Anime Nerds...UNITE!

I figured there was probably a positive correlation between people who collect anime-eque cards in fanta and people who like to watch anime. So yeah, talk about your favorite shows and what you're watching now.

Favorites:

1. Kino No Tabi/Kino's Journey
2. Mushishi
3. Spice and Wolf
4. Nodame Canitable (she's like the anime version of me) XD
5. Welcome to the NHK!
6 Elfen Lied
7. Full Metal Alchemist
9. Chihayafuru
10. Soul Eater

Forgot about Gurren Lagan, fuuuuuu. I guess runner up since season 2 was weird.

Also adding One Piece, InoXBoku SS, and zetsuen no tempest.


I'm re-watching Spice and Wolf to get good business ideas for Fanta.

Rank your shows or be coy and don't rank them =3

Also my kik is Aubade888 feel free to message me if you wanna nerd it up O.~

Weekly Anime Watching Event:

People PM me and tell me what anime they want people to watch. We have a weeks time to watch it, and discuss it. The Anime we would watch would either be one animated movie, or 3 episodes of an anime.

I don't think I've watched that much, but I watched quite a few.
My first was Bleach, and god was it terrible after Soul Society Arc, dem fillers.

I guess these are my favorites.
1. Gintama
2. Mawaru Penguindrum
3. Cowboy Bebop
4. Usagi Drop (please don't read the manga)
5. Un-Go

I'd put a lot more, but I wasn't very fond of the rest.
I'm watching a bunch of anime that are airing, like Psycho-Pass and Magi.
Dennou Coil, trying to finish sometime next month.

Nice idea, we were missing an anime thread. ^^ Could double as a manga thread too! ^^

Can't really do a Top 10 thing, I like many anime for many different reasons. So here are some of my favourites - roughly in chronological order of discovery.

Saint Seiya - the one that started it all: my love of manga, of anime, of Japanese language and culture. I still love it with a passion (although I don't care at all for the G and Lost Canvas stuff)
Sailor Moon
Vision of Escaflowne
Tenchi Muyo
El Hazard (the Magnificent World OAVs; didn't like the series that much)
Blue Seed (the original series, haven't seen the OAVs)
Saiyuki
Fruits Basket - the anime and the manga are balm for the soul, they are
Full Metal Alchemist (the original series, haven't seen Brotherhood yet)
Wolf's Rain
Samurai Champloo
Ouran Highschool Host Club
Mushishi - that one's a work of art; I wish there were more episodes...

... and that's already a good list, I believe (and it betrays my age xD). I'm afraid I'm not that much into anime series anymore, there's just too much out there, too many series to choose from, too little time, and no idea of what's actually good (popular =/= good, most of the times). But I still love animated movies, especially Ghibli movies (own them all except the newest one, Kiki's Delivery Service and Whisper of the Heart are my favourites).

Like ChibiLeen, I can't do top 10's, so I'll just randomly fire some favourite anime/manga

- Sailor Moon (the show that got me into this kind of stuff when I was young :3 I ended up reading the manga when I got a bit older)
- Cardcaptor Sakura (same deal as Sailor Moon)
- Cyber Six
- Legend of Condor Hero (chinese dubbed heehee)
- Ouran Highschool Host Club
- MÄR (manga; searched up anime and it didn't look very promising)
- Gosick!
- Rave Master (also manga; couple of frieds told me anime was crap :/)
- Fairy Tail
- The World God Only Knows
- Fate series <3
- SAO

...and the list goes on and on. You can tell that most of the shows I watch or manga I read is shojo but recently I've been trying to expand my list a bit. I'm keeping up with Fairy Tail (manga and anime), and I'm waiting for new seasons of SAO and The World God Only Knows. I've been getting really bored over this holiday so I'm currently rewatching Legend of Condor Hero, but no sites I know of holds the chinese dubs

EDIT: I wonder if anyone would be able to guess my age from this small list xD

Let's see, my favorites.

Slayers (definitely my favorite)
Tenchi Muyo
Vampire Hunter D
El Hazard
Record of Lodoss War
One Piece
Sailor Moon
Fairy Tail (haven't watched the Anime, only read the manga)

Xzaral wrote:

Let's see, my favorites.

Slayers (definitely my favorite)
Tenchi Muyo
Vampire Hunter D
El Hazard
Record of Lodoss War
One Piece
Sailor Moon
Fairy Tail (haven't watched the Anime, only read the manga)

Fairy Tail anime's pretty good, except for that one filler arc. The plot was messed up and the animations just sucked (as most filler arcs would be). If you decide to watch it, skip it. You'll save yourself some time needed to participate in Fanta events xD

In no particular order:

More Action and Drama orientiented:
Dragon Ball (Z series) - Pretty much what started it all
Gurren Laggan
Cowboy Bebop
Full Metal Alchemist (Both 1st and Remake) - Now, this is one hell of an awesome series
Full Metal Panic
Sword Art Online
Fate Zero - Saber <3 lol. I would like to say F/SN as well, but honestly that one isn't that great :/
Studio Ghibli Movies
Evangelion - Orignial is pretty good, but I must say the remake is much, much better.



Relaxing and/or funny series:

Nichijou - Generally anything Kyoto Animation made is pretty awesome
Acchii Kochii
Full Metal Panic - Fumofuu season is hilarious
Mushishi - Seriously love this show, really wished they made more
Genshiken
Azumanga Daio
Chobits

There's a bunch more but these are what comes to my mind atm. I actually read some Shojou Mangas here and there, but never really liked any of the shojou shows. Only exception would be stuff made by Clamps :/

aszutai wrote:

Fate Zero - Saber <3 lol. I would like to say F/SN as well, but honestly that one isn't that great :/

Huh... I never guessed you would say that...
This is the same for me. I think it's because F/SN focuses more on the love story between Shiro + Saber. Plus since Fate/Zero was created later the animation would obviously better

luvdapeace wrote:

aszutai wrote:

Fate Zero - Saber <3 lol. I would like to say F/SN as well, but honestly that one isn't that great :/

Huh... I never guessed you would say that...
This is the same for me. I think it's because F/SN focuses more on the love story between Shiro + Saber. Plus since Fate/Zero was created later the animation would obviously better

Lol, I wonder what gave it away?

As for F/SN personally for me it's not so much that they focuses more on the love story between Shiro + Saber. But rather they tried to merge several branching story lines together halfway through the show that messed up the story for me >.< Also I think it was Deen Studio that animated the old show? Zero was made by another studio who I believe is much better.

Btw, that Archer vs Shiro show down in Unlimited Blade Works was really fun XD

Xzaral wrote:

Let's see, my favorites.

Slayers (definitely my favorite)
Tenchi Muyo
Vampire Hunter D
El Hazard
Record of Lodoss War
One Piece
Sailor Moon
Fairy Tail (haven't watched the Anime, only read the manga)

I forgot One Piece, I'm a terrible person ;___;


Also yay! Active thread! xD

luvdapeace wrote:

Xzaral wrote:

Let's see, my favorites.

Slayers (definitely my favorite)
Tenchi Muyo
Vampire Hunter D
El Hazard
Record of Lodoss War
One Piece
Sailor Moon
Fairy Tail (haven't watched the Anime, only read the manga)

Fairy Tail anime's pretty good, except for that one filler arc. The plot was messed up and the animations just sucked (as most filler arcs would be). If you decide to watch it, skip it. You'll save yourself some time needed to participate in Fanta events xD

There's another one.
There's the Daphne Arc (oh, the horror), and Key of the Starry Sky One (soooooo long).
Yeah, skip those, not worth watching really.

Fairy Tail OVA's, however, are amazing.

I was wondering if there would be any interest in having a weekly anime thingy. The forum I used to be active on did it and it was pretty fun. What they'd do is set a week for people to watch an anime movie or 3 eps of an anime, and then have people comment on it. Each week active members would alternate who got to pick, so everyone got to show off an anime they like. People might be too busy, but I figured I'd suggest it V__V

Dont want to put a damper on anyones mood here, but I have a question that my anime fanatics refuse to answer because it offends them:

I've watched the more sucessful American anime casually, my favorite was Naruto, although I feel like it would be Bleach if I watched enough to know what was going on... (I've been told that like The Boondocks, the two shows I just mention have become almost pseudo-anime in most hardcore anime fanbases, but they're the only ones I really like) and I feel as if for me, anime has a very fatal flaw:

Emotion is so, either overdone or telegraphed with the different lines and exaggerated facial expressions that it sort of takes away from the moment.

So my question is whether or not the fact that emotion is almost never an underlying tone in the dialouge, or projected by subtle action, like in other forms of media, was a planned force in the beginning of anime/ it was something that came about to accent the raw sort of nature that bleeds through most anime + manga, or it is stylized that way not to pay homage to some of the greats, who lacked the ability to include emotion in another way?

aszutai wrote:

luvdapeace wrote:

aszutai wrote:

Fate Zero - Saber <3 lol. I would like to say F/SN as well, but honestly that one isn't that great :/

Huh... I never guessed you would say that...
This is the same for me. I think it's because F/SN focuses more on the love story between Shiro + Saber. Plus since Fate/Zero was created later the animation would obviously better

Lol, I wonder what gave it away?

As for F/SN personally for me it's not so much that they focuses more on the love story between Shiro + Saber. But rather they tried to merge several branching story lines together halfway through the show that messed up the story for me >.< Also I think it was Deen Studio that animated the old show? Zero was made by another studio who I believe is much better.

Btw, that Archer vs Shiro show down in Unlimited Blade Works was really fun XD

^This xD

NotAPieceOfPie wrote:

There's another one.
There's the Daphne Arc (oh, the horror), and Key of the Starry Sky One (soooooo long).
Yeah, skip those, not worth watching really.

Fairy Tail OVA's, however, are amazing.

oh I don't even want to remember the Daphne arc T^T
ahaha OVA = fan-service o_o
ooo speaking of, I cant wait till the subs for their movie comes out; saw some trailers and it looks promising

predator852 wrote:

Dont want to put a damper on anyones mood here, but I have a question that my anime fanatics refuse to answer because it offends them:

I've watched the more sucessful American anime casually, my favorite was Naruto, although I feel like it would be Bleach if I watched enough to know what was going on... (I've been told that like The Boondocks, the two shows I just mention have become almost pseudo-anime in most hardcore anime fanbases, but they're the only ones I really like) and I feel as if for me, anime has a very fatal flaw:

Emotion is so, either overdone or telegraphed with the different lines and exaggerated facial expressions that it sort of takes away from the moment.

So my question is whether or not the fact that emotion is almost never an underlying tone in the dialouge, or projected by subtle action, like in other forms of media, was a planned force in the beginning of anime/ it was something that came about to accent the raw sort of nature that bleeds through most anime + manga, or it is stylized that way not to pay homage to some of the greats, who lacked the ability to include emotion in another way?

Good question! No dampening at all! Also keep in mind that many people don't watch dubs because they have to modify facial expressions to get characters to speak in English. Also the examples of what you watched are called Shonen, meaning it's made for a demographic of young boys to teens. I'm an adult and I still watch it, but some of the emotion you see may be for the sake of comedy. If you watch something a bit "artsier" there is less of that.

I am not a sociology or philsophy major or anything, so I may not be qualified to answer, but I have a few impressions. Asian culture is heavily influenced by Confusicanism which encourages an individual to be less focused on their identity, and more focused on the needs of their community. A blunt way of saying this is that Asian culture is less focused on individualism, and more focused on how to be a good citizen. For example, in China an entire village would assist a bright child and their family, so that if they scored high on the Imperial exam they would be able to help their town.

I think that Naruto differs from Spiderman, in that there is one strong person, but there is also a focus on his community and their individual abilities. I notice this in a lot of Shonen; fairy tail, one piece, bleach, etc. Naruto isn't the only focus of the show with super powers, and often he needs to put his own needs aside for the needs of his village. Still, the lead hero is valued and recognized by their society.

I think that any aspect of a culture is a reflection of the society in which it was created. Japanese students are expected to be focused on their studies, and less focused on expressing emotion. I think that anime is an outlet for them to have fun, and see a model of how an individual can be outgoing but also valuable to their society. So I guess the expression of emotion in anime is like a fantasy world ideal for how they wish their societal interactions could be?

However this could just be my bias as a westerner in interpreting their culture.

predator852 wrote:

Dont want to put a damper on anyones mood here, but I have a question that my anime fanatics refuse to answer because it offends them:

I've watched the more sucessful American anime casually, my favorite was Naruto, although I feel like it would be Bleach if I watched enough to know what was going on... (I've been told that like The Boondocks, the two shows I just mention have become almost pseudo-anime in most hardcore anime fanbases, but they're the only ones I really like) and I feel as if for me, anime has a very fatal flaw:

Emotion is so, either overdone or telegraphed with the different lines and exaggerated facial expressions that it sort of takes away from the moment.

So my question is whether or not the fact that emotion is almost never an underlying tone in the dialouge, or projected by subtle action, like in other forms of media, was a planned force in the beginning of anime/ it was something that came about to accent the raw sort of nature that bleeds through most anime + manga, or it is stylized that way not to pay homage to some of the greats, who lacked the ability to include emotion in another way?

An interesting question Predator, not quite one I expect to popup on this topic lol. I'll do my best to take a jab at this topic, while trying to be as objective as possible:

There's a few things that I would like to first get out of the way:
First of all a lot of people mistakenly think of Anime as a Genre. Which isn't quite right, Anime is actually just like "TV Shows" which contains a vary wide array of Genres, from Drama, Mystery, Action to Horror, Slice of Life, Comedy etc. You get the idea. Second thing is that just like most TV Shows, a large percentage of it is just junk, you really have to dig to find some of the gold nuggets here and there. As for the subtle emotion and/or undertone that lies within the dialog, they will not be present in a lot of anime because, well they're just bad shows period. Third is due to the nature of the medium, the exaggerated expression is a quick and easy way to express the characters emotion and is really part of what sets the hand drawn medium apart from live action show/movies, so you won't find many anime without them (there are always exceptions, which I'll bring up later)

So with that out of the way, I would like point out that the two shows you have mentioned: Bleach and Naruto, they are both action series which aim to entertain kids to young adult and being actions series, subtlety isn't really the goal of the show. If you're looking for shows with characteristic of emotions being hidden or subtly expressed in motion/facial expression/dialog you will first need to find Genre of anime where you'll be more likely to run into those type of shows

Mushishi, a show which several people have brought up here I believe is a good example of what you're looking for. Cowboy Bebop sort of points toward that direction as well even know it is more of an action show. Although I'm not sure if you'll be satisfied even after watching those since trying to carry human emotions into a piece of paper via drawing alone is difficult enough, not to mention that one subtle motion/express on an actors face/body that can sometimes speak volumes with only a split second of screentime.

Edit:
Just wanted to add some stuff in the end

Having went to an art college, I can honestly say that human expression is one of the hardest thing to get down on paper. Those who can manage it well will be highly sought after by many, thus making them only available to those with the money to hire the top talents. Most anime series isn't really being made by the major companies, and even if they are doesn't mean they're going to delicate much resources into the series if they don't feel like they'll get a good return on their investments. Hench why many shows suffer from both horrible writing and animation: low budget.

And just to whine, generally most animation runs at 14 drawings (not frames) a second, and are usually consists of several characters, props and the background on screen. Background are generally static, but imagine having to draw let's say on average 2 character on screen constantly moving around for about 2 minutes: that's 3360 drawings for that 2 minute animation for just the two characters along, which is a lot of work, of course there's a lot of shortcuts to the creation of animations but doesn't really change the fact that it's a ton of work. One of the reason I like Kyoto Animation and Studio Ghibli so much is because all of their shows are extremely well animated with subtle detail and motions everywhere, it's really a feast for the eyes if you're into animation.

Eh looks like I started rambling at some point there lol, sorry about that.



Double Edit:
Just re-read through my post, fixed some spelling and grammar error that jumped out at me, I'm sure there's more but well; I'm not writing essay for an english class so I'll just leave it alone unless it's hard to read lol

Nice post! Very informative O.~

luvdapeace wrote:

NotAPieceOfPie wrote:

There's another one.
There's the Daphne Arc (oh, the horror), and Key of the Starry Sky One (soooooo long).
Yeah, skip those, not worth watching really.

Fairy Tail OVA's, however, are amazing.

oh I don't even want to remember the Daphne arc T^T
ahaha OVA = fan-service o_o
ooo speaking of, I cant wait till the subs for their movie comes out; saw some trailers and it looks promising

Amazing in a sense that it makes me laugh.
Second one especially.
I'm used to fan-service, it's now all over just about any anime that airs these days, not all of them though.
Haven't saw the movie yet. Didn't know the subs aren't out yet.

@ aszutai thanks, I would quote you but I don't want to stretch the length of the page too much!

And yes, I understand what you mean, and thanks for the description of anime as a whole. I was sort of missing that point when other people explained it to me in person, probably because they used a lot of ambiguous terms.

As for the emotion and drawing, completely understandable, even as a writer, mastering the projection of human emotion is like catching lightning in a bottle. I've been told I'm better than most/ahead of my time because of my strong grasp/expertiese in philosophy. So I can understand the not having a budget.

As for some shows being just plain bad, I thought I could tell which shows were bad, but now that you mention it I'm beginning to understand how a show that I didn't think was bad could actually be bad! It never occured to me that maybe what I was seeing was not actually the entire picture! So yes, I think I will seek out the anime that you mentioned and see if it is more "me!"

Aww, i can't do a top 10 xD Here's my likings instead.

-Darker than Black
-Black Cat
-Hidan no Aria
-Code Geass R1 + R2
-Sora no Otoshimono Season 1 + Season 2
- and 07-Ghost.

It's not a great list, but I watch them over and over again. ^_^

TypeAlpha wrote:

Aww, i can't do a top 10 xD Here's my likings instead.

-Darker than Black
-Black Cat
-Hidan no Aria
-Code Geass R1 + R2
-Sora no Otoshimono Season 1 + Season 2
- and 07-Ghost.

It's not a great list, but I watch them over and over again. ^_^

How did you feel about Code Geas r2? It was weird because I watched it once and thought it was great. Then the second time I saw it I relaized how werid the end was.

Spoiler:

I like:

-Monogatari Series(Bake,Nise)
-To Aru Series(Index,Railgun)
-Kara no Kyoukai
-Fate/Zero
-Gintama
-Hayate no Gotoku
-One Piece
-Meitantei Conan
-K-On

Nowadays I hardly watch anime though, I like to read the light novels if there is one

predator852 wrote:

@ aszutai thanks, I would quote you but I don't want to stretch the length of the page too much!

And yes, I understand what you mean, and thanks for the description of anime as a whole. I was sort of missing that point when other people explained it to me in person, probably because they used a lot of ambiguous terms.

As for the emotion and drawing, completely understandable, even as a writer, mastering the projection of human emotion is like catching lightning in a bottle. I've been told I'm better than most/ahead of my time because of my strong grasp/expertiese in philosophy. So I can understand the not having a budget.

As for some shows being just plain bad, I thought I could tell which shows were bad, but now that you mention it I'm beginning to understand how a show that I didn't think was bad could actually be bad! It never occured to me that maybe what I was seeing was not actually the entire picture! So yes, I think I will seek out the anime that you mentioned and see if it is more "me!"

Np, on the subject of writing; I'm a complete amateur and will save myself the embarrassment of showing my awful "skills" lol.

And I'm a big fan of mushishi and push that show whenever I get a chance so I guess I'm a bit biased in my opinion of the show lol. Since we're on that topic, Funimation is actually kind enough to put the entire 2 season of the show on youtube for free: https://www.youtube.com/channel/SW9UgswfocYNU

So enjoy

aubade888 wrote:

TypeAlpha wrote:

Aww, i can't do a top 10 xD Here's my likings instead.

-Darker than Black
-Black Cat
-Hidan no Aria
-Code Geass R1 + R2
-Sora no Otoshimono Season 1 + Season 2
- and 07-Ghost.

It's not a great list, but I watch them over and over again. ^_^

How did you feel about Code Geas r2? It was weird because I watched it once and thought it was great. Then the second time I saw it I relaized how werid the end was.

Spoiler:

Haha yeah, it did get VERY confusing in the second season. But all the better! Code Geass wasn't meant to be an easy anime to catch up on. And in regards to your question, I also did find it a bit unusual. Although I like the idea of

Spoiler:

, it feels alomst as if something is missing. Even CC said it xD

Ah man I'm gonna like this thread. I used to didn't not like anime/manga,
but I started to understand it more.

Code Geass was a great one!
Gundam 00 (Season 1 & 2)
Black Lagoon (Funny as hell!!! So much cussing in there too!)