What are you Watching?

[yusaku]

I think I am more into the mood certain anime creates. Slayers gets me in that lighthearted, happy mood. Sometimes I watch Fruits baskets for the same reason. Panty, Stocking, and Garterbelt is just an escape for those "deep thoughts" on my mind. it is nice to a vacation from reason and political corrects sometime. You ever seen the Ping Pong Club?

[llj]

The Slayers was okay. Lina Inverse is great as a main character, but I always felt like the character was better than the actual anime she was in. I have to admit that many of the later Slayers seasons could be tough slogs at times. The first season was probably the best.

[ParaParaJMo]

Man, I saw that on VHS fansub

Anyway, I will be watching Patlabor after I move to Yokohama

[Drew_Sutton]

I never got into Slayers, despite being the target demographic when I first tried to watch it. I don't recall anything specific about why I didn't like it; I guess I just found it bland and forced.

You ever seen the Ping Pong Club?

Oh yea~h. Let's Go! Inachu Ping Pong Club is one of my guiltiest of pleasures. Crude, low brow humor coupled with parodies of my beloved sports genre, it never ceases to give me a laugh I need to see if the DVDs can be bought for cheap, since I only have a few episodes on tape. I'd like to do a write-up or something on it, maybe explore it a little more beyond "lol fart jokes". Are you familiar with the manga? I have the first few volumes. The anime and manga stay pretty parallel as I remember but I am most familiar with the beginning of the TV series, so it's possible they diverge later.

Decided to finish Rhea Gall Force and watch a few episodes of Martian Successor Nadesico today that I've been meaning to get back to for oh, about 14 years.

[llj]

I re-watched a few classic Dirty Pair TV episodes this weekend. Is this actually one of the best episodic action-anime series ever made? Thinking on it, I think quite possibly it may be. The show follows certain formulas, but it rarely *plays* fomulaically. It rarely (if ever) falls back on stock footage, and on closer inspection, the dialogue is actually operating on a pretty high level in terms of wit and timing. The banter between Kei and Yuri is really almost screwball comedy level at times, which is actually rather unusual in anime; Japanese humour often falls back on typical tsukkomi-boke comedic pairs. Dirty Pair isn't like that, they're both around the same intelligence level and neither Kei or Yuri is really "the straight man" to the other. (People who say Yuri is the "straight girl" obviously haven't watched more than 2 episodes)

It kind of bugs me sometimes that many anime fans kind of look down upon the episodic format, as if any anime that isn't some epic serial Tolstoyian epic is a "crude" and "dated" form of entertainment. Sometimes you just want to pop something in for 20 minutes or so and enjoy good animation, good writing and short, unpretentious stories that wrap up in one sitting. Even with Cowboy Bebop, fans tend to value the episodes that "move the overarching story forward" rather than the one shots. I should really start a blog extolling the virtues of episodic TV shows in particular--I feel like they're starting to get underrated in general.

I also watched the 1985-86 OVA series Dream Dimension Hunter Fandora, a Go Nagai creation that curiously never saw release in the U.S., despite many evidently marketable elements to early U.S. anime fans. It's an uneven series--the 2nd OVA takes a weird nosedive in visual quality (there are posters here who can draw better frames than some of the ones seen in episode 2--I am not kidding, some are like a 10 year old's anime fanart) and the show goes from quaint little space action adventure to full blown cosmic space opera way too quickly. I also think the more we learn about Fandora's past, the less interesting she seems to get as a person. It's not boring though, and that's the important thing.

[greg]

I rather enjoy the one-shot type of episodes, especially when it comes to The X-Files. People often scoff at the "lost on a deserted island" story arch in Nadia because it seems to stall the overall plot. I actually enjoyed those goof-off episodes a lot.

[llj]

I picked up a copy of the 1973 Casshan on blu-ray this week.

I guess I was expecting something goofier because of how many people were saying Casshern Sins was like a 180 tone change from the original Casshan but in all honesty...the 1973 Casshan is actually pretty grim when taken on its own terms. Yes, there are certain "dated" qualities modern fans point out as being "campy", but from what I see, the original Casshan is generally a pretty serious show. The format of the show from the episodes I've seen so far isn't actually too far off from the episodic "meet a new person this week and help them" format in Casshern Sins. Maybe it was actually more faithful to the original show than many people thought. Okay, except for the whole Luna as a creepy saviour thing.

One thing that should be mentioned about the blu-ray though: the materials seem to be in rougher shape than many 70s anime I've seen. The colors are somewhat faded, and there is noticeable jutter. I don't think it being "old" has anything to do with it; many of Toei's 60s and 70s TV anime are in much, much better shape. If you've seen any of the Mahou Tsukai Sally R2 DVDs, the colors practically pop. Sure, maybe Toei went in and remastered their shows, but almost all of Tatsunoko's old anime have this faded quality that would suggest they were originally shot on very cheap 16 mm film stock, with the exception of Mach Go Go Go (which was shot in 35mm).

Gatchaman looks "cleaner" on blu-ray than Casshan (which is very grainy) but I suspect Gatchaman has undergone more DNR than Casshan, being a more "important" show for Tatsunoko. Gatchaman still seems to have a faded quality to the visuals though.

I really wish Sentai could get Mach Go Go Go on blu ray soon, if possible. I'd really like to see for myself if it being shot in 35 mm makes a comparative difference on blu-ray. I suspect it should look considerable better than Gatchaman and Casshan.

[yusaku]

I usually do a marathon of Dune, 2001, Solaris, Ghost in the Shell, and Wings of Honneamaise. However, tonight I may finish watching Wallflower. It is an anime about a group of metrosexual men that are offered free rent for a year if they can get the landlords niece date worthy and ladylike. Only watch a couple of episodes I got like another twenty episodes to go. So, when the laundry finishes I will probably be doing that.

[ParaParaJMo]

I rented Mach Go Go Go on Bluray years ago in Niigata. Translating it myself, the stories of Speed Racer are more or less the same and they really force the dialog word for word into the dub with the exception of name changes.

I also like there was this edited scene that did not make it in Speed Racer when Speed was temporarily blinded in a crash. There is this scene in the Japanese version where Racer X/The Masked Racer is helping Go/Speed to his car and Go/Speed tells the Masked Racer that he reminds him of his brother

[llj]

In general, there are a number of 60s-70s anime dubs for US broadcast that were actually more faithful than anime dubs for US broadcast of the 80s and 90s and 00s, so I'm not surprised about that. Part of it because dubbing was still new so people didn't have the editing technology to change TOO much, and also the English adaptation people of those days didn't think of themselves as "creative artists" in the same way today's more narcissistic dubbers do. Also, censorship standards were more straightforward in the 60s and 70s. In the 90s, marketing elements came into play in the editing process as well.

How is the Blu-ray picture quality of Mach Go Go Go, PPJ?