Shouting out to kleinbl00 and determinedkid because I know you're both classy dudes with good taste.
I'm currently watching Patlabor on Hulu and I'm enjoying it. I also watched a few episodes of Starblazers last night after determinedkid said it was pretty legit, and though it's dated, I'm enjoying the hell out of that too. So, I was wondering if you guys have any recommendations?
If I were to be completely honest, I've never been a huge fan of Anime. I've seen a few things here and there over the years, but the majority of it just doesn't strike me cool at all (yes, I know I'm a grown ass man who still actively collects comics). There's a lot of things that turn me off, needlessly drawn out plotlines (Dragonball Z and Initial D come to mind), overly sentimental characters (what's with an emotional monologue in the heat of battle?), weird shit with teenage kids, over the top violence, sex, and gore that arguably doesn't have artistic merit, etc. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to be overly critical of anime, for example there's tons of similar garbage in comic books as well and I actively avoid that stuff too.
I'm sure there's some pretty good stuff out there though. When we first started dating, my wife made me watch both Cowboy Bebop and Trigun with her, and both were pretty decent. I saw a series when I was younger, called Teknoman that I didn't know was anime because I didn't know what anime was at the time, and I thought it was a lot of fun. I've also seen a bit of Gundam here and there, though I have to admit I was more into it because I thought the toys were just so cool. None of that stuff was too bad, though I think Trigun got a little weird towards the end.
With that in mind, what kind of recommendations would you have? Elements wise, I like cars, guns, detective and noir stories, mysteries, lone heros, heists, cars, fantasy, and other random crap. I don't really worry if the show is 50 years old or made 2 years ago, I'm very much able to watch things and appreciate them no matter when they're made (seriously, I geeked out when I saw that Hulu has Thunderbirds and I added it right to my queue) so even if something is dated, I'll probably still enjoy it. I'm currently limited to Hulu and Netflix right now, so if I can find it on either of those two providers, that'd be a plus.
Bro do you even click tags? #anime #animeclub A lot of anime is pure shit. Some of it is great. War is right - I would consider Madoka Magica to be one of the top two or three television series ever made, right up there with The Wire. From a writing perspective it is a technically exquisite Yngwie Malmstein guitar solo that attempts the impossible, plants the dismount and gives the judges double eagles and still gets a 10. Sitting down to watch it unbriefed (which is how you should watch it) is like grudgingly agreeing to sit through a My Little Pony marathon only to find yourself watching Lord of the Rings. Netflix has Genesis Climber Mospeada on DVD. You might recognize it as the third cycle of Robotech but Robotech re-edited it heavily to hammer'n'tongs it into their existing Harmony Gold narrative. I think it's unique and interesting in that it posits a future in which a malevolent alien race takes over the Earth, the armed forces retreat to Mars, then they attempt to retake Earth some years later, fail miserably, and then we follow a band of guerillas as they try to find their pickup point while also discovering that most of humanity doesn't much mind oppressive alien domination. Also one of the fighter pilots is a transvestite lounge singer named Yellow Belmont because Japan. Having done a preposterous amount of research on schizophrenia for a script, I can honestly say that Serial Experiments: Lain is the best attempt at portraying a schizophrenic's view of the world. A very smart, computer-savvy schizophrenic. The design is also fucking incredible. Watch it in Japanese; the dub is shit. PsychoPass is pretty good. It's Gen Uruboshi, who also did Madoka Magica. It's a little less nuanced, a little more rushed, still worth watching. Attack on Titan is shit. Don't bother. We've covered a lot of these under #animeclub.
I read a couple issues of the manga, and I've been meaning to watch them. It's tricky, though, on AB, to figure out what the proper order is. James Cameron was working on Evangelion as his next project when he ran into budgetary snags, so he did Avatar instead. It's not like the guy wastes his time on bad stuff or puts out a million movies a week, so I figure that's a pretty ringing endorsement. The manga didn't grab me, but to be honest the manga for Nausicaa hasn't really grabbed me either so that's hardly a criticism.
How I watched it was just the original Neon Genesis Evangelion followed by the alternate ending End of Evangelion. The story is ok, but the characters are what I found most compelling about the piece. They are real. The first time I watched it I was still in high school, so that may have played a part in my interest. I haven't watched it since then, but I've been meaning to. If the anime club ever returned in any capacity it might be something to approach.
I did. I tried actually, but nothing really stood out. I half thought about asking over in r/anime but I kind of wanted to avoid the cultural circle jerk that a lot of subreddits are. Not knowing r/anime's reputation, I didn't know if they'd be a trust worthy source. If drunk me at 2 o'clock in the morning can't appreciate a show on Adult Swim, then yes. It's shit. We agree. I kind of like the whole big robots thing, which I think Robotech fits into but I know it's actually a re-write of Japanese cartoons. Is Robotech sufficient or should I try to get my hands on the Japanese originals?Bro do you even click tags?
Attack on Titan is shit
I think everything mentioned on this page has been mentioned either in #anime or actually covered in #animeclub, so you are a liar liar pants on fire. DK can probably give chapter'n'verse on mecha better than I can, but American exposure started with Robotech and Voltron, both of which ran concurrently with Transformers and Gobots. Which... Okay. So things are gonna get esoteric for a minute. This is a big stupid link that makes things more esoteric. Bottom line, Hasbro made TV shows to sell toys because Reagan made it legal. This opened the floodgates for every toy line GenXers freak out about, including MLP, Transformers, GI Goe, etc. Hasbro slammed together a whole bunch of Takara toys into a narrative called "Transformers" that only makes sense when you consider that somehow, a handgun needs to be a villain capable of taking on a fucking semi truck. These were franchise shows, which means they weren't run on any particular network, which meant that the shows were whatever so long as the toys could be sold. There was a cheaper way to get toys into the US without having to create a whole show, however. Grab an existing show with enough episodes and launch it. Voila, Voltron. It would have worked with Speed Racer and Astro Boy earlier but Reagan hadn't gutted the law yet. Unfortunately a lot of Japanese shows never make syndication (70 episodes). Their entire runs are like 26 episodes. So Harmony Gold had to take three disparate series and weld them together into something called "robotech." It worked sort of like this: the first series is about humans vs these giant people called Zentraedi. The second is about humans vs. the guys that built the giant people, called "robotech masters". The third series is about humans vs. this weird collective race of jellyfish called the Invid that were like chased out of their homeworld by the Robotech Masters and actually aren't that bad, aside from the whole world domination thing. As arcs go, it ain't terrible, but it ain't great. The first series welded into that mess was Macross. This is what most people think of when you say "robotech" - the Macross saga. I've never watched it. I found it boring. However, it has the most toys. Shit, through weird wranglings, one of them even made it into Transformers. It might be great. All I know is the toys were the same form factor as GI Joe, which was fuckin' dope on the playground because take this, Cobra. The second series was "Southern Cross", or "Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross." It was fuckin' unbearable dubbed. I've never had any interest in trying to watch it. I don't even think there were toys. The third series was "the New Generation" but everyone just called it "the Invid" and there were cool toys but not nearly as many and of the three, it's the least youth oriented so the kids didn't care much. There were toys, but they were rare. And they would fuck GI Joe up something fierce. For me, it was far and away the best. For one, the narrative was really fuckin' adult. The protagonist's girlfriend dies episode one. Not "is kidnapped" not "is lost" not "is shot with a GI Joe laser to parachute to safety" she fuckin' kicks it because her entire fuckin' ship explodes. So does the whole goddamn fleet. Any kid's show that starts with massive battle casualties can't be all bad, right? Especially in a "knowing is half the battle" world where somehow, nobody so much as gets a scratch despite throwing arsenals at each other for half an hour at a time. Also, the industrial design is tits. Everyone rides around on supadope motorcycles that definitely presage Akira (and turn into rippin' battle suits). The jets are way cooler than Macross, which really, all look like F-14s. And all the episodes end in this weird morally ambiguous place that was right at home next to Kung Fu, which was also in syndication. I have no idea where Robotech lives these days. They tried to restart it as Sentinels which I never saw. For a while, Tobey McGuire was trying to launch Macross as a movie, written by Larry Kasdan of Raiders fame. I'm going over to a kind-of friend's house day after tomorrow for a birthday party; he's literally got a room full of Robotech shit, some of it worth thousands. I know that teh torrentz will get you damn near anything.
Yeah, but you guys have talked a lot in those threads. It's a bit much. I figure starting a thread with a blank slate would be easier to digest. I remember the hell out of Transformers growing up. The cartoons, the toys, even the marvel comics. My parents wouldn't let me watch G.I. Joe cause human on human violence (though that seemed to be the only show they objected to), robots beating the crapplication out of each other though was fair game. I don't think I ever saw a bit of Robotech though, toys or show. Similarly, I heard about Voltron and Speed Racer, but I never saw them and it wasn't until later that I learned they were Japanese too. I think I saw Macross on Hulu, so I'm gonna check that out. Do you know, when these shows were Americanized for syndication, if they also changed the story a bit to be more palatable for American culture? Or were they kept pretty true to the source?I think everything mentioned on this page has been mentioned either in #anime or actually covered in #animeclub, so you are a liar liar pants on fire.
They absolutely gutted the story, showed episodes out of order, recut shit, omitted entire story arcs, the whole nine yards.
Ick. That sounds like they didn't much respect the integrity of the original artists. I can see why they would edit our some things, like the drinking and gore, but it's sad to see that they didn't do three series under a Robotech name like the article said was a proposed idea. I think that would be a fair middle ground. I'm watching Star Blazers right now as I type this and I'm enjoying it, partially because it is kind of campy. It makes me wonder though, what they changed over from the original. I did notice one part, when they caught the doctor in the back seat of a car clearly boozing it up, the dub was saying he was experimenting with a sleeping potion. So clearly, there's at least a bit of change here.
Funny, I remember interpreting Lain's personalities in more Jungian terms, but Wikipedia says you're right.Having done a preposterous amount of research on schizophrenia for a script, I can honestly say that Serial Experiments: Lain is the best attempt at portraying a schizophrenic's view of the world. A very smart, computer-savvy schizophrenic. The design is also fucking incredible. Watch it in Japanese; the dub is shit.
Most anime is pretty bad, but I don't mind the childish action stuff. Dragon Ball Z was really a turning point in the way anime was designed, but you can still find some really hard hitting stuff from time to time. Movie wise there is some stuff to work with: Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and a lot of the Studio Ghibli films (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, etc.). In terms of anime I'm not sure I can even recommend much. I mean I feel like Klein would suggest Madoka Magica (or as I like to call it the "living incarnation of don't judge a book by it's cover") the anime starts out innocent, but completely evolves. Another anime that we actually attempted to watch before was Psycho Pass (I never got around to watching all of it, but that is for a lack of time not a lack of trying). Samurai Champloo is among my favorite anime's of all-time its just a real piece of artwork (A good portion of the music was produced by Nujabes). I don't know how you feel about comedy, but they made a hilarious parody of these generic battle type animes called One-Punch Man it was a huge hit, and I couldn't help laugh at the entire piece. Something that came out really recently that I haven't done much research on is: Erased Most of the anime series I listed can be found on Hulu/Netflix I believe. Hulu actually has a really wide selection of anime tbh. In terms of the movies I suggested you probably wouldn't be able to find those on either service. The Ghibli films are actually a bit elusive. Well, that's all I've got.
Samurai Champloo looks pretty cool actually. It's going on the list. For One-Punch Man, is it full of inside jokes? Will I have to know a lot about anime to appreciate it or can I watch it as is and still get a good laugh? I have seen a few Studio Ghibli films, in fact I have Mononoke and Spirited Away on DVD, but I didn't know they counted. Isn't Anime only television series?
It actually looks pretty cool. I think I might like it. Hulu has a ton of old Samurai films from The Criterion Collection and of course I've seen Kurosawa classics like Seven Samurai and Ran. I absolutely love them, very similar to how I love westerns. There's just something about men being stalwarts of dignity and discipline in a world of lawless and corruption that appeals to me. Plus, you know, bad ass skills are always cool.
I would actually scratch One-Punch Man off the list. You have to have spent a lot of time trudging through the shitty anime troupes to get a lot of the humor in the show. Nah anime just literally means animation. Anything animated is considered anime in Japan. For us though it just means anything animated in Japan. You have probably watched some anime without knowing it. If I think of any other suggestions throughout the day, I'll put them in here.
I'm gonna suggest Hunter x Hunter. It is among the only shounen anime's I ever suggest to people. It would be in the same category as things like Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, etc. Now this would immediately turn anyone away. It turned me away at first as well because in many instances it's like others in its category, BUT I firmly believe that Hunter X Hunter after the first season is exactly what shounen anime/manga should have been. It's a super long series though, not something you watch in your spare time. This is honestly an off-hand suggestion that I recommend to people, but they rarely ever get to it. Mostly because the first season is a snooze fest, but after it the entire anime as a whole takes on new life. It touches numerous genre's within anime as a whole, but it does them well.
I'll look into it. But let me ask . . . I know DragonBall is known for dragging on. Is that what Naruto and this show do as well?It would be in the same category as things like Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, etc. Now this would immediately turn anyone away.
If it comes from the Shounen genre of anime then usually it drags on. I would say that in terms of Hunter x Hunter the first season is a drag. It does some interesting things, and introduces some of the weird eccentric characters. Beyond the first season you get a lot of well told albeit troupe-y story arcs. With the world they've built it's sort of cool, and not overdeveloped. The action is really great, and the characters even beyond the main character are really interesting. If you ever had a plan to watch Naruto, don't. Don't ever watch a show in these categories (only exception would be Hunter x Hunter). Reason being they are filled with literally hundreds of episodes that are only there so that the anime never catches the manga. This is why I'm always very reserved to recommend the very poorly designed genre that is shounen. It's literally just filled with mainstream garbage. Some of the early Naruto was very interesting, but somewhere along the line it lost what made it cool.
Naruto, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Sword Art Online, Attack on Titan, Inuyasha, and there are many out there. There is good shounen. My rule of thumb is usually the longer it is the worse it gets. To go along with the theme of samurai champloo, Rurouni Kenshin that's a good one too
There are a few aspects that make modern day shounen manga/anime very soap opera-y in my eyes. First is much like you said filler drags things out, and ultimately means nothing to the story. The rest of what you said is exactly right, with just a bit missing. They begin to warp the story into this unbelievably convoluted thing that really loses its footing all together. Naruto as an example. In the first few arcs we had a sense of meaning to every character. We knew Naruto was special, but it wasn't overwhelming. He was a person with a story we cared about. Other characters like Sasuke, Neji, Hinata, Sakura, etc. all had important stories even if they were still a bit troupe-y. The story wasn't centered around Naruto, it was centered around children essentially being brought up in the militarized state. Then after awhile it became very mythological and the story especially in the manga began to get out of hand. The characters lost their personal touch and the entire series slipped into the pit of melodrama as all soap opera's do. Once that happened the complexity of the setting, characters, and plots melted away. A lot of the story had no emotion besides the moments that they leverage our long-time attachment to a character by threatening their deaths or giving them a challenging opponent to face and become stronger. It was like we were being told mythology of Greece without the important thematic message embedded within it.
It's been over a decade but let me list a few I still remember. Hunter x hunter like bleach + Natuto but better imo Last exile was excellent. Steamworks with airships and planes I also really loved ghost in a shell. One of the few old ones that aged well. GTO great teacher onitzka Full metal panic was funny but only for an anime fan I think I liked initial d about car racing. I like car racing but it's the DBZ of car racing sort of like fast And furious anime. If you like space opera banner of the stars was cool. Space ship battles galore. Beck is about a group of guys starting a band. Thought it was a cool perspective Now and then here and there if you can find it. - dark but really good story.
I don't really like anime but I saw this series called Golden Boy a long time ago and thought it was hilarious. It's very sexual humor but it also mocks a lot of anime tropes. A character can be chili in one scene then switch to a super detailed serious style. I found episode 1 on YouTube.
Hikaru no Go. The main character, Hikaru, comes upon a goban (a board that Go, an ancient Chinese board game, is played on) and it turns out to have the spirit of a man who played Go over 1000 years ago, and didn't pass on because he wanted to keep playing Go. Later, Hikaru starts playing Go himself until he becomes a professional, trying to surpass his rival, Akira Touya. Okay, that doesn't sound that exciting, but when I read the manga I thought it was really good. Apparently it even caused a spurt in the popularity of the game at the time.
You're right. That doesn't sound too exciting, no offense. What did they do to keep it interesting? Shoot. We need something like that here for NASCAR. God knows they could use a ratings boost.Apparently it even caused a spurt in the popularity of the game at the time.
Black Cat - I don't remember if I actually watched the anime, but I read the manga, and I remember it being pretty good. Darker than Black - Chinese Electric Batman. FMA/FMA:B - They're both good, but Brotherhood is better, imo. Kokoro Connect - This probably falls under the category of 'weird shit with teenage kids', but it's such a good anime that I had to put it on here. One Punch Man - Just watch it. It's so good. Samurai Champloo - Great anime. Amazing soundtrack. Steins;Gate - Watch at least twice. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Widely regarded by me as the greatest mecha anime ever made. NHK ni Youkoso! - Depression. I'll list some more that I'm not sure if you'll like but I enjoyed. Amagi Brilliant Park Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Fairly Tail Kill la Kill Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! Little Witch Academia Little Witch Academia: Mahoujikake no Parade Monogatri Series - I'm not going to link them all. That would be a pain. Here is a link to the order you should watch them.
Fist of the North Star sounds interesting and I see it's on Hulu. I'll add it to the list. Post apocalyptic settings can be interesting sometimes and I'm a fan of both Mad Max and Fallout. Ghost in the Shell sounds pretty interesting too. I'm kind of getting a Matrix style vibe from it.