Topic: Anime & Manga (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

Watched it in the wrong order, my friend. You need to get acquainted with these characters through the show, then you'll like the movie a lot more. For me personally, the movie was mostly impressive in that the TV series already told the whole story, yet the movie somehow didn't ruin any of it. More often than not, material later added to canon turns out to be awful, this wasn't.

Posting in this thread reminded me to start rewatching Bebop, so I have.

@Ravage: Evangelion is all sorts of messed up and awesome. When I started watching it I definitely wasn't old enough to appreciate it. The new movies (which retell the story) make for a lot easier viewing, so I suggest you watch those instead of the show. They hardly sacrifice anything and are way, way more enjoyable. (Just for the record, I'm refering to Evangelion 1.01 You Are [Not] Alone, etc)

Yeah, the Cowboy Bebop movie is basically just fanservice. Another random story in their lives - like a special episode, basically. You need to watch the anime first and then the movie or you won't "get it". The real story is told throughout the episodes and the movie doesn't really add anything to it, so reserve judgement and watch the TV series.

Though even then you must admit the opening song and sequence is amazingly cool.

What story is in the episodes? Honestly, you can watch the first episode and then the last couple and that's the whole main story right there. :/ Or am I wrong? I haven't watched it straight through but besides a few episodes everything seemed like stand alone stories.

You learn more about the characters as you go. There's more to a story than the plot. Each character kinda has their own story that's slowly uncovered.

Has anyone seen Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom before? It is interesting so far...

Yup, I've seen it. It's fun, in a ridiculous over-the-top kind of way. Very amusing, very little depth.

If anyone is looking for something recent and different, I would suggest checking out Level E. The opening is pretty snazzy.

I'll get on that when I'm done with Gurren Lagann. Along with GoSick and Infinite Stratos, and more of Fractale and Freezing.

I'm done with Ergo Proxy so I'm going to start Level E tonight. Can't wait, I'm a HUGE fan of the creator's other work, Hunter X Hunter. You should check it out if you haven't already. It starts out slow but becomes the best shonen manga/anime ever, IMO.

I might give it a shot if it has a good storyline that's not bogged down by incomprehensible lore. The failing of most shonen I've seen is that they have terrible stories with lots of lore that makes things so hard to understand later on. I can't stand that.

Anyone seen Full Metal Panic? It's entertaining, to say the least.

Oh my G-d the Hunter X Hunter guy worked on Yuu Yuu Hakusho! That's the best Shonen I've ever seen! In fact, it's the only good shonen I've ever seen, besides maybe S-Cry-Ed and Dragonauts: The Resonance (if it counts, which I don't think it does)! Now I need to watch HXH and Level E! Oh, and to everyone else, if you haven't watched Yu Yu Hakusho, do so anyway you can. It's amazing.

@Moomoo

It's on my to-do. I have the DVD collection sitting on a shelf somewhere untouched, mainly due to some bad reviews I encountered. Still, I'm pretty sure those same reviewers called Dragonauts the worst show they've ever seen, so I don't think I'll pay them much heed.

@Everyone

Just out of curiousity, how do all of you watch most of your anime? I mainly watch legal stream sites, unless I can grab the DVD collection for cheap...which is rare nowadays.

It is rare to find anime period in a store... That being said, if it is a movie, you can usually find it somewhere fairly soon after release, but don`t expect that to last long. I have a couple Inuyasha movies on DVD and a friend has Vision of Escaflowne (watch it if you haven`t seen it) as well as most or all of Gundam Wing on DVDs. Other than a few examples where we enjoyed the anime enough to buy the box sets (which I am planning to do for Eureka 7 because it was awesome), we either watched it on TV or via various internet sites.

Where I currently live (not UK anymore) virtually no anime is licensed, generally official streams are disabled for my region and importing official DVDs (to support the creators!) is about as illegal as downloading fansubs. But I do both, whenever I love a show I'll buy the DVD boxset and merchandise... If it's available with English subs anyway; my favourite director has done like 5 works, none of them are licensed in the West. One of them happened to have English subs on the official Japanese DVD release, so I imported that.

Like with music, video games and films I try and support the creators, but it's a lot harder with anime, so I'll probably just save up a few hundred and make up for it when I get to Japan =)

Anyone here watched Squid Girl?

I saw an episode of it. It was pretty entertaining, but not my cup of tea. There are few Japanese comedies that I can stomach.

Also, if your name from an anime? Maybe I'm confused, but I swear I've seen it in an anime title before.

@Ravage - Speaking of Eureka Seven, I just noticed that it's available on ANN, so it's now an option for me.

@Mickeymac; Nope! The only overarching story is that Gon is looking for his dad. Just know that if you watch the anime it starts a LOT slower than the manga, but it gives a lot more detail to things and you'll probably come to appreciate it once you become a fan. Just stick with it, once the Hunter exams start it just gets better and better and NEVER stops.

And yeah, he did YYH too. =D I don't like it as much but there are a lot of similar themes and styles that he carried from it into HxH so you should love it.

FINALLY picked up FMA Brotherhood Volume 2. Loving it so far, the plotlines are really good. Now quite a fan of Xiao-Mei too, clearly. NINJA PANDAAA.

Sounds good. I'll have to check it out when I have the time.

@Raylax

Yeah, Xioa Mei is awesome.

Well Aiko is a feminine Japanese name. BUT IT'S ALSO A MASCULINE NAME IN SCANDINAVIA.