What's the best Anime Series Out there?

Cafe Society
81

Well, there’s always Netflix DVDs. Except some DVDs are sub-only. I rented with Anime Lane for a while: I caution that they currently update their inventory rather slowly.

Incidentally, I usually prefer sub, but I like to check out the dubbing when I rent a DVD. Part of the fun. I agree that Cowboy Bebop had a strong dub, but it’s nice to listen to the 2 interpretations of Spike for example. (The Japanese version was zanier, the English cooler. I’d give the edge to the English version in this case.) I’d say that while the Japanese voices are typically better there are exceptions for individual actors. In the first Full Metal Alchemist anime for example, Alphonse (the younger brother) was better played by the American child actor IMHO. In Tenchi Muyo, Petrea Burchard gave a great interpretation of Ryoko. Then there are cases like Naruto and I understand One Piece where the English dub is awful.

Haruhi Suzumiya had an ok English dub, but then you miss the voice performance by Aya Hirano which was truly epic. IIRC Mushishi had a strong English dub. The eng dub for Spice and Wolf was ok as well, again IIRC.

Incidentally fansubs IMHO tend to be superior, as they are not afraid to offer more literal translations: that gives me a better feel for the original.

82

Like Tony Oliver… man, did that guy ever go through puberty?

Fansub groups don’t necessarily have to worry about a potential monetary return on their time investment.

83

There are fansubs that are definitely good. It doesn’t all come together until season 2, and boy is it amazing when it does. I cannot recommend this series highly enough. It’s possibly the most disturbing anime I have EVER read, and that’s saying something.

I can strongly recommend Elfen Lied; it’s short, sweet, and has some pretty amazing action/horror bits.

Paprika is less bloody action/horror and more mindfuck comedy/action (okay, it’s still kinda scary, but it’s also hilarious and heartfelt and the scene with the giant train of crazy has some of the best visual aesthetic and soundtrack I have ever seen).

Literally anything with Studio Ghibli or Hayao Miyazaki’s name on it is liable to be awesome.

One Piece is goofy, and has the typical shounen problem of drifting off into over-long flashbacks for episodes at a time, but when it’s good, it’s absurdly amazing. Its just so much fun.

Dragon Ball Z: Abridged, while technically not so much an anime as a fandub, deserves mention just for being quite possibly the best comedy on youtube.

Heaven’s Lost Property is kinda cheesy but the comedy and interplay works. It’s one of those pieces where the plot shows its head once every 5-6 episodes, yet nobody really has a problem with that. It’s just fun.

Lots of good suggestions here.

84

You also may want to check out Ghost Stories. Not because it was good–in fact, it performed so abysmally in Japan that the company in charge of producing it gave the English voice actors free reign to make up their own dialog. The results are pretty damn hilarious.

85

This is pretty much true by definition.

That said, fansubs being what they are (Read: “anime subtitled by random people for whom only real qualifications are some understanding of japanese, and access to some free software”) they vary WILDLY in quality. Some are good, some are awful, some are awful in that unique way that only happens with fansubs.

For an interesting discussion on the idea, take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUYlqLlbix0 (though you may want to skip about half to two thirds of the first ‘episode’ it DOES get interesting, I promise.).

86

:frowning:

:frowning: :frowning:

I for one consider these “wannabe Anime” (is that a word - “wannime”?). To be fair, it may be because the animation may appear more American than Japanese - this is certainly true with SJ, where Genndy Tartakovsky’s style is quite apparent.

87

Samurai Jack doesn’t even fall into “wannabe anime” - there’s really nothing ‘anime’ about it. It’s just an extremely well done piece of animation, fullstop.

I haven’t seen Avatar, but I’m really just getting a “more expensive and properly budgeted Saturday morning cartoon” vibe from its visuals - we DO make animation on this side of the pond, guys, and just because it’s not f-ing godawful like The Simpsons or Family Guy or something doesn’t mean it’s “trying to be anime” it just means it’s “trying to not suck.”

88

I’m not sure how you draw a hard line between anime and animation. As far as I can tell, the only strict basis for differentiating is that anime is produced primarily for Japanese audiences. So from that point of view, both Avatar and Legend of Korra probably aren’t traditional anime but follow a lot typical anime themes like having characters with supernatural abilities, interaction with spirits and a spirit world, fairly clean good/evil distinctions and so on.

89

“Made in Japan” is a good place to start, but there are a number of visual themes that crop up a lot too. Certainly, they’re not all applied all the time, but it’s generally safe to say that if something is EITHER made in Japan OR an adherent of a certain visual style of design, that it’s probably safe to call it ‘anime’ or at least ‘anime inspired’. I don’t think the second criteria applies to Avatar, and it CLEARLY does not apply to Samurai Jack.

90

IDK. Something like Bleach is clearly Japanese anime in the most conventional sense you could want to use that term and I would have a hard time distinguishing thematically between Bleach and Avatar. Stylistically there are certainly differences and Avatar is more Western, but not thematically, although I’m happy to hear you compare and contrast.

edit: It’s been a while, but I could probably even add Inuyasha to that list and a few others besides Bleach if you’re not familiar with the latter.

91

Sorry; I don’t mean STORY themes, which is what you seem to be talking about? But visual style-wise? They seem quite different to me.

I’m familiar with Inuyasha as well, and again, I don’t think it ‘looks like’ Avatar. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am saying this based on looking at screenshots of Avatar, but the latter looks far more like a Disney offering to me than it does to an “anime” show. It’s mostly about faces. Sadly, I am not an artist, so I lack the proper vocabulary to communicate this clearly, I think.

92

Yeah, I know what you mean. I have the same problem. But you still got my meaning. The visual appearance is definitely different but it goes even beyond that. The characters don’t interact in the same ways. I can’t really put my finger on it, but off hand I guess I’d say that it’s less structured, although I’m not sure that’s really it. That’s one of the things I meant by ‘Western.’

But I think in the case of Korra and Avatar, given how many ideas are adopted from anime, one could be forgiven for putting it that category and I don’t think one insults the category by doing so.

93

Well, I can’t judge the latter, having not seen the series, but it is certainly plausible.

Certainly. At the very least, these series clearly merit an “inspired by” tag, in much the same way that the Teen Titans show did.

94

I might have brought it up farther upthread (I forget, and this thread was recently made undead), but the way modern film and animation production works makes the “Made in Japan” distinction kind of iffy.

Take, for example, Starship Troopers: Invasion. The film was largely produced in Japan (the director’s commentary is Japanese audio with English subtitles), but based on an American script with an American executive producer (the same guy who made the three live-action movies, but you wouldn’t know it from comparing *Invasion *to them). The movie also has a distinctly Japanese style to it (it actually reminds me quite a bit of Resident Evil: Degeneration, which was pretty much entirely made in Japan). I’m not sure if it’s anime or not, to be honest.

The Avatar series, incidentally, are American productions for American audiences, but were animated in Korea, fun fact.

But in any case, Anime draws heavily from Western Animation, just as western animation does the same in turn. That’s kind of how culture and media work, otherwise everything would be static and would never change.

95

I’m inclined to agree with that but at the same time I think I understand how cultural preferences can seep through. I just wish I could articulate it better.

Quick aside. When you haven’t been trained to critique a certain art form, it can be very difficult to express what you really mean even if you know differences or similarities when you see them. For example when I tried to take an art history course in college, I had to drop it when I realized that couldn’t distinguish between Ionic and Corinthian columns. It probably seems absurd that someone couldn’t do that, but that’s just the way it goes. I probably could now, but at the time I was completely lost.

That wasn’t a really good analogy for what mean to say but it gets to the idea of being able to quantify aesthetics. I think people that have an affinity for Japanese animation see something in it that appeals to them that can’t always be quantified or precisely labeled but recognize it when they see it.

And I think in a lot of cases that the unquantifiable something is some cultural aspect that bleeds through in the art form in some way. So maybe it’s the way the characters tend to interact, as I was trying to say earlier. Japan tends to have more formal social conventions, so maybe that bleeds through in anime character interactions and some find that appealing. The ideas of honor and tradition I think are taken more seriously there too, so maybe that’s something else that tends to get expressed in the medium.

I’m probably rambling here but I hope some kernel of a thought is getting through.

96

I think I know what you’re talking about, and I get the bit about columns. Two of my areas of geekiness are ships and airplanes. I can probably tell at a glance if a particular battleship is Japanese or American, for instance, due to differences in how the two nations built their battleships (Japanese battleships always looked like the superstructure was about to tip over, while American battleships looked stouter.)

Similarly, I can usually recognize Russian, American, or British aircraft design at a glance for similar reasons. American planes look coldly efficient, Russian planes look either lethally elegant or uncaringly utilitarian, British planes seem to have an elf-like “differentness” to them, like their designers knew that if it looked pretty, it’d fly pretty damn well.

And yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to cultural feel, stuff like how the characters interact with each other.

97

This argument sounds good on the surface, but it’s basically bunk. No one cares where the inbetweeners or the actors, or the special effects technicians or whomever on a particular piece came from. What’s relevant for a ‘made in’ sort of distinction in this kind of collaborative effort is the people with actual creative input into the process. Directors. Writers. Characters designers. Lead animators. That kind of thing. Can you get a vague vibe from something that had a large number of people from one place in roles that had a tiny bit of input each? Sure. But it will be vague at best.

Though I’m not sure anyone here is in a position to “take” Starship Troopers: Invasion, since I’d never heard of it before you brought it up, but the director was Japanese and it was made in Japan. That’s made in Japan for me - I don’t really think anyone cares where the producer came from. I always kindof laugh when I see a movie advertise itself as “From the Producer of…” because as best as I can tell, producers have damn near no input in the actual creation of the film.

And lots of animation gets outsourced to Korea, but that’s again, gruntwork, more than creative design.

Back in The Day? Absolutely? Today? Not so much, I don’t think.

98

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that you’re both saying the same thing. “Made in Japan” doesn’t mean anything if it’s not made for Japanese audiences. I think that was the only point being made. And even then, an American or Russian or Indian making something for a Japanese audience still won’t ‘feel’ Japanese, no matter how hard they try, just like American animation, even things that try to emulate anime just don’t have the same feel.

99

I consider Avatar to be a Western cartoon influenced by anime and Eastern ideas.

Western: the strong female role model who discusses her feelings with the male lead. I agree that the character designs has something of a Disney feel, though I thought it was pleasingly toned down. Less saccharine.

Innovative: it’s been done before, but it’s nice to see a female protagonist in the West: yes, I’m saying Katara is the protagonist and Aang has more of a supporting role.

Anime influences: one major one is that the main adversary (Prince Zuko) turned out not to be a main villain. The concept that adversaries are not necessarily dishonorable is standard to anime and more unusual in Hollywood fiction, especially children’s fare. That frees the creators to mix things up, like have the leading wise master train the adversary, rather than the heroine or hero. For that matter an eccentric and not altogether virtuous master is also a anime standard, as is having him a source of comic relief.

Each of the 4 classical elements (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water) corresponded to a different Asian martial arts style.

The depth of the fantasy world is also typical to anime. Sure, you can say the same for Lord of the Rings. But Hollywood productions tend to favor simpler plots and simpler political intrigue.

In general, anime tends to work from a different set of tropes than Western TV shows do. Some of it may reflect the culture, but not necessarily all of it. My favorite part of it is that they give their adversaries a credible point of view, and not just a collection of vices such as poor anger management, impulse control issues or maniacal obsessions that lead me to doubt their leadership capability. Their junk engages me more than our junk.

As an example, I’m currently watching on my Kindle Angel Beats which Them Anime gave two stars out of five - not too hot. Like many anime, it mixes together a set of genres: in this case they are a) high school students, b) strategy and battles and c) setting in the afterlife. The afterlife is mysterious and the characters appear to curse their fates.

I wouldn’t say it’s especially well done and I suspect most Japanese have seen these themes many times before. But this is perhaps the 2nd or 3rd anime I have watched set in the afterlife where the characters struggle against an unseen God and difficult personal situations. It’s not Haibane Renmei by any means (which actually was good) but it intrigues me nonetheless. Anime’s standard tropes are still novel for me.

100

Casper Van Dien was hip-deep in Invasion, but he doesn’t even provide the voice for Johnny Rico - the character he plays in the live action films! Not sure what’s going on there… :dubious:

The trailer hooked me because it began with a voiceover that takes lines directly from the first chapter of the book (my favourite book!), but Invasion had about as much to do with Heinlein’s original as Paul Verhoeven’s movie did - possibly even less. I remember somebody jokingly referring to the live action Space Battleship Yamato as Heroic Sacrifices: The Movie. Get ready for more of the same when you watch Invasion.

While we’re on the subject, though, there is actually a Starship Troopers anime - Uchuu no Senshi - an six-episode OVA series that Sunrise produced in the late 1980’s. The animation is all hand-drawn, and terribly dated, but at least the MI wear powered armour like Rico describes in the book.