llj wrote:Even the Haruhi movie fetches a high price? That was one of Bandai's last releases so copies should still be floating around.
Personally, I think the Haruhi TV series was largely inconsistent. The second season was actually pretty awful in some spots. But somehow, the movie turned out to be the best thing to come out of the franchise. It looks great, it's ambitious, and it just "feels" like a real film, rather than an extended TV episode (not to mention it's nearly 3 hours in length, actually just one minute shy of Final Yamato for the longest anime film ever made...). Unfortunately, it does require some knowledge of the TV series' events to fully grok everything in it, but I think it still sort of stands on its own because it establishes a main character, a personal crisis, and an emotional and physical journey for the main character, which is all a good movie needs.
An additional thought I just had about the Haruhi movie: a good comparison might be the GoShogun Time Stranger movie. I know it's weird, but hear me out: both films strip the story down to focus on the emotional crisis of a single character. While the rest of the cast is obviously still important, it only focuses on their importance insofar as the type of relationship they have with the lead character. They are movies that sort of defy fans' expectations by NOT giving every character equal screen time. Some of the cast members get very little screen time, and Haruhi herself is actually missing for a large chunk of the film.
That reminds me: someone needs to license rescue the GoShogun movie. The old DVDs were only available in full screen, and I'd like to own an anamorphic widescreen version of it.
I think the thing that annoys me about the DVD release of Haruhi TV the most is that they put the eps on the disc in chronological order instead of the order in which their originally aired. I thought that the series was MUCH more interesting when I first watched it fansubbed, because it was out of order and you really had to pay attention at some parts. (Sort of like Memento, lol.) When you watch it entirely in order on the DVDs, it loses part of that intrigue factor, imo. I was disappointed when Bandai decided to release it that way. :/
The second season I never bought on DVD because I wasn't really a fan of Endless Eight. I liked when it finally ENDED, and some of the pieces of it fit together, but watching 8 straight episodes of almost the same thing was a nightmare to me. x__x I can't remember were I read it (I think it might've been in Peter Payne's blog?), but supposedly Japanese fans love that kind of stuff--seeing where they can spot differences, looking at the same thing from different angles, etc etc. I just found it kinda frustrating.
I would LOVE it if, say, Discotek or Sentai/Maiden Japan/Whatever would rescue GoShogun, too. I'd love to see it in widescreen (almost as much as I'd love to see UY's Beautiful Dreamer in widescreen, sigh.)
Attack on Titan has been pretty fun to watch, though I've had a lot of people tell me that the manga goes into character development a lot more...eventually I want to pick up those books. (As for the title, that's the "official" English title the Japanese studio or creator gave it, I believe...the original title is "Shingeki no Kyojin", which means "Advancing Giants".)
I got a free 30-day Crunchyroll pass so I've been checking out a bunch of stuff lately:
"My Little Monster": I gave this a shot because 1. it's short (13 eps) and 2. a friend recommended it. Not bad, it sort of reminded me of Kare Kano, but with a lot more slapstick and silliness. Dunno if I'd watch it again, but it was amusing at least. Since it was open-ended, it kind of makes me want to check out the manga.
"Kaiji": I heard people raving about this one when it magically appeared on Crunchyroll. I knew absolutely nothing about it, so I went in with no real expectations other than "Well, Twitter seems to love it, so let's see why". I'm only a handful of episodes in, but it's interesting--basically about a normal-ish young guy who has an enormous debt who agrees to go on a mysterious yakuza-run gambling cruise where if he wins, he'll leave debt-free...but if he loses, he'll have to spend a year doing hard labor somewhere. The game everyone has to play on the gambling cruise is kept a secret until he gets there, and it turns out to be...a card based version of rock, paper, scissors. XD It sounds kinda crazy, but there's actually a lot of twists and turns and strategy going on, which took me by surprise. It's almost like watching a more serious, adult version of Yu-Gi-Oh without all the mystical BS.
"Free!": Ok...so...I had to check this out because to me, it looked like "K-on" except replace a music club with a swimming club, and make the cast all ripped pretty-boys instead of cutesy girls. And so far, I don't seem to be that off track. XD I'm really not used to so much female-friendly fanservice in a TV series (I guess because it's usually the other way around!), so sometimes it catches me off guard--even when I know I should be expecting it! But ignoring the ripped-swimmers-bodies fanservice, it has a lot in common with the tone and feel of K-on, imo. It's just a fun series, not taking itself seriously. I can dig it.
"WataMote" (aka No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys' Fault I’m Not Popular!): This series is basically the Anti-Oreimo. A painfully realistic (though amusing and silly) look at the life of a young otaku school girl. Where Oreimo makes the young sister otaku school girl to be cute, fashionable, and fully aware of social norms; this series does the complete opposite. Tomoko does all the same things that Kirino does (plays love-sim games, reads manga, watches anime, etc) but she's socially awkward, has no friends, and her older brother definitely doesn't seem to find her sexually attractive. I was hesitant to try this one at first because at first glance I worried it WAS going to be like Oreimo...but so far it's definitely NOT. Watching Watamote is almost uncomfortable at times for me because at times, Tomoko reminds me of how I used to act when I was really young. (Thinking I was better off not having many friends because I was a "nerd", and therefore I was "better" because I "wasn't like other girls"....y'know, that crazy line of thought kids get in their heads somehow to justify why they don't have many friends when they're adjusting to middle school, lol.) But it balances it out with just enough humor to make it more of a "oh geez, I remember when I was that stupid" sort of show. They love to make jokes and references to older anime, manga, and video games, too--so I'm almost positive this series is aimed at people closer to, say, our age and not the kids who think that Oreimo is the be-all, end-all of anime, lol.
