Anime Apolyton

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Wraith
And in other news, Funimation picked up the One Piece license. They'll be doing an uncut DVD release, thankfully. Unfortunately, it sounds like the TV release will still be edited to remove drinking and smoking (that last will be fun, given that one of the characters uses smoke as his devil's fruit power).

Will they be running One Piece beyond the Crocodile storyline? Because I'd rather have Zatch Bell back than more One Piece.

Blood+ is running on Adult Swim now, and it's...striking. I've never seen another anime like it.

It's pretty much straight-up horror, with very little (none, really) in the way of tension-breaking comedy that I've come to expect in anime.


It's also incredibly bloody.

The level of detail they put into into backgrounds and objects has also grabbed my attention. It's almost like they're using photographs, but it dosen't have that converted look.

I've been enjoying this one a lot too. Mostly because Saya is the hottest anime girl ever. But you'll find there are many anime series that take on serious themes with little to no comedy. Srial Experiments: Lain comes immediately to mind.

[Wraith]

--"It's pretty much straight-up horror,"

Probably why I didn't like it. I'm not really a big horror fan.

On the other hand, if that's the kind of thing you do enjoy, check out Monster, which is also solid horror, although with much less blood.

--"I'm hoping they progress the story further than where the Live Action ended, but I'm getting the sensation that they may not."

I wouldn't expect it to go beyond that point. It's a good stopping point in the story, and they'll probably need to wait for more manga to come out before they can do another season.

--"Will they be running One Piece beyond the Crocodile storyline?"

Looks that way, but I'm not sure how long it's going to take. I don't think they've announced exactly how they're going to handle things, but their primary goal is to continue releasing dubs for Cartoon Network. They're starting with where 4kids stopped, but I'd expect a different cast. I do know they were considering redubing the parts 4kid already did, but it wasn't as definite as the continuation.

Zatch Bell is another fairly heavily edited title, btw, but not so much so as One Piece was under 4kids.

So, now that the season has been well under way, some comments.

Denno Coil started recently, and it's looking to be a solid sci-fi adventure series. Interesting concept and, so far, great execution. Two episodes isn't enough to judge, of course, but it's definitely heading the right way.

Claymore is a solid fantasy action/adventure story. Interesting world and good characters, although the extended flashback they're in makes it unclear where the overall story is headed at the moment. Not quite as good as Berserk in story (definitely better in production values), but it'll do until hell freezes over and we get a second season of Berserk.

Hayate the Combat Butler is probably the best comedy of the season. It's about a poor but diligent boy whose completely irresponsible parents shovel a huge amount of debt onto him and then essentially sell him into slavery. He manages to escape, and in the course of trying to kidnap a rich looking girl, is completely misunderstood. Things get rather odd, and she ends up paying off his debt and taking him on as butler to work it off. Very funny stuff.

Lucky Star has been entertaining, but not earth-shattering. Konata is the kind of girl I'd have loved to have known in high school. Pretty much as twisted as you'd guess from the opening.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS has been pretty much as expected. Solid action/adventure with fun characters. Definitely not for everyone, but worth it for me.

Moonlight Mile isn't too bad yet, but they're already telegraphing that they'll jump the shark eventually. It starts as a pretty good "Right Stuff"-ish going-to-space adventure, plus some gratuitous sex scenes (even though it isn't hentai). Unfortunately it'll eventually turn into a humans fighting robots on the moon thing, which probably won't work out very well.

Nodame Cantabile has definitely stuck to the manga much more than the live action did. One of the shows I'm impatient enough to see to watch raw.

Rocket Girls has a silly premise, but so far it holds together. Not really worth rewatching, I think, but if you enjoy space travel stories it's probably worth a watch once.

That leaves Victorian Romance Emma Second Act. If you like the first you'll like this one as well.

Oh, and the first volume of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has just been released in the US. One interesting tidbit that's come out is that if they manage to get it on the air in the US, they're contractually obligated to air it in the original broadcast order, which is definitely the better way to watch it. ^_^

Wraith
"Peace to the books of the world, an iron hammer to those who would abuse them, and glory and wisdom to the British Empire!"
-- British Library Special Operations Division slogan ("Read or Die")

[DaShi]

The NYTimes just did a review of the new Satoshi Kon film.

In a Crowded Anime Dreamscape, a Mysterious Pixie
By MANOHLA DARGIS
In “Paprika,” a gorgeous riot of future-shock ideas and brightly animated imagery, the doors of perception never close. A mind-twisting, eye-tickling wonder, this anime from the Japanese director Satoshi Kon bears little relation to the greasy, sticky kid stuff that Hollywood churns out, those fatuous fables with wisecracking woodland creatures selling lessons in how to be a good child so you can grow up to be a good citizen. Model behavior isn’t on the menu in “Paprika,” and neither are dinky songs and visuals. Here, when a woman sprouts a pair of wings, she doesn’t only flit about like Tinker Bell; she’s also pinned captive to a table, a man’s hand slithering under her skin.

If this doesn’t sound like your childhood animated flick, it isn’t. But neither is it Ralph Bakshi, the guy who tried to make cartoon movies grow up in the 1970s by way of Fritz the Cat. It’s old news that the great Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki has done his part to steer animation away from Disney-influenced juvenilia, but in the past decade or so, directors like Mamoru Oshii (notably with the virtuosic “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence”) and Mr. Kon have pushed animation film hard into more overtly adult realms. Like the “Ghost in the Shell” animes, “Paprika” explores that intersection between the human and the machine, including the lands of enchantment you can travel to when you plug in, boot up and drop out.

Based on a novel by the Japanese author Yasutaka Tsutsui, and written by Mr. Kon and Seishi Minakami, the dense, rather overly plotted story hinges on a nifty little gadget called the DC Mini, an experimental therapeutic device a psychiatric institute has developed to tap into patient dreams. This dream machine shows enormous promise — and obvious dangers — but several have gone missing, as has one institute employee. Most of “Paprika” concerns the search for the errant DC Minis and the employee, an endeavor that consumes the institute’s resident attraction, Dr. Atsuko Chiba (voiced by Megumi Hayashibara); her brainiac colleague Dr. Kosaku Tokita (Toru Furuya), a mountainous blob of a man and the inventor of the DC Mini; and the troll-like Dr. Torataro Shima, a k a the Chief (Katsunosuke Hori).

There’s more, including Toshimi Konakawa (Akio Ohtsuka), a detective with a comic-book flat-top and the kind of broad shoulders that tend to carry a world of troubles. Called in to investigate the scene by the Chief, an old friend, Konakawa comes equipped with his own alternative realities, namely a recurring nightmare set in a circus in which every performer and spectator resembles him, and a persistent dream that looks like a greatest-hits reel from big-screen entertainments. In this headily conceptual, gracefully edited interlude, Konakawa swings through a jungle on a vine like Tarzan, loincloth and all, only to end up tussling with a man in a genre thriller, inspiring one of the film’s most poignant philosophical riddles: Where do the movies end and our dreams begin?

Dr. Chiba and Konakawa each chase the wayward DC Minis down different paths. The detective starts visiting an Internet site that leads him deep into curious dominions where he revisits scenes from his distant and recent past, while Dr. Chiba infiltrates other people’s dreams by way of a DC Mini. In one of these reveries, she visits a near-deserted amusement park where an encounter with a chubby-cheeked doll nearly ends with her death. In time, the barriers separating the real and the imaginary dissolve like paper in water, as Dr. Chiba, Konakawa and a spritelike woman called Paprika — who springs into view whenever Dr. Chiba happens to be around — slip deeper into their substitute realities.

That sounds complicated and it is, a bit. That said, if you keep your eye on the screen and don’t overworry the plot particulars, you will be rewarded with a cavalcade of charming, gently outré and beautiful hallucinations. In “Paprika,” Mr. Kon bombards us with popping visual delights, including a dementedly cheery parade of inanimate objects in which household appliances, drumming frogs, beckoning cats, grinning dolls and even a red Shinto gate march in lockstep, sucking up human passers-by along the way. It can take a moment to situate yourself amid this splendidly controlled chaos. But this superabundance works to one of the film’s themes, namely that our fantasies, including those opened up by the Internet, are pulling us away from the material world and, perhaps, more dangerously from one another.

There’s something sinister about the dreamscapes in “Paprika,” fluidly rendered in both hand-drawn and 3-D animation, which may seem peculiar for moviegoers used to more benign animated fantasies. For all its gaudy glories, the film buzzes with a sense of unease about the rapidly changing relationship between our physical selves and our machines, a topic that Mr. Kon engages with as much sophistication as writers like Neal Stephenson and Michel Houellebecq, if rather more brevity. This anxious hum doesn’t dilute the delight of watching Paprika jump from one representation to another — from a pane of glass into an image on a T-shirt — but it invests this film with a fascinating tension. Mr. Kon shows us the dark side of the imaginative world in “Paprika” that he himself has perceptively brightened.

“Paprika” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It contains a sexual assault, naked animated breasts, maniacally grinning dolls and various leaps into the void.

[Nostromo]

I just saw 'Tokyo Godfathers'. Very good, IMO. Definitively not your usual anime. I recommend it.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

We just went through Lain about a week ago. Wasn't bad, wasn't great. I'm hoping there were translation issues, because the explanation they gave to try to tie into the real world kinda sucked. Then they kind of Deus ex machina'd through the end, so, meh.

[DaShi]

Lain is great. One of my favorites. I don't see how they Deus ex machina'd the ending. Eri was wrong and his anger at that led to his destruction. Lain even points out the irony of him needing a body to exact his revenge despite his earlier tirades against them. Lain's reset was a simple and elegant way to resolve the story: sacrifice herself to save the one she loved.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

If'n you say so.

[DaShi]

I do!

[Wraith]

--"I just saw 'Tokyo Godfathers'. Very good, IMO. Definitively not your usual anime. I recommend it."

It's a good one to watch around Christmas ^_^ Not my favorite Kon work, and it would have been better if they had left out a couple over-the-top-cartoony moments, but definitely still a good movie.

--"I'm hoping there were translation issues, because the explanation they gave to try to tie into the real world kinda sucked."

Haven't watched it in a while, although I did just start a rewatch for a discussion on the Anime on DVD forums. However, the explanation they give depends on a lot of geek and conspiracy theory trivia. If you aren't already somewhat familiar with names like Vannevar Bush and Project Xanadu you'll probably get lost in the infodump. Overall, it doesn't require more suspension of disbelief than your typical cyberpunk story.

--"Then they kind of Deus ex machina'd through the end, so, meh."

Have to agree with DaShi on this. The groundwork for the ending was laid down early in the series. Not really sure how it qualifies as deus ex.

Wraith
"Close the world. txEn eht nepo"
-- Serial Experiments: Lain

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by nostromo
I saw the first DVD of 'Fullmetal Alchemist' the other day. Not bad, but its for kids.

You haven't watched enough.

I think it's a great anime, but there's no way in hell I would show it to kids.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Wraith
--"I'm hoping there were translation issues, because the explanation they gave to try to tie into the real world kinda sucked."

Haven't watched it in a while, although I did just start a rewatch for a discussion on the Anime on DVD forums. However, the explanation they give depends on a lot of geek and conspiracy theory trivia. If you aren't already somewhat familiar with names like Vannevar Bush and Project Xanadu you'll probably get lost in the infodump. Overall, it doesn't require more suspension of disbelief than your typical cyberpunk story.

I know about all that stuff, I just thought the connections they drew to real, documented events were...ah...tenuous. Knowing the real history that they were trying to pull from made it harder for me to accept their revisions. I actually thought they were on firmer ground with the conspiracy stuff because it's easier to extend that mythology than real events.

--"Then they kind of Deus ex machina'd through the end, so, meh."

Have to agree with DaShi on this. The groundwork for the ending was laid down early in the series. Not really sure how it qualifies as deus ex.

Wraith
"Close the world. txEn eht nepo"
-- Serial Experiments: Lain

It was a giant reset button based on powers that were only vaguely justified throughout the series. Yeah, it was set up early on, but the fact that it was a planned giant reset button doesn't lessen the fact that it was a giant reset button.

[monolith94]

Just watched the Urusei Yatsura 2 movie today, and I have to say, it was pretty good, not quite great though. There was some really nice imagery, and I really liked the tone of the film.

Didn't like the character design of the "bad guy" though.

[Lorizael]

So, I don't really watch anime, but almost all of my friends do. One of them just convinced me to watch the Death Note series which, not counting the annoying teenage girl and a disappointing ending, I enjoyed very much.

Anyways, I'm looking for more anime of a similar ilk. That is, I want devious plotting and scheming, interesting morality discussion, and main characters that aren't necessarily paragons of virtue.

Anything like that out there?

Thanks.

[DaShi]

Blood+ seems to be in that line, but I've just watched what has aired on Adult Swim thus far.

[Nostromo]

I'll definitely go see Paprika this week.