What are you Watching?

[kndy]

My daughter has fallen in love with Urusei Yatsura. We have a "Saturday morning cartoons" tradition, and she wanted to watch UY. She doesn't know the name of the show, so she just points to my Lum poster and says, "I want to watch that show!" I also finished the 2nd disc in the first Gundam TV series collection. Those have shot way up in value now that Bandai Entertainment USA is gone.

I showed my son UY as well a few weeks ago...but at the same time, forgot about the perverted situations of the series....fortunately my wife didn't walk in...she would have killed me.

[kndy]

Just finished watching the first 13 episodes of "Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne" on Blu-ray

[Mike Toole]

I'm guessing these Gaiking films are episodes condensed to films? Because the pacing is really off to be regular films. Lol..

Yep. The whole project (which encompasses compilation movies of a variety of Toei shows) was a dumb vanity project of some company exec or another. They did Gaiking compilations, Starzinger, Fist of the North Star, Harlock... quite a number. They're weird and dumb, but agreeably cheap, so I'll keep getting 'em.

Glad you dug BIRDY, llj. I like both OVA and TV show-- I like the setting, and Birdy's a great character-- smart and tough, and skirts most of the anime heroine stereotypes.

I just watched the Maiden Japan release of the PATLABOR OVAs on blu-ray. Gorgeous stuff. Glad we've got it, and for so cheap too! On streaming, AKU NO HANA / FLOWERS OF EVIL is the show of the season, bar none-- a vivid-yet-ugly rotoscoped depiction of high school alienation. Really cool stuff. VALVRAVE is a lot of fun too, but you feel like it's going to fall apart at any moment. Which is part of the fun, I guess.

[greg]

We finished the 17th DVD of Yatterman last night. In the final episode, The Yatterman team uses ALL of their robots in one big finale. I was barely watching it until I realized what was going on. We'll probably watch it again tonight.

My daughter ties scarvesa around her neck and calls herself Yatterman. Now that the show is over, perhaps I could move onto the New Yatterman DVDs? I have a Time Bokan DVD from CPM that features the characters and also has a bonus Yatterman episode. She's watched that several times when we weren't currently borrowing one of the DVDs from Tsutaya. Maybe next we can move onto Urusei Yatsura rentals.

[usamimi]

One of these days I need to watch the Birdy TV series...I loved the old OAV back in the day (I wish it wasn't so hard to find now. :/ )

I'm loving Aku no Hana. I know it won't be able to get as far as the manga is right now, but it makes a nice supplement to it cuz even though it follows the story, it kinda does it's own thing, too and I like that.

Greg, your daughter is so cute! XD I'm glad she liked Yatterman, I'm having fun watching it on Anime Sols lately.

[llj]

Watching Claymore. Well, this certainly isn't the prettiest looking show around, and yet, I feel like it's a show ripe for a gender studies class due to its not-so-subtle metaphors relating to gender biology and sex. Despite its seemingly European medieval fantasy setting, it draws much of its spirit from old yakuza films and Shaw Brothers (!) martial arts films. There's some neat possible references to The Five Deadly Venoms, the One Armed Swordsman, and the whole "numerical gangster rankings" thing from Branded to Kill. Much of these elements have seeped into Japanese popular culture organically, but I can't help but shake the feeling Claymore is more of a martial arts anime than a medieval fantasy, what with its whole thing with the various Claymore warriors having their own fighting styles and the "control the inner monster" theme. It's even got the whole revenge theme going.

Unfortunately, you also have to deal with the "annoying sidekick" syndrome of these types of stories. Damn, Raki is annoying.

[greg]

Claymore is more of a martial arts anime than a medieval fantasy,

So if I'm looking for a fantasy anime, this show will be disappointing? Chicks with swords are always cool, and I've only known about this anime/manga from pictures of figures of the protagonist in the hobby magazines. It piqued my interest, but I wasn't sure if it was any good or not.

[kndy]

Claymore is more of a martial arts anime than a medieval fantasy,

So if I'm looking for a fantasy anime, this show will be disappointing? Chicks with swords are always cool, and I've only known about this anime/manga from pictures of figures of the protagonist in the hobby magazines. It piqued my interest, but I wasn't sure if it was any good or not.

I actually enjoyed "Claymore"!

With “Claymore”, what’s interesting is how this dark fantasy manages to capture your attention through the action but also character development and its character designs. The Claymore women (and there are many of them) have each been given a sort of personality that makes them unique in their own way.

For the most part, their character designs and their supernatural abilities are very cool and exciting to watch but the fact that these women can easily turn on each other and their certain attitude is quite refreshing to see in an animated series. The fact that “Claymore” is much darker, takes place in a fantasy type of world and the fact that the main protagonists can easily be the antagonist is quite refreshing to see in an anime series.

[greg]

That sounds cool. I was immediately drawn to Fate/Stay Night because of Saber because, hey, chicks with swords are badass. Plus, her armored dress was fantastic. When I found out it wasn't a medieval fantasy, but instead a gory version of Pokemon, I was a bit disappointed. However, I ended up liking it anyway. I saw the blonde-haired chick from Claymore and thought the character design also looked cool. If it's set in some dark fantasy world, I'll have to check it out.

Last night, we finished disc 3 in the first volume of the Gundam TV series. I am so glad I bought these just before Bandai Ent. went belly-up and the prices surged!

[llj]

If you like fantasy, Greg, you should still like it. But there's not a whole lot of world building here, most of the real mythology is structured around the Claymore system, which resembles old Yakuza films and kung fu philosophy.

It's very gory and bloody, so it should satisfy the violence fan.

I have some qualms about the ending, though. Without giving too much away, I generally dislike revenge stories where the protagonist ultimately decides not to get revenge after all. It's all too common in anime for them to go on a "No! Don't kill! You'll be no better than him/her if you do" bullcrap sermon. Look, revenge isn't always satisfying, but the audience isn't sticking with you just so you change your mind at the last minute. If you have regrets about revenge, you can regret it AFTER you've killed the ultimate baddie. GEEZ! You hack through 2000 monsters to get to the last guy, and you're suddenly getting a conscience at your 2001th kill? COME ON. If I ever played an RPG where my party decides to not kill the last boss because they're tired of killing people after 788 battles, I would throw my controller at the screen. You gotta love anime philosophy.

Oh, and her sidekick Raki is still as annoying in episode 26 as he is in 1. Good thing he's missing for huge chunks of the show, though.