Recommended Anime/Manga?

[Bananamatic]

I find the most misogynistic thing in the medium is the complete helplessness of the women.

Aren't almost all males in anime complete unaware betas that suck at everything just for the sake of self insertion?

I can't into the whole waifu thing because girls in anime feel way too capable and talented

[Skykid]

Well, it's not crap, but it's full of stupid jokes and sometimes it's really boring.

Take it back!

If Space Dandy is really boring, I need to know what you think is exciting.

Honestly so much fun. I'm very (very) happy to have found a modern anime I dig - wasn't sure that would ever happen again. Thanks Drauch, you rule.

Watched two more eps and had to stop - I don't want to finish it too soon. It just gets better and better. I think I've had at least one laugh out loud moment in each episode: the gun spinning and losing it behind his back in the first, the Michael Jackson dance in the second, and the part where he fires his laser gun at all the aliens and hits nothing in the third.

Great animation, genuinely funny, and well directed enough that I don't mind the CG too much. Watanabe's managed to fuse his style with stupid, and I'm digging everything about it.

[drauch]

Hell yeah, dude. I'm the type that rarely laughs out loud by myself, and yeah, I find myself almost laughing at least once per episode, which is quite rare for my tortured, lost soul. I'm taking it verrrry slow as well for the same reason. I want to make it last. Supposedly they're shooting for 26 episodes, but I guess that is on the fence at the moment.

[Formless God]

That's interesting. While I liked the show I thought it's as "modern" as it could get. We have the fanservice (while I'm not really against it, it isn't really that much different from the fanservice seen in other shows) and the typical tsukkomi who spells out every joke to the viewer (two of them to boot). Great music and visual style, though.

[BryanM]

Aren't almost all males in anime complete unaware betas that suck at everything just for the sake of self insertion?

Yeah.. Like I've described before it's a reversal of gender roles: in real life it's women who are untalented schlebs with a (sometimes unwanted) harem of 20+ guys of various quality who want to have sex with them just because they happen to be moderately attractive.

The alternative to being an oblivious idiot (which is so ridiculous as to break the suspension of disbelief) is to be a tremendous asshole who's just playing these people off of one another for your own pleasure (which is what's really going on with these things, whether you're pretending to be a fictional man-girl in an anime or a real flesh and blood girl doing it in the real life).

There's something profoundly sick about having to delude oneself that sexual motivations aren't "really about sex", as though you're some pure saint and sex is some kind of evil thing to be avoided.

Does anything that makes millions in theatres automatically equate to quality viewing?

Obviously not, just the kind of thing that's popular with the kids these days. T+A pandering alone doesn't make a blockbuster.

Wizard Barristers is not porn

Hate to tell you this, but the first google image result is a girl getting groped and humped by a frog. It's a porn, but perhaps not a terribly good one. A lack of nudity and a presence of action sequences doesn't negate that its fap material for the likes of the famous Debuman pure-of-heart maid-cafe-stalkin' type of guy.

have them witter on about being cute and young and moe as some kind of stand-in for plot and characterisation.

Hey you're preaching to the choir boys here.

Madoka gets so much slack from me since it at least tries to have every scene have a purpose in the greater whole. When you have characters just standing around repeating themselves, and fight scenes just to have fight scenes, that's when you've crossed over from a story into self-servicing porn.

Though depressingly, through things like the adaptation of comic strip K-On made clear, sex and violence are frightfully necessary to create plot. K-On really was a Death of Plot watershed moment in the medium.

While I liked the show I thought it's as "modern" as it could get.

Right. Using tropes isn't good or bad, and what hits and misses differs from person to person.

Probably has a lot to do with the kind of things you'd personally want to do with a holodeck.

---

"Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently."

[Raytrace]

ok so is This Ugly Yet Beautiful World any good?

[HenAi]

I thought it was pretty nice, though it's been quite a few years since I watched it.
Nothing really special, but a fun watch at least.
Except for the OP song. That one's really awesome.

[Raytrace]

I thought it was pretty nice, though it's been quite a few years since I watched it.
Nothing really special, but a fun watch at least.
Except for the OP song. That one's really awesome.

cool - I shall give it a go - and is City Hunter constantly full of groping?

[Raytrace]

rewatching Otaku No Video I remember when I first watched it all I had seen was Neon Genesis Evangelion and maybe 0079 so I didn't really get most of the references, and in particular the cosplay scene at the college, I remember going to myself: 'ye know someday I'll recognise every one of them', it is with great pride that I can confirm I now can recognise all of them except 3 people, (they are very famous characters though for anyone with even a passing knowledge of older anime in fairness).

[cj iwakura]

I remember Otaku no Video was considered a rite of passage, and yet I've never watched it.


Also, I dig Space Dandy, and that one episode with the kid(4 I think) really hits you with the feels.

[KAI]

Then I should watch it again (stopped at ep.3). I still this is meh compared to Bebop.

[Skykid]

That's interesting. While I liked the show I thought it's as "modern" as it could get. We have the fanservice (while I'm not really against it, it isn't really that much different from the fanservice seen in other shows) and the typical tsukkomi who spells out every joke to the viewer (two of them to boot). Great music and visual style, though.

Since I'm so out of anime, when I think 'modern' I think the kind of stuff that's suffocated the medium: moe/meme pandering, etc. Basically Wizard Barristers and its mammoth ilk.

Dandy is Bebop with the comedy turned up and a fresh throwback angle to 80s anime characters and 50s sci-fi themes. Modern or not, the only thing I notice is if something is well made - and its pacing, scripting, characterisation, and direction all seem tight. The fanservice doesn't feel like fanservice any more than Cobra or City Hunter to me, because of the premise. Dandy spends the whole of episode 3 trying to make it to Boobies Breastaurant because he realises he only has 2 hours left to redeem his loyalty points.

It helps that it's up-front too. Having a frog sniffing a girls asscrack through her shorts for absolutely no reason in Wizard Barristers is far more grating, because it's tacked on.

Dandy's tsukkomi prompts work for laughs quite well: the sequence I mentioned where he spends twenty seconds doing acrobatics, flipping and firing his laser gun at a horde of aliens - you're not sure what's happening for a moment. It looks like he's hitting nothing, but he's going at it with such pizazz and energy you're almost second guessing, until, to paraphrase, he says "Damn, why can't I stop them!" and QT replies "Because you missed everything you fired at", cementing the gag.

Other stuff is just visual pictures of expression. The MJ dance was gold, and the space alien eating Ramen for the first time, eventually bursting into tears, was hilarious.

cool - I shall give it a go - and is City Hunter constantly full of groping?

To some degree, yes, but City Hunter is awesome. And it's golden age fanservice and groping, and that means actual women with hips and breasts and sexy lingerie. I love City Hunter, it's great.

Hate to tell you this, but the first google image result is a girl getting groped and humped by a frog. It's a porn, but perhaps not a terribly good one. A lack of nudity and a presence of action sequences doesn't negate that its fap material for the likes of the famous Debuman pure-of-heart maid-cafe-stalkin' type of guy.

The frog sniffs her ass for a second, through her shorts. That qualifies as porn?

Being able to fap to Wizard Barristers would be a feat of magic in itself.

[Ed Oscuro]

in real life it's women who are untalented schlebs

wat

with a (sometimes unwanted) harem of 20+ guys of various quality

sure

but still, wat

Spaaaaace Dandy!

[drauch]

Scroll back to the next page, Raytrace; I wrote you a paragraph on City Hunter!

[BryanM]

in real life it's women who are untalented schlebs

wat

Men are untalented schlebs too but they have to at least pretend to be a doctor or something in addition to being moderately attractive to become a hentai harem master

The frog sniffs her ass for a second, through her shorts. That qualifies as porn?

W, what else could it possibly be?

We stopped pretending a long time ago

---

But seriously Ash maybe you should get more hobbies like read grim 70's detective noir novels or something. Broaden those horizons you one-note sperglord.

[Raytrace]

Scroll back to the next page, Raytrace; I wrote you a paragraph on City Hunter!

cool stuff I shall check now - I thought the porny debate had taken over the page :p

[Raytrace]

Yeah, I loooove City Hunter! Almost dropped way too much money awhile back on some figures, but (un)fortunately decided my bank account couldn't take it. Sigh.

But yes! Indeed, a big part of City Hunter is his infatuation with "mokkori." Mokkori bust, hips, butt, legs, etc! He's a super cool dude and the best shot in the world next to Golgo 13, but he can't help his perversion. Some episodes are very serious, but he's almost always doing a mission for a total babe, whom he'll constantly try and grope or hit on. Some episodes it's a bit more out there than others, but it's primarily action/thriller with a bit of humor thrown in. You might try Cat's Eye as well from the same mangaka, Tsukasa Hojo. It's a bit more serious, but again, total 80s babe lighthearted heist stuff. RightStuf is planning to release it after they're done with Space Cobra. Can't wait. It's aces stuff.

so does it have a kindof Dirty Pair/Crusher Joe lighthearted feel? I like that feel.

[MX7]

My girlfriend and I both watched Cowboy Bebop at a formative age, so we're very excited about Space Dandy. Planning to watch the first four episodes tonight with a few beers.

Is Space Dandy like Cowboy Bebop in the sense that the English dub is actually loads better than the Japanese version?

[cj iwakura]

My girlfriend and I both watched Cowboy Bebop at a formative age, so we're very excited about Space Dandy. Planning to watch the first four episodes tonight with a few beers.

Is Space Dandy like Cowboy Bebop in the sense that the English dub is actually loads better than the Japanese version?

Absolutely, the dub is divine.

[trap15]

Cowboy Bebop in the sense that the English dub is actually loads better than the Japanese version?

Glad I'm not the only person who thinks this

[Skykid]

That's interesting. I ignore dubs as a rule of thumb. Never saw Bebop in anything other than Japanese.

Likewise with Space Dandy. Maybe I'll try switching the audio to see what I'm missing.

[trap15]

I really do highly recommend watching Bebop in English. At some point I revisited the series and tried subs instead, and I was incredibly surprised to notice that the voice acting was actually not that great in the original Japanese voices. So I switched over to the dubs and noticed that the dub's voice acting is actually really well done

[HenAi]

Come to think of it, Diabolik Lovers would be a good example of softcore porn, too.

[BryanM]

Very much into the Ted Woolsey school of localization. It isn't just enough to robotically pass along words, you've got to give that thing a soul along the way.

If you don't know the langauge, the emotional baggage that comes along with certain words and conveyances isn't going to get passed along. "I'm really good at killing people. Never thought I'd be good at that..." could mean any of half a dozen things. And comedy... I can only imagine how something like Arrested Development comes across subbed.

Steins;Gate is a pretty good example I think. The hero's impotent, powerless whimpering never stops playing against the little heart strings. Also love the line about the hypothetical Hillbilly psycho that would want to turn his face into a beltbuckle re: sleeping at a motel.

[drauch]

That's interesting. I ignore dubs as a rule of thumb. Never saw Bebop in anything other than Japanese.

Likewise with Space Dandy. Maybe I'll try switching the audio to see what I'm missing.

I hear this quite frequently across the net, and I disagree. I'll admit it's one of the (few) good dubs out there in anime, but I don't think it's better by any means. I think most people just first saw it on Toonami or whatever and it kinda clicked.

[drauch]

Yeah, I loooove City Hunter! Almost dropped way too much money awhile back on some figures, but (un)fortunately decided my bank account couldn't take it. Sigh.

But yes! Indeed, a big part of City Hunter is his infatuation with "mokkori." Mokkori bust, hips, butt, legs, etc! He's a super cool dude and the best shot in the world next to Golgo 13, but he can't help his perversion. Some episodes are very serious, but he's almost always doing a mission for a total babe, whom he'll constantly try and grope or hit on. Some episodes it's a bit more out there than others, but it's primarily action/thriller with a bit of humor thrown in. You might try Cat's Eye as well from the same mangaka, Tsukasa Hojo. It's a bit more serious, but again, total 80s babe lighthearted heist stuff. RightStuf is planning to release it after they're done with Space Cobra. Can't wait. It's aces stuff.

so does it have a kindof Dirty Pair/Crusher Joe lighthearted feel? I like that feel.

Yeah, I'd say so. It's definitely a fun ride. Never too serious.

[Skykid]

That's interesting. I ignore dubs as a rule of thumb. Never saw Bebop in anything other than Japanese.

Likewise with Space Dandy. Maybe I'll try switching the audio to see what I'm missing.

I hear this quite frequently across the net, and I disagree. I'll admit it's one of the (few) good dubs out there in anime, but I don't think it's better by any means. I think most people just first saw it on Toonami or whatever and it kinda clicked.

Well it's been great so far in JP, I think the voice acting's excellent. Makes me laugh, anyhow.

[Raytrace]

ok I know I have said this and others have too many times - but Mad Bull 34 dub is the ace, and of course Cyber City Oedo 808 .

[drauch]

That's interesting. I ignore dubs as a rule of thumb. Never saw Bebop in anything other than Japanese.

Likewise with Space Dandy. Maybe I'll try switching the audio to see what I'm missing.

I hear this quite frequently across the net, and I disagree. I'll admit it's one of the (few) good dubs out there in anime, but I don't think it's better by any means. I think most people just first saw it on Toonami or whatever and it kinda clicked.

Well it's been great so far in JP, I think the voice acting's excellent. Makes me laugh, anyhow.

Yeah, I love Dandy's voice. I can't imagine anything else at this point.

*Edit* Listened to the dub... I thought it was dreadful. You just don't get the power in his voice. Voice actors just don't care in dubs it seems. :/

[Skykid]

*Edit* Listened to the dub... I thought it was dreadful. You just don't get the power in his voice. Voice actors just don't care in dubs it seems. :/

Just had a go. It's not dreadful I don't think - they've done a reasonably good job. But the tone is different. The Japanese guy has got a much lower sound, seeming to be trying to keep his 'cool' while being a doofus simultaneously. The US actor just gets more obviously wacky with the dialogue.

I don't think it's bad, but I see no reason to switch.

Edit: Zombie Ep absolutely ruled, even got the music right. Didn't expect to see Romero's name as a joke credit, are they allowed to do that?