What are you Watching?

[Animusubi]

I re-watched Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer with X-Kid Z (since he hadn't seen it, or UY). I wanted to read it because there was a Mamoru Oshii interview online that I wanted to read about his experience working on Beautiful Dreamer, that was copied down from the OOP DVD.

Toradora! *sigh* Another much hyped rom-com anime from the past few years that's seriously disappointing me. None of the characters here seem to behave with any semblance of a real human being. Especially the female characters. That would be forgivable if they were actually funny, but they're not. I'd rather be watching School Rumble. At least even the stereotypical characters there are actually funny. I'll stick with Toradora for a few more episodes but I won't waste my time waiting if the show "doesn't get good until episode 13" (which is a popular claim for anime fans defending a slow starting show.) If a show doesn't get "good" until about halfway through a show, is it actually a good show overall? COME ON PEOPLE!

Having seen the whole thing, while having swine flu at the last half (which was a trip!), I can tell you it's really only good towards the end. It was a grind finishing it, but overall I would give the series a 5/10. So not really worth continuing if you aren't enjoying it currently. I'm a big fan of rom-coms, well...at least I used to be. I think I liked Chuunibyou a lot more, but Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun is my favorite atm, of current rom-coms (though not sure I'd necessarily call it a rom-com, but it has a lot of those elements).

[usamimi]

For me ToraDora was one of those shows that I enjoyed alright while watching it, but not enough to make me want to buy it. It had it's moments, and I really liked Minori, but I don't think it's the be-all end all of romantic comedies for sure. (It was way better than a lot of the shows in that category coming out lately, though, but that's not really hard to do, lol.)

[llj]

re: Toradora

I actually quite enjoy rom-coms, whether it be anime or Hollywood. I guess it's a part of me that desires to counterbalance all the violent, macho, nihilistic stuff I also tend to consume in certain significant quantities. But usually the first thing that tips me off as to whether a rom-com is worth watching or not is how sincere or authentic the emotions are. Sure, they can be cartoonish or exaggerated, but if a rom-com's emotional core is based on something that rings true, I'm all in. Maison Ikkoku, His and Her Circumstances, even the first half of Kimi ni Todoke were, fundamentally, structured around emotions that rang true, even if the situations were unrealistic at times. I just haven't bought into anything Toradora has been trying to sell me as a viewer. I don't believe in these characters as people and I don't believe in any of the possible pairings (especially the main one). At the same time, the comedy isn't working for me either, and strikes me as oddly conservative on that front as well, despite the show generally taking a light, insouciant tone. The animators seem to take great pains to keep the drawings and characters "straight"...there's very little expressiveness or wackiness to the animation, despite the intentional wackiness of many of the characters. Just very odd, but also strangely bland at the same time.

Usamimi, I am actually interested in watching My Love Story!! It looks pretty cool.

[usamimi]

*nods* that's understandable! I mean, I had fun watching it but to be fair I was also busy working on other things for my Etsy shop while doing so, so I was only half-paying attention. To me it was just a fun thing to have on while working, and like I said, I didn't like it enough to warrant wanting to buy it. I thought it was kinda cute, but hey--different strokes, right?

I TOTALLY recommend My Love Story!! to anyone, it's so fun and just really sweet. I do warn people that it starts a little slow, but so far the anime's been adapting the manga pretty faithfully, which is great.

[greg]

Hey, llj! I just watched Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko on YT and it is excellent! This is fantasy anime for the sake of being fantastic. Lots of imagination. No rhyme or reason is necessary when dealing with a pure fantasy. Lots of familiar voices in this, too. The main character, Yohko, is voiced by Hiromi Tsuru (Madoka from KOR), her dog sidekick is Kei Tomiyama (Susumu Kodai from Yamato), and the blue-skinned, mascara-wearing enemy is Shuuichi Ikeda (Char from Gundam).

I haven't watched an anime by myself in many months, and I am glad I chose this one. I really like the "seemingly-average-Joe gets sucked into a parallel world because he/she somehow possesses some magic energy. Shows like Aura Battler Dunbine, Vision of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yuugi, and of course this Leda OVA.

[usamimi]

Hey, llj! I just watched Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko on YT and it is excellent! This is fantasy anime for the sake of being fantastic. Lots of imagination. No rhyme or reason is necessary when dealing with a pure fantasy. Lots of familiar voices in this, too. The main character, Yohko, is voiced by Hiromi Tsuru (Madoka from KOR), her dog sidekick is Kei Tomiyama (Susumu Kodai from Yamato), and the blue-skinned, mascara-wearing enemy is Shuuichi Ikeda (Char from Gundam).

I haven't watched an anime by myself in many months, and I am glad I chose this one. I really like the "seemingly-average-Joe gets sucked into a parallel world because he/she somehow possesses some magic energy. Shows like Aura Battler Dunbine, Vision of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yuugi, and of course this Leda OVA.

That's a fun one! I have that on VHS...I kinda hope someone like Discotek or Rightstuf considers trying to remaster it and put it out on DVD. The story was nothing incredible, but the animation was lovely and it's just fun to watch.

[SteveH]

So, Fist of the North Star.

I was overjoyed when I heard Discotek picked up the license. It was one of my "no way anyone releases this in today's market" titles. And I procrastinated like mad. I worked overtime in my procrastination! I just couldn't pull the trigger at 4 $50 boxes. I always figured I'd do what the 'cool kids' do, wait for a sale somewhere.

Jokes on me, Discotek's stuff rarely goes on sale. Living in the niche, boutique market world we now live in, there's just no 'push' to lower the prices. Then they came out with their complete series brick, and it was cheaper but man, still well over 100 bones.

THEN I discovered, quite by surprise, the second box set was out of print! Out of nowhere, *poof*, gone.

It shouldn't be a surprise, really. The majority of that set covers Rei's story, and I think it's safe to say that for most people, if they got hooked on Fist of the North Star it was during that second 'book', and the interaction of Rei, Ken and Mamiya. Not only was the melodrama cranked not to 10, not to 11, but up to TWELVE, but it was really fun. I mean, you have to ride with the premise and all, and of course it probably seems a little sick to call a show where THOUSANDS of people die in horrible, horrible ways, but man the machine, the storytelling was just locked in and perfected. The show can actually be comfort food in a way.

I figured it was time to pull the trigger. I scraped some money together and bought me the complete series brick. Ahhh, feels so good. AAAATATATATATA OWAH...TAAAA!!!

But friends, I completely HATE this giant brick box. It's terrible. It's probably the best they could do given they had to find a way to hold 21 discs. It's one of those with multiple trays and each tray holds several DVDs stacked on each hub. It's serious work to pull a disc out to watch. I'm trying to think of a better option but then I have to make up covers and all that nonsense. Bleah.

Quality is decent. Subtitles are generally OK but as always could have used another translation pass just to make sure. It's worth buying if you like the show.

[usamimi]

Oh man, is it like those giant horrible boxes Bandai used to release for their complete box sets? I hate those, too. I'd rather have a slipcover box and 3 separate DVD cases than those awful things. >< At least they still have that as an option to buy...I'd been thinking of picking one up eventually, but I figured I might try to watch it streaming first since it's on CR and Hulu. See if I still like it enough to buy it.

[yusaku]

i just bought the animes "My bride is a Mermaid" and "Shiki" today. The anime titles were only $17 for the complete series. They were half off. i just watched the first episode of the mermaid story. it was okay. Now i am watching Shiki which is a vampire story. it is a bit gory, but that is kind of what i wanted. I hope the storyline develops well.

I usually so jaded on new entertainment i usually pick you stuff I have seen before instead anything new.I decide to pick up a copy of "Fiddler on the Roof" , "the Deer Hunter", and "The Sound of Music" while at the FYE today and Walmart today. If Shiki is not so good The Deer Hunter and Dune will be up next.

[llj]

Hey, llj! I just watched Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko on YT and it is excellent! This is fantasy anime for the sake of being fantastic. Lots of imagination. No rhyme or reason is necessary when dealing with a pure fantasy. Lots of familiar voices in this, too. The main character, Yohko, is voiced by Hiromi Tsuru (Madoka from KOR), her dog sidekick is Kei Tomiyama (Susumu Kodai from Yamato), and the blue-skinned, mascara-wearing enemy is Shuuichi Ikeda (Char from Gundam).

I haven't watched an anime by myself in many months, and I am glad I chose this one. I really like the "seemingly-average-Joe gets sucked into a parallel world because he/she somehow possesses some magic energy. Shows like Aura Battler Dunbine, Vision of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yuugi, and of course this Leda OVA.

Glad you liked it. Leda is a pretty cool little OVA. Great animation, fast paced and unpretentious story. I can't help but think it would be better remembered if someone had released it in North America during the early to mid 90s instead of the late 90s when anime TV series were starting to get more popular than OVAs. Fred Patten in his Streamline retrospectives on cartoonresearch.com mentioned that he once personally suggested that they should pick it up, but it never materialized.