Recommended Anime/Manga?

A place where you can chat about anything that isn't to do with games!
User avatar
Steamflogger Boss
Posts: 3075
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:29 pm
Location: Eating the Rich

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BIL »

BryanM wrote:The shonen battle anime friend collector genre does have an intrinsic flaw - true mortal peril is in direct conflict with collecting friends. Time spent on battles is time not spent drinking milkshakes together, nobody wants to see their friends suffer, so the constant fights in these things naturally must degrade to wrestling. And due to the extremely unrealistic romanticism of friendship these shows tend to have, they often end up as vastly inferior sports anime, a genre famous for its bickering and backstabbin'.
I'd not even considered it at the time, but this is partially why I loved Kengan Ashura, despite finding the premise unbearable on paper (hate tournament arcs? try our tournament series!). There's all of one in-ring death, which is 1) horrific and 2) the natural outcome of a bathsalts psycho VS a ruthless merc (who later does the coldest, most craven move of all: forfeit to avoid risk of crippling injury. a merc's gotta eat!). The vast majority of the field are professional fighters, not killers, facilitating some believable camaraderie amidst bitterly hard-fought bouts. Even the most lovable lose hard, some get royally fucked up physically/fiscally, but it's aight. That's combat sports for you.

Image

:shock: :idea:

I should probably read more sports manga, Bryan. Image And not just stuff that resembles it, like Gunbuster!

As for HNK and JoJo, and I'm sure many other good works I've not read, death in battle is usually the natural endpoint of a character's journey. Sometimes the main character's. Needless to say, that's mortal combat for you. There are tragedies too, where someone bites off more than they can chew, or stays on the wrong side of a nuclear blast door, or is simply snuffed out by overwhelming force - shit happens. Image Either way, it's the end of the line, not some temporary setback, or (God forbid) a character-building exercise. Even in knowingly relaxed goodtime funnybook mode, I can't enjoy myself if that permanence is either sanitised away, or magicked around with anything approaching regularity. Outside of outright fantasy/surrealism, where subverting Mean Mr. Reality is all part of the fun.

Otherwise, it's like a fantasy squandered in bland Uwuu, Get Stronger w/ Muh Friends territory. (the only escape is if it's the DB manga, which I can't hate for the same reason I can't Ranma 1/2. Middleschool feels. Malaysian buddy coming home every July with a suitcase fulla tankobons and raw VHS tapings, none of us knowing a goddamn word of Japanese. ;-;7 We used to be all "Wow! These shitty-assed SFII knockoffs got comics and cartoons and action figures?!)

Baki is a weird case, I've found. Death among the main cast is very rare, as in other, relatively grounded competitive fighting manga - but these muscleheads withstand such cartoonish levels of carnage, it's almost a relief when one of them does cark it, or even suffer significant injury. It's like if three-quarters through Robocop, a bruised but on-the-mend Kinney was spotted being wheelchaired into his office, arm in sling.

Maybe I'd feel different if I'd been following the series for decades on end, not bingeing it over six months or so, but yeah. Baki is pretty much superhero bodyhorror in combat-sports garb, imo. The narrative of man fetishised into kill/fuck/die machine is no innate farce - Shigurui's samurai tale employs it to pitch-black effect, along with its natural counterpart of woman as subhuman livestock - but holy cow, I couldn't take another page of paeans to the noble testes in Baki's goofball teen fightan context. I was all tested out - especially when the whole crew resorted to attacking nigh-invincible PICKLE (the revived caveman)'s goddamn nutsack. Image Yall some bitches for real. What's next, pulling his hair? Check into Ram Ranch already, holy fuck.

Oh! Speaking of, tangent redemption: rewatched olde Viz favourite Mermaid's Scar last night. Well, "rewatched." I read aforementioned buddy's manga, as a kid, and it made quite the impression with its nasty low-tech violence. Couldn't be arsed fishing (oh god, I just caught - mff, there's another!! - this while proofreading! AMAZIN) out the relevant chapters from the larger Rumiko Takahashi work, "Mermaid Saga," so I bunged it off TEH TOOB. Aaand... well, still has some notably discomforting content, I'll give it that. Facilitated by a ho-ho-whooole lotta Horror Movie Retardation, though. Yo, I get you in full mount after you stab me in the ribs, you're gonna have to gimme that Distracting Monologue via Ouija board, is all I'm sayin. Image Short, so unlikely to steal too much of your mortal lifespan.

I know it's a bit rude to ask, but was Rumiko-san a massive lezzer in college? She draws - and writes! - SOAPY BOBS & VERGANA like nobody else. Image I'm a massive fuckin perv, I don't read this stuff usually!
Last edited by BIL on Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
null1024
Posts: 3809
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:52 pm
Location: ʍoquıɐɹ ǝɥʇ ɹǝʌo 'ǝɹǝɥʍǝɯos
Contact:

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by null1024 »

Finished watching GPX Cyber Formula.
Hayato is a ridiculously prideful little shit for a terribly large portion of the show, and it feels a bit out of the blue when he stops. Seriously, I cannot think of any other anime character off-hand that is quite this prideful.
He's a bit painful to watch as an MC, especially with how he had a miserable tendency to ignore the AI supercomputer that is like half the point of Cyber Formula as a racing format, but he gets better. His progression as a character feels a bit choppy, where his issues suddenly melt away completely between episodes.
His worst issues come back fairly late in the series, but at least he has something approaching a real reason for them when it does, and again, he gets over it [weirdly fast, but that's par for the course].

Despite that, it's pretty enjoyable and has a bunch of patently absurd races that are a treat because of how stupid they get.
I'm entirely convinced that this is a reality where safety regulations were never introduced into racing given some of the insane course conditions. :lol:
The Cyber Formula cars get driven on public roads outside of races a bunch, there is a NO RULES DEATH RACE [unsanctioned by any proper racing body, but still] that takes place while traffic is out there and at no point is there mention of police or anything interfering despite several cars exploding, the racers jump massive gaps with their cars [in multiple official Cyber Formula races], and like, it never stops being entirely bonkers. There is an overhead overtake by using the jump fans, and it doesn't get called out as being way too dangerous. There is a race with moving steel doors that block paths and you can't see the actual road, the racers have to drive with their onboard computer rendering the track.
There are track marshals standing on the course while cars come in at over 300km/h. Someone pushes their car across the line after breaking down while in the middle of the road with opponents coming in at over 400km/h from behind.
There are like two, maybe three yellow flags announced in the entire show. For a series that clearly seems to involve people who did know a thing or two about motorsport on staff, they also wanted to make everything entirely off the wall.

of course, given that this is 1991, a lot of the safety in say, real world F1 that you'd expect in this post-Senna world [ :cry: ] doesn't exist yet, and in-story, Cyber Formula cars are supposed to be really safe despite the absurd course conditions... but that doesn't excuse seeing hay bales on a course with cars that can do 500km/h after sustained boost or anyone at all standing on the track at any point ever with cars moving at racing speed ready to make some salsa and lob it into space

Baki is a weird case, I've found. Death among the main cast is very rare, as in other, relatively grounded competitive fighting manga - but these muscleheads withstand such cartoonish levels of carnage, it's almost a relief when one of them does cark it, or even suffer significant injury. It's like if three-quarters through Robocop, a bruised but on-the-mend Kinney was spotted being wheelchaired into his office, arm in sling.
Baki is a ton of fun mostly because everything about the way it treats the human physique is absolutely grotesque. All kind of crazy shit like extra muscles and bones, hideous contortions of flesh that should not and cannot work, etc, etc. There are all kind of hideously gruesome attacks that really should absolutely leave someone utterly incapable of fighting if the target somehow survived, and in Baki, they can do way better than just survive.
You're totally right though -- more characters really should die in Baki given the sheer brutality involved... but they're all hideous bio-mutants claiming to be human beings. :lol:
Come check out my website, I guess. Random stuff I've worked on over the last two decades.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BIL »

Oh god yeah, the xenomorphic physiognomy is one thing Baki can call its very own. Everyone raves about the Image Fought praying mantis... that fucking thing looks more human than most of the cast. :lol: As a glimpse of humans evolving into ghastly new forms under unfathomable self-imposed pressures, it's certainly an amusing ride (fuckin Jack Hanma, holy mother of fuck, what an accursed fellow, the man's testes and liver must be windows into Hell itself - that's quite the chomping mouthful of elephant roids there Jack, remember to wash 'em down with a nice big glass of water! and BONE SCREWS AIEEEE).

And of course, The Theme Of Yujiro (as told to Hillary Clinton). Baki: fighting manga that'll make you feel like a closeted rapist.

The Netflix MOST DANGEROUS DEATH-ROW CONVICTS ARC was a good laugh, busting open the tired tourney format for city-wide mayhem. Motherfuckers might attack while you're asleep, or fucking, or taking a shit. :shock: Albeit a little too fluffed out with the teen drama. "SEX IS LIKE FIGHTING" Yeah bro I think you're more right than you know >_> (Baki comment sections on the usual YARR, MANGA 4 FREE readers are a riot, as aggressive young dudes try to reconcile the overpowering blasts of BEAST TEST with worshipful - AND ACCURATE Image - odes to the explosive power of a well-seared pair of glutes. :shock: (thaperfectSSJxxKILLA: "YO, THAT CHINESE BUTT STUFF KIIINDA GAY THO" shishioh_SAMA_mummyBBC: "STFU BITCH, U THE GAY 1 4 REAL, COOKIEDOUGH ASS AINT EVEN LIFT" tharealfolkbluez8675309: "TBH U BOTH CHECKIN OUT HE CHEEKS 4 VARIOUS REASONS LMAO" shishioh_SAMA_mummyBBC: OMFG BITCH IMA FIGHT YOU IRL) and so forth - motherfuckers were going back and forth the whole Pickle arc! They never did determine who THA GAY 1 really was :sad: spoiler EVERYONE IN THE ROOM Image)
User avatar
MX7
Posts: 3223
Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:46 pm
Location: Cambridge
Contact:

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by MX7 »

Inevitable Chainsaw Man anime is incoming. Trailer is out there. It looks nice. Very shiny, like everything MAPPA do. The comic is gorgeously scratchy, though not quite as inkblot filthy as his earlier opus Fire Punch (please read Fire Punch). Grabbing every volume of Chainsaw Man as fast as they can print 'em. It's rare to be excited about something so unequivocally mainstream (yet still weird as hell).
User avatar
null1024
Posts: 3809
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:52 pm
Location: ʍoquıɐɹ ǝɥʇ ɹǝʌo 'ǝɹǝɥʍǝɯos
Contact:

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by null1024 »

I've been watching the Cyber Formula OVAs.
Loads of the weird stuff from the TV show is gone [in fact, almost all of my nitpicking in my last post is no longer valid :D ], and the shift from weekly broadcast TV to a handful of home video releases has drastically improved the way things look. The quality bump is wonderful, and not needing to pad the episode count means each of the OVAs is way tighter with how the story is told.

Finished 11 and Zero, about to start Saga [which apparently has fairly mediocre subs, but alas]. [EDIT: holy hell, these subs are terribad]
Apart from the edgy kid in Zero [who has all of his character development happen very quickly and at the end], things have been pretty good.
Zero also has RACING NEWTYPES but like, it's handled a lot better than I expected going in.
Asurada, the car, is also a total bro and, and unlike in the first season or 11, he barely gets to say anything in Zero.

Watching this series really does remind me that sports anime are really good for getting all of those cool shonen series moments and hot blooded fighting but without all the often dumb hoops needed to keep the MC and his friends [and enemies] alive instead of killing/being killed.
In sports, the MC can lose, while in a more fantastical world-saving combat sort of setting, the punishment for loss is DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, and that's no good.

Now that I'm talking about this, I'm reminded of my absolute favorite piece of "shonen manga", ULTIMATE ROCK PAPER SCISSORS, which is basically something I'd consider the greatest tournament arc in history. Crazy powers and dumb bullshit, ensemble cast so you genuinely don't know who will win, and fairly satisfying stories for why everyone is even present.
An absolute treat, and I will never stop recommending it to people. It's ugly and sketchy and it absolutely understands what people are looking for when they seek out shonen manga.
Come check out my website, I guess. Random stuff I've worked on over the last two decades.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6116
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BryanM »

Grumble grumble, so irritating so much of the stuff that looks interesting never gets translated. Ex -
Spoiler
Image
^ Possible masterpiece of surviving the apocalypse in a bathtub, grumble grum.

When Naruto and Bleach were being published, there were 50+ groups beating the crap out of each other trying to get a piece of that ad revenue and prestige. World's not fair, let's throw it into the sun.
User avatar
null1024
Posts: 3809
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:52 pm
Location: ʍoquıɐɹ ǝɥʇ ɹǝʌo 'ǝɹǝɥʍǝɯos
Contact:

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by null1024 »

God, these subs in Cyber Formula Saga are so bad that I am idly considering the possibility of just trying to pay someone to retranslate it. :lol:
I almost certainly won't actually do that [entirely because I don't have that much disposable cash lol], but it's really, really tempting.
Come check out my website, I guess. Random stuff I've worked on over the last two decades.
User avatar
drauch
Posts: 5637
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:14 am

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by drauch »

Sammy00 wrote:I've never been a fan of the anime genre. Moreover, I treated him as lightly as possible, believing that these "cartoons" are designed exclusively for children, maximum adolescence. Oh gods, I've never been so wrong. Once I decided to watch Death Note. I was interested in the description and rating. And what's the difference that it is 2006 - it's never too late to discover masterpieces for yourself. So I thought and launched the first episode ... Death Note is a story about what can happen if such a magical artifact is in the hands of a genius, sociopath and psychopath with a God complex. Agree, the idea is very interesting and unusual! From this series my love for anime began.
On March 31st, we got the same post:

"I've never been a fan of the anime genre. Moreover, I treated him as lightly as possible, believing that these "cartoons" are designed exclusively for children, maximum adolescence. Oh gods, I've never been so wrong. Once I decided to watch Death Note. I was interested in the description and rating. And what's the difference that it is 2006 - it's never too late to discover masterpieces for yourself. So I thought and launched the first episode ... Death Note is a story about what can happen if such a magical artifact is in the hands of a genius, sociopath and psychopath with a God complex. Agree, the idea is very interesting and unusual! From this series my love for anime began."

THOUGHTS?
BIL wrote: "Small sack, LOTS OF CUM" - Nikola Tesla
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6116
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BryanM »

Nice catch. If you google a fragment of any of the sentences from his post history, they're copy pasta'd across like a dozen forums.

Argh. And he baited me into thinking up a little effort post.
User avatar
drauch
Posts: 5637
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:14 am

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by drauch »

Ha, wow, yeah it's everywhere. Pretty dedicated little account, stopping for five months only to return and drop his link. I only initially paid attention because they called anime a "genre" and it riled me up! :lol:
BIL wrote: "Small sack, LOTS OF CUM" - Nikola Tesla
User avatar
Steamflogger Boss
Posts: 3075
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:29 pm
Location: Eating the Rich

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Yeah I saw one of the posts with a link and reported it.

Anyway, I've been watching Versailles no Bara and it's becoming one of my favorites. Passes the low bar of being the best anime about the French revolution (of which there are probably more than most people realize but I'm pretty big on historical fiction).
Randorama
Posts: 3503
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

The waifu won so I finally watched Eva 3.0+1.0. I would like XX minutes of my life back (XX=whatever the movie's length is), and a reality in which this...stuff doesn't exist, right now.

BTW, do they actually reveal who's the absurdly annoying girl in pink (Mari something)?

I just registered that her and Shinji end up in
Spoiler
"happy end reality" because the movie plays the whole meta-fictional clusterfuck non-sense, unsurprisingly
, the rest I didn't actually notice (and I feel dirty at googling about it). Who wants to be a good soul and explain?
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
User avatar
Udderdude
Posts: 6266
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:55 am
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Udderdude »

Everything after the original TV show, Death/Rebirth and (most of) EoE was just Anno fucking with the audience. There's your explanation.
User avatar
Sly Cherry Chunks
Posts: 1969
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 8:40 pm
Location: Colin's Bargain Basement. Everything must go.

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Sly Cherry Chunks »

A lot of people really didn't like the ending of EVA 3.0 + 1.0
Spoiler
My thoughts - Oh shit, they're all still stuck in instrumentality.
The biggest unanswered question is where is the money? [1CCS]
Randorama
Posts: 3503
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

Well, Anno basically spent a career thinking that just lifting ideas from the most disparate sources and mashing them together at random is a perfectly fine way of "being creative" (Gainax=first generation otakus somehow entering the industry by lifting ideas like there was no tomorrow, anyway).

Of course, there is a long list of people who became successful by doing precisely the same (e.g. the Wachowskis). The general impression I had was of a movie with a now senile director dwelling in excess in his old, bad habits.

Also, the ending...
Spoiler
Shinji chooses a reality without Evas, together with the "big boobs" girl. The last scene involves a drone shot of the subway station near the Gainax studios, I guess. Is it fiction? People, you saw this on a 2D screen, so yes.

The idea goes back to Ideon - be invoked , in which the characters are "reborn" in a galaxy in which they can enjoy "peace" - i.e. not being "forced" to be fictional characters in war stories. Anno lifted a lot from Ideon.

The whole "fictional character is finally set free from the curse of fiction" feels really like an old idea, in 2021. Ideon is 1979, other authors across media and genres used this post-modern idea since the '70s and in a much better way, and so on...
I'd go on and say that at 41, enduring poorly written (and animated...) fiction for emotionally stunted teenagers and fans who are moving to old ages while still being stuck at a mental age of 14, places a non-trivial burden on ...my balls.

Luckily I didn't pay for this, and I banned my wife from even mentioning the series, ever again. Sorry for venting :wink:

EDIT: Afterthought:

End of Evangelion amply lifts from the Devilman manga, at least in how it portrays the apocalypse to come. The main difference is that what happens to humans in the movie is an idea lifted from some other source (the book in which "the instrumentality project" is first introduced; too lazy to google it up).

Speaking of just mashing up ideas at random...
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
User avatar
null1024
Posts: 3809
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:52 pm
Location: ʍoquıɐɹ ǝɥʇ ɹǝʌo 'ǝɹǝɥʍǝɯos
Contact:

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by null1024 »

God, I'm tempted to blitz through all the Rebuilds in a row just to see how stupid things get in the end/refresh on just how dumb things were since it's been absolutely forever since I've see most of them.
Tempted to do it at more than 1x speed -- the ultimate sin of anime watching, but this shit is genuinely not worth that much of my time.
Every single thing I've heard about 3.0+1.0 sounds like absolute garbage in a film series already known to be stupid as hell.

fourteen years
Well, Anno basically spent a career thinking that just lifting ideas from the most disparate sources and mashing them together at random is a perfectly fine way of "being creative" (Gainax=first generation otakus somehow entering the industry by lifting ideas like there was no tomorrow, anyway).
I'm okay with relentlessly stealing shit and throwing it together. It's fun.
Unfortunately, it's incredibly clear that all the things about the show that made Eva a success in the past are now entirely foreign [or even unappealing] to Anno and co. What a mess.
Come check out my website, I guess. Random stuff I've worked on over the last two decades.
Randorama
Posts: 3503
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

null1024 wrote: I'm okay with relentlessly stealing shit and throwing it together. It's fun.
Unfortunately, it's incredibly clear that all the things about the show that made Eva a success in the past are now entirely foreign [or even unappealing] to Anno and co. What a mess.
I am also OK with it when it is done with grace and a good deal of irony. I am half tempted to start mentioning post-modern theory (which I loathe), but it would be overstating the case.

However, 3.0+1.0 is mostly devoid of both grace and irony (of course), and takes itself very seriously.

Crucially, it often feels like a product created over a long period of time, with long, forced breaks in between, and with no attempts to integrate the different parts together because of time and money problems.

Gainax's history of financial struggles is well-known, and this work seems like something they produced while constantly being with funds and with the only goal of cashing in to re-fill the coffers.

I don't criticise them for this, but the end result has been a torture to watch, for me.
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
PC Engine Fan X!
Posts: 8415
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:32 pm

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by PC Engine Fan X! »

I was hoping that Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 would get a proper big screen release stateside but due to the on-going pandemic, Amazon got the exclusive streaming rights to show it in the USA. It wasn't disclosed how much it paid to do so but August 24th, 2021 was the big release date for it, indeed. Has it been released on 4K & Blu-ray formats for Japan yet?

During an roundtable group discussion with the folks whom made the Battle Angel Alita movie a while back, James Cameron said, "Anything can happen in the science fiction genre." This holds true within the Evangelion mythos as well. There are some weird/supernatural stuff going on in this 4th Evangelion re-build movie but I accept it at face value.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
User avatar
Steamflogger Boss
Posts: 3075
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:29 pm
Location: Eating the Rich

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Log Horizon

Better than it looks. Thanks for the rec, BryanM.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6116
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BryanM »

It sometimes do be like that. First time seeing the cover of Saiki K I though it looked like stupid crap. Scratched the surface, and quickly realized it was a masterpiece that everyone loves.

The only metric I use to quickly screen out stuff is "is this pushing bland edgy violence in its ad copy and only bland edgy violence?" Note how the immortality of Log Horizon negates that plot armor all shonen battle anime has - it never tries to stress you out with stuff that's never going to happen (to anyone important. Sorry, Neji).

Been waiting for Uramichi Onii-san to finish being dubbed. I read the ad copy: "Depressed adults who work on a cheerful child's morning show", and I'm already assuming I'm going to watch the entire thing through.

Irumu-kun is rather well balanced in the shonen friend collector genre. It knows what it's doing and how much more we'd rather see the MC and the main heronine read romance manga together than fightin'. That only 75% of everything revolves around the MC instead of 100% is like receiving oxygen from Moses. At least give the support characters something, shonen writers. Even if it's an origami hobby.

Danmachi is rather incredible series since I'm not sure if I've come across writing this bad in anything this successful, except maybe that one time I read a sentence from a Left Behind book. Just so much incompetence, from fundamental structural and "what is my audience here to see" basics. It bats around 5%. Not since Urkel has one support character gone viral and so carried a franchise and fed so many mouths. Yet she stays in the kitchen while the trophy the hero strives to collect at the end of his rainbow is a bland mayonaise shaped swordgirl. Her personality traits: She's a garbage racist one time. That's it.

These things aren't complicated to write. You have the exploration/action/conflict phase, a mellow dating phase (also called a "hanging out" phase by cowards), and sometimes you toss some numbers in there for nerds and powerups for chunni people. It's a simple cycle that generates infinite content for no effort. You can even randomly generate characters using a chart and some dice. All you have to do is make sure not to brunch up similar characters; if you roll a yakuza rabbit then maybe wait a couple months before letting the chart bully you into putting a sentient yakuza trash can in there.
User avatar
ED-057
Posts: 1560
Joined: Fri Jan 28, 2005 7:21 am
Location: USH

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by ED-057 »

Akatsuki no Yona - This seems like a standard action/adventure series. Not bad but I haven't had a chance to see the whole thing.
Haruka na Receive - I think this is the only sports anime I've ever watched. Would watch again.
Sword Art Online - the first story arc is the worst one. GGO was good but unfortunately a bit short. Alicization was good. War in the Underpants was not bad although all the rules seemed to go out the window, allowing bizarre stuff to happen just because. I found it charming that one of the villains wanted to tentacle rape a Japanese girl as part of his 'research' on behalf of the NSA.
Megami-ryou no Ryoubo-kun - watched 3 eps. I guess it's like Princess Evangile if everything was removed except for the dumb gags, whacky premise, and boobies.
Strike Witches - watched one ep. Do not want.
Code Geass (1st season) - Interesting but dark and tragic, with silly-looking stretchy-gumby people
Fena Pirate Princess - similar to Akatsuki no Yona
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BIL »

Lily C.A.T. (1987, OVA) Likeable pastiche of Alien and Carpenter's The Thing. Long-haul voyage picks up hostile alien - but what is really going on!??? And will these space fucks stop wandering off to their dooms!??? Some fun Agatha Christie twists to the expected subterfuge. Its most compelling passage, on the alienation of professional hypersleepers from an Earth glimpsed twice a century, may well be poached from Aliens. Soulfully put, regardless.

Image

A decent lazy weeknight watch. A few notable credits: monster design by Yoshitaka Amano, with some deft human chara design by Yasuomi Umetsu, a personal favourite of mine for his work on Contra The Hard Corps. Was recommended in the context of 80s gorefest anime - it's absolutely not, being quite reserved in that department. (hit up early 90s atrocity spectacular Genocyber for that Image)

Image
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6116
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BryanM »

ED-057 wrote:Haruka na Receive - I think this is the only sports anime I've ever watched. Would watch again.
I always advocate more sports anime to those who haven't experienced a lot of it. No life or death stakes, they're usually not especially horny, and the world doesn't tend to revolve around one character. At least it's helpful as a detox. Ping Pong, Bamboo Blade, Free, that basketball one (you know the one), a million others....

Imagine if real life sports had this Pro Wrestling style/slice of life framing around it to build investment. 98% of the entire interesting portion of tennis history is John McEnroe swearing at referees.
User avatar
Sima Tuna
Posts: 1428
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:26 pm

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Sima Tuna »

Crows and Worst are both good manga you should read if you like delinquent fiction. They're a lot more than just dudes beating each other up, although that's how the series starts. The story is more about young people finding (or not finding) themselves, growing up and figuring out their place in society. Crows is as much about brotherhood and maturity as it is punching that asshole in the face. As manga, they definitely feel "of a time." Like Maison Ikkoku, they provide a snapshot of a certain era of japanese life. It's not entirely intentional, I think, but a certain way of living has been preserved for all time. We can see what was normal and everyday at that time, contrasted with the drama of the story.

If you like River City Ransom as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to check out Crows. There are other delinquent manga out there, but Crows is the best and most complete, in my opinion. The Bebop High School OVA is also worth a watch. It's very similar.
User avatar
drauch
Posts: 5637
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:14 am

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by drauch »

Lily is a lot of fun. OVAs are a lot of fun, and I haven't watched one in a spell. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. If you haven't seen it, They Were Eleven is also good stuff if you want another space mystery.
BIL wrote: "Small sack, LOTS OF CUM" - Nikola Tesla
Randorama
Posts: 3503
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

I am not entirely sure why, but I still have a soft spot for delinquent manga at the tender age of 41...fuck, 42 a few weeks ago, duh.

It does help that I grew up in a place and culture where delinquency was not uncommon: rednecks from the mountains gotta kill time, whether they have money or not.

Crows at times was hard to read, when I was growing up; but still, it does not feature drugs and the vast network of problems they cause, and those were a common real-life plague that manga usually omit(ted). No wonder my father sent me to a military school (aka "dudes beating each other up in uniforms").

EDIT: the worst delinquent in my fancypants school took me under his wing and protected me in a number of quite dangerous situations.

He currently is...my trusted lawyer. I swear. No, I don't think he beats up judges if he cannot win the case (I guess?).
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by BIL »

drauch wrote:Lily is a lot of fun. OVAs are a lot of fun, and I haven't watched one in a spell. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. If you haven't seen it, They Were Eleven is also good stuff if you want another space mystery.
Yeah, it's nice to just sit down and enjoy an unfamiliar, complete story. Kinda the movie equivalent of searching up random 60s action/horror that's slow to attract DMCAs. :mrgreen: (a cherished practice! er, further down post - Spookies is an entirely different animal, as you know!) Thanks for the rec, will watch tonight!
Randorama wrote:EDIT: the worst delinquent in my fancypants school took me under his wing and protected me in a number of quite dangerous situations.
Strictly anecdotally, this seems like a pretty common social pattern amongst young guys in less privileged situations... there is a stark difference between honest roughnecks and rank villains, after all. Kunio-kun got a whole franchise out of it!
He currently is...my trusted lawyer. I swear. No, I don't think he beats up judges if he cannot win the case (I guess?).
Pls don't beat me up if I steal this for my beltscroller project :mrgreen:
User avatar
Sima Tuna
Posts: 1428
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:26 pm

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Sima Tuna »

Hot-Blooded Lawyer Highschool. The new anime coming this summer.
Randorama
Posts: 3503
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm

Re: Recommended Anime/Manga?

Post by Randorama »

BIRRU, you're safe with me, but I need to ask my lawyer for permission. My lawyer, Guglielmo, *was* the son of two lawyers but still he grew up in the woods; He *is* a properly educated guy, but simply put: he can throw a punch.

...and I was the video-games wiz kid, so *of course* he had to protect me against thugs. With a crowbar, at times.

The thing is, in Italy it made perfect sense to go to public lyceums for high school, because they were often good and publicly funded, at least up until the 1990's. Dunno about now.

This meant that you would share a classroom with the roughneck from a really problematic background and the fancy-boy with a privileged status, and so you would avoid growing up in a sheltered environment.

Saiki K illustrates this kind scenario really nicely, anime-wise, since it has Endou (the poor kid), a ultra-rich boy, a Yankee and a very poor girl all going to school together (and a few other weird characters).

...case in point, I re-watched Saiki K again with the waifu, recently, and it's brilliant.
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
Post Reply