Recommended Anime/Manga?

[Raytrace]

sorry yeah you're probably right though I think youd have to be some elite Columbo type to work out what actually happens from that word

[Raytrace]

about halfway through Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, while I REALLY don't like the design of most of the Zanscare mechas, the Victory 2 is ok looking and I think the ship designs etc. are getting better as the series goes along - I'm glad to see 2 more of Tomino's 'scold teenage boy by getting glamorous woman to rub his face in her breasts' technique making an appearance.

No seriously I think the story is really good, and Uso is very likeable, certainly far more than whingebucket Kamille (then again that wouldn't be very hard)...

[xbl0x180]

I'm sure most people here have seen Evangelion, but you probably shouldn't talk about the ending out in the open like this...

Nah. It's okay since it's one of the few instances when I don't mind someone posting a spoiler because I'll never watch that boring drek

[Obiwanshinobi]

Well, I know you hate Akira, but if you've seen both Stink Bomb and The Order to Stop Construction, and still don't believe Otomo is really good, nothing I say will change your opinion.

We'll see. I don't hate thing such as cartoons, videogames and generally works of fiction. Hatred is a word from utterly different realm than those things.
Akira was merely a disappointment.

Yeah, I know this syndrome when episodes 25 and 26 are just erased from one's memory for being what they are, but... no. They were one huge cornercut, and were later remade as EoE, which is divided into two episodes subtitled 25 and 26. Anno also admitted they ran out of budget, so he had to finish the story from Shinji's perspective, while EoE is more of an outside perspective he was aiming for from the start.

25 and 26 were something of a cornercut, but all the better for it since despite budget limitations, the conclusion was striking and memorable, whereas EoE was more of a wank out of control (the auteur servicing himself, unintentionally perhaps - I do believe he just wanted to finish the series "properly").
What I meant was that the series clocked up 26 episodes without ever feeling rushed. Now Gunbuster - that one had amputation marks all over the place and nosedived into doujin production values more rempantly than Evangelion.

[Estebang]

I actually agree that Akira was a disappointment. It's a gorgeous film, but the plot just doesn't hold up, and it devolves into Dragonball Z nonsense by the end.

[Raytrace]

Yeah while it, Wicked City and a few Devilman's were the only anime I had ever properly watched up untill about 3 months ago, I really do prefer pretty much every anime I've watched since to |Akira, it is very stylish though I suppose and the music is sublime especially during motorbike bits - I love that Spiral Tribe track that samples it 'Ragga Boom' I think it's called...

[Ixmucane2]

Now Gunbuster - that one had amputation marks all over the place and nosedived into doujin production values more rempantly than Evangelion.

Do you refer to the long black & white scenes and recycled animations in the last couple of episodes? Animation of the ending of Gunbuster is a bit cheap, but I don't remember any important "amputation marks" in the plot.

[NTSC-J]

There's an interview up on yahoo.jp with the director of the new Berserk anime. He basically jerks off over all of the CG and the fabulous things they can do with it. I can stand Toy Story, Beast Wars, and Reboot-style CG where it's that overt Money For Nothing stuff, but this blurry hybrid crap neither floats my boat nor tickles my pickle.

Of course, I'll still see it. It's Berserk, I have to.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Do you refer to the long black & white scenes and recycled animations in the last couple of episodes? Animation of the ending of Gunbuster is a bit cheap, but I don't remember any important "amputation marks" in the plot.

Stories of this kind (same archetypes and stuff) are usually told in over 20 episodes. Gunbuster lacked time to develop the characters and their relationship. Like the cadet bloke who has a crush on the protagonist - one has to wonder why they even bothered starting the subplot. I'm pretty sure the way it's handled leaves pretty much everybody cold. As if they wanted to make more episodes initially, but were not sure how many they'll manage to put out of the door. OAVs tend to be like it of course, but then again maybe making Gunbuster an OAV wasn't the best idea to begin with.
If you ask me, the horrible/awesome Battle Athletes TV show (not the OAV) was like Gunbuster done right, story-wise.

[Ixmucane2]

Do you refer to the long black & white scenes and recycled animations in the last couple of episodes? Animation of the ending of Gunbuster is a bit cheap, but I don't remember any important "amputation marks" in the plot.

Stories of this kind (same archetypes and stuff) are usually told in over 20 episodes. Gunbuster lacked time to develop the characters and their relationship. Like the cadet bloke who has a crush on the protagonist - one has to wonder why they even bothered starting the subplot. I'm pretty sure the way it's handled leaves pretty much everybody cold. As if they wanted to make more episodes initially, but were not sure how many they'll manage to put out of the door. OAVs tend to be like it of course, but then again maybe making Gunbuster an OAV wasn't the best idea to begin with.

It might have been planned as a longer series (13 episodes?), but the story arc of Gunbuster is straightforward and it can fit into 6 episodes: humanity goes to war, and our heroes win.
Character development means setting up Noriko and Kazumi as credible heroes (including training and romantic subplots), and the emphasis on war means that people die and life has drastic changes of pace (like forgetting love interests).

And of course relativistic time dilation is a concise and effective story obliteration device: when you go, it's a goodbye to your past life; when you return, everything and everyone you knew is gone and changed unless proved otherwise. The story of Gunbuster proceeds in vignettes of the life of Noriko and of the progress of the war; everything else is a mere background, which would have been expanded as filler and complementary plots in a longer series but isn't particularly important.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Storytelling isn't about getting your point across, but about making your audience give a damn about the story, which Gunbuster didn't do for me as effectively as it should have been.

[xbl0x180]

Do you refer to the long black & white scenes and recycled animations in the last couple of episodes? Animation of the ending of Gunbuster is a bit cheap, but I don't remember any important "amputation marks" in the plot.

Stories of this kind (same archetypes and stuff) are usually told in over 20 episodes. Gunbuster lacked time to develop the characters and their relationship. Like the cadet bloke who has a crush on the protagonist - one has to wonder why they even bothered starting the subplot. I'm pretty sure the way it's handled leaves pretty much everybody cold. As if they wanted to make more episodes initially, but were not sure how many they'll manage to put out of the door. OAVs tend to be like it of course, but then again maybe making Gunbuster an OAV wasn't the best idea to begin with.

It might have been planned as a longer series (13 episodes?), but the story arc of Gunbuster is straightforward and it can fit into 6 episodes: humanity goes to war, and our heroes win.
Character development means setting up Noriko and Kazumi as credible heroes (including training and romantic subplots), and the emphasis on war means that people die and life has drastic changes of pace (like forgetting love interests).

And of course relativistic time dilation is a concise and effective story obliteration device: when you go, it's a goodbye to your past life; when you return, everything and everyone you knew is gone and changed unless proved otherwise. The story of Gunbuster proceeds in vignettes of the life of Noriko and of the progress of the war; everything else is a mere background, which would have been expanded as filler and complementary plots in a longer series but isn't particularly important.

Bingo. This sums up GunBuster neatly

[PC Engine Fan X!]

After watching the DieBuster movie version on Blu-Ray, it really does compliment the original Gunbuster OVA (bringing it full circle over vast stretches of time/space with the "Faster-Than-Light" senario/paradox).

It's been said that if you could travel the speed of light for just one hour & return back to Earth, an estimated 90 years will have lapsed. In the Star Wars universe, built-in computers compensate for aging of the pilot to age at the same rate as everyone else in the vast galaxy if "lightspeed" or FTL travel is implemented -- something to keep in mind when watching any of the SW films.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[xbl0x180]

There's an interview up on yahoo.jp with the director of the new Berserk anime. He basically jerks off over all of the CG and the fabulous things they can do with it. I can stand Toy Story, Beast Wars, and Reboot-style CG where it's that overt Money For Nothing stuff, but this blurry hybrid crap neither floats my boat nor tickles my pickle.

Of course, I'll still see it. It's Berserk, I have to.

It's only when I can't tell the difference between what is hand-drawn and what was done with computers where anime is good. If I can't tell the difference, then they did a good job of interlacing the stuff. I was reading some notes from Takada Akemi and how she illustrated the covers for the Fancy Lala DVDs using a Mac proggy... I couldn't tell the difference, but I liked them since they resemble her distinct style I've become accustomed to seeing. In this case, it enhanced her work or, at other times, it just plain eased some of the more tedious aspects of illustrating.

For the most part, though, we can all see what was done with CG in new cartoons and it comes off as plain godawful because it's not meshed, but rather mashed in place. I'd rather deal with choppy, hand-drawn animation than with the live, rotoscoped (or similar computer programs), CG animation - it just doesn't fit well with the look of the cartoon. This is why it took me forever to see a single episode of Cowboy Bebop and Bleach; after seeing their respective intros, I saw they were using waaaay too much CG. The chara designs were good, but the CG in the intro was f****** distracting. I immediately went back to watching Lupin, The 3rd and Yu Yu Hakusho (way better for what I look for in anime)

I think the times when I've given CG in animation a by is when the show is comedy (i.e., Futurama)

[drauch]

...Bleach good character designs?

[xbl0x180]

...Bleach good character designs?

I use that phrase very loosely. It means "the characters don't look moe." If the characters are in high school, then they should resemble high school teenagers

[drauch]

Haha, fair enough. I kinda assumed you wouldn't like Bleach in the first place for some reason.

[xbl0x180]

Haha, fair enough. I kinda assumed you wouldn't like Bleach in the first place for some reason.

No, you're right. I don't like Bleach, but I gave it a shot a few times and confirmed my intense dislike of it due to the CG use. I'm re-watching Yu Yu Hakusho instead

[Obiwanshinobi]

Watched the second half of Redline finally and while I can't say I'm very disappointed (yucky character design never bodes well), I am still disappointed a bit.
One thing the film has going for it is the actually good character animation, so the Akira people can educate themselves on the subject. Madhouse isn't consitent in this regard, though, hence the strangely expressionless eyes and lifeless boobs.
As for the plot... Gotta wonder why the film even has one. Frankly, I had a hard time following what little story was there, my attention wandering off every time the lines of dialogue were spoken.
If this film had, say, Satoshi Urushihara's character designs and boobs animation, it'd be something of a modern day Plastic Little - nothing essential, but consistently enterteining. As it is, I can only recommend it to those who can watch it on a fairly big screen. On my computer monitor I'm more likely to rewatch Aachi & Ssipak or even FFVII:AC with their quickly ageing CG (it helps that the former has a plot engaging my attention).

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Finally checked out the DVD version of Redline on my Blu-Ray player upscaled to 1080p format on a 40″widescreen HDTV setup (store didn't have the Blu-Ray version). I like the overall gritty & hard-edged graphic novel visual flair - really conveys a sense of speed (especially when nitro boosts are activated).

It's akin to like having the visual flair of Dead Leaves meets Speed Racer type of senario but with some wacky characters.

That racing short story shown in Neo-Tokyo anime film is an interesting one dealing with futuristic racing (even though it's of the old-school hand drawn celluloid type of anime).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_˜

[Raytrace]

finally finished Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (and => also unfortunately all UC Gundam anime (I'm pretty sure)) - it's ending is brilliant and it's now definitely my 2nd favourite UC Gundam TV series, I suppose my order would be like this:

Mobile Suit Gundam

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

Mobile Suit Double Zeta Gundam

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

I know a lot of people abhor Double Zeta but apart from the shitty wackiness near the start, I loved it. I will now show my list from least whiney to most whiney Gundam pilots:

Uso

Amuro

Judau

Kamille

[moozooh]

Going through Monster right now. I'm somewhere around the 34th episode, and so far there has been very little filler, the story is interesting (and keeps getting better), and most of the characters are reasonably sound. Will definitely continue.

Actually, I didn't like the characters at first because they were too obvious, cartoonish, like you could tell from a single frame of character's face whether they were good or not, but at some point it became less obvious, which is a good thing. So far a solid 8/10, which would have been 9/10 if the general pacing wasn't so obnoxiously dragged out. A proper OVA series made out of this show, with better direction and animation and at least as good sound design, could easily become one of my favorites.

[Ghegs]

Finished Armored Trooper Votoms. Very good stuff there with some awesome mech battles, though I was surprised at the shift in theme the series takes in the latter half. I preferred the Uuodo and Kummen storylines and have mixed feelings about the last 10 or so episodes - it was interesting as I kept watching episode after episode, but certainly not what I was expecting.

I was somewhat bothered how Chirico never took off that red full-body combat suit, not even in scorching desert...

@Raytrace

Victory Gundam as the second-best UC series with the least whiny protagonist of them all? Intriguing. But then I found this:

Now, thirteen-year-old Uso Ewin has been dragged into the war by a battle near his home in Eastern Europe. As the Newtype pilot of the Victory Gundam...

Less interested now. Another miracle boy who can instantly control a giant vehicle of war? I don't think I'm ready to go back to such things yet.

[Raytrace]

@Raytrace

Victory Gundam as the second-best UC series with the least whiny protagonist of them all? Intriguing. But then I found this:

Now, thirteen-year-old Uso Ewin has been dragged into the war by a battle near his home in Eastern Europe. As the Newtype pilot of the Victory Gundam...

Less interested now. Another miracle boy who can instantly control a giant vehicle of war? I don't think I'm ready to go back to such things yet.

Yeah it does of course have that element - it is however by far the least miraculous of the series, even though he's the youngest. Also his newtype stuff is not blatantly brought to the front at all untill very late in the series.

[Ixmucane2]

Finished Armored Trooper Votoms. Very good stuff there with some awesome mech battles, though I was surprised at the shift in theme the series takes in the latter half. I preferred the Uuodo and Kummen storylines and have mixed feelings about the last 10 or so episodes - it was interesting as I kept watching episode after episode, but certainly not what I was expecting.

Doesn't the series actually consist of several seasons? Unanticipated length changes are the usual reason for narrative "stitches".
Mere shifts in theme are on the milder end of the plot extension patterns of anime series: at least you keep the same characters and go forward, as opposed to slightly different remakes (Evangelion, twice), overlays of side stories and different point of view for the same events (Gundam, at least without the pretense of it being the same series), repeating arbitrary amounts of slight variations of the same rather specific plot elements (Dragonball-Dragonball Z, Pokémon), switching to vaguely related characters and places (some Pokémon series)

[Ghegs]

The series is split into four storylines roughly based on where the main character happens to be (Uoodo, Kummen, Sunsa, Quent) though I'm not sure if they correspond to seasons in the TV broadcasting sense. I don't know if the final storyline was set in stone when the series' production began, I could see arguments for either side of that. What happens in the latter half veered off my expectations for the series in a way that surprised me and I felt it was a bit thematically uneven with the first two storylines, that's all. That's not necessarily even a bad thing, it just wasn't what I was expecting to see.

[bedazzler]

1

[drauch]

Interesting, I'm watching both Victory Gundam and Votoms myself. Also half way through Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and loving it. Ohhhh how I miss old Gainax. Except Nadia makes me feel like a perv at times...

Well, I finally started torrenting due to internet armageddon for fan subs of OOP stuff and un-released. Finally decided it was time to get Legend of the Galactic Heroes after hearing so much. Anyone seen the whole thing?

[Raytrace]

started After War Gundam X - do like so far - do not like Gundam design in it though - still I like the mood overall and the alternate 'what if all the colonies dropped?' universe is interesting...

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Raytrace, have you checked out the first four episodes of Gundam Unicorn yet? Of course, it's supposed to be a 6-part OVA series with parts 5 & 6 currently in production. Looks great on Blu-Ray, especially in 1080p format.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~