Advanced Anime Discussion Part III - Page 4

Dome:

Cowboy Bebop is definitely way up there near the top of my list. I have to agree with Rob, once you get the first disk, you'll want to get them all. IMHO, the best episodes are 12-13 and 25-26. They alone set this apart from most other series. GTO is the only series that IMHO surpasses it, and not by much.

John.

Rob:

I like Witch Hunter Robin, but I really love Heatguy J oh so much more.

Just finished watching the R3 Galaxy Express 999 movie, and just loved it! My question is, how does this relate to the TV series, is it just a condensed version? Too bad the R2 TV isn't subbed...or maybe for my wallet's sake, maybe it's better it isn't for now.

Thanks, Rob. I put it together through the course of two days. It originall was just Kaoru with a quote, but I added Rei and Shinji to it.


Me too. I'd love to see what happened leading up to the events of NGE in greater detail. The only thing is, how long will the series be? Will it have much action or will it be mainly exposition and storyline?

And yeah, Cowboy Bebop is THAT good. It's able to blend sci-fi, action, and comedy together extremely well.

Hello everyone!

Rewatched Patlabor TV series including volume three, and man.... This series is just really really fun.

Patlabor TV Series - currently 3 volumes available (from 5 s)
If any of you have seen the Patlabor Movies, you may have a general idea of what the Patlabor series is all about. It is simply about a special team of unique individuals who are members of a two squad PATrol LABOR (sorta like a PATrol car, with labor being robots/mecha created for construction, war, etc etc) dealing with various situations. Being that this is a TV series, the animation will NOT be as good as the movies. That said what animation that is there is pleasing to the eye and IMHO pretty well done.

What makes Patlabor stand out from other mecha series is its constant focus on the people behind the mecha. Noa Izumi, Ota, Goto, Hiromi, Kanuka, and all the other members of Special Vehicles Team 2 are all extremely likeable and are pretty much fleshed out. And the TV series shows us how Noa Izumi, a new member, becomes a part of this team, and grows with it.

Highly recommended more for its character interactions than mecha (though Alphonse is pretty cool.)

Anyways, hope this makes some of you pick up this wonderful series. That reminds me that at some point, I have to finish picking up Berserk, KareKano, and Excel Saga....

Oh - on the game front: I have recently started to play Xenosaga IMPORT on my IMPORT PS2, and it is turning out to be really fun and time consuming. Handily armed with my many many hours of anime viewing, I am wading through lots of text and dialogue and being patently entertained and confused in spades! Can't wait until this game is released in the states to make sense of it, but in the mean while, I will play it and enjoy.

Mind you, I also love Patlabor, and I very much enjoyed that volume, but four out of five? From a technical perspective, it's packed full of audio and video glitches, and the transfer's none too good. (I mean, sure, if it was a 1970s show, I'd expect that... but it's from 1990!) It's possible their masters are just that bad, I guess...

Andy Kent
did my review of this one already ;p

Hey all:

Well, I got done rewatching Macross yesterday, and damn, what an excellent series. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good, long (36 eps) series to watch. it's a little pricey, but worth it.

John.

Andy:

My set up is pretty low key, so the errors evident to you may not be so evident to my not-so-keen eyes. I am watching my anime on a NON-PROGRESSIVE DVD player (Toshiba 1600 component output) to a Toshible 27" Flatscreen TV, so the problems you see are not evident to me. In anycase, all the TVs in the house are directview TVs 27" Flat in my room, 36" DirectView in the family room.

BTW, how is Kenshin OAVs treating ADV? Hopefully, it will be out soon, neh?

Well, it's true... the January issue of Newtype the Japanese one does state that Gainax is rebringing Evangelion back into the world of TV series and other media formats. And to commemorate the milking of this series, they are gonna re-release Evagelion one more time in Japan, this time with 5.1 audio for every episode!!! Don't know if they are going to use the director's cut or the tv cut but 5.1 audio!!! Wow!!!
And they're releasing other stuff too that ties in with Evangelion original series. Anyway, lots of reissues coming from the Gainax studio.

Licenses galore, I'll definitely be picking up the reissue 5.1 Evangelion DVDs when they're released in the R2 market .

I found two bucks in my car the other day.

Oh yeah, I also wanted to say cool sig for Morgan Jolley, I thought that looked like something from Evangelion. Oddly enough, I've only seen still shots from the series.

Between myself, and my sister getting anime titles (she's getting some Fuishi Yusis or something or other) I'm pretty set for watching a boat load of new stuff I haven't seen.

Fushigi Yugi is great. I'm just about done the Suzaku box and have the Seiryu box arriving tomorrow.

Has anyone seen the ltd. edition 1:1 scale Hellsing pistols in person? I'd love to get these, but a) they seem to be only sold with bootleg discs, and b) they won't let them in my country.

I'm looking forward to the Seras figure with v. 4, which I also see available seperately on a certain auction site.

Also arriving tomorrow is Cosmo Warrior Zero, which I'm sure will be great, since I love Matsumoto's designs. I'd still like to know how the GE999 movies tie in with the TV series. Too bad the legit TV discs aren't subbed.

JohnS:

That depends on what you're looking for. But you should always try every store just to see what you're looking for is in stock. Try every online store as possible.

Dome:

Fushigi Yuugi is a great series by Watase Yuu. Very angsty but a great epic.

Fushigi Yuugi is a series that I REALLY want to get into. I have a couple of friends that SWEAR by it.

The only factor I have with it is the HUGE MSRP ($200 per season [~$140-$150 on the 'net] ) per season. Personally, I am hoping that Pioneer releases them in separate releases ALA the Tenchi OVAs coming out next year.
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Oooo, 5.1 Evangelion sure is tempting, plus I am region-free... but I think I will stick with my ADV releases.
I am REALLY excited about the prospects of a new Evangelion series, the first was EXCELLENT... and there is some pretty interesting stuff they could concentrate on (maybe tie a few of the loose strings from the first series too ). I am just glad Anno is getting back to work! His/Her [Kare Kano] is turning out to be an excellent series.
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Hey Andy Kent, have you ever thought of licensing a little show called Rizelmine? A couple of my friends and me have been trading the fansubs over the course of this year and DAMN is this show funny! You can find some more information about it at: http://www.animeco.org/fansubs/fansu...ries=Rizelmine
It is just starting its second season right now... 13 episodes per season. A release of the first season of 13 episodes at 13-15 minutes each could EASILY fit on one RSDL DVD.

Oh, and GOOD LUCK on the Anime Network, I am going to try to have UCF's cable provider pick it up!

Depends on what you mean by time travel. Fushigi Yugi does this, as does El Hazard, and Escaflowne off the top of my head. Any of the fantasy stuff has fighting evil forces.

Rob, Fushigi Yugi is alright, but not a must-see. I have season 1 and 2. Gonna buy the OVA's to complete it eventually.

btw Rob, the HTF movie draft vol. 2 has started. If you're still interested, please check in.

Thanks. Each of those shots are from later parts of the series/movies. Watch the show, it's good.


Unless they release the new discs in America with a nice box at a not-so-crazy price, I'm sticking with the ones I have, too.

Finally got to one of my unseen discs, Vampire Princess Miyu OVA Disc 1 and it was very interesting and fun to watch. There are two 30 min episodes on this, and it plays with an interesting idea for a vampire - what if the vampire while being selfish was pursuing shinma (God-Demon,literally) who preyed on humans? See it and find out! Will check disc 2 out tonight - Gotta squeeze it into my Xenosaga time ) ...

Very well done and stylish, though the animation is a bit dated. At some point, I will get the 4 disc TV series for this but I heartily give it a 1/2 (from 5) as a interesting series with LOTS of substance. No vampire killing here per se like Hellsing (though that is fun too.)

Fushigi Yugi is a LONG series, with four products out by Pioneer. It is not the "greatest" series but it has many solid points - good animation, great characters, decent and LONG storyline spanning the bulk of 52 episodes (beginning with Suzaku Box and concluding with the Seiryuu box), and of course, the two OVA boxes (ONI and EIKODEN). Very pricey but some moments of the series are SUBLIME and shouldn't be missed by a true anime fan, IMHO. Rob, I'd say bite the bullet and see it Note that season 1 ends on a cliffhanger, so if you do decided to buy it, save up and get both sets.

I forgot Vampire Princess Miyu, which is also arriving today. Got the six disc/soundtrack TV box set for $65CAN, which I couldn't pass up.

Watched the second GTO disc last night, and that series rocks. Looks like a long wait to complete it though.

Did I forget to mention that Gainax is digitally remastering them? That's something which is so worth it. Methinks the jitters will disappear.

Also, Tsuda-san, creator of KareKano, doesn't like Hideaki Anno, so she won't let Gainax produce the rest of KareKano.


Don't bet your dollars on it. If ADV couldn't afford buying the director's cut with the movies together in the same package at the ridiculous price Gainax was asking for, don't expect ADV to be able to buy the 5.1 audio plus the digitally remastered episodes either.


Isn't this the premise to Samurai Jack on the Cartoon Network?

Woo Jae:

Vampire Princess Miyu OVA is a pretty good little series, although the master was showing its age, IMHO. I'd like to get the TV series, but need to finish off my current series first (down to 6!).

Jeff:

GTO does rock . Tokyopop has been pretty good about releasing new volumes every 2 months. Volume 6 will be out January 14th, and volume 7 will be out in March. At least there are other good series to watch while you wait for the next disk to come out . I watched Betterman volume 4 yesterday. Interesting plot twists, but I'm still trying to figure out what it all means...

John.

Yes, I am currently watching a host of series: FY, Gundam Wing, GTO, Sailor Moon, Dai-Guard, Strawberry Eggs, Excel Saga, Vampire Princess Miyu (soon), Macross (still), Eva (soon), Hellsing, Love Hina Xmas, Pretty Sammy...

No shortage of things to watch, but deciding which comes first is challenging...

Any indication as to when the re-mastered NGE might appear in Japan?

Kong,



There's a huge difference between "couldn't afford" and "spent money elsewhere". They've repeatedly said that with the money that Gainax wanted, they went and about 10-13 other TV series. That doesn't sound like "couldn't afford".

Frankly, I wish Eva would just go away. I doubt the jitters will be fixed without it having the same unnatural look that the ADV first volume did. I doubt the 5.1 will add all that much considering it was a simple stereo mix designed for TV. And considering how much some people already herald the R2 releases as "pinnacles of great transfers", I can't imagine how much better a remastering is going to look.

I'm with Chris on this one. I honestly don't think it's going to be worth that kind of money.

I am looking forward to the new series though.

In other amazingly happy news, Great(Dai) Yamato now has a trailer on line. Yamato fans weep for joy!

(FYI, this series has basically nothing to do with the original continuity other than passing mention based on the first volume of the manga. It instead firmly plants Yamato in the Matsumotoverse)

http://www.sankyo-fever.com/movie/dy/dy_demo.mpg

Something I've always wondered about.

I long time ago I watched what I thought was all parts of The Lotus War. Doe this series seem to end abruptly. I felt that there would be more story to tell (More episodes). Maybe I'm missing something, and there are more episodes.

Can someone fill me in on how many episodes it has.

Do you mean Lodoss War?

The OVAs have 13 episodes, the last 5 of which should be thrown out in terms of continutity. Then there's a 27 episode TV series "Chronicles of the Heroic Knight"

Finished Vampire Miyu OAV Disc 2 and am very very happy with the two discs. Things are left slightly up in the air, but not much. Not to mention that Larva is just one kick @ss - Shinma . I'd give the show a for content. (I won't grade on Picture Quality since my setup is low key). This is an older title, but I found the animation pretty decent and with its interesting plot, well...

Hopefully I will get to more series tonight - unless I decide to play more Xenosaga.