What are you Watching?

[Heero]

During that era of anime fandom, though, Lodoss was pretty much the only fantasy anime really worth watching, with our limited anime access.

There was also "Bastard!" which was DEFINITELY worth watching
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... php?id=519

Being a big Alien fan, also been watching a few of the Alien-rip-offs to be found in 80s anime, like Roots Search and L.I.L.Y. Cat; I didn't think L.I.L.Y. Cat was that bad, as far as rip-offs go.

If you like Alien for the suspense, then you may enjoy "They Were Eleven", from back in the day.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... php?id=760

[Drew_Sutton]

Now that the convention season has cooled down for me for a bit, I am planning on getting back on the horse again. I need to pick up Kill La Kill again, both Gundams Unicorn and Build Fighters, thinking about diving into Attack On Titan but also trying to get back into some older shows, too. I got *edit* Laughing Target *edit* on LD months ago, so I need to break down and get that watched. I've also had a strange desire to pick up Akazukin Chacha and Marmalade Boy again, fill in the blank spots of Yawara! and start Violinist of Hameln and Boys Over Flowers.

Patlabor came out before East and West Germany were united, so that comes into play in the alternate timeline reality of Patlabor. It's strange how kids today have no concept of a divided Germany with the iron curtain of communism. They really just don't know history.

I remember renting something Patlabor ages ago and not being that into it; kinda surprised me if that was expounded upon, it never caught my interest. Either that or it was prior to my intense interest in that period/those countries. I seem to recall some friends of mine trying to sell me on Monster when it was being fansubbed because it involved the GDR/East Germany (or East Berlin) but never could get into the fansubs they were on.

Completely on a side-note and tangent: while it matters less and less to American kids, imagine that with unification being 24 years ago, there have been several classes of kids left their equivalents of high school now that have only known a united Germany. Kids that are now old enough to look at inequalities between western and eastern Germany and seeing the division as an excuse. It's not really that those darn kids don't know history - it's that those darn kids experience only a minimum impact from those things. Germany, particularly, has changed a lot since "die Wende" of the late 1980s and unification in 1990. Other countries, like Romania and Yugoslavia, changed in very different ways. The whole of Europe has changed. And that's just Europe - let's also consider briefly the end of 99 year leases in Hong Kong and Macao and the fact that for my entire life, there's only been one Vietnam. Enough in this thread - probably best to take this section to Off Topic if we wish to continue the discussion.

*Edit* I originally said I bought Fire Tripper but it was Laughing Target.

[usamimi]

oh man, I LOVE Akazukin Chacha (it is HYSTERICAL in some parts), so I hope you like it whenever you get around to watching it!

[Drew_Sutton]

oh man, I LOVE Akazukin Chacha (it is HYSTERICAL in some parts), so I hope you like it whenever you get around to watching it!

Yeah, I'm not big on magical girl anime but every now and again I run across something that just hits a stride in me. Akazukin Chacha does that, as I remember when I first started watching it: it has the premise of these kids being in school for magical powers but decides not to take much of it too seriously. Like, the kid who is supposed to turn into a werewolf ends up looking more like a puppy. I actually think a lot of the magical girl stuff is rather dull but I'm anxious to get back into it.

Last night I decided to pop in a couple old LDs: my aforementioned Laughing Target and One Pound Gospel. Laughing Target was weird. Concise enough that I don't think there was too much missing from the manga but just one of those supernatural ones where Takahashi loses her way. I think, being something from the late 80s or early 90s, she was just trying to do something that was so different than her really big stuff and it wound up really similar to Mermaid's Scsar & Forest (also of which I'm not a super huge fan). Of the threee Rumic World OAVs, this is the second I've seen. I thought Maris The Supergirl was pretty good if only suffering the weaknesses of a one-shot OAV. I still need to see Fire Tripper; it comes up on old LD auctions frequently, I just need to break down and buy it. One Pound Gospel was very good, knowing that it was one of those OAVs to sell more manga (the manga was barely half done when it came out). Characters are relatable but also typical Takahashi types. No where near the level of Maison Ikkoku romcom but still better than a lot of stuff out there.

[greg]

Oh wow. My daughter and I are watching the very final few episodes of the New Yatterman. This is pure "super mecha" through and through! The action is considerably different than the typical shows in the series, and is heavily action-oriented. So unlike the original Yatterman series, Yatterwan doesn't die, and he remains the main mecha until the end. In this, he is upgraded considerably, and sort of resembles Gao Gaigar (at least to me). The Doronbo gang builds a mecha out of a giant "1:144 scale" model kit. They get the nippers out, use glue (the Tamiya logo is replaced with red and blue skulls instead of stars), and the robot resembles the Zeong from the end of MS Gundam, but with three rotatable faces of the Dorombo gang. We're now on the very final episode. This is pretty cool. Thanks to Animax and DVR capabilities, we've been able to slowly get through this series.

One thing I've noticed about this new version is that it's grounded in the "real world." The original show was more of a fantasy spoof of our world, and involved quite a lot more time travel.

[greg]

This is the first weekend in which I've been able to nerd-out for a long while, it seems. I just finished watching the first hour-long episode of the ill-fated Yamato 2520. It is pretty cool! There were only three episodes ever made. I've seen them on VHS for sale on YAJ, but I've been holding out to find LDs of this show. These three episodes have been fansubbed (I assume the other two episodes are an hour long each too) and I watched it on a site that I probably may not be able to link to on here, I guess. But anyhow, it is pretty cool. Very polished, hand-animated SF action. I'm told that the third episode really gets awesome, but of course it'll leave the viewer feeling empty, knowing that there'll never be any further episodes of the show.

[danth]

During that era of anime fandom, though, Lodoss was pretty much the only fantasy anime really worth watching, with our limited anime access.

There was also "Bastard!" which was DEFINITELY worth watching

Yep, Bastard!! is awesome and I like it much more than Lodoss Wars.

[Drew_Sutton]

So, folding some laundry yesterday, I put some anime up on the TV to pass the time while I was folding, I got back into Akazukin Chacha with the first couple of episodes. I still think the magical girl sequences are pretty lame but the rest of the show is gold. Greg, I don't know if you've mentioned how old your daughter is but this is probably something right up her alley if she's old enough (if not, can't be that far off). I'd also be interested in anyone on the forum who considers themselves a fan of the magical girl genre and what their opinion of the show is. I don't consider myself a fan of the genre and I am enjoying it a bit. Let's see if I can keep it up for 90+ episodes.

I tried tossing some L-Gaim up on the TV, too but the TV is finicky with MKV files and subtitle tracks - doesn't like msubs' version 2 files but likes the old [Shin-Getter] versions. And not wanting to process something like L-Gaim, I opted to switch to Hiatari Ryouko, which another group has started subbing again recently*. I'm a huge Adachi Mitsuru fan (Sure I've mentioned that here somewhere before) and I find sports & youth romantic comedies like his easier to digest dialogue-wise. I am liking this much better this time around than when I first tried it.

*You milage may vary on the definition of recently. Here I mean within the last 5 years or so.

[greg]

Ha! Yeah, I believe I have the fansubs for Akazukin Chacha! My girl is 6 now, so she should eat it up. I remember seeing a couple of fansubbed episodes of the show nearly 20 years ago and all I can remember is how hilarious it was. I should send a bunch of episodes over to my Xbox and watch them with her.

We kinda lost track of GS Mikami, but at least last night we watched an episode of Lupin. This past weekend was my first weekend to truly goof off, so I spent a lot of time working on building plastic models and doing some stuff for my YT channel.

I have L-Gaim fansubs too, but I haven't checked to see how much of it I have. I've actually been in the mood to watch some Macross F, but I still want to force myself to get through Nadesico first.

My Xbox is a sort of nice multimedia unit in which to view fansubs and such, but I've been thinking of the possibility of throwing together a compact computer with HDMI output, and make it a Linux box directly hooked up to my TV with which to watch fansubs.

Payday is coming up, and so is my planned trip to Tokyo. I wanna look for some stores in Akihabara or elsewhere that still sell laserdiscs. I want to look for some Dougram LDs and maybe the 2nd box set of Dancougar. I bought the first set last summer.

[Animusubi]

I've been watching Urusei Yatsura and Sailor Moon (90's). Nothing I have to really pay attention to. I just like having it on.

Though I really want to watch more Patlabor. But I don't have any more to watch without spending money.