Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Fairy Tail is similar to One Piece in many ways and is at least just as good as said anime. Also, unlike One Piece, it is a lot easier to catch up on. Out of curiosity, how good is Rave Master?

I've watched Usagi Drop on Crunchyroll. Only 1 or 2 episodes so I can't really tell if I like it or not...I don't really have time to watch it. _{It takes up my SKET dance time. D:}

Action and humor, eh? One Piece is a must, then. It's got some great writing with plenty of humor that even I found really funny, and because of it even the "filler" episodes can be quite entertaining. It's one of Japan's "Big Three", and out of those it's got the most humor and the least action, but it still has a lot of it and when it's there it's really cool. It's also got a really vast and interesting world that's not held back by convoluted lore - there are over 500 episodes and I skipped several hundred of them and still have a pretty decent understanding of what's going on. I can't say that for any other show I've ever watched, not even for skipping more than 5 episodes. Oh, and just a note: part of what makes the action in One Piece so great is that there's very little time wasted talking about what they're going to do, they just do it and maybe explain later. Maybe.

Then there's also Reborn, Gintama, and Needless. I've only seen a few episodes of the first two because they're too long for me right now - I don't want to commit to a 200 or 300 episode long show, even if it is good. With that said, they're chock full of action and comedy, and from what I hear they only get better in that regard. I haven't seen enough to comment on the story, though. Needless, on the otherhamd is pure badassery! It's funny when it wants to be and awesome when it needs to be. I've only just started watching it, but so far the action is really cool, though in one episode at least there was much too much talking when they should've been fighting. I think it was just because of the theme of the villian they were facing, though.

I also recommend everybody see Full Metal Alchemist. It's got enough comedy and action to keep you entertained while supplimenting it with a great, well-thought-out story and interesting characters.

If you don't mind Mecha action, Martian Successor Nadesico and Mazinkaiser are good ones to watch. Nadesico has all the comedy you could want with an interesting story and some good action. Kind of has a lame ending, though. Mazinkaiser on the other hand is incredible! It's a bit lighter on the comedy side, but the action can only be described as badass! Plus, when it's funny, it's really funny, and it never really takes itself too seriously.

And I can't believe I'm recommending it, but SD Gundam Force would be a good one for you. It's really funny and the action's pretty cool, too. You don't have to be a Gundam fan to enjoy it either. With that said, don't use it to judge the whole series. It's as Non-Gundam as it gets.

Oh yeah, if you don't mind something a little more old-school, Dragonball is a must-watch. too. It's a lot like One Piece except shorter and with a Chinese mythology theme. I love it, it's a true classic and I think you'd enjoy it.

Now if I could just come up with one more...I guess if you don't mind a lot of raw attitude, Samurai Champloo would be a good one. It's quite funny at times, and the action is really good. Most importantly the story's really good and the characters are awesome. I still have to watch it from start to finish, though. I guess I'll get on that soon.

Hope that helps.

Silly me, all that and I forgot to recommend Trigun. It's such an awesone show, with pure comedy gold, to boot.

That's a bold statement.

It's a pretty generic shonen show. Guy has to find a bunch of super-powered artifacts to stop the bad guys and be the best or some $#!+. I watched it from beginning to end and I can't say any of it was really memorable, besides the opening.

No. Brotherhood's comedy is so out of place it's physically painful to watch. The original FMA, on the other hand actually balances it out just right. Brotherhood may be better as far as far as animation, action, and writing go, but as far as the comedy is concerned the original FMA trumps it ten-fold. It actually makes me laugh instead of making me want to punch the characters for being so stupid at completely inappropriate moments.

Samurai X was apparently pretty bad. Rurouni Kenshin, on the otherhand was pretty great, even if it didn't cover the pretty terrible 3rd season (Nevermind, it did, they just never aired it on TV). I think the real question is whether or not anyone plans to pick up Trust & Betrayal on Blu-Ray later this month?

Oh, and for all those interested Madoka Magica, arguably the best anime of the Winter/Spring seasons has been licensed by Aniplex. I know I've been waiting for this for a long time. They're also planning on dubbing it and releasing some sort of collector's edition (at least I hope it's a collector's edition, they didn't specify).

Wow, I just checked and it turns out that Gintama and Reborn ended the same year with the same amount of episodes. That's really weird. 203, kind of a weird number to end on.

Hunter X Hunter is getting a new anime. On one hand, I love Hunter X Hunter, probably the best action shonen outside of One Piece. On the other hand, the original anime was one of the best adaptations of a manga ever, so I don't see the point of starting from the beginning again. Advantage for me as I didn't want to start subbed in the middle of the series (as Viz never dubbed the old OVAs), but still this isn't exactly an FMA Brotherhood scenerio.

I've heard we're also getting a new Rurouni Kenshin anime. Can we have a new Black Cat anime too? One that's actually good?

I heard otherwise but after looking at some official sources, I see that you're right. Oh well, this is good news for me. If it gets streamed that means I don't have to watch the original anime first. Besides, it's been 10 years (in Japan at least), might as well start over.

Yeah, I heard about and talked about the new Rurouni Kenshin anime for a while now. Too bad we don't have any news on when it's getting released.

Oh, and what was wrong with Black Cat?

It was a mess of an anime. The main character's entire character development makes no sense, the face turn for the bad guy at the end was terrible and it tried to squeeze a 20 volume manga into 26 episodes while being partially new filler for the anime at the same time and it didn't work. It so didn't work.

I mean, it wasn't a bad anime but it was just a poor adaptation at least half of the time. It wasn't the best manga ever or anything but the quality never went down for even a panel outside of maybe the last volume. Just 20 volumes so no filler, nothing uninteresting or anything like that at any time. Also, I personally thought it was hilarious at times. I would love to see a new anime for it, although I know it's probably not popular enough for that (the mangaka's more popular work is some ecchi series...ugh).

I finished Kimi ni Todoke 2nd Season recently, and I'm still amazed by just how long it took the main couple to actually get together. That mangaka sure loves beating around the bush. I'm curious as to how long this series will end up being, given how much these kids drag their heels. Hopefully they'll wait until the manga ends before doing a third season for the anime (if they do in fact make one)...

After having it on my list for a while, I finally read Usagi Drop, and I loved it, despite the curve ball at the end. After finishing the manga, I jumped on the anime, and was pleasantly surprised at just how cute it was, especially Rin. I'm curious as to how much of the manga the anime is going to cover in only 11 episodes, though...

Lastly, I started watching my Samurai Champloo DVDs again, since it's been a while since the last time I did so. Still the best anime series ever, in my opinion...

I watched Akira today and I don't think it was as good as the hype suggested it would be but it was still a good movie. Although, it was a little confusing and some things could've been explained better.

Read the manga, it's a lot better.

Got Part 1 of the first season of Code Geass in the mail yesterday. Watching through it with my little brother and he's actually really into it.

Oh yes!
[youtube:X6_RZhh44NY]

Pure classic!

The thing with Akira was that it was one of the first anime to hit the West in a big way - a lot of the hype is related to the media storm that followed. Where cartoons had been pretty well exclusively been the reserve of children's entertainment, suddenly along came this toon from Japan featuring heavy violence, gore, and a level of body horror that has even now yet to be matched. The fact that it was a solid 80s teen sci-fi (and the 80s just loved a good motorbike-riding teen sci-fi) meant it gained a hell of a lot of fan support too, not just from the then-small anime community. The moral guardians wanted it to be banned, but the film critics loved it - it's much the same story as the whole "VIDEO GAMES WILL MURDER YOUR CHILDREN" thing.

These days, that hype doesn't exist - anime is much more well-known (ok, there's still the occasional public library that will put borderline hentai manga in the childrens' section because it has a cartoon character on the front), so that shock factor doesn't exist so much. It's still a solid movie with some incredible production (very detailed and smooth animation, and almost entirely night scenes - which are still considered hard to do today), but it's by no means the greatest anime movie ever. Just possibly the most iconic.

Half way through Bleach series 4 and it is indeed not as good as the first 3 series'. The new baddies aren't as good, the new party members aren't as good and there's not enough soul society in it. The main team are still worth watching but only for the laughs, which are getting few and far between.

@Mickeymac I'll look for the manga on the internet then as I've never seen it in any shops. I hope it does a better job of explaining things as after thinking about it, hardly anything was explained well.

@Supersushilax I can see why it got so much hype then, When you say body horror, are you referring to Tetsuo's transformation? If you are, I think William's transformation in the resident evil series comes pretty close, well, the first few forms at least, unless you just meant in anime.

I hate you now. That song will never leave my head. And I didn't even listen to it.

@Mickeymac NO!!! CLEANSE YOUR MIND BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!!

Great, now that will be stuck in my head for ages.

There are two series with the Bounto and those Bounto filler arcs are probably the worst filler arcs I have ever seen. It'll take a while 'till you get to some better episodes as the last episode in those arcs is episode 110. You will see more of soul society in the second of the two Bounto filler arcs.