Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

I started watching Darker Than Black the other day. It's pretty good so far.

Darker than Black is excellent. I'm wondering when the second season will release in the West (or in Britain if it's already out in US)

So I decided to watch Beyblade after all. I completely forgot all about the old series. The first episode was pretty different from what I remembered. All I could remember was Tyson's trick to winning the battle he got in. The episode was a bit fast pace for a first episode. The battles were too quick too. It was a nice little entertaining experience though. I'd say it was ok, considering it's a kid's anime. I'm going to continue to watch it, I just have to see that Tyson VS. Kai match I remember as a kid. I'll probably re start Card Captor Sakura while I'm at it, yet again. That makes 3 childhood animes I'm re-watching. Beyblade, Medabots, CCS, and Zatch Bell. Oh wait that's 4.

Oh god, Beyblade! I used to be soo obsessed with at show, too. I still remember the stuff I came up with for that show. Again, it was stupid and unfair, but I thought it would be cool as a kid. The show itself wasn't that good, IMO. It's too fast, as you said, and it has other problems in the story that'll become apparent once you get into it.

I was also obsessed with Zatch Bell. I wish I could find the drawings I made so I could remember what the pretend Mamodo looked like and what its powers were. As for the show itself, I always thought it was one of the better shows of it's type (the whole human pairing with something superpowered is a little overused, but ZB portrayed it well). It definitely was interesting and all the little stories and characters were very compelling. Not to mention the action is great. The two mains were a great pair, too, and Zatch always managed to get a laugh outta me.

Anyways, I suddenly have the urge to watch an episode of Yu Yu Hakusho. I miss that show, definitely one of THE best Shonen shows ever, with it's darker style, compelling characters, and badass characters. I never did finish it, though. Maybe someday I'll find the time to rewatch it.

We seem to be fans/use to obsessed with a lot of the same animes, Mickeymac.
I use to come up with my own beyblades too. They were so dumb. I'm sure a lot of problems are going to come up later in the show, but I'll probably enjoy it regardless. It was fun as a kid and I still prefer it over the new Beyblade that came out. Metal Fight Beyblade. The characters had better development in the original and the fights were better. I also don't care how they shout out the names of their beyblades every 5 seconds in MFB. At least they didn't shout of the names as often in the original. They did, but again, not as often.

The anime definitely isn't the best around and is a bit too fast, but I can easily overlook those flaws and still enjoy it, because of Nostalgia. I might even go buy some used Beyblades off ebay... >.>

Wow, yet again, I also came up with my own Mamodos for Zatch Bell. It was a dolphin like thing and I called it Blue Fish...the attacks are even dumber then the mamodo itself! XD I grew so attached to it though. I totally agree with you it's one of the best shows of it's kind. Other shows that pair up humans with super powered creatures either have fights that are too slow or the story is bad/too cliche. The fights were great in Zatch bell and I too enjoyed the story. The characters were all so lovable too. Zatch and Kio (Kiyomaro) always made me laugh. It really is a great anime. It has a lot of differences from the manga though. Never noticed till now, it's not a bad thing, but it surprised me.

I loved Yu Yu Hakusho! Oh man, I always tried to watch that show when I could. I never finished it either! I made it to the second or third to last episode, but for some reason never actually finished it. The fights and characters were so great! Oh man...Now I want to watch it all over again. I'm sure I forgot a lot of things anyway.

lol, I was pretty addicted to Zatch Bell too.

I even have some old trading cards in a box somewhere to prove it. :3

Oh man! I remember Yu Yu Hakusho also! I used to love that show! I remember an overusage of a certain "B" word, though, haha!

Duuude! I am so hooked on Medabots right now! I just finished episode 11. It's just as good as I remember! Although,I will take of my nostalgia goggles and admit the fights aren't nearly as good as I remembered. They're still entertaining though. Metabee is so damn cool. He's funny and he's tough. It was really annoying when he was stubborn and wouldn't listen to Ikki at the tournament though, but I guess that is one of the main things that makes him so cool to me. Every other Medabot just listens to their owner, but Metabee has a bit more of a personality and actually talks back to Ikki and express his opinion on him! I LOVE the animation and art style too. It reminds me of the Digimon movie's art style/animation. Man, now I feel like hunting down some Medabots merchandise off ebay!

i wanna throw my hat in the ring just for a minute being a "young adult" my little kid years were fill with pokémon yugioh beyblade yu yu hakusho anything on toonami and adult swim in 90's ill moved to stuff lik needless aria bleach durarara clannad infinite stratos

I refuse to believe you're a day over 12. _{by the way all the funny symbol keys to the right of the letters are for punctuation}

I am acutually not that far from being a day over 12 . I saw Ponyo on Instant and i must say, it was pretty decent.

Thank you for ostrisizing yet another member of this thread.

Anyways, I've recently noticed, outside of Retro and two members who don't post here anymore, You guys usually lean towards 4 of the 5 genres that I generally try to avoid:

Comedy - This one seems to be the most prevellent in discussions around here. I like comedy, but only in small doses. I can't stand full comedy shows, especially Japanese comedy - I just find it too overbearing. There are a few shows I like, but most of them are few and far between, and I can usually only withstand 1 episode a day.

Shonen - Another one that gets talked about quite a bit. I used to love shonen, but now I find that most of them are too much action and not enough story. I also find them to be too long for me to keep up with so even when I find a good one I drop it after a couple of episodes. Even though some of my favorite shows are shonen, most of them I find to be best left in memory.

Slice of Life - This one seems to be specific to one or two users here. This is a genre that I have the least amount of experience with, but from what I have watched, it's usually pretty boring. No action, no plot. Just the daily happening of a bunch of characters. Of course, correct me if I'm wrong, again, I have little experience with the genre.

Romance - I haven't seen this one talked about too much, but certainly more than some others. Like comedy, I only enjoy romance in small amounts, when it's the focus of the show for a lot of episodes it becomes intolerable, and I don't think I have any exceptions in any form of media.

For those curious, the last one was Fanservice/Slasher shows. I don't think I need to explain why I dislike this genre, but I will anyway - it's the single most useless genre there is, with rarely any substance as far as the plot and characters go, and even the action and comedy tends to be sub-par from the shows I've seen. I prefer my shows to be thought-provoking, and those shows just don't do it for me. That's not even mentioning the fact that I hate seeing anything that comes from within the human body, and that I have porn if I want to see breast/panties (or rather what's under them).

Please note that I mean no disrespect. This isn't a problem, just an observation. I find it funny how you guys like the things I don't, and I actually find it intriguing to learn about all these shows I'd otherwise avoid.

Also, our new friend here convinced me to give Needless a shot. I actually rather enjoyed it. I'll have to put it down on my list so I can finish it some time. I might decide to try Aria next.

In Manga-related news, I've lately been reading Crossbone Gundam. It's supposed to be related to Gundam F91, and so far it's been very good. I also just recieved my first print manga in the mail today: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray. It's from the SEED universe that I greatly enjoy, and the subseries is known for its excellent Mecha designs. It's thicker than I anticipated, but I still can't wait to get into it.

I tend to enjoy Psychological Thrillers and Action-Fantasy type shows. Elfen Lied, Gantz, Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom, Death Note, Code Geass, Yu yu hakusho, and the earlier seasons of Naruto and Zatch Bell are the only anime that I've even been able to find watchable. :3

Btw, anyone see this game?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_Inferno

It looks really interesting. Shame I don't have an Xbox 360, because I'm a sucker for a good Visual Novel.

I agree on Fanservice/Slashers being dumb and pointless. No offense to those who like it, but I can't sand that type of anime. I don't need little pantie shots and what not blown up into a whole show.
I still like Shonen animes, but not a lot. In fact I think the only Shonen anime I still watch is Fairy Tail. All other Shonen animes that still or on the air have lost my interest.
As for slice of life I've only seen two animes of that genre. K-on and Lucky Star and I love both. So I have nothing against the genre, but I usually have a hard time getting into those kind of shows so I'm in no rush to find other animes of that genre.
I've never seen a Romance anime, never cared for them.

I would put myself down as a comedy, shonen, and romance fan with a bit of slice of life if it's not too dull.
Loving Bleach at the moment. Really looking forward to watching it after work.

I'll stop ostrisizing when they start posting things that doesn't give me a headache trying to read :3

True, slapstick anime can be very in-your-face. Nichijou is about the most extreme example I've come across, but that show likes to throw HIGH DRAMA into every possible situation for its laughs. There's a decent amount of comedies that are more 'standard' humour than that though.

This is something I disagree most strongly on. I tend to find slice-of-life elements within other genres of anime to be the thing that really adds depth to the story, and life and love to the characters. By a similar token, I find slice-of-life to be the most heavily story-focused genre of the lot - with no big explosions or evil factions to overcome, it can focus precisely on delivering a tight, concise story in its most intimate detail. I will say that slice-of-life comedy does tend to strip away storyline in exchange for laughs, but pure slice-of-life are almost by definition heavily storyline focused.
I'll also say that SoL can sometimes feel to lack a real conclusion, partilcularly the Ghiblis (My Neighbour Totoro and Ocean Waves immediately spring to mind), which does tend to throw you off when the end credits suddenly roll unexpectedly. Its better to think of SoL as a journey for the duration of the feature, rather than an end goal to reach.

I agree here on fanservice shows. People don't watch porn for the storyline, and likewise it seems pointless adding a half ton of cleavage to something ultimately intended to carry no higher than a 15 certificate - if you're really that desperate to see some flesh, the internet is free. As for slasher... I can sort of see the appeal. Not something I'm into personally, but sometimes the time's just right that you want to watch something as utterly mindless as possible. It's entertainment in its purest, most raw form, made to make you laugh and cringe whilst your brain remains firmly in neutral.

Like I said, I don't have much experience with the genre. In fact, after double checking, I think it turns out that I haven't actually watched any slice of life shows. Ever. That description was based romance shows that I mistook for slice-of-life. (EDIT: After further investigation, it seems that NANA and Toradora are slice of life according to ANN) If you have any recommendations, I would be pleased to educate myself.

I just watched the 11 ^th episode of Durarara!!, and...OH MY GOD WAS IT BRILLIANT!!! Maybe I'm just caught up in the moment, but it just felt so damn RIGHT!!! Everybody needs to watch Durarara!! RIGHT NOW!!!

Maybe when I'm done with my Gundam Marathon I'll give it a shot.

shonen has action?

they don't have the animation for anything other than flashbacks and 10 minute explanations for every move someone does. What action?

by your avatar i see you also watch my ordinary life. :3
recently ive been watching sket dance,<---(i forgot the name, so forgive me if i was wrong.) and usagi drop. :3