The wonderful world of anime...

Since I'm poor, I don't see that much anime besides what I can find on Adult Swim, or (much more occasionally) rent from the video store. Still, in no particular order, I like:

Trigun (kind of a fanatic about this one, actually)
Any movie by Hayou Miazaki, whose name I have probably misspelled
Fullmetal Alchemist
Cowboy Bebop

At some point, I also intend to see Rurouni Kenshin from the beginning, so that I can get into it, and Ghost in the Shell from the beginning, so that I can figure out the setting, because I think there's a lot of stuff I'm missing.

Izunya

I grew up with anime and I love Miyazaki, especially his older, gentler stuff in the 70s. But no, I am not exactly an anime fan.

I like Gilgamesh. And Gatchaman in a nostalgic way.

I used to be a total Otaku. Seriously! Then I sort of lost interest as more and more sci-fi series became available to me (I used to live in India). Right now, I don't watch any anime series although I had a short Inuyasha phase

I think my favorite anime ever was Sailor Moon when I was around 12 No other anime since has gotten me that involved. Now, if I had to chose, I'd say "You're Under Arrest" probably.

Other ones I like/d: Chobits, Vandread, Fushigi Yuugi, Inuyasha, DBZ (way long ago ), Rurouni Kenshin, Ranma 1/2, Candy Candy, Magic Knight Rayearth, Fruits Basket, Card Captor Sakura, Saint Seiya, Fake, Fatal Fury, Ghostsweeper Mikami, Gunsmith Cats, Haibane Renmei...

I also love and still watch any Hayao Miyazaki movie

I *heart* Ghost in The Shell - the series, that is.

Pom Poko, Porco Rosso... Princess M and so on... can't say that I'm in love with Full Metal Alchemist like everyone else, but so it goes...

Ghost in the Shell is awesome. And I love My Neighbor Totoro.

I'll second My Neighbor Totoro. I thought it might be awful and sickly from the cover, but it wasn't.

Spirited Away, Perfect Blue, Grave of the Fireflys and Millennium Actress are all fantastic too.

Favs (TV):
Inuyasha
Naruto
Full Metal Alchemist
Lupin III
Paranoia Agent
Samurai Champloo
Ghost on the Shell S.A.C.


Favs: (film)
Mononoke
Spirited Away
Howl's Moving Castle (way underrated)
Grave of the Fireflies

Satoshi Kon's stuff is always twisted, though Millennium Actress pushed it a little for me. I still have to catch Paprika before it disappears from theaters, and I've gotta get around to buying Perfect Blue.

Forgot to mention .hack//Roots among my favs, and Signs is amazing. I like Twilight Bracelet also but Shugo constantly screaming for his sister gets on my nerves after awhile. Really liked Trinity Blood also, and Bleach though they're stretching the whole Soul Society arc a little long.

I usually hide that I watch anime because of the connotations that go along with watching it. i was hesitant about watching too much in fear I'd turn into an otaku but i have nothing else to do this summer so I'm watching what I can before I go back into hiding during the school year.

My favorites are:

Cowboy Bebop. Anyone who wants to criticize anime for being this or that should watch Cowboy Bebop before making judgment. The artwork, animation, music, voice acting, and direction are all brilliant. There are some moments where it feels like you are watching poetry.

Paranoia Agent. I'm a sucker for anything that explores the nature of society and cultural phenomena. The build up and celebrity around the cute Maromi doll and the villainous Li'l Slugger is something you can see today with the Paris Hilton nonsense only amplified.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The movies bored me but I loved the series. Again this brings up cultural phenomena with the first season's Laughing Man case(with constant references to Catcher in the Rye) except it takes it in a different direction. I love seeing the changes in society due to cyberization and how it changes their approach to solve the cases. And then there's the Tachikomas. Who could hate a show where the military tanks have the minds of children?

Fullmetal Alchemist. Even though I love alchemy for no apparent reason, I thought I would hate this show. It may not be as deep or artistic as the other two, but it's a fun ride with interesting characters set in a steampunk world.

FLCL. It's happy sunshine in a bag covered in rainbows. This show is sheer insanity and bliss. A kid, in a one sided relationship with his older brother's girlfriend, is hit by a vespa scooter-riding alien who later hits him again with a guitar so she can pull robots out of his brain in order to stop an evil corporation that is planning to flatten the world with a giant iron. Yet behind it all is the story of a kid trying to understand maturity.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This one is recent. It has just come over seas and may actually have a second season in production. This show has the honor of having the best first episode of anything. Instead of introducing the characters or story it is a sarcastically narrated movie that is a tribute to the home movies we've all made or have been forced to watch, filled with cliches and continuity errors. The rest of the show is aired intentionally out of order. It is about a strange girl in high school who is bored with the world and wants nothing to do with ordinary people--only aliens, time travellers, and espers. So she decides to make a club in search of them but they may actually be closer than she thinks.

Welcome to the NHK. This is another recent arrival. In this the main character is a guy who has not left his room for three years out of paranoia of the outside world judging him. in the first episode he deduces that the television station NHK is part of a conspiracy to keep people like him lock in their rooms. He encounters strange young woman who wants to cure him as part of a project but is skeptical of her intentions. The show is a mostly down to earth story of how he is trying to escape his introverted lifestyle and become a functioning part of society. Having known people who are just like him makes the show carry a greater significance to me than most other people.

I'm not really a fan of any of the shounen stuff like Naruto, Bleach, Dragonball, Inuyasha because they tend to drag on with fillers and endless power upgrades. The big problem comes from adapting serialized manga that doesn't know where to stop. Plus I like a little more meat on the story than defeat the bad guys or become number one.

The Shōnen stuff does drag on too long, though I don't mind it in the case of Naruto and Inuyasha since I like the characters so much (though Inuyasha's non-ending ending bugs me -- they've played that out in print even for a manga, and there should have been a definite emotional point like Kagome sacrificing herself for the others ).

Thanks for the tip on Veoh.com. I'll be sure to check that out.

I ordered Tsukihime some time ago and it still has not been delivered yet. I'm watching Cowboy Beebop while collecting the DVDs. It's near perfect. Melancholy sounds really good, and now I'll have to find that.

Inuyasha represents everything a series should avoid. It's a shame because I liked it at first. But once the cast was assembled around episode 40 it stopped progressing. Every arc felt like something made up on the spot, never existing in the universe before it was written. The author clearly made up stuff as she went with no real plan or idea how it will all end. Every time they get close to killing Naraku, the main villain, he runs away or shows off a new power. Then Inuyasha and gang have to upgrade his sword to fight that power only to have it work once before Naraku gains some sort of immunity and once again they go on a quest to upgrade. Occasionally they'll try to develop the romance of Kagome and Inuyasha only to have their relationship revert back to the way it was. Then the author kept putting in artificial roadblocks to make them argue in which case it was always Inuyasha's fault, be it checking if his former love was still alive or being worried about Koga trying to steal Kagome away. On top of all that you have an annoying character like Shippo who only exists to observe battles and does nothing else. And now we are at the worst offense of all. After enduring 167 episodes of this bull the show ends with another sword upgrade that does absolutely nothing. The cast is still in the same place as they were in episode 50. I look back and wonder what did I watch over a 100 episodes for?

My eventual hatred of Inuyasha is probably why I liked Fullmetal Alchemist so much. They are both technically in the same genre but are worlds different. In Inuyasha they are looking for the Shikon Jewel and in Fullmetal they are trying to find the Philosopher's Stone. The difference is the jewel in Inuyasha is only a source of power while the Elric brothers are after the stone so they can fix the mistake after they failed to bring their dead mother back to life, which ended up costing literally an arm and a leg. More things happen in one episode than in 100 episodes of Inuyasha.

The author did not want to (or had not the inventiveness to) advance the characters and plot beyond a certain point. Or maybe she fell in love with them and doesn't want to advance their development. I still love the show because I like spending time with the characters, but your objections cannot be argued against. Since the manga is still ongoing (up to episode 511, I think!) maybe at some point Takahashi will end it. Then again, look at what happened with the 'ending' of Mermaid Saga.

Hentai is creepy.

So you would recommend Fate/Stay night? I wonder when the heck is the complete boxset for that finally coming out. (I don't want to get the individual DVDs only to find there's something coming along down the road with extras.)

S. Blackburne said:

You'll love Tsukihime. TYPE-MOON does some great anime.

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I never got the point of it myself.

Celia Cyanide said:

Hentai is creepy.

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Anime is simply Japan's version of America's morning cartoons. And just as there's 100 shitastic shows like My Little Pony and Captain Planet and the Planeteers for every Scooby Doo, there's a 100 wretched anime for every good one.

But that's true of almost anything -- for every Beatles, you get your Spice Girls and that sort of rot. I'm sure there's plenty of crappy anime (Yu-Gi-Oh or whatever it's called gives me a headache), but there's plenty of great stuff too, and it's not like American TV animation is offering a ton of great stuff. Anyway, how much of the horrid stuff makes it from Japan to American TV?

Childeroland -- I write the occasional anime review, which means I end up watching stuff I wouldn't ordinarily. Trust me that plenty of really bad animation makes it to the West, plus a sizable chunk of anime that isn't actually bad but leaves me wondering who's going to buy it because the Western market is going to be very, very limited because of content issues -- mostly alcohol use or too much blood/violence.

Shows I like:

Le Chevalier D'Eon -- I am amazed this show isn't getting more interest. It's by the same director as Rurouni Kenshin, and it's got great political intrigue and appealing characters.

Saiunkoku Monogatari -- I saw the first season in fansubs, but the show's been licensed by Geneon, from what I understand. This is an *awesome* show with a very appealing female lead surrounded by a cast of bishis who are more than just pretty faces -- and the female lead actually manages to not be annoying and is fully fleshed out. It's got a strong theme having to do with woman's lib .... it's set in a mythical quasi-chinese kingdom, and Shuurei is a poor but proud noblewoman who turns down various offers for romance & marriage (fairly believably done) because she wants to become a government official.

RuroKen. *grins* One of my favorite shows ever. It's the series that ate my brain. (Though the manga's better than the anime.)

I've also only seen the first four episodes of Kurau, but I think I'm going to keep watching this one. It's the Japanese answer to American superheros. Very intriguing. (And it's by the same studio that created Fullmetal Alchemist.)

I like Fullmetal Alchemist -- one thing I've found is that a lot of people who don't like it are either turned off by the violence in it and the sometimes extreme emotional impact -- Nina gave me *nightmares* -- or they haven't watched it in order. It's absolutely critical to watch this series in order. It's incredibly tightly plotted and watching it out of order is like reading the chapters of a fantasy novel out of order. IMHO, the anime's better than the manga in this one, too.

I like Inuyasha in small doses because I'm a sucker for Beauty and the Beast themes. Honestly, though? It's one of the very few shows where I will claim that there's a substantial amount of fanfic that is better than the original material. There's some very good fanfic out there for this show that handles the Inuyasha/Kagome relationship a whole heck of a lot better than the author does.