Let's talk about Anime!

ZMan wrote: Wicked City

I forgot about that one. Watched it with my girlfriend, and remember her commenting halfway through, "There is an awful lot of rape in this anime."

bioball wrote: I don't really think Ghost in the Shell is derivative of Blade Runner. Sure both attempt to answer the question of what makes someone "human" and it part of that having a soul of sorts. But I think they have vastly different approaches to that. Blade Runner is a strong product of the 80's where robots were "scary", but Ghost was born during a time of the internet and talk of uploading your consciousness. This is a wholly different crisis than Blade Runner considers. I think its easier to argue The Matrix is derivative of Ghost in the Shell.

Yea, I'd agree with that. The "What is human" question is what kind of stuck in my head...and I've come to hate "The Matrix as Cultural Touchstone" so much that it just never comes to mind at all. But you're definitely right.

Z-Man also rattles off a bunch of very, very accessible series for most folks. I'm a little surprised when I see FLCL and a few others pop up on here because the inescapable pedophilia [not talking chicks in school-girl outfits; talkin' daddy actively lusting after 10th grade girls] element in 'em can be pretty blatant. I know it's usually part of some "meta-" element to the thing, but it ain't exactly for the casual viewer.

A series that kind of took me by surprise in that way was Black Butler. It certainly had that "beautiful men with very tender attitudes toward each other" vibe to it, but it was a pretty interesting story. Until the last episode, when the whole thing suddenly took a very strong pedo-predator turn. It was kind of implied, not shown; but apparently the 2nd series was much, much more along the lines of a "chickenhawk" relationship. Very odd dynamic; shame though as the series was both interesting and fairly generally accessible up until the end.

Shellhead wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: Hmm... well maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly, or maybe Wandering Kid was one of the sequels. Yes, there are more than one Overfiend movie, and yes I think I saw at least 2 of them. I'm not proud.

The second one had the notorious Nazi Rape Machine. Glad I missed that.

I saw that one and thought, "What the fuck am I watching? Who actually gets aroused by this, if anyone?"

ZMan wrote: Other titles I remember:

Project A-ko
Bubblegum Crisis
Tank Squad (or something with Tank -Tank Dominion?)
Dirty Pair
Escaflowne (a full blown series)
Wicked City

Dominion: Tank Police. Where Anipuma and Unipuma do a striptease in front of the regular cops to a song sounding frighteningly familiar to "Relax", and then pulling out assault rifles out of *ahem* somewhere and blasting the place up. Fucking hysterical.

I remember finding this scene to be a real game changer with Anime for me:


I had previously thought stuff was OK, but apart from Robotech this was the first thing that I loved. The plot in Appleseed is derivative and the dialogue is abysmal, but there is something very John Woo about the action scenes and I love them to bits.

Shellhead wrote:

ZMan wrote: Wicked City

I forgot about that one. Watched it with my girlfriend, and remember her commenting halfway through, "There is an awful lot of rape in this anime."

Have you seen the HK version of this movie? Oh my God, it makes even less sense. In one scene, there's "intimacy" between a named bad guy and his subordinate (who's taken the form of a pinball machine, for some reason). o_0

Rliyen wrote: Dominion: Tank Police.

I just went to youtube to check it out and I can safely say the opening is the most 80s thing I've ever seen.

By the way, isn't Robotech a literal mixture of several unrelated series? How can that even work?

Erik Twice wrote:

Rliyen wrote: Dominion: Tank Police.

I just went to youtube to check it out and I can safely say the opening is the most 80s thing I've ever seen.

By the way, isn't Robotech a literal mixture of several unrelated series? How can that even work?

Episodes 1-36 are one series, 37-60 the next and 61-84 the third. It is treated like a sort of Star Trek thing, where each new series is the next generation down, so it surprisingly works, apart from the fact that the middle series is rubbish. Generally most people switch off after episode 36, as it feels complete at that point.

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 too am an old schooler. My list is pretty short and based more on nostalgia instead of quality.

Battle of the Planets
Astro-Boy
Golgo 13

Golgo 13 is intersting as I came to it through the video game for the NES. It was the first videogames I played that had cut scenes, as well as the infamous hotel hook-up sequence. WOWSA!

I haven't found anything recently that's been really enjoyable. I tried to watch some of the Marvel Anime (X-Men, Wolverine...bleh), Appleseed (confusing), Cowboy Beebop (2 or 3 episodes).

Ultimately, I don't think it's my bag.

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.