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Your All Purpose Anime Thread


J.H.

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On 2/5/2019 at 9:18 AM, J.H. said:

Have you tried Golden Kamuy?
Its a really good period piece set after Sinio-Russo war about a search lost Aiunu gold that somehow still ropes in elements of the Shinsengumi into the story

James

I wasn't into it at first, but I really got into it after I started diving into the second season and started watching the rest.

It's a really weird show. Like the way it mixes slapstick humor shouldn't work, but it does. Like one moment, they could do a scene that's complete and total goofy slapstick, and in the next people are getting shot and their heads blown off. And then in another season they are providing a nice education on Ainu culture and cuisine. Like the Ainu stuff is almost like they are pausing stories to provide educational lessons like that are government mandated...and yet those work for me too. The show had me wanting to try chitatap. 

Here's an example of the show. One of the major antagonists, Tsurumi, is visiting one of his underlings, Nikaidou while he's recovering from getting his freaking foot blown off. Dude's already had his ear cut off and his brother brutally killed by the main protagonist, and he's trying to get a morphine fix. Then Tsurumi comes in and basically treats him like a dog...and yet it's scripted as this goofy, light comedic moment. And it's hilarious. 

I kind of feel like this humor and presentation could work only in Japanese anime and not in Western cinema. 

 

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Been watching a bunch of old time anime I remember from videogame magazines.

 

Project A-ko:  Kindy dopey

Golden Boy: I laughed one time on the very last episode when the original manga artist guy says "Liquor me up!!"

Otaku No Video:  Okay this was the weirdest thing I watched so far.  It's a Woody Allen/Spinal Tap/Reefer Madness thing.   What the hell was this?

I'm 'bout to watch Wings of Honneamise.

EDIT:

As a movie it stunk hard.  The only thing I knew about this movie for like 26 years was that it had a "rape scene" in it.  It wasn't, but it did completely taint the film going forward.  This wasn't like that part in Platoon where Willem Dafoe is all yelling "Get out of there!"  This wasn't even some old time 1950's movie mash-faced kiss that was rebuked.  This was just a bunch of bullshit with a hippy dippy ending. POOP.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ascendance of a Bookworm

Amongst the best webnovel out there is getting any anime! It looks promising, glad they are going the low budget Miyasaki-ish route.

The author was as prolific as you can get with 600+ long chapters (that wasn't droning repetitive crud). It's an isekai, I remember first reading it and seeing the fan trashing the MC as being weak and using OP powers. The novel embodies "knowledge is power."

Edited by turk128
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Anybody watch the Castlevania series Netflix put out? I rented it, got through an episode but had to return it without getting through the other three. I can still borrow it from a friend who bought it, is it worth the time? I kind of shrugged at that episode -- the humor was unexpected, the gore was nice, but I was kind of distracted watching it by internet stuff and thus didn't give it all my attention. 

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56 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Anybody watch the Castlevania series Netflix put out? I rented it, got through an episode but had to return it without getting through the other three. I can still borrow it from a friend who bought it, is it worth the time? I kind of shrugged at that episode -- the humor was unexpected, the gore was nice, but I was kind of distracted watching it by internet stuff and thus didn't give it all my attention. 

The first season felt like a pilot movie for the rest of the series. I enjoyed it because I'm a 'Vania mark, but it wasn't without it's irksome qualities. I always hate it when  TV writing feels too referential to current events. So Warren Ellis put a little dash of that in and me and my wife were rolling our eyes at it.

I'm halfway through the second season and it's pretty fun, but mostly because Dracula's inner circle is fucking awesome and engaging. The heroes kinda drag ass while the story goes into this intrigue between Dracula and his people and wheather he's lost it. But I dig it. I'll have to finish it up soon.

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Thought the first season a decent-solid start but far form anything amazing. Second season was entertaining, not necessarily good, but entertaining. I agree with jaedmc that it was carried by Dracula's crew. Are protagonists were just a bit dry in comparison. the final couple of episodes where shit goes down was easily the highlight.

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I think Castlevania is good, but it definitely suffers from pacing issues in Season 2 when they went from 4 episodes to 8. Secondly, the Warren Ellis snark definitely shows. I think Ellis is a talented writer, but sometimes his brand of snarky humor gets a little obnoxious. 

First season was like too quick. It was basically like a pilot movie as Eivon stated. 

But once season 2 picks up, it is a lot of fun. Basically, Dracula is the protagonist. They did the whole Dracula as tragic antihero bit very well. 

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Alright time to run down all the shit I've been watching for the last two months:

Finished Zombie Land Saga. The series is fantastic. I was surprised at how touching some of the episodes were in the second half. There's an episode about Lily that is pretty incredible. Hoping for a Season 2. I read somewhere they sold a ton of blurays so I'm hoping that's enough incentive to keep going.

We've only got 5 or so episodes to go of Hinomaru Sumo and the big tournament arc is fucking epic. I love the team, particularly the Ozeki and "National Treasure Eater" Kunisaki. The last episode we watched on Funimation, where team weakling Kei Mitsuhashi basically turned heel on the Sumo fans in an attempt to get his first win had me and my sons jumping out of our seats. That's a huge reason why I enjoy it - me and the kids get fucking FIRED UP. The downside is the second half opening theme is a super catchy song called BE THE NAKED, and I don't need my 5 year old chanting that at school.

I ended up getting a VRV subscription since it's inexpensive and includes stuff we were already paying for like Shudder, and decided to jump into Elfen Lied. I don't even remember why I even know about it. I'd just heard it was crazy, and I wanted something crazy. I actually liked this okay. There was some annoying shit, but I really dug the idea and some of the blood and guts scratched my gore hound itch.  It also felt really rushed, but I don't know if I'd actually want 24 episodes or more of it, if that makes sense.

I've been watching Harakuna Receive while I paint. Funimation apparently lists it as Fan Service, but other than the fact that they're playing volleyball on the beach, it's pretty tame and rarely ever gross. It's a very mellow show about friends "trying their best!". I mostly dig the beach vibe, as it usually has it seems like it's almost always sunset and everyone is just chill. I don't know if I'd give it a recommendation, but it's definitely a good background watch.

My wife and I started Attack on Titan like 2 years ago. We got to around the point in the first season where Eren is captured by the military and they're trying to figure out what the fuck to do with him.    We didn't really watch it again until last month. It just became one of those shows where we kept moving it down the list of options. It wasn't bad, as we both agreed the world was super fucking cool and the Titans are great monsters. But Eren sucks. So we picked it back up and decided to keep going after Levi showed up and beat the fuck out of Eren in front of everyone. Then the Lady Titan showed up and we have pretty much binged the rest of the show with only four episodes left of Season 3. The Lady Titan arc is one of my favorite storylines in any TV show. I just loved that fucking thing.

Between that and Season 2, it just felt like the show stopped being just about Eren and more about something much much bigger. The background characters started to become more awesome as we learned more about them, and the constant mystery about what is going on has us riveted. I love how character just say shit and you're like "Wait, what the fuck did he just say, did you catch that?" but the show doesn't really signal to you that some crazy info just dropped. The reveal of the Armored/Colossal Titan was fucking awesome. 

So the show went from being a mild disappointment to one that we can't stop talking about pretty quickly. 

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3 hours ago, turk128 said:

@jaedmc I highly recommend Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. Same Studio as AoT but they learn much from working on AoT and Iron Fortress is the better for it.

Kabaneri was badly rush around halfway through.

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All caught up on Attack of Titan now. The last three episodes were good. The Kenny Episode was one where I was like "I like this character but I don't want to watch a whole episode about him." deals. The last one was a lot of fun and a good reprieve from the drama - so I anticipate this second half to knock my balls off with insanity. 

I think what I like about the show was that the mysteries are Lost levels of intriguing, but I've yet to feel like the author doesn't know what it means or what's coming next. The payoffs have been solid to spectacular so far.

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20 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

How come I never knew about that?

My introduction to anime was actually an anime Dracula when I was a kid. I guess because it was a cartoon my parents thought it was safe... it wasn't.

I fucking love that unless there's more Dracula anime than I'm aware of, your first exposure was probably a Japanese adaptation of American comics ("Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned" was a baffling Tomb of Dracula adaptation from 1980)

Edited to add: My first exposure was the double-shot of Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets.  I didn't know they were Japanese, I just knew those and Voltron made me happy so I bought multiple terrible NES games as a kid because the package art reminded me of those shows.  My first viewing after finding out so much of the shit I loved was anime was the Sci-Fi Channel's marathon of Lensman, Robot Carnival and Vampire Hunter D.

Edited by Cliff Hanger
avoiding a double post
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Well hell, I remember Speed Racer too but just barely haha. Really now that it's mentioned, Voltron was my first exposure. After some investigation, the Dracula in question is nowhere to be found even though 1. I swear I found it before online somewhere, and 2. my memories do not compute with the Tomb of Dracula film, though my memories of it in general are damn near nonexistent. So it's probably the Tomb of Dracula film.

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Speed Racer, Tekkaman, & Robotech were my first anime though Dragonball was the first show I watched that I actually recognized as anime.  I might have watched Voltron as well though I can't recall due to how long its been. I know my older brother did so I would guess yes.

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On 3/21/2019 at 9:50 PM, Curt McGirt said:

How come I never knew about that?

My introduction to anime was actually an anime Dracula when I was a kid. I guess because it was a cartoon my parents thought it was safe... it wasn't.

Yes, there was anime before all this (I basically consumed all the cartoons in the late 80s/early 90s), half of  them were anime dubs... but I really can't say that it was what exposed me to 'anime' since nobody referred to it like a separate genre from western cartoons. Technically, they do count but my favorite being the Robotech trilogy dubs/edit is vastly different from it's original.

My first exposure to anime was Fist of the North Star movie, fansubbed tape my co-worker at Great America gave me. Followed by Record of Lodoss War OVA... he was a bro for sure. (He was also amongst the top Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat player at that time, I worked at the arcades alongside him and a couple others.)

Everyone thinks that Cartoon Network was what started the craze but it was really the Silicon Valley PBS station. They made the fantastic mistake of allowing anyone to vote on what they wanted to see so the hardcore anime fans of that time did. They volunteered and went out of their way to spread the love of anime. It came out of the  great fansub scene (we're talking about tape trading here, not internet) and anime clubs.

Publishers noticed it and started buying up the rights to practically every anime that was 1/2 way decent. The video rental stores' anime section had it's own shelf.

We also made Michael Flatley (Lord Of The Dance) internationally famous too... fuck it, we dug the shit out of him back then.

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Mine was probably either Voltron or Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs. Though at the time, I never realized that Saber Rider originated from Japan as Star Musketeer Bismarck. They even changed the show to make the blonde, anglo-looking dude the main guy and "leader" of the time, while the original protagonist and lead character, a young hotheaded Japanese character the second banana, while in the original, he was actually the team leader. 

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