Topic: Anime [General]

[bustin98]

Could The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers have helped inspire Cowboy Bebop? Things that make you go hmmm...

So, any love for Legend of the Overfiend and all its glorious tenticles?

[Athrun Zala]

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Originally posted by: Kairon
To say Miyazaki's stuff is anime is to insinuate that his work is at the same level as the commercialized factory work that most anime and manga is in Japan.

Not truem, in all honesty, you're generalizing way too much
By saying that Bach's stuff is music, am I insinuating that it's at the same level that Britney Spears' ?
Or by saying that the GC is game console, does it mean that it's at the same level as the PS2?

in any case, I'd reccomend any of the following...
- Shin Seiki Evangelion
- Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuioku Hen
- Soukyuu no Fafner: Dead Agressor
- Mai HiME
- Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED
- Elfen Lied
- Tokyo Godfathers (this one is a movie btw)

all of them great, and not typical in any way ^^

[Kairon]

Ooh! I saw Tokyo Godfathers! That was pretty good! /happy

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[wandering]

...Well. At least that's something.

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The thing that irks me most about most anime is how much it panders to it's own cliches

Have you seen a James Bond movie recently? Or an american animated film? Or an american TV show? Or played a videogame?

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that it can translate into merchandising and a fanbase almost as if it had been demographically studied.

Ever notice how Miyazaki has been putting 5000 walking plush dolls in each of his movies lately?
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I already hate myself for saying that.


On an unrelated note, is Serial Experiments Lain any good? That's next on my must-watch list.

[Kairon]

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Originally posted by: wandering
Have you seen a James Bond movie recently? Or an american animated film? Or an american TV show? Or played a videogame?

To whit, anime lacks wit. It is self-effacing without tact, self-celebrating without subtlety, and self-referential without irony. It takes on the form of humor, but doesn't attempt to mold it with any complexity instead relying on broad brushstrokes of accepted and market-tested comedies and caricatures and also relying heavily on an emotionally uncomplicated study of straightforward gender inversion that masquerades as modern gender-equality to its viewers when it is instead little better for our youth than a one-step-forward-two-steps-backward Cinderella-is-a-tank-girl type of bedtime story.

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Originally posted by: wandering
Ever notice how Miyazaki has been putting 5000 walking plush dolls in each of his movies lately?
.
.
.
.
I already hate myself for saying that.

You should. You are a horrible horrible man.

But as you can see above, I'm a pretentious ... yeah.

STILL! Miyazaki's stories are almost always told from the point of view of a child. And as a child, full of innocent imagination and naive wonderment, cute and cuddly is wherever you want to find it. (Like in Radish Spirits, imaginary Soot Sprites, or even rampaging Ohmu)

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Originally posted by: wandering
Lain

I saw a couple of the beginning episodes at the anime club I ran. It seemed to me to be gunning for the slightly more psychological intrigue, in the sense that I can't remember specific scenes of dramatic action in the beginning of the series, but instead well-executed "set-up" vignettes of the main characters and their world that hinted at a fuller and richer intrique down-the-line. Quality-wise, I saw little to complain about, I remember pretentiously calling it "nouveau" and thought that the art style was nice and edgy.

Still, it did feature as it's main character, Lain, who I cannot for the life of me be intrigued by since I don't buy into the whole "she's so closed and non-responsive and almost a human robot" bit.

... Which reminds me... for some reason I enjoyed Key: The Metal Idol... hmm... now how in the world could that have happened?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[wandering]

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Originally posted by: Kairon
To whit, anime lacks wit. It is self-effacing without tact, self-celebrating without subtlety, and self-referential without irony.

I suppose I can agree with that....excepting parody like Fooley Cooley and Paranoia Agent.

But okay, it's formulaic without being self-aware. Fine. So was Hamlet.

I like anime because, unlike mainstream american entertainment, it...tries to explore...stuff. Your average anime series...even the trite, mediocre ones...demand thought. They slow down for reflection on life, love, war, memory, etc. That has to count for something.

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STILL! Miyazaki's stories are almost always told from the point of view of a child. And as a child, full of innocent imagination and naive wonderment, cute and cuddly is wherever you want to find it. (Like in Radish Spirits, imaginary Soot Sprites, or even rampaging Ohmu)

I couldn't agree more.

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I saw a couple of the beginning episodes at the anime club I ran.

YOU ran an anime club?

[Kairon]

Lol. Yup. In High School.

The actual anime club was showing Witch Hunter Robin (or... probably not that, but something with Robin in it that involved a female cop/detective) which made me sick to the stomache to have to sit through. So I instead gravitated to the Sailor Moon Fan Club, whose officers were leaving, and I helped retool that club into the Shoujo Animation Society. For the longest time, we showed Fushigi Yuugi. We tread water for a semester or two, then we went mainstream, renamed ourselves the Japanese Animation Society, launched with a showing of Pokemon The Movie in the fall semester, grabbed tons of Freshman, showed Evangelion (which I eventually came to loathe) and beat the original anime club into bloody submission! muahahaha!

Oh, and we always had a Miyazaki month. No-brainer.

I think I only really started to hate anime in Senior year. I finally realized the extent to which DragonBall Z was commercialized, perceived this as endemic of the entire industry, and at the same time got fed up with Neon genesis Evangelion's "oh-boo-hoo-for-shinji-and-co" psychobabble nonsense. That felt like utter betrayal because the theme song was so friggin' cool!

But yeah, before that I believed that I had to turn to Japanese animation for deeper subject matter. Then I discovered Batman: the animated series! LOL. No, seriously, some nice american animations came out (I wish I'd watched more of Spawn) and there was a very short-lived Disney Revival (Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch), and of course, the rise of Pixar, the NEW Disney! Also, by that time I'd been able to completely absorb most of the common anime formula in such a way that they no longer surprised me or entertained me. I started anticipating jokes and predicting outcomes.

Never good. This is the same reason why I no longer watch Gilmore Girls.

But enough about me, what about you? Have you read the oh-my-gawd-so-good Nausicaa mangas by Miyazaki? Spanning more than 1200 pages, he finally has enough canvas to fully examine mature issues that felt shallowly-understood in 2 hours films. Man... actually, don't read 'em. They'll steal away about 2 days of your life that you'll never get back.

Oh and uh...what's your opinion on Rumiko Takahashi? Not her new latest stuff (Inu-yasha? *yeck* it's been done!), but her original more wacky less "refined" works. I almost want to call her a trailblazer because it feels like everything copies off of her romantic comedies, from the soulful Maison Ikkoku to the more uproariously comically inventive Ranma. And if you go back far enough, Uretsei Yatsura and Lum, pure crazy wackiness that's off the wall and unrestrained. And through all her stuff, an underlying warmth of character and human feeling that emerges now and again that for a split second washes away the veneer of comic relief to let us believe in the character's real depth of experience...

AUGH! YOU GOT ME MONOLOGUING!

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com  

[wandering]

I've started to read Nausicaa. Amazing, yes.

As for Rumiko Takahashi....well, I haven't seen Ranma. (Remember my anime awakening happened around the time of the US theatrical release of Spirited Away...so I'm behind.) But I like Inuyasha. Bit of a guility pleasure (but easier to admit to than my love of Hamtaro. ...err...whoops...) Haven't been watching Inuyasha lately, though. It's just the plot......well, let's just say if you tie a carrot on a stick to my head, it'll only be so long before I realise that, no matter how much I walk, I'll never get to the carrot.

edit: BTW, I wonder if you've ever seen Nadia: The Secret of the Blue Water? I've only seen an episode or two, but I thought it might be your kind of thing. Possibly.

[Famicom]

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Originally posted by: Kairon
And Cowboy Bebop did have the strong points of their musical choices and their slight twist on the future-western genre (which, really, is not exactly brand new), but in the end it still contains anime throwbacks like funny/silly/non-sensical/genderless Ed, self-pity in the form of "we-can't-afford-food-let's-eat-the-last-ramen," and stereotypical femme Faye. Again, all this IMHO after watching a handful of episodes and watching the movie.

Well IMO it's success in America is really because it does one thing that most anime can't (and don't try to) accomplish, and that's feel sort of American. The music, the visual style, and I guess even the stereotypes are stuff the general public over here can relate to, making it a no-brainer for TV and being a key component in the anime boom in the states this decade. The good in Bebop is just that it's a whole lot of fun. Mostly self-contained stories about a likeable cast that gets into hijinks; a very American way of cartoon storytelling. The movie also played out in this fashion, as a very long episode.

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The thing that irks me most about most anime is how much it panders to it's own cliches, panders not references or pays homage to, and how transparent an attempt it is to capture a sense of hip coolness that it can translate into merchandising and a fanbase almost as if it had been demographically studied. In essence, I rarely see art in anime, and I rarely see an attempt at it, and I much, much, rarely, see any success in that attempt.

Well truthfully, most anime are straight adaptations of popular manga stories, which are published in very demographically studied manga magazines. Many of the most popular anime adaptations come from the Shounen Jump weekly (in Japan) publication, which is targeted at a younger teenage, typically male crowd. That's not to say a Death Note (which is getting an anime in the fall) that is totally opposite in theme and style doesn't come along every once in a while though. If you're looking for more stories that have more artistic value, manga would be the way to go if you aren't averse to the comic medium. Plus the current manga boom has brought over a ton of niche titles that wouldn't otherwise have made it over here. Though honestly many of the off-beat artistically driven ones are still few and far in between. Not unlike hollywood movies these days though!

There's been a growing trend of novels being converted into anime as well, and from what I've seen in people's reactions some of these shows can sway even the most hardened anime hater. Stuff like the Crest series (Crest of the Stars, Banner of the Stars 1-3) and Twelve Kingdoms on the surface may feature typical sci-fi and fantasy themes, but very atypical storytelling for an anime. Kino's Journey, Gankutsuou (Count of Monte Cristo; I suppose this counts), The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Shana and Trinity Blood, all from novels, all have a quality story underneath.

I would also recommend the aforementioned Monster. It's lengthy and features an unconventional plot and cast for an anime, and is targeted at an older crowd. Therein lies the problem though; its audience isn't the average anime buyer here in the states, and during the current anime downturn where only stuff pegged to be huge TV hits can survive, it may be a long while before it ever sees the light of day here. The manga is available however.

And since you mentioned Tokyo Godfathers, perhaps check out Satoshi Kon's other works like Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and the TV series Paranoia Agent. For the latter I can attest to it's quality, and it is especially similar to Tokyo Godfathers. Maybe even check out Yoshitoshi Abe's catalog, being Lain, Texhnolyze and Haibane Renmei.

[wandering]

Paranoia Agent is a great series for anime-haters. The episode "Mellow Maromi" in particular.

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The good in Bebop is just that it's a whole lot of fun. Mostly self-contained stories about a likeable cast that gets into hijinks; a very American way of cartoon storytelling.

Also, the 5000 other things that are great about Bebop.