General anime discussion thread

[SomethingOrOther]

Secret: Very good long-form dramatic fiction, whether literature or film/TV, nearly always makes me cry. Dripping tears that soak my eyelashes and irrigate my cheeks. And I don't consider it unmanly, emo, pathetic, or even whatever.

Guess that's not a secret anymore. Well it wasn't a secret anyway.

[Camilla Delvalle]

Is anyone watching Hyouka? I think it is interesting so far. It's another high school series, apparently with a mystery theme and a detective. The main character remids somewhat of Tomoya in Clannad. Sometimes the animation has interesting 3D effects. I'm gonna study them again now.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by Camilla Delvalle

Is anyone watching Hyouka? I think it is interesting so far. It's another high school series, apparently with a mystery theme and a detective. The main character remids somewhat of Tomoya in Clannad. Sometimes the animation has interesting 3D effects. I'm gonna study them again now.

Yep, I'm watching it. I think it's quite fun. It certainly looks great. I'll reserve my judgement, though. I like the mystery vibes applied to slice-of-life aspects; I hope it stays like this. It's a really cute concept - the mystery without the danger.

I have no eye for animation, except that I know when I like what I'm seeing. Visually, I like the show well enough. For me, it's like Hanasaku Iroha. It looks really pretty, and sometimes it has stunning pictures, but on the whole the visuals feel... too polished. Like there's a perfection to it that locks me out (it's a hard feeling to express...).

I'm pretty neutral about the characters. So far, I find the male best friend the most interesting character, which is certainly not what I expected. Library girl has potential to go either way. I find both the main characters rather... servicable. (The last time I felt like that about characters in a mystery show was Kamisama no Memochou, which I ended up dropping.)

I'd probably have liked the show better last season, but this season there's just too much competition, so it's near the bottom on my priority list (even below the Lovecraft school girls, which isn't something I expected when looking at the previews... <.< >.> >.< ). Even when it comes to mystery clubs this season I actually prefer the metaphysical research club of Tasogare Otome x Amnesia (a show which is surprisingly fun for me).

[Camilla Delvalle]

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

I'm pretty neutral about the characters. So far, I find the male best friend the most interesting character, which is certainly not what I expected.

Yes, it's refreshing to see a secondary male that is not a butt monkey. I think Houtarou is interesting, but Chitanda seems too stupid.

Even when it comes to mystery clubs this season I actually prefer the metaphysical research club of Tasogare Otome x Amnesia (a show which is surprisingly fun for me).

Ok, I've caught up with this, and it is certainly more dynamic. Also a bit scary sometimes.

[kuwisdelu]

I'm also loving Dusk Maiden of Amnesia. (UTW translates the title, so I just go with that.) Best. Ghost. Ever.

Sankarea is also great.

My new SSD just arrived. Trying to back everything up so I can install it. A task definitely made harder by the vast amount of anime that has accumulated on my hard drive.

[SomethingOrOther]

And then celebrate by releasing a story to keep the dedicated howling fankuws at GooeyForKuwi.com pleased.

[kuwisdelu]

You'd think the least they could do for a dub is make sure they're pronouncing the characters' names correctly, right? But nooooo. Anything three syllables or longer and they always put the emphasis on the wrong syllable. (Almost always the second one, when the Japanese pronunciation has the emphasis on the first... Why do they always get it wrong?)

Originally Posted by SomethingOrOther

And then celebrate by releasing a story to keep the dedicated howling fankuws at GooeyForKuwi.com pleased.

The URL doesn't work.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by kuwisdelu

You'd think the least they could do for a dub is make sure they're pronouncing the characters' names correctly, right? But nooooo. Anything three syllables or longer and they always put the emphasis on the wrong syllable. (Almost always the second one, when the Japanese pronunciation has the emphasis on the first... Why do they always get it wrong?)

It's probably hard to switch prosody-system mid-speech? Don't know.

***

My favourite show this season is Mysterious Girlfriend X. Scissors shaped tanline... heh.

[Dawnstorm]

Okay, Hyouka episode 3 was the best yet of that show, but that's not why I'm writing. Am I imagining things, or are they playing classical music in the background? I know the opening piece (when they talk in the café); I think it might be something by Händel. Then there's the piece near the end when Oreki's reading from the anthology: I'm thinking it might be something by Grieg (but I'm worrying that it's just interference from "Solveig's Song" which it most definitely isn't). They often have music in the background, and I'm never sure if they're just trying to catch the mood, or if they actually use classical pieces. I suck at recognising that sort of stuff, but not enough that I miss it. [I'm positive the first one's a classical piece, and I'm thinking Händel, though I'm unsure what.]

Anyone know more than me?

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

I think it might be something by Händel.

Nope, Bach.

[kuwisdelu]

Two words: SPACE LESBIANS!

[SomethingOrOther]

I'm two episodes into Serial Experiments Lain and I'll cross my fingers because it might end up having my favorite vibe of any animated show ever.

I like the intentional incompleteness of much of the animation, I love the whole torpid, dreamlike feel of everything, and I want the buzz noise that recurs every time the power lines are in the shot to have my babies. Best use of semi-diegetic sound I can remember.

[kuwisdelu]

Originally Posted by SomethingOrOther

I'm two episodes into Serial Experiments Lain and I'll cross my fingers because it might end up having my favorite vibe of any animated show ever.

I like the intentional incompleteness of much of the animation, I love the whole torpid, dreamlike feel of everything, and I want the buzz noise that recurs every time the power lines are in the shot to have my babies. Best use of semi-diegetic sound I can remember.

Lain is my second favorite anime after Eva.

Everything else is so far behind, I don't even know what's vying for the third spot.

(I just remembered I finally watched Utena.)

[Camilla Delvalle]

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

My favourite show this season is Mysterious Girlfriend X. Scissors shaped tanline... heh.

Wow! She is weird! And a tsundere.

[SomethingOrOther]

Do you guys/girls prefer watching and listening with dubs (assume they are good) or with subtitles and Japanese audio?

[kuwisdelu]

Originally Posted by SomethingOrOther

Do you guys/girls prefer watching and listening with dubs (assume they are good) or with subtitles and Japanese audio?

Well, considering most anime I watch is very recent and only available via Crunchyroll's subs or fansubbed, I watch most subbed with Japanese audio.

When I watch older shows for which a dub is available, I usually try both. For many older shows, the English dub is godawful and I switch to the Japanese audio with English subtitles. (I tried the Nanoha and Utena dubs a couple times and immediately switched back to the subbed versions.)

There are exceptions, of course. Some have superlative subs like Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, and FLCL, and I always watch the dub. Some like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain I almost always watch dubbed now because that's how I first heard them, and I think they're pretty good even though a lot of fans vastly prefer the subbed versions. Some stuff, like Miyazaki's, Kon's, and Shinkai's films, I can't decide, end up flipping back and forth, or don't even notice which one I'm watching until I remember the other track exists.

And for the more recent shows that I end up buying after having seen it fansubbed first, I usually watch dubbed. The English seiyuus are more or less pretty decent these days, and lots of times if I'm rewatching a show, I'll want to be doing something else at the same time, which is harder when I don't really understand Japanese outside of a few common (in anime) phrases.

[BigWords]

For the shows I have on DVD I watch both the subbed and dubbed versions. I also watch with commentaries, if there are any, and sometimes with audio downloads where people talk about events in the episode as they happen - then again, I read up on the series I watch extensively before and after I watch them. "Casual viewing" isn't in my vocabulary...

[Dawnstorm]

I watch almost exclusively subs. I only watch dubs when subs are not available (TV broadcasts or cinema would be an example of that). That goes for anything, not just anime. It's less important for documentaries, though.

[MVK]

I much prefer subs over dubs, personally. But I love DVDs for giving options.

I've just finished watched Souleater which was pretty awesome until the Gainex ending. When even a character is saying 'How the hell is this happening?' you know they went really off the rails.

Next, finally going to watch Darker Than Black.

[Camilla Delvalle]

Always dubs, because I'm learning the language. The exception is Paprika, where I sometimes use the sub because it contains more information and better jokes. Maybe that's true for some other shows too?

[Anna L.]

Originally Posted by SomethingOrOther

Do you guys/girls prefer watching and listening with dubs (assume they are good) or with subtitles and Japanese audio?

I hate English dubs. I always find the voice acting terrible. Then again, there's also a lot of truly horrific French dubs. I once came across an episode of Supernatural dubbed in French and I wanted to weep.

I always stick to the original language. If it's one that I don't fully understand, like Japanese, then subtitles it is.

[Shadow Dragon]

I prefer dubs. I don't get why people hate a lot of dubs. Yeah, the older ones weren't that good, but pretty much from the late nineties onward, they've been fine. And I prefer to actually hear them saying their lines rather than reading the line and looking to see what kind of emotion they have while talking.

[Shadow Dragon]

I just finished Eden of the East (only the series, not the movies) and it was really good. It's art style was a really good blend realistic and stylized. The basic story is that eleven Japanese citizens were given a gigantic amount of money (basically making them billionaires by American standards) and told to fix the country. Also to help accommodate this, they've been given a contact that has an unlimited amount of government influence, allowing to use the government and nearly all of the major businesses in Japan as tools and giving them the ability to do just about anything you can imagine. Definitely worth checking out.

I've also been watching Tower of Druaga, a fantasy series set in a wold overrun with demons, most of which come from the Tower of Druaga. The main character, Gil, is trying to climb to the top of the tower, which is hundreds of stories tall, in order to defeat the demon lord and stop them. It's a pretty well written story that balances comedy and drama effectively. Also, episode five was just brilliant. One of the funniest anime episodes I've ever seen.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by Shadow Dragon

I don't get why people hate a lot of dubs.

I don't hate them. I just don't watch them if there's the alternative. Reading can be a problem in shows with lots of complicated dialogue, but it mostly isn't for me.

I've watched lots of German dubs in my life, because that's what I got on TV. Seeing the first subbed anime was a revelation. Some of the stuff that made people sound naive in German suddenly made sense. I simply lose more with listening to dubs than with reading subs. (And with subs I can re-watch scenes to get rid of the reading-problem; no amount of re-watching will get rid of the dub-loss, though.)

But, yeah, there are good dubs out there. Pretty much all Ghibli stuff I've seen was dubs (cinema or TV).

[SomethingOrOther]

Serial Experiments Lain's imagery made me realize the potential of writing literature whose standard of verisimilitude isn't any of the usual worlds--such as Earth, outer space, a surreal version of Earth, or a fantasy world such as middle Earth, etc.--but some animated world.

The cool thing is even if the reader doesn't know that our imagery and laws of physics correspond to that of a cartoon world, they can perceive it as metaphor or exaggeration for comic effect, kind of like in this passage in Pynchon's V.:

He would stand on the fantail and harangue whoever would listen, flannelmouthed through aching gums. When his mouth had healed he was presented with a gleaming, regulation set of upper and lower plates. "Oh God," he bawled, and tried to jump over the side. But was restrained by a gargantuan Negro named Dahoud. "Hey there, little fellow," said Dahoud, picking Ploy up by the head and scrutinizing this convulsion of dungarees and despair whose feet thrashed a yard above the deck. "What do you want to go and do that for?"

"Man, I want to die, is all," cried Ploy.

"Don't you know," said Dahoud, "that life is the most precious possession you have?"

"Ho, ho," said Ploy through his tears. "Why?"

"Because," said Dahoud, "without it, you'd be dead."

"Oh," said Ploy.

Its sole purpose can be to influence how the story is created--the imagery, the mood/tone, etc.--from the writer's perspective.

This territory has been well staked out, I'm pretty sure, but it's cool that this show made me think about it.

Originally Posted by kuwisdelu

There are exceptions, of course. Some have superlative subs like Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, and FLCL, and I always watch the dub.

About to start FLCL after I finish with Serial Experiments Lain, which I wish would go on and on. I disliked the cliched villain tone of Masami Eiri's voice and kind of expected him to bloom a mustache and twiddle it. I'll attribute that to the dub, and that little bit is about all I've disliked so far (ten episodes in).

I've read a few earlier comments in this thread about FLCL being bizarre, so popcorn.jpg.

Originally Posted by Anna L.

Then again, there's also a lot of truly horrific French dubs. I once came across an episode of Supernatural dubbed in French and I wanted to weep.

*bad French accent* je pas beacoup le croissant double entendre vous a la monde Pierre Mustache french fries.