Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

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My take on older anime is that for me personally it tends to have a higher barrier of entry in some aspects. Seasonal anime is readily available cause I can just download the crunchyroll rips via my RSS feed of Subsplease on the same day it's aired, and the process of finding stuff that may interest me is also a matter of checking out Anichart and looking through summaries and tags.

If I want to watch something older I'd have to beg for recs or dig deeper through anime encyclopedia websites and if it's something more obscure I'd have to pray that some fansub group cared about it and they're hosting their own download if it's unseeded on nyaa.si. It also doesn't help that a lot of the older anime that people talk about is just stuff that doesn't interest me like gory OVAs or harem romcoms.

Though that said I'd be interested in starting a deep dive into Gundam at some point, which I'm assuming is more accessible considering it's a legacy franchise, but I'm rather intimidated by the sheer size of its anime lineup at this point.
 
Regarding dubs, I think I'm just used to them since all the early anime I watched was either on Toonami or Saturday morning blocks. I also tend to read manga rather than watch anime. A few dubs I would recommend:
  • Crayon Shin-Chan (the Funi one similar to Ghost Stories)
  • BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo
  • Assassination Classroom
  • Lupin the III (mainly Parts 1 and 2)
 
Vapewizard said:
Though that said I'd be interested in starting a deep dive into Gundam at some point, which I'm assuming is more accessible considering it's a legacy franchise, but I'm rather intimidated by the sheer size of its anime lineup at this point.
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Getting into Gundam is a lot easier than it looks. Just start with the original 1979 show, then go to Zeta -> ZZ -> Char's Counterattack. Everything else can be watched whenever you want, you don't even need to watch the rest if you don't want to (some people would go as far as to say that the OG show + maybe CCA are the only requirements, but I love Zeta). Also avoid the popular opinion and watch the 1979 series, not the later compilation movies, they cut out a ton of character development. Also, the slower pace and focus on the mundane aspects of war was one of my favorite things about it and you don't get that nearly as much in the movies.
 
Just_a_Bored_Guy said:
Regarding dubs, I think I'm just used to them since all the early anime I watched was either on Toonami or Saturday morning blocks. I also tend to read manga rather than watch anime. A few dubs I would recommend:
  • Crayon Shin-Chan (the Funi one similar to Ghost Stories)
  • BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo
  • Assassination Classroom
  • Lupin the III (mainly Parts 1 and 2)
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This may be heresy to some, but I prefer the Vitello dub of Shin-chan, because it's more faithful and arguably funnier.
 
how i got into anime was watching sailor moon (although, i was to embarrassed to admit it since i thought i was a show amid at girls at the time), pokemon and digimon that was shown on tv. later on in the early 2000 when the internet got a bit more open, i savaged episodes of dragonball z, naruto and bleach through sites that would host them with terrible quality but than learned how to download episodes through kazaa with better quality.

as for manga, a friend of mine collected dragonball comics which i would read and some time borrow and would later have my parents buy a running manga series called manga mania that had a collection of series in it like love hina, great teacher onizuka, chobits and other stuff since my reading skills were poor and it was a good way to get me interested in reading more.

i think it was the lack of anime and manga that got me hooked in the first place since you had to devote time and energy to find the stuff you wanted. everything today is so instant and so in your face that it kind of takes the fun and mystic out of it all. as an old fan, im happy i can get what i want rather easily and watch stuff in a steady and episodic order whenever i want, but the fans of today dont appreciate what they have.

speaking of, i was looking when the next season of jojo was starting on youtube and i was surprised there were alot of comments that complain how netflix botched the series by releasing it in bulks instead of one episode per week. something we old fans of anime and manga had to deal with growing up as well (remember when they would re-run episodes of a series you like on tv before it was finished beacuse they had not redubbed the next episode yet? dark times).
 
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Doctor of Autism said:
Honestly there are several good dubs, it's just there are so many good ones. But there are only 5 anime whose dubs I consider vastly superior to the sub

Cowboy Bebop since it feels like the voices fit the characters much more and it has a lot of professionalism put into it.

Death Note due to how it is a very dialogue heavy anime and the voice actors really put their best foot forward to capture the characters well.

Panty and Stocking due to the show by nature being a very westernized anime that parodies a lot of American pop culture that it feels fitting.

Baccano due to the setting being in America and helps be immersive with the time period the show takes place in.

Finally there's FMAB but that's a unique case of the fact most of the voice cast had done these characters before so they have a very good understanding of them.

Outside of that dubs are either good, trash, or can be hilariously bad.

But on the topic of anime being better than western stuff, it's pretty much the variety that comes down to it since there is a lot more variety to anime/manga than Western television especially in animation which are either cartoons for kids, capeshit, or comedy for adults. Like there is good stuff of course but it's more bad than good.
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Funnily enough Death Note is the first thing I ever watched subbed.
 
Just_a_Bored_Guy said:
  • BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo
  • Lupin the III (mainly Parts 1 and 2)
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Comedic dubs are so hard to pull off, but they hit hard when it's good as those two dubs proved (God, I'm sad Dan Lorge long retired, I love him as Zenigata). Azumanga Daioh was already mentioned, but good Lord I just cannot make myself watch it subbed. The clips on YouTube are good, but ADV did such an amazing job.

This is probably the best dub scene ever, though.
 
Kari Kamiya said:
But since you pointed that out, it also explains why I get a bit miffed whenever people rip apart old dubs from the '90s for their censorship and stuff, because if it wasn't for the fact those distributors had to follow strict FCC guidelines just to air those shows on public television
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This still happens constantly with video games. I can understand not wanting support of translation filled with political rants by the translators, but when it's censoring stuff like "risque" fanservice... them I can't fault the localizers and I'd rather have the game than nothing at all.
 
ZMOT said:
like what? in the end anime is just an art form, of course some stuff gets produced more than others (basic supply and demand), but even if not every season has an equal share of everything there's so much coming out per year there's good chance to catch something worthwhile, even when you consider sturgeon's law.
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I've seen a decent chunk of Death Note, S1 of One Punch Man, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and dubbed Ghost Stories. I also watched that one anime based on the immune system back when I was taking immunology (forget its name).
As far as western shit I like, my favorite movie is Stalker, I generally like film noir (Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, etc.), and typically like more grounded dramas (Drive, Joker, The Machinist, Memento). I also enjoy "Lovecraftian" horror but the only two movies that really got close to that were The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness.
Don't read comics, mainly read classics, philosophy, old horror, and some 50s-70s scifi.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
This still happens constantly with video games. I can understand not wanting support of translation filled with political rants by the translators, but when it's censoring stuff like "risque" fanservice... them I can't fault the localizers and I'd rather have the game than nothing at all.
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Speaking of, about how common are those "political rants by the translators"? I know about Prison School and Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. Are there others?
 
Safir said:
Even then, whenever I read / watch a popular Shounen, it ends up being more adult, serious, and respectful than a popular Seinen. (It's probably because Seinen gets pre-filtered by the Anglo (wo)manchild fandom and Shounen does not.)
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Sometimes it does feel like I'm stuck in the Seinen ghetto operated on the whims of Rick and Morty fans turned weebs. However, beggars can't be choosers, I get all my reading goodness for free.
 
Car Won't Crank said:
With the winter season being mostly dull, it seems we finally get something new and different for spring. The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs looks to be a fun series based off the first episode. It's a classic isekai underdog story with a twist. Looks promising.
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I watch a lot of shitty isekai and I had the exact opposite reaction. The first episode is basically MC abusing his knowledge of treasure locations from the game he got reincarnated in to get a bunch of money (and an AI driven Space Ship) to go to Mecha Hogwarts. Any time someone tries to do an apparently straight battle-shonen about a protagonist abusing special knowledge about a video game my red flags are triggered. And god does the designs of the mecha part of the setting look awful. I'll watch a few episodes to see if maybe the characters redeem it but I'm guessing they won't.

As far as shitty isekai go, I'm more betting that Executioner and Her Way of Life will be better, since it at least subverts the genre a little by being about a priest-assassin from an order that ganks isekai protagonists for having fucked up bullshit powers that destabilize the world. Which is a fun idea at least, although the battle part seems a little uninspired.

Oh, and as far as the Subs vs. Dubs thing the only dubs I consider clearly better then the sub is Bastard!!, holy shit does Dark Schneider's VA do a great job hamming it up.
 
Nero You're DeadWeight said:
Recently started Fire Force. So far I like it, but I can't help but feel it's a little disjointed in places? I'm on episode 6 and I'm still having a hard time understanding some of the main characters, but I still enjoy it. I find the guy with the gun pretty fun, and i'm looking forward to Benimaru when he shows up.

Maybe it's the Soul Eater nostalgia still? Which I will say the first half was better than the 2nd anime wise.

Anyone got a non spoiler review or feelings about fire force for those who have seen it?
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It is aggressively ok. You kind of already hit my main complaint, that no one out side of Shinra really get any screen time. It does pick up when Benimaru shows up, for what it's worth.

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it overall, FF looks really sharp and the fights are fun. It will never stop being entertaining the random powers they explain with pyromancy(There's a character who can slow down time with his pyromancy). I might have some Soul Eater nostalgia myself. Which if you like the first half better than the second half you should check out the manga.
 
Oddjob OTP said:
Oh, and as far as the Subs vs. Dubs thing the only dubs I consider clearly better then the sub is Bastard!!, holy shit does Dark Schneider's VA do a great job hamming it up.
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He was also pretty good as Tasuki in Fushigi Yuugi, one of the few stand-out performances in that rough dub.
 
pururun said:
Getting into Gundam is a lot easier than it looks. Just start with the original 1979 show, then go to Zeta -> ZZ -> Char's Counterattack. Everything else can be watched whenever you want, you don't even need to watch the rest if you don't want to (some people would go as far as to say that the OG show + maybe CCA are the only requirements, but I love Zeta). Also avoid the popular opinion and watch the 1979 series, not the later compilation movies, they cut out a ton of character development. Also, the slower pace and focus on the mundane aspects of war was one of my favorite things about it and you don't get that nearly as much in the movies.
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To add onto this, one thing that can be confusing to newcomers is that there are a lot of alternate Gundam timelines. So while there are a bunch of different series with Gundams in them, a fair chunk have nothing to do with each other, so you might get lost as to what goes where. But as you said, it's easier than it looks.

You can pretty much break it down into two categories: Universal Century and Everything Else. UC's the most fleshed-out timeline, it's what started the whole shebang, and Sunrise keeps coming back to it with new projects because it's the most well-known. But if you don't want to get sucked into watching a bunch of shows, picking up an alternate timeline works well. You can get a nice self-contained story in a single series (sometimes with a sequel) and not have to deal with years of backstory. Just don't jump into Turn A Gundam right away, save that for later.

And then there's Gunpla, which is a whole other can of worms. I'm starting to run out of shelf space and I still went and bought a Wing Gundam RG. Send help.
 
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