CovenantJr wrote:Hmm, the reviews I've read have tended to favour Furi Kuri, but that could just be po-faced anime zealots being pretentious.
I've always seen people just write it as "FLCL". I've actually seen it (somehow--I don't watch anime very often at all and I don't remember how I ended up watching this one), and from what little I can remember it's pretty good, though weird. And it's only six episodes, so it didn't take that long to get through the whole thing.
Yep. Six wonderful episodes. And then nothing more. THe trick is to watch it over and over and over and over and over again without sleeping, until your conciousness expands and you ARE the Rickenbacker.
CovenantJr wrote:Today I watched the first episode of Serial Experiments Lain. I'd heard it was strange, but...it's really strange. When I say 'strange', I don't mean zany like (deep breath) Quack Experimental Anime Excel Saga, I mean bizarre like, say, Mulholland Drive.
Maybe the second episode will clarify things a little. Probably not though. Still, I have faith that everything will make sense in the end; after all, RahXephon was utterly baffling to start with, and that whole mess finally fell into place after a mere two viewings of all 26 episodes...
I've just finished the series. It seems my faith was misplaced; very little makes more sense than it did at the outset. Each time an answer of sorts was presented, it immediately became part of a larger question, culminating in one huge question at the end of the series ("What the hell is going on?") which was never answered.
It's similar to my experience of David Lynch films - I can't decide if I enjoyed it for its intelligence and ability to provoke thought, or found it annoying for its impenetrability and refusal to be at all clear.
CovenantJr wrote:Today I watched the first episode of Serial Experiments Lain. I'd heard it was strange, but...it's really strange. When I say 'strange', I don't mean zany like (deep breath) Quack Experimental Anime Excel Saga, I mean bizarre like, say, Mulholland Drive.
Maybe the second episode will clarify things a little. Probably not though. Still, I have faith that everything will make sense in the end; after all, RahXephon was utterly baffling to start with, and that whole mess finally fell into place after a mere two viewings of all 26 episodes...
I've just finished the series. It seems my faith was misplaced; very little makes more sense than it did at the outset. Each time an answer of sorts was presented, it immediately became part of a larger question, culminating in one huge question at the end of the series ("What the hell is going on?") which was never answered.
It's similar to my experience of David Lynch films - I can't decide if I enjoyed it for its intelligence and ability to provoke thought, or found it annoying for its impenetrability and refusal to be at all clear.
Well, I've just spent the last two days zipping through Samurai Champloo. Having finished it, I'd say I found it an enjoyable series all in all, with inexplicable and completely superfluous hip hop adornments. Ignoring said hip hop, the series was fun and enjoyable, but Samurai Deeper Kyo did it better. Except for the fights. The 'my super attack beats yours!' element of Kyo always left me vaguely dissatisfied, whereas Champloo had actual swordplay. Overall, Kyo wins (for better plot, better pacing, better characters, and absence of a gimmick), but Champloo's worth a watch. I'm given to understand that fans of Champloo often cite its 'modern issues in Edo-era Japan' (such as graffiti and racism) approach as one of its best points, but I found it jarred as often as not.
I have three anime remaining in my collection that I haven't finished watching (other than Robotech Macross, which I've set aside in disgust) and I feel I should complete them before I buy any more. Those three are:
--the old, badly translated but intriguing collection of shorts known as Robot Carnival
--Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which immediately put me off by having a title containing the phrase 'magical girl' but convinced me to buy it through a cunning combination of cheapness and good reviews
--the dark, intelligent and generally excellent Monster, which I started some time ago but drifted away from
Of those three, I think Monster is going to be my next watch. Robot Carnival is quite difficult to view due to the hit-and-miss nature of its contents, and I'm not sure I have the strength to challenge a magical girl show at the moment.
Yesterday, after quite an industrious few days' watching, I finished Monster. It is, to keep it as simple as possible, brilliant.
When speaking to anime sceptics, I tend to point out that it's only here in the west that animation (animatedness?) is considered the defining quality of animated films/series. In Japan, it's film first and animation second. Sometimes, though, it can be difficult to illustrate this point; even the most gritty historical epics, such as Bakumatsu, contain elements of magic, psychic powers or the supernatural. From now on, I need not fear - Monster is the perfect example. Set in present day Germany (well, the mid 1990s, but close enough), focusing entirely on drama, tension, plot and psychology, Monster features little in the way of anime staples. It is free of fan service, there are no big eyes or disproportionately large heads in sight, and everything that occurs is actually possible (like most film and TV drama, the events of the series are improbable but possible). In fact, Monster actually takes more care with realism than most 'real' TV: when the neurosurgeon, Dr Tenma, starts using a gun, his ability to do so is actually explained - in this case, by means of him having spent five months taking marksmanship lessons from a retired mercenary. The same happens with other characters too. Everything is justified, explained and accounted for.
On top of the attention to detail and effort to maintain realism, Monster is laden with carefully nurtured tension. The various protagonists all make so many mistakes and struggle so hard to achieve anything that the threat of failure is tangible in each pivotal scene. Additionally, there is so much misdirection and layering in the plot of the series that the viewer never really has a handle on the truth - and every time something is resolved, it just reveals another layer of horror and mystery beneath. All of this dramatic goodness is rounded off by good acting. To the best of my knowledge, Monster has yet to be dubbed into English, so I watched it subtitled, and I usually don't have any opinion on Japanese voice actors unless one has a particularly annoying voice (Merle in Escaflowne is a prime example). I simply - and inevitably - don't pick up the same nuances of tone and expression in Japanese as I do in English. In this case, though, some of the performances actually struck me as exceptionally good - which, presumably, means that if I understood the language they'd be superb.
I have only three criticisms of Monster. The first is the very complexity that makes it a compelling watch across 74 episodes; at times, the convoluted plot can be difficult to follow, and more than once I found myself in the position of knowing I've seen a particular character before, but being unable to remember where or why. This is, I suspect, an inevitable side effect of having a complex plot, as is my second complaint: the pacing. On the whole, the pacing is perfectly appropriate, but it's hardly fast. A story of this type requires a slow, careful pace, so I can't complain - but it does result in the series being more difficult to watch than others of similar length. My third and final criticism is of the main character, Dr Tenma. It troubled me only infrequently, so it's a minor gripe, but Tenma is something of a Mary Sue (or whatever the male version is...Gary Stu, I think). Though he often makes mistakes - indeed, the whole premise of the series is based on Tenma's atonement for a grave error - he is nonetheless one of those characters who improve the lives of everyone they come into contact with, by imparting some grain of personal philosophy or restoring a cynic's faith in humanity. In general, the plot was sufficiently dark, and Tenma's suffering sufficiently intense, that this element of his character went unnoticed, but it did catch my attention at times, particularly around the mid-point of the series.
In all, then, Monster is one of the best anime there is, in my opinion. It's dark, gritty, complex, compelling and occasionally disturbing - all the things sceptics don't associate with anime. This maturity and realism is reflected in the artwork, and continues to the very last moment of the very last episode, without even once succumbing to anime's tendency to incorporate magic or psychic powers.
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Having finished that, I'm now awaiting the arrival of the much-praised Black Lagoon and the never-mentioned but fun-sounding Those Who Hunt Elves. Both are being shipped from the US, so they won't be here for a while. In the meantime, I'll probably watch Final Fantasy Unlimited, which seems to generally be considered the only Final Fantasy anime that isn't terrible.
Yes, I think there was one in either Flicks or TV, but this one seemed to be more often visited, so I started posting here instead.
On the update front, I've started Final Fantasy: Unlimited. It's a bit saturday-morning-cartoon for my liking, but not bad. The art is pretty rough for the most part, and it does get boring seeing Kaze 'thawing' the Magun over and over, but his "The soil charge triad to use on you has been decided!" is kind of fun. This series is really just a stop-gap until the arrival of Black Lagoon and/or Those Who Hunt Elves.
Final Fantasy: Unlimited completed. Despite its child-like tendencies, it did go a bit more anime at the end. Not a bad series, and I can think of worse ways to kill time between major series.
Yesterday I took a break from FFU to finally watch Spirited Away, which had been sitting on my shelf for a while. I was a little concerned, since I generally find Miyazaki/Ghibli films badly overrated, but this one turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It's the first I've seen that has actually lived up to the reputation of the studio name; quite why everyone froths at the mouth over Princess Mononoke while Spirited Away goes relatively unremarked is beyond me. I'd say it's one of the best anime I've seen - certainly one of the best one-offs. For once, Miyazaki and Ghibli have succeeded.
Now I've started Those Who Hunt Elves. So far, so...stupid. But fun, I think. I chose it as a contrast to Monster, and it certainly succeeds on that score...
Last edited by CovenantJr on Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Covenant,
I really liked monster too, from what I've seen of it. That is to say, the first two episodes I plan on going back someday though, seemed like a really awesome show.
Holsety wrote:Covenant,
I really liked monster too, from what I've seen of it. That is to say, the first two episodes I plan on going back someday though, seemed like a really awesome show.
Monster actually gets better as it goes along. Definitely worth watching in full if you get the chance.
Started Black Lagoon. The translation on this fansub is awful.
Finished Those Who Hunt Elves and Those Who Hunt Elves II. My thoughts, lifted from my review on www.myanimelist.net:
I wrote:The decision to watch Those Who Hunt Elves was made during my viewing of the brilliant but intense Monster. After a 74-episode psychological drama/thriller laden with emotional extremes, I needed contrast. Those Who Hunt Elves definitely provided it.
The premise is simple and silly: three total strangers from modern-day Japan are accidentally summoned to a fairly standard fantasy world populated by elves and the like. An attempt to send them home goes awry and the relevant spell is split into five pieces and imprinted upon the bodies of randomly selected elves across the land. So the three Japanese visitors - one famous actress, one gun-obsessed tomboy and one martial artist - set off in their...er...tank...to find the spell fragments in the only way they can think of: by stripping every elf they come across.
That's about it. At best, an appealingly daft plot; at worst, a nauseatingly stupid one. Which side of the fence you fall on might surprise you. You see, contrary to what you, like I, might expect, the silly plot and the situations it brings about aren't really the point of this series. Of course, the elf-stripping adventure is the focus to an extent, but really only as a vehicle for the characters. Those characters are the thing that shifted me from 'this is going to be bad' to 'this is actually quite fun'.
Though there are only three Japanese 'guests' in the fantasy world, the core group of characters actually consists of four; the High Priestess (or something of that nature) of the elves, Celcia, rapidly decides that the only way Those Who Hunt Elves (as the party are known to the public at large) are going to get anything done is for her to help them out. This is pivotal to my enjoyment of the whole series, since it's really Celcia's constant bickering with martial artist Junpei that provides the most entertainment. It's not unusual in any form of TV to have two companions who are always squabbling; it forms the crux of many sitcoms, including the respected likes of Red Dwarf. In some cases, this revolves around witty repartee, but in those Who Hunt Elves, wit is replaced with sheer gusto - and it works surprisingly well. Celcia and Junpei casually mock and insult each other at every opportunity, much like siblings, and where this can often seem stale and forced in many series, in this it just seems perfectly natural, and all the better for it. The other two characters in the group, Airi and Ritsuko, have their share of amusing activities but, for me at least, the Celcia/Junpei dynamic is the highlight.
The other source of entertainment in Those Who Hunt Elves is the inversion of the various elves encountered along the way. In general, the elves here are the traditionally haughty and dignified type, but it doesn't take much to crack that facade. Simply watching the elves being sarcastic and irritable is entertaining in itself.
Other elements of this series are more mediocre. On the visual front, it's fine but not exceptional. Everything is appropriately colourful, the characters' various expressions are suitably over the top, and the animation is adequate. In fact, 'adequate' is a good word to describe the visuals in general. Unremarkable but adequate. The incidental music made no impression on me at all, which usually means it's neither good nor bad - just adequate. The opening theme is a curious retro-synth-pop instrumental that fits the tone of the series very well. It annoyed me every time I heard it, but I missed it when it was replaced for Those Who Hunt Elves II. Annoying or not, it was silly and unsubtle - perfect for the series.
One more note on the audio aspects: the English dub is essential. Even if you don't usually watch dubs, please watch this one. Not because it's spectacularly well acted (it isn't) or because it features memorable vocal performances (it doesn't, though I must admit to a newfound fondness for Celcia's voice actress, Shelley Calene-Black). No; you must watch the dub simply because the sub only gives you a fraction of the jokes. Maybe the humour is more evident if you actually understand Japanese, but the English subtitles are fairly straightforward and sensible, most of the time. The translators for the dub of Those Who Hunt Elves have done something that seems to happen surprisingly rarely in anime; they've not just translated but reinterpreted the translation in a way that captures the intended spirit. I say it one last time: do not miss the dub.
Overall, then, Those Who Hunt Elves is a disconcerting proposition. It promises little, and on the technical side it delivers nothing out of the ordinary. The concept is a little more promising, but could easily go horribly wrong. I had nightmare visions of another Negima!?, but fortunately Those Who Hunt Elves has an ace hidden up its sleeve: character. Not well developed, not well rounded, but very entertaining; the characters, combined with flagrant destruction of elf stereotypes, make the entire series. The dialogue is hardly the height of wit, but it's blunt, direct and effective, and in the cases of Junpei and Celcia it's delivered with something that seems to be genuine enjoyment. I was warned before I started watching this series that I would probably never rewatch it. Only time will tell, of course, but I think I will probably watch it again at some point, for the same reason that I've rewatched the early episodes of Trigun more than once: it's simple, fun and easy to watch. It makes no demands. Those Who Hunt Elves is almost the definition of 'light entertainment'. If you seek gravitas, look elsewhere; if you seek a break from the gravitas, Those Who Hunt Elves should be both stupid enough and amusing enough to make you chuckle without killing too many brain cells. Those Who Hunt Elves, I salute you.
I recently watched the first five episodes of .Hack//SIGN. I have to admit that after the first episode I wasn't terribly impressed. However, as the episodes went on I was drawn in, and find the style interesting. I find the plot different and refreshing. One thing that started as a frustration was the fact that there are not simple explanations of characters, or plot points. There is not much in the way of recaps (yay!) so I was forced to watch carefully in order to piece things together. Again, it started as frustrating, but by the time I got to the last episode I own, I was hooked. It's quite refreshing to watch an anime that isn't totally dumbed-down.
My local game/anime store didn't have volume 2, so I'm going to have to order it online. As my best friend says, having an anime habit is more expensive habit than smoking crack.
I also got the fist 5 episodes of Trinity Blood. I'll come back and review that as soon as I am finished watching them.
I'm part-way through Trinity Blood myself. Around episode 14, I think. We're watching one episode per week at the university's anime society.
Kakurenbo: Hide and Seek finally arrived today. I'm looking forward to watching it - it intrigues me. It's a one-off OVA, 25 minutes long, so not a major undertaking.
Really enjoyed Kakurenbo. Slightly eerie; the atmosphere reminded me of the early parts of Spirited Away.
The much-hyped Black Lagoon was alright. It seems a fairly straightforward action series, but it was quite badly damaged by the truly dire translation.
I got over the disappointment of Black Lagoon by watching Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. Now this is a really good series. I haven't read the book myself, so I don't know how accurate it is (except, of course, that it's a science fiction version, so some things will be very different) but I've been told that it's very faithful in tone. In any case, I enjoyed it. Character, intrigue, betrayal, deception and revenge. It doesn't get much better than that. Like Trinity Blood, though, it would probably get boring if watched at a rate of one episode a week. Best to get through it in under a week, if you can.
Next up: Gilgamesh and The Place Promised In Our Early Days.
CovenantJr wrote:
I got over the disappointment of Black Lagoon by watching Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. Now this is a really good series. I haven't read the book myself, so I don't know how accurate it is (except, of course, that it's a science fiction version, so some things will be very different) but I've been told that it's very faithful in tone. In any case, I enjoyed it. Character, intrigue, betrayal, deception and revenge. It doesn't get much better than that. Like Trinity Blood, though, it would probably get boring if watched at a rate of one episode a week. Best to get through it in under a week, if you can. .
I got a couple of free episodes to Gankutsuou, and loved it. Unfortunately I can't fit it in my budget.
I also watched the first 4-5 episodes of Trinity Blood, and really liked it. Maybe when my budget is a bit more stable I will buy myseld some anime. Meanwhile, I will be utilizing my library's collection of anime.
I plan on going back someday though, seemed like a really awesome show.
Like Trinity Blood, though, it would probably get boring if watched at a rate of one episode a week. Best to get through it in under a week, if you can. 