Current Favorites (again)

horacethegrey · Jun 2, 2006

Wow Third Wizard. That's certainly a lot of anime you're watching. How do you find time?

ThirdWizard · Jun 2, 2006

horacethegrey said:
Wow Third Wizard. That's certainly a lot of anime you're watching. How do you find time?

I'm single and my friends are married with kids, making it almost impossible to get them to do anything. I find it frees up a lot of time.

Plus, it isn't all that much time, really. If you devote an hour a day to watching a few 22 minute (ie without the commercials) episodes, you can actually fit in quite a lot of different series. My Netflix queue is what slows me down the most!

Pants · Jun 2, 2006

I'm getting back into Berserk. Been picking up the manga and I'm really looking forward to the US Release of Volume 12. Let the Eclipse begin!

horacethegrey · Jun 2, 2006

Pants said:
I'm getting back into Berserk. Been picking up the manga and I'm really looking forward to the US Release of Volume 12. Let the Eclipse begin!

The Black Sun starts at volume 12? So that means volume 13 is the start of Gut's quest to destroy Godhand, right? If so, I'll be picking up that one.

Pants · Jun 3, 2006

horacethegrey said:
The Black Sun starts at volume 12?

So that means volume 13 is the start of Gut's quest to destroy Godhand, right?

If so, I'll be picking up that one.

Having just read Volume 11... I believe so.
If you've only seen the anime, I highly suggest you start picking up the manga before you pick up Vol. 12, there are some characters that don't even appear in the anime that are important. Plus, it's just good reading.

You might want to spoiler text some of that stuff out. Might not be that spoilery, but I usually prefer to er on the side of caution.

JEL · Jun 3, 2006

I too am really digging The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. Took me a bit to get into the non-linear nature of it (it helps if you pay attention to the preview for the next episode), but it's definitely one of the more original things to come down the pike in a while.

School Rumble Second Term is every bit as good as the first season. The first six episodes are nothing but dealing with the school cultural festival. I love the way the decide on what their class is going to do.

The Third is pretty good. Not sure what it is, but it gives me a real early nineties vibe for some reason. A bit fan service-y in places, but not overwhelmingly so.

Black Lagoon is surprisingly good. I was expecting your typical girl with guns show, but it actually has quite a bit of depth. It also has an amazing amount of violence for a TV series. I'll be curious how the US release handles the racial stuff (they deal with some neo-nazis in one of the story arcs, and the leader of the Black Lagoon group is black, so some interesting things get said).

I caught one episode of Jyu Ou Sei and enjoyed it well enough, but I haven't had a chance to see more of it.

I tried an episode of Witchblade, but the animation was just horrible. They barely maintain the character designs from one scene to the next. The plot also seemed pretty bog standard. I didn't care much for Blood+ either as they pretty much ditch everything that made the film good and it was pretty boring and predictable.

Filby · Jun 3, 2006

horacethegrey said:
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Good lord. I honestly couldn't stop laughing at the first episode of this. It is without a doubt the most whacked out anime I've seen since Excel Saga and Yakitate! Japan. To try and explain what this show is about would be doing it an injustice (not to mention revealing a great deal of Spoilers ). But if you all insist on a description, let me say that it's a slice of life/comedy anime much in the vein of Azumanga Daioh, but taken to the nth degree. All of you must watch this, trust me. And believe me when I say that the first episode is pure comedy gold.

Oh God Yes. I've seen the first two episodes and can't wait to see where it goes from there. The first episode had me in stitches. And Kyou has got to be the best seinen lead ever. "...Wait, you're going to show this to the public?!"

I'm a little past the middle of Fruits Basket. It's probably the best shoujo series I've yet seen. I am singularly impressed by the depth of characterization.

I finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion a short while ago, and I can't decide if I loved it or if I was totally cheated by the lack of closure. That said, Shinji's emotional emancipation at the end left me feeling satisfied. I have no intention of viewing End of Evangelion, as I feel the series ended on a positive note and I don't want to watch everyone die horrible deaths.

I've also been watching Ranma 1/2. I'm up to the 7th season, and plan on seeing the OVAs after. I'd been warned that it dragged very badly in the middle seasons, and indeed it did, but it was worth it to get to the last two seasons, which pick up considerably. Another older series I'm watching is Sailor Moon -- the subtitled version, not the dubbed version -- mainly to see what the fuss is about, and I think it's pretty good for a kids' show.

Two shows I'm interested in checking out in the future are Fate/Stay Night and Eyeshield 21. The basic premise of the former intrigues me, but the knowledge that it's based on an H-game puts me off quite a bit. As for the latter, it's just the novelty of American football seen through a Japanese lens that I'm interested in.

JEL · Jun 3, 2006

For Sailor Moon, I can't recommend the live action series highly enough. It's just plain awesome.

Nightfall · Jun 3, 2006

JEL,

Witchblade does get better. I'm waiting for fan sub of ep 4 and hoping it will. Certainly the beginning of ep 3 was pretty sweet.

stevelabny · Jun 3, 2006

Forget japanese anime

watch Avatar: the Last Airbender, with every episode it moves up the list of best tv shows ever.

anime-inspired, american written. comedy , drama, action. they ever pay a martial artist to teach their animators