Recommended Anime/Manga?

[DaneSaga]

Can you guys recomend me some good japanese animation movies I can watch with my family? no action or extreme violence because my 5 and 3 year old sisters may watch then too.

I've already watched with then most of the Miyazaki repertoire.

Tokyo Godfathers
Galaxy Express 999 Movies
Steamboy
Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro if you haven't already, Fuma Conspiracy for another family friendly Lupin outing of moderate quality.


edit: How far back into the annals of Miyazaki have you gone? Miyazaki and Takahata made plenty of family oriented films pre Ghibli days.
Heidi Girl of the Alps, Panda Kopanda, Horus: Prince of the Sun, Taro the Dragon's Son all come to mind. Give those a shot.

[KAI]

Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo, Momo e no Tegami, Toki wo Kakeru Shojo and Summer Wars are family friendly.

I already watched The Cockpit and all the American related compilations (Halo, Animatrix, Batman Gotham Knight). Need to check the other, thanks.

[Skykid]

Finished Pluto. Better than 20th century boys. Not by an enormous margin, but the narrative is tauter, and shit, is it gripping. Urasawa really is masterful. Gesicht is up there with my favourite characters of all time; so much depth. It's as though he was embodied by a real actor.

Superb stuff.

Planetes manga next , let's see how far it beats the anime.

[Edmond Dantes]

Can you guys recomend me some good japanese animation movies I can watch with my family? no action or extreme violence because my 5 and 3 year old sisters may watch then too.

I've already watched with then most of the Miyazaki repertoire.

Tokyo Godfathers
Galaxy Express 999 Movies
Steamboy
Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro if you haven't already, Fuma Conspiracy for another family friendly Lupin outing of moderate quality.


edit: How far back into the annals of Miyazaki have you gone? Miyazaki and Takahata made plenty of family oriented films pre Ghibli days.
Heidi Girl of the Alps, Panda Kopanda, Horus: Prince of the Sun, Taro the Dragon's Son all come to mind. Give those a shot.

No offense dude but Galaxy Express 999? For a 3-year-old?

Personally I'd recommend:

Cardcaptor Sakura
Sailor Moon
The Fantastic Adventures of Unico
Unico and the Island of Magic
Magical Princess Gigi
Astro Boy
Gigantor
Speed Racer
Kiki's Delivery Service
Samurai Pizza Cats

And I could probably come up with more if I racked my brains a bit. There was also an anime version of Aladdin which I uploaded on my Youtube channel not long ago (there's an anime Little Mermaid too, but it maintains the original ending)

[O. Van Bruce]

Thanks for the recomendations. I'll try to give some feedback on how well they were received for references

[Hagane]

Finished Pluto. Better than 20th century boys. Not by an enormous margin, but the narrative is tauter, and shit, is it gripping. Urasawa really is masterful. Gesicht is up there with my favourite characters of all time; so much depth. It's as though he was embodied by a real actor.

Superb stuff.

Planetes manga next , let's see how far it beats the anime.

Glad you liked it. Agree on all points. I'm sure you'll like Planetes too.

[Raytrace]

about to watch final episode of Patlabor TV, did not realise it was going to go all blub blub

[KAI]

Watched Mind Game. So intense, Masaaki Yuasa has all my respect. Gonna watch Yojou Han and Kemonozume next.

Superb stuff.

That epilogue, Brau 1589 is cool as fuck.

[Skykid]

Glad you liked it. Agree on all points. I'm sure you'll like Planetes too.

Started Planetes. Can't get enough of manga atm, rekindling some love here. Unsurprisingly, Planetes manga is completely different to Planetes anime... umm?
The anime takes the debris collecting formula and crams your very derivative cute new recruit into a station of layabouts, some with panty fetishes, some arrogant with obscure backstories that take the entire season to reveal, and lots of flat humor. The manga is actually genuinely amusing, revolves around three characters instead of seven, and doesn't feature any formulaic female rookie or story arcs (that I can see.)

Unless it's an arc that occurs later in the manga, I can barely see the relationship to the anime (I'm about 200 pages in.)

Superb stuff.

That epilogue, Brau 1589 is cool as fuck.

Yes indeed!

However, those in the know (if you do know) would you mind helping me with some stuff here?

SPOILERS MAY HAPPEN

Who the F is the teddy bear?

Is Gesicht an original character for Pluto, or is he a Tezuka creation?

There was one moment of implausibility that I cannot figure correctly: Abra, before being bombed and dying, was a human. When he dies, he gives his 'memory chip' containing his last moments of pure hatred to Tenma, who uses it to awaken the comatose ultimate robot. But if Abra was a human, how the heck does he have a memory chip?

Can someone (if you know) briefly outline the differences between Pluto and the original Tezuka story "The Greatest Robot on Earth". Are they completely different?

Thanks much!

[KAI]

Is Gesicht an original character for Pluto, or is he a Tezuka creation?

He's based on Gernadt from the World's Greatest Robots arc of Tezuka's manga, but he was completely redesigned by Urasawa.

Can someone (if you know) briefly outline the differences between Pluto and the original Tezuka story "The Greatest Robot on Earth". Are they completely different?

Not sure about the ending, but the premise of the story is pretty similar (Gesicht investigating a series of murders and the introduction of the 7 greatest robots). The spotlight on Gesicht is obviously Urasawa's work.

There was one moment of implausibility that I cannot figure correctly: Abra, before being bombed and dying, was a human. When he dies, he gives his 'memory chip' containing his last moments of pure hatred to Tenma, who uses it to awaken the comatose ultimate robot. But if Abra was a human, how the heck does he have a memory chip?

Memory-to-data transference ala GITS (aka unexplained Sci-fi science).

Who the F is the teddy bear?

a US president maybe.

Love this picture


Finished Yojou-Han, masterpiece from beginning to end.

[Skykid]

Cool, thanks for that. I found a synopsis actually. Looks like Gernhardt was an extreme lesser character. The general background to the plot is very different too, none of this 39th Persian war biz and weapons of mass destruction. Urasawa really went to town with the material.

As for the teddy, it's still not clear, since the US prez was the one working with him/it, and was about to end up his slave.

EDIT: Oh, and is Epsilon a guy or girl?! In the original it's a 'she', in Urasawa's seems to be a he?

[Raytrace]

reading loads of Lone Wolf And Cub - pure great - though there's NO WAY I'd be chucking my child straight into the line of fire like that haha

[KAI]

All the dialogs about he/she are so ambiguous, the scanlators made a few mistakes and called Epsilon "she" on some chapters.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

I beated Two Tenkaku on my first credit, no shitting.

Teleporting posts?

[KAI]

nop, just my stupidity

[drauch]

reading loads of Lone Wolf And Cub - pure great - though there's NO WAY I'd be chucking my child straight into the line of fire like that haha

Really excited for the re-release of these. Finally, bigger TPBs are being released in June from Dark Horse. No more tiny books!

[Edmond Dantes]

Probably changing gears a bit since most of us seem to be talking about more serious stuff...

For years, my only exposure to Sailor Moon was the english dub that used to play on television (I mean the DIC one). I'm watching it again, via a fansub now... man, not only had I forgotten how awesome this show is, but in some ways I never realized its awesomeness in the first place. Particularly the episodes featuring Nephrite... his astrology-based plots come off as far more otherworldly in Japanese than they do in English.

So I guess I'm officially into Magical Girl shows for the time being (this and Cardcaptor Sakura being my main squeezes right now).

Any others I should watch?

[Raytrace]

reading loads of Lone Wolf And Cub - pure great - though there's NO WAY I'd be chucking my child straight into the line of fire like that haha

Really excited for the re-release of these. Finally, bigger TPBs are being released in June from Dark Horse. No more tiny books!

cool they might even get those in in the comic shop near me, it is in general 99.9% US stuff, with a tiny bit of 2000AD stuff and manga, however, 'famous' stuff like AKIRA etc. are always on sale there, so they probably will get Lone Wolf and Cub in .

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

So I guess I'm officially into Magical Girl shows for the time being (this and Cardcaptor Sakura being my main squeezes right now).

Any others I should watch?

You've acquired good taste my friend, bravo. I'm still new to the genre myself, but you should totally check out Akazukin Chacha as it is legitimately hilarious especially for a G rated show. I just finished it recently and I wouldn't give it any less than a perfect 10. Voice acting is too godly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y82O7oy5b9E

[Obiwanshinobi]

Renkin 3-kyū Magical? Pokān - exactly a quarter of it.

[Edmond Dantes]

I just tried to watch Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha... not a positive first impression. Basically, I just kept feeling like "ugh, it's just a third-rate ripoff of Cardcaptor Sakura, with absolutely none of the warmth and charm." And then I noticed the panty-flashing and the nude transformation sequence and I literally facepalmed.

Fanservice is okay only in a show that's actually good. Otherwise it comes off like they're hoping the T&A will distract us from how awful the product is.

[Drum]

Probably changing gears a bit since most of us seem to be talking about more serious stuff...

For years, my only exposure to Sailor Moon was the english dub that used to play on television (I mean the DIC one). I'm watching it again, via a fansub now... man, not only had I forgotten how awesome this show is, but in some ways I never realized its awesomeness in the first place. Particularly the episodes featuring Nephrite... his astrology-based plots come off as far more otherworldly in Japanese than they do in English.

So I guess I'm officially into Magical Girl shows for the time being (this and Cardcaptor Sakura being my main squeezes right now).

Any others I should watch?

Princess Tutu. My experience with the genre beyond it is nil but any decent, upright human being will enjoy that show because it is great.

[KAI]

Any others I should watch?

Futari wa Pretty Cure

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

Princess Tutu. My experience with the genre beyond it is nil but any decent, upright human being will enjoy that show because it is great.

I keep hearing about this one every now and then but I always forget about it before looking into it seriously.

I guess ninjas dueling each other with guitars isn't a memorable enough image for me.

[ancestral-knowledge]

I just tried to watch Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha... not a positive first impression. Basically, I just kept feeling like "ugh, it's just a third-rate ripoff of Cardcaptor Sakura, with absolutely none of the warmth and charm." And then I noticed the panty-flashing and the nude transformation sequence and I literally facepalmed.

Fanservice is okay only in a show that's actually good. Otherwise it comes off like they're hoping the T&A will distract us from how awful the product is.

you can look at my post at page 115 for worthwile newer animes.

[Raytrace]

Je T'aime by Oshii.

Some of my favourite bits of Patlabor II and GITS movie, are hypnotic beautiful cityscape scenes with music of an ambient tone, so when you combine this with a cutey little doggy woggy, you've got me straight away :p.

Empty cities in general kinda interest me too, I love walking around town on Christmas Eve after the last shops close and there's just this weird stillness.

Anyway overall I liked it a lot, though the actual song with vocals that came in I wasn't too into, well mainly the singing.

It can be watched here:

https://vimeo.com/20743019

[cj iwakura]

The Devil Survivor 2 debut was pretty great, but I'm huge SMT fan, so just seeing demons animated is always nice.

[Formless God]

Cool. I'm getting it as well.

Any others I should watch?

Madoka.

[Edmond Dantes]

Cool. I'm getting it as well.

Any others I should watch?

Madoka.

I've heard Madoka is depressing, and I tend to prefer "cute" when it comes to Magical Girls.

If I want depressing, I'll watch a Leiji Matsumoto work.

[drauch]

Cool. I'm getting it as well.

Any others I should watch?

Madoka.

I've heard Madoka is depressing, and I tend to prefer "cute" when it comes to Magical Girls.

If I want depressing, I'll watch a Leiji Matsumoto work.

If you're wanting older stuff, it's sad to say that most of it isn't translated. As someone above posted (sorry, forgot who), Akazukin has been. Cutie Honey has been turned into a few different series/OVAs now. I'm a fan of the original, xbl0x likes Shin and Re: I believe. I haven't watched any of Re: myself, but Shin isn't bad for fluff. The entire original Creamy Mami, The Magical Angel has been subtitled. I can easily recommend it. Very lighthearted and entertaining if you like 80s pop and cute shit. Surprisingly, the Minky Momo series hasn't been translated, nor has Little Meg the Witch Girl and Majokko Tickle, which are huge in the history of magical girl shows. I know there are a few Momo movies out there, as well as a join venture with her and Mami, as well as another OVA with a few other magical girls of the 80s. That's really all I can recommend from my personal experience. I'm sure if xbl0x is able to get online he'd also recommend Fancy Lala, which I've still yet to see any of.

JP Sailor Moon does get sort of melancholy during the last half. But Crom, it sure is awesome.