Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Fascinating, thanks

itadakimasu~

So, I watched the first episode of A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives and I've come to the conclusion that it's absolutely terrible. It's not terrible in the sense that it doesn't explain tons of things that make no sense (key word being "tons", but it's terrible because of it's aim to appease the the masses. There's so much panty shots and even a few minutes of underage nudity that it makes me have gag reflex in my right foot. There's even a point where a female character is moaning while "Riding" what appears to be a giant alligator's tail that's coming out of the wall.

Also, didn't some big-name city in Japan put in some law that states that you can't make anime or manga that contains sexual content about underage characters? Well, so much for that.

Weird that it doesn't have an ecchi tag...

Dude, like, right after the law passed they made this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_no_Omocha!

...yeah, this law just ain't working like we hoped.

Yeah, so long as there's a market for it, they'll find ways to get crap past the radar. It's treading the fine line between what can be described as sexualized and what can be defended as only perceived to be sexualized by the reader (which can be argued to be entirely the readers' problem, not the publishers'... as entirely bulls*** as that may actually be).

No not at all

Well said.

I'm currently on episode 36 of Sgt. Frog, which means I'm a good way through the first official season. This show just keeps getting better, and the dub is really well-done.

I'm on episode 34 of Turn A Gundam. I'm finally being drawn into this show. It's now very compelling and it finally stopped being so slow. The action is also very interesting and I'm starting to care for the characters. This could be worth it after all.

Finally got back into Star Driver now that it's being streamed legally. The artwork and animation are fantastic, and I love all the characters so far. It's too bad you don't see more of the bad guys, though. The action is also very visually fun to watch, even if it is more than a little flashy (but Super Robot shows are supposed to be flashy, right?). Definitely could turn out to be a must-see, which is good since Giant Robot shows have been on life-support recently.

I started watching The Third: Girl With The Blue Eye. It seems very interesting so far, I even got the DVD collection for it so I could watch more. Good mix of action, drama, and humor with plenty of humanity (concern for their enemies, etc.) Story could turn out to be pretty thoughtful, too.

I also started watching Space Battleship Yamato. The lack of music during fight scenes is very annoying, but otherwise it's a good, classic sci-fi show.

Then I watched more Captain Harlock. Things have gotten pretty heavy now, for a kid's show. I mean seriously, they put that little girl through a lot...it also seems to be the first show with loli pantsu fanservice. Still well worth watching, though. Did I mention the music in this show is fantastic? Definitely a step up over Space Battleship Yamato.

Lastly I saw the first two episodes of Irresponsible Captain Tylor. It was pretty great. Tylor is pretty funny. He seems dumb, yet he can smooth-talk his way through any situation. I respect that. The situations were also incredibly funny and ironic. Definitely something I gotta watch more of once I'm done with Sgt. Frog.

I tried to watch the first episodes of Macross, Maria-Sama, and Astralotte's Toy. Nostalgia has made Macross totally unwatchable - There are so many differences between Macross and Robotech that it drove me crazy, and I preferred RoboTech's version on every count. Maria-Sama was boring. This was my second time trying to watch it and I still can't make it through the first episode. I may just read a synosis and skip to the second episode. Astralotte's Toy was better than expected, but still had way more fanservice than I could handle.

@SigourneyBeaver

Watch out for Claymore's horrible ending...and the completely useless guy who is in the entire show for some reason.

I've started watching Honey & Clover, the first Noitamina show I believe. I don't recall any bad Noitamina shows.

I set out to watch the first episode of Eden of The East, just as a taster, but ended up watching all 11 episodes in one go. I had plans for that day. Anyway, I think that shows how addictive I found it, the plot twists were superb as well as all the social commentary. Panties must be one of the all-time greatest characters. Really looking forward to the two films, and I'm planning on getting the first one as soon as I get the spare change.

I'm still watching Mushi-shi, currently on episode 19, and I've got to say, it's already in my top 5 (although, that could change depending on the ending). It took me about five episodes to "get used to it" but after that it really just clicked with me. It's not exactly a "peaceful" anime in that there's plenty of tragedy, but it's sort of entrancing to watch. Ginko is a great character, and one of the things I particularly like about the series is that he doesn't always succeed and occasionally he returns years later (to see his "patients") to find out how things have got on. I recommend this heartily to absolutely anyone, as long as they like an episodic show and have a bit of patience. Also, the dub is great.

I've also watched the first ten episodes of Code Geass. I'm not a big fan of how everyone is really thin, tall and lanky, and it's surprising how big an issue I've found that. I have to say though, whenever Lelouch confronts the empire, it does quicken the old heart rate. On a side note: Zero's outfit is absolutely absurd. It's difficult to take the whole thing seriously when it looks like he's wearing a vampire costume. Also, any character with pink/green/blue hair I find instantly annoying. So basically, while I think the script and plot is pretty good, I'm not a big fan of the animation.

Fin.

This video took my breath away. I can't wait to see it. It looks insane, but in a good way.

So I watched the first 3 episodes of Kurokami The Animation and I'm getting the idea that this show is just one big excuse to have awesome double-team hand-to-hand fight scenes, but it doesn't seem to have arrived at it's destination yet. The show is getting itself through most of the introductory assets, like why the main character actually cares about what's going on, who the villains are, and why epic fight scenes must commence. I like the whole "Doppelinear System" that the show puts forth, but in substitute of that the show doesn't quite explain some things that it really should (What's "Terra", why are there these clans, and what's a "Root Master"?). Hopefully the show will answer some of my questions and let awesome fights scenes do their job!

I've just started watching Soul Eater. I'm on the pilot episode and it's great. It's a shame that Naruto, Bleach and DragonBall get all the glory for anime here in North America.

Granted, I love Shonen Jump's One Piece but there are other great anime out there like Heroman, Black Butler, Captain Harlock, Moribito and Soul Eater but many people don't know of them because the media pushes the big names like Naruto. Man, even Speed Racer isn't known by the youth of today and it was one of the earliest anime to make it to the USA paving the way for the rest.

If Gundam was popular here, it would be a freakin' dream come true.

Well, whadda ya know? There is an AnimeCon here in Atlanta, GA where I live and it's been here since 1995! I'd have never known it!

Source: http://www.awa-con.com/

Also check this out: http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/cultist/2011/08/mizu_con_is_on...

I've also discovered a little known anime called Beet the* Vandel Buster* and it's quite good.


If you're looking solely at what virtually everyone knows, that's about right. But as soon as you focus in on the anime community, Soul Eater is hugely popular and very mainstream.

Honey & Clover has been doing a fine job of entertaining me, but at the risk of sounding jaded: I'm kind of sick of how whiny main characters are in anime, especially drama (maybe it's a Japan thing - oh hello there Other M). Thinking things over in everlasting internal monologues... I like a bit of character development as much as the next person, but sometimes you should just act? The anime's been fairly clever and nicely paced about everything else but the romance though.

That looks fantastic

I can highly recommend this one

and this

Holy crap, someone actually agrees with me when I think something's cool? It's a Christmas miracle.

For the roughly about 5 of you here who played trails in the sky (myself inculded) here's the PV for the anime.

_{I hope they dub this in English}

I finished the first Season of Sgt. Frog. It was a really good show - lots of clever jokes, quirky characters, a funny narrator, and a great dub (all the voices fit and excecuted every line wonderfully) that even outdoes the Japanese VO, plus it has just the right changes to the script so us westerners get the jokes, too. I also learned a lot about Japanese holidays and culture. The show also had a lot of heart-felt sentimental moments that really made me smile. Only things I didn't like was that it was a little too stupid at times and a lot of the fan service centered around a 13-year-old girl, though even the show noted that it was being inappropriate (sorta). With that said the fanservice was relatively light. Oh, and the weird love-polygons were kinda annoying at first, but they got interesting and even heartening after a while. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the music in the show is pretty good.

Up next is Irresponsible Captain Tylor, which I already started and am already in love with. Captain Tylor is so clever, he acts so stupid yet he talks his way through seemingly any situation, and the situations he's in are usually pretty crazy. I can't wait to watch more of it/ I'd say too bad it's short, but after 51 episodes of Sgt. Frog, I don't think I'll need much more comedy for a while.