People seemed lukewarm about the first episode of Gekidol, but after three episodes I'm enjoying it. It's technically not about idols but about a theater troupe that incorporates songs and dances into its plays. I'll probably still need to skip parts of the performances, though. That stuff gives me anxiety.

There are already a bunch of things I'm curious about and there is potential for yuri. Although I feel bad for the main character's classmate, she very obviously has a crush on her but she'll have to stay on the sidelines.

You're not the only one. And that gut-burstingly funny end gag.

You see, it's funny because Sorawo wants to kill Toriko. What's character development?

You be surprised that it was written by the LN author itself.

Yeah, the script credit was the first thing I checked in the ED. That both is and isn't reassuring. This episode might have worked in novel format with creepy descriptions, but the CGI made sure the big-head things couldn't be taken seriously.

I wouldn't bet on Kisaragi station being forgotten; my wild guess is that File 3 will be merged into File 5, perhaps with flashbacks giving context for the rescue mission.

I hope you're right, although I don't know how they would squeeze both stories into one episode. But the girls do have to end up in Okinawa somehow.

Not really sure, but it was mentioned somewhere that there are three anime original episodes, so that means that they either are taking the place of other chapters, or the adaptation is doing up to the end of volume two and there’s time to spare.

That's good to know. I still think File 11 is the best end point for the whole Satsuki situation, but who knows anymore. I hope they don't write an original ending, those are almost always terrible.

If Liden is rewriting the parts of the novels they think they can't adapt for whatever reason, it changes things entirely. Come to think of it, this studio heavily rewrote Hanebado when they adapted it, changing entire subplots and characterizations. I... didn't like that anime at all. Because I was familiar with the source material, I kept comparing the anime to it and disliked most of the changes.

I'm willing to keep an open mind and wait and see what the next few episodes will be like, especially if Miyazawa is involved in the rewrites. But if they keep changing the characters' personalities, like they already have with Sorawo being more reluctant to follow Toriko in the Otherside, then that's going to be a problem. Characters are more important than plot to me so I don't mind too much if we take a different path as long as we get the same developments and revelations. If I can't recognize the characters I've come to love, however, the anime will be a disappointment.

There is still potential, though. Now if only they could so something about that freaking CGI.

Episode 3: An anime-original.

Okay. Um. Why??

I'm at a loss here. Are they skipping the stories with the American soldiers? There is already so much to adapt as I keep saying, why add an anime-original story? Does this mean that all the references to specific chapters in the OP sequence are about chapters that will be skipped, then? Is the anime just going to do its thing and ignore most of the novels?

Well, fuck if I know. Not like I have the answers. I'd love other opinions on this, though.

If only the episode had been a good original story. But it felt like an inconsequential monster-of-the-week episode. I'm kind of annoyed, I won't lie.

^ Good job on changing that sign! That does give an idea of how it'd look for English speakers.

Also yeah, how is this man in the anime ? It's clearly not the Arabato i remember and why did they give him glasses ?

A ghillie suit would have been a massive pain to animate, though. I can understand the change to a hoodie. As I said on Discord however, they really could've made Abarato sketchier. He's a smelly middle-aged man whose sanity is gone; in the anime he looked like a regular guy who was mildly unsettled by the Otherside. Just making his hoodie more ratty and his eyes more unhinged would have worked. They also should have mentioned how long he'd been in the other world.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the official website has a new key visual on the main page. It looks good, I like this one a lot more than the awkward embrace one.

last edited at Jan 13, 2021 4:21AM

Okay, what the hell is Wonder Egg Priority? The first episode dealt with bullying, which I usually avoid, but it was intriguing enough I kept watching. To put it mildly, it's weird. But it's certainly something to keep an eye on.

It seems to be about friendship rather than yuri so we'll get called delusional if we try to read into it, but it's not like that has stopped us before.

I had this very mild complaint about the novel already, which was that it was too soon to face an entity that exploited Sorawo's feelings for Toriko. They barely know each other at this point.

This didn't jar me in the manga but was very noticeable in the anime.

Yeah, I guess it was to be expected after they got rid of all of Sorawo's thoughts about how beautiful Toriko is.

Ah well. This is still enjoyable, just don't do what I do and watch the anime for what it is instead of re-reading the corresponding novel chapter after watching the episode.

Episode 2: A better adaptation, I think.
I liked Kozakura. The kabedon at the beginning was kept, which is good. Sorawo's thoughts are mostly cut again, and this time I'm not sure her ambivalence about Satsuki was translated into the anime. She does ramble on about Satsuki a lot in the novel.

Less wonky CGI this time around, or at least I didn't notice as much. I was amused that they didn't even try to animate Abarato's ghillie suit. Can't blame them, that would have been a pain.

I had this very mild complaint about the novel already, which was that it was too soon to face an entity that exploited Sorawo's feelings for Toriko. They barely know each other at this point.

The sound design was good, again. I'm glad they kept Hasshaku-sama's "popopo" sounds. There was just one part towards the end where the music got really loud and overwhelming and it kind of took me out of the episode for a moment.

All this nitpicking is obviously just me obsessively comparing the adaptation to the source material, so feel free to ignore all of it.

Next week's episode is actual horror, so I hope they don't mess it up. There's a lot to cover. And File 4 is longer! Agh, there's so much to adapt and so few episodes. I miss the good old time where shows were 24-26 episodes long.

Tsubame tip off (basket sports) https://mangadex.org/title/43835/tsubame-tip-off

Thanks for recommending this, Serenata! I'm always on the lookout for sports manga about girls and this one seems pretty good. Hopefully it runs for a few more volumes. Might also check out the poledancing manga some time.

Does someone here have an idea how can I show support to the authors?

The easiest way would be to buy the English novel volumes; the manga is also licensed, but the first volume won't be out before August if the Square Enix website is to be believed.

You can buy the novels digitally on Amazon, iTunes, Nook, Kobo and BookWalker (four volumes are out), or the paperback omnibus edition (volume 1 is out).

If you really want the manga, you can buy the digital Japanese volumes on BookWalker by pasting 裏世界ピクニック into the search bar, adding to cart and changing the language to English for easier checkout.

^ Oh, that was your 1000th post. Congrats!

(Look at me, not getting involved! Because I have nothing interesting to add, sure, but still.)

A thread was opened recently where the LN and anime can be discussed separately; I'll link it here just in case:

https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/topics/17881-otherside-picnic-ln-manga-anime

Thanks for linking to it! I feel a bit silly now for having opened that thread, if I'd known the manga was coming to Dynasty I'd have waited. I guess it could be used for discussing the anime separately as you suggest since it should overtake the manga rather quickly, or maybe to discuss LN spoilers, to avoid manga-only readers having to navigate around the spoiler bars.

^ You've been busy!

I do have anger issues.

I was debating posting this as it might come across as condescending rather than helpful, but as someone who also has anger issues, taking an hour off and doing something else if you can helps immensely. It could be anything--going for a walk, listening to music, watching anime or reading manga, playing a video game... I often have to close the tab/Discord when I see someone with a terrible take or just an opinion I strongly disagree with, or I'd get in trouble if I responded.

Of course, when I come back I'm usually still as angry, but I've decided that replying is pointless.

Soo...does anyone know how yuri this is? I wanna know what to expect

Actual yuri, but later on.

So glad this is here now. And all at once, too!

Happy reading to new readers!

I honestly thought it was an Utena reference? idk it reminded me a lot of the first couple seconds of the opening song

Oh, that could be it. I... have not seen Utena. (very bad, I know)

I'm going to end up saying "Read the novels!" a lot.

That’s usually the case with novel adaptations, no matter how good they are lol.

Yeah, what's really frustrating being a novel reader is that a number people are going to watch the first anime episode, decide it's not their thing, when many of their complaints are addressed in the novel. Oh well, that's what happens when a series you love gets adapted into an anime. You have to watch people decide it isn't for them. shrug

I forgot to mention this, but I recently read Side-by-side Dreamers, also by Miyazawa Iori. It was a single-volume novel so overall it felt a bit rushed, but it was a good read and I can recommend it. Especially to people who like Miyazawa's descriptions of otherwordly creatures.

The one thing I didn't like (and this is in retrospect after reading the manga) was how the critter was beefed up from a vague wisp into a snarling RPG monster.

Oh yeah, same. I mean, when you compare that scene in the anime with this page from the manga the anime kind of dropped the ball on that one.

I'm just gonna nitpick one thing mainly, why is it that eachtime some girl is line in some different plane of thinkin/deep thinking or whatever it is, they most of the time gotta make her naked, like do they really have to do that? Like they did that quite a bit in Adashima too.

I may have rolled my eyes a bit at the ED sequence.

The good news is that if the anime adapts one chapter per episode, we might reach the end of volume 3, which is what I was hoping. The OP sequence features Natsumi and a reference to the Sannukikano chapter, so that actually seems likely.

If that’s the case, then the pace is going to be about a chapter an episode (save for file 11, which would most likely be two episodes long)

That seems likely. I do wonder how they're hoping to squeeze in one novel chapter's worth of content into one episode when the manga needs four chapters to properly adapt file 2, and ten to adapt file 4. Adapting novels is hard!

That was my number one concern going in. Sorawo is such a meek, introverted character. You get much less of her out of her voiced dialogue than her internal monologues. This could definitely be brushed up or expanded on in future episodes, though.

I hope we get a bit more of Sorawo's thoughts in future episodes, the internal monologues do a lot of work in this series--explaining Sorawo's thoughts, dropping breadcrumbs about her past, and summing up whole sequences (like what happened after the beach chapter). Skipping them all or compressing them into one infodump sequence would be a bit of a shame.
Sorawo's thoughts also include all the evolution about her feelings for Toriko, so they'd better translate them well into the anime. Some of my favorite lines are her being angry at how attractive Toriko is.

At the very least, I hope this is successful enough to attract people to the (much better) source.

I'm going to end up saying "Read the novels!" a lot.

Episode 1 was pretty good, although I have a couple of complaints, because of course I do. For starters, I do wish translators of different versions of a story would look up how the names and technical words have been officially translated by their colleagues. Or decide on one spelling if it's the companies calling the shots. We can look forward to the Sorawo/Sorao debates now. Just fantastic.

Secondly, this is animated by the studio behind the Hanebado adaptation, so I was hoping to be blown away by the animation here, but it didn't feel that way. That's just nitpicking though.

The other issue I have is that the anime cut out so much! Not just Sorawo’s internal monologues, but also much of the dialogue and banter between her and Toriko. As a result, the episode felt rushed even before I re-read the novel's first chapter for comparison. Most notably, Sorawo’s motivations appear unclear and the anime-only viewer must be wondering why she accepted to go back to the Otherside after she nearly died.

The good news is that if the anime adapts one chapter per episode, we might reach the end of volume 3, which is what I was hoping. The OP sequence features Natsumi and a reference to the Sannukikano chapter, so that actually seems likely.

Animation aside, the technical aspects seemed good to me. I liked the music, and the sound design in the Otherside was really good. The seiyuu are great too, but that was a given.

Looking forward to the next episode!

April 2021 Zombieland saga season 2!!! https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2020-12-31/zombie-land-saga-revenge-anime-promo-video-announces-cast-staff-april-premiere/.168033

Really looking forward to this.

I'm still enjoying D4DJ a lot. It shows what can be done with CGI animation when it's actually done well, the characters are likeable and the cast isn't massive (yet?), and the mildly serious moments are a welcome respite from all the melodrama in the music anime I've watched. Not that I don't enjoy the melodrama, but sometimes it's nice to have a story be just about a group of friends enjoying their hobby.

Here's an additional incentive:

A friend of mine is asking where she can find chapters 12-25, but since I only knew to search here, does anyone else know where to find them?

Looking at both Mangadex and Manga-Updates, I don't think they've ever been translated. Looks like the group's logic was that those chapters were covered by the anime and people would pick up the manga from after that point anyway.

Ooh, people showed up!

On the other hand, have you guys seen Iori Miyazawa's views on Yuri? like holy cow that dude is a diehard Yuri fan.

Thanks for linking to the interview, I read it once a while ago but couldn't find it again. Fantastic read.
I also liked this part:

And just like with emotions, I believe that if you don't avoid female libido and carnal needs in your writing, that will make it stronger.

Hard agree. Realizing that a story has yuri elements but the writers feel it should remain "pure" is an annoyance to me these days. It's also relevant to Otherside vol. 4.

My hope is that the anime will adapt the first three volumes of the novels. It would make for a nice one chapter=one episode structure, and the end of volume 3 is satisfying from both yuri and storytelling standpoints. With how dense the novels are, however, and seeing how many chapters the manga needs to adapt one LN chapter, it does seem unlikely. In any case, it would be great if the anime could make people check out the novels.

Yeah it is ending ... https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2020-12-28/canno-gokaku-no-tame-no-yasashii-sankaku-kankei-nyumon-manga-reaches-climax/.167953

Aw :(

Okay, the manga isn't here, the novels have an official translation so they'll never come here, there's an anime airing soon and volume 4 of the LN just dropped... Figured this was as good a time as any to open a thread.
Also, I can't stand not knowing where to post my thoughts about this series. I want to talk about it, damn it!

To sum up for people unfamiliar: horror + yuri and I do mean yuri about two college-aged girls exploring another world where everything can potentially kill you or make you go insane. I wouldn't call it scary, just intensely creepy, although it is very good at that.

Opening a thread is scary, so I sure hope other people will show up here!

As an Alaska Native, misuse of "totem pole" is particularly disturbing to me.

I remember Kiniro Mosaic had a (completely random) song about a totem pole. It didn't seem like a very good idea. I always wondered what the point of it was.

^ That's what I'm hoping! Setting up a Raspberry Pi seemed kind of scary, but it was a lot easier than I'd imagined. Maybe in the future I'll read about other projects that'll make me want to try something more complex.