askchapo

Let me strongly recommend ZOM 100: Bucket List of the Dead. It's a hopeful, class-conscious, pro-social zombie apocalypse story that starts from the satirical premise of a burnt out wage slave waking up to a zombie apocalypse, celebrating because he doesn't have to go to work anymore, and setting out to do all the things he wanted to do because he was too busy working himself to death. And if you're thinking "wait, that sounds kind of anti-social, silly as the concept is?" then it also agrees and is quick to hold up foils to him and show off his reckless hedonism and wish fulfillment as empty and reckless, pivoting to a balance that I can only sum as something like "even in the face of the apocalypse, people and their hopes and dreams are the most important thing and life should still be enjoyed, but responsibly and together."

It's a scathing rejection of nihilism and every misanthropic zombie trope, that's also stylish as hell. The only half downside is that it does a lot of like overly enthusiastic regional Japanese cultural tourism stuff as filler in between the big plot beats, making much of it just a tour of different domestically famous locations which the characters soyface over and then get chased by zombies. Its anime adaptation is also amazingly stylish and vibrant with gorgeous cinematography and animation, and I would really recommend checking that out after getting through the manga if you like it (full disclosure: I have only seen the first 6 episodes of the anime and that was all very faithful to the tone, content, and themes of the manga; if it does something horrible or jumps the shark after that, I don't know about it).

The Chainsaw Man anime is pretty great. I was pleasantly surprised by it. The main character is a horny teenager (often played for laughs), but in a way that isn't gratuitous like most anime, is relevant to the plot, and it's clear the adults around him are fucking awful for taking advantage of him.

Made in Abyss is "Yo what the fuck" territory. Something else I haven't seen mentioned here is the writer's shit fetish. Like literal shit. There's way too many scenes about fictional characters' poop.

Ok yeah tail of blood whoo i just checked it out mannn its holding tension so well i gotta take a break after chapter 14 (barf). thanks for the recommendation shits hitting hard

Wasn't that me linking my old review? The "Made in Abyss is the worst thing ever made" thread?

I think it was you, yes, but I didn't want to on the spot assume that it was you without checking first.

Some of the deleted comments in that thread were people arguing in its favor.

I saw shit like that for Shield Hero and Goblin Slayer too, especially "Thermian Arguments" about how slavery/genocide are okay because the author said so, turn off your brain, let people enjoy things, I am special and immune to propaganda and anyone who isn't deserves whatever they get, stop being such a joyless scold, To Each Their Own(tm).

Like just to contextualize this, I like grindhouse as a genre. I like awful slop as a spectacle. I watched (pirated) all of SAO and enjoyed riffing on how bad so much of it was. I sat through (pirated) all of Overlord and found it something that's awful in a way that's fun to mock and hate because as gross and bad as it is it's still in the tier where you can point at it and say "lmao wtf, that's awful" instead of just feeling sick. I watched (pirated) those shitty Piranha reboots that literally included jokes about breast sizes in their titles and thought they were entertainingly dumb, gratuitous movies. I enjoyed (pirated) the Sci-Fi channel original series Blood Drive about a death race with cars that are powered by human blood for some reason. I think Hellsing Ultimate is actually kind of good if also dumb and very gratuitous, as in lingering on graphically killing literal Nazis so long that it starts to get kind of boring and repetitive, which is a concept one wouldn't think possible but they manage it somehow. And Made in Abyss actually haunts me with how awful and also just sort of shit it is.

I have some guilty pleasures of my own (hard not to when enjoying MST3K) and I totally feel you there.

I hate the GoT showrunners and all their OC, and even the early seasons I thought were decent when I first saw them looked cheap and mid when I revisited them a few years later, and I want to stress that even that is nowhere near how bad this is, that's how bad it is.

I will be pleased to never have to watch it. I am glad in some ways that pop culture is so fragmented now, because there may never be another Game of Thrones type monolithic experience that all the treat hogs expect everyone else to gobble up like that again.