This seems like my kinda place!

[phubans]

Hi!

I'm a 32 year old indie game developer living in San Francisco, CA. My first passion is video games, but film and anime is a very close second. Being born in the early 80s, I grew up exposed to a lot of Japanese anime, toys, and video games, a lot of times without even realizing it. It wasn't until around 1993 when Cartoon Network premiered their "Japananimation" special as many of you may remember; Robot Carnival, Vampire Hunter D, and Twilight of the Cockroaches. The original Vampire Hunter D was the first true anime I saw; I was about 12 years old at the time.

In the years that followed I tried to seek out anime but it wasn't until the late 90s that it started to become more heavily marketed and available in the US. I ended up buying a VHS of Neon Genesis Evangelion at what was then called Electronics Boutique, and then signing up for an offer from Publishers Clearing House, where they would send a new anime VHS every month starting with AKIRA. Between this and watching stuff like Demon City Shinjuku on the sci-fi channel every Sunday morning with my friend, I eventually ended up buying box loads of anime on VHS from animenation.com.

Those were the good ol' days... and then everything changed. They started doing things digitally and a lot was lost in the transition; the CG stuff just didn't have the same love as the traditional hand-drawn stuff. A lot of really amazing techniques were lost, too, like what I call the "anime glow effect" that seemed to dominate anime of that era. The plots shifted from dark, gritty, and mature to cute, colorful, and a lot less serious. I was stuck with watching all my favorite classics and wishing that anime today could still capture the same magic.

These days I still try to keep the spirit of old-school anime alive; I've got pretty much every late 80s and early 90s anime I've ever owned on VHS, DVD, and then some, all digitally stored on an external hard-drive. I sometimes like to host a Livestream channel called Strange Cinema where I play those great classics for others to enjoy. I'm often both surprised and delighted to find out that there are a lot of other people out there who can at least appreciate anime from that era if not love it as much as I do.

I'm really glad to find this forum and I hope to share what I know about vintage anime and maybe learn a few things in the process! Thanks for having me!

[Sgirl]

Welcome to to the board!

There was a period of time when I didn't find much to enjoy in recent anime, but I think the past few seasons have proven me wrong. There's stuff out there that I really like. What's sad is maybe the rest of the wide audience doesn't. (Sad hiss boo.)

You're lucky though you're in Cali -- access to a lot of conventions with interesting guests!

[Animusubi]

Welcome to the forum phubans!

I used to do a similar late night Livestream with friends, we called it "Ninja Night" and we'd watch early 90's martial arts movies or martial arts related anime (Fatal Fury, Ranma 1/2, etc). They are always fun! I would love to do a night with fellow Anime Past members sometime.

It can be hard to find newer anime to get into, I have the same troubles, but there are some great titles, and this forum is awesome for learning about old and new recommendations, as well as learning a lot (I know I have!).

Also I think we talked via tumblr, not sure if you're the same one or not. ;3

[greg]

Welcome! So what are your favorite video game systems from the old days? I love the 16 bit era: SNES/Super Famicom, Genesis/Megadrive, and TG-16/PC Engine.

The only modern anime I'm really excited about is the new Yamato 2199 remake. It looks a little bit too crystal clear, but the action is fantastic, the story seems more serious, and the characters are not annoying. It seems that it's taking Yamato more seriously than even Matsumoto did: the Gamilus army are fleshed out more as characters, Analyzer doesn't seem to be a skirt-chasing lecherous robot, etc. Give it a try. Otherwise, I'm with you. There's no real grit anymore.

[phubans]

Hey guys, thanks for the welcome!

@Sgirl: I've lived in SF for 8 years now but I've never actually been to any cons except Comic Con once, and that was in 2006. Before that, the only anime con I ever went to was called JAFAX and this was in 2001 with my friend who I was visiting in Michigan. The experience we had there was kind of a let down compared to what we were expecting, so I never bothered trying to go to another one since... I might be missing out to judge them by one con, though!

@ryoran: Interesting! I'm not sure if that was me you talked to on tumblr though, because I'm relatively new to tumblr and only posted a few things there. My tumblr is http://phubans.tumblr.com/ but there's a good chance you may have seen or talked to me elsewhere!

@greg: My favorite systems would be NES, SNES, N64, and pretty much every Nintendo handheld since GameBoy. I grew up on Nintendo and was loyal to their systems until I transitioned over to Playstation because of Final Fantasy going to Sony. I never owned a GameCube but I ended up buying a Wii to try and relive some of the good ol' days of Nintendo; a lot of Wii games are pretty faithful to that end! I mostly game on PC and DS these days, though.

As for anime, I'm looking forward to getting some recommendations! Here's my personal top 10 favorite anime (in no particular order) to give you guys an idea of what I'm into:

1) AKIRA - Goes without saying!
2) Vampire Hunter D (original) - The first anime I saw; I love the atmosphere of it.
3) Neo-Tokyo - Great anthology, but my favorite is definitely the first short; some of the best 12 minutes of anime I've ever seen.
4) Golgo 13: The Professional - Surprisingly psychedelic, otherwise bad-ass "manime" as I like to call it!
5) Fist of the North Star - Another incredible film and series.
6) Demon City Shinjuku - Another one with great atmosphere/ambiance.
7) Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma - Incredibly ambient ninja horror anime. Definitely one of my favorites.
8) Ninja Scroll - Another classic, no explanation needed.
9) Spirited Away - Though this film is somewhat "newer" it's still very good.
10) Princess Mononoke - Another obvious pick!

Obviously there are tons more that I like, but those are the 10 I'd pick as "absolute must see/favorites" - I'll get around to listing my entire collection sometime!

[yusaku]

Hello! I am another newbie and would like to say hello and welcome. There are some really nice new anime out there right now. I was a member of Crunchyroll.com where they show anime that recently aired in Japan. You will find some stuff you like. Death Note and Gilgamesh are two recent anime films I highly recommend you see.

[greg]

Nice. I really liked most of Nintendo's consoles, although I was never a fan of the company or their strangling licensing practices. I never owned a NES, but all my friends had one, it seems. The friends I grew up with at the time weren't into RPGs, so I didn't discover those until the SNES days. I skipped the N64. Watching Mario and Link running around in fog didn't appeal to me, nor did most 3D gaming for that matter. I did eventually get a Game Cube. Some friends pulled together and got me a used one plus a GBA player for my birthday one year. One of them modded it with a region switch to play Japanese imports. I never got many games for the system (I considered it a child's toy when it first came out), but I did get a lot of use out of the attached GBA player.

I've totally given up with this current console generation. I don't like the idea of "red rings of death" and microtransactions meant to make me pay for the game I already bought over and over again. The Dreamcast had some cool stuff you could download for games off the Net, but that was all free. Now they expect you to pay for all sorts of crap. I have more than enough games to last me forever, it seems. I'm not missing out on much, anyway. I prefer 2D gaming.

[usamimi]

Welcome to the board, phubans! Always great to see more fans find their way here!

Oooh, if you liked Neo-Tokyo, I definitely recommend Robot Carnival as well as Memories. Both short film/anthology pieces, and all 3 movies have Katsuhiro Otomo involved, so you really can't go wrong!

[llj]

The Gamecube is a very underrated system. It's tough, durable, and in some ways better at processing graphics and data better than the PS2. For most of the games that were ported to both the PS2 and GC, the GC versions played better and often looked better as well. And as Greg said, the GB player basically adds the entire GB, GBC and GBA library to the system.

It doesn't have the vast library of the PS2, but the 15-20 or so games that you do get for it will probably be games you really love. I actually think the Gamecube is one of my personal favorite consoles of all time. And it's also cute. I hear many women are very charmed by the console too.

Just thought I'd chime in to the Nintendo conversation here.

@phubans--I think The Professional Golgo 13 has aged very well too. Of all the anime I consider to be essential "late night" viewing, The Professional Golgo 13 tops them all. There's nothing like watching it at 1:00am in the dark with a bag of chips and a can of beer at your side.

[phubans]

@usamimi: Thanks! I've actually seen both Robot Carnival and Memories! I enjoyed both, especially Robot Carnival. I wish there were more anthology anime out there!

@llj: Yeah! I just watched Golgo 13: The Professional just the last weekend with my friend. It's probably the 3rd time I've watched it just this year! Haha. I don't usually smoke but if I'm drinking and watching Golgo 13 I can't help but get the urge to bum a cigarette off of someone

On the topic of NES games, have any of you guys played Crystalis? It's one of my favorite NES games and I recently started doing a Let's Play of it. Here's some info I wrote about it:

Crystalis is a top-down action RPG in the vein of Zelda, but with more complex RPG elements and systems. Known as God Slayer: Haruka Tenkū no Sonata (God Slayer: Sonata of the Far-Away Sky) in Japan, this game was developed and published by SNK in 1990. The game is heavily influenced by the earlier works of Hayao Miyazaki, specifically Nausicaa, and tells the story of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where civilization has been reduced to a pre-technological state. However, magic and some remnants of technology still remain.

Crystalis ranks among my favorite games of all time, and is definitely tied with The Guardian Legend for my favorite NES game.

Please enjoy watching my Let's Play series for Crystalis here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-9eDj5J ... CYPJMF8o42