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

[Judge Holden]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Eck3qf4FDf4
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KPxSS1zHWwQ
I am in love with the music for this series. Haven't really enjoyed a show's soundtrack this much since the original Fullmetal Alchemist.

Gotta agree with you. Made in Abyss has an awesome soundtrack and frankly its one of VERY few anime/manga along with Berserk, FMA Brotherhood and Madoka that managed to well and truly hook me, which makes me happy that it won CrunchyRoll's anime of the year (since it more than deserved that title)

Speaking of Berserk however...well shit just got real

Spoiler: Major spoiler

CASCA IS FINALLY FUCKING BACK TO NORMAL

I gotta admit....after 23 years of the fandom waiting (and nearly 20 years of waiting myself since i was like fucking 8 seeing this happen might have just made me tear up just a little. Autism rate this post all you want but fuck it, I did my waiting for this shit and i am entitled to sperg out

 

[Adolf Von Merkel]

Kimetsu no Yaiba is pretty good.
Is like a group of Joseph Joestar became a samurai and began fighting demons.

 

[John Titor]

Out of curiosity, what got you guys into anime? Not sure if this has been discussed, but I'd be curious to know, and would be interested in any cool stories. Was it just watching Pokémon/Digimon/Yugioh as a kid, or something else?

I'm weird, as I didn't really get interested in it until my late 20s. I was on a big JRPG kick for some reason, and absolutely fell in love out of nowhere with the Legend of Heroes series. I went seeking something, anything with a similar style and themes, and I guess I came to the epiphany that anime was a good place to find it. I had never watched anything before outside of a few episodes of Pokémon as a kid, but I sat down and binged FMA:B over three days and was instantly hooked. This led me to other normalfag series like Death Note, AoT, Cowboy Bebop, Eva, etc., etc., etc.

What's surprised me the most is the scope of what anime and manga is. I had fallen into the trap of believing the stereotype that pervades the west of everything being moe loli trash or stuff for autistic children, but there's just so much stuff out there. Saying "I don't like anime" is akin to saying "I don't like TV," or "I don't like books." It's too general a statement.

This revelation also creates a sense of frustration that I will likely never be a guru in the hobby. It's too wide and too deep, and I started too late to ever have a full grasp of it. I go to /a/ and even lurk this thread, and I barely understand half of what is being talked about. As a general rule, if they don't sell t-shirts of it at Hot Topic, I probably can't engage in a meaningful conversation about it. And that pisses me off, because I love the medium and the culture that surrounds it, but the time needed to become fluent would be tantamount to a full time job.

But I keep pushing on. I'm usually trucking through one or two classic series at a time, while keeping up on a current season show. I've also cultivated a small, but respectable manga collection over the last couple of years, which has kept me sane as my hobby of collecting vidya has sadly been put on the back burner for the time being.

So yeah, that's my story I wrote to kill time while I'm at the laundromat. How about you guys?

I grew up on Pokemon and Digimon, back when they had the Anime Invasion block on TV. I found adult swim (I was into Family Guy at the time and that was the only way to watch reruns) and had an edgy phase where I thought Inuyasha was the coolest shit in the world. There was this manga I bought on a whim because I thought the cover looked cool and from then on, I had to get every volume that came out. Then I discovered Animesuki and was amazed that a mass library of anime can be downloaded. I can't really pinpoint exactly what got me into the fandom but I suppose vidya was also my gateway drug.

For someone my age, I didn't have Toonami, Pokemon or anything during start of the century as my starting point, rather, it was the VHS tapes and late night TV viewings of anime that got him into it during the early/mid 90's, though before that, we did have some stuff that came on TV, but wasn't often referred to as anime (like Voltron or Robotech or such). The 1980's had a lot of these obscure programs and movies you either saw on TV or your parents rented at the store, so I was always seeing these odd things and enjoying that they were different (like the Unico movie on The Disney Channel). In the 1990's, I started to hear of this "Japanimation" (as they were calling it) often in the context of sci-fi, and comic shops would often get those types of tapes for pretty high prices for their time. It was quite a smaller world then it seemed, in terms of what was available or what you had to get if you knew the right channels. I got into tape trading when I discovered a newsgroup for it (alt.video.tape-trading), I would be trading episodes of MST3K or something else I had for whatever show wasn't legitimately available yet. In those days, whatever got subtitled meant relying on fan translations that would be duped through Amiga computers from another VHS or LaserDisc source (as the earliest fansubbing was made practical with them).

Of course I also bought legit tapes as well, though on early series I got into was Pioneer's Tenchi Muyo! series (most mall stores often carried the English dubbed tapes since those were cheaper). I used to be overwhelmed whenever I went to Record Town and saw their anime section grow.

I think it goes without saying: today's anime fans have it really easy.

 

[Trilby]

I think it goes without saying: today's anime fans have it really easy.

Oh, they do, they really do. Yet they bitch for reasons that amuse me!

 

[Done]

Gotta agree with you. Made in Abyss has an awesome soundtrack and frankly its one of VERY few anime/manga along with Berserk, FMA Brotherhood and Madoka that managed to well and truly hook me, which makes me happy that it won CrunchyRoll's anime of the year (since it more than deserved that title)

Try Black Butler, it is a legitimately awesome series, though beware, it can get quite uncomfortable to watch at times, especially the current arc.

Stick to the manga if you want to speed through, or find a watch list for the anime, because the 1st season is half-filler, and the 2nd is all filler, the 3rd season and on is all canon material though.

 

[Grog]

I haven't even fully read Akagi yet, I watched the anime years ago, began reading the manga right about where the anime ends and then forgot to keep up with it. After a while I just occasionally checked to see what was happening in the latest chapter but I decided I'd wait until the whole thing ended to read it. Except the Washizu in hell arc, that was so weird it made me regain interest in the manga for a while.

 

[Human Institute Director]

The Kaiji comparison isn't apt because when Kaiji was running there's a legitimate fear that he won't succeed, but at no point with Akagi could you ever be uncertain of his victory if you knew Fukumoto's body of work.

It's the same for Kaiji, if you knew there are parts after the one you're reading you can tell Kaiji won't die.

Good writing does not make up for pacing that is almost definitive in how bad it is.

Those slow parts were the best ones for me. That's the meat. Although there are parts without much substance and focused on building up suspense near the end when they're drawing their tiles, but I didn't have to wait one week for each chapter.

I decided I'd wait until the whole thing ended to read it

That's the best way to do it. In general, Fukumoto works should be read in few sittings.

 

[Coster]

Those slow parts were the best ones for me. That's the meat. Although there are parts without much substance and focused on building up suspense near the end when they're drawing their tiles, but I didn't have to wait one week for each chapter.

*weeks. The scanlation group that did Akagi sometimes had an irregular schedule. I caught up with the manga more than once only to be continually disappointed in chapters that came down to less than a full turn in mahjong. This is also considering that I've been into Akagi since middle school.

 

[Human Institute Director]

*weeks. The scanlation group that did Akagi sometimes had an irregular schedule. I caught up with the manga more than once only to be continually disappointed in chapters that came down to less than a full turn in mahjong. This is also considering that I've been into Akagi since middle school.

Actually, wasn't Akagi published monthly? It's even harder.
It's just like Kaiji part 4, it was a slog to read weekly (especially since the group didn't seem to like it too much and took time between each release), but reading it all in one go was much better. Or how the bog in part 2 was better to marathon in one sitting.

 

[GeePee]

Remember back a few months ago that some anime movies were getting phantom screenings in my local theaters each month like Sword of The Stranger,the Sora no Otoshimono movie(seriously,what kind of choice was that?) and the Hetalia movie?
Now for the next months,they will screen Fireworks and the two live-action Attack on Titan movies,what you guys think?
I've heard REALLY bad things about the AOT movies but I didn't see much about Fireworks other than it's by the Monogatari guy.

 

[Coster]

Actually, wasn't Akagi published monthly? It's even harder.
It's just like Kaiji part 4, it was a slog to read weekly (especially since the group didn't seem to like it too much and took time between each release), but reading it all in one go was much better. Or how the bog in part 2 was better to marathon in one sitting.

The same group that does Akagi also does Kaiji. I think it just comes down to waiting for their guy in Japan to get the publications, and then also waiting for good cleanup before they translate and release them. To their credit their releases have maintained pretty high quality.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Remember back a few months ago that some anime movies were getting phantom screenings in my local theaters each month like Sword of The Stranger,the Sora no Otoshimono movie(seriously,what kind of choice was that?) and the Hetalia movie?
Now for the next months,they will screen Fireworks and the two live-action Attack on Titan movies,what you guys think?
I've heard REALLY bad things about the AOT movies but I didn't see much about Fireworks other than it's by the Monogatari guy.

The live action movie is....bad. They take some creative liberties with the story and it’s not great.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I haven't watched the films again since, but I'm that weirdo who actually enjoyed the two-parter live action movie, though to be fair I wasn't a big fan of the anime to begin with. I only went to see them because it was quality time with my brothers, and it's just nice to get out and be part of a large audience of like-minded(?) people every once in a while. CGI was alright for what it was, and they didn't hold back on the brutality, so at least there's that even with the weird direction in story. Whoever they got to play Hange Hans was the best actor in the whole series, honestly, she was a hoot.

Also, the audience was pretty great, I gotta say (not as great as with the audience for Battle of Gods, or even later with Yu-Gi-Oh: Dark Side of Dimensions, but was still fun). When the infamous boob grab happened, everyone flipped out, it was amazing.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot Hange the character wasn't actually her. But since I don't read the manga, upon doing a quick refresher on TV Tropes, I saw that the second part actually foretold a lot of plot-points the manga has started to do lately. And fans hated it in the films, so I wonder if this is going to be a strange case of vindication due to how much closer the second part actually is to the source material than originally thought.

 

[Human Institute Director]

The same group that does Akagi also does Kaiji. I think it just comes down to waiting for their guy in Japan to get the publications, and then also waiting for good cleanup before they translate and release them. To their credit their releases have maintained pretty high quality.

Yeah, they have the best typesetting/cleaning I've seen so far while also keeping the translations accurate, which is especially hard since Fukumoto works are pretty wordy.

 

[Sovietmongler]

Not technically anime, but recently it came to my attention that the North Korean propaganda cartoon Squirrel and Hedgehog actually received an english dub for the first 26 episodes. Some Italian company called MondoTV licensed it and reedited it a little bit and re titled it Brave Soldier. The dub is credited to Kip Kaplan and Audioworks Producers Group, a new york dub studio. I'll be nice and not name any voice actors, but if you've watched any 4kids dub(Pokemon or Yugioh) you'll recognize most of the voice actors.

MondoTV was nice enough to share this with the world legally on youtube. Enjoy https://youtube.com/watch?v=id=HfND3QxVzcQ;list=PL-6jVU2Xd3NTGtNvkZNbf45xQEP06op-y

The hilarious thing is that it's actually a pretty good cartoon.

 

[Florence]

I’m surprised there hasn’t been much news about Golgo 13’s 50th anniversary.

 

[GeePee]

so,any opinions on the movie Fireworks?I think I'm going to the phantom screening here on March 20th.

looks like there's some drama involving Sean Schemmel,the voice of Goku...

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

looks like there's some drama involving Sean Schemmel,the voice of Goku...

Apparently he kept Peter Kelamis from being allowed to attend a Dragonball con.

Schemmel apparently takes great offensive to anyone else voicing Goku or liking a different actor’s Goku more.

 

[GeePee]

even other voice-actors are calling him out for what he did.This is going to get uglier...
Anybody think this should get a Salt thread?

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Schemmel apparently takes great offensive to anyone else voicing Goku or liking a different actor’s Goku more.

So if enough people were to say they liked, say, Stephanie Nadolny the most as Goku, Schemmel could've whined about it enough to get her banned from a con? I'm easily amused by the fact that such a bitch of a man can play one of fiction's most manliest characters.