The Anime/Manga thread (techno, metal, genre, fan, Genesis)

[Halfa]

Mello ended up being really important in the long run.

[boo boo]

Bump.

The filler episodes of Bleach are finally over, the current arc is good, though awfully similar to the soul society arc, only this time replace Rukia with Orihime and the Soul Reapers with Espada. I don't know how many more arcs chapters are in store, but I can't wait for the next arc where the soul reapers and espada kick ass in a final showdown.

Anyway, anyone know a good place for anime downloads? I'm looking for Elfen Lied.

[boo boo]

Originally Posted by adidasss

My neighbor Totoro was pretty bad, aside from Totoro himself who was adorable, there was a mountain of seriously annoying Asian, patriarchal/misogynistic stereotypes, the plot - non-existent).

Akira - in retrospect, the animation was pretty bad

Either you're joking or you're absolutely insane.

Totoro was a amazing, and it's pretty much impossible for Miyazaki to make a bad film, the english dub is pretty bad, but Anime should never be judged by the english dubs. And the lack of plot is bad criticism, since that's wrong anyway, and what I think you meant is that it didn't have an anime plot. But that's really one of the great things about the movie, it took a very simple plot and made something out of it. It's one of the best kids films ever made, you have to be out of your mind to say it even comes close to being less than a great film, let alone being a bad film.

I have absolutely no idea what your standards for animation is, but it must be ridiculously high if you think the animation in Akira was bad, it was made in the 80s and even for that time the animation was very detailed and fluid for an anime, I still think it looks amazing.

[adidasss]

I'm willing to concede that Totoro is a great kids film, but being as I am 26 you'll understand if I didn't like it as well as his other, more complex works (of which Princess Mononoke is my favorite). So yes, I guess I am out of my mind.

As far as Akira's animation being "bad", I meant the character design, I'm just not a fan of 80's animation.

Incidentally, to anyone who cares about truly original animation, the absolutely best anime I've ever seen is Mononoke from Toei Animation. You can find the divxs on animesuki, there are no available subtitled DVDRs.

You can find the DVDRs of Elfen Lied on asiandvdclub.org or divxs on demonoid if you don't feel like wasting your bandwidth.

Incidentally, I hated it, but my guess is you'll eat it up. It's got gratuitous nudity and kiddy humor!

[boo boo]

I've seen all of Miyazaki's films except Howl's Moving Castle and that Lupin the 3rd movie he did.

Of all his movies, Porco Rosso was my least favorite, but even it was amazing.

And what makes Akira look amazing is the setting and the evironments. But the characters look great too (if a bit weird) and are animated beautifully, not Miyazaki standards by any means, but still great.

[adidasss]

I guess your standards of quality are just lower than mine.

[boo boo]

My standards aren't low. I just think you have to be incredibly picky to trash My Neighbor Totoro, which in my opinion is without a doubt one of the best anime films ever made.

But our opinions are just different, for one thing I never liked Ghost in the Shell, at least not the series, too much techno babble and very little character development, it's too confusing and it's just boring.

[adidasss]

I guess the difference is that I'm generally not an anime fan. I think most of it is crap made for kids which certain adults seem to watch for some reason. There's only a handful of good titles in a sea of garbage, and even fewer which have any artistic value. :\

[boo boo]

Well I think that's a horrible generalization, not all anime is marketed towards kids, hell Otaku culture is predominately adults.

Most of the anime that comes to the states or wherever you live is only a small portion of it, it's easy to dismiss anime if you've only seen the stuff western culture is most familiar with, like say DBZ or Sailor Moon or Pokemon.

Most of the localized anime is just one of the sub-genres of anime, Shonen. It's marketed towards kids 10-17, it tends to be the "we got to fight" variety of anime. Most of it is crap like Naruto and Yu Gi Oh, but theres some good Shonen too like Bleach and One Piece (though 4Kids butchered the hell out of it with the english dub), shows like Death Note and Full Metal Alchemist are broader forms of shonen, so it can offer some really awesome stuff from time to time.

Theres many different varieties of anime. Mecha like Neo Genesis Evangelion and Mazinger Z is probably the second most well known, you have Shojo which is the really girly anime like Sailor Moon, western influenced anime like Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, gory stuff like Elfen Lied and Beserk and just plain surreal oddball stuff like FLCL. Anime is incredibly diverse overall.

You just gotta know where to look, it's hard to find good recs, I'll give you that, because I won't deny that 90% of Anime fans on the internet are retarded.

[Akira]

It's just like saying music is for kids because of Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers etc.