Let's talk about Anime!

A little late to the party, but here's my list:

Gundam 008th MS Team. Any Gundam in the UC timeline is worth watching, but this one is my favorite.

Planetes. Very realistic take on solar system exploration, but with typical Japanese humor.

Cowboy Bebop. Really love the story, characters... and well, it's a good example that if an anime finishes, it's finished.

Beck - Mongolian Chop Squad. Anime about guys in rock band.

Patlabor - Realistic take on police using giant robots. They have to plan their ammo use, worry about damage repairs, following procedures, public reactions...

Generally anime is a little less whizbang than most, and even in the more weirder anime, they maintain relatively slow pace, taking the time to show people doing the "boring routines" and with relatively "normal" daily life.

Due to this discussion I started watching Fist of the Northstar which I haven't seen for 20 years and I remember thinking it was odd but OK. Well it is odd as it feels lacking in continuity as it feels like a tv series edited down to a movie, as the plot jumps all over the place. But I turned it off half way through as I was shocked at how excessively violent it was. It was just a series of heads exploding with little else of merit.

Ugh, this water is too wet.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: Due to this discussion I started watching Fist of the Northstar which I haven't seen for 20 years and I remember thinking it was odd but OK. Well it is odd as it feels lacking in continuity as it feels like a tv series edited down to a movie, as the plot jumps all over the place. But I turned it off half way through as I was shocked at how excessively violent it was. It was just a series of heads exploding with little else of merit.

The great thing about anime is, you just can find anything. If you approach it like western cartoon or superheroes... well let's just say they're totally different, especially if you're getting deeper.

Another thing is, lots of anime are adaptation of manga (comic), Fist of the Northstar is one of them. The adaptation can be better or worse. In the case of Fist of the Northstar, it came at a time when macho manga dominated the market (such as Jojo's Bizzare Adventure, Sakigake!! Otokojuku--Charge!! Male Private School).

Nobody's mentioned Ebichu.

I recently watched Elfen Lied. It was quite good except for the creepy, disturbing, unnecessary nudity and extreme violence. It reminded me why I don't watch much anime.

Citadel wrote: I recently watched Elfen Lied. It was quite good except for the creepy, disturbing, unnecessary nudity and extreme violence. It reminded me why I don't watch much anime.

I forgot all about Elfen Lied, even though it's one of my girlfriend's favorites. I stopped after about four episodes, because the violence was really extreme, and I had a bad feeling that the cute psychic girl who kept saying "mew" was going to getting into a disgustingly ultra-violent fight to the death with the cute psychic girl who kept saying "daddy." I don't need that shit taking up space in my brain.

ThirstyMan wrote: I have just used up an hour of my life watching the first two episodes of Planetes.

Seems like a trivial kids story set in space. The science is 'real', well wowee!! The story is boring and soap opera ish. If this is the best of anime, they can keep it. Maybe I'm just too old for this bullshit. Tedious teenage love angst, predictable hero worship, quirky characters and still a shitty story......

I will watch some more just to give it a fair crack but it's not looking good so far.

I watched it because my teenage kids were into it. I'm not really sure it's for adults anyway. The whole thing's based on a comic book.

I had a fever a couple days ago and thought a silly, brain-dead anime would be something I could watch because I couldn't handle something as depressing as Evangelion is supposed to be so I did indeed watch My Mental Choices this week and I think Moofrank describes it well, it's not quite bland and has some quite fun aspects to it and while it's not great it was a confortable watch. However, something interesting about the series is that it starts quite nasty, with a very hars, very rough tone and it softens which means it hits the right spots a couple episodes in and then becomes a little too happy, a little to nice and a little to generic to keep its good aspects.


This quick anime stint lead me to another series I wanted to check out but never did called Kill la Kill which is from the very energetic director of Dead Leaves, Gurren Lagan and Panty and Stocking and like those three it's a fun, brash affair with a really good animation.

So good in fact that the first episode is of feature quality if not better and it's clear when you see that I won't stay there for long because there's simply no budget or no big enough animation department to keep such a level of quality. It still outshines every other cartoon show you can watch though which only highlights how amazing the first episode (Well, two, loved the second one, is).

Apparently some anime critics think it's "too cartony" which must be their way of saying "it's too fun and there's not enough mouth-flapping" and which I take as "This is very Ameritrashy" and quite of couldn't be other way what with a ridiculously powerful student council that wages war at other parts of the country, transformation sequences that are so full of fanservice there's no possibility of anyone ever considering them arousing and has

And still there's still something behind it, it's not dumb. The characters are funny and silly but well-written like a real cartoon. I laughed like crazy (Which not even Bob Clampett manages to do and he's my favourite animation director of all time) while making me care about its characters in a fun way, I think that's a huge positive.

Truly liking it so far and since it's very Ameritrashy I think you guys will like it very much. You don't even need to download it, because it's being legally streamed by its makers.

Here's a link:
www.daisuki.net/movies/seriesdetail/t

Try Attack on Titan, every animehead I know recommended it. I haven't watched the anime, but have read the manga (legally published here in Indonesia). The manga is pretty good, and I heard the anime is a decent adaptation.

It's like a zombie movie, but replace zombie with giants and the setting is gunpowder era. As with any anime, expect the characters to be the main stage (instead of the giants)...

Sevej wrote: Try Attack on Titan, every animehead I know recommended it. I haven't watched the anime, but have read the manga (legally published here in Indonesia). The manga is pretty good, and I heard the anime is a decent adaptation.

It's like a zombie movie, but replace zombie with giants and the setting is gunpowder era. As with any anime, expect the characters to be the main stage (instead of the giants)...

I've never heard of Attack on Titan until today, and now this is the second time. A friend of mine broke his ankle while skiing last weekend and is recovering at his parents' house, so people are suggesting ways to entertain himself. Somebody mentioned Attack on Titan and he said that he had already rewatched it recently. Maybe I can borrow it from him.