Anime

[snyprrr]

Isn't Anime really just Japanese porn?

Anime = cute schoolgirls raped by tentacle monster

Never went back to anime after Legend of the Overfiend.

[ibanezmonster]

"Legend of the Overfiend"- had to look that one up.
http://myanimelist.net/anime/2359/Choujin_Densetsu_Urotsukidouji_Movie

What are you doing watching obscure, poorly rated hentai? 

I think if I had to recommend an anime for you, it would be different from everyone else (for most people, I'd recommend Monster or Death Note)- I would choose something avant-garde, like Serial Experiments Lain. 

[ibanezmonster]

Does anyone know if this is actually a real piece of music?

http://www.animeseason.com/mahou-shoujo-madoka-magika-episode-3/

If you go to Flash Player, part 1-    :57 in the video, the characters listen to an Oistrakh CD of some violin sonata. It's nothing I know, but it would be interesting if it were a real piece.

[DavidW]

I haven't seen an anime in a year or two, will watch Death Note soon on netflix watch instantly.

[ibanezmonster]

I haven't seen an anime in a year or two, will watch Death Note soon on netflix watch instantly.

Yeah! 

[Antoine Marchand]

I would choose something avant-garde, like Serial Experiments Lain. 

To watch Lain was like reading The Stranger of Albert Camus. It conveys an incredible sense of loneliness and isolation.

[ibanezmonster]

To watch Lain was like reading The Stranger of Albert Camus. It conveys an incredible sense of loneliness and isolation.

I never thought of that, but you're right! 
If you overlook the completely different plots, they both do share a completely detached view of the world that can be uneasy to experience. There is very little human "warmth" in these two, and emotions that should be expressed aren't held back- they just aren't there.

[Antoine Marchand]

I never thought of that, but you're right! 
If you overlook the completely different plots, they both do share a completely detached view of the world that can be uneasy to experience. There is very little human "warmth" in these two, and emotions that should be expressed aren't held back- they just aren't there.

That's exactly what I think, Greg. Japaneses have a great talent to show existential dramas; maybe because they are very existentialist people, indeed. Now I recall, for instance, a wonderful episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex that I watched the last week, titled "SA: Runaway Evidence – TESTATION" -  "Bōsō no Shōmei TESTATION" (暴走の証明 TESTATION). Warmly recommended! 

[ibanezmonster]

Ah, yes, I have seen one Ghost in the Shell movie before years ago, but that's about it for that series. Actually, my family rented it for themselves (or borrowed it or something), and I watched it. There are so many Ghost in the Shell movies and my memory only remembers vague things like scenery that I couldn't possibly tell you which movie it was. I just remember a big, open area with some guy sitting in a chair and another area with a bridge to the big house/warehouse/whatever it was.

At the time, I knew it was something great, but was too over my head to really understand it. I'll check out that episode you recommended! 

[ibanezmonster]

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

I only watched this because it was a new series that ended up #13 on MAL, and was only 12 episodes.

I looked at the picture and thought the show was going to be like this:



Instead, the whole show was like this:




Another 10/10 for me. Another masterpiece.
However, I can't recommend other people to watch it. It is simply too disturbing and depressing.

Pretty much everything about it was good, though the characters weren't particularly interesting or creative. The art is phenomenal- amazing surreal worlds and animation. There is a real world and an abstract world, which is a nice balance. Even the background music is good.

It combines 3 elements I'm familiar with, storywise:
1. The Gantz-style mission-based "go out and kill a target" theme. (the difference between this and Gantz is that there is no gore, sex, and this show is better put together).
2. (revealed later) the Higurashi "looping time which ends in deaths of all the main characters, and one character tries each time to make it stop."
3. The Will Smith-type self-sacrifice ending.

I'll give away the ending here:
The main character sacrifices herself so she doesn't have to watch the other Magical Girls die and become witches. This means she becomes an omniscient being in the sky that absorbs all of the pain of the Magical Girls   for all eternity. The irony of this is that the girl who protected her is the one who went back in time many, many times to prevent her from even becoming a Magical Girl, and in the end the exact opposite of her intentions took place.

It's just sad to see so much fighting and death of the main characters and have it end with the main character gently accepting eternal punishment. Soooo late Mahlerian... if only he could have watched this show.

[eyeresist]

Isn't Anime really just Japanese porn?

Anime = cute schoolgirls raped by tentacle monster

Yes. Also, classical music is just boring music for snobs!


I've finished the DVDs I mentioned earlier.

Shigurui: Death Frenzy was slow and overly artsy and so a bit difficult to follow. I think they were trying to put everything from the novel onto the screen literally. The pace is occasionally broken by some extremely OTT violence or perversion. If you ever wanted to see self-fellatio in a (non-hentai) cartoon, this is the one to watch! I think this could be edited down to a good 2 hour movie. Worth watching for the doom-laden aesthetic experience, if you're into that sort of thing.

Death Note - I finally got to see what everyone was talking about, regarding the evolution of the series. I suspect the way it went off track mirrored the manga - it seems typical of the way they extend an unexpected success by basically pulling the plot out of their arses (if you'll pardon my French). The replacements for L just weren't very interesting. There was more potential in the growth of the cult of Kira, especially in Japan, but sadly they didn't explore it much. I don't agree that the series is improved by stopping earlier - I don't think there are any really satisfactory stop points until the end. The ending did make me cry. Damned tear jerkers.

For me the most interesting part of the series was when Light loses his memory. Without the temptation of the Note, he seems like a pretty decent guy. The contrast when he gets his memory back is very striking. I wish the surrounding "good" characters hadn't been so perfectly moralistic about Kira being evil, and not using the Note themselves. It was pretty unbelievable - although Japan being a consensus-based society, it makes sense that people would at least all SAY the morally correct thing. Here in the West, most people will happily say that they would kill the bad people if they could get away with it.

I'm slightly confused by a memory I have from a while ago of a Japanese extra concerning Death Note, in which they asked the Japanese cast if they would use the Note, and they all said "no". This wasn't on the DVD, so I'm wondering if I imagined it, or if it was actually related to a different show.

[ibanezmonster]

Death Note
The replacements for L just weren't very interesting. There was more potential in the growth of the cult of Kira, especially in Japan, but sadly they didn't explore it much. I don't agree that the series is improved by stopping earlier - I don't think there are any really satisfactory stop points until the end.

I think what might have happened is that the writer couldn't find any good stop points, and it felt natural to kill off L. By that time, he probably ran out of creativity for a satisfying successor, and then had to end it in one of either two ways (this ending being a realistic scenario).
As for the memory part, I vaguely remember that... it's been so long now... 
I was all for Kira at first, but then he ended up doing stuff like letting a girl die in a fire just so she wouldn't reveal his identity. 

[eyeresist]

I was all for Kira at first, but then he ended up doing stuff like letting a girl die in a fire just so she wouldn't reveal his identity. 

Yes, Kira is a sympathetic character, simply because it's natural to enjoy fantasies about having secret power over the world. It's the same reason people like stories about spies, vampires, superheroes, psychics, etc.

Kira didn't "let" the girl die in a fire, he made her! And I think his motivation was fairly powerful, not "just so she wouldn't reveal his identity". He is after all a mass killer. Being caught would not be fun (as indeed it turned out not to be).

I've been watching the first two volumes of Strawberry Marshmallow. This is one of those out-of-print classics. Don't know why it hasn't been reissued. It's cute and funny as hell. I really need to buy the third volume.

[ibanezmonster]

Thought I would watch Mushishi over the next few days or so...

Okay, now I'll admit this is some good stuff. 
http://www.animecrazy.net/mushishi-episode-4/

[Lethevich]

I stopped reading Death Note (never seen the anime) after L died. I mean, it was the perfect ending after a decent timespan - anything else is just cashing in (although that's pretty much the MO of establishing a big brand-name in manga, it seems).

[ibanezmonster]

I stopped reading Death Note (never seen the anime) after L died. I mean, it was the perfect ending after a decent timespan - anything else is just cashing in (although that's pretty much the MO of establishing a big brand-name in manga, it seems).

Aw, you're one of those people, eh? 
I probably mentioned this twice already, but that's the exact same thing Joe Campbell did (I don't think he posts here any more, though).

[ibanezmonster]

Mushishi
A very slow show with a sparse soundtrack. An episodic show set in traditional Japan.
The main character is a "Mushishi"- someone who travels from village to village, solving people with problems that the "Mushi" bring about on humans.
It's very "Japanese"- reminds me of a mixture between Kino's Journey and the Ten Nights of Dream (Yume Juuya) by Natsume Souseki.
Every episode, something tragic happens, but it's not melodramatic at all. Often, the episodes are completely resolved, either.

It's a good show if you can put up with its relentless slowness. If not, like me, doing something else while watching it.

[ibanezmonster]

One Piece- Movie 10: Strong World
Entertaining, fun, and imaginative!
The only One Piece I have seen was when they aired the beginning of it on Fox Kids many years ago. It was okay, but I didn't quite care for it much.
Supposedly, the show has many die-hard fans that all exclaim, "The original show is a masterpiece, and the adaptation is trash."
The show has at least ten movies, probably a couple of video games by now, and currently, 504 episodes. It's still ongoing. Needless to say, if I ever decided to watch all of it, it would be years before I would decide to do that.

[eyeresist]

I've watched Mushishi once. It starts strong, but it is NOT a good show to marathon!

Never seen One Piece, as I tend to avoid those long-running shonen shows.

[ibanezmonster]

Never seen One Piece, as I tend to avoid those long-running shonen shows.

Me, too, mostly.
I've watched the first episodes of both Bleach and Gintama. Naruto (as well as Shippuden) I used to watch regularly, but gave up because there were just too many episodes. I watched some of the beginning of the original Naruto series, but never finished it because I had read all of the manga up to a little bit into Shippuden. Then, I stopped at about episode 55 or so? or was it in the 90s?  on Shippuden and never resumed, and don't plan on it. My friends have told me there are some really good episodes I've missed, but I don't really care at this point.

I only watched that One Piece movie because it was in the top 30 (front page) of MAL, and I want to see the top 30 or so entries, pretty much. To do that, I have to watch:
- The Aria series
- Great Teacher Onizuka
- Hajime no Ippo series
- Gintama series
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes
- The Code Geass series
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

and possibly the Evangelion 1.0 and 2.0 movies. I wrote that I would watch them, but honestly, I can't remember if I did or not... 
I might just watch those and then get to GTO.