Recommended Anime/Manga?

[Raytrace]

Watch Mnemosyne no Musume Tachi.

If you love Mazinger but you hate lolis, you will lovehate Robot Girls Z


Anime of the century. Mazinger Z-chan is my new waifu.

Sweet Jesus o_O

[Raytrace]

Ashita no Joe

1968 was such an important year. I'm really getting into these older manga from the late 60's through the 70's. There is just so much heart and spirit in the best manga from this period. Even the narratives seem so fresh.

Joe Yabuki a young man never given a chance and Danpei Tange an old man given too many chances meet in the slums. Together they look up towards the horizon and take one last chance and try to cross that bridge of tears.

I'm at episode 33 of the anime TV series - just incredible - I'm watching it slowly as it hasn't been fully subbed yet, (they're only at episode 60 of 79).

I shall read the manga afterwards - yeah it is so incredibly passionate the whole thing, 'YOU'RE OUR TOMORROW JOE!' *manly tears*.....

[manatworks]

watched Kids on the slope, it's like more mature Nodame cantabile very kickass jazzy soundtrack by Yoko Kanno.



also

i...............is this count as anime?
(ok ,it's very crappy but somehow i watch the whole thing------yet still can't comprehend what is this show about, Awesome!!!!)

[Obiwanshinobi]

When I tried to watch Cardcaptor Sakura, my attention wandered off, however I liked Angelic Layer the TV show. (If only there was a tale of the sort about dads and their sons, or of sons and their moms for that matter...)
Now I wonder whether to watch Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle or read the manga. Is the story essentially the same? (No spoilers please.)

[KAI]

Read the manga. The anime has a lot of filler episodes and ends abruptly.

[Raytrace]

at episode 51 of Mazinger Z - Boss Borot is a regular and welcome additional feature to each episode now - my kids love him hahaha

[Raytrace]

at episode 6 of Welcome to the NHK - it is brilliant.

[Hagane]

Had the misfortune of watching Dangaronpa, Gatchaman Crowds and Sumomomo whatever. All of them bloody awful. Fortunately I also started to watch Yamato 2199, which is wonderful so far. Finished the latest Lupin series too; pretty good except for the last chapter and its terrible plot twists. Despite the ending it's very enjoyable and looks wonderful, really high visual quality. Shingeki no Kyojin anime so far remains pretty faithful to the manga, except for the spoonfeeding at some parts.

[EmperorIng]

I wasn't aware that the OAV continuation of Black Lagoon, Roberta's Blood Trail, has just been released (and with an English dub!) for bluray/DVD! This is great news for me; Black Lagoon is probably one of my favorite modern anime - it carries a lot of the gritty violence, action, and style of earlier 80s/90s shows. And the dub of the original series is highly enjoyable and my preferred way to view the show.

Can anyone who has the bluray confirm for me that the advertised "BluRay/DVD combo pack" has the episodes on DVD? I don't have a blu-ray player.

[drauch]

I don't have Roberta's Blood Trail, but I've got the original first two seasons of Black Lagoon on Bluray/DVD combo. It contains both season in each respective format, if that helps at all. I'd imagine it's the same case.

[Raytrace]

Had the misfortune of watching Dangaronpa, Gatchaman Crowds and Sumomomo whatever. All of them bloody awful. Fortunately I also started to watch Yamato 2199, which is wonderful so far.

I watched one episode of Gatchaman Crowds - utter shite

Yamato 2199 is brilliant I think, respectful to the original but still adds lots of new stuff. There's one episode I've just watched (18 I think) and they land on a planet, and as they approach the planet the stylized flora are classic sci-fi background painted style, when they land they're walking around in it, and it is just incredible, at one point they find a crashed ship which I swore was a pure painted cel, but later on in the episode the ship model is panned around and it is definitely polygonal, just they textured and lighted it SO well it was hard to work out.

Emm that's kinda hard to understand, but when you see the episode you'll understand what I mean I think.

[BryanM]

Eh... watched enough terrible things for another dose of BryanM's Awful Animu Roulette reviews:


Freezing

I initially heard about this one from a terrible youtube ad. Like, seriously. Like, they uh.. um... it's hard to describe this ad. It's like if they tried to get LaFontaine to be completely serious while trying to hock some pervy children's show at you? It's really possibly the 3rd or 4th worst ad I've ever seen. You should watch it if you too love terrible things.

Anyway. The animu.

This is one of those softcore porn "swords and boobs" kinds of things. Compared to Queen's Blade, more blood, less tits. I guess.

What is really remarkable is how amazingly bereft of um.. reality, it has? I literally refuse to believe the author has ever spoken to a female in his entire life. This theory might explain so much about anime in general.

The empty blonde booby killing machine that is the hero only has two actual pieces of character flare:

* She likes hamburgers.
* She was Bad Touched once.

There. Unless you need to see bewbs and some blood, you have no reason to watch this now.

.. It of course has a new season coming up presently.


A Certain Magical Index

I watched this only because the title of A Certain Scientific Railgun caught my eye. Science: "Stein's Gate was an okay thing, wasn't it?" plus Railgun: "Who doesn't like rail guns?" equals "This more than meets my anime selection criteria."

It's... firmly average in what it is. Which is a tepid shonen thing. 3/5, but I want to rate it lower since the hero constantly gives pithy inspirational speeches to people he's never met before in his life. That's the most tiresome thing.

This and SAO really got me thinking about quality. Why is it that Haruhi is so much better than so much of what's out there?

* It has tired tropes, such as the harem stuff for the 4everaloners. But it never metastasizes into a huge tumor that spoils everything else. It's not that repetitive (a... aside from Endless Eight obviously).

* The things that happen actually somewhat matter, and the world feels cohesive. Index feels like a series of short disconnected silos.

While Index has a character say "I murdered 10,000 people so I wouldn't have to hurt anyone anymore..." Urg.


A Certain Scientific Railgun

Gaiden products are renowned for their shittiness. Nothing of consequence ever happens in them, the heroes aren't allowed to level up, lots of stupid filler is thrown in there. After having seen how Index was perfectly average fare, that's what I expected from this series. And it didn't disappoint.

About 70% of the series is beating up nameless NPC mooks, doing vapid "girl stuff"... And the teasing us with tweenage yuri for no reason. The hero spends more time trying to avoid molestation from her best friend than she does grinding slimes for EXP or grinding Rathaloses to buy better armor.

All that said, I still like the opening sequence. However, I'm kept up at nights worrying that, that, too, is only because it has the word "railgun" in its lyrics.


Ghost in the Shell: Innocence

Since Arise came out, I finally got around to watching this one.

It's basically a couple mediocre episodes stapled together with some very, very long, very, very bad songs.

Still, after rewatching SAC...

Things like American police procedurals are as puerile as the lowest denominator of any of this stuff. It's a fantasy world where everything's black and white; as realistic as the harem stuff developed to help forever alone males deal psychologically with being forever alone.

GitS has the decency to not exist in such a boring simplistic world. One episode, they really are heroes. The next, absolute bastages.

Fiction is supposed to be an engine to generate interpretations; without even a little of that stuff, you're going to have a bad time.


Sword Art Online

Watched this because some randoms in Path of Exile told me to. It is the most disappointing thing.

It starts so, so promising. Right off the back, they make it clear there isn't going to be any of that "children's card games are serious business!" crap in this anime. All the characters are trapped in a virtual MMO (think The Matrix) by a madman, who has it rigged so that if you die in the game, the interface microwaves your brain into moosh.

Then it makes it look like grinding monsters or fighting bosses won't be focal point, but will pop up every few episodes.

It even doesn't waste our time with Endless Flirting or Indecisive Harem Guy bs; they settle down rather quickly.

All that... and then it all goes to shit. I'ma list some of my grievences:

* Creepy inappropriate extreme familiarity and acceptance of some random NPC found on the dirty floor.

* There's little to no connection to recurring characters. The guy the hero helps out in the first episode? They say "yo" to each other maybe two or three more times in the series. He does and instigates nothing.

* The initial world is this 100 floor dungeon. The first floor took everyone a month to finally clear. You'd think that'd be enough of a premise for the entire series; it isn't used. Dozens of floors are skipped by and they escape mid season.

* The back half of the season is especially terrible. "Save the princess." No raid bosses. Lots of deus ex machinas. It doesn't feel like the hero is struggling or accomplishing a damn thing. Oh, and that whole flimsy pretense that any character could actually die? Gone.

I mean what the hell. You keep The Matrix... inside the matrix. It's obvious.

So the most interesting part of the series to me is the game design. A world where you can train any skill you like, but it takes a looong time to do so. Where you need to cooperate with others to make progress. EVE Online meets World of Warcraft meets Monster Hunter; instead of a millionth "Dragon Warrior 1 in realtime" remake. Too bad it could never work as an MMO.

Because humans are people.


Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends

"The only thing cooler than an air guitar is an air friend. It definitely has nothing to do with being forever alone!"

"Aw, your brother complex is adorable as ever! You're soo messed up!"

Gave this one a shot because the heroes played Monster Hunter 3 together during one episode.

One of those harem things where frenemies hang out in their school club and kill time. Designed for people who don't have any friends and/or women. Also, has nipples. Usually the kind you don't want to see.

Lots of stock characters and stock episodes.

It's trashy crappy vapid garbage so of course I like it.

Not recommended.

[Ed Oscuro]

Had the misfortune of watching Dangaronpa, Gatchaman Crowds and Sumomomo whatever. All of them bloody awful. Fortunately I also started to watch Yamato 2199, which is wonderful so far.

I watched one episode of Gatchaman Crowds - utter shite

Yamato 2199 is brilliant I think, respectful to the original but still adds lots of new stuff. There's one episode I've just watched (18 I think) and they land on a planet, and as they approach the planet the stylized flora are classic sci-fi background painted style, when they land they're walking around in it, and it is just incredible, at one point they find a crashed ship which I swore was a pure painted cel, but later on in the episode the ship model is panned around and it is definitely polygonal, just they textured and lighted it SO well it was hard to work out.

Emm that's kinda hard to understand, but when you see the episode you'll understand what I mean I think.

I think that explains it very well. It also explains why there's been so many Yamato things on Pixiv lately.

Does anybody have an opinion about the Otogi Zoshi franchise? I just ran across this while looking for the Xbox titles, and thought "what the hell, let's look at this."

[Raytrace]

yeah I think it is a very good example of polygons and drawings working together well, though to be honest for me, I would prefer if the mecha were actually more cel-shaded (i.e. less diffuse texture, smooth 'highlights' etc.). Then again maybe they decided it would kinda stand out too much when they were going to use mist/fog type effects in scenes.

Watching more of this - still haven't been bored once:



as a sidenote, while I've never seen or read any of it, I have seen a lot of imagery from JJBA it seems to be fairly influenced by Kenshiro chara face wise, maybe just coincidence though.

[drauch]

JJBA? Maybe this is obvious, but I can't think for the life of me what that stands for.

[nasty_wolverine]

JJBA? Maybe this is obvious, but I can't think for the life of me what that stands for.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure - if you dont know about it go read it...

[Edmond Dantes]

JJBA? Maybe this is obvious, but I can't think for the life of me what that stands for.

Jimmy Jonga's Boob Aquarium.

[drauch]

JJBA? Maybe this is obvious, but I can't think for the life of me what that stands for.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure - if you dont know about it go read it...

I'm very familiar. Thanks.

Although I prefer Jimmy Jonga's Boob Aquarium.

[Raytrace]

god I hate when this thread hangs for a few days

[Raytrace]

@drauch :

http://collider.com/nausicaa-of-the-val ... nd-sequel/

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Viewing Tiger & Bunny Vol. 1 & 2 on Blu-Ray format is awesome. Certainly much better than watching it on Crunchy Roll any ol' day.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[nasty_wolverine]

Viewing Tiger & Bunny Vol. 1 & 2 on Blu-Ray format is awesome. Certainly much better than watching it on Crunchy Roll any ol' day.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

How is it anyway? havent wacthed it yet

[drauch]

@drauch :

http://collider.com/nausicaa-of-the-val ... nd-sequel/

Ahhhhhhhhh. I really hope they don't. Miyazaki not directing? No thanks. Needs to be left alone. If anything a series could be made to cover the entire span of the manga, but if so, that should have been made in the 80s. And of all people, anyone having anything to do with the current state of Evangelion needs to back off. CGI Ohmu? Piss on that.

[Metalsludge]

I had mixed feelings by the end of the Welcome to the NHK series. Yes, it's different and thought provoking...but it also can't seem to decide whether NEETs have a real mental disorder or are just spoiled kids unwillIng to face the world. The series also seems pretty sad sack as it nears the end, even bringing up the cliche looking up at the stars and pondering one's small size relative to the universe thing...and life sucks and we will all be forgotten anyway so why bother with anything etc. etc.

While I am sure many people can relate to all the quiet desperation on display, I'm left thinking that the depressing outlook is not something I can appreciate as perhaps intended and it doesn't add up entirely well for me. The series seems to claim it is life affirming, while giving us a litany of reasons to not go on.

Tough love and some real honesty about some of the more grim aspects of life? Maybe, and the series is to be commended for cutting past the haze of Otaku nonsense and fantasy long enough to take a long hard look at the extreme side of geekery in Japan, and potentially elsewhere. But it only does so by way of the pretty tired idea of a young girl improbably popping into the protagonist's life. Yes, the plot subverts some of what you would expect from that scenario, but it still feels a little cheap for a series supposedly about grim realities. And in reality, one does not usually have meaningful encounters with the opposite sex without at least leaving the house regularly beforehand.

It's certainly a series worth watching though. I can't mention specifics without getting into spoilers, but I recognized some scenes as conventions borrowed from other series, and used in the same questionable ways. That said, this series has more originality and honesty in one episode than most anime does in 14, so I have to agree with those advising a watch.

[KAI]

Finished watching Ore no Imoto 2 ONA.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

I've been watching Hayate no Gotoku with my friends. Damn, I always thought this show was crap but it's fun as hell (mainly thanks to Norio Wakamoto's narration).

[Edmond Dantes]

Just watched "Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture."

Ugh. Where do I start? Why is Amakusa Shiro a woman? Why are the main characters "Holy Warriors" who apparently serve god? If they were dead and got resurrected 100 years later, what the hell has Amakusa been doing for all this time? Why does the DVD not have a Japanese language soundtrack (or so I've been told--I didn't watch this via DVD)? Why is there not a single noteworthy song or BGM when music is usually the highlight of even the most terrible of anime? Why do none of the characters act anything like they do in the game and, indeed, barely have anything besides their names and designs in common with their game counterparts? Why does Galford have a nerdy, nasally voice? Why does he keep calling his dog "Puppy" instead of "Poppy?" Why does Amakusa need Haohmaru's rage specifically? Wouldn't anyone else's anger have worked just as well? Why did I waste my time watching this garbage?

As you can guess, it was an excellent movie [/sarcasm]

[Raytrace]

Tough love and some real honesty about some of the more grim aspects of life? Maybe, and the series is to be commended for cutting past the haze of Otaku nonsense and fantasy long enough to take a long hard look at the extreme side of geekery in Japan, and potentially elsewhere.

Yeah I completely wasn't expecting the 'island' bit and I thought it was done very well with an extreme sense of just pure well, emptiness...

Read first volume of Devilman - man I wasn't expecting it to be that, well, intense -

'yeah jus smokin drugs and givin you drug laced liquor here...'
'Just gonna glass this girl in the chest because she's going to become a demon anyway!!!'

I remember this scene from the OVA on Manga VHS back in the day:
'Amon has been taken over by the human's consciousness!!!'
- 'YOUR DAMN RIGHT BITCH! NOW I'M SENDING YOU ALL BACK TO HELL!

and I actually to this day even though I only saw it once or twice back then, can't forget that amazing synth opera stab soundtrack.
Anywayz, I presumed that the OVA was exaggerated or something, well put it this way, I certainly didn't expect the scene in the 1972 manga, to be pretty much just as intense as that OVA o_O.

Great stuff anyway - thoroughly recommended.

I'm also at about Vol 6 of Alita - Last Order - can't complement it enough, the art as usual just well, just never stops becoming more and more amaze.

[nasty_wolverine]

Watched Xam'd the Lost Memories

It was real nice till about episode 18 or so. Then the plot went out the window. I still dont know what happens in the last episodes or how the show ends.

[drauch]

The ending of the Devil Man manga is amazing. You're in for a "treat!"

[Raytrace]

The ending of the Devil Man manga is amazing. You're in for a "treat!"

haha looking forward to it :p, though I've a lot of Last Order to get through first .