The new, official, stand-alone anime thread!

[Guest Renegade]

I just picked up Fatal Fury the motion picture, and it was much better than i expected, how many episodes did the series go on for? I heard 20 in japan but the US only got the two released.

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

Both Fatal Fury movies were pretty damn good, but they never released any of the series over here for all I know.

 

On a sidenote: Ricky, I remember seeing that Hellsing movie next to Jin-Roh when I rented it a few weeks ago. I kinda wish I money situation wasn't so tight because I wanted to see that fucker, too.

 

Oh yeah, I get DEATH & REBIRTH in 2 days! I so happy!

[Guest RickyChosyu]

NoCash: Yeah, that's what I heard. The Christian Arc was kind of interesting, but man, some of those episodes before it were just horrendous, and in generall I felt like I wasn't getting anything new. Sano was still the same character, Kenshin wasn't really showing us anything we hadn't seen from him before, and Kauru was no closer to admitting that she loved him than ever. Just really stagnant and gave me the feeling that they just wanted to throw something together to keep the series going. Such a shame.

 

And yeah, that was a nice homage to Lupin. The Lupin/Jigen and Spike/Jet pairings are so simliar, in general, that you can tell Bebop got most of it's inspiration there.

 

AlwaysPissed: I think that's actually the first DVD you were seeing. It's definitely worth a look. I'm a huge mark for Vampire anime, so it's even more appealing to me, but it's a great anime in it's own right.

[Guest razazteca]

the greatest wrestling anime is making a comeback as M.U.S.C.L.E. will be on Fox Saturday mornings, but the big question is how different will it be from the orginal that I marked out during the 80s? Will the Muscle Unlimited show be all kiddie or what?

[Guest NoCash]

Hellsing is a 13 ep OVA I believe. Havent seen it because im kinda living check to check at the moment.

 

Death and Rebirth... hmm im assuming you havent seen End of Eva yet. D&R is basically a big commercial for EoE. It ends on a good cliffhanger. I have it, and its worth the money I feel. I was going through some serious Eva withdrawl.

 

EoE is where the real fun is at though. Got the VCDs. If you need someone to explain the movie... well I can TRY but the real fun part of Eva is to try and draw your own conclusions.

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

Yeah, I haven't seen EoE yet(it comes out next month on Amazon), but I'm not exactly a rook to the Eva series and we've talked about the show a LOT in the old Anime thread( *sniff* ). I pretty much know what happens in both movies, but I've never seen either of them.

[Guest NoCash]

I could tell you everything that happens in EoE, but its still something you need to watch on your own to fully understand the confusion

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Oh, definitely. You need to see it. It's not really something you can describe to someone else, you just have to see it for yourself.

 

In my humble opinion, Anno went too far with his message to the point that it just hurt the entertainment value and the fan's ability to enjoy it. I think that was a bit selfish on his part, but then again, maybe he never really ment for Eva to gain the monster following that it did in the first place. Eh, it's his creation, after all, and it's not as if he was appologizing with EoE anyway.

 

Speaking of Studio Gainax and director Hideaki Anno, specifically, I just saw the first DVD of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water another one of his works, and I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed. It's loosely based on Jules Verne's Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and is an amazingly fun, listless, yet engaging and deep show. It's just amazing that the guy could create such an adventuras, imaginative show (it almost seems like something from Studio Ghibli), and then do a complete 180 and create the dark, cryptic, and profound Eva. You can see a lot of little nuances between Nadia and Eva if you look hard, but they're almost complete oposites, as far as I can tell. I have to wonder just how fucked up Anno's life became that he would make a show almost Miyazaki-esqe in it's message and then direct Evangelion, which may be the most depressing anime I've ever seen.

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

Hey Ricky, that Bebop episode was on tonight on CN and the fight was just as great as I remembered it. Damn, that laugh is creepy...

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Oh, that laugh scared the crap out of me. The whole sequences with Pierrot where they show him being trained creeped me out quite a bit, too.

 

Then there's the fight; Spike's quote at the end of the episode is very, very true to how I felt by the time it was over.

[Guest NoCash]

Nadia is a series ive been meaning to check out for some time.

 

I'll give you a heads up though; I heard the movie really blows. It seems most of the original team had left by the time it was made

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Really? That's a damn shame. The show is just so fun and imaginative. It's the kind of thing that you can get lost in right from the very beginning. Then again, I've only seen four episodes out of thirty nine, so I'm not really in any possition to comment on overall quality. So far, it looks incredible, but you never know.

[Guest NoCash]

Bump.

 

Ran out of things to say about Nadia.

[Guest Crucifixio Jones]

A few questions and comments...

 

First: has anyone seen Spriggen? What did you think?

 

Two: What is the overall consensus on Jin-Roh...it dragged a bit for me until damn near the very end.

 

Three: Best anime fight? I'm gonna go with Gokou vs. The Three Androids in Movie # 7; that was my first exposure to DBZ, btw.

 

Oh, and click my CROSS in my sig.

[Guest pochorenella]

Ran out of things to say about Nadia.

 

Wasn't that the movie that supposedly Disney ripped-off for Atlantis? Is it really that similar? I mean, I saw some clips that definitely looked that they were inspired on it but to say that it's a complete rip-off I think it's too much. What do you guys think?

 

And so much for my Best fight question. About only 4 people have answered.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Crucifixio Jones:

 

1. Spriggan was a really mindless action vehicle that did a lot of things right but fell appart at the end. Some of the better action scenes were just amazing, and the animation totally blew me away at times, but mostly, I felt like I was getting someone's attempt to re-create Akira with more flash thrown in. Plus, the ending reminded me of Ghost in the Shell where they tried to do some kind of "twist" that just came off as forced and rather stupid. High-end for a mindless action movie, but with litle substance beyond that and some plot holes that make me wonder if they spent even half as much time writing the script as choriographing the action scenes. Still, I would recomend it if you're into that sort of thing.

 

2. Jin-Roh does slow down a lot, but I think the main reason so many people are dissapointed in that regard is because the opening scenes make it appear to be an adrenaline-pumped action movie, when, obviously, it's not. I found the political intrigue and Red-Riding hood tie-ins to be really interesting, but I can see how someone could get borred with it. It's just the kind of movie you have to be in the mood to really think about, because it's easy to stop carring before it actually payes off at the end.

 

pochorenella: I never saw Atlantis, but both that and Nadia seem to be based some-what on Jules Verne's 20 Thousand League's Under the Sea which could lead people to believe that Disney ripped it off.

[Guest Mr. Pink]

Bah, Atlantis was shit...what were we talking about? Oh yeah, Anime.

 

 

 

Has anyone seen Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust yet? I've been hearing NOTHING but good things about this, and I have some questions:

 

1. Is it as good-if not better than the original?

 

2. Who's the main villain? My friend told me Dracula (which will most likely be him talking out of his ass) and another told me assorted demons...what's the dilly-o?

[Guest RickyChosyu]

1. Yes, it's better. As in, like, WAY better in every possible way. Best Kawajiri movie ever (unless you count his work on Metropolis).

 

2. Well, the main villain whom D persues through the movie is Meier Link, but there are plenty of other villains that he fights and it's a bit hard to say who the most trully evil one is. Ether way, it's definitely NOT Dracula.

[Guest Mr. Pink]

That sumbitch lied to me he did!

 

 

 

*shoots friend and runs off with the diamonds*

[Guest pochorenella]

Bloodlust is a great vampire anime movie, and I think is way better than Blood: the last vampire, which had cool animation but the story was too short to mean anything and the suspense just wasn't all there for me.

I mean, how many half-human half-vampire slayers are there, anyway? Wasn't Blade the original (and in my opinion best) one?

 

God, I'm gonna piss off a lot of Buffy fans with that last sentence.

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust pretty much smokes every other anime vampire movie I've ever seen and yeah, Blade's probably the best hybrid vampire hunter out of all of them(but I still mark for D's insanely cool sword, though)

[Guest CED Ordonez]

I just finished up watching some more Ruroni Kenshin and it just occurred to me that I almost always listen to the original Japanese dialogue and read the subtitles when it comes to my anime viewing. I think it's mainly because the English dubbing doesn't sound nearly as good as the original more often than not.

 

I'm wondering what anime titles you guys think had comparable, if not superior, English dubs in comparison to the original Japanese version. And while I'm on the subject , what's your preference: sub or dub?

 

I think the only time I've listened to the English track on an anime and preferred it over the original is Cowboy Bebop. Every character on the English dub crew was casted perfectly IMO and killed my need for subtitles (Though I do flip over to the Japanese track once in awhile to just hear the ever-present seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara.).

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Yeah, the "half and half" idea for Vampires is one of most cliched plot devices in the history of anime, comics, and movies. Seriously, it was old six years ago. But yeah, Blade is the orginial, as far as I know (not that I'm an expert on that sort of thing). D is pretty cool, but is generally too err.. "architypal" to really be interesting. Not that he doesnt' suite his role in the movie, or anything, but he never seems vulnerable at all, either from being killed or letting himself be hurt emotionally. Most people who watch movies like Bloodlust probably aren't looking for stuff like that, though, so it's probably just playing to the audience more than anything.

 

As for voice actors, for Kenshin, I always stick to the subtitled version. The dub is just horrendous, and kills so many of the critical moments with bad delivery (though Spike's VA voicing Shishio and Faye's VA voicing Yumi was pretty friggin' cool, I'll give them that). Bebop would definitely be one that I don't have any problem with listening to in english; wonderfull, suppurb dub. Every single character is done perfectly. I think it also helps that Bebop was VERY heavilly influenced from American cinema and U.S. pop culture in general, so it doesn't have very many awkward instances where the jokes or references don't translate well. This is a common problem with series like, say, Kenshin, which is full of instances like that. Many times I think tranlaters decide to just make up their own jokes to fill the void, and many times, it backfires.

 

As for other dubs I didn't mind at all, I thought Irresponsible Captain Tylor had a great dub with everyone filling their roles wonderfully. Trigun gets props, too, especially with how well both Vash and Knives came off. Despite how porely they marketed it, I thought Disney did a fine job dubbing Princess Monoke, and I've always liked Perfect Blue's dubing job, too. Macross Plus has a really, really great dub, as well, and is probably on the levle of Bebop, as far as preserving the charicterazation true to the originial.

[Guest pochorenella]

I'm wondering what anime titles you guys think had comparable, if not superior, English dubs in comparison to the original Japanese version. And while I'm on the subject , what's your preference: sub or dub?

 

I prefer mostly subtitles on my part. One of the firsts good dubs that comes to mind is the new english dub on the Akira SE DVD. I think it stands supremely well with the original track. Ricky is right, Princess Mononoke may be one of the best english dubs around (Gillian Anderson mark, right here!), and the Bebop dub is also pretty good IMO. And I may be on the minority here, but I liked the Castle of Cogliostro dub, even though my cousin thinks it sucks.

 

And I said it before, and I'll say it again: Spanish dubs RULE! Ranma 1/2, DBZ, Mazinger Z, Kenshin, you name it. All extremely well done dubs, easily comparable to the original tracks. About the only flawed one I can think of is Cowboy Bebop, but I'm not that big of a fan anyway.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Not a fan, of Bebop!!?!? BLASPHEMY~!!

 

Seriously, I dig the Castle of Cogliostro dub. What exactly did your cousin hate about it?

[Guest pochorenella]

Not really sure what it is exactly that he hates about it, but I was watching it a few months ago with the english track and he came to the room and basically said he hated it and preferred the original track.

 

BTW, he IS a huge Bebop fan, so maybe you can forgive him.

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

To be perfectly honest, I've hardly ever listened to the Spanish dubs or the Japanese originals. Well... I DID watch one of my DBZ DVDs in Japanese with English subs, but that was more along the lines me wanting to see the REAL opening video of the show(this was during the teenage Gohan phase witht he tourney and Majin-Buu). I think my problem with listening to it in different languages is that I'd get distracted too easily, which is something I've been trying to stop.

[Guest Crucifixio Jones]

I'd have to say I mark for the Spanish dub of NINJA SCROLL.

 

I talk along with Jubei during it alot, especially when he offers those bandits at the beginning a bite of his rice ball:

 

"QUIERES?"

[Guest pochorenella]

I'd have to say I mark for the Spanish dub of NINJA SCROLL.

 

I talk along with Jubei during it alot, especially when he offers those bandits at the beginning a bite of his rice ball:

 

"QUIERES?"

 

Rock on, Crucifixio!

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Dude, I have GOT to see Ninja Scroll in Espanol. That would so totally rock.

 

AlwaysPissed: I think generally once you get accustomed to a certain set of voices for a show, it's hard to switch to another one because it's just so damn weird. I watched Vision of Escaflowne from start to finish in Japanese, and it never seemed the least bit weird to me, but watching all of Bebop in english and then attempting to watch it in Japanese proved to be practically impossible.