It's much more digestible than pretty much any other long-running popular manga, aye. Araki is a class act who values your leisure time.

I am not enjoying the episode of Stardust Crusaders with the peado orangutan and the sexulised child.

Why does anime have to be like this

I have no confidence it will be any good to be honest

Kengan Ashura part 2 (next 12 epsiodes) released on netflixs. Thats me sorted then. Love fighting anime.

Watched all of Canon Busters on Netflix which was amusing enough. I liked the premise and the art. And the story was an intriguing enough.

Watched all of neon genesis evangelion which started off really well but went a bit off the boil when it started to get quite chatty near the end.. The mechs beating up aliens was cool.

Just started neon Kengan Ashura part one. Loving the art style and the fights are pretty epic.

Watched the first few episodes of Sword Art Online but didn't really click with it.

Kengan Ashura is amazing - so much action, so much violence, so many fighters!

You'd think they'd stretch it out.. but nope.. here's a massive fight! Here's a massive fight! Have another massive fight! boom! love it. And the little back stories for each contestant.

I don't think this Anime thing is for me. Attack on Titan is supposed to be a good 'un right? But I can't stand the shrieking characters and find myself laughing at how dumb they've made all the Titans. It really takes away from the drama.

I'd stick with it just to laugh at the daftness of it but there's so much bollocks to sit through it wouldn't be worth it.

Honestly if you just want to dip and retain a good mood, skip anything after the mid-to-late '90s to be largely safe.

Anime is just a national aesthetic - pick a genre you actually dig in any context and go from there I would.

Paul the sparky wrote:

I don't think this Anime thing is for me. Attack on Titan is supposed to be a good 'un right? But I can't stand the shrieking characters and find myself laughing at how dumb they've made all the Titans. It really takes away from the drama.

I'd stick with it just to laugh at the daftness of it but there's so much bollocks to sit through it wouldn't be worth it.

Give kengan ashura a go on netflix. Its great. If you like fighting.

One Punch Man is indeed the best shout.

Think we watched the first season of Attack on Titan. I do know there are plenty of people that like it, but I didn't see it either.

I tend to watch more reality-type or smalltime sci-fi based stuff now and not OTT stuff. Like the Makoto Shinkai stuff or recently In This Corner of the World.

Not seen much anime before, Paul? Why not start with Miyazaki or Takahata stuff? Or even Akira and the old classics, Ghost in the Shell etc

How come you bounced off OPM, what did it?

Anime is very weird, like Brooks says it’s a national aesthetic, but more than that it is a huge part of their society in terms of it permeating everyday culture. You’ve got magazines like Jump which are ruthless publications that take promising artists and throw them to the grind stone of producing high quality art weekly, with the end in sight being very rare. A few artists transcend that, and end up getting to do what they want, and other publications exist (but are nowhere near as huge) but the end result tends to be a very specific type of product that caters to a pre-existing audience. Anime can be worse, as it takes in more cash thus corners are permanently cut for profit or premises are doubled down on for sales.

In the end it’s a lot like any media, there is a lot of it and undoubtably much of it is utter garbage, but even some of that garbage has moments of brilliance. If you can’t deal
with the way certain things are done - characters going from well illustrated to little comic squiggles in reaction to “humour” then you’ll struggle as they permeate a lot of series, as it’s the aesthetic. You either warm to it, learn to tolerate it as a cultural thing that works there but not here, or it grates on you forever. As a fan/slave of being a critic of anything I like, a lot of anime is worth it despite its worst elements, but I think overall they tell stories at a pace and in a manner that I just prefer over our serialised stuff over here.

Things like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Akira, Berserk, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece - these are series that have lasted, or are still being made, after a decade plus, by a very small creative team - often one person and a handful of assistants/editors. It’s just really unique these days that one person gets almost near limitless creative control over something and is allowed to do whatever they want - audience be fucked - and it’s often exhilarating.

Contrast that with Star Wars, a series that has been going on for decades too, but has been helmed by different folk in different vehicles, all having different ideas for the time and manner and narrative that best reflects what they believe to be “Star Wars” and it’s a different kettle of fish entirely. Someone like Hirohiko Araki has been making JoJo for as long as i’ve been alive, and it’s been constantly evolving and taking on different stories forms for its different iterations, but it’s more consistently JoJo than any post-OG trilogy stuff is consistently Star Wars.

Later on i’ll write up a list of stuff that I would recommend most people, regardless of their exposure to anime, because I think a lot of the time really interesting one off things get drowned out by current trends. I’d also say that Manga is often the preferable way or consuming a lot of this stuff (Berserk comes to mind as something never done even a fraction of the justice it deserves in animated) but I know a lot of folk would prefer to just watch anime
for the convenience, myself usually included.

Cheers for the effort Tempy, I'll give it another try. I'm not sure what put me off OPM, I don't remember anything sticking out I just didn't have the urge to put it on after the first couple of episodes.

I do have to admit I always go with the dubbed version given the option though, how can you enjoy the animation if you're reading subtitles? Also I find the "foreign dubs are always better" thing to be bizarre, you'd need to understand the lingo to judge, Shirley? Unless people just like the sound of someone babbling incoherent nonsense while they read? IDGI.

I checked who voiced one of the characters in AoT last night because they were so shrill I was put in mind of Lemongrab from Adventure Time. It wasn't him (Justin Roiland, creator of Rick and Morty, is that particular squealer) but I did notice that the character is played by a woman in the Japanese version, so I'll probably still come a cropper there.

It also could be I can just recognise bad Western VA easier than Japanese VA, and I don't feel I lose anything from reading subs.