Only in Excel Saga…
Sure I have seen it…but if you look way back Manga was doing tentacles over dongs way before they started showin male genitals.
Since then, they have eased up on it…like I said, pubic hair is just now non taboo. Still not showing much as far as female genitalia still
(in case you are questioning me on how I know so much. I help run a direct order biz on hentai out of Japan to here on the side.)
quote/err, waddya MEAN practically invisible?/quote
I mean in the act of sex, they either shadow it or pixel it typically, its easy to guess what it is (she ain’t tasting a bratwurst sausage). They can show it in non acts but in the actual doins, still taboo.
quote/Do you know why so many male characters in anime have such spiky hair?/quote
Ahh anime hair…I believe cause it is easy to draw. I myself have real life version of it. Easy to maintain too
Sorry to muscle in on this Ganryu. I yield the floor to you
WTF is the name of Miyazaki’s latest film? You know, the one that’s lighting up the box office in Japan right now.
And on another note:
What’s the first thing Akane attempted to cook for Ranma in the Ranma 1/2 anime series?
- Miso soup
- Curry
- Opal
- Cookies
- Sukiyaki
Sofis - I haven’t seen many blood transfusions in anime. Unless you’re watching Black Jack, then blood transfusions would be an important part of the story.
Heath Doolin - Thanks!
Dale the Bold - What Ganryu said. The choppy, recycled animation is done in American animation too (Scooby Doo, anyone?) and is a tactic to save money. Different producers, though, will have different theories on how important the animation is. Last night I watched a short movie called Blood: The Last Vampire which was only 48 minutes long due to the producers spending their entrie budget on some of the most beautiful, seamless, realistic animation I’d ever seen. They even had nice CG!
Jack Batty - 1. I’ve never heard that, but I seriously doubt it.
- I think they might actually sell Sailor Moon brand Hand Lotion.
Fenris - Tough question. Miyazaki is really unique in his field, and few other animators manage to pull off his adorable characters and complex, believable storylines. To the best of my knowledge, no one else is doing what he is doing. There’s an old anime series called Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water that was just re-dubbed and re-mastered. It’s based on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and is very sweet, reminds me of Miyazaki. You might want to look into some titles by Osamu Tezuka (or Dezuka), he’s the only other artist/writer I can think of who is somewhat similar. Buy his manga though. And I should warn you that a lot of Tezuka’s stuff is much darker than Miyazaki’s; you’re probably not going to find much sweetness and warmth.
Totoro - Oh man, I’m not sure! For some reason I found Kiki’s Delivery Service very sad. And Princess Mononoke is a great film, but it starts to grate when your sister pops it in for the 150th time. If I had to choose, I’d probably go with the Lupin movie The Castle of Cagliostro. It’s great party material.
Fenris again - Cowboy Bebop. It rules. Very slick, ultracool and weird.
furryman - What Heath said.
KKBattousai - Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi. Sorry, I don’t know what that means in English.
FTR, Jack Batty’s #1 was (hopefully :)) a reference to this thread.
And thanks. So…when’s it coming out in the US? What I’ve heard about it makes it sound pretty darn cool.
Oh, and there was also a blood transfusion in Fushigi Yuugi.
Regarding that, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that transfusions are common, but they’re probably not that rare either. The different blood types are supposed to represent different personality traits, and the transfusions could therefore (in FY, at least) represent character growth/learning of some sort. (I’ll let Dao dredge up a list of what blood types represent what. :))
Ah. I watched one tape worth of FY and gave up on it. I have very strange taste in anime.
Blood types. And no, I’ve got no idea what my type is.
Fenris, you asked for recommendations:
My all-time favorite Studio Ghibli movie is PomPoko (the romanization varies), which is about a bunch of tanuki – racoon/dog/badger-like creatures which are apparently native to real-life Japan – who disguise themselves as humans to stop construction on a housing development that’s encroaching on their homeland. Fantastic stuff with Japanese mythology that I’d never heard before, and fight scenes with racoons that expand their testicles to huge sizes and pound on people with them. And it’s a family movie! Actually, it’s one of the few movies I would un-self-consciously describe as “enchanting,” if you’re not turned off at the idea of cartoon animals having testicles. Miyazaki didn’t direct this one, but at least in my opinion, the “feel” of it is a LOT like “My Neighbor Totoro.”
Another great Miyazaki movie is Porco Rosso, more for its design than its story. It’s about a post-WWII ace pilot who somehow became a pig after returning from the war. But, like PomPoko, it’s not “officially” released in the US so you’d have to find an import or a fansub.
A much easier one to get is Castle of Cagliostro, which has already been recommended in this topic. It’s just a good adventure story with some really nice animation. It was also done by Miyzaki, although the characters were already established Japanese pop characters (by an artist named Monkey Punch).
And finally I’ll just repeat everybody else’s recommendations for Cowboy Bebop, which is easily the best anime I’ve ever seen. It’s got great tech design, and is genuinely funny instead of being just weird broad slapstick like a lot of other anime. It’s also really genuinely moving, and many times goes from being funny to tear-jerking in the same episode. It’s just brilliant, all around. It’s easy to find in the US, and is currently running (with a dub that I don’t care much for) on the Cartoon Network as part of their Adult Swim block.
I managed to get Porco Rosso and Pom Poko on a 6 DVD set which features all the movies Miyazaki directed (Two per DVD) (I don’t think it’s a bootleg, and if it is, it’s the most professional bootleg I’ve ever seen). . It’s subtitled in Chinese. So I can’t understand the words OR the subtitles. But Miyazaki’s storytelling is so clear that I can usually figure out what’s going on.
Which brings up another question, that may throw this into Great Debates. Daowajan, everyone else:
Subtitles or Dubbed?
(I vote Subtitles.)
Fenris
There seems to be three basic Anime topics:
Giant Robots
Girls in short skirts
Weirdo creatures with or without tentacles
And when they run out of ideas for story, they just jam in a lot of leaping and gasping and running around.
Why the hell is this form of animation so darned popular when it’s so baaaaaaaad???
Maybe you haven’t bothered to look at the good stuff yet?
Daowajan - How many total seasons of Ranma 1/2 are there and when did the last Ranma 1/2 get filmed? Information seems a bit spotty on the 'net. The numbers I’ve heard are 161 episodes over 7 or 8 seasons, but I’ve only found lists describing up to season 6 or so.
I have a question that has been nagging me for some time. What the hell is the big deal with anime? I’ve seen Ghost in the Shell, which was tolerable. I liked Ninja Scroll well enough. wings on Honnemaise (sp?) was atrocious, I fell asleep every time I tried to watch it (three times). Akira was, well, drawn out. Perhaps I just haven’t seen the “good stuff” but I see no reason to get excited about it.
I am leary of people who say “I’m an anime fan.” Oh? And what possible meaning can I attach to that statement?
Does anyone know what I mean?
For me, at least, it was a matter of discovery. Suddenly discovering several decades of relatively high quality and well-written animation (as compared to, say, Hanna Barbara) aimed at a more adult crowd (as compared to the 3 year old target demo of American animation) blew my mind. No mass-marketing hype, no warning.
Imagine never hearing of the Simsons and not even having an inkling that animation can be that funny and then all of a sudden walking into a library filled from floor to ceiling with Simsons episodes and you’ll have the general idea.
I’ll admit that most anime is fairly forgettable, but then again so is most of what gets aired on television stations this side of the Pacific ocean.
Personally, I don’t really consider myself an anime fan so much as having broad tastes.
Subtitles or Dubs? Ah, the eternal question.
I used to be a die-hard subtitles fan, but I’ve warmed up to a few dubs lately. Yes, there are a lot of problems with dubs. Yes, lots of them suck ass. I won’t even get into fansubs (They’re crap. Don’t buy them. They’re cheap for a reason.) But every once in a while I’ll run across a dub that was very well done, like Trigun. I bought a dub tape because it was cheaper, and just kept on watching that verison.
Short answer: Subs but not excusively.
GuanoLad - Every single anime series that was mentioned in this thread does not follow any of those “topics.” So what are you trying to ask me?
slotar - I really do not like Ranma 1/2, so I don’t know that much about it. Sorry.
erislover - Well, if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. It’s a personal interest, and a damned addictive one for many people. (I didn’t like Wings of Honneamise either, btw.)
“I’m an anime fan” - it all depends on who says it, and in what context. It could be just somebody saying “I like anime.” Are you talking about the American-born white girls who attach -chan or -neko onto the end of their names? The dangerously obsessed people?
**
Anime isn’t for everyone Eris. And to be fair to both you and Guanolad a lot of anime really isn’t all that great. Other anime fans may brand me a heretic but I can’t understand why anyone likes Vampire Hunter D. I didn’t think it had much of a story and I didn’t think the fight scenes were all that great. On the other hand I loved Ninja Scroll and I can’t pretend that it had much of a plot. Of course Ninja Scroll had better animation and the fight scenes were really cool. For every really good anime like Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, or Akika (even if you thought it was to long) there are your Vampire Hunter D’s.
Another thing I can’t figure out about the more rabid anime fans is their hatred for all things non-anime, especially Disney and Hanna-Barbara. I’ll take the Flintstones and Batman: The Animated Series over just about any regular anime series out there. And as far as movies go I don’t think any anime has matched what Disney is capable of putting out today. Sure Kiki’s Delivery service might have had a better flight scene then what we saw in Peter Pan. But then Peter Pan came out in the 1950’s and Kiki came out in 1989. I loved Princess Mononoke but Beauty and the Beast and Alladin were better animated.
Now before people just go on thinking that I hate anime there are some that I really enjoy. As mentioned by many in this thread I to am a big fan of Cowboy Bebop. I saw one episode last year and I had to buy all the DVDs as they came out.
Well unless they start talking about tentacle rape I’m not all that worried.
Marc
What titles would you recommend for a high school club that is not specifically focused on anime?
A girl in my French class is trying to start a multicultural/language club that would have meetings focused on language and media from other countries. Since Japan is a popular choice, she thinks that it would probably be best to show some anime at one of the first few meetings.
Unfortunately, we’re having trouble picking a title. Most of my favorites are girly, aimed towards Japanese 10 year olds, or just not appropriate to show in a relatively conservative Southern Baptist community. I was thinking about Cowboy Bebop, but the amount of violence and drug use throws that one out. We need something that would appeal to guys or girls equally, but no Gundam. Rabid fangirls are scary, even if they are my friends. (Sure, right now they’re just into Wing. But I’m not gonna risk it.)
So, any suggestions? We need something already released in the U.S., subtitles preferred.
jessica
Only the ones done by crappy fansub studios, IMHO.
'Course it depends on why you think they suck. Typos? Yeah, sure. It happens. Bad grammar? Inexcusable, but then, limited almost exclusively to the crappy fansub studios. Bad translations? Ditto. Bad timing (the timing between the sub and the voice)? Ditto again.
For instance, I thought the FY fansub was better than the Pioneer release because it was truer to the Japanese dialogue. Case in point, a character named Chichiri appends “no da!” to the end of a good 50% of his sentences. It’s an affectation used for comic effect. In the fansub release, it’s left as “no da” or simply untranslated. In the Pioneer release, it’s translated as “you know?” making him sound like he’s a valley girl. Feh.
And I’ve seen a fansub release of Princess Mononoke where the script was almost word for word what was used for the Disney (sponsored) American theatrical release. I’m pretty sure I saw the fansub months before the theatrical release, which means that either a) the fansub was perfect, or b) it was close enough to being so that Neil Gaiman largely appropriated it for his own script.
So it all depends on what your standards are and you you’re buying from.
BTW, let’s not forget that fansubbers and their fans help the larger American companies decide what series they release in the US. It’s no coincidence that Rurouni Kenshin, Card Captor Sakura, Yu Yu Hakusho (licenesed but not yet release AFAIK), and other shows were in huge demand from the fansubbers before they were released in the U.S.
Yes, one could probably argue that they can go by sales figures in Japan as well, but I’m willing to bet that there are some series in Japan that did well that aren’t being ported over to the US. (And I’m too lazy to do google searches on Japan viewerships.)
The worst “professional” dub I’ve ever seen was a Captain Harlock movie called (something like) “My Youth in Arcadia”. For those not familiar with the character, he’s a thin, delicate-looking Elric type (in terms of character design). He often stands on the “deck” of his spaceship, brooding.
In the dub, they used a John Wayne impersonator to do his voice. :rolleyes:
Next question (and hopefully one that won’t cause flames) what does the word “okatu” mean and what is it’s connotation? (It sounds like it means “fan” but connotes “obsessive” or “fanboy”. Correct?)
JessEnigma, was your club thinking of showing a series (if so, how many episodes?) or something feature length? If it’s the latter - which I’m doubting - any of the Miyazaki films mentioned above would be cool.
If you’re looking for a series, it really depends on the number of episodes you want to show. There are a few OAV series that are good that run 4-6 episodes or so. Furi Kuri*, available on fansub, is pretty good (if incredibly odd) and is, um, five or six episodes long.
Fenris, as far as ‘otaku’ goes, IMHO, it depends which country you’re in. In the US, it indicates an anime fanboy, but in Japan is used to describe obsessed fans. Think the worst Trekkie stereotypes you can think of, then add a touch more sexual perversion. If you want more detail, just ask, but for now, I’m leaving it at that.
Not sure, actually. Probably leaning more towards a few episodes from different series, as they’re shorter. Movies might be easier to find, though. I’ll mention it.
jessica
I think LAPUTA CASTLE IN THE SKY would be fairly inoffensive, but it might seem to be oriented more toward younger kids. LUPIN III: CASTLE CAGLIOSTRO is available in a subbed-and-dubbed DVD. It’s a pretty fast-paced piece of light-hearted entertainment, perhaps slightly more a “boys” movie than LAPUTA. Unfortuanately, both of these titles are rather old. Most of the more recent anime I’ve seen has been of the R-rated variety like VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST.
Steve Biodrowski
http://www.thescriptanalyst.com