The "Chewer Approbed!" Anime thread (or Anime that doesnt suck, apparently) - Page 2

The two I can think off the top of my head are Pierret La Fou(sp?) in which Spike deals with an all-consuming killing machine and the one set on Venus in which he involves himself with a small time crook and Venus Sickness.

No problem here with the music in the COWBOY BEBOP movie.

The COWBOY BEBOP clips episode is the greatest ever. Nothing but random clips and barely-related musings on an assortment of topics with music by tsuchie, who would later help score SAMURAI CHAMPLOO. An adamant refusal to do a standard clips episode.

Top 5 Favorite Bebop Episodes:
1) "Pierrot le Fou" - Spike vs. Mad Pierrot. Simply amazing with the new 5.1 english dub.
2) "Asteroid Blues" (pilot) - "Keep those eyes wide open!" Fantastic intro to how badass Spike can be.
3) "Ballad of Fallen Angels" - Spike vs. Vicious. The church scene is gorgeous.
4) "The Real Folk Blues (Part 2)" - The finale. Need I say more?
5) "Wild Horses" - Seeing the space shuttle Columbia always gives me the chills.

Other notable episodes: Heavy Metal Queen (space truckers), Speak Like a Child (Faye & the beta tape), & Mushroom Samba (drugs!)

Speak Like A Child always hit me. Mostly because I liked how it explained the moon breaking (raking?!?!). And we got insight into Faye's past. Plus, Beta/VHS jokes = always funny.

I just meant it doesn't dwell on it, for the most part, it's a fun series.

"Pierrot le Fou" is awesome, probably my favorite of the series. It's the best straight-up action episode for my money, just like how "Mushroom Samba" is the best of the straight-up comedy episodes(and the best way to get someone into the show).

The episode with the bounty hunter "Andy"(can't remember the title) is one of my favorites as well. So much fun.

"Cowboy Funk" with the Teddy Bomber. I love that Spike is so annoyed by someone with a similar personality to his.

Actually, I'd put Black Lagoon as another 'dub over sub' anime, mostly because pretty much all the characters are either American or from english-speaking countries, which is accounted for in the Japanese version by some of the characters speaking massive amounts of horrible engrish.

And Pierrot Le Fou is my favorite one-shot from Bebop, hands down. Mad Pierrot himself is like a giant love letter to Batman villains (looks like The Penguin, acts like the Joker, big showdown in an amusement park). That said, it was Ballad Of Fallen Angels that officially hooked me on the series. The final showdown in the church, the animation, the music... damn.

...See you Space Samurai.

Cracks me up every time.

Teddy Bomber certainly reminded me of the Tick's The Mad Midnight Bomber who bombs at Midnight in the fact no one cares or gives a shit about him.

BRAIN SCRATCH. We get all the way to the point where the show is coming into the home stretch, then as a parting message, the last episode before the plot threads all start getting wrapped up, we get a blunt and damning statement about the nature of TV itself. Big Shots is cancelled in this episode, as well, driving home that this is definitely the beginning of the end.

A couple series you might over look:

Mushishi - no robots, high schools, or aliens. A man wanders through Japan solving problems created by creatures known as Mushi.

Paranoia Agent - created by Satoshi Kon ("Paprika", "Tokyo Godfathers", Millennuim Actress - he was also the character designer on "Perfect Blue".) One of the best opening animated sequences I've seen. Crazy series that centers on a gold bat wielding roller blader assualting people.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Set in high school were everything is not as it seems. Great story and superbly told.

Oh, how could I forget! Escaflowne...starts off stronger than it ends, but it's a fun fantasy ride. And if you like (swipe for spoilers): 17th century physicists as the bad guys then it's definitely the show for you.

I forgot about Paranoia Agent. That's a great show.

What's the word on S-Cry-ed? The set up sounds interesting. And Heat Guy J was not good.

I'm pretty fond of the weirder Gainax series like FLCL and Abenobashi.

Okay good, it stays in the queue.

While it's a mecha show, Gainax's 'Gurren Lagann' is really fun. It's almost the anti-Evangelion: where Eva was moody, philosophical and whiny, Gurren is insane, epic and fun. It's an anime for the Megas XLR crowd: people who think giant robots fighting is awesome and only gets awesomer when the scale gets bigger. It's a show where it seems like the overarching goal is a game of 'CAN YOU TOP THIS?' with each episode trying to out-do the one before it. How can you not like a mecha anime where the 'Great Fusion That Makes The Titular Mecha' comes about completely by accident?

Oh, and for the more serious crowd, I highly recommend Monster. It's a great drama/suspense anime about a Japanese brain surgeon who becomes a fugitive in 1990's Germany.

CHUD vs Anime can be somewhat described by the infamous Paprika Post Release thread

http://chud.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98595

My main problem with Cowboy Bebop was that blew its load halfway through. Ballad of a Fallen Angel feels like the perfect point to cap the series and whilst there are some great standalone episodes later they just all feel anticlimatic after that church fight.

Noir is a show which is interesting for the first few episodes but proceeds to not really go anywhere until its last few episodes. The music is greatness.

Last Exile is a show I'm liking more for its design than anything else. Beautiful, beautiful series (kind of reminiscent of Laputa in its tech designs) but I've only ever got about halfway into the series.

In terms of movies I'm kind of fond of Metropolis and I love Perfect Blue/Millenium Actress (Millenium Actress is probably my favourite non-Ghibli film, I love the basic story of it and how it uses Japanese film culture as its backdrop)

However I would say to avoid Jin-Roh, honestly couldn't get into that film on any kind of level.

Considering the number of overseas people in this thread: You find a copy of Only Yesterday, you snatch that thing up post-haste.

Yes, it's Studio Ghibli, but it's the one few know about, and, less have seen, even though it's on DVD elsewhere.

I have that in a Boxset of Ghibli films I imported from Hong Kong, is there any reason for the haste in procurring it?

The fact that it's great?

I've always been curious about something, alot of people hate Evangelion based mostly on how the main character acts, I'm just wondering whether this is because the character Shinji doesn't really change over the course of the series, he's seen as whiny whereas most heroes need to be pro-active. Does anyone find these differences in how Shinji is viewed interesting?

I'm a bit late to this thread, but I don't think anyone answered this, so figured I'd chime in. I was surprised at how much I disliked Earth Sea. I saw it last year, found it incredibly boring, and promptly forgot most of the details of the story. I couldn't believe Studio Ghibli had coughed up something this lame. I love their other work and want to forget that this ever happened.

As for the new Evangelion film, yes, I can confirm that it's basically a re-telling of the story (roughly, the first six episodes of the TV show). Even though many shot compositions are the same, the animation has all been re-created in a theatrical aspect ratio with a lot of major technical upgrades. And there are some minor story changes and additions (as Renn Brown said earlier, there will be more changes as the new films progress). The highlight is the climatic battle against the diamond-shaped angel that Shinji must snipe from afar. They really enhanced this with some pretty cool changes, so I felt like I was seeing it again for the first time. To summarize, I was skeptical about this Eva project at first, but I'm so glad I saw it.

The differing view to this is mainly I think due to how some people can empathise with Shinji. In many ways the character worked for them as they see their own position being similar to him, some faceless guy/s lording over them, treating them as pawns and not caring one iota about them. Basically the prevalent feeling of being in the Japanese work/school system/culture; minus the giant mechas and stuff of course.
This is probably why even when Shinji could finally make a dramatic impact in the end but didn't, some didn't fault him for it. He was a guy that was push around, beat up and forced to do things he really didn't want to by the system and people above him. So when he was asked to change the world in the end by the very system that has been leading him around, in a moment of ultimate passive aggressiveness he said no and wanted nothing to do with any of it.
Think of it as an emo-ish, angsty, F-you act power empowerment which some people empathised with.

That said; while I understood the character, I didn't like him as all he ever did was feel sorry for himself to the very end. Weak willed and lacking in any sense of redemption, he was a character that was in a unique position to effect change and alter his path thru out the series but instead was willingly led around until his character completely broke down in the end because of it. I mean how could you like a character that did nothing but continue to dig a deeper hole for himself even though he was offered a hand, or could have asked for help, out of it quite a few times by those around him?

After all of that, I have to say that I actually don't hate Evangelion because of Shinji. I quite like it and the series is ultimately about him and the characters around him rather than the action and the melodrama around them.
(Though not the movie. I've written before about how the movie is really the director's act of defiance and giving the audience who has been giving him grief about the TV series the finger. In short to me the series actually ended with the TV series and the movie is a quaint piece for me to laugh about due to the director's intentions at the expense of those who he felt put upon by)
What makes me hate Evangelion is how it immediately after it actually spawned an entire legion of shows with angsty protagonist’s melodramas. It was like how angsty teenagers are the in-thing now and producers felt that for a show to be popular it needs to have one as their main character/s. What had worked in EVA worked in context of the show but they've totally missed the point and taken it totally out of context for their own shows.

This ruined the scene for me for close to an entire generation and of which it is only now that we're slowly crawling out of it.

I tried watching S-Cry-ed. Didn't like the look of it or the constant panning. Gave up after a few minutes.

So as someone who kind of liked Ghost in the Shell 1 and really like Innocence but found both a tad pretentious is Stand Alone Complex worth getting into?

The Stand Alone Complex series is more like 'NYPD Blue: Cyborg Badass Division'. While it does have some of the philosophical headfuckery of the movies, I found I enjoyed the series more because it allowed the characters to be fleshed out and have their own crowning moments of awesome.

And on a side tangent, I seriously can't recommend Monster enough.

It's a movie that demands several viewings to fully appreciate, but it is so, so worth it. Once you have the basic plot and the political machinations in the background figured out, it allows you to pay attention to the things that truly set this movie apart: The understated, unsentimental way the love story is handled, the remarkably subtle performances of the lead characters (seriously: if you ever wondered about the notion of animators as actors, this is the film to watch), the haunting score (my special edition of the dvd came with a copy, which is now one of my most prized possessions) and the way all of its various themes and layers (romance, political thriller, fairy tale, social commentary) culminate in a moment that is both beautiful in its elegance and absolutley devastating.

It's my favorite anime, edging out Princess Mononoke - although I'm not sure if calling it anime isn't misrepresenting what kind of movie it is. For one thing, it seems to aim at a much more mature audience than most anime that I know, which is intended either for teenagers (starting with DBZ/Naruto-style garbage, but also including quality stuff like Bebop) or college-aged people (Ghost in the Shell and its pseudo-intellectual ilk - some of which I happen to like, as well). With that comes a refreshing lack of posturing: "Look at me, I'm ultra-violent/melancholy/deep/quirky/cute/whatever!", every series/movie seems to scream; whatever quality it possesses, going over the top with it seems to be the way to present it. Not in the case of Jin-Roh - the way I described it above already gives it away: "subtle" , "understated"... not exactly words/concepts I associate with anime.

(Granted, that may be my lack of knowledge speaking: After a short infatuation in my teens (finite storylines told over the course of a limited number of episodes seemed like such a radical idea, for example) I quickly became disillusioned with the "genre", and so I've only seen a few shows (Escaflowne, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, both GitS SAC series, Noir) and even fewer movies (GitS, again both of 'em; Grave of the Fireflies, a couple of Miyazakis). This thread definitly serves as inspiration to check out a few others, though.)

So yeah, make that "one of my favorite films, animated or otherwise".

As a side note, the movie is - and I may have said this before - an excellent companion piece to another multilayered gem of a film, namely Pan's Labyrinth. Thematically, the two show striking similarities in some respects, while differing greatly in others: Both feature narratives based in fairy tale lore, for example, while taking the concept in completely different directions - yet to similar ends, particularly in the examination of fascism and the toll it takes on those who live by it, as well as those who suffer under it.

So, again, it may make you work for it, but there is much greatness to be discovered here.

/commercial

Huh. I had the opposite impression: For the first dozen or so episodes, nothing much happened, until they introduced Chloe and the show finally gained a sense of purpose. Up until that point, only the odd sexual tension between the main characters kept me coming back. Definitly agree about the music though.

I'm slowly making my way through "Fighting Spirit" which has been superb.I've never gotten so involved in an anime character like i have with Ippo.If you like boxing then I strongly recommend it.

Paranoia Agent was ok,before "Fighting Spirit" i went through "Kino's Journey" which was really good,some fine storytelling was involved in that series.

Never watched "Cowboy Bebop"?

Films - "The Girl who leapt through time" was a very sweet story.

Cowboy Bebop is great. While I somewhat agree with Spike that it blows it's load on the 5th ep., I dig the episodic nature of these guys wandering the galaxy. And the cool music.

I'm working on finishing up Ergo Proxy which I like. A little too dour at times, but at least it's mostly serious and not filled with shitty comedic relief. I'm on the second to last disc and am trying to decide what to watch next. Any feelings on Fate: Stay/Night, Blame or Planetes?

Nadesico is really good. I enjoyed it taking the piss out of very similar series.

Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Earlier Days and 5 Centimeters Per Second are all very good. Fucking BEAUTIFUL. The stories range from ok to damn fine, but all are gorgeous.

And I liked Rahxephon much more than Evangelion. Both similar (young people and large robots) but I thought Rahxephon did it far better with less angst and emo.

Watching that new Hellsing "Ultimate" series is a weird experience for me. It's like a cliff notes version of the original series, leading me to wonder why they felt the need to redo the whole thing when they could just continue on to the whole Nazi Vampire plot (which I'm highly looking forward to).

It has almost the opposite problem of the original series: the original series was downright dull, boring and slow as molasseses in some parts, while this one is very, VERY ADD. Still, the animation is a lot smoother and better (being made more recently and all) while missing the great original music and replacing it with generic techno (Clubbed to Death by Rob D? Really?)

I preferred Alexander Anderson's introduction in the original series though: we have no idea who he is beyond a well-mannered priest, and our attention is focused on the latest "vamp of the week to be killed" plot when suddenly the crazy priest with swords comes out of nowhere and starts killing everyone.

There. The one place I can rant about anime, and I've done it. Whew. It's out of my system.

And....finished. Wow, these episodes have been around since 2005 and I'm just now finding out about them?

Great animation, have to say. Doesn't have the stiff, lazy quality of some of the original stuff. And the fights are a lot more exciting, even though it does fall into the same trap of the original: Alucard is just too...damn...powerful. There's no Goddamn suspense at all.

As I suspect, I'm loving the Nazi villains. And the last episode did a great job of eliminating any hope at all of the good guy's winning. Though I wish they had actually developed that mercenary with the eye patch a bit. He feels like a character who's supposed to be important but hasn't been given any screen time at all to develop.

Won't anyone join me in my rant so I don't feel so alone?

Agreed. The Major's "I love war" speech from the 4th OVA is such a great bad guy monologue. The new series is so much better than the old series.

If you're looking for something new, I'd like to recommend Monster (suspense drama) again. If you're looking for something a little more offbeat, Baccano! is a rather interesting series (odd time-jumping plot structure, uses Prohibition-era Chicago and New York as a backdrop).

Really? I think the animation on the new(er) series is shit. I actually liked the slow, measured pace of the original series. This one just seems juvenile (that is to say more so than I can tolerate).

I got an anime series called "Speed Grapher" for Christmas from a friend. I thought it sounded like an old Square One skit, but she says I'll love it cuz it's completely fucked up.

Anyone ever see this?

The reason I like the newer series more than the old series:

-Better animation (they couldn't keep character shapes consistent at all in the TV series. Seras would change breast sizes three time an episode, not to mention all of the animation corners they seemed to cut)
- Actually follows the manga (which means no Incognito or brooding child vampires, which is fantastic)
-More Alexander Anderson and the Church as a whole
-Pip (fuck yeah, Pip)

Haven't seen it, but the opening intrigues me.

Our cable service just started a 24 hour anime channel. Unfortunately it mostly plays a bunch of crap like Neon Genesis, Earth girl arjuna and Hack.

What a waste.

Baccano! got a lot of love last year, deservedly so. I also liked Seirei no Moribito (aka Guardian of the Sacred Spirit) and the absolutely over the top Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan. More recently I watched Detroit Metal City which you all have to watch immediately, it is so fucking hilarious.

Here's a list of random anime worth checking out:

Shigurui
Mononoke
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Cromartie High School
Dead Leaves
Boogiepop Phantom
Mind Game
Memories OVA
Bartender
Jyu Oh Sei
Kino's Journey
Mushishi
Sword of the Stranger (mediocre story but best sword fights in anime)

I posted a thread about Mamoru Oshii's next film 'Sky Crawlers' in the focused film forum but it seems no-one cared, so I'll repost it here, it looks intriguing.

http://chud.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113027

Is Samurai 7 any good? I almost bought the complete series for $50 once:

Seconded so hard. Detroit Metal City is beyond ridiculous. Gurren Lagann is also fun, but you have to be a fan of giant robots first (if you liked Megas XLR, you most likely have the right mindset for Gurren Lagann)

Been looking forward to that for a while, the aerial scenes look great. Just hope the story isnt blandy bland like recent CGI-fests like Appleseed Ex Machina (worst movie ever?) and Vexille.

Its the worst 26 ep series I've ever watched, and I've watched a lot by now. How can you fuck up remaking Kurosawa's classic in a sci-fi setting? Very easily.

I like to think even the jaded anime-hating/ignorant Chewer would get a kick out of DMC. The voice acting is perfect, the anime for some reason reminded me of British skit show humour.

Gurren Lagan seems to be a real love it or hate it deal, with the ones who hate it dropping it before watching the whole thing. A real shame I think, you just need to roll with it and stop taking it so seriously, I mean when a character unsheathes his sword and it just keeps on going out and out you're meant to laugh! The final episode is heart-pumpingly good fun, and the epilogue at the end gives the show a little extra gravitas to ensure the whole thing isnt a complete joke.

I have to reiterate Baccano's coolness though, another anime that has the possibility of grabbing non-anime freaks with its prohibition-America setting and dynamic direction/editing, a real keeper. Check out the opening credits on youtube, better than Bebop's.

It does look great though from the reviews I've read about seems to be a case of Oshii biting the hand that feeds him. Spoiler: Basically the movie is him delivering a biting criticism of the otaku culture which is strange considering the format he's using to tell the story
It however is critically acclaimed from all reports. The DVD itself isn't released till February in Japan alone, who knows when it'll become available translated in the western market considering the current economic situation coupled with the slowly declining anime market in the west.

For my input I'll put forward Kara no Kyoukai ~ The Garden of Sinners
It's a supernatural story faithfully based the "cult hit light novel" of the same name, though how you can call something a cult hit when it consistenly sells out of it's reprints and a light novel when the combined two volumes are over 1000 pages in length.
It's a movie series divided into seven chapters of the novel with each on average has a running time of under an hour. With the exception of the 5th movie which ran for nearly 2 hours due to that chapter it's based on is the longest in the novel.
What works for the anime is that it successfully captures the creeping dread feeling and horror that one is familiar with in J-horror movies.

The only problem is that the final chapter of movie is yet to be released yet even in Japan.

Even though this article is from last year, I thought it would be cool to post an update on what Shinichiro Watanabe has been up to lately.

http://jfilmpowwow.blogspot.com/2008...hinichiro.html

Ok, so it's not much but at least it's something, it's been 4 years, I'll take anything I can get.

His short for the Genius Party anthology was the best of the bunch. And I hope he's kidding about bringing Spike back, unless its in the form of another standalone movie.

I watched the first Kara no Kyoukai movie and it was awful. It looked pretty with a decent Yuki soundtrack but the story was terrible in a typically anime kind of way where characters arent characters but dissertations. I'm a completist so I'll check out the other movies but arent expecting much.

What I am currently getting lost in is quite possibly the longest OVA in history, at a whopping 110 episodes, Legends of the Galactic Heroes is getting more and more attention on the Net lately (and its prequel movies), and is basically like a grown up version of Gundam and a more refined version of Star Wars. Real meaty stuff, hampered by old animation but still starring great characters and containing epic scope.