I’m not accusing you of being racist, I’m saying the *term *sounds racist or at least old-fashioned. It’s still in fairly widespread use, but it’s going out of favor.
My apologies if I offended you; it was not my intent to do so.
As I noted above, there are a number of conventions in anime (and manga, the print from which much of it is drawn). There are some classic “looks” for characters which get used over and over, particularly in the derivative mass-produced crap that tends to make it to the US. It’s not universal, but it’s fairly common – things like pink/blue hair for female characters, realllllly long hair on male leads (especially villains), incredibly spiky hair, huge eyes, and so on. In some instances, the characters are nearly identical. I’ve noticed that more derivative anime tends to be lower in overall quality.
I can assure you that there is no character in Cowboy Bebop or Noir who looks like Speed Racer, to name only two.
Sister of a huge anime fan here. My brother has done a great job of judging my tastes and choosing just a few things for me that I ended up enjoying very much. The OP asked for something dark, and from my limited experience I have to recommend The Petshop of Horrors. I think I saw maybe 5 episodes of it, and it was creepy and a little twisted, like the Twilight Zone used to be.
Maisy
OMG,
The OP doesn’t like anime and is looking for the absolute best of anime that someone WHO IS NOT A FAN OF ANIME MIGHT POSSIBLY LIKE.
Then all the fanboys jump out of their anime closets listing some of the most complex, anime-ish, foreign, insider, AND FREAKING JAPANESE LANGUAGE movies and FREAKING ONGOING SERIES that they can think of.
<sigh> clueless.
Here’s what the OP wants:
A stand-alone movie, which is dubbed well in English (yes, they exist), that doesn’t require knowing the whole alternate history of this movie’s world, whose animation isn’t like that of a cheap TV series (Speed Racer), whose plot isn’t infantile or insanely insane.
As one, myself, who doesn’t care for anime, I’ve found these two works to be absolutely genius (and which meets all the above crieria)…
Spirited Away and Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer.
Spirited Away is much more accessible and stand alone.
UY2:BD comes from an anime series. I came upon it on late night Cartoon Network and was hooked. The characters are archetypical enough that you get who they are. But what hooked me was the plot and the animation. Both are absolute genius. I recommend experiencing UY2 the same way I did, with absolutely no foreknowledge of the plot. Avoid reading any reviews or synopses. Just see it.
Peace.
BTW: Tried to get into Cowboy Bebop since it was part of CN’s Adult Swim. Hated, hated, hated it.
Thanks. Love you, too.
What I was getting at, with nearly the entirety of my post, was that if you don’t accept what anime is, it’s kind of hard to learn to like it. I even tried to recommend series that I thought fit his criteria. But of course, in your infinite wisdom, you decided we’re clueless fanboys.
Re-reading the OP, I don’t see anything he says about disdaining Japanese language tracks as you do. Asking for Japanese shows/video sets/movies, but demanding that they come with English dubs, is like demanding that all foreign films come in English. If it’s not your thing, deal with it. One may prefer, say, the Seven Samurai in English and in color, but it hurts the original creation. If you’re saying “I want to like anime, but I hate everything about anime,” it’s not a matter of being more informed. It’s a matter of just not liking the whole damn thing.
The OP said he (making a judgement of gender here, but I apologize if I got it wrong) is only aware of some certain anime archtypes. Everyone said “Well, there’s more to it than that.” Please get off your high horse. You calling others clueless is a very “pot-to-kettle” situation.
Oh, and one last note. We list off things “too anime-ish?” Please tell me you’re kidding me. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don’t know that anime is merely the Japanese word for animation. So that applies to everything from Looney Tunes to Rurouni Kenshin. The only suggestion you can possibly make that isn’t “too anime-ish” is live-action, but that’s a whole nother thread all together.
A relevant point, if this thread were in Japanese. It is, however, in English. English has a perfectly good word to refer to animation in general, and that word is “animation”. There is no reason for native English speakers to use the term “anime” at all unless it’s to refer to “Japanese-style” animation, and this is indeed how the term is used in English. I am sure you knew this, as you have already used the term this way yourself in this thread. So don’t go jumping on moriah’s case because she also used the word as it is used in English rather than as it is used in Japanese.
Fine, willing to concede that point, I was wrong in attacking moriah for the way he/she used it. However, even when one does use the colloquialism in the form of “too anime-ish,” it doesn’t make sense when the OP wasn’t asking for something that isn’t anime, he mentioned he only knew of two particular archtypes and if there was anything that might interest him. I’d be interested to know exactly what moriah defines as “anime” and why everyone but he/she got it completely wrong.
Anime refers to a set of parameters that distinguishes itself as a genre apart from classical American animation (e.g., Disney).
Granted, those parameters are not clear cut and there is a lot of overlap with other styles of animation.
You have someone wanting to ‘get into’ ‘anime.’
Well, don’t throw at that someone anime which is so different from what he or she already knows and is comfortable with.
Don’t start with Japanase language, subtitled, super wide-eyed, lengthy series that require thirteen hours of viewing that are filled with the jarringly distinct conventions of anime like those that overuse the “still-character-pose with the background faux-speeding by” effect.
Spirited Away is accessible to mainstream U.S. audiences. Akira is not.
That’s what I mean.
And a fanboy that can not wear the badge of fan boy (or girl) proudly is full of self loathing. Embrace your destiny.
Peace.
From the OP
Seems to me didn’t want the mainstream cute, schmaltzy stuff (not that i’m saying Spirited Away is cute, schmaltzy or regular).
Actually, I did like Akira. I’ve heard a lot of really good things about Spirited Away though, I’m definitely going to get that the next time I go to a video store that has a decent selection. Unfortunately, I don’t have Netflix, so I’ll be stuck taking out what I can find at Hollywood Video.
Answer me this, anime fans: why are anime movies so expensive, comparatively, with other movies? I was reading descriptions on Amazon, and the Ghost in the Shell movie retailed for over twenty bucks, same with the Cowboy Bebop movie. These are not marked as being imports, either; they were region one discs instead of region two or zero. Most movies that have been out for even a year are less than fifteen dollars.
Variety of reasons. Sometimes, the localization company pays a large amount for the rights to bring it stateside and they have to make it up in price. Sometimes the localization itself can cost a lot of money. Still other times, the company’s just willing to squeeze out the extra few dollars from loyal fans. Hell, Pioneer accomplished a combination of all three with Ranma 1/2.
Actually, this has more to do with economies of scale than anything else.
As a long time anime fan (Otaku or fan-boy if you insist, moriah. 
) I have to point out today the standards of cost for what’s available is about half of what it had been when US Renditions and AnimEigo began to bring quality anime to the US with accurate translations. Back in 1991 the Bubblegum Crisis OAV’s went for $39.95 retail, for 40 - 50 minutes of show. Today, the whole OAV series is available for about that much, on DVD, even.
Originally, the prospective market for translated japanese animation was miniscule, and made up almost entirely of fanatics like myself, who’d been watching it ‘clean’ on bootlegged tapes. To make up for the niche market, in order to make up the liscensing fees, the costs of producing a timed translation etc, the tapes had to be expensive.
The first breakthrough in cost was after these small companies proved there was a market for translated animation in direct to consumer video. At that point several other companies began producing translations, many of them only available dubbed to English. The early dubs were, on average, 20-40% cheaper than the subs simply because places like Blockbuster would consider purchasing them, making the prospective market grow by orders of magnitude - not, as some people have tried to convince me, because dubs are cheaper to make than subs. Think about it: the first step in making a vocal translation is the preparation of a timed script. Then one has to tweak that to get the vocal pieces to fit what the character appears to be saying, then hire a cast (which, in the best of all possible worlds can even ACT.) and produce the vocal track. Please note: the first step there, the timed script is the hardest part of making a subtitled translation available. 
As anime has become more and more mainstream - and I will argue it is now at least as mainstream as, say, any other genre of foreign film - the prospective market has continued to grow. But, like all niche markets, it is still a miniscule market compared to that for the standard Hollywood fare. Thus, for the forseeable future anime will continue to be more expensive than an otherwise comparable domestic DVD or tape.
Moriah, normally, when someone who “doesn’t like anime” asks me for suggestions for something to try watching, Spirited Away is at the top of the list. I agree it’s a great film, visually stunning, and easily accessible to US audiences, in spite of a few Japanese specific jokes and conventions in the plot. Having said that, in this case, I don’t think it’s what I’d start the OP out on - when the OP states that what s/he is looking for is something with a cyberpunk feel, or good political/philosophical meat to it, I ended up with the list I gave a few posts up. Spirited Away for all its manifest merits, is not a movie I’d recommend to any Cyberpunk fan. Anymore than I’d suggest Akira to someone who loves Jane Austen novels. It’s a matter of the audience’s preferred tastes trumping my views of what is the best possible movie/TV show in the genre.
No. The OP says he hates anime, because it all falls into two categories. He goes on to say that he wants to try something else to see if he likes it, and is looking for specific recommendations.
Actually, what the OP asked for was:
I don’t see a requirement for english dubs or full-length movies. I do see that Spirited Away, great though it is, is not really a good fit for the first critera (it’s certainly not cyberpunkish, although it could be called dark).
Also, if you’re not an anime fan, then how the heck do you know the recommendations here are too anime-ish? Look back at my first post – Read or Die, Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex and Noir are all not “anime-ish” in the slightest. Of course, if you haven’t seen them, you wouldn’t know that… nor would you be qualified to disdain them.
Your breathless frustration is, as always, much appreciated.
Yeah. :rolleyes: Checking out an ongoing series doesn’t require you to buy the whole damn thing, you know. I own zero anime in any format. I know I’m not into anything terribly complex, and ALL this stuff is foreign and Japanese-language, so I don’t know what that means as a criticism. I’m not a fanboy at all. There are maybe three shows I like, and I know no background or detailed info about any of them. I’ve just watched a few over the last couple of years because I decided to give it a try like the OP is doing.
You’re right about the stand-alone bit and assumed the rest. <sigh> clueless. And I think there are Cowboy Beop movies, that looks like the most-recommended show so far.
Anyway, I’ve never even heard of Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer. Can I call you a fanboy now? I don’t know if you meant to include me or not, but your post was rude and could’ve been helpful if you hadn’t included the unnecessary attitude.
Well, first off, it’s UY. To say that UY is often something that old time Otaku like rather than new anime fans is… almost an understatement.
Secondly, this particular movie (One of 6 movies spawned by the 192 episode TV series…) is… umm… how to say…
Particularly Oriental.
UY has a reputation for being hard for most occidentals to understand - in part because of all the japanese only puns and pop-culture referents. UY:BD takes this to new levels. It’s what I’d imagine you’d get if you had an japanese animation company take the latest French art film and make an animation based on the feel of it. The release company’s blurb on the back of the LD recommends that people simply enjoy the film, not try to understand it.
Let me add, the character designs are particularly stylized, and I tend to think of it as one of the more… inaccessible anime out there.
I like it. But to show to newbies? :eek:
If you’re willing to watch a movie that will have more than a few plot points hanging, that ends almost as it began, that is more than a little silly around the main plot (That is the characters act silly in the process of dealing with a rather serious, if oriental, plot.) it’s a great, fun film to watch.
Well, as someone who is not ‘into’ oriental stories or myth, both Spirited Away and UY provided an alternate reality that I had to learn along the way. And both challenged me equally. Think about the mythos of SA and how foreign that is to Western culture. If a Westerner can ‘get’ SA, they can ‘get’ UY:2.
As to my riled up critics: yes, I know the OP asked for a series to get into as well as self contained movies. But why start out recommending a 13 hour investment in a series in order to hook the OP on anime when a movie or trilogy would do the trick better?
While the OP did not say, “no subtitles,” come on. If good English dubs of good movies/series exist, why not start with them? It’s like someone asking to get into math and y’all start recommending Calculus because of how wonderful it is. Start with the easy stuff.
While the two movies I recommended are not cyberpunk, they have their darker, deeper moments (which is what the OP alternatively asked for).
And I’m not a fanboy for knowing about UY:2, as I mentioned I stumbled upon it. And as disdainer and outsider of most of anime (as is the OP), I think I may have a little more insight into what will attract an outsider than the insiders do.
Peace.
A fanboy of other stuff.
I think the Ghost in the Shell movie is an excellent suggestion considering the OP, along with Spirited Away.
start hijack
The earliest influences I had that got me hooked into anime was Battle of the Planets
Its upcoming in my netflix que and I’m looking forward to it, haven’t seen any of the episodes since I was a kid.
Can anyone recommend a Gatchaman suggestion to go along with my nostalgic selection? None seem to show up in the netflix library, so I’ll likely have to order one and I’d like to get a good one.
end hijack
That’s exactly why I suggested Serial Experiments Lain. It’s only 13 episodes, not 26, so it’s only 6.5 hours. Depending on the type of movie you’re watching, that’s only three or four full-length movies. The OP was looking for something more cyberpunkish and said that he enjoyed Akira. Each DVD would take less than two hours to watch (100 minutes for the first disc, 75 for the other three), so it’s not like I’m suggesting watching six hours straight. And while it’s linear, it’s odd enough and episodic enough that you can give it a few days or a week before watching the next installment.
I would say that Spirited Away is the best animated ANYTHING I’ve ever seen. But it’s definitely not cyberpunk, just has that sense of wonder and dreamlike quality that the very best fantasy has.
If you like cyberpunk, Ghost in the Shell isn’t bad, and Armitage is kinda nice ,too, though the “Gals who are robots” theme gets tired after a while. Strangely, the most powerfully affecting scenes involving robotic women are in part I of an otherwise totally crappy hentai called “Fragile Hearts”.
You may be right.
Like I said, I just usually think of UY:BD as something to show people after they’ve seen some UY. And UY is definitely something to show people after they’ve learned patience for anime.
Though, to claim that SA represents standard Japanese mythology is not accurate, AIUI. Certainly anyone familiar with the fey would have no trouble understanding the basics of the situation in SA. It may just say something about me that most of my friends can be counted on to know quite a bit about the fey, in a general way, at least.
As for series over movies I’ll admit I stretched things by advocating three TV series. And, unlike some, the series I advocated were full 26 episode series, and extremely sequential, to boot. But, like Shocking Alberto said, I believe that avoiding sequential stories means missing some of the better stories out there. The problem I have with episodic stories, even or especially live action episodic ones, is that to work they have to return the situation to the status quo before the end of each episode. Which means that the characters aren’t very believable IMNSHO - people evolve as they experience things. If you can’t change the status quo, you can’t let the characters change, either. One of the very few mainstream TV shows I enjoy is Law and Order, because it maintains its episodic nature through two factors: the focus of each episode is not so much on the recurring characters, but with how they deal with a specific situation; and they do allow the characters to evolve - slowly, perhaps, but they do change.
Different tastes end up having different likes, after all. I originally got into anime because it was, and remains IMNSHO, the source of some of the best visual SF being made. (Of course, with movies like Armageddon and Space Cowboys lowering the bar, that’s not saying much.) Since then I’ve come to appreciate the silliness and the sweet more than the hard hitting action of something like Ninja Scroll.
And just because I like a lot of anime, doesn’t mean that I think anime is immune to Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is shit. The problem is that different people draw the line in different places. Make your own decisions, and stand by 'em come Hell or high water.