what anime should I start collecting?

[Enchantress2]

It took me a while to figure out how to login from my folks' computer. If you click on the User CP, it'll prompt you for your name and password, so that's how I usually do it.

Oh, well, too late now.

 

[Sixchan]

Either that or type in your login and password at the bottom of the fora's front page.

 

[Enchantress2]

You guys are just way too smart for me.

 

[Skade]

You guys are just way too smart for me.

I would not worry. The login is not in the most common spot I've seen.

Have any of ya'll watched the Excel Saga, which has nothing to do with the spreadsheet program? It refers to itself as experimental anime and is quite odd. I don't know that I could even attempt to explain it. basically its about this girl, Excel, who is insane, and works for Ilpallazzo, who wants to conquer the world, but thinks that would be complex, so he settles for an unnamed Asian city. The animation is filled with little cultural and anime references, as well as very strange jokes.

 

[Alzrius]

I've seen a bunch of Excel. The entire purpose of that anime is to spoof everything it possibly can. It takes nothing seriously, not even itself (since the plot of the first episode is to kill the man who created the series), and is very humorous in doing so.

 

[Enchantress2]

Good news! I just went to the Blockbuster Video near here and found out that they carry Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. The video strores where I normally live don't carry it, and I have really been wanting to see it.

 

[Skade]

OK, so what anime would you suggest NOT buying?

I'd suggest avoiding Dual: The Parralell Universe. I might have the subtitle wrong, but it's close. The anime follows the story of a boy, ripped from his own world into a parralell universe where he is the first boy (rather than girl) capable of piloting a mech in a war against an aggressor. Simple enough, except that it seems that the character designs and personalities are directly ripped off from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Even the mechs are in fact living creatures crafted from alien technology, though are uniformly female. Which brings up the main character being a boy again, as he apparently has to dress in drag so no one will know men can pilot these mechs. Everything feels like a bad copy of Evangelion, and this is coming from someone who is NOT a fan of that show.

 

[Alzrius]

I'd suggest avoiding Dual: The Parralell Universe. I might have the subtitle wrong, but it's close. The anime follows the story of a boy, ripped from his own world into a parralell universe where he is the first boy (rather than girl) capable of piloting a mech in a war against an aggressor. Simple enough, except that it seems that the character designs and personalities are directly ripped off from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Even the mechs are in fact living creatures crafted from alien technology, though are uniformly female. Which brings up the main character being a boy again, as he apparently has to dress in drag so no one will know men can pilot these mechs. Everything feels like a bad copy of Evangelion, and this is coming from someone who is NOT a fan of that show.

I liked Dual.

The fact that it had elements derived from Evangelion is undeniable, but that's nothing that you won't see elsewhere (just look at Rah Xephon, the quintessential "Eva rip-off", which is still damn good).

Dual, unlike Eva, doesn't take itself so seriously. Eva is meant to be deep and provoke thought, to speak to us personally on multiple levels. Dual is just about a fun sci-fi romp. It invites you to just enjoy the action and romantic humor that it displays. Dual is, in some ways, the anti-Evangelion, simply because it invites you to just smile and laugh at it, something inappropriate for the majority of Eva (which did have its humor scenes).

 

[Skade]

I liked Dual.

The fact that it had elements derived from Evangelion is undeniable, but that's nothing that you won't see elsewhere (just look at Rah Xephon, the quintessential "Eva rip-off", which is still damn good).

Dual, unlike Eva, doesn't take itself so seriously. Eva is meant to be deep and provoke thought, to speak to us personally on multiple levels. Dual is just about a fun sci-fi romp. It invites you to just enjoy the action and romantic humor that it displays. Dual is, in some ways, the anti-Evangelion, simply because it invites you to just smile and laugh at it, something inappropriate for the majority of Eva (which did have its humor scenes).

I haven't seen Rah Xephon, knew it was a mech anime but that's about all. I agree that Dual certainly is not serious, and should not take itself as such. My problem lay in that it seemed to at first, building up a serious story, and making so that there would be deep thought provoking teen angsty goodness, and then relies on a kid dressed in drag piloting a mech with high heels to make the show work. I would probably not have had an issue with it if not for the characters being so similar. The kid is very much like Shinji, with his emotional hangups, and ineffectiveness under normal circumstances. The girl who is actually one of teh aliens that the mechs are derived from is practically Rei, and the bossy little girl is very Asuka. They are archtypes used in other anime though, so I suppose the intention was to purposefully use anime formulas all stuck together and run with it?

Maybe if I saw a few more episodes I'd change my mind. The four I saw just didn't do it for me. Of course I really did not like Noir either, and everyone I know loved it.

 

[Alzrius]

I haven't seen Rah Xephon, knew it was a mech anime but that's about all.

I only saw the first episode, but it failed to impress me - Dual, in my mind, started out not being quite so much in the vein of Eva. RahXephon couldn't even be that. A much better look at the question of RahXephon versus Evangelion can be found here: Is RahXephon an Evangelion Rip Off?.

I agree that Dual certainly is not serious, and should not take itself as such. My problem lay in that it seemed to at first, building up a serious story, and making so that there would be deep thought provoking teen angsty goodness, and then relies on a kid dressed in drag piloting a mech with high heels to make the show work.

Well, that explains why you felt so disappointed. I, in turn, never felt that the anime promised to be a serious angst-fest the way Evangelion was. While the first episode is certainly mysterious, with Kazuki seeing visions of battling mecha that no one else can see, various aspects of the show indicate that it clearly isn't meant to be taken seriously. These include his having to run away from the rest of the male population in his school when he's seen talking to Mitsuki, and pretty much the entire scene with Ken, an archetypal mad scientist.

It should also be noted that after the fourth episode, he dispenses with the dressing in drag.

I would probably not have had an issue with it if not for the characters being so similar. The kid is very much like Shinji, with his emotional hangups, and ineffectiveness under normal circumstances. The girl who is actually one of teh aliens that the mechs are derived from is practically Rei, and the bossy little girl is very Asuka. They are archtypes used in other anime though, so I suppose the intention was to purposefully use anime formulas all stuck together and run with it?

You're basically correct here; the character archetypes are so familiar not because Dual was trying to play off of Evangelion (though I believe that that was in there too), but just because these gender roles for anime characters are stereotypical, finding themselves virtually everywhere (I did my senior composition on gender roles in anime ).

Dual, while a sci-fi mecha show, has, IMHO, its primary basis as one of the "One Guy Many Girls" subgenre that began with Tenchi Muyo! All the classical types of characters are there: a shy male who somehow becomes the love object for several woman (Kazuki), one girl who obviously feels for him but can't express it, hiding it behind a wall of distaste (Mitsuki), another who feels for him, and tries to get close to him with her charms, doing cooking, laundry, etc (Yayoi), and, what was a more later development in the "One Guy Many Girls" subgenre, the girl who is emotionally undeveloped, and "warms up" thanks to the male (in this case, D).

Evangelion took itself too seriously in its character interactions to fall into this category. While Rei did feel some emotional attachment to Shinji, she never fell in love with him in terms of romance (though she did care about him, probably moreso than she did for Gendo by the end). Likewise, Asuka's enmity for Shinji isn't some schoolgirl attempt to hide a crush, but her own way of trying to ignore her deep-rooted fear of failure and sense of worthlessness. Finally, Misato doesn't ever really consider falling for Shinji, since she's still in love with her old boyfriend, Kaji. In essence, Eva is a story with fully-developed characters; they interact with and affect each other, but none of them truly revolve around another to the point where we say "we only know character X in how she related to character Y - he defines her" We can say that in Dual, since we only see most of the cast as they relate to (and are affected by) Kazuki.

Dual wants to be (and, I think, succeeding in being) a fun anime that doesn't try to be anything more than what you see. It still has deeper complexities (which Kazuki later outlines when he asks why he was able to see across parallel dimensions to begin with, why he has no alternate in the other dimension, and why he is able to pilot a robot that is only supposed to be pilotable by women), but none of these approach the universal questions about sense of self and others posed by Evangelion.

In a sense, I would sum Dual up as being "Evangelion Lite".