The Anime discussion

[Sketch Sanchez]

I've never really been that into anime, dont really know why but its never been my "thing". THought AKIRA was cool and loved COWBOY BEBOP but thats the extent of it.

Until now anyway, now that Microsoft added an Anime channel to the XBL Market place I decided to jump right in and get a few samples. THe first thing I got was Samurai Seven and I was quickly hooked on it. Now being that I've never seen the original movie (shame on me), I dont know how much of an "insult" this is, or whatever, but I really REALLY got a kick out of it and ended up buying all 24 episodes.

Now I'm checking out SPEED GRAPHER and it's even more awesome than that. I'm at episode 12 so if any of you have seen it already, no spoilers please, I can't wait to see how it ends. One one hand it's pretty sick and twisted, but its very intriguing on the other hand and I cant get enough.

[Alex DeLarge]

I'm not a big anime fan. Akira never appealed to me, nor did Vampire Hunter D. The anime that got me is called Neon Genesis Evangelion (though warning: the English language version has quite possibly the worst acting I've ever heard, EVER). It's not everyone's bag, it starts off as a typical "giant robot" (;)) show but it slowly becomes darker and darker, eventually morphing into a beautiful collage of psychological drama and terrifying imagery. I came into it without every hearing of it, and I loved every minute of it. I know Jeans has accused me of setting it up as God incarnate, but it really is the best TV show (maybe even work of art) I've ever seen.

[Sketch Sanchez]

SPEED GRAPHER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Grapher)

Little info for anyone interested. Kinda reminds me of an american comic book with all these people with powers running around, and with all the crazy characters...a little bit of SIN CITY.

[MaDMaNMaRz]

I used to watch anime quite a bit, but now, I can't even remember the last time I watched any. I'm not that into it anymore

When I did watch it, I really liked:

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
Street Fighter II V: Series
Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie
Ghost in the Shell
Ninja Scroll
Akira
City Hunter

[Mr. Undertaker]

I loved Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X ) OVA's it's beautiful and bloody, and it's much more profound than the tv series....

[Just Jeans]

Oh. My. God.

A new Ranma 1/2 OVA is currently running at the It's A Rumic World convention in Japan:

Ranma 1/2 - Akumu! shunmin ko (Nightmare! Insense of Spring Sleep)
Taken from volume 34 of the manga, this 30 minute special was shown on odd numbered days at the "It's A Rumic World" exhibition in Tokyo from July 30th - August 11th.

VIZ, get on the ball -- this should be out in region 1 before the end of the year. Please!

[FinalBeyond]

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the best thing ever done. Ever. If people haven't watched it, I simply ask them 'why not?'.

[Alex DeLarge]

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the best thing ever done. Ever. If people haven't watched it, I simply ask them 'why not?'.

While I don't adore it as much as you or Manwards, I will admit Haruhi is a thing of beauty and I cannot WAIT for the second series.

[Scarecrow]

Damn straight. So much variety though, and after Amecon there's half a dozen series I really want to check out!


- Scarecrow

[Just Jeans]

Started watching a show today called Elemental Gelade. I'm liking it so far. It leans more toward comedy than drama, but that's groovy.

[Psychoticninja]

I just finished watching Great Teach Onizuka, that was a GREAT anime (no pun intended) and i was sad to see it end so... abruptly

Also, Hajime No Ippo is BY FAR my most favourite anime ever. It has taught me so much not only about boxing, but about passion, perseverance and how to make yourself strong. Honestly, i didn't know anything about boxing before this anime and it taught me SO much, that i could watch real boxing now and get into it and shout stuff like, 'THAT WAS A SLIP REF, NOT A DOWN!' I encourage anyone to watch it, it not only focuses on boxing, but has alot of other elements to it. Truly spectacular. And i'm also up to date with manga :)

[FinalBeyond]

Felt this was worth bumping on the basis that The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has just started its second season, in a manner of speaking.

Kyoto really have been rather... Evil, when it comes to the promotion of this. I mean, it's worked brilliantly, but the tension was unbearable for a time. They've had promotional websites up for a long time, which made the prospect of a series 2 rather tantalising. Then, the songs of the Haruhi-Chan web series had Kyon mentioning series 2 in the background amidst other yelling.

Which is when the rerun started. All 28 episodes would be shown again on TV. With just one little problem. Series 1... Was 14 episodes long. :p So, here we are. In the middle of the old episodes, the first new one has debuted. See, Haruhi is a bit of a complex series. It's not all done chronologically, as Series 1 had stories from later in the range of novels littered throughout. They do it subtly enough that you never feel as if anything has been spoiled (in fact, one of the episodes directly referenced the series finale in such a way that I never even noticed), but now we have a S2 episode in the middle of S1. And looking back, there's a few direct references in S1 to the events of this episode. As such, it's quite confusing to explain. But it works when you watch it, trust me. :p

Anyhow, the show really is on form, with one of the best episodes yet. Clever, funny, with golden moments for every character, and it's turned some of our perceptions on their head, making us look at the rest in a new light. I would highly recommend everyone to watch it. It really is as close to perfect as a show can be, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. I know I'm prone to hyperbole, but for once, I'm being entirely truthful. This is the best show ever. There are ones that have hit me harder emotionally, but as far as entertainment goes, Haruhi is unsurpassed. Even Doctor Who has to come a close second.

(While I'm complimenting the work of Kyoto Animation, I also have to highly recommend their other series. As a company, they're almost unsurpassed. Clannad is the most emotionally involving series I've seen, and on more than one occasion it made me burst with tears until I could hardly breathe. And I'm not generally the type to do such things. And it looks like their series Kanon is set to do the same, although I've only just started that. While their other series I've seen bits of - K-ON and Lucky Star are far lighter fare, they're also well produced, beautiful visually, fun, and all well acted. That is, if you watch the real things. The dubs are average at best, from my experience, and I can't imagine the mediocre actors that seem to populate dubbing companys managing the serious emotional moments that a good series can have.)

[CountProphet]

Yeah, I remember being anime crazy between the ages 11-14.:D I think my interest in horror films was what made my love for anime decrease overtime. Now, I haven't watched any for a long time. The last episode of any anime, I saw was Bleach episode 42. Anyway a list of the ones I watched:

Bleach
Naruto(I'm not a narutard!)
Fullmetal Alchemist(My favorite!)
Pokemon(Don't make fun of me!)
One Piece
Trigun
Cowboy Bebop
Yuyu Hakusho(A childhood favorite!)
Dragon Ball Z

and I think Big O.


So uh, is it like ture that the anime industry has decreased recently?

[Scarecrow]

It's just you. ;)

Man, Haruhi was *brilliant* wasn't it, and I love time travel stories so it was the perfect first new episode in three years. It showcased almpst everyone, re-stated the series concepts and slotted into its chronology perfectly. Seeing the characetrs again really was like meeting old friends and it's going to be evil having to wait a few weeks until the next new episode.


- Scarecrow

[Just Jeans]

The three OVAs sown at the It's a Rumic World event earlier this year will be released on DVD in Japan in January 2010. The three episodes each tell a story from three of Rumiko's better known franchises: Ranma 1/2, InuYasha, and Urusei Yatsura.

Some of you know I'm quite partial to Ranma 1/2, so I'm really hoping this set makes its way to the United States. Viz Media owns the domestic rights to Ranma and InuYasha, but not Urusei Yatsura, so I dunno how they'll go about distribution. I just hope it's less expensive than its Japanese counterpart: it's going to be $200 for the three disc set in Japan. :eek:

OVA Release (http://www.furinkan.com/)

Along with the news of Inuyasha Kanketsuhen hitting the airwaves October 15th in Japan, Shonen Sunday has provided further information regarding the three 'It's a Rumic World' OVAs. All three will be released as a digipack boxset, including a 32 page booklet. The set will be released on January 29, 2010 and will retail for 19,950 yen (roughly $200 dollars). Source: Websunday (http://www.websunday.net/)

SnIPfhvsB7c

I'm more excited about a domestic release of this than I am practically anything else.

[Monkey]

Amazon is taking pre-orders for Dragonball Season 1, Uncut. Funimation has apparently finally obtained the rights to the original 13 episodes, allowing us to watch it with original Japanese audio. The previous DVD release features a terrible English dub, while the rest of the series allowed you to watch in Japanese. I don't know if I'll buy the entire series in the new format, as I've already picked up the entire series on DVD. Funimation has a habit of releasing all DB shows twice. :side:

It took them long enough...

[Just Jeans]

...allowing us to watch it with original Japanese audio.

And, presumably, it'll have the Funimation dub, too (they have aired it on Cartoon Network with their own dub, but were never able to release it on DVD). I just hope they did a dub for uncut footage, too.

I'm glad they're finally getting round to doing this, because I've put off buying Dragonball on DVD because of the season 1 debacle. Hopefully, given the art style of the box, this means they'll re-release the following seasons at a slightly cheaper price, coz the current prices are crazy.

Looking at the set, I guess they will be re-releasing it all, because this box set has 31 episodes on it. Sweet! I think I'll pick up Dragonball on DVD before Dragonball Z.

[Monkey]

And, presumably, it'll have the Funimation dub, too (they have aired it on Cartoon Network with their own dub, but were never able to release it on DVD). I just hope they did a dub for uncut footage, too.

I'm glad they're finally getting round to doing this, because I've put off buying Dragonball on DVD because of the season 1 debacle. Hopefully, given the art style of the box, this means they'll re-release the following seasons at a slightly cheaper price, coz the current prices are crazy.

Looking at the set, I guess they will be re-releasing it all, because this box set has 31 episodes on it. Sweet! I think I'll pick up Dragonball on DVD before Dragonball Z.
I'm sure they'll do a funimation dub. I bought the original tapes of the first 13 shows, then gave them to my nephew when I got the DVDs. The DVDs have a different english dub than the tapes for some reason, and they'll probably redub it again. :|

I just checked the prices of the dragonball dvds... good lord they're expensive. :eek:
Yeah, you're definitely going to save tons of $$$ on the new box sets. After the Goku saga, there are about 9 or 10 dvds (a couple of the sagas were broken up into two parts sold seperately). There's only 153 episodes, so I'm guessing 5 sets for Dragonball. You will probably be able to buy all 5 for about 35 bucks a pop.

I recommend you watch it in Japanese, though, because most of the humor disappears once they insert the audio. The English dialogue censors out most of the adult humor, because ya know, DB cartoons are for kids. The original series easily is my favorite of the three runs for two reasons.
1. It doesn't drag on like DBZ (not full of filler)
2. The humor is much better (if viewed in Japanese)

Goku's innocence drives the humor. If you watch it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

[Just Jeans]

I'm sure they'll do a funimation dub.

There already is a Funimation dub (Funimation dubbed it for television five or six years ago), but I wasn't sure whether they'd include it on the disc or if they'll have to redub it for the unedited animation (I'm not sure if they ran season 1 unedited or in the typical half-ass edited format that ends up on Cartoon Network).

The DVDs have a different english dub than the tapes for some reason, and they'll probably redub it again.

There are three or four English dubs for the first 13 episodes floating around out there: there's the Ocean Group dub (the version that's on that 5 dollar two disc DVD set), the Funimation TV dub (they got the rights to dub it for Cartoon Network, but never the rights to release that dub on DVD), and there's an Australian unedited dub that people have been importing for ages now. There may be a dub for the UK market as well, I don't know.

I recommend you watch it in Japanese, though...

I just can't. Eyes are getting too bad. And anyway, if I wanted to read it I'd pick up the manga and read that. Which I do. But I'd really like to watch it too. (Oddly enough, the manga keeps most of the crude humor, which is part of the reason why I prefer it to Dragonball Z. If the manga can keep the crude humor and nudity, why can't the Anime?)

The English dialogue censors out most of the adult humor, because ya know, DB cartoons are for kids

Well, in fairness, they really are aimed at kids. It's not just an American marketing ploy. The manga was published weekly in a book aimed at 10-year-olds. They're just a lot less strict about the sort of humor kids are exposed to over there (also, that sort of thing is done with broader appeal: the magazine's entire core demographic was 10 to 18 year olds, so they're designed to appeal to all the ages in between.)

[Monkey]

I picked up the Robotech: Complete Macross saga.

While I lived in Germany back in the mid-80s, the show would come on from time to time. It was what turned me onto anime in the first place.

Unfortunately after all these years, I have to say I don't care for it too much. It's not that it's a bad show, but it's slow paced and doesn't really compel you to watch. I can't help but think a lot of the original dialogue has been translated incorrectly; some of the conversations seem strange and don't really fit (I can't put my finger on it). Oh yeah, I can't stand minmay... singing the same friggin songs over and over.

I'm about 2/3rds finished; it reminds me of Battlestar Gallactica. The humans are hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched, they only have one battleship in space, and there are human survivors tagging along searching for a home.

Not everything stands the test of time... tastes change, too. Oh well.

[Just Jeans]

Never been a fan of Macross. I thought I might give it a go one day, but I think I'll put it off. I'd rather finish collecting Ranma 1/2 first (I only own season 4 on DVD, and only have Volumes 1 through 14 of the manga).