The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime

[KnightWarrior]

It's this

http://www.animeseason.com/strawberry-panic/

[xcrement5x]

Woot, I went to my local anime con over Labor Day weekend (NanDesuKan) and it was a fun time.  I've got a big old list of new stuff to dig through, plus I got a chance to take lots of pictures.

[wildfruit]

Late interjection;
In general I have no emotions, about anything. My wife says I am dead inside and that I can't relate to people. She is probably right.
Gotf bent me over and did me good. O man it's powerful.
That is all.
Each and everyone of you god speed.

Just for some context, I'm assuming you watched it subbed rather than dubbed?

Absolutely. I will always take subbed over dubbed.
Except maybe kikis delivery service. Kirsten dunst has such a cute voice

[ClodBusted]

, plus I got a chance to take lots of pictures.

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Psycho Punch]

Never was much into anime, but I still love Fist of the North Star. Watched the movie and the first part of the Fuji TV cartoon (literally the first part, the episode where Kenshiro kills Shin). Might watch the rest of the episodes.

The Raoh vs Rei fight from the movie is probably the most badass scene ever.

[RyuHayabusa]

Never was much into anime, but I still love Fist of the North Star. Watched the movie and the first part of the Fuji TV cartoon (literally the first part, the episode where Kenshiro kills Shin). Might watch the rest of the episodes.

The Raoh vs Rei fight from the movie is probably the most badass scene ever.

Still my favorite anime series of all time. The movie was one of the first anime I watched and I was hooked after that. You might want to watch further into the TV series. I actually think it doesn't get that good until after the Shin series and Raoh is introduced.

[xcrement5x]

, plus I got a chance to take lots of pictures.

Pics or it didn't happen.

Here you go
https://www.flickr.com/photos/93679370@N00/albums/72157658411200366

[geise]

I loved the Streamline release of FotNS.  Rei: "Looking for these?" The translation was great! lol.  Not really, but added enjoyment for me to the movie.

[RyuHayabusa]

I loved the Streamline release of FotNS.  Rei: "Looking for these?" The translation was great! lol.  Not really, but added enjoyment for me to the movie.

Lol, I showed that scene to my wife a while back and, let's just say she's not a fan.

[Psycho Punch]

I watched the streamline translation too. It makes a lot of changes to the story but it's for the best, considering it's a standalone movie in the US (ie no anime or manga already on the market), the movie is very vague for someone who doesn't know Fist, especially the ending, where... well you know if you watched, no spoilers here. In the US dub they magnified the importance of the flower and the bag of seeds, to "restore earth" so to say, which wasn't really the original idea of the movie.

[ClodBusted]

Here you go
https://www.flickr.com/photos/93679370@N00/albums/72157658411200366

Thank you so much!

[deadly_duck]

I don't think Baccano! has been mentioned.

Gantz is also interesting; not great, but interesting.

[Medic_wheat]

Found vol 3, 5, 6 of R.O.D. TV

Or

Read or die as it is also known at a local CD Exchange complete for $5 each.

Sweet!

Now to find 1, 2, 4, & 7.

Sadly this is a very hard DV series to fin. Loved the OVA as well. Which I still have but sadly it was back when I threw out all of my DVD cases and put them all in a DVD binder. Sigh.


Anyone else watch this short lived but fantastic series?

[ParanoiaDragon]

Read or Die is great, I have the series & the prequal on one of those so called "perfect collection" dvd's sets.  I think I originally saw it on Cartoon Network back when they used to show more anime.

[Medic_wheat]

Read or Die is great, I have the series & the prequal on one of those so called "perfect collection" dvd's sets.  I think I originally saw it on Cartoon Network back when they used to show more anime.

It was something that was so flashy and James Bond like that I gravitated to it. I know I bought the OVA or Movie as I think they called it originally when it first came out. I remember buying it new at a music DVD store at the local mall based on the back cover art and that it looked like it might be fun.

The movie or OVA for the first time in a long long time felt like I really got my money's worth.

Mind you this was when they would give you maybe two episodes off a anime show per DVD and each DVD cost $35 retail.

When the TV show came out I believe it was on Toonamie where I ended up DVRing it and still have the whole series in my binder full of DVRs.


This along with Planets I doubt will ever get re-released on bluray as the companies who originally brought them to the US are now non existent.

Which sucks because I usually only see complete listings for head two shines on eBay if at all and those go for between $140-220.

[xcrement5x]

The ROD OVA is lots of fun, the soundtrack alone is phenomenal and from what I remember the animation quality was great.  ROD the TV is pretty good, I watched it a long time a go though.  The OST on it is solid too though, I think it was brought out by Pioneer/Geneon or the another of those IP holders which has disappeared. 

Gotta love that Nancy ;)

[RyuHayabusa]

Just finished watching Vampire Hunter D on Blu-ray. The colors and clarity are pretty damn good. However, there is a good amount of visible grain in some parts and the new dub isn't as good as the original in my opinion. Hoping that more classic 80s anime gets the Blu-ray treatment soon.

[DragonmasterDan]

Just finished watching Vampire Hunter D on Blu-ray. The colors and clarity are pretty damn good. However, there is a good amount of visible grain in some parts and the new dub isn't as good as the original in my opinion. Hoping that more classic 80s anime gets the Blu-ray treatment soon.

HUGE video upgrade.

But yeah, I like the old dub more, the writing in the old dub even more so than the voice acting.

[xcrement5x]

Today I watched a little short called Pale Cocoon.  It's about 23 minutes long and was a neat little story, takes place in a world where one man's job basically is decryption data from the past to learn about what Earth was like and then stumbling upon a piece of data that leads to more questions. 

[DragonmasterDan]

As many people here know I love old hand drawn anime from the 60s-90s.

Discotek's release of the 1970s Toei Douga version of The Little Mermaid arrived today. I watched and was quite entertained.

[SignOfZeta]

I used to watch that one on 16mm in Elementary school. It has that cool haunting despondency that only anime from that era can achieve.

[DragonmasterDan]

I used to watch that one on 16mm in Elementary school. It has that cool haunting despondency that only anime from that era can achieve.

I think there's a dollar store version of it produced years ago that just includes the edited and dubbed version. (I have the Wonderful World of Hans Christian Andersen that Toei Douga made in the late 60s in a similar dollar store terrible looking format). But this is a nicely transferred, properly colored, subtitled with Japanese audio (and if you want to hear it dubbed it's there too) release.

[ClodBusted]

I just placed my order for the Robot Carnival and Orguss DVDs at Rightstuf. Thank god they're finally accepting Paypal payments. Discotek Media themselves don't accept international orders - bummer! But I think that's not too bad, since Robot Carnival was on discount ($10 off) on Rightstuf. They also claimed that Orguss would be on discount, but I see the same price of $49 shown on Discotek's shop.

I'm so excited!

[xcrement5x]

I actually finally watched Robot Carnival this weekend and was pretty delighted by it, it was worth the time in almost every sense, and the animation looked very very good. 

In the complete opposite side of the spectrum I'm watching a kind of slice of life/coming of age show called Golden Time.  It's fun enough and I just watch it while at the gym still.

[johnnykonami]

I have loved Robot Carnival ever since the Sci-Fi channel was showing anime back in the 90's and have wanted an official DVD of it ever since.  I was thrilled to find out Discotek was doing just that and asked for it for my birthday, here's hoping someone picked it up for me!  Discotek has some pretty great releases.  Maybe one day they'll do Lensman, also.

[SignOfZeta]

I have RC and Lensman on LD, US versions, surpringly good LDs considering so many US LDs kinda suck.

I'll be sure to get the BR too. While Lensman isn't half the movie Robot Carnival is, they are both a good example of what anime used to be like. Even the seriously disappointing stuff like Lensman still kinda kicks ass, it certainly has things modern shows don't.

[johnnykonami]

I agree that Lensman isn't the best thing I've ever seen, but I do have a degree of Sci-fi channel nostalgia for it.  That channel also made me a fan of The New Adventures of Gigantor (and I was already a fan of Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS) cartoons like Bionic 6, Galaxy High School, Mighty Orbots, and really almost all of the stuff they ever made during the 80's), The Prisoner, and probably some others that slipped my mind at the moment.  Which BR are you talking about, BTW?  I thought that Robot Carnival's discotek release was DVD only, unless you are talking about a Japanese BR.

I agree that Anime had a totally different feel back then.  We had a little club and got new freshly taped shows as they aired for a while, and even though there's been a handful (pretty rare actually) of new shows that have come out in recent years, all of my favorites (including themes) are from yesteryear.  Cyberpunk, horror, giant robots, demons, etc. etc. etc. vs. now the cute and bubbly Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC summoning fare of late.  I admit my favorite of all time is Urusei Yatsura though, which is pretty cute and bubbly.  But great!

I never got into the LD scene.  I remember when DVDs were first getting kinda big, and my buddy and I still went to conventions.  He bought a ton of LDs on the cheap then, and I think a couple of players.  I don't think we've ever really watched any of them, they were always such a hassle compared to DVDs.  I'm sure if he had the space at the time and one of the players setup, and it was something we couldn't get otherwise, we might have checked it out.  Still, LDs are a neat piece of history.

[SignOfZeta]

How are LDs "a bother"? You plug it in, you turn it on, you put the movie in. Are you so physically weak that a DVD can be lifted but you need special equipment to lift an LD? I ask because I generally consider them far more convenient than other formats. They don't break or need rewinding like VHS. They don't have stupid menues and unskipable copyright warnings like DVDs. Anything related to random access, freeze frame, or slow motion is still vasty better on LD than any other format. They are also devoid of region locking or copyright protection.

As for BR, I guess I just meant any eventual BR that comes out. I don't do a very good job keeping up with releases these days, but I do buy Discotek stuff from time to time. They are great. I'll rarely go for a DVD if I already have the LD, but the upgrade to BR is essentially for my favorite movies. Nasuciaa, Macross: DYRL, Whisper of the Heart, Unico...

[johnnykonami]

I don't personally own any LDs, but my friend who did had limited space and didn't have any of the stuff hooked up, and all of his discs were in giant vertical stacks so getting the ones out at the bottom of the pile was all the hassle I meant.  Not that they are intrinsically troublesome, sorry about the misunderstanding.  If he had been organized enough to put them into some kind of crate or whatever to thumb through, maybe we coulda enjoyed a couple of them.  God knows if his laserdisc player even works anymore.

[xcrement5x]

How are LDs "a bother"? You plug it in, you turn it on, you put the movie in. Are you so physically weak that a DVD can be lifted but you need special equipment to lift an LD? I ask because I generally consider them far more convenient that other formats. They don't break or need rewinding like VHS. They don't have stupid menues and unskipable copyright warnings like DVDs. Anything related to random access, freeze frame, or slow motion is still vasty better on LD than any other format. They are also devoid of region locking or copyright protection.

As for BR, I guess I just meant any eventual BR that comes out. I don't do a very good job keeping up with releases these days, but I do buy Discotek stuff from time to time. They are great. I'll rarely go for a DVD if I already have the LD, but the upgrade to BR is essentially for my favorite movies. Nasuciaa, Macross: DYRL, Whisper of the Heart, Unico...

A properly upscaled bluray can look very very good if it was originally animated with traditional cel animation. A lot of early computer assisted stuff from the 90's looks pretty meh though.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm not interested in any up scaled BRs. New transfers only, please.

[SignOfZeta]

I don't personally own any LDs, but my friend who did had limited space and didn't have any of the stuff hooked up, and all of his discs were in giant vertical stacks so getting the ones out at the bottom of the pile was all the hassle I meant.  Not that they are intrinsically troublesome, sorry about the misunderstanding.  If he had been organized enough to put them into some kind of crate or whatever to thumb through, maybe we coulda enjoyed a couple of them.  God knows if his laserdisc player even works anymore.

In addition to being a pain to sift through, stacking LDs (or LPs) in like that warps them.

[johnnykonami]

I don't personally own any LDs, but my friend who did had limited space and didn't have any of the stuff hooked up, and all of his discs were in giant vertical stacks so getting the ones out at the bottom of the pile was all the hassle I meant.  Not that they are intrinsically troublesome, sorry about the misunderstanding.  If he had been organized enough to put them into some kind of crate or whatever to thumb through, maybe we coulda enjoyed a couple of them.  God knows if his laserdisc player even works anymore.

In addition to being a pain to sift through, stacking LDs (or LPs) in like that warps them.

Yep, I bet they aren't in good shape either.  He's hardly worthy of being a museum curator.  I gave him some books once and noticed months later they were in the same bag I gave them to him in weighing down on and warping some of the books.  Damn shame.

[DragonmasterDan]

I watched what may be the final Studio Ghibli feature film. When Marnie was there.

I recommend it.

[SignOfZeta]

It's nice to see a hugely profitable studio deciding to take some time off instead of just making...you know, Cars 2 or whatever.

But there is no way this is the final Ghibi movie, as cool as that would be.

[Medic_wheat]

It's nice to see a hugely profitable studio deciding to take some time off instead of just making...you know, Cars 2 or whatever.

But there is no way this is the final Ghibi movie, as cool as that would be.

Deep down I hope this is just a momentary hiatus and they will come back strong in 2-3 years.


For them to move away from feature films is like Disney saying "you know what people really want today?"

ALIENS. I mean Commercials.

[DragonmasterDan]

For them to move away from feature films is like Disney saying "you know what people really want today?"

Disney has answered that with "Live action remake's of our traditional hand drawn classics and CG movies where celebrity voice actors have punchy dialogue" and has basically ended their tradition of doing traditional 2D animated films.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, I don't know WTF is up with Disney. Such disposable crass garbage. They really need to stop designing movies around Metacritic sores. Even stuff like Treasure Planet and Atlantis, themselves hugely dirivitive and kneecapped by cliche and audience pandering, seem impossibly innovative and original compared to a live action Cinderella reboot with %99 CG backgrounds.

There is a rumor, possibly true, I don't know, that Bandai has a 100 year business plan for Gundam. This probably won't be needed! But hey, it's already 35 and bigger than ever before so...maybe. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Disney doesn't have such a plan, or if they do it's terrible. They probably realize by now that subsequent generations find Disney's best work (Snow White, Dumbo, Bambi, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, etc) unappealing if not completely terrifying. The "new classics", Mermaid, Beast, Lion King, despite being 1/4 as old are four times as played out since the animation is cheap, the plots largely interchangeable, and the songs...well, you can only hear that shit so many times. So obviously they need to make new high quality work, but their creativity destroying power structure makes that unlikely. I think they might actually be screwed.

[DragonmasterDan]

They probably realize by now that subsequent generations find Disney's best work (Snow White, Dumbo, Bambi, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, etc) unappealing if not completely terrifying. The "new classics", Mermaid, Beast, Lion King, despite being 1/4 as old are four times as played out since the animation is cheap, the plots largely interchangeable, and the songs...well, you can only hear that shit so many times. So obviously they need to make new high quality work, but their creativity destroying power structure makes that unlikely. I think they might actually be screwed.

I call it "The Aladdin effect".

After Aladdin, Disney and many other animation studios found the "Let's make an animated movie with celebrity voices and pop culture references" formula to be the perfect template for making animated features. None of them did this as well as Aladdin did, and very soon this became the templated design for  almost every entry in the new to the mid 90s genre of completely computer generated animated films, and as they continued to be successful, they found no reason to change this approach. Here we are twenty years later, quality Western 2D animation is dead and all that's left is a constant stream of Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and other garbage studio crap following the same template set but not matched by Aladdin more than 20 years ago.

[turboswimbz]

They probably realize by now that subsequent generations find Disney's best work (Snow White, Dumbo, Bambi, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, etc) unappealing if not completely terrifying. The "new classics", Mermaid, Beast, Lion King, despite being 1/4 as old are four times as played out since the animation is cheap, the plots largely interchangeable, and the songs...well, you can only hear that shit so many times. So obviously they need to make new high quality work, but their creativity destroying power structure makes that unlikely. I think they might actually be screwed.

I call it "The Aladdin effect".

After Aladdin, Disney and many other animation studios found the "Let's make an animated movie with celebrity voices and pop culture references" formula to be the perfect template for making animated features. None of them did this as well as Aladdin did, and very soon this became the templated design for  almost every entry in the new to the mid 90s genre of completely computer generated animated films, and as they continued to be successful, they found no reason to change this approach. Here we are twenty years later, quality Western 2D animation is dead and all that's left is a constant stream of Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and other garbage studio crap following the same template set but not matched by Aladdin more than 20 years ago.

This is a really intresting look at this.   I must say people have gotten quite upset that I hate frozen.  And it's mostly for these reasons, IMO it doesn't stand up to those older classics.   Although growing up with some of the new classics, I must say I really like Lion king and some of the older pixar stuff, but this might have a lot to do with growing up with it in the first place.

[SignOfZeta]

I saw Frozen. It was slightly above average. I don't hate it or anything, but I do have trouble understanding its popularity. I bet the boys in Disney's top secret audience pacification institute have some good data on this, but they probably didn't expect this level of popularity either.

[wilykat]

How are LDs "a bother"? You plug it in, you turn it on, you put the movie in. Are you so physically weak that a DVD can be lifted but you need special equipment to lift an LD? I ask because I generally consider them far more convenient than other formats. They don't break or need rewinding like VHS. They don't have stupid menues and unskipable copyright warnings like DVDs. Anything related to random access, freeze frame, or slow motion is still vasty better on LD than any other format. They are also devoid of region locking or copyright protection.

replacement DVD player: about $5 from Goodwill
replacement BD player: about $50 from Walmart
replacement working LD player: an arm and a leg just to ship it.

Since LD is heavier, the spindle has to handle the weight and I've had a few go bad (sounds like banshee) and these day, replacement spindle can cost almost as much as an used working LD player.

So unless there's new LD players or reasonable priced replacement parts, LD would be rather low on my list.

[SignOfZeta]

The comment was aimed at someone who, probably 10-15 years ago, had a working player in the house already. Nobody is arguing that obsolete technology is a pain in the ass. It usually is, but in this case it wasn't obsolete or a pain, it was just owned by a hoarder idiot who didn't appreciate what he had.

Regarding spindles and the banshee sound: most of the time, if it's really loud and happens during high torque events (i.e.: start, stop, side change) this isn't the spindle, it's just the little rubber sticker that mates with the disc. You can usually get away with just cleaning it, but the sticker is still available from Pioneer for a lot less than a spindle.

Btw: this out of time criticism of LD, that it isn't impossibly cheap like everything else nowadays, amuses me. I have LD box sets that probably cost more than what these punks have spend on home theater in their entire lives. A Bluray player for less than the price of a fancy Bluray disc is a great thing, I have many Blurays, it's completely unfair to someone use that reality against a technology from the 1970s.

[DragonmasterDan]

I recently obtained a Hulu plus subscription and with what free time I've had lately to watch TV I've been watching the TV series of Space Adventure Cobra. It's fantastic, I love the art style, Yuji Ohno's jazzy tunes and the overall pace and flow the the show.

[roflmao]

Not long ago I dug out one of my VHS players and unpacked a box of my old VHS tapes that have been in storage for a long time:


(Click for larger view.)

[ClodBusted]

Pretty nice.
From this point of view, Bubblegum Crash's box design looks like My Little Pony softporn.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, Animeigo had a real weird idea of what graphic design was back then.

[DragonmasterDan]

Yeah, Animeigo had a real weird idea of what graphic design was back then.

I have one of the older bubblegum crisis DVD sets and it's an eyesore sticking out as being bright pink on my shelf. From a distance one might assume it's Barbie or Rainbow Bright.

[SignOfZeta]

The original VHS was actually extremely good. The LDs aren't perfect, but still OK.

I guess...it was the 90s. US companies had some budget to deal with and instead of behaving like Criterion or whatever they all wanted to put their own mark on things. Dubs are a huge part of this, naming compilations that didn't exist in Japan with "funny" parodies of western things was another. Marketing BGC to fans of Barbie...was another, I guess.

All this is mostly over and the guys who are left over are back to doing what they should have been doing all along; taking something previously only available untranslated in the Japanese market and selling it to Americans in a way that it can be appreciated; that is, with subtitles and a much lower price, but otherwise changed as little as possible from the original.

[DragonmasterDan]

This arrived today.

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