous for that, even though I don’t know exactly what I’ll encounter yet – but, even still, the casual presence of the penguin was a surprise.

So, I dug back into physical media a bit at the end of the year and managed to scrounge up some copies of older works that I either hadn’t seen or where my copy had issues (like parts of a few episodes skipping due to physical defects on the discs).

One of those I haven’t seen before is To-LOVE-Ru. I don’t know how the hell I never realized this – having seen it pop up in fanart and such for a decade or so… – but the name とらぶる is obviously a transliteration of “trouble” into Japanese. So far, the writing is wonderfully stupid; I’m not expecting much out of this in the story department, but a lighthearted distraction from our extremely depressing reality is not unwelcome right now… I’ve heard the show described as “thinly veiled hentai” before, but even with that description I was still a bit surprised they actually put unobscured female nipples in the first episode. This kind of episodic ecchi harem comedy isn’t something I find bingeable, so I’ll probably be chipping away at it episode by episode for a while when I’m in the right mood for it. Hopefully I get a few good reaction shots out of it.

For upcoming releases, I am planning to watch S2 of Frieren, but given that that’s the kind of thing I expect I’d rather want to binge, I will probably be waiting towards the end of the season to start it.

97 minutes

At that length, I think I’d call it a movie/film even if it’s part of a TV series’s progression.

If we’re including Japanese anime films in general, In This Corner of the World is supposedly the longest at 168 minutes for the extended version, followed by Final Yamato at 163 minutes, and then The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya at 162 minutes – according to this list on Wikipedia.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the story, but Garden of Words is worth watching just for the scenery art.

School Days😬🤮

It’s rare that a show makes me that mad, and the ending is unforgettable, but I’m pretty sure it’s not quite the same kind of emotional payoff that OP’s looking for… so, “Troll Answer”. ;-)

Most of the stuff that comes to mind is already on your list.

Maybe you’d like the movie, Colorful, or the series Your Lie in April?

This is a stretch, but maybe also consider Shin Sekai Yori? The particular things that’ll hit you there are, uh, a bit different though, if it works on you.

Troll Answer: School Days. 👹️

Not on my copy – I double checked before posting.

Could be there’s a different version of the DVDs with it though. 🤔️

Yeah. I expect it was probably some licensing bullshit like either they couldn’t get the rights again for the re-release or it cost to much to get them, but I don’t know why they did it specifically. It irked me when I realized they’d changed it though.

They changed the intro song when it was released on DVD. When the show was originally airing, the intro was “Girls on Film”　(グラビアの美少女) by Duran Duran; the version on my official (Funimation) DVD copy has “Shutter Speed” instead though which is much less memorable.

So… is this a metaphorical kind of eating, or are we getting a vore anime?

Did you watch all of Endless 8? (Kyon-kun denwa!)

I can’t think of any other shows that deal with time travel off the top of my head, but if you want some more serious sci-fi flavored shows, maybe try Ghost in the Shell?

Steins;Gate has a particular kind of humor. My gut feeling is that if you’re bothered by anime humor in general in other shows you probably won’t like it, but I don’t know your specific tastes.

I’m not sure if it ever made it to DVD.

It did. I have a DVD copy in a box somewhere.

I also recommend From The New World (Shin Sekai Yori).

Takopi’s Original Sin - I should warn you this one is kind of hard to watch

I’ve seen the first couple episodes and while I’ll definitely be finishing it, yeah… it’s right up there with Grave of the Fireflies.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I’ve heard of a few of those, but most are new to me. I’ll look into them – thanks for the suggestions!

Catching up on AOT is definitely on my PTW. Makeine is already on there as well. I’ve seen Monogatari up through Nisemonogatari; will probably get back to it eventually. Not familiar with SHOSHIMIN – will look into it, thanks!

Is the NieR Automata adaptation still worth watching if I’m already very familiar with the game (e.g. I got all 27 endings)? I’ve watched the first episode of it, and while it looked like a solid adaptation I wasn’t sure if I’d get anything new out of it.

Not really on genre – I’ll watch a bit of everything.

I tend to prefer shows that have a strong continuity between episodes, and that’ll grab you and make you binge the rest of the show (or at least the arc) in one go though. The 2nd half of Steins;Gate, Erased, Shin Sekai Yori, A Place Further Than The Universe, Mai-HiME, FMA, Madoka Magica, ATLA, etc. worked for me.

Preference also towards shows where the characters are not in high school (although that’s not a deal breaker). e.g. more Shirobako, Planetes, Samurai Champloo, please!