The Old School Otaku Lounge

I was lucky enough to be in college when most of Streamline's releases came out, and the theater at GSU would generally get just about everything they released, so I got to see them for free; titles that I might not have paid real ticket prices for, in some cases. Occasionally UGA's student center would show something like AKIRA or TWILIGHT OF THE COCKROACHES and we'd road trip to Athens to catch it. The art-house theaters in Atlanta would also get their share of prestige anime titles - WINGS OF HONNEAMISE, PRINCESS MONONOKE, etc. The Atlanta College Of Art could be counted upon to screen something cool every so often as well.

I know AKIRA had its Atlanta premiere in the old Phipps Plaza theater, which was a giant first-run house; we saw EMPIRE STRIKES BACK there when it opened. By the time anime became a thing, the Midnight Movies in Atlanta were more or less gone, which is a shame; that's a perfect venue for a niche-market thing like Japanese animation.

If you are anywhere near Toronto and they show something good at the Tiff Bell Lightbox, I totally recommend it. It's a terrific theater. We saw NAUSICAA there during the Miyazaki festival and it was a gorgeous 35mm print. Theater was packed, too.

Yeah, I usually go to the TIFF Bell Lightbox to see films that aren't on DVD yet, like older foreign films or stuff that's gone way out of print on home format. It's a great place for cineastes.

I caught Only Yesterday at the Lightbox last year, but they used one of the smaller theatres on the 3rd floor, I believe, probably anticipating a smaller audience for this film. It was still pretty packed. I heard the Ghibli retrospective did very well in Toronto overall.

You're in Toronto too? Did you catch WOLF CHILDREN at the Reel Asian festival? THAT was a packed house.

We should get together sometime for a beer or coffee or something. I don't know that many anime fans in the city.

davemerrill wrote:You're in Toronto too? Did you catch WOLF CHILDREN at the Reel Asian festival? THAT was a packed house.

We should get together sometime for a beer or coffee or something. I don't know that many anime fans in the city.

My parents live just outside of Toronto, so sometimes when I visit them I go downtown.

Let me know next time you're in town, we live right downtown, we'll get a drink and swap old-school stories.

Cool. When things calm down a bit for me, I'll give you a forum-call.

Started watching Tamako Market, I'm enjoying it more than some of the other KyoAni series, mainly because it's not a bunch of girls being moeblobs together. Which is probably why people don't like the bird...

I also started Soul Eater. The animation is kinda meh, but I like it so far, kinda reminds me of some late 90's anime.

On my to-watch list:
Wings of Honneamise
Record of Lodoss War

ryoran wrote: On my to-watch list:
Wings of Honneamise
Record of Lodoss War

Wow, you cannot go wrong with these! I wonder if Honneamise may have been somewhat better received abroad than it did in Japan. Apparently this Gainax film flopped in Japan, which is unfortunate because the animation is spectacular. Not only that, but the worldbuilding and storytelling in the movie is also fascinating. Imagine if the race to space had taken place when the technology level was around World War II's era instead of the Cold War, but on a different planet. I wonder if they had rotoscoped some WWII and NASA footage for the movie, because the detail and accuracy is incredible. Many people are reminded of Miyazaki's work while watching Honneamise too, because it involves flight technology in a parallel world.

For Record of Lodoss War, are you talking about the original OVA? For some reason, the first episode is actually the 4th episode in the sequence or something. I think the studio wanted to cut straight to the action and dragon fighting for the first episode to draw in viewers immediately instead of following the normal path.

There is the Record of Lodoss War: Heroic Knight or whatever it's called that was a TV series. I have yet to watch this, but I understand that it follows the original story closer. The true story starts out with Parn, but continues some 17 years later with Spark. The original OVA is accurate for the first half, but they decided to finish the tale without exploring the "next generation" of characters and their quest. So the OVA is great in its own right, but the second batch of characters arealso very compelling too (the dwarf cleric in the second story is a total badass, for example).

I heard that Honneamise did make its money back in Japan, but it took about 8 years. That's not considered a "success" in the eyes of the sponsors, but it does show that it did in fact succeed on video/LD.

greg wrote:

ryoran wrote: On my to-watch list:
Wings of Honneamise
Record of Lodoss War

Wow, you cannot go wrong with these! I wonder if Honneamise may have been somewhat better received abroad than it did in Japan. Apparently this Gainax film flopped in Japan, which is unfortunate because the animation is spectacular. Not only that, but the worldbuilding and storytelling in the movie is also fascinating. Imagine if the race to space had taken place when the technology level was around World War II's era instead of the Cold War, but on a different planet. I wonder if they had rotoscoped some WWII and NASA footage for the movie, because the detail and accuracy is incredible. Many people are reminded of Miyazaki's work while watching Honneamise too, because it involves flight technology in a parallel world.

For Record of Lodoss War, are you talking about the original OVA? For some reason, the first episode is actually the 4th episode in the sequence or something. I think the studio wanted to cut straight to the action and dragon fighting for the first episode to draw in viewers immediately instead of following the normal path.

There is the Record of Lodoss War: Heroic Knight or whatever it's called that was a TV series. I have yet to watch this, but I understand that it follows the original story closer. The true story starts out with Parn, but continues some 17 years later with Spark. The original OVA is accurate for the first half, but they decided to finish the tale without exploring the "next generation" of characters and their quest. So the OVA is great in its own right, but the second batch of characters arealso very compelling too (the dwarf cleric in the second story is a total badass, for example).

The original 6-VHS OVA. I was curious about Heroic Knight, and it looks like I'll need to pick it up in the near future as well.