The Anime Thread

[Monoriu]

Now, something from a bygone age.  Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro.  It was directed by world-famous Hayao Miyazaki in the late 70s, and in fact was his first feature-length film.  I enjoyed it greatly when I was a kid.

Lupin III is a long-running manga/anime series in Japan.  He is a "gentleman thief" who largely steals from criminals a lot worse than him.  He and his gang have almost reached national icon status in Japan.  Although fundamentally not a bad person, Lupin is also boastful, reckless, rude and is a playboy.  A common criticism of this film is that Miyazaki's version of Lupin is completely selfless and noble, even going so far as to reject the obvious advances of the female lead. 

The film starts with Lupin stealing a huge sum of cash from a casino, only to discover that all the money are counterfeit.  Intent on revenge, he went after the mastermind, who was ruler of the smallest (fictional) nation in Europe.  On his way, he witnessed a car chase of a gang going after a beautiful lady in a wedding dress.  Lupin being Lupin, he immediately tried to help the girl without knowing what was going on.  That's the beginning of his involvement with an age-old political feud between two families. 

This is Miyazaki's forgotten masterpiece.  It is no where near as well-known as Nausicaa or Spirited Away, but it is just as good.  A lot of people don't like it because of the obvious differences with the anime/manga version of Lupin.  BTW, the female lead in this film, Sumi Shimamoto, also voiced Nausicaa.  She was in fact Miyazaki's favourite voice actress before the relationship fell apart.  How bad was it?  So bad that Miyazaki largely stopped using seiyuus at all.  He now relies on actors to voice his characters. 

[jimmy olsen]

Cagliostro is great.

Didn't know that about Miyizaki, after all his movies are the only animes to get famous hollyowood actors to dub them (altough Cagliostro was too early in his career to get that treatment).

[Syt]

How loosely is Lupin III based off Arsene Lupin?

[Monoriu]

Cagliostro is great.

Didn't know that about Miyizaki, after all his movies are the only animes to get famous hollyowood actors to dub them (altough Cagliostro was too early in his career to get that treatment).

He has odd taste about the voices.  In his latest movie, the Wind Rises, the male lead is voiced by none other than Hideaki Anno.  For those who don't know, Anno is the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion.  He has some minor acting experiences, but his main job is a director/script writer.   

This is the equivalent of having someone like George Lucas star as the male lead in somebody else's movie. 

[Monoriu]

How loosely is Lupin III based off Arsene Lupin?

No clue.  I have only watched a couple of Lupin III movies and never touched the Arsene Lupin material. 

[Duque de Bragança]

How loosely is Lupin III based off Arsene Lupin?

It's based on him, but heirs in France would have none of it so they changed the French name to "Edgar de la Cambriole" (Edgar of Burglary).
I liked the anime as a kid but it's very un-PC now, with Edgar doing Nazi-salutes for comedy in Germany to piss off people.
I wonder how they got away with it, probably because it was for kids and nobody watched the episode in question.

[Lettow77]

Black Butler is a show targeted at (young) women. Elegant, lithe men in tailored uniforms with dark, mysterious pasts are the draw.

[celedhring]

Lupin III was shown over here when I was a kid, during anime's heyday in Spain in the early 90s. It was great fun, one of my favorite shows back then.

Never saw the Cagliostro film until much later though. It is pretty good indeed.

[Josquius]

I never saw the Lupin series until many many years after Castle. I've still only ever seen snippets actually.
Castle was one of the first animes I ever saw actually, one of the few the sci fi channel had the rights for with their old Thursday night anime slot. It is awesome.

[Monoriu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUfFUegH1LA

I almost forgot.  Fire Treasure, the theme song for the Cagliostro movie, is one of my favourite anime songs.  No idea why it is called that though 

[Monoriu]

Another classic, Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket.  It is a very short OVA series with 6 episodes only, and is considered one of the best Gundam stories.  Notable for taking many innovative approaches to a tired formula:

- it is seen from the view point of the opposing side, the Zeons and Zakus
- everybody is ordinary.  No super soldiers, genetically modified people, or New Types with psychic powers.
- the mechanical designs are realistic.  No Gundam that can defeat 25 enemies at once.  No invincible Gundam that ignore enemy fire.
- the protagonist is an elementary student who never pilots a Gundam.  No student falling into a cockpit plot.  The pilots are all adults. 
- almost the entire story takes place inside a space colony.

The show is a side story of the original 0079 Gundam story (hence War in the Pocket as it doesn't affect the main story).  The Earth Federation is testing a new Gundam on Earth, and the Zeons are determined to destroy it.  The Zeon mission failed, and they lost one team member.  The Earth Federation sent the prototype to a neutral space colony, and the Zeon pursued it.  A new rookie team member, Bernie, is sent to replace the deceased veteran, but he is not trusted by the rest of the team.  The elementary student discovered the Zeon infiltration team by chance.  To keep a low profile, the Zeon team tasked the new guy to watch over the kid.  Meanwhile, Bernie meets a pretty girl who is literally the girl next door, and they immediately take an interest in each other. 

[spoiler]The girl is actually the test pilot of the Gundam prototype, so they are lovers on opposing sides[/spoiler]

Also notable that this is one of "seiyuu queen" Megumi Hayashibara's earliest roles.  The 12 year old protagonist is voiced by an actual 12 year old at the time.

[Monoriu]

Spice and Wolf, best known as the anime show with "economics".  I think that is slightly misleading, as it really doesn't go into any economic theory at all.  What it does is focusing on the trading, scheming and alliance-making parts at the expense of direct combat. 

The anime is set in the medieval world.  Lawrance is a travelling merchant.  He uses a wagon to move from city to city, buying low and selling high (hence the "Spice").  Holo, the girl next to him, is actually a goddess who usually appears in the form of a young girl.  Her true form is a giant wolf (hence the "Wolf").  Even in her human form, she retains her wolf tail and ears but have to hide them in front of others.  Centuries ago (yes, Holo is much older than Lawrence), Holo made a pact with a village.  The villagers would worship her, and in exchange Holo would ensure decent harvest.  But as the years have gone by, the villagers have turned ungrateful.  Holo met Lawrence by chance and took the opportunity to escape from the village.  Her stated reason was to go back to her birthplace, but it seemed that she was really more interested in following Lawrence.  The story is about their travels and Lawrance's schemes to make money.

It is a decent show.  Its main attraction is that it is different from the usual shonen adventure, mecha, romantic comedy, harem, school drama or magical girl themes common in anime.  The trading plots are thought-provoking and they do a good job of retaining interest.  The setting is quite realistic aside from Holo's deity status, and she does have to keep a low profile.  Another focus of the story is about the relationship between Holo and Lawrence.  They obviously like each other, but both are unable to spit it out.  Lawrence is more reserved and mature while Holo is playful and child-like.  Lawrence's problem is he knows that Holo has a much longer lifespan than him. 

Two seasons, 24 episodes plus 2 OVA episodes.  There should be enough light novel material for another season, but so far there is no news.  The reason this kind of show isn't made very often is because of limited merchandise sales.   

[Ideologue]

Cagliostro is great.

Didn't know that about Miyizaki, after all his movies are the only animes to get famous hollyowood actors to dub them (altough Cagliostro was too early in his career to get that treatment).

He has odd taste about the voices.  In his latest movie, the Wind Rises, the male lead is voiced by none other than Hideaki Anno.  For those who don't know, Anno is the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion.  He has some minor acting experiences, but his main job is a director/script writer.   

This is the equivalent of having someone like George Lucas star as the male lead in somebody else's movie.

I'm going to go see that tomorrow.

Given the subject matter and what appears to be scenes of Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki in the trailer, the prospective name of the review is "How do you like airpower now, bitch?", but it seems a little inflammatory.

(Maybe he cast Anno as a way to distract him from cutting himself.)

[Ideologue]

Code Geass, also known as Lelouch of the Rebellion, is one of my most favourite anime shows and is a huge success on an international scale.  It is a faux-mecha show.  There are tons of powerful mechas, but they are not central to the story like Gundam.  The focus of the story is about how Lelouch makes use of his superpower and his brains to scheme his way toward his objective. 

In this alternative timeline on Earth, Britain never lost the 13 colonies.  It successfully established a huge social darwinist empire that covered several continents.  Japan is part of the empire and its name has been taken away, only known as Area 11.

Sure, just like South Africa.

Anyway, I suppose one of these days I need to sit down and watch the whole thing, but you forgot to mention the racist caricatures.

[Monoriu]

(Maybe he cast Anno as a way to distract him from cutting himself.)

Anno and Miyazaki are very good friends, and admire each other a lot.  In his most recent Evangelion movie, Anno put in a bizarre sequence right at the beginning.  A deliberately poorly made model of a giant robot that is a homage to the robot seen in Nausicaa is inserted into real life footage.  After a couple of minutes of stuff that is only symbolically relevant to the story, the movie begins.  I thought I was watching an advertisement for an upcoming godzilla movie.