Anime Corner

[CaptainDangerous]

ANIME CORNER
A place to discuss and share your love of the Japanese arts!
Note: please try to keep blood, boobs and bad language to a minimum!

Spoiler: EVANGELION SPOILERS ...I think?!?

Spoiler: And bringing it back to the hobby:

What anime do you enjoy? What do you recommend?
Anyone seen Highschool of the dead?

 

[Punktaku]

blood and boobs to a minimum, and you lead off with High School of the Dead !?!?

 

[MusingWarboss]

Whilst I suspect the New Models thread extended Anime cutaway is responsible for this one being created, I wholeheartedly approve!!

My Anime awakening was in 1994 - back when Channel 4 (in the UK) had its "Late Licence". Started with Tokyo Babylon, moved onto Cyber City OEDO 808 and then the Anime (or Manga as we called it erroneously back then) fascination set in!!

Obviously I have a love of the 80s/90s classics but my recent trawling through Crunchyroll has netted a few fun series, a few serious ones and a couple of weird ones.

Talking of Cyber City OEDO 808 - earlier this year I managed to get hold of the Blu-Ray release. It's rather nice, though the perfectionist in me is annoyed its an upscale of the Japanese SD DVD which has introduced some artefacts to episode one. However its the only place to get the legitimate version of the awesome Rory McFarlane cyberpunk Manga UK soundtrack, supplied both on the BD itself and on a bonus CD. Admittedly being a geeky Otaku I already had the 1995 Demon Records release but... never hurts to have a spare!! I'm pleased that I don't have to worry about the gradual disintegration on by 1995 VHS though.

Wish I'd managed to get the Bubblegum Crisis Blu-Ray when it was released but my MVM DVD's will surfice for full on Priss action!!

As for recent series... Hmmm.
I would suggest "Charlotte" as an interesting watch. Its starts as a very typical "High school magic kid" comedy but then takes a few very sharp twists and turns and by the end its a very different series! Almost a bit like a better planned out version of Heroes.

If you like fantasy then Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers was a weird watch - its really a whodunnit series but mixed with some fantastical stuff.
"Is it wrong to pick up girls in a Dungeon?" sounds like an arrestable offence but is actually a weird mix of a fantasy world that seems to be a live action roleplay too.

Something a bit left of centre: Kokoro Connect is an odd body swap Anime which keeps on changing the parameters of how the swaps occur due to some weird influence.

GIRLS und PANZER is pretty much what you expect. Girls messing around with tanks, which apparently is an option for those who didn't want to do home economics or similar club stuff at school.

I'll leave it there. Hope to get some good recommendations (apart from visiting a shrink)! Honestly when I get bored I'll pick any old series and give it a go.

 

[Punktaku]

I’m only watching 30 series this season... may have something to do with my glacial hobby pace.... it’s difficult to paint and read.

My affliction started with RoboTech and Starblazers, which I had to watch through static from a far away broadcast station by turning the aerial on the roof to one specific point. I was ok for awhile, dabbling with stuff like Akira and Cowboy Bebop and other late night series on cable (how I stumbled across Vandread). But then I managed a book store, worked with a diehard otaku who was a horrendously corrupting influence, and then the next thing I knew we were running booths at Cons for the bookstore and had grown the manga section from a single bay to a new entire gondola. What really got me was the first US edition of Newtype magazine which had a dvd sampler featuring Full Metal Panic!

there really isn’t anything I won’t watch except hentai. I find it disturbing and will not watch it. I tend to give a series at least four episodes before I drop it.

 

[Punktaku]

@MusingWarboss theres a side-series for Is it Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? It’s called Sword Oratoria and it follows the Sword Princess’s side of the story.

 

[Ardavion]

Got introduced to anime with a VHS of Robotech (or "Super Dimension Fortress Macross" in Japan), then got reintroduced to it some 15 years later torrenting/streaming anime, been on and off ever since.

I've run the gamut of anime, I guess; I've watched most of the popular ones except for One Piece, Fairy Tale and Fate/stay night (trust me, it's easier to list popular series that I haven't watched).

I've also seen some of the more obscure stuff, usually since I watched it a few decades ago (shout out to Speed Grapher with the Duran Duran intro, Darker Than Black, Ergo Proxy, GunGrave, and a few others that don't show up even when you search for "cult classic anime series" to remind yourself of the names).

I've also seen enough mecha series to have the potential to be that lucky high school student who is unceremoniously and accidentally dumped into a mecha cockpit without knowing what to do (often with a dainty girl who turns out to be royalty) but nevertheless wins their first engagement with the trained soldier arch-nemesis who becomes an erstwhile ally somewhere between four and sixteen episodes later when they find out that maybe they are the baddies...

 

[Ardavion]

I'm now searching the internet being reminded of all the obscure anime I've watched that slipped my mind as I try new search terms to get those elusive names...

 

[Punktaku]

You can try floating some of them here. Maybe one of us will know. “Oh, that’s Linebarrels of Iron!”

I’m particularly weak on sports anime. And horror. But I’ve seen and enjoyed a few of each.

Edit: to get it out of the way, I like dubs and subs. It all depends on how i watched it first. Once I associate voices with characters (English or Japanese) watching the other version just feels wrong.

 

[MusingWarboss]

Edit: to get it out of the way, I like dubs and subs. It all depends on how i watched it first. Once I associate voices with characters (English or Japanese) watching the other version just feels wrong.

Yeah the imprinting of a first viewing is often hard to beat. Hence why I was so pleased with Cyber City being reissued with the UK soundtrack. The Japanese original is so anaemic in comparison.

I do like to mix it up now and again though just to freshen up a rewatch.

I have to say though that I’ve found a lot of the more recent English dubs to be grating so I’d prefer the Japanese and Subs. It seems to have coincided with the rise and fall of ADV. After that the dubs are so-so to my ears anyway.

 

[Punktaku]

I’ve been watch loads of new releases on Crunchyroll and Funimation so the dubs I watch tend to be older series. I did watch a couple episodes of the dubbed Shimoneta: a boring world where dirty jokes are outlawed but the English cast is just not hitting the frantic pace the Japanese cast had.

 

[Ardavion]

I find subs easier to manage, in the way that dubs tend to try to match mouth movements with odd phrasing that carries a similar meaning, but makes it sound surreal, or they don't try to match the mouth movements at all, and it looks surreal.

I'm not averse to dubs, mind, but if I have a preference it's subbed over dubbed.

It also may have something to do with my parents not wanting me to watch "kiddy drivel" as a "grown adult, start acting like one" when I was younger (never mind the gratuitous violence and gore, or the gripping and complex plots compared to a vast swathe of supposed mature programming on "normal TV") so muting the anime and reading the subs helped me enjoy them without my parents catching on and banning me from the internet for a period.

 

[MusingWarboss]

the English cast is just not hitting the frantic pace the Japanese cast had

The Excel Saga English voices certainly matched the energy of the Japanese - so much so that the first actress (Jessica Calvello) voicing Excel had to stop as she hurt her voice and another (Larisa Wolcott) took over for the second half of the season, matching pretty well (though less sweary).

 

[Stoof]

Not much of an anime guy myself, but one of my best friends in secondary school was an anime guy, consequently I've seen a lot of popular stuff as he tried to get me into it! - Neon Genesis Evangelion*, Bubblegum Crisis, Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (of which I have some original concept art of Priss' hardsuit somewhere), Blood, Gunsmith Cats, Dominion Tank Police, Ghost In The Shell (+Stand Alone Complex)... Those are the ones I remember anyway. Does Metropolis count since it was drawn Disney-ish?

Good memories, even if I didn't really continue it. Six pack of cheap supermarket lager, some *ahem* Amsterdam special pipe weed and some anime after on a Thursday night.

(*"Tee-hee, you said Lance!" - Amanda Win Lee)

 

[MusingWarboss]

Does Metropolis count since it was drawn Disney-ish?

Of course!! It’s by Osamu Tezuka, known as the “Grandfather of Manga”.

His style is quite Disney-ish as he was an influence.

The original Manga was drawn in 1949.

 

[Gunkaiser]

I've gone off my weeaboo phase from high school, but still am super excited about Netflix getting the new Sailor Moon SuperS movies...

Other than that if it's got giant robots in it I'm all in, particularly reboots of super robot anime from the 70s and anything from the Brave series (J-Decker and GaoGaiGar are favorite).

Newer good stuff that I've been watching: 7Seeds (post-apocalyptic cryo sleep project), Devilman Crybaby (Go Nagai anything is great)

Honestly my biggest problem now is that I like cleaning/assembling models while I watch tv and refuse to listen to dubs so it's slowed down any watching I'd like to do.

 

[ThreeDice]

I'm not very knowledgeable about anime, but enjoy a good story and am always looking for anything horror. Recently got addicted to Chihayafuru, however I've lost track of where I'm at. Violence Jack and Classic Berserk are firm favourites. Got into trouble showing a friend a VHS copy of Ninja Scrolls when we were kids.

Erased was enjoyable, but the last couple of episodes were a weak finish.

 

[Punktaku]

High School of the Dead is a zombie series. Another is a suspenseful horror. Higurashi: When they Cry is a supernatural slasher type. Blood is a vampire series. Sankarea is about a zombie girl. Hellsing is another vampire series. Love Live is slice-of-life with a twist. There are loads of horror-types with demons and stuff, but not necessarily “horror”.

 

[Gunkaiser]

High School of the Dead is fantastic (too much fan service, but I think the creator used to primarily draw porn). Hopeful ish zombie shows are great.

 

[Thorgor]

Something a bit left of centre: Kokoro Connect is an odd body swap Anime which keeps on changing the parameters of how the swaps occur due to some weird influence.

The weird thing with this anime is that I absolutely love it but have a hard time recommending it to other people as I can't pinpoint what is great about it. If I had to guess I'd say it's the characters and their personality (especially Iori and Inaba) and how they evolve over time (with the supernatural events just being an excuse to study them). Too bad it will never get a second season...

I grew up with the (often hilariously hideous) french dubs of classics like Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, Hokuto no Ken, City Hunter and Captain Harlock, but what really got me into manga and anime was Gunnm, and then Vision of Escaflowne, Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion.

I don't watch as much as I used to. Always loved short series the most though, so it's easy to catch up when I'm pointed at something really good I may have missed
Current favorite anime of all time: Puella Magi Madoka Magica (I freaking love deconstructions of genre)
Latest show I binged: Kuroko's Basket (liked it more than anticipated considering I'm no sport fan, but could have been a tad shorter)

 

[Punktaku]

There’s a new Madoka Magica series called Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story that takes place in the same universe. Magical Girl Raising Project is another twist on the magical girl idea. My-Hime and My-Otome are similar and two of my favorites. They’re completely separate series, yet connected to each other. (If you look into them, My-Hime should be watched first.)