HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII - Page 3

I thought the list was for TV series and such only, no movies. Cos if you include movies then Nausicaa tops my list by far. In fact, its one of my favorite movies ever for any genre, period. All the posts ranking Nadia so high makes me interested in watching it too (I have it just never got around to it). So I might dig that out next. Oh and I pre-ordered RahXephon Complete. This forum is bad news for me, its making me bleed cash. LOL

I know what you mean Alanna! I'm curious about RahXephon too. And Kare Kano errr I mean "His and Her Circumstances" isn't exactly cheap either.

I feel so privileged to have taken advantage of the Amazon.com deal on Cowboy Bebop boxset a year ago - $100 CDN for the whole set! Wow! With my luck, there will be a Platinum remastered-video edition and then I'll go mad deciding on the double-dip!

I'm currently watchin Escaflowne - not too bad so far (disc 2 aka 8 episodes). Someone should give Yoko Kanno a knighthood.

Max-I absolutely guarantee that you will not be disappointed in Rahxephon. It's truly a great anime. I was so immersed that I watched the whole series over 3 days. Now is a great time to pick it up because ADV is releasing it on May 17 in a thin pak box set. DeepDiscountDVD has it for $54 US dollars.

Ask, and ye shall receive. The remastered Cowboy Bebop, with 5.1 sound, was released in Japan last fall and should reach our shores before the end of the year.

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I just finished the first disc of Scrapped Princess and I loved it. The tone is light-hearted, without being silly. (The lack of SD is welcome.) The story grabbed me right away and left me wanting more. Does anyone know how many discs are in the series?

Don't forget to watch the movie of Rahxephon after the TV series. It will fill in a lot of the gaps in the storyplot.

Rob:

Most likely 7 discs or so for Scrapped Princess

Thanks for the info, Kong.

Has anyone heard of Genshiken? It looks similar to OTAKU NO VIDEO or COMIC PARTY.

p.s. I really like the "Acquired Taste" category on mikomi.org (the site I link to above).

6 discs. 24 episodes. 4 episodes per disc.

Whats SD stand for?

My assumption is that SD stands for Super Deformed - where the characters either suddenly become childlike and/or disproportionate for "comical" effect.

Some of the folks on the board dislike this rather widespread anime convention as for them it takes them out of the story (or so I gather, feel free to correct me :wink: ) I am quite used to it and don't mind it as nearly as much....

Rewatched parts of Fighting Spirit AKA Hajime no Ippo last night, and it was still great (I viewed the fight between Ozuma and Ippo, Ippo's first fight in the Rookie King Tournament. A definite turning point in the series)

Up to episode 12 in Full Metal Alchemist.

Had to switch from DVD to "other medium" but I will continue buying.

This show gets better and better. For those who have dismissed it - you are missing out! This just bumped Last Exile from its #3 spot in my list.

I watched volume 2 of Hand Maid May yesterday. I really like this show. I does take a turn towards the harem side of things with this disk, but it's so light-hearted that the general flow of the show isn't affected. I also got my Nadia: The Motion Picture disk replaced yesterday, so I'll be able to finish that up, too. I'm not expecting a whole lot, but I'm keeping an open mind until I see it.

John.

I'm not sure if I can afford a double-dip on a remastered Bebop - hmmmm! :b

I'll have to hunt around the stores here for RahXephon. It's a damn shame that anime is so incredibly expensive compared to the "regular" TV boxsets that are a mere $60-80 CDN versus the $150 CDN average to collect 7 volumes of anime.

At least Nadia was cheap. Video quality wasn't great with all the combing artifacts, but at $40 CDN per boxset it's a bargain!

Max,

Aren't you using the same projector I am? Try 480i over component and let the Sil504 do the deinterlacing. Very few disks pose a problem for me. Certainly Rahxephon looks amazing.

Speaking of Gundam, I've always been curious about Turn A Gundam. I have Yoko Kanno's Turn A Gundam cd, and I'm always enjoyed the music that was on there. I know Gundam fans weren't too happy with that series, but I've heard it is because it isn't really a Gundam show. Any opinions?

Jason

I'm also interested in Turn A Gundam. (Right now the only Gundam series I'm familiar with are the original MSG and Gundam Wing, both of which I'm in the middle of.) In any case, the concept behind Turn A sounds interesting. I understand it's not available in Region 1 yet. Does anyone have any opinions on this series?

Turn A Gundam, albeit written by the original author of Gundam, Tomino Toshiyuki, was actually written by pressure from toy companies and studio (well mostly by toy companies) for more Gundam series so they can make more Gundam toys. The only unfortunate part is that TAG is set in an alternative universe as well and not part of the original universe. Plus, it has the ugliest looking Gundam mecha design in the history of Gundam designs, hands down; although, the Mecha designer of the TAG is actually known for better mecha designs in other mecha anime series. The question is whether Tomino wanted this series to not be popular at all. I mean, the Gundam F91 movie, accordingly, was supposed to be a series but never got finished and what was finished was condensed down to a movie (which is probably why the movie made no sense), even though Gundam F91 takes place 30-50 years after the fall of Zion in the original universe. (Yeah yeah, Zion is dead...get over it).

Of all the Gundam shows and movies, Gundam 0079, Gundam Z, Gundam 0080 (not Tomino written), Gundam 0083 (not Tomino written), Gundam Movie 1-3, Char's Counter Attack, Gundam MS 08th Team (not Tomino written), Gundam X (alternative universe, but a good plot accordingly, not Tomino written), Gundam Seed & Seed Destiny (alternative universe with a good plot, not Tomino written) are probably the ones that most Gundam fans will likely recommend to you.


Rob Gardiner:

Genshiken is a self parody of what an anime club in Japan is like. You have the variety sort of "otaku"ism showcased in this anime. It's a bit funny too because well it really showcases the obsessiveness of anime fandom in Japan. However, much much much better than the crap called Comic Party. Ugh, Comic Party was so boring.

Of course, Otaku no Video is fine anime self-parody, too .

John.

Todd, yeah, I have a Benq 8700 too! You jogged my memory.

I'm too lazy to hook up my DVD properly to it though - using TheaterTek to play DVDs on my HTPC is too much of a habit! Hmmm, I probably should watch Escaflowne with the DVD player/Sil504 - the image is quite soft when I have Smart mode deinterlacing turned on in TheaterTek. *ponder*

Funny, I haven't been watching much live-action lately. I'm too cheap to buy Angel TV boxsets, so I borrow anime from my gf and her friends.

Oh, I watched the first 6 eps of Kare Kano - there is so much SD going on I hardly notice it! And the flashbacks are not nearly as irritating as Gundam Seed's - the voice actresses do a great job of keeping them entertaining! And I like how the flashbacks aren't merely frames from the previous episodes, but some original artwork or stylistically altered.

Kare Kano so far is fun and funny! The subtitles flash by very fast though. Ouch, I may have to watch the dub just to keep up.

Bargain of the week:

His & Her Circumstances 1-5 $39.99

Order this with another $10 item, and Right Stuf will ship it for free (via the slow boat).

Max,

My guess is deinterlacer in your video card probably doesnt do a good job in "Video" mode vs "Film" mode. For example, I demoed for my brother two projection options for anime:

1. Momitsu V880 via DVI bypassing the BenQ's Sil504
2. Panasonic XP50 via component 480i using BenQ's Sil504

It was like night and day. The video mode of the V880 softened the picture rediculously. The Sil504 took the image and did the pixel level motion adaptive stuff. Much sharper.

The "other" way I watch anime on the projector is via VGA->BNC breakout off my laptop. I've got a USB sound card that converts to TOSLINK for my reciever. Looks and sounds simply awesome! If you think about it, the 1280x720 projector in 4:3 mode actually has to downscale the 1024x768 image slightly.

From the laptop I'm watching primarily *unlicenced* Fan Subbed stuff such as Sunabouzo, Aquarion, Eureka, Kenran. The Fan Subbed stuff is very professional in quality - really amazing. I confress I'm watching Full Metal Alchemist this way - but I'm also buying the DVDs.

Not much going on but got caught up on a lot of my manga. Well except for Negima, A.I. Love You, and Samurai Deeper Kyo, I think... Read Fruits Basket 8. More Zodiac Member Goodness...

I finished up Hand Maid May last night with volume three. I ended up really enjoying this series. It was light and fluffy, but the characters where enjoyable, and even the 'bad' guys ended up being likeable. 'B', recommended.

John.

Christopher:

Now I'm intrigued by Ebichu . If it ever comes out here, I'll have to seriously think about getting it.

John.

That's an odd show. Gainax no less. Intentionally crappy animation - but funny content. I've only watched a few minutes of it though:

The hamster was giving a play by play while its owner was trying to have sex. The guy she's with finally gets up and beats the crap out of the hamster.

Its that kind of show!

Here is a nice, spoilerific review for Ebichu. I seriously doubt it will ever be released here...


http://carnage.fanfic.org/reviewsindex.html

Its not licensed. Just download the fansub.

URL Removed. *sigh* It wasnt a bootleg! Oh well...

Considering some of the stuff I see get licenced, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it got licenced at some point. It certainly seems to get good reactions a cons (at least, the Otakon I attended.)

Speaking of Tomino, I just started watching my copy of Aura Battler Dunbine. He really like to throw you into the middle of the action, doesn't he? The main character gets spirited off to another land and immediatly gets asked to pilot a mech. Will be interested to see where this goes.

Jason

Todd, 90% of the time my HTPC does an amazing job playing DVDs, including most animes. Captain Tylor looked very good for example.

I have a Momitsu as well - horrible for anime. My Panasonic RP91 in progressive mode has some trouble too, but in interlaced mode on my old 40" RPTV looks very very good. However, it seems to add a chroma-upsampling-error effect when I use it with the Benq 8700 - most likely a bug in the Sil504 implementation. I know it can't be the RP91, as I've seen an RP91 in interlaced mode hooked up to a $200,000 (not a typo) CRT projector a couple of years ago - absolutely zero artifacts! Hmmm, maybe it is because I used the BNC connectors on the back of the projector instead of the component 480i connectors...

BTW, In a moment of weakness I bought the boxset of "His and Her Circumstances" for $105 CDN at London Drugs last night. Oops.

I was tempted by volume 1 of Rahxephon too...$28 CDN I think. I'll think about it - damn pricey.