[psiga]

[wpham]

Gurren Lagann is still the best series of the season, and definitely a highlight of the past few years. Dennou Coil depends entirely on its seductive setting; episode 4 was great, but I can see from people's comments how it could go downhill.

Paprika is imaginative and beautiful and on 2nd viewing, just how imaginative and beautiful it is becomes more apparent; I can appreciate it for everything Satoshi Kon accomplishes with it, but ever since Millenium Actress I have wanted, or waited, to be moved by an animated film as much as that film moved me.

Tekkon Kinkreet is currently screening in NY at the Quad and LA at the Landmark. I'm going to try to catch it when I go to LA for a show in a week and a half. From what I've heard, it's visually amazing and thematically challenging.
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last.fm

[psiga]

I still have Ep 4 of Denno on my hard drive; just to give people an idea of how great Ep 4 is. Hands-down the best episode so far. Was hoping that it'd keep going that way, but instead went for hackneyed set-ups, filler, and one of my most peevey of pet-peeves in paint-by-numbers storylines: Little sister disobeys orders and gets everyone into trouble.

I'll check up on Guuguu Lagwagon after it completes. Hate the visual style, but am willing to accept that the storytelling trumps all other aspects.
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[Martial Loh]

[chevluh]

I'd advise against watching the recap only. Without the pacing and progression spread over time you're missing most of the flavour, if not all.

[Faithless]

I have seen Tekkonkinkreet and recommend it.
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my website

[internisus]

Why the fuck haven't I seen any posts about The Afro Samurai, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Ron Perlman with music by the Rza?

[alice]

Afro samurai was gluttonous animation and pretty badass. But I felt the plot was weak and it did too good of a job joining the part of western culture that I don't care about, and the part of japanese animation that I'm ashamed to say I watch.

I'm glad I downloaded gurren laguan, I can't wait to watch it. I was immedietly sold when I saw the art style and more importantly, the mechas which will no doubtly rock hard.

Oh, but I think the real reason why no one talks about afrosamurai is because.



And I think this thread needs more tekkon kinkreet with no spoilers because I still haven't seen it yet pbllt.

[professor_scissors]

I just started watching Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, a.k.a. So Long, Mr. Despair.

It's very strange! It has a suicidal protagonist! It has really odd animation! It's black comedy! I kind of like it!

[Gironika]

Holy Paprika, Batman! It seems like this was done by someone that was involved with some of Satoshi Kon's works as well.
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[Takashi]

It's not black comedy. It's, you know, emo-Azumanga. He has an uplifting, moral view about dying and how much life sucks.

I like how on the second episode he has a book named "Death Note" that he calls his "travel partner list".
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low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

[professor_scissors]

Yeah, I just watched episode 2, and I must agree. Black Comedy is a bit of a miscategorization. It's still hilarious, though.

Also, the ED is fantastic.

[alice]

[CubaLibre]

Woahly shit, Afro Samurai looks amazing.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Gironika]

[Ashura]

Have you guys talked about King of Bandit Jing yet? I'm actually rewatching this show now. I forgot how it was not only awesome, but also had some of the greatest and weirdest character designs and world setup.

Like in episode two, he fights a living boat anchor.

The show pretty much follows Jing, the King of Bandits. Only he's a teenager, so no one ever thinks he's the king of bandits. His best friend is a talking bird named Kir, and essentially they try to steal some item every story arch. (Most storylines are 2 or 3 episodes.)

A running theme throughout the series is Jing interrupting the common order of things, such as deposing of despots or causing riots. Usually, this makes things better for the people in the story, sort of mirroring Jing's own lawlessness and how it might even be a good thing.

It's decidedly light on the emo, and, well, tons of fun really. With what they reveal of Jing's background, they really could have made it depressing, too.

I haven't seen Jing in Seventh Heaven, unfortunately. It's pretty old, so I dunno how I would. Or read the manga past volume 1.

[professor_scissors]

I didn't really care much for Jing, honestly. The character design was strange, yes, but I didn't like it very much, and they kept trying to hint that there might be some sort of underlying story connecting all of the episodes, but there really wasn't.

[PianoMap]

Anybody else watching "Denno Coil"? This shit is as intriguing as shit!
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o-/< --- o-\< --- o-|-| --- o^-<

[Toto]

I'm watching Tekkaman Blade, and I really don't understand I've heard neither Ging/Krabjuice/Simon Belmont talk about it. It's a very watchable robot anime, with sci-fi ness added in. I think it might be a classic, it's very 80's. The main character sports a mullet.

[chevluh]

Started watching Goodbye Mr Despair (Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei) kinda by accident, and it's awesome, with a rather surreal direction. It's about an overly pessimistic, suicidal japanese high school teacher confronted to an overly optimistic, oddball student. The rest of the class is more or less like a disfunctional harem anime, with the girls being hikkikomori, crazy stalkers, illegal immigrants or having split personalities (to list those seen so far). It's insanely amusing for a story where the main character constantly wants to hang himself.

Also Gurren Lagann has been taking further steps towards awesomeness lately.

[elmimmo]

The thing about anime, unfortunately (and this is totally subjective, I am not going to try to justify it), is that whereas manga is usually great, anime-wise there is an overwhelming volume of SHIT flooding the market. I would go as far as saying that MOST ANIME IS SHIT, even if they came after a nice manga counterpart. This is specially true if we are talking about TV series, and not so much if we talk about theatrical releases.

So while there might be good stuff out there, just like this thread revealed by the amount of suggestions, you are going to have to go through loads of rubbish to check out wether this people are right or not.

So my suggestion is, unless you are doing a reseach and feel the need to waste zillions of hours (since TV series will also take you some episodes to allow you an opinion) skip TV series altogether and try movies. I guess movies are usually more expensive, so they make sure not to suck as much.

For the suggestions, if you are on to shojo, I HIGHLY recommend TOKI O KAKERU SHOJO (The girl who leapt through time) and BRAVE STORY. Both are very beautiful and tender stories. Haven't checked their manga (which came AFTER the movies AFAIK) or novels, though, but precisely what I like from them is that it is one beging-end experience. (Both end with a little big of an "excuse me?", though, so you've been warned).

Edit: just for the record, I LOVE anime that is not shit.

[Ebrey]

I would advise exactly the opposite. Movies are almost entirely irrelevant to anime. Besides Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii, and Satoshi Kon* stuff, anime films rarely work. Although TV adaptations of manga are sometimes inferior, movie adaptations of manga are worse because they can't cover much of the story.

The problem isn't that anime TV series suck, it's that anime in general has sucked for a long time now.

[psiga]

[Renfrew]

Has anybody else here watched "Sugoi, Masaru-san! Sexy Commando Gaiden?"

It was hilarious.
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[alice]

[alice]

[psiga]

Did you watch the anime series at all? I can't take the series' pacing and bland animation. The movie is everything the series is not, as far as pacing and production quality.

If you're not into any of the Fist of the North Star stuff, then indeed, it's an acquired taste. Like trying to get people to like Metalocalypse: You either like it or you don't.
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[EmX]

Anime surrendered its camp value somewhere in the mid 90's and became downright fetishistic and bland in 2000 or so. Anime not really the quirky, gritty cartoons that I came to expect from the few glimpses I got on late night scifi channel so many years ago. :\

[psiga]

[psiga]

It's getting strangely hard to find all of the current Dennou Coil eps. They're up to 12 in Japan, but my preferred sub group stopped around 7. I've gotten 9 and 11 from an alternate group, but when I searched for 8 and 10 from them there was nothing. Argh.

So I watched 9 (despite not seeing 8 yet), and it was pretty great. Best one since episode 4.

Plus the teacher gets trashed:

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[Gin]

guys I have become disenchanted with anime.

this sucks

Also guys Shigurui is fucking terrifying.

[Gin]

Also guys I had a dream once about a girl who could manipulate time and a boy who could manipulate space. The boy was helping the girl travel through dimensions and time so that they could find her mom.

Is there actually an anime like that I figure the chances are pretty high.

[v84j3gs2uc7ns4]

[Gironika]

After some guys said that the first episode of lucky star sucked, did anyone bother to watch more than that?

Five down and I'm starting to enjoy that series albeit wondering if I should have continued after the first ep initially ... but it seems to pick up, I suppose.

Anyone else?



Rewatching Nadessico currently and that one is so much fun. Finding all the references to Robot animes is really hard since they put so muh effort into making them seem normal.
The most ridiculous moment up till now is the scene where Akito nods when Joe, the Hero of Gekiganger III (the anime-series the hero is watching) says that he wanted to marry a girl who can cook since he was young. That was hilarious and scary at the same time.... and I wish for more Gekiganger III.
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[professor_scissors]

See if you can find a torrent of GEKIGANGAR III: THE MOVIE.

[Cryo]

I'm liking Afro Samurai right now.
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PS3 - Cryoh
X360 - Cryoh

[wpham]

[idle]

[Quick Shot II Turbo]

From the director of Texhnolyze: Shigurui.

I don't know much about the story since I've only seen one episode and have not read the (supposedly very violent) manga it was based on. The story revolves around 2 samurais: Fujiki, who is missing an arm, and Irako, blind and limping. They are going to battle in a tournament, where, as decreed by a vile-looking high official, they are going to use real katanas instead of wooden kendo swords. But before their swords actually meet (the rituals Irako does before battle are some of the most extreme scenes of animation I've ever seen) we're brought seven (or 8, I forget) years into the past to witness the first time both samurais meet, without any of the deformities mentioned above. Also, broken fingers and a dude almost strangled to death with a kendo sword.

There's obviously more depth to it, as these two aren't the only characters in the series, but you'll have to see for yourself to witness the hints of intrigue that may or may not be unraveled during the course of the series.

The trailer does not lie about the visuals. The series has a very visceral look to it and achieves this using a variety of techniques: overexposure, extreme camera angles, highly detailed still frames, rapidly moving rough sketches, etc. The music, however, is different from the pounding drums of the trailer. There is some melody to the soundscape, but during several sequences all you'll hear is high-pitched noise and the sounds a samurai would make while engaging in psychological warfare with his adversary.

The first episode has been subbed, see here.

Also, there's apparanetly some crap about this series in Second Life. I had no idea SL has a presence in Japan, but there you go.
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[Loki Laufeyson]

i watched the violinist of hamelin movie yesterday, and that was great. but it was a 90s fantasy anime, so i might be biased.
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[wpham]