[D'rek]

 Andorion, on 21 September 2015 - 05:43 PM, said:

Quick question: If I wanted to start watch Naruto should I watch from the first or from Naruto Shippuden

If you really want to watch Naruto, the correct order is

Naruto -> Nartuo:Shippuden -> Naruto: The Last

and the movies/OVAs don't really matter, but if you intend to watch those, too, you should probably vaguely watch them around the time they came out in relation to the episodes of the series.


As BL/LP said though, Naruto is... not fantastic. I guess if you are planning to skip all the filler episodes it is supposed to be alright then, but it's still not anything exceptional. Granted, I watch tons of not-exceptional series, but most of those are 25 episodes, tops. Naruto is something like 700 episodes long. Your call.

[LinearPhilosopher]

If you're looking for shounen shows you can do better than naruto

I'd reccomend hunterxhunter if you haven't seen it already, best shounen ever imo
AMph and QT would likely reccomend you One piece. (inb4 annual/bi annual one piece discussion)
I've heard good things about soul eater (50eps)
I'd highly recommend eureka 7 if you want something shorter
If you want something with comedy gintama is highly regarded

[Andorion]

 D, on 21 September 2015 - 08:17 PM, said:

 Andorion, on 21 September 2015 - 05:43 PM, said:

Quick question: If I wanted to start watch Naruto should I watch from the first or from Naruto Shippuden

If you really want to watch Naruto, the correct order is

Naruto -> Nartuo:Shippuden -> Naruto: The Last

and the movies/OVAs don't really matter, but if you intend to watch those, too, you should probably vaguely watch them around the time they came out in relation to the episodes of the series.


As BL/LP said though, Naruto is... not fantastic. I guess if you are planning to skip all the filler episodes it is supposed to be alright then, but it's still not anything exceptional. Granted, I watch tons of not-exceptional series, but most of those are 25 episodes, tops. Naruto is something like 700 episodes long. Your call.

 LinearPhilosopher, on 21 September 2015 - 09:12 PM, said:

If you're looking for shounen shows you can do better than naruto

I'd reccomend hunterxhunter if you haven't seen it already, best shounen ever imo
AMph and QT would likely reccomend you One piece. (inb4 annual/bi annual one piece discussion)
I've heard good things about soul eater (50eps)
I'd highly recommend eureka 7 if you want something shorter
If you want something with comedy gintama is highly regarded

OK, guess I should have phrased it better. A few months back I asked about swordfight anime I got good recs and I watched Sword of the Stranger and Ninja Scroll. Also Bleach.

Now I am looking for anime with large scale supernatural fights. Kind of like bleach but better animated/choreographed.....ami I making sense?

At present I just started with Fate Stay Night which seems to be ok but brought up an issue for me.

I discovered I am particular about costumes. In Fate Stay Night one of the main characters basically dresses up like a Victorian Maid when fighting. I found it anachronistic and irritating and its preventing me from enjoying the show. I also don't like children being superpowered and involved in battles. I prefere adults or people in their late teens.

I hope what I typed above makes sense. Anime noob here, not even sure what Shounen means, will google it.

So essentially I am looking for well-animated, super-fight centric anime, without anachronistic costumes (modern ones are fine) and without children fighting. Anime seen till date: Bleach, Ninja Scrolls, Sword of the Stranger, Rurouni Kenshin, Get Backers (I loved this one) , Dragonball z (Is this an anime) Mobile Suit Gundam - Z -ZZ, Ninja Robots (not sure about name, watched it when very young), DDS, Hungry Heart, Captain Tsubasa (Football) Cardcaptor Sakura (Boring too many girls)

I was also considering Fairy Tale. Thoughts?

[EmperorMagus]

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

 D, on 21 September 2015 - 08:17 PM, said:

 Andorion, on 21 September 2015 - 05:43 PM, said:

Quick question: If I wanted to start watch Naruto should I watch from the first or from Naruto Shippuden

If you really want to watch Naruto, the correct order is

Naruto -> Nartuo:Shippuden -> Naruto: The Last

and the movies/OVAs don't really matter, but if you intend to watch those, too, you should probably vaguely watch them around the time they came out in relation to the episodes of the series.


As BL/LP said though, Naruto is... not fantastic. I guess if you are planning to skip all the filler episodes it is supposed to be alright then, but it's still not anything exceptional. Granted, I watch tons of not-exceptional series, but most of those are 25 episodes, tops. Naruto is something like 700 episodes long. Your call.

 LinearPhilosopher, on 21 September 2015 - 09:12 PM, said:

If you're looking for shounen shows you can do better than naruto

I'd reccomend hunterxhunter if you haven't seen it already, best shounen ever imo
AMph and QT would likely reccomend you One piece. (inb4 annual/bi annual one piece discussion)
I've heard good things about soul eater (50eps)
I'd highly recommend eureka 7 if you want something shorter
If you want something with comedy gintama is highly regarded

OK, guess I should have phrased it better. A few months back I asked about swordfight anime I got good recs and I watched Sword of the Stranger and Ninja Scroll. Also Bleach.

Now I am looking for anime with large scale supernatural fights. Kind of like bleach but better animated/choreographed.....ami I making sense?

At present I just started with Fate Stay Night which seems to be ok but brought up an issue for me.

I discovered I am particular about costumes. In Fate Stay Night one of the main characters basically dresses up like a Victorian Maid when fighting. I found it anachronistic and irritating and its preventing me from enjoying the show. I also don't like children being superpowered and involved in battles. I prefere adults or people in their late teens.

I hope what I typed above makes sense. Anime noob here, not even sure what Shounen means, will google it.

So essentially I am looking for well-animated, super-fight centric anime, without anachronistic costumes (modern ones are fine) and without children fighting. Anime seen till date: Bleach, Ninja Scrolls, Sword of the Stranger, Rurouni Kenshin, Get Backers (I loved this one) , Dragonball z (Is this an anime) Mobile Suit Gundam - Z -ZZ, Ninja Robots (not sure about name, watched it when very young), DDS, Hungry Heart, Captain Tsubasa (Football) Cardcaptor Sakura (Boring too many girls)

I was also considering Fairy Tale. Thoughts?

Definitely watch HunterxHunter. Main character is a kid BUT he actually acts like a kid and the best parts of the show are the parts that the main character isn't even involved in. The fights are just superb and the amount of badassery present in the anime is exceptional. It also does not suffer from the curse of Shounen shows (filler episodes) as much as other shows do.
Just go watch it god dammit. I can link you one of the most bad ass fights if you don't mind spoilers, or a less bad ass one if you do. The less bad ass one doesn't spoil much.

[LinearPhilosopher]

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

 D, on 21 September 2015 - 08:17 PM, said:

 Andorion, on 21 September 2015 - 05:43 PM, said:

Quick question: If I wanted to start watch Naruto should I watch from the first or from Naruto Shippuden

If you really want to watch Naruto, the correct order is

Naruto -> Nartuo:Shippuden -> Naruto: The Last

and the movies/OVAs don't really matter, but if you intend to watch those, too, you should probably vaguely watch them around the time they came out in relation to the episodes of the series.


As BL/LP said though, Naruto is... not fantastic. I guess if you are planning to skip all the filler episodes it is supposed to be alright then, but it's still not anything exceptional. Granted, I watch tons of not-exceptional series, but most of those are 25 episodes, tops. Naruto is something like 700 episodes long. Your call.

 LinearPhilosopher, on 21 September 2015 - 09:12 PM, said:

If you're looking for shounen shows you can do better than naruto

I'd reccomend hunterxhunter if you haven't seen it already, best shounen ever imo
AMph and QT would likely reccomend you One piece. (inb4 annual/bi annual one piece discussion)
I've heard good things about soul eater (50eps)
I'd highly recommend eureka 7 if you want something shorter
If you want something with comedy gintama is highly regarded

OK, guess I should have phrased it better. A few months back I asked about swordfight anime I got good recs and I watched Sword of the Stranger and Ninja Scroll. Also Bleach.

Now I am looking for anime with large scale supernatural fights. Kind of like bleach but better animated/choreographed.....ami I making sense?

At present I just started with Fate Stay Night which seems to be ok but brought up an issue for me.

I discovered I am particular about costumes. In Fate Stay Night one of the main characters basically dresses up like a Victorian Maid when fighting. I found it anachronistic and irritating and its preventing me from enjoying the show. I also don't like children being superpowered and involved in battles. I prefere adults or people in their late teens.

I hope what I typed above makes sense. Anime noob here, not even sure what Shounen means, will google it.

So essentially I am looking for well-animated, super-fight centric anime, without anachronistic costumes (modern ones are fine) and without children fighting. Anime seen till date: Bleach, Ninja Scrolls, Sword of the Stranger, Rurouni Kenshin, Get Backers (I loved this one) , Dragonball z (Is this an anime) Mobile Suit Gundam - Z -ZZ, Ninja Robots (not sure about name, watched it when very young), DDS, Hungry Heart, Captain Tsubasa (Football) Cardcaptor Sakura (Boring too many girls)

I was also considering Fairy Tale. Thoughts?

you want fight centric? try black lagoon. Theres fighting in almost every episode 24 episodes (admitedly its gunfights)
you can also give samurai champloo a try.

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 22 September 2015 - 02:46 AM

[Andorion]

 LinearPhilosopher, on 22 September 2015 - 02:45 AM, said:

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

 D, on 21 September 2015 - 08:17 PM, said:

 Andorion, on 21 September 2015 - 05:43 PM, said:

Quick question: If I wanted to start watch Naruto should I watch from the first or from Naruto Shippuden

If you really want to watch Naruto, the correct order is

Naruto -> Nartuo:Shippuden -> Naruto: The Last

and the movies/OVAs don't really matter, but if you intend to watch those, too, you should probably vaguely watch them around the time they came out in relation to the episodes of the series.


As BL/LP said though, Naruto is... not fantastic. I guess if you are planning to skip all the filler episodes it is supposed to be alright then, but it's still not anything exceptional. Granted, I watch tons of not-exceptional series, but most of those are 25 episodes, tops. Naruto is something like 700 episodes long. Your call.

 LinearPhilosopher, on 21 September 2015 - 09:12 PM, said:

If you're looking for shounen shows you can do better than naruto

I'd reccomend hunterxhunter if you haven't seen it already, best shounen ever imo
AMph and QT would likely reccomend you One piece. (inb4 annual/bi annual one piece discussion)
I've heard good things about soul eater (50eps)
I'd highly recommend eureka 7 if you want something shorter
If you want something with comedy gintama is highly regarded

OK, guess I should have phrased it better. A few months back I asked about swordfight anime I got good recs and I watched Sword of the Stranger and Ninja Scroll. Also Bleach.

Now I am looking for anime with large scale supernatural fights. Kind of like bleach but better animated/choreographed.....ami I making sense?

At present I just started with Fate Stay Night which seems to be ok but brought up an issue for me.

I discovered I am particular about costumes. In Fate Stay Night one of the main characters basically dresses up like a Victorian Maid when fighting. I found it anachronistic and irritating and its preventing me from enjoying the show. I also don't like children being superpowered and involved in battles. I prefere adults or people in their late teens.

I hope what I typed above makes sense. Anime noob here, not even sure what Shounen means, will google it.

So essentially I am looking for well-animated, super-fight centric anime, without anachronistic costumes (modern ones are fine) and without children fighting. Anime seen till date: Bleach, Ninja Scrolls, Sword of the Stranger, Rurouni Kenshin, Get Backers (I loved this one) , Dragonball z (Is this an anime) Mobile Suit Gundam - Z -ZZ, Ninja Robots (not sure about name, watched it when very young), DDS, Hungry Heart, Captain Tsubasa (Football) Cardcaptor Sakura (Boring too many girls)

I was also considering Fairy Tale. Thoughts?

you want fight centric? try black lagoon. Theres fighting in almost every episode 24 episodes (admitedly its gunfights)
you can also give samurai champloo a try.

Black Lagoon sounds good, but what about supernatural fights? You know magical blasts, telekinesis, super speed and strength.... the works.

[LinearPhilosopher]

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 03:12 AM, said:

 LinearPhilosopher, on 22 September 2015 - 02:45 AM, said:

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

 D, on 21 September 2015 - 08:17 PM, said:

 Andorion, on 21 September 2015 - 05:43 PM, said:

Quick question: If I wanted to start watch Naruto should I watch from the first or from Naruto Shippuden

If you really want to watch Naruto, the correct order is

Naruto -> Nartuo:Shippuden -> Naruto: The Last

and the movies/OVAs don't really matter, but if you intend to watch those, too, you should probably vaguely watch them around the time they came out in relation to the episodes of the series.


As BL/LP said though, Naruto is... not fantastic. I guess if you are planning to skip all the filler episodes it is supposed to be alright then, but it's still not anything exceptional. Granted, I watch tons of not-exceptional series, but most of those are 25 episodes, tops. Naruto is something like 700 episodes long. Your call.

 LinearPhilosopher, on 21 September 2015 - 09:12 PM, said:

If you're looking for shounen shows you can do better than naruto

I'd reccomend hunterxhunter if you haven't seen it already, best shounen ever imo
AMph and QT would likely reccomend you One piece. (inb4 annual/bi annual one piece discussion)
I've heard good things about soul eater (50eps)
I'd highly recommend eureka 7 if you want something shorter
If you want something with comedy gintama is highly regarded

OK, guess I should have phrased it better. A few months back I asked about swordfight anime I got good recs and I watched Sword of the Stranger and Ninja Scroll. Also Bleach.

Now I am looking for anime with large scale supernatural fights. Kind of like bleach but better animated/choreographed.....ami I making sense?

At present I just started with Fate Stay Night which seems to be ok but brought up an issue for me.

I discovered I am particular about costumes. In Fate Stay Night one of the main characters basically dresses up like a Victorian Maid when fighting. I found it anachronistic and irritating and its preventing me from enjoying the show. I also don't like children being superpowered and involved in battles. I prefere adults or people in their late teens.

I hope what I typed above makes sense. Anime noob here, not even sure what Shounen means, will google it.

So essentially I am looking for well-animated, super-fight centric anime, without anachronistic costumes (modern ones are fine) and without children fighting. Anime seen till date: Bleach, Ninja Scrolls, Sword of the Stranger, Rurouni Kenshin, Get Backers (I loved this one) , Dragonball z (Is this an anime) Mobile Suit Gundam - Z -ZZ, Ninja Robots (not sure about name, watched it when very young), DDS, Hungry Heart, Captain Tsubasa (Football) Cardcaptor Sakura (Boring too many girls)

I was also considering Fairy Tale. Thoughts?

you want fight centric? try black lagoon. Theres fighting in almost every episode 24 episodes (admitedly its gunfights)
you can also give samurai champloo a try.

Black Lagoon sounds good, but what about supernatural fights? You know magical blasts, telekinesis, super speed and strength.... the works.

dOK i got the perfect anime for that, darker than black

http://anilinkz.tv/d...ubbed-episode-1

you can also find the sub on that site if you want

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 22 September 2015 - 03:52 AM

[D'rek]

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

Now I am looking for anime with large scale supernatural fights. Kind of like bleach but better animated/choreographed.....ami I making sense?

When you say "large scale" you mean like dozens of characters and/or armies involved? Or just the supernatural powers are really big and flashy?

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

At present I just started with Fate Stay Night which seems to be ok but brought up an issue for me.

I discovered I am particular about costumes. In Fate Stay Night one of the main characters basically dresses up like a Victorian Maid when fighting. I found it anachronistic and irritating and its preventing me from enjoying the show. I also don't like children being superpowered and involved in battles. I prefere adults or people in their late teens.

Alright, I'll keep that in mind (I don't particularly like Fate/Stay Night either, so that's a good start )

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

I hope what I typed above makes sense. Anime noob here, not even sure what Shounen means, will google it.

Shounen is kid-oriented action shows. Dragon Ball Z, Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, Gundam, etc are all Shounen series. It's a pretty broad term, but it basically means you can expect the show to be fairly action-focused, will often star kids/teenagers, the writing and plot will be fairly simplistic (though not necessarily bad) and there won't be a lot of gore, adult subject matter, or complex metaphors/themes.

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

So essentially I am looking for well-animated, super-fight centric anime, without anachronistic costumes (modern ones are fine) and without children fighting. Anime seen till date: Bleach, Ninja Scrolls, Sword of the Stranger, Rurouni Kenshin, Get Backers (I loved this one) , Dragonball z (Is this an anime) Mobile Suit Gundam - Z -ZZ, Ninja Robots (not sure about name, watched it when very young), DDS, Hungry Heart, Captain Tsubasa (Football) Cardcaptor Sakura (Boring too many girls)

Ok, here are some ideas off the top of my head:


Shingeki no Bahamut - a lot of the fighting in this is swashbuckling, but there's also demon summoning, magic, golems, etc. Characters are all adults. has great pacing, non-cliche characters, both duels and armies fighting, intrigue, plus awesome music, and it all fits into a tight 13 episodes.

Magi - this show has 2 seasons so far (each 25 episodes) - first one is The Labyrinth of Magic, second is the Kingdom of Magic. It's set in One Thousand Nights-esque Arabia (at least initially) and takes tons of elements from that setting - magi, djinns, dungeon-towers, arabian-style monsters, etc. The main characters are teenagers, but other than a few quirks they're mostly pretty mature and there's a good sprinkling of adult-like politics and moral questioning. The characters don't start with a lot of supernatural powers, but gradually obtain more (even so, there's also a lot of physical combat... but the swords will be on fire and the punches will send people through buildings). Some of the magic costumes are... interesting... but technically they are not anachronistic (look up some of the weird costumes of legendary Arabian figures). The battles definitely get large-scale - in both senses - by the end of it. Downside is that the story is not really complete, but each of the existing 2 seasons has a contained plot that wraps up satisfyingly by the end of that season - the larger overall plot needs a couple more seasons to finish, though.


Those are my best two suggestions. Some others would be:


Darker than Black - it's a mostly-episodic series about a supernatural assassin team who kill other people with supernatural abilities. Highlights are that it has a complex but very interesting system for its supernatural abilities (part of which is that every ability comes with a weird 'cost' you have to pay to use it... like, for example, eating cigarettes). It does not get very large-scale though, and due to the episodic nature does not have much of an overall plot.

Read or Die - Worth including in this list just because the main character has the weirdest superpower in this list - she can telepathically control paper (and modify its properties). Sounds dumb, but she has some pretty awesome ways to use it. Like DtB, it does not get very large-scale - most of the fights are 1v1, 1v2 or 2v2, but the fate of the world is put at stake by a (IMO) pretty awesome supernatural threat. Characters are all adults and are rather more professional than most shounen series. Has some more adult plotlines than the rest of this list, but also has some romantic elements which you may not like (I do). There's a 3-episode OVA, and then a moderately-related 26-episode series, so you may want to just try the OVA, and decide after you want to try the series.

A Certain Magical Index/Scientific Railgun - I thought this series was atrocious, but some people seem to really like it. It's about a teenage guy who continuously trips into situations involving evil magicians but he can block their magic and then he punches them in the face.

Log Horizon - So this is actually a people-trapped-in-a-video-game show, but casting spells in a fantasy video game is not much different than having superpowers, so it might fit the bill.


And I would almost, allllmmmoooossssttt recommend to you Inou-Battles, because it has one of the awesomest, most creative supernatural "battle", but you'd have to get through like 10 (amazing) non-battle comedy episodes to get there

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

I was also considering Fairy Tale. Thoughts?

It meets the content you are looking for, but not the well-choreographed aspect. I don't think it will fit your bill.

[Dolmen 2.0]

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

 D, on 21 September 2015 - 08:17 PM, said:

 Andorion, on 21 September 2015 - 05:43 PM, said:

Quick question: If I wanted to start watch Naruto should I watch from the first or from Naruto Shippuden

If you really want to watch Naruto, the correct order is

Naruto -> Nartuo:Shippuden -> Naruto: The Last

and the movies/OVAs don't really matter, but if you intend to watch those, too, you should probably vaguely watch them around the time they came out in relation to the episodes of the series.


As BL/LP said though, Naruto is... not fantastic. I guess if you are planning to skip all the filler episodes it is supposed to be alright then, but it's still not anything exceptional. Granted, I watch tons of not-exceptional series, but most of those are 25 episodes, tops. Naruto is something like 700 episodes long. Your call.

 LinearPhilosopher, on 21 September 2015 - 09:12 PM, said:

If you're looking for shounen shows you can do better than naruto

I'd reccomend hunterxhunter if you haven't seen it already, best shounen ever imo
AMph and QT would likely reccomend you One piece. (inb4 annual/bi annual one piece discussion)
I've heard good things about soul eater (50eps)
I'd highly recommend eureka 7 if you want something shorter
If you want something with comedy gintama is highly regarded

OK, guess I should have phrased it better. A few months back I asked about swordfight anime I got good recs and I watched Sword of the Stranger and Ninja Scroll. Also Bleach.

Now I am looking for anime with large scale supernatural fights. Kind of like bleach but better animated/choreographed.....ami I making sense?

At present I just started with Fate Stay Night which seems to be ok but brought up an issue for me.

I discovered I am particular about costumes. In Fate Stay Night one of the main characters basically dresses up like a Victorian Maid when fighting. I found it anachronistic and irritating and its preventing me from enjoying the show. I also don't like children being superpowered and involved in battles. I prefere adults or people in their late teens.

I hope what I typed above makes sense. Anime noob here, not even sure what Shounen means, will google it.

So essentially I am looking for well-animated, super-fight centric anime, without anachronistic costumes (modern ones are fine) and without children fighting. Anime seen till date: Bleach, Ninja Scrolls, Sword of the Stranger, Rurouni Kenshin, Get Backers (I loved this one) , Dragonball z (Is this an anime) Mobile Suit Gundam - Z -ZZ, Ninja Robots (not sure about name, watched it when very young), DDS, Hungry Heart, Captain Tsubasa (Football) Cardcaptor Sakura (Boring too many girls)

I was also considering Fairy Tale. Thoughts?

Judging from what you're looking for Naruto is both the worst and the best thing for you. I got through it all and its popularity hurt it ALOT. It could have been handled better. the premise is good. overall original plot in manga had a little depth to it drowned out by animation foibles. Sadly its a serialized Shounen Manga turned anime that basically tried to maximize rating in every issue. This does not, a good plot, make. the anime was faaaar worse than the manga for above mentioned reason. Filler is the enemy on all these popular long running anime.

HunterXHunter is freaking awesome. I second that recco.

Epicness considered I'm still gonna throw CLAYMORE at you. if you enjoyed bleach you will enjoy CLAYMORE.

This post has been edited by Dolmen 2.0: 22 September 2015 - 07:06 AM

[Andorion]

@Drek Thanks for the awesome reply

Ok First to clarify further:

1. Largescale: I mean characters having powerful abilities, though armies and many characters are not ruled out by any means. But essentially the concerned should be intense and/or should have an element of gradual escalation in scope and amgnitude


2. Shounen: Aren't there very different types of Shounen? I mean in Bleach there are small kids, but most if not all of the main characters are older at least 15+ (excepting Hitsugaya and Rukia I think) Actually my anti kid bias is not oriented so much towards age as appearance. For example from what excerpts of Naruto I have seen the characters are teenagers. But they look adult-ish.

To explain better: There were two anime I saw episodes of, but never completed. One was Ninku, other was Fullmetal Alchemist. In Ninku one of the fighters looked like a five year old. He may not have been actually 5 but he looked it and that put me off totally. In FA Edward is around 12-13, but because of the way he is depicted I did not mind as much.

Does this make sense?

3. Recommendations: Shingeki no Bahamut, Magi: Both sound fantastic, I will line them up on my (painfully tiny) list.
Read or Die: Sounds interesting. Weird powers are no barrier. IN Get Backers one guy could control string and he unleashed tsunamis and tornadoes with it

Darker than Black: LP recd, this and was kind enough to provide a streaming lnik. Sounds interesting, but have to watch and find out.


A Certain Magical Index/Scientific Railgun Not sure about this, if he punches people why is it called a scientific railgun.

4. Questions: (Because my noobiness has to be proven beyond doubt)

A. Do Pokemon and Digimon qualify as Anime? Seen both, like P hated D (when I was 14)

B. Do you know of an assassin anime called Black Cat/ having a protagonist called Black Cat and villains called Apostles of the Stars?

C. Long ago I saw an anime about a group of fighter pilots flying fighters in an unnamed war. A very mixed group of planes, from MiGs to Phantom F4s, to an F14 Tomcat. It was a very sad show, but I liked it a lot. I think the hero was called Shin. What anime was this?

[LinearPhilosopher]

Alright let me define my term. While shounen in generally considered just a demographic, in anime terms it refers to a genre or certain theme element. The protagonist is always a teenage male, show involves fighting, and theres usually some undercurrent or theme about the power of friendship.

also once you're done darker than black. fucking watching full metal alchemist, the dub amazing and it's one of the greatest shows of all time.

i've heard of magical index, never got into it. It has been on my radar however.

Pokemon and Digimon both qualify as anime, as does DBZ. Anime if its to be characterised by anything it's art style. Also screw you digimon was so much better than pokemon, characters had actual depth and development.

Black cat, i saw that anime years ago. It's got some cool characters, cool fights and all. It's still a shounen though. It's not a bad show, just keep in mind it's aimed at teenagers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_88

This the one? Looks interesting

also came across an ova called the cockpit quite interesting. Granted i've always been a sucker for the warrior ethos displayed in the captain harlock shows and this one's no different. Captain harlock is a german pilot in 1944 XD

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 22 September 2015 - 01:47 PM

[Andorion]

 LinearPhilosopher, on 22 September 2015 - 01:32 PM, said:

Alright let me define my term. While shounen in generally considered just a demographic, in anime terms it refers to a genre or certain theme element. The protagonist is always a teenage male, show involves fighting, and theres usually some undercurrent or theme about the power of friendship.

also once you're done darker than black. fucking watching full metal alchemist, the dub amazing and it's one of the greatest shows of all time.

i've heard of magical index, never got into it. It has been on my radar however.

Pokemon and Digimon both qualify as anime, as does DBZ. Anime if its to be characterised by anything it's art style. Also screw you digimon was so much better than pokemon, characters had actual depth and development.

Black cat, i saw that anime years ago. It's got some cool characters, cool fights and all. It's still a shounen though. It's not a bad show, just keep in mind it's aimed at teenagers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_88

This the one? Looks interesting

also came across an ova called the cockpit quite interesting. Granted i've always been a sucker for the warrior ethos displayed in the captain harlock shows and this one's no different. Captain harlock is a german pilot in 1944 XD

Yeah I was talking about Area 88. I really liked that show.

Now regarding Pokemon and Digimon: I saw Pokemon first when I was 13, I saw Digimon later. Now I have been thinking back about why why I didn't like Digimon.

1. It was based on the portal concept. To this day I can't stand portal fantasy there is something about the portal concept that puts me off. But that wasn't the only reason. I liked two other animes I saw episodes of which were portal based: Inu Yasha and Vision of Escaflowne.

2. The animation. The kids were depicted in a certain way, I wouldn't call it doll like but they seemed to be stick figurish.... compared to Pokemon which looked more like Naruto. It made the protagonists seem a lot older. I have posted above about my bias against young-kid themed animatoin and shows.

3. It was a very bad dub. The dialogue was stilted and awkward compared to Pokemon which could stand up to any Cartoon Network show (My frame of reference at that time, you know, being 13 and not knowing of this thing called the internet)

As you may have gathered most if not all of my anime watching has taken place during my teens. That was because we had this awesome tv channel called Animax. and I watched anime there. I have been on a roughly 8 year hiatus until recently.

Fullmetal Alchemist....... maybe

[LinearPhilosopher]

inu yasha, i remeber that shit... Good times.

[D'rek]

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 07:39 AM, said:

Ok First to clarify further:

1. Largescale: I mean characters having powerful abilities, though armies and many characters are not ruled out by any means. But essentially the concerned should be intense and/or should have an element of gradual escalation in scope and amgnitude

Alright. Bahamut will cover that moderately well but the protagonists are not especially supernaturally powerful, but they do have a bunch of neat semi-supernatural tricks up their sleeves. The villains definitely fit the grandiose uber-magic-power. I think it'll work for you.

Magi definitely reaches that huge magnitude of power and escalation in scope, though it is definitely a gradual build up before you get there. Here's a non-spoilery shot from the season 2 preview, for example:

(couldn't get the img tag to work because of the revision extension, just click here: http://vignette2.wik...&path-prefix=es

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 07:39 AM, said:

A Certain Magical Index/Scientific Railgun Not sure about this, if he punches people why is it called a scientific railgun.

Ah right, I wrote that bit a little too fast.

A Certain Magical Index is the first series, with punchy dude as the protagonist. It tries to do this "ooooh look how clever we are" worldbuilding thing where it's set in a city of "science" (actually magic) but the fights are mostly between religious organizations (basically just a different kind of magic). They keep using the tagline "when science and magic cross paths", except that there's really no science other than "our laser beams are SCIENCE because we say so" and regardless that crossing-paths things never really happens. The titular Index is a naive young nun who has a bajillion evil magic books implanted in her subconscious, and that only ever becomes relevant, like, twice in 50 episodes. Otherwise she's just Punchy's "wacky" (read: annoying as hell) sidekick who bites him all the time like she's some sort of untamed dog. Punchy invariably attracts the attention of a whole bunch of women, all of whom he'll accidentally run into in various states of undress, because this is exactly that kind of show. Also, teleporting lesbians.

You'll loooooove the age depictions. There's a 14 year-old who looks like he's 35 (to be fair, he smokes, like, all the time) and Punchy's school teacher is 40ish but looks like she's 8.

Then they made A Certain Scientific Railgun which is a side-story series centered on one of the girls who has a crush on Punchy. It's kind of half-action, half-slice-of-life but surprisingly has longer running story arcs than Index, which despite being more focused on big dramatic battles never had an arc longer than a few episodes. Railgun isn't quite as tropey (the main character girl controls electricity, rather than having a cliche power in her right hand, and she's kind of awesome in fights) and some of the supporting characters are awesome. Electro-girl's roommate is teleporting-lesbian, though, and she is infuriatingly annoying in a completely unrealistic way. Also, tons of fan-service and some pretty stupid plotlines/character decisions. Still, it was actually a lot better than Index... average overall, I guess.

I wouldn't really recommend either, but I could understand some people really liking Railgun as a bit of mindless entertainment. Index was incorrigably stupid, but like Fate/Stay Night it nevertheless has a huge fanbase that loves it and thinks it is super deep and moving, so what do I know.

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 07:39 AM, said:

2. Shounen: Aren't there very different types of Shounen? I mean in Bleach there are small kids, but most if not all of the main characters are older at least 15+ (excepting Hitsugaya and Rukia I think) Actually my anti kid bias is not oriented so much towards age as appearance. For example from what excerpts of Naruto I have seen the characters are teenagers. But they look adult-ish.

To explain better: There were two anime I saw episodes of, but never completed. One was Ninku, other was Fullmetal Alchemist. In Ninku one of the fighters looked like a five year old. He may not have been actually 5 but he looked it and that put me off totally. In FA Edward is around 12-13, but because of the way he is depicted I did not mind as much.

Does this make sense?

 LinearPhilosopher, on 22 September 2015 - 01:32 PM, said:

Alright let me define my term. While shounen in generally considered just a demographic, in anime terms it refers to a genre or certain theme element. The protagonist is always a teenage male, show involves fighting, and theres usually some undercurrent or theme about the power of friendship.

Right, so the pseudo-literal translation of Shounen is "for young boys" (Seinen is "for older men", Shojo is "for young girls", Josei is "for older women") but the term has long since evolved past the literals and is now its own thing. As LP says, your typical cliche shounen has a 15-year-old male protagonist, who goes to school, suddenly has a dark power infuse his right hand and then fights evil with it, occasionally losing until his sidekick is in danger and the power of friendship makes him stronger so he can win.

That's the cliche shounen, but most writers have realized its a cliche and moved away from that in various ways. Your average new Shounen show these days will only stick to a couple of those cliches, at most. Additionally, the industry has recognized changing audience demographics, hence there are plenty of shows with female protagonists that aren't chock full of fan-service (and are therefore still being targeted at boys) and that don't follow the Magic Girl (e.g. Sailor Moon) tropes either.

So nowadays I'd say the Shounen term is much more generalized, and saying a show is Shounen just means it is action-oriented and not too complicated/doesn't have too mature of themes such that kids would be unable to watch it. But that is not to say adults won't enjoy it, too.

There's also lots of shows that break those conventions, anyways, so the term is pretty fluid. Attack on Titan is dark and gory, but otherwise follows most Shounen tropes. Shokugeki no Souma basically follows all the Shounen tropes, except it replaces fighting with cooking.

In any case, like any genre or sub-genre, there are great shows, terrible shows, classic trend-setters that are only good when viewed with nostalgia glasses, and everything in-between, so it's not worth getting too hung up on the terminology.

[Andorion]

Ok, so I have watched one episode of Bahamut....I loooooooove it!!!

Thanks so much D'rek!

I have watched 2 episodes of Black Lagoon and they are oddly intriguing. Crazy action setpieces.

Darker than Black is next up.

Next question: Fullmetal Alchemist...... how good is it actually? I know its long and I watched a few episodes..... seemed to have a rather depressing premise

I must say that Railgun thing sounds more interesting now. Sane? No. But interesting.

[Andorion]

 LinearPhilosopher, on 22 September 2015 - 02:38 PM, said:

inu yasha, i remeber that shit... Good times.

It was a really fun show.....

[D'rek]

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 06:28 PM, said:

Ok, so I have watched one episode of Bahamut....I loooooooove it!!!

Thanks so much D'rek!

Yay! It is one of my favourites, and was also a total dark-horse when it came out - it is based on a Japanese mobile-phone card game, contracted by the card game company as an advertisement more than anything, and the studo making it (MAPPA) was still pretty new. Really exceeded expectations!

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 06:28 PM, said:

Next question: Fullmetal Alchemist...... how good is it actually? I know its long and I watched a few episodes..... seemed to have a rather depressing premise

FMA / FMA:B has a lot of broad appeal - it doesn't really do anything too avant garde or off-putting, nor is it ultra-kiddy, so it can be enjoyed by a very diverse audience. It's a solid action-adventure show, for the most part pretty well-executed and after the initial sort-of-formulaic plot is established it starts departing the typical Shounen conventions for a deeper story (which varies between FMA and FMA:B ). It also helps that the origianl came out quite a while ago, back when there were still a lot of slow, tropey Dragon Ball Z imitators around and FMA was pretty fresh compared to those.

I don't think it does anything incredible, but it also has almost no flaws, so it's a solid show.

And yeah, the premise (and some later plot developments) are indeed pretty depressing.

 Andorion, on 22 September 2015 - 06:28 PM, said:

I must say that Railgun thing sounds more interesting now. Sane? No. But interesting.

Give it a try, sometime, then. You don't need to watch any of Index to enjoy Railgun, other than knowing Punchy (who shows up a couple times to help) can block science-magic, religious-magic and magic-magic with his hand. If you can tolerate the overwhelming amount of blatant, poorly implemented fan-service and the over-used cringey caricature personality of Telesbianporter, the rest of it should entertain you. The special effects are pretty and the battles are actually pretty well choreographed, after all.

Let me know how it goes if you do give it a try, I'd love to inject some more sarcastic comments along the way! And being sad that flower-girl's crappy superpower of keeping things at a constant temperature is only ever used on chicken nuggets, not cooling a fission reactor to provide the whole world with unlimited clean energy...

[LinearPhilosopher]

In regards to d'rek on FMA i disagree that it's only a solid show, that it doesn't do anything incredible. I'd argue it does one thing very well. Deliver a very good story. It's a great story, with a lot of ups and downs, moments of comedy with moments of sorrow and it balances it out in a way you don't get tired of either. Characters, grow or become more fleshed out in an organic fashion. That in of itself is brilliant because how often do we see some show have potential yet fail on delivery. What sets FMA apart more than anything else is execution and thats why it gets such high praise and why its so highly regarded.

You can't just evaluate a show on the merits of its plot or characters etc. It's the execution that is a large factor. You can have a very simple story, like renton's coming of age in eureka seven be very engrossing because of the way the story is told and how the character develops.

Also i just had a triple expresso shot frappucino So if i come across as incoherent, i blame the sugar/caffeine combo.(i got a 10$ drink for free ^^)

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 22 September 2015 - 09:34 PM

[Andorion]

 LinearPhilosopher, on 22 September 2015 - 09:34 PM, said:

In regards to d'rek on FMA i disagree that it's only a solid show, that it doesn't do anything incredible. I'd argue it does one thing very well. Deliver a very good story. It's a great story, with a lot of ups and downs, moments of comedy with moments of sorrow and it balances it out in a way you don't get tired of either. Characters, grow or become more fleshed out in an organic fashion. That in of itself is brilliant because how often do we see some show have potential yet fail on delivery. What sets FMA apart more than anything else is execution and thats why it gets such high praise and why its so highly regarded.

You can't just evaluate a show on the merits of its plot or characters etc. It's the execution that is a large factor. You can have a very simple story, like renton's coming of age in eureka seven be very engrossing because of the way the story is told and how the character develops.

Also i just had a triple expresso shot frappucino So if i come across as incoherent, i blame the sugar/caffeine combo.(i got a 10$ drink for free ^^)

Ok, so the merits of FMA are something that become apparent if I watch it long term and not 10 episodes as I did. Ok got it.

And if you are going to drink espressos, don't add sugar to them. Thats just pouring good coffee down the drain.

[LinearPhilosopher]

 Andorion, on 23 September 2015 - 02:19 AM, said:

 LinearPhilosopher, on 22 September 2015 - 09:34 PM, said:

In regards to d'rek on FMA i disagree that it's only a solid show, that it doesn't do anything incredible. I'd argue it does one thing very well. Deliver a very good story. It's a great story, with a lot of ups and downs, moments of comedy with moments of sorrow and it balances it out in a way you don't get tired of either. Characters, grow or become more fleshed out in an organic fashion. That in of itself is brilliant because how often do we see some show have potential yet fail on delivery. What sets FMA apart more than anything else is execution and thats why it gets such high praise and why its so highly regarded.

You can't just evaluate a show on the merits of its plot or characters etc. It's the execution that is a large factor. You can have a very simple story, like renton's coming of age in eureka seven be very engrossing because of the way the story is told and how the character develops.

Also i just had a triple expresso shot frappucino So if i come across as incoherent, i blame the sugar/caffeine combo.(i got a 10$ drink for free ^^)

Ok, so the merits of FMA are something that become apparent if I watch it long term and not 10 episodes as I did. Ok got it.

And if you are going to drink espressos, don't add sugar to them. Thats just pouring good coffee down the drain.

elaborate