Anime and Manga - The Bear and Badger

stormyskiesahead

Yeah, Redline's a good 'un. Not much to it as far as story goes, but it looks lovely and the racing/action is superb.

Terrible dub though.

Bollockoff

I watched it again straight after just for the racing scenes. Looks lovely on Blu-ray.

Raiziel

Paranoia Agent's great and I've always been a huge fan of Perfect Blue. Â I suppose I really should check out Kon's other works.

This week, however, is set aside for Baccano. Â Third time's a charm.

Diluted Dante

Not read this thread, just posting to say Girl Bravo is awesome if you want some brainless nonsense to watch.

stormyskiesahead

So, like Raz I'm giving Baccano another go. I've got up to episode 9 and I have to say I'm really enjoying it. The characters are great for the most part, the timeline jumping doesn't confuse me anymore, and the the various storylines are starting to fit together nicely.

Looking forward to the rest of it. Who'd have thought?

Bollockoff

Planetes. I NEED OPINIONS.

Brooks

Concept and packaging was sound - sci-fi minus ludicrous robots, plus emotional/political realism - but I gather it collapsed into soap-operatic dreck pretty quickly.

Still some good measure above most Japanese shows.

[Deleted User]

Brooks wrote:

Concept and packaging was sound - sci-fi minus ludicrous robots, plus emotional/political realism - but I gather it collapsed into soap-operatic dreck pretty quickly.

spot on.

dynamiteReady

LazyGunn on Baccano wrote:

Yeah thats always the issue, thing is once you DO get past episode 4 (i had the same problem) it very very quickly becomes one of the best things youve ever seen and the first 4 episodes become excellent retroactively. Its an impossibly good show, just really hard to survive long enough for it to start making sense unless you're determined

The story sucks absolute donkeys, but I will say this; some of the characters (well... two of them, to my mind... ok... perhaps 4...) are fucking superb... Real stand outs, that, for the want of a proper story, will be lost to the world at large. But fuck the plot.Â

Fuck it right between the lines.

...

Finished Welcome To The NHk, btw...

... ... .

.

Do you think I should perhaps cut out my heart and leave it in a bowl of warm water for the next 6 hours?

Perhaps the producers could make some kind of high art ' Suzumiya'*Â style follow up, where Misaki chan is mistaken for an artic seal by her 'second' father in a wino white-out...

I may possibly shed a tear tomorrow, once the stalactitesÂ melt away from myÂ aorta, and I start thinking like a 'beeyatch' once moar. ~_~

* - I actually like that cartoon alot. : )

Raiziel

OMG I finished Baccano OMG! Â It didÂ get better. Â However, it was a trifle too convoluted and ensembley for my liking. Â Glad I watched it, though. Â Isaac and Miria were fun.

stormyskiesahead

I also finished Baccano last night. Loved the 13 part main story, and the extra 3 eisodes (added to the DVD release, but not screened on Jap TV) were a great bonus.Â

It'sÂ definitelyÂ one I'll be rewatching before too long.

dynamiteReady

I found the storyÂ unnecessarilyÂ complicated... Those characters would have worked without all that supernatural crap... Well... Except for Meyer, that kid.

stormyskiesahead

Yeah, BaccanoÂ isÂ complicated,Â ridiculously so to begin with.Â I gave up after two episodes the first time I tried to watch it, couldn't make head nor tail of the plot.Â

I'm glad I gave it another go though, once I got about four episodes in it all started to click, and I really didn't have a problem with it from there on. Oh, and I liked the supernatural aspect of the story

.

Raiziel

Back to watching Death Note.

stormyskiesahead

Quite liked the live action Death Note movies, should probably try the anime.Â

Just started Spice and Wolf. A fifteen year old girl/wolf god helps a travelling merchant increase his profits, although I assume there's more to it as it develops. I'm a bit unsure atm, but it's certainly different.

stormyskiesahead

Can't get into Spice and Wolf. Need to find something else to watch, Planetes maybe.

LarryDavid

For some bizarre reason 80's kids TV staple Mysterious Cities of Gold is getting revived. The trailer is in french but you can at least tell that the theme tune remains the same.

Apologies if this is the wrong thread to put it in.

Brooks

Hung onto the face rendering too.

Soundtrack needs more synthesizer.

stormyskiesahead

Cities of Gold, Wub!

That theme song... ahh man.

pabloamigo

Sadly, I think I may be hanging up my anime boots for the foreseeable. There's only so many times a man can watch Patlabor 2

Tried allsorts but nothing seems to stick.

Do have Tekkonkinkreet to watch so that may be my swansong.

Brooks

The Lupin III reboot series is working out okay, give that a shot.

Raiziel

Finished off Death Note last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Â Watching xxxHolic now. Â It's a bit meh so far.

Sasukekun

I wish I had the spare time so many of you have.

[Deleted User]

Watching quite a lot of this mentalness at the mo via Netflix.Â

Sgt. Frog is full of win.

dynamiteReady

Just started watching 'The Rose of Versailles'. It's too funny...Â
When the Japanese do tomboy character studies, they take them to the fucking extreme. : P

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078570/

Created in the early 70's, it's a surprise it ever got made...Â
At all...

I'm pretty sure I'm not the (originally) intended audience for this shit though...

Two episodes in and it's all been very promising. There's no guarantee of things staying that way,
but the first episode was an absolute gem.

So far the show has exposed me to;

- Varying levels of misogyny.
- An alcoholic grandma...
- Countless instances of violence towards women.
- Cross dressing (both sexes)
- Sexual confusion (the main character, and elsewhere).
- Senseless murder (genuinely senseless)
- Thinly veiled sexual tension (just about every living creature in the show wants a piece of Oscar)

Even if the show turns out to be a crock of shit, that list would pad out most of the shit I've watched
(or read) recently...Â

It would all make a blinding movie, but I'll reserve judgement on the anime for another few episodes...

Sasukekun

About halfway through Welcome to the NHK (graphic novels), and I have to say it's starting to get me down a bit.
While there were disturbing moments at the beginning it was pretty light hearted and funny.
Now it's getting really bleak and frankly rather depressing. All the humour has disappeared and left it a rather emaciated husk.
I hope it picks back up fairly soon as I'm considering jettisoning it.

On another note, it seems that the reason Corpse Party is updated sparsely is because the author has 4 series on the go (One of them finished), all based on Corpse Party. Bit of a waste really. I'd just like them to do the main story and visit other story ideas when they've finished the main one.

stormyskiesahead

I never got through the first volume of the NHK manga, enjoyed the anime much more. At first. Gave up on that just after half way through.

dynamiteReady

Funny that...

From what I've read, the manga is supposedly stronger than the anime screenplay, as the writers had to wind down much the grittier (stuff) for telly.

The cartoon was aiight', but I got pissed off with the insipid plot contrivances...

The chick was the only interesting character in the whole thing. The episode where Sato introduces her to his mum was very good, but it all went down hill after that. Taken in summary, the plot had more holes than a rastafarian's carpet.

...

LarryDavid wrote:

For some bizarre reason 80's kids TV staple Mysterious Cities of Gold is getting revived. The trailer is in french but you can at least tell that the theme tune remains the same. Apologies if this is the wrong thread to put it in.

The animation looks... odd...
There's alot of CG(3D) character work in there...

...

Still watching The Rose OfÂ Versailles, btw.Â
It's amazing.

Bollockoff

Was clearing some of the garage of rain water the other day and came across my Cowboy Bebop limited edition soundtrack collection. Been using it to enjoy tidying the flat a bit better.

dynamiteReady

I've always been a fan of this track, also:

Â

Finished that Rose Of Versaille thingy, btw...

It was fucking brilliant.Â

It was the script that won it. Almost every episode carried the story forward in some way... In fact, I felt that way about almost every scene. What's more, the story is largely factual, and I felt I gleaned a lot from watching it. Very much appreciate the rather thoughtful rendering of some of the more prominent historical figures...

As for the animation itself, for the most part, it's very good. Obviously missing the sheen common to modern production, the show makes up for it in visual consistency (which was missing, for example, in the recent NHK thingy) and variety in shot/layout composition. The character designs are also quite memorable, though they may take some time to get used to. Beyond that, the reoccurring musical themes, though functional, will grate after only a handful of episodes. Further more, some of the montage and effect work is fucking atrocious (though this may just be a sign of the times - :}).Â

Was also occasionally made aware of a very sanitised view of the French peasantry (take the rather detailed depiction of seething Galic rage illustrated in A Tale Of Two Cities for example)... But I accept that this would be a difficult picture to render in what is essentially a cartoon forÂ a young audience. And it's fair to say the script still does enough to illustrate the darkside of the Bourbon reign, regardless.

But all in all, I recommend it highly. There's so much to it... In taking it in, I did very much feel that the work was a labour of love.

edit - LOL! There's also a live action movie based on the Manga/Anime (1979)!!! I'm NOT watching that!

8/10

...

Also watched theÂ DisappearanceÂ Of Suzimiya movie... It was very good.

Couldn't make sense of that stray scene at the very end, after the credits though...Â

What was that? Like some kind of concession to Nagato's burgeoning sense of humanity, or something?... So Kyon helped Nagato pick up a library card at some point in the the fragile, pliable timeline they exist on, and the scene is representative of some kind of nostalgic throw back?

The fuck?

It's a great story though. The film gives the whole franchise a weird Twin Peaky vibe... I'm a definite fan after watching that.

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