The Old School Otaku Lounge

Man, I really look forward to getting a real apartment to call my home, and to unpack all of my belongings, which are currently somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now.

This weekend we stayed at the in-laws' place again, and my wife found those Peanuts DVDs I bought at Tower Records in Shinjuku last year for a great discount. I think they were only 500 or 1,000 yen each or something, plus they're in English. Charles Schultz was a very clever writer, and those shows are so very deep, philosophical, and are a critique on society. I am always amazed at how intelligent the Peanuts show was back in the '60s and '70s. They just don't seem to have truly intelligent and witty cartoons on TV anymore.

Interestingly, in Japan, Snoopy has no high regard among school boys. To them, Snoopy is just another cute character that girls like, such as Hello Kitty. Snoopy doesn't have the unisex appeal in Japan as he did while I was growing up.

Anyhow, yeah, this isn't about anime, but the Peanuts TV series sure had some fantastic writing.

Watched Grave of the Fireflies last week.

I was in a more or less public area watching on my laptop, which was probably a bad idea, because it was taking all my effort to keep my tears back while I was in front of everybody... It's such a sad story. A top-notch anime.

Bakuman is good, but I switched to the manga after the first season.

Chihayafuru is soapy (in that "Marmalade Boy" kinda way) but really good!

I was initially going to avoid the new AKB48 inspired anime, but I am a fan of AKB48 and I know people working on that anime, so I'll probably at least give it a look.

I WANT to see "From Up on Poppy Hill" even though I've heard conflicting opinions.

I'm also considering going back and watching pieces of Ranma 1/2 & Urusei Yatsura.

I review a lot of it....but as of today, I finished "Dream Eater Merry" and now about to watch "Infinite Stratos".

Found the Robotech - Macross Saga on DVD at Wal Mart for 10 bucks so I'm watching that. I really like the old dub. I can't help myself.

Also watched Redline recently. I'm not sure how this one stayed under my radar for so long. Its a lot of fun. Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t26m_Q6ENo

As of this week, "Blue Exorcist" DVD vol. 4, "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" Blu-ray Vol. 3, "Fate/Stay Night" DVD and this one...just receive our press kit...

We watched Nausicaa again on Sunday night. Since my 4 year old daughter loves insects so much, she actually gets into Nausicaa but is so far bored with Kiki's Delivery Service.

The first time she saw the movie, it was last year and she'd only seen the last part of it. Then later we saw that she had reenacted the final scene in which the Ohmu are surrounding Nausicaa's dead body with her own plastic insect toys, and she'd even remembered the "la la la" song, too.

Holy crap, do you guys remember the terrible Warriors of the Wind version from the '80s? I remember thinking it was so cool upon first discovering it in the early '90s, despite Nausicaa's "Rocky and Bullwinkle" voice (although Asbel's voice was Cam Clarke/Jimmy Flinders from Robotech). Then when I saw the true version of the movie, I'd seen how terribly butchered it was. Heck, even the VHS cover was atrocious, complete with a nonexistent male lead character and a non-sequitir pegasus.



Man, that was a travesty.

Right now, GUNDAM: 08th MS Team.
It's not just the best Gundam story ever, it's a fine war story, period.

xsquid wrote:Right now, GUNDAM: 08th MS Team.
It's not just the best Gundam story ever, it's a fine war story, period.

Gosh, it's been a long time since I've seen that one! I think that 0083 had the potential to be the best Gundam story ever, but with all the way too conveniently tied up plot ends at the finale, it was just a bit too incredible to fully take seriously. 0080 is a better series, IMHO, and shows how a little boy goes from playing war with his friends to being traumatized from the brutal reality of war.

08th MS Team was a great series. It seemed to change direction about 1/3rd or 1/2 of the way in, and the "let's fight a war without killing anyone" bordered on the silly side, but in the end, it was a pretty cool show.

Before our daughter was born, my wife and I used to watch a lot of anime together. Now that we have the little monster in our lives, my wife limits herself to only whatever our kid watches, which is mostly Anpanman, Doraemon, Peanuts, Bugs Bunny, and other stuff, with the occasional Miyazaki movie. I, however, try to squeeze in some viewing on my own. Since we have no TV (just a portable R2 DVD player for our girl that won't play my stuff), I've been watching Wolverine and the X-Men slowly. This show was so spectacular, but unfortunately it only ran for one season. I used to watch it often on Nicktoons. A second season was planned out, but I have a hunch that Marvel let this license die so that they could only be releasing Marvel animated series on Disney XD, since Disney bought them out a few years back. Since this incredible show was on a Nickelodeon station, I believe they let it die for the sake of licensing. This is very unfortunate, since Wolverine and the X-Men is such a great show. The final episode of the season ends in a cliffhanger, too, IIRC. Grr!