Go ninja go ninja go!

I loved the turtles!

Digitalex wrote:I highly recommend Gunslinger Girls.

BTW, for those who haven't seen this cool series and has cable, it's on IFC. I'm at my GF's place right now (she has cable) and was watching IFC, and it came on (to my surprise). Basilisk came on afterwards, although I don't think that was as good a series as Gunsligner Girl.

Checking the broadcast schedule, it says it'll be on fridays at 11pm. The first episode just aired, but a lot of the first episode is recapped in the second. Plus, they'll probably reair it after they air all 13 episodes. It also reaired tonight at 4:45am.

I recommend "Berserk" by Oriental Light and Magic animation company.

Directed by Naohito Takahashi



This show follows the exploits of what is perhaps the most appropriately named charecter in animation history, GUTS. Guts is a freelance mercenary with a knack for fighting and a sword bigger than he is. As a freelance his skills are available to the highest bidder. That is until one day he is ambushed by a mercenary group known as "The Band of the Hawk" and challeneged to a fight by there charismatic leader Griffith.

Guts accepts the fight on the conditon that if he loses to Griffith, he must serve under him in his mercenary group. He's promptly beaten by Griffith, and thus is bound to serve him until he dies. This is where the shows really picks up, following Guts and Griffith's adventures as they try to gain ultimate power.

Berserk isn't for the faint of heart. Extreme violence and nudity are common place so if your thinking about sharing this one with the kids, don't. It's very Elfen Lied like in a way, minus the pointless pair of boobs every 3 minutes. It's not DragonBall however. The real bread and butter of Berserk is the charecter devolopment. Considerable time is spent developing the relationships between Griffith, Guts, and Griffith's second in command Caska and the challenges that come with them.

Admittedly the animation is a little below average. The colors are a little "Bleh". It was made on a small budget in the mid 90's and it shows. It takea an episode or two to get used to it, but if a good story matters more to you than pretty picutures, it shouldn't bother you.

As with most anime's you'll want to avoid the dub in this one. A group called Media Blasters handled the dub and it's bad. Not the worst I've heard mind you. That honor belongs to the Angel Sanctuary dub. Or maybe the Sailor Moon dub...Anyway, listen to the subbed version. The music soundtrack although a little repetetive at times is beatifully orchestrated. There's quite a few toe tappers in this one. And the sound effects rock. Never has the clash of a sword impacting armor or the sound of horse galloping sounded so sweet.

Few shows can rival Neon Genesis Evangelion.... In my humble opinion this is one of them.... It shows the more gruesome side of human nature while also showing that we're capable of compassion and sympathy even in the most horrible of situations.

Watch this show. You won't regret it. If you can keep an open mind that is.








A Professional Review by Tokidoki Entertainment Journal
http://www.tokidokijournal.com/anime/berserk/

while the berserk anime is good, I hate how they just stopped where the real action just started as compared to the manga.

BERSERK RULES!!!

Tokpile Quohog wrote:while the berserk anime is good, I hate how they just stopped where the real action just started as compared to the manga.

They've been speculating that there might be season 2 for a good while now. The original series was made as a way to get people more interested in the manga, so they may very well make another one at some point in time just to keep interest in the series high.

Like you said, it's not as if they would run out of material or anything.

TriLink12 wrote:They've been speculating that there might be season 2 for a good while now.

The proverbial "they"? Not very specific.

The original series was made as a way to get people more interested in the manga, so they may very well make another one at some point in time just to keep interest in the series high.

I'd want the seiyuu of Guts, Griffith, and Rickert to return. As I understand it, Miyamura would need to be lured out of retirement if she were to reprise Casca. But it would be acceptable to me if they cast another fine VA. I like Miyamura, but I honestly felt like she was miscast in that particular role.

I enjoyed Berserk a lot, and I'll be picking up the box one of these days, along with finishing the manga (which I didn't get far into). The crappy animation was hard not to notice, and I really didn't care for the soundtrack at all (except for the insert song "Forces", which I love to death) -- but beauty isn't everything. The storytelling and character development made it all quite worthwhile in the end.

Nevermind that the last episode sucked ass.

Reichu wrote:Nevermind that the last episode sucked ass.

I liked the last episode. This series reminded me a lot of Gungrave (actually, the other way around, since I saw this first). Both were pretty good.

Reichu wrote:

I wrote:They've been speculating that there might be season 2 for a good while now.

The proverbial "they"? Not very specific.

As you may or may not know, when the 1st season boxed set was released in the U.S. it was called Berserk Season 1, rather than just Berserk which has lead to speculation that there may be another season. And when I say "they", I'm reffering to fanboys. The most reliable source on the web.

I know it's hardly concrete, considering ONLY the U.S. release has season 1 on it meaning it's probably just a stupid oversight by someone at Media Blasters.

But hey, some hope is better than none at all right?

Reichu wrote: Nevermind that the last episode sucked ass.

I wasn't too crazy about the final episode myself, but I would hardly say it "sucked ass". I felt more like a cliffhanger than anything else.

If they never plan on doing a sequel ,ending it the way they did seems rather silly to me. They could have at least wrapped things up a little bit better. They'd already changed the story a lot from the manga version, so I don't see how one more change would have made a difference.

I've added a bunch of old recommendations here to the queue (Nightwalker and Earthian) so I'll go ahead and throw out another recommendation. I was surprised this wasn't mentioned before, Monster. I finally finished it around thanksgiving last year, and it features one of the most evil twisted antagonists in anything I've ever seen. I'm usually not into really long series (this one is 74 episodes), but I was completely hooked from the first episode.

I got tired of waiting for Simoun-Fans to finish ep26, so I downloaded some never-heard-of-before srt subtitle translation and a raw for ep26. Great series BTW.

Ornette wrote:I got tired of waiting for Simoun-Fans to finish ep26, so I downloaded some never-heard-of-before srt subtitle translation and a raw for ep26. Great series BTW.

hahah you got all the way to 25 and are still waiting? When I watched the series I just switched to the wowo subs after ep 16. Yeah they weren't as good, but I'm going to rewatch it when ep 26 is finished.

Combined post dated 20-Mar-07

Ornette wrote:I got tired of waiting for Simoun-Fans to finish ep26,

They announced RC3 yesterday -- past form suggests that the release will be just a few days, now. I'm happy to wait just this little bit more.

Added 4-Apr-07

Well, they went through RC4 this time -- but Simoun 26 was released late on Monday.

cool, now I have to find time to rewatch the last half of the series.

I can't believe nobody has recommended AIR. After seeing it, I can definitely say that it is my favorite anime show, along with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (both of which are two very different shows, btw) I'm talking about Kyoto Animation's adaptation of Air. Toei made a movie adaptation while the original run of Kyoto was still airing, but it was too different and their art style is less beautiful than Kyoto's, although that's my opinion.

Air is mainly about love. It's about a guy who travels to a town to find "the sad girl in the sky", a story his mom told him before she dies when he was young. There he meets 3 young girls whom he suspects being the "one". He befriends them and we slowly get to see each of their stories. It's a very sad anime. There are moments of comedy in the beginning, but near the end of the show it really starts to get melancolic. I won't hide the fact that I nearly cried near the end. I urge everybody here to download the fan-subs (since it hasn't been licensed yet, something I cannot understand). You won't regret it. Oh, and Misuzu Kamio is the cutest anime character ever.

Texhnolyze

This is the only anime I've yet seen that even compares to NGE in terms of artistic depth. It's also the only one since NGE to make me feel like I'd REALLY been through something by the end.

For those who haven't seen it, I couldn't describe it well. It's utterly beautiful. The visuals jump out at you. And I'm not talking about "ooh, pretty animation, flashing lights, big guns, lotsa movement" type of visuals: I'm talking REAL cinematic visuals. The direction throughout the entire series in how every shot is set up is just incredibly meticulous. It's almost exhausting how much detail goes into the visuals. It forces you to pay attention to every shot and change.

The pace is extremely slow. But it's elegently slow - like a largo in a beautiful classical piece - and not boringly slow. The first episode probably has less than 10 lines of dialogue, and very little happpens, but it grabs your attention anyway and makes you realize the importance of visuals in the series.

The story takes a while to unfold, but it reminds me of NGE in that around 3/4 of the way through it REALLY picks up. And even though the pace never reaches a boiling point, it remains measured and intense throughout. There are many episodes where not much happens and the episode just serves to slowly advance the story. You really have to allow the hypnotic, rhythmic flow of this series to pull you in or many of these episodes will become tedious rather than engrossing.

The characters are perhaps less likable than in NGE, but by the end of the series you can't help but find yourself rooting for them. If it's one of the more obvious flaws of the series, it's that we don't get a deep enough look at the main characters. Rather, it's more about their relationships and their part to play in the grand scheme of the story.

The ending is extremely powerful. And the series as a whole is haunting as hell. The music is outstanding - among the best I've heard in an anime yet. For those who want to hear a terrific song, check out its closing number "Tsuki no Uta". The song played during the final episode is gorgeous and absolutely heartbreaking.

Overall I can't recommend this series enough. I'll definitely have to watch it again. It's NOT a sunny, happy series. It makes NGE look like a Disney film (in tone) by comparison. But if you're in the mood for a dark, gorgeous, and meloncholy series; don't hesitate to pick it up.

Air is awesome, so is (from same studio) the most recent Kanon.

Ornette wrote:Air is awesome, so is (from same studio) the most recent Kanon.

About Kanon: since I haven't played the original visual novel or seen Toei's and Kyoto's adaptations, should I watch the first adaptation made by Toei, and then watch the remake by Kyoto? Or should I simply watch Kyoto's right away? I really want to have the best experience possible.

AuthenticM wrote:

Ornette wrote:Air is awesome, so is (from same studio) the most recent Kanon.

About Kanon: since I haven't played the original visual novel or seen Toei's and Kyoto's adaptations, should I watch the first adaptation made by Toei, and then watch the remake by Kyoto? Or should I simply watch Kyoto's right away? I really want to have the best experience possible.

I don't think the original is necessary, it's pretty much the same story with lesser story arcs. However, there were 3 OVA's that continued the original. The one from Kyoto is better animated and has better writing. I think I would have liked the new Kanon even more if I hadn't already watched the original.

Ornette wrote:Air is awesome, so is (from same studio) the most recent Kanon.

Perhaps you should expand this into a fuller recommendation -- I have seen a lot of chatter about that title on /a/, suggesting that it's popular; but nothing as to what is making it so.

Mr. Tines wrote:

Ornette wrote:Air is awesome, so is (from same studio) the most recent Kanon.

Perhaps you should expand this into a fuller recommendation -- I have seen a lot of chatter about that title on /a/, suggesting that it's popular; but nothing as to what is making it so.

I had recently recommended "Monster", but Kanon was so awesome that I'll go ahead and post a bit about it.

Kanon (2006)

Based on a game made by Key and is a remake of the 2002 Toei animated Kanon, this series is about a guy named Yuichi returning to a town he lived in 7 years ago. He lives with his cousin Nayuki and attend the same school. He seemed to have lost most of his memories from 7 years ago. As time goes on, he starts running into these girls and slowly discovering his lost memories. There's more or less a separate story arc that focuses on each of these girls, the first of which is Makoto, who attacks Yuichi completely out of the blue, claims that she lost all her memories except that she has a grudge against Yuichi.

Here's a (rather stellar) review from some site:
"Kanon 2006 is nothing short of a masterpiece. Marvellous art, incredible animation, beautiful music, 24 episodes of a detailed incremental development of all characters, and a breathtaking story of a guy that's not the usual whimp for once and the girls who surround him aren't his harem. This show is the best thing since sliced bread, and it's absolutely impossible not to give it a perfect score. You can't compare it to the mediocre variant Toei made of this story four years earlier..."

What do I think? The female character designs I'm not in love with, but are very similar to the girls in AIR. The story is very well written and the character development is spot on throughout the entire series, I found myself getting attached to almost all of the main characters. The only complaint I have with the writing is a few times (closer towards the end) it gets a little confusing as to what's actually happening. The animation is awesome. The entire series is set in a town during the winter, so it's snowing almost all the time. The premise isn't anything original, but it definitely stands out from the rest. I thought this was one of the best series of 2006, if not the best. I've seen the 2002 original, and there's no point in watching that first. The 2006 version has it beat in all the areas. I've never played the game or read the manga.