[Adjutant Stormy~]

Furoan, on 11 November 2011 - 05:58 AM, said:

Another series that you should check out for just how beautiful its put together is Angel Beats. Even if you don't like the story I just think you should watch it simply for how its put together.

Another example of genre adaptations - manga and anime take rather different takes.

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Serial Experiments Lain is awesome. It still remains as one of my favorite anime's even though its place has inevitably slipped over the years. Its a very much mind screw anime and you will be left staring at the screen going 'what the hell' after you see it. Still its rather fun.

I had to watch this with a chaperone, lol.

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K-On is pretty fun for just slice of life stuff. Its not really super amazing but its fairly entertaining. It revolves around four new high school girls who form a band.

I CANNOT EXPRESS MY LOVE FOR K-ON ENOUGH. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY CANNOT.

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While its ...weird...and follows the typical anime formula I would still watch Lucky Star at some point . Very slice of life but fun at the same time. Its real strength is in character interaction. However there isn't really a plot there, so don't come in expecting high drama.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is very very good. You might get sick of the fans of it but for what it is, it and its sequels are very fun to watch. Just try and avoid the internet about it because the fans of it get slightly disturbing in their obsession over the poor magical girl. However the show itself is pretty good.

Speaking of Magical Girl shows that actually work try Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Its a very interesting look into a magical girl show. I won't spoil anything because its just that good but its very much worth watching.

Madoka is really good, and unlike the annoyingly lighthearted magical girl shows, it deals with some DARK ASS STUFF.

[Ben Delat]

heh seems a lot of people in here are the....I was not into Anime until......

same for me, never liked it beyond watching DBZ when I was young, now I watch bleach the day before it comes out every week(which will be today, yay) and I liked the Big-O series, TriGun was awesome and hilarious Naruto is ok but I am just starting to watch that.

Only ever watched 1 anime movie besides the Bleach ones, and that was Princess Mononoke which I thought was quite good.

[LinearPhilosopher]

@above, dont be afraid to drop naruto if it gets boring. Once you hit shippuden it only goes downhill.

JLV, on 10 November 2011 - 11:15 PM, said:

I gave my xbox to my father, in an effort to get time sinks out of my house.

In another effort, I'm trying to form a better connection with him. This can only happen if we don't have to have conversations so... watching TV! He bought netflix for the xbox, and we've been watching various things, including some anime.

He (and I) loved Ghost in the Shell. Anyone know anything else along these lines? It just feels like nothing else could compare in that genre.
Currently watching Samurai Champloo. It's pretty good, but not great.
I think we're going for FMA next. To watch Brotherhood or the original? I watched the original long ago, but haven't seen brotherhood.

Have you seen all 3 GITS movies and both seasons? That would be a place to start.
There really isnt anything similar to GITS, it's kinda unique. If you're looking for something futuristic ergo proxy is a good one . It gets heavy into philosophy and other references, for example the statues that are featured in the anime for example are copies of famous Michelangelo works. It depends on whether that s a turn on or a turn off for you
i know someone reccomended Black lagoon. It's a straight up action shooter flick. The difference is that it has solid characters and good story telling. Also features some of the best character development ive seen in a series in the two main protagonists as it can be quite subtle at times.
If you're looking for a futuristic story with a layered plot like GITS, Gankutsuou would be a great one. Its an adaption of the count of monte cristo and the artwork is unique. You could watch it solely for the art since there is nothing quite like it.


i also found out you can watch the complete thing on funimations youtube channel (god i love you funimation)
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=rrH7Z2It3RI
Cowboy bebop as a reccomendation is a no brainer. Even its detractor admit its a brilliant series.

If you're considering FMA, both adaptions are amazing. Both feature a great story, the 2nd one having a longer one. The first one is more gritty though so that may be more your cup of tea.

If you want more reccomendations i can try but i think you have enough on your plate as is.

This post has been edited by BalrogLord: 16 November 2011 - 05:04 AM

[Dolmen 2.0]

Oooook, im gonna spit into the wind here and say that a) naruto is infact getting better but also worse. If you enjoyed dbz i think you'll love where narutos going in the manga. Have yet to see battles pulled off this well at this scale. Sadly there are a gazillion plot holes that tend to annoy all but the most hardcore faithful. Have not bothered to watch the anime in a while, naruto fillers are terrible 99 percent of the time. If you stick with it i would advize you to get an episode list and skip them completely whenever you can. Certain episodes of naruto make everything worth it.

Bleach i feel is going in a terrible direction, i peek at the manga every month or so but cant say i like it anymore. Problem is both animes are far too commercial. As a rule i have stopped watching anything longer than 60 episodes. This rule exists solely because of the Histories strongest disciple series which ends right where it should and lets the manga tale over.

Im glad to hear some one else is vouching for black lagoon, im halfway through the special and Im really enjoying it. Balroglord hit it on the head, character dialogue and progression between the main characters is fantastic.

[Chance]

Dolmen+, on 16 November 2011 - 12:04 PM, said:

Oooook, im gonna spit into the wind here and say that a) naruto is infact getting better but also worse. If you enjoyed dbz i think you'll love where narutos going in the manga. Have yet to see battles pulled off this well at this scale. Sadly there are a gazillion plot holes that tend to annoy all but the most hardcore faithful. Have not bothered to watch the anime in a while, naruto fillers are terrible 99 percent of the time. If you stick with it i would advize you to get an episode list and skip them completely whenever you can. Certain episodes of naruto make everything worth it.

Bleach i feel is going in a terrible direction, i peek at the manga every month or so but cant say i like it anymore. Problem is both animes are far too commercial. As a rule i have stopped watching anything longer than 60 episodes. This rule exists solely because of the Histories strongest disciple series which ends right where it should and lets the manga tale over.

Im glad to hear some one else is vouching for black lagoon, im halfway through the special and Im really enjoying it. Balroglord hit it on the head, character dialogue and progression between the main characters is fantastic.

Naruto is actually nearly watchable if you ignore the filler episodes ...not good but fairly entertaining now and the, must have be a horror to watch an episode a week thought. Bleach has the poor circumstances of having a decent first arch (to episode 63 if I remember right) and then fillers and story decay due to rather poor manga material.

One should always be suspicious of long series of any kind, for anime more then 25ish episodes is usually a good benchmark. There are some longer series worth the time thought Twelve Kingdoms, Crest of Stars come to mind and for those who can tolerate mecha siliness Code Geass and Gundam Seed/Destiny are at least good fun.

Black Lagoon is one of the most enjoyable action anime ever, it also has the good taste to get serious now and then, parts of the second season get outright grim.

Doesnt watch much anime these days but did get surprised watching Break Blade on recommendation, a fairly well done and very good looking mecha series of 6 near hour long episodes. Solid series for those of us that can live with a few of the conventions of mecha series and worth watching for the visuals most of the time.

Also noticed no one so far have mentioned Mushi-shi for those looking for something different in their anime it is something in the vein Kino no Tabi and similiar low key series about travels. Both generally considered rather good in my experience and the second Kino no Tabi episode is easily one of the best of any anime.

Mushi-Shi

Kino no Tabi

/Chance

This post has been edited by Chance: 16 November 2011 - 04:33 PM

[JLV]

I have quite the list now. We've seen all the ghost in the shell stuff except the 3rd movie. Fucking fantastic. I, personally, was in love with Ergo Proxy. Unfortunately its not on streaming, he would love all the philosophical shit. We're watching the original FMA, now. It has some of that later on, if a bit more elementary. Only watched the first two, but he's pretty hooked.

[Ben Delat]

Bleach is definitely different than it used to be and there are a lot of plot holes just like in other long running anmie series. But I dont think its degrading as such, just different.

I am glad this last mini arc was all action and not the filler crap episodes they used to do with his sisters, classmates and that annoying magician guy that was in 1 episode at the end of the AIzen arc.

This new xcutioners arc that is current is decent, back to the slower plot and character building and is a better explanation of trying to return ichigo's soul reaper powers than the last arc where they just created a soul candy with his spiritual pressure.

I am not sure where the maga is at since it is so far ahead of the anime usually, but the web site I get all my anime from does have the manga so I might start checking it out.

I will def try naruto and will skip all the filler crap, and also GitS I forgot about.

I agree with the Cowboy Bebop comment also, was great.

[amphibian]

Bleach lost its way after it couldn't figure out how to make the Gotei 13 have any sort of logical consistency. Yamamoto has to be the worst boss ever made in anime. All he does is leave his captains alone until one of them turns traitor and then fights them in a DBZ-style standoff. There are some cool things about Bleach, but it's essentially done as a top level story.

The point about all long running animes being awful is kind of disproved by One Piece. That series has only improved in its story telling, depth and cool factor. It's easily one of my favorite three shows of all time - and that list is The Wire, One Piece and Arrested Development.

[JLV]

Update: We're about halfway through FMA (the original). My dad is absolutely loving it. He actually laughs at the comedy in this one (Hughes and Armstrong, mostly). And its quite dark.

He was crushed when MAJOR SPOILER

Spoiler

hughes died

We're now getting into Greed's storyline, which I remember liking. Forgot how good FMA is.

[Silencer]

Yup yup. That's one of the things that surprised me about FMA, too. I laughed at the 'silly anime humour', for some reason. XD Great series, for sure.

[LinearPhilosopher]

amphibian, on 17 November 2011 - 04:40 PM, said:

Bleach lost its way after it couldn't figure out how to make the Gotei 13 have any sort of logical consistency. Yamamoto has to be the worst boss ever made in anime. All he does is leave his captains alone until one of them turns traitor and then fights them in a DBZ-style standoff. There are some cool things about Bleach, but it's essentially done as a top level story.

The point about all long running animes being awful is kind of disproved by One Piece. That series has only improved in its story telling, depth and cool factor. It's easily one of my favorite three shows of all time - and that list is The Wire, One Piece and Arrested Development.

I gave up on bleach after the "final" battle between ichigo and aizen. Havent touched it since and im glad. Bleach was good until the soul society arc. Then it all went straight to shit. The Hueco Mundo rescue arc? what a joke. Had they cut out 50 episodes out fo the arc would have maintained the quality. The fights at the end of the series were good, but the wait for them? Way too much.

This post has been edited by BalrogLord: 28 November 2011 - 03:08 AM

[amphibian]

BalrogLord, on 28 November 2011 - 03:04 AM, said:

I gave up on bleach after the "final" battle between ichigo and aizen. Havent touched it since and im glad. Bleach was good until the soul society arc. Then it all went straight to shit. The Hueco Mundo rescue arc? what a joke. Had they cut out 50 episodes out fo the arc would have maintained the quality. The fights at the end of the series were good, but the wait for them? Way too much.

I quite liked the Hueco Mundo stuff. It made complete sense for the deranged ghosts to try to approach being real people again by basically becoming deranged serial killers and eating the remnants of humanity left over there. The Espadas were nicely done and provided a real set of antagonists - although I truly dislike how every single one of the good guys won out over the Espadas.

The flaw in the show I'm talking about is the inability of the creative minds working on the series to come up with a new region for the characters to explore or some organization outside of Karakura Town and Seireitei that can provide resistance or another dimension to the show. Hueco Mundo provided that in a way, but with the complete demolition of the Espadas and with Aizen no longer being there anymore, it's irrelevant and has no characters of power left in it. The only thing left is for the remaining traitors to break cover and confirm that Yamamoto is the worst boss in all of anime.

There's all these little hints of a backstage place where things get decided, with the King of Seireitei, the court that makes the decisions for the Gotei 13 and so on. But none of that goes anywhere. They're red herrings and stupid fucking storytelling devices that the writers can't stop using. Same thing with Isshin being an ex-captain. If he's an ex-captain, then it makes no sense for the Gotei 13 to be surprised at Ichigo's power.

Basically, Bleach is the Lost of Japanese anime - a sort of interesting show that falls apart as it totters towards the end and complete with sporadic and spotty filler to waste time*.

*The Bount arc was pretty good in terms of developing a real story arc and well-presented characters. The living swords thing was kinda interesting, purely from an art point of view, but was awful in terms of story and character development. The new captain Amagai was stupid.

My fixes: Kill Rukia, kill Ishida, kill half the Gotei 13, including Yamamoto and Unohana, raise new and inexperienced captains, launch an expedition into a new Hueco Mundo of sorts to cleanse it, get into the Isshin backstory for real and stop pretending the battles have zero cost to the good guys. Ans make Zaraki go evil.

[LinearPhilosopher]

amphibian, on 28 November 2011 - 03:42 AM, said:

BalrogLord, on 28 November 2011 - 03:04 AM, said:

I gave up on bleach after the "final" battle between ichigo and aizen. Havent touched it since and im glad. Bleach was good until the soul society arc. Then it all went straight to shit. The Hueco Mundo rescue arc? what a joke. Had they cut out 50 episodes out fo the arc would have maintained the quality. The fights at the end of the series were good, but the wait for them? Way too much.

I quite liked the Hueco Mundo stuff. It made complete sense for the deranged ghosts to try to approach being real people again by basically becoming deranged serial killers and eating the remnants of humanity left over there. The Espadas were nicely done and provided a real set of antagonists - although I truly dislike how every single one of the good guys won out over the Espadas.

The flaw in the show I'm talking about is the inability of the creative minds working on the series to come up with a new region for the characters to explore or some organization outside of Karakura Town and Seireitei that can provide resistance or another dimension to the show. Hueco Mundo provided that in a way, but with the complete demolition of the Espadas and with Aizen no longer being there anymore, it's irrelevant and has no characters of power left in it. The only thing left is for the remaining traitors to break cover and confirm that Yamamoto is the worst boss in all of anime.

There's all these little hints of a backstage place where things get decided, with the King of Seireitei, the court that makes the decisions for the Gotei 13 and so on. But none of that goes anywhere. They're red herrings and stupid fucking storytelling devices that the writers can't stop using. Same thing with Isshin being an ex-captain. If he's an ex-captain, then it makes no sense for the Gotei 13 to be surprised at Ichigo's power.

Basically, Bleach is the Lost of Japanese anime - a sort of interesting show that falls apart as it totters towards the end and complete with sporadic and spotty filler to waste time*.

*The Bount arc was pretty good in terms of developing a real story arc and well-presented characters. The living swords thing was kinda interesting, purely from an art point of view, but was awful in terms of story and character development. The new captain Amagai was stupid.

My fixes: Kill Rukia, kill Ishida, kill half the Gotei 13, including Yamamoto and Unohana, raise new and inexperienced captains, launch an expedition into a new Hueco Mundo of sorts to cleanse it, get into the Isshin backstory for real and stop pretending the battles have zero cost to the good guys. Ans make Zaraki go evil.

Cept i found the HM arc to drag and drag and drag. They started that arc like what 4 years ago? And they only finished it about a year ago. Not only that but it was more or less identical to the SS arc. Main characters split up (for retarded reasons might i add) fight ppl and lvl up. Every1 fights until they get their asses kicked, epcept for ichigo who goes all DEUX EX MACHINA on us.


Didnt help we were inundated with terrible fillers. Even without the fillers i couldnt help thinking the fights just kept dragging on. It also isnt helped when the characters in bleach make the Z fighters sound quiet. TK is also a gutless writer as he refuses to kill off characters, and those he does tend to reapear (i heard rumours halibel was alive)..

[Chance]

BalrogLord, on 28 November 2011 - 05:13 AM, said:

TK is also a gutless writer as he refuses to kill off characters, and those he does tend to reapear (i heard rumours halibel was alive)..

The main problem is that he is foremost into illustrating from what I have heard...the story kinda comes second and has to make room for where the art takes him which honestly mostly seem to be longwinded battle scenes.

This post has been edited by Chance: 28 November 2011 - 10:42 AM

[amphibian]

BalrogLord, on 28 November 2011 - 05:13 AM, said:

Cept i found the HM arc to drag and drag and drag. They started that arc like what 4 years ago? And they only finished it about a year ago. Not only that but it was more or less identical to the SS arc. Main characters split up (for retarded reasons might i add) fight ppl and lvl up. Every1 fights until they get their asses kicked, epcept for ichigo who goes all DEUX EX MACHINA on us.


Didnt help we were inundated with terrible fillers. Even without the fillers i couldnt help thinking the fights just kept dragging on. It also isnt helped when the characters in bleach make the Z fighters sound quiet. TK is also a gutless writer as he refuses to kill off characters, and those he does tend to reapear (i heard rumours halibel was alive)..

I liked getting the Espada and former Espada backstories and seeing Ulquiorra interact with Inoue. The always having one more level to go up stuff was idiotic, as it almost always is, but the story stuff in Hueco Mundo was pretty good - in my opinion. Yours can differ and still be valid, so do not worry. I am not disagreeing with you so much as providing a different viewpoint.

How do you tell an author or artist that there are massive problems affecting the story when that story is still selling big time and doing well? It is the Lost phenomenon all over again. Even though I'm on the point of not following even wiki updates to Bleach, I still appreciate the freshness and pace of the earlier episodes and the bright spots of the more recent ones too.

[Dolmen 2.0]

If Zaraki became evil I'd willingly watch bleach again. As a character he is fun to watch. he's been the exception to the silly level-up race since he's already bordering the summit, just needs to figure out that damn swords name. Sadly, as mentioned above, with TK even that story arc will end hollow.

This post has been edited by Dolmen+: 28 November 2011 - 12:12 PM

[rhulad]

Have not watched any anime in far to long. Need something new, preferably something fairly short.

[JLV]

Ergo Proxy for dark and somewhat philosophical. 26ish episodes
FLCL for comedy. 5 (6?) episodes.

[Kanese S's]

JLV, on 28 November 2011 - 07:31 PM, said:

Ergo Proxy for dark and somewhat philosophical. 26ish episodes
FLCL for comedy. 5 (6?) episodes.

Yes. I'm into both those series.

[LinearPhilosopher]

rhulad, on 28 November 2011 - 07:10 PM, said:

Have not watched any anime in far to long. Need something new, preferably something fairly short.

Angel Beats. Interesting take on reincarnation, it has one of my favourite characters of all time (TK) and can be quite touching at times. Its a key anime so prepare to get your heart string pulled once you get past the comedy. (first part of the series has alot of it, latter half gets alot more serious)

Kino's Journey: Story of a wandering traveller who visits various countries (in some other world, where one country is sci-fi world, and others are agrarian and everything in between). Each episode will make you think.

If you gave us more criteria i could give you other reccomendations. By saying short, i just gave reccomendations based on size (both are half season sized).

This post has been edited by BalrogLord: 01 December 2011 - 04:22 PM