Anime

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Lago_AM3P
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Anime

Post by Lago_AM3P »

This is a thread for anime, like on Nifty Message Board. I will start.


I just watched Outlaw Star, subtitlted, rather than its run on CN, and it's like watching a totally different show.

I really like this bit of anime. Aside from being energetic and adventurous, I also appreciated OS because it broke anime convention in several ways.

1. There are three women on the ship and none of them seem to be just there to be the obligatory love interest for Gene, the protagonist. Even though Gene and Melfina become rather close, it isn't the sappy, obvious romance you usually find in stories of this type.

2. The strapping male heroine doesn't even come close to stealing all of the screen time. In fact, I'd reckon to say that he was considerably weaker than the two bruisers of the group (both women), and won most of his confrontations with trickery and timing--and a good amount of running away--rather than a belief in himself and refusing to back down from all of the odds. He had a weapon, to be sure, but it often took his compatriots' help to pull his fat out of the fryer.

3. While the show was pretty adamant in emphasizing that the hero had the most powerful neemer (in the form of a space ship) in outer space, this didn't really come into play as a deus ex machina as one would think. Most of the adventures were on foot and the ones that did have the ship dealt with problems that merely having the equivalent of a +13 Energetic Healing could not solve.

My only real complaint is that the ending, while good, seemed very, very hasty. Especially the suite of final confrontations, which, also breaking anime tradition but in a bad way, they tended to be quick and nasty rather than long and epic where the character's various weaknesses and strengths were put to the test but they came out on top in the end--no. It was more like unleashing your cleric after being buffed out during time stop and having the combat end in one round. After the really involving (and interesting) battles with the crew and two of the villains from the same group, I really expected more.
Lago_AM3P
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Re: Anime

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Also, Fist of the North Star.

I bought like 200 episodes of the TV series, and I've worked up to like episode 150. I really can't bring myself to finish it.

While the series gets SIGNIFICANTLY better after the fall of Souther, Shuh, and Ryugya--and the return of the Last Warrior of Nanto--there's only too many times you can watch a favorite protagonist get offed before you start to not care about the rest of the show. Mostly because the hero is a sadist (in the D&D way, where the protagonist literally does nothing even remotely evil until the forces of evil start murdering or threaten to murder, then the protagonist unleashes callous and sickening amounts of violence), and there are a bunch of really cool and interesting people that they just so shallowly knocked off. Rei was given a lot of respect, and so was Toki, but much cooler people in the show were just knocked off without as much as an afterthought. Which is too bad. You'll always live on in our hearts, Jyuza.
rapanui
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Re: Anime

Post by rapanui »

Well, since we're doing this thing here as well...

NARUTO!!!!!NARUTO!!!!!NARUTO!!!!!NARUTO!!!!!NARUTO!!!!!NARUTO!!!!!NARUTO!!!!!NARUTO!!!!!NARUTO!!!!!

I can't get enough of this show.
Oh and Witch Hunter Robin gets two thumbs up (I finished watching the whole thing recently).

Oh, and anyone wanting to watch something slightly less... juvenile I guess... should watch Millenium Actress. Great stuff.
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Re: Anime

Post by Lago_AM3P »

So I'm watching Hellsing, and I simply do not understand what is so cool about this show.

I mean, the production quality is very good and it's very stylish... but I just didn't have all that much fun watching it. Except for two episodes in particular--the ones where Yan and Luke Valentine stage a raid on Hellsing headquarters. Only because Yan fucking rules.

---

The New Fist of the North Star surprised me by how unironically good it was. Part of the appeal of the old show (to me) was is chintzy, old-school animation, slow-paced plot and silly companions. Well, they got rid of all that. They really put some care into this. The animation is really top notch (which means that the gore can be over the top, which adds a whole new level to the experience), I found myself actually liking both the dub and the sub, and the plot is relatively fast-paced without skipping.

The sudden violence of the show, since the protagonist uses a ninja death touch that makes people EXPLODE, Rise of the Triad style, actually surprised me. The old television show's violence was actually sort of silly by today's stands. And since the show was designed to be produced alongside when the creator was writing the manga, at first, there are a LOT of filler episodes, especially in the first season. It seems positively stately compared to the manga.

--

It's not anime, but...

For some reason, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy really chafes my hide. I think it's Mandy. Yes, in fact, I'm positive it's her character.

--

I didn't WANT to like Inuyasha at first, but I just saw this totally hilarious episode about Inuyasha trying to swallow his pride and get the show's female protagonist to come back to his world so they could continue their quest. So the show's growing on me, too.

While we're at it, Ranma 1/2, created by the same person. A boy who turns into a hot girl when water is poured on him. That is the raddest idea invented since beer. Though I must say that Rumiko must've been one bored housewife. Too bad. She probably would've really liked D&D, if she was younger.

--

Totally Spies seems to be taking on a more anime style (like with the SD characters and mood bubbles and whatever), but I don't care, since the show Totally Bites.
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Re: Anime

Post by Username17 »

LA wrote: So I'm watching Hellsing, and I simply do not understand what is so cool about this show.


For starters, they explode human heads by having dogs walk on them in the credits. The show is just about all style - like Cowboy Bebop, Serial Experiments Lain, or Witch Hunter Robyn. And like those other shows, the style is awesome so the show is worth watching.

LA wrote:For some reason, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy really chafes my hide.


Same problem as "Pinky and the Brain". Grim was the best bit on "Grim and Evil", just as Pinky and the Brain was the best bit on "Animaniacs". But just because you have an awesome bit, doesn't mean that you can keep it going for a whole show. Especially in commedy. Jokes just stop being funny if you have to watch them for a whole half hour - just look at an uncut episode of Saturday Night Live (without sawing off your arm to escape).

LA wrote:While we're at it, Ranma 1/2, created by the same person. A boy who turns into a hot girl when water is poured on him. That is the raddest idea invented since beer. Though I must say that Rumiko must've been one bored housewife. Too bad. She probably would've really liked D&D, if she was younger.


Takahashi is one of those people who was thankfully born outside the United States, where she probably would have been institutionalized. Instead, they let her draw comics about whatever she feels like doing, which inevitably become popular enough to spawn TV shows. She is also the brain child behind "Urusei Yatsura" (which is about a boy who is the repository of so much lechery and bad luck that he cannot die, and who is engaged to an alien princess because of the results of a game of "tag"), and Maison Ikoku (which is about a guy who is trying to get into community college while his room mates slack off and break stuff).

There was an episode of UY that centered around a guy who had travelled to the United States in order to learn English and Demonology in order to impress a woman. Only he got his English wrong and ende up calling up "Santa" instead of "Satan" inside a disco, and the entire rest of the episode was basically Santa and a bunch of demons hanging out in a disco. I'm not even making that shit up, I don't think I could.

She's my hero, and a totally want the first couple of seasons of Ranma 1/2 on American TV. The commedy is great, the action is great, and the dubbed translation is so good that it doesn't bother me in the slightest. America would be a better place if we had more stories revolving around people changing sex in hot and cold water on Saturday morning TV.

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Desdan_Mervolam
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Re: Anime

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

Frank, if you haven't, you should totally check out El Goonish Shive

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Re: Anime

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

Frank wrote:Same problem as "Pinky and the Brain". Grim was the best bit on "Grim and Evil", just as Pinky and the Brain was the best bit on "Animaniacs". But just because you have an awesome bit, doesn't mean that you can keep it going for a whole show. Especially in commedy. Jokes just stop being funny if you have to watch them for a whole half hour - just look at an uncut episode of Saturday Night Live (without sawing off your arm to escape).


You know, I kinda liked the P&tB show. Now, Pinky Elmyra and The Brain sucked, the person who thought that drek up really needs to be shot.

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Lago_AM3P
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Re: Anime

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has made a sort-of comeback. Only it hasn't.

You see, the show on Cartoon Network has cut out everything I remember from the original run on television more than 10 years ago. You know... they cut out the pizza fetish, the blatant attempts to sell toys, they integrate the secondary characters into the plot for more than a swift joke and actually make you care about them, they replaced the cannon fodder enemies with opponents who are actually quite threatening, and they made most of the problems in that show confronted by the Turtles unsolvable by brute force and witty puns. And the show has a rather dark atmosphere and mood to it.

In other words, it totally sucks. Yet it's totally awesome. A cartoon hasn't inflicted such paradoxial feelings unto me since they had Clerks: The Animated Series (which is also quasi-anime). Check it out.
Tae_Kwon_Dan
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Re: Anime

Post by Tae_Kwon_Dan »

Sounds like the new TMNT is more closely based on the comics than the campy late 80's cartoon was.
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Re: Anime

Post by Lago_AM3P »

I don't remember the comics too well, but I'm pretty sure I read the first one.

Didn't it have like mousers and pizza aliens and wacky outer space teenagers in flying cars?

Or was that the comic as inspired by the cartoon?
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Re: Anime

Post by Tae_Kwon_Dan »

Probably the latter. The original TMNT comics ranks right up there with Cerebus as one of the most successful underground comics ever.

http://www.geocities.com/mbrown123/tmnt1.html
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Re: Anime

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Megas XLR is like, the raddest giant robot cartoon (it's way too Americanized to be anime) you'll ever see.

It's absolutely hilarious to see this show slowly shred apart the pretense and dignity of other giant robot anime without even trying. It doesn't even make many active jabs at the genre; it parodies the subgenre just by being itself.


Compare this to Totally Spies. I have no idea what's up with this cartoon, but I do not like it too much. I was wondering whether the extreme shallowness and vacuous mindset of Alex, Sam, and Clover were actually being mocked by the show. But they do it way too straight if they are.


---

Also, the new Duck Dodgers in the 21st and a Half Century. It's not anime, but it's still hilarious. I think it's because they completely divorced themselves from the Looney Toons-ish origin and archetype and went for a Futurama with anthropomorphs still. The fact that it's well animated, cheeky, yet still remains true to the character inceptions are a plus.

--

Trigun, yo.
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Re: Anime

Post by Username17 »

http://newgrounds.com/portal/view/195918

It's
tangentially related to anime. The Minibosses do the Captain Falcon theme song, who fights Pikachu in Smashbrothers, who is an anime character.

Watch it.

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Re: Anime

Post by Tae_Kwon_Dan »

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1098127506[/unixtime]]
Also, the new Duck Dodgers in the 21st and a Half Century. It's not anime, but it's still hilarious. I think it's because they completely divorced themselves from the Looney Toons-ish origin and archetype and went for a Futurama with anthropomorphs still. The fact that it's well animated, cheeky, yet still remains true to the character inceptions are a plus.


I haven't seen it, but there is apparently an episode where Dodgers hooks with the Green Lantern core from the Justice League cartoon. I laugh when I think about it.
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Re: Anime

Post by MrWaeseL »

Totally Spies doesn't take itself too seriously.
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Re: Anime

Post by Boulie_98 »

I like Totally Spies.

EDIT: Also, Frank's link goes to a flash called Dad's Home, and while rocking out there is no Pikachu in it.
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Re: Anime

Post by Joy_Division »

Indeed I think frank was just expressing a degrees of separation description relating rocking out to the topic at hand.
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Re: Anime

Post by Username17 »

Specifically, the music that he uses to rock out to is the X Zero level music from Super Smash Brothers Melee - in which Pikachu is a playable character.

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Re: Anime

Post by Dragon_Child »

Frank is totally forgetting that theres an F-Zero anime. You don't even need the pikachu connection.


Back on topic, I've been watching Case Closed recently, and despite the fact that the show is predictable and a rip-off of every detective book I've ever read, I'm hooked. I just can't figure out why.
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Re: Anime

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Back on topic, I've been watching Case Closed recently, and despite the fact that the show is predictable and a rip-off of every detective book I've ever read, I'm hooked. I just can't figure out why.


Because you're too lazy to change the channel after Inuyasha is over. :smile:

Now if you want a GOOD detective show, watch the New Scooby Doo Movies. Especially all those episodes with the Harlem Globetrotters. They chronicle the heroic struggles of a Fat-Albertish basketball team to succeed in the field of paranormal investigations, and successfully use their sport to the betterment of the black community.

Actually, I was lying through my teeth. If you value your blood, do not watch that show.
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Re: Anime

Post by Oberoni »

Tae_Kwon_Dan at [unixtime wrote:1098147096[/unixtime]]
Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1098127506[/unixtime]]
Also, the new Duck Dodgers in the 21st and a Half Century. It's not anime, but it's still hilarious. I think it's because they completely divorced themselves from the Looney Toons-ish origin and archetype and went for a Futurama with anthropomorphs still. The fact that it's well animated, cheeky, yet still remains true to the character inceptions are a plus.


I haven't seen it, but there is apparently an episode where Dodgers hooks with the Green Lantern core from the Justice League cartoon. I laugh when I think about it.


I saw that episode. The perfect blend of two things I wouldn't think you'd be able to blend at all. I loved it.
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Re: Anime

Post by MrWaeseL »

Is Ichi the Killer any good?
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Re: Anime

Post by Username17 »

Ichi is not anime, and is terrible. Famous mostly for being really gross, it has a cult following much like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not because it is good, but because some people really like seeing heads explode.

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Re: Anime

Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Whoah, I need to check Ichi out then!
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Re: Anime

Post by MrWaeseL »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1099160687[/unixtime]]Ichi is not anime


Then how is anime defined? I thought it was the japanese term for a cartoon.
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