What are you Watching?

[karageko]

Maybe also watching all of this in the span of like three weeks was too concentrated a form of Yamato. Probably would have been better to spread it out more.

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.

As someone who has watched the entirety of both (well, there's a bunch of Harlock stuff after the original TV series and Arcadia of my Youth I haven't seen yet), if you are only picking one you'll probably want to pick Harlock. While I do like the GE999 TV series a lot, our potato headed kid protagonist Tetsuro can get frequently annoying and whiney, whereas Harlock doesn't really have a kid character like that (not that I can remember but it's also been 5 years since I watched it). I am kinda saying this on the assumption that as a grown adult your tolerance for a whiney teens is on the lower side, but if not then either TV series are good picks.

And yes, GE999 TV is almost entirely episodic. The GE999 movie remains one of my favorite movies and is the best of animated GE999 and can be watched standalone. So if you want the best of GE999 you could just jump straight to that movie. I have realized though from first hand experience that some people with no prior exposure to GE99 do not take well to the movie, so that's my heads up. I watched GE999 stuff in chronological order by Japanese release date, which meant that I watched about 95% of the TV series, watched the first movie, and then watched the remaining 5% of the TV series. That was a weird experience and I can imagine it was bizarre to Japanese viewers as well.

[DKop]

Maybe also watching all of this in the span of like three weeks was too concentrated a form of Yamato. Probably would have been better to spread it out more.

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.

As someone who has watched the entirety of both (well, there's a bunch of Harlock stuff after the original TV series and Arcadia of my Youth I haven't seen yet), if you are only picking one you'll probably want to pick Harlock. While I do like the GE999 TV series a lot, our potato headed kid protagonist Tetsuro can get frequently annoying and whiney, whereas Harlock doesn't really have a kid character like that (not that I can remember but it's also been 5 years since I watched it). I am kinda saying this on the assumption that as a grown adult your tolerance for a whiney teens is on the lower side, but if not then either TV series are good picks.

You must've forgotten about Tochiro kid, which from the episodes ive seen she a plot point to be in the most dangerous situations around incompetent child care people to be in harms way ALL THE DAMN TIME! And her lesson from Harlock, whenever he has to save her is "Stay in the orphanage, you can't be a pirate, because your daddy says so."

[karageko]

You must've forgotten about Tochiro kid, which from the episodes ive seen she a plot point to be in the most dangerous situations around incompetent child care people to be in harms way ALL THE DAMN TIME! And her lesson from Harlock, whenever he has to save her is "Stay in the orphanage, you can't be a pirate, because your daddy says so."

I did not forget about this, but what you are describing and what I am talking about with regards to Tetsuro are two different points. I don't recall Mayu overwhelming the Harlock TV series, but again it's been a while since I saw it. Either my memory regarding this is faulty, or you just watched the particular batch of episodes which feature her. She doesn't appear in every episode. In any case, if the above description is a deal killer, then the GE 999 TV series probably is not the way to go since for the purpose of having a plot, Tetsuro gets into trouble basically every episode.

[DKop]

I've seen roughly about the first half of Harlock, and about a 1/3rd of what I saw started to involve her more in the teens episodes it seems. I'm sure it gets better, but at the same time I found it amusing to see her get in situations that I can't help but to laugh about because of how ridiculous they are.

[karageko]

Alright I'm taking a break from Yamato for a while before I dig into 2199 and afterwards, which is probably good timing since there's still a bit more that has yet to come out as far as I understand.

Finished up Yamato 2520, Dai Yamato Zero Gou, and Space Battleship Yamato: Resurrection, and kept my expectations fairly low which was a good thing. The last one was actually alright, spare the lack of Matsumoto character designs. Although being entirely honest I was kinda tuned out for most of these, especially Dai Yamato which had a ton of dialogue, which I couldn't follow too well, and fairly large cast of characters, and a ton of extremely outdated CG from a medium which generally does CG poorly. Can't say I really care to go back and figure out I missed while my mind wandered off.

[DKop]

I think those were helmed by Nishizaki, which explains a lot of your problems. I mean, I wanna like Odin: Photon Space Sailor Starlight.... but again its Odin...

[karageko]

I think those were helmed by Nishizaki, which explains a lot of your problems. I mean, I wanna like Odin: Photon Space Sailor Starlight.... but again its Odin...

Nishizaki wasn't involved in Dai Yamato Zero Gou, but was indeed involved with 2520 and Resurrection. I thought Resurrection was the best of those, so I don't know that it's necessarily Nishizaki. 2520 was canceled and left unfinished, and Dai Yamato Zero Gou had a long break due to the bankruptcy of Venture Soft as far as I understand, with two last episodes made later when another studio picked it up and finished it. I think those reasons play a lot more into why I'm not into them (but I can think of other reasons from episode 1 of both). Resurrection is clearly a complete title (well it's just a whole movie).

I did wonder though if Nishizaki's view and take on the concept of Yamato as far as how the original run came out is why I'm more into the other Matsumoto works. I get the feeling that this may be the case, but I haven't read enough about the man and interviews with him to feel confident that this is the case.

[Drew_Sutton]

I think those were helmed by Nishizaki, which explains a lot of your problems. I mean, I wanna like Odin: Photon Space Sailor Starlight.... but again its Odin...

I mean, that montage sequence, is pretty bitchin' and as far as I am concerned, the only part of Odin worth watching.

Was doing some chores last weekend and tossed in one of my old Fushigi Yuugi tapes because I stumbled upon this old thread here. Think this VCR is starting to die on me because it starts eating tapes between the 90m and 120m marks. While the quality of this particular tape is questionable, higher quality tapes are also getting chomped on about the same time frames. Gotta test the other one and see if it's also trash and then hunt for replacement(s). Speaking of, I don't know that if I'd posted but I've also been slowly crawling through Golden Kamuy during bursts of folding laundry. Really fun show.

And got stuck working after dinner one night this week, so while I was struggling with writing software, I popped in Ranma 1/2's first film, "Big Trouble in Nekonron, China". Got me thinking about specifically about Ranma 1/2 as a parody on the whole shonen action genre and an arc of Takahashi's Shonen work overall. This is probably why my software is riddled with bugs.

Also re-watched the end of Gundam 08th MS Team that same night; the episode itself is good but I am always wishy-washy on how I feel about the ending.
I think for a lot of the realistic grit that 08th MS has throughout the series, that having a more depressing ending is fitting but having this upswing towards a happy ending just feels too forced and that itself is depressing.

[DKop]

Also re-watched the end of Gundam 08th MS Team that same night; the episode itself is good but I am always wishy-washy on how I feel about the ending.
I think for a lot of the realistic grit that 08th MS has throughout the series, that having a more depressing ending is fitting but having this upswing towards a happy ending just feels too forced and that itself is depressing.

If the original director didn't die in the car accident, we would have gotten a grimmer ending for sure is what I can assume. You can tell that tonal shift after episode 6 or so, which would make sense on when the other director worked on the OVA and made the changes to be happier. I like how 08th ended, but I wish we got the intended ending the first director probably had in mind.

Odin is only really good for that montage at the beginning, and thats about it.

[DKop]

Other than the Toonami line up on the weekends, i've been going through those Filipino Voltes V dubs that Dave hooked me up with. The only problem with that was it was the first half the series, but I was able to go on Rutube and download the rest of them from there. Along with Voltes, Amazon did a sweet deal on Dunbine a couple of weeks ago, so im about 4 ep into that series right now, looks pretty good on Bluray, but that doesn't help the show story or pacing, but whatever.

Let me stress, I CANNOT RECOMMEND enough for people to watch Voltes V in english, but Discotek got the anime coming out soon on Bluray so you're best bet to see it in native japanese is that: Here is some highlights of the Voltes V dub:

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

https://twitter.com/AOYPodcast/status/1 ... 3724349445

https://twitter.com/AOYPodcast/status/1 ... 0604654593

https://twitter.com/AOYPodcast/status/1 ... 7473343490