Anime for people who hate anime

Inspired by this exchange on the Evangelion thread:

while mourning my lack of fresh Eva content I've spent most of today trying to find other anime series that I don't find intensely grating on one level or another - after a bunch of false starts, Masaaki Yuasa's stuff seems pretty solidly up my alley

― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Sunday, September 13, 2015 1:48 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

who am I kidding I will totally rewatch it when 4.0 comes out, this franchise is built on (and fosters) masochism

― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Sunday, September 13, 2015 2:04 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

[...]

simon, have you seen either mushi-shi, serial experiments: lain or kino's journey? they aren't at all like eva tone-wise but pretty much free from most anime cliches and are v cerebral and emotionally engaging.

― hello, it me (clouds), Sunday, September 13, 2015 3:02 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ all 3 of those are excellent, especially Mushishi. Someone should make a anime recommendation site for people who hate anime

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Sunday, September 13, 2015 3:09 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have not but Lain is on my to-check-out consideration list. Currently watching Ping Pong, which feels oddly substantive given the subject matter? I've seen Bebop (eh) and FLCL (neat). Basically hated what I saw of Death Note, Future Diary, and a few others that aren't immediately coming to me.

― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Sunday, September 13, 2015 4:19 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the biggest problem is that all anime gets marketed essentially the same in english-speaking countries, as if "anime" were one monolithic genre -- so you get this phenomenon of the same people recommending in the same breath stuff made for teenage boys like death note also recommending more complex shows like steins;gate or the others i mentioned. it seems to me that the targeted demographic for these shows are quite distinct in japan, though i could be wrong.

― hello, it me (clouds), Sunday, September 13, 2015 5:00 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is exactly why i had a bad time whenever i went to an anime convention

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, September 13, 2015 7:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

anyway all of anno's pre-eva miyazaki-inspired series nadia is on hulu and i recommend it; it's very digressive but also very charming. another gentle, kinda perfect, nontraditional anime, by lain's character designer: haibane renmei

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, September 13, 2015 7:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

attending an anime convention sounds like my idea of hell!

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Sunday, September 13, 2015 8:54 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Coffee

welp that's Nichijou added to the queue

lol

paranoia agent

in 72 point bold red font

yeah that one

<3 nichijou

ghost hound. sorta like twin peaks x lain with an amazing dark ambient score.

i don't really like anime but i much enjoyed serial experiments: lain and texhnolyze

def rec all of yuasa's stuff, especially Ping Pong and my favorite, The Tatami Galaxy. funny (even if you don't really "get" anime humor) and manic and inspiring and brilliantly animated.

my other favorite ever is kids on the slope, a coming of age story from shinichiro watanabe ( cowboy bebop, samurai champloo ) about a love triangle between three jazz-obsessed teenagers in 1960s small town japan. the music sequences are incredible.

would recommend Wandering Son (Hourou Musuko), a show about a boy who likes to dress as a girl and a girl who likes to dress as a boy. Surprisingly thoughtful exploration of transsexualism and gender identity, a million miles away from how these subjects are usually handled in anime. Also has a beautiful watercolour art style.

paranoia agent

in 72 point bold red font

― Bouncy Castlevania (Will M.), Sunday, September 13, 2015 11:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that one

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, September 13, 2015 11:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

oh yeah, kids on the slope! I've only seen a few episodes but the premise kills me

kids on the slope is pretty good, otm about the music sequences

my rec is Redline, one movie that i might say is more intense and thrilling from start to finish than mad max

mad max fury road that is

fyi there's also this thread Animation Snob Thread (no Disney, no Pixar, no mainstream anime, mention Family Guy and you get kicked out a window), puppet films are allowed whihc i've had bookmarked forever

if strongo were still here he'd tell you to check out Mind game. he's not so I'm going to tell you to check out mind game.

Redline is really good in places but I don't think it has the momentum or overall quality of Fury Road. I felt the character development was unnecessary.

just finished Berserk which was enjoyable but it might be too "anime"

As to the question of the thread, it depends on what one hates about anime. I'm generally not a fan but I can deal with the things I don't like if there's enough other good things going on. But I can't pretend I haven't seen a lot of ecchi trash (a true guilty pleasure).
A lot of the better anime still has a lot of the things some people dislike about anime, like the drawing styles. I've always preferred far more textured animation and unusual expressive techniques.

The thing that impressed me about the Satoshi Kon stuff is how well the scenes are composed. Most of the anime I had seen was very sloppy and badly edited.
Paranoia Agent is actually my least favourite of his works. It's probably supposed to be confounding but I don't think it really carried off on the intrigue they built early on, I found a lot of it a tad boring and the animation quality drops in a few places.

Like I recommend in Animation Snob Thread, Keita Kurosaka is the least typical Japanese animator I know of but his work isn't easy to find. Angel's Egg is a lovely science fiction mood piece without much (any?) dialogue, with designs by Yoshitaka Amano.

Berserk (90s tv version) does an impressive job of telling the early best part of the comic saga despite clear time/budget constraints and even improving some parts of the story. Great soundtrack too.
The later film series version doesn't allow the story time to develope and breathe properly. It feels too much like a summary.

Satoshi Kon is definitely one of the go-to anime directors for people who aren't anime fans. Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers are all great movies in different ways. Paprika was a bit weak story-wise IMO, but is still worth a watch.

Paranoia Agent is pretty great too, although I think the series loses a lot of momentum once it abandons the initial set-up - those stand alone episodes in the middle are great, but the over-arching plot kinda gets lost.

I'll second the recommendations for Mushishi, Kino and Lain above, and add Haibane Renmei, which is intriguing and reflective in a similar way.

Planetes is a pretty solid sci-fi series with good characters and little in the way of anime cliches.

Haibane is excellent but I gotta disagree about Planetes, i watched the series after reading the manga and was super disappointed with the adaption, they really anime-ed it up by adding in lots of comedy sidekicks and useless drama. Don't even get me started about that last episode :(

haibane renmei is incidentally all on hulu plus

I liked Haibane Renmei too. I'll also throw Psycho Pass out there for anyone into Philip K Dick sort of themes. It's on Netflix for easy access.

thx for the many recs y'all, I need as much distraction as possible at present

Seconding Mind Game, and reposting from the Netflix thread to remind people that Studio 4C put up a batch of films a couple of weeks ago- Mind Game, Genius Party and Genius Party Beyond (which are both mixed, but each has a fairly lengthy short from respectively Masaaki Yuasa and Koji Morimoto that are among the best things either have ever done), and Princess Arete (which I haven't watched yet but is supposed to be a gentle, Ghibli-esque thing?).

I don't know how easy it is to get outside the kickstarter, but Yuasa's Kick-Heart is pretty fun. And the adaptation of Taiyo Matsumoto's Ping Pong is well worth your time- I love Michael Arias's Tekkonkinkreet movie, but Ping Pong is a much more faithful translation of Matsumoto's style to animation and it's gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcSuAhbtIFg

Crap, sorry, didn't see Ping Pong was already recommended twice >_<

Less than four minutes long, but this Ken Ishii video by Morimoto is kind of a classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6maVVFs0As

One last thing before I shut up about Morimoto:

NOISEMAN SOUND INSECT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOlYfHdpwU

Dumb qn from someone v.far outside but a lot of suggestions seem to be, say, post-PKD-ish ... is there much in the way of, IDK, George Eliot/Jane Austen-y stuff?

Josei anime would be the term, from a quick look at manga categories, I guess?

This was Google's first result, anyone want to comment on any of these? http://www.themarysue.com/josei-anime/

wow, that ping pong series looks amazing! excited to see it's on hulu.

From that Josei list:
Michiko & Hatchin stars two female characters but it's much closer to Black Lagoon/Tarantino territory, lots of action set pieces and stylish baddies. It's really well made but is twice as long as it needs to be tbh, towards the end you will be dreading yet another car chase. Which is rarely said about Jane Austen.
Princess Jellyfish is really good, lots of interesting characters although some can be a bit too one dimensional, particularly the one mentioned in the article.
A series that is currently airing called Snow White With The Red Hair caught me by surprise and might be the purest Josei show I've ever enjoyed. As you can guess from the title it has a fairytale like quality, with a commoner girl and a dashing young prince falling in love. What sets it apart though is the title character, a strong willed girl who feels like she's walked out of a Ghibli movie, you can't help but cheer her on.

etc, you might want to look into honey & clover (about a group of students at an art school), nana (about the friendship between two women, one a fashion student and one a rock musician), nodame cantabile (about the romantic relationship between a pianist and an aspiring conductor), his and her circumstances (the show hideaki anno made after evangelion, about the romantic relationship between two high school students), and revolutionary girl utena (hard to summarize?)

also, a lot of the shows mentioned itt originally aired as part of fuji tv's noitamina block, which is specifically dedicated to programming that appeals to ppl outside of the young male demographic. the noitamina lineup is a p good place to look for "mature" anime in a bunch of different genres

reporting back

PING PONG

Watched all of this one - the animation is obv incredible but what surprised me about it is the persistent and convincing bittersweetness, which helped offset how predictable many/most of the plot/character beats really are. Into it.

KIDS ON THE SLOPE

Also watched all of this, liked it less. The musical sequences are incredible and kept me going. As w/ many shows like this (regardless of genre) the relatively subtly homoerotic friendship >>>>>> the neverending tedium of the actual "romances." (Tho I admit that I have a problem w/ series wherein 100% of the long-running conflicts could be solved with one frank conversation.)

tried UTENA but it's just too mid-90s for me. a couple eps into MUSHI-SHI - animation's gorgeous, stories seem a bit intert? will keep trying.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-AHo-_XEV6E

Maybe most of you guys know all this stuff but its just a little video about the difficulties of making anime.

good timing on that as it frequently refers to Manglobe (Champloo, Michiko) who finally filed for bankruptcy the other day

Just finished watching Gosenzosama Banbanzai, a pretty bizarre and funny six-part OVA from the late 80s. It's one of Mamoru Oshii's more obscure efforts (like that odd "Twilight Q" short), about a girl who travels back in time to live with her ancestors. The whole thing is presented like a stage play, making it pretty unique.

I know Oshii made a big splash with Ghost in the Shell, but I actually think that was his last really good film (though I haven't seen his live action stuff, and discount Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, which he wrote but didn't direct).

so uh toonami is producing two new season of flcl

Nice!

brave new world

oops. didn't realize this was a 3 month revive

I've just started the new anime version of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, and it really defies description (although Merritt Kopas's phrase "Twink Peaks" is pretty apt, as long as you bear in mind that it also involves spectral combat and Gauguin-like color clashes): an escaped serial killer has just been fused into a living statue by a vengeful high school student after attempting to infiltrate the student's house as a malign spirit in rainwater, and this is two episodes in. Idk what kind of relation to anime the ideal viewer would have, but it's certainly distinctive.

Jojo is so batshit, i love it

Neo-Tokyo was really good

finishing up 'puella magi madoka magica' after reading that it rivals evangelion (it doesn't, but i still have a few eps left so maybe it will!)
it's on netflix with or without subs so check it out!

though in the spirit of this thread, i think people who hate anime would hate this one

yeh Madoka is hella anime. You have to put off watching the last two episodes for two months to get the authentic original release experience!

the crossover hit this year in Japan had been the new Shinkai (5cm/second, Garden Of Words) film Your Name.
It's already the 7th highest grossing film at the Japanese box office and looks like it's going to overhaul Howl and Mononoke soon.
Sounds like it became an anime for people who don't normally watch anime!
Looks like it's getting a very limited release in the West though.

Mamoru Hosada's latest The Boy and the Beast will be released in DK next month. Checking his stuff out, the plots are quite intriguing, and Summer Wars was in Locarno. I have no idea what is hatable and non-hatable anime, though. Are people mad at Miyazaki? Or Ghost in the Shell type stuff?

neither i think, just really specific genre stuff i'm guessing. madoka is magical girl for instance

incidentally i gotta see madoka, report back diamonddave

little witch academia y'all

been meaning to watch madoka for ages but the animation style really puts me off

cosign little witch academia. dennou coil is another good one

I loooove Mindgame! And as often as it veers into utterly silly and corny porny territory I find it really inspiring. The whole "live your life to the fullest" theme is for some reason really infectious (which for me translated to getting off Facebook for a few days and getting a jumpstart on errands and chores to free up time for making music and catching up with friends, not exactly an epic adventure but a net plus)

Has anyone here seen Ergo Proxy? It felt like some kind of cross between Book of the New Sun (not saying it's anywhere near the brilliance, just some similar vibes) and the hazy memories I have of Final Fantasy plots from countless hours I used to spend watching friends play while not totally knowing what was going on. It's probably my fav anime series after NGE.

I think the reason Madoka gets compared to Evangelion is that both shows approach their respective genre in unconventional ways; if Eva is a "deconstruction" of giant mecha shows, then Madoka is the same for magical girl stories.

And yes, the two Little Witch Academia films are great!

yall weren't kidding about Mind Game. that film was incredible.

finished madoka, the final episodes were excellent: poignant while also attempting to reach for the stars in those confusing and mind-bending ways that we love anime for

watched the first episode of kill la kill last night and i'm torn. on the one hand, it has the most over the top insane, funny, frantic animation i think i've ever seen. on the other hand, waay over the top fan-service to the point of absurdity

it's not fan service, it's a parody of it

I haven't seen it but according to fans it does at times fully embrace plain fanservice.

Can you call it a parody if it's indistinguishable from the thing it's supposedly parodying?
e.g. Nisioisin plays around a lot with tropes and stereotypes in the Monogatari series but sometimes falls flat on his face, leading to some incredibly gross scenes. I keep watching because there's some great stuff in there but goddamn it goes off the rails in awful ways sometimes.

See Xtreme 90s American comics doing affectionate parodies of their own work.

idk just watch it it's all explained and makes sense as a part of the plot (seriously)

kill la kill is one of the most stunning anime series ever imo

fanservice isn't any less fanservice if it's explained or justified by the plot—the plot and setting of a given piece of fictional media aren't givens that exist outside of the control of the creator

No, you see these upskirts are ironic

Anyway I've watched all of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure up to the current point over the last couple of months or so and all I can really say is that it's probably the most accurately named thing I've seen in my life. I don't think this series has been as good as the one before it but now that shit's getting real it's seriously compelling

i've been meaning to read jjba for years and years but could never bring myself to get into a series with decades' worth of plot. i should probably just watch the show

wow, the golgo 13 manga has been going for 48 years

I don't read manga (not out of principle, just never got round to it I guess) but I can definitely recommend the JJBA anime as long as you can get past the first ten or so episodes (not bad but the prequel is very different in tone from the rest of it).

Jojo has separate parts that can mostly be taken separately. And unless you're going to go for fan unauthorized versions, there's only three parts available so it's not overwhelming at all. The third part is where it really gets going, you might even start there.
I was never interested in any of the anime versions because they don't come close to Araki's drawing, which is sometimes really brilliant.

Check out those house keyrings
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/e/e1/Jojo6251.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110530230310

I've never read Golgo 13 but isn't it only short self-contained stories featuring the same guy?

idk i haven't read it either, i was just looking at a list of the longest-running manga

Yes Golgo 13 is episodic and as it's long running some stories are good, some terrible, some are hilariously weird - usually when they intersect with real life events - Golgo gets hired to assassinate Princess Diana, was in prison with Mandela and cost Al Gore the 2000 election.

Knights of Sidonia S1 is for people who hate anime; S2 is... not.

Unless you can dig a pervert's spin on the tiredest of anime romcom cliches, and why would you, as an anime hater.

ahahaha yeah that was a weird one

apparently in the manga they get married

I could handle a romance between a human and a foul-smelling mutant with a talking dick, but the mutant having the personality of a little girl crossed a line imo.

In other news, an adaptation of Nihei Tsutomu’s opus magnum Blame is coming to Netflix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwy806RC2-Q

There's a decent discussion of this thread's subject in a comment thread here:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/11/wot-i-think-recettear-an-item-shops-tale/#comment-508137

I downloaded the first episode of pretty much all of them and.. have to get back to that project. But Akagi, a nerves-of-steel thriller about games of Mahjongg, is absolutely amazing.

Paranoia Agent is very good - one note is that the first episode contains an awful lot of people refusing to believe a young woman's account of events.

I have gotten somewhat more into anime over the past year or two, and really into anime over the past month or two. Here are my thoughts on everything I've watched lately:

Serial Experiments Lain: this was fun and everything I hoped it would be (stylized, super 90s, v cyberpunk, confusing). I felt like it was one of those shows where I could just take it all in and appreciate it aesthetically and not pay SUPER DUPER close attn to what was going on bcz even if you do it's still confusing as hell.

Genocyber: This was bad. I saw this mentioned a lot when I was researching cyberpunk anime, it is hyper violent which also intrigued me but the violence is sparse and really clunky, everything about it is poorly executed (animation, acting, writing, etc), and it quickly offset the novelty of the whole thing. It's a slog to watch and not even worth it for the shock value.

Battle Angel/Battle Angel Alita/Gunnm: This was cute, I liked this a lot. I wish it was longer than 2 episodes and I suppose I could read the manga (or a summary of the manga) but I'm fine just leaving it at this nice little 50-minute adventure. This def scratched my cyberpunk itch more than Genocyber did

Sekko Boys: The premise of this is that this woman is a manager for an idol group but all the members are marble busts, I thought this was the funniest thing ever and I laughed out loud a lot for the first few episodes but then the joke kinda wore off. I expected it to be more of a pointed commentary than it actually is.

OjiSan and Marshmallow: This is a series of 3 minute episodes about this adorable daddybear-looking dude who loves this one brand of marshmallow and this weird coworker who has a crush on him who keeps taunting him w them. It is super adorable but also the woman is like REALLY thirsty for him and it's a little wacky at times, but I'm really enjoying it

Polar Bear Cafe: I just started watching this yesterday and I am hooked so hard, it is about this anthropomorphic polar bear who runs a cafe and his regular customers who come in, set in a world where people and animals coexist w/o question, one of the characters is a panda and gets a job at the local zoo to just be their panda??? it's very humdrum slice of life and it is very soothing and SOOOO charming. I can't believe how in love with this show I am.

Ping Pong: Wow this is gorgeous!! I appreciate the simplicity of it bcz most of the anime I've watched is full of like ACTION or MYSTERY or INTRIGUE and this is just abt some students who play ping pong.

Next on my to-do list, in no real order:
Armitage III
Bubblegum Crisis
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Cowboy Bebop (I've seen the first 1/4 or so but never finished it)
Mononoke (just Mononoke, not Princess Mononoke)

I think I used to have it in my head that most anime was shounen and that I liked the exceptions to the rule that were not shounen, but I have come to realize that sooooo much anime is not shounen, and I actually like a lot of it??? I don't like meandering 100+ episode-of-the-week type stuff that doesn't really go anywhere, fan service, romance/excessive sentimentality, but I think I am open to most everything else, especially stranger weirder stuff.

Ping Pong really is incredible, a modern classic
don't know Armitage III but the others on your to-do list are all solid picks

Katsuhiro Otomo announced he is making a movie, "Orbital Era", only his third after "Akira" in 1988 and "Steamboy" in 2004.
Akira is getting a 4K remaster next year, good timing to tie in with the Olympics I guess.
More controversially there is also a new Akira "project" in the works covering the whole manga story, no word if it's TV or movies.

now I'm trying to think what a real Modern Classic Anime list would look like

yurucamp

the new akira thing is gonna be a tv series not a movie

stevie pls check out urusei yatsura: beautiful dreamer, did i already insist you watch this movie

Stevie, IIRC Bubblegum Crisis (I'm just going off the original OAV series here) may disappoint you - there's some cool robots-run-amok stuff but most of what's cyberpunky is just nakedly lifted from Blade Runner. It filled a niche at the time, and I was into it, but I don't think it really has any questions or answers of its own.

oh mannnnnnnn i love Beautiful Dreamer, high five to BN

it sorta depends on you knowing the show (which is a show worth at least dipping into), but i imagine you could get most of what it's doing if you just walk in with "this is based on a popular sitcom about a womanizing teenager who got technically engaged to an alien but won't admit he loves her, hijinks ensue with huge support cast."

i've never seen the show and i did spend like half the movie trying to figure out everyone's relationships to each other, also the whole "building a nazi-themed bar for the school festival" plotline is... weird, otherwise: a perfect movie

I rewatched Bubblegum Crisis last year and really enjoyed it, yes it is heavily influenced by Bladerunner but there was some nice body horror stuff going on in there and some beautiful animation. Plus it has some of the greatest "using random English as part of computer screens" in anime, one screen I didn't recognize turned out to be the lyrics to a David Sylvian song lol

https://i.imgur.com/7la8oVO.jpg

i do love "konya wa hurricane" and back in the day i had a soft spot for "bye bye my crisis" after taping it off a night when the college radio station played nothing but anime music for three hours.

oh yes Beautiful Dreamer is on my list!

tbh I kinda expect Bubblegum Crisis to not be excellent but I also love cyberpunk enough that I will watch derivative mediocre shit if it's cool looking enough (e.g. Johnny Mnemonic, which I love)

ahhhh cool, yeah, you should def watch it then!

I saw the spinoff Bubblegum Crash many years ago it wasn't that interesting but the poor slave robot was memorable. Looking up this series, I had no idea AD Police was set in the same universe but that makes a lot of sense, but it had a lot more sex, violence and perhaps immature seriousness.

I finished FLCL, it's a lot of fun but the music is the highlight by a wide margin. I'm still curious about the two new seasons, though.

I'm watching Kill La Kill now (fanservice caveats of course), it starts off great (fanservice aside) but I may have hit an anime saturation point because the wacky anime face faults are losing their shine.

my sister told me to watch fairy tail wow what garbage i told her to watch evangelion and she had about the same reaction lol

yayy Stevie I'm so glad you liked Polar Bear Cafe, it really is such a cute show

if you liked that you should seek out Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-San, it's a slice-of-life anime based around the staff of a bookstore and essential if you've ever worked in customer service with awful people

awful news, 13+ dead at Kyoto Animation studio after arson attack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-49027178

yeah this is fucked

33 dead, 36 injured

what a nightmare

There’s never any sense to attacks like this, but firebombing an animation studio seems even more fucked up.

clouds, Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san is so up my alley and my dude + I have had a v fun time watching it

I just finished Revolutionary Girl Utena and WOW, it was wild, perhaps a little too convoluted for its own good, it felt like there were a lot of superfluous twists and turns and it got hard to follow at times. I still v much loved it

Does anyone have recommendations for legitimately creepy/horror-y anime that's effective and not corny?

I think next on my list is The Big O, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Mononoke (the ghost one, not the Studio Ghibli one)

i haven't seen mononoke but it's the thing i most often see recommended for your above question so it seems like you're on the right track

I’m sure I didn’t see Yuri On Ice mentioned here? Anyway this thread reminded me to look at where that film is, answer still ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ should’ve done a second series

Does anyone have recommendations for legitimately creepy/horror-y anime that's effective and not corny?

the answer to this should have been the recent TV series "Junji Ito Collection" but unfortunately the adaption was garbage, stay away :(

"Ghost Hound" has a creepy vibe and amazing sound design iirc. The writing in the latter half loses steam, but it's still worth watching. There was a superstar team behind it including the creator of Ghost in the Shell and some of the Lain & Texhnolyze staff, both of which also had a similarly creepy vibe now I think of it, so also watch those as well if you haven't already (although Texhnolyze is also depressing as fuuuuuuuck)

lol funny, this was inspired by my boyf sending me a link to the Junji Ito Collection this morning like "omg did you know about this?!?!?!" and then me reading up on it and seeing that it got very middling reviews

I LOOOOVE Ghost in the Shell and Lain but have never seen Texhnolyze, I will add it to my list along w Ghost Hound

Re: horror, Petit Cossette is supposed to be very good but as with most stuff I cant get along with the drawing style.

yay stevie i'm glad you liked honda-san!

you've seen pop team epic right?

what's the most impressive anime in the past decade would you say from just a purely technical perspective?

probably mob psycho for tv anime? but the actual answer will be a movie which i havent seen much of from this decade

Yeh some movie as they have more time & budget to animate with (Redline maybe?)
In terms of TV Kyoani have probably been the most consistent studio over the last 10 years, but there are individual scenes from the likes of Mob, Space Dandy, 1st season of One Punch etc that stand out in the memory. Also probably PA Works but outside of Eccentric Family I can't stand their stuff >.<

I have NOT seen pop team epic!

wait yes I have, I watched an episode or 2, it was cute but it felt a bit like it was trying too hard to be weird for the sake of being weird

i didn't notice they made an anime of it, i just know it via people reposting the comics all the time

it's only 12 episodes, I should just watch it probably

I went on a rampage this weekend and downloaded the following:

Blue Submarine No. 6
Chi's Sweet Home
Genius PartyGiant Robo
Memories
Neo Tokyo
Panda Kopanda
Riding Bean
Robot Carnival
Tatami Galaxy
Texhnolyze

Neo Tokyo has the amazing “Running Man” short which I haven’t seen surpassed in terms of pure visual satisfaction, and I wonder if the death of cel-based animation is to blame. From a cost perspective, we should be able to have CG counterparts that are much more beautiful and fluid (a lot of shots in Running Man are static and cyclicly twitchy which lend it a very effectively unsettling atmosphere, but at the same time is obviously a cost/time-saving move) but I’ve yet to see anything like that outside of the Pixar paradigm. For something as highly packed with digital signs and readouts as “Running Man”, it’s doubly ironic that no one seems to be able to make something as good or better using a digital workflow.

i don't hate anime? but i just don't have a lot of time for it

so i just watch anime named after records i like

so far i have seen "angel's egg" and "pale cocoon" and they are both great

fuuuck i completely forgot about blue submarine no. 6, i remember loving it

angel's egg is a masterpiece

"running man" was nice but it could use more james taylor

xp most anime is still hand drawn though, not CG

My understanding is that it’s all done on tablets now (and I’m assuming at least the tweening is handled by computers rather than jr. level interns)

i'm pretty sure most studios still use a big pool of poorly paid contractors for the tweening

everything's composited digitally now and you'll see CG being used for stuff like action shots of vehicles or mechas but by and large the characters are still traditionally animated afaik

following up on the horror thing, an adaption of Junji Ito's Uzumaki aka Spiral is coming next year
directed by Hiroshi Nagahama (Mushishi), who I trust will get the creepiness down

short teaser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDEQyK5ZH-E

A bunch of anime nerds just discovered Colin Stetson.

don't think anime nerds are the ito fans really, hence this being a cartoon network thing

I'm 10 episodes into Paranoia Agent and I'm kind of wondering now if we'll ever return from this orthogonal detour.

Just finished Watanabe's new Netflix series, Carol and Tuesday. It was enjoyable, but I lost a good deal of interest when it settled into being about a Martian talent show. The closing credits are fantastic though!

Pretty much my sentiments. The music has been pretty good too, and I was kind of ranking the songs in my head -- "The Loneliest Girl" is tops, but the songs from the fake FKA Twigs are up there for me. (Angela is overrated.)

Pow-pow!

I always knew that fan communities could be intense and there's obviously nasty bullying but I didn't realize that fan art that was deemed problematic could lead to immense harassment from large parts of the community and two Jojo fan artists have ended up in hospital over it.

People have been bullied out of jobs and more than one person has been bullied to suicide. A Japanese fanartist had someone put needles in cookies they’d baked for her.

That's horrible. I also heard about it happening among Steven Universe fans on tumblr.

Was that latter artist bullied by people inside and/or outside japan? I remember Falcoon (fan artist who turned pro, worked for SNK) got bullied about his weight but that was maybe too early for culture war stuff (and I don't know how much japan goes for that).

my partner and i have been burning through anime like it's our job during quarantine. here's my anime logg with ratings:

completed
* Arslan Senki - 6
* Death Note - 8
* Elfen Lied - 6
* Kill la Kill - 10
* Little Witch Academia - 8
* Ghost in the Shell: SAC - 8
* Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - 9
* Steins;Gate - 9
* Gurren Lagann - 9

watching
* Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ - i like the goofiness but they made the argama crew seem completely inept. also where tf is quattro??
* Legend of the Galactic Heroes - watched the first 30 episodes a few years back and it was a solid 10
* Ghost in the Shell: SAC2 - more cyberpunk awesomeness, minus the creepy hotel scene

looking for some good 80s/90s deep cuts, any recommendations?

you can also probably tell that i'm a Trigger fanboy -- i've never seen more joyful, maximalist animation. their stuff is like a love letter to everything anime good, band, and in-between

revolutionary girl utena

I recently watched NANA and loved it and tbh I have no idea if it's super well known or a deep cut and it's also from the 2000s but basically my point is if you haven't watched NANA you gotta

i watched the first saga of utena a few years back and really liked it! no better time to go back and finish

I remember a fair amount of people loved Nana, or the comic at least.

there's gunbuster and diebuster if you haven't seen those, kind of the origin point of the gainax/trigger style along with flcl

Is Nana streaming anywhere right now in the US? Looks like it's not on Prime or Netflix anymore :/

i don't see it anywhere

a lot of 00s and even some early 10s stuff is in limbo these days

Utena is critical viewing, Gunbuster is also great. If you’re a total nerd and curious about anime history, I really loved Otaku no Video, a 2-ep OVA abt the creation of Gainax.

Here’s some 80s/90s stuff I liked:

Bubblegum Crisis
Riding Bean
Battle Angel
Armitage III
Serial Experiments Lain
The Big O
Excel Saga

Ppl seem to like Blue Submarine No. 6 but I thought it was boring.

If you want ultra graphic pulpy garbage, Mad Bull 34 and Genocyber are ridic to the point of being kinda entertaining, but I would feel guilty actually *recommending* them

oh yeah definitely need to watch gunbuster and flcl

as for streaming, there's a great android app called "AnYme" you can use depending on the copyright laws in your country

It's probably super dated, but I loved the Vision of Escaflowne TV series back then.
Lain is great. After that, check out Paranoia Agent.

escaflowne is still good other than the ugly character designs

turn a gundam is my favorite mecha anime from that era

i haven't really seen much from the 90s though other than the big names, need to do a deeper dive

would love to read a book about the 80s bubble economy OVA scene, where any huckster or madman seemingly could get an anime made.
e.g. watched Dragon's Heaven OVA from 1988 the other day.
it's not that great, the main pull being that it's a complete ripoff of Moebius artwork brought to life.
it's also 42 minutes long but only 24 minutes is animation. there's a 5 minute live action intro featuring closeups of a model of the main mecha/robot, and then an outro of about 12 minutes of the model being lovingly constructed and filmed. so indulgent!

Excel Saga

oh i'm glad this show holds up? i haven't seen it since high school but i was a huge fan

here are 80's and 90's OVAs i would add to the list ... most of them are on youtube

dallos
megazone 23
goku midnight eye
record of lodoss war
paradise dolls
cyber city odeo 808
spirit warrior
black lion
wizardry
captain herlock: the endless odyssey

definitely check out retrocrush.tv, they have a ton of stuff on there from the '80s/'90s
That said we're probably getting away from the topic of this thread - everything we're talking about here is generally beloved anime

I'm currently watching through Monster, all of which is up on Youtube (in my part of the world at least); it's a slow burn but I'm enjoying it. More or less a straight-up crime thriller, there'a a few cliches but it's written well.

I'm a bit surprised that it seems to be the only Naoki Urusawa series that's been adapted into anime.

oh yeah megazone 23 and cyber city oedo 808 are rad

excel saga is SO funny and wacky and i was #blessed enough to wind up with a subtitle track that has pop-up-video style explanations of all of the obscure references, which has added to my appreciateion of it

if you are down w torrenting, nyaa dot si is an incredibly comprehensive resource, sometimes TOO comprehensive (like way too many rips of the same thing), they also skew towards placebo-level encoding (like FLAC audio and some insanely high video bitrate) which can be annoying

the most annoying anime release group thing i've come across is where they use an obscure feature in MKV that isn't really widely supported to chop off the intros and outros into their own files to save space

I'm largely anime ignorant, but are Ghost In the Shell and Akira still considered the gold standard of classic anime? I need a new thing to obsess over to distract myself from the end of civilization and am looking for entertaining diversions to stave off total despair

from a western perspective they definitely are still considered god tier

mamoru oshii's best work is unparalleled in anime not to mention cinema

ghost in the shell is among that best work

Haven't seen the anime for Monster but the manga is one of my favorites. Love Urasawa.
GITS probably holds up? Akira is amazing landmark animation but as a film it's always been kinda rough - bear in mind the manga was still going when they made the movie so it ends strangely.

I would say Ghost in the Shell and Akira are god-tier but they are not the entire god tier, I would also throw in like Spirited Away and probably a Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue? Millennium Actress?)

millennium actress is the best satoshi kon by a mile imo

check out Metropolis as well if u haven't seen it -- based on a manga from 1949 by Osamu Tezuka, it's directed by Rintaro and written by the director of Akira.

the last episode of gunbuster is a work of art

it's only like 6 eps, right? I really should rewatch it. Or maybe just watch Diebuster. My understanding is that E1 of Gunbuster is a parody of, like, sports anime? but sadly the context is lost on me :(

my kids have gotten into anime in a big way, usually shitty high school stories like haikyu

they like attack on titan too, which is..... HORRIFIC

they also like my hero academia, and they want me to subscribe to crunchyroll, but the video quality on crunchyroll is SO BAD and almost nothing is dubbed either

the crunchyroll player defaults to 480p if you aren't subscribed but you can tick it up to 1080p even without a subscription iirc

they only paywall new/currently airing shows for the most part

Lol I liked the first series of attack on Titan, never watched the rest. Series loves its gore though.

the subs are an issue for them - just a little too much work.

My understanding is that E1 of Gunbuster is a parody of, like, sports anime? but sadly the context is lost on me :(

it kinda starts out as like a light parody of mecha/school anime but then turns into something incredible about halfway through. 6 episodes so it's an easy watch

they are now super into 'Food Wars'

haikyuu to attack on titan to food wars is quite the downward slide

lol

help me help them, they have no taste and no filter

i need to finish watching food wars. love the orgasmic depictions of flavor

yeah that's their favourite part :)

Mob Psycho 100 is the best recent shonen action series imo, but really i have no clue what teens might like, i only watch boring adult anime

have we talked about DoroHeDoro yet? if not, we really need to

my kids aren't teens yet - frankly i find attack on titan too gruesome for them but they claim it doesn't bother them

if Polar Bear's Cafe has a dub, see if they like that? they might find it really boring tho

xp dorohedoro is cool but obv doesn't belong in the middle of a discussion about anime for kids lol

Will watch Ghost in the Shell someday, as a treat.

Little Witch Academia is tame enough for kids but still entertaining as an adult

hah sorry I didn't know we were talking about kids anime but still.. incredible mind melting stuff

the manga art is really good and detailed in ways that can't be replicated in tv animation but they still did a great job with the setting/backgrounds and overall execution

that's re: dorohedoro i mean

I liked it but couldn’t figure out if the objectification of its women characters was so grotesque as to constitute a comment on the theme or really just unfortunate.

that’s how i feel about food wars

but everything else about it i find amazingly bonkers. my kids now both want to actually create dishes in real life that my wife and i are to judge. i really hope they don’t want us to cosplay.

thats really sweet :)

the last episode of gunbuster is a work of art

― diamonddave85​​ (diamonddave85), Sunday, June 21, 2020 7:37 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's only like 6 eps, right? I really should rewatch it. Or maybe just watch Diebuster. My understanding is that E1 of Gunbuster is a parody of, like, sports anime? but sadly the context is lost on me :(

― vision joanna newsom (Stevie D(eux)), Sunday, June 21, 2020 10:46 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

i’m rewatching gunbuster right now bc of this exchange! i’ve owned the dvds for at least a decade but somehow had only watched them once? i had forgotten almost everything about this incredible show, including all the proto-evangelion echoes (profound dedication to pseudoscientific babble, screwed up father figure who almost never takes off his sunglasses, arrogant german redhead who’s preternaturally good at piloting robots)

the alien spaceship design is dazzling, just these overgrown organic horrors floating through space. feels really influenced by anno’s time working with miyazaki (which, incidentally, the main character has a nausicaa poster in her room)

maybe i should finally watch all of nadia after this

gunbuster overall feels like a picture of anno before he realized how depressed he was, or a version of eva that’s not so psychedelically fucked up and is instead pared down to pure emotion

Brad I am LIVING for your Gunbuster rewatch. Plz lmk if you watch Diebuster and if it’s any good.

“Gunbustaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

diebuster is good in a 'solid sequel that lives in the shadow of the original' sort of way iirc

at first i was like "diebuster isn't directed by anno? no thanks" but it's kazuya tsurumaki of flcl so i'll prob watch it

did anyone watch those flcl sequels, are they any good

i haven't bc no one seemed to like them. they're not even made by ex-gainax folks for the most part afaik so its a sequel in name only

I was going to post various articles on various threads but screw it, just skim the first few pages of this blog for anything that catches your interest. Includes some podcast discussion of Gunbuster and Diebuster.
https://schoolgirlmilkycrisis.com/

I've been reading Jonathan Clements' articles since last summer when I discovered his entries on china and japan on the Science Fiction Encyclopedia but he's a general historian of Japan, China, Finland; he writes 2000AD novels; he writes lots about anime, he translates and does voice acting; probably does a bunch of other things I've forgotten.
I tore my hair out at some of the copyright/translation and secondhand market practices of japan and there's lot of good stuff to scroll through. Old Finnish films.

Y’all I’m trying to watch JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and its... not great. I know everyone says the first few arcs are meh and Stardust Crusaders is where it’s at, but the specific things I dislike about this (the colors, the way its animated so something’s always moving or trembling, the nonstop mindless action) make me think the rest of it isn’t going to be THAT much better. What should I do?

I had the same problem so I quit

it's not good imo

Read the manga (Araki draws waaaaaaaaaay better than any of the anime visuals) or play the 2d fighting game.

the flcl sequels were bad and had no reason to exist

as far as jojo goes, stardust crusaders is still pretty mediocre for the most part, it's mostly just villain of the week stuff without anything more interesting happening. my rec is just try diamond is unbreakable if you are desperate to see how good jojo can be, it's certainly the best of the parts that have been adapted so far, but if you hate the weird colours that never changes. you don't really need to have watched the previous parts to understand anything, there's a few characters who reappear (one who's a main character) but that's it. starting with stardust crusaders the action certainly gets less mindless and more about creative & ridiculous applications of weird goofy superpowers but again this gets more interesting as it goes along & diamond is unbreakable is a lot better in that regard and has more fun characters and a goofy slice-of-life vibe to it.

like the first three parts bored me to death but i loved diamond is unbreakable, and stone ocean and steel ball run (parts 6 and 7, not yet adapted) are fantastic too

I missed the discussion of food wars. I’d read the manga (or at least the bits I could find to read for free) so I kind of knew what to expect but the objectification really is too much. The jiggly squelchy noises really are too much. I guess you could say, given the orgasmic delight effects men and women and the odd naked male arse, that it’s equal opportunity objectification, but know this is aimed at teenage boys and it’s just too sexist.

Which is a shame because the setup and the food bits are good and I like that soma can whip up decisions dishes from whatever is laying around.

I’ve been watching Oishinbo on Hulu japan which is also about food although less about cooking than celebrating japanese food culture (which the authors thought was under threat when the series started in the 80s). There’s also a father and son dynamic, they often battle over who can provide the best dish.

omg Oishinbo sounds so charming and up my alley, I need to track this down

I just started Patlabor, less out of desire and more as a homework assignment cuz I wanna familiarize myself w mecha anime tropes. It’s not bad but, as one would predict, fairly straightforward.

I think I’m gonna start either Texhnolyze, Baccano!, or Tatami Galaxy as well so I have something weirder to watch

I’m sad that like... now that I’ve finished Evangelion, Paranoia Agent, Serial Experiments Lain, FLCL, Utena, Madoka Magica... like what is even left in that realm??

I wanna familiarize myself w mecha anime tropes

have you watched mobile suit gundam? that's where it all begins plus it has the greatest theme song of all time
its sequel series zeta is even better

like what is even left in that realm??

apparently ergo proxy is supposed to be but i got bored half way through

Xp no bcz I tend to avoid stuff that’s longer than like 25-30 episodes, I like my anime to have a narrative arc and not just kinda meander forever

whats the commonality supposed to be in that list? just classic anime?

while i wouldn't say that they don't meander, the first 3 series (+ movie) of MSG together form a pretty well defined story arc. maybe try the "war in the pocket" ova to see if you catch the bug

have you watched mobile suit gundam? that's where it all begins

― diamonddave85​​ (diamonddave85), Monday, July 6, 2020 11:00 PM

Does Mazinger Z not introduce any tropes apart from the big robot itself?

oh man, i completely forgot about war in the pocket

whats the commonality supposed to be in that list? just classic anime?

I guess you could even say anime for ppl who hate anime?

hmm ok

well Tatami Galaxy fits that, Baccano i don't think i would call cerebral but it still owns

maybe try Dennou Coil, that's one of my favs

i probably shouldn't be posting in this thread though since i love anime

Haibane Renmei perhaps? made by Lain peeps, similarish vintage

xp lol is there even a "main" anime thread?? I thought the same thing, my tastes and interests are specific but I too love anime! But when I looked up other anime threads they all had like <50 posts and hadn't been touched in years, and it'd be incredibly on-brand for a thread like like this to be "the one" on ILX lmao

If I liked Castlevania and LOVED Dorohedoro, what else is like that on Netflix UK right now? There's loads of stuff, obvs, but a lot of it looks like it could be daft or just for schoolkids and teens?

there's a hidden I Love Anime board that unlocks once you've watched every episode of lucky star

Afraid what will happen if I finally open a Cartoon Network thread

If I liked Castlevania and LOVED Dorohedoro, what else is like that on Netflix UK right now?

i don't know what is on Netflix UK but try Kakegurui which is by the Dorohedoro guy and is similarly batshit insane

thats a little misleading imo, its the same director but the source mangas are thoroughly unrelated

misleading???

oh i just meant when i see 'the dorohedoro guy' i would assume it to mean the original creator and not the director of the anime adaptation

also fwiw this is the other anime thread i'm aware of but no one uses it really

Anime S/D (COD hahahaha d'oh)

I keep seeing Azumanga Daioh mentioned (incl in that thread), can anyone recommend it? I've seen it namechecked along side Polar Bear Cafe which is one of my v v v favorites

i don't think those two are much alike

azumanga's a pretty influential series that set the template for the many 'high school girls do whatever' sketch comedy anime that are adapted from 4-panel comic strip manga. it still holds up fine but there's plenty of other ones since that are funnier imo, like i'd easily recommend Nichijou over it

ahhhh okay yeah someone I trust has already strongly recommended Nichijou and I have that queued up. For me, the charm of Polar Bear Cafe is how humdrum it is, it is almost entirely devoid of romance and high school stuff, the two things most Slice of Life animes seem to be centered around to varying degrees. Basically any Slice of Life anime that has nothing to do with love or school (see also: Skull-Faced Bookseller Honda San, which is completely different in regard to like tone and pacing but has a similar "here's a fun depiction of something completely ordinary")

second the recommendation for Tatami Galaxy, just visually stunning and short enough to watch in a few days

i'm glad you liked honda san!

have you seen pop team epic yet?

Yes! I've gotten a few episodes in, I enjoy it from time to time but I'm not totally hooked, at times it's SO frenetic and breakneck that the jokes don't really land

omg Oishinbo sounds so charming and up my alley, I need to track this down

― vision joanna newsom (Stevie D(eux)), Tuesday, 7 July 2020 4:27 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

There are collection of some of the manga translated into English. The Sushi one is super interesting because a lot of it focuses on all the terrible parasites you can ingest if you don’t prepare it right. The sake one has some views that are a little dated but is very educational, especially about the sake industry as it was in the 80s but maybe this is only of interest to a sake geek.

It’s interesting, not least because it comes from a place of deep unease about Japanese culture, especially food culture, being subsumed by and excitement about new and exciting western things. A lot of the episodes revolve around a Japanese obsessive about something western being introduced to a Japanese equivalent that is as good or better.

One of the early episodes of the anime has a contest between foie gras and simmered monkfish liver and a bunch of gourmets are astounded that japan has something so good. (Having eaten monkfish liver in japan I am a little skeptical)

Is this also the manga thread for people who don’t really like manga (comics, graphic novels etc.), because I have a lot of manga for someone who does really like manga?

if there's one thing manga and anime has taught me is that all Japanese food is oishii and woe betide anyone who suggests otherwise (apart from that one girl who for some reason can only make a purple mess of death)

damn don't harsh on misato's cooking like that

and yes someone make a manga thread so I can tell you all about how this Ito version of No Longer Human is really cheering me up haha

my boyfriend told me to watch an episode of Food Wars bcz I love food and... this is not for me, I would prefer not to watch children being raped by squids I think??? Though it lead to a whole convo about fan service and whatnot, my boyfriend loves exploitation cinema and Russ Meyer and stuff so he didn't mind it as much, but tbh this feels a lot grosser than that to my eyes (also I don't love exploitation cinema)

I would prefer not to watch children being raped by squids I think???

wait what?? maybe i should have been keeping a closer eye on this :(

ya in the first 5 or 10 minutes of ep 1 when the guy feeds that girl the peanut butter squid there's a whole tentacle rape thing

that part was gross but my bf and i watched the first two seasons and found it mostly really endearing and entertaining! you really start to love the chars once you get to know them all.

honestly that peanut butter squid thing is the worst the show gets afaicr

I've said it upthread somewhere but Redline is fun.

Foodwars continues to be massively sexist and objectifying.

Yeah it’s not great. I’ve talked with my kids about it. They immediately jump to its defense with all kinds of cockamamie reasons why actually it’s not sexist etc

Cue Miyazaki "Anime was a mistake" gif!

I'm very conflicted because the bits that aren't massively sexist and objectifying are quite good. It's also from this decade, not the 80s which has me RMDE at both Japan and Netflix. I should just pay for Paravi and watch the 3 seasons of Wakakozake I haven't yet watched.

Anyone seen the Ulysses 31 series? It was a french-japanese co-production.

I used to get some interesting anime recommendations on youtube but never see them anymore. It was the type of stuff that sold all over the world before anime had a real global audience. It tended to be fairy tales and I remember one of the earliest things I ever saw that didn't seem to be an american/japanese cartoon like GI Joe or X-Men or any number of saturday morning toy line stuff was Wizard Of Oz (there's different versions). I often wonder how much the fairy tales, X-Men, Thundercats etc got people ready for fully japanese cartoons.

watched Ulysses 31 as a kid as it was broadcast on UK TV, completely forgot about it until now and yet can immediately sing the whole theme tune. brains r weird.

there was another japanese-french one from the 80s that my kids have seen, the mysterious cities of gold. they loved it.

I need another pile of unread food manga like I need aa hole in the head, however a magazine just turned up with a list of the best food manga series and this one (Osen) looks so cool

http://goinjapanesque.com/ja/14343/

https://blog.alltheanime.com/podcast67/
Mentioned the podcast earlier when I was talking about Jonathan Clements but now I've listened to it. A lot of talk of of the original version of Gunbuster being difficult (or did they say impossible?) to find.
Funny story about pseudonyms; Tezuka being a dick to a musician.
Brilliant stuff about which animes succeed better abroad and then they're compelled to make more many years later (Trigun), or pretend they have more episodes than they do, so they can make them later. I'm kind of delighted that Urotsukidoji was a possibly bigger in the UK than anywhere else BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA! And he does talk about the irony of how it was portrayed as being what those sickos in japan watch, but actually Britain likes it more.

xps my first encounters with Anime was French kids TV in the eighties. They were showing Dragonball on Saturday mornings way before it hit the UK. Lots of other shows too - yes Ulysses, Cities of Gold (which were shown in the UK at the time), but also Olive et Tom, Ecole Des Champions, Nicky Larsson and many other French/Japanese productions. Anime was standard French kids' TV back then. Not sure what inspired it though

anime seems to have been more successful in most places than it was in the uk. there was a lot of anime on the tv in Chile when I used to visit in the 90s as a kid

Boogiepop Phantom and Serial Expeeiments: Alain are highly recommended, especially for us who have become shut-ins or already were pre-pandemic.

I haven’t seen it yet, but Dennou Coil (Den-Noh Coil) has gotten rapturous reviews

Serial Experiments: LAIN, not Alain, lol

It's interesting that anime never got much of a foothold in the UK, or Ireland. The only time it really had mainstream visibility here was during the late 90s/early 00s Pokemon craze, with a few other shows with names ending in "mon" and a heavily butchered dub of Card Captor Sakura. There have been a few attempts at anime-focused satellite channels over the years, and they all disappeared in a matter of weeks.

It seems like France and Italy are the big European anime/manga markets, both countries have a long history of anime shows on television (going back to the 70s at least).

Germany is quite into manga, i remember a few years ago looking up books on amazon and getting frustated cos a few books I wanted to buy were only translated into German. iirc when Tokyopop collapsed in the late 00s the only bit that survived was Tokyopop Gmbh cos it was profitable, and is still going today.

It's interesting that it has caught on in Africa so much too; how about south asia and middle east?

Another thing in that podcast above (which is quite well known to be fair) is about how much Chinese authorities view japanese cartoons as a threat, they were appalled when they found out that the majority of popular cartoons were japanese and I think they banned a bunch of stuff.

I heard a good theory that manga and anime have been so accessible is because the faces of the characters are mostly very simplified and almost like emoticons. That's disconcerting for me because that's the thing I most dislike about it. It's quite hard to find artists who draw faces like Dave Cooper (when he's not in his old timey cartoons mode) but I've found a few I can't remember the names of.

I’m enjoying Carol and Tuesday on Netflix right now about two teenagers who set out to conquer the Martian music business. 11 episodes in the fact that they live on mars seems entirely incidental to the plot, especially as the bit of mars they live in looks like Brooklyn. Nevertheless there are lots of robots and AI’s, they hire a small drunken arsehole of a robot to direct a recreation of the thriller video in episode 4.

The whole arc is about the battle between Carol and Tuesday’s homespun, handmade, honest to goodness sparkly pop sounds and Angela, former model, who is working with the mysterious Tao and his AI to manufacture the ultimate pop career.

i think its on mars because its by the cowboy bebop guy and 'genre setting + music focus' is his entire thing

omfg I’m finishing up my second viewing of Kill la Kill which much to my delight my bf is LOVING, I wish this didn’t have so much gross sexual shit (incest, sexualized children, etc), it’s hard to like wholeheartedly recommended, but what a trip. Should I watch Gurren Lagaan next?

kill la kill is the weakest of the big gainax/trigger shows imo, the second half is kind of a drag.

gurren lagann is better though still very much the work of the same director & writer so a lot of the beats are similar. same with promare though its a movie so its a nice concise take on the formula

Isn't Gainax and Trigger anime for people who love anime?

for sure, but this thread was originally spun off of eva discussion which is also gainax...

I feel like Kill la Kill is at once perfect for ppl who both love and don’t love anime

also i mostly think of this thread more as 'anime with crossover appeal outside of anime fandom' which trigger stuff definitely is. imaishi's even making the cyberpunk 2077 tie-in netflix series lol

I've been working my way through the original Patlabor OVA and it's interesting, it's slower in pace that what I would have expected from a mecha anime, like more of a drama with robots than an ACTION!!! series. The characters are well developed and it also has a timelessness about it, like it doesn't really lean into pop culture or era-specific tropes too much? I like it! It doesn't feel groundbreaking or mind-blowing but it's sturdy and pleasant. I'm almost done and then I'm going to watch the first 2 movies.

the 1st movie is my fav anime movie

I decided to watch some anime again this year after a long time of not watching it. I don't hate anime but I often feel underwhelmed. But figured there must be something worth watching from the past fifteen years

Mob Psycho 100 is funny and enjoyable and visually interesting for such a well-trodden genre. Several friends also recommended Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which was not bad but felt very standard for its genre (never saw the original series). I know there are much longer series but it still felt overly long. At least the ending was sufficiently epic

oh shit i should watch patlabor

Yes do it, it’s only 7 eps and then 2 movies! Somehow I only just the other day realized it was Mamoru Oahii

my bf and i have been going through jojo's bizarre adventure: stardust crusaders and have been loving it

second patlabor movie is my fav oshii but I haven't seen the first one for at least a decade

kenji kawai score is excellent too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dmlwhaEEgE

it's probably been even longer for the OVAs, but if memory serves, oshii directs some of the moodier ones there too

first movie is more like the ovas, 2nd is off doing its own thing

That's a beautiful piece of music.

As a young anime watcher the Patlabor movie totally confounded me with how little action there was. But then Wings Of Honneamise was similarly uncommercial for such a big production.
Then I remember even the Fist Of The North Star feature length turned all the outrageous fantasy violence into a horrible disempowering downer of an ending and the very commercial seeming Street Fighter Alpha mortified me by having my favorite characters brutalized in such a depressing fashion by some schmuck who isn't even in the games.

It's weird looking back on all that and I wonder if anime is still doing this to kids these days.

I was 9 or 10 years old when the school janitor loaned me Akira and it made me feel really sick but I mostly liked it.

the body horror stuff in akira still ooks me out

can't remember if i said this here but my kids' mother-in-law bought them the entire series of tokyo ghoul

they are 11 and 9 years old

i think it's....... a bit fucking much

yeahhhhhhh probably not age-appropriate

i was still watching pokemon when i was 12. it was brand new at the time though and thus probably cooler than it is to tweens now

my 9-y-o is dunzo with pokemon

they are HUGE fans of carole and tuesday. need 200 more episodes ASAP to wash the taste of tokyo ghoul out of my mouth

11-y-o is also starting to read assassination classroom, which i feel like would probably be actually illegal in the united states

i would say the age i saw akira at, 13, is the perfect age to see akira

pokemon/sailor moon/dragon ball z were my world at ages 11-12 but they were all airing "new" episodes at that time. evangelion broke open the rest of the anime world for me but i didn't see it in full until i was 14. i definitely watched ninja scroll not long after akira and i liked it but i was def 1) too young to be watching it 2) ninja scroll is the fucking worst trash. i think if my parents were at all interested in what i was watching they would've probably have not let me see a lot of these, but they had checked out of controlling the media i consumed by the time i was 7 or so? i grew up watching robocop and schwarzenegger and james bond movies, ultraviolence was my bag until psychologically and metaphysically deep art were my bag lol

in fact, anime basically conducted that transition

mtv and the simpsons were the last battles my parents waged and they lost both

my dad shunned the simpsons ever since they went up against the cosby show. 'i don't watch cartoons' was his line.

my mom was really strict about that stuff until i hit high school and then she went back to work and stopped caring much. so i basically went straight from pokemon to cowboy bebop

though bebop wasn't nearly as violent as i remembered on a rewatch, it probably just seemed that way at the time due to that jump lol

xps Ass Class is actually pretty wholesome for the most part (except for the sexy honeypot teacher)

ultraviolence was my bag until psychologically and metaphysically deep art were my bag

"evangelion was my bag but then evangelion was my bag"

lol

Just finished the two Devilman OVA’s from 1987/1990 and W O W, these were fucking amazing. The monster design was WILD, like so creepy and grotesque, and it had a lot of v filmy touches to it. Super fun to watch.

I am quite fond of them, I thought they were genuinely spooky at times but the fight with the demon bird lady in the second one didn't do much for me and it goes on a long time.

Always found it tad troubling that the blonde guy is perfectly happy to kill people to become a demon.

Fiiiinally finished Bubblegum Crisis and started the 3-episode AD Police Files OVA and it’s incredible, it’s a lot darker grittier trashier then Bubblegum Crisis, as someone w a soft spot for both cyberpunk and sleazy 90s OVAs this is perfect

Tatami Galaxy, episode 1: this guy talks way too fucking fast

Cat Soup: I tried to watch this a few months ago but I rewatched it last night and I like it a lot more, prob bcz I already knew it was kinda dark. Weird and fun!

Megazone 23, Part I: hahaha this is ridic and I love it so much, it is SOOO distinctively 80s and there is even a mall montage w pop music over it and I really enjoyed the direction it went in

i finished the patlabor ova and it was quite nice even though, in this particular year, watching a show about the police clashing with environmental activists was... hm. last episode did have a quite funny joke and the expense of commies tbf

gotta log back into hidive and watch the movies now

i'm also glad that the ova ultimately did not deal too much with them apprehending "criminals" or "environmental terrorists" and kinda ended up being a cops vs. the military story

the movies are incredible, enjoy

I liked that the OVA was a drama with robots instead of like ACTION anime!

Brad I think you might really love Megazone 23

xp wait I literally just said that upthread

anyway incidentally enough I had the first Patlabor queued up and was abt to start watching (and am now 5 minutes in, the animation is stellar) and I just want to point out that every time I watch Patlabor in my head I hear Erykah Badu singing “Paaatlabor, you gon’ hurt your back”

tatami galaxy is worth sticking with-- the rest of the episodes aren't nearly as fast as the first one

still pretty fast though

made a rare attempt to watch an anime for people who like anime (Kill La Kill) and deeply regretted my decision within an hour, save for the enjoyable overkill of the animation style

like I get that it's making a meta statement about anime but still....not for me, oof.

but, yknow, it's good to test yr limits of taste now and again

okay yeah wow the Patlabor movie is in a league of its own, like the OVA is really great but the movie is next-level and I can clearly see why it gets the praise that it does

Simon, what specifically did you hate about Kill la Kill?

I really don't know if there was anything I liked about it lol

aaaahahaha okay fair, I enjoyed its frenetic energy and its twisty turny batshit plot and send-ups of lots of diff anime tropes and conventions but ya it is def not for everyone

what have you watched lately that you've enjoyed?

Japan’s most evil yakuza makes its cutest househusband! Follow Tatsu’s journey from underworld legend to domestic bliss when the anime adaptation of Kousuke Oono’s hit comedy manga The Way of the Househusband premieres in 2021. pic.twitter.com/V7tdVIaYVc

— NX (@NXOnNetflix) October 27, 2020

have you read the comic?

No, I just thought it sounded funny.

I read a bit and it's ok, but not as funny as Hinamatsuri tho

ok so the first patlabor movie was several orders better than the ova, and the second patlabor movie was.... a godlike masterpiece?????

they're the best anime movies

pretty much

I made it 40 minutes into Patlabor 2 but fell asleep bcz I was stoned, it was v v dialogue heavy! I'm going to rewatch it tonight.

i'm prepared to call patlabor 2 the best oshii film i've ever seen. the balance is just right, feels less rushed than ghost in the shell, less philosophy 101 than gits 2, more serious, contemplative, and quietly surreal than urusei yatsura: beautiful dreamer or patlabor 1

it also has the best score of any movie ever

hoooooly shit Patlabor 2 WOW

it’s wild to think this is connected with the OVA in any way, they’re so thematically different

https://www.instagram.com/drivemeawaytroubledheart/
A lot of really good classic anime and Zelda vibes here.

it’s wild to think this is connected with the OVA in any way, they’re so thematically different

― Warmed Regards, (Stevie D(eux)), Saturday, November 14, 2020 11:27 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's wild but also it's like... an active deconstruction of the ova, cf. noa's speech about not wanting to be "the girl who loves a giant robot" anymore

yeah you are so right!!

cops questioning their own existence and purpose bc they are maintaining an order and a peace that are in and of themselves fictions, god inject it into my fucking veins

Been meaning to chase down this theme music for Ichi The Killer anime forever, it's hilarious and cool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfoZZTmXWG0
When I first saw it, I thought it was quite uneventful but I actually think about it quite a lot, especially the way Ichi goes into an inarticulate rage at people who know what he's really like ("you idiot!")

rewatching ghost in the shell: stand alone complex and this show is even better than i remembered

really remarkable that they carried over the cinematic feeling of the moment to the series, there are quiet and slow moments in nearly every episode that give me chills, and yet they still pack a ton of action and plot swerving into 22 minutes

the cinematic feeling of the movie*

I've always debated whether or not to devote the time to Stand Alone Complex, perhaps I should????

haven't gotten to the end yet but i sure like it

It is definitely worth your attention.

rurouni kenshin: tsuioku-hen is incredible

having not seen the series before and then watching episode 1 after the OVA, the difference in tone was shocking

if that's the prequel one, I think I did the same thing - saw the OVA and never saw the TV series

ghost in the shell sac was really great btw. i started 2nd gig but something about the recipe feels off, having trouble getting into it

Kenshin TV series, along with Sailor Moon, is what got me into anime. It gets amazing when Shishio comes into it but you have to suffer about 25 episodes of crap to get there

Anyone seen Heidi: Girl Of The Alps? A lot of episodes on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hKi1VlE94A

Thought maybe the thread was revived for this incredibly weird moment

Any anime fans out there? I always loved Studio Ghibli after I worked with them - however I don’t know much else.

But, I just saw “Your Name” and it blew me away. What is out there? C’mon, some of you guys have to be nerds. Fess up!

— Jim Belushi (@JimBelushi) December 28, 2020

lol, you want a weird anime moment

What the fuck the screenwriter for Pulp Fiction just gave the Konosuba movie 5 stars pic.twitter.com/l0kTc8ScT6

— Protokahn (@Protokahn) November 16, 2019

Easily one of the best experiences in a cinema I’ve ever had. I would go as far as saying it’s the reason cinema was invented.

— Roger Avary (@AVARY) November 17, 2019

amazing

I'm currently doing my best to binge Revolutionary Girl Utena, which I've wanted to watch for quite some time, even though binging isn't in my nature. This is because I discovered it was on Amazon Prime just the other day, AND it's due to expire later this month!

The visuals are pretty amazing. I love the two shadow girls! My only (minor) gripe is that the sword duels are starting to feel a tad repetitive (at least on a marathon).

That Count de Monte Cristo anime is also there and soon to expire, godammit!

how far in are you? make sure to watch the movie afterward too

yeah do not miss the film. the duels are repetitive by nature, it's a magical girl anime, though some of them are really inventive still especially in the third arc

I’m about four episodes into the black rose storyline and it's really good! It’s getting pretty damn creepy too, I’ll bet the creator is a horror fan. I’m curious about how some of the characters actually end up in that interview room...

show only gets weirder enjoy the ride

and the black rose arc is prob the most repetitive wrt duels... things get a little less predictable after

the last two episodes of the black rose arc.... i've watched them so many times and they still make me go "wtf was THAT"

WTF was THAT indeed. Loved Utena, and was fully expecting further symbolic bafflement at the end, so it didn't disappoint (not really happy about certain developments/changes from the manga, but never mind). I might re-watch those two Black Rose episodes and the final episodes before they're taken down.

Managed to finish Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo too, pretty great "anime for people who hate anime". Loose adaptation of the story, set in an anachronistic future/past, 19th Century Europe with huge airships and art-deco cars and digital screens, and, like, aliens hanging around all over the place; The Count is basically Space Dracula. Interesting mix of eastern and western art styles, some janky 3D environments that are dated now, but still fit into the visual aesthetic. Pretty emotional too, the final episode had me welling up.

may not surprise you that as someone who saw the anime first i can't stand the manga

the utena manga was a pretty separate project to the anime, one isn't an adaptation of the other or anything, they just came up with the character designs & vague plot outline together & then the anime staff did their own thing & the manga artist did her own thing, only occasionally discussing concepts. i've never really seen anyone who's read/watched both say the manga is particularly worthwhile at all

That makes sense. The series was a lot better and more memorable than the manga overall, though I wanna go back and give it another read. But next: the movie!

The movie is v special and it's debatable whether it's a complete retelling set in a parallel universe or if it's a continuation set within the same continuity as the anime series (I am firmly in the latter camp)

going to try "So I'm a Spider, So What?" which was a fun manga

one of many many series where the lead is reincarnated as a minor character in a role playing game

theres so many of those now that i am fatigued of them just by their existence without even having to watch any

so i'm a spider's manga is pretty good!

one of many many series where the lead is reincarnated as a minor character in a role playing game

sword art online was just the right mix of compelling and amateurishly bad to cause a bunch of aspiring nerd writers to think 'i bet i could do this better' and it's turned into a huge feedback loop

March Comes in Like a Lion is definitely worth a watch-- it'll make you cry from happiness, kawaiiness, and sadness

all of the good parts of monogatari's direction without all the indefensible shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnvzR_hrDA

i'm so sick of mmorpg animes

I haven't seen the anime, but Erased doesn't really fit in that list, really loved the manga. (Though I guess it heavily involves "reincarnation" of a sort.) Weird to see how different the anime style is from the original. I know it's on Netflix (as is the live-action version?) Anyone seen them already and can tell me if it's worth the time?

Haven't read the manga, but I enjoyed the Erased anime. Didn't set my world on fire but worth seeing. Little bit meandering at points, but given the short length, easy to overlook

Lately I've been watching Haruhi Suzumiya, which I know is pretty well-known but I'd never seen. Liked the weird ordering of episodes and the overarcing plot, but as usual the fan service sucks and it was too cliched at times to really recommend. It's been a looong time since I've seen an anime I loved

I decided to give Serial Experiments Lain a re-watch over the last week. I had vague memories of a "cool" show that went way over my head; I was worried it would just turn out to be dated and pretentious. By the third or fourth episode, I was completely hooked. Like one poster says upthread, the best approach is to just take it all in, and maybe reach your own conclusions, since we're only being fed bits and pieces of a larger story anyway (or at least, that's how I see it).

btw a very poor english translation of the playstation lain game, which precedes the show and is significantly different from it afaict, is online here: https://3d.laingame.net/#/game

friend of mine is working on making the translation better

whaaaaaat

wow now I want to rewatch Lain

https://blog.alltheanime.com/books-leiji-matsumoto/

the one episode that's mostly the history of computers >>>>>>

トレンドにガンダムＷがあるけど、ガンダムＷというと映画「ブレードランナー2049」「ラ・ラ・ランド」に出てたライアン・ゴズリングとヒイロ・ユイとの完全一致画像を思い出せずにはいられない。#ガンダムW pic.twitter.com/fYHohjugiN

— てんげるまん🌀tengelmam (@fcbliebe1900) April 15, 2021

I cannot stress enough just how much you need to stop whatever it is you are doing and watch the opening titles of this documentary. I promise you're not ready for what's coming. https://t.co/UenN1Zs9iO

— non anime enjoyer (@VoltySquirrel) May 27, 2021

I could have posted that on a more specific thread, but that would spoil the surprise!

omg lol

trailer for TV series that adapts Japanese literature classic Tale of the Heike
starts airing in Sept and has an amazing staff list including director Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird)
super excited for this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OQpRQ8syqw

yeah looks great. excited to see yamada working in a different visual style, as much as i like kyoani stuff

The stylish film noir thriller ODDTAXI is the best anime I've seen in years. While there's no direct connection, it feels like it carries forward Satoshi Kon's legacy, to the point that one episode could almost slot right into the first half of Paranoia Agent. Beautiful animation, great soundtrack, and some of the finest writing I've ever seen in an anime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kdvfKp1EG0

anyway all of anno's pre-eva miyazaki-inspired series nadia is on hulu and i recommend it; it's very digressive but also very charming

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, September 13, 2015 7:49 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love that i said this six years ago and am just now picking up nadia again. gonna finish it this time!!!!!

will try oddtaxi!

odd taxi is a masterpiece

where/how are you guys watching it?

it's on crunchyroll i think. also the usual suspects.
https://www.crunchyroll.com/oddtaxi

thanks.

my usual t o r r e n t sites don’t have it but i’m not on any anime specific ones tbf

n/m "found" it

i'm only 15 episodes in and nadia is surprisingly brutal. i guess i shouldn't be surprised given anno made evangelion after but this is still significantly more traumatized than gunbuster

watched Odd Taxi this week and loved it, wasn't the furry bullshit it looked like from the outside

i am currently working my way through Haijime no Ippo which follows the manga INCREDIBLY faithfully and is great before bedtime stuff. Season 1 is 75 20 minute episodes, which is insane.

i've reached nadia's infamous filler arc, where the main characters are stranded on a deserted island for like seven episodes. it's godawful, even the animation is bad

the show before this arc started was kind of a masterpiece

thats the only thing i know about nadia because literally everyone has the same reaction to it

i was hoping it was not as bad as everyone has said for years and years. it is

nadia's vegetarianism is one of my favorite things about her character but they devote so much energy in the deserted island arc to making her look obstinate and stupid in her vegetarianism and i'm like... so angry about it

they can't even draw nadia's hair right from scene to scene lol

Nice video about Cyber City Oedo 808 and cyberpunk in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOoQDtuehoo
I've never actually seen this. A friend gave me a loan of it and the vhs player instantly chewed it up (I've never bought into VHS nostalgia, they were shit). No region B bluray yet, but I'm waiting.

Region 2 BR here https://www.animebluray.co.uk/Home/Product/1786

Thankyouverymuch!

Watched the three Mobile Suit Gundam movies on netflix, which stitch together the original anime series. Was surprised by how much of what I associate with Evangelion - trauma relating to an unloving, distant father figure; youngsters manipulated and instrumentalized by a cruel militarized authority - was actually introduced in this show. The animation is sometimes charmingly primitive but, as with much manga and anime from the 70's and 80's, the character models feel to me like they're strongly influenced by bande dessinee, and I certainly prefer that over the sort of garish sensory overload that a lot of anime after that seems to go for. The story, despite having giant robots in it, sometimes feels more like one of those bitter WWI novels; it's pretty unflinching about the War Is Hell stuff. The second movie has some soundtrack jams, including an E Street Band type rocker with lyrics that apparently are all about the sadness of loss and tragedy of war while the backing gets all fist pumping. I looked up the dude who recorded it, Tadao Inoue, and he's also responsible for this album with an all-time great cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUAt_y8EdZM

Anyway, I felt like by the third film it all got weighed down with too much pseudoscience babble and (admitidely cool) psychedelics, but that's kinda appropriate for something like this. Made me want to check out the next series at least, which apparently is from the pov of the faction that the protagonists in this one are fighting!

i don't like zeta gundam as much as the original but it's an interesting direction at least. i do like ZZ though which seems to be generally disliked for being sillier

if you want to see the best gundam series, it's Turn A by a fair margin imo

new season of mob psycho announced, anyone here watch that

me, i'm most excited for the new season of jojo, which is one of those shows that is so good but so hard to explain to normies that you can't recommend it to normal ppl lol, plus the body horror stuff turns ppl off

i liked the first three eps of mob psycho, does it develop into something?

i read the first three cycles of jojo and don't think i could handle the pacing if it were animated.

thanks ciderpress, the amount of different series is indeed intimidating!

apparently zeta gundam's soundtrack is Neil Sedaka songs with new Japanese lyrics

it looks intimidating but most of them are standalone series, only zeta/zz and char's counterattack directly follow on from the original

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

replies*

the character in gurren lagann is just an effeminate gay caricature, a different thing that's more common. what i was referring to before is more like 'this character comes pretty close to being a trans character but explicitly is not and the writing doesn't even seem to be really aware of transness as it actually exists' thing

someone like ed from the original cowboy bebop? (note that i haven't seen cowboy bebop, yes, it's on my to-watch list, a lot of stuff i'm just familiar with through cultural osmosis)

ah not really at all, ed's just an eccentric tomboyish teen who often gets mistaken for a boy and doesn't really care, but that's all fairly incidental? like it isn't really interested in ed's relationship to gender at all or anything, she's just wild and free-spirited etc.

just a random vent, so i'm just kind of running through anime that's hyped as the Best Anime Of All Time(TM) and i get to steins;gate and i see the first episode and yeah it's really likable and funny and the dub is fucking great actually and then i get halfway through episode two and...

for FUCK'S sake that is some of the MOST GRATUITOUSLY UNNECESSARY transphobia i have seen in a while

i admit i haven't done exhaustive research but god if i'd known in advance i would've just avoided watching the show entirely, now i've watched a couple episodes and it _is_ a good show and i _do_ like it a lot except for the COMPLETELY GRATUITOUS AND EGREGIOUS TRANSPHOBIA

can anyone let me know of any other widely acclaimed anime i should specifically avoid? yu yu hashuko is already on my "avoid" list.

kate have YOU seen UTENA, idek what stein;gate is, semicolons in the title are a real dealbreaker

if you use best anime lists from like myanimelist or youtubers you are gonna end up with the taste of a 16 year old dude please don't do that

#notallyoutubers, stevm's top100 has been very useful to me, v cool to check out those 60's Toei ones.

i'm not gonna defend steins;gate as good trans representation or anything but it does actually go somewhere with luka as a trans character (though it's still messy) instead of just sticking to the 'androgynous crossdressing boy played for comic relief' trope that it starts out as. it's a mess but not totally irredeemable

ciderpress otm

with widely acclaimed anime there are often much bigger issues than transphobia (which certainly shows up but isn't the most common), just because a lot of the anime fandom is really quite terrible and is often happy to look past pretty reprehensible stuff, and so something that some youtuber or myanimelist will hype up might turn out to be extremely creepy about children, or be a bland power fantasy featuring gratuitous sexual assault, or so on. please do your research in general. both a problem with the industry and the fandom

otm

my son has just gotten really into Baki, but i can’t tell if it’s problematic beyond just big hulking dudes smashing other dudes (not like that)

i don't think steins;gate is a bad show but it's one of those gateway things with a 'mindblowing' story that people tend to move beyond as they become enthusiasts, like uhhh fight club or christopher nolan movies. i think if you polled only people who have seen a lot of anime it would probably not crack the list

a lot of the stuff you see on anime recommendation lists fall into that category though since most people have not seen a lot of anime, much moreso than with movies

will admit I'd never heard of steins gate before now, when I hear "entry level best anime ever" I think Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, Gundam, One Piece?

anyway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFIL7MjPsMQ

that looks like a good list. glad to see more people talking up On-Gaku which is my favorite anime movie of recent years

posts got me thinking about more modern anime that could now be considered entry level
definitely Attack on Titan, JoJo, maybe Demon Slayer, maybe One Punch Man/Mob Psycho, anything else? feel like Fate Zero and Madoka Magica were this for a while but their stars have faded somewhat.

yeah mostly just the big shonen manga adaptations + anything by the imaishi/yoshinari half of trigger + romcoms are more popular than they used to be so probably more people going straight to those without fear of being called gay for liking girly stuff or w/e

the shonen jump stuff used to run year round so there werent discrete hype cycles for it which left space for other seasonal stuff like the aforementioned to get attention from the 'entry-level' crowd whereas now theres a big shonen or three every season

I don't watch shonen but it's interesting to see which ones become canonised and which ones fade out
like Black Clover is hugely popular within the shonen world but doesn't seem to have much reach outside it, whereas Demon Slayer reached a much wider audience, with Jujutsu Kaisen seemingly stuck between

ok here's The Long List of anime on my to-watch list, there's some other stuff on there as well that i have for like novelty value, or because my friend worked on the english dubs, etc. i do have certain biases, i don't really like the hyperviolent teen boy anime - and steins;gate, for the record, _isn't_ one of those kind of animes. that's the shitty thing, it's genuinely a really good anime with great characters and story. also a really great dub - it's an extremely loose dub but it's really enjoyable and captures the spirit of things very well.

there's just this one scene in the second episode where, i'm gonna just spoiler this for transphobia the main character, rintaro, has a friend named ruka who's a shrine maiden and also a trans woman, and after he visits her he goes off on this internal monologue where he's... actually it's a really good representation of how transphobes struggle with dealing with the reality of trans people. like ruka is clearly and obviously a woman but rintaro can't accept this and keeps repeating "he's a dude". also rintaro has... has issues with reality, he's _not_ a reliable narrator, but usually when he goes off on his crazy rants one of his friends is around to call him on his bullshit. but not here.

anyway the character herself is fine but the way the show handles it is just _captain rainbow_ levels of awful

not as bad as _Mad Bull 34_ mind you, and yes I know _Mad Bull 34_ is satire

also i decided that i just _wasn't_ gonna do ranma 1/2 for personal reasons

anyway The List so far, in order roughly by year

Ashita No Joe
Lupin III
Aim for the Ace! (this actually looks profoundly mediocre but IDK sports anime interests me even though I'm not interested in actual sports)
Galaxy Express 999
Future Boy Conan
Anne of Green Gables
The Rose of Versailles (the consensus here BTW is that Oscar is _not_ transmasc, and based on what I've read I tend to agree; haven't seen the show yet tho)
Ashita No Joe 2
Urusei Yatsura
Touch (even though I know The Twist already)
Maison Ikkoku
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Tanoshii Moomin Ikka
Sailor Moon
Slam Dunk
The Irresonsible Captain Tylor
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Martian Successor Nadesico
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Cowboy Bebop
Great Teacher Onizuka
Ghost Stories (OK the dub is _very_ South Park/Family Guy inspired and I don't like either of those shows but personal taste, I genuinely find it funny. Including the transphobic joke early in the series. I can see why other people would want to avoid it like the plague though.)
Cromartie High School (actually this might get stricken from the list, it's very Adult Swim style, I don't think it's that funny, and the King Crimson-style soundtrack by Bi Kyo Ran only goes so far; I mean, I don't actually listen to any of Bi Kyo Ran's albums...)
Monster
Windy Tales
Major
Mushishi
Gurren Lagann (one of the first animes I really got into, I saw the movies of these at Gencon in 2011 and they fuck)
Lucky Star
Baccano!
Casshern Sins
Golgo 13 (a guilty pleasure)
Kaiba
Monogatari
Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood (not my usual thing but I can't entirely avoid that sort of thing... I won't go near One Piece because people say if I start watching that I will NEVER STOP)
Welcome to Irabu's Office
The Tatami Galaxy
Hunter X Hunter (another one that, you know, just because it's acclaimed)
Kyousa Giga
Hourou Musuko
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica
Inferno Cop
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (really NOT my style but I feel like I have an obligation for the sake of cultural competency)
Kids on the Slope
Teekyuu
Space Dandy
Your Lie in April
Ping Pong the Animation
NINJA Slayer from ANIMATION
Hibike Euphonium (just because EUPHONIUM, I've heard the first season queerbaits and then backs out in S2 but that Liz To Aoi Tori is genuinely queer)
Keijo!!!!!!!! (look i'm sorry but an ecchi about a sport where girls try to knock each other off platforms using only their boobs and butts sounds like _the hottest trash_. one i'm obviously very down with sports anime and two it reminds me of Kosho from The Prisoner)
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu
Yagate Kimi Ni Naru (again, Actual Lesbians)
Adachi and Shimamura (Actual Lesbians)
Odd Taxi
Cyberpunk - Edgerunners (not my thing but..)
Heike Monogatari
Bocchi the Rock!
Birdie Wing

Movies on my To Watch list. I've seen Miyazaki's films and I think Grave of the Fireflies, as well as Angel's Egg, Pale Cocoon, Paprika, Your Name, and Night is Short Walk On Girl.

Belladonna of Sadness
Jack and the Beanstalk
Golgo 13 The Professional
Kenya Boy
Birth
A Penguin's Memory (the story of a penguin who has PTSD from Vietnam, no, seriously)
Wings of Tsubasa
Akira
Memories
1001 Nights
Jin-Roh - The Wolf Brigade
Princess Arete
A Tree of Palme
Dead Leaves
Mind Game
Tekkon Kinkreet
Genius Party
Redline
The Garden of Sinners
Little Witch Academia
The Garden of Words
Promare
Asagao to Kase-San (Actual Lesbians)
The Girl from the Other Side

The spring '23 anime that I'm interested in seeing:

Skip and Loafer
Oshi No Ko
Birdie Wing Season 2
Kamikatsu (this seems like _incredibly hot_ trash)

i like almost all of the shows on that first list... havent seen some of the sports stuff. Your Lie in April sticks out as the biggest dud there. i found bloom into you and adachi&shimamura to be kinda bland but maybe you'll get more out of them

i ended up watching cromartie after going down a google rabbit hole of notable dubs. it's kinder than adult swim stuff i find? it is goofy and stonery tho, so i can see how it'd feel like that

also on this kick i watched a few eps of the you're under arrest! dub, which is delightful, but i didn't get as far as the trans (or... not trans? idk how they play the character and/or if it's different in sub v dub) character in that one so i can't speak to it. the dub absolutely rules tho at the very least watch the 60 second clips ppl have posted to twitter with extremely southern non-actor children mumbling their lines

adding my default "put paranoia agent on the list" position altho tbh it's been so long since i've watched it that i have no idea how it's held up

sry if these are all mentioned i tried to do a ctrl-f here and ther

adding my default "put paranoia agent on the list" position altho tbh it's been so long since i've watched it that i have no idea how it's held up

― Ryan seaQuest (Will M.)

saving my satoshi kon binge for another time, haha, kinda like i haven't seen eva because it seems... intimidating

i did add a few things to my to-watch list as a result of the stevem video for sure though he was halfway through his "arthouse" list before he got to something that wasn't already on my list haha

i feel like that's a good sign tho

only thing mentioned that i would definitely recommend avoiding is monogatari but i don't know everything on that list

yeah.. stay away from monogatari. i love the director but it's far too indefensible. maybe add march comes in like a lion instead

thanks, monogatari is off the list!

saw episodes 4 and 5 of "birdie wing". ok, before episode 4 i was iffy on the "lesbian" angle but no, absolutely, this is _incredibly_ lesbian and i am _here_ for it. i mean as soon as vipere showed up everything got like 10,000 times more sapphic.

i also saw watched the first episode of keijo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!121 . i had incredibly high hopes for this and it did not disappoint. like hey, let's take this incredibly ecchi premise and just treat the whole thing as if it was ace wo nerae. i absolutely would have _no_ interest in watching this show if they took any other approach to it... when it comes to ecchi i am _clearly_ not the intended audience.

finally, i dearly love that franz kafka has his own page on MAL. https://myanimelist.net/people/6693/Franz_Kafka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrfkGV4SrX4

This movie rules in general but I particularly want to point out that the woodland creatures training sumo moves around 6 minutes in are totally adorable.

ok, recent watches

binged the first 13 episodes of slam dunk (1993) with a friend. much more light-hearted and comedy focused than i thought. also verrrry slow-moving. it sort of assumes that the viewer knows nothing at all about basketball, so the protagonist also knows nothing at all. so it's, like, episode 10 before they talk about dribbling, for instance. even though i have no interest in sports i do find that i'm very fond of sports anime.

i've also been watching a lot of art anime. mirae muzui is knocking me out, "dreamland" is absolutely fantastic. it's like the video game crystal castles if it was also "yantra" by james whitney. _strongly_ recommended for people who hate anime. (still not really sure what it means to "hate anime".)

watched the first episode of the three-episode OVA "cybercity oedo 808", which has a legendary sweary dub. it's _definitely_ the point where "hey this is MATURE anime for MATURE ADULTS" becomes completely ridiculous. every character in this thing talks like malcolm tucker.

biggest disappointment is that apparently some of the biggest people subbing old anime are russian putin stans. would prefer if somebody who _isn't_ fash would sub the 1970s tv series about a baseball player who is also the descendent of ninja and wins at baseball using ninpo.

i gave yuru yuri season 3 a shot - i heard it was by a different company from the first two seasons and is much more slice-of-life. this is indeed the case. just to compare i checked out one of the eps from the first two seasons and i got probably five minutes in. it was just completely disgusting and vile. probably anime for people who like anime, it's that bad. i really do prefer my anime with _actual adults_, but, i mean, i'm not the target audience for a lot of the older stuff. obviously.