Recommended Anime/Manga?

[Siren2011]

Yeah, I'm getting kinda scared myself. I like the current arc, but I certainly don't like it as much as I used to. I'm afraid Miura is gonna dick around too long and die before he finishes the damn thing.

There are two possible scenarios.

1. He has decided damn well what the most mind-blowingly awesome additions to the plot are (including how the series will end), and he's milking this shit out in the meantime because he knows his young adult demographic will eat it up. If he finished a long time ago then that means less money for him and his family. And as far as he's concerned, that's more important than giving fans what they want.

2. He has lost his creative spark completely.

The anime was incredible, though. Definitely among the best ever created. I just can't get into manga,though. It boggles my mind how something one notch below animation --one of the most expressive forms of art available today-- is said to be "better than the anime" again and again. Someone please explain.

I mean, it basically boils down to this: Do you want to look at black and white pictures of Gunbuster with written dialogue, or see it in brilliant color and fluidly animated? I mean, the former is nice when all is said and done, but even the best manga doesn't hold a candle to the classics of anime history. There's something that the sound effects and voice over work add that completely enriches the experience by increasing immersion. A well placed "BOOOOOOOOOM" written across two pages can never hope to achieve the same success.

[Observer]

Just saw the trailers of Freedom, the new thing from Katsushiro Otomo and... good lord, what a let down. It's like I'm watching some deluxe videogame cutscene, I can already see the meshes, skeletons (the rigid character movement, clashing with the effort of hiding it behind the fake 2D) and all. I just can't help but to see it as a 3dsMAX scene or something. I should've really stopped using 3D development tools years ago...

Anyway, if there is something I have to recommend (AGAIN) it's motherf----- R-R-R-R-R-REDLINEEEEE.

I mean, my jaw dropped when I read this movie was entirely hand drawn without CGI shit and it took 7 years to get finished. At times I really thought they put a bunch of CGI stuff, especially in the comp screens of Roboworld and such. Or was that really enhanced digitally? I don't know. But if it really was hand drawn all the way, oh boy... Traditional animation still beats the crap out of any 3D attempts.

Plus, the music is just so awesome you can't help but UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doEwWzMz99A

edit: found the Pilot episode, pity it's in a very bad resolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRgOvzFqgBA

Thus, this also leads me to recommend Trava Fist Planet and to find the original Redline Pilot, which I think is actually even more fucking awesome than the movie. It oozes so much freaking style I could care less about "stories" and "messages". Like I said about Armed Police Batrider: VIOLENT CITY is all the storyline I need. Or a violent galaxy. Just watch those mechs shooting their missile arms and violently firing away before getting owned by the pink tit-mech, shit, it's just too much for me, I was begging in tears for this kind of insane stuff for the last 5 years! Drama fests be damned.

So, yeah, aside from the punchi punchi OST of Redline, I've been recommended Usagi Drop. Apparently, one of the best series around that isn't about idiotic adolescents in high school or panty shots or crossdressers. Should I check it out?

[Gus]

I just finished episode 10 of Bakemonogatari and I'm just about to delete the series from my PC because this show is TERRIBLE. PowerPoint "animation" + 80% of show is long dialogue = dull and boring. What's worse is that a lot of the shitty non-animation was deliberately put there to sell Blu-rays, a scam that worked phenomenally well.

Are you one of those people who think an anime needs violence and/or boobs to be good?

[ryu]

i really liked the pacing and mystery aspect of the earlier bakemonogatari episodes. it wasn't anything special, but it required the viewer to pay attain to what the hell's going on to have a grasp on anything.

the retarded romance quickly destroyed it for me though.

[xbl0x180]

I just finished episode 10 of Bakemonogatari and I'm just about to delete the series from my PC because this show is TERRIBLE. PowerPoint "animation" + 80% of show is long dialogue = dull and boring. What's worse is that a lot of the shitty non-animation was deliberately put there to sell Blu-rays, a scam that worked phenomenally well.

I've seen the openings and a few random scenes from this and it looks extremely lazy, but not in a good or funny way.

[Gus]

How about pointing out specific problems with it rather than using vague terms like "retarded" and "lazy"?

[xbl0x180]

How about pointing out specific problems with it rather than using vague terms like "retarded" and "lazy"?

I didn't like their backgrounds. I prefer hand-drawn backgrounds. I also don't like the "sketched" look of their movements. I'd rather have well-defined lines, even if they can't preserve smoothness of movement. The character designs looked simplistic/generic, like pretty much every other junk series with no definitive style of its own. For example, if I see a series based on Takahashi Rumiko or Toriyama Akira's comics, I can tell by their respective design styles. I can't do this with Bakamonogatari. Hell, the intro music blows with its grating high-pitch sound and high speed pacing. There's very little I saw and a lot I didn't like.

[Gus]

I suppose it might come across like that if you've only seen bits and pieces and expect it to look like a 80s/90s movie but when you watch it from the start it definitely does have its own style. It's very creative in terms of angles and lighting and goes along very well with the dialogue. The simplistic backgrounds, too, I think help get across the paranormal and mysterious feel of the show. In short the animation adds to the show in ways that almost no shows do, most of which are other Shaft shows. That thing about the OP is just nitpicking. If you don't like it then skip it.

[chempop]

Just saw the trailers of Freedom, the new thing from Katsushiro Otomo and... good lord, what a let down. It's like I'm watching some deluxe videogame cutscene, I can already see the meshes, skeletons (the rigid character movement, clashing with the effort of hiding it behind the fake 2D) and all.

I've heard these complaints about Otomo's other works before and I can't quite wrap my head around it. The animation in the trailer looks great to me.

Redline does look amazing, I absolutely can't wait until DVDs are available.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Otomo (or whoever he let do the job) doesn't have a knack for planning key frames shocker. Akira apologists are going to blame CG for it, but there's obvious lack of skill at work here yet again.
It doesn't just look like a video game cutscene; it looks like a badly animated cutscene. About God of War level bad. You don't get to see animation this bad in God Hand cutscenes (or gameplay for that matter).

[iconoclast]

Just watched the final episode of Kaiji S2. The ending was awesome.

As a whole, I think The Bog arc has been the worst out of the entire series so far, but it was still good. Just not as good as anything else they've done. I did love Ichijou though, he's a great character and I hope he keeps appearing throughout the series. S2's soundtrack was really good too, but it wasn't as strong as the first series. Can't fault them for that though, "Wish" is hard to top. So I guess I'll finally start reading the manga, since I don't think a season 3 is going to happen due to Madhouse's financial situation. They'll probably want to avoid niche series that don't make them any money.

ざわ

[Icarus]

My current recipe for a comfortable weekend:
Take one anime season, a 17" Macbook Pro, a kingsize 13.5 tog-rated quilt, and Sennheiser HD205 monitor headphones.
Add equal parts fun (The iDOLM@STER), silly (Shinryaku! Ika Musume S2), and serious (Fate/Zero), mix together with a large portion of popcorn and juice.
Enjoy.

[xbl0x180]

I just bought the To Love Ru collection for 36 bucks total.

It's so freakin' MOE. I just wasted 36 bucks...

[Gus]

The first season kind of sucks from what I've heard. Just do what I did and skip to Motto To Love Ru and you won't miss anything of note story-wise. Also the manga sequel To Love Ru Darkness is epic.

[xbl0x180]

I imagine it's sort of an updated version of Tenchi Muyo!. I just saw it was 50% off; same with the Love Hina movie box set I recently acquired




The character design for the main girl smacks of Belldandy. When I first saw clips of it, I recall saying, "I liked Love Hina when it used to be called Ah! Megamisama"

[Barrakketh]

What's worse is that a lot of the shitty non-animation was deliberately put there to sell Blu-rays

Not true. The studio has a habit of taking on too many projects and you end up with overworked animators without enough time to actually finish shit on time (because hiring more animators would cost money). Even series like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (which I think is usually well done for the broadcast version) gets DVD/BD fixes/upgrades, and it doesn't have Bakemonogatari's blatantly obvious "we didn't have enough time to finish this shit" signs all over it. Madoka also got its upgrades.

Any anime that features copious amounts of T&A and censorship is an obvious way to sell DVD/BD copies. Fuck ups on the broadcast versions are generally a sign of laziness/incompetence (see also: Studio DEEN), or time constraints. In the case of DEEN, they are more than happy to not fix anything for the BD release (IIRC they didn't even fix Genji's transparent shirt in one scene from Umineko).

[Icarus]

So I just picked up Angel Beats! tonight, and I kind of like it so far, though time will tell if it holds up. It has an interesting environment and backstory, though, which is what drew me to it.
Finished ef ~a tale of memories~ and Macross Frontier recently, and thoroughly enjoyed both, though the messy character design and animation in Frontier was a little off-putting compared to the nice CG work on the flight sequences.
I have ef ~a tale of melodies~, No. 6 and Dantalian no Shoka on standby.

PS. Love Hina (the manga, at least), Tenchi Muyo! (the original), and Aa! Megamisama are three of my all-time favorite series.

[ryu]

angel beats! is pretty much the mainstream version of haibane renmei.

[Zeether]

Just a heads up, the Love Hina manga omnibus streets on the 25th of this month. The translation is way better than the Tokyopop volumes and some bonus pages are included as well (which I think were excluded from the Tokyopop release).

[xbl0x180]

angel beats! is pretty much the mainstream version of haibane renmei.

And cheaper, too!


I'm not too keen on the manga art of Akamatsu Ken. Manga designs must have a flare of their own in order for me to collect them. The story and art for Love Hina are bunk when compared with Fujishima Kosuke's Ah! Megamisama. Right now, I haven't seen anything in comics that would interest me other than finish collecting Maison Ikkoku and, perhaps, buy a few volumes of Utatane Hiroyuki's Seraphic Feather (it's a convoluted/crappy story, but I love the designs). I also saw that Adachi Mitsuru's Short Program has been long outta print, as well as Hagio Moto's A, A' (A, A Prime), which are a real bummer.

[Icarus]

So I finally got around to watching the first episode of Guilty Crown, and I have to say it's started off very well so far. The world setting and backstory are very interesting, and there are some good personalities in the cast. The female lead, Inori Yuzuriha, definitely stole the show for me in the first episode. Hoping it keeps up the high quality.

[xbl0x180]

Meh. I just watched the promo vids for that and I can't deal with the "kids piloting or in charge of weaponry" theme. I'm gonna skip it.

[Raytrace]

Im way behind here as usual - but I just watched Patlabor and I loved it - I'm also watching Gatchaman:
I'm watching a Gatchaman episode each night, and then the next day I'm watching the equivelant Battle Of The Planets episode with my kids, the censorship is hilarious, they just plonk 7 Zark 7 in when anything 'bad' happens :p

[xbl0x180]

Whoas. I have one of those Gatchaman box sets, but I never went ahead and finished buying the entire series (and now a few of those are long outta print and cost a bundle). The cover art by Alex Ross for those were enough to get me to buy one

[Raytrace]

yep it is v interesting for any one of my generation who saw BOTP on tv constantly when they were a kid, even from the first episode there's one hilarious bit in BOTP where they go 'there's a UFO coming in from space!' or something, then the next scene is the 'Turtle King' (Space Terrapin in BOTP I think) coming out of the sea! - like the UFO just decided to come to earth and then go underwater and then attack :p

[Gus]

The Alex Ross cover art was better than the actual DVDs.

[xbl0x180]

The Alex Ross cover art was better than the actual DVDs.

I think that's why I didn't buy the rest of the sets

[Raytrace]

comon what a theme tune though :p -

'SHUPA! SHUPA! SHUPA! SHUPA!'

[xbl0x180]

Just got the Clannad collection. It's one of those shows solely devoted to "little girls doing cute things," but this one was about 35 dollars total



Also got this one:



It's so freakin' MOE!

[Raytrace]

Just got the Clannad collection. It's one of those shows solely devoted to "little girls doing cute things," but this one was about 35 dollars total

Is it set in Ireland?