Recommended Anime/Manga?

[kitten]

I have seen almost everything from Oshii as you would have probably guessed. I would put Patlabor 2 and GitS in that same tier as Angel's Egg. Gotta say I didn't really care for Lain or Tehxnolyze. What are some other things Konaka is fully responsible for, essentially?

texhnolyze is a bit dour, even for him, but i'm surprised you also disliked lain, which i would rep as one of his better works. the big o, digimon: tamers (s3, which exists in a unique continuity), devilman lady - all favorites.

[BryanM]

I feel like reiterating that the profit motive has been terrible for the Japanese webnovel scene. They have these shallow templates and hardly ever explore what you can do with it, and lord are they terrified of making a main character who's an asshole. (Despite some of the most successful franchises having characters that are not cookie cutter emotionless robots. Maybe there's some kind of extra pressure there to conform to some ideal box they think society wants them to fit into - no one else on the planet seems to do this as much.)

One of my white whales is finding the worst isekai you can make. There have been wonderful examples of that, with various stuff that ranges from revenge fantasies against the school bullies who were mean to the writer, to sexual preferences that are far, far more problematic than sexy spider women (who aren't problematic at all, they're beautiful don't be racist).

Through all the dross, the most dire example I have so far is this one where the main character gets told all about stuff ahead of time, like his friend is a walking wikipedia. Just no discovery or adventure at all, you get told what they're going to do to the smallest detail and then they do it so you get to live through everything twice. It's like it's made for someone with a neurotic condition where they'll literally die if they got startled, that's the only person I can imagine it would be for.

it's why i'm able to garner respect for someone like yoko taro (i realize i'm dipping into games, but they're arguably more rotten an industry than anime, so it's a solid parallel) when he's a fucking moron - he's like, saying something. he's got a vision. his vision may be self-inserting himself as a boy who is desperate to get his balls crushed by a Sexy Robot Maid, but for fuck's sake it's at least an idea he's doing something with.

It's kind of nice when an indie studio gets some mainstream success, like the King's Field -> Dark Souls pipeline, or DMA Designs striking oil with Grand Theft Auto 3.

Nobody ever talks about Drag-on Dragoon, aka Drakengard. But I love how it's this crapsack world where everyone is terrible and the world itself is so shitty that it's always half an hour away from some kind of stupid completely arbitrary and meaningless apocalypse. As a simulant living through one of these kind of dumb acpocalypses, I can empathize.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Drakengard, to me, was much more enjoyable than Nier. I haven't played it in a long time though.

[FinalBaton]

I have Angel's Egg in my big box of animu VHS, I need to watch that (don't know why I haven't watched it yet).

maybe I'll take a pic of everything that's in there and ask you guys what's a must-watch in there.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I have Angel's Egg in my big box of animu VHS, I need to watch that (don't know why I haven't watched it yet).

maybe I'll take a pic of everything that's in there and ask you guys what's a must-watch in there.

I'd certainly throw my .02 in. Are they Japanese tapes or was Angel's Egg actually released here?

[GaijinPunch]

Angel's Egg was a prized Laser Disc (and then DVD) for ages, selling for way higher than it's retail price. Very few back in the day did that. Robot Carnival (which is on Prime ATM btw) is the only other one I can think of off the top of my head.

Anyway, it's dope -- check it out.

[GaijinPunch]

I did a quick YJ search and apparently nobody cares about the LD anymore. This auction will probably not go too high. Oddly enough though, I had never heard of Dallos (which is in aforementioned auction) before but watched episode 1 of it last weekend with a hangover. Good 80s fun. Nothing amazing. Exactly what I needed. Will finish it at some point I'm sure.

[FinalBaton]

I'd certainly throw my .02 in. Are they Japanese tapes or was Angel's Egg actually released here?

all NA tapes

Hmmm maybe I'm misremembering that with the memory of seeing Angel's Egg on a previrw of one of those tapes then. I'll post pics of the bunch, curious to have your input

and thanks Gaijin for the infos on Angel's Egg releases

[Steamflogger Boss]

I did a quick YJ search and apparently nobody cares about the LD anymore. This auction will probably not go too high. Oddly enough though, I had never heard of Dallos (which is in aforementioned auction) before but watched episode 1 of it last weekend with a hangover. Good 80s fun. Nothing amazing. Exactly what I needed. Will finish it at some point I'm sure.

Yeah no one cares too much anymore because there is a blu ray. I paid like $15 before shipping for mine. I love that LD as well as the GitS one. I have GitS on 4K too, but I'll still watch the LD, it's amazing.

[kitten]

One of my white whales is finding the worst isekai you can make. There have been wonderful examples of that, with various stuff that ranges from revenge fantasies against the school bullies who were mean to the writer, to sexual preferences that are far, far more problematic than sexy spider women (who aren't problematic at all, they're beautiful don't be racist).

time to yammer!!! probably mostly to the choir, i hope lol

japan's creative community (not to be confused with "japan as a society") is a lot more open about *my gums begin to flap at an incredible speed, threatening to tear from my face* appreciating sexuality they aren't necessarily attracted to and getting outside of their wheelhouse with indulging in others' elaborate fantasies. nearly my entire twitter experience for the last like 3 years has just been retweeting kemono artists i am particularly interested in or appreciate, and you see artists who do near-exclusively "wholesome" and broad appeal art, like this person, occasionally fav some shota cock that winds up on your timeline. one time, i saw hitoshi ariga, who has done rockman mega mix, the klonoa manga, designed several pokemon (and done a lot of art for the card game) - you know, someone who in america would have a lot to lose by flying any degree of freak flag and getting cancelled - retweet semi's art, who is someone that popularly draws explicit lolita bestiality at a high frequency (click their media tab and scroll down lol). what was he retweeting? the manga that semi recently got published (in english, even!!) of the girl they often draw fucking a unicorn.

they don't fucking care. they're able to divorce art from reality and enjoy weird shit. made in abyss is wildly popular over there, and that's a manga where a living toilet eats a 10yo's shit out of her asshole, among other things. people are weird! let them be weird, let them be uncomfortably weird, and seek things out that make you uncomfortable. hell, become weird, yourself! life is wild and you might as well experience it. many of our greatest thinkers were deeply traumatized people, imagine the art that would be produced by them without social restraint, or how many hidden among us would be creating more expressive art without the constant restrictions placed by society on expression. ari aster, who definitely openly enjoys evil, is seen as a great new auteur of the horror movie because he doesn't put tremendous restrictions on it - "horror" being one of the only modern genres where people can just get away with being wild.

the west is so sexually oppressed but so open about horrific violence... it blows my mind we don't let people get away with expressing any form of desire in their art but will take our children to see superheroes justify war crimes, surveillance, and torture. our culture that is unable to divorce fantasy from reality is unsurprisingly making art that uncomfortably reflects only what our putrid values deem acceptable. artists being corralled into only being able to make propaganda as expression is why shit like steven universe, ostensibly a pusher of social labels, is rife with ugly, dogmatic preaching and is appreciated or criticized similarly by its fans for the purity of its values. you have to let shit that you don't like exist, possibly even flourish, or society won't, and then nothing ever changes. you're left in reactionary cultural stasis (america).

i'm so fucking... sick and tired that the most vocal free expression brigade is often the "anime right," who largely just care that their dogshit senran kagura games keep getting published and they can keep importing titty statues. no greater or more true depravity than pretending to champion expression and only taking it so far as your own interests - stick up for the real weirdos, out there. was delighted when i gave nurse love addiction a spin - a game i bought as ironic indulgence to troll luna, as holy shit that game is as embarrassing to own as you'd imagine from the name - and actually ended up enjoying it. game gets hella weird! one of the paths has an ending where you suck vomit out of your sister's mouth after she spends the entire game gaslighting and manipulating you as an expression of true love, and then go on to date her. if you fail that, she becomes your bdsm slave who can only have her guilt for how she treated you alleviated by affectionately torturing her. that's weird, that's interesting. that's the shit i wanted, but i'd have never thought the game would have the spine to do.

Nobody ever talks about Drag-on Dragoon, aka Drakengard. But I love how it's this crapsack world where everyone is terrible and the world itself is so shitty that it's always half an hour away from some kind of stupid completely arbitrary and meaningless apocalypse. As a simulant living through one of these kind of dumb acpocalypses, I can empathize.

nobody here, maybe, but i've heard about it plenty in spaces i've spent a bit of time on on discord, irc, etc. it seems like a gat dang mess 0__0; but it's at least an absurd one. wouldn't ever play the thing but i can't say i've not been amused to know it exists.

[BIL]

TFW ur internet has been too shite to load manga for the last two months and u habe many chapters 2 catch up on :3 :3 :3

I wonder how my boy The Hammer of Burma is doin

[Steamflogger Boss]

Hanasakeru Seishounen

I'll see how I feel by the end but so far it's been absolutely bananas. Feels like an actual hidden gem, I probably wouldn't have heard of it if Discotek didn't bring it over. Plus who knows if there were even fan subs out there for all the episodes.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Finished Cobra. The last arc took it up from a 7 to an 8 for me. Overall enjoyable.

Watching the KoR OAVs then movie, almost done with the OAVs which are basically just additional episodes of whacky 80s fun.

[kitten]

surprised to find myself enjoying the dorohedero anime as much as i am. the fugly 3d doesn't stop being disappointing, but i hadn't expected q hayashida to create compelling characters, just a stunning high concept world. being nihei's understudy made me think she'd suck at characters as much as he does, but not at all true! the manga is probably a delight, feels like it probably benefits a lot from that format and certain panels being allowed to linger in one's gaze as long as they need to before moving to the next. really digging the constant obscene chaos and the characters' drives to just work through it with a smile, anyway. caiman's relentless earnesty feels so easy to jive with and i just love nikaido, as well. came for the crazy, stayed for the friendship!

- -

also watched sion sono's tokyo vampire hotel, recently. live action, but with an animated opening sure to pique the interest of anyone who loves castlevania and other vampire related shenanigans! seriously, check it. the show is a delightfully chaotic satire of and homage to the deranged nature of serialized television. picks up and abandons characters and plot threads so quickly that you get the gaslighting experience of half-remembering a ten year old character arc in a soap opera that contradicts what's currently going on in just the span of its 10 episodes numerous times over. hell of a thing to watch, highly recommend it.

[Vanguard]

Dorohedoro kicks ass

[Steamflogger Boss]

Powering through fugly 3D or obviously CG animation is why newer stuff has to be really strong from a writing perspective for me, or just really funny. I enjoyed Konosuba well enough but god damn did the visuals hurt, just awful looking.

[kitten]

man :S i seriously fell in love with dorohedoro by the end of it. i mean really in love! it's great and the characters are beyond delightful with a voice cast to really elevate them even further. i want to read the manga, but i'm notoriously hard to get to read *anything*. praying this gets a second season. everyone go watch it! give netflix those fucking metrics!

[BIL]

Kengan Omega: sequel to the excellent competitive fighting shonen Kengan Ashura. Expectations at zero for this one, not for lack of faith in the three-man team - good VG-literate lads - moreso how neatly Ashura wrapped up. But when I get burnt by a shit sequel, guillotining it out of headcanon is as easy as breathin'.

Neat bifurcated narrative. Story A concerns some kid with Ashura protagonist Ohma's face and talent, though seemingly not his bloodlust. Ok, cool, I played KOF '99 too. More of interest is Story B, the tale of a Bred working his ass off to become a Shiva. At some point in Ohma's nightly Final Fight LARPs, he didn't punch one guy in the windpipe quite hard enough, leaving him with delusions of vengeance.

Spoiler

^ good advice, do like Willy, next time b STRAPPED

This poor prick! Bred tracks Ohma to the smouldering crater of the last manga, befriends a handful of Ashura favourites, and trains hard, unlearning his petty zako ways, only to unwittingly unlock Story A, which physically and psychologically ruins his shit worse than Ohma's backstreet tune-up ever did. And then I stopped reading, because I like a nice fat buffer of volumes.

Spoiler

^ GTFO while you still can Bred, this dead-eyed fuck is a textbook Zero 3 Cody!

I hope Bred survive, he's not a bad kid, just a stupid one! 3; I just had a terrible thought, what if he KILL HE SELF Nah he'll be ok, everybody takes a beating sometimes. I like the bridging of Professional Protagonist and Angry Zako worlds via indomitable Bred. As with Ashura, it's genre-knowing but never smarmy, playing its gruelling trials and rivalries fastidiously straight.

Recommended for KA fans, but not newcomers. Absent the original manga's hard-won camaraderie, neither scenario offers much beyond agreeable boilerplate shonen. The original is great fun, don't be fooled by the initially grimdark outlook and snuff film beatdowns. Classic Ashita no Joe fire and heart, with some rivetingly hard-fought contests.

Actually fuck, the snuffs are great too.

[Khan]

I watched Tokyo Ghoul for the first time and actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would, im currently watching Guilty crown but its not as good

[BIL]

viewtopic.php?p=1435375#p1435375

I didn't have access to the [Hokuto no Ken] TV series, so being told that I am in fact shock never made an indelible impression, but I was able to rent the movie and so my strongest prior musical memory was from the montage near the end.

Spoiler

I love the implicit stream of trash talk Rei keeps up even though he's pretty sure he's going to die.

MUH FEELS Haven't seen that sequence in a while. "Ease my pain / Ease my roneryness! / Whoa whoaaa!"

*KEN-OH'S MEN ARE MASSACRED*
"Hooo... Rei, isn't it. I enjoyed watching your Nanto Suicho Ken."
"You're next."

Spoiler

I wonder if there's a term for that, zeroing the dialogue while keeping the speakers onscreen, the visuals and score conveying the scene. Feels like a silent movie technique.

Spoiler

As above, so below. GIVE U MY LIFE / GIVE U MY ENERGY (;｀ω´;)

Spoiler

[BryanM]

With season 3 coming next month... I realized it's been long enough to feel nostalgic for Log Horizon of all things. It feels like it was out five minutes ago what the hell.

So I'm giving the series a rewatch. For you out of the loop, this one of those "trapped in a video game" thingies. Instead of being about grinding monsters to level up or worrying about a moody antisocial teenager, this is the one about saving the day with motherfuckin' bureaucracy.

Not enough stories about bureaucracy out there.

[Steamflogger Boss]

With season 3 coming next month... I realized it's been long enough to feel nostalgic for Log Horizon of all things. It feels like it was out five minutes ago what the hell.

So I'm giving the series a rewatch. For you out of the loop, this one of those "trapped in a video game" thingies. Instead of being about grinding monsters to level up or worrying about a moody antisocial tennager, this is the one about saving the day with motherfuckin' bureaucracy.

Not enough stories about bureaucracy out there.

Bought this in the current Sentai sale. Seemed like good value.

[BryanM]

Ah, it's refreshing how it doesn't try to compete on the same dimensions everyone else is (waifus, zazz, noise, flash, edge, etc) and is just a nice calming desaturated experience.

What's weird is a episode I watched last night, they were talking about having salmon for christmas... and I'm having salmon for christmas. Spooky.

[gbaplayer]

Recently i finished Jushin Liger Anime and now i´m into Devilman (70s), really like those Go Nagai series.

[BIL]

Boof!



Didn't realise Shingeki no Kyojin season 4 was underway. Well that's nice! Blimey episode 1 was fucked, been looking forward to its 'orrible ground warfare in full sound & vision. I can't believe they actually included this scene. Ruthless. Episode 5 should be neato to see onscreen too, an almighty karmic cockslap that would've once been dealt in fury, but is now a numb hog scattering quite the array of teefs across the killing floor.

"I don't care if u cockslap me in fact i want u 2 right in my fuckin mout but PLS NOT MUH FAMRY ;-;"
"I'm sry bro TBH at this point ur liek the 1 person in the room this cock is going 2 miss \o_o/"

Seems WIT Studio is out and MAPPA is in, I don't follow the business but I saw nothing amiss. Sawano is still on OST, that's all I needed to know. Tragically this week is the famous Japanese holiday "Everything You Like Is Cockblocked," so next week is a check-in for sure.

I hope they do Monkey Shines 2: Fuckin Monkey Is At It ONCE AGAIN half as well as WIT's original. Levi X Zeke ongoing bromocide gives me fuckin wood mon. Rarely is the classic "tiny player character buttfucks massive buff boss" aesthetic done so properly and sans smarm. In fact, when it's done badly, it hoovers up cock - and tension! - with the blind fury of a collapsing star. There is nothing more wretched than a "boss battle" as imagined by credit feeders. See Game of Thrones' final two seasons, or MovieBob's Top Ten Films Of The Decade, or really, just MovieBob.

[Randorama]

I remember a manga by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara that had Prince (Symbol, Prince Willie Nelson: that guy) as the main antagonist.

Macaw recommended it once to someone on GP's forum (GP, are you reading this? Would you be able to retrieve this info? Do you think that I am high on something for even writing this message?).

If anyone has more info, I would be happy to pay you a drink. In person, no expiry date.

[Udderdude]

Let's talk new season.

Hataraku Saibou!! - The Cells at Work anime is back, now with more cute platelets.

Hataraku Saibou Black - The alternate setting Cells at Work, that takes place in a body that's seen better days. Imagine a Japanese salaryman slowly smoking, drinking and overworking to an early end and you get the general picture. A much more bleak and grim outlook than the relatively upbeat original.

[GaijinPunch]

I remember a manga by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara that had Prince (Symbol, Prince Willie Nelson: that guy) as the main antagonist.

Macaw recommended it once to someone on GP's forum (GP, are you reading this? Would you be able to retrieve this info? Do you think that I am high on something for even writing this message?).

If anyone has more info, I would be happy to pay you a drink. In person, no expiry date.

I will have a look -- once I upgraded to phpBB3 the search got all shitty - even after rebuilding indexes. I could probably go search for posts in the DB but Macaw posted quite a bit... might be hard to find.

EDIT:
I did a search for "Tetsuo Hara" and the only thing that popped up was Cyber Blue.

[Randorama]

I will have a look -- once I upgraded to phpBB3 the search got all shitty - even after rebuilding indexes. I could probably go search for posts in the DB but Macaw posted quite a bit... might be hard to find.

EDIT:
I did a search for "Tetsuo Hara" and the only thing that popped up was Cyber Blue.

Thanks a lot for doing this. Was there, by chance, a manga/anime thread? I remember that Macaw suggested the manga to Kaneda in one thread similar to this (Julian H-A, I cannot recall his nick right now).

A possibility is that Macaw suggested the aforementioned series on a different board, even though I am sure that it was to Kaneda/Julian. So, if you happen to lose too much over this (say, more than 5 minutes) because my memory is criminally bad, I promise a bottle of the good one on our next meeting!

[GaijinPunch]

I found it in This thread which JoshF started. So it actually wasn't recommended by Macaw.

So probably a dud. I actually went into the database to do a search for Testsuo Hara and that's all that came up, unfortunately. Happy to dig for more if you can give me something to work with.