The Gaming Den

What the hell, why not. I'll start with three I've recently watched:

Nichijou: it isn't out in the West yet, so you'd need to download a fansub from your provider of choice - and it didn't do amazingly well in Japan, so might not get a US release. But seriously, I command you all to watch it. I absolutely loved it despite it not having a single piece of fan service. Seriously. It's almost a parody of "Slice of Life" - it's too fucking mental to actually be anyone's life though. It's funny, energetic, and really cute. Incredibly cute.

Revolutionary Girl Utena: you've all probably seen the movie, Adolescence of Utena. It's the same story, more or less, kindasorta. But better, even if there are no instances of people turning into cars - not a one. It has a very attractive cast to ogle/write steamy stories about (true fact: in grade 12 I wrote my first M/M fic, it was Touga/Saionji from Utena). It has sword duels. It has messed up characters, a happy ending, and hilarious moments.

But no cases of people turning into cars. I am disappoint. Note: has been released in the US, both subbed and dubbed. You can totally buy it if you can track it down.

And finally, one on the ecchi/fan service front:
Gokujyo: still being made, not licenced for a US release at the moment ever. They're short 8-min episodes, and both funny and pervy. Basically "antics at an all-girls school" - bonus, they actually speak and act like modern day students (swearing a lot, "customising" their uniforms, cutting classes). It is actually rare to see an anime where students swear.

What a coincidence - the anime club at my university watched Nichijou last semester, and we're about halfway through the first arc of Revolutionary Girl Utena right now. Ninchijou was great, and Utena's pretty good as well, though the first few episodes got the same treatment as that time we watched Gundam Wing in English. EDIT: Revolutionary Girl Utena may not have people turning into cars, but it does have body-swapping curry that is surprisingly irrelevant to the plot so far. You'd think something like that would come in handy later...

Although I'm a little behind on the fourth season, I've enjoyed Natsume Yuujinchou, or Natusume's Book of Friends. It's about a high-school student who can see youkai that are normally invisible to humans. The Book of Friends was left to him by his grandmother, and it contains the names of all the youkai she defeated when she was young. With the reluctant help of a powerful spirit contracted to be his bodyguard, he attempts to return the names to the spirits they belong to. Less action-packed than it sounds, but still a very good watch.

Last year, the anime club watched Shiki, which takes place in an isolated village in rural Japan. After an unusually large number of deaths due to illness in the summer, the town's doctor attempts to find the source of the mysterious epidemic while the townsfolk cope with ever-mounting losses. Spoilers for the first couple episodes:

it's a vampire invasion.

Macross Frontier was an interesting series as well. Frontier is actually the name of a joint human-zentradi colony fleet searching for habitable planets near the center of the galaxy. In the first episode, the fleet is attacked by giant space bugs called Vajra, leading young Saotome Alto to join the secret mercenary group that provides most of the real protection to the fleet. Also crucial to the plot are the idol singer Sheryl Nome, stranded in the attack, and Ranka Lee, a shy girl with amnesia cared for by Alto's immediate superior. As a Macross series, the (excellent) music is integrated into the rest of the story, and the are missiles. Lots and lots of missiles.

There are also a couple series I'm watching right now that seem pretty good. Stein's;Gate is interesting, but I don't really know how to describe it without spoiling it. The early episodes revolve around the discovery of a device that sends information to the past and various attempts to test its limits. The first two or three episodes aren't that great, but it picks up fast.

Hajime no Ippo is an old boxing anime. The main character, Ippo, decided to start boxing after another boxer saved him from several bullies. Although he's shy and doesn't really want to hurt anyone, his natural strength, ability to learn quickly, and determination to succeed make him a formidable opponent. The series also goes out of its way to make it clear the other people he boxes against aren't just cardboard obstacles; they're clearly established as people with their own goals and reasons for joining the sport. Also, it's really funny how the series treats totally ordinary punches as if they were somebody's signature move or secret technique. Uppercut!

That's all that really stands out at the moment. I can go through my list of what we watched last year, but that wouldn't exactly be anime I've enjoyed recently. Still, everyone should watch Samurai7, Dulalala!!, Clannad + After Story, Diebuster, and SO MANY DRILLS (err, Gurran Lagann). They're great.

It's been a while since I watched it, but I brought up Kino's Journey in a conversation not too long ago, and I remember it as being pretty great. This blog entry summarizes it better than I could:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=305

Also, I've got Porco Rosso in my NetFlix queue. Heard it's good.

So I was watching... I don't remember... it translates something vaguely like "Catholic High School Girl Skirt Pirates" or something. And no. It's not especially the kind of piracy that poorly remembered/translated name implies.

So it's ostensibly a space opera. So there is this colony it had a war, it pressed privateer ships into service. But that's over because it would have been too interesting and it ended in a poorly explained boring deus ex machina manner because...
A) It's clearly tied into the "what a twist" moment that is going to be a yawn when it happens.
B) It would be too interesting to tell you about if it HAD been an interesting ending.
C) Fuck you, watch touching threat free school girls in space. Apparently.

So anyway. A bunch of years later the pirate ships are still in service due to some sort of weird legal loop hole (which gets weirder, mostly just stupider, but more on that later).

And because of a stupider plot hook loop hole it's a hereditary contract/ship/business.

So this girl on this backwater planet who likes space ships and is in a girls high school... finds out her missing dad she never asked questions about (or even seemed to notice being missing) was a pirate captain, her mum was his pirate bitch, and he is dead and now school girl is the new pirate captain.

So anyway. This actually seemed promising. Nice art, ok music, not ENTIRELY offensively typical and shallow characters like most anime these days. I mean it should be hilarious. It's like Irresponsible Captain Tylor they just put some dum ditzy high school girl in charge of an armed pirate ship, hilarity ensues RIGHT? RIGHT?.

Sigh... WRONG!

So this show is SLOW paced, sentimental about increasingly badly CGed space ships, sentimental about school girl nostalgia, sentimental about girl friendships, has like NO back stabbing among the crew, the school girl captain is TOTALLY competent instantly in every damn thing.

And when they go into space and start pirating all their jobs are god damn lame insurance fraud paid for by insurance companies. This is especially confusing and stupid because the pirate colony LOST THE WAR. They tied with Earth but got swallowed by... well... a very poorly explained galactic empire that is part of an upcoming "what a twist" that is going to offend and mildly bore me should I make it.

So the Galactic Empire says... apparently... we respect your legal traditions... your pirates are legally approved! ... legally approved apparently to openly collude with insurance companies AND imperial army escort ships, to commit mass fraud and robbery on civilian passengers.

I can SEE the insurance and travel companies doing this, but the EMPIRE? WTF? It is SUCH a let down moment when stupid ass high school girl leads her first battle... into a lame rushed boring ass no threat insurance fraud scenario.

Anyway. Then they get to their "real story". And a mystery princess (Empire? Some independent kingdom bullshit, it's almost deliberately fuzzy and annoys me as such). And she wants to visit a lost "ghost ship" and her empire is sorta helping her sorta openly shooting at her with space ships over it.

Now there IS conflict, but it's so slow paced, so lame, so sentimental and so easy for the stupid captain and her deeply supportive and sentimental totally loyal crew... it's just fucking depressing.

And oh it is clear they are setting up a profound origin story twist with princess clone girl and her legacy with the lost space ship of BULLSHIT. But you know. They are making me really NOT CARE.

I'm pissed off. Anime is getting so bad lately. And space opera anime especially. Why can't they just buy Miles Vorkisagan or something. I mean they butchered god damn Earth Sea didn't they? It wasn't even that good before they made it worse. Or just do me a remake or extra season of Irresponsible Captain Tylor.

God damn it where is my new Captain Tylor?

I'm okay when fans of space opera/sci-fi get disappointed, generally.

Anyway, I assume it's a new show? If so, Mouretsu Pirates, possibly. I was thinking "I dunno, maybe I'll watch it? I don't like pirates OR space, but I do like anime schoolgirls..." and then /tg/ was praising it for being "What a Dark Heresy anime should be". And "Dark Heresy: the anime" sounds as appealing as "Dark Heresy: the game":

Not at all

Which is actually something we can both agree on. So I haven't watched even a single episode. I figured there are better premises for shows if all I want is panty shots.

Koumei wrote:I'm okay when fans of space opera/sci-fi get disappointed, generally.

Only because you are from a generation that knows them only as fans of fucking Firefly and Stargate Alpha Mega Voltron Five Green or whatever it got up to by repeating the same 5 episodes over and over again with different lighting and guest actors. You are the "Skiffy" generation and running on the assumption that god damn ENTERPRISE represents the high quality end of scifi TV entertainment is entirely reasonable.

But really. There are people who think this show is Dark Heresy?

I do not like dark heresy, I do not like this show, and yet still I have no words. I will use Emoticon...

Been watching the whole run of Lupin III. I think I'm up to the shows from around 1978 or so now. It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to be. Fun to watch in the background though.

Lupin III is crazy, especially the movies, it varies in quality from utterly awesome in all respects, to good production values but bland story, to terrible everything, to bad production values and wildly psychedelic story.

It's hit and miss but has some moments, I should really continue watching it myself...

Mind you. As much of a let down as the ending is. The live action French Lupin movie based on the character Lupin III is loosely based on... you should watch that. It has awesome French Stick Fighting in it. And is cool. No really. Watch it.

Edit: No wait. That one specific French live action movie. There are a couple, and a tv series or something. Don't get them mixed up, some are pretty dated.

I remember watching the older Lupin III movies quite a while ago and recall them being mostly great. I'm wondering what I'll think once I get to them again.

I'll try and find that once specific live action move too, thanks for the recommendation.

Wait a second. I think it's this one. That was hard to find with any quality to it.

No, that's not the Lupin we are talking about.
The old Anime Movies of Lupin are pretty good. Well, most of them anyway.
Me, myself and i, we still like to watch Macross: Do you remember Love.
Yes, in full HD quality. THAT took ages to find!

For series?
To aru Kagaku No Railgun / A Certain Scientific Railgun
It's a spinoff from To Aru Majutsu no Index. You don't have to watch Index to like Railgun. I certainly never did. It has some Plot. It has some Fanservice. It has some Funny. It has some dark. It is REALLY well done in the graphics department. This is one of these series i like to point out to people. I usually don't like anime and i still liked this one. My buddies were hell of a lot confused when i recommended this one to them.

Stahlseele wrote:No, that's not the Lupin we are talking about.

Phonelobster wrote:...French Lupin movie based on the character Lupin III is loosely based on...

In fact in Lupin III not only is the character and general story based on Arsene Lupin... Arsene is Lupin III's Grandpa.

You know because his name is Lupin... III. Arsene Lupin III.

edit: And if you ever wondered why his name keeps changing in various translations of movies and series...

When creating the series, Monkey Punch did not seek permission to use the intellectual property of Maurice Leblanc's estate, and at that time Japan did not enforce trade copyrights. This led to copyright issues once Lupin's popularity spread to North America and Europe; however, the name was still permitted in Japan. Several foreign releases of Lupin III media were forced to drop the Lupin name, and Lupin himself was renamed "Rupan" or "Wolf", or in the French version "Edgar de la Cambriole" (Edgar of Burglary). Leblanc's copyright has now expired, allowing the use of the Lupin name outside Japan.

Thank you captain obvious, for proving me completely right there!

Stahlseele wrote:Thank you captain obvious, for proving me completely right there!

... precisely how stupid are you?

"Hey we aren't talking about him"
"But I talked about him"
"You have proved me right!"

Did I then confuse you after kindly pointing out exactly where I was talking about the other, original, Lupin, by also outlining the precise relationship as a fictional inspiration and shared character that lead me to mention him in the first place?

Was that too much for your tiny brain?

I'm so sorry. But for you I would recommend not watching any French movies. I imagine you would lose a lot of time and energy yelling at the screen about how "we" are speaking English thank you very much!

WE, are speaking german, thank you very much.
And if we had not tried our hand in russia, so would the french.

To Aru no Railgun is pretty awesome. It's basically a city that is entirely given over to Xavier's Academy. The main character is essentially Magneto, but as a 16 year old girl. Her sidekick is a 15 year old girl who is Nightcrawler. Very cool all around.

-Username17

Railgun would be better if it dropped the pretense of plot and was just the straight up lesbian porno the sidekick wants it to be. The entire first season arc has about 3 episodes of story in it total and you are all crazy.

Josh_Kablack wrote:Railgun would be better if it dropped the pretense of plot and was just the straight up lesbian porno the sidekick wants it to be.

This sounds like an excellent plan.

FrankTrollman wrote:To Aru no Railgun is pretty awesome. It's basically a city that is entirely given over to Xavier's Academy. The main character is essentially Magneto, but as a 16 year old girl. Her sidekick is a 15 year old girl who is Nightcrawler. Very cool all around.

-Username17

The manga introduces Mikoto's rival: The Queen of Tokiwadai and strongest telepath.

I've been watching/reading a lot of stuff by Nobuyuki Fukumoto. No matter how much I watch Kaiji or Akagi, they still leave me on the edge of my seat.

...so Magneto's rival is Xavier? Appropriate.

Anyway, thinking more about the "Railgun would be better if it was just a yuri porno" thing, I realised there is like no halfway-decent yuri (in the sense of that having some focus to it and it being at least somewhat pornographic, as opposed to Utena or Haruka-Michiru or Kampfer) anime out there I can really think of. Literally all that comes to mind is:
[*]Some recent one that is a sweet girl-meets-girl story... until the end where one walks in on the other fucking her own brother* and runs screaming.
[*]Karakuri Ninja Girl - ninja lesbian porn, which is like the height of awesome, except it's ninja lesbian rape, and then a guy joins in anyway because they still don't understand the concept of there being sex without men involved.
[*]Ummm... oh wait, Knights of Ramune, a fairly old one about lesbians-ish and mecha combat. Named after a gimmick soft drink (the bottle contains a marble so you have to tilt it a specific way to drink, otherwise the marble blocks it, sort of a spill-proof thing).

Seriously, am I going to have to fucking write, direct, animate and voice my own here or something?**

*This, on the other hand, is really common. Seriously, in anime, incest is way more common and acceptable than homosexuality. Well, I suppose the same can be said for the Southern states of the US and for Eastern Europe.

**No. I know I start a lot of projects, but that one I know is beyond me.

Koumei wrote:This, on the other hand, is really common. Seriously, in anime, incest is way more common and acceptable than homosexuality. Well, I suppose the same can be said for the Southern states of the US and for Eastern Europe.

You wrong for that, Koumei.

But anyway, I think that you might really, really like Simoun, Koumei.

One of my favorite old-skool animes is Legend of Galactic Heroes. Do not start on that one though unless you have like a week off with nothing to do. It's engrossing but it's also as long as fuck.

I would recommend One Piece, too, but you should start on that one at around, oh, slightly before the Arlong Park arc. You're honestly not missing much until that point. Avoid the 4Kidz translation if you want to watch it dubbed, stick to the Viz one.

Some recent one that is a sweet girl-meets-girl story... until the end where one walks in on the other fucking her own brother* and runs screaming.

Hahaha, yeah Kuttsukiboshi, that was a kick in the balls and the second part still isn't out.

I realised there is like no halfway-decent yuri (in the sense of that having some focus to it and it being at least somewhat pornographic, as opposed to Utena or Haruka-Michiru or Kampfer) anime out there I can really think of.

Only ones I can think of are, Strawberry Panic, Sono Hanabira, Shojo Sect (Hentai), and what ever else Shin-gx fansubs releasing sometimes.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I would recommend One Piece

Not sure if that was in response to me or a general "I like this". In the case of the former, no. It has a sickeningly awful art style and retarded character design. I literally can't watch it, it looks so bad. Just seeing the clips of it in AMVHell is bad enough.

Yes, even worse than Code Geass ("Like the artist of Utena had a stroke!")

One Piece is so dedicated to being fuck off ugly that it's almost sort of impressive.

The Simoun suggestion for Koumei was serious, the other two was directed at everyone else.

Of course, WRT One Piece's art style, you're talking to someone who thought that the art style in Crayon Shin-chan (which is all right as a comedy, but nothing special) was pretty tolerable. Regardless I personally think that by any standards, Eiichiro Oda's art style is still very unique and detailed and it's a damn shame that if he stuck to a more standard style One Piece would be a license to print money. Well, it's more popular than Dragonball so it already is, but it'd be a license to print money for an economy with an unyielding gold standard.