What are you Watching?

[llj]

It was Canadian Thanksgiving over the weekend for me, so I was at the parents' house.

Watched the original Area 88 OVA. Unfortunately, ADV's DVD used the film version compilation of parts 1 and 2, which means that there still hasn't been a REAL complete collection of the Area 88 OVA series in the west.

That said, it was still great. The dogfights are stunningly well animated by the standards of ANY era, and the characters are all given plausible motivations for what they do, even the villains. This is what an anime fan could have pointed to when they talked about "anime for adults" back in the day, despite Shun's bishounen looks obviously appealing to teenaged girls. I watched all 3 hours of it in one sitting. The ending is a bit anti-climactic and deviates from other versions (including the manga) but I kind of like it on a certain level too. I find it sort of funny that the only real "hero" of the show is probably Ryoko's secretary, who is basically a minor character.

I also watched Moldiver, which is an anime that's most usually associated with the LD era. As such, it's kind of forgotten today. Heck, I have an issue of Animerica that did a feature on anime superheroes and they didn't even mention Moldiver (and this issue was in the early 2000s, so Moldiver was already forgotten even by then!) It's a lot of cotton candy fun, in that early 90s OVA kind of way. The characters are silly and the science is ridiculous. It's not quite a parody (it's no Project A-Ko), but it definitely doesn't take itself seriously, either. This show also featured an early Animaze dub, which is actually quite decent. David "Solid Snake" Hayter played Moldiver's nerdy genius older brother--so basically, he played Otacon before he became Snake!

[greg]

Wow, Moldiver! I'd rented the first video of that show and liked it a lot. It was an interesting take on the American superhero genre, but Japanese style. But I don't think my comic book store ever really stocked more than the first video, which was only about two episodes.

It is a shame that Area 88 never had a "proper" DVD release. I still own the three episodes on LD as a result and never bothered getting the DVD. Central Park Media had released the first episode on DVD back in the late '90s or so, but they never did any more than that.

[llj]

There are a lot of anime from the 90s that where the LD is still the better choice over later DVD versions, so you'll definitely want to hold on to that. I'm not exactly sure, but I believe the Japanese DVD release might have used the film version of Area 88 parts 1 and 2 as well. Another example: I believe the Japanese LD of Project A-Ko is also still the preferred version for many fans, as all subsequent released have been basically remasters of the LD (to wildly varying results), as the film masters have apparently been lost.

Anyway, I'm basically continuing with Slayers. I'm near the end of Slayers Next. I have to say, the Slayers series is wildly uneven. Sometimes it's entertaining, but it never ever reaches A+ levels of entertainment. It's funny but rarely ha-ha funny. It's dramatic at times, but rarely THAT dramatic. It's never had good animation, and the designs are functional at best. In fact, I think the only reason I keep coming back to it is the fact that Lina Inverse really is one of the best leads in anime history. She really carries the show, and I can really see why she brought in a lot of female fans back in the day. She's often the most clever character in the show and while sometimes the viewer is still a step ahead of her, she occasionally is a step ahead of the viewer as well, which is refreshing. She's tough and extremely powerful, but is not above turning tail and running either. She gets made fun of for her lack of a figure, but she is definitely not lacking in self confidence.

I'm also finally getting around to finishing Zeta Gundam as well, which, basically, has taken me about 25 years (I watched the first 5-6 episodes when I was 11 or 12). One thing that I notice while watching some of the older Gundams is just how good an artist Yoshikazu Yasuhiko was. His character designs rarely draw attention to themselves, and they're as unflashy as it gets, but they're really solid drawings. Careful attention is paid to fundamentally sound form and anatomy. His characters also don't have outlandish fashions, but have clothing that are generally tasteful and sensible for the situations they are in. Yet they're still simple enough to animate relatively consistently. I don't think his designs date that much--outside of hairstyles--since he draws in a classical style that isn't really representative of any style of trends of the day. He's like the Curt Swan of manga and anime. As a painter, he seems more to be influenced by sci-fi artists of the 50s, like Reynold Brown.

I'd also really like to see someone release Arion on DVD here in the West. Maybe Discotek.

[gaijinpunch]

Figured I'd watch Maison Ikkoku. I've seen the thing a dozen times. It's easier to relate to now that I know what life in Tokyo is like, although I don't spend much time in the suburbs. Funny stuff. It's not something that anyone in my life would really enjoy so I just throw it on as I'm winding down for the night.

[llj]

Well, somehow One Piece is the longest anime series I've ever watched without skipping an episode. I'm up to episode 134 or thereabouts, and I just finished the famed "Alabasta" arc, which lasted about 60 something episodes, although technically it was broken up into several smaller story arcs.

I don't watch much Shonen Jump anime, as I've mentioned here previously. I won't say OP is a masterpiece for the ages (although it is without a doubt one of the most important shows in anime history), nor will I argue that it's somehow more "mature" than most SJ anime, but it is still the most watchable SJ anime I've ever seen since it's equal parts adventuring and fighting. I would say I'm more a fan of adventuring than one-on-one fighting. The Alabasta arc was actually 80% adventure, 20% one-on-one fights, which is pretty remarkable since SJ manga and anime tend to emphasize tournament-style fighting above all else.

The Alabasta arc highlighted one of the great strengths and weaknesses of a long running cash cow anime. On one hand, it has the luxury of telling truly "big" stories--the Alabasta arc is dizzying in its complexity: it involves royal princesses, civil wars, crime syndicates, lost treasures, and dozens of people and outsider factions caught in between. The arc probably has well over 20 key players and all of them get a significant amount of screen time. But you're rarely ever lost since the show has the luxury of time to underline each and every detail and every single point of view that matters to the story. Compressing a story into a 13 or 24-26 episode series isn't a problem here since the green light is always on. That's one of the things I do miss about the 1980s--a TV show didn't have to be kids' cash cow to warrant a 40+ episode series, so big and epic stories could be fleshed out better.

Of course, there's the problem with SJ anime--they don't miss an opportunity to draw everything out to its absolutely limit because of various obligations to the producers and the mangaka (usually giving them time to catch up to the show). While this builds a considerable amount of tension, it can also create a feeling of exhaustion. Near the climax of the Alabasta arc, the main characters had to find something in about 9 minutes or something bad would happen. Well, as you can guess where I'm going with this, those 9 minutes took about 4 or 5 episodes to cover. While it certainly built up a significant degree of tension, when the whole story arc ended, I was both satisfied and exhausted. Emotionally, it was a rollercoaster ride. But in terms of pacing, there was a distinct feeling of overkill at times. I think the Alabasta arc could easily have been told in 40-45 episodes instead of 60 and not missed much, although perhaps some of its charm might have been lost.

I don't know how long I'm going to keep following this show. I started watching One Piece about 5 years ago, so I've been basically watching it on and off, with long breaks between story arcs. It's still very entertaining right now, but I do wonder when it will hit the wall for me. I'm only 1/5th of the way through the entire series to date, and already I can't see how much more ground can be covered before the stagnation kicks in.

I also picked up the Towanoquon blu-ray from Sentai Filmworks. While technically Sentai Filmworks is just ADV reborn, I like how they handle their properties, and I like that they tend to pick up anime that is showcased best on BD. They've picked up a number of anime that are simply gorgeous both visually and aurally. Their two "movie series" anime, Broken Blade and Towanoquon, really show off just how great anime can look and sound on blu-ray. I always get the feeling that Funimation doesn't really understand blu-ray that well, or know how to showcase anime in that format the best way they can be. Even their HD native anime tend to have certain problems that prevent them from presenting these shows the best way they can be presented.

[greg]

I won't say OP is a masterpiece for the ages (although it is without a doubt one of the most important shows in anime history),

Well, it may be important for the fact that pretty most kids in Japan seem to like this show for the past 10 years or so it's been on the air, but personally, I can't bring myself to watching a show with a main protagonist that looks like this:



Ugh. Then again, I'm not big on SJ stuff to begin with. I think that Nickelodeon's Avatar did a better job at being an SJ anime, even though it wasn't SJ, nor was it "anime" technically since it was animated by Americans. If you like it, that's cool, but I just don't see what is attractive about the show. I remember when it first came on the air, or shortly after that, they marathoned about 4 hours worth of episodes one night. I had a friend back in America who wanted me to copy as much anime stuff as possible onto a VHS tape, so I started recording it. I was doing other stuff while it was playing, so I wasn't paying 100% attention to it. But from what I was seeing of it, I thought, "Man, this show is pretty annoying." I recorded over it with something else.

Is there something I'm just not "getting" with One Piece? Is it hugely popular because it's so great, or because it appeals to the average? I guess first of all if the art style is distracting, then it's difficult for me to overcome that. Like Touch or Tsuyoshi Shikkari Nasai, if the art style bugs me, I can't bring myself to watching much of it. The same goes with video games, such as Final Fantasy 9.

[Jen526]

I had a phase where I absolutely adored One Piece. I'm a sucker for any "found family" dynamic and the whole "nakama" thing in OP is like a pure distillation of that. The bit at the end of Alabasta where Vivi is being left behind and the rest of the cast let her know that she'll always be part of their crew is one of those true classic moments in anime.

The problem I have with it is how the story at some point stopped being really ABOUT the strawhats and their quest. I look at the manga every now and then, still, and a good 50% of any chapter often doesn't even have any of the crew in it. The worldbuilding for the series has taken on a life of its own, and I know that "real" fans love how epic the scope of it all is... but for me, I fell in love with a few specific characters, not the whole Grand Line world, so I just can't enjoy it as much as I used to. I still love the characters, and if the story ever winds back around to being about THEM, I'm sure I'd be back in love... but from what I've seen, that's not going to happen any time soon.

[davemerrill]

One Piece certainly seems to be really really popular in Japan. I think there was an expectation that it would catch on with the American market, and it did to some extent, but it didn't become the fan favorite the way Evangelion or Naruto did.

I watched one episode on CN, and it involved the characters being on a floating Chinese restaurant, and I was like, okay, fine. I tuned in a couple weeks later and the cast was still on that floating Chinese restaurant. I guess it's paced a little more deliberately than I'm gonna sit still for.

The wacky character designs are a plus for me, to be honest. They've got this Toriyama Dr. Slump vibe, sometimes.

[llj]

Actually, I personally think One Piece is near the top of the heap when it comes to great "cartoony" cartooning. It draws not just from Akira Toriyama, but from Looney Tunes, especially from Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. In One Piece, jaws drop to the floor, eyes bug out, limbs stretch and distort and all manner of classic gag cartooning techniques are applied in nearly every episode. There aren't a lot of anime that blend Tex Avery and anime too well, and come to think of it, there aren't a lot of American animation these days that do the old Looney Tunes style well either. They're too afraid of going wild with the animation and art. It's considered too "unrealistic". Even the humour cartoons today rely mostly on dialogue rather than drawings. Everyone's either copying Bruce Timm or Gendy Tartakovsky in America these days. The rest are just badly drawn.

Of course, I understand that not everyone is going to like that anime-meets-Looney Tunes style. But design wise, One Piece does that style better than anyone these days. The character designs are distinctive, the monster designs have character, and even minor characters have great visual uniqueness. The animators aren't afraid to go wild with the drawings and Oda lets them go all out. They're not just wild drawings, either. They're fundamentally good drawings too. A lot of thought is put into shape, color and form. If you study One Piece from the perspective of classical cartooning, you'll find that it passes all the parameters for what constitute's "good" cartooning. Eiichiro Oda is also one of the few manga cartoonists from Japan who commands a certain level of grudging respect even from people who hate anime designs. I've talked to more than one animator in America who've admitted to being a little jealous that Toei animators get to work on that show, because there aren't a whole lot of animated productions today that let their animators draw like that.

When I talk to people about One Piece, I sort of tell people that it's sort of like what would happen if Tex Avery directed a Shonen Jump anime.

There are many things you could say One Piece does in a questionable manner (mainly the pacing) but it really is a textbook lesson in good visual cartooning. I'd even go as far as saying that it makes up 50% of the show's appeal.

Jen, I understand that One Piece currently has time skipped. The main cast has been redesigned to reflect a two year time skip, so it might be possible that some of the characters you don't recognize might be the old cast redesigned. I'm not sure if I'll personally ever get to those episodes considering that 568 episodes and counting is just too much for me to fathom. Of course, I won't rule out the fact that it may have simply jumped the shark as you implied. I'm at a point in the series right now where I don't see how much more ground can be really covered that wouldn't just be an echo of what's been done before, and I'm not even at episode 150 yet. Most series are lucky to get to 100 episodes without jumping the shark, let alone 500.

Greg, my biggest problem with Avatar is the same problem I have with a lot of action animation that airs in North America. It's too "soft." The action lacks tension and the fights lack brutality and weight. Yes, there are lots of special effects and people flying all over the place. They've got higher framerates than anime, sure. But because of obligations to TV producers and sponsors, they can't make their action too brutal if it's a show that's aimed at kids. The only show I've seen in recent years that "gets" how to do action for kids was Justice League. But even then you can see how they pulled back in many scenes because they're not allowed to be too brutal. The worst a person ever looks in Justice League after getting beaten up is a small nosebleed and some scuff marks around their body. Some networks even think a nosebleed is too brutal.

I don't want to come off as some violence fiend, but let's face it. Chances are, most kids will have seen a rated R action movie by age 6 at the latest. I'm not saying that kids' cartoons should have arms getting ripped off or anything THAT brutal, but when even a slap in the face gets censored, that's a problem. (If you watch any number of kids' cartoons, you'll notice in many cases that when a character slaps someone on the face, they'll cut away from the actual slap and you just hear a sound effect. I've even seen cases where they make the sound effect a dull "thud", negating its power.)

[gaijinpunch]

This past week, I have started on the original Gundam TV show that was fortunately released on DVD about a year ago. Having only watched the 3 codensed movies, it's interesting to see what I have been missing. The movies mostly just cut to the action, and the show has more charcter development and tension leading up to the action.

I heard the TV shows were... painfully boring. Are you watching them subtitled? Worth a shot? I've been in a 70's mode lately. Even busted out a pair of bell bottoms yesterday. The excuse was Halloween but I will wear them again.