I guess it can't be helped: the anime thread.

general
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##### It‘s the thread you’ve been searching for!!

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/uUCFv6A.jpg[/IMG]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzZOJG3vJmo

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Talk about animes you are watching and animes you have loved or maybe just found interesting in some way.

Here are five of my favourite films, OVAs and shows:

  • - *Patlabor: The Early Days*
  • - *Natsume's Book of Friends*
  • - *Fullmetal Alchemist* (2003)
  • - *Princess Jellyfish*
  • - and of course *Tokyo Godfathers*

    • And here are five more!!!

  • - *O Maidens in Your Savage Season*
  • - *Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture*
  • - *Azumanga Daioh*
  • - *Kiznaiver*
  • - *Mushi-Shi*

    • And five **more** because I'm so worried about leaving out something important and taste-defining for me, under a cut because I don't want to arrive all the way at insufferable in the opening post for a thread about anime:

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  • - *Cromartie High School*
  • - *Summer Wars*
  • - *Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade*
  • - *March Comes in Like a Lion*
  • - *Samurai Champloo*
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    In trying to compose this introduction, I've come to the conclusion that: I've seen a lot of anime. Far from "the most" but definitely "a few."

    Like a lot of people, I started watching anime without realizing it, with shows like *Sailor Moon* and *Pokémon* airing in the nineties dubbed and scrubbed of their Japaneseness (among other things). Much later in high school I would both watch what anime did make it undisguised to Canadian TV while also dipping my toe into whatever I could find at Blockbuster or HMV: things like two out-of-context episodes of *Evangelion* and *Akira* (on DVD!). It wouldn't be until spring of 2005 when I would use the power of P2P to download and watch in its entirety my first fansubbed television series: the 2003 adaptation of FMA, one episode a day, for 51 days. I couldn't have picked a more perfect series to dive in on, with its profound ups and downs, heavy themes and delayed payoff. I'd not to that moment seen a cartoon like it, and I wanted more. Others such as *Honey and Clover* (doesn't really hold up!!) and *Samurai Champloo* (not only better than you remember, but better than *Cowboy Bebop at his computer*) also featured early in my internet-enabled exposure.

    I've been so mesmerized by what's been accomplished through the medium of animation by in large part Japanese animators that I was even moved to take 2D animation in college… but then dropped out in fourth semester due to serious life dysfunction haha. It's been a struggle to keep in touch with art-making since then and animating in particular has fallen by the wayside, but I have managed to keep somewhat up on new releases and dig into older ones too. Currently I'm watching ***Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury* season 2** as well as the series it draws so heavily from: ***Revolutionary Girl Utena***, and I'm liking them both a lot!!

    **On the subject of "what counts as anime?":** I 100% welcome animation from regions other than Japan, whether you think something merits inclusion by its cultural proximity (whatever that means to you—that probably has an academic definition that I wasn't aware of before typing out the words, I'm sorry I didn't complete my BFA either!) to Japan or because it shares a visual language (not necessarily or limited to: big round eyes and sweat drops etc). So much of the workload is often [outsourced](https://variety.com/2012/digital/news/japanese-companies-outsourcing-anime-1118049388/) that it would be crass to exclude something like *Aachi & Ssipak*, but does *Avatar TLA* belong in this thread? I dunno, who cares! Chill out lol. Come to me and post, you anime-niacs!!

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    @“connrrr”#p112164 Cromartie High School

    People on this forum may be surprised to hear this, but, I really, _really_ like _Cromartie High School._

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    @“connrrr”#p112164 Samurai Champloo (not only better than you remember

    It's not better than _I_ remember it, because I rewatched it last year, and my memory of how it is extremely good is extremely clear. I also only remembered it being extremely good, so, when I eventually rewatched it, it was just affirming that I was right to always think that it was good.

    Not long after that (or before? Can't remember), I _did_ rewatch something related and found that it was even better than I remembered it being: _Space Dandy._ But not _that_ much better--I remembered thinking it was great, but it's more like excellent. Funny and weird and threads a great balance between being self aware while reveling in its own irreverent obliviousness.

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p112166 People on this forum may be surprised to hear this, but, I really, really like Cromartie High School.

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p112166 Space Dandy–I remembered thinking it was great, but it’s more like excellent.

    I think perhaps something I really like in media is stupid things made by smart people.

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    @“Gaagaagiins”#p112166 the thing about Sam Cham for me is I was 19 18 when I first saw it, thought it was awesome and exciting and funny, and then rewatching it a few years ago I felt like I could appreciate its references and character development more—in addition to being blown away all over again by its audacious anachronisms. So ok, it was at least better than I remember!

    I've always meant to return to *Space Dandy*!! I started watching it with a friend when it first aired but something made us fall of it and I still haven't gotten around to coming back.

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    this thread should be titled: WE ARE COOL and want to talk about COOL ANIME.

    I am still watching **Fruits Basket (2001)** with my wife and it has a handful of truly terrible episodes, fails at 85% of its melodrama, and has a plot that progresses every 6 episodes or so, but I still like it because at least once an episode someone makes me laugh. The general premise (that the main characters turn into animals when hugged by a member of the opposite sex) is _extremely_ overdone in the initial episodes to the point of complete absurdity, and then becomes basically a non-issue once they realize they can't do this same gag 100+ times. We're on episode 20 (or so) of 26, and I have no idea where this show is going.

    I have also been seeing snippets of **Toradora** as my wife watches it. I saw it once 12 years ago, maybe the 3rd or 4th anime I ever watched, and liked it a lot. The premise of two people falling in love while trying to help each other gain the confidence to confess to their crushes is guaranteed gold! Can't go wrong!

    Kinda wanna watch a mecha anime soon. Idk if I wanna do another Gundam. I've seen a heck of a lot of those, and none of them have lived up to **0079** and **Zeta**. I liked the original **Macross**, but then couldn't get into any of the sequels. Anyone have any ideas? Saw someone somewhere mention **Metal Armor Dragonar**. Is that any good?

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    @“wickedcestus”#p112182 have you checked out Patlabor? I really dig that Early Days OVA and two movies that Mamoru Oshii worked on.

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    @“connrrr”#p112183 I‘ve tried Patlabor a few times and while I appreciate what it’s going for, I find it's missing the two things I want most out of mecha, which are bombast and extremely intense love stories. My favourite parts of Gundam 0079 are the final episodes with the pyscho-romance love triangle, and Zeta Gundam is just extreme from end-to-end in terms of romance and general melodrama. Obviously, the best part of Macross is ||when Lynn Minmay and Hikaru are stuck underground and fall in megalove before getting rescued and then being awkward forever||.

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    I've seen “some” but not “a lot”, and also not all of the typical canon that one is expected to have seen. I only saw Perfect Blue last month, for example! (it was great)

    A short series I rather enjoyed but do not often see mentioned (maybe I'm just not looking?) is _Ping Pong: The Animation_.

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    @“rejj”#p112189 Ping Pong: The Animation

    Exquisite show. So creatively confident.

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    https://youtu.be/a9L6ejKsOuE

    us

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    I think Gundam is my big one in general with Turn A being the peak of the franchise imo. I have seen nearly every series except the last two new ones: Iron Blooded Orphans and White Witch. Witch sounds real promising so I’m gonna wait until it’s done and then watch.

    Eureka Seven probably my biggest love. It has style, tenderness, love, action, political intrigue. Absolutely in love with it.

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    Also the Giant Robo OVA is hot!!!

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    @“wickedcestus”#p112188 it sounds like you might really like The Witch from Mercury! Have you seen Escaflowne?

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    Oh man, I've got a lot to say about anime:

  • 1.

    Honey and Clover has always lost me after the 10th or 11th episode, but those episodes I always really, really enjoy. The soft art, the teen angst, the line that goes something like “I spend so much time thinking up the right words and when the times comes to say them, I say nothing” maybe not as profound to a person now in his 30‘s, but as a teen angstman I was like “This anime is speaking directly to me.” Anyway, meaningful because of how it made me feel at the time, and rewatches bring those feelings back, but still can’t get more than halfway through the first season.

  • 2.

    Fullmetal Alchemist absolutely rules and I believe reading the manga (which i never would've read had I not seen the anime as a teen) actually made me a better person. I have very vivid memories of me with my pomeranian (rip to the best girl Sadie) and I on the couch while I was just barreling through FMA and every 10 minutes or so she would get up, walk on me, and (try to) push my book out of the way because she wanted attention. One of my favorite memories. I'm pretty much constantly yearning for life to feel that simple again, at least for a little bit.
    That was also when I felt I was being pulled both left and right in a political and social sense and I tried to stubbornly stand firm in the middle. Reading FMA made me want to listen to people with different experiences and not just be like "Hey quit complaining! It's not so bad!"
    FMA is always my first suggestion for anime to watch if you haven't watched anime.

  • 3.

    Eureka Seven rules. Really need to watch it again.

  • 4.

    I recently saw "Words Bubble up like Soda Pop", and man that movie is so cute. I started tearing up a little and I definitely would've started crying had I been watching it by myself.

  • 5.

    Been watching some Wonder Egg Priority and it's pretty solid, not amazing I don't think, but fun enough. I don't see a lot of queer stories in anime and it's always nice to see it.

  • 6.

    Also, suggesting Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars! A much lesser-known anime that I think is quite fun. I always describe it as "Evangelion, but nothing's ever really that serious. Even the life-threatening stuff."

    • PS: It's safe to assume we all love Jojo, right?

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    we made it to 1.4k posts in the book thread before getting to this point. It will be a dark day is anime ever passes books in popularity on this forum

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    warms my heart to know a fellow appreciator of Overture of the Summer Wars

    (fuller longer faster stronger comment later)

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    One day when I was a small child I turned on the TV to find the fox box playing a show about a giant mechanical suit of armor and it also had dragons in it, and from that moment I was hooked.

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    @“yeso”#p112220 you're right, it has been a long time coming!!

    @"mtvcribs"#p112211 I remember going back to some mid-season episode of H&C and there were a pair of really painful gay characters at Mayama's work. That certainly hasn't aged well, but the way the show and the characters' professor infantilize his niece Hagu was always kinda creepy—not helped by Takemoto placing her and her art on a pedestal. No spoilers but how that love triangle winds up in the end is the worst. Hagu ends up being the least interesting character and I remember thinking everyone else's arcs were far more engaging but it has been a while since I watched the show from start to finish. The music is still great!!

    If you have a hard time getting through H&C but something about it drew you to it, I strongly recommend *March Comes in Like a Lion*. It's about shogi and depression! and it adapts Chika Umino's art with the budget and care it deserves. Even Yuki returns for a couple of the openers!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKjbF2a90Fo

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    @“yeso”#p112220

    With the upcoming anime adaptation of Virginia Woolf's The Waves, anime is now literature.

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    @“yeso”#p112220 we made it to 1.4k posts in the book thread before getting to this point. It will be a dark day is anime ever passes books in popularity on this forum

    No one tell him........... please.........