Anime On Trial

[Reply #320 on:]

Blood was one of the few anime to actually make me jump, so points for that. Ninja Scroll has blood, sure.. but if you want substance with your blood, go for the Rurouni Kenshion OVA. If you'd rather sex and ugly villains and sex with ugly villains and killer bees coming out of a guy's back.. Yeah, Scroll's your best bet.
Anyone seen Dagger of Kamui? It's long and has some boring parts, but damn if it isn't wildly entertaining some of the time. Not something I'd recommend to everyone but I loved it. It had mad 80s styles and kickin' music.

  TOTP! :jig:

[Reply #321 on:]

Ah, now you see, those are the things that kinda turn me off some anime. Namely, cartoon character's gettin' it on, and widdly widdly guitars. That and the crude sex jokes nurdy mentioned.     
What I like about them is the fact that directors aren't limited by technology, so they can pretty much have the camera go where ever the hell they want it too... making for some awesomely stylised scenes. You can get some awesome storytelling done with these films/shows. Admitedly, this is a feature of animation, not anime, it's just that anime seems to actually take advantahge of it.

EDIT: 800 posts! [bender] Ner, nen nen ner, nen nen ner, etc [/bender]
er, if that wasn't clear, that's bender's little song accompanying his dance in The Sting.

[Reply #322 on:]

 

Originally posted by EvilLunch:
If you'd rather sex and ugly villains and sex with ugly villains and killer bees coming out of a guy's back.. Yeah, Scroll's your best bet.

Interestingly enough though, the hero never has sex with heroine, even when he's told that it's the only way to save his life.

Also, I like the final fate of the main villain.  File that under fun things to do to an enemy who cannot die.

[Reply #323 on:]

 

Originally posted by David A:
 Interestingly enough though, the hero never has sex with heroine, even when he's told that it's the only way to save his life.

That's the only reason I can manage to mention that movie without hatin' on it. It would have been easy for such a movie to get the heroine bent over the proverbial couch yet again, but they didn't, and it's the lone respectable point of the film and what makes me admire the hero.

Hmm.. All that was a pretty big spoiler..

[Reply #324 on:]

SJM has a good point; it is one of the things I like best about Anime myself. I will mention Perfect Blue here,it is a psychological suspense / thriler type which isn't too common in Anime. It makes way good use of the medium in the parts where the characters may be hallucinating,it definitely helped set the mood and leave you guessing. If they had to do that in a live action movie it would have cost them some serious $$$ for the CGI and don't think it would have come across as well.

[Reply #325 on:]

There is something strange with my Bebop series, it might just be me but then I did buy a bootleg copy by mistake. Honest.

What it is, is like a pause halfway through an episode with a still picture thingy which just says 'Cowboy Bebop' on it, the font and colours change for each episode but its on all of them and its seems as if they were recorded of the TV and those are the advert breaks which have been taken out. Except for the title screen that is.

Can anyone confirm this?

[Reply #326 on:]

Nerdlingus, do you mean the commercial bumpers?  I'm pretty sure that those are supposed to be there.

[Reply #327 on:]

I think I do, I have been scrutinizing the disks as I have been watching them and that is the worst I can come up with.

Its kind of a pause with a little music, as if you pressed pause just before the adverts then resumed after they had finished the result being a screen with some writing on it.
One of them says something like :

"A series which creates a new genre will in itself be called Cowboy Bebop"

[Reply #328 on:]

Yeah, it's what you see before they cut to commercial, and after the commercial break, before they return to the show.  I'm pretty sure those are on the real DVDs.

[Reply #329 on:]

Strange that.
A damn good series though; funny and sad. My fav eps have got to be the one in which Faye recieves the betamax tape ( I used to have one of those) and the mushroom one.
I can't remember any others of the top of my head but then I've only watched them the once.

[Reply #330 on:]

I think those "commercial" break interludes on the Cowboy Beebop DVDs may be a common thing for anime TV shows put on DVD.  My Macross DVDs have those in there too and they're a legit release.

[Reply #331 on:]

Yes Nerdlingus,  they are on the non-bootleg ones too. They just take out the commercials and leave the little cut scene. They do that in quite a few anime; I remember Noir did that too, which was incredibly annoying what with the chalkboard screeching sound that accompanied it.

[Reply #332 on:]

Cool, cheers klumsy.

Another question though, I'm gonna start buying the evangelion series disk by disk as I don't have the funds to buy them outright.
My question is, as I'm going to be buying another series as well, Have you/anyone seen Noir?
The adverts and fan sites etc make it look pretty cool so I need some real world opinions to help make my mind up.
Cheers chaps. 

[Reply #333 on:]

 

Originally posted by nerdlingus:
Have you/anyone seen Pretentious Piece of Shite?

FIXED.
Seriously though.. Spend your money on anime that MATTER. Like Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, or Porco Rosso, or Read Or Die, or The Wings Of Honneamise.. Anything but that sad bastard child of Aika and Kite. [It isn't a good combination, trust me.]

[Reply #334 on:]

I disagree with EvilLunch on this one...and I've seen half of Aika and Kite as well. Aika does not belong in that comparison, it is as much animated panty raid/spy spoof as anything else,not the same genre IMO.

Kite now, is a reasonable comparison but Kite is more an animated La Femme Nikita ripoff/clone. I mean Noir is a 26 episode series and you seriously want to compare it to a 45 minute short feature??? They definitely have some similarities but they are not the same thing.

Nerdlingus, you should be aware that NOIR is one of those I love it/I hate it type animes,with not many people in the middle ground. This is okay though, that NGE you are considering is in the same category.

Noir is newer(of course) and therefore has some very stylish animation. It has some quirks though. The company that made it wanted to have a "film noir' feel to this series and they did a fair job with that,IMO again. This means they deliberately used a very dark set of colors and consciously avoided some brighter colors almost entirely;it has a very different look sometimes because of that. Also there is a real minimum of dialogue and they use the music to carry the story by itself at times,particularly in action sequences. There is also an unfortunate tendancy to use flashback entirely too much, even if they do add a little bit more each time, that is the single most annoying thing about the show I have found.

One very odd thing is this series was made for Japanese TV, and they had to conform to TV standards which meant this entire series is almost completely bloodless. Very strange in a show where people drop dead left and right believe me.

If you like music though this one has just some fabulous techno-gothic( I don't really know how better to describe this) and electronic beats. I have never heard anyone complain that the music was bad, including all those people I've talked with who loathed the show itself. The music is A+, and they use it very well indeed; you will quickly realize somebody is going to die REAL soon now once you start to recognize what I call the "kill theme" 

It does get a bit angsty and the characters are a bit underdeveloped, but it does grow on you. I've watched the series at least twice and I am a bit biased obviously, I do like this title a lot.

If you do pick this up just go with your preference sub/dub wise. I actually liked both of them, if I could have had my way I would have taken two of the 4 main characters from each version and spliced it. It is good either way. That being said I might recc. the dub version first since the 2 dub voice actors I liked the best get more lines then the sub ones.

[Reply #335 on:]

I thought you said you liked Aika EL?

[Reply #336 on:]

Aika eh?

I had Najica delivered (eventually) yesterday.

Very amusing. 

I watched the preview for Noir on the Najica disk and was impressed with the dark quality of it all and as you said Klumsy, the music sounds pretty cool, infact, right up my street as I tend to prefer good electronic beats.
'Tis a shame that the japs don't allow blood in their TV shows but then I'm not really surprised either.

As for the dubs, I've always enjoyed the old skool kung fu films from the 70's so the dubs always come first with me.
I seem to lose some interaction when I watch almost anything with subtitles so I have never been a great fan, I tried out the subtitles on them bootleg cowboy bebop disks and its very different from the lines spoken in the dub!
Mind you, just to contradict myself, I think City of God is a very good film, but that belongs in another thread.

Thanks for your thoughts, I think I'll be getting Noir very soon.

EL, I've never heard of those titles but I'll keep a look out. 

[Reply #337 on:]

Hey I liked Noir. Admittedly, it has a lot of pointless footage of just the characters posing with guns and is really slow-pced at times but it's also very gripping in places

I made an AMV from the first few eps that I posted on the pic anime thread a while back, good stuff.

[Reply #338 on:]

 

Originally posted by alenacat:
Admittedly, it has a lot of pointless footage of just the characters posing with guns.

Reminds me of Ozor's piccie in the picture thread.



Obviously taken from Ozor so please direct comments to him.

[Reply #339 on:]

Nurdy: Aika = boring, PANTIES = good.

[Reply #340 on:]

So it just made the grade? I admit Aika has one of the more awful intro sequinces.

[Reply #341 on:]

Strange as I was gonna purchase Aika but then I stumbled across a review of Najica.

Najica is a blast though, and the commentary is hell funny too.

[Reply #342 on:]

Early thoughts on Neo Ranga:

OK.  You'r at the circus, and this tiny little car rolls out that looks like it can only fit a maximum of three people.  It rolls out into the center ring, and the door opens, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven clowns emerge from the tiny vehicle.  It's funny because it's a tough feat to pull off.  Odder still is this is more or less EXACTLY the effect Neo Ranga achieves. 

Even though each episode of Neo Ranga runs a meagre 15 minutes long, every last one of them is packed to beyond capacity with layers of plot, loads of characters, Giant monster battles, jokes, recurrant themes, social commentarty.  I have to say.  The clown car has jack squat on Neo Ranga.  The tiny 15-minute door opens, and out steps an enourmous ancient tiki-god juggernaut Ranga.

The premise and opening of Neo-ranga is downright textbook.  Tokyo's doing fine-Oh, wait a giant monter is coming out of the ocean, and it's making its way to landfall.  The beast is called Ranga, and Ranga's not here to cause a ruckas.  He's here to serve his king.  No make that kings.

[Zapp]Sexy Female kings at that.  Aaaaah, yesss.[/Z]

Manami, Ushio, Yuuhi.  Each of them are riteful heirs to the Bando kingdom, to which Ranga is thier sacred sworn God and protector.  With no place to go, The three sisters, who live empoverished on the outskirts of Tokyo go about their daily lives, with a few added benefits of controlling a Deus ex Terra.

A layer of politics is thrown into the mix in a move of logical lunacy.  Just how do you establish zoning rights for a giant monster?  Numerous elements of wars, politics, international relations, even tourism are probed in the Ranga metaphor.  It's something to see to believe.

Episodes fly fast and furious, some completing 2 to 4-episode long arcs, some standing alone, others advancing the overall plot which registers all teh way to galactic proportions.  There's no lack of material here, I assure you.

I am astonished with how many characters the shows producers managed to work into this show.  Really. 15 minutes.  That's barely even a relaxing bath.  Still.  Everything from a lolicom middle-school teacher, to a gung-ho justice-obsessed police officer, a ditzy newscaster the mascot.  OK, so some of the characters are recurrant themes in anime in general, but having them all crowded into the same show all interacting in their own ways, in this limited time slot, it's no less amazing than the stateroom scene of the Marx bro's film "A night at the opera." 

My favorite character has to be Yuuhi, who is one of the three central sisters.  What you have with Yuuhi (For all the real Anime geeks out there) is like Gendo Ikari combined with Nabiki Tendo, and then wrapped in the body of a 14-year old girl.  She's that freaking evil.  Her plans for using Ranga are almost always super-sinister, and even if they don't unfold as she hopes, she still manages to get her way.  Just put her on the screen and I'm guaranteed to quiver with delight.

The Main character, Ushio (Voiced by ginat Robot Veteran Mayamura Yuko) is the middle sister, and she has the most time and interaction controling Ranga.  Typical heroine stuff really, what's right?  What's wrong?  How can I save people with my stompy monster?  It was just wierd not hearing "Anta Baka?" every fourth scene.

As for weaknesses, there are a few.  First is that, despite how well they made the short timeslot work, there are a few episodes that feel very rushed.  Some of which do so at the expence of cast members.  When a recurring character dies or goes crazy or runs away or something without any warning or notice, well, it's not playing to favor.  Another thing you may not want to sqeeze into a quick 15 minutes: Religions  both mono-and pantheistic garnished with some philosophising on the side.  Neo Ranga would have done better not delving into the huge sea of religioun that it did, without having adequate exposition time.  My next major complaint is that the heroines never donned their sexy voodoo outfits from the shows opener.  What a tease.  My only other complaint is that some plot threads which I really enjoyed peterd out with no real conclusion.

Show spoiler

What happened to Manami's stint as a hooker!?

Still, the fact that the major arc of the story is well maintained speaks well for Ranga.

Music for the most part is alright, although I would never consider "Three blind mice" a standard christmas charol.  Toward the end of the series the soundtrack gets downright tribal.  Very cool stuff.

On the whole I think Neo Ranga is a decent series.  Very different in some ways, Rock standard in others but always feeling fresh with every episode.  May not be a buy unless your die-hard-anything-that-makes-a-japanese-populace-flee-in-terror fan, but if you can see it, do.

B+

Phear teh DrK Mzztrezz Yuuhi!

[Reply #343 on:]

You have to be pretty evil of beat Gendon.

[Reply #344 on:]

 

Originally posted by bankrupt:
I think those "commercial" break interludes on the Cowboy Beebop DVDs may be a common thing for anime TV shows put on DVD.  My Macross DVDs have those in there too and they're a legit release.

They've also got them on "Dragon Ball"

[Reply #345 on:]

Saw Hellsing last night, my god Alucard is goddamn cool. He topped Vash and Spike so easily.

[Reply #346 on:]

:bump:

Many hentai games made in japan actually are piced up by broadcasters or video producers, who turn the games plot into an animated series.  The Video releases occasionally are released on this side of the pond but as for the TV series, very few are translated.

There is a reason for this.


Raimuiro Senkitan

That reason is that when you draw out laborious Get-Girl dialogue with Get-Girl characters who each have their little melodramatic quirks about, say, being lonely or being unable to fold paper cranes, things start to lossen up plot wise.  Also, you're airing this on TV, so there's no way to pay off the Get-Girl script and hammy chars. with some should-be-illegal-if-it-wasn't-animated sex.

Raimuiro Senkitan Takes place in the 36th year of the Meji era.  Shintaro is a teacher who has been called in to touter some students.  When he reaches his destination, It's not a school he's teaching in, it's a battle-ship, setting sail to attack a fortress in Manchuria.

His students [Momen (klutz), Asa(tomboy), Sarasa(richgirl), Kinu(Glasses) and Rinzu(Silent-type)], also are not what they seem.  Each control a powerful, supernatural robot beast call Raimu. The girls, the ship and the Raimu are all under attack by simmilar forces commanded by the Russian army. 

And so it begins.

I'm not sure exactly how to say this so I'll just use a metaphor.  I can play around with a block of wood, a nail and a hammer all day, but if I don't set the wood down, and pound the nail in with the hammer, I'm just pissing around.  This was supposed to be a sex metaphor, and I'm only saying that now to justify having said it at all.

No sex.  Lots of fanservice, REDICULOUS ammounts of fanservice.  Repeately in rolling, multiple incidences fanservice.  No sex.  By episode six it's painfully clear that every one of the girls it hot for teacher, with absurd ammounts of pantyshots, glompings and innuendo, and never the deed is done.

If I had a hammer.

The fight sequences are pretty dreary in thier own right, too.  Not so much the Raimu, their fairly decent, I mean the bad guys.  The villian designs are so absurd I was expecting them to fly around the good guys murmering "blublublublublublublu."  (Oh, putties I miss those guys).  The only other major problem I have with the fight scenes is something that Anime TV almost never gets right, Putting 3D CGI into a 2D environment and blending them well.  I'll not harp on that because Futurama has spoiled me.

It's sinful how fast these girls throw themselves at Shintaro.  'You remind me of my brother!  You helped me believe in myself! Oh my God!  Strip for me!'  This problem is compounded by the fact that there is no payoff.  So you can imagine step one is rushed beyond belief, step three is to hot for TV, and so the characters are mired in step 2...??? 

I really should stop wishing for sex in this series so badly.  Asa, good lord, ASA, she's like 13 (or just really short)!  Come one, come all Lolicoms, I'll pass on this table.

Well, with that (all that) out of the way There are some good things in Raimurio Senkitan.  First off there are some funny bits in it.  Most of it is sex humor, but even that (with the exception of repeated panty-pratfalls) is really well done.  I love the scene where momen is starving and hallucinates that Sarasa's breasts are pork dumplings, and tries to eat them (complete with cartoony munch sound effect).  A good and constant flow of sight gags, and bits will keep viewers watching past the shippy fivesome and melodramatic story quirks.

The character designs are not hard to look at.  I'd take the ship's nurse over the Raimu pilots anyday, but, even if they do have a generic Anime girl look about them, it's not a bad  Generic Anime girl look.

The plot delves deeper later in the series as a genuine arc is established, but the Get-girl story telling Jars against it at times.  Still, around episode 10, there is a swing into some further reaching ground than one teacher and 5 horny teenagers.

I'll say this is just this side of worth my time.  It had some major detractions, but a few well placed gags and some (I'll give it to 'em) charm made this worth the torrent waiting time. 

Oh, yeah, and there's an OVA out there based on the TV series.  Of course with OVAs being not as taughtly monitored by S&P maybe there's some payoff in it.  I'll see if I can't hint it down.

Well, 'till next time then.

C+

[Reply #347 on:]

bump for debate purposes.

[Reply #348 on:]

Hung out with some friends last night, and watched the first DVD of Fruits Basket. Quite an entertaining show, actually.

[Reply #349 on:]

Anime leads to prversion. How many non hentai sex cartoons have you seen ou there? Not that many!

[Reply #350 on:]

Oh my God, just finished up Haibane Renmei (thanks to the old thread  ) I loves it, awesome, it kept me saddened the whole way through, all the episodes were meaningful, every last one.

So sad, yet, wonderful at the same time.

[Reply #351 on:]

 

Originally posted by Wooter:
Anime leads to prversion. How many non hentai sex cartoons have you seen ou there? Not that many!

Yeah, and all Western cartoons are focused on kids only.

Moron.

[Reply #352 on:]

Finished Outlaw Star, finally. While on the whole I thought it was fractured, plot-wise, it was enjoyable. It seemed more like a season to season type of show instead of a self-contained story arc. But I liked it.

[Reply #353 on:]

For some reason Metropolis was being shown (with subtitles) at roughly four o' clock this morning on Channel Four in the UK. Luckily I couldn't get to sleep so I ended up being able to watch it. And it was awesome. Awesome to the max.

[Reply #354 on:]

I thought Metropolis was a German movie by Fritz Lang made in 1927... Are the two somehow related?

[Reply #355 on:]

The film is based upon a manga of the same name, which is itself very loosely based upon Lang's film. From what I've read, the author of the manga claimed that he was inspired by a poster for the film and had not actually seen it while working on the manga itself. So while visually there are some visual similarities between the two, in terms of plot there are hardly any.

[Reply #356 on:]

Pitt asked me to review this, or specifically, to find out if it was "worth watching."
Rozen Maiden

It was EXCELLENT I loved it, definately one of my favorite animes of all time. But it didn't start out that way, when I first saw that my download was completed, I said "about fucking time" and my porn wasn't done yet, so I had to play the waiting game, and what better thing to do than watch the anime that is presented to me.

Anyway, I turned on the first episode, and the music hit me as rather annoying, but about half way through the intro it was actually rather catchy. When the actual episode started, I comepletely hated the character design. By the end of the episode I was commenting to myself on how deep the eyes were. But even at that point I really didn't like it, I found Shinku as rather bossy and annoying. The second episode was worse, I was thinking about not finishing it about halfway through the second episode, doll with an obsessive loneliness issue, uhhh... not my style, but by the end of that episode I was hooked. Rozen Maiden will make you feel whatever emotion it wants you to. There are funny parts of episodes, where I'm busting a gut, and there are sad parts where I'm | | <-this close to crying.

Near the end of the series the dolls take off all their clothes besides their undergarmets, and it was kinda awkward for me I was like "wait, I'm feeling emotion for *dolls* " and then I'm thinking "wait, I'm feeling emotion for characters in an anime." onestly though, I didn't really like the whole "Alice game" story line, the fights were actually pretty tight, but I didn't like the whole "I wanna see daddy" thing, anyway, Guineapig Sez:

Definately worth a download, and if the opportunity presented itself, I may have to force myself to purchase it

[Reply #357 on:]

Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex - 2nd Gig begins its run on Adult Swim next Saturday at 12:30am, for anyone wondering.

[Reply #358 on:]

Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex - 2nd Gig It comes out to buy next feburary here

[Reply #359 on:]

Two things, first: All of you, go and download the Rozen Maiden OST right now, it's not J-Pop or anything, its flutes and violins and pianos, wonderful, and sometimes sad music.

Second:
Rozen Maiden: Träumend

Just started watching it, its still airing in japan, so I'm watching it as they come out, I've only seen two episodes so far, but it seems wonderful just like the first season, but supposedly there'll be more story this time 'round.