The Gaming Den

CCS and digimon did relatively well in the states.

I hear that sailor moon was pretty mangled.

Also G-Force/Battle of the planets/Eagle Riders was mangled up. A lot. More than once. Note the three entirely different names it goes under in the west.

Of course, mangling is a sliding scale. But it seems to me that mangling it beyond just making it for the censors is like a good way to kill a successful franchise.

-Crissa

Dragonball (not Z) is actually pretty enjoyable to watch if you're into 80's kiddy stuff. The series doesn't start to get really bad about the things that they are known for (drawn-out fights, beam spam, ridiculous superpowers, Toriyama's fetishism for beefcake and silly shoes dominating the artwork, ridiculous amounts of filler) until around the 'Z' series and it actually works pretty well as a straight-up action/adventure comedy until around, oh, when Tao Pai Pai comes along.

I'd say that Dragonball Z got the biggest shaft in terms of an anime adaptation; it ranks significantly worse than even anime adaptations of Seikon no Qwaser and Berserk in how badly it was handled. If you read the manga of that series Dragonball Z is actually really fast-paced and exciting and Goku actually, you know, still uses martial arts (he used beams a lot in the anime, esp. fillers and movies, because they're cheaper to animate). It still doesn't get rid of the dumber elements of Z like the beefcake and the large ensemble cast being reduced to about 3-4 important people and the shooing out of comedy, but it's much more tolerable.

If you cut out all of the strictly non-manga material in Dragonball Z you would have a series that is less than half as long than it is right now. That is fucking fucked up; even Naruto, a series that is infamous for its filler hell, has only about a fourth to a third of its episodes being devoted to filler. If I was Toriyama I would be fucking pissed as to what they did to my series, if I wasn't, you know, rolling in a pile of money, hookers, and blow.

I suspect that it bears little resemblance to Avatar (which, after reading the effulgent praises you Denners have for it when you normally hate everything, I am now motivated to try to watch), but Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (it translates to "When the Locusts Cry" or something) is a really good anime. It's a sort of vaguely supernatural murder mystery set in a small Nipponese village in the late 80s. It's neat conceit is that the show consists of nothing but the same couple weeks being relived again and again with slight variations in what happens (You don't learn why this is until the second season).

The first season is top-notch, honestly some of the media I've ever encountered, ever. The second season has the problem that it has to start revealing the answers to the secrets, and no mystery can be as engaging once you know why everything's happening. But it still overcomes a slightly slow start to deliver some pretty intense storytelling.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:if I wasn't, you know, rolling in a pile of money, hookers, and blow.

You need to keep your hookers and blow in separate piles, or you have a lot less blow and lackadaisical hookers.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Toriyama's fetishism for beefcake and silly shoes dominating the artwork

You say that and yet moments ago recommended a Jojo related product?

What what what?

Cynic wrote:And then M night shyamalan comes up and ruins one of the fundamental principles of Avatar by Whitefacing it.

It's not just the Racebending. M Night Shyamalan has announced that he doesn't understand anything about the series at all. He came out and said that Avatar was Hindu and full of South Asian themes. And he was "correcting" the pronunciation of a bunch of names to how he thinks they should be said. For example, Iroh (艾洛) will be pronounced "Ee-row" because that's how he thinks an I should be pronounced on it's own.

But the thing is: it's not Hindu, it's not South Asian. It's East Asian. It uses fucking Korean Dragons. The main character is specifically based on Buddhist rather than Hindu forms of reincarnation. Hell, he's the actual Chinese Buddha, who voluntarily skips Nirvana in order to be reincarnated to keep helping people. The first letter in Iroh's name isn't even "I" it's "艾" which is "aì".

Aaaargh. Why did no one cock punch that asshole before he ruined everything? Was the Chinese writing too subtle? Was the fact that Zuko's life changing moments are accompanied by him becoming the flag of South Korea too fucking subtle? The fact that the schools of combat are all forms of Kung Fu? Wharrgarbl. Apparently. He has to go in and whitewash all the major characters and replace all the Chinese Buddhist philosophy with Hindu shit.

It's like he decided to do an X-Men movie and made sure to have Kitty Pride be a Muslim because she was clearly doing some monotheist stuff and then cast Storm and Mantis as White chicks.

-Username17

I have no problem with beefcake, it's just that over time Toriyama, unlike Araki, got to the point where he could only draw beefcake. Or rather, that's all that's shown on the panel.

Other beefcake-heavy shounen like JJBA and HnK still, you know, drew backgrounds and shit. For all the shit we give Buronson about his character designs, the man can draw gorgeous scenery. Hokuto no Ken's extremely distinctive Mad Max-style backgrounds are due to his talent.

Dragonball had a great deal of bodytypes early on but due to cast-thinning it became a beefcake fest. And since Toriyama isn't really good at drawing hot men bara the effect became pretty comical after awhile. It's sad, because I KNOW that guy can draw. Look at his Frieza manga spinoff or Dr. Clump. Or, hell, the guy did all of the character designs for Chrono Trigger and for the Dragon's Quest series.

FrankTrollman wrote:It's not just the Racebending.

I hereby declare that this is what the now-obsolete term of Yellowfacing shall now be called until the end of time.

This Lago commands.

Frank wrote:M Night Shyamalan has announced that he doesn't understand anything about the series at all.

[sarcasm]

But he's Asian!

[/sarcasm]

Maj: I'm an Indian and I refuse to accept Night as one of my people. In fact, it's like that CHapelle show episode in which Black people gave away OJ!

Since the internet doesn't translate humor well let it be known that this post is partially made in jest.

FrankTrollman wrote: Aaaargh. Why did no one cock punch that asshole before he ruined everything?

I seriously have no idea why he was hired to direct the film. I mean, have any of his other movies ever made you think "This guy would be really great for Avatar". No. No they have not.

Also, why did he feel the need to make it darker and edgier? Everything is so...brown. Except for the actors' skin.

Cynic wrote:Maj: I'm an Indian and I refuse to accept Night as one of my people.

TLF wrote:I seriously have no idea why he was hired to direct the film. I mean, have any of his other movies ever made you think "This guy would be really great for Avatar". No. No they have not.

The more I see, the more I think that they actually did let Shyamalan direct because he's Asian. And don't you know...? If you're Asian, that automatically means that you know all about every culture that happens to claim that continent as home. In vivid detail.

Oh, Jesus, I almost forgot.

Ghostsweeper Mikami. That series rocks. Even though it was animated in 1993, it has that feel to it like it was done in the 80's. And I have an inexplicable love for the animation style of 80's anime.

The silly thing is most "Asians" don't consider Indians to be Asian. Fuck, the one time that this sort of idiocy should have been taken seriously and they ignore it. What a twist!

edit: ALso for recommendable anime, I'd go with Ghost in the shell: SAC. but none of hte others. Cowboy bebop is good for a single watch but it doesn't really have a detailed story.

Cynic wrote:The silly thing is most "Asians" don't consider Indians to be Asian. Fuck, the one time that this sort of idiocy should have been taken seriously and they ignore it. What a twist!

Amusingly true: I listened for an hour to a Russian chick from Vladivostok expounding on the fact that she didn't understand why people didn't consider her Asian.

If you are going by the old racial divisions (Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid, etc) then your friend from Vladivostok would be mongoloid because Russians aren't Caucasian.

However, most people have dropped those divisions for being stupid.

Blicero wrote:Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (it translates to "When the Locusts Cry" or something) is a really good anime.

Goddamn motherfucking right.

That is all.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:If you are going by the old racial divisions (Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid, etc) then your friend from Vladivostok would be mongoloid because Russians aren't Caucasian.

However, most people have dropped those divisions for being stupid.

If she is mongoloid, then the divisions are stupid. She looks like what I'd call "white."

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Is <word> no Naku Koro ni a common anime name? I've heard of Umineko no Naku Koro ni, too.

Watch Black Lagoon.

Great anime series. I've heard it described as "Cowboy Bebop from the point of view of the criminals" but I haven't seen CB so I don't know how accurate that is.

I can say that it both has a great story and amazing characters. Best treatment of morality I've ever seen in animation.

Also really funny.

I've rather enjoyed Black Lagoon, but I will say the second season is much darker. I've really enjoyed the dub for it, since they went out of their way to make the dialogue feel like an action movie, complete with cluster F-bombs.

Maj wrote:

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Is <word> no Naku Koro ni a common anime name? I've heard of Umineko no Naku Koro ni, too.

I can give you two answers to this. The first is simple, and the second is way more complex than you'd ever need.


1: They're written by the same guy and use the same storytelling gimmick in roughly the same era with a somewhat similar situation. Both are visual novel adaptations, from visual novels made by Ryukishi07. They're both mystery series which go through repeats of the same period of time with variations on the events that take place. However, the reasons why the sequences repeat are different in each.


2: They're both part of a larger franchise called "When They Cry" (Higurashi is parts 1 and 2, Umineko is parts 3, 4, and possibly more). They're linked in a manner I'm not going to tell you (since it could be considered a spoiler), but if you watch them in order you will probably realise how based on some references between the two. You should try to watch them in order if possible, but it's not a major problem if you can't. The Umineko anime only covers When They Cry 3, in the same manner that the Higurashi anime only covers When They Cry 1 in the first season. There may be a second season of Umineko, but the first Season was pretty DEENed.

I've always had a spot in my heart for Rurouni Kenshin.

For the five nerds on the planet who have no idea...

It's semi-historical, set in Japan around 1878, ten years after Japan was opened up to outside countries, after a revolution which, by all accounts, was pretty nasty.

The hero, Kenshin Himura, was a manslayer in the revolution, a sort of assassin/all-around-asskicker.

Right when the revolution really got going, Kenshin disappeared for ten years. Turns out he's be walking all of Japan and doing good where he can, and he refuses to kill anyone these days (which doesn't preclude asskickings).

The first season is...well, swings between being good and being goofy. The first twelve episodes are pretty good. The next...fifteen are mostly the Misadventures of Kenshin and Pals. Then, at episodes 28, they start doing an actual coherent story arc, which goes for about forty episodes and it's really, truly awesome.

After that, they go back to Misadventures of Kenshin and Pals

really after the Battousai arc where he defeats the big baddie (somewhere around 45-55), it slides into utter shit