HTF Anime Discussion Part VII (1 Viewer)

[Tony-B]

Jason, you're not the only one who "tires at all the 'harem' anime conventions."

 

[Todd McF]

Finally got around to watching Gantz 1 last night. Absolutely hilarious. I suppose you have to be kind of a sick b*stard to really appreciate it - and apparently my brother and I are sick b*stards.

One more Blue Gender to go. Disk 7 was fantastic - a big tempo pick up from disks 4-6 which lost a bit of momentum.
What a great series that is.

I'm also really starting to love Full Metal Alchemist. I wasnt too big on it at first - but maybe all the short jokes are getting to me!

 

[Alanna]

I got my Full Metal Panic Complete box today. I think it looks rather spiffy despite the fact that the shrink wrapping warped the box just a lil. No biggie. It looks way spiffy. I will definitely be buying the Noir thinpak box too.

 

[Kong Chang]

FMP is a waste of money. Just the first 12-13 episodes are good and the rest were horribly drawn out and boring. Lost all the charm of the first half of the series. FMP Fumoffu is a better buy IMO. I now pray FMP 3rd series will continue the good trend of the 2nd series.

Jason:

harem anime is here to stay since there are too many lonely, horny teenage (and adult) Japanese boys in Japan that hasn't had a decent sex life. However, there are a few good ones. Not every harem anime are bad, you just have to be choosy on the better ones over the mediocre to crap ones.


All:

I am, for the time being, gonna recommend a look on a new show called Death Club Angel Dokuro-chan. This is the first bloodiest, cute, with a touch of messed up magical girl mixed together. My god, this is one bloody, yet cute, show. Definitely be on the lookout for it. So far, only the first 2 eps are out, so can't really fully recommend until most of the show is out. Definitely for sick and twisted individuals, I recommend this show to you guys.

Oh and for you CLAMP fans, Tsubasa and Chronicle anime is out. This will be new R2 DVD purchase when it is out. So far, awesome animation and kept right to the story of the manga. Highly recommended and a must watch.

Another recommendation is Gakuen Alice (Alice Academy). From the creator of kodomo no omocha (Child's Toy), this series is just as whacky as Kodocha ever was, about gifted youths with extraordinary powers (think of this school like the X-Men school for gifted youngsters). Pretty funny and addictive show. A must watch and highly recommended too.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

JohnAD,

Are you interested in trading for my copy of Midori Days Vol. 1? If so, send me your trade list in a PM. I'm interested in regular films as well as anime.

Otherwise I will open it up to cash offers and Woo Jae will be first in line.



On my way to pick up Neon Genesis: Evangelion Vol. 7 today. Are there any EVA fans in the house?

Until next time...

 

[JohnAD]

Rob:

Unless you want an unopened, Canadian, full-screen version of A Beautiful Mind, I think I'm going to have to let Woo have this one. I don't trade my collection, and while I would be willing to buy, I'll probably wait for the show to finish so I can snap it up all at once. Thanks anyway.

Alanna:

Full Metal Panic is a good choice. I rather enjoyed the series.

John.

 

[Max Leung]

I liked the Evangelion series. It took my second attempt to watch the series to get into it - a couple of years ago I never got past episode 11 - the teenaged angst was annoying back then, but now I don't care.

Nadia is definitely more accessible - I give it an A for the first half of the series, and a C+ for the second half. The last few episodes are good. Woohoo Electra fanservice shots! Now I know where Gundam Seed got the shaken-up female captain shots from! I think if I were to watch Nadia again, I would think carefully on which middle episodes to avoid where the characters suddenly have amnesia and lose all the character development they accumulated while on the Nautilus. *cough*

Full Metal Alchemist - I loved the show until around episode 30, where the story starts to unravel and lose direction IMHO. But maybe it was the quality of the fansubs - things started to get confusing and it just seemed that the story ran out of steam. I heard another story that episode 26 goes past the manga, so they were making everything up since then. I stopped watching at about episode 48 - strange how I don't care about how it ended. *shrug*

Full Metal Panic - I loved the Fumoffu series - great stuff. I can't say much about the 1st season as I watched a butchered engrish subtitled version that kept mixing up pronouns. At least the engrish was funny enough to keep me watching!

Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex - best anime I've ever seen. 2ng Gig in some ways is even better than the 1st season. However, I don't know many female anime fans that like the show. Words like "boring" and "I hate the kiddy sentient tanks" spew forth from their mouths. Could it be that GITS is truly a man's show?

 

[Woo Jae]

Rob, you got a PM ;

Well I do want to see both FMP, Argentosoma, and Noir so I'll prolly get teh stuff in (blech) bricks. And yes, Thinpaks are sexy indeed ;


I got my copy of Fighting Spirit #5. And it - as usual - rocked my socks. A wonderful fight between Ippo, and the boxing genius Hayami, whose overconfidence does him in.
And a much much more brutal fight between Mashiba and Miyata - that has a suprising outcome which I won't spoil. Not only that, we get to see why Mashiba wants to fight - love the fact that this show shows the main characters and their opponent's motivation as well. But Mashiba is still a creepy, arrogant b*stard.

 

[TheLongshot]

Oh, I don't think harem anime is bad (I do own Tenchi, Dual! and El-Hazard), but SMJ wore out its welcome for me. The characters were charming for a little bit, but things went on for too long.

Jason

 

[Todd McF]

EVA is still my favorite anime of all time. I'm still trying to decide if I should replace my current box set with the Renewal / Platinum releases.

I watched episode 1 & 2 of the *original* disks last week on the projector for the first time. The black levels are somewhat washed out and colors are slightly muted. The "Gainax" screen gitter is there in virtually every scene change.

The sound on the other hand - is pretty nice. Decent LFE, nice wide front sound stage stereo mix. It sounds about the same with or without PLIIx processing - a good thing.

I guess the question is - how much better is the 5.1 mix and the remastered video?

 

[JohnAD]

My order from DDD came yesterday. I got the Hand Maid May boxed set, which has vols. 1-3 and a CD-ROM of additional stuff. I also got Tenchi in Tokyo vol. 7, and Saiyuki vols. 5-7, which restarts the collecting on that series after a ~6-month delay. I didn't get a chance to watch any of them last night, but at least this time all of the cases had disks in them .

John.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

This is not from my own experience, but I am acquainted with side-by-side comparisons of the "old" and "new" ADV Evangelion DVDs which suggest not only that the quality of the new transfer is better than the old one, but that the quality of the element used for the new transfer is superior. Apparently the old transfer was made using a TV print, possibly 16mm but I don't know, with physical splices between scenes. The new element is supposed to be much closer to the original, with better detail and better coulour, plus the new transfer provides superior blacks and more saturated colours by making use of zero-setup component encoding.

 

[Max Leung]

I agree with Chris - the transfer is better on the Platinum version. The 5.1 sound mix isn't bad either - very noticeable in the opening song of each episode.

Colors are better, the picture is more solid - virtually perfect deinterlacing. The original occasionally combs, but not nearly as bad as the Nadia collection one set (collection 2 has almost no combing at least).

I'd rent the Platinum EVA first if you can get your hands on a copy. It may not be worth it unless you have a large screen (60 inches or more).

 

[Todd McF]

I'll hold out if I can stand it. I certainly have a large screen (116") but Gungrave and Texhnolyze are going to kill me out over the next few months.

 

[Kong Chang]

the redone Evangelion is digitally remastered frame by frame, especially getting rid of the stutter problems from the original telecine version. The 5.1 used in Evangelion includes a more ambient sound that didn't exist in the original track. You will hear more environmental ambient sounds rather than the directional sound in the 5.1.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

From the booklet in NG:Elatinum Vol. 4:

 

[DaveGTP]

The transfer on the new EVA is definitely worth it (another projector owner here). I am collecting them piecemeal when I need something to fill out an order, or when I see them cheap. Personally I was still detecting some jitter but it is 1000000% better than the initial release. General PQ is a lot better and cleaner. I almost liked the worn 1980s look (I know it wasn't made in the 80s but it sure looked that old!) The 5.1 mix sounds better but it's not mind-blowing or anything. Although the dvdtalk review thinks its very good for an anime 5.1 mix:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=15321

Media play is running Eva vol 7 for $19.99, FMA vol 2 for $19.99...and I haven't gotten either. Plus they have a promotion going right now...spend $30 get a $5 g/c that is good for buying stuff in May, spend $50 get a $10 g/c.

I shouldn't spend the money though.

 

[James D]

Eva Platinum is definitely worth the double dip. Deep Discount DVD has each volume for $17.99 shipped. If you can wait for the probable(eventual) 20% off sale, then you can get each one for just $14.39.

 

[Tony-B]

Here's the poster for the U.S. version of Howl's Moving Castle.



Also, the trailer is up at http://aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=19966

 

[Alanna]

Wow, Howl's Moving Castle looks cool as hell... ! I can't wait to see it! That looks so awesome.