What are you Watching?

[labsenpai]

A family member wanted to watch an old VHSC tape the other day so I plugged in my JVC deck for the first time in about 12 years. Fortunately, I have saved a tube tv with S-video input and a couple master tapes from my college club days. So, I sat through them again to check for degrading...
#1) DAICON 3+4 animations plus Yamato no Orochi kaiju movie - Now that I can compare the latter to Shin Gojira, you see all the character and camera-shot similarities. Higuchi must love Apache helicopters because they are featured in both movies
#2) Macross Flashback - Everybody bought this LD since it had the tantalizing new footage of the original characters.
Maison Ikkoku Through the Seasons - this recap video is strictly for the diehard MI fans (my club lol) and focuses on the dramatic feels late in the tv series. Without the madcap comedy you'd think the show was a serious 80s soap.

[DKop]

Since I was exhausted from AWA coming back to my friends pad in ATL last night and deciding to head out to home this morning, I decided to watch a handful of episodes of the Filipino English dub of Voltes V to relax too. To clue you in on how the dub sounds like, I wanted to show the world through twitter:

https://twitter.com/AOYPodcast/status/1 ... 7252478976

... a good couple of hours hearing that sqeaky kid talk, good stuff. You can tell one woman did all the female parts, and someone had to sound like a pre-teen pipsqueak for the kid character. This show doesn't hold anything back in terms of killing off people and the Voltes team being in dire situations where people have to die in order to save them. And im only 5 episodes in.

I picked up some random OVA on Laserdisc at the con, and I got Gun Frontier as a Matsumoto dvd I got from the discotek booth since every time I go to their booth I say to myself "I'm going to get a Captain Harlock something from here..." and then I get something that isn't Harlock. But for me, this is pretty close and Walter Amos was next to me to say "Yea thats a good show, get that." So I did. I'll be checking that out later tonight.

[karageko]

Been a while since I last posted in this thread let's see... I've been watching stuff from the following

GeGeGe no Kitarou [1960s] (about halfway through - 60s TV anime can be a tough watch for me if I try to marathon through it so it'll take me a while to wrap up probably)
Mr. Tonegawa Middle Management Blues [2018] (sill ongoing - tons of laughing for me)
Persona 4 [2011] & Persona 4 Golden [2014] (I finished both. I had set my expectations very low because video game anime adaptations have a very poor track record, and it was fine given that. The only reason to watch this is if you played the games and wanted to see the characters go through the same story again but in animation. I'm pretty sure this would be a garbage viewing experience for anyone not acquainted with the games.)
Persona 5 [2018] (still ongoing, but basically same comment as above)
Night is Short, Walk On Girl, The Night is Short, Walk On Girl [2017] (Saw this in the theater and it was real great! One of the few times I actually felt watching a movie in the theater actually enhanced the experience instead of detracting from it. I'd been meaning to watch Tatami Galaxy for a while so it's higher up on my list now.)
A Little Love Story: The Four Season of Love between Chicchi and Sally / 小さな恋のものがたり チッチとサリー初恋の四季 [1984] (Neat from a visual perspective; best consumed while ignoring the dialogue - so maybe it's best watched without any Japanese knowledge)
Panda and the Magic Serpent [1958]
Grimms' Fairy Tales: The Golden Bird / グリム童話 金の鳥 [1987] (Very visually cool adaptation of a Grimms' story)
Fair, then Partly Piggy / はれときどきぶた [1988] (bizarre and fun)
Azuki / あずきちゃん [1995] (This is one of those long series that's more for general Japanese audiences as opposed to otaku. Entertaining and sweet, but kind of predictable writing for a story about a elementary/middle school girl with a crush. I'll probably continue to watch a few episodes here and there.)
Cosmos Pink Shock / COSMOS ピンクショック [1986] (stupid kind of fun with a bunch of parody involved)
Clever Sarutobi / さすがの猿飛 [1982] (don't think I'll be watching any more than the two episodes I saw of this, see here)
Praying Matsugorou / おがみ松吾郎 [1989] (fun with tough school gang shenanigans)

and just now

COSMO POLICE ジャスティ / Cosmo Police Justy [1985] (I dig the soundtrack a lot in this)

I think the offerings above attest very well to the idea that anime can't be boxed into a particular art style.

So I'm kind of all over the place as far as how old the things are that I've been watching. I really want to burn through more of the 80s OVAs I've had on my list. Also I've been running away from this (or rather, I just kept putting it off {... for almost a decade} in favor of checking out other things) but damn it I need to go and watch through the original Yamato already. I'm gonna make a vow to watch through all Yamato (original and reboot) by the next AWA so I don't need to run in fear of being spoiled of Yamato things anymore.

[DKop]

Cosmos Pink Shock / COSMOS ピンクショック [1986] (stupid kind of fun with a bunch of parody involved)


and just now

COSMO POLICE ジャスティ / Cosmo Police Justy [1985] (I dig the soundtrack a lot in this)

Cosmos Pink Shock is pretty dumb, but in a fun way. Come to think of it, I remember writing about it years ago for the Anime Anonymous Podcast, same with Cosmo Police Justy.

http://www.aaapodcast.com/archives/5207
http://www.aaapodcast.com/archives/4534

If you want that Justy soundtrack, I got a rip of it off my vinyl OST I got from AWA last year. Just PM and i'll hook you up.

[labsenpai]

Persona 4 [2011] & Persona 4 Golden [2014] (I finished both. I had set my expectations very low because video game anime adaptations have a very poor track record, and it was fine given that. The only reason to watch this is if you played the games and wanted to see the characters go through the same story again but in animation. I'm pretty sure this would be a garbage viewing experience for anyone not acquainted with the games.)

Much like the occasional show that is for "investor-grade" manga or light novel fans only. Spend enough and get catered to...applies everywhere.

On a side note, the single-disc Blu-Ray of BGC is out; I just received mine in the mail. I goofed by not joining the KS, so this is a nice consolation prize. Animeigo did a good job with the show; its the first time I've seen the song lyrics translated

[Drew_Sutton]

I picked up some anime DVDs fairly cheap last month, which included the Ninja Scroll TV series. So far I'm only on episode 4, but I'm enjoying it. I recall it getting some sour reviews years ago, but I haven't seen anything yet that I disliked.

I remember getting several episodes fansubbed when the show first came out in Japan in like 2003 or '04 and I really dug it. While it was drastically toned down from the 90s classic, it had a lot of the same spirit and tone behind it that helped make it feel less disjointed.

AWA panel research had me watching stuff in various capacities. I did some cursory watching of Silent Service (Chimoku no Kantai) and it seems like something I would really dig (I mean, militaria animated by Sunrise in the '90s, it practically has Drew Sutton written all over it). I also rewatched the Yoroiden Samurai Troopers Gaiden OAV for the first time in ... uh, fifteen years? I got raw tapes of it twenty years ago and watched it a few times (since the OAVs were the only Japanese version of YST I could get my hands on until the DVDs came out) but of the three, Gaiden has always been my least favorite. Subtitles make it a little bit better to understand the main plot points but it's still not as good as the others. I also watched both of the Momotaro films from the 40s for the full film, so while I've seen clips of them and been aware of them for a while, first time I ever sat down and watched them end to end. Prepping for my Studio Nue panel has made me want to re-watch Crusher Joe and Orguss.

[llj]

Watching Snow White with the Red Hair. Good shoujo fantasy. Reminds me a bit of Story of Saiunkoku, albeit lighter on politics and heavier on action. Still, it's in the same ballpark of being a political-romantic fantasy show without having any magic or magical creatures.

[karageko]

So I finally wrapped up the original run of the Yamato franchise, by which I mean (viewed in this order)

Space Battleship Yamato (TV Series)
Space Battleship Yamato (Compilation Movie)
Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato: In the Name of Love (Movie)
Space Battleship Yamato 2 (TV Series)
Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage (Movie)
Be Forever Yamato (Movie)
Space Battleship Yamato 3 (TV Series)
Final Yamato (Movie)

Yamato nerds here will notice those are in chronological order of the Japanese release date.

I don't actually know what the common names in English discourse for this franchise (speaking of Yamato specifically, not Star Blazers), so I just picked the first English title I found for these and threw them up there.

Overall I like the franchise, but if I'm being entirely honest it is far from my favorite as far as Matsumoto material is concerned. I still feel much more partial to Galaxy Express 999 and Captain Harlock. How much of that is a "I saw those first" reaction, I'm not sure. To put this in context, I saw both GE999 and Harlock around my first two years of college.

In general I am down for the dry Matsumoto storytelling stuff but sometimes it'd just fall flat for me in Yamato. I'm not too big on the announcing every single operation that is about to be performed by the crew members on the Yamato, nor the American superhero comics treatment of characters as far as their fate is concerned. The militaristic fetishism I think gets laid on a bit too thick for my liking.

I get the feeling that if there was ever a time for me to get really into Yamato, it probably would have been around middle school. At least I feel like some of the plot events I'd have to suspend my disbelief for I'd probably only be able to do then. But even back then I wasn't really into particularly militaristic settings so I don't know that it would have caught me then either.

I used to be mildly annoyed that Arrivederci Yamato was spoiled for me so many years ago. Now that I've watched it, I have to say I definitely don't mind anymore because that was just a bad movie. Much better to just watch Space Battleship Yamato 2. Is that a hot take? I'm not sure since I've avoided Yamato discussion for so long so as not to influence my eventual viewing. If I were to pick my favorite entry in those listed above, it would probably be FInal Yamato. Not because of a "finally I'm done" reaction, but because I did enjoy that the most. I also wonder if this is a hot take.

Anywho, I intend to continue trucking onto the Yamato-things that came out before the well acclaimed reboot. I'm glad I don't really need to avoid spoilers and what-not and can go read what everyone's been saying all this time about this stuff.

[karageko]

Oh I forgot to add. The "comedy" with that damn robot really did not age well.

[gaijinpunch]

So I finally wrapped up the original run of the Yamato franchise, by which I mean (viewed in this order)

Space Battleship Yamato (TV Series)
Space Battleship Yamato (Compilation Movie)
Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato: In the Name of Love (Movie)
Space Battleship Yamato 2 (TV Series)
Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage (Movie)
Be Forever Yamato (Movie)
Space Battleship Yamato 3 (TV Series)
Final Yamato (Movie)

I tip my hat. I've actually been wanting to go through all of these. I never watched the Japanese TV shows, but did watch Starblazers as a kid, religiously, and have seen all the films. I actually find Farewell/Saraba/Arrividerci the best... but I've not seen it in a while. Clocking in at 2 hours and 20 minutes it is hard for me to commit to actually sitting down and watching it as well.

I agree w/ Final being pretty high caliber as well. Definitely better than the 3 before it.

I was actually debating if I should watch GE999 or Harlock, as I've never seen a frame of either. I can't imagine a 105 episde TV show not being totally episodic.