Anime for people who hate anime

it's aliiiiiive!
Mitsuo Iso's long awaited film Chikyugai Shonen Shojo has a trailer and a date
(if you don't know Iso he was a key animator on various Gundams, Porco Rosso, Ghost in the Shell film, Evangelion, Perfect Blue, FLCL etc etc + director of the criminally underrated Dennou Coil)

【特報公開】#電脳コイル 磯光雄監督最新作

オリジナルアニメ『#地球外少年少女』

2022年1月28日前編、2月11日後編、各2週間限定劇場上映
劇場公開版Blu-ray&DVD同時発売予定https://t.co/Xiyb31IpHA pic.twitter.com/HDLImA2jue

— 地球外少年少女_オリジナルアニメ公式 (@Chikyugai_BG) October 27, 2021

nice, hope he's still got it, i'm a huge fan of dennou coil

Cyber City Oedo 808- it's nice enough, love the insanely tall buildings, the futuristic vampire story and half robot sabretooth tigers. A lot of what interested me most was in the features. The screenwriter written 3 novels continuing the story and he went on to write futuristic ghost stories.

It wasn't that successful in japan and the UK version is almost a different film. Manga Entertainment not only added new soundtracks to some of their films/series but they deliberately tried to make the dialogue swearier and edgier to put the age rating up and added jokes that weren't originally there too (this makes me look at Devilman in a new light). The tone of the original japanese Cyber City is totally different, a surprising number of people prefer the UK version. I understand people preferring the UK soundtrack (it's included as a bonus disc), I absolutely love the UK soundtrack to Fist Of The North Star series because there was a greater feeling of desolation. One of the guys at Manga Entertainment talks about why he created new soundtracks and I do think that maybe in japan they're a bit too willing to just slap some cheesy pop or rock in there, maybe those bands are popular? I would generally prefer to hear what the director intended but I can't deny how good some of the new soundtracks are.

Manga Entertainment's catalogue was quite limited in genre (mostly violent action and cyberpunk) and targeted young men too much (they used Celtic Frost and KMFDM in their advertising) and it was a surprise to some that Cyber City had a lot of girl fans who loved Benten. I didn't realize that anime fans are actually quite keen on all the fan culture and history that develop outside japan, I thought they might deem it impure.

Big thanks to Zappi for the bluray link

Den-noh Coil has just turned up on Netflix, I've been wanting to watch that one for quite some time now! I managed to track down another long-time anime curiosity, Princess Tutu, on HiDive, and I'm completely hooked.

those are the 2 best animes of the 00s, enjoy

I am, and also just discovered (not Princess) Mononoke is on Youtube, apparently in its entirety, I'm gettin completely spoiled here

that's #3

canadian netflix has every ghibli movie fwiw

I'm also watching Den-noh Coil. It's some of the most fresh and original cyberpunk I've ever seen on film. The way the show translates internet phenomena from its time into a fantastical yet mundane augmented reality future net is so much fun. All of the children in it are so well drawn. This show understands the 5th grade mindset on a deep level.

there's also Kaiba if you want another really unique take on cyberpunk anime. dunno if its streaming anywhere though

weirdly Kaiba just got a blu ray release in the UK, not that I’m complaining but such an odd decision
thread is making me want to rewatch Dennou Coil, great show even though it destroyed Mitsuo Iso’s career for a decade

apparently it's on Netflix? at least in the UK it is

Both Den-nou and Orbital Children are on US Netflix, just checked. Will try to check them out!
The screen of Den-nou I saw actually reminds me a lot of Inio Asano's manga, Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction

Got to see INU-OH on the big screen recently. Hadn't seen anything by its director before but this pretty much blew me away: blind kid reaches Noh fame by singing the songs of a defeated tribe, joins up with neglected son of Noh director and they become glam rock stars in feudal Japan. Some amazing visuals; the songs might go on for a bit too long for some tastes but I couldn't get enough of them. Well worth checking out.

for sure check out other stuff by Yuasa if you liked that. The Tatami Galaxy, Ping Pong the Animation, Kaiba, Keep Your Hands off Eizouken are all great series

You gotta check out Mind Game

it's phenomenal

i forgot to post about it, but everyone needs to watch YA BOY KONGMING

lol, i've been reading the manga. it is super nerdy.

i liked the first bit of the anime but cooled on it as it got less funny and more dramatic

it pretty much turned me into a three kingdoms otaku, to the extent that i imported a pc-engine cd game from japan featuring a soundtrack by ymo's yukihiro takahashi

Where is that streaming?

hidive, apparently
https://www.hidive.com/tv/ya-boy-kongming?q=kongming

Well, I'm on Hi-Yah! but no HiDive... shrug

KONGMING also has a top 10 greatest opening tunes of all time, all the way from ecuador via hungary to japan

http://i.imgur.com/f7cCy6I.png

truthbomb

I get around that by never talking about anime to anyone I know lol

The first thirty episodes of Monster are on Netflix now, well worth a watch

Strange they'd only do the first half, but I guess streaming rights are funky. I should really dig into that, the manga is one of my all-time favorites.

been getting into anime lately in a quest to fulfill all of the trans girl stereotypes, here's what i've found so far

ashita no joe - only saw the first episode but this shit fucks, apparently the sequel is even better?
cromartie high school - saw first episode again, kinda adult swim style but without the gross-out stuff, a little too "lol random" for me but i was surprised to find that the king crimson-style prog group bi kyo ran did the soundtrack. as crim clones go i prefer anekdoten but it certainly gives the anime a unique feel
garzey's wing - this is what people who don't watch anime think anime is like
legend of the galactic heroes - i'm eating this shit up, epic space opera of my dreams here

i've got a long list of other stuff to check out but legend of the galactic heroes is like 110 episodes, and after that's done i want to check out galaxy express 999, which is even longer...

original LoGH so good! I tried watching the recent remake but iirc they replaced all the classical music with bombastic anime slop, booo.

I've been watching Aura Battler Dunbine which is this nutso series from 1983 made by Gundam people, it has all this crazy fantasy stuff as well as the mecha. don't know if I even like it yet, but it's certainly unique and unpredictable - one early episode had a drunken fairy spy infiltrating an army made up of unicorn cavalry and giant insect mechs?!?

i was inspired by your post and i put it on my "to check out" list, so it turns out the reason it has mechas is because the gundam guy did a manga that was supposed to be a change of pace, but when it came time to do the anime the suits were like "so, uh, there are gonna be mechas in this, right?" and he was like "uh... wasn't planning on it" and they were like "well, truth be told, the reason we green-lit this is because we were under the impression there would be mechas in it" and he sighed and was like "fine, i'll put in mechas"

i also found out that it was the first isekai anime. i've been watching this guy named, uh, geoff thew, who is somehow american despite having one of the most british names i've ever heard anywhere, and he just super hates isekai. which also means that i've been paying attention to him a lot, because it turns out that the people who hate anime are the same people as the people who really love anime. i guess that makes sense.

it also turns out that the particular isekai world, called byston well, is also the setting for one of the most incoherent OVAs I've ever seen called Garzey's Wing, which i found out about at a panel on "the worst anime ever" at gencon in 2011. i would definitely class this as "anime for people who hate anime" because it's hilarious.

i can't believe 2011 was 12 years ago. anyway it looks like a lot has happened in anime since then. i admit i've gone on a bit of a binge.

most depressing thing in anime is looking for lgbtq+ content. apparently there's one anime that handles trans themes well called hourou musuko, and it was made in fucking 2011. other than that it's all subtext. geoff thew did a video on what he called a "lesbian golf anime" and it's all subtext. anime seems to be really, really into queer-baiting. birdie wing is a really fucking good show from what i've seen, tho.

also, why is nobody a fucking adult in any goddamn anime ever? i know i'm not the first person to remark on this but seriously, it doesn't matter what genre i'm in, there are just no goddamn adults around and it's more than creepy, it's _irritating_.

it's really not hard to find queer anime at all, there's plenty of stuff with direct gay romances, especially recently. the current gundam series, one of the biggest franchises there is, is centred around one - that's admittedly well outside the norm, but there are extensive subgenres dedicated to gay romance so just look up those if that's what you want

the romance in birdie wing is currently subtext (because it's focused on being an absurd golf soap opera) but it's weird to call it queerbaiting when the characters are pretty openly gay

hourou musuko is pretty mediocre overall (just kinda basic and uninteresting) but deserves some credit for being an ok trans 101 story that started publication back in 2002 (the manga that is)

for a long time it was subtextual bc of tv censors

at least this is my understanding from being a kunihiko ikuhara fan

re: trans rep there's not much at all in the way of good anime focused on transness but there's not exactly a plethora of good western tv focused on transness either.

you do casually encounter solid trans representation from time to time though, even in very mainstream stuff. hunter x hunter had a trans character as a major character in one arc, and even one piece, which otherwise has an extremely messy record wrt queer representation, had a trans woman side character recently who was handled well

Princess Jellyfish had a decent attempt at writing a trans character iirc
I thought the Hourou Musuko anime was really good, the manga is better tho and goes into more depth
can't say I'm an expert but it feels like there is very little stuff in between queer baiting and then full on yaoi/yuri porn

the character in princess jellyfish isn't really trans, he's an effeminate man with a crossdressing hobby who can pass as a woman but doesn't identify as one, which is a weirdly common trope. trans-adjacent, sure, but pretty detached from transness as it actually exists

it feels like there is very little stuff in between queer baiting and then full on yaoi/yuri porn

this is kinda true for stuff about gay male romance (not like it's nonexistent though, there's been the occasional prominent anime like yuri on ice in recent times) but definitely not for lesbian stuff

the first time i encountered lesbian relationships in media was through anime, it was like every other show (may be inaccurate due to sample size)

Yuri on Ice is gay, yeah, they even kiss in it. There’s also all kinds of interesting subtexts like the fact that Victor shot to stardom as a skater with long hair and would wear androgynous costumes (he actually says “because my hair was long then, my costume emphasised both masculinity and femininity.”) Another character has a breakthrough when he realises he needs to identify with the woman in a skating performance. None of this is played for laughs. It’s subtle, but it’s very present.

an effeminate man with a crossdressing hobby who can pass as a woman but doesn't identify as one, which is a weirdly common trope

would you say lancer / yellow dancer from robotech s3 / genesis climber mospeada qualifies?

i was a member of my high school’s anime club (91-95) and people were really into fist of the north star, akira, vampire hunter d etc

but what was *really* popular was ranma 1/2, like super popular. a lot of meetings we just watched ranma. that’s the one where the main guy changes into a girl when he falls into water (and his dad turns into a, uh, bear). maybe i’m imagining but iirc there are similar plot points in dragonball?

curious how / if that sort of stuff relates

i haven’t watched it in a long time but i do recall the water thing was presented as a “curse”

would you say lancer / yellow dancer from robotech s3 / genesis climber mospeada qualifies?

i have no idea about robotech but after some quick googling this seems to fall into what i described while still not being exactly the sort of thing i was thinking of when i said it's a common trope, just based on vibes

but what was *really* popular was ranma 1/2, like super popular. a lot of meetings we just watched ranma. that’s the one where the main guy changes into a girl when he falls into water (and his dad turns into a, uh, bear). maybe i’m imagining but iirc there are similar plot points in dragonball?

curious how / if that sort of stuff relates

― the late great

ranma is a _huge_ influence on a lot of the trans people i know, my particular form of denial meant that i worked really hard to avoid that kind of stuff. but a lot of trans folks come from a background of being into "transformation fic", where (typically) men are transformed into women and gosh darn it wouldn't you know they wind up liking it a lot. gender swap was also a theme in the acclaimed film _your name_ but there's a fuck of a lot more going on in that movie. personally i'd like to see a gender-swap anime where the characters have to deal with dysphoria. i think that would really be interesting.

the ones on my check-out list (i'm more interested in lesbian representation than gay male representation) are adachi and shimamura, bloom into you, liz to aoi tori, and asagao to kase-san

one of them i guess is a side movie to hibike euphonium? which is now on my list because fucking euphonium, shit

maybe i'm being too demanding, particularly not having seen all of the series. i did read the first couple issues of the manga of "wandering son" (hourou musuko) and it was really good quite honestly, _particularly_ knowing that it was from 2002! i'm just sensitive because there _is_ a lot of... problematic stuff in anime, at least from what i've heard... lots of noncon slavery and apparently incest, incest seems to be huge over there. also, like, sexualizing 12-year-olds, and constant fucking creepshots. i feel like i really need to tread carefully, at least with the historical stuff - which i'm really into!

one of the things i've been delving into... one of my friends did english dubbing in the phillipines for some anime broadcasts... he worked on mazinger z and the last two parts of the "robot romance" trilogy, voltes v and daimos. he was working on the questor productions dubs, not the m&m productions dubs (which were out of hawaii). well, let me just quote what he says about his work on those shows:

That wiki lists the original dubbing cast, but it was a lot more flexible than that.
The dubbing team was made up of theater and film actors doing it for a hoot and some extra money.
Most of the time we didn't even know what the episode was all about because we only saw the scenes we would be in.
The directors weren't worried about doing a good sync. The animation quality basically allowed you to fit your line in however you were able to as long as your character was onscreen.

he mostly did villains and old men. the story on that is pretty interesting, marcos pulled it from airing a few episodes before the finale on the grounds of "excessive violence", but nobody believed that. it turns out he caught on that at least one of the animes was a story of rebellion against an evil dictator... apparently the stories are fondly remembered there. not sure if there are english dubs of voltes v and daimos that _aren't_ by questor...

his working on english dubs has kind of made me delve into more dubs... one of the famous ones is for a 2000 series called "ghost stories". it's kind of a mediocre anime from what i've seen... the dubbing team were led to believe that it was a flop and they were desperate to get it a us release, though this may not be true. whatever the reason, the dubbing team were given _very limited_ constraints - basically make sure you keep the basic plot and characters - and just overdubbed it with the most outrageous shit they could... often so-called "gag dubs" are fucking awful but from what i've seen of it this dub is actually fucking great. there's some stuff that would've been considered ok in the era but wouldn't be today, but it's the kind of "offensive" stuff that i find actually funny rather than being offensive for its own sake. anyway definitely recommended for people into "anime for people who hate anime".

i also found this very prescient description for bubblegum crisis, one of those other animes that was really big in the '90s but doesn't get talked about now:

Originally created to benefit humanity, the mysterious corporation known as Genom now produces Boomers with incredible destructive power as a new type of advanced weaponry, capable of disguising themselves as humans.

The AD Police is a new special unit to counter the ever-increasing Boomer-related crimes. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of crimes and disparity in strength, the AD Police poses little opposition to the Boomers. A mysterious vigilante force known as the Knight Sabers, wearing powersuits more advanced than the military, is the citizens' only hope for protection. Led by Sylia Stingray, Priscilla "Priss" Asagiri, Nene Romanova, and Linna Yamazaki, these beautiful girls take out any Boomer that steps out of line.

an effeminate man with a crossdressing hobby who can pass as a woman but doesn't identify as one, which is a weirdly common trope

would you say lancer / yellow dancer from robotech s3 / genesis climber mospeada qualifies?

― the late great

there seems to be a character like that in tengen toppa gurren lagann... which was one of the first anime i really saw, i saw the two movies at the same convention where i heard about garzey's wing (which i've started confusing with birdie wing, because, you know, they're so fucking similar). honestly it's not any weirder than the gender stereotypes in the us... back in the '70s effeminacy and homosexuality were linked but starting in the '80s you had the whole "menergy" thing, and by the time i was really aware of gay men the idea of them was hypermasc dudes. in truth there is a lot of overlap between gender diversity and queerness... one of the things that's surprised me most is that while i don't really think of myself as "butch" or "femme" my default presentation is on the butch side.

the ones on my check-out list (i'm more interested in lesbian representation than gay male representation) are adachi and shimamura, bloom into you, liz to aoi tori, and asagao to kase-san

I read the first couple of Adachi and Shimamura books, thought they did a good job of expressing the inner turmoil of first love (tho have heard that later books are just the same with no progression). watched some episodes of the anime but they were missing that inner dialog, so felt a lot more shallow.
Sound Euphonium is a decent show and beautifully made, but the yuri baiting was really lame and the worst part of it. the film Liz & The Blue Bird however is a lot better written, and works as a stand alone piece.

xp it will take me awhile to reply (if i do at all) since i got to go run around and get stuff done now, plus i don’t know most of those references but i do appreciate the reply and look forward to reading more closely later

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